Half the secret to Nick's playing was his right hand. I don't know what else he used it for, but he was lightning fast with his strum. In most of the uptempo Trio songs you can hear Nick playing relentless sixteenth-note strums. Down-up-down-up... Lucky for me, my first instrument (not counting piano) was plectrum banjo. I learned that "Nick" style of strumming as part of my early banjo instruction. So it came back to me after I finally figured out what Nick was doing.
The other half of Nick's secret was chord voicing and placement. This is something that musta come about by accident, as near as I can tell. Or maybe Dave had a hand in it, I don't know. But as you point out, the voicing of the tenor in conjunction with the banjo and 6-string creates a rich instrumental texture that was pretty unique. (Also unique at the time was the use of bongos and congas in some tunes, and Nick also played those "on the natch".)
The effect of having Nick playing up the neck, to some degree, resembled the sound he might have acheived had he actually tuned the instrument to tenor tuning. Nick played in guitar tuning, which puts the first string a 5th lower than actual tenor tuning. So by capoing up he put the instrument back in the tenor range.
As for his fingering of a D chord, I imagine he learned that for something specific. If you move a D chord up from open position you have to cover the 4th string somewhere. The easiest way is to put the 3rd of the chord on the 4th string. Then it becomes a movable chord, which might've just been something for a specific song. Seems he did use the open D formation for the most part tho. That was what made "Cowboy" cowboy.
By the way, after I left the Trio I strung my tenor up with tenor strings and tuned it properly. Whereas it had a kind of - I don't know - dull? sound when tuned to guitar tuning, it literally jumped out of its shell when tuned up properly. It has a beautiful sharp, yet full sound and I now kinda regret that I didn't try that while I was still being "Nick."
Responses