Steve Morse doesn't waste any time before making his opening statement on Full Circle, the first new Dixie Dregs studio album since 1982's Industry Standard. Ninety seconds into the opening track he lets fly with a bionic fingered, metal-edged solo. Swooping and soaring with breathless Beckian splendor, Morse eloquently affirms that the recent reports of the death of shred have been greatly exaggerated. Similarly, the majestic melody of 'Sleeveless in Seattle,' the evocative classical fingerstyle work on 'YeOlde,' and the relentless swing of 'Goin' To Town' side with the proficiency school in its ongoing debate with the anti-technical camp. Throughout the fittingly titled album the Dixie Dregs alchemize the jazz, rock, classical, country, and folk influences that were hallmarks of their '70s and '80s work, while Morse once more displays the genre jumping fluency and stupefying technique that earned him five Best Overall titles in Guitar Player's Readers Poll.

Although Morse has participated in several Dregs reunion tours (including one that yielded the '92 concert album Bring' Em Back Alive), he's spent much of the last decade working in the Steve Morse Band with bassist Dave LaRue and drummer Van Romaine. (In the new line-up, LaRue replaces bassist Andy West, while Jerry Goodman, formerly of the Flock and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, succeeds violinist Allen Sloan. Also on board are original Dixie Dregs drummer Rod Morgenstein and keyboardist T Lavitz, who played with the group's second incarnation, known simply as the Dregs.)

Morse, the band's producer and main composer, says the new material, which is more spacious and harmonically streamlined than their earlier work, reflects the lessons he learned playing with the trio: "That whole experience really widened my view of writing and arranging. In the three-piece we needed changes pretty desperately. As we went from one section to another, we looked for more contrast because we had fewer sounds available to us. The simpler chords became just as welcome as the more contrapuntal parts, and stuff that I once would have considered too boring I now find myself using as relief sections."

That's not to say that the Dixie Dregs don't continue to make music that challenges ears attuned to conventional rock radio. On 'Calcutta,' for example, Goodman adds guitaristic distortion to his violin, and the band employs tricky time signatures and stop-and-start rhythmic shifts to conjure a willfully exotic sound. "At one point half the group is playing in 3/4, and the other half is in 6/8," notes Morse. "Now that was a challenge."

'Goin' To Town,' on the other hand, is a thoroughly crowd-pleasing marriage of jazz and Western swing wherein Morse plays Eldon Shamblin to Goodman's fusion of Stephane Grappelli and Vassar Clements. "Jerry has really been around, and there's nothing he doesn't know," raves Morse. "He's very solid and consistent, but also very close to a jazz improviser. I'm always looking for that in my own playing, so he's a great influence on me." Regarding the tune's unabashed swing groove, Morse remarks, "I've always had that swing element in my playing, which is why it's hard for a lot of bassists to play with me. I like to swing even the straightest parts just a little. It makes the song breathe."

Morse points to both songs as evidence of his guitaristic evolution: "Near the end of my 'Goin' To Town' solo there's a section where I improvise with two notes at a time, which I was never comfortable doing before. And on 'Calcutta' I play the ostinato top note with my thumb and fingers. In fact, I played more with my fingers and thumb on this record than on any previous album."

Although he's an avowed perfectionist, Morse insists he's become confident enough in his own playing to resist the temptation to endlessly recut solos: "Today I feel surer that I can play more melodic solos on each take–and that my first takes are more usable–than ever before. In fact, I kept several of the guide tracks because I just didn't see any reason to erase and re-record them just because that's what I would have done in the past."

That newfound acceptance may stem from having recorded Bring 'Em Back Alive. Morse had resisted making a live album for the better part of 20 years. "I never exactly understood why a live performance should be recorded," he confides. "My instinct was always to go back and fix everything. But I sort of got talked into doing one, and I had to learn to live with what I played on that particular night–some of which I felt was inspired, but some of which definitely includes mistakes. It was a big psychological adjustment for me."

Morse crafted his original Dixie Dregs sound on a Fender Telecaster, but he retired the Tele in '86 in favor of his current Music Man, though he's replaced its Shadow synth pickup with a Roland GR-1 and a Pitchrider. On Full Circle he also picked a new Peavey steel-string acoustic and plugged into either a Mesa TriAxis preamp, a Peavey VTM, or a Marshall Jubilee. "I switched amps according to the part," he explains. "The TriAxis has the biggest midrange, and it gave me the direct-to-the-board sound I used on the reference tracks. The Marshall has more of a high-end soloing sound, and the Peavey has the wider spectrum–a lot of lows and highs, but not much midrange."

Steve admits to flirting with technological overkill on the Renaissance-style 'YeOlde,' where he plays a Buscarino classical electric with six outputs. "It's kind of sick," he chuckles, "but it allowed me to equalize and set the volume of each string separately. I panned them differently, so each string sounds like it's coming from a different place. When I listen back with headphones, it gives me a feeling of actually being inside the guitar."

Although Morse is slightly befuddled by the current backlash against technical proficiency and musical education in some rock circles, he concedes that the "feel" players have their hearts in the right place: "We're in a period right now when it's a liability to be seen as someone who works hard on developing technique. It's odd to be penalized for wanting to play well, but there's an aspect of that whole Seattle sound that I totally agree with. Those guys get right to the point, and even though they don't pay much attention to detail, their music is very emotional. I've seen Nirvana and Pearl Jam play on TV and there wasn't much posing that I could see. They were just trying really hard to get into the song, and the emotions behind the music seemed very honest. I'm not at all adverse to being influenced by that kind of attitude."

Transcribed by John D. Smith