Dozens of world-class guitarists have passed through Bob Dylan’s backing band over six decades – and the current leg of his tour in support of 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways has seen several come and go.
Jad Tariq, a Memphis-based R&B player, was on the road with veteran blues harpist Charlie Musselwhite when he got the call to become the latest member. “I was interested immediately,” he says. “I was like, ‘Hey, I’m on the road for the next couple weeks. Here’s what I’ve got coming up.’” They landed on dates he could make, and that was that.
“People expect a crazy story in terms of how the gig came about, but it was just like getting called for anything,” he adds. “I was available for those gigs, I went and played them, and had a really fantastic time.”
His years of playing in the blues and jazz bars of Memphis prepared him to step onto Dylan’s stage. “When I was first doing gigs in town, people would call out tunes that I didn’t know. You've got to figure them out on the bandstand. That trains your ear to be ready for surprises. I do gigs all the time where you just show up and wing it.”
That flexibility, learned by backing Beale Street legends like Earl “The Pearl” Banks, was a perfect match for Dylan’s throwback rhythms of Rowdy Ways tunes like False Prophet and Goodbye Jimmy Reed. His habit of switching keys and arrangements kept Tariq nimble on the fretboard – in fact, he never settled into any one mode of playing.
“There were solos, and a lot of that was just off the cuff,” he says. “If he looks at you, if there’s a space to play, you play something. He’d play something on piano and [guitarist] Joel Paterson or I would respond with a lick. It was pretty fluid.”
Tariq’s music education was centered on the classic rock and big-band crooners his mother played in the car. He paid particular attention to the 1983 Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan In Session DVD as he explored the foundations of rock and roll. “As I got older I started getting more into the jump and swing side of the blues stuff. That’s where I've been living for a while.”
He first had to get acquainted with his instrument of choice. “I was probably more trained on the upright bass – I did that in orchestra my whole life,” he says. “I learned a lot of guitar stuff by ear.”
A bit of music theory helped him get started; and as he progressed, he preferred to stay in lanes established by players like jump-blues bandleader T-Bone Walker and bebop pioneer Charlie Christian.
“I had sounds in my head that I was able to pull out of the guitar,” Tariq says. “I could bend in tune, I had good tone and I had good vibrato. I picked them up from B.B. King and Albert King – they had great vibrato, great touch, great tone, and they were really expressive.”
He moved to Memphis after high school, attending college and playing upright bass in jazz bands around town. His time on Beale Street prepared him for his first solo album, 2025’s Jad Tariq Sings, and his recent release, Precious Company, which came out in September.
He went on a creative spree at the end of 2025, penning 15 songs in 10 days by committing to writing every day. Instead of decamping to one of Memphis’ legendary studios like Royal or Sam Phillips Recording Service, though, he set up his band in his living room and let it rip live.
“You get a lot of dynamics that way,” he says. “The band has to really stay under you – and that doesn’t just mean volume. It means that whatever you’re singing or whatever story you’re telling, they’ve got to find a way to be the rock underneath it, and push whatever you’re doing to the front.”
Tariq says used “pretty rudimentary” equipment, without even a basic headphone monitor system, as he led his band through jump-blues tunes like Poor Me and September Moon, relying on the spontaneity in the room. “We might have run it down once to make sure we had the form, and then boom – one take.”
He maintains he’s no gear obsessive; but his minimalist, decidedly vintage gear choices point to at least a strong preference. His current objects of affection are a ’49 Gibson ES-5 archtop and a replica Fender Tweed Deluxe 5E3. “That was the whole signal chain,” he says. “The microphone was an RCA BK-5 ribbon, and it was kind of off the amp.”
Nothing was close mic’d. “A lot of the guitar tone on the record really is the bleed,” he says. “It’s a pretty ambient guitar sound. There’s no reverb on it, but there’s a whole lot of room sound.”
One thing Precious Company lacks for sure is fussiness. Like the ethos behind his makeshift studio the album is about having fun playing music and grounding it in a way listeners can relate to.
“I love recordings where you can sort of picture the room the band’s in,” Tariq says. “You get a really good sense of the space. That’s what we go for.”
- Catch Tariq live in Memphis over the coming months. Precious Company is out now.
