It’s difficult to say which is more ironic: the fact that Robbie Robertson, one of rock guitar’s true stylists, is more famous for his songwriting, or that beneath the minimal, compositional style that marked his work with The Band hid one of the most animalistic maniacs in rock guitar history. • The son of a [...]
Guitarists often cite instruments as sources of inspiration. For musician, songwriter, and producer Dave Stewart, it wasn’t a ’57 Strat or a ’Burst that recently caused a creative flurry, but a guitar far more pedestrian. Stewart and bandmate Annie Lennox rose to fame in the early ’80s as the Eurythmics, a pop duo that, especially [...]
Joe Bonamassa’s latest record, Driving Towards The Daylight, is a return to the blues. After two successful studio albums with the heavy-rock band Black Country Communion, Bonamassa’s latest solo effort explores some of his early influences. While covering Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, and Willie Dixon, he got help from heavyweight guitarists including Brad Whitford, Pat [...]
Click Here to read the Alvin Lee obituary. In the summer of 1968, America was starting to hear about a new blues movement exploding in England, primarily in the hipster clubs of London. Riding the wave of the worldwide success of the Rolling Stones, groups with raw sound and power such as The Yardbirds, The [...]
Whether coughing up the second-most-memorable talk-box lick of the ’70s, kicking the Eagles into overdrive, or wryly expressing his views on subjects ranging from rock-and-roll excess to lawn mowers to a good ol’ set of double Ds, Joe Walsh has earned a rep for delivering a message, sans musical nuance. The guitarist/songwriter/ producer/actor who gained [...]
Call it a “Gypsy jazz wall of sound.” John Jorgenson’s new album, Istiqbal Gathering, features the master guitarist backed by the full Orchestra Nashville – strings, woodwinds, brass, even percussion. The result would make Django Reinhardt himself envious. For Jorgenson, it all came naturally. “Recording solo guitar with a full orchestra is very different than [...]
The story is really about two people, Kandle and Paul Warnik, a steel-guitar historian/collector who was haunted by a photo in Tom Wheeler’s American Guitars showing a young woman from decades past posed in front of a multi-neck steel guitar. Its caption reads, “Teacher Letritia Kandle poses with National’s Grand Letar Console Steel.” Though he [...]
Buck Owens’ track to stardom had an unorthodox start and believe it or not, his singing didn’t launch that journey as much as his guitar skills; it started when another singer needed a lead guitarist on short notice. With his second Capitol recording session looming in September, 1953, Tommy Collins, a cast member of Southern [...]
Guitarist Mick Ralphs, whose pulverizing riffs were first heard in the late ’60s in the original Mott the Hoople, has charged back into the limelight. Mott was a ferocious quintet, and one of the most highly-underrated bands of that era. Ralphs’ six-album experience in the band was followed by his tenure in Bad Company, a [...]
Though obviously a familiar name given his hits from the 1970s and ’80s were FM staples and today are virtually ubiquitous on classic-rock radio, last month we talked with Steve Miller about his less-discussed musical pedigree. Literally raised in the company of some of the biggest names in guitar music (Les Paul, T-Bone Walker, etc.), [...]
