Eugene Grew

Long-Lost Motown Session Master

To the surprise of many Motown fans, a man emerged in 2011 claiming to have played guitar on “Money” and several other early songs produced by the legendary Detroit label.

Carl Verheyen

The Tools of Trading 8s

Carl Verheyen is a member of that elite (and shrinking) group of musicians known as “session guitarists.” Super-qualified pickers, they’re the hired guns brought in for the most demanding and…

Greg Martin

Facts of Life

The pandemic knocked the Kentucky Headhunters’ 2020 plans out of whack, just like every other artist. It’s the primary reason That’s a Fact Jack! is the boisterous, Grammy-winning Southern rock/country…

Bark: Infectious DIY Garage Rock

Enjoy Tim Lee’s Bass VI Twang Tim Lee grabbed his Fender Pawn Shop Bass VI modded with a Lindy Fralin JM pickup and Stay-Trem bridge plugged into a Fender Pro…

Rodney Crowell

Same Roots, New Branches

Rodney Crowell arrived in Nashville in 1972, bent on finding a niche for himself in the country music he’d loved since his childhood in Houston. He wrote songs for Jerry…

Phil “Big Dez” Fernandez

Blues Is Everywhere

6’2″/300-pound Phil “Big Dez” Fernandez is an international emissary of the blues. The French-born son of a Bosnian mother and Spanish father is a favorite at European blues clubs and…

Danny Gatton

Ten years past, and still dropping jaws

Photo: Ebet Roberts. Ten years have passed since Danny Gatton killed himself at his rural Maryland home. The reasons remain shrouded in mystery, yet his legacy is more visible than…

History of a Mystery

Kurt Hendrick and His Enigmatic Axes

One of the most-enigmatic brands in the history of American guitars was a line of funky solidbody electrics created by Kurt Hendrick. The son of an aerospace engineer, Hendrick grew…

Gretchen Menn

Abandon All Hope

Every musician aspires to create music that will resonate through the ages and Abandon All Hope, by Zepparella guitarist Gretchen Menn, is an ambitious effort based on Dante’s Alighieri’s Inferno.…

Doug MacDonald and the Three T’s

Jazz Veteran Brings the Swing! West-Coast jazz legend Doug MacDonald used his Benedetto Bravo to show us a bit of “Lester Leaps In,” from his new album, Live In Hawaii. To…

Eric Clapton & J.J. Cale

Blowin Down the Road

It’s fitting that The Road To Escondido, the long-awaited collaboration between Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale – a concept that seems, on the surface, to be so obvious, at least…

Fretprints: The Beatles’ Revolver

Sonic Floodgates

If any rock album can be labeled “groundbreaking,” it’s the Beatles’ Revolver. A sweepingly innovative masterpiece, it divides the ’60s in half, evades categorization, anticipated Sgt. Pepper and the “white…

Check This Action: A Year In Their Life

Recently, I stumbled onto one of those “reaction” videos by a New Zealander named Courtney, who wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen footage of the Beatles or even heard their…

Fretprints: Metallica’s Master of Puppets

Genre Giant

In 1984, Kerrang magazine coined the buzzword “thrash,” signaling the arrival of an unprecedented heaviness in rock music – not only in volume and aggression, but precision, velocity, complexity, and…

Ceil Thompson and her self-made guitar

“Dan’s Guitar Rx”: VG’s Rock-and-Roll High School(er)! In 2022, Dan Erlewine’s “Guitar Rx” column walked readers through a class-project guitar build by Ceil Thompson. It’s the epitome of custom-made cool,…

Earl Slick

Zig Zag Back To The Top

Earl Slick landed his dream gig back in 1974, when a friend referred him for a gig with David Bowie, replacing Mick Ronson. During this period, Slick recorded three monumental…

Richie Sambora

Crushing the New Millennium

Few bands experience the success of Bon Jovi, a group that achieved tremendous commercial audience by combining hard rock elements with strong melodies, great hooks, and well-written pop lyrics. Though…

Fretprints: Mick Ralphs

Delivering in Bad Company

Unabashedly British and irresistibly swaggering, Bad Company personified ’70s arena rock. Detractors denounced them as machismo, but fans have bought more than 40 million albums, 20 million in America alone.…

Eric Lindberg

“I’m always trying to do things I haven’t done before,” says guitarist/banjoist Eric Lindberg, who has toured and recorded for a decade with wife Doni Zasloff as the bluegrass duo…

Noah Zacharin

Simple Pleasures

While some regard folk guitar as a relatively simple style, Noah Zacharin is a seriously agile fingerpicker. Also a fine singer/songwriter, his album, Points of Light, uses his six-string dexterity…

David Hamburger

Top-Tier Tutorial

Whoever said, “Those who can’t do, teach” has never heard David Hamburger. Among his two dozen instructional books and videos, Beginning Blues Guitar, awarded Best New Educational Book or Video…

Ian Hunter

Guitar Prognosticator

Ian Hunter’s Diary of a Rock N’ Roll Star is a fascinating look at early-1970s bands, music, and guitar collecting. The book, a journal of a U.S. tour by his…

Derek St. Holmes

Making Rock and Roll Cool Again

Derek St. Holmes has been in the rock and roll business since the early 1970s and is best known for his work as guitarist, vocalist, and co-songwriter with the original…

C.C. Adcock

The Future of Swamp Rock

C.C. Adcock hunches over his Telecaster like a tiger ready to pounce. He stands on one foot, the other leg twisting like an unmanned fire hose – one leg wrapping…

Tom Feldmann

No Need to Sell Your Soul

“And the Oscar goes to…” If they gave out Academy Awards for the best guitar instructional film, Tom Feldmann’s latest on Robert Johnson would be a shoe-in. We rarely review…

Ted Nugent

Unleashed and Unrepentant

Photo: James Brown. Depending on one’s musical or sociopolitical point of view, a new release from the redoubtable Ted Nugent can initiate one of several reactions. It can be cause…

Ted Newman Jones’ West-Texas Guitars

Melodious Coterie

Boxcars Among the vast papers, drawings, photographs, and tapes at Texas Tech’s Crossroads of Music Archive is a guitar beloved by the late Jesse “Guitar” Taylor. Known as “Dice,” it…

Lemmy Kilmister

In the 25-plus years that Motorhead has been purveying its fast, furious, high-decibel entertainment, there have been changes and there have been constants. The World’s Most Brutal Heavy Metal Band…

Larry Rivera

Larry Rivera, a guitarist/ukuleleist who for seven decades performed at Kauai’s famed Coco Palms Resort and other Hawaii venues, passed away January 30. He was 92 and had been diagnosed…

Chris Bishop

Wizards and Technology

Riff rockers Crobot have been promoting their first album, Something Supernatural, with a live show offering full-bombast rock, contagious funk, and science fiction. The band’s success is owed in part…