• Classics: Norman Harris

    Artists

    Classics: Norman Harris

    Rare Pioneer

    As a teenager who just wanted to play music, Norm Harris lived with the reality that he and his band weren’t going to be millionaires anytime soon. So he did what musicians do – side-hustled. But when most were manning the counter at a music shop or serving tables, Harris was up at the crack

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Don Latarski

Electrifying

Don Latarski is well-known in the Pacific Northwest as a player, author, teacher, and composer. His acoustic playing is revered, but on his latest, Audiography, Latarski brings in a full…

Jimmy Thackery

Heavens to Mergatroid!

Few guitarists working the blues circuit today can boast a signature sound as unique as Jimmy Thackery’s. As far from an SRV clone as one can be while still playing…

Jim Campilongo

Sounds Abound

I’ve always loved sounds. Even before I became a ‘Tele guy,’ I had a Les Paul and loved making car horn sounds. I … go away from the fretboard, or…

Price’s highly modified Les Paul Jr. (shown here in ’77) has been his primary guitar for years.

Rod Price

Opens Up

Part One It used to be that photos didn’t lie. But nowadays (as supermodels and tabloids have proven) that’s not always true. But it is true that when Rod Price’s…

Greg Koch: Gristly “Blues”

Greg Koch: Gristly “Blues” Greg Koch fearlessly wrings the sort of vibrato that only a Tele will tolerate from his ’53 to play this exclusive version of Freddie King’s “The…

Mick Ralphs Home Thumb

Mick Ralphs

Back To Bad Co., And Beyond

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,…

Marah

The Kids Are Back in Philly

The south-Philly band Marah, led by brothers Dave and Serge Bielanko, has always danced to the backbeat of its own drummer. Now, they’re releasing a remastered and expanded version of…

Whit Smith

Rhythmic Rendezvous and the Hot Club of Cowtown

For its latest album, Rendezvous in Rhythm, the Hot Club of Cowtown has stepped back in time. Guitarist Whit Smith plays acoustic jazz echoing the work of his heroes including…

Paco de Lucia

Paco de Lucia

1947-2014

Spanish flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia died February 26 after suffering a heart attack in Cancun, Mexico. He was 66. In the U.S., de Lucia was best known for his…

Leo Lyons

Fifty Years After

More than a half-century ago, Ten Years After sat at the vanguard of British FM rock, blending blues boogies with the solos of guitar star Alvin Lee. An essential part…

Mike Campbell

Fat-Free Rock and Roll

On External Combustion, Mike Campbell pours on the boogie, pens spellbinding ditties, and leans into a live sound. With ancestral links to his former band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,…

Rich Fifield

Rich Fifield, guitarist in the ‘60s surf band The Astronauts, died November 16. He was 78. Formed in 1956 as The Stormtroupers by four high school friends in Boulder, Colorado,…

Andy Summers

Creating Light From Dark

For Andy Summers, it would be easy to compose Police-like music – reggae rhythms, clean/chorus guitar tones, etc. But fans learned to expect the unexpected beginning with his 1982 collaboration…

Kiko Loureiro

Kiko Loureiro

Metal-Fusion From Brazil

“When I would play with musicians from the neighborhood, I noticed that my passion for Brazilian music was making me different from other guys,” explains guitarist Kiko Loureiro, a player…

Paul Gilbert

One-Man Electrical Jam

Paul Gilbert’s 16th solo album, Werewolves of Portland, is an ambitious DIY project where he plays all the instruments. From The Beatles to Pat Travers to Brian May, Gilbert’s fretboard…

Kid Ramos’ Revelation!

West Coast legend melds blues with gospel Check out Kid Ramos using a ’56 Harmony H62 running through a vintage Fender reverb tank and a Pro Junior to play an…

John Pizzarelli

Better Days

In just over a one-week period in April of 2020, John Pizzarelli turned 60, lost his father (famed jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli) to coronavirus, then his mother, Ruth, passed. Not…

Ray Benson’s Gibson ES-355

Anyone with a taste for real country music – in particular, Western swing – will recognize this guitar. Even though Asleep At The Wheel leader Ray Benson quit using this…

Sonny Landreth

Live In Lafayette

When music fans discuss upper-echelon slide mastery, the name Sonny Landreth tops most lists. The preeminent slide-guitar stylist of his generation, his touch not only harkens to the masters, but…

Pop ’N Hiss: Wishbone Ash’s Argus

Twin-Lead Loadstone

Founded in 1969, Wishbone Ash attained fast fame in the U.K. with its meshing of intricate twin-lead-guitar passages and harmony vocals. With their third album, Argus, Andy Powell and Ted…

Rodney Crowell

Ditchin' the "Country" Connotation

In this modern world, most of us will have at least two major careers by the time we’re 40. Rodney Crowell is already starting on his third. He has been…

Charles Moothart

Fuzz: Sons of Sabbath

While ’80s metal is past its heyday, the proto-metal of the late 1960s and early ’70s is making a huge comeback, thanks to younger bands re-imagining the saturated sounds of…

Mark Elf

Mark Elf

After the Storm

The latest album from guitarist Mark Elf shot to the top of the jazz charts, but the route to success for Mark Elf Returns 2014 wasn’t so easy. “I was…

Andrew Synowiec’s Ebullient Tonefest

Uplifting Instrumental Rock! Check out Andrew Synowiec and his Heritage Custom Core H-150 P90 ripping through a chunk of “Lead Foot,” a track from his newest album, “Fun.” Don’t miss…

Chuck Loeb

“Most Wanted” For Melody

From its terrific melodies to the meat-and-potatoes playing that makes him a mainstay of smooth jazz radio, guitarist Chuck Loeb’s latest CD, Presence, is full of the stuff for which…

Tomas Janzon

From Stockholm With Love

On Tomas Janzon’s Nomadic, the Stockholm transplant based in New York channels his inner Wes Montgomery to unveil fresh compositions with clever harmonic twists, all supported by lush hollowbody tones…

John Paul Jones

Before teaming up with Jimmy Page in 1968 to form the soon-to-become greatest and most influential hard rock band of all time, John Paul Jones was an arranger, composer, and…

The Return of Jerry Kennedy’s 00-18

Seventy Years Gone

Nashville legend Jerry Kennedy has won Grammy awards and owned numerous collectible instruments. And if Guinness World Records tracked such things, he’d likely own the mark for most years passed…

Arv Garrison

Forgotten Hero of Bebop Guitar

American music history is fraught with tales of forgotten heroes. In the ’40s, jazz guitarists like Tiny Grimes, George Barnes, Chuck Wayne, and Arv Garrison occupied the space between Charlie…

Ray Benson’s Gibson ES-355

Anyone with a taste for real country music – in particular, Western swing – will recognize this guitar. Even though Asleep At The Wheel leader Ray Benson quit using this…