Tag: features

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 at NAMM in 1994, boasts more than 100,000 in sales. In addition to supplying music for advertising and TV, the 60-year-old has recorded with Freedy Johnston, toured with Joan Baez, and played Dobro on Bruce Springsteen’s remake of “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” featuring Pete Seeger.

Following his 2022 solo album Beautiful Scar, the singer, songwriter, and acoustic fingerstylist released the instrumental Parisian Blues last year.

The Boston-area native moved to Brooklyn after college, and now makes Austin his home.

When did you take up guitar?
When I was 12, I took lessons from Lucille Magliozzi, a bluegrass player. I was learning folk guitar while my friends were learning Van Halen and Jimmy Page. In high school, a teacher taught me “Anji” by Davy Graham; at Wesleyan University I studied jazz, which taught me about improvising and knowing the instrument. But most of what I learned was from records or other people. An upperclassman named Steadman Hinckley played slide guitar. So I’d take classical guitar every Thursday and then play slide with Steadman in the stairwell – Duane Allman licks and open tunings.

I was also teaching at the National Guitar Workshop in New Milford, and whenever a blues guitarist came in, I’d host. The first year we had Gatemouth Brown, and we had Duke Robillard twice. I started taking notes because I wanted to remember what he was showing us, like the Freddie Green comping stuff. So the students said, “Can we get those notes?” I also took a half-dozen lessons from Emily Remler. I tried to figure out how to combine the things that I liked.

Who are your fingerpicking influences?
My earliest influences were Mississippi John Hurt and folk-revival guys – Stefan Grossman, Roy Book Binder, Dave Van Ronk, Jorma Kaukonen, Ry Cooder, and Guy Van Duser. I had a jazz CD, Commodore Piano Anthology, that was very influential, as well as House Of Blues’ Essential Blues Piano.

Beyond the original guitar influences, when it comes to solo instrumental guitar, I’m thinking more about pianists Jelly Roll Morton or James Booker. Ray Bryant’s solo piano records are like a bebop guy who still had a two-handed conception of how to play blues, infiltrating it with jazz harmonies.

What made you decide to do an instrumental album?
The mission was to groove and have that underpinning, and it also had to have improvisation. What I always wanted to do was improvise while playing solo guitar. There’s not a lot out there on how to do it. Everybody will teach you how to play arrangements of tunes, so fingerstyle blues is taught like a repertoire, almost like classical music – not playing a tune and soloing, like piano players do. There was also a hugely influential book called The Art Of Ragtime Guitar, by Richard Saslow, which had a flexi-disc and covered all kinds of cool chords and licks. I couldn’t sit down and play Robert Johnson or Gary Davis songs note for note, but eventually I figured out my own thing that drew from those second-generation sources. I’ll have an arrangement, but it’s not all worked out. I want there to be places where I can improvise and take solos.

Some of the instrumental tunes were written for students, like the title cut, which was a TrueFire lesson that I extended and developed. A few originals were written for my “Fingerstyle Five” Fretboard Confidential online membership. “Mueslissippi Ibis” is a repackaging of “Mississippi Blues” by Willie Brown.

My producer, Bret Boyer, was interested in the kind of stuff I play around the house, and I don’t really listen to that much blues anymore. I put on jazz records because that’s what speaks to me. My grandfather loved Broadway tunes, and my dad studied classical piano. The standards, like “After You’ve Gone,” are things I heard him play.

Which guitar did you play on the album?
I used the ’56 Martin 00-18 I got in the late ’90s. The first record I ever made was at a studio in Brooklyn, and the engineer had a 1930s OM-28 he let me use. Afterward, I started looking for a good acoustic and found the 00-18 at Mandolin Brothers.

Which guitar do you use on gigs?
My main performing guitar is a Collings OO2H that I bought at the factory in Austin in 2001. I discovered that I like short-scale (247/8″) guitars. It’s got a K&K piezo pickup in the saddle and a Fishman Rare Earth pickup in the sound-hole. It’s wired in stereo and goes into a dual-channel Red Eye analog DI. Dick Dubois in Austin did the work on it. I also have Empress parametric EQ and a TC Electronic tuner.

With the internet, I can just teach fingerstyle blues guitar. I don’t have to teach Led Zeppelin or Gary Davis or anything I don’t want to. – Dan Forte

This article originally appeared in VG’s March 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

While guitarist Midge Ure was a member of Visage and was briefly in an early version of Thin Lizzy, he’s best known as the front man of the British power-prog band Ultravox.

Ure has enjoyed an active solo career since Ultravox split three decades ago, and the recent three-CD/three-LP Royal Albert Hall 04-10-23 is a thorough overview of his career, including a performance of the entire 1980 Ultravox album Vienna.

Ure turned 70 in the same month the concert was recorded, but that was unplanned and other concerts were being recorded during his Voice and Visions tour

“It wasn’t until the tour was nearing an end that the idea of the birthday concert was born,” he said.“These days, you can record as many shows as you like [on] digital mixing desks. The problem is finding time or enthusiasm to listen to them all.”

He didn’t expect that particular show as an option, due to expenses.

“I honestly didn’t know we were recording it,” he said. “There’s a huge cost to video or record in the Royal Albert Hall, so it came as a surprise to find we had captured that amazing evening. A deal was struck with the venue and this is the result.”

The concert opened with a primarily acoustic set that comprises the first CD. The second includes Vienna and other fan favorites with Ure supported by his backing aggregation, Band Electronica, with Cole Stacey on bass, Joseph O’Keefe playing keyboards, and Russell Field using electronic drums. Stacey played mandolin on “Guns and Arrows.”

Guest musicians for the show were pianist Ty Unwin and cellist Caroline Dale.

“The songs were a combination of the previous two tours, including the entire Vienna album. I wanted to include that, as Ultravox never managed to perform at Royal Albert. The acoustic or cello Viking songs had to be arranged, of course, but the brilliant Ty Unwin, who arranged my Orchestrated album, did those for me.”

Ure admitted that selecting the appropriate songs from the various eras of his career was an arduous process.

“It took a while, much to the poor musicians’ annoyance,” he said. “But I wanted to play some of the deeper songs alongside the commercially successful hits.”

Ure discussed the instruments he played at the concert.

“I have a pair of matched limited-edition Taylors that I was given in Germany many years ago. They are the best acoustics I’ve ever owned, not just because they sound great, but they have great electronics and the best necks ever.”

He played one of his signature Vintage V100MU models and a Stratocaster he’s had since his Ultravox days.

“I had an ebony fretboard fitted with wide, Gibson-like frets, so it’s completely black.”

Asked which song had the most-unique arrangement for the concert, he zeroed in on the title track from his fourth solo album, released in 1996.

“I was very pleased with ‘Breathe’ – a very stripped-down acoustic arrangement but still had a sense of drama.”

Now a septuagenarian, his voice, while still strong, sounds different to longtime fans.

“Vocal cords age the same way and at the same speed as everything else, so it has matured and breaks in different places. It’s also not as pure, but that’s something you earn.”

More touring is in the offing for the United Kingdom and Europe in 2025. And while a cover of a Thin Lizzy song doesn’t appear on 04-10-23, that’s not the case now.

“On the current tour, I’m touching areas I’ve never delved into, and that includes ‘The Boys Are Back In Town.’”

10-4-23 opens and closes with songs that allude to spirituality – “Dear God” starts the concert while “Hymn” concludes it – but their placement doesn’t have hidden meaning.

“I have my opinions on what people do in the name of fixed religions and I write a lot about it, but that was nothing intentional.” – Willie G. Moseley

This article originally appeared in VG’s March 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

On The Good Fight, guitarist Allen Hinds finds the sweet spot between melodic fusion and good, earthy music for the soul. Joined by a stellar rhythm section, Hinds is a black-belt legato master and slide stylist with an ear for excitement. Strong songs prevail, but his influences go much deeper than your run-of-the-mill jazz guitarist.

The Good Fight mirrors all the things you do so well.
I just got a nice e-mail from Mike Stern. He told me how much he loved the record. It’s life-affirming to have someone of that stature take the time to listen to your music. There are good performances on the record, and the mix is great.

You have great players…
Bassist Travis Carlton and drummer Donald Barrett sound great. Pat Bergeson, who played chromatic harmonica, sounded pretty badass on “Webster’s Lake.”

What runs through your mind when you’re composing?
I kind of flow and try to get out whatever feelings I’m having in a song. I finish the project and see if it makes sense. I still have something to offer in the guitar world that may not have gotten enough attention; I came up after Scott Henderson and Frank Gambale, so I’m in that vein, but my stuff is more-grassroots and appeals to more than just guitarists. If it can push an emotion and people remember it twenty years from now, that’s what I go for.

I write like a pop songwriter. I don’t write fusion with lots of complicated chord changes. I have pop formats in my writing because that’s what I grew up with – listening to The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, and James Taylor. I come from a pop background, more so than jazz. I like harmony and things that change and surprise. My goal is to keep stuff flowing.

Parts of the album sound like Americana-prog-fusion.
People think I’m a fusion guy who listens to Holdsworth and Coltrane 24 hours a day. The stuff I put on for pleasure is old Chris Whitley or Jeff Buckley, and Joni Mitchell. I like songs. Little Feat was one of my favorite bands when Lowell George was alive.

Speaking of Lowell George, you have a lot of slide on the album.
I grew up in Alabama, where all the slide comes from. If I’m not playing slide on the record, I’m playing a part behind myself in an open tuning. I’m no Sonny Landreth or Blake Mills, but when I got out of high school, everyone had to play some Duane Allman. I was never into the open-tuning thing because I only had one guitar and my action is super low because of the legato. I find myself writing with slide because it’s so emotive. Using the right notes in the right place can sound like a great singer.

I’ve always loved pedal steel and acoustic guitar. I’m a big fan of guitarist John Leventhal, and I would rather do a gig like his, backing Shawn Colvin, than some hard-fusion gig. Having said that, I like playing tunes where it’s a good jigsaw puzzle to figure out. Like soloing over “Giant Steps.” When I went to the Musicians Institute, I went from the Duane Allman, Little Feat stage, to Robben Ford and Allan Holdsworth. I loved the sound and excitement of Holdsworth’s legato style. Harmonically, I was listening to pop from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.

Your legato technique brings guitar nerds to the party.
When I go to Japan, they have five cameras on my fingers trying to figure out what I’m doing (laughs). It wasn’t something I planned. You make up for what you can’t do, which becomes your style. In my head, I wanted to be like Steve Morse. When I was growing up, he lived 50 miles away and I saw the Dixie Dregs all the time back when Steve was just burnin’.

Xotic Guitars built a signature guitar for you.
The guitar I compare everything to is my ’52 Esquire. Xotic measured it with calipers and computers and re-did it. It’s as close as you can get. They also made a Strat copy for me with two single-coils, a humbucker in the bridge, and a maple neck. Their pedals are really good, too.

Do you have a favorite amp?
When I need a defined, overdriven solo, I use the Red Plate BlackLine. It has EL-34s and a Marshall-y overdrive channel. It sounds like a really nice overdriven Eric Johnson Marshall.

What’s next?
I have a new lesson book, Modern Blues Slide Guitar, add I’m writing new music – and playing a lot of tennis. – Oscar Jordan

This article originally appeared in VG’s March 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Steve Hackett is one of the busiest guitarists around, regularly issuing new studio and live albums. His latest, Live Magic at Trading Boundaries, focuses on his classical/acoustic compositions. Included are solo guitar pieces and group performances featuring music from his time in Genesis during its beloved ’70s “progressive” era.

Trading Boundaries is an intimate venue in Sussex where you often perform during the holidays. How far back do the recordings for this album go?
It might be as much as 10 years. Most of it is newer, but I didn’t want to itemize. I’m happy to cherry pick across things that worked best with what grew into a five-piece team from a three- or four-piece band when we started. It includes my brother, John (flute), Roger King (keyboards), Rob Townsend (flute/saxophone), and Amanda Lehmann (guitar/vocals).

For years, recording acoustic music was a guilty pleasure for me. There were howls of protest from Charisma Records, so my first acoustic record, Bay of Kings, instead got signed to Lamborghini Records, which was in the music business for about five minutes. Having been told that this sort of stuff only sells 5,000 copies, the nice thing was that it sold in excess of 20,000. It gives you an idea of the power of acoustic music.

I try not to fall into the trap of doing music that’s too proficiency-based. My concern is that yes, you’re showing your dexterity, you’ve learned your lessons, and you might be the fastest gun in the West. But it might be a big-willy contest! In my long-winded way, what I’m trying to say – and I don’t want to sound too much like Batman lecturing Robin here – it’s the idea of composition versus mere virtuosity.

Do you try to get in a specific mindset to write classical music versus when you’re working on songs for a rock record?
I think so, yeah. I tend to have an acoustic guitar at hand and an electric guitar or two. What I’m finding is that I’ve got a tuning for nylon guitar that I’m particularly fond of. Of course, the nails have got to be right and conditions have got to be right. Your hands have got to be warm. The guitar’s got to be warm.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, there’s a new box set with a concert and demos. What do you think about the album now?
I’ve got a different take on it. Other than Peter (Gabriel), most of the guys in the band disparage it and tell you everything that’s wrong with it. I think it’s very good and has a tremendous amount of merit. What you do have to contend with is the fact we were a band in turmoil putting that together. There was an obvious contest between keyboards and vocals apart from anything else, leaving very little room to do anything but join one side or the other, or “Okay, I’ll join the bass line.” How is there room to do a counterpoint melody?

I did do a counterpoint melody on the fast arpeggios that accompany “Carpet Crawlers.” I had the idea of the guitar as a distant violin. It was so quiet on the original mix that it’s practically inaudible, so you think, “Something’s going on in there.” I’ve recorded a lot of versions of it myself, and I make the guitar audible, but very distant. That’s because there was a Yardbirds track called “Turn into Earth” on Roger the Engineer with a guitar part that Jeff Beck did that sounded practically inaudible, like a distant violin. It had tremendous mystique and majesty. For me, it was absolutely magic.

Which guitars do you play on Live Magic at Trading Boundaries?
There’s a Yamaha for some of it, which has an onboard reverb and chorus that are rather nice. But my favorite is a Yairi and I’ve been playing those for years. They tried very hard to copy the Ramírez sound, and did a very good job. The Yairi is a cutaway that you can plug straight in; I go through a Fishman Aura acoustic modeling simulator and a mic, as well. We make it as authentically acoustic as possible. – Bret Adams

This article originally appeared in VG’s March 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Epitome of the restless designer/tinkerer, Mark Sampson has co-founded four guitar-amplifier companies, two of which – Matchless and Bad Cat – are indelible figures in the trade whose original builds draw perpetual interest from collectors, especially the Matchless DC-30 and SC-30, which are prime examples of “boutique.”

Sampson started Bad Cat in 2000 with Rick Perrotta, James Heidrich, and Joe Allrich. His departure five years later was less than amicable, but the decades that followed saw both parties flourish.

In the run-up to this year’s winter NAMM show, Bad Cat announced it was reuniting with Sampson on a new design called the Era 30. We spoke with him just prior, as he dealt with challenges outside the shop; ping-ponging between Mason City, Iowa, and Cleveland while settling his father’s estate, he was also in regular communication with two of his adult children who were minding his L.A. home as the Pallisades Fire approached from three sides.

“They were in a tough spot,” he said. “We’ve lived through fires and I knew they could handle it, but when we talked, I heard the cracking in their voices.”

Fortunately, the fire did not reach the house.

What spurred your return to Bad Cat?
Well, John Thompson, who has owned the company since 2011, tried for awhile to get hold of me before [L.A. guitarist/producer/songwriter] Joel Whitley connected us. John offered everything I wanted if I came back, including the ability to keep working on other projects, because I love working in studios. In fact, I’m right now working on a patent for two condenser mics and I don’t want to have to set that aside or get too strung out by dealing with the business end of making amps.

I also didn’t want to be involved in the work of bringing an amp to the manufacturing level, because it’s one thing to build a prototype that works well, but it’s another to make the drawings and employ people for a production line. John and the crew at Bad Cat now are also much more in-tune with the internet and modern marketing. Getting up to speed on all that isn’t what I wanted to do again.

Anyway, John mentioned that it was about to be 25 years since Joe Allrich and I started Bad Cat, so he wondered if I’d be interested in a 25th-anniversary amp. I pondered it for a while then asked, “What do you really want? Something with one knob, five knobs, 10 knobs?” I wanted to be in sync with his thinking. He said, “You could do an updated version of the original Black Cat 30 with an active effects loop…” and they’ve named it the Mark Sampson Era 30. I built a prototype and let them take it from there. They’ve made a half a dozen and the workmanship is great; I was impressed and we’ll be demoing them at NAMM.

What is its configuration?
It has four EL84s with a 5AR4 rectifier tube, four 12AX7s, and an EF86. It’s a little different; it’s got one input jack that feeds both channels with a relay switch between them controlled with a silent footswitch that has LED channel indicators. You can also bypass the relay and feed both channels at the same time.

And the control layout?
The EF86 channel has a passive rotary Depth switch for low-frequency roll-down, and, like a tweed Fender, a high-frequency roll-down; it’s a simple Tone control. The other channel is sort of a Top Boost AC30, with Volume, Bass, Treble, and Gain. It has an active effects loop that is hardwire-bypassed, which is one of the things I insisted on and will never get away from because I like the pure sound of an amp with no pedals in the middle or in front of it. I want to just hear the amp, especially for recording; in that world, all the extras just get in the way and add noise. You’re better off tracking clean and dry and then doing whatever effects post-recording.

In terms of function, what sets it apart?
Well, each channel has its own Volume, and the channels are no longer out of phase, so you can blend and mix them to your heart’s content without worrying about phase. Also, there’s an overall Master volume so you can play it in a bedroom with each channel set to the gain and distortion you want, then set the overall volume down if you need to. Each channel Volume is pre phase inverter, and the overall Master is post phase inverter, so you can overdrive the phase inverter a bit and get shading of distortion and gain.

While working on the circuit, we eliminated a lot of the mechanical problems with EF86 tubes rattling because of how their grids are made, which is important.

Have you and John talked about other amps?
I’m working on others for him based on existing models that just didn’t sound amazing to me, but there are no firm plans.

What does your ear want to hear that most amps don’t offer?
Well, I always want to hear as much harmonic content as possible and a pure, clean tone that adds space around the note. On top of that, it’s got to sound good whether it’s really clean or well-distorted.

There’s a lot of listening and some compromising when I’m developing an amp. I spend days at my workbench, soldering iron in one hand, a guitar across my lap, just trying things in the circuit. – Ward Meeker

To read an extended version of this interivew, visit VintageGuitar.com and enter “Mark Sampson” in the search window.

This article originally appeared in VG’s March 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

After finishing a sold-out tour with Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson for the G3 Reunion concerts, Steve Vai joined Adrian Belew and Tony Levin to perform interpretations of the ’80s King Crimson albums Discipline, Beat, and Three Of A Perfect Pair. The band is called Beat, and the result is mind-altering. All this, and there’s a fire-breathing new single from the new G3 Reunion Live album.

How does playing the music of King Crimson affect your playing?

I was a fan of ’80s King Crimson. That music was fantastic, and as soon as Adrian asked me, I saw myself playing it. I’m playing Robert Fripp’s guitar parts. It’s a challenge because his style is very different than mine. But I knew it would be fun and felt I could navigate it appropriately and effectively. Playing that music, you get to see me working, as opposed to just playing melodies and solos.

You integrate your personality but remain faithful to the tunes.
There’s a beauty and cleverness within the interlocking guitar parts. Approaching it as a guitar player, I had to study Fripp. I got into his disciplinary style. There were two spots where I had to reconnoiter things. On “Frame By Frame,” there’s that relentless cross-picking riff that’s simply outside of my wheelhouse, especially at my age. I didn’t feel like I could play it consistently every night, so I needed to figure something out. So, I took it into my wheelhouse, which is tapping. That worked. It’s reflective of the original, but removed.

On a couple of the riffs on “Elephant Talk,” I decided to hammer instead of pick. Everything else falls within my ability. When it comes time to take a solo, it doesn’t make sense to sound like Fripp. Fripp said, “If I were sitting in the audience, I wouldn’t want to see you trying to do my kind of solo. I wanna see Steve Vai go crazy!” So, that’s what I do. Adrian and I add a dynamic that’s perfectly balanced for the music. We’re so different, yet we come together on many things within the show.

“Zeus in Chains” is the first single from the new G3 Reunion Live album.
It’s got those big chords, and I love playing that song. Whenever I perform it, I feel like I’m in a trance. If a musician is connecting with their instrument, they’re merged with the notes, and it’s a beautiful thing. I have a guitar by my bed. When my wife’s getting ready at night, I sit there and tinker about. Sometimes, something comes up that has some energy in it. I knew it was good because I heard my wife from the bathroom say, “That’s a good one (laughs)!”

You’re using harmonizers more than ever.
A lot of that is with the DigiTech Whammy. That has the most authentic, heavy, clear, harmonized sound with integrity. When I use outboard gear like the Fractal, it’s for other types of harmony things – it’s good for upper-end harmonies like a fifth above or creating a chord. DigiTech doesn’t do that. With Beat, I use the DigiTech, but there are songs, like “Industry” or “Thela Hun Ginjeet,” where the outboard gear works better. On “Industry,” I have a five-note chord coming from one note.

What’s the story behind your Hydra guitar?
I wanted to create something that was musical and meaningful. The idea was to create an instrument that I could carry an entire piece of music with. I wanted a bass neck, a 12-string neck, a seven-string neck, harp strings, a guitar synthesizer with Sample and Hold features, and Sustainers.

In the movie Mad Max: Fury Road, there’s a scene where a guy is playing this wild-looking guitar with flames coming out – steampunk! That’s what the guitar was going to look like. It’s a style I really like. The Ibanez guys in Japan went to the wall and built it from scratch. The process took years. When I got the final version, I nearly had a heart attack. The name of the guitar comes from the movie Jason and the Argonauts. The Hydra is a mythical three-headed dragon creature. If you cut off one of the heads, another will grow.

As I was finishing the Inviolate album, I needed one more track, and the Hydra was standing there. It said to me, “Okay, now it’s my turn (laughs).” It took me six weeks of 15-hour undisturbed days to write and record. Everything you hear is the Hydra in one take. You can watch “Teeth of the Hydra” on Youtube.

What’s next?
I’ve been working with Joe Satriani on a new record. In the summer, we’ll do a European tour called Surfing with the Hydra. We’ll play some of the new songs, and the record will follow the tour. – Oscar Jordan

This article originally appeared in VG’s March 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.