This week has seen three fantastic lessons from some of the music world's greatest blues legends—Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, and Hubert Sumlin. Today's lesson steps away from traditional finger-style blues and instead focuses on how to incorporate slide guitar playing into your blues style.
Roy Rogers (not to be confused with the banjo-picking country music legend from the 1960s and 1970s) honed his unique style of blues playing as a featured guitarist and vocallist for John Lee Hooker. He's also produced two of Hooker's albums, both of which have won Grammy awards. His own band, the Delta Rhythm Kings, have recorded several albums and have toured the world. He's also worked with Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, and Carlos Santana, among others. Needless to say, Rogers is one of the foremost authorities on slide guitar blues, and his DVD Slide Guitar for Rock and Blues, produced by Homespun, is one of the most popular guitar tutorials on the market.
Thursday, May 15, 2008 3:57 PM
Now that Neil Diamond has actually scored his first career No. 1 album with the Rick Rubin-produced Home Before Dark, he’s going full-tilt with his latest comeback efforts. As promised, he's going to “celebrate in a big way.”
For starters, the 67-year-old singer has been booked as headliner for Britain’s enormous Glastonbury festival, and he’s looking to recreate the lightning generated by Johnny Cash when he appeared on the same stage in 1994. “Those are tough footsteps to follow in, but I think we'll have some fun,” Diamond told the NME.
Thursday, May 15, 2008 9:33 AM
13-year-old Todd Cochran has been playing a little over a year-and-a-half. Here’s a clip of him showcasing his sweep and speed-picking techniques.
Fernando Miyata, guitarist for Brazilian instrumental rockers Boneland, offers up this new demo clip. It’s another bracing example of how a guitarist can incorporate familiar stylistic inspirations from Van Halen, Satriani, Vai, et. al., yet fold them seamlessly into his own magnificently fluid playing.
Thursday, May 15, 2008 9:27 AM
See, the problem with some amp modeling software if you’re not careful is that it can give you a guitar tone so chock full of cheese it ought to come served between two buttery slices of whole wheat. If you are looking for ways to make your guitar tracks sound like an electric tooth brush or a synthesizer, there is no learning curve.
But hey, what if you want to get your home recording guitar tracks to sound like —gasp!—an actual great guitar rig? Impossible? Not at all—and I can prove it.
Thursday, May 15, 2008 9:00 AM
Not all tribute albums are created equal. We take a look at the ones that actually step out of the shadows of the people they’re honoring.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 4:24 PM
“If you can dream it, we can build it.”
That’s the motto Baldwin proudly asserts with regard to its custom-designed pianos. It’s an audacious claim, to be sure, but two gifted artists―Darrell Jones and Richard Balfour―help make sure dreams do indeed become a reality.
“We’re designing a piano right now that involves tattoos,” says Jones, whose artwork has graced Baldwins since 2005. “It’s for Tommy Lee, the drummer for Mötley Crüe. He wants the piano to match his body, where the tattoos sort of lay on the piano. I’m probably going to paint the piano a flesh color, and then use photographs of his body to strategically place certain parts of it on the piano. That’s typical of the challenges we tackle. It’s all fun, and doing it for someone of his status is really cool.”
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 3:44 PM
Many players think of a guitar’s finish purely in regards to esthetic considerations and not as another factor in its tonal makeup, but the types of finishes commonly applied to electric guitar bodies all alter the wood’s resonance in one way or another, and therefore affect the guitar’s tone. In the extreme—for example, in the case of heavy, air-tight finishes—they can even impede the way the wood performs, and choke off its voice considerably. Players who know their tone put a lot of stock in the type, quality, and condition of the finish on any guitar, and it’s worth learning a little about the variables here that can genuinely affect your instrument’s performance.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 3:10 PM
It’s the most intriguing question in any field of endeavor: What if?
But in the volatile world of rock music, it often seems more like a mandate when trying to recruit a workable line-up of musicians―or, more crucially, replace an already departed key member. Consider then the bands that might have been, the rumors of potential members who never were―and the sometimes strange fates that befell them.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 2:32 PM
This week's series of lessons from Gibson Lifestyle! are over the top, and today's lesson might just be the best of the bunch.
If there's ever been just one blues guitar player who's had more influence on both his own peers and the multiple generations of players that followed him, it would have to be the legendary Hurbert Sumlin. Scores of guitarists have cited him as a major influence, including the likes of Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmy Page, and Jimi Hendrix, and his timeless fingerstyle technique will continue to inspire guitarists for many generations to come.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:30 AM
Like all great rock and roll cities, Liverpool is a perfect breeding ground for music―exciting and full of contradictions; where big new buildings and derelict areas are never too far apart; where young artists can live cheap near the city center; a city bursting with music and the sound of police cars, where violence―or a great gig―is always just ’round the corner on any Friday night.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:12 AM
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