Guitar Playerの June 2024 の目次

SOMETIMES IT FEELS, even to me, that an issue of Guitar Player magazine is all over the place, musically speaking. I say “even to me” because I’m the one, after all, doing the programming. But I’ve never cared much for the idea of theme issues (even though we do them from time to time) or grouping artists on the basis of genre. Besides, I find it more interesting to discover the shared ideas, practices, techniques and attitudes among a group of performers of different eras, ages, styles, instruments and approaches. It can be kind of marvelous to see. Consider Mark Knopfler, our cover artist, and the venerable bluesman Walter Trout. Although both are celebrated for their fretwork and tone, they make it clear in their interviews that, these days, their focus…

“DON’T GET MARRIED to your effects.” “Effects are no substitute for playing well.” Over the years, guitarists have made these and similar comments in music magazines (even in the pages of Guitar Player). For his part, Reeves Gabrels is having none of it. “Effects sometimes get a bad rap, and I don’t know why,” he says. “Effects can be marvelous tools to express yourself, but you have to use them creatively. I think the problem comes when guitarists don’t apply them with a sense of imagination. Copy-catism is the real issue, and who wants to be a copycat?” Thus far, nobody has had the nerve to suggest to his face that he relies too much on effects, but if such a scenario occurred, Gabrels imagines he would handle the situation…

AMONG THE MANY guitars that took their design cues from a handful of seminal designs, the Ibanez Artist Model 2617 stood out as distinctly different, even enticingly exotic. And yet it looked undeniably classic. The golden age of American electric-guitar design and manufacture stretched from the early 1950s to the mid ’60s. For Japanese guitars, however, the renaissance didn’t occur until a decade later. Today, nearly a quarter of the way through the 21st century, players are again appreciating the quality and originality that made these late-’70s and early ’80s creations so desirable and successful in the first place. Many fans of Japanese electric guitars refer to the mid to late ’70s as the “lawsuit era,” a term that references the direct copies of American guitars that arrived from that country…

PRINCE SLYLY TOLD her she was “too funky.” Bruno Mars sent her one of his signature Fender Strats, and Bootsy Collins and Ray Parker Jr. left glowing comments on her Instagram posts. Guitarists are usually lauded for their soloing prowess, but Ella Feingold doesn’t solo — she doesn’t feel the need. Instead, she weaves magic with her rhythm playing, creating a unique and soulful blend of classic and forward-looking funk guitar that’s fueled by her uncanny sense of time. In 2022, Feingold received a Grammy participation certificate for her playing on the Record of the Year winner, “Leave the Door Open,” by Silk Sonic, the R&B duo featuring Mars and singer/rapper Anderson. Paak. At the time that Mars invited her to perform on their album, An Evening With Silk Sonic (which…

FOR THE SCRAPPY American-alternative upstart it once was, Reverend Guitars has grown to be an impressive performer in a market crowded with bigger and longer-established names, and part of that success is found in its compiling of an extensive artist roster. The Chris Freeman Signature is the latest model to join that team, and as with so many before, it brings a host of features designed to appeal to players well beyond the fan base of the Hot Mulligan guitarist. Reverend Guitars was launched in 1997 when Joe Naylor combined his studies of industrial design, lutherie school and vintage guitar repair experience into a viable guitar-making business in a garage at the back of a Detroit bicycle shop. His early designs were notable for their clear nod to early Danelectro…

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THE CARBON-FIBER REVOLUTION may not be televised, but it’s all over the internet and here in the pages of GP. The young Klosowiak brothers bring a unique perspective, focused on intelligent builds using modern materials in traditional forms. They make sonorous and highly playable carbon instruments at lower prices than other custom manufacturers, and market them to adventure lifestylists, who benefit most from the resulting durability. Their ads feature Klos guitars on the backs of hikers and sailors, and hilarious online videos show players using their wares as golf clubs and baseball bats. A successful Kickstarter campaign for the Travel Guitar put Klos (pronounced like the opposite of “far”) on the map in 2015. The 33-inch miniature dreadnought remains the company’s flagship, but Klos has expanded the line significantly and now…

FOR ALMOST EIGHT years, I’ve wanted to write about Jerry Byrd’s Steel Guitar Favorites. “What took so long,” you ask? Well, it doesn’t make the job easy if there are no informative liner notes and hardly a thing about it on the internet. Steel-guitar guru Joe Goldmark suggested a possible personnel lineup. The rest was pure detective work. I sometimes wish I could write a column consisting only of the words “Check this out,” because many of the records I love have a glaring void of information. That said, they need to be shared, and that includes Jerry Byrd’s Steel Guitar Favorites. Byrd was born in Ohio, in 1920, and started playing steel guitar as a child. He went pro by the time he was 15 and would go on…

THE LATE LOU Reed took his walk on the wild side in 1972. But he didn’t become an animal — a rock ’n’ roll animal, to be specific — until the following year. Recorded on December 21, 1973, before an audience at Howard Stein’s Academy of Music in New York City, Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal was no mere stopgap or contract-fulfilling release. In its definitive performances and forceful renderings of the material, mostly from Reed’s tenure with the Velvet Underground, it had all the conceptual integrity of a studio album. It documented an artist presenting his songs in a fresh manner, using the original versions as source material upon which to build and reinterpret, in this case with the help of an enormously potent band of genuinely animalistic caliber, led…

IN CELEBRATION OF the Stratocaster’s debut in the spring of 1954, Fender has launched a series of 70th Anniversary models for 2024 that range from the American Vintage II 1954 Stratocaster in two-color sunburst to the latest Ultra Stratocaster HSS, in an Amethyst finish that pushes the boundaries of automotive technologies. Fender’s EVP of product design, Justin Norvell, tells us, “We reached out to paint suppliers to see what’s happening in the automotive space, because part of Fender’s history is car colors. We’ve been playing with flip-flop-type colors, like Chrome Glow on the H.E.R model — one of the first of the 3-D, chameleon-like colors we’ve done — and Amethyst, which we’ve been holding for the right guitar. The Ultra turned out to be perfect for it. Amethyst looks like a…

OF THE MANY weird guitars from the 1960s, the Italians are my favorites. EKO, Vox, Crucianelli, Wandre and Gemeli… it’s hard to keep up. The Welson company, like its Italian neighbor EKO, produced guitars under many names and even made a few models for Vox and Wurlitzer. Welson was founded in the 1920s, in the city of Castelfidardo, by Orlando Quagliardi. The company made accordions but switched to manufacturing electric guitars as demand for the instrument increased in the ’60s. The 1964 Kinton V3 model shown here reveals that Welson was a fine instrument maker, even though the delightfully cheesy accordion-style celluloid wraps — among numerous other features — might suggest otherwise. WEIRDO FACTOR The 10-inch headstock is an eye catcher, as are the three large chrome-covered pickups, the flank…

“AT FIRST, I thought every kid had a music store in their family,” Ben Harper recalls. “But I realized when I was young that this place was called the Folk Music Center because it was the center of something special. Not every grandmother can play the entire Pete Seeger catalog on autoharp, dulcimer and guitar.” Yale Avenue in the heart of Claremont, California, has a timeless college town quality, with shops that have been there for decades. Founded by Harper’s grandparents, Charles and Dorothy Chase, the Folk Music Center is in its 66th year of operation very near to its original location. Entering the storefront is like stepping into a time machine and landing in the late ’60s to early ’70s. The walls bear posters for the Claremont Folk Music…

YOU COULD BE excused for glazing over yet another batch of pedals trumpeting different flavors of grind, but these new boxes from Keeley have a cool twist in their ability to mix and match different drive and tone stacks, enhancing their sonic range and flexibility in the process. The Angry Orange, Blues Disorder, Muse Driver and Super Rodent are each based around two distinctly different distortion circuits, but they share a control format consisting of three skirted metal knobs and a pair of two-position mini toggles that perform different functions, depending on the model. The knobs are fairly tall and have ribbed barrels that make them easy to grab if you need to make mid-song tweaks. The wedge-shaped aluminum housings have front-mounted input, output and power jacks, and a press…