Guitar Playerの July 2024 の目次

“YOUR FIRST IMPULSE MIGHT BE TO SAY, ‘I’M NOT THE RIGHT GUY FOR THAT.’ BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW?” WHEN KENNY GREENBERG arrived in Nashville in the mid ’80s, the Cleveland-born guitarist fit right into the country music session scene — because he didn’t fit in. “I came from a rock and blues background, so I had my own angle going on,” he says. “I infiltrated the country world by bringing a different sound and feel to the records that were being made. I always honored the song, but I had a fiery way of playing that people seemed to like.” Those people include the likes of Taylor Swift, Brooks & Dunn, Gretchen Wilson, Willie Nelson, Trisha Yearwood, Bob Seger, Kenny Chesney and Amy Grant, among others. “I’ve been very…

“THE GUITAR TURNED OUT TO BE MY SAVIOR” ONE MIGHT NOT think that Dolly Parton, Rob Zombie, k.d. lang and Nikki Sixx would share any kind of common ground, but there is something they all emphatically agree on: John 5 is one of the most creative and exciting guitar players they have ever encountered. They’re just some of the music stars who sing the praises of the Telecaster-toting axe ace in the new documentary I Am John 5. The film also includes glowing testimonials from the likes of Joe Satriani, Rob Halford, the late Gary Rossington, Peter Criss, Michael Anthony and Rudy Sarzo, among others. All of which has the subject of the movie feeling vaguely verklempt. “It’s so strange and unbelievable to me,” John 5 says. “Everything that’s happened to…

FRENCH GEARMAKER TWO notes (to use the company’s preferred upper-/lower-case style) is best known for creating hardware that processes digital simulations of speaker cabinets and, more recently, full guitar amplifiers [see our review of the Opus in April 2024]. But the company is also a long-time developer of software editors that maximize these units’ functions and their users’ abilities to create their own presets. So it makes sense that it has now put these capabilities together in GENOME, a totally in-the-box modeling plug-in for use with the most popular DAWs in Mac and Windows. As Two notes describes it, GENOME is an “ecosystem” designed “to deliver the pinnacle in end-to-end tone shaping.” Being entirely plug-in based, it’s clearly designed for home and studio use, placing it on par with Line…

DEAN ZELINSKY WAS just 17 when he founded Dean Guitars in 1977 with the single-minded purpose of making better instruments for rock and metal players than existed at the time. Using Gibson templates to start with, he created stylish guitars that included the V (Flying V), Z (Explorer) and the iconic ML, which combined the bottom of the V and the upper half of the Z. They all carried a standout element in the V-shaped headstock that defined the Dean look, making them flashier and more rock than any other U.S.-made six-string electrics available in the late ’70s. With artists like Elliot Easton of the Cars, Rich Williams of Kansas, and especially ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill — who flaunted fur-covered spinning customs in the 1983 “Legs” video…

MOLLY MILLER IS working overtime this summer. Yes, she’s reprising her role in pop star Jason Mraz’s Superband, on tour for his latest release, Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride, on which she also appears. But she’ll have to get there early as she’s also the opening act, performing with her Molly Miller Trio in support of their engaging new record, The Battle of Hotspur (Interrabang Records). Recorded with her bandmates, bassist Jennifer Condos and drummer Jay Bellerose, it’s a vibrant collection of original, instrumental Americana jazz songs tinged with folk, surf rock and Ennio Morricone–inspired western soundscapes. On its face, this may seem an unlikely musical pairing: a jazz trio opening for a major pop star. But Miller — who is also an adjunct professor of studio guitar at her alma…

GROWING UP ON a midwestern lake, under the wings of a loving family that would watch episodes of Hee Haw, a young John Lowery found the guitar at a tender age. With equal parts innate talent and boundless curiosity, combined with a traditional pioneer’s work ethic, the inspired adolescent set a goal to play the guitar and play it well, whether it be rock, metal, blues or country. John was on a mission. While he was still a teenager, John’s ethos, coupled with his laser-focused vision, led him to leave his beloved childhood home in Michigan for Los Angeles. It was in the City of Angels that he would eventually become the world-renowned guitar slinger known as John 5. The path to that moniker, not to mention J5’s entire career,…

CALIFORNIA-BASED MAKER Silktone is best known for its range of small-to-smaller tube amps, but the company does have the well-respected Fuzz pedal in its catalog. And thanks to the arrival of the equally eponymously named Overdrive+, that’s no longer the lone stompbox on offer. A quick look at any of Silktone’s three amp models or the Fuzz itself quickly tells you that company founder and head designer Charles Henry isn’t satisfied merely remaking circuits that have gone before, and the Overdrive+ is no different. Although the textured metal box (offered in Concrete or Dark finish options), chrome-skirted knobs, retro graphics and generic name hark back to some seminal overdrives of the ’70s and early ’80s, the circuit and features are different from any previous OD I know of, and the…

FOR IAN HUNTER, the tale of a mislaid guitar has been the bones to the English glam-rockers’ 1973 classic “All The Way From Memphis.” But now, 50 years later, he wants to set the record straight about the forgotten “six-string razor” that sets the tale in motion. “That was really a bit of poetic licence,” Hunter admits. “[Lead guitarist] Mick Ralphs’ guitar was actually stolen at a gig in Long Island a little earlier on our American tour in late ’72, not left behind.” Ralphs also had a fear of flying, and Hunter worried he might skip the Memphis gig after his guitar got lifted. “All he had to do was go back to England and it would have been all over,” Hunter says. “Which I figured he would do.…

“WE WERE A work in progress all the time,” Tom Johnston says, recalling the Doobie Brothers’ first era, from 1970 to 1977. The effort certainly paid off: You’d be hard-pressed to find a band with a more prolific and successful eight-year run than the Doobies had at that time. Formed in Santa Cruz, California, the Doobies’ put four of their first six albums in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, with two — 1973’s The Captain and Me and ’74’s What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits — selling double Platinum. Then there were the hits: “Listen to the Music,” “Long Train Runnin’,” “China Grove,” “Takin’ It to the Streets” and many more, which accounts for the Diamond status of 1976’s Best of the Doobies. Singer-guitarist Johnston was the…

THE CREEK THAT wraps around Sam Evian’s analog recording studio/abode in New York’s Catskills may rise only to his chest, but its influence on the singer/songwriter-guitarist’s new power-pop album is immeasurably deep. The evidence is right there in the record’s title: Plunge (Flying Cloud/Thirty Tigers). “Last year, I was looking for a way to get through the winter blues, to kind of stimulate myself into making healthy decisions, and I learned about cold plunging,” Evian explains. Cold-water immersion has long been touted as offering health benefits for mind and body. The stream running through his parcel offered Evian a ready source. “There are a lot of chemical reasons and benefits as to why it works and why it’s good for you,” he says. “It’s super cold, and it’s challenging to…

AT AGE 25, Quinn Sullivan is already a music veteran. That’s what happens when you begin your career before you’re out of first grade. The singer/songwriter and guitarist has cemented his transition from child prodigy to mature adult performer with his new, fifth album, Salvation (Provogue/Mascot Label Group). The wide-ranging set touches a lot of musical bases, with riff-driven hard rockers reminiscent of classic radio rock, like “Dark Love,” rubbing shoulders with R&B falsetto groovers, like “Once Upon a Lie.” “Musically, Salvation is truly where I’m at in my life, and it touches on topics of loss, trauma and love,” Sullivan says. “It’s a very personal album.” Sullivan became nationally known when he appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show at age six. Two years later, he met Buddy Guy backstage…

TEJA GERKEN IS a veritable treasure trove of acoustic intel. In addition to being an accomplished player and artist, he’s a top educator and music journalist. Gerken has written for Guitar Player, Acoustic Guitar and Premier Guitar and is a co-founder of Peghead Nation, an incredible online educational resource for acoustic enthusiasts. Gerken often forms a duo with fellow fingerstylist Doug Young, but he’s primarily a solo artist and his latest effort, Test of Time, is a solo affair. Gerken learned a lot about timing during the creative process, and he was kind enough to share. TIMING IS EVERYTHING “Timing is probably the weak spot for most fingerstyle players, including myself. With it, you have many more rhythmic intricacies compared to, for example, strumming the strings with a pick. Regardless of…