Table of contents for November 2022 in Guitar Player

“I WANTED TO MAKE A RECORD THAT SOUNDED BIGGER THAN ANY BANDS MY DUDE FRIENDS WERE IN”—ALLEGRA WEINGARTEN ETTA FRIEDMAN AND Allegra Weingarten, co-guitarists and vocalists for guitar-heavy indie-rock band Momma, are sitting on a Brooklyn stoop, still buzzing after spending their morning chatting up one of their ’90s alt-rock guitar heroes. “When I was a freshman in college, I taught myself how to play the solo from ‘Number One Blind’ by Veruca Salt,” Weingarten says. “I did those hammer-ons, and I was like, ‘Yo, what?’ And it’s crazy, ’cause we just finished having coffee with Louise Post literally an hour ago.” The duo surely picked up a thing or two about songcraft from listening to the guitarist’s work with the recently reunited Veruca Salt. But their lingering buzz pales…

VINCE GILL IS a country music legend, racking up 22 Grammys and selling more than 26 million albums. Although part of Nashville’s ultimate power couple, with his wife Amy Grant, Gill is one of the friendliest and most unassuming stars one could meet. Gifted with a distinctive voice, possessing the power to move even the hardest of hearts to tears, he is also an incredible guitarist who can play in any style. Beyond his own extensive catalog, he’s contributed to more than a thousand recordings by other artists. “I always aspired to be the guy who gets to play on other people’s records,” he tells Guitar Player. “I never had a hairbrush in my hand in front of the mirror pretending to be Elvis; I always had my head down…

AFTER A FEW minutes listening to some of Derek Trucks’ astounding slide work, two thoughts usually occur: “How the hell does he do that?” and “Hey, I’m gonna dig that old slide out and give this a go.” While Derek can’t particularly help with the first question, he’s more than happy to supply the info that he believes you need to come to grips with the uniquely expressive art of slide guitar. 1. Let Elmore James be your guide. “For electric slide, Elmore is definitely the entrance point. You could spend years just trying to delve into the nuances of his playing.” 2. Try it fingerstyle. “Definitely experiment with a fingerstyle approach. It gives you so much more control over the sound that you’re creating. You can mute unwanted strings…

YOU CAN’T VISIT the place where hill country blues, the hypnotic strain of blues that developed in the kudzu-wrapped hills of northern Mississippi, had its 1990s heyday. The elders — Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, chief among them — are no longer alive. And the club where they performed outside Chulahoma, Mississippi, is long gone. There has been no greater embodiment of the rural blues that germinated in the hill country than Junior’s Place, the famed juke joint owned by the often-bawdy bluesman Kimbrough. Like the music played within its walls, it was an unpretentious place, a simple, wood-frame building shielded from the elements by sheets of rusted tin roofing, with a dirt parking lot and frontage along a lonesome state highway. Kimbrough’s juke had few rules, and most were…

AS THE SECOND single from American Pie, Don McLean’s 1972 album, “Vincent” rode to the U.S. charts on a wave of popularity, thanks to that long-player’s megahit title track. Often recalled by its opening line, “Starry, starry night,” itself a reference to Vincent Van Gogh’s celebrated June 1889 painting The Starry Night, “Vincent” is an evocative reverie on the artist’s life and work. Remarkably, neither it nor its companion hit existed when McLean began recording the album. “I had everything except ‘Vincent’ and ‘American Pie,’” he tells Guitar Player. TALKING PICTURES The starting point for “Vincent” was a book about Van Gogh written by his brother, Theo. “He wanted to set the record straight that Vincent hadn’t killed himself over a woman but because of mental health reasons,” McLean says.…

WITH A NAME like Romeo, it was only appropriate that Eastman’s first original guitar design was a head turner. Introduced in 2020, the semihollow model was a milestone for a company that has had its share of noteworthy achievements in its short history. Established by Chinese flutist and Boston University music graduate Quian Ni in 1992, Eastman Guitars has continually defied preconceptions, while it has consistently garnered respect from players. The company forged its reputation with clever, well-made semi-reproductions of classic models. While they weren’t straight-out copies, guitars like the SB59, SB55 and T64 clearly echo Gibson’s ’59 Les Paul Standard, Les Paul Junior and ES-330, respectively. But with Romeo, Eastman began branching into entirely original designs from the imagination of the company’s Pomona, California–based master luthier, Otto D’Ambrosio. Now…

“I’VE LEARNED SO MUCH FROM LISTENING TO JONI MITCHELL. I REALIZED THERE WAS A LOT MORE TO LEARN THAN JUST SHREDDING LEADS” ALTHOUGH HE’S RECOGNIZED as one of the most gifted guitarists of his generation, Eric Johnson considers himself a student of his instrument. “Playing guitar is being part of a journey that never ends,” says the artist, whose latest albums, The Book of Making and Yesterday Meets Today were released in July. “That’s what’s so great about it. You can’t just focus on a destination because there’s so much to discover along the way.” One might assume Johnson was born with a guitar in his hands, but in fact he began his musical life as a child studying piano. By the time he picked up the guitar at age…

DEREK TRUCKS IS celebrated for his soulful, innovative slide guitar playing, which is characterized by his unique touch, highly refined tone and adventurous note choices. The guitarist plugs straight into a cranked Fender-style tube amp for natural, organic-sounding gain, but an overdrive pedal can provide similar tones at more reasonable volume levels. Most often, he uses the bridge pickup on his Gibson SG, softening the sound slightly by rolling back its tone control a little. Derek is also a fingerstyle player, which lightens the attack of his tone further. In this lesson, we’ll look at some of the elements of his signature slide playing approaches. Like many slide players, Derek prefers open tunings (usually open E: low to high, E, B, E, G#, B, E), but the examples in this…

“I WOULD HEAR BASS AND DRUMS IN MY HEAD, AND I’D DO MY BEST TO CREATE IT ALL WITH THE GUITAR ALONE” JACK JOHNSON MAY not have the most advanced guitar technique, but the hugely popular acoustic influencer has a treasure that precious few other strummers possess: a signature rhythm style. The Hawaiian with the hallmark rhythm hand planted his flag with Brushfire Fairytales, his 2001 debut that featured such breakout hits as “Flake” and “Bubble Toes,” which incorporated a snare-like muted “whap” on the two and four into a few go-to strumming patterns. The former professional surfer and accomplished surf moviemaker delivers his grooves with an infectious laid-back, hang-loose feel. Often imitated, Johnson’s original approach remains so instantly recognizable that he purposely mixes things up in the studio. Meet…

FENDER’S NEW LINE of Hammertone effects pedals features nine models, all in the same grey-finished 4.375 x 2.375 x 1.375–inch aluminum enclosure, with differently colored “F” logo “witch-hat” knobs derived from Fender’s semi-hollow Starcaster guitar of the mid to late ’70s. Priced at what’s arguably the entry level for roadworthy pedals, the full range includes the utilitarian-monikered Overdrive, Distortion, Fuzz, Metal, Reverb, Delay, Space Delay, Flanger and Chorus. There are no compressor, phaser or tremolo models yet, although rumors of future additions abound. The drive-based pedals are fully analog, while the others use digital processing with analog dry-through. Other commonalities of the range include true-bypass switching and top-mounted mono input and output jacks either side of the center-negative nine-volt jack (a nine-volt battery can also be used internally). All were…

“WHEN THAT GUITAR WAS STOLEN, MY MAGIC FEATHER WAS GONE” RANDY BACHMAN SHUFFLED across a Tokyo concert stage and quietly embraced his long-lost girlfriend for the first time in 46 years. It was a quiet, somewhat awkward moment, and the aging Canadian rocker, perhaps overcome by emotion, said little. He was finally holding his hit-making Gretsch guitar, an instrument he’d once compared to a lover. After decades of fruitless searching, the guitar had been located and would at last be going home. Bachman’s July 1 reunion with his Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins model brought one of the guitar world’s greatest mysteries to an end. In 1976, the guitarist was on top of the world. His band Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BTO) had topped the U.S. and Canadian charts the year before with…

ONCE IN A blue moon, a design so radically progressive appears that it commands attention, spurs discussion and often leads to imitation. Lava Music’s singular acoustic/electric guitar is just such a phenomenon. To offer one mind-expanding element would be a breakthrough; two would be revelatory, and three revolutionary. In Lava’s case, the company nails the trifecta by delivering on the guitar itself, the HILava operating system and the Lava+ social media sharing app. Carbon-fiber guitars have been here for a while, but Lava Music uses a unique unibody design that’s just big enough to deliver booming bass, yet small enough be very travel friendly. The offset ovular soundhole and overall high-tech aesthetic nods more toward Apple and Tesla than Martin or Gibson. We’ve seen onboard resonance-based effects that turn an…

THE SIGHT OF blue-sharp legend Charlie Musselwhite holding a Harmony acoustic guitar on the cover of his 2022 album, Mississippi Son (Alligator), isn’t as incongruous as you might think. Chances are, if you’ve listened to any of his two-dozen-plus solo albums, you’ve already heard Musselwhite play guitar. But he wouldn’t be offended if you didn’t notice. After all, harmonica has been his calling card since the 1960s, when he was sitting in with Muddy Waters and other foundational blues artists on Chicago’s South Side. But throughout his five-decade career in blues music, Musselwhite has snuck a bit of his own fretwork into the mix across most of his albums. On Mississippi Son, which pays tribute to the music and region that inspired him, he finally brings his guitar playing to…

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