Innehållsförteckning för Holiday 2015 från Guitar Player

PEDAL-STEEL AND SLIDE MASTER ROBERT RANDOLPH HAS jammed with Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, and many other guitar-playing titans while touring the world with his band, Robert Randolph and the Family Band. His performances are blistering, and his onstage charisma is truly a sight to behold. I have known Robert for a couple of years now, and we have shared licks onstage and beers offstage. Many consider him to be one of the best cats around. I caught up with Robert during a day off from a tour to find out who his top five favorite guitarists of all time are and why. STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN “He is the most soulful guitar player of all time,” says Robert. “He transcends the blues, and sends the blues into another galaxy.” JIMI HENDRIX…

YOU CAN BE FORGIVEN FOR NOT knowing who Richard Bennett is. The man has made a career of hiding in the shadows while helping others shine. A peek at his recording credits reveals over 100 sessions before you are even out of the Cs. A highly abbreviated list of those he has enabled through tasty guitar and/or production work would include Mark Knopfler, Ringo Starr, Conway Twitty, Sammy Davis, Jr., Johnny Mathis, Roseanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Waylon Jennings, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight, Barbara Streisand, and T-Bone Walker. If nothing else, he produced the two Americana records that helped define modern twang: Steve Earle’s Guitar Town and Marty Stuart’s Hillbilly Rock. Bennett’s solo records will remind you why you love guitar, with their puretoned instrumentals redolent of cowboys riding…

ONE OUTSTANDING TRAIT FOUND in numerous songs written by the Beatles, Burt Bacharach, and Jimmy Webb (as well as many others) is the use of odd amounts of 4/4 measures to create very natural sounding harmonic foundations, i.e. chord progressions, for truly memorable melodies. We can’t print the melodies here, but we can inspect the frameworks from a pair of very recognizable tunes and analyze their harmonic structures. Our first example, which ties in nicely with this month’s Under Investigation, breaks down Jimmy Webb’s timeless and iconic “Wichita Lineman” as rendered by Glen Campbell. (Tip: You can check out the instrumental version of the melody on page 66.) Ex. 1 illustrates the song’s 17-bar chord progression, which encompasses two key centers—F and D. (We don’t count the pickup measure of…

HAVING BEEN PRODUCING FINE GUItars for three decades now, PRS is celebrating its legacy with the release of the 30th Anniversary Custom 24. This instrument follows on the lines of the 24-fret carved top solidbody that was so highly acclaimed when it debuted back in 1985, but is now equipped with new 85/15 pickups— uncovered humbuckers that offer extended highand low-end response to better suit modern players—and a lovely cosmetic treatment that includes purfling on the fretboard and headstock and “30th Anniversary” mother-of-pearl Birds inlays. And while we’re on the subject of PRS’s past achievements, why not include the new McCarty? This classic revisits the model from 1994 that Smith designed in honor of Ted McCarty, the electric guitar pioneer who was Gibson’s president during the company’s “golden era” of…

WHEN VISUAL SOUND’S BOB WEIL introduced the Jekyll & Hyde pedal in 1997, he billed it as “the original dual guitar effect pedal.” Visual Sound has rebranded itself as Truetone, and one of its initial offerings is the V3 version of this flagship product, which has been redesigned from the ground up by Weil and RG Keen. As stated by the company, the distortion channel (a.k.a “Hyde”) delivers the same great distortion tone that the former Hyde was always known for, but with two major upgrades: a Bass knob that interacts with Treble so you can shape your tone precisely, and a Voice switch that allows you to choose between classic open distortion or a more saturated tone. The overdrive channel (a.k.a. “Jekyll”) has been changed completely to make it…

VintageVibrato™ MannMade USA Available Now Fits vintage style Strat® guitars with no mods. Steel block for that authentic Strat® stink! Increased tone and sustain. Push-in Arm. Patented mounting system guaranteed to stay in tune. Smooth silky feel, less string breakage. All hardware included. Made in USA. MSRP: $160.00 www.MannMadeUSA.com/gp Premium, Handmade Guitar Picks Gravity Guitar Picks Available Now Increase Volume, Speed and Accuracy. Gravity Guitar Picks are made the old fashioned way. Each guitar pick is shaped and polished by a Master Picksmith. The entire production process is completed at one location in Northern California. Founded in 2011, Gravity Guitar Picks produces a high quality product at a fair price. Made in the USA. Available in all Sam Ash Music locations. $4.99 www.gravitypicks.com Contemporary Guitar Improvisation (Utilizing the Entire Fingerboard)…

THIS PAST FEBRUARY 6, 2015, BOB Marley would have been 70 years old. The Jamaican reggae legend passed away from cancer on May 11, 1981, and Jamaica held a series of anniversary celebrations this year to honor the musician. His son, Ziggy, continues to evolve the Marley family legacy with his own albums (the latest being Fly Rasta on Tuff Gong Worldwide), comic books (2011’s Marijuanaman), children’s books (2014’s I Love You Too), and a line of food products through Ziggy Marley Organics. How did your father influence you as a guitarist? What I take from him is that you must love your guitar. It must live with you, and be around you all the time. It must be a part of you. His guitar was always around. Did you…

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY different: Since this month’s classic sixties “mystery riff” is so dang easy to play, it will be presented entirely by word of mouth, and can only be revealed by assembling and solving the following series of clues. Get these two bars of classic rock history right and you should feel very satisfied! CLUE #1: The fuzz-toned riff in question is in a modal key of E (Mixolydian), encompasses two bars, and was designed to be accompanied by a second guitar playing the three chords diagrammed in Ex. 1. CLUE #2: The riff is based on the two-bar rhythmic motif shown in Ex. 2a. CLUE #3: Though many seem to think so, the three single notes in Ex. 2b—E (the root), F# (the 2), and G…

IT’S EASY TO GET SUCKED INTO THE IDEA THAT A GOOD guitar has to be expensive. True, there are some plusses to spending $3,000 or more on a finely crafted solidbody from one of the premium makers. Hand-picked woods that are aged to ensure that excess moisture won’t interfere with tone, and pickups that have been wound on the same machines used by Gibson or Fender in their Golden Age are but a few of the factors that support the notion that you get what you pay for when it comes to guitars. Like many things these days, however, companies large and small have cracked the code on how to produce guitars that sound, look, and play very impressively at prices that often defy logic. The reasons for this, of…

THE DD-500 DIGITAL DELAY, PW-3 WAH, and RV-6 Reverb debuted at this summer’s NAMM show are hitting the streets just in time for some holiday cheer. And there’s no coal in your stocking here—all three would be fantastic additions to any pedalboard. DD-500 DIGITAL DELAY The DD-500 ($299 street) is one enchanting and supercharged gift, because it’s basically a full-on delay workstation housed in a stompbox that’s bigger than a conventional pedal, but not so big that it usurps all the real estate on your pedalboard. Yum! The amount of control is off the charts. I’m not a MIDI guy (that’s GP editor Matt Blackett’s area of expertise), but the DD-500 offers MIDI In/Out and all the usual control parameters. You might not need MIDI, however (which makes me happy),…

IF YOU’VE CHECKED OUT THE PLAYING of Jackson Browne or Ben Harper, you’ve heard instruments built by Bill Asher. Asher has been a SoCal fixture for a long, long time and in addition to Harper and Browne, he counts Marc Ford, Redd Volkaert, and a host of other great players as clients. When we visited Asher Guitars at the last NAMM Show, we couldn’t help but fall in love with the Resosonic Rambler that you see here. It’s easy to understand why. This is one of the most eye-catching designs of all time. Let’s start with the obvious: You get a hand-cut 1958 Nash Rambler hub cap that covers the spun aluminum 9.5" Beard resonator cone. I could basically end this review right here and this instrument would still rule.…

THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND, THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF Fame, and a pro football game don’t seem to have anything in common, but they’ve all experienced the electrifying, Hendrix-esque performances of lefty Strat-slinging guitarist Malina Moye. In 2010, Moye appeared in front of 80,000 football fans at a Vikings/Cowboys game, and became the first African-American woman to interpret the National Anthem on electric guitar at a professional sporting event. Two years later, she joined the Experience Hendrix Tour, played Chuck Berry’s “Stop and Listen” at a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute concert to the legend, and performed “God Save the Queen” for Queen Elizabeth’s 60th Jubilee celebration at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The hard-working guitarist has also had a lot of red-carpet moments (including several “Best…

EPIPHONE 2015 LIMITED EDITION JOE BONAMASSA LES PAUL STANDARD Goodies Designed by Bonamassa himself. Mahogany body topped by a carved maple cap with an Inverness Green finish. Mahogany rounded-D profile neck, rosewood fretboard, 24.75" scale length, Bigsby B70 tremolo, and Gibson USA Burstbucker pickups. Ships with a Les Paul Liftron-style case. Price $799 street More Info epiphone.com BC AUDIO OCTAL-PLEX SERIES CUSTOM AMPS Goodies Based on 1960s British plexi circuits that have been adapted for octal preamp tubes and built with true point-to-point construction techniques. Models include the JTX45 (pictured), with KT66 power tubes and a GZ34 rectifier; the JTX50, based on the “flag logo” transitional 50-watt model, with EL34 power tubes and a GZ34 rectifier; and the JMX50, based on the late ’60s/early ’70s 50-watt plexi. Price $2,000 and…

“I’VE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THE LESS YOU THINK ABOUT IT, THE BETTER THE OUTCOME IS. This is our ninth studio album, and it’s not easy to keep the music fresh and genuine sounding. If I start wondering if fans are going to like a song or how they might react, it’ll throw me off track. It’s not like I don’t care. Of course I care. But I just do whatever comes naturally and hope for the best. I hope that people like it.” This M.O., as articulated by Children of Bodom guitarist and leader Alexi Laiho, is working out pretty well for the Finnish melodeath metal band. Since the band’s inception in the early ’90s, Laiho and company have seen bigger and bigger tours, an ever-growing fanbase, and…

BECAUSE INTERVALS AND MELODIC motifs can be represented numerically, it is possible to adapt them to mathematical sequences. There are two types of sequences—“intervallic,” which utilize two-note intervals, and “motivic,” which utilize longer motifs. There are also two subdivisions of each: “diatonic,” where each step of the sequence uses only notes from a single parent scale, and “parallel,” where each step of the sequence uses the same intervallic or motivic motion without adjustment. Like intervallic cycles, sequences and their permutations introduce all possibilities of melodic motion. Ex. 1 shows two fingerings each for the seven diatonic interval sequences inherent to the C major scale and its modes. Play each one as written (ascending), in reverse (descending), and then transpose them to all 12 keys. Reversing the order of notes in…

COMMON WISDOM WOULD recommend that you don’t mess with perfection, but Framus can’t seem to keep from continually retooling its impeccable construction formula. These are guitars that are typically so exquisitely built that it’s almost a downer to review them, because there are only so many superlatives you can use before readers start thinking you’ve either lost your critical footing, or are somehow on the Framus payroll. Well, we’re not—taking kickbacks from shadowy agents of Framus, that is—nor am I comfortable believing that myself and the other GP editors have been rendered incapable of credible and unbiased product evaluations. But one lives by perceptions in our imperfect world, and, let’s face it, our only real check-and-balance for all the excellent Framus reviews published by this magazine is for readers to…

“MERRY CHRISTMAS, TERRY.” “Gee, Mom and Dad, it’s a Sears Silvertone. Um, you shouldn’t have. Really. You shouldn’t have.” “Well, Merry Frickin’ Christmas, you little ingrate!” If you were a guitar-obsessed youngster during the musical British Invasion of the early ’60s, you’d consider yourself lucky to get any electric guitar for the holidays—no matter what the brand, or whether it came from Sears, JC Penny, or Montgomery Ward. But, really, you could have done way worse than opening a gift box and seeing this Teisco ET-460 K4L back in the wild, experimental days of the 1960’s guitar boom. The 1967 ET-460 (a.k.a. “Model 1437”) was manufactured in Japan by Teisco and sold through Sears department stores wearing the Silvertone brand. Also known as the “Sharkfin,” this model was a more…