Innehållsförteckning för May 2019 från Guitar Player

BETWEEN HIS ORGANICALLY thick sustaining guitar tone and ear-catching note selection, Robin Trower is one of a few guitarists whose signature can be identified within a few seconds of hearing him play. He’s never been one to follow the obvious route in his soloing, choosing to energize his blues phrases with unexpected twists and an emotive quality that wrings the most from every single note. His career has been long, starting with the British R&B band the Paramounts in 1962 and continuing in 1967 with Procol Harum, the progressive-rock act with whom he made five albums before launching his own successful solo career in 1973. After hitting pay dirt with 1974’s Bridge of Sighs, Trower and his band racked up three more Gold albums, and he’s been going strong ever…

JEFFREY LEE CAMPBELL was just starting out as a session guitarist in the mid 1980s when he landed the kind of gig musicians dream of: performing on a pair of world tours with Sting. The 15-month, 180-plus-show stint ran from 1987 to ’88 and comprised tours for Sting’s second solo studio album, …Nothing Like the Sun, and Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now! benefit concerts. Armed with a pair of Zion Strats, a Mesa/Boogie Mark III and a Roland GP-8 rackmount processor, Campbell hit the road, visiting several continents, where Sting and the band shared stages with heavy hitters like Bruce Springsteen and Peter Gabriel. Along the way, the guitarist was praised in the music press for his searing original solos and solid groove. Reflecting on his quick rise, Campbell jokes,…

PEOPLE WHO KNOW just enough to be dangerous sometimes consider true bypass a sham. They cite pedalboard designer Pete Cornish’s (accurate) statement that “‘true bypass’ functionality… can create dreadful problems with a system that uses many pedals,” primarily because of interactions between pedals and long cable runs. However, my main takeaway from his article “The Case Against True Bypass” is that adding a buffer between the guitar and effects chain can eliminate the need for true bypass. While I agree with this (which is why I’ve suggested using a buffer between your guitar and effects since the mid ’70s), there are still some situations where true bypass is preferable. Standard bypassing (Fig. 1) switches the output jack from the effect circuitry’s output to the effect circuitry’s input (which also connects…

“THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT ROCKABILLY RIFFS THAT MAKES THEM DIFFERENT FROM OTHER KINDS OF RIFFS,” Brian Setzer says. “When I hear a rock riff, I hear something that’s very tied to the drums. There’s a funky aspect to the way it works. But a great rockabilly riff operates on so many levels. I hear blues, country and jazz. I hear big bands and horn melodies. There’s a lot of colors going on. I guess that’s why I’ve found rockabilly so appealing. It’s a limitless art form.” Some artists are tourists of multiple genres, but Setzer is more like an explorer, going deep into subcategories such as roots-rock, bluegrass, doo-wop, jump blues and hillbilly jazz. With uncanny prescience, he kickstarted the ’90s neo-swing revival when he formed his eponymous Orchestra in 1994,…

STEVIE D. IS A long way from California when he calls in to Guitar Player one afternoon in February. In fact, the guitarist is backstage at a club in Nottingham, England, about 130 miles north of London, where he’s getting ready to take the stage with Buckcherry for the latest stop on their current European tour. After tonight, it’s on to Germany, Switzerland and Italy. From there, he’ll be crisscrossing the globe pretty much nonstop for the remainder of 2019. “Immediately after this run, we’re home for a few days, and then we’re out on the road in the U.S. through the summer,” Stevie says. “Then we head back to Europe for some festivals, and after that it’s back to the States for more dates. By the end of the…

ACCLAIMED BLUEGRASS GUITAR virtuoso Molly Tuttle earned the Instrumentalist of the Year award at the 2018 Americana Music Awards on the strength of her 2017 debut release, Rise. The crowd-funded EP showed off her lightning-fast flatpicking technique, but for her new full-length release, When You’re Ready (Compass), Tuttle puts the focus on defining her unique musical voice. “On Rise, I made sure there were flatpicking features,” Tuttle says. “But for When You’re Ready I was more concerned with creating interesting guitar parts for songs that make my own stylistic statement.” When GP included Tuttle in its September 2017 “Youthquake” issue spotlighting fresh talents, she had just released Rise and was on her way to winning several prestigious awards. In addition to the 2018 Americana Music Awards honor, she became the…

LAST MONTH, I discussed the basic gear requirements for a digital home recording setup, with a focus on the needs of acoustic guitarists. This month, I’ll discuss a few handy accessories that can make your acoustic recording experience more ergonomic and enjoyable. With all the consideration that must be given to recording gear, supplemental gear is often overlooked, but it can pay huge dividends for your workflow once you begin tracking and mixing, which we’ll delve into in further columns. Here are a few affordable accessories that can simplify your life while you multitask as player, engineer and producer. CAPTAIN’S CHAIR Recording sessions can last for hours, and sitting for any great length of time requires a comfortable and ergonomically sound chair. Of course it should be cushioned and have…

IT’S HIGH TIME somebody made a signature guitar for the incomparable Greg Koch. Reverend did just that with its new Gristlemaster, which was released this past January at Winter NAMM. The Gristlemaster features a korina body that’s a bit larger than a standard Tele’s and has a raised center section as well as a small chamber under the pickguard. The Blucifer paint job and cream binding look damn fine (other colors are Wow Red and Pow Yellow), and the roasted-maple neck attaches with six bolts and carries 22 frets and Reverend Pin-Lock tuners, so named because turning a thumbwheel on the back of the machine pushes a steel pin up though the post to lock the string in place. The headstock also sports the company’s own patent-pending Triple-Tree string tree,…

SOMETIMES THE GEAR gods seem to be listening to our musical wishes. That’s how it felt when L.R. Baggs announced at the 2019 Winter NAMM show it was adding a tap-tempo delay and a chorus pedal to its Align Series of stompboxes for acoustic players. Baggs’ initial suite of four units, introduced at the 2018 show, included two Editors’ Pick winners: the Align Session compression/gain pedal and the Align Reverb. Like the other Align pedals, these have an acoustic look, thanks to their stained-wood graphics. Delay, the darkest of the pedals, resembles ebony, while the Chorus has more of a walnut appearance. Both feature a tone control that adjusts the brightness or darkness of just the effect, not your guitar’s signal. Each pedal runs on nine volts via power adaptor…

PLENTY OF post–Stevie Ray Vaughan guitarists can approximate the blues virtuoso’s tone and style. What they largely lack is his ability to attack every note as if it might be their last. J.D. Simo sounds nothing like the Texas legend, but his guitar work has the same urgency and ferocity. His performances exhibit his go-for-broke style of playing and singing, as well as a relentless musical exploration that alludes to British power trios, southern rock, psychedelic soul and, most recently, the Grateful Dead. That adventurous spirit has been in evidence on Simo’s studio albums, including his latest, Off at 11 (Crows Feet). “I originally wanted to make a traditional ’50s-style blues record,” Simo says of the new release. “I started working in my basement with gear that would yield the…

FENDER’S HUMBLY STYLISH Mustang was a popular “student” model of the 1960s that saw use with some big-name artists. As one of the more affordable “genuine vintage Fender guitars” in the ’80s and ’90s, Mustangs were snapped up and hot-rodded by punk, grunge, indie-rock and alt-rock players who were in search of punchier, more powerful sounds than the original, fairly weak single-coil pickups could provide. As a result, the model roared back into popularity. However, an original Mustang — such as our featured instrument from ’66 — can be an excellent and expressive guitar before you inflict a single tweak upon it. The Mustang was unveiled in 1964 at the tail end of Fender’s pre-CBS years in an effort to upgrade the company’s beginner and student lines. Previously, in 1956,…

RELEASED IN 1978, Of Mist and Melting (ECM) was Bill Connors’ second solo record. His first, 1975’s Theme to the Gaurdian [sic], was similar compositionally, but trimmed down, with Bill on acoustic and some overdubbing. The more elaborate Of Mist and Melting is expanded with Jack DeJohnette on drums, Gary Peacock on bass and Jan Garbarek on tenor saxophone. Of Mist and Melting exudes atmosphere and features compositions that have a linear tonality rather than a traditional A-A-B-A form. The standout tracks to me are “Face in the Water,” “Not Forgetting” and “Unending.” Interestingly, these pieces remind me of Segovia’s underrated original works, in particular “Neblina” and the third piece in Cinco Anecdotas. That both of these Segovia compositions could fit in perfectly on Of Mist and Melting gives merit to…

LIKE MOST GREAT guitar techs, Tyler Sweet’s main goal during a show is to be onstage as little as possible. But when your boss is rockabilly rebel Brian Setzer, you can’t always predict what’s going to happen when the house lights go down, as Sweet discovered during one of his first European tours with the Stray Cats. “It was 2007 or so, and we were doing rehearsals in Balboa, Spain,” Sweet says. “I had finally succeeded in getting Brian on a wireless, which meant I wouldn’t have to run out onstage to chase cable anymore while he was performing. And I had that wireless working perfectly. “But the day before the first show, Brian says, ‘Hey, Ty, I’ll be on a cable tomorrow, right?’ I guess he likes things the…

AS A YOUNG boy growing up in 1960s suburban New Jersey, Chip Sgro acquired his first guitar in a very 1960s way: by collecting S&H Green Stamps at the checkout counter of his local grocery store and redeeming them for his reward: a plastic, yellow-and-red nylon-string guitar that came complete with a battery-operated amplifier “the size of a Pop-Tarts box,” he says. Sgro no longer has that prized guitar, but that’s okay — he has many others. In fact, today, Sgro, a corporate lawyer in Manhattan, owns a veritable stable of six-string beauties, including 1950s and ’60s Gretsches, ’30s and ’40s Gibsons, ’60s Silvertones and Guilds, and an assortment of unique Strats, Les Pauls, Teles and more. His collection is the culmination of a lifelong passion for music and guitars.…

LAST MONTH WE presented the first part of our lesson in navigating the last four bars of a blues progression — the so-called “blues turnaround” — in the styles of T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, Albert King, Peter Green and Eric Clapton. We conclude our study this month with a look at how guitar greats Carlos Santana, Gary Moore, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robben Ford and Larry Carlton create soulful and harmonically effective melodies in their turnarounds, adding melodic and harmonic interest and resolution that leads the song back to the start of a new verse. As we saw last month, a turnaround is usually improvised and generally occurs in the last two bars of a blues or jazz standard. In the context of a 12-bar blues progression, the vocal melody typically…

GIVEN THE CURRENT popularity of mice that roar, Marshall looks to be onto some winners with its British-made, new-for-2019 Studio Series amps. Each reconfigures the most significant designs from two distinguished periods in the company’s history: The Studio Vintage SV20C nods to the hallowed Plexi of the late ’60s, while the Studio Classic SC20C is based on the JCM800 2204 of the ’80s. Both bring their predecessors into 20-watt class with lower voltages on their dual-EL34 output tubes (which are capable of producing 60 watts per pair) rather than using smaller EL84 or 6V6 tubes (Marshall did much the same with the offshore-built Origin 20 last year). Each also has three 12AX7 preamp tubes and solid-state rectification, all packed into your choice of a decidedly cute head or a combo…

THE TELECASTER HAS always been a versatile guitar, and Fender has upped the ante in that department with the Acoustasonic Telecaster. This hollowbody design features a body with mahogany back and sides and a solid Lutz spruce top (a naturally occurring hybrid of Sitka and white spruce). The body also has a patent-pending String Instrument Resonance System (SIRS) that’s designed to give it better acoustic performance than you’d expect from a thin-bodied instrument. Look into the soundhole and you’ll see that instead of being just a hole in the top, it’s more like a short cylinder that extends downward until there’s only about half an inch of space between it and the back of the body. Clearly, there’s some sonic voodoo going on within this transverse-braced chamber, and the result…

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“I REALLY LEARNED A LOT FROM PRINCE, INCLUDING HOW TO GET THE BEST OUT OF EACH BAND MEMBER” “THERE’S NOTHING QUITE like the sound of two electric guitars through two loud amps,” exclaims former Prince guitarist Donna Grantis. “It’s amazing. And for that other player to have been Prince was such an inspiring experience.” Grantis is best known for performing in Prince’s groups 3rdeyegirl and New Power Generation from 2012 to 2016. After this impressive co-lead work, Guitar Player placed her among “50 Sensational Female Guitarists” in its May 2017 issue. Now, at long last, the Canadian musician is stepping out to release her debut album, Diamonds & Dynamite (eOne Music), which was recorded over a mere two days in Minneapolis. Inspired by the time Grantis spent working with her…

BACK IN 2005, I caught up with Kathy Valentine, whom I became friends with when I lived in Austin. Kathy was well known for her years as bass player for the Go-Go’s, but when I met her she was stepping out front to play lead guitar for the BlueBonnets, which eventually became the Delphines. I had grown up with the Go-Go’s and was fascinated by their history, but back then I never knew that the cute dancing bass player was such a cool guitarist with a vision all her own. Were you a guitar player before the Go-Go’s? I was. At the time, I had just moved to L.A. and was trying to make it. The Go-Go’s had gotten popular, and when they asked me to play with them, I…

The Italian guitar builders of the 1950s and ’60s were ahead of their time. I remember lamenting as a kid that my favorite psychedelic bands played such bland-looking guitars. The light shows, the fashions, the album covers and the amazing music were all so forward thinking, but more often than not the guitars they used were tobacco sunburst Gibson ES-335s and Gretsches. Occasionally, someone would wield the teardrop-shaped Vox VI and, of course, Cream-era Clapton had his Gibson SG painted in psychedelic colors by the Dutch design collective the Fool. But let’s face it: If any of those musical visionaries had played the Italian-made Meazzi Hollywood Zodiac featured here, that brand would today be cemented in rock and roll history. Like the Hagstrom, Vox, Framus and Italian EKO guitars of…

“GUY WAS LINING UP A SHOT AND I WAS IN HIS LINE OF SIGHT. HE LOOKED UP, AND THE FIRST THING HE SAID TO ME WAS, ‘NICE HAT’” WHEN STEVE EARLE was an aspiring musician still in his teens, he was fortunate to be taken under the wings of two legendary artists who had a significant impact on him as he was learning the craft of songwriting. The first was country-folk singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, whom Earle met in Houston, in the early ’70s. The other was Guy Clark, another Texan, like Earle and Van Zandt, who was 14 years older than Earle but just starting to establish his own career as a recording artist. Clark gave Earle his first big break, helping the younger guitarist land a music publishing…

IT HAS BEEN said that the most efficient means of getting from point A to point B is to travel in a straight line. Most guitar players cling tenaciously to this way of thinking when crafting leads, opting to move through scales and arpeggios in a linear or straight-line fashion. This limits us to just two forms of movement: stepwise motion — moving from one scale tone to the next available one above or below it on the same string — or jumping to other close scale tones available on an adjacent string, usually two, three or four scale steps away from our starting note. While this can be an effective and useful approach to making melody on the guitar, it can also be creatively stifling. After all, if you…

STRYMON IS NO stranger to delay pedals. The company’s current lineup includes several effect units that recreate everything from tape echo (El Capistan) to tape saturation and double-tracking (Deco) to a vast range of echo and delay flavors (Timeline). Strymon’s latest offering in this realm is Volante, a feature-studded pedal that delivers three takes on the mechanical echo machines of the 1960s and ’70s. Volante’s emulations include magnetic drum echo, tape echo and studio-quality reel-to-reel echo, along with a vintage spring reverb emulation, a looper and a thorough set of sound-sculpting controls. There’s a lot to talk about here, so let’s start off with a look at each style of echo on offer. Strymon had the famed Binson Echorec in mind with its drum delay emulation, and not just with…

I JUST SAW my very first Tascam Portastudio selling online for more money than this magic box before you. Think about that, and then give thanks for the amazing recording capabilities we routinely take for granted these days. Case in point: the brand-new AXE I/O from IK Multimedia. It offers a bunch of guitar-friendly features that could streamline your recording process, along with an impressive bundle of software that can make your tracks sound great. The AXE I/O is a sleek little box that tips the scales at just under three pounds. It’s ergonomically pleasing, and all its knobs, switches and jacks provide a reassuring sense of quality. Integrating the AXE I/O into my existing Windows 10/Cakewalk by BandLab setup was simple, and downloading and launching all the cool software…