Innehållsförteckning för July 2019 från Guitar Player

WANT TO SHOW the world you’ve got what it takes to be a guitar star? Then Guitarist of the Year 2019 is the guitar talent search you’ve been waiting for. Presented by Guitar Player in association with Guitar World, Guitarist, Total Guitar, Guitar Techniques, Bass Player and MusicRadar, the long-running contest will give talented amateur guitarists the opportunity to show their skills to a panel of star judges. The 2019 Guitarist of the Year finalists will be selected by a panel of star judges that includes Steve Lukather, Tosin Abasi and John Petrucci, with more judges to be confirmed soon. The finals take place September 21 and 22 at the U.K. Guitar Show in London. The 2019 event includes categories for Guitarist of the Year, Young Guitarist of the Year,…

KIRK DOUGLAS — or “Captain” Kirk Douglas, as he’s affectionately known — is certainly aware that his name is something of a head-turner, but for his first solo album, Turbulent Times (Whole Leap Records), the longtime Roots guitarist is billing himself as Hundred Watt Heart. “I’m not trying to be tricky or anything,” he explains, “but I would really like the music to stand on its own and be disassociated with the actor. If I called it the Kirk Douglas Project or something like that, it would get a little confusing. So it’s Hundred Watt Heart. That makes it easier.” As one might assume, the guitarist is partial to 100-watt amps, particularly his 1978 fawn Marshall and an assortment of Mesa/Boogie heads, but he also used a host of other…

ROSIE FLORES EXUDES mastery, passion, fun and even a bit of girlish charm when she plays guitar. During her almost four-decades-long career as a rockabilly artist, she has achieved every kind of success, including major-label deals, awards, late-night-show appearances and movie cameos (her credits include a role in director Peter Bogdanovich’s 1993 film, The Thing Called Love). The San Antonio native, who makes her home in Austin, is recognized worldwide as a rockabilly legend. She’s currently on tour in support of her latest album, Simple Case of the Blues (Last Music Company). You’ve consistently played with lots of different women. Oh, yeah. At 16, I started an all-girl group, Penelope’s Children. I thought, How cool would it be if we could play really well! Wouldn’t the guys like it? We…

I REMEMBER SEEING Jackson Browne for the first time back in the day, when the amazing David Lindley was in his band. While he could have played the most expensive guitars available, Lindley sported instruments by Teisco, National and EKO, to name a few. In the arrogant ignorance of my youth, I would have laughed at him if he hadn’t sounded so great. Since then, many other guitarists — including David Bowie, Jack White and St. Vincent, to name a few — have followed in Lindley’s footsteps by playing off-brand guitars. Heck, even EVH played a mid-’60s Teisco Spectrum V. All of which makes me wonder: Could this Japanese-made Norma EG-421 electric guitar help someone find his or her voice? WEIRDO FACTOR The shape looks rather familiar, but check out…

THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT HAS OFTEN FOUND ITS IDEAL EXPRESSION IN THE MUSIC OF THE COUNTRY’S SOUTHERN HALF. CONSIDER, THE STAX rhythm section of Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Al Jackson and Donald “Duck” Dunn, which demonstrated that two African-American and two white musicians could help artists turn out tunes that appealed to all races. With the Tedeschi Trucks Band, guitarist/vocalist Susan Tedeschi and slide genius Derek Trucks expand on that experiment with 12 performers who represent both genders and various races. On their new record, Signs (Fantasy/Concord), this crew comes together in a musical melting pot that realizes the finest aspirations of the country that spawned it. The opening tune, “Signs, High Times,” recalls another multicultural group, namely Sly and the Family Stone, while on “Walk Through This Life,” Tedeschi…

“IT WAS OUR EARS ABOVE ANYTHING ELSE. WHEN WE BROUGHT THE NEW AMP TO JIMMY, HE WAS VERY PLEASED WITH IT” FROM ANGUS YOUNG to Zakk Wylde, there is no shortage of artists with signature model guitars. But the amplifiers that often made those guitars come to life have received far less attention in the marketplace, even though the role they played in crafting groundbreaking tones may have been just as significant. Sure, Marshall has made signature models for Slash and Joe Satriani, and Fender has done likewise for Eric Clapton, George Benson, The Edge and, most recently, Chris Stapleton. But it’s fair to say that dead-nuts-accurate reissues of iconic artist amplifiers have been fewer and farther between. That changed big time in January 2019, when the Sundragon combo made…

YOU MIGHT THINK that the vast majority of rock riffs are in minor keys, but not so! A close study of the rock and pop guitar repertoire over the decades discloses a multitude of major tonality–based riffs. The major scale and its close relative, the Lydian mode, are terrific sources for creating captivating and mostly bright-sounding riffs that can evoke all sorts of emotions, ranging from love, elation and triumph to mystery and even melancholy. In this lesson, we’ll explore, arrange and deconstruct various riffs based on both the major scale and the Lydian mode. IONIAN (MAJOR-SCALE) RIFFS Throughout this lesson, the major scale will be referenced by its modal name, Ionian. As such, the C major scale (C D E F G A B) can also be called the…

THE NOTION OF a Paul Reed Smith hollowbody first crossed my path in the mid ’90s, before such a model existed, when British guitarist and early PRS adopter Brinsley Schwarz — a gifted guitar and amp tech in his own right — showed me an Artist model that he’d modified with f-holes and a chambered interior. Crazy, right? The results were enticing, and they were even more so just a couple years later, in 1998, when PRS released its Hollowbody model, later called the McCarty Hollowbody. Since then, the McCarty Hollowbody has become a prized upper-echelon model of sorts, pushing Paul Reed Smith’s ethos of precision construction and high-quality components and adornments into the realms of traditional jazz, blues and fusion tone. It’s also proven to be a reliable and…

BC AUDIO HAS been turning heads for years with super-cool racing-stripe optics, meticulous point-to-point wiring, octal preamp tubes, and bold, original designs that might be inspired by vintage ideas but clearly have their own thing going on sonically and structurally. This Bel Air 40 fits right in with that ethos for a unique take on tube-amp construction. I tested it with a Fender Stratocaster, a Music Man Majesty 6 Tiger Eye and a PRS McCarty Soapbar into a Greenback-loaded Buzz Feiten 2x12 cab. One thing that sets the Bel Air apart is its trio of Power Tube Configuration switches, which, BC Audio says, allow you to “re-wire the power section in multiple ways,” on the fly, to affect wattage, feel and tonal response. It’s a fascinating approach, and one that…

AUDIENT PLUGS ITS new Sono by declaring, “Finally, an interface for guitarists,” and that’s a nutshell description of this unit’s intentions. This hardware does much of what other two-channel, mid-level recording interfaces do to convert analog to digital and send it to your DAW of choice via high-speed USB-C at sample rates of up to 96 kHz, all while offering features that should help guitarists feel more at home and — more importantly — record usable tracks. Expanding upon Audient’s reputation for solid recording interfaces and good-sounding microphone preamps, the Sono includes two of the latter on back-panel XLR/TRS combo inputs, plus a front-panel Hi-Z guitar input that routes your signal through an actual 12AX7 preamp tube and amp-style controls for input, drive, bass, mid, treble and output. There are…

> As a singer and guitarist, Sister Rosetta Tharpe did more than anyone to forge a connection between gospel and popular music. With her impasssioned voice and twanging double-stop licks, she imbued her religious tunes with elements of jazz, blues and a joyful hard-driving rhythm. In doing so, she inspired artists like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, and helped give birth to rock and roll, soul and electric blues. > Born on March 20, 1915, in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, Rosetta began playing guitar at the age of four. She traveled with her mother, an evangelist in the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), and they eventually settled in Chicago, where Rosetta was exposed to blues and jazz. She began performing at the Roberts Temple COGIC, where she became the star…

Raid Dana’s Gear Stash! This month, we’re offering our readers a chance to win an Electro-Harmonix Grand Canyon Delay and Looper pedal. This versatile stompbox has 12 types of delay, including echo, modulated, multi-tap, reverse, tape, shimmer, doubler, looper and more! For a chance to win it, simply send an email to nbmgearcoordinator@gmail.com with “Grand Canyon” in the subject line. One lucky winner will be chosen on July 20. Note that all gear is “as is.” Thanks for playing! —DANA PARKER Class Act Thank you, Guitar Player and Richard Bienstock, for the great in-depth interview with the innovative and amazing Don Felder [GP, June 2019]. I was always of the opinion that Mr. Felder took some nasty and unfair hits throughout his career, but was impressed that even when he…

JIMMIE VAUGHAN’S REPUTATION as a premier guitar slinger stretches way back to the ’60s, when he found regional success in Texas, crossing paths with many of the big names of the time, including Jimi Hendrix. For most listeners outside Texas, Vaughan first came to prominence in the late ’70s as the killer guitarist in what was arguably the first really cool blues band in eons, the Fabulous Thunderbirds. After seven albums of no-frills, down-and-dirty blues, Vaughan left the group, made an album with his brother Stevie — 1990’s Family Style — and settled into a solo career playing blues-rock songs of his own and mixing in acclaimed collaborations with numerous blues luminaries, including a pair of albums with Omar Dykes. In recent years, though, Vaughan has made several return visits…

“THERE WAS A REAL SPECIFIC JCM800 WE WANTED, LIKE AN ’ 81 OR ’ 82. WE FOUND ONE AND IT SOUNDED KILLER” NEAR THE END of soundcheck at the Fillmore in New Orleans, where he’s opening for southern rockers Blackberry Smoke, Chris Shiflett leads his three-piece backing band through the boogie shuffle “The Hardest Lessons,” from his new solo album, Hard Lessons (East Beach Records & Tapes/Thirty Tigers). The band locks into a heady groove while Shiflett and co-guitarist Brian Whelan trade solos in a smoky extended jam, veering into psychedelia as Shiflett coaxes interstellar tones from his Les Paul with a glass slide. This isn’t the tight, twangy power pop of West Coast Town, his previous solo outing, nor is it the shredding chug of No Use for a…

EQUALIZERS AND COMPRESSORS are common guitar processors. You insert them in a track to shape the guitar’s tone and dynamics, respectively, but they can’t react intelligently to your playing. For example, if you use EQ to accent loud strumming by boosting the treble, the boost will still be present when you play softly. Multiband dynamics offer some help, because they can be used to restrict dynamics control to particular frequency bands. However, you can’t dial in the same kind of precise filtering as you can with conventional parametric equalizers. Dynamic EQ, on the other hand, combines elements of equalization and compression. It boosts (expands) or cuts (compresses) certain frequencies only if they exceed a specified threshold. Unlike a multiband compressor, dynamic EQ uses parametric equalization. You can even narrow down…

“NONE OF US COULD SAY, ‘THIS WILL BE THE LAST TOUR.’ I LOOKED OVER AT STEVEN, AND HE COULDN’T SAY IT EITHER”—JOE PERRY IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT A BAND PUSHING TOWARD ITS 50TH YEAR TOGETHER CAN STILL MANAGE TO SCALE NEW HEIGHTS — OR EVEN EXIST, FOR THAT MATTER. BUT THAT’S WHAT Aerosmith have done with Deuces Are Wild, their current show at the Park Theater in Las Vegas. The production — from the stage set to the sound quality to the performance itself — is wholly unlike anything the group has ever attempted in its long career. It is, as guitarist Brad Whitford says, “A completely new experience for this band.” Which is true, although with one small caveat. As co-guitarist Joe Perry points out, while Deuces Are Wild…

“WITH TWO STELLAR LEAD GUITAR PLAYERS IN THE BAND ALONGSIDE ME,” DEVON ALLMAN SAYS, “my best move is to go with what I know, which is based on feel, and let them shine.” The humble Allman is actually quite adept at taking a tuneful turn, or ripping up a lead break in a rough-and-tumble way. As his father, Gregg, stated in his autobiography, My Cross to Bear, “My son Devon…he can play the fuckin’ blues.” But the younger Allman is also speaking truth, as his bandmates Duane Betts and Johnny Stachela are indeed stellar guitar slingers. Betts is a melodic blues rocker who cites the three Kings —B.B., Albert and Freddie — and Mick Taylor’s Rolling Stones output as major influences. And, of course, he picked up loads of lyrical…

AS A TEENAGER, during the “bedroom practice rat” phase of my musical development, I pored obsessively over videos of my favorite guitar players, hoping to glean any tips that would help me achieve their level of musical and technical mastery. Watching the likes of Steve Vai or Eric Johnson glide through complex phrases at breakneck speeds was both inspiring and mystifying. The most beguiling element of their playing was their picking technique. While I observed that much of their phrasing was rooted in alternate (down-up) picking, some phrases seemed to involve less picking, even though they sounded as if they were picked faster. This made me wonder: How are these guys picking so fast while looking like they’re barely picking at all? The answer, as it turns out, was that…

DESIGNED TO DELIVER sounds that Townsend favors, which basically means ultra-heavy to Telecaster bright, the Stormbender is a beautifully made double-cutaway instrument with a high-gloss black finish that’s offset by an eye-shaped section of exposed flamed-maple on the top. The body contours make it very comfortable to hold seated or standing, and the way the neck flows seamlessly into the body makes it super easy to reach the entire span of the ebony fretboard, where the only marker (aside from white side dots) is Townsend’s “O” motif inlaid in pearl at the 12th position. To enhance playability, the Stormbender features a Plek treatment, which is a computer-guided process that scans, levels and dresses the frets to a high level of accuracy. The extra-tall jumbo frets are highly polished and the…

DANELECTRO RELEASED TWO new pedals at the NAMM show last January, both of which are based on unspecified stompboxes from the late ’60s. The pedals stand out visually, with aged finishes on metal enclosures (is nothing safe from a relic job these days?), and each comes with a nifty leather bag. These pedals don’t run on battery juice, and they don’t come with a nine-volt adapter either. Dano recommends its Vintage Battery 9 Volt Supply or the Snark SA-1. Common to both pedals is a little procedure (outlined in the manuals) to eliminate pop from the bypass switches: Connect DC power to the pedal, connect the in and out cables and then cycle the bypass switch six times. Note that this has to be done every time the in/out cables…

YOU CAN’T RE-INVENT the wheel, but you can rethink it to deliver a smoother, more satisfying ride. That’s what Martin endeavored to do in 2018 with the reimagined Standard Series, something the guitar maker calls “the most significant update to our flagship line in our 186-year history.” The Standard Series includes icons such as the D-35 and 000-28, the M-36 that earned an Editors’ Pick in our February 2019 issue, and the OMC-28E reviewed here. In Martin nomenclature, that means an orchestra model (same size and depth as a 000), 14 frets to the body, a cutaway for upper access, style 28 appointments and wood combination — a solid Sitka spruce top with East Indian rosewood back and sides — and onboard electronics. Global updates to the Standard Series include…

SOUND OFF! GET EXCLUSIVE NEWS. COMMENT. CRITIQUE. SHARE TIPS AND TECHNIQUES. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-NEWSLETTER. FACEBOOK.COM/GUITARPLAYERMAG TWITTER.COM/GUITARPLAYERNOW GUITARPLAYER.COM CHRISTOPHER SCAPELLITI Editor chris.scapelliti@futurenet.com ART THOMPSON Senior Editor arthur.thompson@futurenet.com JUDE GOLD Los Angeles Editor judegold@gmail.com JIMMY LESLIE Frets Editor jl@jimmyleslie.com DAVE HUNTER Gear Section & Video Contributor dhunterwordsmusic@yahoo.com ROSIE WEBBER Art Editor rosie.webber@futurenet.com…

THERE IS A new sound seeping into the world of country guitar. Drenched in slap-back delay, fuzz, reverb and tremolo, it displays more mood than chops but is firmly grounded in serious technique. Records by Lee Ann Womack, Aubrie Sellers, Andrew Combs and Elizabeth Cook feature guitar sounds closer to Daniel Lanois, Neil Young or even Sonic Youth than to Brent Mason or Dan Huff. At the forefront of this wave is Ethan Ballinger, whose edgy work on the Womack and Combs records grabs the ear, provoking a WTF reaction and the question, “How does he get away with that?” Taking a seat in his East Nashville kitchen, Ballinger attempts an answer. “My parents played in a bluegrass band called the Cluster Pluckers, so I never had a shot at…

AMID THE BE GINNER amps and guitars, crazy-but-delightful amp-in-case sets, and other C-list gear that populated the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogs of the 1960s, the Silvertone Twin 12 Model 1484 truly looked like a big-boy’s rig. Set up for use, it was a serious-minded piggyback head-and-cab arrangement, boasting (rather optimistically) 60 watts of power from two big 6L6GC output tubes, and a feature set to rival Fender’s Twin Reverb or (perhaps more comparably, given its output rating) the Pro Reverb combo or later Bandmaster Reverb. Never mind that its construction was nowhere close to Fender standards — the Twin 12 was an amp every budding 1960s rock and roller could aspire to while noodling through a little one-knob starter combo. As it happens, these amps have powered some extremely…

I PURCHASED Muddy Waters’ Chess Blues Masters Series around 1978, when I was a mere 20 years old. This great doublerecord set was originally released in 1971 as McKinley Morganfield a.k.a. Muddy Waters and is a compilation of many classic Muddy recordings spanning 1950 to 1956. At the time, I had enjoyed a few of the great bluesman’s tracks, but when I saw this album’s cartoonish cover, I knew it was the LP for me. Soon after buying it, I became a Muddy Waters disciple. I listened to him at home and when I drove, and if I was going over to a friend’s house to play Monopoly, I’d bring a Muddy Waters cassette. Basically, if I was awake, I was listening to Muddy Waters. Muddy is known as the…

SOMETIME NEAR THE END OF THE LAST MILLENNIUM, on a sprawling ranch high atop a Southern California mountain ridge overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a man finished construction of a small, mysterious building near the edge of his land. Walk up to the structure and you might have heard the hum of large motors whirring within. “He used the building to house two generators,” says producer/composer Alan Parsons, the property’s new owner. “He thought, The apocalypse is going to happen at the end of 1999; there will be no more electricity, so I’ll produce my own. He was probably generating enough to power the entire city of Santa Barbara.” Today, nearly two decades have passed since that time, when the Y2K “Millennium bug” threatened to disrupt computers everywhere and the services that…

BEING AN ACCOMPLISHED guitarist doesn’t mean much if you can’t write terrific tunes, especially when you’re blazing a troubadour trail and incorporating instrumentals. Tyler Ramsey is that rare breed of player who is brilliant on guitar and vocals, a wise wordsmith, clever with arrangements and creative in the studio. “I’ve always aimed to have my songs sound complete with just a guitar and a vocal,” Ramsey says, “even if I ultimately wind up adding a rhythm section and other layers to the recording.” After 10 years as lead guitarist for Band of Horses, Ramsey departed the group in 2017 to focus on his solo career, which dates back to his 2005 eponymous debut album. The guitarist makes his country home outside the roots-music sanctuary of Asheville, North Carolina, and his…

CHOOSING THE RIGHT mics and setting them up well is paramount to creating great acoustic recordings, since the mic is the medium that transfers your glorious guitar vibrations into electronic soundwaves. Frets checked in with producer Mikel Ross at Lucky Recording Company in Brisbane, California, where he recently worked on the fabulous Eric McFadden Does AC/DC: Acoustic Tribute album, which features myriad guitar approaches and tones. We pooled ideas to create the following information and advice. MICROPHONE SELECTION TIPS Ribbon mics as well as large-and small-diaphragm condensers are ideal for recording acoustic guitar. We’ll address dynamic mics here as well, since many players already own one, such as the ubiquitous Shure SM57 or SM58. A 57 pointed at the 12th fret will work for adding a percussive acoustic to complement…

BASED ON A ’62 Princeton that country artist Chris Stapleton has been using for years, and which carries a 12-inch speaker in place of the original 10, this new signature edition follows suit by sporting a 12-inch Eminence speaker in a solid-pine cabinet. The hand-wired circuit also mirrors the original via dual 6V6 output tubes running in fixed bias (a novel feature for a small Fender amp in the early ’60s), combined with a split-phase “cathodyne” phase inverter, which afforded the 6G2 a little more grind at lower volumes than its bigger brother, the brownface 6G3 Deluxe. The CS Edition Princeton features Schumacher transformers and Fender vintage-style “blue” tone caps, and the workmanship, done entirely in California, makes for a sturdy amp that’s easy to service. The protective metal cage…

DESIGNED FROM THE ground up to deliver the “most accurate sonic presentation of any monitors in their class,” these compact monitors from JBL feature a new coaxial driver design with a contoured woofer cone that acts as a waveguide to enhance volume. Based on the patented waveguide found in JBL’s 3-Series, 7-Series and M2 Master Reference Monitors, it also provides what JBL calls a “wide sweet spot” and the smooth on-and off-axis response for which the latest generation of JBL studio monitors are known. The 1 Series 104 monitors have a contoured low-frequency port that reportedly enables them to have the best low-frequency response in their class (down to 50 Hz). The rounded cabinets easily fit in small spaces, making these speakers well-suited to desktop recording. The master unit has…