Innehållsförteckning för November 2020 från Guitar Player

IT’S TIME TO HIT THE WOODSHED! Guitar Player and its sister publications Guitar World and Bass Player have begun the search for the Guitarist of the Year. The categories for this year’s contest include Electric Guitarist, Acoustic Guitarist, Bass Guitarist, Young Guitarist (17 and under) and Guitar Teacher of the Year. In addition to walking away with prizes supplied by sponsors, winners will be featured in Guitar Player, Guitar World and Bass Player, and they’ll get plenty of YouTube and online exposure. In fact, videos of the finals from the past two years’ contests have generated more than four million views. Finalists will be selected by the magazines’ editors and star judges. This year’s panel includes Molly Tuttle and Kaki King for the Acoustic Division; John Petrucci, John 5 and Nita…

FOR MANY GUITARISTS, the ultimate dream is to join a great band, land some hit songs and become a star. For other players, the dream is less about individual stardom and more about building a decades-long career touring, composing and recording with superstars. If working with legends has ever interested you, then session guitar ace, touring veteran, producer, singer and solo artist Vernon Ice Black should be an absolute hero to you. His guitar adventures span more genres and great artists than we have room to print here, though suffice to say he’s worked with Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius, Chaka Khan, Kenny Loggins, Whitney Houston (that’s Black playing lead guitar in Houston’s “So Emotional” video), Steve Winwood, Busta Rhymes, Celine Dion, India Arie and Stevie Wonder…

IT’S NOT SURPRISING if your acoustic guitar, or dry electric guitar, sounds a bit “dull” when its signal is compressed. Low frequencies are stronger than high frequencies, and they typically trigger a compressor to act upon the signal. When it does, high frequencies are compressed along with the lower frequencies that trigged the compressor. Although you can boost the high frequencies with EQ to regain what’s been lost, a more natural solution is to compress only the lower frequencies (and reduce their gain somewhat), while leaving the higher frequencies uncompressed so that they ring out above the compressed sound. Let’s examine four main ways to do this and the pros and cons to each. Multiband Compression Multiband compressors split the guitar signal into multiple frequency bands, each with its own…

SLANTED AND ENCHANTED PAVEMENT (1992) “Slanted and Enchanted was like our coming out party. We could finally tell our parents, ‘Mom, I’m in a band and it’s going to be okay.’ [laughs] I was living in Brooklyn, or maybe Jersey City, and I went back home to Stockton, California, for Christmas break, and I just kind of bashed out the songs. I brought it back to New York and played it for the guys, and they were like, ‘This is really good, Steve. Good job!’ Pavement had done some EPs and gotten some good attention from the fanzine community, but this was the start of the band as a business proposition. Matador put it out, and the record became a bit of a cult hit. The band was still sort…

THOUGH THE SMITHS lasted a mere five years, from 1982 to ’87, they may be one of the most influential rock acts of their time. Much of this acclaim stems from the indelible fretwork of guitarist Johnny Marr. Influenced by everything and everyone from Motown to Jimi Hendrix to African highlife music, Marr’s playing shifted the focus from the massive blues-based riffs of ’70s rock guitar to a more nuanced approach that combined the chime of ’60s jangle-pop bands with the pared-down musicality of players like Nile Rodgers and Keith Richards. After the Smiths’ breakup, Marr went on to play with Talking Heads, Billy Bragg and Pet Shop Boys, among others, and launched a successful solo career, influencing guitarists like Jonny Greenwood and Noel Gallagher. In this month’s style lesson,…

Green Thoughts Your Blues issue [September 2020] was a real treat. The British blues revival, in particular, influenced my guitar playing. Records by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Rory Gallagher and the Jeff Beck Group were worn out by being played to the wee hours each day. I’m sure you will receive copious correspondence regarding who was left out of the recent issue. Can’t please everyone, all the time. You did give [Peter Green] an entire sentence when picturing Fleetwood Mac at the bottom of page 49. I believe we owe him much more than that. I know I do. If not for Peter Green, I’d be much less of a guitar player. His tone and taste are unrivaled. — CHUCK GARDNER I was very pleased to see your cover story on…

SADLER VADEN’S FIRST big break came when he landed a sideman gig with southern rockers Drivin N Cryin. Since 2013, he’s been a guitar foil to Jason Isbell in the 400 Unit. Vaden’s love of British Invasion rock and roll, Big Star, Tom Petty and Oasis is evident on his new solo album, Anybody Out There (Thirty Tigers). Here are the top five riffs that influenced him. “AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING” THE BEATLES “I fell in love with the songs on Revolver. You could tell the Beatles were experimenting and getting better as musicians. This was one of the songs that really caught my attention. It took a long time for me to learn it, but when I did, I felt like I had reached a new place with…

STEVE MORSE HAS a long history with Guitar Player. Back in 1981, readers voted Dixie Dregs’ Industry Standard the year’s Best Guitar Album, while Morse himself received Best Overall Guitarist, an accolade he won for five years in a row, at which point he entered the Guitar Player Gallery of Greats. In 1984, “The Introduction,” the title track from his solo debut album, was featured on our flexi disc Soundpage, giving readers a chance to enjoy his unique combination of melodic invention and insane chops. It was the age of shred, and Morse was ahead of the game, thanks to his success with the Dregs, who combined southern rock, fusion and prog in a distinctive sonic stew. In our present age of socially conscious rebranding, it’s interesting to recall why…

I DON’T WANT to rock the boat, but to me Fleetwood Mac never meant Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham or the tedious media fascinations with the band members’ relationship conflicts. To me, Fleetwood Mac meant one thing: Then Play On — one of the greatest blues-rock records ever made. Then Play On was the group’s third album, released on the Reprise label in 1969. This gatefold record is hard evidence of Fleetwood Mac’s growth from an excellent blues band to a blues-based act that defied description. The group at this point featured Peter Green and Danny Kirwan, each on guitar and vocals, Jeremy Spencer (whose only contribution here is piano on “Oh Well”), and the world-class rhythm section of bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood. “Coming Your Way” opens the…

MICK TAYLOR’S 1 958 Les Paul Standard isn’t the most famous example of that model, but as the ’Burst that Charlie Watts is holding aloft on the cover of Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!, it’s one of the most seen. Taylor revealed that the guitar had an aftermarket Bigsby B7 Vibrato when he purchased it, but he fitted the guitar with a factory-stock nickel-plated stop tailpiece, which is how it appeared during his tenure in the Rolling Stones, from 1969 to 1974. The guitar had its original Kluson keystone tuners at the time, but these were later changed out for Grovers. As it happens, that isn’t the only modification Taylor made. Apparently, he swapped out its double-black PAF pickups at some point. The guitar, which is now one of many Stones…

IT IS MAY 1966, and the Decca Studios are quaking. Work stops. Employees wince. In the canteen, the seismic shudder rattles teacups and prompts angry objections. Little do the complainants realize that this racket is history being made. Had anyone been brave enough to enter the studio and fight through the wall of sound, they would have found a 21-year-old Eric Clapton at the eye of the storm, toting a Les Paul, driving a Marshall into the red and tracking the songs that would light the fuse of the blues boom on an album titled Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton — or as it came to be known, Beano, for its cover image in which Clapton is reading the comic of the same name. “Nobody had witnessed someone coming into the…

WHILE LOCKDOWN HAS prevented many of us from doing some of our favorite things, ruby-crowned bluegrass princess Molly Tuttle used the time to select an eclectic batch of covers, learn how to use Pro Tools and track her new album, …But I’d Rather Be With You (Compass). She worked remotely with Los Angeles–based producer Tony Berg, whose session-guitar, arrangement and production credits include Peter Gabriel, Eric Johnson and Charlie Sexton. Tuttle lifted the poignant album title from a lyric in “Standing on the Moon,” from the Grateful Dead’s final studio album, 1989s Built to Last. It’s a nod to her roots in the San Francisco Bay Area, but Tuttle adopted Nashville as her home many moons ago, and in March the combination of a devastating tornado tearing through Music City…

THESE RE CENT LEARN columns have been preparation for a launch into the glorious fingerstyle galaxy. It’s a world away from playing with a plectrum, or even hybrid picking, because the powerful thumb and index finger are now available as primary pluckers. New learning curves lie around every corner, but the immediate goal is to use the thumb or index fingernail like a plectrum to strum a chord or pluck a succession of single notes as we work toward tackling multi-digit picking patterns. HANG LOOSE A fingerstylist may approach the strings from wildly different angles at times, but there’s always some root position. Your own “hand hang” boils down to what feels most comfortable in your primary style. For example, a classical hand approaches the strings from a practically perpendicular…

IT’S HARD T O believe Steve Lukather has been consistently playing his namesake Music Man guitars since 1993. Although it was initially equipped with two single-coil pickups and one humbucker (HSS), in 2012 a twin-humbucking model designated the HH was added and has been available ever since. Lukather calls this signature model “a hybrid of an old Les Paul and great Strat,” which is on the mark for a guitar that feels so lively and vibrational, and is loaded with tone and playability-enhancing elements at every turn. Let’s start with the roasted, figured-maple neck with a soft V-shape that wears nothing but a thin finish of gunstock oil. This great-feeling stick is topped with a 12-inchradius rosewood ’board carrying 22 polished, wide low-profile frets. Music Man has always been about…

THIS TRIO OF new overdrive pedals designed for low-, medium- and high-gain applications is intended to let players get the tones needed for everything from blues to hard rock and metal. The Cleo, Dynaplex and Gold Mine are made in Mesa’s Petaluma, California, factory and feature die-cast aluminum housings, true-bypass switching and low-current-draw circuitry that can be powered by a nine-volt battery or external power. We tested the boxes with a selection of guitars that included a Gibson ’59 Historic Les Paul, a Reverend Gristlemaster and a Hamer Newport, along with a Fender Deluxe Reverb and Boogie’s latest 1x10 combo version of the Mark 5:25. CLEO As the lowest gain of the three, the Cleo could be thought of as Mesa’s spin on a Tube Screamer, and, as such, it…

“IT’S THE FIR ST song I ever wrote,” Brian Setzer says of “Runaway Boys,” the Stray Cats’ debut single. “It really summed up everything I was trying to capture, which was my drive to write a new song in the rockabilly style, rather than just the same old I - IV - V thing.” “Runaway Boys” not only put a spin on the well-worn rockabilly formula, it also scored the U.S. group a Top-10 hit when it was released in the U.K. in November 1980 as the first single from their forthcoming, eponymous debut album. At the time, the Stray Cats were London transplants, having realized that the U.K., with its thriving rock and roll scene, would be more receptive to their punk-fueled rockabilly. The group’s debut album quickly scored…

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“EVERYBODY WAS THRASHING OUT MAJOR BARRE CHORDS, BUT THE FIRST THING YOU HEAR ON PINK FLAG IS A SLOW SONG IN DMINOR” WIRE HAVE NEVER been easy to categorize. Rising from the British punk explosion in 1977, the band achieved critical acclaim with their debut album, Pink Flag, which showcased their uniquely off-kilter take on rock and pop music traditions. But Wire’s sound evolved quickly from the spiky, subversive, stiletto-like thrusts of their debut album into longer and more ambitious textural pieces where keyboards and echo-drenched guitars fought for space in a sonic landscape sporadically punctured by sharp, angular jabs of guitar. Remarkably, Pink Flag had a huge influence on U.S. hardcore artists like Minutemen, Fugazi and Henry Rollins, while indie-rock bands like Sonic Youth and Guided By Voices have…

FOR THE PAST several years, enthusiasm for vintage gold-foil pickups has remained one of the most consistent micro-trends on the electric guitar scene. Thousands of players have discovered the sonic appeal of these components from B-list and catalog-grade guitars, but rarely is this pickup adequately explained and, hence, fully understood. As a result, the humble gold-foil has acquired a mystique. Meanwhile, a pair of originals are now often worth more than the entry-level guitar they came with. Lusting after vintage pickups is nothing new. Guitarists have long paid a premium for pre-CBS single-coil Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster pickups. Early 1950s Gibson P-90s have long been prized, and a good pair of original PAFs from the late part of that decade might cost you as much as a low-mileage used car…

IT MIGHT HAVE been the first rock and roll tour of any real consequence. Today, if it’s remembered at all, it’s usually for the body count left in its wake. But Bill Wyman recalls the Rolling Stones’ 1969 American tour for a different reason. “In 1969, they listened,” the former Stones bassist says. “It was the first time that the audiences had actually listened to us.” Woodstock may be the musical event of 1969 that defined a generation, but the Rolling Stones’ 1969 American tour set the standard for the future of rock and roll concerts. Launched in November of that year, a little more than two months after Woodstock, the cross-country jaunt isn’t regarded with the same reverence as the festival. Fans know it as the tour captured on…

WHEN THE GUITARIST known as the King of the Blues says, “He has the sweetest tone I ever heard. He was the only one who gave me cold sweats,” you know it’s high praise. And that’s exactly what B.B. King said about the late Peter Green, who passed away on July 25. A major figure in the late-1960s British blues boom, Green was considered by many to be the best electric blues guitarist of his time. “Peter in his prime in the ’60s was just without equal,” said John Mayall, who hired him as the Bluesbreakers’ guitarist when Eric Clapton left to form Cream. For a few years it seemed Green would be among a small group of guitarists to shape the direction of blues-rock. He formed Fleetwood Mac in…

STEPHEN MALKMUS WILL always be most associated with the skewed, slacker indie-rock sound he spearheaded — and, if we’re being honest, more or less perfected — with Pavement in the 1990s. But while that outfit called it a day as a recording unit at the close of the 20th century, the now 54-year-old singer, songwriter and guitarist has never stopped creating music. Since then, Malkmus has released a steady stream of records with his band the Jicks, as a solo artist and as a collaborator with acts like Silver Jews. And in the past three years alone, he’s unveiled a trio of wildly divergent albums: 2018’s electric-guitar-centric Jicks effort, Sparkle Hard, 2019’s synth-and-drum-machine-drive Groove Denied, and now, the hushed Traditional Techniques (Matador/Domino). This newest release is another left turn for…

THE CONVENTIONAL ROLES of the lead and rhythm guitarist are quite clear: The rhythm guitarist plays chords that accompany the lead guitarist, who plays the usually higher, faster and “more important” single-note material. This dichotomy, however, is not always true or musically desirable, and the guitar’s long history includes many players who have chosen to explore the middle ground — “soloing” using a variety of chords for both harmonic support and textural variation. It may at first seem overwhelming to consider soloing with chords when it’s hard enough to learn chords and scales separately, especially considering the guitar’s asymmetrical tuning (with the G and B strings being tuned a major 3rd apart while all the other pairs of adjacent strings are tuned in perfect 4ths). And it must be noted…

THE FENDER LEAD series is a little bit like the Beatles’ U.S. Yesterday and Today album, or Queen’s Innuendo, or Led Zeppelin’s In Through the Out Door. It might not be your favorite thing they’ve ever done, but it’s really good and holds up far better after all these years than we might have thought back in the day. And that is a great thing. To say Fender has been embracing its past of late is somewhat laughable. This is, after all, a company that is defined by its history. But when we think of Fender’s most noteworthy guitars, we obviously think about the Strat and Tele, making it easy to overlook or outright dismiss variations on those themes. But the fact is, Fender had a bunch of interesting designs…

THE FIRST GENERATION of teenagers to idolize Eddie Van Halen’s roaring brown sound, fiery and fluid speed phrasing, and trademark striped Charvel superStrats are mostly in their 50s now, graying a bit and wearing suits more often than spandex. And while owning a built-for-speed heavy-metal guitar, with all the requisite flashy appointments, is fine for kicks, the bulk of what passes for metal-performance guitars these days is just not — how to say it? — “age-appropriate” anymore. A generation later, though, Charvel — the San Dimas legends who arguably kicked off the entire superStrat phenomenon in the late 1970s — bridge the divide with the excellent Pro-Mod series. The Pro-Mod guitars pair hot-rod performance features — including Gotoh trem/tailpieces, a wide neck radius and a hot humbucking bridge pickup —…

“WHAT’S THAT?” “THAT’S cool!” “How much does it cost?” In nearly 20 years of reviewing gear, I’ve never seen another musical product arouse so much interest. What typically follows every such exchange is some version of “I want one.” I’m not surprised, because I said the very same thing when Fender unveiled its new line of Fullerton ukuleles at the 2020 NAMM Show. When I learned the Fullerton Ukes would hit the street for about 200 bucks, I figured everyone would want one for themselves, for their kids or for a music-loving friend or acquaintance. I mean, what’s not to like about ukuleles shaped like classic Fender guitars? While these concert-sized Fullertons shaped like Teles, Strats and Jazzmasters are not the first-ever guitar-ukes, Fender deserves kudos for getting a lot…