Guitar Player

WHEN FREDDIE MER CURY passed away 30 years ago, it might have seemed like the end for Queen, the remarkable rock group he fronted. Instead, the British rock band has grown into an unstoppable phenomenon, performing onstage again since 2005 and enjoyi

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Christopher Scapelliti, [email protected] SENIOR EDITOR Art Thompson, [email protected] ART EDITOR Rosie Webber, [email protected] PRODUCTION EDITOR Jem Roberts, [email protected] LOS ANGELES

I enjoyed Tony Bacon’s tale of Eric Clapton’s missing Beano Les Paul in the March issue. That’s a thorough bit of investigative work, and the rare photos of Clapton with the guitar in hand were the crowning touch. That guitar has got to be out there

Renewals/Questions: [email protected] New Orders: [email protected] Phone: 800-289-9839 Mail: Guitar Player Subscriptions P.O. Box 2029, Langhorne, PA 19047 JACKSON MAXWELL Online and Social Media Managing Editor jackson.maxwell@futurenet.

AS IF IN some space-time-continuum-defying feat, Collings’ latest electric guitar is a reinvention of one of its longstanding models. It’s been upgraded by being back-graded, if you will, to more accurately represent a vintage classic of the late ’50

JULIEN BAKER HAS built her reputation on mesmerizing solo performances where she manipulates an arsenal of loopers and reverbs to create layers of guitar textures from her deft finger work. On her third album, Little Oblivions (Matador), that approac

MANY MUSICIANS HAVE had to cope with Covid-19’s impact on their career, but J.D. Simo had to deal with its effect on his body as well. The guitarist fully recovered to face the chore of developing tools to deal with these challenging times. In the de

HOW CAN YOU acquire a genuine 1950s Gibson Les Paul for one-fiftieth to onehundredth the price of the iconic vintage guitar? By buying the amp, of course! Like most comparable manufacturers of the day, Gibson often partnered electric guitars and ampl

FEBRUARY 9, 1964, launched an untold number of rock bands in the U.S., one of them being the Lovin’ Spoonful. That night, folk guitarist John Sebastian dropped by the Greenwich Village apartment of his friend Cass Elliot to watch the Beatles on The E

BOSTON’S SELF-TITLED debut album was released in 1976 on Epic Records and went on to become the eighth best-selling long-player in rock history. Not a bad way to start your career. I’ve loved Boston for 20-plus years, despite initially having had a c

IN 1992, BRIAN MAY set out on his own with his debut solo album, Back to the Light. Released less than a year after Freddie Mercury’s death, the album was a welcome gift to Queen fans, and May did not disappoint, delivering a strong set of tracks tha

The artist name on the single was Larry Lurex, but this languid cover of a Carole King classic was really a pre-fame Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor doing a favor for Trident Studios’ house engineer Robin Geoffrey Cable. If Phil Spector h

ANY HISTORY OF the British Invasion would be incomplete without recognition of Vic Flick, a guitarist whose name has as much sizzle as his playing. Flick made a splash on the London scene with the Bob Cort Skiffle, drawing the attention of arranger/c

YOU CAN’T LOCK Neal Schon down. Sure, his band, Journey — one of the highest-grossing rock groups of all time — has put touring on pause as the world struggles with its first major pandemic in a century. But as you can tell from the epic solos and ba

WHEN YOUR VOICE is as strong as Ben Harper’s, it’s only natural to sing with all your heart, all the time. How many other guitar aces could fathom winning a gospel Grammy singing with the Blind Boys of Alabama? So maybe it’s not crazy to consider how

SMALL IS THE big new thing at Taylor, which announced two Grand Theater models at NAMM’s Believe in Music Week, and dropped big news about transitioning ownership to its employees. The novel GT body falls in between a GS Mini and a full Grand Concert

THE LATEST PR S model introduced this year is the Special Semi-Hollow, which is special indeed, thanks to its hum/sing/hum pickup configuration, which uses a PRS Narrowfield unit in the middle position flanked by two 58/15 LT humbuckers in the bridge

DEBUTING IN 1 950, the Esquire was Fender’s first practical electric guitar and featured a body made of pine, a bolt-on maple neck with 21 frets and a repurposed lap-steel pickup mounted in the bridge position. While having only one pickup might have

SHORTLY AFTER RE-E STABLISHING their amp line a few years ago, Supro’s new owners set about introducing some solid and great-sounding pedals. The fact that they are the same people behind the prolific Pigtronix effects undoubtedly has something to do

THE ARRIVAL OF Rising Force, Yngwie Malmsteen’s 1984 debut album, gave birth to a new genre known as neoclassical metal. Of all the album’s tracks, “Far Beyond the Sun” best demonstrated the guitarist’s unprecedented technical chops and melodicism, c

INTERVIEWING TAYLOR’S ANDY POWERS about the diminutive Grand Theater (see review page 86) got me pondering the evolution of body sizes, proportions and why a player might settle on a particular model. When I was a teen, the only readily available ste

IN A LEAD guitarist’s world, so much attention is given to scale patterns that it’s no wonder the topic of arpeggios is often put on the back burner. That’s unfortunate, as these little three-and four-note wonders — triad- and 7th-chord arpeggios, re

DAVE COLQUHOUN HAS toured and recorded with a number of diverse artists, but one of the highlights of his career was working with Brian May for the 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. Dave was responsible for coaching actors Gwilym Lee an

BY NOW, THE Eastman String Company should need no introduction to the American guitar community. You might say it’s the company that finally and utterly defied the “budget-brand” preconceptions of Chinesemade guitars by consistently turning out a ran

IN A CLASSIC “brain meets brawn” story that began in 1994 in the small English town of Henley-on-Thames, Lovetone gained near-mythical status as a milestone on the road of effects pedal evolution. Merging art and technology to a degree of originality

QUEEN’S BRIAN MAY is a nimblefingered and technical player with a keen grasp of harmony, but his melodic, singable approach to both riffs and solos means any player can learn from his style. In this lesson, we’ll highlight the key elements of Brian’s