January 2023

Guitar Player

Guitar Player magazine helps you play better and sound better

Guitar Player3 min read
Fender® American Vintage II
Elegant, timeless and expressive, the Tele® is the Fender that started it all. Built to original specs, the American Vintage 11 1951 Telecaster features a thick "U"-shaped maple neck - a hallmark of 50s Telecaster guitars prized for its substantial f
Guitar Player2 min read
Blues Keeps Calling
OVER ITS MORE than 150-year life, blues has been the most durable of genres. From slave field hollers to acoustic folk ballads and electrified urban R&B, the music has a long history that weaves through cultural, social and political shifts as well a
Guitar Player1 min read
Guitar Player
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
Guitar Player4 min read
Red Alert
CRAFTING FINE ACOUSTIC and electric guitars with redwood tops is a specialty of Grez Guitars. But while the company is located in Petaluma, California, on the cusp of wine country and sustainably managed redwood forests, Grez has a different source f
Guitar Player5 min read
Cardinal Virtue
FOR THE PAST several years, British guitar phenom Chris Buck has made a name for himself in six-string circles as one of modern music’s most expressive, emotive and exciting players, with a blues-and-soul-drenched style that he has showcased onstage
Guitar Player5 min read
Tip Sheet
“PLAYING THE GUITAR is a life-long pursuit and a joy,” says slide guitar legend Sonny Landreth. “You can always learn something from another player because the art of guitar playing is so personal. What one player takes from somebody else gets interp
Guitar Player8 min read
My Career In Five Songs
GEORGE THOROGOOD HAS been playing his unique blend of blues and rock and roll — “American music,” as he describes it — for more than 50 years now. He served his time working the coffeehouses and blues and folk clubs around New England, where he rubbe
Guitar Player4 min read
You Dirty Rat
CONSIDERING HOW UBIQUITOUS overdrive pedals are today, it’s difficult to think of a time when they were still in their infancy. Remarkably, the late-’60s to mid-’70s classic rock era achieved its template-setting guitar tones without the aid of any o
Guitar Player3 min read
Raw Power
YES, I AM a Beatles maniac, but I’ve usually steered clear of Beatles bootlegs that contain subpar performances, or recordings that demonstrate the evolution of their material. Same with Hendrix. I don’t need to hear the private first stirrings of a
Guitar Player10 min read
PLAYING by the RULES
TELL A MUSICIAN to follow the rules, and you’ll invariably get a host of arguments that all boil down to the same dictum: Screw the rules. Yet Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and guitarist Daniel Tashian, who for the past five years has served as Ka
Guitar Player2 min read
The New Breed Of Blues
IF MUSIC WERE FOOD, pop would be the versatile meal that’s ready in 10 minutes and can be effortlessly modified for every diet or preference. Blues, on the other hand, would be the slow-simmering dish that’s prepared rigorously and religiously, with
Guitar Player9 min read
Learning To Breathe
AT 19, MARCUS KING COULD CUT HEADS WITH THE BEST OF THEM, when he kicked-started his career in 2015 with Soul Insight, the number-eight hit debut album from his group, the Marcus King Band. So it might come as a surprise to learn that, nearly eight y
Guitar Player3 min read
Six Of One
“You can learn so much just by paying attention to others. My dad would leave me with a record to learn while he was at work, and that would be kind of like my assignment for that day. It would be things like the first few Lynyrd Skynyrd albums with
Guitar Player8 min read
Something In The Water
CHRISTONE “KINGFISH” INGRAM WASN’T EVEN OLD ENOUGH TO BUY A BEER WHEN HE WAS HAILED AS “THE FUTURE OF THE BLUES.” And damn if he hasn’t lived up to that billing. His smashing 2019 debut, Kingfish, was that rare thing in music — the arrival of a devas
Guitar Player3 min read
Take Five
“If you want to play good blues, the pentatonic scale is the foundation. It all comes from there. Listen to guys like Albert King, Stevie Ray and, of course, B.B. King — they’re based on the pentatonic scale. If you want to go other places and get in
Guitar Player9 min read
Riffing On Classics
YOU’VE GOT TO HAND IT TO SOUTHERN SIBLINGS. From the Everly Brothers to the Allman Brothers to the Black Crowes’ Robinson Brothers, those connected by blood and music seem to have a consistent knack for taking bits of the American country, folk and b
Guitar Player1 min read
Going Horizontal
“I DEFINITELY ENCOURAGE guitarists to give lap steel a try,” Megan Lovell says when we suggest the possibility that many players are curious to try their hands on the instruments. “We need more lap-steel players out there!” If the lap steel is callin
Guitar Player6 min read
The Lords Of Lo-fi
IF YOU LIKE your blues served raw, GA-20 will satisfy your jones. The blues rockers are a stripped-down three-piece featuring the lo-fi guitars of Matt Stubbs and Pat Faherty, and the solid drumming of Tim Carman. They’ve made quite a noise for thems
Guitar Player9 min read
The Evolution Of Jim Lauderdale
IT’S UNCOMMON TO find a veteran musician who has earned two Grammy awards, made 35 solo albums and amassed a Rolodex filled with first-call players, and who also readily volunteers his shortcomings at his craft. But revered Americana singer-songwrite
Guitar Player12 min read
The New Breed Of Blues
Texan Ally Venable has, unsurprisingly, more than a hint of Stevie Ray Vaughan about her playing. Brandishing a distinctive pink Les Paul, she delivers an interpretation of SRV’s classic “Lenny” and makes the tune her own with her fantastically facil
Guitar Player2 min read
Game On
THE GUITAR BULLPEN on a Jim Lauderdale album is stacked with talent, including Tele wizard Kenny Vaughan — on loan from playing in Marty Stuart’s Fabulous Superlatives — plus steel players Russ Pahl, Steve Hinson and Will Van Horn, and auxiliary guys
Guitar Player5 min read
Prs
AFTER INITIALLY ESTABLISHING his reputation with electric guitars, and following with acoustic guitars and amplifiers, it seemed an inevitability that Paul Reed Smith would fill the missing link in the signal chain — pedals. And so here we are lookin
Guitar Player6 min read
Flying High Again
SEVENTEEN SONGS. FOR most artists, that would hardly amount to a substantial career. For Randy Rhoads, however, the 17 songs he tracked during his brief tenure as Ozzy Osbourne’s lead guitarist and co-writer on the albums Blizzard of Oz and Diary of
Guitar Player4 min read
Epiphone
FEW GUITAR GODS have been as public about their favorite vintage guitars as Joe Bonamassa, and several of the stars in his collection have made for impressive reissues and tribute models to date. In addition to JB’s name simply adding celebrity recog
Guitar Player4 min read
Victory
BRITISH GEAR MAKER Victory is primarily known for its well-built tube amps, but the amp-in-a-pedal sector is a growing and popular one, so it makes total sense for this company to join the likes of Bogner, Friedman and countless stompbox makers in th
Guitar Player1 min read
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Guitar Player5 min read
Boss
ROLAND LAUNCHED THE Cube in 1978, and since then, the compact amp has been offered in more than 50 different models that deliver great sound and features in durable enclosures. As many guitarists know, Cube amps are great for practice as well as perf
Guitar Player3 min read
Earthquaker Devices
MANY SEASONS AGO, Akron-based effects maker EarthQuaker Devices rocked guitarists’ world with a little box called the Speaker Cranker. Featuring just one knob, labeled “More,” it could push your speaker to the edge of breakup without dramatically col
Guitar Player3 min read
How I Wrote… “867-5309/Jenny”
“AFTER ALL THESE years, I still love the song,” guitarist Jim Keller says about “867-5309/Jenny,” the hook-filled rocker that his band, Tommy Tutone, turned into a radio hit in 1982. “Any time I hear it, it sounds amazing. It always feels pure.” Unde

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