Jan Hammer is nothing but appreciative when it comes to considering the roster of guitar players he’s recorded and toured with since joining the original Mahavishnu Orchestra back in 1971.

“I must have done something right to get them all interested,” the Czechoslovakian-born, Grammy Award–winning keyboardist tells us via phone from the New York suburb where he resides. “I listened to guitar players, and obviously I was influenced as far as playing on the synthesizer by the approach to melodic improvisation and the tone. It just brought me into the whole big family of guitarists, and I have always been amazed that if I was playing somewhere, how many guitar players would come and see me play.”

Hammer was born in Prague. His father was a doctor who played music to help him pay for medical school, while his mother was the well-known jazz vocalist Vlasta Pruchova. Hammer started playing piano when he was four and began touring and recording professionally as a teenager.

His time at the Prague Academy of Musical Arts was cut short by the Warsaw Pact’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia; he finished his studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, after which he became part of jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan’s band and moved to New York City. (He became a U.S. citizen during 1978.)

Hammer says the allure of guitar players — including Mahavishnu’s John McLaughlin, Jeff Beck (with whom he recorded six studio albums), Al Di Meola (four), Journey’s Neal Schon (two) and others — was their ability to do something he could not.

“There’s a certain flow I couldn’t achieve on a keyboard, meaning a piano, even electric,” he explains. “It’s something to do with vibrato and bending and slides and these things I kept hearing in my head but couldn’t translate until I got deeper into electronic stuff and using some pitch-shifting gizmos on my electric piano.

“But it wasn’t until I got my hands on a Mini Moog [synthesizer] where I said, ‘Okay, this is it’ and found my recognizable voice. Then I could start improvising and trading solos in a way that wouldn’t be possible on a piano. It really allowed me to play with these guitarists in a different way.”

Beyond those collaborations, Hammer has released nearly three dozen albums of his own and won Grammy and Emmy Awards for his work on TV’s Miami Vice. These days, the 78-year-old considers himself “pretty much retired,” but he’s certainly satisfied by his legacy and is happy to share stories about some of the artists he spent time with during his career.

Miles Davis

“I had just moved to New York City to go on the road with Sarah Vaughan, and I’m at home and get a call: ‘Come over tomorrow morning. Miles’ house.’ I said, ‘Okay.’

“I’d never met him before, but coming from eastern Europe, for me Miles was basically God. I knew every single record, every note he ever played. He was probably the strongest influence on my approach to improvisation.

“So I went over to his house and John [McLaughlin] was there, Steve Grossman, and it was very smooth, just workshopping something. It was exciting. He gave these cryptic directions — like, for instance, he was really into the rhythm section of Crosby, Stills & Nash. He said, ‘Make it feel like that groove,’ and I said, ‘Wow, great. That’s totally up my alley,’ because, among many other rock bands, I loved Crosby, Stills & Nash. I don’t know if people realized how much that groove had to do with their appeal, so it was really a very positive sign from Miles.

“There was all kinds of recording going on, but Keith Jarrett was the first call [for Davis], so I tried not to get my hopes up. But after I spent a year on the road with Sarah Vaughan, we ended up putting together Mahavishnu, and that made up for not being able to play in Miles’ band. He would come to see us, and I remember hanging out in the dressing room, talking about stuff, which was cool.”

John McLaughlin

“I didn’t know about him until I saw him with Tony Williams in Boston when I first came over, and he totally blew my mind. And then later, in New York City, we would meet; there was the loft scene, which was sort of like jam sessions where people would come over, and we had a nice place with a drum kit, electric piano and everything.

“One time we invited John and Billy Cobham, and it went really well, and eventually I was asked to join the band that was being formed, Mahavishnu Orchestra.

“Once we started going we knew exactly what was happening and what we were doing. The impact was immediate. It’s hard to predict, but you feel things, profound things changing around in the music. Some musicians, jazz musicians, were looking down on it, like, ‘Oh, you’re just trying to be rock stars,’ or whatever.

“But it was all music, and the type of improvisations were doing and the fresh influences we included made it a big revolution.

“Playing with [McLaughlin] was, again, totally smooth. I knew what he wanted and he knew what I wanted, and the five of us were really clicking so well. It was an amazing combination of people. John was super dedicated, like obsessively so, and it shows up in his incredible virtuosity and technique.

“You cannot do anything else but just follow him — I don’t mean in a religious sense, but to put up on what he was doing, musically. You have to be on top of everything, so I tried to do that, and I discovered something in my musical history that was very valuable to the whole enterprise of the band that I didn’t know I had. I had these trains of musical history that I learned about, and it was very valuable.”

Jeff Beck

“Jeff and I were inspiring each other for many years. We met in Switzerland. I was there with Mahavishnu Orchestra and Jeff was there with Beck, Bogert & Appice, and it happened to also be Jeff’s birthday. We ended up staying at the same hotel and at his birthday party, and Jeff and I started talking about different things we have in common, what kind of music we liked.

“And it was really interesting that we had so much in common; people think I was much more of a jazz player, but I liked rock and rhythm and blues, and Jeff was really intrigued and we talked about possibilities of working together on something.

“It wasn’t until a year or more later that we ended up recording on Wired. There was no need to develop anything; it was all organic, and we just clicked right away. He came over and I had picked up his instruments at the airport, and when he opened the guitar case, it was empty. His guitar got stolen. In my studio we had a nice little Strat, probably early ’70s, blond wood, for anybody to use, so Jeff picked it up and played it on ‘Blue Wind’ — it wasn’t even his guitar.

“That was the first thing we did together, and the first take, the first layer was just me playing drums and Jeff playing the rhythm, and the lick. We played the whole thing through, just me and him, and we overdubbed whatever else was needed. He did the solo. I did the bass on a Moog. It was just an amazing experience.

“When we worked together was usually up to him, because he had periods where he wouldn’t be interested in doing anything, and then all of a sudden he would call up and we’d go out on tour. In ’76 we did a big tour, did a live record and everything, and in ’77 we went to Australia.

“And then a couple of months later we were supposed to be going to Japan and God knows where else, and he just pulled the plug, totally unexpected. Me and my group were left hanging. That was kind of a drag, but I was ready to do it, any time he wanted, because he was just a fantastically gifted person — but mercurial.”

Al Di Meola

“We had these parallel groups, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever, so we were aware of each other. Then Al invited me to play on [1977’s] Elegant Gypsy, and everything grew out of there. He kept asking me to play on following things. Again, I don’t know how to describe it, but Al is an incredibly gifted guitarist, and we worked together really well.

“Al always had this Spanish undertone to what he did; he worked in the Phrygian mode, which is the basis of a lot of his approach to music with the Spanish guitar that’s electric. One time we were rehearsing and one of the guys said, ‘I think I’ve got Phrygian poisoning,’ which was very funny.

“The most interesting thing we worked on was Electric Rendezvous [1982], with just the two of us with electronics and synthesizers. Phil Collins played drums on one tune and Bill Bruford played on one tune. That was really interesting, and then also playing live on tour with Steve Gadd, which was just an amazing treat.”

Tommy Bolin

“He was a revelation. He was one of the people who can actually play amazingly, without any effort. He was really not working at it, and it just came out totally naturally.

“I met him through Jeremy Steig, the flute player. We went to the studio once with Tommy and Billy Cobham, and then I ended up playing on his album [1975’s Teaser]. It was funny: we were supposed to start and the studio was all set up, and Narada Michael Walden was late because he was stuck in traffic. The drums were all miked up, so I said, ‘All right, let me have a go,’ and I ended up playing drums on the album as well, which was great fun.

“Bolin was just an amazing creature, and I cannot get over how terrible it was that he went away so soon.”

Neal Schon

“Neal is a complete beast, a natural source of incredible music. It just bursts out of him; he cannot help it. He cannot stop.

“We met when I was touring with Jeff, and Journey was the opening act. We’d go to sound checks in the afternoon, and after we finished they were setting up for Neal, so I just got on Billy Cobham’s kit and we started jamming, me on drums and him playing all these incredible rhythm riffs. I don’t know if people realize that, as great a lead player he is, he’s also an amazing rhythm player. I guess you have to be to write all the Journey hits.

“After we did it a couple of times, that’s how the idea of Neal and I making a couple of albums together came about [1981’s Untold Passion and 1982’s Here to Stay]. We were unfortunately... I don’t want to say pulled back, but there was competition. Journey’s big album [Escape, featuring “Don't Stop Believin’”] was coming up at the same time, so the label didn’t put their best effort on our behalf. I was really disappointed. Over the years I played on a couple of things with him, together, but over long distance. I did the same with Beck, too.”

Eddie Van Halen

“We did a one-off [the Les Paul & Friends concert August 18, 1988 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music] that was just fantastic. I got involved, again, because it was all about guitars and I loved it, even though I was not playing guitar. With Eddie, it was breathtaking; the energy coming out of him. He can walk into the room and he’s already going. I was really impressed.

“He was telling me he knew my records and he was talking about how much he liked this and that. He kept going on about the tune called ‘Jetstream,’ which was the Black Sheep album [1978]. He was going on and on about the solo I played on that, and I was just thinking, Wow, you really do know my records. I did not expect that.”

On New Year’s Eve 1971, a 17-year-old Al Di Meola walked offstage after playing the gig of his young life with jazz pianist Barry Miles. A tape of the performance eventually landed in the hands of Chick Corea — and by 1974, Di Meola was performing in Corea’s band, Return to Forever, becoming famous with lines played on his now iconic 1971 Gibson Les Paul Custom electric.

It was a dramatic turn for the future fusion star. But there was one detail about that night he never told Corea, with whom he would spend the next three years. Di Meola may have played a blinder — but mentally he was in another universe.

The reason? His friend Mike Buyukas gave him the trip of his life as ’71 turned into ’72.

“Mike gave me a tab of acid, I swear to God. I’m really green at the time,” Di Meola told Guitar Player in 2024. “I said to Mike, ‘What is that?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, you’re going to love it! Don’t worry — the Beatles take this stuff.’

“So I wound up taking a tab of acid before the gig with Barry Miles, and I’m telling you, I was on a trip on that stage. I was everywhere in the world, just totally tripping out. I don’t remember anything I played, but when I heard it back, it was fucking awesome!

“I mean, it was lines that Allan Holdsworth would’ve loved to have played. And I don’t know how I played them.”

Di Meola looked up to Buyukas, who was seven years older. The two bonded over music, and Buyukas became a gateway to artists who would shape the young guitarist’s virtuosic, genre-blending sound.

“Mike and I used to sit in his living room and listen to new music, and that’s when I first heard Chick’s A.R.C. record” — Corea’s 1971 trio album with bass guitarist Dave Holland and drummer Barry Altschul — “and then the early Return to Forever with Airto Moreira and Flora Purim.

A few years later, while studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Di Meola saw Return to Forever live.

“Earl Klugh was playing guitar with them,” he recalls. “That was a short-lived interim period after Bill Connors had left the group.”

After the show, he called Buyukas and casually said something that would change everything.

“I just offhandedly said, ‘God, I’d love to play with that band.’”

Without prompting, Buyukas transferred the New Year’s Eve recording from reel-to-reel to cassette and took it into New York to track down Corea’s management.

“He just bugged the hell out of them until they would listen to it,” Di Meola says. “And that’s how I got the call from Chick saying they were knocked out by what they heard and that they’d love for me to join the band.”

“I don’t remember doing a tryout; I just remember joining,” he adds. “They called and said, ‘We need you to come to New York… right now!’ I was in a state of shock. Like, Holy shit — what do I do? So I packed, and in 10 minutes I was out the door.”

His debut gig a few days later was a small one — at New York’s celebrated Carnegie Hall.

Convincing his parents proved harder.

“My father’s sitting at the table with his white T-shirt on, looking at the paper. He puts it down and says, ‘What do you mean you’re playing Carnegie Hall? Get the hell out of here! You’re not playing Carnegie Hall. Stop it now!’

“This went on for an hour.”

Eventually Di Meola decided to bring them along.

“We get picked up by a limo, and my father gives his whole spiel on the way to Carnegie Hall. They’re in shock — they can’t believe this is happening.

“And my father says, ‘You know, I always said the way to get to Carnegie Hall is practice, practice, practice.’

“And I said to myself, Uh-uh. It’s acid, acid, acid.

“But I don’t recommend doing this, and I never did it again. But on that one night with Barry Miles, it worked for me. Oh my God! It was a great trip.”

It’s strange to think a rock band like the Kinks were the genesis of one of the most influential jazz fusion songs ever written. But Al Di Meola has confessed to being inspired by the Brit’s 1964 hit “You Really Got Me” to write a song that has become untouchable in fusion circles.

The song is "Race With Devil on Spanish Highway," a cut from the New Jersey–born guitarist's second solo album, 1977’s Elegant Gypsy. The tune has captured the hearts of many guitar players, but few would know from listening to it that the song's origins can be traced back to Di Meola’s childhood love for that Kinks cut, which was famously covered by Van Halen in 1978.

“This might surprise some people, but when I wrote this song, I was thinking of the Kinks' 'You Really Got Me,'” Di Meola told Guitar Player in 2020, giving the game away. “That was the first song I ever attempted to play when I was eight or nine years old.

“I played it with my thumb. Imagine playing an open E, but with the thumb of your left hand, you reach over the neck and play the F#. That’s what popped into my mind when I started to write this one.”

By ‘77, the guitarist had already established himself in guitar circles thanks to his three albums with Return to Forever, the illustrious jazz act featuring keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White. Di Meola's solo work would build on that reputation thanks to "Race With Devil on Spanish Highway," a song that become one of his most celebrated, despite (or perhaps due to) its lack of complexity.

“It was very simplistic compared to my later compositions,” Di Meola says. “But really, the whole basis of the song is that riff, which was inspired by the Kinks. I was still living with my parents at the time and I was making demos on a Teac four-channel reel-to-reel.

“I was hearing congas in my head, so now we’re taking it out of the Kinks’ world. I’m very percussion-oriented, so I heard congas and drums that just explode like fire.”

His focus on the F# Phrygian dominant scale also helped give his composition a different tonality and take it deeper into the genre-blurring world Di Meola was carving out for himself.

“The sections where I’m accused of being a shredder were all improvised,” he says of the song, which was cut live at New York City’s Electric Lady Studios, formerly owned by Jimi Hendrix.

“I was using my ’71 Les Paul Custom and a Marshall 50-watt half stack,” he explains. “I didn’t use any effects — you lose so much punch that way. On my amp, I just turned the bass and midrange to 10, and I dialed the treble down to zero. I remember Larry DiMarzio came to the studio. He looked at my amp and said, ‘It’s funny that you use that setting. That’s how Leslie West sets his amp.’”

As Di Meola says, his percussion-first approach to guitar has helped define the characteristics of his playing. Speaking to Rick Beato recently, he emphasized the importance of a guitar player's feet when it comes to performing with feel. Di Meola believes that by tapping along to the rhythm of a track with his foot, he can find “where the drama is”.

The guitarist has been busy since he suffered a heart attack onstage at an acoustic trio concert in 2023. His self-described “second chance” at life has seen him revisiting older cuts from his '70s days in recent years, especially so when he feared “this might be it for me,” on that near-fateful night.

Di Meola also revealed Paco de Lucia’s secret recording trick that he used to full effect on “Mediterranean Sundance,” with Di Meola by his side.

Alongside John Mclaughlin, Marty Friedman, and Yngwie Malmsteen, Di Meola has come to rely on the flavors of exotic, non-Western scales, with “Egyptian Danza” another superlative example. Unlock more from your lead playing with Guitar Player's Guide to Exotic Scales.

Al Di Meola is best known for his peerless classical guitar exploits and, over on the electric guitar side, his tasteful, yet often maze-like jazz-fusion licks. Of course, guitarists will always be drawn to his virtuosity, but he sees that aspect of his playing as icing on the cake.

It's his sense of groove — the result of unified interlocking rhythms — that brings his songs to life.

In his recent discussion with YouTube host Rick Beato, Di Meola is asked, “Can you teach groove?”

The answer, it would seem, is yes, and Di Meola underscores how those rhythmic sensibilities have been finely tuned over his lifetime by both playing and listening.

“I did spend a lot of years by myself, getting into New York City and hanging out in salsa clubs,” he continues. “I just took it all in.”

More importantly, he says many of his key learnings happened away from the instrument.

“I spent a lot of years on desktops, just tapping rhythms,” he explains. “I could do it on my guitar, too, but I did a lot of it with my foot, always concentrating on the 4/4, with that never going out of time."

In short, Di Meola says, if you want to learn groove, "focus on the foot. It becomes very important.

“Whatever syncopations you're playing with the upper half of your body cannot influence that quarter note down there; it's two separate parts.”

He accepts, however, that the disconnect he is able to create between the upper and lower parts of his body is “not achievable” for everyone. In those cases, he points to the obvious solutions: play with a drummer, or use a metronome.

Di Meola has also had the opportunity to learn from some of the best, including the otherworldly flamenco talents of guitarist Paco de Lucía, pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, whose playing he describes as “off the charts,” and keyboardist Chick Corea, “the master of rhythm."

In the end, however, Di Meola returns to the foot.

“What's magical is when you have the ability to feel the quarter note, you can have these giant pauses in the music," he says, "and that's where the drama is."

Without that sensibility, he says bands can fall apart, but with it, pauses between chords and note flourishes bring a lot to the power of a piece.

His comments would have resonated with the late Tom Petty, who stated that “Rhythm playing is a lost art,” during a 1997 chat with Guitar Player.

“There aren't a lot of people who do it seriously anymore,” he bemoaned. “But it's really important to our band that I play the rhythm because the music sounds different if I don't.”

Indeed, rhythm playing is the cornerstone of session gigs. Steve Lukather says rhythm parts make up “90 percent” of his session work, while Heart's Nancy Wilson has discussed how her approach to rhythm creates a disparity between the hands.

“My hands are the true story of my personality,” she says. “One hand looks glamorous, and the other is a real worker with broken nails.”

For more tips, check out GP's guide to mastering the basics of rhythm guitar and, taking a leaf from Al Di Meola's book, dive into our list of the 50 Greatest Rhythm Guitar Players of All Time.

Matteo Mancuso says modern guitar players reach fluency on the instrument faster, thanks to online resources. But that has also made many players focus less on musicality and more on shredding to grow and maintain their social media following.

The 28-year-old virtuoso discussed the benefits and pitfalls of social media In a new interview with Guitar World. In particular, he says guitarists tend to shred because it gets a positive response from their followers.

"That’s why people on Instagram tend to focus on that," he says. For that matter, he says, "They tend to focus more on Instagram reels rather than actual music."

Indeed, due to the fast-paced nature of social media, many users swipe away from a reel after a few seconds if it doesn’t grab their attention. If players pulling out their biggest and boldest tricks tend to outperform those performing with subtlety and nuance, others will feel they need to do likewise.

“I always say, 'Never judge a guitar player by a short reel',” Mancuso continues. “But to make it work, you have to do really short videos with a lot of 'Wow.' People tend to concentrate too much on the 'Wow.'”

Mancuso already had admirers in Steve Vai, Joe Bonamassa, and Al Di Meola by the time he launched his debut album, The Journey, last year. However, while he can shred circles around most of his peers, his dynamism with the electric guitar, more than his acrobatics, has seen his reputation flourish.

He points to guidance he received from Vai as being key to his outlook. "Steve gave me some good advice: ‘Concentrate on music and not too much on guitar.’ You can open up a lot of new ideas with that mindset.”

While Mancuso occasionally uploads short eye-catching videos to his Instagram, "they’re not to be associated with my musical offerings," he says. "They’re separate things."

Mancuso's comments harmonize with recent points made by Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher about how the current crop of players have an easier entry into learning the instrument. But he too feels too many over-shred simply because they can.

“There's a lot more information out there now when you're starting, for equipment, what it does and what you should be doing,” he says. “Tips for this, videos for that. They'd have a sleepless night thinking about what we used to be. I don't know how we got by.”

However, after his son called him out for not being able to shred, he responded in a typically priceless fashion, saying: “Thank the fucking Lord.”

David Gilmour, in his early days as a player, recently told Rick Beato that his inability to shred forced him to be a more tuneful guitarist. It paid dividends in forging his now instantly recognizable signature style.

That’s two big-name players echoing Mancuso’s sentiments.

So while players may find it easier to master the guitar today, knowing when to shred, and when to be a little more tasteful will forever be a tightrope they have to walk.

Mancuso released his tribute to Paul Gilbert, a song called Paul Poisiton, earlier this year as he continues to – tastefully – showcase his talents.

Of all the places a musician can have a health emergency, nowhere is more public than the stage. Which is where guitar virtuoso Al Di Meola found himself on the evening of September 27, 2023, performing a concert in Bucharest, when he suffered a heart attack.

“It happened right in the middle of a song,” Di Meola tells Guitar Player from Miami. “Some photographer from the Associated Press [Dragos Cristescu] who just happened to be at the show as a fan caught me right at that moment, just as I was slumping over my acoustic guitar and grabbing my chest. That’s when, like, two or three seconds later, I had to remove myself from the stage because I knew something very serious was happening."

Despite his condition, Di Meola managed to get himself offstage before his illness became apparent to the audience. “Yeah, I walked offstage, but not very well,” he says. “And then I collapsed behind the curtain, and I was laying there. And then the intensity of the pressure on my chest was beyond anything you could stand. You know, I was moaning like a hurt animal.

"When they told me in the ambulance I was having a heart attack, I wasn’t super shocked. I was more disappointed. I remember thinking, This might be it for me.

“And then I thought of my wife and my daughter, and I got emotional. ’Cause I really enjoy my new family so much — my beautiful wife, Stephanie, and my wonderful little girl, Ava — that I just didn’t want to leave. I said to myself, This can’t be happening. I want to see my daughter graduate. So I was waffling between the emotion of that and then the harsh reality of, Well, I guess this is it. I guess this is what it’s like to be going out."

Once Di Meola arrived at Bagdasar-Arseni Emergency Hospital in Bucharest, the medical team sprang into action. "They put nitroglycerin under my tongue, which alleviates the pain immediately," he says. "Then we went to the operating room immediately. Everything was happening real fast. And I just did what they said. I said, ‘Look, doc, do whatever you have to do. Just save me.’

“And I remember laying there thinking, I know this is going to hurt like a bastard, and I don’t care. I’m ready for whatever it is. Just go. Of course, I didn’t know how they were going to do it, but I figured I’m going to feel pain like I never felt before. But honestly, without anesthesia it was no pain at all, because there’s no nerves inside where they inserted this tube in my leg that connected up to the arteries.

“And it saved my life, everything was successful. And my guy here, who is a very well-known cardiologist in Miami, read their report and said that they did a phenomenal job.”

Remarkably, Di Meola was back in action and on the road by January 2024 for the preliminary shows for his Electric Years tour, featuring keyboardist Philippe Saisse, master percussionist Gumbi Ortiz, drummer Luis Alicea and bassist Elias Tona. The stint saw him performing music from his early success with Return to Forever, as well as selections from his first three solo album: Land of the Midnight Sun, Elegant Gypsy, and Casino.

“I’d say I was at 80 percent. It was not 100 percent,” Al says of his guitar playing on those early dates. “And that’s not that people noticed or anything, but I knew that I had more healing to do then.” Taking a break from that tour, Di Meola played a series of acoustic concerts with a trio in Europe — “all sold-out shows in venues that I had played 10 times before but never sold them out,” he says. “And I think the heart attack... Who knows? It may have helped sales in a weird kind of way.”

None of this stopped Di Meola from releasing his latest recording, Twentyfour, this past July. Four years in the making, it’s Di Meola’s 40th album to date and primarily an acoustic outing (played on his Felipe Conde signature series nylon-string acoustic with a cutaway), with electric guitar blended in on five of the 15 tracks.

“This album started out as what was to be a solo nylon-acoustic guitar record,” Di Meola says. “It was going to be something simple, production-wise, and something heavily composed. But I didn’t want to get bogged down by inviting a lot of musicians and doing tons of production, I wanted to keep it simple.

"But the time that I had was far greater than I thought, and so it just naturally developed from there. The temptation was too great to not add harmonies here and then other instruments there and then some orchestra pieces as well.

“So it turned into something much greater than my original intention. And I paid for it.”

It was just before the pandemic hit in 2020 that I happened upon a YouTube video by an Italian funk-fusion trio named the Snips. The initial hook for me was the fact that they were playing The Chicken, the funky Pee Wee Ellis tune that Jaco Pastorius had adopted as a set opener for his Word of Mouth big band in the early 80s. As Jaco’s biographer, I was naturally curious about their version. 

These were three young guys, just 19 or 20 years old at the time they first posted this audacious video in 2017. Jacked on adrenaline and youthful enthusiasm, they burned through the funk vehicle at an absolutely blistering pace (that video to date has garnered an awesome 2.4 million views on YouTube). The rhythm tandem of bassist Riccardo Olivia and drummer Salvatore Lima was impeccably tight, but what really stood out for me was the guitarist, Matteo Mancuso, who executed the incendiary lines and mind-boggling solo that followed, sans pick, with a kind of nonchalance that was totally disarming. 

And while his fingerstyle approach immediately recalled such other players who eschewed the pick — Mick Goodrick, John Abercrombie, Lenny Breau, Phil deGruy, and of course the whole lineage of classical and flamenco players who historically have navigated imposing lines with a strictly fingerstyle approach — this was something else entirely. 

Other YouTube videos followed by this precocious trio, including uncannily exacting renditions of chops-busting vehicles like Allan Holdsworth’s Fred, Chick Corea’s Spain (915k views), Tribal Tech’s Face First and UZEB’s Penny Arcade, as well as Matteo’s at-home practice videos of him blazing through John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, Charlie Parker’s Donna Lee and the age-old jazz jamming vehicle Cherokee, each one containing more jaw-dropping feats of fretboard fantasia by the young prodigio.

The comments sections for those same YouTube videos were soon flooded with superlatives about this amazing new guitar discovery. And it wasn’t long before the pros began weighing in on Matteo’s abundant talent, with no less than Al Di Meola, Steve Vai and Joe Bonamassa welcoming Mancuso into that rich lineage of great Italian guitarists, from Eddie Lang (Salvatore Massaro), Joe Pass (Anthony Jacobi Passalacqua), Pat Martino (Pat Azzara) and Joe Diorio to Frank Zappa, Bucky and John Pizzarelli, Di Meola, Vai, Frank Gambale, Joe Satriani, John Frusciante, John Petrucci and Chris Impellitteri. 

“I wrote to him and said, ‘Matteo, what are you doing? You’re killing us!’” says Di Meola, who invited the young Palermo-born guitarist to sit in with him on Spain and Mediterranean Sundance at the 2022 Eddie Lang Jazz Festival in Monteroduni, Italy. 

“I mean, his improvisational ability is light years ahead. Like, it would take two, three lifetimes to catch up with him. It was almost like when Jaco came on the scene: How the hell did he get so good so fast?” 

Adds Steve Vai, “I was pretty stunned when I heard Matteo. The evolution of the guitar is firmly secure in the hands of people like him… It’s just a new level: the tone, the touch, the notes… Incredible!” 

And Joe Bonamassa was over the moon for Mancuso. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he raved. “It’s the most incredible thing I’ve seen since I first saw Stanley Jordan. He’s completely reinvented the instrument. He rips like Eric Johnson, then he’ll play over changes, then he’ll play Iron Maiden. It’s the most versatile thing I’ve ever seen.”

Finally, after six years of blowing minds on YouTube, Mancuso has released his first album, The Journey, on the Players Club/Mascot Label Group. And rather than just showcasing his prodigious and unprecedented chops on yet another string of well-chosen covers from the jazz and fusion canons, the 26-year-old has written all original material for this eagerly awaited debut, each already garnering hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. 

Playing a Yamaha Revstar Custom electric guitar with a Line 6 Helix pedalboard for all his solos while overdubbing rhythm guitar parts on another Yamaha guitar, as well as a Bacci baritone guitar, Matteo rips on rockers like Silkroad and Drop D, swings confidently on the jazzy 3/4 number Polifemo, conjures up a bit of Holdsworth and Eric Johnson on Falcon Flight and Samba Party, and a touch of Pat Metheny on the bright, uplifting melody of Open Fields. He then showcases his beautiful nylon-string acoustic playing on Time to Leave and the poignant title track, which closes The Journey on a hymn-like note of reflection.

Guitar Player caught up with Matteo in a Zoom chat from his home in Palermo.

It’s great to meet you, Matteo. I’ve been following you on YouTube since The Chicken. 

Yes. That was the first viral video, from 2017. That was my first trio, Snips. I was maybe 19 when it was starting. The bass player was Riccardo Olivia, who is also from Sicily, but now he lives in Milan. The drummer, Salvatore Lima, is also from here. We were playing a lot of very traditional fusion stuff back then, like Chick Corea’s Spain and Allan Holdsworth’s Fred, which I still play live. It’s one of my favorite tunes to play live. And then, in 2020, during the pandemic, I founded the Matteo Mancuso Trio, and it was a different trio from Snips. And that’s when I started composing original material and working on this album, The Journey. So there are nine pieces in total, all original compositions.  

The new core trio is Stefano India on bass and Giusseppe Bruno on drums. It’s a very flexible trio. 

They are very versatile musicians, able to play rock very aggressively and also swing, and sometimes within the same song. My goal was to have an album that wasn’t associated with only one style, and these guys really help me achieve that.

Let’s talk about your beginnings on the instrument. I read that your father, Vincenzo, was a guitarist and that you and he played Django Reinhardt together early on. 

My father is an electric/classical guitar player. He played everything from classical music to funk, so he’s a very versatile player. He was in an Italian rock band called Camaleonti in the mid-1960s, and he worked as a touring pop guitar player for other people here in Italy. Now he is more like a producer than a pure guitar player, so he’s worked with a lot of popular Italian musicians. He helped a lot with my album. 

He was like a listening guide for me, more than a teacher. I started playing guitar when I was around 10 years old, and I always saw my father playing guitar around the house. When I first started, I played with fingers because I thought that the instrument was meant to be played like that, because I always saw my father playing with fingers.

Your father never used a pick? 

Sometimes, but he mainly uses fingers. I started playing in a duo with him when I was around 17, though I had already played live at age 12 at the 2009 Castelbuono Jazz Festival in Sicily. I later studied jazz guitar at the conservatory here in Palermo, and because I wanted to study that repertoire, a guitar duo was perfect for me. That’s why I started playing live with my father. We mostly played standards and Joe Pass stuff.

And it was very natural for you to play with fingers from the beginning?

Yeah, it felt really natural from the start. I didn’t even know that you should use a pick for electric guitar. Basically, you have four picks when you play fingerstyle, so it allows you to have more possibilities for extended arpeggios. So I started off playing with bass technique, using two fingers. Later on, when I was around 14, I started studying to learn classical guitar, and that helped me a lot to develop my right- and left-hand technique. But I wasn’t really a good student of classical guitar. I consider myself an electric guitar player rather than a classical one, but I borrowed a lot of things from the classical world.

What about the flamenco world? 

Flamenco is slightly different. They use different guitars than the pure classical models, and the technique is different, of course. I have some similarities with the flamenco technique, speaking of the right hand. But I think my technique is closer to the bass rather than the pure flamenco technique. 

You mentioned bass technique. I’m sure you’re familiar with Mick Goodrick. He played with two fingers on his beautiful single-note lines. 

Yeah, yeah. I know him. 

And then we have someone like Lenny Breau, who played fingerstyle on a seven-string guitar with a high A. Were you hip to him at all? 

Yeah, I discovered him a few years ago, and I was shocked because of all the harmonics he was playing. I borrowed some stuff from him, speaking of chord melody. Yeah, he’s a phenomenal player. 

I’d like to talk about your instrument of choice. Like in those early videos, The Chicken and Fred, was that a different guitar than you’re playing now? 

No, it’s actually always been the Yamaha Revstar. It was a different model then, of course. Right now I mostly use my Custom model, which I’ve played since 2019. I use slightly different models for rhythm parts on the new record, but the main one is the Revstar Custom. I really like that the Revstar has a dark sound. It’s close to a Gibson SG, and I was chasing that for a while; that fat, humbucker sound is something that I really like. The Revstar is a little bit more versatile than the SG, so I can play jazz, funk and metal with it. And I have a five-way switch on my Custom, so I can also split the humbuckers to get a single-coil sound. Of course, I prefer a slightly wider string spacing, just because you have more room for your fingers. But once I got used to it, it wasn’t really a problem for me.

You mentioned the SG. I understand that one of your early rock influences was AC/DC. Angus Young plays a Gibson SG, and Holdsworth also played one in his earlier days.

Yeah, Angus Young was the reason I bought an SG [depicted on 2017 YouTube videos of him shredding on Guthrie Govan’s Fives, Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover and UZEB’s Penny Arcade]. I was and still am a big AC/DC fan. That was the first band that I was listening to. So the SG was because of Angus Young. Later on I discovered Fender Stratocasters through Jimi Hendrix, who was another big influence on me. Some of the first tunes that I learned of his were Hey Joe, Purple Haze and All Along The Watchtower. But AC/DC was always a big influence. 

Holdsworth and all the fusion guys came later for me, when I was around 17. Allan is for sure one of my biggest influences, especially when it came down to phrasing and vocabulary. He was such a big influence, in fact, that I stopped listening to him for a while, because I started sounding too much like him. So I started listening to other players, like Scott Henderson, Frank Gambale, Robben Ford... All the jazz-rock guys. And I basically built my vocabulary through these players. So yeah, Allan is such a big influence that I had to stop listening to him too much. He changed the guitar forever, I think.

Comparing your early YouTube videos to your more recent stuff from The Journey, it seems that you’ve developed some incredible whammy-bar articulation, shaping the notes in that liquid fashion that reminds me of Holdsworth. When did that become part of your vocabulary?

It started when I first got the new Yamaha Pacifica, which is basically their Stratocaster. I started playing that when I was listening to Scott Henderson, who is a master of the whammy bar. So I started playing like that because of him. And actually, the first tune on the album, Silkroad, is dedicated to Scott, because the first theme was inspired by that diminished aspect of his playing. And then, of course, there is the Holdsworth influence on all the legato stuff. But that is also because Scott himself said that Holdsworth was a big influence for him. So I guess it’s also a tribute to Allan, you know? 

The second tune, Polifemo, opens like a swinging jazz tune in 6/8 that you play with a warm, clean tone. But you also inject some kind of crunch sound on your solo. You’re very adept at mixing influences, not strictly separating the tunes stylistically into rock and jazz camps. It’s all integrated very organically. Can you break that tune down?

Polifemo is a perfect mix of my jazz influence in a rock song, if you want. Because I feel that if it is hard to categorize, that means that you are on the way to making something new. So that was the goal with Polifemo. I wanted to do a jazz song, and I wanted to promote distortion but without sounding too much out of place. The first solo is with the piano, played by Giuseppe Vasapolli, and I came to the second solo with a distorted tone, but it’s not too aggressive. It’s more like a tone that Eric Johnson uses, for instance. More like an overdrive, rather than a pure distortion pedal.

And what device or pedal are you dialing for that?

I mainly used a digital amp modeler for the entire album. So all the sounds you hear on the album are digital, basically. And I mainly used the Line 6 Helix for modeling. The simulation of the amp was a Matchless DC-30, which is called the Matchstick Channel 2 on the Helix. And the Helix distortion I used for Polifemo is called a Tube Driver. It’s really close to the Klon Centaur distortion. The distortion sound on Silkroad was the same sound, but with a different guitar. 

Falcon Flight is an intense tune with a lot of harmonic movement and some open-string arpeggiating underneath. And you have a fairly clean sustain tone on the melody and your solo. Tell me about that one. 

First of all, I wrote that tune, like, two years ago. I wanted to write a bass drum ’n’ bass song because I was listening to a lot of Mark Lettieri back then. He’s a really funky guitar player with Snarky Puppy. I love Mark. So I was trying to write something similar, but I ended up doing something completely different. That’s how I write most of these songs:  I get inspired by one player or one particular song and I try to do something similar, but I end up doing something completely different. 

On Falcon Flight, the rhythm section is slightly different. Gianluca Pellerito plays drums on that track. He’s a pretty popular player in Italy. He is more like a chops kind of player, very American-sounding. There was a drum section that was really busy in that way, and I think Gianluca was the perfect choice for that piece.

Open Fields feels a little more relaxed. It opens with solo guitar that develops this kind of warm, inviting, almost Pat Metheny–esque kind of a melody. Very engaging and uplifting, like Metheny’s Phase Dance. To go from the burning intensity of Falcon Flight into the more intimate Open Fields is a nice contrast.

I actually wrote the song with classical guitar, but I wanted to do a trio version for the album, so it changed a little bit during the recording. It is dedicated to Sicily: The Italian name for Open Fields is Campagna Siciliana, which means ‘Sicilian countryside’. So it’s dedicated to the landscape we see every time we go to my home in Sicily. It’s really similar to what you see on the album cover of The Journey. And yes, it has a lot of Metheny vibes, because I was listening a lot to Pat when I wrote it.

Pat Martino told me that his people were from Palermo. Was he of interest to you when you were at the conservatory there studying jazz? 

Yeah, Martino was the starting point for my bebop vocabulary. I began working on it back when I was at the Conservatory of Palermo. Of course, I started with Charlie Parker and then I studied all the bebop guys, like Pat Martino and Joe Pass, of course. I learned a lot from them, especially Joe Pass, who was my starting point for my chord melody stuff, even though I don’t consider myself that kind of player. Joe also played with a pick a lot, but later on he played with just fingers.

There’s no mistaking the rock influence on Drop D, your first single. There’s some heavy power chording, and you’re just wailing on it. It sounds like a big production number with a lot of guitar overdubs. And you are just shredding on it with a ton of tapping on your solo.

Drop D is my kind of tribute to my first rock influences — AC/DC, Led Zeppelin. It’s also a tribute to all my rock-blues influences. This is the tune where I recorded lots of layers, guitars on guitars — backing guitars, even with the Bacci baritone guitar. I think it’s the most produced song on the album, because it’s more like traditional song sections rather than jazz elements.

Blues For John is a swinging tune with Giuseppe Vasapolli on organ. And I think I heard some Wes Montgomery kind of chord melody and octave playing in there. He must have been an influence on you at some point. 

Yeah, sure. Wes is one of my favorite jazz players. And Blues For John is one of my favorite tunes on the album, because on the solo section it tells through guitar my story to the blues, starting from the bebop clean stuff of Pat Martino, Wes Montgomery and George Benson, then moving into the more blues-rock players like Joe Bonamassa and Eric Johnson, with distortion tone. And this tune is actually dedicated to John McLaughlin, who is one of my favorite composers as well being a legendary guitar player. John McLaughlin is a perfect example of mixing technique with beautiful compositions. So it’s a blues dedicated to him, basically. 

Time to Leave sounds like you’re playing a nylon-string acoustic guitar.

It’s a classical guitar, though my kind of touch is not really like a classical player’s. I play in a more aggressive way than a classical player. Time to Leave started as a solo guitar piece, but then I changed my mind and started to work on an arrangement for the trio. That was actually one of the first things I composed for this album. I wrote it during the pandemic.

Samba Party features some incredible arpeggiating. And your fingerstyle technique allows you to very easily integrate tapping into your absolutely hellacious solo on this tune. Most players with a pick have to make a big overture to start tapping, but you do it so naturally.

I worked a lot on it, of course. I try to mix the tapping in a natural way. I don’t want it to be like a switch turning on: like, “Now I’m doing tapping, now I’m doing alternate picking, and now I’m doing legato.” So if I have to do a tapping section, it needs to be integrated into the solo really well. One of the guys that does this consistently is Greg Howe. He’s a really big influence, especially when it comes to the tapping sections, so he is one of my inspirations for Samba Party. I think it is maybe my favorite song from the album, because, personally speaking, I can’t categorize Samba Party. I don’t know if it’s fusion, jazz or rock. It’s a perfect mix of all of those influences. 

So yeah, my goal, as I said, is to find something that wasn’t associated with only one style, so Samba Party is a perfect example of that. 

I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It’s not a samba. 

Yeah, that’s for sure. 

You’re such a scholar and you have such a developed ear. You have obviously assimilated the music of Allan Holdsworth, Scott Henderson, Eric Johnson — and not just skimming off the top. It seems like you’ve very deeply absorbed these guys. You have a great ear and you integrated it all very organically into your own vocabulary. 

Thank you. Yeah, I’ve transcribed a lot of their solos and worked on the phrasing, so that’s why you hear those guys in my playing.

I imagine that The Journey, the very poignant melody played on acoustic guitar, expresses your own journey that you’ve been on. 

Yeah. That was the last tune I wrote for the album. Initially, there were only eight songs but I wanted to write a pure ballad. Open Fields was the closest to a ballad, but there is also the distortion ending. So I wanted a pure ballad, like a Pat Metheny kind of vibe. I started working on the melody with my father, and he ended up playing second guitar on that tune. My father was on the acoustic guitar and myself on the classical guitar. So it is a father-and-son duo.

That’s a beautiful way of coming full circle for you.

Thank you. I wanted to do something with my father as the last tune, because he was my listening guide for a lot of years. 

The Journey is out now on Players Club/Mascot and available to buy or stream.

GP Presents is proud to partner with Yoshi’s to help welcome September cover artist Al Di Meola back to Jack London Square over the second weekend in October. The maestro survived a brush with death and is celebrating a new lease on life supporting a multifaceted new double album, Twentyfour.

It mostly showcases Di Meola’s worldly acoustic virtuosity, but his amplified fusion side will be featured at the East Bay’s premier jazz venue on this stop of Di Meola’s Electric Years Tour.

“This is a new beginning for me after what happened to me in Romania,” Di Meola told GP, referencing the heart attack he suffered onstage at an acoustic trio concert on September 27, 2023. “I was given a second chance, so I decided it would be fun to go back and revisit some of these tunes from the ’70s.”

We’re especially enthusiastic about Di Meola taking this show on the road considering that he was sidelined for nearly four months, and because he’s once again been playing his iconic black Les Paul Custom. It’s the guitar pictured on the front of 1977’s landmark album, Elegant Gypsy.

Come celebrate the great Al Di Meola as he brings his past to life and relishes the present. GP will be onsite Sunday night with a box of his September cover issue and sets of Martin strings. They’re free at the GP Presents table to the first few dozen players that come claim them.

Secure your spot now.

Win Tickets

For a chance to win a pair of tickets to GP Presents Al Di Meola in Oakland, California, send an email to gp@jimmyleslie.com with “Di Meola” in the subject and simply include a sentence about yourself and why you want to go.

Phone contact is greatly appreciated for confirmation.

Winner must provide their own transportation to Yoshi’s in Oakland, California and have their own accommodations in the Bay Area. Best of luck!

Event Details

GP Presents Al Di Meola, October 11-13
Yoshi’s – Jack London Square

Free GP magazines, Martin strings

Get tickets.

Fusion giant Al Di Meola’s acoustic chops have always blown minds, whether as a solo artist on his groundbreaking mid-’70s releases, or on his legendary collaborations with fellow monsters John McLaughlin and Paco De Lucia.

Di Meola’s latest release, La Melodia Live in Milano, finds him with his World Sinfonia ensemble, which features Fausto Beccalossi on accordion, Gumbi Ortiz on cajon, and Peo Alfonsi on second guitar. In addition to his amazing nylon-string work, Di Meola’s skills as a composer are also on full display, with his songs fitting in seamlessly alongside pieces by Piazzolla, Parodi, and Morricone.

Do you approach songwriting any differently when your compositions are going to be sitting side by side with Piazzolla’s?

“Absolutely. When I compose, the bar is raised quite naturally due to the inspiration and compositional sophistication of those chosen pieces. It’s really important that that my pieces attain a high level of aesthetic.”

Take a song from this album, such as Infinite Desire or Misterio, and talk about the writing process.

“There was a definite emotional desire to immerse myself in the thought of reaching the heart with melody, the same way certain Italian operatic melodies affect the listener. In both of those pieces, I imagined a great vocalist in the classical world singing.”

How do you see these compositions compared to your earlier work?

“Between my own pieces, Piazzolla’s, and Parodi’s, the satisfaction of the blending of compositional factors – the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic richness – along with the emotional human connection, means a hell of a lot more than loud fusion to me! And the emotion isn’t at the expense of challenging technique. It goes right along with the technical playing, and that’s the most exciting thing in the world.”

How did you come to have another guitarist and an accordionist on these songs?

“A second guitar is very important to play the more interesting arpeggiated written parts. It serves as a needed accompanist within the compositions. Accordion was my first instrument and, when played by an amazing instrumentalist like Fausto Beccalossi, its sound can automatically produce aural images of places, people, joy, and pain quite beautifully. I’m most proud of the high level of interplay between myself and Fausto on these performances.”

Did you do any fixes in the mixing stage?

“None!”

Mediterranean Sundance still brings the house down. Did you have any idea when you wrote it that it might have that effect on people more than 30 years later?

“No, I didn’t. But in 1977, when Paco and I recorded it for my Elegant Gypsy album, we knew that it was a magical one-time performance. After the first take, Paco needed to relax, so he smoked a joint and the second take was the one. The rest is history. We were blown away, as was everyone in the control room. There were not many moments like that in my career!”

• This interview with Al Di Meola was originally published in the April 2009 issue of Guitar Player.

Musicians often fall into ruts when relying exclusively on Western scales and sounds.

But there’s a great big world out there, full of music from other countries and cultures that can be easily added to your repertoire.

Scales from around the world can add an intriguing twist to your playing. You can hear many of these tonalities in the ax work of players like John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, Marty Friedman and Yngwie Malmsteen. 

This lesson will serve as a guided musical tour of select world sounds.

Harmonic Minor (1-2-b3-4-5-b6-7)

Pioneered in the '70s by Michael Schenker, Ritchie Blackmore and Ulrich Roth, neoclassical metal rose to the rock forefront in the mid '80s when chopsmeister Yngwie Malmsteen stepped onto the scene. 

The Bach rocker’s scale of choice was harmonic minor, played in Figure 1 in the key of G# minor (G#-A#-B-C#-D#-E-G). 

Anchor your hand in 7th position for the duration of the figure, and use alternate picking (down, up, down, etc.) throughout.

Japanese (1-b2-4-5-b6)

Lacking a 3rd or 7th, and therefore tonally ambiguous, the versatile Japanese scale works well in a variety of situations, including major- and minor-key progressions, as well as Phrygian-based contexts. 

Figure 2 is based on the E Japanese scale (E-F-A-B-C). Take a rubato approach here – that is, let the tempo fluctuate, altering your phrasing in a way that feels right to you.

Chinese (1-2-3-5-6)

Many of you are already familiar with the Chinese scale. You just know it by its Western name: major Pentatonic. 

In the Western world, this sound is heard perhaps most famously in the work of the Allman Brothers. 

Figure 3, on the other hand, has a distinctly non-Western sound, courtesy of the timbre (sound quality) of its notes and how they’re phrased.

Derived from the B Chinese scale (B-C#-D#-F#-G#), this ethereal line uses harp harmonics to evoke the sound of the zither, a traditional stringed instrument. 

To execute each harmonic, lightly rest your pick hand’s 1st finger on the octave of the pre-fretted note (i.e. 12 frets higher), and pluck the string with your pick-hand’s thumb.

Phrygian Dominant (1-b2-3-4-5-b6-b7)

The fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale, Phrygian dominant provides the exotic ambience heard in Al Di Meola’s “Egyptian Danza” and Iron Maiden’s “Powerslave.” 

The G-rooted (G-Ab-B-C-D-Eb-F) lick in Figure 4 combines slurred note groupings with static open-string drones to create a distinctly Egyptian sound. 

Make sure you pay close attention to the fret-hand shifts here. Measure 1 is played in 3rd position, while measure 2 dips into 1st position.

Gypsy (1-b2-3-4-5-b6-7)

The Gypsy scale differs from the Phrygian dominant by using a major rather than a minor 7th for additional color. 

Both the Phrygian dominant and the Gypsy scale provide excellent soloing options over chord progressions containing major chords a half step apart. 

For example, try playing the E Gypsy scale over an E-F vamp. The E-rooted (E-F-G#-A-B-C-D#) riff in Figure 5 calls to mind Rainbow’s “Gates of Babylon." 

Be sure to palm-mute the 6th string throughout, so that the above melodic line really comes across.

Hungarian Minor (1-2-b3-#4-5-b6-7)

If you’ve been searching for a cool scale to play over a minor(maj7) chord, then the Hungarian minor scale is just what you need. 

The majority of the A Hungarian minor (A-B-C-D#-E-F-G#) passage in Figure 6 is rooted in 7th position, with the exception of the closing chromatic phrase, which sits in 11th position. 

In learning this figure, you might want to first isolate the 16th-note slur on beat 3 of bar 4. 

To get this legato turn to sound as smoothly as possible, use your 2nd, 3rd and 1st fingers, respectively, on frets 12, 13 and 11.

Persian (1-b2-3-4-b5-b6-7)

We’ll close things out with the E Persian scale (E-F-G#-A-Bb-C-D3), which gets its dark Middle Eastern vibe from its b5, or tritone, interval. 

Because it contains both a major 3rd and a major 7th, the Persian scale serves as an interesting option for Lydian-based chords (maj7#11). But it can also be used as a basis for sinister metal riffs like the one in Figure 7. 

For the last two beats of bar 2, use your fret hand’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers in consecutive order.

The so-called lawsuit-era copy guitars made in Japan during the 1970s and ’80s have developed a cult following in recent years, seducing today’s guitarists for their ability to often surpass the quality of the American-made originals from the same period. But the most successful and acclaimed Japanese guitar of the late ’70s wasn’t a direct copy of anything. Instead, the Yamaha SG-2000 was a creative and original design – a “Les Paul killer” that proved to be an able assassin in the hands of a long line of big-name players, starting with none other than Carlos Santana.

Flashback, if you will, to the mid ’70s, when American-made electric guitars weren’t quite what they used to be. The Gibson Les Paul was coming off a run as the rock and blues-rock guitar to own, but everyone was chasing the relatively few versions that were made between 1958 and ’60, and those were reaching insane prices for the day: “Two thousand dollars for a used guitar? Are you crazy!?”

Meanwhile, Carlos Santana had segued from Gibson SGs to Les Pauls in a tone quest that was very much still underway when Yamaha approached him to endorse its new guitar, most likely the SG-175, released in 1974 or early ’75. Ostensibly a modified Les Paul, its neck was glued into a thick solid-mahogany body – albeit one with pointy dual cutaways – and sported dual humbucking pickups and other Gibson-inspired appointments. Yet, as far as Santana was concerned, it wasn’t quite there.

Feeling the effort was a little lightweight and lacking in sustain, Santana told Guitar Player in 1978, “I sat down with them and said, ‘Look, I can’t play the guitar, man.’ I asked them to put a big chunk of metal right where the tailpiece is. You hit it and it’s like hitting a grand piano – it really resonates.”

Yamaha took these suggestions, and others, and ran with them, initiating an R&D and prototyping period that spanned nearly two years. The final results still looked something like a double-cutaway Les Paul – or a Les Paul Custom, given the elegant adornments – but the guitar was built like nothing else on the planet. Unveiled in 1976, the SG-2000 boasted myriad features and complex construction that seemed destined to define how top-tier electric guitars would be built from then on. That didn’t happen, but that isn’t to say Yamaha failed in its overall achievement either. Included in this ground-up redesign were:

• A neck-through-body construction, with a multi-piece laminate forming both the body core and the neck
• A proprietary T-Cross System construction of the body and neck, which used boards of mahogany and maple glued together at opposing vertical and horizontal orientations, plus a three-piece maple top
• An ebony fingerboard with mother-of-pearl, split-arrow inlays
• Extremely bend-friendly jumbo frets
• A brass sustain block sunken into a channel in the top of the body beneath the bridge
• Enclosed, permanently lubricated tuners with a highly efficient 15:1 gear ratio
• Fully shielded Alnico V humbucking pickups with three-point mounting for easy tilt adjustment
• A ribcage contour in the upper back for more comfortable playing
• In-house control knobs with fluted sides for easy gripping

Aside from these details, the SG-2000 was just made very, very well, displaying an overall level of quality, fit and finish that put many similar American-made examples of the time to shame. Plus, it had a look that celebrated its intended elitism, with seven-ply body binding, five-ply headstock binding, gold-plated hardware and a decorative scrolling engraved in the tailpiece, along with other upscale details.

Although the model was often compared to the Les Paul it was intended to “kill,” Yamaha had clearly taken pride in the design and made every effort to create an entirely different guitar, despite some outward similarities. Back to back, even the body shapes are more different than they might at first appear, the SG-2000’s lines describing what would be a more fully rounded upper bout (if the cutaways continued) and a shallower waist.

Big-name players lined up to play it, and the SG-2000 made one of the sharpest ascents into the hierarchy of premium electric guitars experienced by any new model, much less one designed and manufactured in Japan, when the country was still largely known for producing copies.

Santana embraced the new design, playing a couple of custom-made models with abundant decorative inlays (available briefly in 1976 as a Limited Edition Devadip model). He used it widely between 1977 and his move to Paul Reed Smith guitars sometime after 1982, an era that many longtime fans believe features some of his most distinctive and toneful playing. 

Standout moments include the live takes of “Europa” and “Let the Children Play/Jugando” from Moonflower; “Well All Right,” “Open Invitation” and “Wham!” from Inner Secrets; and similarly juicy SG-2000-meets-Boogie adventures from the albums Zebop! and Marathon.

Scottish new-wave guitarist John McGeoch logged several genre-defining moments playing his SG-2000 with Magazine and Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bill Nelson embraced one with Be Bop Deluxe, and Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, Little Feat’s Paul Barrere, Boz Scaggs and Al Di Meola all frequently played Yamaha’s dominant electric.

As memorable as any of these are, some of the most distinctive examples of the guitar in action arguably came after Scottish guitarist Stuart Adamson ported his SG-2000 over from punk band the Skids when he formed Big Country in 1981. Alongside co-guitarist Bruce Watson, who also frequently played an SG-2000, Adamson applied the Yamaha electric to channel Celtic folk modes into hooky high-gain guitar riffs, logging hits like “In a Big Country” and “Fields of Fire” in the process.

Promoted alongside the SG-2000 were the SG-1500 – which initially had a set neck with sustain block before moving to neck-through construction without sustain block in 1981 – and the set-neck SG-1000, plus a handful of lesser variations. The upper-tier SG-3000, less often seen, was adorned with abalone purfling and split abalone and mother-of-pearl position markers, special pickups and other highly decorative treatments.

The SG-2000 itself has occasionally been available from Yamaha in reissue forms, sometimes more prominently so in the domestic Japanese market, while used examples have begun enjoying collectible status.

Essential Ingredients

• Gold-plated hardware
• Maple and mahogany neck-through-body “T-Cross System” construction
• 24.75-inch scale length
• Dual open-frame Alnico V Yamaha humbucking pickups
• Modified Tune-o-matic–style bridge mounted atop a brass sustain block
• Multi-ply body and headstock binding

Al Di Meola topped the charts of the GP Reader’s Choice Awards so many times in various categories he was retired to the Gallery of Greats in 1982. Di Meola is a rare breed of virtuoso equally adept on electric or acoustic. Highlights of his ridiculous resume include pioneering fusion with Chick Corea in Return to Forever, and his fabled acoustic trio with Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin that recorded one of the all-time great guitar showcases in 1980, Friday Night in San Francisco.

2022 saw the release of a follow up curated and produced by Di Meola, Saturday Night in San Francisco. Previously unheard, he culled it from an archival performance recorded the following night.

He’ll surely get a hero’s welcome when he returns to San Francisco on Sunday for a pair of shows. Guitar Player Presents is very pleased to partner with SFJAZZ to welcome Di Meola back to the City by the Bay.  

Di Meola’s latest studio album is his second batch of re-imagined Beatles tunes, Across the Universe (2020). He told GP:

“Their catalog is so vast and incredible. The first Beatles record I did was like scratching the surface. You record one song and you immediately think of three more you could do. So the idea of doing another one appealed to me from a conceptual standpoint, but when All Your Life [2013] became a big seller, it became a no-brainer. This is music that I love, and people all over the world want to hear it. The Beatles just make you feel good.”

Read the full interview here.

Di Meola will play music from across his astounding career on Sunday at SFJAZZ. The first hit is at 4pm and the second is at 7pm. They will sell out soon. Secure your seats.

WIN TICKETS!

For a chance to win a pair of tickets to see the 4pm show at GP Presents Al Di Meola in San Francisco, send an email to gp@jimmyleslie.com with “Di Meola” in the subject and simply include a sentence about yourself and why you want to go.

Phone contact greatly appreciated for confirmation.

Winner must provide his or her own transportation to SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco, California on Sunday, June 11, and have his or her own accommodations in the Bay Area.

Best of luck!

EVENT DETAILS

Guitar Player Presents Al Di Meola

Sunday, June 11

SFJAZZ Center Miner Auditorium
201 Franklin Street at Fell Street
SF, CA 94102

4pm and 7pm shows

Free GP magazines, Martin strings

CLICK HERE TO GET TICKETS

***The following originally appeared in the June 2011 issue of Guitar Player***

Certain guitar solos are infused with magic. They may or may or may not be technically challenging, flashy, or otherwise virtuoso, but they have that special something that sets them apart from what came before, and they typically alert guitarists everywhere that their world has forever changed. 

What’s more, those magic solos tend to inspire legions of guitarists to attempt to unlock their technical and tonal mysteries, and permeate the six-string community’s collective unconscious, re-emerging later as direct and indirect influences on individual players’ styles. Somewhat paradoxically, however, there is no consensus on which solos have achieved this iconic status.

When we began working on this story, we came up with a lengthy list of solos to include. Our first task was to set up some guidelines. We decided to limit the list to electric rock solos, along with blues and jazz-rock fusion solos that influenced rock. We also set a limit of one solo per artist.

At that point, there were still many more than 40 solos on the list, so we had to make some hard choices. To start, guitarists who were hugely influential overall, but couldn’t be tied to an ultra-influential solo – such as Tony Iommi and George Harrison – were cut. 

We then had to narrow down our selections to just one for each artist, which was difficult for someone like Eric Clapton, whose entries at that point included “Crossroads,” his cover of Freddie King’s “Hideaway” on the Blues Breakers album, and his historic wah workout on “White Room.” Once the smoke cleared, however, we had reached consensus. 

The solos are organized chronologically – including those that fall within the same year – because we thought it would be instructive to see how they relate to each other historically. 

We hope that you like we came up with and perhaps even discover an overlooked gem or two for yourself...

1. Elmore James “Dust My Broom” (1951)

Jimi Hendrix originally called himself Jimmy James and Maurice James in homage to Elmore, and every bluesman since the ‘50s – particularly slide players – owes something to the King of the Slide Guitar. 

Played in an open-D tuning (D, A, D, F#, A, D, low to high), probably on a Kay flattop or Harmony Sovereign with a D’Armond pickup, the slide hook on this tune, and the solo based on it, reappear countless times throughout blues and rock music.

2. Les Paul “How High the Moon” (1951)

The super-syncopated, slap-back soaked runs, chukka-chukka doublestops with bluesy bends, plucky cascading figures, and idiosyncratic ornamentations in Paul’s two solos helped propel this standard up the charts, and further established Paul as the most creative electric guitar player of his generation. 

It was recorded with his “old Epiphone” – a.k.a. “the Clunker” and “the Breadwinner” – with custom-wound hot pickups and other major modifications.

3. Scotty Moore “That’s Alright, Mama” (1954)

Armed with his Gibson ES-295 through a ‘52 Fender Deluxe, Scotty Moore, bassist Bill Black, and their bud Elvis, had no idea what a firestorm they were about to create with this early single. 

Moore’s simple, to the- point style covered the drummer-less bases quite easily with a fat tone and swinging musicality, giving this rather hillbilly ensemble some dangerous sonic heft.

His break on “That’s Alright, Mama” inspired everyone from George Harrison to Keith Richards to Jimmy Page, as well as Danny Gatton, who never missed an opportunity to throw a Moore homage in the middle of one of his famed rockabilly rave ups. 

Moore’s barking double-stops and approximation of a tic-tac bass line on “Mama” are as hooky as it gets, making this solo one of the most important ever.

4. Eddie Cochran “Sittin’ in the Balcony” (1957)

Slinging a 1955 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Hollow Body 'G'-branded guitar with a Gibson P-90 in the neck slot, Cochran, with his iconic presence and echo-drenched tones, hugely impacted early rockers – such as Lennon and McCartney, who bonded over Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock” upon meeting in 1957 – and innumerable players thereafter, particularly Brian Setzer. 

The twangy solo on Cochran’s first hit, “Sittin’ In the Balcony,” crackles with the influence of his heroes Chet Atkins, Joe Maphis, and Johnny Smith.

5. Chuck Berry “Johnny B. Goode” (1958)

While some people might not consider this song’s intro a “solo,” it might be the most important rock guitar part ever recorded. 

The doublestops essentially usher in the post-Elvis rock era, and the tone and balls of this iconic part would echo in the playing of George Harrison, Keith Richards, Eddie Van Halen, and Angus Young... and that's just one tenth of one percent of the players who have copped these licks. 

Listen to it again. You’ll see.

6. Hank Marvin “Apache” (1960)

A primary influence on nearly every British guitarist of a certain age, Marvin created a dreamy, echo-y sound on this #1 U.K. hit that was achieved by playing his Stratocaster – the first in England – through a Meazzi Echomatic tape delay and a Vox AC30 tube amp. 

Marvin mostly used the bridge pickup, but picked near the neck, and palmed the vibrato arm to impart his trademark twang.

7. Freddie King “Hideaway” (1960)

Freddie (a.k.a. Freddy) King cobbled “Hideaway” out of parts lifted from tunes by Hound Dog Taylor, Jimmy McCracklin, Robert Lockwood Jr., and even Henry Mancini. 

Between the breaks where he recycled bits of “The Walk” and “Peter Gunn,” King played stinging solos that he plucked on a P-90 equipped Les Paul using a plastic thumbpick and metal fingerpick. 

Eric Clapton did his own version of the tune on John Mayall’s 1966 album, Blues Breakers, and the success of “Hideaway” made it a launch pad for a number of other King instrumentals that would further his notoriety as one of the top blues guitarists of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

8. James Burton “Hello Mary Lou” (1961)

Having turned pro as a teenager on the Louisiana Hayride, Burton was a seasoned vet by the time he became the lead player in Ricky Nelson’s band, which was featured regularly on the TV show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. 

Burton was a great rock and roll player, as evidenced by his Chuck Berry-style solo on “Believe What I Say,” but he also inspired legions of pickers with his explosively twangy lead break on “Hello Mary Lou.” 

Burton’s playing on Merle Haggard’s early ‘60s hits like “Mama Tried” and “Swingin’ Doors,” inspired the late, great Roy Nichols, who said, “I learned a lot from Burton, and I copied some of his licks, but I couldn’t copy him to a ‘T’.”

9. Jeff Beck “Over Under Sideways Down” (1966)

Along with the Rolling Stones, no band inspired more hard-edged guitar-wielding maniacs than the Yardbirds. Beck’s playing on their classic garage rock anthem is, like much of his playing at this time, inspired by the groovy sounds of the sitar. 

Equal parts spacey modal madness and meth-infused pentatonic fury, it still ranks as some of Beck’s most inspired playing, and that says a lot. 

And not only was Beck’s otherworldly playing inspirational to a generation of guitarists, but his punky stage demeanor and nasty sonic streak (a ‘54 Fender Esquire into a Tone Bender fuzz and AC30), served notice to everyone that a new sheriff was in town, and he was kicking ass.

10. Albert King “Born Under a Bad Sign” (1967)

If Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix lift your licks lock, stock, and barrel, your influence has been spread very far and very wide. In fact, one can make the case that Albert King was the most influential King, just by virtue of the not-so-subtle tributes by his admirers. 

King Albert’s authoritative bends and economical phrasing are required study for anyone who wants to play blues-rock guitar. On this cut, the Velvet Bulldozer lives up to his nickname, making his Gibson Flying V moan, scream, and move mountains with sweeping bends and a stinging tone that delivers all of the nuances in his playing. 

It also proves that, even though SRV and Clapton could “do” Albert, they were never really even close. 

11. Eric Clapton “Crossroads” (1968)

This one is a giant among giants. Little did Slowhand know, after he walked off the Winterland stage in San Francisco, he had created a template setting the standard for expressive, lyrical, howling blues-rock guitar. 

Armed with a ‘64 Gibson ES-335 and a couple of non-master volume 100-watt Marshall stacks, Clapton’s first break is a textbook example of how to build a solo’s intensity, while the second manages to kick it up one more notch for maximum climax. 

Not a duff note in the bunch, impeccably phrased, and with a vibrato that’s as classy as they come, Clapton could have never played another note and he’d still be one of the most influential players ever. 

12. Jimi Hendrix “All Along the Watchtower” (1968)

One can only guess what sort of “light bulb” moment Jimi experienced when he first heard this tune from Bob Dylan’s 1967 album John Wesley Harding. Maybe it was the biblical references in the lyrics, or the great melody – or perhaps just the wide-open space for improvising afforded by the four-chord progression. 

Whatever it was, the version that appeared on Hendrix’ Electric Ladyland album gave rise to one of Jimi’s most memorable solo outings. Playing soulfully and inventively using a wah and fuzz, Hendrix reinvented “All Along the Watchtower” to such a degree that it’s sometimes easy to forget who actually wrote the tune!

13. Peter Green “Black Magic Woman” (1968)

B.B. King once said of Green, “He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.” After establishing himself as a masterful blues stylist in John Mayall’s band, Green quickly evolved both as a player and a songwriter with Fleetwood Mac. 

On his D minor tour-de-force “Black Magic Woman,” Green pulls off an incredibly captivating melody, and his beautiful phrasing and soulful bending on a Les Paul with “magnetically out of phase” pickups was pure gold. 

Carlos Santana made the song a huge hit on Abraxas, and Green was also influential on Irish blues rocker Gary Moore, who would own – and eventually sell – Green’s famous Gibson. 

14. Robert Fripp “21st Century Schizoid Man” (1969)

Fripp’s serpentine solo on this alarmingly virtuosic track combines a supersaturated sustained tone with atypical intervallic movement, non-bluesy bends and trills, and note choices and phrasing that had more in common with Coltrane than Clapton. 

Playing a three-pickup ‘59 Les Paul Custom through a Marshall stack and probably either a Burns Buzzaround or a Colorsound Tone Bender, he recorded the seminal progressive rock solo.

15. Jimmy Page “Heartbreaker” (1969)

Selecting the most influential Page solo led to a heated debate. 

But the squawking tone of a ‘58 Les Paul into a Marshall SLP 1969 Super Lead, maniacal cluster picking, wicked hammer-ons and pull-offs, and behind-the-nut G-string bending in the first solo on “Heartbreaker” – not to mention the smoking second solo – explain why everyone from Brian May to Steve Vai to Steve Morse have hailed it as a definitive guitar solo.

16. B.B. King “The Thrill is Gone” (1969)

With a tone sweeter and thicker than molasses, B.B. King graced this song with one of his most emotive blues solos of all time. King knew what the tune called for in context of the highly produced album Completely Well (his first with strings), and it wasn’t about showboating. 

Far from it, judging by the way he grooves so succulently behind the beat. Besides being a big hit for B.B., “The Thrill is Gone” showed guitarists the power of playing slow and cool. 

In an era when Johnny Winter was introducing blues-rock shredding, B.B. King’s huge vibrato and deep soul defined what “playing from the heart” was all about. 

17. Leslie West “Mississippi Queen” (1970)

Leslie West’s massive and massively influential tone on Climbing! – which included “Mississippi Queen” – was created by playing through a Sunn Coliseum P.A. head and four 4x12 speaker cabinets. 

“The head had four microphone inputs and a master volume control, huge transformers and gigantic KT88 tubes, and the cabinets were loaded with Eminence speakers, which never hurt your ears, even with the treble all the way up,” West told GP in 2010. 

He was playing Gibson Les Paul Juniors at the time, and used a single-cutaway 1956 Jr. with a single P-90, strung with La Bella Electric Guitar strings (with a .010 banjo string for the high E and the other strings moved down one to create a light-gauge set) on the track. 

The song reached #21 on the Billboard charts, assuring that West’s signature sound was heard across the country and around the world.

18. Duane Allman “Statesboro Blues” (1971)

By 1970 Duane Allman and Dickey Betts had forged one of the most iconic guitar sounds of all time with their harmonized melodies on songs like “Revival” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” 

But as far as slide players went, few at the time got more acclaim than Duane himself, after the 1971 release of The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East. Duane’s slick phrasing and fat, singing tone on the opening track of the double live album was inspired by hearing Taj Mahal’s rendition of the song with Jesse Ed Davis on slide. 

Sonny Landreth, who remembers seeing the Allman Brothers at the time, recalls: “That huge tone that Duane got when he played slide on a Les Paul through a Marshall was a real game changer. I don’t remember anyone else who had a sound like that back then.”

19. John McLaughlin “Meeting of the Spirits” (1971)

Although he had already done revolutionary work with Tony Williams’ Lifetime, Miles Davis, and as a solo artist, McLaughlin’s combination of molten Gibson-through-cranked-Marshall distortion, impossibly fast and complex yet ultra-precise picking, and unique phrasing on The Inner Mounting Flame shattered all existing concepts of “electric guitarist” and lit the fuse of fusion.

20. Ritchie Blackmore “Highway Star” (1972)

Actually a harmonized pair of solos, the tasty bends, rapid-fire triplets, and whammy manipulations on this Strat-into-a-Marshall-amp (via a reel-to-reel tape recorder preamp) solo make it one of Blackmore’s most memorable.

The Deep Purple guitarist’s influence on legions of rock and metal shedders from Morse to Malmsteen to Mustaine is undisputable.

21. Billy Gibbons “La Grange” (1973) 

Gibbons made his mark on this classic shuffle with two solos. 

The first, done on a ‘55 Strat, enters screaming with that classic rear pickup Fender bite, before Gibbons flips to the front pickup for a swinging double-stop workout and some liquid pentatonic runs delivered with his impeccable sense of time and swing. 

But it’s the track’s second solo that the guitarist is most famous for, and the one that every hard rock player would study, due to Gibbons’ insane pinch harmonics. With his “Pearly Gates” ‘59 Les Paul, the Reverend squawks, grunts, and chokes out so many pinch harmonics that it would be laughable if it wasn’t so damm bad ass. 

22. Brian May “Bohemian Rhapsody” (1975) 

Brian May’s touch, tone, and orchestral instincts have proven impossible to imitate, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying. 

His majestic lines on this classic are quintessential May, with precise picking, impeccable phrasing, and a bold, loud sound. 

The solo’s placement in the mix was influential, informing how bands such as Boston and Styx featured their solos. You’ve got to assume Dr. May’s harmonized lines at the end of the song got Tom Scholz’s attention as well.

23. Larry Carlton “Kid Charlemagne” (1976)

Carlton was already a session legend known for his smooth-as-silk lines that were reminiscent of Wes, Pass, and Trane when he cut this Steely track. 

But when Mr. 335 combined a rock dude’s tone with a jazzer’s harmonic sensibilities, he created the standard by which every jazz rocker would be judged. 

Ask Steve Lukather, Robben Ford, or Mike Stern what impact this solo had on them. 

Alright then.

24. Carlos Santana “Europa (Earth’s Cry, Heaven’s Smile)” (1976)

Santana masterfully caresses the tune’s main melody with his trademark singing sustain and thick tone, never quite giving up the goods until the outro solo where he lets it all hang out in an outpouring of soulful yet wicked playing. 

He displays a fluid, tactile control at all times, and his tone is more open-sounding and less compressed than in recent years. 

And when he kicks the wah on, look out – he ratchets up the intensity tenfold, just when you think it can’t go any higher. Simply put, “Europa” is a study in pace, melodicism, and space – as well as good, old fashion burning!

25. Al Di Meola “Race with Devil on Spanish Highway” (1977)

Sure, there were people who could play fast before Di Meola, but nobody had made it such a central part of their deal before Big Al came along. 

Di Meola’s picking ability coupled with his sick, self-described “mutola” technique raised the bar for audacious shred and players interested in pushing the limits of picking. 

Far from being a pattern-minded monotone shredder, Di Meola’s Latin influences and his compositional sense have always made his displays of virtuosity supremely musical. 

And for all of the shred haters, Di Meola proved that the emotional impact of many notes is just as valid as a few well-placed ones. 

26. Eddie Van Halen “Eruption” (1978)

What can you say about this cadenza from hell? Cut in 1978, this has to be one of the most influential pieces of guitar playing ever. 

EVH took a Strat with a humbucker, an MXR Phase 90, and a plexi Marshall, and then played some supercharged Clapton licks that boggled just about every 6-stringer’s mind in the world. 

It was Van Halen’s two-handed tapping that truly grabbed everyone’s attention, however, and made this the most recognizable solo of the next two decades. “Eruption” made an impact on millions of rock dudes and seemingly every kid who set foot inside a Guitar Center.

27. Allan Holdsworth “In the Dead of Night” (1978)

As Bill Bruford put it, this solo was, “94 seconds of liquid passion married to a blinding technical facility that was to go down in the annals of rock guitar history. 

"All the hallmarks of his brilliant playing were there in this solo: poise, pace, melody, the Slonimsky interval jumps, the whammy bar, and all over a killer groove.”

28. Mark Knopfler “Sultans of Swing” (1978) 

When Mark Knopfler released this fingerpicked two-pickup masterpiece, he showed guitarists that you don’t need distortion or a plectrum to rock. 

With a Strat on the bridge and middle pickups, a Fender Twin Reverb and a Roland JC-120, Knopfler played two deft, bouncy solos that referenced Chet Atkins with snappy popped notes, crying bends, and clever arpeggios. 

Along the way he influenced just about every clean tone for the next 20 years. When people talk about an “out of phase” Strat tone, they’re talking about this tune.

29. Michael Schenker “Rock Bottom” (1979)

The 1970s was a great time for live records, with classics from Frampton, Lizzy, and Ted Nugent, but one of the sweetest solos to grace a double LP came from UFO’s Michael Schenker. 

The extended break on this tune has everything great about Schenker: melody, dynamics, tone for days, and burning. 

This lead would fascinate rockers all over the world, including George Lynch, Vinnie Moore, Akira Takahashi, and Kirk Hammett.

30. David Gilmour “Comfortably Numb” (1979)

Few solos can match the vibe of Gilmour’s work on this iconic piece. 

Playing a ‘79 black Stratocaster with a ‘62 neck and DiMarzios through Hiwatts and Yamaha RA-200 rotating speaker cabinets, Gilmour transformed what are essentially blues licks into a signature statement that affected the molecules in myriad musical minds. 

This is arguably his crowning achievement as a soloist.

31. Angus Young “You Shook Me All Night Long” (1980)

It serves to reason that a song that is all about getting it on should have a solo that is sexy, right? 

Damn straight. 

Young’s turn on this global hit finds him harnessing his kinetic blues tendencies into a steamy, attitude-laden solo that is actually kind of funky. 

His tasteful major pentatonic flavorings as well as his gorgeous tone – thanks to a wound up old Marshall and a Gibson SG – are the icing on the cake of his impeccable groove, intonation, and phrasing.

32. Randy Rhoads “Crazy Train” (1980)

After Van Halen, it wasn’t easy for an L.A. rocker to make a mark, but Randall Rhoads did so in a big way on his debut with Ozzy. 

Rhoads took what he had gleaned from Mick Ronson, Gary Moore, and Bach, and synthesized it into this metal tour de force. 

He wasn’t the first guy to blend classical music and rock, but he was absolutely the gateway drug for players like Zakk Wylde and Tom Morello.

33. Stevie Ray Vaughan “Pride and Joy” (1983)

The second cut on SRV’s debut album, Texas Flood, “Pride and Joy” blasted onto the airwaves courtesy of a great melody, catchy lyrics, and a gamechanging solo in which Vaughan threw down a barrage of killer licks with a gargantuan tone from his Fender/Dumble rig. 

SRV’s deft songwriting and his Albert King/Hendrix-influenced style succeeded in making what was fundamentally a classic “tay-hass” shuffle into a huge AOR hit that every classic rocker is expected to cover in perpetuity. 

Bottom line is, after SRV came along, anyone who thought they could play blues with fire and passion got a schoolin’ the size of Texas.

34. Yngwie Malmsteen “Black Star” (1984)

Mike Varney’s rep as a finder of great guitarists was already solid when he wrote about a kid from Sweden with a funny name in 1983. 

Many players’ first exposure to Malmsteen was on this shred fest. With his blinding speed, dazzling classical arpeggios, gorgeous Strat-into-Marshall tone, and larger than life vibrato, he didn’t raise the bar for rock technique – he obliterated it. 

Yngwie changed the game forever with this one, just ask any rocker who has swept an arpeggio since then.

35. George Lynch “The Hunter” (1985)

Dokken's George Lynch has inspired countless rock and metal players for nearly 30 years with his perfect blend of structured melodicism and off-the-rails fury – all in the space of a 16-bar solo. 

This solo is a perfect example, as he eases into it with memorable, understated melodic motifs that are helped along with some thick-ass tone and sick vibrato. 

Halfway through, however, Lynch begins to turn up the jets. Alternate picking, sweep picking, and legato playing become one within a single winding phrase, giving him a sound and style that are difficult to ape. 

However, Lynch did show the way for shred-obsessed guitarists on how to structure a meaningful statement in the middle of a tune and leave an everlasting mark. In fact, his solos are the only thing that don’t sound dated about Dokken.

36. Kirk Hammett “Master of Puppets” (1986)

Kirk Hammett’s influences include his teacher Joe Satriani, Michael Schenker, and Thin Lizzy. And nowhere are those influences more prominent than on this tune. 

Hammett’s whammy bar work and speed picking would inspire countless kids to notch their mids, cram their theory, and play blazing solos over chugging grooves.

37. Joe Satriani “Always with Me, Always with You” (1987)

Satriani is obviously known as a master technician, but it’s his melodic side that has left the biggest imprint on guitardom. 

This sweet ballad showcases Satch’s singing tone, skillful ornamentation, and ability to blend the tasty with the jaw dropping. 

The reach of this solo is apparent in hundreds of instrumental guitar records, country ballads, movie soundtracks, and car commercials.

38. Kurt Cobain “Come As You Are” (1991)

Although he took about as many solos and Johnny Ramone, the late Nirvana guitar anti-hero played a memorable one in this song from 1991. 

Presumably using a Boss DS-1 for dirt and an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus for the warbly modulation, Cobain simply quoted the vocal melody in a snotty, vibey way, and the kids went crazy. 

Suddenly, young players – many with a sanctimonious disdain for ‘80s-style wanking – were taking a break from strumming through songs and trying their hands at playing single-note lines.

39. Zakk Wylde “No More Tears” (1991)

Logic dictates that Zakk Wylde was doomed to failure when he got the gig with Ozzy. 

A blond kid with a Les Paul? Really? 

But then people got a taste of his huge tone, squealing harmonics, and rapid-fire pentatonics and a new star was born. 

On this tune Zakk channeled Rhoads, Billy Gibbons, and Frank Marino into a solo that was emblematic of the new generation of metalheads.

40. Dimebag Darrell “The Great Southern Trendkill” (1996)

The post-Van Halen, post-Randy Rhoads world was in dire need of a champion when Darrell Abbott came on the scene. 

He took the styles of those guys, mixed in some Ace Frehley, some Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a heapin’ helpin’ of moonshine and created the ass-kicking solo here. 

Dime made it cool to love Holdsworth, EVH, and Billy Gibbons all in the same song.

By the mid-1990s, Joe Satriani had things pretty much sewn up career-wise. Four of his six studio albums had gone either Gold or Platinum, and his touring dance card was filled for much of any given year.

But despite his spectacular success, something had started to feel a little...off. He wasn’t having the kind of fun he had imagined years before, when he was a budding guitarist dreaming about rock stardom.

“I thought there would be more camaraderie among other players than what I was experiencing,” he says. “As a teenager, I had this idea of what things would be like if I ever hit it big. There would be parties, and I’d get to hang out with my guitar friends. We’d jam and talk about music all night long – that kind of thing.

“Instead, the opposite was true: I was isolated. I would go on tour and play the same set, and then I’d go back to my hotel room and be on my own. I’d have 100 shows in front of me, and then I’d have to make another record and do it all over again.”

Satriani wanted to shake things up, but he didn’t quite know how. And then it hit him: He would create a new kind of show, one that celebrated the communal spirit of electric guitar playing that he craved.

“Nobody was really doing anything of the kind,” he says. “You had blues and reggae festivals. You’d see disco revivals and things like that. Lollapalooza had just started up. But there was nothing really that spoke to guitarists.”

It’s no coincidence that, at that time, interest in guitar was entering a slump from which it would take years to recover.

Starting in the late 1980s, rap and hip-hop had grown in popularity, and were the dominant forms of popular music as the century careened toward its conclusion. Youngsters had become more interested in the power of two turntables and a microphone than in the trenchant blast of a Les Paul cranked through a Marshall stack.

It was still too early to see the lean years that would come, when guitar heroes’ relevance would dim, but Satch’s desire for a guitarist-led event would prove timely.

“I wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with my friends and peers,” he recalls. “And so I thought, Well, nobody else is doing it, so I’ll do it.”

Satriani met with his management team and laid out his grand vision of a traveling show featuring himself and two other guitarists (hence the “G3” moniker), with each player performing an hour-long set followed by a three-way jam.

Once his managers were sold on the idea, the hard part began: convincing booking agents and concert promoters of the package’s validity. “We were breaking the rules that everybody had been taught over the years,” Satriani explains.

“Promoters around the world, and especially in the U.S., like to keep guitarists’ itineraries separated, for business reasons. They don’t want to dilute the market. But I always thought this format would be energizing, because it went against the trends. I always knew it could work.”

Since its first run in 1996, G3 has become the longest-running guitar-centric tour of its kind. All in all, Satriani has taken the show on 18 treks across the U.S., Europe, South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Along with Satch himself, the tour has featured guitarists such as John Petrucci, Robert Fripp, Steve Morse, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Steve Lukather, Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Schenker, Uli Jon Roth, Paul Gilbert, Al Di Meola, Adrian Legg, Phil Collen and the Aristocrats.

But none of it would have happened had G3’s maiden voyage not connected with audiences.

Satriani knew his first package had to pack a wallop, and his dream lineup – a triple-headline bill he shared with his close friend and one-time guitar pupil Steve Vai, along with Texas guitar star Eric Johnson – was a no-brainer.

“I really didn’t have to think about it,” he says. “I wanted to do it with them, and that was all there was to it. I knew we could all shine together onstage.” Vai and Johnson required no arm twisting.

“I said yes immediately,” Vai says. “The second Joe told me about what he wanted to do, I was in. And it superseded other plans I may have had, because the concept felt fresh. Plus, it was something that I thought was needed in the guitar community at the time. The idea was just fantastic.”

Says Johnson, “I felt the same way. It sounded like a novel idea at the time. I remember my manager said, ‘I like this. It sounds really different and cool.’”

Some 25 years on, the first G3 tour and its subsequent editions remain a singular achievement in the world of guitar. Coincidentally, all three of the tour’s founding members are currently releasing albums and planning tours. We thought it was the perfect opportunity to ask them to reminisce about their experiences together and to fantasize what another run might look like.

It was important to me to keep the spirit of guitar music alive no matter what new style of music was becoming popular. I wanted more interaction with great players, and I knew the audience wanted the same. So I took the bull by the horns.

By the late ’90s, it was evident that guitar-based music was losing popularity as rap and hip-hop became the dominant genres. Joe, did you have a premonition that the guitar was in danger of losing some of its relevance when you launched G3 in 1996, just a few years before?

JOE SATRIANI I was more focused on what I felt the fans were craving, and what I too was craving: more fun with the guitar. Having been a performing musician since I was 14 years old, I knew that styles would change and society would simply change channels, so I wasn’t phased by what was happening in the mid-to-late ’90s.

It was important to me to keep the spirit of guitar music alive no matter what new style of music was becoming popular. I wanted more interaction with great players, and I knew the audience wanted the same. So I took the bull by the horns.          

Eric, as everybody knows, Joe and Steve share a long history. When you signed up for G3, did you feel like you had to break the ice with two guys who knew each other so well?

ERIC JOHNSON Well, maybe a little bit, but they were always affable and made me feel comfortable right away. Obviously, Joe and Steve grew up together, and I wasn’t a part of that. But I was totally aware of both of them and their music. I respected them and knew what they were about. I was welcomed very warmly, and that made it very easy to be a part of G3.

Joe and Steve, did you feel like you had to bring Eric into the fold, or were you two like, “Oh, he’ll figure it out”?

SATRIANI I knew it would be fine. I never thought that we had to coach each other. We were all of the same mind: “Isn’t this going to be amazing?” Then at the end of the night, when we start playing together, our attitude was, Let’s just wing it and see what happens! And I can’t tell you how excited I was every night to be destroyed by these two guitar players.

STEVE VAI Come on! [laughs]

SATRIANI It’s true. It was so much fun, because it’s one thing when somebody destroys you onstage like that, and you’re right next to them and you can see how they do it. It’s a life-learning experience. I loved that, and it’s something I’ve always loved about every G3. There’s nothing like it. You can’t replicate it in any other way.

VAI To answer the question you asked about having Eric: Yes, Joe and I have a friendship that goes way back, a very rich, wonderful friendship throughout our lives. We’ve been joined at the hip since I was 12. [laughs]

So to do G3, and to know that Eric was going to do it, too, I was immediately thrilled. Bringing Eric into the fold, it never felt like Joe and I were a group and there was an outsider. We were all very present in the moment. We were three accomplished, mutually respectful players really looking to raise the bar for ourselves and for the guitar.

I know for me, every time I get on a stage with really accomplished, inspired players, it’s impossible not to expand my own potential. Like Joe says, when you’re standing next to these guys, they push you and challenge you. You have to raise your bar because they’re doing it. That’s the feeling you get when it’s your turn. It’s very inspiring, and it’s nice.

Some of my favorite onstage moments were when the three of us were playing together and listening to one another. It’s a very intimate space, and nobody is Joe, Steve or Eric. It’s just this environment of listening and responding.

Joe, during those first G3 tours, did you have a sense that you were keeping the spirit of guitar virtuosity alive at a time when it was in short supply? Did that have an impact on the shows, either in your commitment to keep doing them or in who you brought along on tour?

SATRIANI The G3 stage was the one place where you could play any way you wished. There were no boundaries. You could overdo it, or you could underplay it and be subtle. You could stand still, you could sit like Robert Fripp, or you could bring your own rock and roll circus to the stage.

I encouraged my fellow players to try anything and everything every night. We would support, echo and sometimes challenge each others’ improvisational tangents. Virtuosity on the guitar comes in many forms, and there’s no reason they can’t be celebrated right next to each other.

There have been three other tours with this lineup. When you tour, does it feel like “the band is back together”? Like you’re the Three Amigos.

SATRIANI “The Three Amigos” – I like that. [laughs] I think we should launch another tour once the world opens up a bit. It would be interesting to see where we’ve been musically. We can come back and trade our secrets once again.

JOHNSON Yeah, yeah!

VAI I’m down.

JOHNSON We could wear those Mexican outfits like [Chevy Chase, Martin Short and Steve Martin] did in The Three Amigos. At least for the encore. [laughs]

Joe, when you put together other iterations, did you ever ask Steve or Eric who they wanted to come along as the third guitarist?

SATRIANI Well, it’s a complicated thing putting G3 together, because my responsibility is both creating and selling the package. It starts a year before we want to hit the road. There are a number of scenarios that we have to float to all the different promoters to get a consensus of what they will agree is worthy of the invitation, because you can only play if you’re invited. You don’t just show up.

That means that we come up with Plans A, B, C, D, E, F and G, and then we see what the reaction is. Part of the music business is pretty cruel. It’s numbers and statistics. It’s always been about ticket sales, but back then it was a lot about radio. These days, the social media thing is really a big deal. It’s the first thing promoters do: They see if you’re trending on TikTok or Instagram. They need to determine if they want to take the risk.

That’s how that starts. And, of course, there’s a fine line between sticking to your guns about what you really want to do and listening to the feedback you get from your promoters. There’s no way to know who should be the third guy in Eastern Europe versus Canada, so you’ve got to talk to the promoters to see what they think and what suggestions they might have. Sometimes they’re good ones, and sometimes you’re scratching your head going, “Really?”

It’s difficult. It’s a very long period, and we have to be extremely quiet and discreet about it until we’ve distilled all this advice and feedback. Then we put out the invitations and reach out to the players that have risen to the top of the list, and we have to see what they say. Some players don’t want to play with other guitarists.

I suppose that’s true.

SATRIANI Yeah. I think there are fearless players out there, and then there are people who are still very guarded. I think that’s the defining difference. These gentlemen here are fearless and totally confident, and they just want to make their audience happy. That’s what you want. You don’t want any other baggage coming onstage.

I imagine sometimes choosing the third guitarist feels very easy and natural, but are there instances when you’ve thought, I don’t know how this is going to work?

SATRIANI Well, one of the most interesting characters was Robert Fripp, beyond a doubt. When he joined up, he insisted that he not be listed, and he wanted to play before the show. He said, “Look, don’t turn the lights on. I’m going to sit behind all the amps, and I’m going to play music as people walk into the venue and find their seats. And don’t mention my name.” It’s what he wanted to do.

Sometimes [bassist] Stu Hamm would play with him unannounced. He’d just come out, sit right next to Robert and he’d play along, or some of the other guys would play. It was really quite beautiful. Robert is such a wonderful human being and an incredible musician. We did a couple of other tours together, just me, Steve and Robert playing blues guitar or something. It was hysterical, and he was fearless about that. He was Robert Fripp to the very end.

JOHNSON Well, I was actually thinking of Robert Fripp when Joe mentioned him, because it was like, Wow, that’s different! He was definitely coming from left field, I think. But it was beautiful and cool. People really enjoyed it, too. I thought it sounded great. A lot of people told me, “Hey, have you heard Robert play with the G3 thing?” They thought it was great.

For the encore jams, you three have played “Red House,” “Goin’ Down” and “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama.” How do you guys come up with those songs?

SATRIANI We start emailing each other about what would be a fun song. I think I put it to the guys that we should pick songs that weren’t our own but were somehow connected to us in some way. They would be songs that the audience would recognize and that would celebrate the guitar.

It wasn’t about one of the participants’ new single or something like that. We had to drop all that pretense that we were there to sell our new thing. I think the Zappa song was Steve’s suggestion. He brought that in, and it was great. It turned into one we did over and over again through the years.

VAI Joe would always reach out for suggestions, and there were many, many songs we’d toss out. Some of them would be head-scratchers, but I always relied on Joe to decipher it all, feel through it and pick what the final jam songs would be.

That went for everything – routing, position in the set, where you’re standing onstage. It was always diplomatic, but there’s a practical sensibility that needs to be exercised in all of these things. And that was Joe, because he’s got the tools.

Joe and Steve, you’ve done a number of G3s with John Petrucci as the third guitarist. Eric, I think you played on one tour with John. Is that right?

JOHNSON I did, yeah, in South America. John Petrucci’s amazing. I’m more familiar with him now, and his drummer, Mike Mangini. You know how there are certain groups that you don’t know their whole deal? Even though they’re almost a parallel track as yours, it’s not somebody you really listen to that much, but you still knew they were great.

I wasn’t familiar with John at first, but I was really blown away by him. It was kind of funny, though, because when I first met Mike Mangini, I didn’t know who he was. I asked him, “Are you down here teching for the band?”

VAI I remember that.

JOHNSON Then I heard him play, and I was like, “Oh, my God.” I should say that teching’s no different than playing. I think I embarrassed myself, because I didn’t know who he was. It was a bummer, because I was never able to get to know him; I think I made him feel awkward.

But he was such a fabulous drummer, and John was remarkable. They had a whole different thing going on, with the way they broke up time signatures and stuff. It was just amazing. I got schooled on that during the tour, not unlike the G3s that I did with Joe and Steve. It was like taking lessons every single night.

This is for all of you: How did your G3 experiences impact your feelings about the other two guys here?

SATRIANI Whoa… There have been so many moments when I would stand on the side of the stage watching Steve and Eric play, and then I’d look out at the audience and think, Do they have any idea how amazing this thing is? When are they ever going to see this again?” [Satriani’s cell phone rings] Oh, sorry about that. It’s my agent calling.

JOHNSON He’s saying, “Come on. Book a G3 tour!” [laughs]

SATRIANI And make it snappy! [mutes his phone] Like I said, there were so many moments. For me, in those private moments, standing there and watching them play, it was beyond remarkable. They truly felt the music, and that’s very inspiring. And then to see what they did to the audience, lifting them up, raising their spirits. It just makes you think, We’re doing the right thing.

JOHNSON With Joe, I was really shocked at his precision, virtuosity and sound. Every single night, he would nail everything, unlike somebody else who might be talking. [laughs] Obviously, his records are beautiful, but he plays that stuff live to a T. His touch, his fingering… truly outstanding. He would just nail it all the way.

And then there’s Steve – this organic guitar orchestra. From comedy to sadness, he packs in all these different emotions, and they go way beyond guitar sounds. That blew my mind. It was just such a hemisphere of learning for me.

How about you, Steve?

VAI With Joe and Eric, I already knew of their excellence. You know, I can be a sloppy, visceral performer. I always enjoy what I do, but there’s a little part of me that says, “You can be better. You can be more concise. You can be clearer and cleaner.”

So when I’d get onstage with these guys, that’s what I recognized. Seeing them perform, I saw the presentation of a whole piece of music that was immaculate. No disrespect to any other G3 performer, but if I go back to listen to any G3 record, I go right to Eric’s performance of “Manhattan,” which is flawless.

Every night I would watch him, and beyond being absolutely entertained by a musician at the height of his potential, I would always feel like, Steve, you’ve got to do more of that. He was inspired and performed beautifully from beginning to end.

And, of course, that’s Joe’s middle name. You know how many times I’ve seen him perform? [laughs] Every time he gives you this incredible presentation. What he offers you is beautiful. The song is respected, and it’s mastered completely.

You get as much out of it as the audience.

VAI Oh yeah. When I see these guys do what they do, I could be depressed or I could be inspired. And they always inspired me. I knew how they could perform. But what was interesting for me was putting a microscope on myself.

If anything, I’ve always been a bit of a pretentious rock star. [Joe and Eric laugh] It’s true – you guys know it. And that was exorcized out of me a bit. When you work with guys like this – because they’re humble, and they’re excellent – it’s fun and educational to get your ass kicked.

We were friends before, and we’re friends after. What more could you ask for?

Order Joe Satriani/Eric Johnson/Steve Vai: G3 Live In Concert here.

Visit the Joe Satriani website for more info on G3.

When Gary Miller graduated from high school in the late 1970s, the Washington, D.C. guitarist – better known as Dr. Know of the seminal hardcore group Bad Brains – was not planning on a lifetime career in rock and roll.

“I was going to Maryland University and I wanted to be a doctor,” the 61-year-old says from his home in Kingston, New York, where he is still working to undo some of the effects of a severe stroke he suffered in 2016. “That’s how I got the nickname ‘Dr. Know,’” he adds.

Of course Doc, as his bandmates call him, was not to finish his medical studies but to devote his life to his musical craft instead. “That’s how the spirit works,” he says. “It’s like, ‘All right, you boys are going to come over here and play this music.’”

Whether guided by divine forces or their own talent and vision, Bad Brains went on to become pioneers of hardcore punk. Formed in 1977 by Dr. Know, bassist Darryl Jenifer, vocalist Paul Hudson (known to most as H.R., an acronym for Human Rights) and his brother, drummer Earl Hudson, the group made a biblical impact on almost every punk and hardcore band that followed, particularly local D.C. groups like Minor Threat, Youth Brigade and Scream, which featured a teenage Dave Grohl on drums.

The group’s live shows were raucous affairs at which H.R. would perform backflips and dive into the audience without warning, whipping the band’s audience into a destructive frenzy that got the group banned from most D.C. venues.

Emigrating to New York in 1981, Bad Brains converted many of the Big Apple’s nascent hardcore bands, including Agnostic Front, Murphy’s Law and the fledgling Beastie Boys.  

But Dr. Know’s role wasn’t preordained. Before turning punk on its head as a guitarist, he began his musical journey on the bass. “I had a good friend of mine, back in the day, and he played guitar already, so I started playing the bass,” he recalls.

“But my first bass was actually a guitar – one of those Silvertones from the ’60s where the amp was built into the case. I think it was missing the G string when I got it, so I took off the B and high E as well, and just left the E, A and D. Then after that, I hooked up with some friends of mine and we used to play funk covers. Strictly funk. P-Funk, and stuff like that.”

A musical omnivore, he was also enthralled by the jazz fusion practiced by groups like Chick Corea’s Return to Forever. “I used to play those records over and over and over, and learn the songs by ear by slowing the record down,” he says. “But I also went to see all these people live.

“Literally, I think we were going to a concert every weekend: ‘Oh, Ma. I need $20. I got to go to the concert!’ God bless her. Everything was all mixed together, and we’d see Thin Lizzy and Chaka Khan on the same bill. I saw Return to Forever at a little jazz club in D.C. with Bill Connors on guitar. I saw mister Joe Pass. I was just absorbing.”

Switching to electric guitar, Dr. Know formed Mind Power in 1976 with Jenifer and the two Hudson brothers. The group played jazz-fusion and funk-tinged music and practiced in the basement of a house they all shared.

“I worked at a steakhouse at the time,” he explains. “I got everybody jobs there, except for Earl, and we rented a house from the owner of the restaurant. We used to practice in the basement, and me and Darryl and H.R. would all plug into one padded Kustom amp. Darryl bought me an Electro-Harmonix Linear Power Booster that plugged straight into the guitar, and that’s what I used for fuzz.” 

Dr. Know and his bandmates would themselves experience a musical epiphany after being exposed to the bilious aggression of the punk rock music being produced by U.K. bands like the Damned and Sex Pistols, as well as their American counterparts the Ramones and Dead Boys.

“We had started with the fusiony stuff, but when we heard the aggressiveness of punk, that really hit home with us, because we were kids,” he says. “And we decided, We’re going to do this. We started to throw little concerts in our basement. And that’s it. The whole D.C. thing, that’s when it all got started, meeting Henry Rollins [of Black Flag] and Ian MacKaye [of Minor Threat] and playing at this place, Madam’s Organ.”

Because they had already developed their chops playing more intricate material, Bad Brains benefited from a technical proficiency that eluded most of the bands on the then-emerging American hardcore scene.

“We could play. That was the whole thing. Because boys couldn’t play then. Can’t lie about it,” Dr. Know says. “I was playing all downstrokes, so it had more oomph, and I was muting with the right hand, which was something that I got from Al Di Meola,” he continues. “Van Halen had also just come out, and I was intrigued about how he hit the harmonics with the pick. I was like, I’ve got to figure out how to do that. So I did.”

The speed and precision of the Bad Brains’ early performances soon became the stuff of legend, and an album’s worth of demo recordings, later released as the collection Black Dots, swept the punk underground like the furious wildfire that its music evoked.

By 1982 when Bad Brains released their self-titled debut, originally issued by the cassette-only ROIR label, it had become de rigueur for other bands in the genre to attempt to match the group’s breakneck tempos.

“Everybody was trying to play fast like us, so we had to make it faster,” Dr. Know explains. But to recognize this landmark album merely for its speed is to do it a great disservice. Recorded in a performance space turned ad-hoc studio on Manhattan’s then incredibly dicey Avenue A in the East Village, classic tracks like “The Regulator” and “Attitude” demonstrated that hardcore could be both aggressive and melodically engaging, and that dismissing the genre as “noise” was done at one’s own peril.

The band, and Dr. Know in particular, were not opposed to referencing their more refined musical past. The album’s opening track, “Sailin’ On,” for example, closes with a ringing major-seven chord. “I love major-seven chords,” he says chuckling. “And then all the different inversions and stuff.”

Along with embracing stratospheric beats-per-minute counts and jazzy tetrads, Bad Brains, who had all adopted Rastafarianism after seeing a Bob Marley and the Wailers concert at Maryland’s Capital Center in 1978, also began to incorporate more reggae into their repertoire.

“I remember going to see Bob Marley because the bass was so heavy at the show,” Dr. Know recalls of the concert. “I was like, Wow, what is going on here? That was it. The music and the message of what Marley was saying and singing had a big influence on us.”

The group’s follow-up to Bad Brains, 1983’s Rock for Light, produced by Cars frontman Ric Ocasek, would further cement the group’s standing as the most dynamic and agile punk band on the planet.

“The beautiful thing about us is that we didn’t have to really follow a format or anything. We just did what we did,” Dr. Know says. “And Ric didn’t try to change us. He just told us to be ourselves and to do what we did best. He died on my birthday. He was a beautiful soul, and I miss him.”

By the mid ’80s, Bad Brains rightfully felt that they had exhausted the possibilities offered by hardcore, and with producer Ron Saint Germain (Mick Jagger, Sonic Youth) behind the board, the group began exploring a more riff-oriented hard-rock direction.

Bad Brains would record two consecutive albums with Saint Germain, 1986’s I Against I and 1989’s Quickness. Although neither release garnered mainstream recognition, both were as original and potent as the group’s earlier, more-frequently referenced work.

As Dr. Know observes, the new direction of these albums was a welcome shift that allowed the group members to employ more of the musical knowledge and know-how they had acquired before diving headfirst into punk rock.

“We just wanted to go back to our roots, play more jazzy kind of stuff,” he says. “Because of our Return to Forever influence – the jazz-rock thing – all the songs have that vibe going, because I was always experimenting with jazz chords and this and that.”

Dr. Know and Jenifer would spend hours musical problem solving to integrate sophisticated chord progressions and voicings into their music.

“Darryl and I, we’d be writing songs, and I’m like, ‘Let me throw this in there.’ But then it sounded good and we had to have a whole transition, a whole chord progression. I would just sit down and figure that stuff out. We’d incorporate all kinds of sixth chords and ii-V-I chord progressions, but we played them with a lot of distortion.”

More harmonically complex, groove- and riff-driven compositions like I Against I’s propulsive “Reignition” and Quickness’s grinding “Soul Craft” also served as a perfect platform for Dr. Know’s uniquely aggressive and often dissonant solos, most of which were performed without the benefit of overdubbed rhythm guitars to support them.

“Part of Darryl’s style on bass is that he plays chords so that we wouldn’t need another guitar player,” he explains. As to how the guitarist determined which scales or modes to play over the band’s often chromatic riffs, he reveals that he mostly left it up to instinct and intuition.

“I would never really think about any of that,” he says. “I would be like, ‘Okay, what key is this in? All right. Roll it!’ And I would just play what I felt. After we finished a record, I would always have to learn what I played, because at the time of recording I would just go and let the spirit make it all happen.”

Ever mercurial and dogged by mental health issues, frontman H.R would leave Bad Brains after Quickness, marking what many consider to be, for lack of a better term, the end of the group’s classic era.

The singer rejoined the group for several more albums in the 1990s and into the new millennium, including 1995’s God of Love for Madonna’s Maverick label (produced again by Ocasek) and Build a Nation, a 2007 effort produced by longtime fan and friend Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys. But, regrettably, H.R.’s inability to tour for extended periods without incident would prevent the Bad Brains from extensively promoting the releases.

Still, mindful of maintaining their legacy, the group has founded Bad Brains Records and where possible is recovering the rights to their original recordings and remastering and releasing them in restored, deluxe vinyl and digital editions.

For Dr. Know, who suffered some memory loss along with his stroke, the process of revisiting the band’s canon has been both revelatory and comforting. “It’s funny. I was about to say I had to sit down and learn this stuff all over,” says the guitarist, who underwent several years of physical therapy to regain the use of his left hand. “But subconsciously, my hands go right to where they’re supposed to go, and my strength is coming back. I knew I was doing better when I picked up a guitar and bent a string without thinking about it. I was like, Oh shit! I just did that! But I play differently now,” he continues. “It’s not weird, but I know people are going to be like, ‘Damn, man, what are you doing?’ ”

Hopefully, Dr. Know is not overly concerned with having a new voice on the instrument, as his fans have always expected the unexpected from this wildly creative player. And fortunately, it seems that he still has plenty of time left to explore the instrument anew.

“I went and saw all my doctors this month,” he says. “And they were all like, ‘We’ll see you in a year.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean a year?’ They’re like, ‘You’re good, Doc. Your blood pressure’s all right and your this and your that are all fine.’

“I was like, ‘Really? All right then. See ya!’”

Visit the Bad Brains Records website for a browse through their current catalog.

In early June 2017, Al Di Meola visited the commune of Cerreto Sannita, located in the Campania region of southern Italy, about 40 miles north of Naples. The renowned jazz guitarist didn’t take a trip there to play a concert date but rather to make a long-overdue return to the town that his grandfather, Michelangelo Di Meola, had left behind in the early 1900s to seek a new life in America.

“I always wanted to go there,” Di Meola says. “It’s where my grandfather grew up. He was only 20 when he boarded a ship and left for the United States to start a family. I never knew my grandfather or grandmother because they died before I was born. All I knew were stories I heard my father tell about my grandfather growing up in Cerreto.”

The morning after his June 4 performance in Naples, Di Meola, his wife, Stephanie, and their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Ava, took a short drive north through the hills to Cerreto Sannita. “I had a couple of days off after that show,” he explains. “I thought we were going to visit like tourists, but Stephanie had made special arrangements on her own with people from the town before we left. When we got there, they had this big welcoming party waiting for us. The local police were directing traffic and holding people back on both sides of the street. I couldn’t believe that all of those people were there to see me.

“I met a lot of relatives I had never known about,” he continues. “My grandfather had 16 brothers and sisters, but only two of them went to the United States. That left 14 siblings who stayed behind in Cerreto, and they had children, and their children had children. Cerreto is a small village of maybe 3,000 people, but almost half of the town is related to me! They were so happy to finally meet me. They knew all about me for the last 40 years, thanks to my endeavors in the music world, and they were very proud of that.”

After a lavish buffet lunch with his relatives and new friends, Di Meola was whisked off to Cerreto’s courthouse for yet another surprise. “The mayor, Giovanni Parente, and the town council were there to greet me, sitting behind these big, official-looking wooden desks,” he says. “As I stood before them, each one voted me in as an honorary citizen. The whole time I was whispering to my wife, ‘Can you believe this?’ It was a very organized and serious matter.”

During a day full of numerous emotional peaks, the most touching moment for Di Meola happened shortly after his honorary citizenship ceremony, while his relatives were taking him on a tour of important places from his grandfather’s past, including his church and other places where he spent his time as a young man. Walking uphill along Strada Provinciale toward the northeastern edge of Cerreto Sannita, just past the Church of Santa Maria Mater Christi, his relatives brought him to a set of modest, three-story row houses with well-weathered facades.

One of those homes was where his grandfather once lived.

“Right before me was the doorway that Michaelangelo walked through almost 120 years ago,” Di Meola reminisces. “The very last time he closed those doors was when he left to catch a ship from the port of Naples to New York and start his new life in America. I was simply overwhelmed with emotion when I realized that.

“I had heard stories of Cerreto all of my life from my dad,” he continues. “They were stories that my grandfather had told my father, which he told me maybe a thousand times. My relatives in Cerreto told me those same exact stories, and they had it all documented. Seeing the actual place where my grandfather lived brought all those stories to life. That was something I will never forget.”

The day after his arrival, Di Meola posted a story about his experience on Facebook. Guitar maker Theo Scharpach was so touched by it that he decided to build a very special guitar to commemorate this homecoming event. Best known for the exquisite custom archtop, classical and flamenco guitars he builds in his workshop in Schaijk, in the Netherlands, Scharpach has been a friend of Di Meola’s since they met at one of the jazz guitarist’s concerts about 25 years ago. Over the years, Scharpach has created several instruments for him.

“I read the story that Al published on Facebook, and it impressed me very much,” Scharpach says. “The first guitar that I made for him back in the ’90s was a small-body nylon-string instrument with custom abalone purfling and headstock inlays, which he still has in his collection. For this, I thought that a more traditional flamenco-style guitar would be ideal. Al liked that idea, but he wanted it to have a very extreme cutaway, which is something he prefers to have on his nylon-string flamenco guitars. I designed the deepest cutaway the guitar could possibly have while preserving great sound and a traditional shape.”

Scharpach was particularly moved by the photo Al posted of him and his infant daughter Ava seated in front of the arched stone doorway to Michelangelo’s former home in Cerreto Sannita. “When I read that Al’s grandfather left Italy through that doorway, I knew that the guitar had to incorporate a reference to that door in some way,” Scharpach says. “The arched shape of the doorway inspired me to develop a unique headstock design with a unique story behind it. I used inlays of different veneers to simulate the arch’s stone construction. To represent the massive steel doors, I inlaid an ebony veneer into the center of the headstock. The doorway also inspired the name of the guitar, which I called La Porta.”

While the doorway inspired both the guitar’s name and headstock design, the overall construction was influenced by the work of Spanish guitar master builder Santos Hernandez. In 1912, while he was employed in the workshop of Manuel Ramírez, Hernandez built a guitar that Ramírez gifted to classical guitar maestro Andrés Segovia when the performer was only 18 and that he played for the next 25 years of his life. Considered one of the elite Spanish guitar luthiers of the 20th century, Hernandez was known for making flamenco guitars with unusually sweet tone, rich warmth and full body.

“Some collectors I know have loaned me Santos Hernandez guitars from 1925 and 1935 that they own,” Scharpach says. “I have carefully studied their construction and design, and those guitars were my source of inspiration for this guitar’s design. La Porta is made in the tradition of the old masters. It has a standard 650 mm scale length, and most of its other dimensions are also standard. I also used traditional fan bracing, with seven struts.”

For years, Di Meola’s main flamenco guitars have been Conde Hermanos negra instruments built with spruce tops and rosewood backs and sides. For La Porta, Scharpach decided to build him a blanca flamenco guitar, featuring a back and sides made of cypress wood. “I feel that a spruce top and cypress sides and back create a very clear and pure sound,” the luthier says. “That quality of tone is what most players want from a flamenco guitar. I also wanted to give Al something that was different from the other flamenco guitars he usually plays. La Porta was built with some of the finest materials in my workshop. My workshop is well stocked with woods that are 40 to 50 years old, just waiting around to be used one day.”

While the traditional designs of Santos Hernandez inspired La Porta’s overall construction, Scharpach added a few modern embellishments to satisfy Di Meola’s preferences. One of his biggest challenges was making the action as low as possible to suit the guitarist’s lightning-fast playing style. Scharpach also cut a sound port on the side of the upper bass bout to make it easier for the player to hear the guitar’s natural acoustic tone onstage.

In addition, the guitar maker created a unique modern rosette design. “I wanted the rosette to have a simple, strong design that was also distinctive and slightly different than my standard rosette, just to set the guitar apart and give it its own identity,” he says. “The rosette is inlaid with small ebony veneers – just very simple and plain. The challenge was keeping the design simple while still being distinctive and telling its own story.

“One of the most important features is the RMC Acoustic Gold hexaphonic pickup,” Scharpach elaborates. “Al also uses the RMC Poly-Drive II to control a guitar synth. Without that, he would not be able to use the guitar onstage. Over the last few years, he and his sound engineer, who is always traveling with him on tour, have developed a very good amplified acoustic sound together. Even on the biggest concert stages, he manages and controls the natural sound nuances of the acoustic flamenco guitar very well, which is not very easy to do.”

Scharpach completed work on La Porta just before Di Meola was scheduled to play several concerts in Germany in May 2018. “I presented La Porta to Al during one of his concerts in Berlin,” he explains. “Al noticed the high quality of the guitar immediately, which pleased me very much. He is a very talented, sensible and delicate player, and it is always a very tricky thing to build a guitar for a player of his caliber. He is very particular about the guitars that he plays. If he doesn’t like something, he won’t play it.”

Fortunately, La Porta has earned Di Meola’s seal of approval. He has played the guitar several times onstage since he received it, and he regularly keeps the instrument onstage with him. He’s used it several times to perform “Cerreto Sannita,” the song inspired by his homecoming trip, and which he recorded for his critically acclaimed 2018 album, Opus. A photo of the fabled arched doorway appears on the back cover of the record jacket.

“Al is breaking in La Porta more and more during his concerts,” Scharpach says. “Of course, he still tends to prefer the Conde Hermanos that he has played for the last 25 years, so La Porta still has some years to go before Al becomes more familiar with it and feels more comfortable playing it. He and I have known each other for so long now. I am pleased that after so many years we finally did something together again. For it to be a project like La Porta, which has so much personal importance to him, was truly an honor.”

Click here for more information on custom-made Scharpach instruments.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Al Di Meola revealed that he is planning on selling his legendary '71 black Les Paul Custom guitar for charity.

When asked if he put the guitar, along with other treasures in his collection, on display during his A Fine Taste and Music house events – where fans were able to visit Di Meola at his New Jersey home for a night of food, wine, conversation, one-on-one performances, and more – Di Meola answered in the affirmative.

"Oh, yeah. The ’71, which weighs about 400 pounds," Di Meola joked. "That’s the one I started using with Chick Corea. Which I’m selling, by the way, for the right price.

Pressed to confirm the potential sale, Di Meola said "Yeah. I have a little charity on the side, and I’m going to let go of a lot of my electrics because I’m playing less electric these days and I’m trying to lighten up the collection a bit. So if we can get the right price…"

In other Di Meola news, in the same interview, the fleet-fingered guitar legend also said that he would be releasing a new guitar trio record with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía in September. 

When asked if it would be a 40th anniversary reissue of the trio's legendary live album, Friday Night in San Francisco, Di Meola said "No, not really. It’s going to be a show from the same venue… but the next night. Saturday Night in San Francisco.

"For 40 years, I’ve had the other night that no-one knew about except for the people that went to the show. In fact, even John didn’t remember we played a second night. [laughs]

"But I have the tapes, and I had them professionally baked to have them restored. And it turns out they’re phenomenal. And we played all different tunes. On the first record I had a song called 'Mediterranean Sundance.' This night there’s a song called 'Splendido Sundance.' And there’s three unaccompanied solo pieces. So you’re not getting the same record twice."

"So it's a pretty incredible thing. I'm looking forward to people hearing it. And then hopefully at some point we’ll get to bring the dinners back as well. So this year is shaping up to be pretty busy."

“It's a very funny song in a way,” Al Di Meola says of “Race with Devil on Spanish Highway,” the jazz-rock masterpiece from his landmark 1977 album, Elegant Gypsy. “By that I mean the way it’s been perceived and written about is a little strange.”

As Di Meola explains, he’s read articles in which the song has been labeled proto-shred, a term that rubs him the wrong way. 

“It’s that word shred that I’m not crazy about,” he explains. “It just feels so limiting and certainly not a good way to describe what I do, because a lot of shredders aren’t known as good songwriters - they’re just going off on the guitar. I come from a compositional background. 

"Even when I played with Return to Forever, we emphasized writing, although we were certainly known for technique. So this song is interesting to me, but not always in the ways that people like to talk about it.”

Getting the Kinks Out

No matter how you define the song, you probably wouldn’t expect that it was inspired by a garage-rock classic. Di Meola explains, “This might surprise some people, but when I wrote this song, I was thinking of the Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me.’ That was the first song I ever attempted to play, when I was eight or nine years old. 

“I played it with my thumb. Imagine playing an open E, but with the thumb of your left hand you reach over the neck and play the F sharp. That’s what popped into my mind when I started to write this one.

“It was very simplistic compared to my later compositions. But really, the whole basis of the song is that riff, which was inspired by the Kinks. At the same time, I was hearing congas in my head, so now we’re taking it out of the Kinks’ world. I’m very percussion-oriented, so I heard congas and drums that just explode like fire. There were a lot of different stylistic elements going on.

“I might have made a demo. I was still living with my parents at the time, and I was making demos on a TEAC four-channel reel-to-reel. But I do know that I made charts for the guys. So the structure of the tune was plotted out, but there was room for improvisation. The sections where I’m accused of being a shredder were all improvised.”

Everything Was Live

Di Meola recalls that he cut the track at New York City’s Electric Lady Studios with bassist Anthony Jackson, keyboardist Barry Miles and drummer Lenny White. 

“We rehearsed the song a few times, and then we hit Electric Lady,” he continues. “I didn’t really have to explain much to the guys. Their level of musicianship was so high that they could just look at a chart and know what they had to do to enhance the tune.

“I was using my ’71 Les Paul Custom and a Marshall 50-watt half stack. I didn’t use any effects - you lose so much punch that way. On my amp, I just turned the bass and midrange to 10, and I dialed the treble down to zero. I remember Larry DiMarzio came to the studio. He looked at my amp and said, ‘It’s funny that you use that setting. That’s how Leslie West sets his amp.’

“Everything was live, even my solos. I was standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by the other guys. There was some bleed from the other players, but what are you gonna do? It’s a bunch of guys playing together.”

Legacy

“I was really pleased at how well Elegant Gypsy and certain songs from it were accepted,” Di Meola says. “In Germany, the album was a big hit. This track and ‘Mediterranean Sundance’ were played on the radio all the time. Because of those two songs, it sold in the millions.

“People love it when I play ‘Race with Devil on Spanish Highway’ live. Occasionally, I’ll watch videos of people playing it. I’ve even commented on them and given a thumbs-up to a few. I think the players are surprised: ‘Hey, cool! Al checked me out!’”

Even before he released All Your Life, his 2014 tribute to the Beatles’ music, Al Di Meola knew that a sequel was mandatory. 

“Let’s face it: Their catalog is so vast and incredible,” he says. “The first Beatles record I did was like scratching the surface. You record one song and you immediately think of three more you could do. 

“So the idea of doing another one appealed to me from a conceptual standpoint, but when All Your Life became a big seller, it became a no-brainer. This is music that I love, and people all over the world want to hear it. The Beatles just make you feel good.”

Like All Your Life, the new album, Across the Universe (earMUSIC), sees the guitar legend re-imagining the music of the Fab Four in ways that are both startling and exhilarating. 

“Here Comes the Sun” becomes a multiple–time signature acoustic and electric guitar orchestra, while “Dear Prudence” floats atop a soft bed of Caribbean percussion, over which Di Meola layers bewitching, lightning-fast arpeggios. 

A straightforward pop ditty like “Your Mother Should Know” is now transformed into a blissed-out, Latin-tinged epic of interwoven nylon-strings. The guitarist also basks in the riches of Abbey Road with the “Golden Slumbers Medley,” lacing “Golden Slumbers” with fluid flamenco licks before digging in for some searing rock on “Carry That Weight.”

“Doing straight-up covers is the easy way out,” says Di Meola, who admits that a fair amount of trial and error goes into such daring musical alchemy.  “In many ways, doing something like this is harder than making my own records because I’m going up against the critics. 

“If it were my music and they had never heard it before, they couldn’t say, ‘Oh, he screwed that part up,’ or ‘I liked the originals better.’ But the Beatles are sacred ground. So yeah, there’s a lot of second guessing. At the end of the day, it’s all about vibe. The vibe to each piece has to be right, and then I’m home free.”

Although he’s revered as a master in the annals of progressive rock, jazz and world music, Di Meola has never lost his affinity for the band he fell in love with at the age of nine, when he first heard his older sister spinning Meet the Beatles. And he can’t understand why some of his virtuoso contemporaries don’t hold the group in the same regard. 

“I’m left with the feeling that a lot of jazz and fusion guys have kind of forgotten about melody,” he says. “It’s like melody isn’t as important as getting to your solo. With the Beatles, you have all the elements of what makes music great. There’s beautiful melodies and well-constructed harmonies. Each track of theirs is a lesson in song structure. They were so ahead of their time.” 

He thinks, then adds, “The sound that made me love them as a kid is the same feeling I have for them now. In fact, it’s deeper. How many things can you say that about?”

Isn’t it remarkable that the Beatles wrote all of this music without understanding theory?

Very. But they had this inner kind of knowledge. A street sense. They had great ears and they learned everything on their own. It’s astonishing what they wrote without any kind of initial formal training. I know that Paul’s father played piano, so perhaps he got some amount of private lessons from his dad. 

But for the most part, they were self-taught. They played American rock and roll - Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers - and they honed their craft in clubs for years. Way before we heard of them, they had it down.

Have you been impressed by any previous Beatles covers released by other artists?

No, not really. I heard a lot of covers that really were awful, especially if they sing. I mean, I understand why people do it - it’s why I do it. But too many people just do the same thing. I wanted to do my own thing.

The production on this album is fuller than on All Your Life. Did the songs that you chose impact that decision?

Pretty much. I just wanted to do something more elaborate. I mean, there are some pieces that don’t lend themselves to my kind of treatment or style. What do you do with something like “Come Together”? It’s mostly one chord.

I need something with a lot of harmonic movement, meaning chords, beautiful melody. It has to be able to stand on its own. Now, maybe you want to syncopate the rhythm. Maybe you want to change a 4/4 feel into a 3/4, or a 3/4 into a 4/4. But at the same time, you don’t want to displace the melodies too much.

On the previous album, you seemed to favor Paul’s songs, but Across the Universe is split equally between him and John, with a little George and Ringo thrown in.

I think it was accidental. I didn’t look at the list and count who wrote which song. It’s funny - doing this, I open myself up to getting attacked. I read comments online, and I’ll see 20 really good responses, but there will be one person who’ll say, “I prefer ‘Yesterday’ being not so busy.” What is he talking about? It’s so not busy. I’m playing the melody, and what’s underneath isn’t busy. I can never figure out some of these comments.

“Dear Prudence” feels like it’s less married to the original song’s melody. It’s more abstract.

I guess so. I think the arpeggiated parts are definitely different than the original. They’re pretty interesting, I think. The melody’s in there - you’ve got to kind of hear that more than once or twice. But I didn’t want any of this music to sound the same as the original. I just wanted to do it in a new way.

You really opened up “Norwegian Wood.” It almost feels like a departure point for your own music.

I should have put a disclaimer in there: “You’re going to go on a much longer journey through Norway.” The original is pretty short. If you take out the voice and the lyrics, you’re left with two minutes of music. So I felt compelled to write some original music to extend the piece as an instrumental. This one is an extreme case of me adding almost an Al Di Meola movement.

Are you playing an actual sitar on it?

The sitar sound is this device I’m using on my guitar. It’s a little box - I forget who makes it - and it says “sitar” on it. I just plugged into it and said, “That sounds cool. Let’s use it.” The song also has an Indian tabla player on it. I used him on “Norwegian Wood” and “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

How did you distill all of the different chords, the melody and textures on “Strawberry Fields Forever” so that you can play them as one guitar part?

It might sound like one, but there’s a couple of them. I just go by feel. I never looked at it like it had more than one texture. It’s chord melody again. On that one I used my Ovation steel-string, which I haven’t played so much in past years, and I had some effects come in at times. I blended sounds on this VG-88 Roland synth module.

You do a lovely version of “Till There Was You,” which the Beatles didn’t actually write.

They didn’t, but they did such a beautiful version of it and made it their own. I remember that from Meet the Beatles and when they played The Ed Sullivan Show. I got the music and I was surprised at the complexity of the chords. There’s augmented, there’s diminished... There’s all kinds of jazz chords in it.

In the middle, you turned it into a briskly picked rock number.

If I had played it the way they did it, it would be a bit old-fashioned. I wanted to make it a little hipper, so that’s what I came up with. Listen to the chord changes. I’m playing a rhythm that’s very unorthodox in a way. It’s more percussive than theirs.

A lot of guitarists would wonder why you still haven’t recorded “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

And there’s an answer to that: Because it’s obvious. Come on, it’s so obvious! I wanted to avoid that. I struggled with doing “Yesterday” and “Hey Jude” because they’re obvious, too. “Till There Was You” felt good because it’s left-field. I like that.

In terms of guitars and amps, what did you use for the record?

Always the Conde Hermanos. It’s my signature-model nylon guitar made in Madrid. But on “Here, There and Everywhere,” I used a smaller-scale full body, this very old Conde that I found in a music shop in Germany. 

I also played an Ovation a lot, a 12-string Guild and a Martin D-18. On “Here Comes the Sun,” I played a 12-string mandolin; I don’t know its name - I got it in Nashville. 

For electrics, I played my PRS signature Prism and my ’71 Les Paul Custom. I haven’t used the Les Paul since the ’70s - it weighs a ton. But man, it’s so punchy. It hits you right in the chest. I haven’t been able to get that sound with any other guitar through any amp.

It’s funny, though: My engineer and I were trying to find a Marshall to use with the Les Paul. We went looking through stacks of stuff in my garage, and way in the back of everything we found a 50-watt from the mid ’70s. I didn’t think it would even work, but I plugged it in and it fired right up. It was like, “Whoa! What a nice sound!”

Oh, and I’m also playing a Rickenbacker bass like Paul played - same bass, same gauge flatwound strings.

I have a friend in Long Island who is a Beatles authority. I called him up and I said, “Can you get hold of a Rickenbacker?” And he said, “I can get one for you.” He knew of someone, and we got it on loan for the record. You plug that thing in, and it’s like, “There we go. That’s the Paul sound!”

• Al Di Meola's Across the Universe is out now via EARMUSIC.