Few guitar performances have stunned audiences quite like Prince’s appearance at George Harrison’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction on March 15, 2004.

Joining Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood and Harrison’s son, Dhani, for a tribute performance of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” Prince stepped forward at the song’s climax and unleashed a breathtaking solo on his custom Hohner Mad Cat electric guitar. Blending fluid technique, fearless phrasing and effortless showmanship, he left viewers — and even his fellow performers — in awe.

Billy Gibbons was one of them.

Although the ZZ Top guitarist had long admired Prince as a songwriter and showman, he admits he had no idea just how formidable he was as a guitarist until that performance.

“I didn’t really know Prince to be that accomplished as a guitarist,” Gibbons told Dan Rather for AXS TV. “I knew he held a guitar, but I didn’t really see him play it much. But that one appearance at the close of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction awards really caught me off guard, and I started listening intently.”

The revelation came at just the right time. Not long afterward, while ZZ Top were on tour, Gibbons found himself crossing paths with Prince in New York City.

“I was in Manhattan, and we had made an appearance,” Gibbons recalled. “It was late at night, and I was looking for a place to get something to eat.”

His favorite late-night spot in the Meatpacking District was closed for renovations, but the venue across the street was buzzing.

“There was another place that had recently opened. I had never seen it before, but there was great fanfare going on. I saw Brazilian-looking dancers up on top of the bar. The music was so loud, I said, ‘Well, I gotta go.’”

After taking a look around, Gibbons says, “A large guy came up and tapped me on the shoulder. He said, ‘Somebody wants to speak to you.’”

The man pointed toward a lone figure sitting in a banquette. It was Prince.

“He said, ‘I just would like to talk guitar.’ And I said, ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place.’”

The two spent the next two hours, as Gibbons puts it, “peeling the onion,” swapping ideas and techniques until nearly dawn.

“We sat for a good two hours talking about how to do this and how to do that. This was now going on till 4:30, five in the morning. And I said, ‘By the way, can you teach me how to play that guitar figure that opens up your great song “When Doves Cry”?’

“And he said, ‘Well, I fell into it by accident. I haven’t been able to play it like that ever since. Let’s go learn it!’

“But yeah,” Gibbons says with a laugh, “Prince was a prince.”

Billy Gibbons was just 19 when Jimi Hendrix famously called him America’s best young guitar player. It was a compliment that carried enormous weight. But by then, Gibbons had already earned Hendrix’s respect.

The pair first met in 1968, when Gibbons’ pre-ZZ Top band, the Moving Sidewalks, landed the opening slot on a U.S. tour by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Looking back, Gibbons still isn’t sure how the young Texas psychedelic-blues outfit got the gig.

“It’s a great mystery,” he told AXS TV.

What wasn’t a mystery was Hendrix’s impact.

“We had only recently discovered Jimi Hendrix, and we quickly came to learn that here was a guy who was doing things with the Fender Stratocaster that was turning it inside out in ways the inventors never even imagined,” Gibbons recalled with a laugh.

Offstage, Hendrix was reserved. Onstage, he was transformative.

“He was a bit shy offstage, but once the lights went on, he came a-glowing,” Gibbons said. “And man, he would set about doing things with that guitar that were just otherworldly.”

For the Moving Sidewalks, every night on tour became a masterclass. The relationship took an unexpected turn when the band realized it didn’t have enough original material to fill its 40-minute opening set. Their solution was audacious: play two Hendrix songs — “Purple Haze” and “Foxey Lady” — in front of Hendrix himself.

“Dare we play this in front of Hendrix?” Gibbons remembered asking his bandmates.

The gamble paid off.

“As we wrapped it up, I remembered passing by, being spun around, and this guy grabbed me by the shoulders, and smiling, he said, ‘Man, I wanna meet you. You got a lot of nerve. I like that.’”

By the end of the tour, the musicians were spending evenings together in Hendrix’s hotel room, listening to records and talking guitars. During one listening session, Hendrix reportedly asked Gibbons how Jeff Beck produced some of the sounds heard on the Jeff Beck Group’s Truth.

Gibbons’ answer put Hendrix’s influence into perspective.

“Jimi, it would probably surprise you to know that Jeff Beck is probably listening to your record, trying to figure out what you’re doing at the same time!”

The lessons Gibbons absorbed during that tour stayed with him long after Hendrix’s death in 1970. In fact, one of Hendrix’s guitars helped shape a key ZZ Top recording nearly a decade later.

“When we recorded that song, I was playing the Fender Strat that Jimi Hendrix gave me when we were traveling together,” Gibbons told Music Radar of ZZ Top’s “A Fool for Your Stockings.” “For some reason, the guitar wasn’t working through the amp. We wound up plugging the guitar straight into the board, and that’s why it’s such a clean tone on that track.”

Hendrix’s influence extended beyond gear. The Experience’s three-piece format helped inspire ZZ Top’s own lineup, though Gibbons later admitted it took years for the band to find an identity beyond the blues tradition Hendrix had so radically expanded.

Even today, the Strat Hendrix gave him remains part of Gibbons’ arsenal. Speaking to Premiere Collectibles in 2020, he revealed that the guitar “still gets a good whoopin’ in the studio every once in a while.”

When Steve Cropper heard the mixes of his final album, he knew exactly what he thought of it.

“I finished the mixes about a week and a half before Steve passed, and we brought a CD to him at the medical facility,” songwriter and producer Jon Tiven recalls. “He called me the night before he passed to tell me how much he loved it. He was playing it for everyone who came to visit him, telling them it was the best record he’d ever made.”

That album — Watching the Tide — will arrive later this year, serving as a poignant final statement from one of the most influential guitarists in soul and rock history.

The record was largely completed before Cropper’s death in December, with 10 of its 11 tracks finished beforehand. Recorded at Nashville’s RCA Studio C, the album again pairs him with Tiven and is being released under the banner Steve Cropper & the Midnight Hour.

Like its predecessor Friendlytown, the project brings in a notable roster of collaborators. Eric Clapton appears on the lead single “Ticket First,” released May 7, while Ronnie Wood contributes to “Until Now.” Other guests include Billy Gibbons and Brian May, with May joining Cropper on the aptly titled “My Angels Are Calling.”

“Making music was Steve’s greatest joy,” Tiven says. “Steve was so encouraged by Friendlytown. He was adamant he wanted to do another record.”

Cropper’s career stretched back more than six decades. As the guitarist for Booker T. & the M.G.’s — the house band for Stax Records — he helped define the sound of southern soul and co-wrote classics including “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay,” “Knock on Wood,” and “In the Midnight Hour.”

Beyond his work at Stax, Cropper built a formidable résumé as a session player and producer, working with artists such as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Jeff Beck, Ringo Starr and Rod Stewart. He also appeared onscreen as a member of the Blues Brothers Band.

Along the way he earned multiple Grammys, including one for “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay” and another with Booker T. & the M.G.’s for the 1995 track “Cruisin’.”

Despite that legacy, Cropper kept his advice to young guitarists simple. In one of his final major interviews, with Total Guitar in 2024, he said, “Do not get into this business for money. Do it for fun — and if you’re good, somewhere along the way someone will pay you.”

He described his own approach to the instrument as practical. “I use it as a tool,” he said of the electric guitar. “I couldn't afford to hire another guitarist on a lot of Stax records, so I learned to play rhythm and lead at the same time so when I was soloing the rhythm wouldn't drop out.”

Watching the Tide is scheduled for release Aug. 28 via Provogue Records / Artone Label Group.

Think you’ve heard the most jaw-dropping hardcore blues solos of all time? We don’t think you have until you’ve heard every solo on this list of what we consider the 50 greatest badass blues guitar solos of all time.

Let’s face it: Thousands up thousands of great blues solos have been played on the electric guitar, so you can imagine how daunting it was for us to narrow our selection down to just 50. For starters, we siphoned off more than a dozen artists and solos that have already been so widely celebrated that they hardly need additional mention. After all, who isn't already hip to Clapton's extraordinary solo on "Crossroads" or Jimi's on "Red House"?

We also excluded a few legendary players who were renowned for their acoustic guitar solos, but did little of note once they switched to electric, such as Tampa Red, along with several well-known guitarists that played fantastic electric blues, but didn't really take solos, like John Lee Hooker. And early on we decided not to include seminal acoustic blues players like Robert Johnson, Son House and Blind Willie Johnson, both because their numbers are too great, and because in most cases they played unaccompanied, and therefore didn't "solo" in the same sense as the artists on our list.

After fighting over which guitarists should be included, GP editors Matt Blackett, Art Thompson and Barry Cleveland enlisted additional aid from four blues-savvy contributors — Teja Gerken, Jimmy Leslie, Adam Levy and Michael Ross — and each member of the team was tasked with choosing the particular solo they wanted to spotlight. Whether you hail us as brilliant or bash us as bums, we at least hope that you'll dig reading this as much as we did writing it.

"Ohio" — Dan Auerbach (Black Keys)

Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach is never flashy, but he's naturally poignant, and the fuzz freak is largely responsible for the past decade's dirty blues resurgence. Auerbach eschews prominent guitar breaks, and almost never strays past the pentatonic box. "I'm not much of a solo guy," he told GP in his February 2012 feature. But I do love 'rips." Auerbach really rips near the end of the single "Ohio," which was released independently from 2010's Brothers. The Akron native's vibrato quivers like the shivers of a cold Midwestern winter. Auerbach eventually engages a wah, induces feedback, and then climbs up the fretboard with flurries of tremolo picking until he reaches a dramatic climax. —J.L.

"Deep Feeling" — Chuck Berry

Even though he recorded for Chess records, home of Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf, Charles Berry is not known as a blues guitarist but rather as one of the inventors of rock and roll. Nevertheless, this instrumental, released as the B-side to "School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell)," is a straight 12-bar blues. Well, maybe not completely straight, as Chuck throws in a V chord where you don't expect it, and, oh yeah, he performed it on an unusual pedal-steel guitar — thought to be a Gibson Electraharp. The country- style string bends might have been played by anyone, but the wolf-whistle slides are pure Berry. —M.R.

"Stormy Monday" — Dickey Betts (The Allman Brothers Band)

Half of one of the greatest guitar teams of all time, Richard Betts' job description involved going toe-to-toe with the genius of Duane Allman night after night. At Fillmore East, on an evening recorded for posterity, he had the unenviable task of following Duane's incendiary solo on the blues chestnut "Stormy Monday." After Duane comes Greg Allman's jazz waltz organ solo. As the band breaks it down from there, Betts begins his sliding, squeezing and screaming licks that build into a masterpiece of soul, lyricism, intonation and tone that give away nothing to his legendary partner. —M.R.

"Red Dog Speaks" — Elvin Bishop

How about some greasy slide playing over a slow blues in E? That's exactly what Elvin Bishop dishes up on "Red Dog Speaks" (from the album of the same title) and as a bonus, he describes his ax (Red Dog) in the song's lyrics. Want to hear a 1959 Gibson ES-345 Stereo really wail? Wait for Bishop to say, "Speak, Red Dog," and hang tight, as he unleashes a soulful solo that combines fretted notes and fluid slide playing in a relaxed, in-the-pocket manner that puts style and class ahead of showboating. —T.G.

"Albert's Shuffle" — Mike Bloomfield (Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper & Stephen Stills)

When Michael Bloomfield appeared on the scene with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1964 no one had ever heard guitar playing quite like that, nor did any previous blues album have a printed exhortation to "play this record loud." Indeed, Bloomfield's excitable, ahead-of-the-beat soloing had more to do with rock energy than blues mystery. It wasn't until 1968's Super Session, featuring Bloomfield with Al Kooper and Steven Stills, that Bloomfield settled into this pocket of more traditional blues playing, while retaining the desperate energy that set him apart from the traditionalists, and gave him his distinctive voice in the first place. —M.R.

"Blues Deluxe" — Joe Bonamassa

Bonamassa began his professional career when many lads are being Bar Mitzvahed. His early blues work was that of an impressionist: his solo on "Long Distance Blues" from 2003's Blues Deluxe is Joe doing Eric Clapton. In the decade since, Bonamassa has melded his influences and made them his own, honing a style of diamond precision playing and to-die-for tone. This slow blues from Jeff Beck's first solo record (itself a cover of B.B. King's "Gambler Blues") starts off with three minutes and 50 seconds of soloing that take you from B.B., through Clapton and Eric Johnson, all inflected with a heavy dose of Bonamassa. — M.R.

"Cry" — Doyle Bramhall II

If ever there was a guy to get a handle on the SRV attitude and fire without copping Stevie's licks, it's Doyle Bramhall II. On this slow 12/8 number, Bramhall gets all kinds of righteous Strat tones, including spooky tremolo, clanging semi cleans and a positively massive exploding-amp lead tone. He does a killer, thematic break mid-tune but saves his best stuff for the end of the song. For the outro solo, he coaxes awesome, howling feedback before leaning into his powerful bends that are jam-packed with emotion. His note choices and phrasing as fresh as always, due in part to playing lefty-strung righty, but Bramhall's super-deep pocket might be his greatest asset. —M.B.

"Okle Dokie Stomp" — Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown

You can hear echoes of the big-band era in Brown's recordings from the 1940s and early '50s. It's in the instrumentation— with an ensemble of horns, upright bass, and a drummer driving spang-a-lang on his ride cymbal. Rock-and-roll was about to happen, but hadn't quite. Music from this in-between period is sometimes called "jump blues," and Brown's instrumental "Okie Dolde Stomp" is a first-rate example. T- Bone Walker's influence is apparent here, particularly in a lick that Brown repeats: an up-bent 4 on the third string followed immediately by a 5 on the second string. Still, Gate had his own thing, and it's a whole lot of fun to listen to. —A.L.

"John's Blues" — Roy Buchanan

In 1971 PBS aired a documentary: Introducing Roy Buchanan a.k.a. The World's Greatest Unknown Guitarist, and the world's perception of what a Fender Telecaster could do was forever changed. Buchanan wrenched human cries and animal squeals out of this dead simple guitar design. His style of blues melded James Burton's chicken pickin' with Albert King's expressive bends, definitively illustrating the deep connection between country and blues. It is all here in "John's Blues" from his first record. This is the guitar tone and technique that inspired Danny Gatton, Gary Moore and Jim Campilongo, as well as causing Jeff Beck to dedicate "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" to Buchanan. — M.R.

"When My Train Pulls In" — Gary Clark Jr.

The second flight on the second track from buzz bluesman Gary Clark Jr.'s diverse major-label debut, Blak and Blu, is a gnarly fuzz/ wah solo that kicks off hissing. "We recorded that track first and cut it live in one take," the Epiphone Casino enthusiast revealed in his January 2013 GP cover feature. "I had my Fender Vibro-King, and stomped on all of my pedals for that solo." It peaks when Clark launches into a Chuck Berry–like lick at the 12th fret, and then starts incorporating the G at the 15th fret and the F# at the 14th fret on the high E string. "I'd been experimenting in that range," Clark revealed. "I played that lick over and over to build momentum. We were eager to prove ourselves, and there was an overwhelming sense of 'Let's go for it!’ “ — J.L.

"Feelin' Bad Blues" — Ry Cooder

In interviews over the years, slide guru Cooder has shared some juicy details about his hot-rodded guitars and unusual rigs. It's tempting to tag a particular pickup, compressor or amp when trying to pinpoint the source of his mystical sound, but let's face it — it's a touch thing. That's most apparent in his nakedest recordings, like this laid-back guitar-and-dolceola duet from the Crossroads soundtrack. Cooder has always shunned picks, and this cut shows just how adept he is with his bare hand. Working in open-D tuning, Cooder blurs the line between rhythm and lead. You may be inspired to take up a bottleneck and start practicing — or quit altogether. —A.L.

"Chicken in the Kitchen" — Robert Cray

Though he owes much of his success to a fairly slick, mainstream crossover sound, Robert Cray can play no-holds-barred blues with the best of them. Recorded live, "Chicken in the Kitchen" (on Cookin' in Mobile) not only features some of the most beautiful, sparkly, out-of-phase Strat tone you'll ever hear, it also has not one but two great solos. Number two, especially, is full of incredibly cohesive lines with blindsiding surprises, occasionally getting close enough to the edge that you start worrying whether Cray will make it out alive. —T.G.

"Shake 'Em on Down" — Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi Allstars)

The North Mississippi Allstars lived up to their name when they brought tribal elders R.L. Burnside, Jim Dickinson, and the whole neighborhood to Bonnaroo in 2004, where they documented history in progress. Luther Dickinson pays homage to the past while dragging classic Hill Country blues kicking and screaming into the present via groovy Gibsons, mighty Marshalls, and occasional echo and other effects. He does it to death with a Les Paul in open D on Fred McDowell's "Shake 'Em on Down," which kicks off Hill Country Revue as wickedly as it did the Allstars' debut CD, and, in turn, their career. When Dickinson lays a slide to the treble strings while thumbpicking the bass strings and incorporating optimal open ones, he brings the honeysuckle sweet and the dirty primitive together in glorious harmony. —A.L.

"Blues After Hours" — Hollywood Fats

Fats is one of the more obscure players on our list, but if you've got an appetite for the blues then you really need to put some Fats in your diet. His style was somehow brash and classy all at once. Most frequently seen wielding an ES-335, he was an itinerant sideman who did stints with the Blasters, Muddy Waters and Canned Heat. For raw blues power, though, it's hard to beat his playing with his own Hollywood Fats Band. On the sultry "Blues After Hours" (from Deep on America / Larger Than Life, Vol. 2), he delivers a textbook example of how to build a solo from a humble beginning to a searing climax, and then how to wind it back down for the subsequent vocal verse. —A.L.

"Prison of Love" — Robben Ford

The word "uptown" is sometimes used to describe blues with more jazz-inspired harmonies — chords beyond the common I, IV, and V. Ford can take the blues farther uptown than just about anybody, as this minor-key shuffle from his 1992 record Robben Ford & the Blue Line illustrates so colorfully. He stays in familiar pentatonic territory for the first four bars, and then shades his phrases with canny chromaticism in the next four. He plays even more ear-tweaking lines in the next few measures before taking the express train back downtown for a gritty finish. —A.L.

"The Change in Me" — Eric Gales

Based on a riff that borrows heavily from ZZ Top's "La Grange," Eric Gales' "The Change in Me" is a hard-driving rocker of a tune, and Gales plays highly melodic fills to provide a dynamic counterpoint to the crunchy theme. Demonstrated by several YouTube clips of the song, Gales varies the actual solo considerably from one night to the next, often employing a modern-sounding, delay-drenched high-gain tone and a great ability to allow the solo to alternately breathe and burn. —T.G.

"Bullfrog Blues" — Rory Gallagher

It's no easy task to choose a favorite Rory Gallagher blues solo, but his slide work on "Bullfrog Blues" is a serious contender. Leaving his trademark Strat behind (several YouTube videos show him playing a Gretsch Corvette), Gallagher gets to work in open-A tuning, with a capo on the second fret. The solo itself uses licks in the I, IV and V chord positions at the fifth, seventh and 12th frets, and it isn't unlike Gallagher's acoustic bottleneck work, though a ferocious amount of gain yields one of the meanest electric slide tones that you'll ever encounter. —T.G.

"Please Send Me Someone to Love" — Amos Garrett

In 1974, Amos Garrett's solo on Maria Muldaur's "Midnight at the Oasis" was all over the AM airwaves. It gobsmacked guitarists worldwide with its triple-string bends and unusual phrasing — but the previous year Garrett had already blown minds with his spectacular solo on this Percy Mayfield classic. The Canadian guitarist navigates the changes more like Benny Carter than Albert King. His trademark double-stop bends and large-interval, two-string pull-offs, facilitated by his huge hands, are nothing short of astonishing. The two choruses here are perfectly constructed, and were, in fact, composed. To improvise something this flawless would be superhuman. — M.R.

"Blues Newburg" — Danny Gatton

Danny Gatton had such a great grasp of country, jazz, rockabilly and blues that it's tough to pin down when he was at his bluesiest, but this tour de force is as good a place as any to start. It's got only about one percent of what the guy was capable of, and that means excellent bends on the high and low strings, amazing single-note and chord melody, wicked vibrato, faux pedal-steel licks, blazing runs, breakneck chromatic passages, volume swells, and lots, lots more — all played with impeccable time. Boy, do we miss this guy! —M.B.

"Sure Got Cold After the Rain Fell" — Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top)

Billy G. is one of the finest blues players around, but ZZ Top's boogie-oriented repertoire tends to overshadow a tune like this slow-burn gem from the 1972 album, Rio Grande Mud. The song isn't in the classic 12-bar mold, but Gibbons decorates the 12/8 groove as if it were. Deploying a moderately distorted tone for the licks he plays over a clean arpeggiated rhythm figure, Gibbons shows his usual mastery of note choice and placement, building his solo to create maximum emotion during the song's extended outro. — A.T.

"The Blue" — David Gilmour

You could say David Gilmour has never played anything that wasn't the blues — after all, Pink Floyd was named for blues musicians Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Gilmour's tone and vibrato have always been touchstones of the modern electric blues sound. Though he played a number of awesome solos with Pink Floyd, "The Blue," from his own 2006 record, Islands, deserves mention for several reasons. Reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross," the solo quickly pushes the envelope with evocative whammy pedal work, which continues throughout, seamlessly woven into classic Gilmour licks delivered with the gorgeous tone and pocket that make him a guitar legend. —M.R.

"Lonesome Dave" — David Grissom

Already astounding when he made the classic Live at Liberty Lunch with Joe Ely in 1990, Grissom has refined his style through the years in stints with Storyville (featuring the SRV rhythm section) and the Dixie Chicks. It is all there in "Lonesome Dave," from his first solo record: the Danny Gatton organ pedal point, the pedal-steel licks (Grissom taught himself to do B-Bender licks without a B-Bender), and the ZZ Top grind. Imagine Bluesbreakers Clapton and Billy Gibbons meet Brent Mason and Albert Lee and you get the idea. Throughout, Grissom's innate taste and musicality let him be jaw dropping without being flashy. —M.R.

"How Blue Can You Get" — Jeff Healey

Healey's blindness and unconventional playing style never hindered his ability to turn in amazing guitar performances, one of many being "How Blue Can You Get" from his posthumous 2008 release, Mess of Blues. Healey burns white hot here, pulling off wickedly fast lines and dramatic bends that defy the physical realities of holding a guitar flat on his lap. And if that's not enough, visit YouTube to also see what a gifted jazz trumpeter Healey was. What an incredible musician! —A.T.

"Blue Guitar" — Earl Hooker

Earl Zebedee Hooker, first cousin to John Lee, recorded this instrumental on May 3, 1961, and It was released the following year. A short time later, Muddy Waters overdubbed vocals onto the track, renamed it "You Shook Me," and released it under his own name. Now a blues staple — covered famously by Page and Beck among many others — Hooker played his immortal slide licks in standard tuning, which was novel for a Chicago blues guitarist at the time. He went on to experiment with echo, wah and other effects, attracting the attention of Jimi Hendrix for one, but this early recording, sans Muddy, showcases one of the most original stylists of all time. —B.C.

"It Hurts Me Too" — Elmore James

No doubt, "Dust My Broom" is slide guitarist James' signature song, but there's so much more mojo to be found in his cover of Tampa Red's "It Hurts Me Too,” if only for his sound. (You can bet your best bottleneck that Ry Cooder has listened to this recording more than a few times.) James takes full advantage of this throaty tone, letting his notes speak in vocal-like phrases. Whatever there is to say in open-D tuning, James says it here, with astounding character and confidence. Blues doesn't get much bluer than this. —A.L.

"Texas" — Eric Johnson

This session for Johnson's 2010 sonically superior release Up Close features guests Jimmie Vaughan and Steve Miller (vocals), who dropped by his studio and inspired him to rise to the occasion. The famously fickle and laborious Strat cat played a '59 Les Paul Standard dubbed "Buddy" through a Fuzz Face and a 100-watt Marshall on the solo—a first-take monster in the moment. Brandishing a sizzling tone and feeding off of Miller's vocal setup, Johnson's searing first solo soars to the heavens. Perfectly timed major thirds sound surprisingly blue, and EJ incorporates just enough diminished and chromatic runs to add spice without pushing too far beyond the boundaries of the blues. —J.L.

"Playing Around" — Lonnie Johnson

Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson is best known to guitarists for his groundbreaking acoustic six- and 12-string work in the late '20s, including his celebrated duets with jazz guitarist Eddie Lang in 1929, and his 1927 recording "6/88 Glide," featuring what is now widely considered to be the first flatpicked single-note guitar solo. But Johnson's career continued for decades after that, and in 1947 he began playing electric. You'll find great electric solos scattered throughout his subsequent tunes, but the brief but rocking romp on 1949's "Playing Around" notably foreshadows moves that early rockers such as Eddie Cochran, Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore will explore a few years later. —B.C.

"Born into This" — Wilson T. King

"I was listening to Eddie Hazel on 'Super Stupid' and Jimi's Band of Gypsys when I recorded this," Wilson T. King says, "and I wanted a future blues style of real whiplash out of the bends and tones." Well, he got it, while wielding a '69 Strat with DiMarzio Fast Track pickups played through an early '80s Marshall 2104 2x12 combo cranked way up, and using only his fingers. King is known for pushing the blues envelope in new directions, and this particularly passionate example of that predilection would, no doubt, elicit a big grin from Jimi. —B.C.

"Chief's Blues" — Greg Koch

Although he's known for his monstrous chops, Greg Koch displays tasty restraint for most of this slow blues, and the results are simply delicious. Much as the native people did with the mighty buffalo, Koch uses every part of the scale on these amazing seven minutes, blending major, minor and chromatic lines brilliantly over the changes and milking several notes out of every bend. It's hard to pick the coolest part, but a strong contender would have to be his jarring, pre-bent, triple-stop descending groans. This solo has it all: space, dynamics, humor, sensitivity and bombast, with damn near every lick being of the "must steal" variety. Yes sir! —M.B.

"Wind In Denver" — Sonny Landreth

Louisiana's singular slideman delivers a pinnacle performance on this track that only appears officially on his landmark live recording released in 2005, Grant Street. He tells GP that he achieved the gargantuan stereo tone playing a '66 Strat in open D minor tuning (D, A, D, F, A, D, low to high) through a Matchless HD30 with a 2x12 onstage and a 100-watt Dumble Overdrive Special pushing a 2x12 located offstage in a former freezer storeroom for maximum ambiance. "I was going for that wonderful 'Voodoo Child' vibe that still gets me every time I hear it," Landreth says. Sonny probably has the most evolved technique in slide blues history, and on "Wind in Denver" he delivers a host of hallmarks such fretting notes behind the slide and coaxing heavenly harmonics with a level of unbridled moxy that makes the solo truly monumental. —J.L.

"A Quitter Never Wins" — Jonny Lang

The baddest blues showcase on then teen sensation Jonny Lang's 1997 major-label debut, Lie to Me, is still his showstopper on 2010's Live at the Ryman. In his July 2010 feature he told GP that Albert Collins inspired him to become a Tele player, and Tab Benoit inspired him further. "When I heard his tone I freaked out — the Thinline Tele with humbuckers became the staple for me after that," he said. GP relayed that Lang eventually placed a P90 pickup between the two humbuckers, and he features the classic single-coil during the fiery intro and first solo on Tinsley Ellis' tune at the Ryman. He cuts into the second solo with sheer reckless abandon. —J.L.

"I'm Going Home" — Alvin Lee (Ten Years After)

It's hard to think of Alvin Lee without taking note of his solo in Ten Years After's "I'm Going Home." The band first recorded the song on its 1968 release Undead, and it upped the fast shuffle's octane level during its performance at the Woodstock festival. Playing his iconic "Big Red" 1959 Gibson ES-335, Lee takes the unusual step to start his solo accompanied only by drums for a full 24 bars, playing without the comfort of harmonic guidance from the band. He then proceeds to play one of the most blistering and fluid, Chuck Berry–influenced solos you'll ever come across. —T.G.

"Out of My Mind" — John Mayer

Regardless of whether or not you're into John Mayer's songwriting or vocal style, it's hard to argue with the fact that the guy has chops. Sure, he may not be the most original player to come along, but whether on acoustic, electric, lead or rhythm guitar, he is clearly in command. Eschewing the slick production found on much of his work, Mayer takes a decidedly more raw approach on the live recording of "Out of My Mind" (on Try!), giving his ES-335 a pentatonic workout with great vibrato, slightly overdriven, fat tone, and an excellent climax before resuming his vocal duties. —T.G.

"Still Got the Blues" — Gary Moore

Moore emerged from early British fusion and then spent his career alternating between turning out hard rock and blues records. It would be easy to go with any of his incendiary solos on a straight blues tune, or one of his letter-perfect recreations of Peter Green on Blues for Greeny, but "Still Got the Blues" is pure Moore. Okay, this cycle of fifths progression is not "the blues" per se, but its sharp-five-to-five resolution is blues approved. More importantly, the yearning in the gorgeous melody that Moore milks on the final solo, before tearing the roof of the sucker, is what the blues is all about. —M.R.

"Steroids" — Oz Noy

Oz Noy can get so far outside so quickly that it's easy to think that what he plays is not blues. Despite the funk and fusion elements that he throws in here, the fact is he's playing wild, vibey, blues-on-acid on this tune. We could all add a heaping helping of freshness to our 12-bar playing if we adopted one iota of Noy's phrasing, note choices, or fearlessness that are so abundant on this song. —M.B.

"Three Time Loser" — Bonnie Raitt

While blues and contemporary pop are not always an easy coupling, Raitt has been interlacing the two for decades now with consistently cool results. This track from her 1977 album, Sweet Forgiveness, is a high-water mark. The chord progression here has nothing to do with the customary 12-bar form, but Raitt's supernatural slide work infuses the song with deep blues feeling. Nobody else can make a quarter-tone glissando sound so expansive, and her overdriven Strat tone burns the way whiskey does going down your gullet. Listen close to hear her widen her vibrato and pluck harmonics in the final ride out. Pure swagger. —AL

"Greasy Kid Stuff" — Kid Ramos

Known for his explosive lead work on a Tele or Strat, and the ballsy sound he gets from a Vox AC30 with a stand-alone reverb, Kid Ramos has played with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Roomful of Blues, James Hannan, and the Mannish Boys. He has also recorded several solo albums, including 2001's Greasy Kid Stuff, where he makes the instrumental title track jump with his fierce attack and fat tone. Check out YouTube to see Ramos tearing it up in a variety of situations, including on a baritone Tele with Los Fabulocos on "Burnin' the Chicken." —AT

"It's My Own Fault" — Otis Rush

Rush takes three solos on this track from the 1967 album Chicago/The Blues/Today!, Vol. 2. His first, in the song's intro, is amazing from the get-go, not because it's a display of guitar fireworks, but precisely because it's not. Phrase by phrase, Rush uses his Epiphone Riviera to masterfully tell a story here. After a couple of vocal verses, he ventures higher up the neck, ramping the thrill factor. His final break is just four stop-time measures to set up the saxophonist's solo, with a staggering impact-to-bar ratio. Rush was a southpaw who played his righty-strung guitar upside down, with the high E on top. This gives his bends an unusual sound because he's pushing the strings where most guitarists would pull, and vice versa. —A.L.

"Blues for Salvador" — Carlos Santana

Santana may not be though of as a blues player per se, and "Blues for Salvador," the title track of his 1987 solo album isn't a standard blues form. But by playing nearly six continuous minutes of intensely bluesy melodic work Santana laid down a masterpiece that helped him win a Grammy in 1989 for "Best Rock Instrumental Performance." Robben Ford later covered the song, and Santana has played it in concert with Buddy Guy, the Wayne Shorter Group and Mexican guitar star Javier Batiz. —A.T.

"Blue on Black" — Kenny Wayne Shepherd

When Louisiana native Kenny Wayne Shepherd broke big while still a teenager in the mid '90s, he was heralded as the next Stevie Ray Vaughan. Of course, nobody is ever the next SRV, but Shepherd's highly rhythmic Southern Strat histrionics clearly owe a debt to Austin's patron guitar player. And like SRV, KWS has a knack for turning stock blues licks into memorable, melodic moments via clever phrasing. You know a player — especially a bluesman — believes he's made a statement when he sticks close to the recorded version of a solo onstage night after night, year after year. "Blue on Black" is case in point. It's hook-laden licks get under your skin and stick in your brain whether it's the original version on 1997's Trouble or 2010's Live! In Chicago. —J.L.

"Three Hundred Pounds of Joy” — Hubert Sumlin

Released as a single on the Chicago-based Chess label in 1963 — with Howlin' Wolf leading the session — this is Sumlin's nonpareil. He plays teasing fills at the top of each verse, with an assured attack and shuddering vibrato, finally launching into his solo midway through the song. He begins with an unusual high-E string bend from the minor 3 up to the 4, falls a few steps back down the minor-pentatonic scale, then repeats the phrase twice more with slight variations. It's a spunky start, and he never relents. In a genre where clichés are an easy pitfall, this is one of the most unique solos ever rendered on a popular recording. —A.L.

"Wild About You Baby" — Hound Dog Taylor

Famously called “the Ramones of the blues" by The Village Voice, Hound Dog Taylor and his band the House Rockers played a ferociously raw kind of boogie blues. Based on the familiar "Dust My Broom" slide riff, "Wild About You Baby" (from Hound Dog Taylor and the House Rockers) is all about a game of call-and-response between the vocals and the guitar. When the time comes for Taylor to solo, he doesn't stray far from the main riff, and his note choices are perfect examples of a solo taking the place of a vocal line. —T.G.

"Slow Blues" — Mick Taylor

Released on Mick Taylor's self-titled post–Rolling Stones solo album, "Slow Blues" is a study in how to avoid mere noodling while essentially blowing for the entire duration of an instrumental track. The fact that "Slow Blues" uses a very cool, modified 12-bar progression with a distinctive bass line and chorused-sounding 13th chords taking the place of an actual melody certainly helps in keeping the tune engaging, but Taylor's throaty, reverb-drenched tone and dynamic playing keep the tune moving forward in a way that is not to be taken for granted in such an extended solo exploration. —T.G.

"Jesus Is Everywhere" — Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Tharpe may not have considered herself a blues artist, favoring gospel songs as she did throughout her career. But when you listen to her live 1964 recording of "Jesus Is Everywhere" — from The Authorized Sister Rosetta Tharpe Collection —the gap between sacred and secular doesn't seem so wide. Armed with a thumbpick, and backed by a bassist and drummer who sound like two thirds of the best rockabilly trio you've ever heard, Tharpe digs in hard on her early '60s SG-style Les Paul Custom. The first half of her solo is relatively straightforward, but when she starts swerving and swooping you'll wonder which way is up. Glory, glory! —A.L.

"Whisky Train" — Robin Tower (Procol Harum)

Like Hendrix, to whom he is overly, if not unfairly, compared, Robin Trower's blues roots run deep. Fifty years into his solo career, he still makes records worth listening to, these days filled with more classic blues tunes than ever. Still, the best example of his rooted playing might be "Whisky Train," a tune he wrote for Procol Harum's fourth album. The song could be considered one long cowbell-driven guitar solo, with Trower riding one of the great guitar riffs over and over, occasionally answering brief Gary Booker vocal sections with short modern blues excursions that preview his style as a solo artist. —M.R.

"I Know" — Derek Trucks (The Derek Trucks Band)

"Nearly everything I do on guitar has a foundation in blues music," says freak of nature Derek Trucks who primarily plays a Gibson SG tuned to open E with a large Dunlop Pyrex slide through a cranked Fender Super Reverb to conjure his signature, liquid fire tone. The way Trucks furthers Duane Allman's electric bottleneck style via Eastern-influenced microtones is mesmerizing. The Derek Trucks Band's 2010 release, Roadsongs, is a supreme document. His "Key to the Highway" solo reaches the highest zenith, but "I Know" is extraordinarily interesting as it progresses from droning raga into a swinging R&B feelgood number with one of the most musical, uplifting major-2 blues solos ever recorded. —J.L.

"Miracles & Demons (Part 2)" — Eddie Turner

A master at creating spooky atmospherics — such as those infusing several Otis Taylor records — Turner is also a funky and hard-rocking psychedelic bluesman in the Hendrix tradition, as evidenced on this track. Rooted in a repeating 6/8 figure played on dual resonators, with Turner's haunting vocals and wicked, wah-inflected, heavily echoed solo intertwining throughout, the tune showcases his ability to simultaneously wail and conjure uncanny sonics via Custom Shop Strats, a '59 tweed Deluxe, a Budda Twinmaster, a Roland RE-301 tape echo and other magical implements. —B.C.

"Tuff Enuff” — Jimmie Vaughan (The Fabulous Thunderbirds)

The other Vaughan is as cool as the other side of the pillow, especially compared to his fire-spitting brother. They both favor Strats, but the similarities pretty much end there. Jimmie rarely plays fast or dirty, and is never flash. He mostly sticks to stabbing single notes within a traditional framework, giving them plenty of space to breathe. Jimmie Vaughan reminds us that less notes can certainly mean more, and the solo on the title track from the Fabulous Thunderbirds' 1986 album, Tuff Enuff, is a shining example. Vaughan doesn't usually do effects, but in this instance shimmering reverb and delay add remarkable depth to his sparse phrasing. It's hard to find better evidence of a pure blues solo building a perfect bridge to a crossover hit. —J.L.

"Call It Stormy Monday" — T-Bone Walker

Chances are, you're not old enough to remember the impact this song made when it was originally released in 1947. (By way of perspective, Clapton was only two years old then, and the first Stratocaster was still seven years off.) So you may listen now and find yourself thinking, What's the big whoop? I've heard other guitarists play that stuff. The big whoop is: Walker invented that stuff. Without his influence, there might've been no B.B. King, no Chuck Berry, and no Gatemouth Brown. Go back to the source and listen, taking note of Walker's rhythmic sophistication. Sure, there are eighth-notes and sixteenths and some triplets. But such subdivisions were never more elastic than in Walker's hands. — A.L.

"Ball and Biscuit" — Jack White (The White Stripes)

Jack White kicked the blues straight in the nuts on "Ball and Biscuit" utilizing a bizarre, ferocious sound the likes of which had never before been heard in the history of America's senior guitar genre. No "real" bluesman would have imagined such blasphemy as a Detroit garage punk playing a plastic guitar (a 1964 Montgomery Ward Airline) with a fuzz-drenched, Whammy-infected tone on a blues romp. White made it his signature tone, and his signature guitar album, Elephant, landed him his first Guitar Player cover story on the June 2003 issue. The bombastic trio of solos throughout White's sideways statement "Ball and Biscuit" play like a blues from hell trilogy. — J.L.

Billy Gibbons was 20 years old when he formed ZZ Top, and the power trio has defined his life ever since. With the dawn of the ‘70s just over the horizon, Gibbons had shaped his band around two of his biggest influences ± Cream and Jimi Hendrix — in 1969, and his legacy might not still be being talked about today if it weren’t for the way they inspired the bright-eyed guitarist.

“Make no mistake, ZZ Top didn’t just happen upon becoming a trio because it was easier; it’s a lot more challenging,” he tells Classic Rock of the band’s origins. “Hendrix and Cream were at the top of the chart as far as ZZ Top’s book was concerned, and it was through those early influential days of attempting to emulate those sounds and styles that brought us together.”

The band’s foundations were laid while he was still strutting his stuff in his pre-ZZ outfit, Moving Sidewalks. Before the British blues explosion had properly ignited, Gibbons was turned on by the psychedelic sounds of Roky Erikson’s 13th Floor Elevators, molding a very similar sound. Their less-than-subtle nod of a single, "99th Floor," paved the way for a change-making touring opportunity.

“That release led to additional airplay and touring opportunities, including teaming up with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, who became our friends and mentors,” he told Guitar Player last year. “As I remember it, I played a Fender Jazzmaster through a Vox Super Beatle, and a Hohner harp through a Fender Bassman.”

Seeing Hendrix up close sparked something in Gibbons. It’s an experience he relives with CR.

“We toured with him in 1968. It was a real mind-bender and eye-opener, to say the least,” he remembers. “As most now know, Jimi Hendrix, either consciously or subconsciously, made a decision to invent things to do with a Fender Stratocaster that it had not necessarily been intended for. He did it very well, too.

“I was 18 at the time,” he details, “and somehow the organizers saw fit to book us in the hotel room across the hall to his room. That was convenient to ask him the obvious question: ‘How do you do that?’

“I remember that this was a long time before hotels had stereos in their rooms, and each day there would be the delivery of a rather heavy and cumbersome hi-fi console player that was the size of a small Buick. It was dutifully installed for Hendrix to be able to listen to his favorite discs.

“The one I really remember him playing the ass off,” Gibbons goes on, “was the first Jeff Beck Group album, Truth. Hendrix was mad about it, totally OTT [over the top] about Jeff’s playing.”

There’s a strange bittersweet irony in Hendrix’s Beck obsession. In search of a more receptive audience, he soon traveled to the UK and proceeded to blow everyone who laid eyes and ears on him away. So much so that Beck, a man who the guitarist was humbly obsessed with, considered quitting the business entirely.

“Oddly enough, Hendrix was all too willing and ready to include blues licks in his arsenal of guitar offerings, which had fallen out of favor in the States with most black entertainers,” Gibbons adds. “I got to play onstage with him at the time, but it was what went on behind the scenes that really captured the magic of the moment.”

And so, by the time the Moving Sidewalks disbanded a year later, Cream were at the height of their powers, and Hendrix was making serious waves on the other side of the Atlantic. Gibbons was keen to channel some of that energy into his new endeavor, with the things he learned from his hangs, on and of the stage, with Hendrix stuffed tightly into his back pocket.

Eric Clapton’s ZZ Top legacy can be seen slung around Gibbons’ shoulder every time he steps on stage; his ‘59 ‘Pearly Gates’ Les Paul. Seeing Clapton’s Sunburst Gibson Les Paul on the back cover of his Bluesbreakers record prompted him to track down the out-of-production guitar and own one for himself.

He too had taken a leaf out of Clapton’s book and decided to grow his fingernails, and that left its mark on his beloved electric guitar.

“What I hadn’t counted on was that the fingernail of the little finger started digging into the pickguard, leaving scratches,” he says.

Today, the Reverend is still going strong and says new music from ZZ Top – the first since bassist Dusty Hill’s passing – and his solo project, the BFGs is on the way. Without Hendrix and Cream’s influence, Gibbons may have never hopped off the psychedelic rock train and be the man that is so celebrated today.

ZZ Top was a little band that was trying 50 years ago when "Tush" was released and turned the Texas trio into the little band that not only could, but did. And this was even before its signature look of sunglasses and very long beards (save, of course, from drummer Frank Beard).

The first single from 1975's half studio/half live set Fandango! gave ZZ Top its first bona fide hit single, reaching No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 — a high point until "Legs" nine years later — and pushing Fandango! into the Top 10 and gold status. That success allowed ZZ Top to move to stadium headliner status for its subsequent Worldwide Texas Tour, accompanied onstage by livestock, reptiles and other critters from the Lone Star State.

Nearly four years on from the death of bass guitar player Fred "Dusty" Hill, who sang it, "Tush" remains a staple of ZZ Top's repertoire. And guitarist Billy F. Gibbons remembers its creation — on May 23, 1974 at the Lauderdale Coliseum in Florence, Alabama — like it happened last week, or even yesterday.

"We were fans of all the great music that came out of the Gulf Coast — Houston, San Antoni, all the way over to Louisiana. And one of our favorite artists was none other than Roy Head, who had a big hit in the ’60s with 'Treat Her Right.’” The song is one that Gibbons’ side band, the BFGs, recorded in 2015. “Just about all our record collecting buddies assuredly added that piece of wax into their collections.

“And on the flip side of 'Treat Her Right' was an instrumental that Roy Head's band had developed called 'Tush Hog,' which was kind of a trendy term being bandied around about in Texas meaning rich, kind of top of the line, luxurious maybe.

"We were playing a show in Alabama, in the heat of the summer. We had come into a rodeo arena with a dirt floor and no air conditioning. We had an afternoon opportunity to blow it out a little bit and we hit this one lick, and the lighting director came rushing forward and said, 'Don't change a thing!'

“I looked at Dusty and said, 'Here's the title: “Tush.”’

“He said, 'Oh, I get it. We’re gonna follow in that Gulf Coast Texas scene.

“I said, 'Yes, let's pick it up,' and I think within three minutes we had it. Somebody said, 'Gee whiz, it's kind of a simple shuffle following the old tried-and-true 12-bar blues changes,' but I said, 'Well, keep in mind that's where things started off' — and still are. I like that phrase 'One foot in the blues’ — we’ll stretch out in many different directions, but we'll always have a sliver of familiarity.

As usual, Gibbons was playing Pearly Gates, his sunburst 1959 Gibson Les Paul that he purchased from a Texas rancher for $250 in 1968, just as ZZ Top were getting underway.

"I still have it by the way,” he tells Guitar Player of his most famous electric guitar. “It's never too far away. We seem to lean on it as heavily as we can from session to session. No matter what we're playing, it's always, 'Ah, sounds good. Now play it on Pearly.’”

As Gibbons tells Guitar player, “Tush” showed promise right away. “It was hit and quit it — three minutes of just raw energy. We had the luxury of being able to play it live, which allowed us to shake off some of the cobwebs and smooth out the rough spots. By the time we got it to the studio it was a one-take ‘room full of noise,’ which was really cool.”

Released as a single in July 1975, “Tush” would outperform the group’s 1973 single “La Grange,” which reached number 41 on the charts.

“Did we know it was a hit? No, but we weren't surprised that it became one, 'cause we liked it and we had seen that audiences did, too."

"Tush," in fact, remains part of ZZ Top's set, with Hill's vocals on tape while the band — including his replacement, Elwood Francis — perform live.

The golden anniversary of "Tush" and Fandango! arrive as Gibbons is in the midst of plenty of music-making. He and his side band, the BFGs — now a trio with keyboardist Mike "The Drifter" Flanigin and drummer Chris "Whipper" Layton from Double Trouble and Arc Angels — have just released "Livin' It Up Down in Texas," a song (streaming below) recorded especially for the series finale of the Paramount+ series Landman. The BFGs have started a month-long U.S. tour, and both the group and ZZ Top have been in the studio working on new music — ZZ's first since 2012 and the BFGs' since 2021.

"I suspect that 2025 may reveal something new on both fronts," predicts Gibbons, who will be hitting the road with ZZ Top again starting in late March.

It’s double trouble for the ever-cool Billy Gibbons as Seymour Duncan announces the release of a signature Telecaster bridge pickup and a hotter humbucker set for the guitarist.

The Hades Gates humbucker and the Red Devil for Tele sets have been crafted to cover all bases of Gibbons’ sizzling blues tones, with a tight focus on “tight harmonics and thick rhythms,” with the former turning single coil Tele bridges into faux humbuckers via a handy drop-in installation.

The devilish Tele set follows on from the pair’s original Red Devil set, designed to be loaded into Fender Stratocasters craving a little ZZ Top bite.

Speaking of the success of that pickup, he said it left Telecaster and Esquire players craving “that gargantuan sound,” and so he’s reignited his ‘Duncan collaboration to meet their needs – as well as his own.

And so that recipe has now been tailored to drop into single coil Telecasters, which feels a natural progression for a guitarist who loves both classic Fenders in equal measure.

The Reverend Willie G approved pickup matches an Alnico 5 magnet with a four-conductor cable, and a “hot wind” to drive amplifiers and pedals harder than a traditional vintage humbucker, despite its single coil presentation.

Says Gibbons: “I like the twank of a Telecaster and the beef of a humbucker, and right here you get a little bit of both. It fattens up the bottom end, and you eliminate hum.

“It doesn't require any drilling,” he adds. “Just pop it into your instrument and tear it up.”

The Hades Gates humbucker pairing, meanwhile, is inspired by Gibbons’ love for heat – itself shown through his fuzz-addled lead playing and his range of hot sauces.

Based on the Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickup set found in his beloved 1959 Gibson Les Paul, Seymour Duncan has injected a little more output into the P.A.F ‘buckers at Gibbons’ request.

An extra hot wind persists here too, resulting in what Seymour Duncan calls “a fiery take on the mid-forward, punchy sound” the bearded riff wizard is known for.

Its Alnico 2 magnets help drive amps into “hot, blue, and righteous territory.” They are hand-built in Santa Barbara, California with a four-conductor cable and short mounting legs.

“Seymour Duncan took the Pearly Gates pickups and gave them an extra bump,” Gibbons explains, meaning guitars equipped with them will “stand up and bark.”

“When on stage, the essence of cutting through relies on what emanates from the source,” he continues. “It would be fair to say that's the heart of what makes it sound so good. It's really what it takes to differentiate this to ‘wow...I want that.’”

Gibbons' "Pearly Gates" Les Paul, acquired in 1968 just as ZZ Top was kicking into gear, has been by the guitarist's side for more than 55 years, writing itself into folklore as it was employed across the band's hugely successful records.

“You gotta have the right guns when you enter the town of tone,” the Texan bluesman once told Guitar Player. “I’ve spent plenty of money putting together a collection of guitars attempting to find something to replicate Pearly, and it just hasn’t happened yet.”

The Seymour Duncan Red Devil for Tele bridge pickup costs $129, and the Hades Gates set costs start at $129 each or $258 for a set, depending on which finish players opt for.

Visit Seymour Duncan to view the full range.

When we asked Billy F. Gibbons to select five key songs from across his career, there was a proviso: He couldn’t include “La Grange,” as it had already been the subject of in-depth scrutiny in our “How I Wrote” feature of May 2021. 

“When I was asked to participate in this series, I got lit up and began peeling the onion over what songs to zero in on,” the Reverend tells us. “The most obvious, ‘La Grange,’ was ZZ Top’s first national breakthrough to climb the pop singles chart. But, alas, having been asked to set it aside, the question that I had to ponder was, ‘Where to start?’” 

Certainly, it’s no easy task when you’ve got a back catalog with the quality and depth that Gibbons has amassed both with ZZ Top and in more recent years as a solo artist, where he’s found an alternative outlet for his creativity. 

“It’s something of a different headspace when engaging with the solo excursion adjacent to ZZ,” he explains. “Of course, the sometimes obvious six-string similarities have much in common, yet there’s a considerable vibe in the mix. 

“There’s mucho feel, which can connect in a very ZZ-like way, and yet also some far-fetched opposites to balance the affair. Some of it’s a bit outside, some a bit inside, but all of it is quirky. The down-and-dirty process slides into mindless instinct while bringing things to conclusion.”

As far as Gibbons is concerned, the solo process fires up the creative juices for ZZ Top, and vice versa, with ZZ looking at scheduling some recording time in the near future. “Yes, we’re on the edges of nailing another album down. Keeping the band on the road so much of late continues to stir up the angst for a rapid studio return. I guess it’s time to write the new ones.” 

When they get around to recording them, those tracks will be the band’s first with bassist Elwood Francis, Gibbons’ guitar tech for three decades, who came into ZZ Top following the 2021 death of founding bassist Dusty Hill. As far as Gibbons is concerned, they couldn’t have found a better person to step up to the plate and fill Dusty’s shoes. 

“The directed transition eased in, with all the senses fired up,” he says. “The unexpected but strident instruction came from Dusty to get Elwood to fill the spot when he knew he was going to be out of action for a few months prior to his death. We accommodated his wishes and immediately solidified the move. It’s a legacy from the Dust, moving forward with Elwood keeping the bottom on the Top.” 

Gear-wise, of late, Gibbons has been seen sporting a hybrid SG-style guitar that features a Flying V-styled headstock. “We defined a design that emerged from the drawing table,” he says. 

“It was a valued collaboration with John Bolin at Bolin Guitars and the fine folks at Gibson. It’s an expression with a visual appeal which seems to work, while working within the collective components found throughout the running history of Gibson appointments.” 

As always, Gibbons continues to favor extremely light-gauge strings, which seems remarkable given the depth and weight of tone that he manages to pull from his axes. “Yes, Jim Dunlop managed to draw the ultra-light .007 gauge wire with success on all counts,” he affirms. 

“The resiliency of the string’s tension, combined with the secrets of the Dunlop alloy, make for some rad reaches for bending over the fretboard. They require nothing in the way of adjusting your touch or approach. It’s just a matter of grab the guitar and go.”

Gibbons has long been renowned as a collector of some of the finest guitars ever created, plus some of the downright weirdest. There remains one guitar though, that is his most prized possession. 

“That’s gotta be that mysteriously magnetic Pearly Gates, the ’59 Les Paul Standard that sounds like no other I’ve encountered,” he says. “She’s gotta be the first I’d put in the ‘go’ bag in the event of fire or disaster. The real trick is thinking about the next one.” Gibbons continues to find inspiration in the blues music that first excited him, and in making music with some long-time Texan contemporaries. 

“Seems that lately we return to a handful of a dozen select LPs or so which continue to inspire. It’s an ongoing discussion among the regular gathering with our sideband act, the Jungle Show, back in Texas, with Jimmie Vaughan, Sue Foley, Mike Flanigin and Chris ‘Whipper’ Layton, as we go on arguing about elusive new directions which might light the fuse unexpectedly. We know it’s out there. It just morphs into the unknown as fast as greased lightning.” 

Given the number of years and miles Gibbons has put on the clock since the mid- ’60s, you would be forgiven for thinking that it might start to take its toll, but you’d be way off the mark. 

“I’m more excited and enthused than ever before, if that’s possible,” he attests. “Having this job — getting out there and playing each and every night, spending countless studio hours exchanging sonic ideas with others — is one of the greatest privileges one could have. Sometimes, dreams abound in Technicolor about thrashing on the guitar, and then it happens to righteously unfold onstage. 

“Hard to predict, yet easy to savor and enjoy. I never tire of the old ZZ Top standards. They’re like old friends and it’s always good to get together with them. When they’re played, there’s a recurrent recollection of what it was like early on, so it becomes ‘the now.’ At the same time, it’s a vivid trip down memory lane. There’s a new stage and a new audience to engage which always keeps things fresh, fine and foolish.”

99th Floor – Moving Sidewalks (Single, 1967)

“Going way back to the Moving Sidewalks, our pre-ZZ band, we stabbed the stake in the ground. That was back in those pre-Cream, pre–Jimi Hendrix Experience days, inspired by psychedelic pioneers and fellow Texan pals the 13th Floor Elevators. Their brilliant frontman, Roky Erickson, was, as they say in the tech biz, ‘an early adopter’ — of exactly what is hard to say. 

"The Elevators came up with some rather unearthly sounds, not previously conceptualized. Elevators go up and sidewalks move forward, which inevitably brought the name ‘the Moving Sidewalks’ into focus, figuring the realm to be all things horizontal — the contradiction, of course, being ‘99th Floor.’ 

“The first recorded version of the number, by the way, pre-dates the Sidewalks, as it was originally cut with Billy G and the Blue Flames, my band from way, way back. We recorded the demo to get the ball rolling, moving into the Sidewalks with drummer Dee Merrill Mitchell. 

“We re-recorded a streamlined version, releasing the new track on the Tantara label, which hit with some commotion in Houston. The folks at Scepter caught it and licensed it for their Wand subsidiary — the same label as ‘Louie Louie’ by the Kingsmen, along with the classic ‘Twist and Shout’ by the Isley Brothers. That was some seriously august labelmate company we were keeping. 

“That release led to additional airplay and touring opportunities, including teaming up with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, who became our friends and mentors. As I remember it, I played a Fender Jazzmaster through a Vox Super Beatle, and a Hohner harp through a Fender Bassman.”

Waiting for the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago – ZZ Top (Tres Hombres, 1973)

“Yes, there are two song titles here, I admit, yet the two tracks are counted as one song stream. That’s the way they’ve been perceived ever since they debuted as ‘side one, tracks one and two’ on the album Tres Hombres. 

“Our engineer, navigating the space between the two songs, used the tried-and-almost-true method of razor blading for tape splicing, and it seemed then he did too good a job. 

“However, the effect eliminated any silent space between the two songs on the album. The two tracks heard together in rapid succession made for an unplanned — or maybe unchained — medley that serves both of the songs so well. 

“The two are really one in most fans’ eyes. ‘Waiting’ offered an anticipatory experience of a down-and-outer spending a significant part of a day in a state of suspension, and ‘Jesus’ set the pace moving from Chicago to New Orleans and all points in between. [laughs] In essence, it’s a blues suite in 4/4 and 6/8 time. 

“It’s still being auspiciously delivered on the concert stage as a ‘two-fer.’ The guitars of choice for this were a ’54 hardtail Strat and Pearly Gates, the ’59 ’Burst, through an early Marshall 1968 Super Lead 100.”

Legs – ZZ Top (Eliminator, 1983)

“This is an exemplar of the Eliminator era, although we might equally lean into ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ or perhaps ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’ from the same zillion-selling album. This was the time when that little red ’33 Ford three-window coupe became a cultural icon, when MTV began and against the odds created an unexpected ZZ Top video trio commotion. 

“The unassuming fact remains, we ceded the spotlight to ‘them pretty gals’ and the cool, custom car. It translated to the stage easily, as we used the fuzzy, spinning guitars seen in the video. and the visual connection ignited a delight with audiences across the board. 

“That video, by the way, was a reshoot. The original filming, shot over a weekend, was accidentally misplaced by a lab worker which required us to return back the very next week, reshooting the whole thing, frame by frame. 

“Quite the happy accident, on par with the ‘Waiting’/‘Jesus’ splice, especially when the song went Top 10 for an extended run of months on the charts. And wouldn’t you know it, it was adapted for use in a pantyhose commercial: Pins ‘R’ Us! 

“The guitar used to record it was a fur-covered solid-body plank fabricated from the Bolin production line, mic’d up under an ark of archaic tube amps that I named the Amp Cabin.”

I Gotsta Get Paid – ZZ Top (La Futura, 2012)

“This is another favored track definitely perceived as a left-field turn, as it’s actually an interpretation of a track borne of the Houston ghetto: ‘25 Lighters’ by DJ DMD, featuring Lil’ Keke and Fat Pat. 

“Our engineer, G.L. ‘G-Mane’ Moon, worked at John Moran’s Digital Services in Houston, the studios patronized by a plethora of rap and hip-hop clients. 

“We shared many off and on hours with some of those cats, coming up with some rad ideas and comparing notes. Our newfound friends showed us beats, and we showed them some guitar chops, as could only happen in Houston. 

“We dig into that track with our own take inspired by a coupling of Lightnin’ Hopkins styling throughout. The song was a highlight of La Futura. I think many Top fans perceived that album as one of our strongest for many years, and it certainly felt like it was a worthy addition to our catalog. 

“Once again, when it comes to the perfect tool for the job, Pearly Gates stepped up to the task, bolstered with a mid-’60s Fender VI running through a blond Fender reverb tank.”

Treat Her Right – Billy Gibbons & The BFGs (Perfectamundo, 2015)

“Lastly, I’ve decided to go for ‘Treat Her Right,’ from my first BFG solo album, Perfectamundo, which was recorded and released in preparation for the annual Havana Jazz Festival, following an invitation to perform there. 

“The brainstorming in the recording studio led to delving, in advance of that performance, into the world of Afro-Cuban music. This lit up the idea of recording a Latin-inflected record that drew upon the revered experience as apprentice to Tito Puente many years earlier. 

“Of course, the original version by Roy Head, recorded and released on Don Roby’s Back Beat label, made a huge splash, crossing all charts when it came out in 1965. Knowing Roy Head and his inimitable frantic stage antics, we attempted to follow the rhythmic exercises, and so it was with the BFGs jumping at the notion to take it for a ride. Upon its release, word reached us of Roy’s delight over our recorded efforts. 

“Speaking of Mr. Head, Roy included a song on the flip of his ‘Your (Almost) Tuff’ single entitled ‘Tush Hog’ back in the day, and, of course, that possibly led to a veiled R&B influence on another favorite, ZZ Top’s ‘Tush.’ 

“The guitar and amp was the same as can be seen on the Conan O’Brien TV clip: a Fender Cohiba Esquire hard-wired into a Magnatone Super 15 tube amp, gained hard with the volume cranked out.”

For more on Billy Gibbons, visit his website

Lightnin' Hopkins: Mojo Hands & Barrelhouse Boogies was first published in Guitar Player, October '97.

"I had the one thing you need to be a blues singer," Lightnin' used to say. "I was born with the blues." The songs he created – "barrelhouse," he called them – were as sorrowful as a cottonfield holler and as earthy as the Texas bottomlands that swallowed his sweat. "You know the blues come out of the field, baby," Lightnin' said. "That's when you bend down, pickin' that cotton, and sing, 'Oh, Lord, please help me.'"

Scars on his hands and ankles testified to stints on the chain gang and long days of driving mules and chopping cotton. But Lightnin' was indomitable, and, like Lead Belly and Muddy Waters and other great bluesmen, he played his way to better circumstances, parlaying his anger and pain into tough, deeply felt music. "The blues is a lot like church," Hopkins explained. "When a preacher's up there preachin' the Bible, he's honest to God trying to get you to understand these things. Well, singing the blues is the same thing."

Sage, scoundrel and natural-born storyteller, Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins had a genius for improvised poetry, creating new verses or entire songs as the spirit moved him. He could sing about hairstyles, being broke, how his car was doing, goings-on in the club where he was performing, or the way things used to be. He damn near sang "Po' Sam" into an everyman of the blues.

Lightnin' was a supremely confident guitarist, keeping time with his left leg while swinging hard or traveling downhome. He often played a Gibson J-50 outfitted with a DeArmond soundhole pickup, and he also performed and recorded with a small Harmony flat-top and a Fender Stratocaster. Resting his pinkie and ring finger on the face of his guitar, Lightnin' played bass and rhythm with his thumbpick while plucking solos with his bare index finger. He thrived on first-position shuffles, especially in the key of E with the fat A7 chord with the high G. 

"One of the most distinctive elements of the Lightnin' sound is that turnaround in E," observes ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons. "It's a signature lick that he did in just about every song he played. He'd come down from the B chord and roll across the top three strings in the last two bars. He'd pull the pick off those strings to get kind of a staccato effect, first hitting the little open-E string and then the 3rd fret on the B string and then the 4th fret of the G string. He would then resolve on the V chord after doing this roll. It's a way to immediately identify a Lightnin' Hopkins tune."

To accompany Hopkins meant doing things his way, as Gibbons quickly learned: "We were playing a traditional blues and we all went to the second change, but Lightnin' was still in the first change. He stopped and looked at us. Our bass player said, 'Well, Lightnin', that's where the second change is supposed to be, isn't it?' Lightnin' looked back and said, 'Lightnin' change when Lightnin' want to change.' And we knew – don't do that no more!"

"You had to know and feel Lightnin' and follow him," seconds Johnny Winter. "I guess he played a lot by himself, and he didn't worry about changes. It didn't hurt a damn thing, either. Lightnin' might not change on time all the time, but he was technically a damn good guitar player when he wanted to be. He could play his butt off, and he was always his own man. A long time ago Lightnin' was playing a local bar in Houston, and one of the frats came up and said, 'Do you mind playing something by John Lee Hooker?' And he said, 'I am Lightnin' Hopkins. I don't play nothin' else.'"

Even while covering well-known songs like "Trouble in Mind" and "When the Saints Go Marching In," Lightnin' inevitably swerved the arrangement to suit himself. "When I play a guitar," he said in The Blues According to Lightnin' Hopkins, "I play from my heart and soul and I play my own, own music."

Hopkins was born in the heart of East Texas Piney Woods country on March 15, 1912. "My family, we come up in Leona County," he told Sam Charters during a 1964 Prestige session. "It's just a little old country where they farm and raise cotton and corn and peas and peanuts, things like that. So that's where I grew up to know myself -- back out from Centerville about 12 miles back in the country." Hopkins's grandfather was a slave who hung himself. His father, a hard-drinking gambler who'd done time for murder, was slain in an argument when Lightnin' was three. Sam's older brother John Henry fled the area soon afterward, leaving his mother on her own to raise Alice, Joel, A.B. and Sam.

Before he was big enough to work in the fields, Hopkins was drawn to music. "I heard my brother playing a guitar," he told Charters. "It was the first one I ever seen. He wouldn't let me play his guitar. I wanted to play it, so at last one day they come in and caught me with the guitar 'cause I couldn't hang it back up – see, I had to get in a chair to get it down. So he caught me fair. He said, 'Boy, I done told you – don't fool with that guitar.' He says, 'Can you play this guitar?' I say, 'Yeah, I can play it some.' He said, 'Well, go ahead and let's see what you can do.' I went ahead and played him a little tune, and he liked it. So he said, 'Yeah, he can play some. Where you learn that from?' I said, 'Well, I just learned it.' 

"So I went ahead and made me a guitar. I got me a cigar box, I cut me a round hole in the middle of it, take me a little piece of plank, nailed it onto that cigar box, and I got me some screen wire and I made me a bridge back there and raised it up high enough that it would sound inside that little box, and I got me a tune out of it. I kept my tune, and I played from then on. So I got me a guitar of my own when I got to be eight years old."

Sam toted his guitar to a Baptist church social in nearby Buffalo, where Blind Lemon Jefferson had him hoisted to the hood of a truck so they could perform together. "Boy," the great bluesman predicted, "you keep that up, you gonna be a good guitar player." Albert Holly, an old blues player who came around to court his mama, inspired Hopkins to sing. Sam played leads alongside his brothers and sister in the Hopkins Band and gathered with them around the organ to sing "them good old Christian songs."

During his teens Hopkins played with a fiddler, serenading and passing the hat. "When I got good, I went to find the places where they'd barrelhouse at," Hopkins said. "I didn't know – I just had to wander up on them places around Jewitt, Buffalo, Crockett. They had little old joints for Saturday nights, you know." In 1927 Hopkins began playing dances and jukes around the area with his cousin, blues singer Texas Alexander, who'd just done his first session with Lonnie Johnson on guitar.

By day Sam worked the fields, chopping cotton and driving a mule. "It was hard times," he told Charters. "I was trying to take care of my wife, me and my mother. Six bits a day -- and that was top price. I swear, I would come in in the evening, and it looked like I'd be so weak till my knees be cluckin' like a wagon wheel, man. I'd go to bed, and I'd say, 'Baby, I just can't continue like that.' Look like no sooner than I go to bed and I'm ready to go catch that mule again."

The hard-drinking Hopkins got into fights that landed him on the chain gang. "I had to calm down. Man, that ball and chain ain't no good for no man. From the '20s up until the '30s I was doing that. Getting cooped up and whomped around pretty good. Somehow or another, I'd always be lucky and managed to get out." He rode the rails and stayed in hobo camps: "I had some hard days travelin', but after I stopped in places and they found out I played that guitar like I do, they'd warm me up, feed me, and make me a big sack of food and tell me I can make it."

Sam visited Houston for the first time in 1934 to broadcast with Texas Alexander and then returned home. Mance Lipscomb recalled seeing him playing an electric guitar in Galveston in '38. Sam finally moved to Houston for good and began playing on buses and in the dives along Dowling Street. Word of his performances reached Lola Anne Cullum, a talent scout who bought him his first amp and arranged his November 1946 debut session for Aladdin.

Accompanying the 35-year-old bluesman on the drive to Los Angeles was pianist Wilson Smith. "When I gets in that studio," Hopkins recounted to Charters, "they said, 'Mr. Hopkins, we wanna see what you got to offer.' I walks up there and I grabbed that old guitar, and I ran back. I sang 'The Rocky Mountain, darlin', they way out in the West.' He said, 'He's sold,' right then and there. I didn't have to hit another note. Alright. I come on down. Smith was next. He said, 'Well, let's see what y'all got to offer on piano.' I gets up there and I play the same song -- 'The Rocky Mountain' -- with Smith, and it sold him! [Laughed.] And boy, we tore the joint up. And so they named me Lightnin' and named him Thunder."

With its fearless bass licks and gripping solos, Hopkins's countrified style was fully evident on his first release, "Katie Mae Blues" backed with "That Mean Old Twister." The 78 became a hit and brought Lightnin' better-paying gigs around Houston. His second Aladdin session, held in L.A. nine months later, yielded another hit, "Short Haired Woman." Jumping from label to label, Hopkins recorded prolifically in Houston during the next eight years, taping nearly 200 selections that would eventually come out on Aladdin/Imperial, Gold Star, Modern, RPM, Jax/Sittin in With, United, Kent, Crown, Verve, Dart, Time, Mercury, Mainstream, Blues Classics, Decca, Herald, Arhoolie and many other labels.

"Lightnin' liked to make records," says producer Chris Strachwitz, "and no wonder, when he could sit down a few minutes, make up a number and collect $100 in cash. And local recording producer Bill Quinn had Lightnin' doing just that. Whenever Lightnin' needed some money he would go over to Telephone Road and walk into the Gold Star studios to 'make' some numbers. And he had a fantastic talent to come up with an endless supply of these 'numbers.' Many were based on traditional tunes he had heard in the past, but all of the songs received his personal treatment and they came out as very personal poetry." Some songs presaged rock and roll, while others were as lonesome and sorrowful as Blind Lemon's old 78s. Hopkins's biggest Gold Star singles, "Unsuccessful Blues" and "Tim Moore's Farm," crackled over R&B radio and were spun on jukeboxes all along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Besides stripped-down guitar blues, Lightnin' recorded piano and organ solos -- his "Zolo Go" was early Zydeco -- as well as tap-dancing numbers. Bassist Donald Cooks and a variety of drummers accompanied Hopkins on records between '52 and mid '54, when Lightnin' played his last major session for Herald. Shifts in R&B; and the advent of rock and roll caused a lull in demand for middle-aged blues artists like Hopkins and Muddy Waters. Lightnin' produced only three singles during '55 and '56 and didn't record at all in '57 and '58. Then came a dramatic turnaround: Educated white people became interested in folk blues.

On January 16, 1959, Hopkins recorded his first album, for Folkways. Sam Charters, who'd written about Lightnin' in his monumental book The Country Blues, produced the session and provided the gin. "We recorded it in the shabby room he was renting," Charters wrote, "and I held the microphone in my hand so I could move it down toward the guitar when he was playing a solo, and then move it close enough to his lips for his singing." Lightnin' paid homage to Blind Lemon with "Reminiscences of Blind Lemon" and covers of "Penitentiary Blues" and "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean." Subsequent 1959 sessions with Mack McCormack captured a wealth of improvised blues and traditional songs.

Chris Strachwitz made a pilgrimage to visit Lightnin' at a Houston tavern in 1959. "The songs I heard him sing were incredible improvised poetry, made up on the spot about whatever was on his mind that day or night," Chris observed. "Rhymed and underscored by the piercing sound of the amplified guitar droning over an ancient humming amplifier, Lightnin' sang about how he hardly got to the beer joint that night because it had been raining all day and his car hit all the chuckholes on the road since the water covered them all. 

"He moaned about his arthritis bothering him on a humid night like that. He yelled out at several women jiving in front of him and pointed his long fingers at them while he told them a piece of his mind, always rhymed to the slow beat of his guitar and Spider, the drummer, who bashed out a powerful sanctified beat. Lightnin' hardly seemed to end one number – it was a continuous rap with his audience." The performance inspired Strachwitz to form Arhoolie Records, which has several top-drawer Hopkins albums in its catalog.

Lightnin', Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Big Joe Williams converged in a Los Angeles studio to record together for World Pacific in July 1960. In October, Hopkins joined Joan Baez and Pete Seeger onstage at Carnegie Hall to record "Oh Mary Don't You Weep." During the next two-and-a-half weeks, Hopkins recorded nearly four dozen songs at various New York facilities, including two Bluesville albums, a Candid LP and the Fire release of "Mojo Hand," a compelling piece of voodoo imagery that became his signature song.

An instant hit on college campuses, Lightnin' crossed over to jazz audiences, being voted Best New Star -- Male Vocalist in the 1962 Down Beat critics poll. Lightnin' explained his performance strategy to Charters: "See, here's the way I play songs. I goes on. If my first song don't hit 'em, my second one will, because I bring a feeling. And if they don't get the first feeling, they get the second feeling, and I got 'em and gone! Because I rocks the joint that way."

Lightnin' recorded prolifically during the '60s, with standouts on Arhoolie, Bluesville, Prestige and Verve. He joined his brothers Joel and long-lost John Henry in Waxahachie, Texas, for a particularly memorable Arhoolie outing in '64.

Unlike his Lone Star contemporaries T-Bone Walker, Gatemouth Brown and Lowell Fulson, Lightnin' did not want to promote himself by touring. He had an aversion to airplanes, refused to own a phone, and was known to refuse a $2,000-a-week tour to stay home and play in a dingy club for $17 a night. With his shades and shiny Cadillac, Lightnin' was a respected man about town who loved drinking, fishing, going to rodeos, shooting craps and playing pitty pat. Most of all, he remained true to who he was –"a country boy moved to town."

"I always thought Lightnin' Hopkins was a real cool guy," says Johnny Winter, "because he could do big shows and then go out and play on the corner or on a bus or in a little juke joint. It didn't seem to bother him a bit. He could go from acoustic guitar to electric guitar or from playing by himself to playing with a band. Lightnin' was a real blues guy."

By the end of his life Lightnin' Hopkins was likely the most recorded of the postwar bluesmen. He exerted an enormous influence on other musicians – Albert, B.B. and Freddie King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, J.B. Lenoir, Otis Rush, Albert Collins, Son Thomas, R.L. Burnside and Jimi Hendrix all praised his records.

On January 30, 1982, Po' Lightnin' died of cancer of the esophagus in Houston's St. Joseph Hospital. "Lightnin' was one of the last of a dying breed," said Johnny Winter just after the funeral. "There are always going to be blues musicians, but it's just different with people who really lived the whole thing in the country and could talk about chopping cotton and pulling corn and riding freights. Lightnin' did everything the way you'd think a real blues player would do. He took care of the people he loved, and success never really seemed to go to his head. He did exactly what he wanted to do, and he sure gave us a lot of good blues."

The following is an excerpt from Lightnin' Hopkins: Mojo Hands & Barrelhouse Boogies, a feature first published in the October 1997 issue of Guitar Player. 

Lightnin' Hopkins was a supremely confident guitarist, keeping time with his left leg while swinging hard or traveling down-home. He often played a Gibson J-50 outfitted with a DeArmond soundhole pickup, and he also performed and recorded with a small Harmony flat-top and a Fender Stratocaster. 

Resting his pinkie and ring finger on the face of his guitar, Lightnin' played bass and rhythm with his thumbpick while plucking solos with his bare index finger. He thrived on first-position shuffles, especially in the key of E with the fat A7 chord with the high G.

“One of the most distinctive elements of the Lightnin' sound is that turnaround in E,” observes ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons. 

“It's a signature lick that he did in just about every song he played. He'd come down from the B chord and roll across the top three strings in the last two bars. He'd pull the pick off those strings to get kind of a staccato effect, first hitting the little open-E string and then the 3rd fret on the B string and then the 4th fret of the G string. He would then resolve on the V chord after doing this roll. It's a way to immediately identify a Lightnin' Hopkins tune.”

To accompany Hopkins meant doing things his way, as Gibbons quickly learned: “We were playing a traditional blues and we all went to the second change, but Lightnin' was still in the first change. He stopped and looked at us. Our bass player said, 'Well, Lightnin', that's where the second change is supposed to be, isn't it?' Lightnin' looked back and said, 'Lightnin' change when Lightnin' want to change.' And we knew – don't do that no more!”

“You had to know and feel Lightnin' and follow him,” seconds Johnny Winter. “I guess he played a lot by himself, and he didn't worry about changes. It didn't hurt a damn thing, either. Lightnin' might not change on time all the time, but he was technically a damn good guitar player when he wanted to be. He could play his butt off, and he was always his own man.

“A long time ago Lightnin' was playing a local bar in Houston, and one of the frats came up and said, 'Do you mind playing something by John Lee Hooker?' And he said, 'I am Lightnin' Hopkins. I don't play nothin' else.'”

Recently released by Freestyle Digital Media, Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues is the first authorized documentary on the life and times of the Vaughan Brothers, made with the full co-operation of Jimmie.

It’s a fascinating and informative film that includes interviews with the Vaughan brothers, as well as with contemporaries from the early days and household names like Eric Clapton and Billy Gibbons.

Using clips from Jimmie’s archives, the movie paints the fullest picture yet of how the two brothers started out and went on to transform the face of blues in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Jimmie’s discussion of the events around Stevie’s tragic accident are particularly moving, as he recounts the tension between them prior to Stevie taking his fateful flight.

Essential viewing for any fan of these two titans of Texas blues, Brothers in Blues is a timely reminder of the magic of Stevie and Jimmie, and the unique connection that the two brothers had, both with each other and with the essence of the blues.

A press release says Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues is now available on AppleTV, iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Sling and YouTube to rent or purchase. 

DVD copies of the film may be ordered from Amazon and Walmart.com.

Back in 2012, while Billy Gibbons was renovating his Houston studio, ZZ Top decided to set up in a nearby facility called John Moran’s Digital Services.

It was here the band met and became friendly with local hip hop artists. Hanging out in the studio’s communal lounge, Gibbons says they found some “common ground” chatting about music.

“We were comparing notes and exchanging ideas,” recalls the guitarist. “They were showing us beats and I was showing them guitar stuff. A great time was had.”

Inspired, the band set about recording a cover of Houston rapper and producer DJ DMD’s chart-topping “25 Lighters” (featuring Fat Pat and Lil KeKe). The result – "I Gotsta Get Paid" – became the lead single from ZZ Top’s 2012 La Futura album.

The following interview extract appeared in the October 2019 issue of Guitar Player...

As far as taking the blues up a notch, you did it with the song “I Gotsta Get Paid,” which interpolates the 1998 Houston rap classic “25 Lighters” [by DJ DMD and featuring Lil’ Keke and Fat Pat]

“I Gotsta Get Paid” has its origins down the street. When La Futura was set for release, I had been giving my studio in Houston a bit of a facelift. So we wound up driving down the street, and we were using the neighbor studio, which was called John Moran’s Digital Services. He said, “I know you’re reworking your studio. Come on down. There’s plenty of room for you.”

So we were working there, and the place had a studio on the left and a studio on the right, and the lounge was in the middle – the great meeting spot. And John Moran’s studio had become extremely popular, particularly with the hip-hop and rap crowd. There was Rap-A-Lot Records; that’s the Geto Boys – Scarface and the late Bushwick Bill, who just passed away last month. And then the Cash Money guys over in Baton Rouge started hanging out; that was Mannie Fresh, Juvenile.

So we had this interesting common ground in the lounge. I wanted to know what all these rap guys were doing. They wanted to know where all these guitar sounds were coming from. So we had this great meeting of the minds.

“I Gotsta Get Paid” came out of that. It was the retitled version of the song originally called “25 Lighters.” And that was Fat Pat and Lil’ Keke. [La Futura producer] Rick Rubin said we needed one more song for the album, and so I was in the studio with [engineers] Joe Hardy and Gary Moon. And I looked over at Mr. Moon, and he was grinning, and he said to me, “Man, you oughta check out YouTube. Somebody unearthed a bunch of film performances of Lightnin’ Hopkins.” And I said, “Well, that may be just the impetus I need. I’ve got this crazy song.”

Years ago, in fact, Mr. Moon was the engineer at John Moran’s Digital Services, and he’s the guy that engineered “25 Lighters.” I said, “You remember that song you did for Fat Pat and Lil’ Keke?” And he said, “Don’t tell me that you’re thinking about that.” I asked him why. He said, “Well, I can’t envision ZZ Top… I don’t see you as a rap group, just yet.” And I said, “Well, you’re listening to Lightnin’ Hopkins. Maybe the two shall meet!” And that was the genesis.

You have a history of conjuring pretty gnarly guitar sounds, but this song might just have one of the gnarliest tones you’ve ever committed to tape.

One afternoon, we had some time on our hands in the studio, and it was just Mr. Hardy, myself and Mr. Moon, and I brought up a point. I said, “You know, the fuzz-tone signal, the square wave, has been chopped up, decentralized, it’s been turned upside down. There’s every kind of fuzz out there. Just go to the music store, close your eyes, point through the glass showcase and there’ll be a hundred fuzz pedals.”

I asked them, “How can we out-fuzz the fuzz?” So we came up with a contraption called the Frazz. And it’s heard liberally throughout “I Gotsta Get Paid.”

And what, exactly, is the Frazz?

The Frazz is a random-signal generator. It alters the EQ frequencies and at the same time it alters the amplitude. It’s all random until you commit it to the tape machine. Then it becomes repeatable. But before it gets repeatable, it is definitely out there. You never really know what you’re going to get.

It’s probably most noticeable on a song that Dusty sang from the Rhythmeen album called “Loaded.” The closing note of that track features the Frazz in its first incarnation.

You know, I had the funniest phone call once from Bill Paxton, the actor. He called me up one afternoon and said, “Damn you!” And I said, “What’s up, Bill?” He said, “Well, I was listening to that crazy song you guys did called ‘Loaded,’ and I thought my car stereo system was going to explode. I took my mind off the speedometer and I got pulled over.” Then he goes, “Thank god the cop was a ZZ Top fan. He let me go!”

Order ZZ Top’s La Futura here.

ZZ Top’s Eliminator album was tracked in 1982 against a backdrop of synthesizer-infused rock music.

As the popularity of electronic instruments boomed and studio technology continued to move forward, music makers naturally changed with the times – and Billy Gibbons was no exception.

The band’s most commercially successful album, 1983’s Eliminator, was famously recorded using drum machines and synths.

Furthermore, the ZZ Top frontman’s classic Les Paul/Marshall rig had been put to one side in place of a Dean Z electric guitar and Legend 50 amp.

Here, Gibbons explains how “the little band from Texas” continued to enthral audiences in a rapidly evolving music scene with their unique interpretation of the blues.

Your tone on "Gimme All Your Lovin'," and the Eliminator record in general, is great. But at this time your setup was pretty far from Pearly Gates through a Marshall. You were using a Dean Z guitar and a Legend amp.

Back then, Frank Beard, our fearless drummer and the man with no beard, he had put together a nice recording studio, and he had a houseguest, Linden Hudson, who had previously worked as an engineer. And it was at Linden’s behest that we crank up and aim toward a little richer tone that the Eliminator sound came together.

We had gotten pretty handy with the cleanliness of Fender and that icy brilliance that Strats and Teles have. But we liked what Dean was doing back in the day.

And I had just taken delivery of an amplifier, the Legend 50, which was being made by a guy in Syracuse, New York. It was a hybrid solid-state and tube amp with a natural wood cabinet, and the sound was ferocious. It was sensational.

Famously, you used drum machines and synths in the recording of Eliminator. How did that affect the outcome of songs like “Gimme All Your Lovin’”?

It enhanced the focus on tuning and tempo. Tuning and timing became the goal. By this time, the sounds coming from the U.K. were getting so popular, and it was the British that really brought forward the elegance of timing into the recording scene.

Keep in mind, the economy in Britain was such that a lot of bands didn’t have the affordability to spend a lot of time in the studio. They didn’t have two weeks to get a sound on a snare drum or two weeks on a hi-hat. And so a lot of the sounds coming over the airwaves were generated from drum machines.

Hell, all you had to do was program the damn thing, plug it in and then you’re out of there. You’ve got your song done in 30 minutes. So we really became keen on those two elements – timing and tuning.

We’d get everything in good tune, and once the timing was tight, it opened up the space and allowed the rhythm changes to come together, and the whole thing was just tighter. It was a very magnetic and very appealing sound.

Do you think that approach had an effect on the music’s stylistic direction?

As far as the effect on the writing, no, we were still the little band from Texas, interpreters of that great American art form the blues.

And I remember our good friend, the late [record producer and musician] Jim Dickinson, he was one of the resident house engineers [at Ardent Studios in Memphis, where Eliminator was recorded], and he was always around.

And he said to me, “Man, you’ve taken the blues up a notch. Don’t change a thing!” I took that as a high, high compliment.

Order ZZ Top's Eliminator here.

Billy Gibbons can easily remember the first song he ever wrote and recorded that made him say to himself, “I've got something here.”

“It goes back to the Moving Sidewalks,” the ZZ Top singer and guitarist says, referring to the psychedelic rock act he founded in Texas in the mid 1960s. “Our first single, ‘99th Floor,’ was such a rewarding experience.

“Back in the ’60s, before you went into the studio to tackle the challenge of recording, you did a demo, which was a demonstration of the product. So we had a nice little demo for that song, and after going back into the woodshed and chopping wood until we had it really together, I felt quite confident about it. And then we landed on a pretty special moment when we went in the studio and laid it down.”

Between then and now, of course, Gibbons has experienced plenty more special moments in his musical life. And most of those have come courtesy of the group he formed after the Moving Sidewalks – a little ol’ band from Texas named ZZ Top.

Here, Gibbons details how one of the group's signature songs, "Cheap Sunglasses," came about, though, as we discover, it happened quite by accident.

Released as single in 1979, the full-length version featured on ZZ Top’s Platinum-selling album, Degüello.

You have such a funky, almost jazzy guitar tone on “Cheap Sunglasses.” How did that come about?

A good friend of ours from Texas, Orville Guinn, was a regional distributor for a number of different musical products, one being the Teisco line from Japan, and he gave me a white Stratocaster copy.

He said, “Hey, man, Teisco’s entered a lawsuit. They’ve been stomping on Fender’s copyright, and they got caught. I need to get away from these things.” He said, “Here, try this Strat out. It’s not bad.” And I said, “What is this thing?”

But the guitar wound up in the studio, and I think one of the reasons it was such an easy giveaway for my buddy was it had the wrong headstock: It had a Telecaster headstock on a Stratocaster body.

And you know, not too many people wanted Japanese products at the time. And they certainly didn’t want a Japanese product with the wrong head or wrong neck on it. [laughs]

How did you develop the main riff, with the sliding triad figure?

What happened there was, we were in the studio and I gave the Strat to our guitar tech and – I don’t know – he got distracted or something and left the high E string tuned down to D. And neither one of us realized it until I picked it up and started playing.

But I liked the voicing. And that’s due to that unexpected detuning. You barre the first three strings and you slide up to the third fret, and you’re in.

The solo section is pretty unusual too, expanding on the song’s jazzy vibe.

Yeah. It goes from a G to an Fm7 against G. Within rock music it was peculiar at the time, but it rang true. It had a rather appealing draw, so we chased it right on down.

And the funny thing about that solo: To this day we’re not sure what happened, but something got fried in the process. We went back and checked all the amp’s tubes; they seemed to be working. We looked at the diaphragm of the microphone; it seemed to be undamaged. But the guitar has this kind of honky midrange thing going on. It’s quite fuzzy. Somehow, something went haywire, but in the right direction.

One of those beautiful mistakes.

Yeah. So much of the stuff that you, me and the rest of the world grew up listening to, a good amount of it, if not more than half, was all done by accident.

Jeff Beck's genius touched every guitarist. 

A true master of his instrument, Beck introduced the world to sounds and styles of electric guitar playing that defined the mid-‘60s era and laid the groundwork for the psychedelic rock revolution.

After replacing Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds in 1965 (at the suggestion of Jimmy Page) Beck recorded the fuzz box-pioneering “Heart Full of Soul” single, landing the group a top ten smash on both sides of the pond.

Proving himself the star of the show, the young guitarist started to branch out on a solo career, beginning with the 1966 recording “Beck’s Bolero.” The track was released in 1967 as the B-side to Beck's hit single, “Hi Ho Silver Lining.”

Featuring a mostly uncredited all-star cast that includes Page, John Paul Jones, Nicky Hopkins and Keith Moon, “Beck’s Bolero” also made an appearance on Beck's 1968 debut album, Truth.

From the earliest days of his decades-long solo career, Beck has commanded the respect of his peers.

“[Jimi Hendrix]” was fascinated by Jeff Beck’s playing,” said Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. “I have vivid recollections of tip-toeing into Hendrix’s hotel room, and he always had a record player, a giant piece of furniture, in his room. 

"He said: ‘Man, how do you think Jeff Beck is doing this?’ And I said: ‘Well, I can probably imagine Jeff Beck is scratching his head wondering the same about you.’”

In the mid-'70s, Page revealed to Guitar Player that he thought the Yardbirds were at their best when Beck was with them.

"Giorgio Gomelsky [the Yardbird's manager and producer] was good for him because he got him thinking and attempting new things," said the New Yardbirds/Led Zeppelin founder. 

"That's when they started all sorts of departures."

Rod Stewart, who performed in the Jeff Beck Group alongside Ronnie Wood during the late '60s, told Howard Stern in a 2015 broadcast that he thought Beck was "an entrepreneur of the guitar."

Stewart remembers Beck as "the greatest."

Speaking to the BBC's Bob Harris about his tenure in the Jeff Beck Group as a bass player, Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood said, "I had a few years that I would never change of playing bass. 

"It gave me a fantastic angle when I went back on the guitar again."

"I think he is the most unique guitar player – and the most devoted, really," Clapton told an interviewer in the late '80s. 

"From what I know of Jeff, he's either fixing his cars or playing guitar – there's no in-between for him.”

Clapton’s Twitter post was short and sweet...

Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley was hired as a session guitarist by Beck in the early '90s and appeared on his Cliff Gallup tribute album Crazy Legs. 

“Back in the early '90s when we were making the first Portishead record [Dummy] I was playing with Jeff Beck – a massive hero," Utley told Guitarist.

"It was amazing playing with Jeff – his dynamic and power. He was really kind to me and was very into what I was doing." 

Confirmation of Beck's passing arrived yesterday in the form of an official statement from his PR firm:

"On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of Jeff Beck’s passing. After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday. His family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss."

Our deepest sympathies go out to his loved ones and fans.

Jeff Beck (June 24, 1944 – January 10, 2023) 

***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.

"I had the one thing you need to be a blues singer," Lightnin' used to say. "I was born with the blues." 

The songs he created – "barrelhouse," he called them – were as sorrowful as a cottonfield holler and as earthy as the Texas bottomlands that swallowed his sweat. 

"You know the blues come out of the field, baby," Lightnin' said. "That's when you bend down, pickin' that cotton, and sing, 'Oh, Lord, please help me.'"

Scars on his hands and ankles testified to stints on the chain gang and long days of driving mules and chopping cotton. But Lightnin' was indomitable, and, like Lead Belly and Muddy Waters and other great blues guitar players, he played his way to better circumstances, parlaying his anger and pain into tough, deeply felt music.

"The blues is a lot like church," Hopkins explained. "When a preacher's up there preachin' the Bible, he's honest to God trying to get you to understand these things. Well, singing the blues is the same thing."

Sage, scoundrel and natural-born storyteller, Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins had a genius for improvised poetry, creating new verses or entire songs as the spirit moved him. He could sing about hairstyles, being broke, how his car was doing, goings-on in the club where he was performing, or the way things used to be. He damn near sang "Po' Sam" into an everyman of the blues.

Lightnin' was a supremely confident guitarist, keeping time with his left leg while swinging hard or traveling downhome. He often played a Gibson J-50 outfitted with a DeArmond soundhole pickup, and he also performed and recorded with a small Harmony flat-top and a Fender Stratocaster.

Resting his pinkie and ring finger on the face of his guitar, Lightnin' played bass and rhythm with his thumbpick while plucking solos with his bare index finger. He thrived on first-position shuffles, especially in the key of E with the fat A7 chord with the high G.

"One of the most distinctive elements of the Lightnin' sound is that turnaround in E," observes ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons. "It's a signature lick that he did in just about every song he played. He'd come down from the B chord and roll across the top three strings in the last two bars.

“He'd pull the pick off those strings to get kind of a staccato effect, first hitting the little open-E string and then the 3rd fret on the B string and then the 4th fret of the G string. He would then resolve on the V chord after doing this roll. It's a way to immediately identify a Lightnin' Hopkins tune."

"Lightnin' change when Lightnin' want to change"

To accompany Hopkins meant doing things his way, as Gibbons quickly learned: "We were playing a traditional blues and we all went to the second change, but Lightnin' was still in the first change. He stopped and looked at us. Our bass player said, 'Well, Lightnin', that's where the second change is supposed to be, isn't it?'

“Lightnin' looked back and said, 'Lightnin' change when Lightnin' want to change.' And we knew – don't do that no more!"

"You had to know and feel Lightnin' and follow him," seconds Johnny Winter. "I guess he played a lot by himself, and he didn't worry about changes. It didn't hurt a damn thing, either. Lightnin' might not change on time all the time, but he was technically a damn good guitar player when he wanted to be.

“He could play his butt off, and he was always his own man. A long time ago Lightnin' was playing a local bar in Houston, and one of the frats came up and said, 'Do you mind playing something by John Lee Hooker?' And he said, 'I am Lightnin' Hopkins. I don't play nothin' else.'"

Even while covering well-known songs like "Trouble in Mind" and "When the Saints Go Marching In," Lightnin' inevitably swerved the arrangement to suit himself. "When I play a guitar," he said in The Blues According to Lightnin' Hopkins, "I play from my heart and soul and I play my own, own music."

Hopkins was born in the heart of East Texas Piney Woods country on March 15, 1912. "My family, we come up in Leona County," he told Sam Charters during a 1964 Prestige session. "It's just a little old country where they farm and raise cotton and corn and peas and peanuts, things like that. So that's where I grew up to know myself – back out from Centerville about 12 miles back in the country."

Hopkins's grandfather was a slave who hung himself. His father, a hard-drinking gambler who'd done time for murder, was slain in an argument when Lightnin' was three. Sam's older brother John Henry fled the area soon afterward, leaving his mother on her own to raise Alice, Joel, A.B. and Sam.

Before he was big enough to work in the fields, Hopkins was drawn to music. "I heard my brother playing a guitar," he told Charters.

"It was the first one I ever seen. He wouldn't let me play his guitar. I wanted to play it, so at last one day they come in and caught me with the guitar 'cause I couldn't hang it back up – see, I had to get in a chair to get it down.

“So he caught me fair. He said, 'Boy, I done told you – don't fool with that guitar.' He says, 'Can you play this guitar?' I say, 'Yeah, I can play it some.' He said, 'Well, go ahead and let's see what you can do.'

“I went ahead and played him a little tune, and he liked it. So he said, 'Yeah, he can play some. Where you learn that from?' I said, 'Well, I just learned it.' So I went ahead and made me a guitar.

“I got me a cigar box, I cut me a round hole in the middle of it, take me a little piece of plank, nailed it onto that cigar box, and I got me some screen wire and I made me a bridge back there and raised it up high enough that it would sound inside that little box, and I got me a tune out of it. I kept my tune, and I played from then on. So I got me a guitar of my own when I got to be eight years old."

Sam toted his guitar to a Baptist church social in nearby Buffalo, where Blind Lemon Jefferson had him hoisted to the hood of a truck so they could perform together. "Boy," the great bluesman predicted, "you keep that up, you gonna be a good guitar player."

Albert Holly, an old blues player who came around to court his mama, inspired Hopkins to sing. Sam played leads alongside his brothers and sister in the Hopkins Band and gathered with them around the organ to sing "them good old Christian songs."

During his teens Hopkins played with a fiddler, serenading and passing the hat. "When I got good, I went to find the places where they'd barrelhouse at," Hopkins said. "I didn't know – I just had to wander up on them places around Jewitt, Buffalo, Crockett. They had little old joints for Saturday nights, you know."

In 1927 Hopkins began playing dances and jukes around the area with his cousin, blues singer Texas Alexander, who'd just done his first session with Lonnie Johnson on acoustic guitar.

"It was hard times"

By day Sam worked the fields, chopping cotton and driving a mule. "It was hard times," he told Charters. "I was trying to take care of my wife, me and my mother. Six bits a day – and that was top price.

“I swear, I would come in in the evening, and it looked like I'd be so weak till my knees be cluckin' like a wagon wheel, man. I'd go to bed, and I'd say, 'Baby, I just can't continue like that.' Look like no sooner than I go to bed and I'm ready to go catch that mule again."

The hard-drinking Hopkins got into fights that landed him on the chain gang. "I had to calm down. Man, that ball and chain ain't no good for no man. From the '20s up until the '30s I was doing that. Getting cooped up and whomped around pretty good. Somehow or another, I'd always be lucky and managed to get out."

He rode the rails and stayed in hobo camps: "I had some hard days travelin', but after I stopped in places and they found out I played that guitar like I do, they'd warm me up, feed me, and make me a big sack of food and tell me I can make it."

Browse the Lightnin’ Hopkins catalog here.

On this day, in 1944, blues guitar phenom Johnny Winter was born in Beaumont, Texas. 

Famed the world over for his fiery, virtuosic technique and soulful, strident tone (often courtesy of a Gibson Firebird) he kicked off his decades-long recording career at just 15 years of age.

Honoring his late brother’s musical genius, Edgar Winter will be releasing a tribute album titled Brother Johnny on April 15 via Quarto Valley Records.

Curated by Edgar Winter and producer Ross Hogarth, Brother Johnny retraces the guitarist’s career and evolution as one of the greatest blues artists the world has ever known.

Boasting a stellar line-up of musicians including Joe Bonamassa, Robben Ford, Billy Gibbons, Keb’ Mo’, Steve Lukather, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Derek Trucks, Joe Walsh and Phil X, the album has already attracted much excitement from reviewers. (Word is, it rocks!)

Known for his love of the Rolling Stones, Johnny Winter’s catalog includes covers of “Jumpin' Jack Flash" (from 1971’s Live Johnny Winter And); “Silver Train" and "Let It Bleed" (from 1973’s Still Alive and Well); and “Stray Cat Blues” (from 1974’s Saints & Sinners.)

And in this classic clip from the BBC live music television show The Old Grey Whistle Test, Johnny Winter is on fire as he blazes through a high-octane performance of the Stones’ “Jumpin' Jack Flash" alongside Tin House guitarist Floyd Radford.

Listening to the recording, it’s interesting to be able to clearly hear the differences in sound and compare notes between Johnny Winter’s Gibson Firebird V pickups and the standard/full-size humbuckers of Radford’s Gibson ES-355.

Both are great examples of benchmark blues rock guitar tone.

Pre-order Brother Johnny by Edgar Winter here.

Edgar Winter has unveiled the second single – "Mean Town Blues" – from his forthcoming Brother Johnny album. 

Available via Quarto Valley Records, the new LP is due to be released on April 15 this year and features a stellar line-up of guest musicians.

Among those paying tribute to the late, great bluesman on Brother Johnny are Robben Ford, Billy Gibbons, Keb’ Mo’, Steve Lukather, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Derek Trucks, Joe Walsh and Phil X.

The new single, “Mean Town Blues,” features Joe Bonamassa on slide guitar, Sean Hurley on bass, and Gregg Bissonette on drums.

“To me, this is one of the most important tracks on the album,” said Edgar Winter, “and probably the most difficult to replicate the original feel on.

“I wanted only guitar, bass, and drums, exactly like Johnny’s original blues trio. But I didn’t know of anyone out there who naturally played slide the way Johnny did.

“I thought Joe Bonamassa did such an incredible job with Johnny’s regular guitar style, I wonder if he could do the same thing with the slide? And amazingly, he did it!”

Curated by Edgar Winter and producer Ross Hogarth, Brother Johnny is a sonic celebration of one of the greatest electric blues guitar players in music history.

Retracing Johnny Winter’s evolution as a guitarist, this epic 17-track romp through the years is a touching homage from one brother to another.

Commenting on the song “Mean Town Blues” Edgar Winter said: “If there’s one song that best epitomizes and brings all those elements together to represent the many aspects of who Johnny was in the early days, that song would have to be “Mean Town Blues.”

“Every time I hear it, I think, now that’s Real Johnny Winter. It just captures the essence of everything he was.”

Stream the “Mean Town Blues” single here.

Pre-order Brother Johnny by Edgar Winter here.

Available on CD, vinyl and digitally across all platforms from April 15, Edgar Winter’s talent-packed new album, Brother Johnny, pays tribute to his Firebird-toting blues brother – the late, great Johnny Winter (1944-2014) – with a collection of songs featuring some of the biggest names in the guitar world.

A legend among legends, Johnny Winter’s continued reverence has prompted a sizeable host of well-known guitar players to contribute to the recording. Several years in the making this 17-track collection (which includes two original numbers penned by Edgar Winter) was curated with producer Ross Hogarth in order to demonstrate Johnny Winter’s storied evolution as an artist.

“Many people immediately started trying to convince me to do a Johnny Winter tribute album,” said Edgar, reflecting on the days following his brother’s passing back in 2014. “But I was totally devastated, and the timing just didn't feel right to me. It wasn’t until after I completed the Rock ‘N’ Blues Fest, a tour we were meant to do together with our respective bands, that the idea of a tribute record started to take form.

“There was such an overwhelming outpouring of love and respect for Johnny, I began to realise it was not just business people sensing an opportunity here; it was Johnny's true, loyal, and devoted fans and our fellow musicians, many of whom are on this record, who wanted to see this happen as well.”

Among those featured on Brother Johnny include electric guitar luminaries Joe Bonamassa, Robben Ford, Billy Gibbons, Warren Haynes, Steve Lukather, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Derek Trucks, Joe Walsh, and Phil X.

Kicking off the album’s release Quarto Valley Records has unveiled the “Johnny B. Goode” single – a song that remained in Johnny Winter’s setlist up until the end. Vocals are provided by Winter and Joe Walsh while fellow Texan, John Mellencamp guitarist David Grissom, delivers a dynamite performance of Chuck Berry's timeless rock ‘n’ roll masterpiece.

The ’70s was a bountiful time for analog effects pedals. Among the great fuzz boxes of the era, the Foxx Tone Machine stands proudly as one of the most expressive and more extreme. The pedal was the flagship of Foxx’s lineup, which ran for a few years before vanishing in the latter part of the decade.

Appropriately for a fuzz pedal, its metal case was covered in tightly cropped red or blue flocking that made it feel as velvety as it sounded. And while the pedals are hard enough to come by, the Stars & Stripes unit from 1972, shown here, is among the rarest.

According to the Tone Machine’s inventor, Steve Ridinger, very few of these red-white-and-blue beauties were made. “My memory is just a few, not 50 pieces,” he says. “It was very laborious masking all the areas to get the different flocking colors.”

Ridinger created the Tone Machine in Los Angeles in 1971, when he was just 19 years old. The circuit within it (which would be used in other Foxx products) was a relatively complex affair that offered more control than the average Fuzz Face or Maestro clone, the likes of which constituted a large proportion of the fuzz boxes available at the time.

The Tone Machine used four transistors and had a very effective octave-up sound (misspelled Octive on the control panel, though corrected in the brochures) that was activated by the toggle switch on the pedal’s side. This was itself a major bonus that performed better than many other octave and octave-fuzz units on the market, underscoring the veracity of the Tone Machine’s name.

The core sound is a thick, textured, gnarly fuzz, but the versatile Mellow-Brite tone control takes it from warm and gooey to bright and razor-like. This knob gives the Tone Machine much more range than most two-knob fuzzes, and even outperforms many others with tone knobs.

While many other lesser-known and also-ran fuzz efforts often failed to hold their own alongside the established classics, the Tone Machine quickly found an enthusiastic following and remained a highly regarded variation on the fuzz theme for decades to come.

Unlike the traditional stompbox-style Tone Machine and its partner, the Phase III, which arrived a little later, the majority of Foxx’s notable products came in rocker pedals that better served their bonus features and put even more control right at the player’s feet.

Among them were the Wa & Volume, Fuzz & Wa & Volume, O.D. Machine, Down Machine (a bass wah-wah), Loud Machine (a passive volume pedal), and Clean Machine, which offered both mellow and fuzzy sustain.

The top dog was arguably the Fuzz & Wa & Volume, often considered the catch of the lineup. In addition to its three obvious functions, it had the useful Foxx octave-up effect and four voicing modes for the wah.

The pedal packed plenty of sonic sculpting power, but it exhibited a few drawbacks. The volume pedal didn’t work quite as it should, while further problems were occasionally caused by the pedal’s inherently original looks. The fuzzy flocking that covered the metal enclosures often worked its way loose and ended up inside the box, where it gummed up the workings of the wah-wah potentiometer and gear.

But of all the Foxx company’s pedals, the Tone Machine remains the one many players loved best, and it grabbed the attention of several star users during its run and after. To hear some of its more extreme sounds, check out much of Adrian Belew’s work, particularly the song “Big Electric Cat” from his 1982 solo album, Lone Rhino.

The pedal’s thick fuzz and octave sounds were also creatively exploited by countless other electric guitar players including the likes of Parliament-Funkadelic’s Michael Hampton, Peter Frampton, Trent Reznor, and Billy Gibbons.

Having created such a legend in just a few years, and at such a young age, Ridinger continued to excel in the industry. In the 1990s, he rose to become head of the Evets Corporation, which purchased the Danelectro trademark in 1995 primarily to use the brand on a range of budget-friendly, retro-minded effects pedals. (Remarkably, Danelectro’s reissue guitars only came along later, after much demand from customers.)

Given Ridinger’s experience in the pedal world, the fact that so many of these colorful and affordable early Danelectro stompboxes also sounded good becomes far less surprising. Among them, the French Toast was based on the original Tone Machine.

Several popular homages to the Foxx Tone Machine have hit the market over the years, including a Foxx-branded reissue in the 2000s. Unsurprisingly, given Ridinger’s history, the more recent Danelectro 3699 Fuzz has received high marks from many players (and an Editors’ Pick Award from GP in 2019).

It includes the bonus of a Mid Boost switch and a second foot switch to kick in the octave effect.

Incidentally, 3699 was the last four digits of the Foxx company’s randomly assigned phone number in the early ’70s (and it spells out “FOXX” on a traditional telephone keypad).

Other options include Warm Audio’s Foxy Tone Box, which goes for the vintage-correct format but in orange flocking, and the Fulltone Ultimate Octave and Stomp Under Foot Silver Foxx, both of which also add a foot-switchable octave.

Wherever you get it, the Foxx Tone Machine is undoubtedly a mighty shape shifter of a circuit.

Essential Ingredients

• Fuzzy flocked covering in red and blue or Stars & Stripes (very rare)
• Controls for volume, sustain (fuzz), and Mellow-Brite (tone), plus Octive (octave) switch
• Original four-transistor fuzz and octave circuit
• Thick, evocative fuzz sound with useful octave-up option

Bag a Danelectro 3699 Fuzz at Sweetwater here.

Thanks to Southside Guitars for showing us these awesome vintage pedals.

Penning a hit record needn’t be an arduous task; indeed, some of the greatest songs ever written were put together in mere minutes. Anthem’s such as “Yesterday” by the Beatles, “My Sharona” by the Knack, and Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” are all famously cited as examples.

Add to the list “Tush” from ZZ Top’s 1975 album Fandango!

Here, Billy Gibbons explains how he and Dusty Hill bounced off each other when writing the song’s lyrics. Poignantly, this ZZ Top set closer would be the last song Hill sung with the band prior to his passing earlier this year.

Fandango! was a half live/half studio album. It also spawned one of your biggest and most enduring songs, “Tush.”

That’s a funny story. The whole song unfolded in five minutes. We held an afternoon rehearsal down in Florence, Alabama, and we were playing in a dirt-floor rodeo arena without air conditioning. It was so fiercely hot.

I made up this introductory riff, and I recall the lighting director: He pulled the headphones off and he put his finger in the air, and he was grinning and pointing, and he said, “Don’t lose it.” I looked over at Dusty and I said, “Man, we’ve got about four, five minutes before we collapse from this heat.”

And so we ran through a 12-bar blues using that headline figure. Then Dusty leaned over, and he said, “What are we going to call this thing?” And I remember, the three of us were all big fans of Roy Head. In fact, we used to play “Treat Her Right” as part of the ZZ Top repertoire. And the flip side of Roy Head’s “Treat Her Right” single was an instrumental called “Tush Hog,” which was a Texas slang term that meant “That’s just about as good as it’s gonna get.” It didn’t get better than a tush hog! [laughs]

So “Tush” came together pretty quickly.

Yeah. And it goes to show you that sometimes the most effective thing can be the most simplistic thing, which is not always the easiest to do. I gave Dusty the title, and he said, “Okay... ‘I’ve been up!’” And I said, “Yeah... ‘I’ve been down!’” He said, “‘Take my word, my way around.’”

We got it down and got the heck out of that heat box! Then, later on, we polished it up and took it to the studio.

“Tush” is a song that features the classic electric guitar and amp combination of Pearly Gates played through a Marshall Super Lead. But you also used something called a Cooper Time Cube in your setup.

Yes, we did. It was a rather primitive contraption, but quite effective. Basically it was a small speaker and a microphone at either end of a stretch of 25 feet of garden hose. And the way it was set up, the hose was in a simple coil, but the law of physics prevailed.

The time it took for the sound to travel through this coil of hose gave it a very distinctive… I want to call it a kind of fractional delay. It wasn’t enough to call it slapback. You couldn’t detect any kind of a slap, but there was a delay. So we didn’t really know what it was, but I was curious when I saw the name Cooper Time Cube. I said, “Well, I dunno what it does, but we’re going to use it!”

Browse ZZ Top music here.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, ZZ Top's First Album – the band’s 1971 debut long-player – opens with the track "(Somebody Else Been) Shakin' Your Tree.” It would be the album’s only single and although it did not make it into the Billboard charts the song kicked off a legendary recording career that certainly has its fair share of entertaining stories.

We caught up with the one and only Billy F. Gibbons to talk ‘Bursts, pedal steels, and how Jeff Beck managed to hook ZZ Top up with America's first 110-volt Marshalls…

"(Somebody Else Been) Shakin' Your Tree" was the only single released from your debut album. How did it come together?

That was an interesting song in that it was actually the first track that we tackled for the album. We wrote the music for that one down in Houston. We had a nifty little rehearsal space, which was right next to a cantina. [laughs]

So yeah, a good start. And I remember we drove up to Robin Hood Studios [in Tyler, Texas], and we got there late at night and hunkered down, because we realized we had polished the music track but we had not completed the lyrics.

We only had the title, which was kind of a bluesy, colloquial slogan: “You better watch out! Somebody’s messing around with your girl.” It was an entertaining twist of words. I remember staying up until the wee hours completing the verses.

What was your main electric guitar and amp on the song?

I was playing Pearly Gates, that ’59 [Gibson Les Paul] sunburst. That was the standby in the studio and still is. And we had the very first wave of Marshall hundred-watts. It was a Super Lead 100, and those had been arranged for delivery through Jeff Beck.

I’d actually met Jeff in 1968. The Moving Sidewalks had played a few dates with him, and we got to be quite friendly. We were using Vox amps at the time, and I was eyeballing these big tall structures – Marshalls. Because the sound was fierce.

I said, “Jeff, what is this?” And Jeff said, “Well, if you really have an interest, I can call Jim Marshall and see if we can make arrangements for delivery here to the States.” So we actually got the first 110-volt Marshalls. They landed in New York, and then they came to California, where we were living at the time. And, brother, plugging in that thing for the first time and cranking it to 10? Talk about having a blast!

This song is unique for its use of a pedal-steel guitar in the main melody. How did that come about?

I had been fooling around with the pedal steel, and we came to an interesting discussion within the studio. We were in the lounge, and I said, “Is this too country for a rock and roll song?” We tossed a coin in the air and it came out heads. So we headed in with this pedal steel, casting caution to the wind.

Were you an accomplished pedal-steel player at the time?

Not in the least! It was a four-pedal Emmons eight-string, and I had only gotten as far as learning the first two pedals, which took it from a C to an F. It was basically a one-and-four pedal combination. But I’d been toying around with the bottleneck so long that, you know, the steel in hand felt quite natural, so it wasn’t a big challenge.

The big challenge was to learn how to get the one-and-four change and make sure I was hitting the proper three strings out of eight. But I think it came out okay!  

Buy ZZ Top's First Album here.

Last week, the music world lost a true giant with the sudden death of ZZ Top's trusty bassist, Dusty Hill. A quiet but commanding low-end presence, Hill anchored the trio's bluesy, Texas-flavored boogie-rock sound for over 50 years. 

Aside from writing some of the most charmingly endearing rock hits of the '70s and '80s and serving for almost half a century as one of rock's biggest concert draws, ZZ Top were also legendary for retaining the exact same lineup – Hill, guitarist Billy Gibbons, and drummer Frank Beard – from 1969 until Hill's death.

Despite this consistency though, ZZ Top have elected to continue with their North American tour plans, with the band's longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis, taking Hill's place on bass. Francis had previously replaced Hill for three shows in July – in the days proceeding Hill's death – while the bassist battled health problems.

You can check out clips from the band's first performance since Hill's demise, a July 30 show at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, below.

In a new interview with Variety, Gibbons said that the decision to carry on with Francis was a "direct directive from Mr. Dusty Hill."

Gibbons went on to say, "When he grabbed my arm and said, 'I think I’m due to go visit the physician to see if I can bounce back,' he [Hill] said, 'In the meantime, I want you to grab our guitar technician, Mr. Elwood' – Elwood Francis – 'and take him out of that tech station and strap him up with my guitar and make him carry on with every single note.' And I said, 'Well, if that’s your wishes, I’ll respect that.' And sure enough, we’ve been very, very fortunate to have a stalwart standby to fill in."

Hill had played the first two shows of the band's current tour, before he "requested dismissing himself," Gibbons said, due to ongoing health issues. 

"He said, 'Yeah, let me go check this out,'" Gibbons explained. "And of course I said, “Hey, man, health is number one. Go do your thing.' And I could tell through those first two valiant attempts, if he’s not giving it 110 percent, he was the first one to kind of say, 'Gee whiz. Let’s go take care of this.'"

No cause for Hill's death has yet been determined, but the bassist had endured hip replacement and shoulder surgeries in recent years, and more recently had been suffering from ulcers. He passed away in his sleep.

Francis, who has served as the Texas trio's tech for 30 years, had coincidentally grown a beard as long as Hill's and Gibbons' during the COVID-19 lockdown, so – from the looks and sounds of the band's performance last week – he fit right in both musically and visually.

"When he took the stage the other night, I was looking over the front row and everybody was kind of giving each other the elbow, and they were pointing up and said, 'Look, the ZZ Top circus still rolls on. There’s another freak up there,'” Gibbons said. 

"In fact, I had to stroll over and grab him by the chin to give him a yank, just to show the audience – I said, 'Folks, this is the real deal here.' [Laughs.] But he’s honoring Dusty’s wishes, and I know that, wherever Dusty may be, he’s probably smiling, just knowing that all the notes are in place and that the fierceness rolls on."

A number of things come to mind when you think of Texas – rolling cattle ranches, vast oil fields, and porterhouse steaks the size of a Cadillac. But for many guitarists and music fans, a mention of the Lone Star State recalls another vision that includes seminal classic rock legends ZZ Top. 

For over five decades, this easily recognizable trio has left its lasting mark on blues-based rock, led by a bona fide six-string legend, the exceptionally talented and stylish Billy Gibbons, a.k.a. Reverend Willy G.

The bearded guitarist has quite the musical legacy. His earliest influence was watching blues icon B.B. King perform live at ACA Studios (where Billy’s father worked) when Gibbons was eight years old. 

From that moment on, he found himself obsessed with King’s music and playing style. But he also harnessed additional inspiration from other blues legends, such as Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, and Muddy Waters. 

As Gibbons began to forge his own guitar style in the late ’60s, he became an avid admirer of Jimi Hendrix’s playing and eventually met the iconic rock legend backstage in 1969, around the time ZZ Top was formed. 

Beginning with the band’s inspired 1971 debut album, ZZ Top’s First Album, the power trio blazed a musical trail through the ’70s and ’80s with its signature stripped-down but fat-sounding blues-rock style and have enjoyed continued success and immense popularity ever since. 

As a testament to their fame and influence, ZZ Top were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 and in 2019 celebrated their 50th anniversary as a band.

Gibbons is a walking blues encyclopedia and has a strong connection to the emotive phrasing characterized by his influences’ playing styles. He also generates plenty of “handling noise” when he plays, such as his trademark use of pinch harmonics – also known as pick harmonics and “squealers” – which gives his licks a strong sense of personality and character. 

Another interesting facet of Gibbons’ lead guitar style – which is the primary focus of this lesson – is his smooth and deft use of finger slides to seamlessly shift positions, a technique that enables him to rove and roam over a sprawling expanse of the fretboard and craft flowing phrases up and down the neck.

To get things started, Example 1 presents a four-note glissando finger-slide motif heard in plenty of guitar-driven blues songs. This simple E7-based phrase can be found in such classic recordings as “Boom Boom” by John Lee Hooker, and you can also find variations of this slippery-sounding lick lurking in famous rock songs, such as “Young Lust” by Pink Floyd. 

As you play through the phrase, notice the slide up to the fifth of E (B) before targeting the minor, or “flatted,” seventh (D), on the B string, which is held and shaken with some hearty finger vibrato. 

This basic arrangement of notes is begging to be played over an E7 chord, so practice it a few times to get a feel for this simple yet effective and authentic blues lick, then start putting it to use in your own soloing endeavors.

Example 2 includes a variation on the previous phrase and is inspired by Gibbons’ playing in the intro to “Bedroom Thang." The key technique here is to pluck the double-stop notes on the G and B strings at the same time, either fingerstyle or with the pick and your middle finger, before ending the phrase with the open-position bend and pull-off lick. 

You can trace this type of aggressive double-stop playing to blues legends such as Elmore James, along with a rock version of the phrase featured in the classic Creedence Clearwater Revival song “Green River."

Once you’re comfortable playing this double-stop based phrase, you can recycle and repurpose the fingering scheme and shift the shape up and down the fretboard. Relocating the fingering will expand what we’ve targeted on the neck to other musical applications and produce a number of locations that you can explore using the same shape. 

Example 3 showcases a number of different areas where you can deploy this fingering, and as you ascend the B string, notice that you’re eventually targeting four of the five notes of the E minor pentatonic scale (E, G, A, B, D). 

Also notice the range of parallel tonalities (based on the same root note) that are unlocked by moving the shape up the neck. The first shift produces an E7 sound (E, G#, B, D), while the second implies the E major pentatonic scale (E, F#, G#, B, C#) and an E6 chord (E, G#, B, C#), both of which were among B.B. King’s favorite musical flavors. 

The third phrase creates a distinct Em7 tonality (E, G, B, D), while the final idea outlines an E major triad (E, G#, B). The assortment of implied tonalities offered by this movable shape can help you craft a variety of cool licks and phrases all over the neck. 

To help you visualize the areas of the fretboard that we’re touching upon here, check out Figure 1, which presents a birds-eye view of the shapes that we’re traversing and targeting.

Example 4 demonstrates a signature element of Gibbons’ lead playing, the accented application of hybrid picking (pick-and-fingers technique), and features a series of phrases that outline the four fretboard positions we targeted in the previous example. 

As you play through these four bars, notice how much easier it is to quickly toggle back and forth between the G and B strings by plucking the B-string notes with your pick hand’s middle finger, as opposed to trying to sound all the notes with just the pick alone, which would require a lot more movement and effort. 

The musical effect created here by the rapid alternation between the two notes played a minor third apart on adjacent strings is akin to licks one would typically hear a blues harp (harmonica) player or organist play. 

You can distinctly hear Gibbons employing hybrid picking in this manner in several ZZ Top classics, such as “La Grange," “Brown Sugar,” and “Sharp Dressed Man."

Example 5 expands upon this concept with an assortment of bluesy licks that use this fretboard shape as a movable template, in each case with the E root note falling under a different fingertip. 

This approach of targeting a specific area on the fretboard and building licks around a repurposed movable shape is common in blues guitar playing, and it is also employed widely in rock, jazz, metal, country, and bluegrass.

The next section of our lesson takes this fretboard shifting concept and applies it to the E minor pentatonic scale (E, G, A, B, D), which is a staple in Gibbons’ musical vocabulary and blues-rock in general. 

Example 6 illustrates three interconnected one-octave E minor pentatonic shapes that move diagonally up and across the fretboard, via finger slides and position shifts. 

Gibbons often employs this extended diagonal fretboard “path” to traverse the neck and visit different positions when soloing, and learning it will provide you with a highly useful tool for navigating the neck and breaking out of a single “box” pattern and position. 

To help you memorize this three-octave shape, study the illustration in Figure 2, which will give you a visual image and “road map” of it.

Once you’ve familiarized yourself with these three interconnected, overlapping shapes, experiment with shifting and sliding your way through them, as demonstrated in Example 7. 

Notice how much expression and soulfulness the legato finger slides add to the phrasing here. Gibbons has made this technique a key factor in his playing for decades, and you can hear similar slides in such ZZ Top classics as “Cheap Sunglasses” and “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide," to name a couple.

Example 8 presents this same interconnected E minor pentatonic path, or “superhighway,” as a continuous ascending run. 

As you practice these extended-range sliding and shifting movements, notice the milestone octave connections occurring on the fretboard as we’re combining the three individual one-octave shapes into a single, seamless three-octave pattern. Be sure to practice descending through the pattern as well. 

Once you’ve become familiar with the overall shape in this key – which, by the way, can be either E minor or G major, as E minor pentatonic and G major pentatonic share all of the same notes – try transposing the entire template to other keys and fretboard positions by moving every note up by the same number of frets. 

For additional reference and direction using this pentatonic superhighway concept, you can hear other guitar legends navigating it in their music, such as Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, to name a few.

Our next example, Example 9, presents a descending run that visually and melodically cascades “down the mountain” and our E minor pentatonic superhighway, from the 12th-fret “peak” on the high E spring to the open low E. 

This example should serve as a good template for helping you create your own original extended-range licks and navigate the fretboard effectively, by combining neighboring shapes and positions and making seamless octave connections.

Example 10 and Figure 3 present another very important and useful three-octave pentatonic pattern, located further up the fretboard and in a higher register. 

Like the previous extended pattern, this one, which we’ll call “E minor pentatonic superhighway #2,” works equally well for G major pentatonic, connects segments of neighboring pentatonic box shapes, and allows you to access additional positions with ease, utilizing finger slides. 

Gibbons has employed this pattern in various keys in his licks and improvisations, great examples being in his solos in “La Grange” and “Cheap Sunglasses,” both in the key of C minor, for which he employs this same visual pattern shifted down four frets, to C minor pentatonic (C, Eb, F, G, Bb).

Practice ascending and descending this fretboard path repeatedly. Once you have it visualized and under your fingers, check out the descending run shown in Example 11, which incorporates pull-offs and downward finger slides, techniques that will enable you to smoothly zigzag through this arrangement of notes. 

This type of phrasing and articulation will also help you become more adept at inter-positional navigation.

Of course, no lesson on Billy Gibbon’s guitar style would be complete without a look at his celebrated use of pinch harmonics. 

Indicated by the abbreviation “P.H.” in sheet music and tablature, a pinch harmonic is produced by down-picking either an open or fretted note (the latter is more common) while simultaneously touching, or grazing, the string with the side of your pick-hand thumb. 

But in order for a harmonic to sound, the thumb needs to touch the string precisely at one of several specific points along its length, which are called nodes, several of which are located in the area over an electric guitar’s pickups. 

The harmonics produced with this technique are typically one or two octaves higher than the fundamental (the open or fretted note) and sometimes an additional major third or perfect fifth (comparable to natural harmonics).

Inspired by Gibbons’ soulful, tone-driven soloing style, Example 12 offers a demonstration of pinch harmonics with a short, E minor-pentatonic-based phrase played in the middle area of the fretboard over the chords A7 and E7 (the IV and I chords in the key of E). 

Notice that the first five notes are a succession of different harmonics, all generated from the same fretted A note at the D string’s 7th fret. 

The variety of harmonic pitches are achieved by “pinching” the string at different node points, the locations of which differ for each fretted note on a given string, so you’ll need to find those “sweet spots” by hunting and pecking in the area over the pickups. 

As is always the case with harmonics, using your guitar’s bridge pickup and a good amount of overdrive/distortion will help bring out the sound of pinch harmonics. Standout examples of Gibbons using this technique to great effect in his solos can be found “La Grange,” “Cheap Sunglasses,” “Legs,” and “Rough Boy."

Gibbons learned his way around the fretboard and developed his style by borrowing and emulating playing ideas and concepts gleaned from his musical influences and peers, and by following his own creativity and imagination. Don’t be afraid to break out of the box and try blazing new fretboard paths. You never know what kinds of cool sounds you can tap into by moving sideways.

“It was an important song in terms of our career, and in many ways it was the perfect introduction of ZZ Top to the world,” Billy Gibbons says of “La Grange.”

The romping, gutbucket boogie-blues vamp was the band’s first single to make a dent in the Billboard Hot 100 (reaching Number 41), and it propelled their third album, 1973’s Tres Hombres, into the Top 10.  

“The genesis and, of course, the heart of the song was that boogie backbeat, which everybody and their brother has learned how to play,” Gibbons says. 

“Who would have thought that something so simple and severely compressed structure-wise would lead us on such a grand journey? From that cornerstone backbeat, our little song seemed to resonate and catch on with the masses, which has allowed us to chase it for going on five decades now.”  

A Brothel And Buddy Holly

“La Grange” is mostly a free-form instrumental jam brimming with Gibbons’ unbridled blues soloing. The few lyrics it has were inspired by the notorious Chicken Ranch brothel that was located outside of La Grange, Texas. 

As Gibbons recalls, “Growing up in Texas, there were two requirements toward manhood: You had to visit La Grange, and you had to go to the Mexican border. We somehow captured both in one single trip.” 

The guitarist points to Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue Got Married,” the rock pioneer’s sequel to “Peggy Sue,” as compositional inspiration. “That song showed us you didn’t have to rhyme every single stanza or verse,” Gibbons says. 

“Plus, Holly left things open to interpretation: ‘I heard it’s a rumor from a friend.’ Did she get married or not? So with ‘La Grange,’ we tagged the closing with lines like, ‘I hear it’s fine… but I might be mistaken.’ The invitation stood at that moment.”

Thank Goodness For Barbecue

While recording Tres Hombres in Memphis, Gibbons and his bandmates – bassist/co-vocalist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard – would warm up with a blues vamp. 

“It started to get longer and longer,” he says, “and we kept asking ourselves, ‘Is this a song? Let’s see where this goes.’” Once they laid out the musical framework – spoken-word intro and riff, verse, then off to the races – the band debated how to work out vocal passages. 

“We tried every which way we knew, but nothing felt right,” Gibbons remembers. “Finally, the engineer and studio manager said, ‘Let’s take a lunch break.’ With the studio manager dispatched to a barbecue joint some 30 miles away, Gibbons sat down in a folding chair, pulled up a microphone and said, “Run the track.”

“Finally, something transpired, and whatever I was singing worked. The engineer was waving through the glass yelling, ‘Don’t stop! You’ve got it!’” 

For the song’s intro, Gibbons relied on a 1955 hardtail Fender Stratocaster, and for the overdriven riff, he pulled out his now-famous 1959 Gibson “Pearly Gates” Les Paul standard. Both guitars went through a 100-watt 1968 Marshall Super Lead amp.

“We did three takes of the solo, and I just went off into the ozone,” Gibbons says. “I had a great time overdubbing and experimenting with twin guitars. We had the whole thing buttoned up in an hour, and when the manager returned from the barbecue joint, he said, ‘I told you, fellas. I knew you had it!’” Gibbons laughs. 

“It was one of those enriching moments in the rather antiseptic surrounds of a recording studio.”

With Respect To Mr. Hooker...

Modestly, the guitarist claims nobody in the band had the song pegged as a hit. “It felt good, so we decided to put it on the album,” he says. 

Regarding a failed lawsuit by the copyright holder of John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillen’,” which resulted in a court ruling that the rhythm was in the public domain, Gibbons says, “It seemed to be a somewhat egregious and curious accusation. At the end of the day, we were kind of flattered to know that our music had taken a very important position in the history of rock and roll.” 

On February 25, 2020, Mick Fleetwood hosted an all-star tribute concert for his former Fleetwood Mac bandmate, Peter Green, at the London Palladium.

We've seen a number of pro-shot clips from the concert – among them a video of Kirk Hammett and Billy Gibbons taking on the Green/Fleetwood Mac classic, "The Green Manalishi," and Gibbons taking on "Rattlesnake Shake" with Steven Tyler – already.

Now, another clip from the show has surfaced, featuring Gibbons and Tyler's spirited rendition of "Oh Well," one of Green's most well-known Fleetwood Mac compositions. 

You can check out the clip – which was taken from the recently-released concert film, Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac – above.

“The concert was a celebration of those early blues days where we all began," Mick Fleetwood said, "and it’s important to recognize the profound impact Peter and the early Fleetwood Mac had on the world of music. Peter was my greatest mentor and it gave me such joy to pay tribute to his incredible talent. 

"I was honored to be sharing the stage with some of the many artists Peter has inspired over the years and who share my great respect for this remarkable musician."

ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons has announced a new solo album, Hardware.

Set for a June 4 release via Concord Records, the album was recorded at Escape Studio in the California desert – near Palm Springs – and was produced by Gibbons along with Matt Sorum and Mike Fiorentino, with engineer Chad Shlosser.

You can check out the music video for the album's first single, "West Coast Junkie," below.

Hardware features Gibbons, guitarist Austin Hanks, and Sorum – a veteran of Guns N' Roses, Velvet Revolver, and the Cult – on drums. Larkin Poe meanwhile, guest on the song “Stackin’ Bones.”

“We holed up in the desert for a few weeks in the heat of the summer and that in itself was pretty intense," Gibbons said of the album in a statement. "To let off steam we just ‘let it rock’ and that’s what Hardware is really all about. For the most part, it’s a raging rocker but always mindful of the desert’s implicit mystery.”

You can check out the album's cover art and track list below.

To preorder Hardware, step right this way.

Billy Gibbons – Hardware: 

1. My Lucky Card
2. She’s On Fire
3. More-More-More
4. Shuffle, Step & Slide
5. Vagabond Man
6. Spanish Fly
7. West Coast Junkie
8. Stackin’ Bones (featuring Larkin Poe)
9. I Was A Highway
10. S-G-L-M-B-B-R
11. Hey Baby, Que Paso 
12. Desert High

Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac – the concert film documenting the all-star Peter Green tribute show that took place February 25, 2020 at the London Palladium – was originally supposed to be released in select theaters around the world this month.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic however, the film will instead be streamed online via video on demand.

nugs.net will premiere the film – which features Kirk Hammett, Billy Gibbons, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Steven Tyler, Noel Gallagher, Jonny Lang, and many more – on April 24, after which it will be available for five days on demand.

A physical release of the film on DVD will follow – in tandem with the release of its accompanying soundtrack album – on April 30.

“Peter Green taught me two unassailable lessons when it came to music: less is more and don’t worry about being clever," Fleetwood said of Green in a statement. "He played from his heart, which is why so many people, musicians, and appreciators alike gathered in London to pay tribute to him, all of us together bearing witness to the magic of Peter’s music.

“He revealed himself in his art, which sometimes happens at great cost, as it was with Peter. He showed so much of himself that he had to withdraw. And he did. May he rest easy. He was loved and he will be missed.”

Tickets for the livestream are on sale now, for $19.99. 

To purchase a ticket, stop by nugs.tv.

On February 25, 2020, Mick Fleetwood hosted a star-studded tribute concert for his former Fleetwood Mac bandmate, Peter Green. 

Held at the London Palladium, the concert featured Kirk Hammett, Billy Gibbons, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Steven Tyler, Noel Gallagher, Jonny Lang, and many more, and was a poignant tribute to the blues guitar legend, who sadly died just a few months later, on July 25, 2020.

Above, you can watch a professionally shot video of Gibbons, Tyler, and more coming together for a red-hot version of Fleetwood Mac's 1969 tune, "Rattlesnake Shake."

The video is the second clip released so far from Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac, an upcoming film and live album documenting the show. 

You can check out the first preview clip released from the movie – a video of Hammett and Gibbons' take on the Green/Fleetwood Mac classic, "The Green Manalishi" – below.

Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac will be released online via video-on-demand in April, while a physical release of the accompanying album is set for an April 30 release via BMG. To preorder the album, step right this way.

For more info on the film, stop by mickfleetwoodandfriends.com.

“You gotta have the right guns when you enter the town of tone,” says raconteur, bon vivant, and ZZ Top guitar-slinger Billy F. Gibbons. Translation: If you’re heading into a recording studio or onto a stage, it helps to have some really hot guitars with you. And there are few hotter guns in all guitardom than Gibbons’ 1959 Les Paul, known to guitar aficionados worldwide as Mistress Pearly Gates.

Gibbons acquired the instrument in 1968, just as ZZ Top were getting underway. Pearly Gates has played a starring role on every one of the band’s records, from ZZ Top’s First Album in 1971 to the present. 

Threads of fortunate karma, both cultural and personal, crisscross the tale of how Billy acquired Pearly. It was the seminal 1966 album, Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, that set him on a quest to own a sunburst Les Paul like the one Clapton is seen holding on the disc’s rear-sleeve photo.

“A dear friend of mine,” Billy recalls, “a fellow musician, Mr. John Wilson, was playing in a band called the Magic Ring out of Houston. He told me, ‘There’s a rancher outside of town who played in a country band but has turned his attention toward wrangling cattle. Rumor has it that the guitar still resides under one of the beds in his ranch house.’”

So Gibbons drove solo about an hour out of Houston and found the elusive rancher. “The guy was big,” Billy recalls. “He was like a John Wayne guy. I had $250 in my pocket. And when he pulled out that ’59 ‘burst, the deal went down.”

Billy had freshly obtained the cash as the return on a favor. He’d loaned an aspiring actress a 1939 Packard automobile that he collectively owned with some friends so that she could drive from Houston to Hollywood for a screen test. 

“We didn’t think the car would make it past El Paso,” Billy says. “But it brought her all the way to Hollywood, and she got the part. We figured the car must have divine connections, so we named it Pearly Gates. Meanwhile, she called and said, ‘Should I send the car back or sell it?’ We said, ‘Sell it!’ She did, and my portion of the settlement arrived the very day I drove out to see the rancher.”

And so the name Pearly Gates, with all its attendant magic, was transferred to the guitar, which was in mint condition when Billy obtained it. “It still had the original set of flatwound strings from the Gibson factory on it,” Billy marvels. 

“Plus an extra set of Black Diamond flat wounds in the case. I still got ’em. Also in the case was a love note, which we also still have, from a girlfriend of the original owner. She said, ‘I like what you do. Meet me later. You might like what I can do.’” 

Over the years, the instrument has acquired a patina of scratches, scrapes, and dings, including ample belt buckle wear on the rear of the body. “I call that ‘thrash rash,’ ” Billy says. But one of the first signs of wear and tear on Pearly was on the pickguard. 

Following in the footsteps of Clapton, Segovia, and others, Gibbons grew out the fingernails of his right hand. “What I hadn’t counted on was that the fingernail of the little finger started digging into the pickguard, leaving scratches,” he says.

Still, Billy has kept Pearly 100 percent stock. Even the frets are original. What might such an instrument be worth today? “There was a Japanese gent who offered $5 million U.S.,” Billy says. “Which is an attractive offer, but then again, I’ve spent plenty of money putting together a collection of guitars attempting to find something to replicate Pearly, and it just hasn’t happened yet. That’s what led to this closet full of hardwood that I have.”

Earlier this year, on February 25, Mick Fleetwood hosted a blockbuster tribute concert for his former Fleetwood Mac bandmate, Peter Green. 

The concert – which took place at the London Palladium – featured Kirk Hammett, Billy Gibbons, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Steven Tyler, Noel Gallagher, Jonny Lang, and many more.

Above, you can watch a professionally shot clip of one of the highlights of the show, Hammett and Gibbons' take on the Green/Fleetwood Mac classic, "The Green Manalishi."

Taken from the upcoming film documenting the show – Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac – the performance features an extended solo from Hammett, played on Green's legendary "Greeny" 1959 Les Paul Standard.

The Metallica axeman first purchased the guitar – which for many years belonged to another British blues-rock guitar giant, Gary Moore – in 2014.

Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac will be released in cinemas in March 2021, with select screenings on March 23 and 28. You can check out the film's trailer below.

For more info on the film, stop by mickfleetwoodandfriends.com.