“Slide guitar used to be more unusual,” Bonnie Raitt once noted. “Now it's on every beer and truck commercial. Every TV sitcom has slide guitar.”

She should know. She’s not only the most famous female slide player — Raitt’s signature guitar work once anchored one of the biggest franchises in television history. And it happened without her even realizing she’d been drafted.

In 1988, Peter Cetera was at work on his third solo album, One More Story. In need of some high-octane energy, he turned the studio into a revolving door of music stars, recruiting Madonna, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, and Oak Ridge Boys bass singer Richard Sterban.

For the track “Save Me,” Cetera wanted a very specific sting, so he called the best in the business.

“He asked if I would come in and play slide on this song, and I did,” Raitt told Guitar Player in 1989.

At the time, Raitt was still one year away from the career-defining explosion of her breakthrough album, Nick of Time. While she wasn't yet a household superstar, she was already a "musician's musician" who knew exactly how to serve a track.

“I basically consider myself an accompanist on the guitar," she explained. "When there's a groove going I can really slide on just about anything.

“I don't really have a lot of chops, not being a schooled musician. I tend to play guitar the same way on a lot of different songs. I play the same Muddy Waters lick over and over.”

By 1989, her Cetera session was behind her, and Raitt’s world had shifted. Nick of Time was a juggernaut, spawning hits like the title track and her cover of John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love.”

But while she was busy supporting her breakthrough album, her electric slide work for Cetera was making a very different kind of splash. She discovered it had become a TV theme song musician by accident.

“One day I'm sitting in my house channel surfing,” she said. “All of a sudden this theme song comes on, and it's my solo!”

The confusion was immediate. As she watched the screen, the gritty, Muddy Waters-inspired licks she’d recorded in a dark studio were now a soundtrack to a sun-drenched montage of lifeguards prancing on the beach in spandex.

“There are babes jumping up and down, flopping every which way. I'm going, 'Give me a break!” she said, laughing. “I was going, ‘That guy's copping my song.’

“And then I realized it was me!”

Cetera had licensed “Save Me” to the producers of a new NBC action-drama called Baywatch. Featuring David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson, the show was a high-stakes look at L.A. County lifeguards — and the song was a literal lyrical match. With lines about being “caught in raging water” and needing someone to “throw me the rope,” it was the perfect backdrop for the show's soon-to-be-famous rescue scenes.

As it turned out, Raitt’s tenure as a primetime guitar hero was brief. NBC axed Baywatch after just one season. When the show was resurrected for syndication — eventually becoming a global phenomenon with over a billion viewers — Cetera’s music proved too expensive. The producers pivoted to a more budget-friendly theme, Jimi Jamison’s “I’m Always Here.”

As for Raitt, she didn’t do badly herself. Nick of Time topped the Billboard 200 chart, and went on to sell five million copies and win three Grammy awards, including Album of the Year. It launched a winning streak in her career that continues to this day.

Go to see Melissa Etheridge in concert these days and you’ll hear her playing wicked solos and heady leads as the primary guitarist in her band.

But she’ll acknowledge that wasn’t always the case — and, in fact, it’s been a role Etheridge has only really embraced during the past 15 or so years.

“Y’know, I’ve always had these great lead guitar players,” Etheridge — a three-time Grammy Award winner who recently received her first Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination and who will release her 17th studio album, Rise, on March 27 — tells us via Zoom from her home near Los Angeles.

“I had John Shanks. On my albums I’ve got Waddy Wachtel. I’ve got Pete Thorn, Steuart Smith, all these great players, right?

“My wife, when we first got together about 20 years ago, she goes, ‘Why don’t you play that?’ I’m like, well, I never really did that… If you went and saw me live I would kill it; I know I was, like, one of the top acoustic guitar players.

“So about 15 years ago I started to really dive into it… and haven’t stopped since.”

Etheridge, who started playing guitar when she was eight years old, has always been open to the idea of playing electric. The Leavenworth, Kansas native owned “a Frankensteined Fender that a guy who I was in a band with had painted purple” when she was a teenager.

But during her junior year of high school she decided she wanted something better, so she and her father went to Kansas City and came home with a ’78 Gibson Les Paul Custom.

“The heaviest thing you can imagine,” she says now, with a laugh.

It went with Etheridge to the Berklee College of Music and then to California, but she was primarily playing solo gigs and notes that “there’s not much you can do with an electric guitar when you’re playing in a lounge, right?”

“When I was playing acoustic, I was very influenced by Richie Havens and José Feliciano,” she adds. “They both had this powerful way of playing an acoustic guitar, so I really followed that. And then Keith Richards; when I heard the Rolling Stones stuff, I felt like, ‘I can do that!’ Those three — to me, that’s guitar playing.”

After Etheridge signed with Island Records during the mid-’80s, executive producer Rob Fabroni introduced her to Bonnie Raitt, who made an immediate impact on Etheridge’s electric side.

“She took me under her wing,” Etheridge recalls. “She told me, ‘That Les Paul’s too heavy for you, honey. You’re not gonna be able to do that.’ So she took me to Norm’s Rare Guitars when it was deep in the Valley. I traded in my Les Paul for a Strat… although I wish I still had that Les Paul, ’cause it’d be worth a lot of money now.

“If I knew where it was I’d go find it; I’ve even asked Norm, but he doesn’t have any records of the things he sold from that long ago. But just recently somebody gifted me a 1979 Les Paul, so that makes up for a little bit.”

Wachtel, who played on three of Etheridge’s first four albums, recalls that at that time “she was a really great rhythm player — really tight and aggressive. Her first song, ‘Gimme Some Water,’ was fantastic. She was such a strong, strong writer, singer, a presence.

“I remember when ‘Come to My Window’ came up, she played me a demo of it and I said, ‘This is a smash, Melissa. This tune is gonna do it.’ And it did.”

Etheridge did sling electric guitars across her back for the cover of her self-titled 1988 debut and her third, Never Enough, in 1992. But her more recent determination led her to woodshed, and she reached out to the well-credentialed Thorn — who played with Etheridge during the early 2010s — for a primer.

“He’s an incredible teacher,” Etheridge says. “When I told Pete I wanted to play more, he said, ‘You need a Gibson Les Paul Custom,’ and I went out and got a 1982 one. Then he said, ‘You’re gonna need this pedal and this pedal and this pedal…,’ all the things I was embarrassed to be 40 years old and not knowing.

“And I actually did this; I went into a local store here that had a massive wall of pedals. I sat down with this guy who did not know who I was. To him I was like this middle-age housewife from somewhere.

“I said, ‘I want you to explain guitar pedals to me,’ and I was in there all day with him and ended up buying, like, five pedals or something. I got to ask all the silly questions I was embarrassed that I didn’t know, like what’s the difference between gain and distortion and blah, blah, blah.

“Then I started doing the scales and everything and building up. I started stepping out slowly, a 15-second solo live, and over the last few years I have taken on the guitar playing to where I don’t even have a lead guitar player in my band.

“I am the lead guitar player now. I have Max [Hart], who plays keyboards, too, and he’ll play the lines in ‘I Want to Come Over.’ But I have all the soloing things, which makes me enjoy my show so much more.”

Etheridge’s guitar arsenal now is mostly Gibsons — Les Paul Customs, including a Black Beauty, as well as a 135 and a 335 — as well as a ’78 Fender Jaguar that she plays on “Must Be Crazy for Me.” She also uses a customized Bigsby vibrato unit that she first found on a Gretsch Country Gentleman and now uses on a Rancher model. And she has a Jerry Jones 12-string acoustic guitar that he made for her in 1993.

She continues to use the Suhr amplifiers that Thorn turned her onto; recently she’s begun using the heads with digital inputs, including a King of Tone overdrive and a Strymon Mobius modulation pedal.

“I can use the analog pedals and put them through the amps and get the digital convenience and steadiness, but also still be able to choose whatever I want,” Etheridge explains. “I don’t believe in presets. I believe in, ‘Here’s my paints, here’s my guitar, I’m in this brand-new canvas — brand-new people.

“Maybe it’s a small place, maybe it’s a big place, but every night I can tailor my sound to the place I’m in.’

“The best thing is that I used to hear all the guys talking, and now I understand what they’re saying. I understand what all the words mean. I used to make fun of people who knew what all these terms meant, and now I’m a freakin’ gearhead. I’m addicted. The guitar-buying never stops.”

That confidence has translated into Etheridge’s playing as well — particularly her soloing.

“I’m not gonna get out there like Eddie Van Halen; my fingers are too small, for one. But I have developed a style that is melodic. It’s like I get another chance to sing for people; I can sing with my voice, and I can step out and I can sing to people through my guitar, which makes me really happy..”

Etheridge kicks off her tour to promote Rise on March 26 in Detroit, with shows currently booked into mid July.

Bonnie Raitt became the first female cover star for Guitar Player magazine with this interview in 1977 by our then Assistant Editor Patricia Brody. Raitt was on her sixth album by this point, and on the cusp of her first commercial breakthrough.

Bonnie Raitt was almost a folk singer, part of the plethora of guitar-playing protesters of the Sixties led by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Sitting in her girlhood bedroom in a house atop Coldwater Canyon's peacefully affluent Mulholland Drive, Bonnie, born in Burbank, California, in 1949, was inspired 'by loneliness to teach herself guitar.

"If I'd been able to hang out with other kids, I'd never have gotten into it," says the daughter of successful Broadway actor John Raitt, best known for his leading roles in musical comedies like Pajama Game, Oklahoma, and Carousel.

The Raitt house — last stop on the school bus route — though somewhat isolated and not particularly conducive to visits with friends, hardly seemed located within earshot of the whiney, mournful tones of a generation of blues guitarists whose techniques and repertoire Bonnie came to adopt.

Blues developed far from what Raitt describes as the Los Angeles "blonde-streaked surf scene" whose "political and intellectual vacancy" drove her to a progressive Quaker boarding school in upstate New York.

There, feeling more in her element among, as she calls them, "the precocious children of leftist lawyers and actors into modern theater of the absurd and Marxism," Raitt listened to Pete Seeger records and expressed her own discontent playing Peter, Paul, And Mary and Kingston Trio-type laments on her guitar.

"For years," she recalls, "I wanted desperately to get old enough to be able to go to civil rights demonstrations and peace marches, be a beatnik, grow my hair, and have cheekbones like Joan Baez."

Encouraged in a musical home where "my mother was my father's accompanist, and we'd all sit around singing together," plus five years of piano lessons, Bonnie first turned to guitar, a Stella given to her as a Christmas present by her parents and grandparents, at the age of ten. She enthusiastically pursued her hobby through several summers at camp, in Massachusetts, where her counselors inspired even more longing for contact with the outside world, with their exciting reports of musical events at the nearby Newport jazz and folk festivals.

Then, an album, Blues At Newport '63 containing tracks by John Lee Hooker, John Hammond, Mississippi John Hurt, as well as several other blues and folk artists fell on Raitt's fourteen-year-old ears with enough impact to permanently change the direction of her music.

"From that point on," she remembers, "I was split into two parts. One side of me was all Joan Baez, my early idol, or Childe-type ballads, while the other suddenly had to learn whatever the hell it was Mississippi John Hurt was doing on 'Candy Man'." Being Bonnie Raitt, she learned 'Candy Man'.

An acceptance from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts — they didn't have curfews there — further assured Raitt's entanglement with the blues. Though she began by majoring in African studies with plans to do a community development, political organizing program, she soon came into contact with a leading figure of what she terms the blues "mafia."

Dick Waterman, manager and promoter for many blues artists and events, seems to have been the catalyst who turned Bonnie's guitar hobby into a pursuit of somewhat greater intensity. It was at Waterman's Cambridge apartment that Bonnie met Son House, the first in a long chain of encounters with aging blues giants who were to definitively shape the young woman's entire career.

She did not become a political organizer or a white Odetta (another of her childhood influences). The black woman with whom she is most identified is Sippie Wallace, a blues artist now in her eighties who has been making records since the Twenties, and many of whose songs — 'You Got To Know How', 'Mighty Tight Woman' — have become Raitt standards.

Hindered, she says, by a voice more Judy Collins than Memphis Minnie, Raitt has worked continuously for nearly ten years to combine her evocative Delta-style slide guitar with her "white girl's" vocals to create a memorable sound.

Her playing has expanded to include electric explorations on a Gibson ES-175 and a Fender Stratocaster, in close coordination with a five-member band, while her voice has noticeably matured. She's a long way from the bonier days of just "Freebo [her bassist from the beginning], my little dog Prune, a Matthews amp, and me." In some ways.

Upon the release of her sixth album, Sweet Forgiveness, Raitt does not deny her impatience for the long-awaited, frustratingly elusive hit. Yet she maintains a unique hesitancy about making it big. Despite half-hearted forays into the realm of commercial appeal with her last two LPs, Streetlights and Home Plate, she seems to have returned to staunchly guarding her independence. Her most fervently expressed hopes focus on taking the blues into a new form; finding her own sound.

"I've been almost making it for a long time," she says with traces of irony. "My records are never everything to everybody, but I've always got another chance to make something new. Once you have a hit, you've got to follow it up; that becomes your object or you won't stay around."

Raitt is apparently not about to disappear from today's music scene.

How did you first learn to play slide?

I just broke off a wine bottle! Well, the style was called bottleneck, so I figured that's what it was. The only problem was you couldn't get wine bottles too easily if you didn't drink, and at boarding school there weren't a whole lot of wine drinking orgies.

Were you still playing the Stella?

No, after the Stella I got a red Guild with gut strings. No idea of the model number, but I remember wanting the red one because everyone else had white-topped guitars, and the red one went with my hair. I thought it made me look like an Irish Setter. Later I saved up and bought my first Guild. I forget the number, but I always play an F-50 now. My first National was a copper- colored metal one but it was painted. They used to paint them to look like wood. The one I have now is around a 1929. It has a wooden body which is very unique.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a turning point for you. What happened there?

I went there to go to college. I just played guitar as a hobby, but I ran into a lot of blues freaks at the Harvard station, WHRB, and at Club 47 in Harvard Square, a major outlet for musicians like Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Taj Mahal, and Canned Heat, not to mention John Hurt and Skip James. Strangely enough, I'd rushed to get old enough to catch this great Greenwich Village folk scene I'd heard about, and naturally the year I moved to Cambridge the club closed, and along came The Ultimate Spinach and acid rock. This whole incredible political scene went to pot, literally, but that's when I met Dick Waterman.

By coincidence?

No, I was already a blues freak when I left California. There was a kind of blues mafia between New York, Philadelphia, and Cambridge —all these esoteric people talking about their blues idols' eating habits, the obscure 78s they'd find, and Dick was a kind of liaison, but he was unique in his concern for taking care of artists who were still alive rather than trying to revive an era that was dead.

Everyone at the Harvard station knew him, and if you wanted to do a blues show, you'd call Dick Waterman. Periodically Son House, Skip James, or Arthur Crudup would come to town. Anyway, one afternoon a friend of mine invited me to this apartment on Franklin Street, and who was there housesitting for Dick Waterman, but Son House. I was just floored. Then I began to meet them all.

All through Waterman?

Dick at the time managed Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Magic Sam, Otis Rush, Luther Allison, J.B. Hutto, as well as many other traditional bluesmen. The reason it made sense to have so many under one agency was to protect them from the abuse of white blues promoters. Club owners would play one bluesman against the other. They'd say, "Well, we can get Bukka White for $200 less, so why bother with Son House?" Then Son's manager would have to drop his price in order to get the guy a gig at all. Dick was outraged, and by keeping them all under one agency he could protect their rights.

"You're not going to get any of them to play unless you pay what they deserve," he'd say. I started traveling around with Dick, driving Son, Skip, or Sleepy John Estes to the blues festivals, and I became real tight with them. With Buddy or Junior Wells, guys in their forties, that was fun, but with the older men friendship was difficult. John Hurt died right before I met Dick, and that was just the beginning of a series of five or six deaths, which was terribly painful for those who knew them. But still, meeting them and knowing them was overwhelming. I can't describe it.

Of all these legendary figures, who influenced you the most?

That's impossible to say. One of them had to be Fred McDowell, who stayed with Dick when he was in town. He thought it was really funny, this little eighteen-year-old girl playing guitar, but he was flattered at my interest, and he taught me. Also, I'd say I emulate Muddy Waters' style.

Did you actually try to imitate him or any of the others?

Not exactly. You can't help but learn if you sit and play music with somebody. It was like being stung with a guitar style, and I had to play that way, or else it didn't feel good. It's not like a singing style where you try to avoid sounding like someone else.

When did you develop confidence in playing 'their' style?

During my first gig with Taj Mahal one afternoon. I took out my National and started playing some Fred McDowell stuff, and Taj, who didn't know me, looked over and said, "Hey all right." He came over, took out his guitar, and we started playing a wordless duet, him playing Willie Brown to my Charley Patton, you know, just throwing blues licks off each other, not saying anything.

Finally he reached out his hand and said, "Hello, my name is Taj Mahal." John Hammond has been a great help to me. I had a crush on him for years. Being a girl helped. These musicians came in, heard me sounding — or trying to — just like them, and they'd be flattered, and helpful. If I'd been a young guy doing a show just like John Hammond's, he might have felt a bit threatened. I wasn't playing as good as them, but they were real tickled that I was into their style.

How did you develop your own style out of the traditional blues?

My style is probably the result of a problem. My voice, actually soprano, is around five keys up from where Robert Johnson or Son House would do a song, say in Spanish open G tuning. I can't tune the strings up or down to get that open octave; I have to capo up three or five frets to get the same tuning, which is the only way to make the guitar part sound good.

You lose the octaves — with no cutaway you can't get your hand up there, and you've got only around three frets left to play slide. My National has a new, hybrid neck with fourteen frets, and that's one of the reasons I went to electric, for the longer neck. Just adding my voice to a Fred McDowell guitar part would bring about a unique style, though.

Do you have trouble with your voice?

As my throat doctor says, "You're trying to sing that Afro style." I lose my voice often, because I do push it a lot to sing more blues, soul, or R&B. It was hard to do "Walking Blues" (on Bonnie Raitt) for instance, but I was not born with a voice like Mavis Staples or [contemporary English blues singer] Jo Ann Kelly who sounds uncannily like Memphis Minnie, or any ballsy, chesty blueswoman. My voice is neo-Judy Collins.

You don't really sound like her.

Well, I've beaten my voice down over the years by pickling it with alcohol and screaming and yelling, so it's gotten lower. If I was to sit here and play some blues for you now, and not worry about singing, I'd play what I feel is real good. I'd have liked to play more Fred McDowell and Robert Johnson stuff, but I have kind of this bird voice.

As I was learning how to sing in public, I found that putting the tune in my key took away a lot of beautiful positions. My style is not a B.B. King lead guitar solo style, but just kind of half rhythm, usually in the key of E or A drawn from Muddy Waters, Brownie McGhee, John Hammond, Fred McDowell. It limits what I can do. Instead of doing a song in D, like most guitarists who really know their way around the neck, I move the capo around because I don't want to miss that Muddy Waters-type blues riff. That's the only way I can get the sound I want.

Do you still have trouble coordinating your vocal range with your guitar playing?

Yes, though I started out doing it as soon as I did my first tour. I'm not saying I'm satisfied with my solution to the problem, but I like to do those types of tunes. When I'm playing blues, I feel the way Fred McDowell's or John Hammond's playing makes me feel. I feel real big. So I just do it and don't listen back to it.

Is Sweet Forgiveness very different from your other LPs?

Both Streetlights and Home Plate were too slick for my taste. I didn't have enough of a role on them, though I did do a lot of the arranging which was great for me to learn about.

There are no standard blues on Sweet Forgiveness because I think there are only a certain number of shuffle blues in E that you can play. Having done so many things like "Love Me Like A Man" [Give It Up], "Finest Lovin' Man," and "Mighty Tight Woman" [both on Bonnie Raitt], if I did another it would be almost the same. I did "Big Road" on the first album [Bonnie Raitt] and "Give It Up" and "Let Me In" on the second and third [Give It Up and Takin' My Time], so if I did another dixieland tune, the albums would all start to sound alike. But I still do those songs 'live.' "Love Me Like A Man" is one of my favorites.

Sweet Forgiveness is much funkier than Home Plate. There are no strings, hardly any horns, and just a couple of backgrounds used. Probably the main difference with this record is the use of my 'live' band. I relied a lot on John Hall's and Billy Payne's guitar playing in the past. They're doing so well with Orleans and Little Feat, I felt the time had come to wean myself from their influences.

How much guitar do you play on Sweet Forgiveness?

Five cuts. I play slide on "Three-Time Loser," an old Wilson Pickett tune on the back of "Mustang Sally," and also on a song which just kills me, "About To Make Me Leave Home," which I found on a Syl Johnson record. He's a guy who sounds like Al Green.

Then there are two acoustic numbers I play on: "Louise," an old one by Paul Siebel, and "Home" by Karla Bonoff. We did those two 'live': Fred Tackett, an absolutely incredible player, and I on acoustic guitar; Dave Grisman on mando-cello, and Freebo on bass, and that's it. Haven't done it like that in a long time. We just played, and I sang to the people in the room. Oh, and I play a Johnny Smith guitar on "Opening Farewell" off Jackson's first record.

Do you think you're still developing your guitar playing?

Yes, though I may put more time into singing. I don't write so I want to make up for it by singing and arranging and choosing the tunes. It's really hard to find songs, since it's my sixth album and so many of my favorites are on the first three! Plus I have to compete with so many other interpreters: Maria Muldaur, Linda Ronstadt, etc.

But people ask, "Why can't you do another one like Give It Up?" which they seem to like the most. If I do, that's all it will be – a repeat! I think what I'm doing now is what I have to, make the styles from those older blues people into my own. It may not be a three-chord blues song; maybe you can't classify it now.

I hate to be called a blues singer or a folkie. This is a new kind of music, part soul, part blues; it's a hybrid! I don't play exactly like a black person or a white person or a boy or a girl.

People complain that I don't do as much blues as I used to, but that's not quite true. The blues have moved into the music in a different way. Many people are taking the blues form and moving it ahead so it's not so limited. Little Feat does that, so do Phoebe Snow and J.J. Cale, and I want to do that, too. I don't think the blues has to lose its originality as it draws from other sources. Having worked with the band on this album — with guitar, voice, and all the instruments — will lead to something very creative.

What led you to play more electric?

I wasn't happy with my sound anymore. You can play acoustic in front of 3,000 people but you're not going to get much meat out of it, especially with a band behind you. With this Gibson ES-175, which is really still a big fat acoustic hollowbody, I have so much better ability to control my tone. As I got more into singing uptempo blues, I felt stupid sitting down, looking up at my band who are all around 6'4" or so. Last time I played 'live,' I picked up my National and played exactly as I did in the past! You can only go so far with certain things.

Has electric had an effect on your actual technique?

I stand up, and I feel like I'm playing stronger. I used to think the only way to hunker down on a guitar was to hunch over it and stomp my foot. Now I don't feel as enclosed. You'd have to hear; somebody who had been going to my concerts might notice, I'm playing better this year than I did two years ago.

The flow of it sure feels changed. Especially for a recording session, I can bend the strings a lot easier on an electric guitar. And I love having two guitars to switch between; I used to just tune my Guild up and down when I wasn't carrying the National.

So you feel you're moving ahead musically with the electric?

Well the songs are harder. I used to play pretty easy three-chord folk tunes. And I have a built-in guitar teacher, Will McFarlane, my lead player. If he hears me play A minor, and it was supposed to be some bizarre diminished chord, he stops the band and says, "Okay Bonnie, we have to move ahead now." So I learn as the situation calls for it.

Do you think of yourself more as a singer/bandleader than a guitarist?

Not at all. I play better than I ever did for many songs. But with a band of course you won't notice as much as when it was just me and Freebo lugging our own equipment around. I used to cover the entire scene — rhythm taps with my thumb, lead — but now the piano and the other guitar can do some of the kicky stuff, and I can concentrate on single, higher, more sustained notes. Half the fun of slide guitar is to get more sustain, and the compressor makes it even more effective.

Did you ever have formal lessons?

No – if you watch my hands you can tell.

What do you use for a slide?

I still make them out of wine bottles, relatively cheap red wine. I flipped the bird a lot when I was a kid in California, so I knew how to isolate my middle finger, and I just naturally put that to use. Fred McDowell made his slides from Gordon's gin bottle necks, and they were only about one and a half inches big. He'd have it on his little finger and move his hand around a lot, like a violinist.

My slide goes all the way from the second knuckle to the top of my finger, and my hands are smaller than his so I can get a whole chord easier.

Do you damp when you play slide?

John Hammond once told me to use the finger to the left of where your slide is to damp, so that when you're coming up the neck it would make the note ring clearer, but I'd already learned to damp just with my palm, and I couldn't change it.

I use the palm of my right hand to kind of muffle the sound when I pick with my thumb, and I use my thumb to get that thumpy kind of bass. I also use all three fingers when I pick. I sort of precariously balance my slide, so the middle finger wasn't the best choice because when you go to chord you have to learn how to keep the bottleneck from falling off.

You said before your tunings are somewhat limited?

Yes, I usually use open G, [D, G, D, G, B, D, low to high] or A [E, A, C#, E, A, E, low to high] for slide, and I move the [Bill Russell] capo up three frets since most of the songs were in C. I have trouble with the capo because I move around so much during the show that I need one you can slide around easy that doesn't bend the strings.

Has your changing style determined the guitars you choose to play?

I rarely use the National now, though a 'live' performance can sometimes be kind of a re-creation of what my concerts used to be like. I'll tell you, for acoustic guitars, I think Guilds are terrific. They're also a great blues guitar. They're nice and big, and I like the ratio of the bass to the brightness. The necks are smaller on Guilds, which is good for me since I have small hands.

When do you use the Guild?

At home. I don't walk around peering into shop windows, but this one I just happened to see at a time I knew I wanted a big bright jazz instrument, and the price was right. My Gibson has a narrower neck, too. I string it with an unwound .020 third string to bend it easier, because when Fred played electric, I always liked the tone—whiney. If you can get it right it sounds just like a human voice.

You use a Stratocaster for your electric slide playing?

Yes. All the people whose playing I love use Strats: John Hall, Lowell George, Ry Cooder. But I'd like to get another Strat to fool around with as a regular lead guitar, you know, as a singer. I use a Gibson for lead parts; my Strat's set up just for slide with the action raised. I don't have to do any real playing with it, just sort of bend the strings and slide. I'd feel guilty about getting another guitar if I didn't use it a lot, but maybe that -would be a good idea to make me practice more.

How has your other equipment changed as you get away from strictly slide playing?

Actually I've added equipment to enhance my slide work. When we were on the road together Lowell [George] gave me one of those MXR compressors, and I think you'll see a difference between the way I played "Sugar Mama" on Home Plate and on the two slide tunes I do on the new record.

I first moved out to California to work near Little Feat—I think they're one of the most exciting bands in the world—I wanted to be near them and Jackson Browne, some of the musicians I admire the most. I'm such a fan of Lowell's music, but I don't want to imitate him. The compressor has given me a whole new scope of sound; it's made me have to work harder to find my own blend. As I get more sustain out of the notes, I find my old style becoming limited for my taste, and I'm using less slide.

What about your amps?

Recently I got a Music Man 212— Will's got a 210-HD—real nice because it has a built-in preamp. Anytime I'd play an old guitar through a Fender amp, the preamp would overdrive. But I don't seek out certain types of guitars or amps for the purpose of collecting. Being Quaker-Scottish I don't believe in stocking up on things I don't need.

Also, I save myself the pain of having anything ripped off by not becoming too emotionally involved with the intruments I have. Besides the compressor I have an MXR phaser, which I sometimes like to play an acoustic guitar through, and an MXR Noise Gate. I could just as easily be playing through a Pignose or something, I don't really care, but this combination—the Music Man with those three boxes—seems to work out best onstage.

How do you adjust to different playing situations?

There is a problem with how different things sound in different halls. I'm amazed at how the guitar sound varies. It pisses me off sometimes; you feel like you have no control. But we have a really wonderful system custom-built for us by a company called Silverfish Audio which seems to project our music quite well—a kind of middle-rock sound, I guess you could say—to just about any size hall. Whatever they do—a new way of miking and monitoring—works. Jesse Colin Young uses them; so does Little Feat.

We couldn't use the same setup as The Marshall Tucker Band, you know, or on the other hand, what Judy Collins has. I think what we're going to see in the future is all custom-built amps. There's a guy named Howard Dumble, now making amps for Little Feat and Jackson, whose stuff I'll probably start to use soon, too. His amps are just right for a particular sound, like the overdrive that Dave Lindley [guitarist for Jackson Browne] likes to get.

You've got a raised action on your Strat. What about your other guitars?

I'd say about average.

What strings and other accessories do you use?

For the Strat I use Darco singles. The gauges are .013, .016, .022, .036, .044, .056. On the Gibson, medium gauge Sonomatics; for the unwound third string, a .020. On the acoustics, medium or heavy, usually D'Merles. The main thing about my style is fingerpicking; I don't have a flatpick. I use clear, plastic Dobro fingerpicks. If I lose my pick bag—which is really a little cosmetic case where I keep my two capos and all my picks— on the road, it's really hard to replace them. When I do find thumb- and fingerpicks that fit, I buy about 300—well, at least a whole bunch.

What do you do about your nails?

I've never been able to have nails! Occasionally, when I have two weeks off, they grow a little. Once I bought these fake nails—because never in my life will I be able to have long ones— so I got fake ones and painted them, and stood in front of the mirror all day, making weird gestures and admiring my hands.

Sippie Wallace has meant a lot to you. Are you still in touch with her?

Oh yeah, we still do a lot together. We're planning to make a movie with another woman friend of mine, kind of a documentary on this ever-present theme of being a woman in a man's world, trying to run your own life or lead your own band. Many women are just "produced" —someone else puts their band together for them. Not that many lead their own band, which Sippie kind of did in her time.

Many female musicians express so much frustration and resentment regarding their difficulties in breaking into or coping with the music business. Have you run into this?

It's a terrible problem. It hasn't hindered me so much, but I hear about it all the time. You know it's hard for guys to break in, too; there are just too many musicians around, especially guitarists. It could get easier if there were more women instrumentalists just sort of sprinkled around in more bands, and I don't mean the all-girl band situation, exploited for its own sake.

Can you think of any way that you, as a woman musician who has made a breakthrough, can help?

What's so hard is, women aren't heard enough to be in the position to be hired. I won't fire a member of my band to bring in a woman, but if I needed a replacement, and I heard a woman who was great, I'd love to hire her. Unfortunately, my music isn't established enough, but I hope in the next year or so to do something to try to help—start a record label or create a special auditioning outlet for women.

I was lucky, I played the guitar, which seemed like a gimmick. And one of the reasons I got to where I am is because I was cheap. Because when you hired me as an opening act, you didn't have to hire a whole band, you just hired me, and then you only had to pay one person. I carried my own guitar, I did a little blues, some ballads—and I didn't threaten the male act on the bill.

Do you still listen to records?

All the time. That's how I learned! I wasn't going to ask those guys to sit and teach me. Like when Fred would play "Write Me A Few Of Your Lines," a tune of his that I do, I couldn't figure out what the hell he was doing with that IV chord that was all discordant and dissonant. I knew it wasn't a barre on the fifth fret— that would have been just a straight chord. That's the main thing I learned from watching: he played a C chord in Spanish, open G, tuning; he strummed it as if it were a C and it made that wonderful half-IV, half-tonic chord. Some things I couldn't have learned from records, only from watching.

Do you listen to any of your contemporaries?

Sure. I listen to my friends, whom the English refer to as "the tequila circuit." John David Souther, Jackson Browne and his band, and Little Feat. I also love Maria Muldaur, Valerie Carter, Linda Ronstadt. You know I'm as much a product of James Taylor and Lowell George as I am of Hubert Sumlin and Fred McDowell. I don't associate myself exclusively with the blues. That's really just a journalist's label.

First published in Guitar Player, May 1977

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.

David Lindley was the epitome of a musician’s musician, not only for his comprehensive skills but also for his infectious personality. Lindley was best known as the ultimate sidekick, with crazy credits ranging from Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton to John Hiatt, James Taylor and Jackson Browne. His melodic lap steel and signature searing tone totally transformed Browne’s sound in the ’70s, so much that Lindley was practically a second lead voice in his band. “Running on Empty” and “Stay” wouldn’t likely be the classic rock staples they’ve become without Lindley’s presence. (That’s him singing the impossibly high falsetto chorus on the latter track from the Running on Empty album.)

Lindley, who died of complications from Long COVID on March 3, 2023, founded his pioneering world-fusion band El Rayo-X in 1981, and secured Browne to produce their eponymous first album that same year. El Rayo-X received much critical acclaim, respectable commercial success and opened new avenues for Lindley. Along with George Harrison, he brought melodic slide playing to music lovers around the globe, proving its worth beyond the blues.

As a musician Lindley embraced playing second fiddle, figuratively and literally. He could play practically anything with strings from anywhere in the world, and he was a master of folk music vernacular. His virtuosity made him the perfect foil for the likes of Ry Cooder, Leo Kottke and Henry Kaiser as well as drummer/percussionist Wally Ingram, with whom he toured and recorded extensively.

Lindley was highly inspirational to some of the planet’s premier players. He lived near the fabled Folk Music Center in Claremont, California, the music store and museum founded by Charles and Dorothy Chase and later run by their daughter, Ellen Harper. Lindley's playing there provoked Ellen's son, Ben Harper, to take up the Weissenborn Hawaiian lap slide. Harper eventually went electric and bought one of Lindley’s coveted Dumble amps. The Overdrive Special he always has onstage might be the exact one that Lindley used on his signature El Rayo-X recording, “Mercury Blues,” considered by many to be the wickedest slide tone ever put to tape. Sonny Landreth had his tonal epiphany after hearing Lindley as well. He and Harper get about as close to the Lindley tone as anyone.

Guitar Player Presents teamed up with Ingram and cosmic blues guru Papa Mali this past May during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at the club Chickie Wah Wah to help promote a Lindley tribute that’s become an annual theme at Papa Mali’s Birthday Bash. A parade of Lindley lovers brought his diverse catalog to life. They included Alvin Youngblood Hart, the Wallflowers’ Ben Peeler, the Revivalists’ Ed Williams, Texas blues guitarist Carolyn Wonder-land, Layla Musselwhite, Lindley student Kota Kato, the Iguanas, Jeff Plankenhorn and Marc Stone.

That event, in turn, greased the wheels for this print tribute. I put out a few feelers for comments, and the next day the phone rang from an unlisted number. I answered and a gruff voice said, “Hi, this is Ry Cooder.” The stars had aligned and would eventually bring forward a host of Lindley’s friends — including Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and Sonny Landreth — to share their memories with us.

JACKSON BROWNE

Meeting David Lindley

“I first heard of David on the day of the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest when I was accompanying the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band [circa 1966–’67]. He was a judge at that point, having won the competition several years in a row. He would win invariably by doing something iconoclastic, such as frailing a bluegrass song on banjo and suddenly adding flamenco rasgueados, which would blow people’s minds.

“David was always eclectic. He just got around on anything with strings. His parents had a vast collection of music from around the world. When he joined Kaleidoscope [the psychedelic group Lindley co-founded in the late 1960s], he was at the nexus of a band that was bending various traditional styles to fit into some other discipline, and at the same time writing its own songs, which lies at the heart of folk music. That was the coin of the realm: casting your own trajectory into an unknown future.”

Slide Man

“I first heard David play slide on one of those battleship-grey National electric lap steels in England, when he was on a gig with Terry Reid. He didn’t make it back to the states in time to be featured on my first record [Jackson Browne, a.k.a. Saturate Before Using, 1972]. When it was an unexpected hit, I wound up taking Lindley on the road because it was more manageable, and everything we did together sounded compelling. I became a better singer, and my timing got better as a player working alongside David’s effortlessly impeccable timing.

“David played through a Champ, and it sounded amazing. He got this growl and sustain. He’s a fiddle player, and he wound up making the slide sound very much like a violin. He could do some things that the violin couldn’t, although he could do some show-stopping tricks on the violin too. He was very rhythmic. And playing the violin through the amp, he could use harmonics to make it sound like a Japanese flute. He also traveled with a mandolin. He would play whatever he was inspired to play.

“I really started using his slide work on my second record [For Everyman, 1973]. I’d cut the track with the rhythm section and David would play chord pads on that same National electric lap steel. And then we began the process of overdubbing his solo. [laughs] I wanted it to sound like Ry [Cooder], but David wasn’t playing a bottleneck. We were at Sunset Sound and he was in a vocal booth. I thought it would be a good idea to put a microphone in there with him to capture the sound of the bar on the strings, as the amp was in another room, but all I wound up getting was the sound of David drooling in between phrases. [laughs and makes slurping sounds while heavily inhaling]

“Anyway, we’d left space for the leads when we made the basic tracks. We added David once the vocal and the piano were locked in with an arrangement. A basic tracks session would only take about three hours with studio musicians, and then we’d overdub David multiple times. I would go through and pick the great passages, and he was a part of that process. So it wound up as an accompaniment, like the way it was onstage when it was just me and him. I comped his slide part the way I would comp a vocal, and David would play it enough times to have it well practiced by the end.

“Jim Keltner, who was on drums and an old friend of David’s, had played the ride out on ‘These Days’ imagining a great lead guitar, so he’d played with that dynamic, and David just caught a wave. I think that end solo is put together out of two passes. To me, he defined what that instrument could do, for himself and for a lot of other people, right in that moment. The intro to ‘Redneck Friend’ was another one.”

The Improviser

“Having done that, he could go out and do the same sort of thing live, although he would never play it the same way. He didn’t learn his part and then play it repeatedly; he would only play to the conditions that existed in the moment. He was incapable of committing something to memory and simply playing it back. It just didn’t happen that way for him. He had amazing taste and sense of song, no matter what he did. The conditions had to be right for him to play what he felt, and he always played what he was feeling. I may sing a song with different feelings, but I sing the same notes. I’m not improvising. He was the improviser.”

Hallowed Tones

“David used to play through a Fender Bassman with Vox speakers in the cabinet. When he started playing a Dumble, it accelerated what he was already doing, but I don’t think he’s playing a Dumble on ‘Running on Empty’; he’s playing a Bassman. He was in search of something, and he eventually became the prominent Dumble player of that day.

“Lindley’s tone is the whole thing, especially with an acoustic instrument. Forget about the amp — he would get the sound of the instrument to speak. He could sound great going from instrument to instrument, because he would only play what each instrument sounded good doing. It’s easy if you do it that way. Going back to playing that first tour together as a duo, he was like another expressive voice in my songs, and the songs needed that. If you take Lindley away, it’s much less dynamic.”

Evolution

“By the third album [Late for the Sky, 1974] we were working with a band, so it was much more complicated. I got into arrangements during and after The Pretender [1977]. There were things I wanted the music to do that were not a part of our folk conversations or influences. I was a novice arranger, so I’d spend hundreds of takes looking for something, but I wouldn’t know what it was until I found it. One of my favorite things from the later era is his solo on ‘That Girl Could Sing’ [Hold Out, 1980] but by that point our musical relationship had changed. Our friendship was deeper than ever.”

El Rayo-X

“At a certain point David got really into reggae, and he was playing reggae on everything. When he started to do El Rayo-X, I told him, ‘If you’re also playing with me, it’s going to be viewed as a side project.’ In retrospect, I’m not sure that was a good decision on my part, because it meant that then I didn’t have David’s influence and his presence going forward. Although at times I would bring him in and we’d work together, it wasn’t the same as having him in my band. But I think I was right in thinking that if he didn’t say ‘El Rayo-X is who I am and what I’m doing now,’ it wouldn’t have been given as much credence as it deserved. And of course, I produced that first album. I went to my record company saying, ‘You’ve got to record this guy. He’s unbelievable.’

“What he did with El Rayo-X was astounding in terms of the way we viewed David. I’ve been working on making a film about Lindley, and until he passed he was working on it with me. It’s been put on the back burner for a few reasons, but in guitarist Danny Kortchmar’s interview for the film he summed up our feelings: Suddenly this guy that everybody thought of as the ultimate sensitive accompanist became this monster rocking lead guitarist and frontman in a band that presciently harnessed all the interest we had in reggae, which all of us loved but none of us knew how to do.

“I sang on El Rayo-X and worked on some technical stuff with my engineer Greg Ladanyi. But all l really did was preside over the sessions. You need somebody on the other side of the glass. I get the credit, but David was always the master of his own journey. He always did what he wanted to do. He was never a prisoner of someone else’s idea. He always made it his own. And when he made El Rayo-X, he truly came into his own. He was the leader of that band. He chose every song and every player. But I am so proud of the record and having been there.”

The Everyman for Everyone

“David was a unique player who affected and influenced so many people, and he participated in so many people’s music. For Lindley to go play with Ry, a master of so many idioms, was the perfect join-up. So was the stuff David did with Henry Kaiser, traveling all over the world as a master American musician to connect in musical conversations with others from all these different cultures. What I’m hoping to eventually do with the film is shine a light on this: Lindley’s kind of an everyman in that he was not famous, but everyone wanted to play with him. It’s like being let in through a side door to see how this guy was so respected and so valued, why he was so valued, and how that kind of musical life is available to anybody who wants to try to find it.”

RY COODER

Seriously Funny

“I always enjoyed David as a person because he seemed so warm-hearted. He was very kind. People demonstrate their personal quality in their music. Sometimes you meet somebody with a like-mindedness, and that’s why we used to play well together.

“Aside from being a very humorous fellow, David had great dedication as an improviser. So on one hand he’d clown around and wear funny shirts, but he was also very serious. I appreciate that. Music, especially folk music, is like tools. You master these tools so that you can polish these folk styles into something useful to do. That’s what David did. He had the fiddle, banjo and guitar, so he could fit into any situation and add his color.”

Kung Fu Tricks

“David had great hands with perfect control. That’s quite a combination, to have the fluency and the control down tight. He had physical training from doing kung fu and shooting guns. I once asked him, ‘How do you always beat the guys at target practice on the shooting range?’ He said, ‘Count heartbeats and squeeze the trigger. It’s a kung fu trick.’ He was a very inventive, very eclectic guy. To get that kind of control when he played, he went into this kind of trance. Not like out of his mind, more of a discipline that allowed him to make a good sound.”

One Slide Ace to Another

“As a slide player, you must have control and be able to hit notes. It’s a bowing thing. You’re moving the slide, vibrating it however you do, and it sounds weird if you don’t hit the notes. David’s good ear could hear the good note, find the center of it and play the goddamn thing. It’s very effective when you do that and shape it like a violinist. He had great technique playing with the guitar lying flat, rather than as I do, playing bottleneck in the regular guitar posture. That tends to put you down different roads. He would play one way, and I would play the other way, just by nature. So it was very complementary.”

Southern California Reggae

“Then there was the fantastic rhythm when he played using his first finger as a pick. You get a certain snap on the strings that way. We’d play this folky reggae thing that he used to like to do. It had this fabulous quality. I would only do it with him. Nobody else could cop that groove like he could. It was his groove: Southern California reggae. And he liked to play double-stringed instruments, like the oud, and he had a 12-string guitar with lipstick pickups and those LaBella black, tape flatwound strings. It was teardrop shaped and was sort of colored like bacon fat. Man, he would make that killer axe walk and talk. When he’d hit that reggae rhythm on that guitar, it felt so good. It was like lift-off. You could play anything and have a ball. It would make you jump — make you want to rock.

“It was always encouraging to play with him, and you never worried, because you knew it was going to be all right. So often you run into taste issues and hit the wall, but not with him. We just seemed to hit it off and have a good time. It was always okay, especially onstage.”

War Story

“We used to play these mud festivals in Europe — oh my god. I remember one where a guy picked us up at the airport in a Volkswagen, naturally, that didn’t have enough room for our stuff, so we had to stick it up through the roof and out the window. [laughs] When we got to within five miles of the site, the car started to shake. I said, ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Oh, that’s Lenny Kravitz.’ ‘What?’ The bass is shaking the car from five miles away, and we have to follow that? ‘Well,’ David said. ‘Let’s just walk through the farmer’s muddy pig field and do it.’ The stage was so big that the people couldn’t see us. If they could, they figured we were roadies testing and tuning up for the main act. We would do our 45 minutes, get our good money, and get back in the Volkswagen.

“David never batted an eye. He had real stamina. That all used to drive me crazy, but not him. He was a good road hog. I would complain my head off, but he would soldier on with no complaints. Touring is a nightmare, but he made it enjoyable, being very funny and light-hearted. It was never life-threatening with him.”

El Rayo-X

“I gave him that name: El Rayo-X. We would come up with shit like that casually in conversation. He asked what he should call his group, I suggested calling it that, and he did. I just thought it was a cool name, but it turned out to be the name of a Panamanian prize fighter. Lindley found out later. I suppose I’d seen it in print. ‘David Lindley and the El Rayo-X’ is a little exotic, but it’s funny. It fit him. He was a cheerful character. And that was another thing, the character he devised for himself: the guy with the polyester shirts. [laughs]

“David had such a terrible time later. He damaged his ears. You know, cymbals in your face, and amps that are capable of rearranging your molecular structure. It’s too bad he suffered because of that, and I’m very sorry. But we had so much fun.”

SONNY LANDRETH

On Mentorship

“Looking back on the past 40-plus years, I can’t imagine the ride without David Lindley at the wheel, showing me the way when I needed it. By 1974, I was mostly playing acoustic and had techniques and concepts of my own, but I didn’t have a clue about tone and developing my own sound on the electric. Then, snowed in during a winter in Estes Park, Colorado, I discovered David on Jackson Browne’s great albums For Everyman and most especially Late for the Sky. That just knocked me out. He had such a powerful sound, yet his phrasing was so nuanced and lyrical that it echoed the poetic sensibilities of Jackson’s profound songs. That combination of songwriting art and tasteful, whup-ass guitar had a big impact on me. I felt like I’d been pointed in the direction I was meant to take.

“Five years later I got to hear them together on the Running on Empty tour at the Jackson, Mississippi, Coliseum, and then I heard David with El Rayo-X at a small club in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1988. Of course, he sounded amazing, and that fired me up. Of all my slide guitar heroes, Ry Cooder and David Lindley have touched me the most. David became a mentor with conversations that were equal parts information, advice and comedic relief.”

The Breakfast Club

“We met over breakfast at the Winnipeg Folk Festival hotel in 1988 and would connect off and on over the years via phone or find each other at workshops and gigs we played together. He had a 50-watt Dumble, so I was all about getting one. But he discouraged me. He said, ‘No, man, they’re too complicated and too expensive.’ His other guitar player at the time, Ray Woodbury, had a Demeter, and David said, ‘You want this amp.’ So I called Jim Demeter and we became fast friends. I got one of his amps and I’ve used one or more of the three I own on at least 80 percent of everything I’ve done in the studio since.”

“The beautiful thing about David was how he shared his gift and sense of humor both onstage and off. I recall a press conference at the Singer-Songwriter Festival in Frutigen, Switzerland, becoming a bit dull and quite awkward, but Lindley, the bringer of fun, lit the whole affair up as soon as he walked in. He and Wally Ingram, running late due to hard traveling, arrived just in time for Mr. Dave to save the day. Wally joined Steve Earle and me at a table facing the group of reporters and journalists who were now all abuzz. David patiently answered their questions about the music biz, working with big-name artists, songs and gear, until it was time to wrap it up. I jokingly said, ‘I have a question. Brother, where do you shop for clothes?’ Though laughter broke out in the tent, David was unfazed and without hesitation began to seriously name his favorite stores in California. Some of the journalists were actually writing the information down. I’ve always wondered if his list sparked a few overseas shopping missions for polyester suits.”

BONNIE RAITT

Meeting David

“I became friends with Jackson Browne in 1970 or ’71 when I first opened for him, and then at some point I met David when he started playing with Jackson. I was very excited to open Jackson’s national tour in 1974, which was my first national tour, and our two bands were on one bus. So it was one woman and 13 guys, of which David was my favorite. It was such a blast. We developed a close friendship that would last a lifetime.”

Taste and Tone

“David’s reputation preceded him in musician circles, so I was familiar with his virtuosity on the fiddle and his sensitivity in terms of playing perfectly on Jackson’s tunes. I can’t even imagine most of Jackson’s songs that David’s on without his contributions. Playing lap steel was just one of the great things he did. His taste, tone and approach to augmenting whatever the singer and the song needed was perfect. He set the standard for me of what great accompaniment could be, long before he went off on his own and had one of my favorite bands of all time, El Rayo-X. Thinking back to when I first met him, his virtuosity was astonishing, but he didn’t lead with it. He did it quietly. He was delightful and a perfect foil for Jackson. His personality came across in his playing and his stage presence, no matter what his role.

“I was knocked out at his lap-steel playing. It’s a completely different instrument, but it can do so much similarly to slide guitar, especially when you’re looking at Ry Cooder and Lowell George and David. They set the tone for me on how slide guitar can fit within a song that’s not just in a blues idiom.

“David’s tone is the perfect blend of grit and richness, but I didn’t really go to him for that. It was more about his taste and his lyricism. His choices about what licks he put where, how he played them and which octave — all of that was a great influence on me.”

In It for the Music

“Because we were both touring non-stop in different bands, we didn’t interface very often. When we would interact over subsequent decades, he knew how much I loved his sense of humor, and he was extremely witty and sardonic. I also loved the fact that he just couldn’t care less about the record business. He was like Ry Cooder in that they would deliberately avoid trying to be commercial in any sense. I was simpatico with that. We were there for the music, not for the hit record. So you win your stripes and your friendship by the respect you have for each other, and we shared great love and affection as friends.”

The Sensitive Ones

“We eventually toured together again, along with Jackson, Bruce Hornsby and Sean Colvin. I believe it was in ’98. We joined forces for almost two months across the country outdoors in a kind of a supergroup, which we lovingly referred to as the Sensitive Ones, because people would always make comments about Jackson’s music being so sensitive. David and Wally opened the shows, and then we would all do four or five solo songs, each of us backing the other ones up. “That tour is one of the high points of my 54 years on the road, partly because I got to hear David and Wally slay the audience every night, just the two of them.

“We had one memorable time when we all went through his legendary polyester wardrobe, showed up and surprised him. I don’t think we did the gig in that — my memory of it is hazy — but I loved his satirical splendor and his quirkiness. He was a fantastic artist as well. His drawings were incredible.”

One of a Kind

“Nobody delighted all of us as much as David. To be that much of a genius as a multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter and a performer, and then have that incredibly engaging personality — I’ve never met anybody like him. And I have to say that El Rayo-X is one of the greatest configurations of musicians and material and groove. I mean, the guy had a groove that was just unbeatable. He was literally one of the funkiest human beings I’ve ever heard in my life. Nobody tells funnier stories onstage. And his voice — [laughs] — I’m so happy to be able to talk about it because it makes him feel alive for me again. Thank you very much for honoring his memory. David is beloved by so many fans and musicians and will always be. I’m so glad that Guitar Player is doing this tribute. I’m happy to celebrate my pal.”

This interview originally appeared in the February 2006 issue of Guitar Player.

In a field dominated by men, men, and more men, Bonnie Raitt has managed to kick hellacious ass all over the brotherhood of guitar since her eponymous debut album unveiled her soulful slide playing and singing back in 1971. 

Using the blues as a launching pad, Raitt has fearlessly explored folk, R&B, Americana, and world music styles, while accumulating – as a writer herself, an interpreter of cover tunes, and a discoverer of transcendent songwriters – a stunning collection of heartfelt musical poems of the human condition.

Raitt’s restless creative spirit, devotion to activism (she co-founded Musicians for Safe Energy, and is a founding member of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation), and no-compromise demeanor shackled her to a long tenure as a critic’s fave who didn’t exactly set any album-sales records.

That all changed in 1989, when the Don Was-produced Nick of Time topped the U.S. charts, and captured a trio of Grammys (including Album of the Year). Not surprisingly, Raitt didn’t play the uber-star game for long. 

After 1991’s Luck of the Draw and 1994’s Longing in Their Hearts – which were also hits – Raitt went native, hiring on the sonically adventurous production team of Tchad Blake and Mitchell Froom to helm 1998’s Fundamental.

“I approached Tchad and Mitchell because I loved the sounds Tchad was getting – these organic, funky sounds that use a lot of analog pedals mixed with Mitchell’s arsenal of unbelievable keyboards,” she says. “I also wanted to put myself in slightly uncomfortable situations, because I didn’t want to end up sounding the same. Those guys have a healthy respect for things that have gone before, but in a very interesting way.”

While the brilliant and edgy collaboration effectively tanked Raitt’s gargantuan record sales, it inspired her creatively – to the point where she is still pushing the envelope, and still embracing Blake’s sonic alchemism. 

She took over the production gig herself for the first time in her career on her latest release, Souls Alike – Blake is credited as co-producer – proving once again that Raitt is one of America’s uncompromising musical treasures.

What was your overall plan for tackling the production duties for Souls Alike?

“I’m the team leader, so I was driving, but being a woman and a bandleader can be a delicate thing. I may not be the most extraordinary musician in the room, and everybody in the band will have opinions about where the music should go. They know it’s basically my record – and that they’re collaborating with me to come up with the music I want to make – but I want to give them a lot of rope. I need to try different things on, you see, and until they give me different things to try, I can’t tell what fits. 

“I’m sure that if you talked to my band they’d say the process is a bit frustrating – 'Can you just let us play before you ‘86’ it?' But I have a fast mind, and I can tell when things are going in a direction that might be fun for them, but isn’t what I’m looking for. It’s a living, organic process that demands a lot of diplomacy and subtlety.

“As the leader, you don’t want to squash creativity, and you don’t want to feel like you’re being didactic. Basically, I think the trick to good production and arrangement is getting the right people in the room with the right material.”

So how do you find the “right people”?

“I look at a player’s musical vocabulary, but I also consider the kind of person they are. To me, you can’t separate who someone is from the way he or she plays. It makes complete sense to me that Jon Cleary is so badass on the keyboards, and that he also reads Graham Greene. 

“I look for soul, intelligence, funk, and the ability to handle an extraordinary range of music styles. By the time I bring somebody into the fold, I already know they can do the things I need them to. I know George [Marinelli, guitarist in Raitt’s band] can do everything from Jimi Hendrix and Keith Richards to Richard Thompson, as well as being completely inventive in his own style.”

Did you develop the song arrangements before you entered the studio?

“They are so not thought out! I sit down with the guitar in my lap, we start singing – perhaps we’ll play a couple of R&B tunes – and I pick the key for the song. Then we just play together. Most of the time, I’m singing while I’m trying the song on, and we basically get the arrangement the same day we record it. It comes out of the players pretty much the way it’s going to sound on the record.”

In a Pro Tools world where tracks can be scrupulously arranged and rearranged to death, you’ve obviously decided to undertake somewhat of a loose, organic, and more immediate approach.

“Oh man, that reminds me of a joke. What did the Pro Tools engineer say to the band? 'That sucked. Come on in!' You know, I don’t want everything perfect. I like accidents. The solo in Crooked Crown was that way. We happened to be recording a run-through on Pro Tools, and I was in a completely different key when I went to the solo. That was a happy accident, and we kept it.

“I learned that from Tchad and Mitchell, who don’t fix things. I mean, you’d better be prepared when they turn that tape on, because they’re going to say, 'Oh, no. You’re not doing that again. It sounds great.' I’ll fix stuff that’s really out, but I’ve learned to love the first and second takes. We rarely play anything better the third time than we did the first time, and I don’t like to belabor songs. If it’s not happening, perhaps that means you’re not supposed to do that song.

“Also, the things I love most in rock and roll are the loosey-goosey parts where the drummer is hitting it a little behind. It’s that back-and-forth shuffle against the straight time that makes it sexy. I don’t want to pass judgment on people who like quantized loops and stuff, but rock music without the 'and roll' is pretty Teutonic.”

Although many players strive to forge a signature sound that hardly ever evolves, you seem to flourish when you’re thrown a bit off balance.

“Someone put it best when they said, 'You can’t change the noodle, but you can change the sauce.' I play the way I play, just like I sing the way that I sing. I’m not a schooled guitar player, and I can’t say I’m getting appreciably better, but I know how to do what I do. It’s the songs that change. 

“For me to play slide guitar over the Zimbabwean groove of Hear Me Lord [from 2002’s Silver Lining] is a blast. It’s the context that makes it fresh for me. On Souls Alike, the most adventurous thing I did was run my guitar through an Amp Farm wah-wah loop for God Was in the Water.

“Taking risks is how I keep moving forward – that and being open to hearing things in a different way. Ultimately, I know there’s a safety net, and that’s the fact that I trust my ears and my instincts. 

“I’ll always try something different. That’s how you grow, and you also don’t want to be overly influenced by an inclination to dismiss something that’s new. So, I may do something I’m not really into – out of respect for Tchad and the musicians – but if it’s not working for me after a few days of letting it sit, then I’ll go, 'We gave it a try, but this song is sucking.'”

Given the lock-step environment of today’s record industry, taking chances with musical hybrids is pretty brave.

“Well, I don’t care if I’m a star, and I don’t care if I win another Grammy. If you truly don’t care about commercial considerations, that’s the most free you can be. This is why I really treasure having the validation of my fans. If I wanted to make records like Tom Waits makes, some of my fans would get it, and they’d dig my audaciousness. I mean, if you’re digging it, your real fans are probably going to like it, too.”

Introduced in 1954, the Fender Stratocaster has long been an electric guitar of choice for blues players. Some of the guitar’s earliest proponents include bluesmen Buddy Guy and Otis Rush, while Jimi Hendrix helped repopularize the Strat in the late ‘60s with his decidedly psychedelic take on the blues.

Since then, a host of blues guitar heroes have championed this iconic solidbody, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Johnson and Joe Bonamassa.

From Jimmie Vaughan, Doyle Bramhall II and Kenny Wayne Shepherd to Robert Cray and Bonnie Raitt – here are five of the best under-the-radar guitar solos performed by Strat-toting blues players…

1. “Tuff Enuff” by the Fabulous Thunderbirds from ‘Tuff Enuff’ (1986)

Guitarist: Jimmie Vaughan

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 his 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. 

2. “Cry” by Doyle Bramhall II from ‘Welcome’ (2001)

Guitarist: 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. 

3. “Blue on Black” by Kenny Wayne Shepherd from ‘Trouble Is...’ (1997)

Guitarist: 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 Is…, or 2010’s Live! In Chicago. 

4. “Chicken in the Kitchen” by the Robert Cray Band from ‘Cookin' in Mobile’ (2010)

Guitarist: 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. 

5. “Three Time Loser” by Bonnie Raitt from ‘Sweet Forgiveness’ (1977)

Guitarist: Bonnie Raitt

While blues and contemporary pop are not always an easy coupling, Bonnie 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 rideout.

Pure swagger.

Rory Block remains one of the premier purveyors of acoustic blues. In addition to honors received over her lengthy career, she won the Blues Foundation’s prestigious Koko Taylor Award for Traditional Female Blues Artist in 2021 as well as the 2019 Blues Music Award for Acoustic Artist of the Year.

Taylor herself called her “Little Miss Dynamite.” Block loves to commemorate her heroes and predecessors, and to celebrate female empowerment. She’s recorded a host of tribute albums that pay homage to everyone from Robert Johnson to Bukka White to Bessie Smith.

On Ain’t Nobody Worried (Stony Plain), the third volume in her “Power Women of the Blues,” she takes a slightly different spin by honoring a variety of artists, rather than focusing on one in particular.

With her slide prowess, powerful voice and penchant for making a cover sound like her own song, Block is like an acoustic Bonnie Raitt.

One of the standout tracks on Ain’t Nobody Worried is “Love Has No Pride,” made famous by Raitt, who Block calls “the best singer on Earth.” Block’s take on Elizabeth Cotten’s iconic “Freight Train” is another guitar-centric gem, and her driving version of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” is a cool inclusion because of how well the 1988 hit flows seamlessly alongside older material, such as Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

Most of the song selections are drawn from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, which is still relatively recent compared to the folk blues and old-timey music Block generally interprets.

The sole original cut here is a stripped-down and refreshing version of her most popular song, “Lovin’ Whiskey.” Block’s rock-solid rhythm playing anchors the entire affair, and all of the guitar overdubs are her own. The same is true of the vocals, some of which one would swear were done by a group of singers.

Block even plays bass and percussion here. Girl power, indeed!

Why are you so dedicated to playing purely acoustic blues?

The blues was invented on acoustic instruments, so the only way I really hear early American country blues is on an acoustic guitar. You can do whatever you want, but in my opinion the acoustic guitar is the most perfectly suited instrument for the music.

Is your signature Martin OM-40 from 2004 still your main instrument?

It’s my only instrument. I’m a Martin guitar freak. I’ve seen a lot of wonderful instruments, but in my view Martin has a mystical edge above everything else on the planet – the universe! They are magnificent instruments, unmatched in their historical significance.

Before I owned a Martin guitar, they invited me to pick one off the wall at a NAMM Show. Of course I was floored! I chose an OM-28V [Vintage] because it was the right size and feel. Later I was honored with my own signature model.

Dick Boak and I sat down in a restaurant and sketched out the design ideas on dinner napkins. We made the neck a black-top highway, because I thought the road was an iconic bluesy theme. We added road signs and a railroad crossing in mother of pearl in honor of “Cross Road Blues.”

I stayed with the OM body style because its medium size is pretty much perfect for everyone. Dick designed the bracing to be sturdier, because of the way that I pound on the guitar, along with a more durable fret wire, since I do a lot of slamming and banging. I use a medium set of Martin Authentic Acoustic SP strings.

While I appreciate a 12-fret neck, I went with 14 frets because it allows more range when you use a capo at the second fret, which I almost always do. It has something to do with the keys I like to sing in.

Standard tuning, dropped D, open D, and open G all work well for me capoed at the second fret. I do that for almost all the Robert Johnson songs in open G, including “Crossroads,” as well as Son House songs in open D, such as “Preachin’ Blues” or “Death Letter” in open G.

What capo do you prefer?

I endorse Shubb because it’s the perfect capo for me. Everybody keeps trying to build a better mousetrap, but for me this one is simply the best. I love the way the Shubb snaps in place. Every capo is going to drive the tuning into another realm, because every guitar has idiosyncratic, unique frets. You have to expect that, even if it’s so marginal that you can barely hear it.

The capo changes all of those subtleties because it changes the starting point. I know what’s going to happen with the Shubb. The bass string is going to go up a tiny bit, and I compensate for that immediately. 

How did you wind up using a socket wrench for a slide?

John Hammond told me to try it, because back in the ’60s I couldn’t find anything that fit my smaller hand. He and John Fahey or Stefan Grossman would simply break a wine bottle neck and sand it down, but that was too large for me. No matter what bottle I used, it fell right off.

People started to bring me custom slides made of everything from blown glass to porcelain, but nothing was quite right until John Hammond said, “Go out and get yourself a socket wrench. They come in all sizes.”

I happened to have a friend who owned a gas station, and he let me try on a bunch of socket wrenches. I wound up using a Snap-on Tools 15mm deep well socket, with the end sanded off. It has great percussive power.

I recently tried a porcelain slide again that someone had given me years ago, and it sounded much more mellow, buttery sweet and smooth. The metal slide provides a nice edge, and the heavy weight makes it perfect for percussion when hitting the frets or the neck on songs such as Muddy Waters’ “I Be Bound to Write You,” which I do in open G without a capo, or Robert Johnson’s “If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day” [also in open G].

Most modern slide stars play electric guitar. What are your thoughts about sustaining slide notes on an acoustic?

I get all the sustain I need with an acoustic guitar and a slide. As long as you keep the vibrato going, there’s no limit to the sustain other than the diminishing volume because of the law of thermodynamics [i.e., the total energy of an isolated system is constant].

Very interesting. Is it true that you didn’t have much of a grasp on slide until Bonnie Raitt inspired you with a session performance?

I was already playing slide, but very badly. I was struggling, so for years I would play Robert Johnson’s material without a slide. I was very nervous about it. I would overshoot or undershoot, and the note would be sharp or flat. I didn’t have good tone, and the vibrato was too fast and buzzy.

I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong until later, when I first recorded “Ramblin’ on My Mind” and Bonnie played a solo on it. When we were mixing, the engineers isolated her track and I heard how her playing was so cool and relaxed.

I wrote about this in my book as well [2011’s When a Woman Gets the Blues], so I’m quoting myself, but it sounded like she was taking a stroll up the neck on the strings. I noticed that her vibrato was a wonderful, funky rocking back and forth. It wasn’t fast and nervous like what I was doing.

Listening to her gave me a bunch of ideas to try, including that thing she does where she leaps up from a note with a quick slide right off the string.

As a guitar player it often happens that you reach a plateau where you think, I’m stuck playing the same old stuff. I need some new ideas. Listening to Bonnie’s slide playing on that track was a profound jolt of inspiration. It was a revelation about all the things I needed to work on and learn, and it changed the way I practiced.

After a while, I found the pocket. I always say, “Slide is a Zen thing.” After that I started moving forward, learning to do the things that I now teach.

Such as?

For years, I felt completely unable to solo. My thing was sticking with the classic arrangements as closely as I could. But over time I realized that I would have to branch out and develop the ability to improvise.

I’ve since discovered that if you think you can’t do a solo, try singing it first. My husband, Rob [producer Rob Davis], encouraged me to do this when he said, “You play the slide the way you sing.” It hadn’t occurred to me that I could first sing the solo that I was hearing in my head, and then learn to play it on slide. That can help a lot for someone like me who didn’t quite know how to begin.

Soon I discovered that the more you experiment, the more your hands learn where melodies play out on the neck. I don’t do this anymore, because so many ideas have lodged in my brain over time, but that’s how I developed my slide soloing. 

Years ago when I was recording the original version of “Lovin’ Whiskey” [for 1986’s I’ve Got a Rock in My Sock], Bud Rizzo played the heart-wrenching solo on electric guitar. I sat next to him in the studio and sang what I had in mind.

That’s an example of what I’m talking about. If you can hear it and you can sing it, then you figure out how to play it. For the version of “Lovin’ Whiskey” on Ain’t Nobody Worried, I decided to follow what Bud did note for note on acoustic, and I feel like it has come full circle.

What are the origins of your very unique freehand plucking approach?

When I was growing up, my dad played claw-hammer banjo in a style called frailing. That style incorporates an up pluck, a down slam with your fingers, your palm landing on the instrument like a drum, and just this continuous back-and-forth, up-and-down and snap-and-thump.

He showed it to me when I was about eight years old, and it embodied everything that I applied directly to Robert Johnson – that and a little bit of rolling out notes in a flamenco style.

You chose Elizabeth Cotten’s “Freight Train” to close out Ain’t Nobody Worried, and you write in the liner notes how she was the nanny to the Seeger children, and that you believe her “Cotten picking” could be the most influential guitar style ever created.

Yes, because her style is incorporated into almost every fingerpicking style on Earth. When I went to summer camp as a young girl it was run by Pete Seeger’s brother, John Seeger. So it was a music-oriented camp, and everybody was playing Cotten picking.

Everybody was introduced to the guitar with that alternating bass, and everybody knew about Elizabeth Cotten. So in my world, everybody recognized that style.

Who are some up-and-coming acoustic blues ladies that you feel deserve wider recognition?

Some of my guitar students really stand out to me. Lisa Rich, a super-talented blues guitarist from Connecticut, played “Preaching Blues” so hard it shook my whole house, but she has since gone on to other pursuits.

Donna Herula, who was also once a student of mine, is another very strong slide player. She’s been making records and gaining recognition.

Heidi Holton is another former student who is doing well. I have produced two recordings for her and consider her to be a very strong up and coming artist.

Shari Kane out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is also an outstanding slide player. So there are definitely strong blues ladies out there building careers.

The biggest piece of advice I like to give to players is to keep going until everybody knows who you are.

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Looking back on the years I spent developing as a guitarist, I often kick myself for having taken certain musicians for granted – guitarists who always sounded so good but whose style I dismissed as “easy” to play.

While I was focused on learning solos crowded with notes, another musical world was passing me by. This is not to say that playing a lot of notes isn’t musical; it all depends on when and how you do it.

But that’s a lesson for another day.

I save one of my hardest kicks for when I think of Bonnie Raitt.

From listening to Raitt and players like her, I learned that being a good guitarist requires playing with an emphasis on musicality and tasteful note choices, along with a dedication to making a solo serve the song.

This requires a different kind of technique, one that is more subtle and surely not easy.

I’m going to try to make up for all that lost time by exploring Raitt’s unique approach to music, and more specifically, the guitar.

It’s almost as if Raitt has two voices. When listening to her songs, her smooth and soulful vocal style is immediately apparent. But when she lays down some of her signature open-tuned slide guitar licks, it becomes clear that she is a musician of great depth.

Before we dive into her guitar work, let’s talk about Raitt’s tone.

She doesn’t require anything elaborate or wildly expensive to achieve her warm, sustaining sound. Her main electric guitar, Brownie, is a Fender Strat that pairs an unpainted 1965 body with a neck from an unknown year.

It has long been her faithful onstage companion, and she hasn’t played a show without it since the late night in 1969 when she bought it for a whopping $120. The price was right, and she loved how it sounded.

Raitt strings the guitar with a custom set of GHS Boomers, in gauges .013, .017, .020w, .032, .042 and .052.

For amplification, Bonnie plugs her Strat into a Bad Cat Black Cat 30R 1x12 combo, while ultimately achieving her warm, overdriven tone with the simple addition of a ProCo Rat distortion pedal. She recently replaced her Boss CS-2 compressor with yet another classic, the MXR Dyna Comp, which provides all the sustain she needs to conjure the long-lasting notes that are a hallmark of her style.

Add in her Dunlop bottleneck slide and custom Dunlop molded-plastic fingerpicks, and that’s it!

So let’s turn our focus to how she plays, as this is what contributes most to her unique blend of rock, R&B, blues, and soul.

Chicago blues giant Muddy Waters was a major influence on Raitt, with his electrifying guitar style and ability to sustain a long career, something she was determined to achieve for herself. Other influences include a host of blues artists such as Howlin’ Wolf, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Furry Lewis, all of whom, like Waters, played fingerstyle blues guitar and incorporated slide work.

But Raitt was also drawn to the early rock and roll of Elvis Presley and Fats Domino, as well as the 1960s folk movement led by the likes of Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul & Mary. Their emphasis on activism resonated with Bonnie, and she would soon begin an earnest dedication to environmental and human rights causes that she continues today.

An important element of Raitt’s playing is her use of open tunings and capos.

She most often plays in open A tuning (low to high: E, A, E, A, C#, E), but she also uses open G, which is the same tuning scheme transposed down one whole step (low to high: D, G, D, G, B, D). (All slide guitar examples in this lesson are presented in open G.)

Raitt often employs open strings in her rhythm and slide playing, and will often use a capo based on a song’s key, most often at the 3rd or 5th frets. For example, if her guitar is tuned to open A and the song is in the key of C major, she will often place her capo at the 3rd fret.

This will cause the open strings to produce a C chord – the tonic or “home” chord – giving her the opportunity to incorporate any “open” string she likes. 

When it comes to playing slide guitar, Raitt isn’t in a hurry.

For example, when playing a melodic theme or guitar solo, she’ll often include a long, slow slide to create a mix of anticipation and plaintive longing.

Ex. 1 illustrates this approach with a phrase in the style of “Unintended Consequence of Love,” from 2012’s Dig in Deep. (For ease of reading, all music examples that require a capo are written in the key of G major, instead of the actual sounding key. The capo-ed fret is “0” in the tab.)

 Another signature slide move of Bonnie’s is to slowly slide a note down the neck.

Ex. 2 is reminiscent of a phrase she plays in “Thing Called Love,” from her breakthrough 1989 album, Nick of Time.

Notice how the first note is left to simply hang in the air.

Like other great guitarists, she has a sublime vibrato, but she knows when not to use it.

Raitt also employs another subtle approach when sliding into a note from above, as she sometimes uses a quick slide starting from a whole step, or two frets, higher.

Inspired by “Love Letter,” also from Nick of Time, Ex. 3 demonstrates how this snarky little slide move can inject some attitude into your playing.

While playing a song in a major key, Raitt will frequently (and slyly) borrow notes from its parallel minor pentatonic scale, which is built from the same root.

For example, if a song is in the key of G major, she’ll often be inclined to use notes from G minor pentatonic, which is spelled G (the root), Bb (the minor, or “flatted,” 3rd), C (the perfect 4th), D (the perfect 5th) and F (the minor, or “flatted,” 7th).

The “blue” notes here – the b3 and b7 – are her targets, as the three remaining notes are duplicated in the G major scale (G, A, B, C, D, E, F#).

Ex. 4 is reminiscent of Raitt’s playing in “Something to Talk About,” from her 1991 Grammy-winning album, Luck of the Draw.

We’re again in the key of G major here, and, if you look at the music notation, you’ll see how Bb (the b3) and F (the b7) are borrowed from the G minor pentatonic scale. But notice how they’re prevented from coming across too harshly by quickly moving on to diatonic notes from the G major scale right next door (A and E, respectively).

This creates a sound that is as soulful as it is bluesy.

Raitt will take advantage of this approach often, and in such a way as to make it always sound fresh.

Let’s take a quick detour to discuss Raitt’s rhythm guitar style, when she’ll often give her slide a rest. If you’re unfamiliar with her earlier albums, you might be surprised to hear her playing in a more traditional blues style.

Ex. 5 brings to mind “Love Me Like a Man” from her 1972 album, Give It Up.

Played without a slide, and in standard tuning, it offers up a classic fingerstyle blues, played with a triplet, or “shuffle,” feel. Be sure to use your pick-hand thumb on the third beat of bar 3, as indicated.

Raitt is especially masterful when interpreting ballads.

A great example is her cover of John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” from 1974’s Streetlights. In it, she uses both strumming and fingerpicking in the vein of Ex. 6.

The guitarist strums with the tips of her plastic fingerpicks, but if you don’t own a set, you can use the tips of your fingers in much the same way.

Note the use of drop-D tuning here, where the low E string is tuned down one whole step, to D, and a capo at the 2nd fret. Raitt will often alternate between overtly stating a song’s groove and sneakily playing her rhythm parts tucked into the band.

Ex. 7 is reminiscent of “Ain’t Gonna Let You Go” from her 2012 Grammy-winning album, Slipstream, where she lays down a funky blues groove, without using her slide.

In these situations, Raitt will often wear it – on her middle finger, as always – to give her the option to use it if she wants to.

Bonnie most often chooses to perform music by other songwriters and will commonly invest three to four years into sorting through songs in order to find an album’s worth of material to record.

However, she does perform her own songs as well. “Give It Up or Let Me Go,” a song she wrote for her album Give It Up, features her plucking fretted notes, then switching to slide partway through, making its entrance a welcome surprise.

Ex. 8 is inspired by her unaccompanied intro on this track. Raitt loves to let notes ring a tad longer than you think she might.

To accomplish this, she gently coaxes them along with a wide vibrato.

To give this a try, see Ex. 9, which is based on “Love Sneakin’ Up On You” from 1994’s Longing in Their Hearts.

Summon a wide vibrato by quickly wiggling, or “wagging,” your slide back and forth, covering the area between the adjacent frets on either side.

This technique, combined with the use of a compressor pedal, gives the guitarist the sustain she needs to wring everything out of each note, a hallmark of her style.

Bonnie Raitt’s phrasing and touch are what place her among a select group of soulful and expressive guitarists who make you sit up and listen even though it can be confounding to figure out just what makes them sound so good.

There’s a lot going on “behind the scenes” of Raitt’s seemingly effortless approach to music that has enabled her to achieve the Muddy Waters-like longevity she envisioned for herself over 50 years ago.

To her credit, she has consistently done it in her own self-effacing, understated way – all the while making it look “easy.”

Bonnie Raitt has released a third track – “Livin’ For the Ones” – from her new album Just Like That… which is set for release this Friday, April 22.

Accompanied by a touching lyric video, the song was co-written with Raitt’s long-time guitarist George Marinelli and is dedicated to those loved ones who have recently passed away.

“I wanted to say something on this record about what we’ve all been through the last couple of years,” explains Raitt. “Putting powerful emotions into songs like this is the best remedy I know.”

In the wake of the political and social upheaval of the early '20s thus far, Raitt says her new album gave her a purpose.

“I knew that we eventually were going to either get back on the road or I was going to get in the studio,” she told Zane Lowe in a recent Apple Music interview. “It felt healing to have something to focus on.”

Speaking of her new album Raitt goes on to say, “It’s so driven by what I haven’t already said – some fresh musical way that I can put something on a record.

“I know I’ve done those kind of Stones-y rockers before, but I can add some lyrics that you wouldn’t normally hear.”

Raitt’s love for songwriting and astute lyrical expression goes back a long way. 

Born into a musical family she would often watch stage productions such as Carousel, Oklahoma! and The Pajama Game, marvelling at how the performers embodied their characters.

“Between that and the heritage of Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, I was exposed to a tremendous amount of storytelling in music when I was growing up,” said Raitt.

“I appreciated really good writing and really good lyrics, because of the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows that I watched growing up and the Frank Sinatra records that I listened to. What a songbook! What a history lesson in how to write a song!”

Pre-order/pre-save Just Like That... here.

Blues guitar legend Bonnie Raitt has announced Just Like That…, her first new studio album in six years.

Raitt's 18th studio album, Just Like That… was recorded last summer in Sausalito, California with her usual rhythm section of bassist James “Hutch” Hutchinson and drummer Ricky Fataar, plus keyboardist Glenn Patscha and Nashville session guitar ace Kenny Greenberg.

Set for an April 22 release, the album was produced by Raitt herself, and has been announced in tandem with the release of its opening track and lead single, "Made Up Mind," which you can check out below.

With some sharp leads from Greenberg and stunning slide work from Raitt, "Made Up Mind" is a powerful and proud tale of, in Raitt's own words, "A made up mind and a love gone wrong."

Just Like That… is the long-awaited follow-up to Raitt's last studio effort, 2016's Dig In Deep. Though it mostly features Raitt and Greenberg on electric guitar, it also features the former's longtime six-string sideman, George Marinelli, on the song “Livin’ for the Ones.”

“On this record, I wanted to stretch,” Raitt explained in a press release. “I always want to find songs that excite me, and what’s different this time is that I’ve tried some styles and topics I haven’t touched on before.”

You can check out Just Like That…'s cover art and track list below.

To preorder the album, step this way.

Bonnie Raitt – Just Like That...

1. Made Up Mind
2. Something's Got a Hold of My Heart
3. Livin' for the Ones
4. Just Like That
5. When We Say Goodbye
6. Waitin' For You to Blow
7. Blame it On Me
8. Love So Strong
9. Here Comes Love
10. Down The Hall

With their long-awaited new album – Radiate Like This – due to land in May, Warpaint are currently warming up to hit the road again.

It’s been a while. The quartet’s latest long-player follows up 2016’s Heads Up and, like so many other lockdown records, was tracked with band members in separate locations.

“It’s the first time we’ve ever made an album like that,” said founding guitarist and vocalist Emily Kokal. “But in a weird way, it made us take our time with everything. The process felt more meditative, less rushed.”

And while the music world eagerly awaits the release of Warpaint’s most recent studio effort, here Kokal takes time to reminisce about some of her earliest musical memories.

What are some of your earliest memories of music?

My parents had the Police album Ghost in the Machine and I remember “Spirits in the Material World” being one of my favorites. But the first thing I sang along to was the song “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” [from Zenyatta Mondatta.]

My mom says they were some of my first words. [laughs] After a few weeks of hearing it, one day I just started singing along!

Also, she used to sing “Sweet Baby James” by James Taylor to me every night. She would sing five or six songs to me every night and I think that’s a big part of why I became a musician.

What made you want to write songs?

When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I remember listening to the War album by U2, being struck by the seriousness of the lyrics, and asking my mom, “What does it mean, ‘We eat and drink while tomorrow they die?’”

To me, as a kid, it was a powerful image. As was the album cover. I was just so transfixed by it as a child. I was attracted to how much it made me feel a little bit afraid.

That was a turning point. I realized then that music can be rebellious, but also something people can use to help and educate each other.

What was the first song you learned to play?

I come from a pretty musical family and my grandmother had a piano. There were all sorts of books in the bench – stuff like Frank Sinatra and Engelbert Humperdinck – so I learned a little bit about music from that.

As far as guitar goes, my mom had a Beatles book and I learned “I Will.” That was the first time I taught myself guitar chords.

What was your first band, and did you do any covers?

When I was 20, I was in a band called Little Two’s in Eugene, Oregon. And if you listen to the record, I sung a little moment of “Strawberry Fields Forever” on the song “Shabasta.”

The first song that I ever covered properly was “Looking for You” [by Nino Ferrer.] Theresa [Wayman, Warpaint guitarist and vocalist] and I played it together when we were teenagers in high school. That was the first thing we ever did together. We learned it together, played the same chords and sang in harmony.

Which of your songs would you play to someone who’s never heard your music before?

“Burgundy.” I think it’s one of the most live-sounding recordings we have. The vocal was recorded at the same time as the music. I think it lands close to our vibe.

Is there an electric guitar solo you’d hold up as one of the best there is?

“Maggot Brain.” George Clinton told [Eddie Hazel] to think of the saddest thing he could – that his mother had died. I get emotional even thinking about it. It’s so powerful. It has such a primal voice.

Is there a riff you wish you’d written?

“1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)” by Jimi Hendrix. I didn’t know he wrote riffs like that. I always thought Hendrix was cool, but when I heard that song it instantly became my favorite.

Is there a song that reminds you of home when you’re out on the road?

My mom is a huge fan of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Jackson Browne so I grew up with a lot of really emotional, heavy folk music, and the Bonnie Raitt cover of Joni Mitchell’s “That Song About the Midway” gets me every time. I can’t even remember a time in my life without that song. 

Bonnie Raitt nailed it in a bluesy fashion. It’s beautiful. I have a soft spot for the musical sincerity of that time. I miss the sincerity of that era, but I think it’s coming round again. It’ll be less cool to be cool as the political climate gets a little bit darker.

Have you got any songwriting tips?

To any aspiring songwriters, I would recommend trying to have your lyrics ready as soon as possible because once you have the melody it can be really hard to go back and try to plug in phonetically. Try to come with your purpose right away.

I often write in rhyme naturally, so that happens almost of its own accord. But I think trying to come in with an emotion later is tricky. I personally try to capture the feeling of the lyrical content, but I have made things very difficult for myself in the past trying to figure out lyrics later. I can change a melody easily if the lyrics are already there.

Are there any Warpaint songs you had to really fight to get finished?

“New Song” nearly didn’t make it. It was one of the last songs to be included [on Heads Up.]

Jen [Lee Lindberg, Warpaint bassist] gave me her demo which was mostly the whole song, and I was trying to work things out lyrically, but I got a little intimidated by it. I changed it a lot and I kind of gave up on it. But then I played it to Jake [Bercovici] our producer and he was like, ‘Are you kidding me? This song is done!’

Ultimately, I like to feel the least amount of resistance when it comes to writing music. Otherwise, I feel like I’m getting in my own way. I just want to be a conduit for whatever’s coming through me.

Pre-order the new Warpaint album Radiate Like This here.

Jackson Browne is wandering the backstage caverns of San Francisco's Cow Palace looking a bit worried. "Where's Lindley?" he asks his road manager. "We're onstage in 15 minutes!"

A door at the end of the hallway is seeming blasted open by a torrent of beefy sustained lap steel licks. Inside, Lindley is squatting precariously, his Hawaiian guitar balanced on his knees. Crunching chords and crystal-clear single notes are pouring out of a crude-looking amplifier about a foot in front of his face.

"I want this one, Howard," David says to a large man who is smiling like a proud father. "Not this model, not one like this, but this one, OK?"

"It's just a prototype." Howard Dumble points out.

"Fine," nods Lindley. "I'll take it."

David Lindley, of course is notorious for using a vast array of exotic guitars from an instrument collection that number well over 100. But on the road, he uses only one brand of amplifier, a fact that makes Howard Dumble understandably proud.

As Lindley told Guitar Player in a July '77 interview, "I've got a lot of little amps, but on the road, I always use Dumble amps because they never break down. We went about getting the sound in those amps by taking an old Fender Deluxe to Howard Dumble and saying, 'We want this, but bigger and louder.' And Howard got the closest of anybody I've heard."

Howard Dumble grew up in Bakersfield, California, and began building transistor radios from scratch at age 12. He took up guitar at 16 (he later did his fair share of studio dates in Hollywood, which included working with songwriter Jim Webb), and in 1965 built a series of amplifiers for Mosrite that were used by the Ventures.

An extensive tour backing Buffy Sainte-Marie financed Dumble's first "out of the backyard and into a building" amp shop in 1968, in Santa Cruz, California. The following year, Dumble came out with his Explosion model amplifier (his original prototype still works), which later evolved into the Overdrive Special.

As well as the Big Tex reverb unit his line of amplifiers currently includes seven basic models: the Overdrive, the Steel-String Singer, the Winterland and the Dumbleland for bass and electric guitar, the rack-mount Phoenix, a no-frills 50-watt Dumbleman, and the Dumblelator.

From the beginning, he has remained a one-man operation, personally building every one of his amplifiers by hand.

In spite of their steep price tags – a standard 100-watt Overdrive head sells for $1,925; the Steel-String Singer and Dumbleland each go for $5,000 before options ­– Dumbles are always in demand, and Howard has his hands full keeping up with orders.

Besides Lindley and Browne, the impressive roster of Dumble users includes Larry Carlton, Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jay Graydon, Ry Cooder, Tom Verlaine, Eric Johnson, Steve Lukather, Robben Ford, Dean Parks, Carlos Rios, The Beach Boys, Christopher Cross, Tiran Porter, Jimmy Haslip, Jerry Miller, Thom Rhotella, Randy California, Terry Haggerty, Rick Vito, Kenny Loggins, and many others.

In discussing what's so special about his amplifiers, Dumble uses aesthetic more than technical terms. "That's the bottom line," he stresses. "It's the emotional influence that's really important; technology is secondary – it's just a vehicle. The idea is to have lots of fun."

Improvisational specialist Henry Kaiser elaborates on what sets the Dumble apart from the rest of the amp crowd: "Number one, you could drop the thing out of a four-story building, replace any tubes that break, and it'll work fine. It does appear to be the most durably built amp possible.

“Number two, it seems to me that Howard, through a long intuitive working process, tunes the amps and designs by ear so that they're very sophisticated machines for producing a wide variety of tones and distortion colorations. Because of my specific avant-garde bent, I'm really interested in tone and timbre, and I need to have a really wide palette of tonal color available to me, and I've got about four times as many colors available on the Dumble. Any other amp sounds awful to me. I feel terrible if I play anything else – except for a Fender Champ."

In an August '77 Guitar Player feature, the late Lowell George of Little Feat was more succinct. "It's like a Fender made right," he said of his Dumble. "It's the best amp I've ever played through."

Your amps have a reputation for almost never breaking down. How do you build them with such durability?

Those are absolute guarded secrets. In fact, if you take the amplifier apart, you can't detect how I do it. I definitely have secrets that make the amp perform and last the way it does. With most companies, it's just a misapplication of technology. You don't have to destroy the product – you don't have to get a Variac and turn it up to 170 volts – to get good results. An extreme amount of attention is paid to every connection. Plus, I found which parts last and which ones don't.

What made you gravitate towards electronics in the first place?

I loved music, for one thing. Music's always been a passion. I used to listen to Les Paul and Mary Ford as a kid. Also, I come from an engineering family; my father developed one of the first automatic transmissions.

It wasn't hard to absorb the technology; it was just there to do. I also saw that I could make some bucks at it. I started making small pocket radios from scratch for the kids in school for $5 a pop. I was doing real well until one day everybody had one, and there were enough radios in the class that you could hear the local rock station at a small din through all the earpieces. So, the teacher finally busted me.

What inspired you to first build an amp?

I was a junior in high school, and this guy named Jack Smith came over and wanted me to build a piece of equipment for the junior baseball association. He said that he had access to a "mountain of parts" – I said okay!

We went down to this big warehouse, and there were heaps of parts, so we gleaned as many as we could – all free. We built this huge 200-watt power amplifier so they could announce to nine baseball diamonds.

As I understand it, it still works today. Then, Jack and I made some Dual showman-type amps, although we couldn't get Fender transformers – they were very tight about what they'd send you – so we used David Hafler transformers, which made the amp sound quite extraordinary.

Prior to building your own amps, had you taken apart other amps such as Fenders and Gibsons?

I can draw some of the those schematics from memory [laughs]. Of course, I had to absorb other approaches. In fact, my old Fender mods I did in the late '60s were exactly the same as the schematics a lot of the later high-gain amplifiers used.

How did you come to make amps for the Ventures?

I was an 18-year-old kid in school in Bakersfield, and I went to see Semie Moseley, who was the only person I had access to there. I walked in and just bold-faced said, "I've got something that sounds like nothing else. You better hear it." And it flipped him out; he said, "This is the best thing I've ever heard."

He offered to go in with me to build 10 amplifiers. He bought the parts and paid me $90 a week – for about four weeks, and then I had to work for free. But I still got to build 10 amplifiers on a production basis when I was only a kid. They were called Mosrite amps, but they were my design. Actually, I built 11, so I still have the original one I built.

The Ventures played through them and were really interested, but it was a little too much rock for them. They wanted me to go into business with them, but I decided against it, and went back to playing in studios and in rock bands.

Did your early amps have certain qualities lacking in commercially available amps of that period?

Yes, I definitely made sure they had more frequency bandwidth. One thing I noticed about the early guitar amps was that they were real limited, especially in the lower end. But you have to be careful to make sure you still keep the proper midrange and treble response. I found that out early on.

You can't build a hi-fi circuit and expect it to be a good guitar amp – it just doesn't work out. You need a whole different response curve. But I did notice that if I put a little more low end into the preamp circuitry, it was much more tasteful and fun to play.

Once you got started, did a Dumble philosophy evolve?

I try to be flexible. I've always been aware that whatever I make has to be crafted with the best intentions. Never have anything shoddy. Always make sure that it works and looks perfect. The actual techniques I use to get the sound that I go after have evolved extensively. It's a growing process. That's the toughest thing about staying with one thing. You're always thinking of new ways to do it. Basically, I've kept the Overdrive the same but the other models are open to flexibility.

What changes did the Explosion undergo before it became the Overdrive Special?

The active circuitry changed quite a bit, and the tone circuitry did also. But the concept of processing the signal post preamp stayed the same. Most other high-gain amplifiers use a pre-preamp gain boost, but I broke away from that quite early in the late '60s. I found that trying to build the signal up before the preamp had a tendency to really overload the preamp, and you got nonharmonic tones and a very unmusical end result.

Plus, you ran into a lot of vacuum-tube problems with harmonics. So, what I wanted to do was get all that wonderful oomph and beautiful sustain and harmonic richness without the electronic troubles.

Were you making what was to become the Overdrive before you made the Steel-String Singer?

The Steel-String Singer came later, but I actually started making a series of amplifiers called the Dumbleland in about '66, and I still make them. That was the forerunner of the Steel-String Singer. I didn't change a whole lot about that; it was a design way ahead of its time. It was too much power and too silky clean for people. It's perfect for Stevie Ray, though. He has a hard time playing an Overdrive.

Why is the Overdrive so sensitive?

It's a different kind of signal handling. In the Overdrive, I approach gain levels that are extremely intense; within the linear region, I have a signal gain capability of one million. So if you stuck 10 microvolts in, you'd get 10 volts back. And I do it with stability, and it's still very musical.

The best way to approach an Overdrive is real slow. Walk up to it, look at the knobs, have it turned down real low, and then get a feeling for it. Learn what to do with your fingers to make it respond well. If you walk right up to it, it has a tendency to absolutely frighten some people.

The secret control on the Overdrive's panel section is the ratio control, which controls how much overdrive is fed back into the circuit. If you turn that up, it's Rock City.

How different is the Overdrive Special you customized for David Lindley from a standard model?

I might have changed the value of a capacitor to some extent, so that it has a different treble response, but the circuitry is basically the same.

Lindley says that for certain sounds he's looking for, you sometimes borrow his guitar and Dumble for the weekend to match the amp to the guitar?

That's true. The amplifier responds so differently to each guitar that to get some effects, I need to use the player's guitars, instead of my own. That's one of the great things about the amplifier; it doesn't modify any guitar into any one sound or homogenize it. It expands whatever you start with.

The amplifier is a real important part of the sound regeneration system, but it needs to be very responsive to whatever the guitar is delivering. The philosophy I try to keep in the amplifier is that whatever you can hear in your head, this will help you get it.

Stevie Ray Vaughan calls his Steel-String Singer the "King Tone Consoul."

There are some different things about Stevie's. His is set up more like a bass amp, modified to accommodate the guitar range. It's not the usual lead guitar "Singer" approach. One thing he liked was that he could turn the volume control all the way up and it didn't distort – it just got louder.

He does make it distort sometimes because he has about 50 megatons of pressure when he attacks the strings [laughs]. He gets an incredible amount of signal out of his guitar, and most amplifiers can't take it. He did his first album with a bass amp I'd made for Jackson Browne.

Some players describe Dumbles as different, more powerful, more durable more efficient versions of a Fender Deluxe

That's a good way to describe it – in a limited fashion. There are some great qualities to a small Deluxe. You get a great harmonic structure at a small acoustic volume. It's real pleasing, especially when you're playing by yourself. But that sound is not convertible into a group ambience – it's gone.

So, in the respect that I try to get something comfortable and very musical, only in a bigger fashion, that's a good analogy. But the circuitry is not even close. I use vacuum tubes, and transformers and knobs, but the similarity stops there. To get the result I want, I have to use unique circuitry. It's my tone circuits and coupling circuits and the way I process phase-inversion.

Can you "Dumble-ize" a Fender amp to the point that it shares the Dumble philosophy and sound, or would it be a compromise?

It's a compromise. The actual physical construction of the Fender limits what can be done. In fact, after the last Steel-String Singer mod I did to David Lindley's amps, he no longer uses the Fender Bassman I Dumbleized for him. He wanted this luscious transparency and response – like floating in white clouds – and I came up with special circuitry.

I can use a Fender chassis, but you have to rip everything off of it, fill in all the holes, and re-drill it. They're just a little bit too squashed. A distance of half a centimeter makes a big difference in the way something sounds. It's a science involved with what's called circuit constants.

Instead of a single bright/deep switch, most of your amps have separate bright and deep switches. Can you use both at the same time?

Oh, you bet. It gets luscious low notes that you could float on and beautiful, crystalline highs that are silky as glass.

How many watts are the various models?

The overdrives are 100 watts, but they're switchable down to 50, and I do make a special 150-watt Overdrive, which is a lot of fun. The range in power goes from a 25-watt recording amp called the Hotel Hog up to the 450-watt Winterland, named after the concert hall in San Francisco.

Could there be an ultimate amp for you, or are the Overdrive and Steel-String Singer too distinctive to be combined?

Well, the Phoenix series is where I've done that – so you can combine things – because it's a rack-mounted affair. You can buy all the separate preamps, with or without overdrive, and a choice of 50-, 100-, or 150-watt power amplifiers, and hook them together. The overdrive section is expanded – instead of two overdrive controls, you have four.

After experimenting with various speakers, what do you favor?

I've gone with everything. There are a lot of things I still like. The most versatile is the EV. But all manufacturers, including Altec and JBL, make wonderful speakers that do specific jobs other speakers can't do. I divide speakers into two classifications: the efficient and the low-efficient. Both are very useable.

Low efficiency speakers are things like Celestion and Jenson and PAS. Usually because of the physical construction, they don't get the same acoustic level per watt as the Altecs, JBLs, and EVs do. There's an advantage to that, because you can make the amplifier work harder to get the same acoustic level, and a whole different kind of harmonic structure results.

I love the sound of JBLs, especially for chords, but I had a lot of trouble with 4" voice coil not traveling in a linear fashion. The actual coil would short out against the magnet structure. The Altecs didn't do that, so I was using them up until '79, when EV started coming out the the EVM series.

How does your philosophy on speaker enclosures contrast with other companies?

I think mine's different. I just don't believe in a baffle board with a couple of sides. Everything is designed to respond tonally. Even my open-back enclosures use air to the optimum. It's an ongoing process; I'm still finding out things that are useful.

There's a definite technique to developing enclosures. Instead of increasing the output all from the front by feeding more watts in, I designed a special series of open-back enclosures so that there's actually an air pole inversion process – I make the air respond in an in-phase relationship, both in front and in the rear of the enclosure. So, from the same amount of speakers, it's almost a doubling of sound.

Does that change the tonal quality?

Yes. The low end is absolutely luscious. You feel like you're floating on a football field filled with marshmallows. And it gives a singe to the midrange that puts solos right out there. It works great for chords and solos, but especially well for slide. It's the kind of enclosure that Lindley and Lowell George used.

Is there a single emotional aim you're shooting for, or many?

It's a whole panorama. I don't believe in being confined. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands or millions, of valid guitar tones. When the air becomes electric, that's the right sound, no matter what the one is. It's that sound exciting the senses.

Deborah Coleman was a great blues guitar player. She was well known in the blues world but had a rock background, which gave her playing a distinct edge. Coleman was as at home playing Billie Holiday as she was Jimi Hendrix, and she was known to stretch out her live show into extensive and expressive jams, where one song might last 40 minutes.

The blues world felt a great loss when she passed away suddenly in 2018 from complications due to pneumonia. GP spoke to the award-winning guitarist back in 2008 following a tour in support of the collaborative Sue Foley, Deborah Coleman, and Roxanne Potvin album Time Bomb.

How did you start playing professionally?

On weekends I would go to blues jam sessions, and that’s when I started meeting a lot of traveling musicians coming through town. Kenny Neal was one of the first I met. I remember the first question I asked him. I said, “How much money do you make in blues?” And he gave me this unbelievable figure. He told me, “I make, like, a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.” I said, “Oh really?” I thought that sounded pretty good!

When you started out, was anyone surprised to see you playing leads?

Dickey Betts for one. Dickey was like, “Finally, a girl that plays!” I met him in Sarasota, Florida, one year doing a festival with Steven Segal. I’ve worked with some really great people in my band, too, and everybody was great in their own right. To make it out on the road with a group of guys, you almost have to be one of them. You gotta act cool and learn how to talk football and baseball.

Do you still listen to rock and roll?

If I do, it’s the old stuff. I’ll still go listen to Led Zeppelin, the Beatles or Joe Satriani. My favorite rock and roll guitar player is Eddie Van Halen. That guy had feeling! He just had so many unique ideas, and he took things in a different direction.

Tell me some of your career highlights.

I’ve been blessed with a lot of great opportunities. I won the Orville Gibson Award [for Best Blues Guitarist, Female] in 2001, and I’ve had about eight or nine W. C. Handy Blues Music Award nominations.

But really, the best thing has been getting to perform with some of the musicians that I never thought I’d have a chance to play with, like Bonnie Raitt. I also got to play with Paul Rodgers. We were at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gig and he needed a guitar player that could play the song “All Right Now.” Somebody told him, “Deborah plays rock and roll,” so he called me. I went over to his hotel room and learned the song, and I got to play it onstage with him.

One of the best highlights of my career was playing B.B. King’s 80th birthday [in 2005]. I was surprised to even be on the stage, and I was the only girl up there. I’m up there with B.B. and Bobby Bland, Bruce Willis, Montel Williams – some of the most famous people and notable musicians in the world. I remember, Montel looked at B.B. while we were playing. He pointed at me and said, “Give the girl a round!” So B.B. let me play a solo, and then he actually said my name after. I was the only performer whose name he announced.

Recorded in 1974, this incredible episode of the live concert television series Soundstage titled "Bonnie Raitt & Friends" also stars Buddy Guy and legendary blues singer/harmonica player Junior Wells.

“It’s real nice to be here in Chicago – the home of some of the finest blues in the world,” says Bonnie Raitt, addressing the WTTW Studios audience while the city’s premier blues guitarist prepares. “I’d like to give you the pleasure of hearing some of my fine friends and some of the finest blues musicians I know of (I’ve known since I was only 19 years old – and I had ways like a baby child!) My friends, the Buddy Guy and Junior Wells Blues Band!”

From the first notes Guy pulls out of his cherry finish semi-hollowbody the question in many a guitarist’s mind is: ‘That’s not a Gibson… What guitar is that?!’ And after hearing Guy’s sublime overdriven tones and learning that it is in fact a Guild Starfire IV, many have asked “Where can I get one?”

Though Guy is perhaps more widely known for playing a Fender Stratocaster, his endorsement deal with Guild in the ‘70s saw him appearing in advertisements and on stage with this often overlooked and highly underrated electric guitar.

Founded in New York in the early ‘50s and staffed by ex-Epiphone employees (following the company's relocation to Philadelphia) Guild launched the Starfire IV in 1963. 

Sporting dual humbuckers with independent volume and tone knobs this double-cutaway thinline bears obvious similarities to the Gibson ES-335 released earlier in 1958.

While original examples can be found on the vintage market Guild currently price their Starfire IV at $1,600.

Later on in the show, Raitt takes to the stage to perform – her matchless voice complimented by a Gibson ES-175N. Costing $175 with a sunburst finish upon its release in 1949, this classic Florentine/sharp cutaway hollowbody electric archtop was a Gibson first.

Played by jazz greats such as Wes Montgomery and Pat Metheny, as well as rock guitarists like Steve Howe and Izzy Stradlin, the versatile 175 ultimately proved to be one of Gibson’s most enduring designs and was also available with dual pickups as the ES-175D (released in 1953).

The guitar Raitt is using in this film is a blond, single ‘dogear’ P-90 pickup ES-175N (‘N’ stands for Natural finish). With its cleaner, more rounded tone the sound is towards the other end of the spectrum compared to Guy’s hot, biting humbucker crunch. Yet both remain about the finest examples of blues guitar tone you could hope to hear.

Bonnie Raitt’s eponymous debut album is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Get a copy of this incredible landmark recording here.

B.B. King called her the “best damn slide player working today.” Indeed, with a glass slide on the second finger of her left hand, Bonnie Raitt coaxes a voice from her Fender Stratocaster as tough, sensuous and expressive as her own. Here are five reasons she remains a blues guitar legend…

1. Philadelphia

Her decades-long career almost didn’t happen. Born in Burbank, California, in 1949, to the Broadway musical star John Raitt and pianist Marjorie Haydock, Raitt began playing guitar at a young age before attending Radcliffe College and majoring in Social Relations and African studies.

While there, she got friendly with blues promoter Dick Waterman and moved with him and other musicians to Philadelphia. “It was an opportunity that young white girls just don’t get,” she said, “and as it turns out, an opportunity that changed everything.”

2. “Runaway”

Raitt was opening for “Mississippi” Fred McDowell at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village in 1970, when a reporter from Newsweek caught her performance and began to spread the word about her. Soon after, she signed with Warner Bros. and released her self-titled debut.

Raitt’s record sales were modest, but in 1977 she had her commercial breakthrough with a bluesy remake of Del Shannon’s 1961 hit, “Runaway.” The song raised her profile, and in 1980, she appeared as herself in the film Urban Cowboy, singing “Don’t It Make Ya Wanna Dance.”

3. Perseverance

The 1980s proved tough, as Warner dropped Raitt and she battled substance abuse. In 1988, she met producer Don Was while recording a track for the Disney tribute album Stay Awake, and the two subsequently worked on her 10th album, 1989’s Nick of Time. Featuring the singles “Nick of Time,” a cover of John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” and “Have a Heart,” the record went to the top of the charts and swept the Grammys.

Raitt’s streak rolled along with Luck of the Draw, Longing in Their Hearts and the live Road Tested, and she turned in a Grammy-winning performance of “I’m in the Mood” with John Lee Hooker on his album The Healer. Her career has continued to thrive ever since, with her last five studio albums reaching into the Billboard Top 20, and 2012’s Slipstream debuting at the top of the Rock and Blues Albums charts.

4. Political Activism

A politically active artist, Raitt advocates against the use of nuclear energy and is a founding member of Musicians United for Safe Energy. In 1979, she organized five concerts for MUSE at Madison Square Garden, featuring Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and many others, resulting in the album and film No Nukes. Raitt has also financed headstones for the graves of several blues legends, including Fred McDowell and Memphis Minnie.

5. Accolades

In March 2000, Raitt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2002 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As the blues’ premier female guitarist, she continues to enthrall and inspire.

Playing blues guitar is as much about attitude as it is technique. If you’re suffering in either department, put some power back into your playing with this advice from electric guitar blues heroes of the past and present.

Stevie Ray Vaughan

“Your sound is in your hands as much as anything. It’s the way you pick and the way you hold the guitar, more than it is the amp or the guitar you use.”

Roy Buchanan

“Use circle picking to play faster. Start by playing with your pick at an angle. Hit the string with one edge of the pick and you’ll find that you’re in position to come back on the upstroke with the opposite edge. Then, alternate pick with a rotating motion in either a clockwise or counterclockwise circle. The pick, while not changing its angle in relation to the string, is circling that area of the string. It’s not done with the wrist, but with the fingers holding the pick.”

Bonnie Raitt

“Incorporate the feel of what someone plays into your style, rather than the actual notes. You just want to nail the emotion of how an artist’s singing and playing is making you feel, and how those feelings transform your own playing.”

Jack White

“If you want to keep things raw, try limiting yourself to only two guitars on a track.”

Rory Gallagher

“You must perform for an audience, because the real crunch happens when you get in front of people. You may discover that some things you played in rehearsal don’t make any sense because you fooled around too much with the frilly stuff and forgot the basic drive of the song. Playing live also teaches you to deal with situations like dropping your pick or breaking a string – as well as forcing you to project.”

Eric Johnson

“Remind yourself that you’re free to feel great instead of reserved or insecure. When you’re feeling good, you’re more apt to take chances onstage, and if you make a bunch of mistakes, it won’t matter. It’s almost like you’re the instrument, and the music is flowing through you like electricity.”

Ry Cooder

“Play a new thing every day. Learning one new passing chord, or a note combination, will get you moving towards something that will serve you later on. Someday, a song will come along that all of those things will relate to.”

Hubert Sumlin

“Take a note from me, put it with your own notes, and make it you.”

John Lee Hooker

“Forget about the fancy chords and just concentrate on a funky beat.”

Jeff Beck

“Overindulgence in anything is wrong – whether it’s practicing 50 hours a day or eating too much food. I’ve tried to keep it so that I’m able to execute the ideas that come out, but practicing too much depresses me. I get good speed, but then I start playing nonsense because I’m not thinking. A good layoff makes me think a lot. It helps me get both things together – the creativity and the speed.”