Brian Setzer says he destroyed his beloved 1959 Gretsch 6120 once after a favorite stage stunt went disastrously wrong during a show in Japan.

Setzer and the vintage electric guitar had been inseparable since he bought it as a teenager. But during a concert in Tokyo, he recalls that a crowd-pleasing move he’d performed countless times finally backfired.

“I used to throw the guitar up, way as high as I could, and I would go ‘Wham!’ and snatch it out of the air, and start playing it again,” he says in an interview posted to his YouTube channel.

The crowd loved it, and Setzer loved doing it. So he repeated the stunt night after night — until it finally went wrong.

“I lost it in the lights,” he explains. “I couldn’t see it. It disappeared, and then all of a sudden, down it comes.”

Instinctively, he threw out his hands to catch the falling Gretsch. It was too late.

“I missed it. And it made this god-awful sound, like, ‘How could you do this to me?!’

“The neck flew into the audience, and I had the body in my hand, thinking, Oh my God, I ruined my guitar!”

Fortunately for Setzer, the accident happened in Japan, where respect and politeness are deeply ingrained cultural values.

“Some guy brought me the neck back,” he says. “Anywhere else, it would have been stolen.”

Renowned luthier and pickup designer Tom Jones eventually repaired the guitar, although Setzer says it wasn’t quite the same afterward.

“It didn’t play right for a couple of years. It just didn’t have it.”

Then, just as mysteriously as it had lost its magic, the guitar recovered.

“All of a sudden it started to play right again,” he says. “I don’t know why!”

It should be noted that his guitar tech, Tyler Sweet, tells the story differently. In a “Rig Rundown” with Premier Guitar, he says the Gretsch was damaged in a handoff to Setzer's former stage tech and that the guitarist threw the damaged neck into the audience, forcing his crew to retrieve it.

No matter how the episode went down, the loss of the Gretsch would have been especially painful given how long it had been part of Setzer’s life.

“I was 17 years old and found it in this local paper, The Byline Press,” he told Guitar Player in 2019. “It said, ‘Gretsch guitar, 100 bucks.’ I called the guy up and asked, ‘Is it like Eddie Cochran’s?’ He was like, ‘Who?’

“So I went to his house, and there was the guitar, the 1959 orange 6120. It was exactly what I was looking for. He was going to refinish it and make it natural. He had all of the electronics for it in a shoe box. I gave him 100 bucks, took the guitar and the shoe box, and off I went. It was destiny.”

The 6120 became his main guitar as the Stray Cats sparked a rockabilly revival on both sides of the Atlantic.

By then, Setzer had customized the instrument with a sticker depicting a 1950s pinup girl sitting on a vinyl record and replaced the original knobs with a pair of dice taken from a Monopoly board game.

“The stickers and the dice became trademarks,” he says, “but I put them on without much thought. I found the pinup girls in an old lawnmower repair shop. And I put the dice on because it didn’t have any knobs. I just got a set of Monopoly dice, drilled holes in them, and squirted in some Krazy Glue.”

The only meaningful modification the guitar received, he says, was the addition of Sperzel locking tuners. The stock Filter’Tron pickups and most of the original hardware remained untouched.

Setzer eventually retired the guitar. “It had beer spilled on it and smoke blown all over it,” he says. Besides, he already had a worthy replacement waiting in the wings.

“In about 1984, I ran into Steve Miller in a bar in Germany,” he recalls. “We talked about Gretsches and how mine was getting trashed. When I got back to New York, there was a big box waiting for me, and, to my delighted surprise, it was a 6120 from Steve Miller. And not just a 6120 but a great one!”

Setzer's original 6120 would ultimately become the basis for a Gretsch tribute model. But more importantly, it’s the guitar that launched him on a career that continues as the Stray Cats undertake their current tour — their first since his recovery from an autoimmune disorder and an inadvertent dependency issue.

Despite everything that happened to it, the original 1959 Gretsch survived, and more than six decades after Setzer bought it for $100, it remains one of the most famous rockabilly guitars ever played

It’s been a rough couple of years for Brian Setzer. But after canceling a Stray Cats tour last year due to medical reasons, he’s ready to rock the 18 towns the trio — including drummer Slim Jim Phantom and bassist Lee Rocker — will start playing at the end of July.

“I’m feeling really good, I have to tell ya,” Setzer tells Guitar Player from his home in Minnesota. “I wouldn’t book a tour if I couldn’t say I’m 100 percent. I would’ve taken more time if I had to.

“Honestly, the best thing for me now is just to hear that sound of that guitar and look over to see Slim Jim rockin’ on one side of me and look over and see Lee on the other side.

“We’re the only ones that play this type of music, really, besides the local bands that play around,” he continues. “There’s a lot of them.

”But when I hear that Gretsch guitar through that Fender Custom amp — that sound! And when I feel the vibration of the Gretsch, it’s the best feeling in the world. I need to feel that every night. When I don’t get that, I’m chasing it with other things.”

The electric guitar maestro did, in fact, get hit with a health double-whammy last year.

During early 2025, he revealed that he was battling a debilitating autoimmune disease that led to intensive treatments at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

“The best way I can describe it is, your nerves are like wires, and wires have sheathing on them,” Setzer explains. “Well, that’s coating has kind of eroded, so the wires malfunction. Basically, they lock up my hands and feet. I can’t move them. I can’t button my pants, let alone play guitar.

“It’s frustrating when you sit down and your hands do nothing. You really can’t take it for granted. Playing guitar is certainly on top, but so is holding a toothbrush, y’know?”

Being at Mayo did give Setzer some perspective. “I’m lying in there and some guy next to me has got cancer,” he notes. After about a year of treatment, his acumen began to return.

“I was able to hold a guitar pick. That came first,” he recalls. “It was, ‘All right, I’m more than halfway there.’ And then when I was able to fingerpick, when my fingers came back, then I had the whole package.”

But Setzer’s return was further delayed by an unintended dependence on Kratom, an over-the-counter herbal wellness tonic that’s been deemed “unsafe and ineffective” by Mayo, and a controlled substance in several states and the District of Columbia.

“It started innocently enough,” says Setzer, who went to the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation clinic, also in Minnesota, for recovery. “They advertise it as a safe tonic to give you energy, and it’s not. So that just aggravated the whole thing. I just stopped everything and went away and cleaned out and came back fresh and clean.

“I had to go get everything out of my system, really. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about; if anyone has a problem you go and they take care of you. And thank God you can come back.”

While there’s no guarantee the autoimmune issue won’t return, Setzer is confident that he and the band are in full-speed-ahead mode right now and predicting additional tours in the future. He’s locked and loaded with his Gretsch G6120s.

He also still uses the early ’60s Fender Bassman amp with original Oxford speakers that he put in to replace the reissue series speakers.

“The only difference now is I turn the cabinet around, because the amp is too damn loud,” says Setzer, who along with his fellow Stray Cats uses in-ear monitors, primarily to hear his vocals. “I want the band to be all the same volume. I don’t want to blast away a standup bass, which is inherently an acoustic instrument. Turning it around does the trick.”

The Stray Cats are also coming back with two new recordings from last fall — a rendition of “Stampede,” a circa 1959 surf instrumental by the Scarlets, for which Setzer wrote lyrics and a fuller arrangement, and a cover of Eddie Cochran’s “Teenage Heaven.”

“‘Stampede’ had a great guitar riff — that’s the trick, is finding an original guitar riff,” Setzer explains. “I said to myself, ‘This is a great one. If I could turn this into a song, it would be really fun with the Stray Cats.’”

Setzer, who recorded his parts at Terrarium studio in Minneapolis, adds that “When I record songs like that, I always want to make sure I can play them. I don’t layer on a bunch of guitars and put things on that wouldn’t let me replicate that live.”

As for more new material — Stray Cats or his own — Setzer says, “I don’t have anything else written at the moment. But when it does happen it’s really nice; I can just run down the block here [to Terrarium] with my buddy Jason [Orris] and knock ’em out. It’s really fun making records that way.

“What’s in the pipeline for me now is to play, that’s all. I’m just glad I can play and so many places are waiting for us and people want to see us — which I don’t take for granted.”

The Stray Cats’ upcoming tour itinerary includes:
Friday, July 24, Las Vegas, NV, The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan
Saturday, July 25, Phoenix, AZ, Celebrity Theatre
Sunday, July 26, Del Mar, CA, The Sound
Tuesday and Wednesday, July 28–29, Highland, CA, Yaamava’ Theater
Friday, July 31, Santa Rosa, CA, Luther Burbank Center for the Arts
Saturday, August 1, Saratoga, CA, The Mountain Winery
Sunday, August 2, Wheatland, CA, Hard Rock Live
Tuesday, August 4, Sandy, UT, Sandy Amphitheater
Wednesday, August 5, Colorado Springs, CO, Pikes Peak Center
Friday, August 7, Tulsa, OK, River Spirit Casino Resort
Saturday, August 8, Kansas City, MO, Uptown Theater
Monday, August 10, Huber Heights, OH, Rose Music Center at The Heights
Tuesday, August 11, Interlochen, MI, Interlochen Center for the Arts
Wednesday, August 12, Northfield, OH, MGM Northfield Park
Friday, August 14, Westbury, NY, Flagstar at Westbury Music Fair
Saturday, August 15, Atlantic City, NJ, Ocean Casino Resort
Sunday, August 16, Morristown, NJ, Mayo Performing Arts Center

It’s been 45 years since Stray Cats released their first two albums — Stray Cats in February 1981 (featuring “Runaway Boys,” “Rock This Town” and “Stray Cat Strut”) and its follow-up, Gonna Ball, in November. Both were recorded in England while the band was living there, the former co-produced by Dave Edmunds with singer-guitarist Brian Setzer.

At the time, Stray Cats were the toast of the British music world, lauded by the likes of Led Zeppelin, the Who and the Rolling Stones, which had the rockabilly trio open their shows during the band’s 1981 American tour. Setzer, not surprisingly, remembers that embrace fondly.

“All the great British bands that all the Americans admired loved the Stray Cats and totally understood what we were doing,” Setzer tells us via phone from his home in Minnesota. “Where the American bands were all trying to be English bands, the English bands looked at us like, ‘This is the real thing.’

“They really embraced rockabilly and knew what it was. They had lived through the whole Teddy Boy thing. They knew Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. Their influences were Scotty Moore and Cliff Gallup.

“So when we came over there and hit the airwaves and hit the television, they really rolled out the red carpet for us. It was an amazing experience.”

Among his “million stories” from that time, Setzer recalls that the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards rolled out a red carpet at his home one day for a memorable session.

“He invited me over, and he had about four or five Les Paul Customs lying on the floor, with the Elvis Presley Sun Sessions playing. I picked up a guitar and I went, ‘Oh, he must’ve broken a string. It’s only got five strings.’ I picked up another one, same thing. I said, ‘Keith, your guitars only have five strings!’

“He explained to me his tuning and how he played. I said, ‘I can’t play these things.’ Luckily I brought my guitar with me, and I think we started just jamming on The Sun Sessions — ‘Baby Let’s Play House,’ ‘That’s All Right (Mama)’…”

Setzer, of course, was and remains a Gretsch man. He’ll have his three main G6120s electrics with him on Stray Cats’ upcoming summer tour, which starts July 24 in Las Vegas. The trek finds him back in good health after having to cancel a planned run last year while overcoming an incapacitating autoimmune disease and an equally debilitating addiction to the over-the-counter drink Kratom.

But he tells us that he’s had some surprising experiences on the Gibson front recently, after acquiring a 1960-vintage Les Paul Sunburst and a 1959 Flying V.

“I did it because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It was definitely a good choice,” says Setzer, who was more enamored with one than the other.

“The Les Paul is an incredibly constructed guitar. I get it,” he reports. “It plays in tune all the way up, all the way down. The pickups definitely have their own characteristics, a very unique sound. At the end of the day it’s not my sound, but I totally get it. They’re beautifully made, and they play beautifully.”

The Flying V was more to his liking, however.

“Check this out: I recorded myself just playing live in the studio, playing the Flying V on some tracks and the Gretsch on others. Do you know, I couldn’t tell the difference — which tells me the Flying V is a very twangy-sounding Gibson guitar, not like a Les Paul at all, even though it has the humbucking pickups and that very unique sound.

“I suppose it had a bit more sustain with those big humbuckers, but it’s so close [to the Gretsch], going through the chorus echo. I suppose if you took off the echo you could differentiate it a little more, but not much. They’re totally unique guitars, very different sounding than a Les Paul.”

Don’t expect to see the Flying V at any Stray Cats shows. But Setzer quips with a laugh, “I’m gonna sit in with Judas Priest next month.”

A “serious illness” has forced Brian Setzer to cancel the Stray Cats’ entire 2025 tour.

The band's representatives announced the decision on October 28 with a statement from the guitarist.

“I’m heartbroken to share, due to serious illness, I am unable to perform and very regrettably have to cancel our Stray Cats tour," Setzer wrote. "I know this affects so many people and I am devastated to have to deliver this news.

I’ve been trying everything I can to go on and do these shows, but it is just not possible. I’ve been looking forward so much to being on stage with my band mates again and playing for all of our amazing fans, and I’m gutted.”

Ticket refunds will be available at the point of purchase.

Setzer was originally forced to cancel the band's opening performance on October 25 in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, which he announced with an Instagram post.

It's unknown what caused Setzer's illness. Earlier this year, the guitarist announced he was suffering from an autoimmune disorder that prevented him from performing. He made his condition public last February 13.

“Towards the end of the last Stray Cats tour I noticed that my hands were cramping up,” he wrote at the time. “I’ve since discovered that I have an auto-immune disease. I cannot play guitar.

“There is no pain, but it feels like I am wearing a pair of gloves when I try to play. I have seen some progress in that I can hold a pen and tie my shoes. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I was at a point where I couldn’t even do that. Luckily, I have the best hospital in the world down the block from me. It’s called the Mayo Clinic. I know I will beat this, it will just take some time.”

Roughly one month after posting the news, the guitarist announced his condition was improving.

“I just want to let you all know that I’m getting better day by day,” he posted on Facebook in March. “The progress I’m making is excellent! My dream is to visit Japan, the States, and Europe with Stray Cats, and of course, one of my biggest thrills would be bringing back the BSO Christmas show tradition.

“Thank you all for your love and support – it truly means the world to me. I was deeply touched. I love you guys, and only we can truly understand what this sound means to us!”

Autoimmune disease affects around three percent of U.S. citizens, or roughly 10 million people. It occurs when a person’s immune system attacks the body’s healthy cells and can affect practically every part of the body.

There is currently no cure for the disease, but anti-inflammatory drugs and targeted therapies are often used to curtail symptoms, which include fatigue, joint pain and digestive issues.

As leader of the Stray Cats, Setzer led a rockabilly revolution in the early 1980s, with his Gretsch 6120 electric guitar. The guitarist went on to launch successful revivals of big band music as well as rock-themed Christmas albums in the 1990s.

For the past four decades he’s mixed Brian Setzer Orchestra albums and dates with Stray Cats reunions and solo albums. In 2023, Setzer released The Devil Always Collects, the follow-up to 2021’s Gotta Have the Rumble and his second consecutive collaboration with producer Julian Raymond.

Earlier this month, the Stray Cars — consisting of Setzer, bass guitarist Lee Rocker and drummer Slim Jim Phantom — issued their first new tracks in six years: “Stampede” and a cover of Eddie Cochran’s “Teenage Heaven.”

“Jim and I cut both songs in Minneapolis at Terrarium Studios,” Setzer said. “‘Stampede’ was an instrumental that I wrote lyrics for. I basically copied the guitar part, which was pretty ahead of its time to begin with, and ‘Teenage Heaven’ is one of the few Eddie Cochran songs that has not been covered to death.”

The new tunes heralded the launch of the Stray Cats’ tour, which was scheduled to begin October 25 and continue through November 23 in Wheatland, California. A complete list of dates can be found at StrayCats.com.

Rockabilly icon Brian Setzer says he is “getting better day by day” after his auto-immune diagnosis left him unable to play guitar.

The Stray Cats guitarist, rarely seen without a big-bodied Gretsch slung over his shoulder, started suffering from hand cramps as his latest tour with the band came to a close late last year, and revealed his diagnosis of the debilitating disease in February.

“There is no pain, but it feels like I am wearing a pair of gloves when I try to play,” he said at the time, adding “I know I will beat this, it will just take some time.”

Autoimmune disease affects around three percent of U.S. citizens, or roughly 10 million people. It occurs when a person’s immune system attacks the body’s healthy cells and can affect practically every part of the body.

There is currently no cure for the disease, but anti-inflammatory drugs and targeted therapies are often used to curtail symptoms, which include fatigue, joint pain and digestive issues.

Setzer has received a wave of support from fans since the announcement and has now taken to Facebook to provide a fresh update on his recovery.

And the outlook is positive.

“I just want to let you all know that I’m getting better day by day,” his post reads. “The progress I’m making is excellent! My dream is to visit Japan, the States, and Europe with Stray Cats, and of course, one of my biggest thrills would be bringing back the BSO Christmas show tradition.

“Thank you all for your love and support – it truly means the world to me. I was deeply touched. I love you guys, and only we can truly understand what this sound means to us!”

Setzer hasn’t outlined a timeline for recovery but remains upbeat, so it may not be too long before he’s able to perform with his cherished Gretches once more.

He was still a teenager when he got his first Gretsch 6120, and it came under his charge under peculiar circumstances.

“I was 17 years old and found it in this local paper, The Byline Press,” he told Guitar Player back in 2019. “It said, ‘Gretsch guitar, 100 bucks.’ I called the guy up and asked, ‘Is it like Eddie Cochran’s?’ He was like, ‘Who?’

“So, I went to his house, and there was the guitar, the 1959 orange 6120. It was exactly what I was looking for. He had all of the electronics for it in a shoe box. I gave him 100 bucks, took the guitar and the shoe box, and off I went. It was destiny.”

During his colorful career, Setzer has dueled with the time-forgotten rockabilly stalwart Cordell Jackson in a Budweiser commercial, modernized the big band sound in the grunge-dominated '90s, and played Eddie Cochran's guitar in his childhood bedroom – which stood exactly as Cochran had left it. That moment underscored how ahead of his time his hero was.

“I remember going into his bedroom, and seeing he had a tweed Fender Bassman como,” he recalls. “That was a revelation for me, as I’d been plugging my Gretsch into a Bassman, but had never known that Eddie had used one.

“You have to remember that amps were so expensive in the ’50s, and it makes you wonder what would make a guitar player decide to play through a bass amp back then. He must have experimented and realized that the Gretsch and the Bassman was a great combination.”

Despite fears that drum machines and synthesizers would eclipse the guitar in pop music, the 1980s were an incredibly fertile time for electric guitar. Virtuoso soloists like Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson landed instrumental tunes on mainstream rock radio. Steve Val was in heavy rotation on MTV playing with former Van Haien mouthpiece David Lee Roth, and even had a role in the hit film Crossroads.

Then there was Eddie Van Haien, who — after raising the rock world's collective eyebrows with his solos on 1978's Van Halen and '79s Van Halen II — kept the heat up throughout the '80s with a slew of crowd-pleasing albums. Van Halen's celebrity extended beyond guitar culture. He could be seen regularly on MTV and had a cameo on Michael Jackson's mega-single "Beat It."

But virtuoso shred wasn't the only game in town. Many bands — including the Smiths, Bauhaus and U2 — featured guitarists who consciously avoided six-string histrionics. These players were texturalists who used broad palettes of effects to color and shade their music. Their approach grew in popularity, and by the mid '80s, no serious working guitarist could show up at a gig or recording session without the requisite chorus, delay and flanger pedals, or a rack full of digital processors and multieffects.

With the 1980s several decades behind us, we decided to look at the players who molded the sound of guitar back then. We didn't do it for nostalgia's sake. After all, there's loads of inspiration to be found in the tones and ideas these players hatched back in the day. Fire up Metallica's Kill 'Em All and hear just how devastating power chords can be. Spin a Michael Hedges disc and you'll never again think of acoustic guitar as the electric's folky cousin. Throw on a Police album and you're bound to get some new tonal inspiration. Step into the Guitar Player time machine, and you'll see what we mean as we present the decade's most innovative guitarists. They launched a revolution that continues to this day.

Daniel Ash

The goth-influenced soundscapes of English art-rockers Bauhaus and subsequent splinter group Tones on Tail (basically Bauhaus, sans lead singer Peter Murphy) spotlighted Ash's edgy-but-atmospheric tones and creative use of noise. And even when TOT later changed their name to Love and Rockets, and ventured in a more song-oriented direction, Ash never strayed from his ideal of texture over flash. "I love the idea of music that sounds like it comes from another world, but you can still tap your foot to it," he told GP in 1994. "I always found the notion of solos comical — just ego wanking."

Though the EBow was an essential part of Ash's razory sound since the beginning (often pressed directly against the neck pickup), he also relied on delay, flange and tremolo pedals, and employed such tricks as banging on a reverb-equipped amp to coax guitar sounds that were indistinguishable from synths, samples or industrial machinery.

KEY TRACKS "Bela Lugosi's Dead," "Terror Couple Kill Colonel," "Stigmata Martyr," "Hot Trip to Heaven"

1980s GEAR Burns guitars, H&H IC100S amp, Heet Sound EBow, DOD chorus and tremolo pedals, Watkins Copicat tape echo — AT

Adrian Belew

In an era when many guitarists felt threatened by the expansive sonic possibilities of synthesizers, Belew single-handedly proved the guitar to be a limitless tool for unheard-of sounds that no synth could match — from beautiful whale moans to jarring electronic screams. His mind-blowing sonic assaults made him one of the preeminent experimental rock guitarists of the 1980s, and landed him work with King Crimson, Laurie Anderson and David Bowie (on 1979's Lodger, then as Bowie's musical director for the '86 Sound and Vision tour). And Belew's not just a "noise" guy — he's also a master of subtlety. Listen to the Tom Tom Club's hit "Genius of Love." What sounds like a steel drum is actually Belew tapping the strings with one hand while manipulating the resonance control of an ADA flanger.

Belew's contributions to Talking Heads' 1980 release, Remain in Light, still stand as some of rock guitar's most monumentally creative offerings. "Talking Head's music at the time was very funk driven, one-chord stuff — a huge canvas for a guitarist to go wild," Belew told GP in 1990.

KEY TRACKS "The Great Curve" (with Talking Heads). "Elephant Talk" (with King Crimson). "Big Electric Cat," "Twang Bar King" (solo)

1980s GEAR Fender Strat, two modified Fender Mustangs, Roland JC-120 amplifiers, Foxx Tone Machine, various Electro-Harmonix and MXR effects units — DF

Warren Cuccurullo

To legions of pop fans, Missing Persons was all about Dale Bozzio. But as self-conscious and tragically trendy as the L.A. band's image may have been, the "guys" (bassist Patrick O'Hearn, drummer Terry Bozzio, and guitarist Warren Cuccurullo) were absolutely murderous players. All were alumni of Frank Zappa bands, and Cuccurullo's obsession with electronics would help forge Missing Persons into one of the '80s most modern-sounding acts. His massively processed textures, lush distortion washes and soaring, synth-like lines added mystery and excitement to what were, for the most part, merely clever pop songs. And, like Missing Persons' costuming and staging, Cuccurullo's contribution to guitarcraft was scrupulously calculated.

"I want to cut my own niche in rock guitar playing," he said in a February 1985 GP interview. "I want to be easily identifiable and known as a little wiz."

KEY TRACKS "Destination Unknown," "Give," "Mental Hopscotch," "Walking in LA.," "Words"

1980s GEAR Gibson SG and ES-335, self-designed "Missing Link" solidbody (with two necks joined by a loop), custom Performance guitar, custom Vox (assembled from a Vox wah, a Vox neck, and Vox pickups), 100-watt Marshall head and 4x12 cabinet, Garvin X-100B head, Mesa/Boogie head, ADA Flanger, Foxx Tone Machine, Heet Sound EBow, Lexicon Prime Tune, Maestro Super Fuzz, Morley Echo/ Volume, Mu-Tron III, MXR Pitch Transposer — MM

Elliot Easton

With a sound that was as far from macho '70s rock as possible, the Cars were possibly the quintessential '80s band. Looking back on his days in the group, Elliot Easton feels it was no accident that they forged one of rock's most individual and identifiable sounds. "Our different influences made us sound the way we did," he says. "Certain factions of the band were into the technological advances — keyboards and things — while my influences were Moby Grape, the Grateful Dead, and a lot of Memphis soul and New Orleans R&B. There was always a creative rub in the band that made the Cars unique."

On the group's pre-'85 records — The Cars and Candy-O — Easton managed to sneak hot country guitar ("My Best Friend's Girl") and clever bluesy solos ("Bye Bye Love") into the band's poppy tunes. "I never related to the 'skinny-tie' scene," Easton says. “And I was never impressed with the punk-guitar ethic. That whole primitive style of guitar playing is just not what I'm about." What Easton is about is simple. "I think I have a knack for making a song happen," he told GP in '86. "And that's a big get-off for me."

KEY TRACKS "Cruiser," "Magic," "Shake It Up," "Since You're Gone"

1980s GEAR Fender Strat and Telecaster ("I'm a twanger at heart" he says), mono Gibson ES-355, Guild Nightbird and Flyer, Rickenbacker 12-string electric, custom-made Kramer solidbody, assorted Dean solidbodies, assorted amps (including Lab Series, Pearce, Marshall JCM 800, various Fenders and Mesa/Boogies), Boss delay and chorus, Pro Co Rat, Scholz Rockman — DF

The Edge

When the relentless, echo washed lines of "I Will Follow" hit the airwaves in 1980, it was immediately obvious that the world had changed. The cutting-yet-ambient guitar soundscapes were so different from anything else heard at the time that The Edge became an instant guitar hero. However, due to the band's youth — The Edge was only 19 when U2's debut was released — more than a few guitarists assumed that a non-technical player had simply stumbled onto a few glib tricks. Not so.

"I was struck by the fact that groups such as Television had a well-defined sound that was like no one else’s,” The Edge said in the June '85 issue of Guitar Player. "So when we started putting material together, it was always in my mind that we had to find what we could do that was different. The most important thing is that we maintain a certain originality in everything we do."

The Edge remained true to his quest for individuality throughout the '80s, providing fans with thrilling, almost cinematic textures, and challenging other guitarists to re-evaluate their relationship with their instrument "There's no reason on earth why guitar players should copy one another and end up sounding the same," he declared.

KEY TRACKS "Gloria," "I Will Follow," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Where the Streets Have No Name," "With or Without You"

1980s GEAR Gibson Explorer, Fender Strat and Tele, Vox AC30, Mesa/Boogie MK-IIC, Boss SCC-700 Effects Center, Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, Korg SDD-3000 digital delay, Yamaha D1500 digital delay and R1000 digital reverb, MXR Pitch Transposer — MM

Billy Gibbons

ZZ Top was already a huge concert act when the advent of MTV in the early '80s gave the "little ol' band from Texas" an opportunity to boogie its way to unprecedented heights. Video images of the bearded mysteriosos with their custom coupe accompanied hit after hit from the 1983 release Eliminator, and behind it all was Top's enigmatic guitarist, Billy Gibbons.

The trademark pick harmonics, stubby solos and grinding riffs that fueled Eliminator and the subsequent Afterburner were old tricks for Gibbons, but his streamlined approach to playing over sequenced grooves made it easy to forget that blues was still the magma at ZZ's core.

As Gibbons explained to GP in 1986, "Try as we might to spice up our sound with synthesizers and this and that, it basically comes down to a few moments of bluesiness that we want to hold onto. That's where we came from, and that's pretty much what we'd like to keep stabbing at."

KEY TRACKS "Dipping Low (In the Lap of Luxury)," "Planet of Women," "Sleeping Bag," "Velcro Fly," "Under Pressure"

1980s GEAR Dean Z, Tom Holmes customs, Strings & Things St. Blues (Strat-style guitar), Roland GR-700 synth, Fairlight digital workstation, Fender and Marshall amps, Scholz Rockman, Roland Dimension D, Ibanez rack effects — AT

Michael Hedges

While the electric guitar was everywhere in the 1980s, the decade also ushered in a rising interest in virtuoso solo acoustic guitar players. The Windham Hill label was the launching pad for many of these guitarists, including William Ackerman (who headed the label) and Alex de Grassi.

Then along came Michael Hedges — with a style that encompassed some of the lyrical, contrapuntal approaches of his labelmates, and also incorporated funky rhythms, minimalist song structures and jazz-inspired chord voicings. As Hedges said in the February '85 Guitar Player, “Ackerman and de Grassi have good rhythm. It's just not as kinetic as mine. They're great impressionists and romantic players, but that doesn't come naturally to me."

Hedges showcased his composing and performing chops on his '81 debut, Breakfast in the Field and the '84 followup, Aerial Boundaries. The latter album featured Hedges' stupefying, one-man-band arrangements, with percussive two-handed tapping and a host of extended-range tunings. Hedges had, in effect, broken the four-minute mile, forever expanding the boundaries of what players and listeners thought was possible in the solo-acoustic realm.

KEY TRACKS "Aerial Boundaries," "The Happy Couple," "Hot Type," "Rickover's Dream," "Spare Change"

1980s GEAR Martin D-28 and00-18, Dyer harp-guitar — AL

James Hetfield

"There was the real glammy stuff when we were starting out playing the clubs in L.A. — the Mötley Crües and the Ratts," James Hetfield said in the April '89 GP. "Music was based around the singer, and no one was really riffing."

With Metallica's first three records, Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets, Hetfield single-handedly changed that, and metal was never the same. Performed with Gibson Flying V or ESP Explorer-style guitars and Mesa/Boogie Mark II heads, Hetfield's punishing lock-step riffs spawned several copy-cat bands, as well as a legion of young, denim jacket-clad guitarists hell-bent on learning Metallica tunes — not the solos, but Hetfield's speedy power-chord riffs, performed almost solely on heavy downstrokes. "That's key!” he said. “It's tighter sounding and a lot chunkier.”

KEY TRACKS "Creeping Death," "Eye of the Beholder," "For Whom the Bell Tolls," "Four Horsemen," "Whiplash"

1980s GEAR Gibson Flying V, ESP Explorer-style solidbody (loaded with EMG pickups), Mesa/Boogie Mark II heads — DF

Allan Holdsworth

In 1980, Allan Holdsworth — a veteran of U.K., Bill Bruford, Tony Williams and Jean-Luc Ponty — formed his groundbreaking quartet, I.O.U. He described the band's music in the December '80 Guitar Player as having "some elements of jazz and rock, but we try not to be overly tricky."

Compared to what? The music on the band's '82 debut, I.O.U., was teeming with modulating time signatures and circuitous chord progressions — in other words, tricky. Holdsworth's unique style featured clarion-toned, legato solos and a unique chordal approach. Only guitarists with brave hearts and pliant hands worked their way through Holdsworth's '85 book of compositions Reaching for the Uncommon Chord.

Holdsworth began looking to guitar synths for new sounds around '85, but because he was prone to playing blazingly fast, synth controllers could barely make sense of what his hands were doing. He eventually found that the Synth-Axe could keep up, and he featured the instrument prominently on his '86 album, Atavachron.

KEY TRACKS "Devil Take the Hindmost," "Panic Station," "Road Games," "Three Sheets to the Wind," "Where Is One"

1980s GEAR Custom Charvel single-humbucker electrics, Ibanez AH-10, SynthAxe, various amps (including Hartley-Thompson, Pearce, Fender and Sundown), Steelmaster volume pedal, Yamaha E-1010 analog delay, two ADA STD-1 stereo tapped delays (one for clean tones, one for dirty). — AL

Eric Johnson

Like Roy Buchanan and Danny Gatton, Eric Johnson initially gained prominence as a result of other guitarists singing his praises. Steve Morse, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Wffiter and Billy Gibbons were among those who raved about Johnson in interviews. Not a prolific recording artist, Johnson developed his legendary rep based on a radical '84 Austin City Limits performance and the 1986 album Tones, his only release of the decade.

With a rocker's ears, a cellist's hands and an alchemist's curiosity, Johnson forged a signature sound from fluid, multi-octave arpeggios, buttery bends, cascading pentatonic runs, and chimey, close-voiced harmonies. He proved that one could coax sweet, violin-like sustain from a Strat while cruising up and down its fretboard with flawless intonation. It was Johnson who got guitarists thinking about cable impedance and directionality, the timbral differences between germanium and silicon transistors, and carbon-zinc and alkaline batteries. While the rest of the planet was exploring the multichannel amp, he perfected the triple-amp rig. By making us aware of each element in the signal chain, Johnson elevated electric guitar tone to a science.

KEY TRACKS "Cliffs of Dover," "Soulful Terrain," "Rail of Tears"

1980s GEAR '54 Fender Shut, two Fender Twin Reverbs (driving an open-back Marshall 4x12 cab), Dumble Steel String Singer, Dumble Overdrive Special, 100-watt Marshall heads driving Marshall 4x12 cabs, Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer, Paul C's Tube Driver, TC Electronic Sustainer, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, Echoplex — AE

Mark Knopfler

Using phasoidal Strat tones, poignant bends and snarky double-stops, Mark Knopfler established himself in the late '70s as a soulful and melodic player — and one who preferred to pick with his fingers! But in '85, with the release of Brothers in Arms, Knopfler and his band Dire Straits hit the musical jackpot. In addition to scoring massive worldwide sales, the album provided Knopfler an opportunity to stretch out as an arranger, songwriter and ensemble leader. His guitar tones expanded to include throaty Les Paul riffs and darker, distorted Strat lines, and he began to explore extended themes involving guitar, keyboards and woodwinds. Released when many listeners were buying their first CDs, Brothers in Arms also became an audio benchmark.

Even today, many engineers use tracks from this beautifully focused recording to fine-tune stage and studio sound systems. Many of Knopfler's new musical ideas emerged from his film scoring experiences, which began in '83 with the magical soundtrack to Local Hero. Cal, The Princess Bride, and Last Exit to Brooklyn followed.

No other guitarist has so successfully combined the twin careers of solo artist and film composer. For Knopfler, each discipline strengthens the other: His albums have become timbrally richer and more thematically complex, and his scores have benefited from his soaring solos and tinkling resonator guitar work.

KEY TRACKS "Brothers in Arms," "Going Home," "Money for Nothing," "Walk of Life"

1980s GEAR Strat-style Schecter with Seymour Duncan pickups, Strat-style Pensa-Suhr with EMG pickups, '53 Gibson Super 400, '58 Gibson Les Paul, '36 Style "0" National, Ovation Adamas, Gibson Chet Atkins solidbody classical, twin 100-watt Soldano heads driving two EV-loaded 4x12 Marshall cabs, rackmounted CryBaby wah, Ernie Ball volume pedal — AE

Steve Lukather

In every decade there's an elite group of studio guitarists who seem to get all the top sessions. In the '70s, it was Larry Carlton and Louie Shelton. In the '90s, Michael Landau, Tim Pierce and Brent Mason ruled the roost.

But in the '80s, it was Steve Lukather. His Reagan-era credits include albums by Eric Clapton, Stevie Nicks, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Don Henley, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Joni Mitchell, Manhattan Transfer, Paul McCartney, Chet Atkins and many others. His tight chord work and tasty-yet-muscular solos helped sell literally hundreds of millions of records.

Lukather also had success with his own band Toto — particularly with the 1982 release Toto IV, which enjoyed multi-Platinum sales, hit singles and a sweep of that year's Grammy awards. Through it all, Luke has remained a regular guy who is just happy to play guitar. "I know I'm very lucky," he told GP in June 2000. "I've had the chance to work with all my heroes. My career is a dream come true."

KEY TRACKS 'Africa," "Rosanna" (with Toto). "Dirty Laundry" (with Don Henley). "Running with the Night" (with Lionel Ritchie). "She's a Beauty" (with the Tubes)

1980s GEAR '63 Fender Strat, '59 Gibson Les Paul, Gibson 15, custom Ibanez electrics, Paul Rivera–modified 100-watt Marshalls and Fender Deluxes, Fender Concert Lexicon Prime Time delay, Eventide H910 Harmonizer, Roland SRE-555 Chorus/Echo, various Ibanez multi-effectors — MB

George Lynch

One of the original hot-shot LA metal players, Dokken guitarist George Lynch had chops to burn but always kept them in check with a tasty vibrato and keen sense of melody. When Randy Rhoads left his guitar teaching job for the Ozzy Osbourne gig, he insisted Lynch fill his shoes and take over his students. Not a bad referral.

The majority of Lynch's Aqua Net–glazed fury can be found in his super-charged solos. "I think a typical George Lynch solo should have melody and build to a climax," he told GP in 1986. "Speed is also important. People may get down on that, but it's impressive and it gives the solo energy" Aside from his stellar lead work, Lynch's wicked, tritone-laced riffing absolutely defined the hard rock "hair band" sound for the next several years.

KEY TRACKS "It's Not Love," "Lightning Strikes," "Mr. Scary," "Paris Is Burning"

1980s GEAR Various custom guitars (including Charvel, ESP, and Kramer solidbodies), Aria acoustic, vintage Marshall heads and cabs, Randall amplifiers — DF

Yngwie Malmsteen

The Swedish shred king first hit our pages in Mike Varney's February 1983 Spotlight column. Soon after, Malmsteen came to the States and joined Hollywood metal-rockers Steeler. After working on their '83 album, Steeler, he quickly outgrew the band's limited scope and left to join Alcatrazz. His tenure didn't last long — after recording just one studio album, No Parole from Rock 'n' Roll, he left Alcatrazz to concentrate on his own band, Rising Force, where Malmsteen was finally able to realize his artistic vision.

With intricate original compositions — inspired by classical composers J.S. Bach and Nicolo Paganini — and extended-play solos, Malmsteen tolled the bell for all who had ears to hear: He was the new king of Shred Hill.

KEY TRACKS "Black Star," "Evil Eye," "Far Beyond the Sun" "Icarus' Dream Suite," "Marching Out."

1980s GEAR 1969 Fender Stratocaster (and other Strats of similar vintage, all with scalloped fingerboards), modified 1971 Marshall 50-watt heads, Marshall 4x12 cabinets (with Celestion G-65 speakers), DOD Overdrive Preamp 250, Korg SDD-1000 rackmount digital delay, Fender extra-heavy picks ("I couldn't play with anything else,' he said in the May '85 GP) — AL

Johnny Marr

Armed with a huge palette of tones and a savvy sense for turning oddball chord sequences into hit

songs, the Smith's Johnny Marr forged a guitar style that incorporated '60s primitivism, '70s funkiness

and gobs of Byrds-style chime. Two of the many things that set him apart from his '80s-era contemporaries were his disdain for guitar solos ("I like improvisation in the right place, but I find most solos corny") and his natural ability to create unique clashes by superimposing major and minor modes. "I use a thumbpick,” he told us, “because when you have all five fingers going, your fingers go to progressions you don't even know you're doing.”

Marr's bright, jangly tones always sounded huge without the benefit of distortion, and his spine-chilling slide intro on the pulsating "How Soon Is Now" remains one of the most distinctive guitar sounds ever recorded. Following the breakup of the Smiths in 1987, Marr appeared on albums by the Talking Heads, the Pretenders, Electronic, The The, Paul McCartney, Kirsty MacColl, Bryan Ferry and others.

KEY TRACKS "How Soon Is Now?,” "This Charming Man," "What Difference Does It Make?,” “The Headmaster Ritual," "The Violence of Truth"

1980s GEAR Epiphone Casino, Fender Strat, Gibson ES-335, Gibson Les Paul, Martin D-28, Rickenbacker 330, Fender Bassman, Fender Showman, Fender Twin Reverb, Mesa/Boogie Quad Preamp, Roland JC-120, Dunlop Cry Baby wah, Eventide Harmonizer, Roland GP-8, T.C. Electronic 2290, Yamaha GEP50 — AT

Prince

It's difficult to find an '80s artist more prolific or cutting-edge than Prince, who ushered in the decade with the release of Dirty Mind. On this record of slamming funk rhythms and catchy melodies, Prince was credited as playing guitar, bass, drums and keyboards — as well as singing, producing, arranging and writing all the tunes.

Controversy followed in '81, but it was his '83 album, 1999, that gave him his first taste of superstardom. The infectious title track, with its sinewy chord stabs and slippery wah figures, became an instant classic. Prince's dry, in-your-face rhythm parts set the standard for funk rock in the '80s. Purple Rain took things higher still, with strong tunes and even bolder guitar work. His trademark funk rhythms abound on Purple Rain, but it was the blazing solos on tunes such as "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" that turned guitarists' heads. With over-the top distortion, squealing feedback, and a flamboyant persona (that drew on Hendrix, Little Richard and James Brown influences), Prince the Guitar Hero had arrived.

Prince would go on to release six more albums in the '80s, changing stylistic gears with each record. This incessant self-reinvention confused and alienated some fans, but many of them were brought back into the fold with 1987's Sign O’ the Times, which showed Prince's heavier side (on the title track), as well as his pop stylings ("I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" and "U Got the Look").

KEY TRACKS "Baby I'm a Star," "Sign O’ the Times," "When Doves Cry" "I Would Die 4 U," "1999"

1980s GEAR Fender Telecaster, Hohner Tele copy, Mesa/Boogie amps, Boss pedals — MB

Trevor Rabin

Seminal prog-rock band Yes had apparently seen the rising and setting of its sun in the 1970s, with nine albums and several hits (including "Roundabout," "Long Distance Runaround" and "Yours Is No Disgrace"). Then, just as 1983 was winding up, South African guitarist/vocalist/producer Trevor Rabin brought his cache of songs to founding members Chris Squire (bass) and Jon Anderson (vocals), and resurrected Yes with the smash 90125, an album rife with slick production, radio-friendly hooks and tactile, layered guitars. Although Rabin's harmonized leads are arguably the most memorable color of his tonal spectrum, his inventive use of modern gear proffered a wealth of tones — from super-compressed clean to crunchy to sweetly sustaining. Even his acoustic guitar tones were amazingly distinctive. In short, Rabin's command of tonal shades proved him to be both a brilliant texturalist and a fiery lead player.

KEY TRACKS "Changes," "Hearts" and ”Owner of a Lonely Heart" (with Yes). "Can't Look Away," "Etoile Noir" (solo)

1980s GEAR '62 Fender Stratocaster (with Seymour Duncan stacked humbuckers and Schaller tuners), two Ernie Ball volume pedals (one for regular volume, one for echo volume), and various MXR pedals (including a Pitch Transposer, a Dyna Comp, a 10-Band graphic EQ, an analog delay, a Distortion+, a flanger and an envelope filter), MXR 15-band EQ and digital reverb rack units, Roland SRE-555 Chorus/Echo — SH

Vernon Reid

Besides blurring color lines as one of the few all-black hard rock bands on the scene, Living Colour launched a whole new sound with their ingenious blend of funk, avant-garde jazz and metal. Guitarist Vernon Reid's massive, Zeppelin-influenced rifling, grinding dissonance, and furiously chromatic solos were masterfully balanced with slithering dance grooves, complex chording and adventurous use of new technology, including samplers and guitar synths, that he combined with his ESP and Hamer Superstrats.

KEY TRACKS "Cult of Personality," "Glamour Boys," "Middle Man," "Open Letter to a Landlord"

1980s GEAR Hamer Chapparal and ESP Strat-style guitars with Floyd Rose tremolos and EMG pickups (two single-coils and a humbucker), Cry Baby wah, Korg volume pedal, Roland GP-8, DigiTech DSP-128, Dean Markley CD-120 1x12 combo and Fender Dual Showman head driving Fender 4x12s, Mesa/Boogie Quad Preamp and Strategy 400 power amp, ADA MP-1, Boogie 4x12 cabinets — SH

Randy Rhoads

Many thought Ozzy Osboume's career was finished when he was fired from the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath in 1978. However, thanks to his discovery of the brilliant, classically trained guitarist Randy Rhoads, Osbourne emerged triumphant in 1980 with Blizzard of Ozz — an album that is still regarded as one of metal's finest. As one of the few hard rock guitarists of the early '80s who didn't jump on the Van Haien bandwagon, 22-year-old Rhoads introduced the world to a distinctive tone and unmistakable style that bristled with blinding pull-off licks, staccato rhythms, and chromatic solo flurries. Despite a sparse discography, Rhoads has gone down in history as one of heavy metal's most original guitarists.

KEY TRACKS "Crazy Train," "Dee," "Flying High Again," "I Don't Know"

1980s GEAR Gibson Les Paul, custom V-shaped electric with DiMarzio pickups, Grover Jackson–designed shark’s-fin guitars equipped with Seymour Duncan pickups, Dunlop Cry Baby, Korg delay, 100- watt Marshall heads through Marshall 4x12 cabinets with Altec speakers, MXR Distortion+, EQ, chorus, and flanger pedals — SH

joe Satriani

In the early '80s, Joe Satiani was a guitar teacher in Berkeley, California, with a couple of band projects and some sessions under his belt. By 1987, he was on the cover of every guitar magazine in the world, thanks to Surfing with the Alien.

With dazzling technique, high-energy tunes and extreme guitar tones, Satch proved that all the rumors of his greatness (some of which were started by his former student, Steve Vai) were true. And he did something that very few guitar heroes have done — sell records.

Surfing was a smash hit with guitarists and non-guitarists alike, and Satriani would enjoy further success with his subsequent releases and tours. He was also picked by Mick Jagger to go on the road and cover parts originally played by Keith Richards and Jeff Beck.

Looking back on his debutante decade, Satch told us, "Making the transition from giving lessons in the back of a store to being the Surfing with the Alien guy and Mick's lead guitarist was a completely mind- and life-altering experience."

KEY TRACKS "Circles," "Hordes of Locusts," "Ice 9," "Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing," "Satch Boogie"

1980s GEAR Homemade Strat-style guitars, Ibanez solidbodies, 100-watt Marshall amps, Scholz Rockman, Echoplexes, Boss CE-1 chorus — MB

Neal Schon

As a teenager in 1970, Neal Schon achieved Northern California royalty status by joining Carlos Santana's band. A couple of years later, Schon formed his own group, Journey, which became increasingly popular with its Santana-esque brand of jam rock. At the close of the '70s, however, Journey found their winningest formula when they added vocalist Steve Perry and moved in a more pop-rock direction. When the '80s rolled in, Schon was the guitarist — and one of the chief songwriters — of a veritable hit machine.

What set him apart from most other popsters of the decade, however, was his stellar guitar work. Schon's punchy, intricate rhythm parts — and his soaring leads that blended melodicism, dynamics and fiery chops — earned him unshakeable street cred among guitar freaks. His two albums with keyboard god Jan Hammer further cemented his rep as a player, making him the first choice as a jam partner when guitarists such as Gary Moore, Eddie Van Haien and Jeff Beck came to town.

KEY TRACKS "Walks Like a Lady" "Stone in Love," "Girl Can't Help It" (with Journey). "I'm Down," "No More Lies" (with Jan Hammer)

1980s GEAR 1963 Fender Strat, Gibson Les Pauls, Aria Pro II, various amps (including Peavey Mace, Fender, Marshall and Mesa/Boogies), Electro-Harmonix Hot Tubes — MB

John Scofield

Celebrating his blues and funk influences — and attacking the electric guitar as a truly electric instrument,

with bluesy bends and chorus-tweaked tones — John Scofield brought an earthy vibe to jazz's heady mindset. He was also one of the '80s most versatile jazz guitarists, performing with Miles Davis, pianist McCoy Tyner and the French National Orchestra.

"One thing I learned from Miles Davis," Scofield said in '84, "is not to be afraid to play what you hear. In other words, just play what you feel. Miles was a master of the fine art of letting things happen naturally"

Scofield spent much of the '80s expanding the progressive ideology that began with his Davis tenure by working with contemporary jazz-funk rhythm sections. Then in 1989, he bid the decade farewell with Time on My Hands, a stinting return to the acoustic jazz realm.

KEY TRACKS 'All the Things You Are," "Pick Hits," "Techno," "Who's Who" (solo). "What It Is" (with Miles Davis)

1980s GEAR Gibson ES-335 and ES-175, Ibanez Artist AS-200, Polytone Mini-Brute IV, Music Man 410-HD, Sundown amps, Ibanez stereo chorus and stereo reverb, Pro Co Rat, Boss Octaver — MM

Brian Setzer

They had the look, the attitude and the wild-boy flash of rockabilly rebels, but while MTV pumped up the fashion factor for video fanatics, the Stray Cats were more than mere cartoons. Credibility came howling from Brian Setzer's Gretsch 6120, with a lead style that honored the genre's heroes while simultaneously nudging rockabilly into uptown duds. Setzer was channeling Django Reinhardt and other jazz greats along with hellraisers such as Carl Perkins, Cliff Gallup and Paul Burlison.

"When I first heard Cliff Gallup," said Setzer in the September '83 Guitar Player, "he was kind of what I wanted to be — a jazzy rockabilly player. He really sent me."

But while Setzer's head was sometimes transcending rockabilly conventions, his tones were totally true blue. "I use the middle-pickup position on my Gretsch," he explained in '83. "I usually turn the presence up full on my Bassman, and the volume to about four or five — just to the point where it's about to distort. The volume is so low, I could play in my bedroom and it would be fine. I usually put the bass around five, and the treble up to eight. I set the echo for one repeat almost directly after the original note — bop, bop. It's pretty tight."

Shooting the Cats beyond the tattoos and haircuts of lesser rockabilly contenders was the fact that Setzer was absolutely immersed in the style. He got it. "The early rockabilly stuff is basically a country guitarist trying to play rock and roll guitar — which is a mixture of black blues and white country" he said. "It's a feel. A lot of people put the cart before the horse. They think they've got to buy a '58 Gretsch and an old Fender amp. That stuff is great, but you've got to have the feel."

KEY TRACKS "18 Miles to Memphis," "Double Talkin Baby" "Rock this Town," "(She's) Sexy & 17," "Stray Cat Strut"

1980s GEAR 1959 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins, '60s blond Fender Bassman, NCR Analog Delay, Dean Markley strings (.010 or .011 set) — MM

Robert Smith

As main guitarist and visionary for what has been called "the world's biggest cult band," Smith graced the nine Cure albums released during the '80s with moody, multicolored guitar. Listen to what lurks behind any of the Cure's hooky vocal melodies and you'll likely find complex patterns of intersecting guitar parts that swirl around the main line to create an energetic and enticing backdrop.

Able to visualize the entire song during the recording process, Smith typically recorded all the guitars himself, adding depth and color to his six-string tapestries by incorporating open tunings and tracking each part with varying degrees of distortion and/or effects.

Alternative instruments also factored heavily into Smith's sonic sculpting. As he told GP in 1992, "The whole Faith album [released in '81] has six-string bass. I think when people talk about the 'Cure sound,' they mean songs based on six-string bass guitar, acoustic guitar and the Solina (a.k.a. the ARP String Ensemble)." One of Smith's more oddball studio tricks involved detuning each of his guitars' high E strings a few cents apart to create natural chorusing effects when the individual tracks were mixed together.

KEY TRACKS "The Blood," "Fascination Street," "Love Cats," "Other Voices "

1980s GEAR Fender Jazzmaster, Gibson Chet Atkins, Ovation six- and 12-string acoustics, '62 Fender Bass VI, Peavey amps, Dunlop Cry Baby, Boss pedals (chorus, delay, flange, phase, and overdrive) — AT

Steve Stevens

A central figure in Billy Idol's aggressive mix of punk, new wave, heavy metal and dance music, Steve Stevens wrote the book on balancing texture and technique. “I try to avoid the lead guitar-solo syndrome," he told GP in 1984. "My approach is more sonic than actual notes — if you have a really brilliant sound together, you don't have to play all that many notes."

Stevens elevated the songs he and Idol wrote into a realm that blurred the line between Ozzy-approved pyrotechnics and Bauhaus-style noise-art. Wielding short, fierce solos, feedback assaults, trem-bar antics and sci-fl-style sound effects, he furnished Idol's Rebel Yell with wall-to-wall guitar. But when the following release, Whiplash Smile, took a more techo-oriented turn, the guitarist decided it was time to get his own band together.

Stevens' inventive guitar playing resurfaced in full force on his 1989 solo debut Atomic Playboys, a release that gave Stevens the opportunity to indulge his hard-rock side, as well as his interests in R&B, pop-jazz, and John McLaughlin–style acoustic work. "I never wanted to lose the acoustic part of my playing," Stevens said. "I always loved the way that people like Robert Fripp, Steve Howe and Steve Hackett could be acoustic players, but also utilize effects."

KEY TRACKS: "Atomic Playboys" (solo). "Eyes Without A Face," "Flesh For Fantasy" "Rebel Yell," "White Wedding" (with Billy Idol)

1980s GEAR '53 Gibson Les Paul, Hamer Steve Stevens Signature, custom Suhr Strat-style, custom Jackson, Guild acoustics, Roland GR-700 synth, Marshall IMP and KM 800 heads, Vox AC30, Boss effects (CS-2 compressor, 0C-2 Octaver, CE-2 chorus), Vox Clyde McCoy and Cry Baby wahs, Pro Co Rat, Eventide 999 Harmonizer, Lexicon PCM-41 multi-effector, Maestro Echoplex, Roland rack effects (SDE-3000, SRE-555, Dimension D), Scholz Rockman — AT

Andy Summers

The Police launched in 1978 with the release of Outlandos d'Amour, and the band hit their stride in the early '80s with Zenyatta Mondatta and Ghost in the Machine. Vocalist/bassist Sting was the Police's chief songwriter, but Andy Summers had a more vital role in shaping the band's sound. His novel chord voicings, off-beat (in both senses) rhythm grooves, and shimmering chorus and delay-laden tones were essential to Police hits such as "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da."

In the January 2001 issue of Guitar Player, Summers revealed that "procedure by negation" was the key to sculpting his unique guitar voice. "Back in my Police days," he said, "I thought, Everyone's still jamming on power chords. I don't want to do what everyone else is doing, so what am I left with?"

One thing Summers did to outstrip the Joneses was to avoid distortion or overdrive — except as a last resort. (The solo on "Driven to Tears" showcases his dirty side.) Another Summers-ism was to use add9 chords in place of standard barres and power chords. ("Every Breath You Take" is built almost entirely around major and minor add9 chords.) He also avoided the cliché of extended solos, favoring brief, personal anti-solos. (Check out his synthed-out breakdown on "Don't Stand So Close to Me.")

Ironically, Summers' innovations were embraced by legions of post-Police guitarists, rendering his specialties nearly as common as the generic affectations he sought to avoid.

KEY TRACKS "Driven To Tears," "Every Breath You Take," "Message in a Bottle," "One World," "Walking on the Moon"

1980s GEAR 1963 Fender Telecaster Custom (with Gibson humbucker in the neck position), Roland guitar synths (G-303 or G-707 controller guitar with GR-300 or GR-700 synth module), various amps (including Mesa/Boogies and Marshalls), Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress flanger, Musitronics Mu-Tron III envelope filter, Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo, Echoplec, MXR pedals (Distortion+, Phase 90, analog delay and Dyna Comp) — AL

Steve Vai

The first murmurings of Steve Vai's talent began when he was credited with "impossible guitar parts" on Frank Zappa's Man from Utopia. His first solo album, Flex-Able, showed what Vai could do when left to his own devices — namely, creating wacky tunes that proudly displayed his Zappa influence and his stunning chops. Filling the shoes vacated by Yngwie Malmsteen, Vai joined Alcatrazz for one incredible album, Disturbing the Peace. Criminally under-promoted and underappreciated, the album features songwriting, tones and arrangements that can hang with Vai's most celebrated work.

His next move, to David Lee Roth's band, brought Val squarely into the spotlight with one of the most high-profile rock gigs of the decade. He also recorded and/or toured with Whitesnake and PIL in a decade where it seemed as if there was nothing he couldn't do.

KEY TRACKS "The Attitude Song," "Viv Woman" (solo). "Jazz Discharge Party Hats" (with Frank Zappa). "Painted Lover" (with Alcatrazz). "Shy Boy," "Skyscraper" (with David Lee Roth)

1980s GEAR: '78 Fender Strat with DiMarzio X2N bridge pickup, custom Charvels, various Ibanez JEM models, Carvin X-100B amp, 100-watt Marshall, Roland SDE-3000 delay, Boss SD-1 Super OverDrive. — MB

Eddie Van Haien

Van Halen's 1978 debut — and Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" solo, in particular — breathed new life into rock and sent hordes of guitarists scrambling to the woodshed. However, Van Halen continued to leave jaws agape throughout the '80s. Though two-handed tapping, whammy-bar abuse and raging staccato licks are the most conspicuous marks of his signature sound, Van Haien also surprised the guitar galaxy with deft slide work, intricate classical-flavored pieces and impeccable rhythm playing. His influence on subsequent generations simply can't be overstated. Eddie Van Halen stands as one of guitar's most far-reaching and important innovators.

KEY TRACKS "Cathedral," “Could This Be Magic," "Hot for Teacher," "Little Guitars" and "Mean Street"

1980s GEAR Charvel Strat-style guitar (with a '58 Strat bridge — later exchanged for a Floyd Rose — and a Gibson PAF humbucker), custom Kramers (with PAFs or Seymour Duncans and Floyd Roses), MXR Phase 90 and Flanger pedals, Echoplex, Lexicon PCM-70, Eventide 949 Harmonizer, Roland SDE-3000 delay, Variac-equipped 100-watt Marshall plead heads with Marshall 4x12s — SH

Stevie Ray Vaughan

At a time when drum machines ruled and it was hipper to own a Roland G-707 synth guitar than a '62 Strat, Stevie Ray Vaughan pushed bare-knuckle blues back onto the airwaves. Ironically, most listeners first heard Vaughan as a sideman on David Bowie's club-oriented Let's Dance. In '83, pop radio was dominated by new wave and synth bands, so Vaughan's stinging Strat tones and Albert King–inspired bends in "China Girl" and "Let's Dance" sounded downright revolutionary. That same year, Vaughan's bluesy debut, Texas Flood, hit the Top 40 and established the 29-year-old as a bona fide guitar hero. For the first time in more than a decade, it was cool to play blues.

For the next seven years, Vaughan never strayed from his roots, recording taut, guitar-driven R&B with his Lone Star confederates, Double Trouble. Whether reinterpreting Hendrix and Howlin' Wolf, or pounding out an original R&B shuffle, Vaughan infused each note with palpable tension. You can witness his blend of feral energy and superb technique in Live at the El Mocambo, a video shot in a sweaty Toronto nightclub in '83. Because of its unwavering honesty, Vaughan's music remains as popular as ever.

KEY TRACKS "Lenny," "Love Struck Baby," "Pride and Joy," "Texas Flood," "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)"

1980s GEAR '59 sunburst Fender Strat, a pair of sequentially serial-numbered '63 Fender Vibroverb 1x15 combos, Fender Vibratone, Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer — AE

Jamie West-Oram

Punctuating the Fixx's radio hits with his chorused, squeaky-clean Strat tones, Jamie West-Oram was one of the most identifiable guitarists on the '80s new wave front. Though his restrained funk rhythms, shimmering harmonics, palm-muted syncopations, and echo-drenched chordal washes marked him as mainly a texturalist, West-Oram also peppered his work with quirky whammy warbles, feedback-soaked squeals, and brief-but-cathartic solos. His unique sound earned him sideman gigs with many notable artists, including Tina Turner, Depeche Mode, Stevie Nicks and Brian Eno.

KEY TRACKS "One Thing Leads to Another," "Red Skies," "Saved by Zero," "Stand or Fall"

1980s GEAR Charvel Strat-style guitar (with Schecter neck, EMG single-coils, and a Floyd Rose tremolo), Marshall 50-watt heads with JBL-loaded 2x12s, Korg digital delay, Yamaha SPX-90, MXR stereo chorus, Pro Co Rat — SH

Brian Setzer announced he has been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that prevents him from playing guitar.

The rockabilly electric guitar legend made the news public on February 13 via Facebook:

Hi everybody,

I just wanted to check in with you all. Towards the end of the last Stray Cats tour I noticed that my hands were cramping up. I’ve since discovered that I have an auto-immune disease. I cannot play guitar.

There is no pain, but it feels like I am wearing a pair of gloves when I try to play. I have seen some progress in that I can hold a pen and tie my shoes. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I was at a point where I couldn’t even do that. Luckily, I have the best hospital in the world down the block from me. It’s called the Mayo Clinic. I know I will beat this, it will just take some time.

I love you all,

Brian

The Stray Cats' most recent tour was a three-week event that took place in the summer of 2024. It was the group's first tour in five years.

Although there is no cure for autoimmune diseases, their symptoms can be mitigated with a range of treatments. With any luck, Setzer will be able to play again soon.

Setzer is by the far the best-known and most successful rockabilly guitarist in rock and roll history. He first found success with the Stray Cats in the 1980s, when he helped relaunch the rockabilly genre decades after it has fallen from popularity.

“Rockabilly is so near and dear to my heart,” the guitarist told Guitar Player in 2023. “There’s just something exciting about it, and it never goes out of style. You can always add your own wrinkle to it and take it somewhere else.”

His love of the genre led him to visit the home of rockabilly legend Eddie Cochran, where he played his Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins hollowbody guitar.

“I did get the chance to play his guitar at his mom’s house,’ he told Guitar Player last year. “I realized when I played it a little that it had what seemed like Slinky strings on there — the G wasn't a wound string. I asked his mom if they’d ever been changed and she said, 'Oh no, absolutely not. They are the strings that were on it when he last played it.' I guess he must have used a banjo string for the E so that he could get a plain G string by moving the high E and B strings down to the B and G slots. The way he strung it — he was way ahead of his time."

Since finding success with rockabilly, Setzer demonstrated his talent for resuscitating other musical styles from bygone eras when he launched a thriving career in jump blues and swing with the Brian Setzer Orchestra in the 1990s.

Guitar Player sends its best wishes to Setzer for a fast and full recovery.

"Those things still bring me the most fun out of anything," Brian Setzer said of Gretsch guitars in a 2023 Guitar Player interview with contributor Gary Graff. But as he went on to explain, the reason he fell in love with the Gretsch brand in the first place was due to one particular guitarist: Eddie Cochran.

"I bought one in the late 1970s because I wanted to look like Eddie Cochran;" Setzer said. "I didn't even know if they'd sound good. Back then no one knew who Eddie Cochran was, so I found one in the local paper for 100 bucks."

Some two decades earlier, Cochran — who played a Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins hollowbody — had been an inescapable presence on the hit parade as one of the guitarists most vital to first wave of rock and roll. Born in America, Cochran had managed to become a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic with late-1950s hits like "Twenty Flight Rock," "Summertime Blues" and "C'mon Everybody." Artists from the Beatles to the Who celebrated his music, but Cochran was dead well before either group arrived on the scene, his life cut tragically short in a taxi accident in Bristol on the night of April 16, 1960. He died the next day. (More fortunate were his traveling companions: his friend, the rocker Gene Vincent, and Cochran's girlfriend, the songwriter Sharon Sheeley, who wrote hits for RIcky Nelson and Richie Valens, and co-wrote Cochran's own 1959 hit "Somethin' Else.")

Cochran's memory slipped into the distant past as rock and pop grew progressively more advanced in the 1960s and '70s, but Setzer remained hooked to his music, which he'd first discovered as a youngster in the 1960s. He even got to portray the rocker in the 1987 Richie Valens biopic, La Bamba, where he performed "Summertime Blues" in a cameo appearance.

Considering how Gretsch guitars have shaped Setzer's sound — and how he has transformed the brand with his line of signature models — we thought it was high time we spoke with him about Cochran's influence on his guitar tone, music and image. He was only too happy to oblige.

Were you already a 1950s rock and roll fan prior to getting into Eddie, or was he your gateway?

My mom and dad liked ’50s music, but being from New York it was mostly doo-wop, which is great music of course. What I found though is that Eddie Cochran kind of flew under the radar a bit, especially with audiences in later years, where only a handful of his songs were well known. When I discovered Eddie, it was like a whole new world — kinda like, “Now this is what I’m talking about!” [laughs]

The image is a huge part of the appeal of the great ’50s rockers isn’t it?

Yeah, absolutely. To be honest, I saw his reissued album The Legendary Masters hanging up in my local record store, I thought, Oh my god, I want to be that guy! It was the coolest look, and I knew that I wanted to look like that guy before I even heard the music. I had no idea at that point how good he was.

There’s a very subtle nod to Eddie on the cover of Rockabilly Riot – All Original. The clothes you’re wearing are a copy of what Eddie was wearing on the Legendary Masters cover.

Yeah, I copied that outfit exactly. I just couldn’t ever get a good enough picture of the pants. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had them. They got them out for me so I could take some pictures of them. They just seemed kinda handmade, like someone’s mom had made them or something. They definitely weren’t made by Elvis’s tailor. [laughs]

I always wondered how you knew what color they were, as I’d never seen a color picture of him wearing them.

Yeah, that’s exactly right. Fortunately, they had them put away at the Hall of Fame. That was the exact outfit that I’d worshipped growing up. [laughs]

Did you actually work out licks from the records and that kind of thing?

To a degree, but for me it was always about the feeling, and the song — learning the basis of the solo but not worrying about getting it note-for-note perfect. It was about capturing the feel and the spirit.

Eddie led you to Gretsch. Did you ever experiment with the P90 in the neck pickup, at any time?

I think the whole idea of Eddie was good enough. I didn’t feel the need to seek out exactly the sound that he had. The first Gretsch that I got happened to have the Filter’Tron pickups, and to me, at 17, I thought it was the same thing. I didn’t realize there was a difference. By the time that I did become aware of the P90 thing, I’d already established my sound and I was happy with it.

What were you playing before you got into Gretsches?

I was fooling around with a bunch of guitars to try to find a sound that I liked. My first guitar was a Harmony, but that didn’t quite cut it. After that I had a solid-bodied Rickenbacker and a really nice Stratocaster. I liked the sound of the Strat, but I could never quite settle with the feel of it. When I found the Gretsch, that was just meant to be; everything felt and sounded right. To me it was halfway between a Fender and a Gibson; it had qualities of both of them.

What are your favorite tracks of Eddie’s?

When I heard “Somethin’ Else,” that cemented the fact that I knew what I had to do. Enough of school, this is what I’m going to pursue. [laughs]

I think Eddie’s still pretty underrated. Presumably you’d agree.

Yeah, that’s true. When artists have hit records, that’s what people base their assumptions on and most don’t dig down any further than the hits that they know. Of course the idea behind a hit record is not just to feature yourself on guitar, it’s to have a hit. It’s what serves the song best. When you do dig down a little deeper, that’s when you really understand just how great a guitarist he was.

Did you ever get to play Eddie’s Gretsch?

I did get the chance to play his guitar at his mom’s house. I realized when I played it a little that it had what seemed like Slinky strings on there — the G wasn't a wound string. I asked his mom if they’d ever been changed and she said, “Oh no, absolutely not. They are the strings that were on it when he last played it.” I guess he must have used a banjo string for the E so that he could get a plain G string by moving the high E and B strings down to the B and G slots. The way he strung it — he was way ahead of his time .

It must have been a moving moment to actually play the iconic guitar, particularly knowing it was still strung up from the last show he did.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I remember going into his bedroom, which his mom had kept exactly as it was when he was last there, and seeing he had a tweed Fender Bassman combo. That was a revelation for me, as I’d been plugging my Gretsch into a Bassman, but had never known that Eddie had used one. It’s funny, because you have to remember that amps were so expensive in the ’50s, and it makes you wonder what would make a guitar player decide to play through a bass amp back then. He must have experimented and realized that the Gretsch and the Bassman was a great combination.

It is almost the definitive set up for rockabilly isn’t it?

Well it’s worked for me for all these years, that’s for sure. [laughs]

You got to play Eddie in La Bamba. That must have been almost surreal, to go from being a fan to playing the man himself.

The whole movie was surreal. They had rented a high school, and everyone had to be in character. There was nothing from past 1959 anywhere, you know? I remember thinking, Holy cow, this is as close to the real thing as you can get. It definitely was surreal, and a real special feeling to get that chance to play Eddie, especially with him having had such a huge influence on me.

A name that rarely comes up in lists of 21st century rockabilly electric guitar greats is Cordell Jackson, a Mississippi native who blazed a trail with hot rod riffing, positively blistering tone, and a damn-the-torpedoes, DIY attitude in the face of sexism.

In the late '50s, Jackson – ignored by Sun Records' Sam Phillips due to her gender – started her own record label, producing sessions for others, and writing, recording, and releasing the occasional tune under her own name. 

It wasn't until the late '80s, though, that Jackson – now well into her '60s – began gigging, where audiences bemused by her grandmotherly appearance were quickly left slack-jawed by the rawness and sheer aggression of her playing, fitting right in in the punk-friendly rock clubs she plied her trade in.

Though she, sadly, never received a great deal of recognition before her death in 2004, Jackson did have a brief, bizarre moment in the spotlight courtesy of – of all things – a Budweiser commercial.

Aired in the early '90s, the 30-second spot paired Jackson with one of rockabilly's premier living players, Brian Setzer. Sound-checking for a fictional show, Setzer is interrupted by Jackson from the cheap seats. “Crunch that last chord! I'll show ya,” she shouts.

Seated in a rocking chair (befitting of her reputation as a sort of “rock 'n' roll granny”) Jackson takes Setzer on. The ad's subsequent, Eddie Van Halen-esque backing track is obviously exaggerated, but it nonetheless points to Jackson's freewheeling, attitude-minded playing (“I've found that the faster I play, the more accurate I become,” she said in a 1990 interview.)

“You're pretty good!” Jackson says to Setzer with a mischievous smile. “Not!” 

Aside from the commercial, one of Jackson's breakout performances came a few years earlier, in 1988, on the WFMU radio show The Hound.

Jim Marshall, the show's host, described Jackson's performance as “some of the most vicious, nasty rock ’n’ roll guitar I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Though he has played other electric guitars on occasion over the course of his four decade-plus career, it's difficult to imagine Stray Cats frontman and rockabilly legend Brian Setzer without one of his trademark Gretsch 6120s.

Of course, though, hardly any guitarists would begin their journey with that nice an instrument – unless they're incredibly lucky with a hand-me-down, to the manor born, or both. 

Brian Setzer fit neither of those labels, but he was able to – with a little bit of luck – land his first Gretsch as a teenager. 

“I was 17 years old and found it in this local paper, The Byline Press,” Setzer told Guitar Player in 2019. “It said, ‘Gretsch guitar, 100 bucks.’ I called the guy up and asked, ‘Is it like Eddie Cochran’s?’ He was like, ‘Who?’

“So, I went to his house, and there was the guitar, the 1959 orange 6120. It was exactly what I was looking for. He was going to refinish it and make it natural. He had all of the electronics for it in a shoe box. I gave him 100 bucks, took the guitar and the shoe box, and off I went. It was destiny.”

Of course, a guitar is only ever one part of the tonal equation, but luck once again came into play when Setzer landed on his guitar amp of choice, the Fender Bassman.

“The Bassman was another destiny thing. I thought it was just a really cool-looking amp,” the guitarist revealed to GP in the same interview. “I was into my image and wanted to look cool. I saw these blonde amps and just thought, ‘I need one of those.’ I didn’t even know how great they sounded.

“I answered another ad, this one from a jazz bass player in Weehawken [New Jersey]. So I bought the amp, and there it was: ‘Wow, that’s the combination!’”

At the time of the interview, the Stray Cats were fresh off the release of 40, their first album of new material in over a quarter-century. Though they haven't released a new studio full-length in the years since, the reunited trio remain a popular live attraction.

• For a full list of the band's 2024 US dates, and tickets, visit their website.

Brian Setzer is, as he once sang with the Stray Cats, built for speed. And you have to keep the pedal down just to keep up with him – especially when it comes to his music. Over the past nearly 50 years — primarily with the Stray Cats and on his own — Setzer has puzzled and confounded listeners and been a master of doing what you’d least expect. Just sporting a pompadour and playing rockabilly during the AOR- and punk-dominated late ’70s would have been nonconformist enough, but Setzer, now 64, has made a career out of keeping us guessing — and pleasing us far more often than not.

Born in Massapequa on Long Island, Setzer started out playing the euphonium in his school’s jazz bands. He could be found, underage, at the Village Vanguard in New York City’s Greenwich Village, but he was quickly making connections between the broad array of jazz he loved and contemporary rock. He was particularly drawn to rockabilly, gravitating toward body ink, pompadours and the big, open sound of the Gretsch 6120. He and his brother Gary started a band called the Tomcats, which became the Stray Cats with the addition of Lee Rocker (née Drucker) on double bass and Slim Jim Phantom (McDonnell) on drums. 

Long Island — and America, for that matter — was not a particularly inviting incubator for throwback cats, so Setzer, Rocker and Phantom found better fortunes over in London, where there was greater interest from fans and fellow musicians alike. Dave Edmunds took the Stray Cats in from the cold, producing the group’s self-titled 1981 debut album, a number 6 hit on the U.K. charts that launched Top 10 singles such as Runaway Boys and Rock This Town. After issuing Gonna Ball later that year, the group compiled the two sets into Built for Speed and came back across the pond, where MTV was able to help translate the vision and turn the Stray Cats into a Gold-certified sensation at home, too.

Then things got really interesting for Setzer. The Stray Cats’ first breakup, in 1984, sent him out into the world as a solo artist without parameters. Setzer played with Robert Plant’s outfit the Honeydrippers, then surprised the world with his heartland rock–leaning solo debut The Knife Feels Like Justice in 1986. Four years later, he introduced the Brian Setzer Orchestra, an 18-piece big band that played jump blues (its rendition of Louis Prima’s Jump, Jive an’ Wail soundtracked a Gap commercial), won a pair of Grammy Awards and launched an annual Christmas tour. 

For the past four decades he’s mixed the BSO with Stray Cats reunions and solo albums — one of them, Wolfgang’s Big Night Out in 2007, was filled with six-string interpretations of classical compositions and scored a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Crossover Album. His 2011 set Setzer Goes Instru-Mental!, another Grammy nominee, blended originals with trio covers of Bill Monroe’s Blue Moon of Kentucky and Ray Noble’s Cherokee, among others. 

This fall, Setzer released The Devil Always Collects, the follow-up to 2021’s Gotta Have the Rumble and his second consecutive collaboration with producer Julian Raymond. Like its predecessor, the 11-song set was recorded remotely, with Setzer and engineer Jason Orris working at the Terrarium in Minneapolis, where the guitarist resides, and sending files back and forth to Raymond in Nashville. Setzer and regular lyricist Mike Himelstein collaborated on five of the tracks, and his wife, Julie, co-wrote one (Psycho Suzie). 

He also covers Del Reeves’ Girl on the Billboard and Nick Lowe’s Play That Fast Thing (One More Time). Those paying attention — and there are many who do — will note that the primary guitar this time out is a “Frankenstein” 1957/’58 Gretsch Duo Jet, which gives The Devil Always Collects a solidbody bite that’s still true to the twang that’s his stock in trade.

And perhaps best of all, Setzer is hitting the road again for the first time since the BSO’s holiday tour of 2018 — refreshed and, he says, ready to rumble once again.

You recorded Gotta Have the Rumble and The Devil Always Collects the same way, remotely. What appeals to you about that as a process?

First of all, it certainly is a pleasure to just go down the block, like you’re going to a job, and then come back home at the end of the day. Something feels good about that. But, y’know, the old school of thought is you get everybody in the room and you make a record. That’s how it was done and the way I always thought it should be done, and this blows it out of the water. ’Cause if you think about it, even if you’re all in the room, you’re kind of in your own room. Even when I make records with the Stray Cats, or with the three-piece band, the bass player is acoustic, and there’s a lot of leakage, so we put him in the little vocal room. We call it the fish tank, because you can only see him through the glass. So he’s not really in the same room. And then the drummer is partitioned, because he’s so loud and you can’t have leakage into your microphone. So when you’re in different places like that, does it really matter if you’re all in one place or in other parts of the country? These records really came out sounding good, even though we weren’t “together.”

So how did you know what you wanted this record to sound like?

I always let them be what they want to be. It always starts with the writing, whatever comes out. That’s like turning on a faucet, I like to say. Once I start rolling, it just comes out that way. 

This record, to me, sounds a little more, for lack of a better word, popabilly or psychobilly. It has a little more edge to it. There’s definitely ways you can go with rockabilly music. You can have a more country approach, for instance. This one seems to be a little more intense, and 

I just went with it.

Was there a first song or two that came along and put the album on its path?

I think the first song I wrote for it was Rock Boys Rock. I wasn’t getting the sound I wanted out of the 6120; it just was not matching how frantic the song had become. So I plugged in this Duo Jet I’ve got — it’s a Frankenstein, a ’57 [body], ’58 [neck] Duo Jet, and I just turned it up a little bit louder than I normally would. Jason and I looked at each other and were like, “Oh gosh, that’s it!” Little things like that inspire you to keep writing, to keep moving in a certain direction. On the last record it was this old reverb unit that got me to write songs. On this record it was the Duo Jet. 

What’s the Duo Jet’s story? 

I’ve had it for close to my entire life. I think it came from Canada originally, and it’s been worked on a lot; I’m not sure how much of a Duo Jet is really left in that guitar, really. I used it on my first Rockabilly Riot album [2005], when I did all the Sun [Records] sessions covers, and it sounded great, ’cause I wanted the old single-coil sound. But when I cranked it up a little more than I should this time, it became that kind of flange-monster thing. What a great-sounding guitar! 

I don’t know what it is about it. It’s almost Telecaster like, but not as mellow. It’s got more twang to it. So I used it on most of the record, and this is my first record where I didn’t play the 6120 that much. 

You can hear the Duo Jet as an inspiration on something like “Black Leather Jacket,” which is kind of an outlier — almost metal, really — on the record.

Yeah. [sings the lick] It’s darker than the happy rockabilly songs. Maybe that was from being cooped up in the house for so long — I was getting a little aggravated, like everyone else. It got frustrating, so maybe [the song] came out of that direction. These songs just develop, y’know? I don’t control them. I think they control me. The Devil Always Collects was like a little monster. 

That riff just killed me.

How did you become a Gretsch guy, and what keeps you one today?

Those things still bring me the most fun out of anything. Out of old motorcycles, old cars — it’s Gretsch guitars. I bought one [his 1959 orange 6120] in the late 1970s because I wanted to look like Eddie Cochran. I didn’t even know if they’d sound good. Back then, no one knew who Eddie Cochran was, so I found it in the local paper for 100 bucks. It’s such a special sound. People who play solidbody guitars don’t have this happen, but the sound comes out of the amplifier, it goes back through the guitar, so you can control how much sustain you want, how much feedback you want, and the whole thing shakes. You feel it. It’s the best thing in the world, for me.

And the right amp?

Again, that’s just a matter of luck. I picked up a Fender Bassman. It’s from 1963. I got it because I had to beat Slim Jim on the drums. It’s a loud amp — just that combination. When I made some money and I came back from England, I thought, Now I’m going to buy what everyone else plays, and I got a Fender Stratocaster and a big Marshall amp. But I could never beat the Gretsch through the Bassman.

When Ready to Rumble came out, you talked about having some songs you wrote with Joe Strummer still around. Did you consider them for this album at all?

No. That was in a different style. I’ve got three or four [songs] around, but I like to think that I guard Joe. I don’t talk about him too much. We were close friends. I like to keep his memory the way I think he would like it. If those songs ever see the light of day, I’d probably run them past Lucinda, his widow — “Would it be all right if I did this?” — just because I have that much respect for him. 

What was working with him like?

Joe and I were just kind of family-vacation friends, really. Back in the day Joe and his family would come out to California, where I was living at the time, and we’d spend the whole summer together, simply as friends. And then it might be, “Hey Joe, you have any lyrics you’re writing with that band you got, The Clash? [laughs] And he’d sit down and write some lyrics, and I’d write songs for them. A couple of them I used, and I’ve got these three or four I put away and forgot about. 

So we’d do it just for fun, but we never spoke about our bands. We talked about everything but — about being friends, and Cadillacs. We’d drive down to the Mexican border. He was fascinated with American culture and always wanted to see what it was like. 

I remember, we stopped once ’cause there were cowboys playing poker in a field and he wanted to talk to them. I was like, “Joe, maybe you don’t want to stop and talk to these guys,” but he did. [laughs] I think they cut him some slack because they knew he was from somewhere else, ’cause he had a funny accent to them. And he loved that kind of stuff — crazy American stuff. We had a lot of fun together. He’s like me, but he was British, right?

Do any of the new album’s songs have some history from sitting around and waiting for their time, as it were?

No. I usually dig into what I have laying around; I start fresh. Sometimes I’ll be digging through my old cassettes and something might jump out at me — a guitar lick or a song title. But not that often. And then even, it’s just a starting point and I’ll take it somewhere else. 

You made a comment in announcing The Devil Always Collects that you’ll be playing “some solo guitar and little things I’ve worked out by myself” at shows this year. Does this mean truly solo, as in “unaccompanied”?

Yeah, I want to play some solo guitar stuff, just by myself. That’s something I’ve never done before. I just played some local shows here at a little pub down the block, just to see how things would go over and to see how everything sounded. I hadn’t played in quite a while so I wanted to see how my ears work — how my brain works after the break. And I wanted to play some solo instrumental things. For instance, I have a version of Georgia on My Mind that I always wanted to do. I did Cherokee straight-up, almost kind of jazz. I did a bluegrass thing that inspired me from the past. I just played and it really went over well, I think because there’s not many people that play like me, to be honest. People were very attentive, so I’m gonna keep doing it, plug it into the middle of the show or something. 

Nobody plays like you — that’s kind of the crux of the matter here. Where does that range you’ve explored all these years come from?

I just liked all kinds of music, and I felt that to limit yourself to just one style is like using three fingers when you have five. The first music I remember hearing was rockabilly music around the house, Elvis, and music to TV shows and cartoons. I mean, have you honestly ever listened to how good the theme to Mannix is, or the theme to Rocky and Bullwinkle? It’s incredible! I was really influenced by all of that music that you just heard on everyday TV. It might sound silly, but all of that music was written so well. I think the guys who wrote those things came from that era of big-band songwriting, and all those great movies with the scores. So that was my first taste of music, really, when you’re home sick from school one day and you’re watching some old cartoons, going, “Wow, what’s that?” and absorbing all kinds of music. I can still hum those old songs. I think a lot of people can. It was written really well, and it inspired me. 

What was the allure of rockabilly — and why do you think it’s maintained its appeal for nearly 70 years now?

It’s got the best energy. It’s pure. It was the original spirit of rock and roll. Y’know what Jimmy Page said to Slim Jim? “Y’know, the second solo on [Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps’] Double Talkin’ Baby that Cliff Gallup did? I still play it. It’s the most amazing thing.” Rockabilly has that certain purity and energy about it. 

Why did that happen? I think a lot of guys were young and they came back from the war and they had nothing to do. Or they picked up a trade, maybe, and all of a sudden they started tinkering with electronics, and that led to guitars. I don’t know. It’s fascinating, though: The original rockabillies, the guys from Virginia played different than the guys from Kansas City. They had the radio. They didn’t have computers. They didn’t have different ways of hearing music. Whatever was being played [on radio] was what they were influenced by. In those days you had James Burton from Louisiana, who played a whole lot different from Cliff Gallup in Virginia. 

It was all so regional. And Cliff Gallup picked up a little bit of jazz coming from New York. You could hear the region in their playing.

The Rolling Stones were early Stray Cats adopters and even had you open for them. What was that like?

When they first came in to see us, I knew maybe three songs by the Rolling Stones. I didn’t know much about them. I knew Honky Tonk Women and the hits. I was more infatuated with Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but I discovered [the Stones] after they discovered us. At one time I think they wanted to sign us to some sort of record label that they were going to start, but I don’t think they ever did that. 

You did largely get the validation from your heroes. That had to feel good.

The original rockabilly guys I met were all so happy for us. They were just happy to hear the actual music back. That to me was the real excitement, when I got to meet those guys: “You’re the guy that did Red Hot!” That meant more to me than meeting the current people.

You have a career that’s generally gone against the grain — you played rockabilly when punk and new wave were popular, and big band when grunge ruled. Are you a natural nonconformist or a contrarian?

[laughs] That’s my mom, just her streak of stubbornness. I might have gotten a little of that. I’m sure it’s worked against me. But I’ve been lucky enough to do what I’ve always wanted to do. And to play guitar and have anyone take notice of it, not to mention play the kind of music that lasted for a couple years in the ’50s. I’m surprised it got out of my garage, man. I was very lucky that other people liked it. It’ll never be this huge thing like country music or hard rock, but it’s my thing. 

Is there anything you’ve done that would surprise people who just know the Stray Cats or maybe the Orchestra?

I had a new wave band called the Bloodless Pharaohs. That was the first band that got me playing [New York City] punk rock clubs: CBGB, Max’s. I didn’t sing. It was like Roxy Music meets rock and roll. You’d have to hear it. It was really interesting stuff. I was just going along with it all. One night I’d play with the Pharaohs, the other night I’d play with some cat band — the Bobcats, the Stray Cats... We’d change the name all the time. But, yeah, the Bloodless Pharaohs. We made a record, but I’m not sure you can find it anywhere. 

From your elder-statesman stature now [Setzer laughs], what’s your advice on how to develop a distinctive style?

Well, that’s a good question. When I first started, I heard people on the radio and I really liked the way they had their own distinct sound. The first thing I thought, probably the most important thing, is, “I wanna get my own sound,” and I somehow stumbled upon that Gretsch-Bassman combination. I was influenced by a lot of people, but I got my own sound going. Somehow you’ve got to find that. You’ve got to find that voice, with the guitar-and-amp combination or whatever. You don’t need the crazy Les Paul–through–the Marshall; you can get something that’s unique. The other thing is to not be limited — put all sorts of music together. There are no rules. I say you follow rules all day; when you play guitar is the one chance you get to not have to follow rules. So a lot of it is just keep trying, and then all of a sudden you find your own sound. It can be done. 

What would you advise as the best way to keep growing and continually improve — like you’ve strived to?

I think you have to keep a positive outlook in life. It’s pretty easy to go down the dark avenues. I think keeping positive rises you above a lot of the chatter of negativity, especially on the internet. See, I didn’t grow up with the internet. When opinion started to come out [online] without any responsibility being taken, it really shocked me at first. It really did. I think, especially as a young person today, you have to rise above it and not pay attention to it. 

Just be yourself, try and keep positive. Certainly, if people are telling you what to do, don’t listen to them. Just keep doing it how you want to. That’s the best piece of advice I can give. 

Is there anything that you haven’t done yet that you’d like to?

I just want to get back in the pool and play again, ’cause it’s been a while. I’d like to do the trio aspect a little, then next time I want to play with the Stray Cats, because that’s the best rockabilly band. The best one. So I’m probably gonna do that next summer.

I have two albums’ worth of my own songs I want to play, so once I get that finished I’ll get back and do the Stray Cats. It’s got that chemistry. It’s got magic that you can’t put into words. That’s what keeps you coming back. You want to capture that little piece of magic, ’cause we don’t know why it happens and we want to figure it out. 

Brian Setzer would like to thank Adam Meyer of Mill City Lutherie, in Minneapolis, who reset the necks on two of his 6120s, as well as Twin Cities luthier Wyatt Overman. The Devil Always Collects is out now to buy or to stream.

Brian Setzer has released the first single from his forthcoming LP, The Devil Always Collects. Available via Surfdog Records, Setzer’s latest solo album is due out on September 15.

Accompanied by an animated music video, the rockabilly icon’s version of “Girl on the Billboard” is a souped up, tremolo-laden cover of country singer Del Reeves’ chart-topping 1965 hit.

“It’s an old truckers song,” said Setzer. “At first I wasn’t getting the sound I wanted until I picked up my Gretsch 1957 Duo Jet 6131 Fire Bird. I mean, the sound is monstrous, dirty and twangy.”

An oft-overlooked vintage axe, the Gretsch Jet Fire Bird was a guitar of choice for rock and roll pioneer Bo Diddley who famously appeared with the model on album covers.

Featuring a pair of DeArmond Model 2000 pickups (referred to in Gretsch literature as Dynasonics), the original Gretsch Jet electrics have a quintessential rock and roll tone that will take you right back to the ‘50s, especially when fitted with flatwound strings.

Gene Vincent guitarist Cliff Gallup was also an early proponent of the original Gretsch Jet design that debuted in 1953 with the Duo Jet. Appearing alongside the black-finish Duo Jet and sparkle-finish Silver Jet, the Jet Fire Bird was released in ’55 and is essentially the same design, albeit with a red finish.

Early rock and roll fans Jeff Beck and George Harrison were similarly smitten with DeArmond Model 2000-fitted Jets, while Malcolm Young and PJ Harvey both played Filter’Tron-equipped double-cutaway ‘60s models.

Produced by Setzer and Julian Raymond, The Devil Always Collects features a rootsy rock sound with a “contemporary freshness that unites fans of rock, Americana, rockabilly, and punk.”

Days after the album’s release on September 15, Setzer is due to head out on tour. Celebrating his first set of live shows in over four years, the Rockabilly Riot tour will begin on September 27.

“I’ve had a pretty long break, and I needed it,” revealed the guitarist. “I’m renewed and really want to play live again. I want to just get out on the road with this kick-ass little three-piece band and start playing.

“I think fans can always expect that I’m going to play the hits. I also want to play some solo guitar and little things I’ve worked out by myself. I’ve never really gotten to do that, so it's going to be something new.”

Visit the Brian Setzer website for more information and tickets.

“Rockabilly never goes out of style,” Brian Setzer once declared. And whether or not the genre is to your liking, it’s difficult to dispute that both it and other forms of early rock and roll have proved remarkably long lived.

Speaking personally, the 1950s weren’t much my thing when I was a kid. I was born with the British Invasion. About the only music from the previous decade I’d listen to was the Chess Records compilation Chuck Berry’s Golden Decade and a couple of seemingly ancient singles that had been floating around our house: Bill Haley’s “Crazy Man, Crazy” and Little Richards’ “Ready Teddy.”

As far as I was concerned, that was all I needed from that bygone era.

But by the decade’s end, my ears, like those of other young music fans, were being tweaked by the sound of a 1950s music revival, led by the New York City rock and roll group Sha Na Na.

Soon after, the 1971 musical Grease became a hit, and the growing glam-rock movement began to embrace many aspects of the ’50s in its music and dress style.

Hearing Mick Ronson’s arpeggiated tremolo guitar lines on David Bowie’s “Rock ’N’ Roll Suicide” was probably the first thing that hipped me to the idea that there was something indelible about that old music.

Many of the songs on Elton John’s Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player album, which followed a few months after, likewise demonstrated that those classic styles and riffs still had power in them. (Click here to read Elton John guitarist Davey Johnstone's fantastic interview.)

That fact only got clearer when punk arrived a few years later, and bands like the Clash, Blondie and Robert Gordon infused their music with the varied strains of 1950s rock and roll. (Transport your mind forward from that time and you may notice that a recurring motif in much of today’s pop music is a music bed consisting of four repeated chords – usually I-vi-IV-V, or some variant of it – which is a hallmark of 1950s rock and roll.)

Ultimately, it took three young gents from Long Island, New York, to prove to everyone that early rock and roll’s slick, fast, shark-finned vehicle still had plenty of miles left on it.

When the Stray Cats’ U.S. debut album came storming across the airwaves in the midst of the new wave and synth-pop explosion, an American rock and roll revival seemed imminent. The raw and unadulterated power of the music, played superbly by Brian Setzer, Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom, was impossible to ignore.

The Stray Cats reignited rock and roll at a most improbable time. Just as importantly, Setzer reinvigorated the art of virtuoso rock and roll guitar playing.

His combination of double-stop riffing, twanging low notes and an ear-catching infusion of jazz-informed lead and rhythm work not only recalled the best of rockabilly guitarists like Duane Eddy, Cliff Gallup and Grady Martin – it also raised the bar for every electric guitar player who dug a plectrum into rock and roll’s classic catalog.

Here, the band performs their classic hit “Stray Cat Strut” at the 1981 Montreux Jazz Festival to rapturous applause. Having released their eponymous debut album some six months earlier, the Stray Cats were one of the hottest – and, ultimately, most influential – new acts around at the time.

***The following appeared in the May 2019 issue of Guitar Player***

"There's something about rockabilly riffs that makes them different from other kinds of riffs, Brian Setzer says. 

“When I hear a rock riff, I hear something that’s very tied to the drums. There’s a funky aspect to the way it works. But a great rockabilly riff operates on so many levels. I hear blues, country and jazz. I hear big bands and horn melodies. There’s a lot of colors going on. I guess that’s why I’ve found rockabilly so appealing. It’s a limitless art form.”

Some artists are tourists of multiple genres, but Setzer is more like an explorer, going deep into subcategories such as roots-rock, bluegrass, doo-wop, jump blues and hillbilly jazz.

With uncanny prescience, he kickstarted the ’90s neo-swing revival when he formed his eponymous Orchestra in 1994, much as he did a decade earlier when he rebooted the Sun Studio sound of the 1950s with his group the Stray Cats.

Shaking off a first impression is darn near impossible, and to the millions of music fans who first heard him hot-dogging solos with the Stray Cats on early ’80s hits like “Rock This Town,” “Stray Cat Strut” and “Runaway Boys,” Setzer will always be associated with rockabilly.

And he’s cool with that.

“Rockabilly is so near and dear to my heart,” the guitarist says. “There’s just something exciting about it, and it never goes out of style. You can always add your own wrinkle to it and take it somewhere else.”

Setzer formed the Stray Cats with fellow Long Islanders and rockabilly enthusiasts Lee Rocker (upright bassist) and Slim Jim Phantom (snare and kick specialist) in 1979. Sporting greaser duds, colorful tattoos and mile-high pompadours, the band invaded stages at New York City punk clubs like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City – and they went down a smash.

“The funny thing was, we weren’t really different from the punk bands,” Setzer says. “The rockabilly music from the ’50s was basically the punk music of its day. It was essentially I-IV-V blues progressions, with some killer musicians playing it. So I wrote songs in the rockabilly style, but it sounded just as fresh as what everybody else was doing.”

Even so, the band couldn’t get a record deal in the States, and it wasn’t until they relocated to England in 1980 – where they found fans like the Rolling Stones and a sympathetic producer in ex-Rockpile guitarist Dave Edmunds – that they signed with Arista and scored a series of chart hits.

Two years later, EMI in the States took note and compiled the Stray Cats’ first two U.K. albums (Stray Cats and Gonna Ball) as Built for Speed.

With MTV a fixture in living rooms across the nation, the band’s videos were seen 24/7, and Built for Speed became the surprise hit of 1982, selling more than a million copies.

But the Stray Cats quickly flamed out. Their Built for Speed follow-up, 1983’s Rant N’ Rave with the Stray Cats, produced a Top 10 hit with “(She’s) Sexy + 17” but only went Gold, and a year later the group, mired by internal squabbles, packed it in.

Setzer puts the band’s breakup down to the predictable “too much, too soon” syndrome, but he also admits that his outsized ego was the root of the group’s demise. “It was pride and stubbornness,” he says. “When you’re young and full of yourself, you start to think, I don’t need those other guys. Plus, there was a musical aspect to it – I wanted to try something a little different. So I did that.

“But after a while, you kind of grow up. You realize just how silly you were, and you think, Well, maybe we could get back together.”

As it happens, Setzer wasn’t thinking about getting back into the studio with the band when he started writing the batch of songs that eventually became 2019’s comeback album, 40.

As he explains, “I was just messing around with an old Fender Reverb unit, and I just loved the twangy sound of it. I began writing these songs that were like spaghetti westerns – which is really surf-guitar music when you get down to it.

“But then I got on the phone with Jim, and he mentioned that our 40-year anniversary was coming up. I was like, ‘Holy cow, you’re right!’ So that planted the seed. 40 is a big number. You gotta honor it.”

What was the first rockabilly record that made you go, “What is that?”

That’s easy: “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” by Gene Vincent. I was 16 or 17, and I went to Max’s Kansas City. The jukebox was playing new wave and all the current stuff, but suddenly that song came on, and I was like, Wow… What is that? I went over to read what it was. That sound and that guitar solo just jumped out at me. I’ll never forget it.

There wasn’t anything like that around at the time. There was Robert Gordon, whom I found out about. But at the time, it was all new wave and punk – the Dead Boys, the Cramps… That kind of thing.

Cliff Gallup’s guitar on “Be-Bop-A-Lula” just knocked me out. It was so different. The sound of that guitar just went right through me.

At the time, you were also a jazz fan, and what I’ve always liked about your playing is the way you mix jazz chords and soloing with rockabilly. Did that just happen naturally?

Well, see, I didn’t have musical blinders on. On Thursday night, I’d go to the Village Vanguard and see the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. On Friday night, I’d go see a punk band. I liked it all, and that’s what came out of me with chords and riffs.

I had a certain style and played with a thumbpick and flatwound strings. It wasn’t conscious. There was nothing premeditated to it.

When did you get your first Gretsch?

I was 17 years old and found it in this local paper, The Byline Press. It said, “Gretsch guitar, 100 bucks.” I called the guy up and asked, “Is it like Eddie Cochran’s?” He was like, “Who?”

So I went to his house, and there was the guitar, the 1959 orange 6120. It was exactly what I was looking for. He was going to refinish it and make it natural. He had all of the electronics for it in a shoe box. I gave him 100 bucks, took the guitar and the shoe box, and off I went. It was destiny.

What kinds of guitars were you playing before the Gretsch?

Prior to the Grestch, it was a Japanese guitar that my dad got for me at a pawnshop on Canal Street. I had to bug him for it because my parents didn’t have extra money to spend. They were just blue-collar folk.

And then I think I moved up to a solidbody Harmony. Having the right guitar made all the difference. Some people could get a good sound on the Harmony, but I couldn’t figure it out. Although I did have better luck when somebody told me about Slinky strings. Before that, I was using these heavy-gauge strings. You could use those things for bridge cables. Slinky strings were a revelation to me, and, of course, so was the Gretsch.

Did it take a while for you to figure out the right amp to pair it with, the Fender Bassman?

The Bassman was another destiny thing. I thought it was just a really cool-looking amp. I was into my image and wanted to look cool. I saw these blonde amps and just thought, I need one of those. I didn’t even know how great they sounded.

I answered another ad, this one from a jazz bass player in Weehawken. So I bought the amp, and there it was: “Wow, that’s the combination!”

Did having the right combination of guitar and amp change how you played or wrote?

It puts you in the right frame of mind, and you feel better about what you’re doing because you love the sound you’re getting. I’m not saying you can’t write a good rockabilly song with a Les Paul through a Marshall or some other non-rockabilly setup, but because the whole writing thing is so elusive, it just helps to have the right tools.

Like on [40]: I couldn’t have written it without a Fender Reverb unit. That thing really inspired me to get going.

The Stray Cats formed in 1979, the same year that Queen had a surprise hit with their own take on rockabilly, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” What did you think of that song? Did it bother you at all?

Oh, no, I wasn’t bothered by that in the least. I thought it was fantastic! I thought it was great. Brian May really stepped outside his signature sound on that one. What a great solo he played, you know? I thought the whole thing was terrific.

After leaving the Stray Cats, your first solo album, The Knife Feels Like Justice, explored more of a roots-rock/Americana sound similar to what Springsteen and John Mellencamp were doing.

Yeah, that’s right. I really wanted to explore that area. I changed my guitar tones and wrote some different songs, played different guitars through different amps. That album was transitionary for me. There were some really good songs on it.

If that album had been a big hit, would you have stayed with that sound?

That’s hard to say. I don’t know. It was a Top 10 album, but it didn’t cross over enough, I guess. I’m not embarrassed by it. I just had to see if I could do it, you know? If you wear Levi’s your whole life, you want to try on something new. So I did that. I tried it, and then when I was done I wanted to try something else.

Over the years, you’ve reunited periodically with the Stray Cats, but you’ve also toured with another outfit, the Rockabilly Riot Band, and you’ve turned your Orchestra into a big live attraction. Is there any kind of plan to it all?

A plan? No way! [laughs] I really just do what I want. That’s the level I live on. Let’s say I do something that’s not as popular as the other things. If I can’t get through that month, I sell a guitar, or I get rid of a motorcycle. And then, for some reason, it always comes back. I’ll do something that does really well.

I’ve always done what I’ve wanted, and it’s worked out. I never had to slog through some tour I hated or anything like that.

Have you incorporated the Fender Reverb unit into your live set-up?

As far as the live rig goes, every time I try to vary what I’m using, it never seems to go over. That Bassman has to be there – it’s just the right sound – and I use the Roland Space Echo.

The Fender Reverb Unit doesn’t work so well live. You put that thing on certain stages, and if there’s a slightest bounce, it’s gonna go off. And man, let me tell you, that’s like an explosion! [laughs] So live, I use the reverb in the Space Echo. It’s not as good as the Fender, but it’s more convenient.

You’ve released several lines of signature Gretsch guitars. What did you use on 40?

Well, I can’t stray too much from that ’59 Gretsch. I love that sound. I’ve got a green sparkle Hot Rod that I used on quite a few tracks.

It’s thin sounding, which I like. People always say it’s too thin, but to me, thin sounding is good because it cuts through everything.

I also used a ’56 White Penguin. That could be the first time a White Penguin has ever been recorded.

So I used those guitars and a few different amps. A lot of the reverb you hear is from an old Fender Deluxe [Reverb.] I don’t use that on “Desperado” – on that I used a Supro. But I still go back to my ’63 Bassman. That’s the ticket for me. There was just something about those things. The one I have is pretty much like the amp I bought at 17. You get a stock Bassman that hasn’t had its transformers replaced, and you’re good to go.

If a young player wanted to study rockabilly, who would you direct him to?

Besides yourself, that is. Oh, there are a few cool guys. As far as modern players go, there’s Jim Heath from Reverend Horton Heat. He puts a real punk spin on rockabilly.

And there’s a Canadian gent, Paul Pigat, from Cousin Harley. He’s really great. And Darrel Higham, he’s a U.K. guy – another good one!

Those are probably the best modern rockabilly players out there. They each bring their own style to it. But I have to go back to the original guys: Scotty Moore and Cliff Gallup. They’re my favorites.

Is there anything about your playing style you wish you could improve?

Hmm… That’s a good question. If anything, I think I could leave some more holes. It’s not like we’re patching a roof, you know? I could leave a little more space sometimes. When I hear some of my older playing, I like it, but sometimes I think I overplayed.

So I could probably slow down a bit, play a little less. But you know how it is. You get onstage and you’re all excited, and you just wanna keep playing. But I’m getting there. I’m getting more seasoned. [laughs]

Order Brian Setzer's latest solo album, Gotta Have the Rumble, here.

***The following article appeared in the May 2019 issue of Guitar Player***

Like most great guitar techs, Tyler Sweet’s main goal during a show is to be onstage as little as possible. But when your boss is rockabilly rebel Brian Setzer, you can’t always predict what’s going to happen when the house lights go down, as Sweet discovered during one of his first European tours with the Stray Cats.

“It was 2007 or so, and we were doing rehearsals in Balboa, Spain,” Sweet says. “I had finally succeeded in getting Brian on a wireless, which meant I wouldn’t have to run out onstage to chase cable anymore while he was performing. And I had that wireless working perfectly.

“But the day before the first show, Brian says, ‘Hey, Ty, I’ll be on a cable tomorrow, right?’ I guess he likes things the way they were when he first started the Stray Cats. So the next night, there I am before the show, once again gaffing down the cable in strategic places to prevent it from getting caught when he moves around.

“In the middle of the concert, Brian suddenly hops through his two vocal wedges and then starts heading left along the front of the stage, knowing full well that the cable dragging behind him is about to get snagged.

“I run out and fix the situation just in time and then, over the music, I kind of say to him, ‘What the hell? You did that on purpose.’ And he says back, ‘Ty, you’re part of the show!’ I tell him, ‘I don’t want to be part of the show!’”

Sweet was also pulled into the show during a stint in Japan several years ago, when the Fender Bassman Setzer was plugged into suddenly failed. “As soon as that amp blew up,” Sweet says, “Brian announced to the audience, ‘Watch how fast Ty can fix this,’ and the whole audience started chanting, ‘Ty! Ty! Ty!’

“It took me about a minute and a half to get a backup rig out from side stage and powered up in center stage. These days, I keep an identical rig – amp, cab and Roland RE-301 tape echo – set up right behind the first rig as a backup. If you’re looking straight on, you probably can’t even see that there’s a backup there. Now, if the first amp blows, I can get Brian up and running again in as little as 30 seconds.”

Since the Japan meltdown, he has yet to have another amp go down. “That’s because the Fender Bassman is such a stable circuit,” says Sweet, who typically brings four of Setzer’s treasured early- ’60s Bassman heads (including matching 2x12 cabinets) out on the road.

“They’re the ones from about ’62 to ’63 that have the 6G6-B circuit with the nice midrange. Brian loves the way those sound. And as long as you do a little maintenance on them, such as testing the tubes and cleaning the sockets, they’re going to work. And if anything blows up on that simple point-to-point board, it’s easy to fix. The Bassman is like a diesel car engine – it’ll run forever.”

Setzer’s sound naturally starts in his hands, where he uses signature medium-gauge cellulose PickWorld picks to strike .010–.046 sets of D’Addario strings. Shockingly, Sweet changes Setzer’s strings only about once a year. “I used to change strings every night,” he says.

“But there was a Montreal Jazz Festival gig we did where Brian’s main guitar” – the orange ’59 Gretsch 6120 Setzer has been playing since he was a teenager – “for some reason did not arrive until right before the show. The strings were kind of dead, but the gig was going to be filmed, so I made a game-time decision to not change them, because there just wasn’t time for me to fully stretch them and get them settled enough that they’d stay in tune for a full show. I knew I’d have to come out there after four or five songs and give him a different guitar. Brian was not thrilled.”

The ensuing concert, however, proved to be “incredible,” Sweet says. “Brian called me into his dressing room after the show and asked me what I had done to the guitar, and I told him, ‘Nothing.’ He said, ‘Well, don’t ever change the strings again unless absolutely necessary, because that’s the sound.’

“Now, I hardly ever change them. The current set has about 70 shows on them. One reason they last so long is that Brian has a surprisingly light touch. Even with those bends he does, it takes forever for pits to develop in his frets.”

Sweet’s preferred “leash” – his term for the instrument cable he puts Setzer on – comprises 30 feet of Belden cable and a SwitchCraft Silent Plug (enabling noiseless guitar swaps), and it goes from the guitar straight into one of Setzer’s early ’80s Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo units, which he runs straight into the input of the active Bassman head.

“We have about 10 RE-301s working right now, and we keep four more around for parts,” explains Sweet, who has a love/hate relationship with the devices. “You learn different tricks to keep them working, but they’re tape echoes, so they are a bit delicate, which can be frustrating. I once had a bad dream where 10 of them fell on me.”

Growing up in Boston, Sweet began in the music business at age 13, when he got a job helping to refinish pianos. He soon learned to play guitar and went on to tech for a range of headliners, including Carlos Santana, Chrissie Hynde, Robert Randolph, Susan Tedeschi, Jefferson Starship and Yngwie Malmsteen.

Sweet’s longest gig by far, though, has been with Brian Setzer. “When the job came up to work for Brian, I jumped at it, because I’ve always been a fan of his,” Sweet says. “He’s both a great guitar player and a great guy.

“No matter what happens, he is never negative to me or angry with me. Even if his number-one guitar gets scratched, he says, ‘Big deal. Battle wound.’ Or if a tape echo goes down in the middle of a song, he doesn’t get upset – he understands that things get smacked around on the road and break.

“When that happens, he always tells the audience the same thing: ‘What can I say? I like old shit!’”

Order Brian Setzer's most recent solo album, Gotta Have the Rumble, here.

The Gretsch White Falcon was conceived as a one-off showpiece demonstration guitar, one that would grab people’s attention and draw them in with as much bling and over-the-top craftsmanship as Gretsch’s Brooklyn factory could muster.

Unveiled at the NAMM show in July 1954, the guitar created such a flap that Gretsch hatched a plan for the guitar to become a fully-fledged member of its electric guitar line.

The following year, the White Falcon debuted at the top of Gretsch’s pecking order as its most expensive instrument, retailing at $600, roughly $5,750 today.

Much like Gibson’s flagship Super 400CES, introduced in 1951, the White Falcon was established as Gretsch’s crowning glory, and to this day it remains the superlative guitar for many.

“It was my ultimate dream guitar,” says the anonymous British collector who owns the 1950s single-cut Gretsches pictured here. “The first time I saw a White Falcon was onstage with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young at Wembley Stadium in 1974.

“Neil Young and Stephen Stills played them a lot over the years. I used to look at the photographs when I was young and think, Wow! It was such a stunningly beautiful guitar and just something that I wanted to get one day.

“I was totally captivated by them, and their rarity created a kind of magic. For me, it’s the holy grail of guitars.”

In fact, he had never seen one available for purchase in the U.K. until Brian Setzer’s 1956 example came up for sale in 1994.

“He’d sold it to Marco Pirroni of Adam and the Ants, who was then brokering it through Vintage and Rare Guitars on Kenway Road in London,” he recalls.

“It was hideously expensive: I could’ve bought two [Fender] blackguards that were in the shop at the time for the same price – a matching ’53 Esquire and ’53 Telecaster. But when they took it out of the case, I just thought, I’ve got to have that guitar!”

He bought it and was not disappointed. “It totally lived up to my expectations,” the collector continues. “So I bought it and was smitten from then on. It’s like a Fabergé egg. It’s just fantastic.”

The other three in his collection – a ’58 mono 6136, a ’59 6136 and a ’59 stereo 6137 – were acquired from the United States.

“I did have a ’60 thinline, but it didn’t seem to have the same magic. The earlier ’50s ones generally have a body depth of 2¾ inches, but when Gretsch reduced it to 1 7/8 inches [in 1960], the feel of the guitar completely changed.

“I think the magic stopped in ’59. I can’t imagine them being produced in any other era than the ’50s. They’re very much of that time. They really capture the ’50s era well, and there’s nothing else like it.

“I’ve got a blackguard Tele and some other ’50s guitars, but there’s something about the White Falcon that conjures up that amazing time of rock and roll.”

If Fender’s and Gibson’s electric guitar designs embraced the styling of hot-rod culture, then the White Falcon – Gretsch’s “Cadillac of guitars” – embodied the zeitgeist of the 1950s.

Adorned in gold, and finished in a dazzling white automotive-style paint, it mirrored with equally lavish elegance the angular, futuristic geometry of dream cars through its Cadillac V emblem tailpiece, V-contoured headstock and truss-rod cover, and Grover Imperial stair-step tuners.

“Guitars and cars have always gone together,” says Ed Ball, author of Ball’s Manual of Gretsch Guitars: 1950s. “It’s the same mentality. There’s a ‘cool’ factor, there’s an aesthetic factor, there’s a macho factor, and I think Gretsch saw a parallel there.

“They even named their guitars after cars: they had the Corvette model, the Streamliner and the Convertible, and they used automotive references like Cadillac Green in their color scheme. Research has shown that the paints were right off the DuPont automotive paint chip library.

“I can’t say I’ve had a White Falcon tested, but my guess is they would be the same. White Falcons have an opaque white finish, and it yellows to a kind of ivory over the decades. To see a brand-new one in the ’50s must have been blinding, especially with all that 24-karat gold!”

“So much of the Gretsch aesthetic was taken from the automotive industry, including their marketing tools,” Ball continues. “Take their famous 1955 Guitars for Moderns brochure: Catalogs usually just went out to music stores, but they put copies of this one in magazines that went out to consumers directly.

“It was also Gretsch’s first color consumer-focused catalog, and if you look at car pamphlets from the same period, they look very, very similar. It was glossy, colorful and full of photos, and the White Falcon was one of the four models that appeared on the cover in full color.”

Featured on page two alongside an endorsement from jazz guitarist Mary Osborne, the White Falcon’s advertisement explained, “Cost was never considered in the planning of this guitar… This beauty is 17-inch[es in] body width and in the new thin model that’s so comfortable to play.

“It is finished in gleaming white with gold sparkle binding on f-holes, body edges and fingerboard. Choicest spruce top and maple for the body and neck; finest Madagascar ebony fingerboard with pearl positions, engraved and inlaid in gold. Unique handmade tailpiece of tasteful modern design.

“Grover precision 16-to-1 ratio machines for hairline tuning. Twin Gretsch-Dynasonic pickups with five Gretsch controls to make them even more effective. All metal parts heavily plated in 24-carat gold. The finest guitar we know how to make – and what a beauty!”

Evidently, Gretsch’s “finest” instrument represented the pinnacle of its guitar-building prowess. However, with significant production costs dictating relatively high retail prices (and, therefore, an inevitably lower demand), White Falcons were tentatively produced in very small numbers in the ’50s.

After all, “cost was never considered in the planning of this guitar” when guitarist – and Gretsch ambassador – Jimmie Webster conceived the idea.

“Legend has it that it was Jimmie Webster’s dream child, and he convinced Gretsch to make just one, for him,” Ball explains. “He demonstrated Gretsch’s products as a contracted consultant, but his impact clearly extended to design contributor, not only in terms of aesthetics but also function. 

“He was a main player in their design group. He wanted Gretsch to make an over-the-top guitar that turned heads when he was in a crowd at NAMM or in a demo. The White Falcon was intended for demonstration, but he showed it around a lot, and it created a huge buzz, so they decided to make more.” 

Ball believes that first White Falcon was built in early 1954, well ahead of that year’s July NAMM show. 

Gretsch typically made guitars in batches of 50 or 100, and the prototype White Falcon – which Webster allegedly passed along to Osborne – has the serial number 13450, which places it among the batch of Streamliners and Duo Jets with serial numbers starting from 13400, some of which have pot codes dating to early ’53. 

“As a point of reference, the 6120 [Chet Atkins Hollowbody] prototypes that Gretsch gave to Chet [in early ’54] weren’t made until the 13700 batch,” Ball explains. “People often presume the White Falcon came later, but the prototype White Falcon [from batch 13400] would have been about 300 guitars before those.”

Gretsch’s new masterpiece created so much excitement that the company found it hard to resist demand. But not everyone was thrilled by the White Falcon. Gretsch’s shop-floor staff was filled with apprehension at the thought of having to build such a high-end guitar on a repeat basis.

“Dan Duffy, the QC manager, said the White Falcon was so difficult to manufacture that they all just hated it,” Ball recalls. “Maybe one of the reasons they didn’t make that many of them was because they were very difficult to produce.

“They weren’t production friendly. I think it really was a show thing originally, and they got so much great feedback that within a year they decided they would go ahead and put it out as a regular model.

“The debut Falcons were in a mixed batch along with the debut Convertible model and a couple of acoustic models. There may be only 20 to 25 White Falcons in that first batch for 1955. Very few. I’ve found one in that batch that had a June 1954-coded pot, which gives you a sense they were probably making those at the end of ’54 for the ’55 model year.”

Just as the American automotive industry manufactured new models of cars in the year preceding their release, Gretsch typically made new or updated models of guitars for release the following year.

“After that first ’55 batch, there were two ’56 batches, one containing 25 Falcons and the other around 40 to 45. So there were fewer than 100 of them made in the first two years,” Ball explains. “I have not found evidence of a batch that falls anywhere close to the ’57 production year, but they did a fourth batch of 100 in ’58.

“I have one data point for a second potential 50-unit batch in ’58, but I’m waiting for it to be substantiated. The ’59 batch was 31450 through to 31499, so that’s 50 guitars. John Entwistle owned one from that batch, as did Stephen Stills. I was interested to find out that David Gilmour had a ’58; I didn’t realize he had a Falcon until it came up for auction.

“Some of these guys have them but they rarely sell them. When you talk about ’50s Falcons, there’s maybe five batches with 200 to 250 guitars maximum in total. That’s pretty sparse – even compared to Les Paul ’Bursts!

“I think the ones from ’58, ’59 and ’60 that are still single-cut are cool aesthetically, but they also have trestle bracing, and I think that’s why players tend to lean toward those. Gretsch must have thought, We’d better put some more structure in these hollowbodies because these guys are starting to play loud!

“It was probably fine if you’re doing Jimmie Webster tapping or chicken pickin’ at low volume, but if you’re playing at high volume, you’re going to want some structure in there to avoid feedback.

“Most feature changes on Falcons were in ’58. That’s when trestle bracing, Filter’Tron humbucking pickups and neoclassic fretboard markers were brought in. Those are the big changes.”

The White Falcon was among the first Gretsch models to receive a double-cutaway body in 1960.

“They kind of cleared out the old inventory and brought in the new style with the double-cutaway,” Ball explains. “The first 1960 batch – of 100 – has a mix of single- and double-cutaway bodies. They went on to make a lot of batches of double-cutaways in the mid-’60s.

“That was the George Harrison boom. Gretsch’s production tripled for all models in those three years after the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show [in 1964]. And then it fell off the cliff in the late ’60s.”

The White Falcon’s remarkable expense meant that few guitarists could possibly afford to get hold of one, which is one reason why so few exist.

“They were made in such limited quantities that you wonder what kind of access retailers across the U.S. and overseas would have had to them,” Ball notes. “If there were literally no more than 25 made in 1955, who got them? Famous rich people or musicians?

“There was no such thing as collectors back then. Retailers may have bought a White Falcon just to have on the shelf, or as a window item to bring appeal.

“They just look so damn cool!”

Guitar Player thanks Ed Ball, author of Ball’s Manual of Gretsch Guitars: 1950s and Gretsch 6120: The History of a Legendary Guitar (Schiffer Publishing). Visit gretschguy.com for more information.

A virtuoso performer and one of the first genuine stars of the electric guitar, Chet Atkins also embraced innovation, and drove it by encouraging new inventions that could help him move ever closer to his sonic ideals for the instrument.

Atkins had long been aware of the importance of the right pickup, and he matched various units to his Silvertone, Gibson and D’Angelico guitars before Gretsch courted him in 1954 to endorse the 6120 Hollowbody and 6121 Solidbody models.

The trouble was, Atkins didn’t much like the DeArmond model 2000 single-coils on his namesake guitars.

“I hated the sound of the pickups,” he told author Tony Bacon in 1995 for The Gretsch Book, “because the magnets were so strong on the string, you pluck a string and there was no sustain there, ’specially on bass strings. I was tortured pretty good until Ray Butts built that Filter’Tron pickup.”

An electronics whiz and music store owner from Cairo, Illinois, Butts designed the EchoSonic amplifier with built-in tape echo, which Atkins had previously embraced, in 1954.

When the guitarist griped about his DeArmonds, Butts knew just what to do: He designed a hum-canceling, dual-coil pickup, which he dubbed the Filter’Tron because it filtered out electronic hum.

Atkins whole-heartedly embraced it and urged Gretsch to adopt the pickup for its entire upmarket line.

Butts’ development of the Filter’Tron ran neck and neck with Gibson’s PAF humbucker, and while the latter beat Gretsch to the market by a nose, Chet was performing with the Filter’Trons one year earlier.

The Filter’Tron’s narrower dimensions and more sparsely wound coils contributed to a brighter, clearer sound than the broader humbuckers.

It established the classic rockabilly tone of the late ’50s, revived in the late ’70s by Stray Cat Brian Setzer, that has remained the benchmark to this day, and it proved powerful enough for heavy rockers like AC/DC’s Malcolm Young and the Cult’s Billy Duffy, too.

In our last issue we asked some of the world's top guitar players to choose their favorite solos. With one catch: They had to refrain from the obvious. No Hendrix. No Clapton. No Gilmour, et cetera. 

Here’s what electric guitar hero Brian Setzer had to say…

BE-BOP-A-LULA

Gene Vincent, single
Guitar player: Cliff Gallup

“When I first heard ‘Be-Bop-a-Lula,’ it was at Max’s Kansas City, which was a world-famous punk-rock club on Park Avenue South in New York. It was the late ’70s and they had a jukebox, and Be-Bop-a-Lula came on, and that song cut through all the early punk rock that was coming off the stage, even though it was probably half the volume and mostly fingerpicking. 

"When I heard that solo, it was like a big hand came over the bar and pulled me to it. It’s probably the sexiest guitar solo I’ve ever heard. It’s still probably my all-time favorite. It’s subtle, not something that bangs you over the head with a hammer. It’s got all the characteristics of what makes a great solo — fingerpicking, the way he builds it (because he plays it three different times), that Gretsch guitar with the early echo... Just the best.”

ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL, PT.2

Pink Floyd, The Wall
Guitar player: David Gilmour

“This one is off the beaten path – for me! It’s a clean Stratocaster tone, but it sustains forever. I don’t know how he got that sound! The expression when he bends those three notes. When anybody hears that, they always go 'Woah!' It turns everybody’s heads. And besides that, when I played at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Les Paul, David Gilmour lent me his shaving kit so I could look good before the show. What a gent.”

ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK

Bill Haley & His Comets, Single
Guitar player: Danny Cedrone

“It’s the best solo of all time in rock and roll that’s copied by everyone from metal dudes to rockabillies to blues guys. Here’s why: Guitar solos were not really even being played that often in rock and roll at that time. It was all new. 

"I think Danny Cedrone had played with Lionel Hampton; I believe he was a jazz guitarist. Here’s what I think happened, because I know how these things work: They told him, ‘None of this jazz stuff. This is a new music called rock and roll. You really have to play it wild.’ And that’s what he came up with. It’s this crazy new sound that has jazz influences, but it’s not jazz. It’s still one of the hardest solos to learn. Unfortunately, right after he played that solo, he had an accident and died. Terrible. I don’t think he ever got to perform it.”

"All I want for Christmas is a rock ‘n’ roll electric guitar," sings Chuck Berry (1926-2017) – a sentiment shared by many a guitarist since the father of rock ‘n’ roll released his recording of “Run Rudolph Run” in 1958.

A Gibson devotee, Berry became synonymous with the company’s thinline semi-hollowbody electric guitars launched that year. Already known for playing an ES-350T thinline hollowbody electric, Berry was an early adopter of the ES-335, -345 and -355 instruments and continues to help popularize these iconic guitars to this day.

Indeed, earlier this year Gibson introduced the Chuck Berry 1970s ES-355 to their ES (Electric Spanish) line alongside the Chuck Berry 1955 ES-350T.

Berry’s cut of "Run Rudolph Run" made it well into the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1958. It eventually became a top ten-selling single earlier this year – several decades following its original release.

Over time, “Run Rudolph Run” has established itself as a firm seasonal favorite, with countless artists having recorded their own version of this generations-old rock ‘n’ roll Christmas classic.

We’ve compiled a playlist of ten of our favorites. Everyone has theirs, so in no particular order…

Brian Setzer

Lemmy, Billy F. Gibbons and Dave Grohl

Keith Richards

L.A. Guns

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Grateful Dead

Foo Fighters

Cheap Trick

Sheryl Crow

Dwight Yoakam

We hope you enjoyed listening. Stay tuned for more over the Christmas period, and from all of us at Guitar Player - happy holidays!

Jump blues has a strong backbeat groove that makes it closer to rock and roll than blues. Note and chord choices can range from simple “box”-pattern licks and stock dominant-seventh and -ninth chord “grips” to sophisticated melodic lines and jazzy voicings. But to sound authentic, it’s essential that you control your swing and even, or “straight,” eighth-note phrasing at swift tempos.

Technique Focus: Scale choices

Many jump blues guitarists also play jazz and are often inclined to approach blues changes with a wider range of harmonic tools. You’ll need to ensure that you can switch effortlessly between parallel major and minor pentatonic scales (built from the same root note), ideally both in shape 1.

This will enable you to better acknowledge the tonality of the IV chord of the blues and play phrases across the changes and bar lines. You should also experiment with the minor-six pentatonic and the corresponding Mixolydian modes for the I, IV and V chords. Also, don’t forget the importance of outlining chord tones with arpeggios, as this too is a very effective melody-building approach.

Brian Setzer

Famed for his early 1980s work with the Stray Cats, Brian Setzer is among the most popular modern-day practitioners of jump blues guitar. During the early ’90s swing revival, he formed the Brian Setzer Orchestra, highlighting his skills as a swing and jump blues guitarist extraordinaire.

Setzer’s style is a tantalizing mix of be-bop licks and rock and roll swagger, punctuated by chord dips and wobbles, courtesy of his trademark Gretsch’s Bigsby tremolo bar, techniques that are demonstrated in Ex. 1, which is played over a jazzy blues progression in the key of C with an extended turnaround tag and ending.

Notice how the double-stop lick over the F9 continues through the chord change into bar 7, where the Eb returns to E natural, reflecting the return to the tonic chord, C7. In bars 9 and 10, begin the ascending single-note line in 8th position, reaching back to the 7th fret with your first finger, then shift up to 10th position when you get to the high E string by moving your third finger to the 12th fret at the start of bar 10.

These are great licks to incorporate into your own vocabulary and would excite any blues or rock and roll solo.

Hollywood Fats

Hollywood Fats worked as a sideman with blues legends such as John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Albert King and Jimmy Witherspoon. He released only one self-titled studio album with his group, the Hollywood Fats Band, before his career was cut tragically short by a heroin overdose at the age of 32.

Fats made the old-school style sound new and exciting, and his timing was impeccable. Single-note lines would often be punctuated with jazzy chord stabs or interspersed with boogie-woogie style riffs, as in Ex. 2, which is in the key of F.

Here, carefully controlled fingering is required to shift seamlessly between upper-register solo licks and the low boogie riffs in bars 1, 3, 7 and 8. Shifting to 3rd position after the opening pick-up lick to finger the low A note avoids the use of the open string and keeps the F boogie riff tight and controlled.

The use of a double chromatic approach to the tonic major third, A, in bar 13 (G - Ab - A) highlights the 13th of the V chord, C7. This is followed by an “answer” phrase that reverses the melodic contour on the last two notes and features the use of sixth intervals.

Finally, notice the smooth voice-leading in the three final chords, with the high F note serving as a common tone.

Jeff Beck

The only non-American player in our lineup, Jeff Beck was a true innovator of electric guitar during the ’60s and ’70s. Listening to his work from this period, you could be forgiven for thinking he ignored the players that came before him, but like all great pioneering musicians, he’s steeped in the history of his instrument. His 1993 album, Crazy Legs, featured a collection of Gene Vincent songs as a tribute to Vincent’s own brilliant guitarist, Cliff Gallup of the Blue Caps, who is one of Beck’s biggest influences.

While these days Beck would eschew the pick and play with fingers only, Ex. 3, which is in the key of E, can be played either fingerstyle, using hybrid picking (pick-and-fingers technique), or simply with an accurately aimed plectrum. The choice is yours.

Where phrases are based on open chords (E7 in bars 1–4 and A7 in bar 5), hold down the shape to allow the notes to ring together. The flashy sequence of descending double pull-offs to open strings in the ending lick in bar 15 is not intended to reflect specific harmony, but rather to build melodic and rhythmic tension and excitement before the concluding tonic chord. This approach was commonly used by rockabilly, jump blues and rock roll players of the ’50s in solos and endings alike.

We hope this lesson has given you some insight into the techniques, stylistic elements and note and chord choices associated with the jump blues guitar style. Be sure to check out the catalogs of our featured guitarists (as well as Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Duke Robillard and Ronnie Earl) for great examples of their unique approaches to jump blues.

This time next month, Brian Setzer’s much-anticipated solo album Gotta Have the Rumble will be on the shelves. Following his 2014 solo record Rockabilly Riot! All Original Setzer’s new long-player has been a long time coming, but the rockabilly electric guitar star has returned full throttle with a new track “Smash Up On Highway One” chasing up the album's first single, the similarly hot rod-inspired “Checkered Flag”.

Speaking of his latest single “Smash Up On Highway One,” Setzer commented: “I was playing "Misirlou" by Dick Dale with the Stray Cats, and I thought, ‘wow I’d love to write something as cool as that riff.’ So I came up with something out of left field. I don’t know what you would call it – Middle Eastern or Eastern-European. Some college professor probably has a name for that scale. 

"I had that riff laying around. I guess you could say I’m always collecting cool guitar parts. Mike Himelstein sent me those lyrics and they just fit right in. I think it’s really cool – it’s a way to move the whole rockabilly genre forward.”

Gotta Have the Rumble is set for release on August 27 via Surfdog Records. Pre-order your copy from Brian Setzer’s website.

Rockabilly guitar master Brian Setzer has announced a new solo album, Gotta Have The Rumble.

Set for an August 27 release via Surfdog Records, the album was produced by Julian Raymond, and recorded in Minneapolis and Nashville. It's Setzer's first solo album since 2014's Rockabilly Riot! All Original.

You can check out the colorful animated video for the album's first single, "Checkered Flag," below.

“Obviously, it’s a reference to my motorcycles and hot rods, something that hasn’t changed since I was 15 years old,” Setzer said of the album's title.

“I still have the same passion for going fast and adrenaline. But it’s also about my hearing problem with tinnitus – the ringing of the ear. It was pretty bad, and I realized that I couldn’t play the way I wanted to. 

"As I recovered, standing in front of a small amplifier just didn’t cut it. The sound from my big amp makes the guitar rumble. Which is a big part of my sound. I was really despondent for a while because I thought I wouldn’t be able to do that again. So, Gotta Have The Rumble refers to both of those things.”

You can check out Gotta Have The Rumble's cover art and track list below.

To preorder the album, step right this way.

Brian Setzer – Gotta Have The Rumble:

1. Checkered Flag
2. Smash Up On Highway One
3. Stack My Money
4. The Wrong Side Of The Tracks
5. Drip Drop
6. The Cat With 9 Wives
7. Turn You On, Turn Me On
8. Rockabilly Riot
9. Off Your Rocker
10. One Bad Habit
11. Rockabilly Banjo

For more than 40 years, Brian Setzer has been the torchbearer for all things rockabilly since finding success with Stray Cats in the U.K. The Long Island trio relocated to England after hearing about the booming U.K. rock and roll scene there, thinking they might capitalize on it with their own incendiary take on the genre. 

Sure enough, within months of arriving in England, they had secured a record deal and started a run of hit singles that carried them through two albums before they finally broke big in America with the help of MTV. 

The video channel was a godsend for any band with the visuals to back up their music. Little wonder that Stray Cats cleaned up, given their unique punk-rockabilly image and the strength of their songs.  Since then, they’ve split and reformed a number of times. 

They regrouped in 2019 to make 40, an album of all-new original songs, and launched a world tour to celebrate their 40th anniversary. Setzer is currently promoting the new Stray Cats live album, Rocked This Town, which captures highlights from that tour.  

But of course, there is more to Setzer than rockabilly. In addition to his numerous releases under the Brian Setzer Orchestra banner, he’s issued solo albums that have ranged from the Springsteen-like roots rock of 1986’s The Knife Feels Like Justice to swing-injected versions of classical music on 2007’s Wolfgang’s Big Night Out. Fortunately for Setzer, lockdown didn’t force him to change his plans.

“It coincided with a period where I’d been recovering from a bad bout of tinnitus,” he explains, “so I didn’t actually have any live shows booked. I had already canceled a few projected shows for that reason, so I needed time to heal. It’s improved quite a bit over the last year. 

“I’ve been holed up, like a lot of us have, and I’ve been writing some tunes. It’s given me a good excuse to stay in one spot and do some work. I never know which way I’m going to go with the new songs, but I’ve got about six at the moment.” As always, he works out those tunes on a Gretsch guitar. The brand continues to hold an allure for him.

“I love restoring an old ’59 Gretsch, if I can get one,” he says. “They still have that magic. There is a certain indescribable aura to the old guitars. I think part of it is that they were there at the incarnation of the first rock and roll songs. While all that music was being created, those guitars were there.

“Maybe a lot of that is just in your head, like with anything vintage, you know? You can’t re-create that. As [Stray Cats producer] Dave Edmunds used to say, it was just ‘in the air’ back then — a special moment in time. You can get close using the old stuff that they used, but it’s never quite the same.”

1. “Stray Cat Strut“ Stray Cats (Stray Cats, 1981)

“This was a deliberate attempt to change the feel from the rest of the things that we were playing. After you’ve written a few songs, you look for ways to shake things up. You might try writing in different keys or whatever, but in this case I did it by pulling the tempo down. 

“The solo on this one is fairly set, and people know it and can sing it, so it is something that would probably cause disappointment if I didn’t reproduce it live. That crazy diminished lick is part of the song’s signature. I’ll usually start with an idea for a riff or a phrase, and then I might play around with it and find somewhere to plug that into something. 

“That riff was a case where I’d be sitting around experimenting with ideas, lock onto something that has a unique feel to it, and then store it in the arsenal to be brought out when I’m casting around for a missing piece. That might even be a subconscious thing, where I’m instinctively picking something from my stockpile of ideas and then realizing where it’s the perfect fit.”

2. “Hell Bent“ Brian Setzer '68 Comeback Special (Ignition, 2001)

“This was one of my favorite tracks on Ignition. I did it on a few TV shows at the time, and I’ve returned to it over the years during my Orchestra shows, when I do the three-piece middle section using just bass and drums. ‘Hell Bent’ was inspired by the detuning that I’d been playing around with, where I’d dropped my low E string to D. 

“I started figuring out what to do with that, as I always like to try something different within the rockabilly style, and there is that easy D octave thing you can do with the two D strings that the tuning gives you. This song is more like a flat-picking bluegrass piece in a way — a minor-key feel that catches your ear. 

“I came up with the guitar riff first, as I usually do, and that gave me the song. It’s nice to build up the tension with just the guitar and voice so that when the bass and drums jump in, it really kicks everything up a level.

“People have suggested to me that it has elements of surf, rockabilly, punk and country, and I guess that it does have a feel that is open to those interpretations. That probably validates my desire to create music that expands the rockabilly sound beyond what people are used to hearing.”

3. “Blue Moon of Kentucky“ Brian Setzer (Setzer Goes Instru-Mental! 2011)

“This is a song I’ve been playing one way or another for over 40 years. I covered it in my early years playing rockabilly, when I was obviously influenced by Elvis’s take on it. With an old classic like this, you need to do something original. When Elvis recorded it in the ’50s, he completely changed it from the way that Bill Monroe had played it.

“I wasn’t really thinking of channeling anyone like Scotty Moore, Les Paul or even Duane Eddy, who are names that have been suggested that may have influenced my version. I guess a lot of their music is in my DNA, but it was just how I heard it in my head. I envisioned it as a melody-chord version, and that’s a style of music that I really like.

“It’s kind of like a lost art, right? Nobody does that anymore, and it was always mostly jazz guitarists who played in that style. A lot of things come out of boredom for me. I must have some kind of attention deficit, because if I’m playing the same style for too long, I almost immediately change up my playing. 

“When I’d worked out the instrumental version, it sparked the idea for the Instru-mental! album. It got me thinking about creating a set of songs that didn’t need a vocal and that stood up on their own as musical statements.”

4. “Sleepwalk” Brian Setzer Orchestra – (Dirty Boogie, 1998)

“This is another piece of music that I’ve played for many years and that has changed and evolved to become a featured piece in most shows that I do now, whether it be with the Orchestra or Stray Cats. I first recorded it on Choo Choo Hot Fish [1992], which was one of the later Cats albums, and then I revisited it on Dirty Boogie with the Brian Setzer Orchestra. 

“I usually play it by myself now and let the boys take a break. It has such a great melody and mood; it pulls the tempo down and changes the atmosphere. You can’t just duplicate the original, because that’s the way that Santo & Johnny did it. I needed to change it up, and it’s never quite the same each time I play it. The various live versions that you can see on YouTube are good examples of where it has evolved to now. 

“Again, the melody-chord style is central to my thinking, creating those harmonies and adding colors to the sound. I’ve got quite a few songs that I’ve worked out in that style that I haven’t recorded yet, including ‘Georgia on My Mind.’ You know, that might just be the next thing that I do when all this pandemic trouble blows over — maybe play these songs on my own that I’ve never recorded.”

5. “Dirty Boogie” Brian Setzer Orchestra – (Dirty Boogie, 1998)

“This is my favorite BSO record. We really got it right on that one. It was such a difficult thing: How do you get 17 musicians into the arrangement? We had to work out where to put all the instruments. We also added slap bass, rather than standard stand-up bass, which really changed the sound away from the traditional big-band approach.

“Actually, just as [the Stray Cats’] ‘Runaway Boys’ was my idea of updating rockabilly, this was another deliberate attempt to change what you would expect to hear in either rockabilly or swing. There was no way you would have heard a song like ‘Dirty Boogie’ back in the big-band era, with the guitar out front playing those kinds of licks. I really like the tone of my guitar on this particular cut as well. There’s something a little different about it.

“I particularly like the chord changes and the solo that I came up with. This is another one where I think I have to play it pretty much the same live. There’s a chord change from G minor to Eb9 that really isn’t the normal progression you’d expect to hear. Something about it really twists your ear, and that’s what I’m always trying to do in everything that I play.”

“It’s the first song I ever wrote,” Brian Setzer says of “Runaway Boys,” the Stray Cats’ debut single. “It really summed up everything I was trying to capture, which was my drive to write a new song in the rockabilly style, rather than just the same old I - IV - V thing.” 

“Runaway Boys” not only put a spin on the well-worn rockabilly formula, it also scored the group a Top-10 hit when it was released in the U.K. in November 1980 as the first single from their forthcoming, eponymous debut album. 

At the time, the Stray Cats were London transplants, having realized that the U.K., with its thriving rock and roll scene, would be more receptive to their punk-fueled rockabilly. The group’s debut album quickly scored two more U.K. hits, but it took a couple of years before MTV exposure brought the Cats fame in the United States.

Rockabilly Rebels

Setzer co-wrote the song with Stray Cats drummer Slim Jim Phantom, who supplied the lyrics. “We were both about 18 years old when we wrote it, so we were really feeling the whole ‘rebellious teenager’ thing,” the guitarist says. 

“I think the song captured that sense of being young and trying to break out from home life. I definitely knew it was unique and unlike anything you would have heard on radio in the ’50s. It helped us carve out our own sound.” 

Somethin’ Else

“Runaway Boys” was produced by Dave Edmunds, whose long rock and roll pedigree included late-’60s hits with his band Love Sculpture, an act whose repertoire contained classic ’50s rockers. Edmunds’ knowledge of rockabilly made him the ideal choice of producer since – despite the song’s nonstandard chord changes – Setzer wanted to keep “Runaway Boys” true to the rockabilly sound. 

“That clean, strong guitar, the echo, the slap bass and the big snare drum – the aim was to keep those elements intact and add something new,” he says. “Dave really captured it, and I don’t know whether anybody else could have done that. He understood exactly what we wanted.” 

Setzer played his 1959 Gretsch 6120 on the track, as he did on the rest of the group’s debut album, using a variety of amplifiers supplied by Edmunds. 

“Dave knew how to perfectly capture the sounds we wanted,” Setzer says. “There was no questioning how he worked. Once the recording was played back, I thought, That’s it! There’s nothing I would change.”

Runaway Hit

“Runaway Boys” was a pivotal moment in the Stray Cats’ career. “It lit the fuse,” Setzer says. “I think it was what everybody was looking for – not the same old rockabilly but something new. The sounds are familiar, and people love that sound, so it is relatable. 

"But at the time, you didn’t hear that music on the radio anymore, so it was as if it were forgotten. I remember, we were in Liverpool when we found out it was in the Top 10 in the U.K. pop charts, and that was an incredible thing to hear.” 

After 40 years of playing “Runaway Boys,” Setzer says the song still feels fresh to him. It’s even among the tracks featured on Rocked This Town, the Stray Cats’ new live album from their 40th anniversary tour. “It’s one song I never tire of,” he says. “How could anyone not love their first hit record?”

• Stray Cats' new album, Rocked This Town: From L.A. to London, is out now via Surfdog.

Rockabilly guitar hero Brian Setzer – frontman of the Stray Cats and Brian Setzer Orchestra – is selling some super-rare guitar gear from his vast collection on Reverb.

The suitably titled Official Brian Setzer Reverb Shop - which goes live August 26 - is set to feature a string of Gretsch electric guitars used by Setzer himself over the course of his career, as well as a selection of amps, including a 1963 Fender Bassman with a 2x12 cab and a Vox '60s AC30.

Here's a chance for you to secure a piece of history for your guitar rack. Check out the full list of included items below, and head over to Reverb for more info.