Joe Bonamassa owns a collection of electric guitars with long, unusual histories. Among them is Terry Reid’s heavily modified 1952 Fender Telecaster, an instrument whose discovery he called “one of the greatest guitar safaris of my life.”

Reid was a British singer, guitarist and songwriter who emerged in the 1960s U.K. rock scene. Widely respected by his peers, he was Jimmy Page’s first choice to sing in Led Zeppelin before he declined and recommended Robert Plant for the job.

He went on to build a solo career that included acclaimed albums such as Seed of Memory and River, the latter of which featured guitarist David Lindley. Reid remained a cult figure in British rock up to his death on August 4, 2025, at the age of 75, from complications related to cancer.

As Bonamassa explains, Reid purchased the Telecaster in Chicago, circa 1968, while he was the support act for Cream’s final U.S. tour. When the neck pickup died during that tour, he had it replaced with a humbucker at Manny’s on New York City’s 48th Street Music Row.

The opportunity to buy his hero’s guitar arose in the summer of 2014 when Bonamassa received a call from a guitar dealer he knows, who asked if he had any interest in buying Reid’s guitar.

“I told him that of course I would love to own it,” Bonamassa said, “but even more so, if nothing else, just to meet the guy who gave a young David Lindley one of his first professional gigs.”

They agreed on a price, but when calls to Reid went unanswered for several days, Bonamassa figured the opportunity had passed.

Coincidentally, that same evening he received a message from a friend on Facebook asking if he was interested in Reid’s guitar.

“I replied, ‘Yes, but he can’t be reached so I guess it’s not available,’” Bonamassa recalled. “Long story short, my friend responded with Terry’s cell phone number and, lo and behold, I was speaking to him within minutes. We set a time the next day for me to drive way out into the desert to meet him and check out the guitar.”

“The following day I set out in my car from Los Angeles to Palm Desert. When I left my house the temperature was 82 degrees — mind you, it is August. As I approached the freeway exit in Palm Desert, it was a balmy 112!”

“I find Terry’s house, knock on the door, and there he is — one of my musical heroes and a super nice guy. I say, ‘Is it always this hot?’ He replies, ‘Nah... it’s kind of cool today.’”

Over the next two hours, Reid shared stories of the road and photos of Jimi Hendrix. Bonamassa described it as “a glimpse into a time that I wish I had lived in: London in the late ’60s.”

Bonamassa noted that Reid was invited not only to join Led Zeppelin but also Deep Purple, “but he chose to follow his own musical path, something I respect a great deal.”

As the visit came to an end, Bonamassa said he began to question whether he should proceed with the purchase.

“As it came time to leave I realized just how attached he was to the guitar,” he explained. “So I told him that it will forever be at his disposal and it will always be his — I will just look after it for a while. I gave him a big hug and said goodbye. I’m honored to have it and even more honored to call him my friend.”

Bonamassa has since taken the guitar out on the road and often uses it to play the song “Slow Train,” as seen in this clip from his 2017 show at Red Rocks.

Vince Gill, not surprisingly, owns a lot of guitars — electrics and acoustics. They include the Martin D-28 Herringbone with which he launched his career and a 1959 Les Paul “Burst” with a tragic back story.

But the most famous axe and the one he’s most identified with is a 1953 white Fender Telecaster that graces the cover of his new EP, Down at the Borderline, which comes out February 13.

“I got that guitar in 1978,” Gill tells Guitar Player. “It’s the first Fender I ever bought,” and he reckons it was the second electric guitar he ever owned, following a Gibson ES-335 his parents gave to him as a Christmas present when he was 10 years old.

“I’ve got several other old Fender Telecasters. I’ve tried to find a sister or a brother to it, but nothing touches this one. To this day it’s the best neck of any Fender guitar I’ve ever had. That one just suits my hands, suits my ears. Everything about it is kind of a huge part of my entire catalog of playing guitar over all these years. It’s been a part of every record I’ve been on — some of the Pure Prairie League records, my own. It’s real special.”

Gill — who’s preparing for his next run of shows with Eagles at Sphere — recently recounted the story of acquiring that Telecaster for the latest 50 Years From Home podcast hosted by Charlie Worsham, the Country Music Association’s 2024 Musician of the Year. A Telecaster was already on his wish list, thanks to the influence of several guitarists.

“I’d heard Albert [Lee] and I’d heard James Burton, Don Rich… and that’s the sound you wanted and you needed,” he tells Worsham.

As fate had it, Gill was back visiting in Oklahoma and stopped by Del City Music in Oklahoma City, owned by his friend Bob Woods. Woods was in the midst of trading guitars with Larry Briggs, a vintage dealer from Tulsa who owned Strings West Forever.

“Larry brought, like, 20 guitars in and he wanted to trade with Bob, and Bob had 10 or 15 guitars that he was going to trade back to Larry,” Gill recalls. “Larry had the white Telecaster in his pile and he traded it to Bob, and I watched the whole deal go down.

“And I grabbed that Tele and I started playing it and I go, ‘Oh boy…’ Larry left and Bob was kind of looking over what he’d taken in. And I said, ‘You just took in this old white Tele. You want to sell it?’ and he goes, ‘Sure.’

“I said, ‘How much?’ He goes, ‘$450.’ It’s 1978; it might have been worth another two or three hundred bucks in the vintage world, but I said, ‘I’ll take it.’ So I bought it, and then I had a great Telecaster…. It’s a really remarkable-sounding guitar.”

Gill — who subsequently turned down an offer from Fender to build a custom model based on the ’53 Telecaster — adds that, “Until the day he died, Bob had that music store, and I’d go see him every time I’d go back and visit home and buy things from time to time. And he’d say, ‘You S.O.B., you got to me on that Telecaster. You got to me so good. You got that so cheap.’

“I said, ‘Bob, I did not. It’s worth maybe a couple hundred bucks more than I paid for it.

“You ought to be proud that that guitar helped make me who I am, you know, and that’s been the definitive guitar in my life. Hell, you got me on that deal.’”

The image of the Telecaster on the Down at the Borderline cover testifies to the amount of use the instrument has received.

“A lot of the finish is gone,” Gill tells us. “They didn’t make very many white ones. Most of the old Telecasters were what they called butterscotch; the white ones are rare. I’ve only seen a handful in my life, few and far between. I sure as hell didn’t know that when I bought it, though.”

Gill used to keep a backstage pass affixed to the bottom of the body, which hid the most scratched-up area.

“I remember bringing that guitar to Nashville; I was doing a TV show probably around 1983 or ’84, something like that,” he says. “I had a couple of amps and I was getting ready to wire up and go play the show. The stage manager looked me up and down and looked at my guitar and said, ‘Is that a prop?’ I said, ‘You’ll find out.’ He said, ‘You already look too loud.’ I said, ‘I am.’

“I think if you look throughout the history of country music, the majority of artists are not [instrumentalists]. They’re singers. They might have a guitar and strum and play chords and rhythm in their songs and whatnot. That was pretty standard fare, to see a guy singing with a guitar in his hand.

“I knew when I moved to Nashville and started making country records that it wasn’t a world that was filled with tons of guitar players; if I was gonna make a mark it would be because of my singing more so than my playing. I just let people discover I could play as I did more and more. I wasn’t trying to shove it down their throats.”

Gill is releasing a new 50 Years From Home EP each month through August, commemorating the five decades since he left Oklahoma to pursue a career in bands — including Pure Prairie League, the Notorious Cherry Bombs, the Time Jumpers and, now, Eagles — and as a solo artist. He now has 22 Grammy Awards to his credit as well as the Country Music Association’s most recent Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award. He returns to Sphere with Eagles on February 20 for two more runs of residency shows.

He recently he filled in for an ailing Joe Walsh, singing lead on “Rocky Mountain Way” and “Life’s Been Good” in his stead.

“That was a little daunting,” notes Gill, who will also begin a solo tour during June. “I tried. I did my best. The funny part was hearing me sing ‘Life’s Been Good,’ talking about driving Maseratis and trashing hotel rooms. That was humorous.”

American country singer-songwriter Zach Bryan rounded out 2025 by marrying his partner, Samantha Leonard, on New Year's Eve. Her wedding gift to her Grammy-winning husband soon garnered even greater sentimentality.

The gift was a guitar — more specifically, a road-worn Fender Telecaster formerly owned by the Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir. Less than two weeks later, on January 10, Weir passed away at age 78.

Posting on Instagram to promote his new album, With Heaven on Top (Acoustic), — released two days after Weir‘s death — Bryan added an important footnote.

“Irrelevant, but rest in peace to Bob Weir, that guy fucking rocked,” he writes. “The day Sammy and I got hitched, she gave me a present; it was his Telecaster from all his days on the road.

“We all love you, and we will all miss you. If this [album] wasn’t previously planned to release today, I would have left this alone and let the world be.”

Although Weir played his signature D'Angelico guitars in his later years, the embryonic days of his music career were dominated by Telecasters. At the time, the San Francisco native felt no guitar was better suited to the job.

“I was mesmerized. It was instant love,” Weir told Guitar Player's Jimmy Leslie of his relationship with the Telecaster in our April 2006 issue. “The guitar cut through all the traffic in that band really well.

“The Telecaster sound is all the information you need, and no more. Its slightly more asymmetrical overtone scale made me listen to each note a little differently,” he continued. “That was my main guitar for several years.”

When he eventually began to work on a custom guitar, he had the Tele in mind.

“I took what I learned about pickup configuration and scale length from the Telecaster, combined it with the mini-archtop design of my custom Modulus, and came up with the blue Modulus that is now my main guitar,” he had said at the time. “Then, I had my man at Modulus duplicate the Telecaster, because I’m thinking about keeping the original safe at home. I didn’t find that guitar – it fell out of the sky and landed on my lap.”

Weir owned well over 100 electric and acoustic guitars in his lifetime, including a guitar intended for George Benson that he admits he stole. His guitar playing aside, Weir was a big advocate for charities and democracy, and this one-of-a-kind D'Angelico semi-hollow raised a six-figure sum for nonprofit voter registration, HeadCount, when it was auctioned off in 2022.

Some guitarists are happy to change their guitars like clothing, while Brian May would never dare part with his beloved six-string, the Red Special.

Chrissie Hynde falls distinctly in the latter category; she says she’s been offered countless free guitars throughout her career but has remained unflinchingly loyal to her Ice Blue Telecaster.

The Pretenders guitarist, who has also moonlighted as a session player, recording for the likes of Eric Clapton, and UB40, can be very singular. As the origin story of her inseparable Fender details, once she’s set her eyes on something, there’s no turning her away.

“I got it in the early days, somewhere in New York City,” she tells Guitarist, “Manny’s or one of those places. The guy had two Teles and I wanted to get one. One was a blue one and one had the original finish.

“The guy in the shop said, ‘Well, this white one has the original finish, so it’s going to be worth more.”

Such a sales pitch fell on deaf ears.

“Because I come from a punk mentality — and I really do have it,” she goes on, “I don’t like collector's items and all that. I said, ‘Give me the blue one.’”

She walked away with the Ice Blue Tele, and despite many trying to tempt her into playing different electric guitars since, every endeavor has been fruitless.

“In the early days, a guitar company would come and I’d go into a soundcheck and there’d be all these cases open with different guitars,” Hynde recalls. “They'd say, ‘Choose one. We’ll give you a guitar.’ I’d be like, ‘No, thanks. I have a guitar.’”

“‘But you can have any of these,’ they’d tell me… but I’d always say, ‘No, I’m okay with my guitar.’”

Speaking to Guitar Player in 2023, she admitted that, when she welcomed another guitar into her collection, they'd often move onto more loving homes sooner or later. For the sake of the instrument's well-being.

“I like the feel of [the Tele],” she says, “and it’s comfortable for me. I have had a few different guitars, but if I don’t play them for a while, I punish myself by giving them away, because I feel that it’s not fair to have that guitar in a lockup.”

It's no surprise, then, that the only time she joined forces with a luthier was with Fender in 2021, for a special reissue of the unique Tele.

Fender never offered a “deluxe” rendition of the Stratocaster until 1987, more than three decades after that model’s introduction. By contrast, the Telecaster proved ripe for modification on several occasions long before the Strat reached that milestone. I’m not talking about the evolution of components and appointments that defined the chronological march of all Fender electric guitars through the company’s early years, but rather the unveiling of a souped-up or upgraded rendition that appeared along-side an original model.

Leo and company did just that with the Telecaster Custom in 1959, a mere nine years after it was introduced as the Broadcaster. The Telecaster Custom featured a bound body and a then-new rosewood fingerboard. The next change came nearly a decade later when Fender lightened the load of heavier ash stocks with the Thinline model, a chambered Telecaster with an f-hole on the upper bout.

But the Telecaster Thinline would soon undergo significant revisions of its own.
In 1971, Fender’s owner, CBS, began to implement a series of major design changes that would impact its guitars, including the Tele Thinline. Midway through that year, a version of the guitar appeared bearing the company’s new Wide Range Humbucker pickups.

Designed by Seth Lover, the former Gibson engineer behind the humbucking pickup, the Wide Range was designed to sound characteristically Fender — bright, crisp and articulate — while being fuller and more powerful, and rejecting 60-cycle hum. With it, Fender could finally compete in the rock territory dominated by Gibson.

The Wide Range pickup even looked somewhat like the full-size humbucker Lover had developed for Gibson a decade earlier, although it was approximately 3/8 inches longer and   inch wider, and had its visible adjustable pole pieces in a three-and-three formation, in opposing rows.

Significantly, those threaded pole pieces were made from CuNiFe magnets,
an alloy of copper, nickel and ferrite. This blend of metals produced a magnetic material hard enough to cut threads into (something not possible with alnico), allowing for adjustable pole pieces. Simultaneously, it retained the Fender pickup-design archetype of positioning the magnetic poles within the pickup’s coils, rather than using bar magnets beneath the coils, feeding steel poles within, as in the Gibson archetype. Such construction was a big part of the Fender tone formula, helping to retain the maker’s signature twang, even in a humbucking pickup.

Following their 1971 debut on the Telecaster Thinline, the Wide Range pickups showed up the following year in the neck position of the Telecaster Custom, with a traditional single-coil Tele pickup in the bridge position. The Custom also gained a new four-control layout and toggle-style pickup selector switch, similar to Gibson guitars.

The move was clearly designed to appeal to the many blues, rock and jazz players who for years had been modifying their Teles by adding a Gibson humbucker in the neck position for a thicker, warmer tone. An entirely new Telecaster, the Deluxe, was released in early ’73 according to most accounts and featured the Custom’s switching array, Wide Range humbuckers in the neck and bridge positions, and an enlarged Strat-style headstock.

The ’74 Telecaster Thinline shown here displays all the key features and so-called innovations introduced with the model’s redesign in 1971. They include Fender’s then-new “bullet” headstock-positioned truss-rod adjustment nut, as well as the three-screw neck attachment with Micro-Neck-Adjust (a.k.a. Tilt Neck) neck-angle adjustment bolt, all of which were seen on the Stratocaster beginning partway through 1971.

Rather than the standard Telecaster’s three tone-enhancing steel bridge saddles, these models employed the same die-cast Mazak (a.k.a. Zamak) saddles used on the Strat. This pot-metal alloy of zinc, aluminum, magnesium and copper allowed cheaper and easier component fabrication, but many guitarists found it detrimental to the guitars’ sustain and resonance, even if the six individual saddles arguably allowed for more precise intonation adjustment.

Promoted as beneficial new features at the time, the three-bolt neck and bullet-head adjustment nut have, together, long been regarded as the most obvious outward demarcation point between the “good” early CBS Stratocasters and the inferior examples that followed. Most Telecaster fans have similar feelings about their preferred model. Still, these solid, versatile early humbucker-loaded Fenders now retain a certain cache with rock, blues and roots players.

While the quality of Fender guitars made in the ’70s in general tends to be derided, and occasionally with good reason, the second version of the Telecaster Thinline has a lot going for it. Despite being aimed at the rock guitar market, the guitar proved more appealing to blues, punk, grunge, alternative and indie-rock players in the decades that followed.

The list of major names who have wielded one or another of these Wide Range Humbucker–equipped Teles — Thinline, Custom and Deluxe included — is long and includes Tab Benoit, Carrie Brownstein, Keith Richards, Leroy “Sugarfoot” Bonner, Thom Yorke, Chris Shiflett and several others.

Rory Gallagher was at a crossroads in his career when Guitar Player had the great fortune to speak with him for a cover story in the March 1978 issue. Shortly before it, he’d cut tracks for his followup to 1976’s Calling Card in San Francisco, but was unhappy with the slick sound producer Elliot Mazer gave him.

After catching the Sex Pistols performance in San Francisco on January 14, 1978, Gallagher decided to scrap everything he’d recorded and start over again, producing it himself to have a tougher and more aggressive sound. Unfortunately, soon afterward, he broke his thumb when he caught it in a taxi door, an injury that required months of recovery.

In the meantime, Gallagher began revising his lineup with a goal of returning to the power-trio format of his 1960s group Taste. He fired his keyboardist and replaced his drummer with Ted McKenna. In July 1978, a good four months after this interview hit newsstands, Gallagher, bassist Gerry McAvoy and McKenna went to Dierks Studios, in Cologne, Germany to re-cut the scrapped tracks. The album was released the following October as Photo-Finish, a reference to its hurried completion.

In Stefan Grossman's deep interview with the Irish rocker, we have a veritable master class in blues-rock guitar, Rory Gallagher style. From essential albums to gear — including electric guitars, tube amps, acoustic guitars and accessories such as slides — to picking techniques, it’s all here, and much more.

Blues is said to be a universal experience — as Albert King once preached, "Everybody understands the blues" — and Rory Gallagher is surely a case in point. Born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland, the first pieces Rory attempted to play were cowboy songs and Irish folk tunes on acoustic guitar, beginning at age nine. American rock and rollers such as Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry had an early impression on Rory, though he discovered blues, à la Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, by way of Lonnie Donegan's British skiffle hits.

At 15, Gallagher joined the Fontana Show Band, which toured England and Ireland. The constant work helped refine Rory's playing, but the commercial nature of the repertoire caused him to look elsewhere for artistic satisfaction, jamming with the group's drummer and bassist in small clubs throughout Europe.

In 1965 Rory formed Taste, the now legendary blues-rock trio, comprised of Eric Kitteringham on bass, Norman Damery on drums, and Gallagher on guitar, vocals, and, occasionally, saxophone. Although the power trio preceded Cream by several years, comparisons with the English supergroup were inevitable.

In 1969, the band signed with Polydor Records, but by 1970, the group had disbanded and Rory pursued a solo career. To date, Gallagher has appeared on over 20 albums, either as leader or sideman, and has graced sessions featuring such notables as Muddy Waters, Jerry Lee Lewi, and Albert King. He gave his first performance as a solo acoustic guitarist at the 1976 Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. He is currently remixing Photo-Finish, his latest LP for the Chrysalis label, which should be out in early March.

Here, Rory talks about his various musical styles and techniques and the guitars he uses to arrive at his distinctive, energetic sound—an old National Resophonic, a Martin D-35, a Fender Telecaster and his trademark, a battered 1959 Fender Stratocaster.

What Gallagher has to say about blues and rock and roll should be required reading for any aspiring guitarists, just as his many records and live performances should be required listening.

Hypothetically, if you were teaching blues guitar at a school, how would you go about it?

I'd keep it within a reasonably rigid blues framework, just to keep it on center. A lot of it would depend on what music the student had been exposed to. I mean, if your parents were interested in music anyway—your father, for instance, had a couple of Bill Broonzy or Lonnie Johnson albums—or you were brought up listening to jazz programs on the BBC, where they'd slot in the odd blues thing, you'd obviously have a head start. Otherwise, you'd probably get into blues through rock and roll— through Chuck Berry or maybe "High Heeled Sneakers" by Tommy Tucker.

Then with the Rolling Stones era, you could sneak into the blues thing that way. In my case, I started on the proverbial Lonnie Donegan skiffle music trail, where I heard Lonnie doing Leadbelly songs, such as "Rock Island Line" and "Bring Me a Li'l Water Silvy." Before I even owned records by Woody Guthrie or Big Bill Broonzy, I used to get library books out in Cork,— because you couldn't buy the albums in Britain — and I'd learn the lyrics to these songs. But at the same time I was interested in rock and roll — such as Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino. I was listening to both of these strains, because at lots of points they'd cross.

Once you get beyond the Chuck Berry/Eddie Cochran thing, you begin to figure out that you've got Broonzy at one end of the scale — and that goes right back to the old tradition of Charley Patton — then John Lee Hooker has the Detroit electric blues style, which evolved from his acoustic style. And you also get the Josh White sort of folkie style of blues. You just have to listen to a lot of records.

Which records do you think are essential for someone who wants to get into blues?

I suppose you should go out and try to get a good compilation first, like the Paul Oliver selections, The Story of the Blues, Vols. I & II [Columbia] which still have a couple of important people missing; for instance, Muddy Waters isn't on either volume — which is insane. But I suppose you'd have to go back to one of the main sources, say, either Robert Johnson, Lemon Jefferson, Willie McTell or Leadbelly. The two Robert Johnson records on Columbia [King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vols. I & II] are obviously cornerstones. You'd have to get at least one of those. It's pretty hard to zone in on it, because some guys mightn't get into Robert Johnson and might prefer, say, Willie McTell. But if we try to break it down to the key blues albums, I think that either Robert Johnson record would have to be included.

Then Blind Boy Fuller is another favorite of mine, especially that album with Bull City Red and Sonny Terry, with "Pistol Slapper Blues" on it [Blind Boy Fuller (Blues Classics)]. I think that Broonzy album where he does "Banker's Eilues" [The Young Big Bill Broonzy (Yazoo)] is an important one, because he was broadening the scale. It's different from the ones he made around 1950, where it was blues plus ballads. The Best of Muddy Waters [reissued as Sail On (Chess) and as part of Muddy Waters (Chess)] is definitely an archetypal electric blues album.

Do you think albums by people such as Elmore James and Howlin' Wolf are important listening?

Oh yeah. You'd have to get The Real Folk Blues by Wolf, with "Spoonful" and "Shake For Me" [reissued in part on Howlin' Wolf (Chess)] for Hubert Sumlin's electric blues guitar. He's the great undiscovered, underrated lead player. And Wolf himself harks back vocally to Charley Patton, and, besides, he plays a little bit of slide guitar here and there, too — like on "Down in the Bottom." And his harmonica playing is important, even though everyone seems to write it off as just, "He plays harmonica." I think he plays good gut-bucket harmonica.

Which of Elmore James's albums would you single out?

It's hard to pin down one album for him, because there are so many oddball ones. I've got one on Ember Records — just sort of a bargain label — and it was reruns of some of his stuff, like "Sunnyland," "Standing at the Crossroads," and "Dust My Broom" yet again. I find that any Elmore James album is good. He played a Kay, I think, with some odd pickup.

For electric slide, Earl Hooker is another favorite of mine. There are three players who use that same famous lick: Earl Hooker used it on "You Shook Me" by Muddy Waters; Muddy uses it all the time; and I think it came from Robert Nighthawk, who did "Sweet Black Angel." He's got a very mellow slide sound, but it's all in standard tuning — nothing's in open tunings.

So let's see: Muddy's important; Elmore James is important; John Lee Hooker; Hubert Sumlin; and the man, Howlin' Wolf. I suppose the best thing to do after you get a couple of compilations is to see which person really turns you on, then try to follow that strain.

What about the older country blues players?

In terms of intensity, Son House has to be listened to. Of all the blues players, that's probably the closest connection with Africa. I've got that one album, with "John the Revelator" [Legendary Father of Folk Blues (Columbia)]. That's an ace album.

If people come to hear you in concert, and they want to learn how to play guitar themselves.

Do you think it's more important for them to buy your records or these old records you spoke of?

To learn guitar? Well, I write a lot of my own stuff, so it's a cross between ego and the heritage thing. If you want to play like Rory Gallagher, I think you'd buy my records. But if you want to pick up on whatever echoes of the bluesmen that I respect and love, certainly go ahead and buy some blues records.

In my case, I'd say the obvious influences would be Hubert Sumlin, Earl Hooker and Buddy Guy, electrically. And, acoustically, Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Blake, though I can't get anywhere near what Blake does.

But you see, I never started out to become a strict re-creator of the blues or even a modern young bluesman, as it were. I mean, I wanted to be me. I'm a huge blues fan, but I still have a bit of Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly hovering around in my head, plus certain folk people, such as Doc Watson — a pretty wide range of listening.

When you're performing, though, don't you consider yourself mainly a blues-oriented musician?

Yes, I do, but I think that I've always strived to forge ahead. At some point, when I'm 40 or 50, I hope I'll have a very distinct sound, as Elmore or Muddy did, so that when you turn on the radio, you’ll say, “That's Rory Gallagher.” It's a thin line between studying the blues and listening to an awful lot of it on one hand, and loving the stuff and doing some blues numbers in your own style on the other hand.

It's hard to break it down into percentages, because some nights we might do something like "Messing With the Kid," a well- known Junior Wells song, or "Bullfrog Blues," or "Rag Mama," the Blind Boy Fuller tune. By the songs I pick to do, you can see the kind of people I like. I like the slightly ragtime-ish blues players, but then again, I like Hooker.

Acoustics

Your changes of style seem to depend in part upon what instrument you are playing. Whereas you seem to lean toward a lot of the acoustic ragtime blues people, when you play electric guitar you go into a completely different area of blues music.

Well, I'm a great fan of all the Kings — the Alberts, the B.B.s and the Freddies. I wouldn't want to say that these people have been overrated, because that would be an absolute insult, but I think they've been recognized to the point where the Earl Hookers and Hubert Sumlins have been underrated. And the guitar player who was with Wolf before Sumlin, Willie Johnson, was a hot player as well.

What type of instrument would you recommend for an acoustic blues novice to start on?

With acoustic guitar, for the first couple of years at least, I think you should leave a wound third string on and really build up strength in the fingers. In other words, don't try bending strings the first week you buy the guitar. Kids are lucky nowadays; you can get a Yamaha or something, and the cheaper model guitars are much better quality than they were years ago when you got this stuff with terrible action.

The first guitar I got cost just over four pounds, which was about 20 dollars then, in the good old days. After a while you get that urge to say, "To hell with this — I'm going to bend this string" instead of sliding up. But you have to build that up.

But do you think a student should start out with, say, a wooden Yamaha or a metal-bodied National such as you sometimes play?

Well, let's put it this way: If you're a kid with ears the size of the moon and an amazing sense of direction, who heard Son House or Blind Boy Fuller or any of the National steel-body players and said, "They're the people I want to play like," then go ahead and buy the National, because that's a great place to start. But if you start with a National, you're talking about a guitar that weighs quite a bit.

Do you find that the National has any technical problems or limitations in terms of sound?

Well, on the one I have, the neck joins the body at the 12th fret, which is unfortunate. I prefer the 14th fret, but I can live with that. You just have to ride over the body with the slide. The action on it isn't bad, and the tuning is good. Obviously, it's loud and banjo-like, and there's only a certain amount of sustain in it, but I think that it slightly dictates what you play.

Could you explain that?

For instance, you don't really bend strings much on a National; you use it more as a straightforward, heavy-playing ragtime guitar, or you play in the Son House bottleneck school.

Do you have any problems miking that guitar onstage, or do you use a contact pickup?

I've tried everything on it. I've tried contact mics, and they just don't work. You have to use the resonator as the microphone. I think Bill Lawrence is making a new pickup that fits onto five-string banjos — you just clamp it onto the end of the neck — so something like that might work. But it's debatable whether you'd be getting a true reproduction of that Resophonic sound. I just put a microphone in front of the resonator and hope for the best.

I use sort of medium-gauge bronze strings — I float around between Earthwood, Darco, Guild, and D'Merle — and you just build up power and volume yourself.

Do you use a wound or an unwound third string on the National?

A wound third, because the numbers I happen to play need that fairly stiff action. I don't do any Broonzy-type bending with light strings on the National, whereas on a Martin acoustic I probably would.

Do you use an acoustic onstage?

I do; I play a Martin D-35. I use the National for things like "Pistol Slapper Blues," which I play faster than Blind Boy Fuller did, and a J. B. Hutto song called "Too Much Alcohol," which he plays electric, of course. There's always the nature of the banjo in the National, I find, and you have to play it sort of like that. I do anyway.

Do you play acoustic with a plectrum or your fingers?

With a plectrum and the fingers. I fool around with National metal fingerpicks and the plastic ones sometimes.

How is your Martin set up?

Well, that's set up with the same strings, because at present I'm doing numbers like Leadbelly's "Out on the Western Plain," where the tuning is D, A, D, G, A, D [low to high]. It's a D tuning, except that the G remains a G.

That's a very English, folk, Baroque tuning à la Bert Jansch and John Renbourn. How do you use that playing the blues?

Yeah, that's right. Well, I'm a fan of that school. "Out on the Western Plain" was always one of my schoolboy favorites, because of the lyrics. I thought, Here's Leadbelly singing a song about cowboys and it didn't seem to be a part of the Black culture. But as it turns out, there were Black cowboys.

So I was fiddling around with slack D, or whatever they call it, and I found that there's an instant unison. If you use a two-fret interval on the second and third strings, you can go up like a dulcimer or a sitar. At any point up the neck, if you hit the second string at a certain fret and hit the third string two frets up, then those notes are the same. You get a kind of raga, dulcimer type of thing.

So it seemed such a nice idea to do the Leadbelly song in that semi-Celtic-cum-whatever style. It's never quite major or minor, so you can do tricks with it.

That particular tuning is from the English folk guitar school, isn't it?

Right. You can stick the Irish in there as well, because I'm sure bagpipe music had something to do with all of that, somewhere along the way. But that was what you could call a happy accident — getting that Celtic, British Isles, Baroque thing clashing with a blues song.

How do you have your Martin miked onstage?

I've got one of those little Ibanez bolt things. I find that the Ibanez has a bit more bite than the Barcus-Berry. If the place is small enough, I skip the pickup and play straight through the house microphone. I prefer to do that, because you can control the volume yourself. And when I use the contact pickup, I use the mike as well, so it's a blend of the two.

By controlling the sound with your hands, do you mean damping the strings?

Pressure on the strings, with your left or right hand. You can move slightly off mic or into the mic. You can just use yourself as a volume control.

How is that sound different from the contact mike?

Well, it's a fairly one-dimensional, compressed sound with a pickup, because, although it's as true as you can get to the natural acoustic sound, I don't think it's exactly there. But I can live with it. Ideally, what I'd like to have is another, lighter f-hole guitar onstage, with light-gauge strings for string-bending styles, but in the present repertoire I don't have any songs for that sort of thing.

What other acoustic things do you do?

I sometimes do this instrumental of my own called "Unmilitary Two-Step” — it's a cakewalk type of thing in C. I find that dreadnoughts need more medium-gauge strings, whereas the OM or f-hole models, the smaller ones, would obviously have to have light-gauge.

Electrics

What do you use for an electric guitar?

I have two different electrics. I have a Stratocaster with Fender light-gauge Rock and Roll strings, which I use for basic playing and some slide work in straight tuning. I also have a Telecaster for A tuning and other open tunings, for songs like "Bullfrog Blues."

Why the Stratocaster?

Well, that's the eternal argument among Fender fans. Buddy Holly had a Strat, and as a child you go after the appearance of a guitar; I don't care what anyone says. You look at the shape of the thing, and that's it. I've tried Gibsons, but I'm not a great fan of humbucking pickups.

Why is that?

Because as you bring down the volume from 10 to nine to eight, after that — forget it. The guitar loses its sensitivity and drive. Whereas with the single-coil or P-90 pickups — one of the old Gibson units with the black or white plastic covers — the volume control goes down nice and gradually, and even at six the guitar is still doing something.

I like a good bright tone, and I like the out-of-phase sound you can get with the switch set between the normal positions on a Strat. It's comfortable, the scale seems right, and I like having the machine heads on one side — it just seems to make sense. But if you want, say, a more luxurious, fatter sound, the Gibson guitar certainly would do the job, and it's got an extra fret — if anybody ever touches that fret; I'm sure they don't.

Is your Strat modified in any way?

It's practically straight off the rack. The only modification is that the tone control for the middle pickup is now a master volume control, because over the years I've found that when you jump from the middle pickup to the lead, or treble, pickup you couldn't adjust it.

Why do you usually switch to the Telecaster for slide?

I thought it had a certain steel-guitar type of tone which would work well with slide, but I was frustrated with the rhythm pickup — I thought it was too thin. So I put a Strat pickup there, and it remained that way for a year. Then I said, "To hell with it — I'll do the Telecaster à la Strat," so now I've got two Strat pickups and a Tele lead pickup and a five-way Strat toggle switch. It's like the best of both worlds with the Telecaster lead pickup, which is slightly hotter than a Stratocaster's.

Is it strung the same as the Stratocaster?

No, it's kind of a blend; it's more like medium-gauge. I have something like an .013 for the first, then .015, an unwound .018, and so on. On the Strat, it's as they come out of the packet — I think it's .010, .012, .015, .026, .032, .038. That seems to be about the most balanced set I could find. I would prefer something like an .040 on the bottom — which I sometimes stick on if I have it handy—because I think the bottom end is a little too light for me.

Is the action higher on the Telecaster for the slide work?

The action on the Strat is quite high as well. I like high action, like on an acoustic. The heavier-gauge strings on the Telecaster are a bit more taut anyway, so I don't have to raise the bridge. You can play not only slide, but regular guitar on it.

What do you use for a slide?

It depends; I shift around. I sometimes use a bottleneck on my ring finger for electric stuff. Otherwise I've got two stainless steel tubes, which I sometimes use on my small finger or the ring finger. They get a more stinging, Muddy Waters sound. You get a different sound depending on what slide you use. For instance, if you're playing slide on a National with a glass slide, forget it. You have to have something like steel or, even better, copper. Son House used copper, and I've got one of those as well.

Were these slides store-bought items, or did you just go to a hardware shop?

I went to a hardware shop and got the proverbial bit of piping chopped up and got a Brillo pad out and shone it up. There's a bit of surface noise there, but Son House has that sound; it's best, because it clings to the strings. I used to use copper on electric as well, but I found that the stainless steel was a pretty good compromise between the copper or bronze and the glass. Glass is nice, because it works a little more like a Hawaiian or lap steel guitar. It's sweeter and softer. I change my mind every couple of gigs.

With four guitars onstage—the Strat, the Tele, the Martin, and the National—is it difficult to adapt from one to another in terms of each instrument's feel?

I think you probably do it subconsciously if you play an awful lot. It never troubles me particularly; I just get ready for it. I know it's going to be slightly heavier strings or whatever.

For instance, on the National the neck joins the body at the 12th fret, but even though you have medium strings, you might be in D tuning, which is kind of slack anyway, so you're not called upon to bend the string up two tones or something. The only thing that throws me is moving from plectrum and fingers, which I use on the electric, to the thumbpick and fingerpicks. After doing, say, an hour of electric stuff, then switching to acoustic and putting on fingerpicks, I can't quite do it. If I were playing a straight folk club gig, I could probably manage it. When I'm playing around at home I just use my bare fingers, even on electric. Just the thumb and first finger, because that's another sound as well. There's a different arch involved in the hand.

Once in a blue moon all the odd tunings throw me, but I'm crazy about tunings. There's a lot that can still be done there. In the rock and roll field I don't think that that's been truly tapped yet.

Playing rock and roll in open tunings?

Well, not so much open tunings, but the odd tunings like DADGAD, or that kind of Celtic one Davy Graham was using — E A D E A E. It’s another bagpipe one.

Amplification

What type of amplification do you use?

For years I used a Vox AC-30, which is the best all-around European amp I've ever come across. I still have it. The Shadows used to use them and the Beatles used them, so you know it was the popular amp. But I found that when using the treble booster, if I used the normal input — which was very bassy, as opposed to the brilliant input — I could get that nice rough edge without getting into a very fuzzy sound. I used that for years, and I've had odds and sods in between, but then I moved on to an old ’50s tweed Fender Twin, which I still have. Then I got into a tweed Fender Bassman, and recently I got a Fender Concert, which is an old brown one, from around 1959, with four 10-inch”speakers. I use a Hawk booster through that just to roughen it up a bit, or if it's a quiet number I plug straight in and keep the guitar clean sounding.

Do you feel that the old Fender amps are better than the newer Fenders?

They seem to warm up sooner. They wouldn't have the wide tonal range that the new Fenders have — particularly the new Fender Super Twin, which has a graphic equalizer, a master volume control, overdrive, and all that — but I probably have some interest in old amps over and above the actual music because of their appearance and because the guys in the ’50s used them. But I do find that they really have an atmospheric sound.

I've never been a fan of the hundred-watt stacks; that just hasn't appealed to me. I always like a Twin or a 4x10 speaker setup. And some of those hundred-watt stacks really only give you about 50 watts, while an AC-30 is a genuine 30 watts. Instead of a wall of sound, where you lose your song because it's spread out among eight speakers, I'd rather see a small amp turned to eight or nine and really hopping off the chair.

Do you use the same setup in the studio?

Yes, same thing, plus I have an old Magnatone, which went out through Sears-Roebuck in the States. Generally, I end up using the AC-30 or one of the old Fenders. I like to do lead parts live, so you obviously have to have an amp that will be fairly loud, so the other guys in the studio can hear you.

Picking vs. Fingers

Do you think it's advantageous to learn acoustic before moving on to electric?

Well, I played acoustic for two or three years before I bought an electric. I wasn't particularly interested in electric for the first couple of years, because I was a Lonnie Donegan fan. I think it's better to start on acoustic and then get into electric, but you could get into a fistfight over that. I mean, some people would say, "To hell with acoustic guitar; it never existed. You've got to get a solidbody right away." Fair enough, but I think they're missing out.

Even if you're going to become the consummate 1978 electric guitarist, I think you're missing out on an awful lot, if only for the fun of playing an acoustic guitar at home as a hobby. And it's nice to go from the acoustic, where even at the best of times the action is fairly taut, to the electric with light strings, where you float around like jelly. If you're always playing on light- gauge strings, you'll never really build up strength and subsequently real volume without turning up your amp yet again.

Are there any other techniques that you can adapt from acoustic to electric?

If you never played acoustic the odds would probably be three-to-one that you might never get into, say, playing with a plectrum and fingers or ever get interested in the various acoustic right-hand things. I think if you're just playing with a flatpick full-time, you're only half playing the guitar.

When you use both the flatpick and your fingers, are you fingerpicking with the middle and ring fingers?

Yes, sort of a James Burton type of thing. Obviously, if you're just chopping chords you don't use the fingers. Sometimes you might do the little harmonic tricks where you clip the string and get a squeal, but if you want to get a jingly-jangly thing, use your fingers.

Where did you pick that up?

I began playing just straightforward plectrum style, but as things went along it just seemed to fall into place. Besides I played in some dance bands and show bands in Ireland, where as often as not we didn't have a rhythm guitarist, so you'd play the rhythm part as well as the lead. Say you were doing a Shadows song — they were like the English Ventures — you'd have to fit in the melody and a form of rhythm. That's probably where I got it from, plus Ricky Nelson records with James Burton on guitar. He was obviously using his thumb and fingers or a pick and fingers.

So would you advise learning to fingerpick with bare fingers, with fingerpicks, or with a plectrum and the fingers?

Well, if you could wave a magic wand, you should tell the person to try all forms and be familiar with them all — anything instead of just using the plectrum alone. I think at some point in every song you're going to need the fingers. If you're interested in classical guitar, it's nice to get a couple of years training at that, and then you'd have very strong hands, and you could skip thumb picks and metal picks or whatever.

Do you use fingerpicks mainly for volume, or do you use them for a specific sound?

I would use them for volume, you know, and to save wear and tear. If I were a highly developed thumb-and-fingers person I'd just use the bare skin, but you do get the real sharp, biting sound with the metal claws. Gary Davis just used the one plastic fingerpick, and he seemed to make great sense out of that.

Do you see any advantage to the plectrum and fingers over thumbpick and fingerpicks?

The advantage of the plectrum and fingers is that you can forget about the fingers at certain points where, say, you're doing a Buddy Holly number or an Eddie Cochran thing or a modern blues, where the fingers don't really come in, where you really have to sledgehammer the guitar. If you were trying to play a rock and roll or electric blues thing, fingerpicks might become a little bit cumbersome — although they never seemed to get in Freddie King's way. He only used the thumbpick and one metal fingerpick, which surprised me.

Then there's an English guitarist, Tony McPhee, who plays with the thumb and one finger. I think John Hammond does it as well, although he picks, too. Johnny Winter plays with a thumbpick and his bare finger, kind of like Muddy Waters, although Muddy uses a pick on his index finger. Let's put it this way: If you want to play a lot of electric blues or electric blues-cum- rock or whatever, the plectrum plus the fingers is probably the best common denominator. Then acoustically you can imitate the Doc Watson style. But to be true to the old ethnic folk and blues traditions I guess you really should be at least familiar with using your thumb and fingers, because there are certain numbers where the plectrum is a hindrance.

Would a plectrum be a hindrance when you're slapping the string on some tunes?

I can get away with that, oddly enough, but that depends on how difficult the piece is. For instance, I don't think you could do a Blind Blake piece with plectrum and fingers, but you'd at least manage a version of it. It depends on how true to the old version you're trying to get. Maybe you're just playing it for fun; maybe you're doing it for very aesthetic reasons.

Most young guitar players nowadays, even if they've only been listening to people like the Beatles, must know that they couldn't do all those things with just a plectrum. Even like "Dear Prudence" on the Beatles' White Album — that's a D tuning or something, and Lennon is playing with his fingers. He's always been quite fond of that.

So you think it's very important for a student to learn to use fingers as well as a pick?

Yeah, even if he never touches folk or blues music. Of course, the sky's the limit nowadays, and I suppose for Chuck Berry rock and roll it doesn't matter too much, but even Keith Richard uses his fingers on things like "Honky Tonk Woman."

Effects

Do you use any effects devices?

Well, there are a million and one pedals around, and I have a phase shifter I use once in a blue moon in the studio, but I think that's been sort of overused. My favorite of all the gimmicks is the vibrato or tremolo — that old Bo Diddley sound. That's fantastic with distortion, because it really plays tricks with the rhythm and it foxes the player. I like to overdrive the amp, as opposed to using a fuzz box.

Better still, get a dirty Fender Champ and play the lead on that through a bigger amp. And I still prefer to get a wah-wah effect by working the guitar's tone control manually. I think it's more fun, and that's where the Fender guitar comes in and has a slight advantage over most Gibsons. Most Gibsons have two volume controls and two tone controls, and they're too far away to reach, and that's a bit of a drag. The Strat is ideal, because you can get the crying sound with the volume and tone controls.

Guitar Essentials

Do you think it's important for a guitarist to learn to read music?

I did it by ear, listening to records. I never had a teacher, and I regret that I can't read music. I went into the library once and got Teach Yourself How io Read Music or something, and it said, "Sit down at your piano." We didn't have a piano, so that went down the chute. Then I worked out F, A and C and gave up, because I was too impulsive, and I was already delighted that I could play "Lost John" and a couple of other songs.

Then, next thing, I was playing blues and rock and roll, which is fairly instinctive and primitive stuff anyway. But later on you start getting beyond the open tunings and ragtime blues, you know, and you're listening to someone like Django Reinhardt or modern jazz guitarists, even bossa nova stuff like Charlie Byrd, and you begin to feel a little inadequate if you're an all-around guitar fan. So you get a couple of books on chords and try to make sense of that. That's where the reading would probably come in. It would help if you were a bit of a jazz fan.

When recording with other musicians, do you find that not knowing written, music limits your ability to communicate ideas in the studio?

No, that's no problem, because you can hum it to them or play it on the guitar. I don't think that's the drawback. The only drawback is if you were interested in playing a classical piece verbatim, or you wanted to play a Charlie Christian solo and really wanted to find out all the notes that he played and the harmony and theory thing behind it. Sometimes you say, "To hell with it; it doesn't matter anyway," but it kind of does matter. I'd say a year or two of just learning a little bit of theory wouldn't do any harm. Even tablature foxes me; I have no head for mathematics.

What advice could you give in terms of practicing the guitar?

Well, it's like the old cliche: You have to love the instrument and the idea of the instrument and the whole aura of the thing, and that will dictate how much you practice, really. I don't think you have to sit down for eight hours a day or anything, but if you're really interested you'll probably do that anyway in the early stages — and even after that, between trying to write songs and experimenting with notes and loosening your fingers. I think you're bound to get in an hour or two a day anyway, although some guys say they only play five minutes a day outside the gig.

Do you find yourself playing a lot during the day?

Quite a lot, yeah, in fits and starts. If I have a complete day off I play a bit after breakfast, for lateen minutes or so, to begin with.

Are there any specific exercises you play?

Nothing specific, no. I just try to get the old muscles loosened. Sometimes I'm working on a song, or I might play along with a record for the hell of it. You try not to be lazy; you try to do something that's a step ahead. The best all-around thing is a ragtime piece or a classical piece. Even if you're the hammiest classical player in the world — which I am — it's very good exercise.

On acoustic guitar?

On acoustic, yeah. Of course, on electric this is where the famous fingers-and-plectrum come in. See, if you're playing electric guitar on your own, and the guys in the band aren't around, it's very hard to just play notes. You're bound to start sticking in a chord and keeping the A string going while you're doing a bit of lead. It seems inevitable, you know.

Could you offer any advice for guitarists wanting to become professionals?

If you wanted to get into, say, electric blues, I'd get into a band as soon as possible, no matter how bad it is. Don't be too proud — get into some kind of band; get playing with a drummer. That's essential for electric blues. If you want to play acoustic music on your own, just hurry up and get a gig if you can. Get out there and play in front of people.

You feel that playing in front of people is an important thing to do as soon as possible?

Yes, it brings something out. I know for a fact that if I'm off the road for a long spell, even if I'm rehearsing like mad and playing a lot at home, the real crunch comes when I get out in front of people. The things you thought were really hot in rehearsal don't make any sense, because quite often you've forgotten the basic drive.

In rehearsals sometimes the basics get glossed over, because you're fooling around too much with the frilly stuff. If you get out there in front of an audience, drop your pick or break a string, that toughens you up, and it brings out projection in your playing. You have to direct your playing somewhere — unless you want to sit in a room like the painter looking at the painting he's just done, and he won't show it to anybody.

You do get people like that, who think there's no one in the city who's good enough to play with. But even acoustic players should get to a folk club and listen to other people, play with other people. There's always a thin line between studying the old records by the old masters and trying to develop yourself. I think both can be done at the same time, because if you forget the old masters you miss out on a whole heritage and a whole world, really.

But you shouldn't get too clogged up with the old stuff to the point where you won't be moving on yourself, because you won't end up like an old master yourself anyway, you know?

Away from his day job with Roxy Music, Phil Manzanera has forged a successful solo career over the course of 50 years. To date, he’s released 10 solo albums, each of which showcases his musical eclecticism. As the recently released 11-CD box set 50 Years of Music testifies, Manzanera is not one to adhere to formulas. His forward-looking, innovative guitar style has been the connecting thread on each outing.

Guitar Player was recently invited to Manzanera’s West London recording studio to discuss the guitars that provided the sonic blueprint for his solo work and his recordings with Roxy Music. As he explains, these guitars have strong track records.

“I basically used the same guitars all the way through my solo album recordings,” he says. “Starting with Diamond Head [Manzanera’s 1975 debut solo studio album] the guitars were my red Firebird VII, a Telecaster and a Gibson Les Paul. And on the track called ‘Lagrima,’ I used a Spanish guitar.

“When it came to amps, I had a Hiwatt with a WEM speaker cabinet, which I used with Roxy too, a Yamaha rotary speaker and a Fender Twin. The Hiwatt had been modified where it had a 30-watt switch on the back of it, so it could be driven into distortion. For effects, I had a Pete Cornish pedalboard with a fuzz built into it and distortion, and a Revox Tape machine that me and Brian Eno used to do stuff together on. I used it in Roxy too,

“From 2000 onward, I started investigating those Roland amps that went with the Roland [synth] guitars and used a couple of those Roland VGA-7 V-Guitar amplifiers on the 2001 Roxy reunion tour. When we got to the very last tour I did with Roxy in 2022, my setup was completely different. I’ve now got a huge cabinet; basically, just a speaker in a box, offstage, a tiny little Fender Pro Junior amp onstage, and a new pedalboard made by Australian Daniel Steinhardt.”

With the amp lineups out of the way, Phil took us for a visit to five of his favorite guitars from his career.

1965 Gibson Firebird VII

“It’s a reverse body, in Cardinal Red," Phil details for us. "It’s got gold-plated hardware, a bound ebony fingerboard with block markers, reverse headstock with tuners behind it."

Although it's among his favorite guitars, Manzanera notes that others have found it rather difficult to play. “These guitars weren't that popular as they were rather big and slightly awkward shaped compared to a Strat or a Telecaster,” he says.

Still, he's a huge fan of it. And, as he explains, the guitar was a particularly lucky purchase.

“I found this guitar through an ad in the back of the Melody Maker magazine in 1973," he recalls. "The ad said, ‘Red Gibson Guitar for Sale.’ And because I had bought a red Höfner CS Galaxie as a child, I thought, I’d take a look. I’d never heard of a Firebird at that point.

“I went to this very posh house in [London's] Regents Park, the door opened and it was an American college kid whose parents had come over from Kalamazoo, Michigan. He'd been given the Firebird for his 16th birthday or something and he obviously didn't want it. I took one look and said, ‘Thanks, I'll have it!’

“It cost me £120. I walked off with it, and to my delight it sounded fantastic. It just records beautifully and likes analog tape especially. At that point in my career I needed some flash kind of guitar as I'd been using a white Strat, which was great, but I really needed a signature guitar and this became my signature guitar. It's on the inside cover of the second Roxy Music album.”

1965 Gibson Non-Reverse Firebird

As Manzanera explains, this guitar was most famously used on 801 Live, the album by his experimental rock supergroup 801, which he formed in 1976 while Roxy Music was on hiatus. The band performed only three live concerts, which resulted in 801 Live , as well a 1977 studio album, Listen Now. The band’s members included Brian Eno, bassist Bill MacCormick, former Curved Air keyboardist Francis Monkman, slide guitarist/vocalist Lloyd Watson, and drummer Simon Phillips, who would go on to perform with Judas Priest, Mike Oldfield and Toto.

“I found this in a Shepherd's Bush secondhand shop for around £180,” he explains. “It's been modified with three humbuckers, and it’s got these little switches to the right, which gives you different combinations of the pickups. People tell me that the reason why it's got such a distance between the tailpiece and the bottom of the guitar is that there used to be a Bigsby or some kind of tremolo on it.

“The guitar’s claim to fame is that I used it on the whole of 801 Live. That album was just the one recording done at the Queen Elizabeth Hall — we only performed three gigs. And it was that guitar combined with the Hiwatt top and Yamaha rotary speaker cabinet and my Pete Cornish pedalboard that created the sounds that on the record.

“You’ve got to remember too, that Brian Eno was treating my guitar as well, so the signal from my guitar was split one way to my amps and stuff and the other way to his VCS3 synthesizer. I think by then Brian had the suitcase model of the VCS3 [the EMS Synthi A]. You can hear his treatments, especially on the intro to the whole album where it’s just the guitar being played through the echo with the Revox tape recorder and stuff, but also Eno’s treatment going through a Revox as well, and coming back as a combination of sounds.”

1951 Fender Telecaster (modified)

“I bought this from an ad in the back of Melody Maker magazine in 1974. It had the original pickups, until 1975.”

More than losing its original pickups, the rare Telecaster was given an overhaul that, in retrospect, diminished its value. And it was all at the suggestion of Eric Stewart and Lol Creme, the guitarists from the English band 10cs.

“I was friends with all the guys from 10cc, and Eric and Lol said, ‘Phil, why don't you get Ted Lee in Manchester to soup up your Telecaster?’”

Known far and wide as Ted the Sprayer, Lee had worked for Barratt's music store in Manchester, where he refinished guitars. He laid claim to refinishing John Lennon’s 1958 Rickenbacker 325 and George Harrison’s Gretsch Duo Jet in black, and doing the same for Tony Hicks of the Hollies and others who wanted the same finish. Lee would go on to perform similar work for Simply Red, Adam & the Ants, King Crimson and Phil Manzanera.

“In those days, we had no idea about the value of guitars and everything, so I said, ‘Okay, great,’” Manzanera explains. “Ted said he could sand it down, re-lacquer it, change the frets to Gibson frets, stick a humbucker in it and it'll be fantastic. And I said, ‘Great, let's do that!’ So it got done, thus rendering it valueless. If it was an original 1951 Telecaster, it would be worth six figures or seven.

But as Manzanera explains, “I was interested in the playability of the guitar. And it's an absolute dream to play, it’s so easy and sounds absolutely fantastic. It doesn't necessarily sound like how a Telecaster is meant to sound because of the humbucker, but it is just absolute magic and completely different and makes you play in a completely different way to the Firebird.

“I've used it on everything. It’s on 'Love is the Drug' and on lots of other Roxy stuff as well, not to mention every album I’ve done since. It provides a nice alternative for lead playing to the ‘57 Les Paul.”

2000 Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Custom

A black 1957 Les Paul Custom is among the guitars for which Manzanera was best known during Roxy Music’s heyday. However, it was borrowed. After using it for 15 years, Manzanera had to return it to the owner. “I was devastated,” he told Guitar Player in a 2023 interview. On this latest visit, Phil further explained the guitar’s significance onstage “Any Roxy tour we did where we played ‘In Every Dream Home a Heartache,’ I played that Les Paul for the solo at the end. It’s the same guitar I used when we recorded the song.” In 2000, Manzanera had the Gibson Custom Shop in Hamburg, Germany, create this replacement for him, which features a few personal touches.

“I took advantage of this moment to put a little logo at the bottom,” Manzanera says. “And actually, the scratch plate was given to me by Chris Spedding; he had a guitar maker, who made some special guitars with that scratch plate, and he gave it to me. I added it on just to make it a little bit more unique.

“The guitar plays beautifully. It has got this great sustain, and with echo it really kicks ass.”

2022 Gibson ES-335

“This is my latest addition, which I got in 2022 for the Roxy Farewell Tour. When I first started with Roxy in 1972, I had a brown ES-335 with a Bigsby tremolo arm on it. I used to use it mainly for feedback and stuff like that, especially on the tracks on the first album. It was a great sound source for Eno too, because he used the feedback for guitar treatments. But in general it's too jazzy for Roxy.

“However, it did work out on the song “If There is Something” [from Roxy Music’s self-titled debut]. We extend the middle section and I go into some soloing, and it's just got a beautiful, sustained tone for the solo. And really that was the main reason I got it — to use it on that song.”

The Doors' guitarist Robby Krieger is the first guitarist to showcase a brand-new cardboard Telecaster, putting it through its paces during his take on the blues classic "Little Red Rooster."

Krieger features in the latest installment of the Cardboard Sessions video series, which finds the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and his band, Soul Savages, playing instruments made of cardboard.

The project was born from a collaboration between snowboard manufacturer Signal Snowboards and Ernest Packaging to use cardboard in ways never seen before. The material had proved useful for making surfboards, skateboards and even push bikes, and the community-based snowboard brand was looking for its next cardboard-based venture.

In 2015, the Fender Custom Shop joined the project to create a fresh approach to the Stratocaster, and the legacy of cardboard instruments has continued to grow since. The instruments, built at Fender's facility in Corona, California, are made of layered cardboard strong enough to withstand string tension, and have been played by Billy Gibbons and Keanu Reeves. Bass guitars have also been built, but a Tele hadn’t been in the cards until now.

Krieger, who unveiled the first cardboard Telecaster with some purring slide guitar licks, is an unusual choice for this particular model. He's usually seen playing a Gibson SG or a Les Paul. But he's unequivocal when it comes to his belief in the power of music.

“Music, I think, is the only thing that can mend the world," he says following his band’s performance, "and I hope we can do that before it’s too late. Music is the answer, so let’s keep playing.”

Soul Savages features keyboardist Ed Roth, drummer Franklin Vanderbilt and bass player Kevin Brandon. Their collective resume includes stints with Lenny Kravitz, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder. Krieger’s son, Waylon, guest stars in this episode, trading licks with his father on a cardboard Strat.

Speaking to Guitar World, Cardboard Sessions’ Dave Lee says, “A lot of artists will see the cardboard guitar for the first time and joke, ‘You guys just took some pizza boxes and started stacking them together to make a guitar!

“That material is not as sturdy as wood, obviously, so there are some minor tweaks that need to happen,” he admits. “But they all have truss rods; you’re able to tweak ’em. The structural integrity is pretty amazing for cardboard. You can totally rock it.”

Billy Gibbons concurs with that sentiment. During his Cardboard Sessions video, the ZZ Top man can be heard exclaiming “Man, I like this thing!” while tracking an original song, "Slammin' on Cardboard" with Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum.

Fender has released a Tim Shaw-designed Jason Isbell signature Telecaster pickup set for players looking to mod their favorite Teles.

The pickups were designed back in 2021 as part of the modern Americana great’s signature Tele, and the release marks the first time the two single-coil pickups have been available outside of that guitar.

Based on one of Isbell’s favorite guitars, a ’65 Candy Apple Red Telecaster, the bridge, Fender says, delivers “the twang, sparkle, and fire,” that Isbell is known for. Plain-enamel wire has been chosen here for a ‘60s tonality to ensure that twang is suitably pronounced.

Shaw expands on that description, with Fender's in-house pickup guru saying players can expect “classic fat, full Tele tones,” but for the neck pickup, things get interesting.

Its partner pickup has been designed with a slightly taller bobbin and what Shaw calls a “twisted Tele” template. The increased bobbin height allows for more winds, ultimately sculpting a more “Stratocaster-esque” character with its output.

What’s left is “the best of both worlds” from Fender’s two flagship six-strings and their tonal character, with formvar-coated magnet wire helping accentuate its brightness.

Both pickups come loaded with Alnico 5 magnets for “focused and enhanced” dynamics and are wax-potted with a light, road-worn aging aesthetic.

The release follows on the heels of Gibson's painstaking recreation of Isbell's legendary "Red Eye" Les Paul, which formerly belonged to Lynyrd Skynyrd's Ed King.

Two years after King's passing in 2018, Guitar Player detailed how Isbell came to own the iconic, sunlight-blotted guitar, with Isbell saying that its former owner “got the best versions of pretty much everything” he owned.

The Les Paul’s iconic release, as a limited edition run of just 59 builds, puts Isbell in the unique position of having signature guitars with both Fender and Gibson, and that is no mere coincidence.

The former Drive-By-Truckers guitarist and solo star has forged a sizable reputation for his powerful but tender chops and dynamic blend of roots and rock playing styles.

That’s propelled him to six Grammy wins – with 2023's Weathervanes taking Best Americana Album, and its track Iron Skillet taking home the Best American Roots Song – accolades as his most recent triumphs.

“This collaboration with Fender is huge for me," Isbell said at the time of his signature Telecaster's launch. "I’ve owned and played Fender guitars since I was 12 years old and I consider their instruments to be a big part of my musical journey.”

Now, a key part of its character is available for modders and tone chasers, without needing to purchase the full guitar.

Handily for Fender, it also puts the spotlight back onto that side of his playing after his headline-grabbing Gibson collaboration earlier this year.

The Jason Isbell Telecaster signature pickup set costs $149.99 and is available today.

Head to Fender to learn more.

Susan Tedeschi of the Tedeschi Trucks Band has become the latest signature Fender artist, with a Telecaster that vies for “simple sophistication that shines brightly.” 

It’s modeled after Tedeschi's longtime go-to Caribbean Mist 1993 American Standard Tele, which appears on the cover of her 1998 solo album, Just Won’t Burn; a record that saw Tedeschi turn heads with her soulful, genre-blending playing. 

The guitar boasts a custom, slim C-profile maple neck “that you can really wrap your hand around,” and a “warm and beautiful” rosewood fingerboard, which itself features 22 medium jumbo frets and white dot inlays as part of a 25.5” scale length. 

The signature guitar stays faithful to its progenitor with an alder body, bestowed with an aged Caribbean Mist finish, and features a six-saddle string-through-body bridge with black steel saddles. 

Tone, naturally, was a chief focus, and Tedeschi worked closely with Fender on the instrument’s custom-voiced single-coil Tele pickups and TBX tone circuit to help bring the production model in line with her beloved Tele and its sought-after tones. 

The result, Fender says, matches the “authentic tone and inspiring playability of Tedeschi’s treasured original.” 

“It really sounded warm and I think it was the way that the front pickup was wound,” Tedeschi says of her ‘93 model’s unique tonal qualities. “It was very different to a lot of Teles, which are usually really bright and thin. There's something about it that just works for everything.”  

Its tones can be tweaked via Master Volume and TBX Tone controls, as well as a three-way pickup switch, with custom Tedeschi artwork featuring on the neck plate. 

“Honestly it's a dream,” Tedeschi says of her Fender collaboration. “I just wanted to play a guitar, never mind have a signature model.” 

After Tedeschi's bandmate, Adrienne Hayes, introduced her to Fender guitars via her Strat, she fell in love with the '93 Tele, which she bought second hand in a local music store. She said it was “meant to be” that she owned the guitar, and it’s played a key role in her rise to prominence since. 

Just Won’t Burn quickly put the guitarist on the map and saw her opening for her hero, BB King, before joining forces on and off the stage with her husband, Derek Trucks. Their 2011 debut, Revelator won the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Blues Album. 

Never a band to do things by halves, the Tedeschi Trucks Band's most recent release was their massive 2022 quadruple album project, I Am the Moon. 

The Fender Susan Tedeschi Telecaster is available now for $1,899.

Head over to Fender to find out more.

A historic and heavily modified Bob Dylan/Robbie Robertson Telecaster has sold at auction for $650,000. 

One of the key headlines of Julien's two-day auction at the Hard Rock Café in New York, Robertson used the guitar extensively on stage and in the studio with Bob Dylan and The Band. 

“When Bob Dylan went electric, nearly sixty years ago, this Fender Telecaster was one of his most crucial weapons,” says Alan Light of the guitar's rich history. 

That means it was used throughout 1965, and featured on Dylan's 1966 classic, Blonde on Blonde. 

It also featured every night on Dylan’s 1966 world tour, including his infamous performance at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, during which an audience member shouted “Judas!” at Dylan. When he and the Band subsequently launched into Like a Rolling Stone, this Tele was in Dylan's hands. 

The guitar continued to be a workhorse for Robertson long after that historic tour’s end, with the guitarist using it on records he made with Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Ringo Starr. 

The much-used instrument was also played by Eric Clapton, on stage with The Band, in 1974. 

A 1965 Fender Telecaster with a 25.5" scale-length guitar, maple neck, and maple cap fingerboard with 21 frets, Robertson stripped away its original black finish in 1970, preferring a natural aesthetic. 

Remnants of its original finish can be seen beneath the neck place and where the pickguard and control plate meet. 

Its neck pickup and pickguard were replaced by the time of the Band's Rock of Ages performance in 1971. A three-ply white-black-white pickguard and a chrome-covered Gibson patent number humbucker, which it still has today, were the choice replacements. 

The Telecaster also features a Bigsby B16 bridge, a modification made circa 2000, replacing the guitar’s original bridge. As Julien’s explains, the change was made in an “unorthodox” manner.  

“The B16, which normally mounts to the top of the guitar and replaces its existing bridge entirely, was routed in order to set the entire device beneath the surface of the top,” it says. “This unique and unorthodox modification allowed the installation of the B16 without changing the fundamental string geometry of the guitar.” 

The guitar had been estimated to sell for $500,000 - $700,000, meaning it fell comfortably within the upper limits of such guesswork, receiving nine bids. 

However, it’s a figure that pales in comparison with the $2.9m that John Lennon’s 12-string Framus, used on Help!, sold for at the same auction. That figure makes it one of the most expensive guitars to have been sold at auction. 

Head to Julien’s for more information about the Telecaster and Framus, and the other high-profile instruments that fell under the hammer at the firm's most recent “Music Icons” auction. 

Keith Richards once humorously quipped, “Guitar is easy — all it takes is five fingers, six strings and one asshole.” Yes, easy perhaps, but few have wielded the instrument with as much imagination, grit and panache as the legendary Rolling Stone himself. 

Over the past six decades, the guitarist has unleashed a torrent of timeless riffs, gracing hits like “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Satisfaction,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Start Me Up,” “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’” and “Happy.” 

And now, brace yourselves for a dozen more hot rocks. At the venerable age of 79, Richards, accompanied by his eternally youthful crew, the Rolling Stones, has put the final touches on their 26th U.S. studio album. Lord knows, it’s been a long time comin’. Nearly eight years have passed since the release of their 2016 blues covers album, Blue and Lonesome, and twice that time since their last batch of original songs, 2005’s A Bigger Bang.

The good news is the wait’s been worth it. Packed with killer tunes and those trademark Keef guitar hooks, Hackney Diamonds (Geffen) stands tall among their very best work. Bold, textured and unapologetically ambitious it recalls classics like Let It Bleed (1969) and Exile on Main St. (1972). 

The album also features guest appearances by some of rock’s greatest luminaries, including Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Lady Gaga and even original Stones bassist Bill Wyman, who hasn’t recorded with the band for almost 30 years. 

Guest cameos often distract more than they add, but the Stones have artfully deployed these music icons in surprisingly subtle and complementary ways. Wonder and Lady Gaga, for example, add just the right touch of soulful elegance to the celestial gospel rave-up “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” while Elton discreetly provides some tastefully rollicking piano on two tracks. 

Perhaps the biggest surprise is McCartney’s contribution. Beatle Paul, known primarily for his timeless love songs and gift for melody, goes against type and unleashes the mother of all snarling fuzz-bass lines on “Bite My Head Off,” an exhilarating punk rocker that tears the roof off the joint. 

“To be honest, if Paul had come another day, he’d probably have been on a different song,” Richards says with a laugh. “It wasn’t calculated. It just happened to be the flavor of the month that day.

The guitarist maintains that the album’s creation was “fun, quick and effortless,” yet he admits it wasn’t without a few tears. Hackney Diamonds marks the band’s first production since the passing of Charlie Watts, one of rock’s preeminent drummers, if not the unrivaled champion, who died on August 24, 2021, at the age of 80. The loss of the band’s inimitable “engine room” was a bitter pill to swallow. 

“Charlie was such a part of me and what I played, I haven’t quite come to terms with it yet,” Richards says somberly. 

Fortunately, the band was able to find a suitable replacement for Watts with percussionist Steve Jordan, who has played with Richards in the guitarist’s various side projects over the past couple decades. And as Keith explains in the following conversation, it was Watts himself who crowned Jordan as his heir apparent. 

Despite the loss of their longtime drummer, the Rolling Stones — Richards, singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Ronnie Wood — are in top form on the album, with some credit going to their young 32-year-old producer, ironically named Andrew Watt. 

While it may surprise some that the Stones would put their legacy in the hands of someone a fraction of their age, Watt has built a solid reputation by crafting excellent albums for several top-shelf veteran rockers and rappers, like Ozzy Osbourne, Eddie Vedder, Iggy Pop, Post Malone and Juice Wrld, all of which earned him the prestigious 2021 Grammy Award for Producer of the Year. 

But earning a Grammy is one thing, and gaining the respect of Richards, who undoubtedly has seen it all (and then some) is a whole ’nother matter. 

The guitarist, however, makes it abundantly clear that he enjoyed working with the producer and credits him with getting the album done in a month or two, something that he considers almost miraculous.

I was overwhelmed by how diverse and fresh the whole album sounds. I understand it had a lengthy evolution. 

Yeah, it took a while to get it going, but when we finished touring last year, Mick and I decided, Let’s just blitz a record, man, because we were being too relaxed about it and not really putting it together. We sort of made a project of it and said, Let’s get a guy that can push this thing with us. Mick found Andy Watt, and I’ve got to say, it was quite an experience working with him. 

He’s very young, very enthusiastic, and we worked very fast on it once it got going. Initially, I was almost a little skeptical that we would ever finish another album, because it’s been so long since we put new stuff out. For a minute, I was sorta waiting to see what would happen. 

Sometimes it’s good to have a deadline. 

Yeah, exactly. That was Mick’s opinion. I said, “If you’ve got enough material, let’s go for it.” That’s how it happened. 

It’s been 15 years since your last batch of original songs with the Stones, and I was wondering, as an artist, did you feel like you had something to prove? 

I’m not sure whether we needed to prove anything. I mean, maybe we needed to prove we could still make a record. But Mick had been building up material, and once I heard it, I said, “Well, we need to do a little bit of movement here or work on the bridge and stuff.” 

But a lot of the time, his ideas were together, so once we got in the studio, it wasn’t that difficult. It was also incredible to work with Steve Jordan for the first time on a Stones record. It was like presenting a “Stones now” kind of thing. [laughs] 

The first two songs, “Angry” and “Get Close,” begin with great kick-ass rhythm guitar hooks. Does your songwriting process usually begin with finding a great guitar riff?

Kind of, although from my point of view, there’s no fixed formula for writing a song. I feel more like I’m an antenna than a creator, particularly because, to me, songs seem to come from somewhere out there in the cosmos. If I sit down with a guitar or a piano and just start playing, eventually a song comes. It’s a bad day when it doesn’t. [laughs] 

Most of the time I feel like I’m just receiving inspiration from everything that has gone on before me, and then put it through my own point of view, and then sort of pass it on. I almost don’t feel any sense of ownership.

Most guitar players are pretty good at noodling around. The hope is that you stumble onto something interesting. 

Yeah, exactly. Right. I mean, sometimes an idea just finds you. Regardless, guitar playing is just a fantastic form of relaxation. Everybody should have one! [laughs] 

I know this is very personal, but how did Charlie Watts’ death affect you? 

All I can say is that I loved the man dearly, and I miss him. I still have conversations with the fucker. [laughs] 

You worked with drummer Steve Jordan for quite a few years on your side projects with the X-Pensive Winos. That must’ve made the transition a bit easier. 

When I started putting the Winos together, it was Charlie Watts who told me, “If you’re going to work with anybody else, Steve Jordan is your man.” So Steve’s been wearing that mantle for a while, and we all knew him, so in that way the transfer wasn’t that difficult. But, still, it’s impossible to put into words what Charlie meant to us. He was just a fantastic friend and so much more. 

I know that Charlie was a huge fan of drummers. He was a real scholar. For Steve to get his endorsement is significant. 

Absolutely. And you’re right about Charlie, he was totally invested in the great drummers of the ’30s and ’40s, like Max Roach and Art Blakey. Swing drummers were his joy. He was a historian on them. Yeah. He knew just about everything about ’em. The history side of it was very important for Charlie. 

What did he appreciate about Steve’s playing? 

I think he recognized him as a soulmate. Steve had been listening to Charlie since he was a kid and knew his playing from the ground up. He can do an incredible imitation of Charlie’s drumming, and I think Charlie got a kick out of that. 

It’s not easy to catch the nuances of Charlie’s feel. 

No, it isn’t. No. He had his own little ways of playing and some of those secrets he’s taken with him. 

Charlie appears on two tracks on Hackney Diamonds: “Mess It Up” and “Live by the Sword.” The album credits list that his performances were produced by Don Was, who produced your previous two albums, so I imagine the genesis of those songs came from earlier sessions. 

We had just started working on those tracks a few years ago, before Covid shut everything down. We left Charlie’s tracks as they were and re-did the vocals and everything else with Andy Watt. As soon as you hear that snare, you know it’s him.

Did Charlie have much input on how your songs were constructed? 

No, I wouldn’t say that. He would listen to whatever we brought in and made his own decisions about how to play it, but Charlie thought that a song was to be played, and I believe he didn’t think that songwriting was a part of his job. He just liked songs, and if he liked them, he’d play ’em. 

You must have had an incredible connection with him, because I know a lot of guitar players play to the drummer. 

Yeah, especially rock and roll players, if the drummer is the right kind of drummer. Charlie could swing and he could roll it a little more than most straight rock drummers. Charlie always added a jazz tinge to everything he played, so there was always that slightly different feel about the Stones’ music. 

There are a lot of what I call “full-circle moments” on the record, moments that take you back to the band’s origins. One is having Bill Wyman play in the studio with the band after a 30-year absence. How did that come about? 

Well, Bill and I have regularly stayed in touch through the years. He quite often sends me bits of information over the phone. I always see him when I go to England. In fact, I’m going to London next week, and I have no doubt that I’ll see him then. I’m not sure if he sees a lot of Mick and Ronnie, but I always make a sure point of getting to him.We just thought it would be cool to have him on one of the last tracks with Charlie. A reunion of sorts. 

Unfortunately, we weren’t in the same room together to record that, because we all just overdubbed to Charlie’s original track. But we’re all still good friends. The Stones are still the Stones in their own way. I mean, no band has lasted this long, so there is really nothing to compare it with. We see each other when we can. It’s not like we forgot each other just because somebody leaves the band.

How did Paul McCartney enter the picture? I think it shocked everyone when it was announced that he was going to be on a Rolling Stones track. 

He had been doing some work with Andrew Watt as well, and happened to be around and dropped by. I don’t even think he intended to play bass on a track, but once we he was there, I just said, “Come on, you’re in. You ain’t leaving until you play!” [laughs] 

Famously, John [Lennon] and Paul wrote “I Wanna Be Your Man” for the Stones, and it became your first hit in England. 

The Beatles and the Stones have been basically joined together at the hips from the beginning. We were totally different bands, but we knew each other well. I think we first met them in the fall of ’62, when they came down to see us play in London, and from there, every now and again, we’d get in touch. 

Later, John and Paul sang on “We Love You” and on “Dandelion.” We’ve always sort of been in touch. Ronnie and I used to hang with George Harrison quite a bit in the 1970s, so there’s always been an open door between the Beatles and the Stones. We were the only ones that knew what it’s like to have that extreme kind of fame in the 1960s, so that created a bond.

Another “full circle moment” comes at the end of the record, when you and Mick perform a terrific, intimate duet of Muddy Waters’ “Rolling Stones Blues,” the song that gave your band its name. 

That was Andrew’s idea. He turned up at the studio with a 1920s Gibson L-4 acoustic and asked us to do that Muddy thing. Ironically, I’d never played that song before, but the guitar was beautiful, and we did it in a couple of takes. The guitar that he laid on me was just the perfect sort of instrument for the job. It was perfectly archaic and, I must confess, pretty difficult to play. [laughs] 

What does the music of Muddy Waters mean to you? 

It’s the foundation. The blues was what I was chasing as a young man, and at one point I was going to stay there, and it was only rock and roll that got me out. [laughs] But to me, if you’re a rock musician, it’s essential to have a grounding in the blues, and it doesn’t get much better than Muddy Waters. 

When I heard that song at the end of the album, I thought it would be a perfect way to end your recording legacy. You know, “Here’s where it started, and this is the way it’s ending.” Were you concerned that people might interpret it that way? 

Man, I’ve never even come close to thinking of wrapping up the Rolling Stones’ story, so my answer to that is “Absolutely not.” It was just a cool way of wrapping up this album, and the story so far. We plan to keep working. I know we’re going to work next year. Making music is still quite exciting for me. 

I hadn’t realized how long it was since our last album, I think eight years ago or something. It’s funny how time flies, man, but I’m enjoying the process of releasing a new record and seeing what happens. 

Since the 1970s, the Stones have been a fluid entity. You had all these adjunct members, like pianist Nicky Hopkins, guitarist Mick Taylor or saxophonist Bobby Keys, that came and went. Do you feel like that was an essential element in keeping the band interesting and evolving? 

There’s some truth to that, but it wasn’t intentional. It was just, “Hey, we need a piano, we need a sax.” And the best guys just kept hanging around. [laughs] But you’re absolutely right: All of that extra talent and new blood has always helped the Rolling Stones. Ian Stewart was our first piano player, and in many ways the Rolling Stones were his band. But I mean, God, man, it’s been 60 years. You’re going to go through a few changes, right? [laughs]

It’s super smart to bounce ideas off new musicians, but most bands seem to believe that it “dilutes the brand.” 

Yeah, I don’t understand that way of thinking. We had Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga bounce in too, which was a surprise, and it came out cool. 

I was a little nervous when I heard Lady Gaga was going to be on a track. I didn’t know where that was going to go, but I have to say, “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” is one of my favorite songs on the record. 

Right, I don’t blame you. I understand what you were thinking, but she’s one of the Stones now. 

Her gospel singing on the song is pretty righteous. 

She’s a talented piece of work. It also helped to have Stevie Wonder playing keyboards. Having the both of them in the same room was pretty interesting. 

“Sweet Sounds of Heaven” is built around a textbook gospel chord progression. Did that come from you? 

The sound and feel of gospel runs through almost everything we’ve ever done, but Mick and I never actually pinned it down in such a specific way. “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” started as more an Otis Redding–style soul music thing and evolved from there. Soul music and gospel are just a part of us, and at the right time it suddenly comes out. 

There was no sort of premeditated decision to do a gospel thing. Mick just had these lyrics, and then there it was. We worked it out while we were all in a room together, so it felt very organic. I don’t think that song could’ve come together any other way. I was wondering about the false ending at the time. I didn’t get it. But then I got into the flow of it, and I think it really works. 

I’m a huge Stevie Wonder fan, and we haven’t heard much from him in recent years. He sounds great on the track and seems like he has so much to offer. 

We used to work with Stevie on the road quite a lot in the 1970s, so we’ve known each other for quite a while. But Stevie does what he wants to do, and when he wants to do it, he does it. 

As you’ve noted, the album is produced by Andrew Watt. He’s much younger than you guys. I think he was only 15 years old when you came out with your last batch of originals. What did he bring to the table? 

He brought exactly what we wanted: energy and a fresh mind. He knew our stuff back to front, and I think he had a ball making the Stones’ record. It was fun to make, very quick, compared to a lot of our records. We did most of it in a month or two. I enjoyed working with him. 

Well, you’ve got kids, so I imagine that you can respect the value of a younger perspective, too.

Right. It rubs off.

If your ears are open, sometimes you can learn some new things. 

Right. And it’s all about listening. It’s music. There’s something there. 

One of the more striking elements on the record are Mick’s vocals. His approach is more direct and less stylized than in recent years. It’s almost a return to way he sang in the 1960s with producer Andrew Loog Oldham. 

Oh, that’s interesting. Maybe it’s because both producers are named Andrew! [laughs] But you make a point. Mick worked hard, and I think he put more consideration into each song rather than just doing it. It was my observation that he thought a lot more about the vocals than usual. 

They felt more honest.

 Yeah, I get your picture. I had pretty much the same impression as you on that, but I really put it down to the fact that Andrew and Mick worked very tightly on each track.

On “Tell Me Straight,” your lead vocal also has a new vitality. You’re really belting it out. 

People have been telling me I sound stronger after I stopped smoking cigarettes in 2019. When we went out on the road a couple years ago, the sound guys started making comments. They were like, “Man, your voice… what’s happening?” Since then, singing has felt different, and I’m enjoying it more. 

You sound like a kid on that song! 

There’s probably an age when you start to go into reverse. And I’m probably in it. [laughs] 

“Tell Me Straight” feels like a life philosophy, sort of a song you were born to write: part mythic, part hardcore truth. 

Oh, cool. It came kind of like that. Once it was on the roller, these chords appeared and then the rest of it seemed to fall into place around it. I knew it was getting pretty good because Mick tried to steal it! I had to say, “Uh-uh buddy. I’m doin’ this one.” [laughs] 

There are a lot of guitars on the album. Lots of texture. 

My five-string Tele is on a good half of the tracks, but there’s also a lot of the Gibson. That’s not unusual. I’ve never just used one guitar in the studio, but I’ve been getting know this ’59 Gibson ES-355 lately, and I really enjoy playing it. 

In the early days of the Stones, you leaned pretty hard into Gibson Les Pauls, and then there was a bit of a shift. Do you remember what drew you into using a Fender Telecaster? 

I don’t know how I started moving in that direction. I think it was something to do with the way I was playing, and a Telecaster made it easier. But I’ve always loved Gibson guitars, and, I mean, there’s a lot of overdubs on everything here, so as usual, with every Rolling Stones record, there’s a great mixture of different guitars.

Fender and Gibson guitars make a great time-honored pairing. 

And then of course, it depends what amp you’re going to use. Yeah, it’s a big difference. I used Fender Twins most of the time, with the occasional Fender Champ when I was looking for something different. 

I’d like to ask you a few questions about the appeal of playing your five-string Tele tuned to open G [G, D, G, B, D]. Is it because it automatically creates a great blend with a standard six-string? 

Yeah, that’s part of it. That’s the sound of a Stones record: a five-string with a six-string on top, and Ronnie. It always creates a beautiful blend. A great example is how it sounds with Ronnie’s Dobro on [the Hackney Diamonds track] “Dreamy Skies.” You always have to play around with the amps a bit, but guitars are amazing things. You can make an orchestra out of them with just a simple blend.

Your band arrangements tend to be a little dense. In addition to a few guitars, there are often some keyboards, horns and backing vocals. Do you find that by eliminating  your low sixth string, it opens the mix up so other instruments can be properly heard? 

Yes! It’s always been the mystery to me why so much space opens up for other instruments by taking off the bottom string. You’re right, but I can’t really put my finger on a reason why, but somehow that one extra note disappearing allows for all kinds of other instruments to come through. It’s just one of those things, I guess.

What was it like working with Ronnie on this record? Do you guys spend a lot of time figuring out those guitar blends? 

Truth is, it’s almost never complicated. We just fit together. I mean, it’s like knit one, purl two, and it’s not something we need to think or talk about too much. If we thought about it, it would probably become too studied. It either works or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, then we try it another way. But usually, Ronnie and I just fall into a groove without even discussing it. 

Would you mind just talking about a couple of older songs? When people ask me about the importance of rhythm guitar, I always direct them to “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” from your Sticky Fingers album. Everyone focuses on the extended solos by Bobby Keys and Mick Taylor, but what kills me are all the different rhythm parts that you use to frame those solos. 

If I can remember rightly, I was really focused on working on the tuning thing and different ways of playing the guitar. I think it was at the time when I was really just balancing between playing with open tunings and regular tunings, so all kinds of different things were sort of coming out. 

That was with [producer] Jimmy Miller, who loved to play around with stuff like that. The track really grew while we were playing it. It was a good day. 

Okay, here’s another one: “Love in Vain” [from 1969’s Let It Bleed], your re-invention of the classic Robert Johnson blues song. No one can play like Robert — and you were probably smart to not even try — but your arrangement is equally terrific. 

I’ve always loved that tune, and I always thought there was something about the melody that suggested it wasn’t just a blues song. I heard a bit of country or folk in it, so I attacked it from that perspective. I remember thinking I wasn’t going to try to play it like Robert, and I wasn’t even going to play it like a blues. I’m going to pick out the notes and take it in a different direction. 

It just so happened that both Mick Jagger and Mick Taylor cottoned on to the idea, and we found ourselves doing it a new way. 

One last thing. Another great musician passed this year. What did you think of Jeff Beck? And is there any truth that he was being considered for the Stones after Mick Taylor left? 

Jeff? No, we felt that Jeff had his own furrow to plow and that he was not a team man. He was a soloist to the max. He was such an individualist. It wouldn’t have worked with the Stones at all. We’re all about teamwork. But don’t get me wrong, he was a tremendous player. The odd times we got together, I was always amazed by the stuff that he did with his tremolo bar. 

He was one of the best, man, and he’s going to be missed. 

So, do you think your next album will be done… 

…sometime before the next century? Yeah, I do hope so. [laughs] And I suppose given the normal pattern of things, we’ll probably be on the road next year. And after that, we’ll see.

Hackney Diamonds by the Rolling Stones is out now and available to buy or stream

“The first guitar that Leo Fender tried to lay on me was a Stratocaster,” James Burton says with a chuckle. At 83 years, he’s fit and well, with memories like very few other musicians. “I said, ‘No, man, I’m not gonna take it!’ The Stratocaster’s for younger kids. They like the whammy bar and all.”

So no Strats in the Burton collection, then? “Well, it just depends on what you prefer,” he reasons. “Some people like a fretboard that’s flat, but I like a little bit of roundness to it, so for me, there’s only one guitar to talk about: the Fender Telecaster. You know, Leo Fender was a wonderful guy. I met him many years ago, even before I went to work with Ricky Nelson. Leo assured me that whatever I wanted, it would be no problem: he’d take care of it. And he did.”

Indeed, as far back as 1961, Burton was tearing up that slightly rounded fretboard on Ricky Nelson’s “Hello, Mary Lou” with a solo that left young listeners speechless. (One of those kids was the rocking knight of the realm, Sir Brian May, who regularly cites Burton as an influence.) Check out that solo below if you don’t know it already: it leaps from the speakers at 1:04 with a flurry of string bends and sassy popped notes, sounding nothing like its 62 years of age.

Born in 1939 in Dubberly, Louisiana, Burton was a self-taught guitar prodigy who played on the Louisiana Hayride radio show in Shreveport as a teenager. Soon after, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began his career with Nelson and recorded numerous sessions. One of them was Dale Hawkins’ 1957 hit “Susie Q,” a tune Burton co-wrote and which was timed perfectly to assist with the birth of rock and roll.

He swiftly became an in-demand guitarist, songwriter and bandleader. As a young, hotshot guitarist, Burton recorded with Glen Campbell, Judy Collins, the Beach Boys, Harry Nilsson, Nancy Sinatra, Buffalo Springfield, Townes Van Zandt and a litany of other 1960s greats before he joined Elvis Presley in 1968 as leader of the TCB (Taking Care of Business) Band. Hot as a pistol after that year’s televised comeback special, Elvis, the King was dominating Las Vegas with an extravagant live residency.

Burton’s profile went stratospheric after Elvis began to include the command “Play it, James!” in each show, just before the guitarist ripped a spectacular solo – with no overdrive, and played with a pick-plus-fingers hybrid technique – from his custom Pink Paisley Telecaster. He remained at Elvis’s side for the remainder of the singer’s tragically curtailed career, although he took time out to play in Emmylou Harris’s backing group and on sessions for Johnny Cash, John Phillips, Michael Nesmith, Joni Mitchell, Merle Haggard, Gram Parsons, Tina Turner, Kenny Rogers, Delaney & Bonnie, Phil Everly, Rodney Crowell and many others. After Elvis’s death in 1977, Burton worked with John Denver, collaborating with the country singer until 1994, three years before Denver himself perished at a relatively young age.

In his middle career, Burton recorded and toured with Rosanne Cash, Elvis Costello (“a wonderful guy; very smart, with good ideas”), J.J. Cale, Gillian Welch, Marshall Crenshaw and others, and notably appeared in the 1988 special Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night. In the new century he has played with Matt Lucas, Jim Lauderdale, Drake Milligan and Brad Paisley, and he appeared alongside Eric Clapton on Jerry Lee Lewis’s album Mean Old Man, in 2010.

In recognition of Burton’s phenomenal career, Fender has long offered two signature Telecasters: a Candy Apple Red Tele based on the 1953 original and a Pink Paisley counterpart inspired by the 1969 Elvis model. The latter was redesigned in 2006 with three blade pickups, a no-load tone control and an updated switching system. A new model is on the way in 2023, with new pickups that are still being finalized as we speak.

“I’m real excited about the new Telecaster,” Burton says. “We did a lot of research into the new pickups, and the ones we settled on are really good. I guess I’ve had thousands of guitars over the years, but the old ones are still my favorites. I don’t know if you could get those tones nowadays. I guess if you had the right guitar and the right player, you might be able to do that.”

In 2005 Burton launched the James Burton Foundation (jamesburtonfoundation.org), a charitable group whose aims are to support music education for those in need through guitar donations and music instruction to schools, hospitals and community service organizations. “The Foundation is doing really good,” he says. “We’ve been able to present guitars to young kids and to veterans, and people are real excited about it. I like to be able to present guitars to the young kids and keep our music program going. You can’t do too much.”

The annual James Burton International Guitar Festival, held in Shreveport, supports the Foundation, and at the 2009 event, he was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. Two years earlier he had been inducted into the Musicians’ Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, as a member of the pioneering Wrecking Crew group of session musicians.

Guitar Player spoke to Burton in May 2023 as he was about to jump on a plane to the U.K. for a show at the London Palladium, where he was supported onstage by two of his biggest fans: Brian May and Van Morrison. Considering all he’s done over his career, we imagine it’s a tricky task for Burton to pick out just five songs that define his legacy – although he somehow manages to do just that. “I can’t count how many songs I’m on, but it’s been over 500 albums, so the song titles must be in the thousands,” he says. “Still, you know, it’s never-ending. Your best song is always yet to come.”

1. “Susie Q” by Dale Hawkins from 'Oh! Suzy-Q' (1958)

“I wrote this song when I was a young boy. I played this little guitar lick and there it was, just a little instrumental thing. I was working with a blues singer, Dale Hawkins, and Dale wrote a few lyrics to it. I think he had a girlfriend he called Susie Q. “We did the recording at a radio station, KWKH in Shreveport [in 1957. The single was released that year and the album in 1958]. I’m not even sure if we had drums in there. There was just one mic in the room. I played through a little Gretsch amp that I didn’t keep very long. That was what I used before I got my Fender amp.

“I used the original guitar that my mother and father bought me: a red Telecaster. It’s been on millions of records and it’s a great guitar. I’d say it’s my favorite guitar out of all the ones I’ve owned. It’s still playing fine, too. It’s all original: it’s never needed a fret dress or anything. “Someone asked me one time, if I wanted to sell my Telecaster, what would I sell it for. I said, ‘Well, it would be in the millions.’ The guy reached in his pocket and said, ‘How many?’ I said, ‘Not today!’” [laughs]

2. “Hello Mary Lou” by Ricky Nelson from 'Rick is 21' (1961)

“My buddy Gene Pitney wrote this song. I used the same red Telecaster on the recording. I remember how good the solo was. [laughs] You know, Ricky’s dad, Ozzie, was a big-band leader, and sometimes he’d come to the recording sessions. I played this solo and he said to me, ‘I had a saxophone player who played a lot like that,’ just joking with me.

“It would have been done on the first or second take: Ricky might have done more takes for his vocals than that, but I never did more than two. You know, writing a good guitar solo is really about being smart. It’s like traveling cross-country: be careful what you step on! [laughs] And remember: Being a great musician is sometimes about what you don’t play. Leave space, and have an idea about what you’re going to do next.”

3. “Fools Rush In” by Ricky Nelson (1963 single) and Elvis Presley from 'Elvis Now' (1972)

“Remember the old [1940 Mercer & Rube-penned] standard, ‘Fools Rush In’? I did two versions in whole different styles: one with Ricky and another with Elvis. Ricky’s was a little laid-back; Elvis had more excitement in his version. I walked into the room playing the song, and Elvis started humming it, and he told the engineer to turn the machine on and to record it. Just like that.

“Elvis liked to do two takes, and that was it. He’d usually get it in one take, but sometimes the musicians would need another take to fall in together, because everything was recorded live from the floor back then. Elvis was a prankster and liked to joke around, so I had him practice a lot and work up the songs before he came in the studio, because I was the bandleader. The musicians had to do what I’d tell them to do. But I still believe that the best bandleader is the one who stands there and keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t do anything. You gotta look at it this way: the singers key-off of the musicians. We have to be good musicians to do what we do.

“Elvis famously would call out for me to play this solo live. He just started saying, ‘Play it, James!’ during his shows for some reason. And then everybody else that I worked with started saying it!”

4. “Polk Salad Annie” by Elvis Presley from 'On Stage' (1970)

“I did a version of this song for a movie, Ford Vs. Ferrari [2019]. It really shows you the way I play, and my style of playing: bluesy, with a little rock and roll. Give me a Fender Twin and let me plug it in. I don’t need anything else. I don’t really like effects. I never use them unless something happens to be required. I don’t use overdrive, but sometimes I like an amp with a little breakup that’ll give you that raspy, raw sound.

“The main thing is just to be able to hear your guitar, whether that’s from your amp or if you have monitors. It depends on the setup, but when you’re standing in front of monitors, you have to be sure you’re getting the sound you’re looking for.”

5. “Steamroller Blues” by Elvis Presley from 'Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite' (1973)

“This is a good one: Elvis always liked this song. James Taylor wrote it. I couldn’t believe that when someone told me. I thought it was by Elmore James or somebody.

“I played this with my Paisley Telecaster when we did the Aloha From Hawaii by Satellite show, and you can see Elvis really enjoyed it. When it comes to soloing, you gotta go for it and put your hot lick on it. You gotta ad-lib a little bit, too; you don’t wanna read the paper too close. I’m self-taught. God told me that’s the best way. He was my teacher. It’s important to know the song, but it’s more important to be able to play by ear, because you’re able to do more in the music field. If you sit and look at a piece of paper to play, you have to depend on that. But when you play by ear, man, you can just walk out there and do it.

“And if you want to play hybrid picking, like I do, well – go home and practice. Make sure you got the right fingers.”

“I’m not a rock star type; I’m a support musician,” begins Kevin Armstrong. “It’s about enjoying the whole thing and trying to bring something valuable to it. That’s why I’ve managed to survive this long, I guess.”

Kevin Armstrong may not be a household name, but the “sideman to rock royalty” has lent his talents to the likes of David Bowie and Iggy Pop whom he served as bandleader, not to mention Morrissey, Paul McCartney and Grace Jones.

Hailing from London’s punk/pub-rock scene, the self-taught guitarist and solo artist signed to EMI in the early 1980s, although his musical career took an unexpected turn when he received a call from the firm’s A&R man Hugh Stanley-Clarke asking him to attend a session at Abbey Road for a “mystery artist.”

The unnamed musician turned out to be none other than David Bowie, and during that afternoon’s session they developed a lasting rapport that saw Kevin later appear onstage at the historic 1985 Live Aid performance. Bowie then introduced Kevin to his friend Iggy Pop who promptly recruited the guitarist for his 1986 album Blah Blah Blah.

Beyond his association with David Bowie and Iggy Pop, Kevin has also had the pleasure of working with such legends as Sinéad O’Connor, Thomas Dolby and Brian Eno. Now, with over four decades' experience at the frontline of the music business, he is sharing some of his hard-earned wisdom about what it takes to survive in his new book, Absolute Beginner: Memoirs of the World's Best Least-Known Guitarist.

Guitar Player caught up with Kevin who gave us a rundown of his current rig before dishing out some essential advice for fellow guitarists.

How do you keep your chops up between gigs? Do you practice a lot?

“I just play free every day. I’m sure a lot of virtuosic musicians would say I waste my time, but it’s about the connection with the instrument and keeping my chops up. As you get older, if you don’t play for four or five weeks you can lose things physically. Or mentally, even. So I make sure I switch on an amp and play for a couple of hours a day. Even if I’m playing the same s**t I’ve always played, I just need to keep the connection going.”

Is there such a thing as too much practice?

“I have an array of electric guitars, plus amps and a pedalboard always ready to go, but I don’t think it’s good to become so obsessed with practicing guitar that you’re not relating to real life. But there’s a big spectrum of guitar players. You’ve got Keith Richards at one end and guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen at the other. All of it’s valid. Whether you enjoy the sound of technical virtuosity or the sound of someone struggling manfully with one note, it says something if their whole life has gone into it.”

Having instant, easy access to your gear can make things so much easier…

"I just need to be able to pick something up and plug in straight away. I also have mics and recording equipment set up at all times. I didn’t always, however. And I would waste half a day hunting for a plectrum. But now I keep my gear to hand so I can always have an easy connection with it. If I wake up at two o’clock in the morning with an idea, I like to be able to noodle away immediately. Even if it’s just a Strymon Iridium and headphones.”

What amps do you prefer to use?

“The digital stuff is clever and convenient and a great way forward for some people, but I love my Hamstead Artist 60 tube amps. I met Peter Hamstead a long while back when he first started making amps and I’ve used them ever since. They also make nice pedals. I gave a Hamstead overdrive to Josh Homme.”

What pedals do you currently use and has it changed much over the years?

“Effects pedals have been a labor of love. I used mostly Boss pedals with Bowie and Iggy as a session man in the ‘80s. I had one of those plastic molded [BCB-6] Boss pedalboards and used a Boss Digital Delay, an overdrive, a compressor and some others. I also like the green [Boss PN-2 Tremolo/Pan] which is a very good stereo and tremolo effect.

“It’s only in the last 20 years that I’ve become a pedal geek. In fact, I’ve just had a new pedalboard built by Daniel Steinhardt’s the GigRig. My old ‘board was much bigger and heavier and the new one is about half the size in terms of real estate, which suits me better.”

What’s on your new pedalboard?

“It has a GigRig G3 Atom [switching system]. There’s a Wampler Tumnus Deluxe which is a Klon-type pedal, an Xotic EP-Booster and a Fulltone OCD for a little more saturation. In my one-man shows, I also use a Boss OC-2 [Octave] (which is a very clean octave pedal and nice for making basslines) and a Boss RC-30 Loop Station.” [Kevin’s new GigRig pedalboard also features the MXR M109 Six Band EQ, plus Strymon’s BigSky reverb, TimeLine delay and Mobius modulation units]

What guitars do you use?

“For most of the famous things I’ve been involved with I’ve used my 1954 Blackguard Fender Telecaster. It’s player grade because it’s got different tuners and the pickups are rewound, but it’s just a very nice Tele.

“When it became more difficult to transport guitars on airplanes, I bought a mid ‘00s ’52 RI Tele for about a thousand quid and spent another few hundred customizing it. It has a Seymour Duncan humbucker with a coil split switch (so you can switch between a single- and double-coil) and Trevor Wilkinson compensated saddles. That’s a nice Tele too. It’s starting to get some age and stank on it now because I play it a lot.

“I’ve also got a Gibson Custom Shop R8 [1958 Les Paul Standard reissue] which is nice. I’ve tried to make average ones into good ones in the past by swapping out pickups, but in the end, I wanted one with no weight relief and that had all the Custom Shop touches like hide glue and all that good stuff. These ‘58s can have chunky necks but I don’t mind that at all as I have big hands.

“I also have an Ernie Ball Music Man [Armada MM90] which I’ve used with Iggy Pop a lot. That’s a one-piece through-neck design with P-90s, which is pretty interesting. And I have an American Stratocaster that I’ve modded with Seymour Duncan pickups and a Trev Wilkinson bridge. I stripped the black finish off. It’s just a good workhorse Strat that I can carry on modding if I need to.”

Kevin Armstrong’s Top Tips for Guitarists

• Turn up on time reasonably sober and smelling good.
• Communicate. Start a WhatsApp group and use it.
• Learn the songs before you get to rehearsal. (I’ve actually met people who don’t do that!)
• Help others load and unload their gear. As opposed to the singer who says, “I’d like to help you with that but I’ve got a hole in my arse."
• Make sure your gear works and bring all your own cables, picks, strings, batteries et cetera. I can’t count the number of times I’ve turned up with professional guitarists who badger the soundman for a cable. You know, have one in your bag!
• If you’re the bandleader, listen. Also, if you’re not the bandleader, listen. Sometimes, the best way you can contribute to the music is by shutting the f**k up.
• Don’t upstage or play louder than the singer. When it’s your solo, turn it up! I’ve seen both of these things: guitarists who overpower the singer all the time, and guitarists who aren’t loud enough when it’s their solo.
• Don’t overplay. Nobody cares about your amazing technique but you.
• Enjoy it – it’s only music.
• Keep some money in your pocket for some lunch and enough for the c**t who’s forgotten.
• Don’t get fu**ed up until after the gig. I don’t have any position to take about people getting fu**ed up, as long as it’s not before the gig.
• Roadies and techs are people. Love them and they will love you back.
• Don’t be a twat to other bands – give respect.
• Dress sharp.

Read these tips and more in Kevin’s new book, Absolute Beginner: Memoirs of the World's Best Least-Known Guitarist.

Order Kevin’s 2019 solo album, Run, here.

Catch Kevin on the Lust For Life tour featuring fellow Iggy Pop band members Glen Matlock (the Sex Pistols) and Clem Burke (Blondie), plus Katie Puckrik (Pet Shop Boys, Sparks), Luis Correia (Earl Slick) and Florence Sabeva (Heaven 17).

Visit the Kevin Armstrong website for more information.

As a guitarist and songwriter who brings pop melodicism to a bombastic rock template, Billy Squier was one of the 1980s’ biggest rock stars. Far from hiding his influences, he wore his Led Zeppelin and Queen reverence proudly on his sleeve. In fact, Squier was described on several occasions as “a one-man Led Zeppelin,” an appellation that Jimmy Page himself seemed to agree with. Squier tells GP about hanging with the Zep guitarist one night in New York City.

“We were at the China Club, talking about doing a project together, and he asked me about a song from my album Hear & Now,” Squier recalls. “On the album, there’s a song called ‘Don’t Say You Love Me,’ which has this cool, funky riff that introduces the verses. Jimmy asked me, ‘Who came up with that?’ When I told him it was me, he turned his head away and muttered ‘Fuck!’ He was like, ‘So this guy is not only a singer, but he’s also doing my bits too – he’s the guitar player and the singer’. And I will always remember that because it was the greatest compliment.”

Squier first came to prominence in the late 1970s as vocalist and guitarist with pop-rockers Piper. After signing to A&M Records, the group released its self-titled debut in 1976 and its 1977 follow-up, Can’t Wait, before splitting up soon after. In the aftermath, Squier kickstarted his solo career in earnest. His 1980 debut album, The Tale of the Tape, displayed his knack for writing hook-laden, guitar-heavy tunes that would bring him a mass audience via his 1981 follow-up, Don’t Say No.

Featuring his calling card, “The Stroke,” the album pushed Squier into commercial and artistic overdrive. A swath of additional hits and albums solidified his success through that decade, but a change in the musical landscape, a lack of record label support and his own disenchantment with the music scene saw Squier walk away from the industry after the release of 1993’s Tell the Truth, his last album with a major label.

His 1998 acoustic outing, Happy Blue, was a huge musical departure and proved to be the last the public heard from Squier for some time. Away from the spotlight, he continued toiling away whenever the musical muse called, making sporadic appearances with his band and on his own. In 2006 and 2008, he did stints as a member of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band touring group.

Then, in early 2023, Squier resurfaced with the gritty, blues-infused scorcher “Harder On a Woman,” showing he hasn’t lost his knack for writing great songs. The time away has been beneficial, as Squier sounds revitalized, inspired and firing on all cylinders, but he says the song was far from an attempt to get back in the game.

“I’m not doing this to start a comeback,” he states. “I wrote it because the song was important for me to put out, and it gave me the chance to make my voice heard in a way I’ve been known for doing. It has brought me back to something which was near and dear to me for a long time but hadn’t been a big part of my life in recent years. But when I did it, it all came back.”

All things considered, this seemed the perfect time to catch up with Squier to discuss gems from his vault.

1. “Calley Oh” from ‘The Tale of the Tape’ (1980)

“This is a good example of the time I was really honing the Billy Squier guitar sound. The concept is simple: Plug a great guitar into a great amp, and don’t let anything get in between. On ‘Calley,’ it’s a 1960 Telecaster Custom through a Marshall Lead 100. On the Piper records, I had two great guitars; a ’57 Fender Strat, and a ’56 Gibson Les Paul Special, both of which I still have, and an early ’70s Marshall Lead 100. I’ve always taken a tremendous amount of inspiration from the guitars I’ve played.

“I had a big breakthrough when I was in Piper when I met Frank Levi, who was a guitar-amp wizard working at S.I.R in New York City. I told him that I wanted to expand on the classic Marshall sound: I wanted more brilliance on the top end and more crunch on the bottom, but without losing any of the midrange characteristics. So after rehearsals, we would sit in the shop at S.I.R, and he’d tweak the components until we got what I wanted – a Marshall on steroids!

“The first channel emphasized the brilliant aspects of the sonic spectrum, and the second focused on the deep end. I’d jumper the two channels together, and it became a tremendous asset for me. If I was playing one of my Fenders, I might push the low-end channel, and with the Gibsons, I’d alter the balance to favor the first channel. The results were spectacular!

“On this song, I used a 1960 Fender Telecaster Custom. When the guitars come in, you can hear it’s jangly and bright, but still fat. It doesn’t sound like a Gibson, but it holds up against it. You can put that guitar against a Les Paul, play them together, and you’ll have a really good dialog going. So ‘Calley Oh’ was a really good introduction for what I would become known for.”

2. “In the Dark” from ‘Don’t Say No’ (1981)

“A lot of this album is that Telecaster again. The difference was that, on this record, we started recording at the Power Station in New York, which had this spectacular, big wooden cathedral room with a sound that was unmatched for what I was doing, and you can hear it all over that record. I also had a phenomenal producer/engineer in Reinhold Mack.

“Originally, I wanted Brian May to produce the record, and Brian was keen, but Queen had gotten a bit over-extended on their recording and touring commitments, so in the end it wasn’t possible, and Brian suggested I ask Mack.

“When I heard The Game, I knew I’d found my man. Before he produced Queen, he had engineered a lot of the ELO records. That drum sound on the ELO records was incredible, and the presence on Jeff Lynne’s voice, that was Mack, too. And what Mack did for Queen on The Game, sound-wise, he opened everything up.

“So I got him over from Munich, and off we went. We had a great relationship that worked well together because his strength was more on the technical end, and mine was more on the writing and musical end, but we were able to switch roles when the situation called for it.

“This song is a great example of what I think I do best. Although I come from a pop background, I always wanted to rock. ‘In the Dark’ has a lot of swagger, a great riff at the beginning, great melodies and musical hooks. It’s a pop-rock hybrid.”

3. “The Stroke” from ‘Don’t Say No’ (1981)

“Obviously, the biggest song of my career. I knew that it was special, musically, and that the title was going to be provocative and controversial. I also knew that the song had a deeper meaning that wasn’t readily apparent on first listen. I was able to capitalize on the controversy and get a lot of attention while writing something that I was proud of from a lyrical standpoint.

“And the reverse-snare sound – that was something we came up with in the studio, not in pre-production. I suggested that we flip the tape and have [drummer] Bobby Chouinard play to the tape running backward. Mack heard it and immediately said, ‘Do another track.’ Bobby ended up playing it half a dozen times, and that’s how we got that sound.

“I’m playing my ’57 Strat through the Marshall. I always liked the ‘Volga Boatmen’ [Russian folk] song, and including that as a countermelody in the song’s break was a bit of cinematography that I came up with. I actually recorded a guitar solo on the track, but I took it out when we mixed it, because I didn’t think it was necessary.”

4. “G.O.D” from ‘Hear & Now’ (1989)

“It’s very unique. I hadn’t done anything else like this before. When I was in the middle of doing Hear & Now, my production manager went out on the road with Def Leppard. They had just released Hysteria at the time, and he called me and said, ‘Boss, they’re stealing your shit!’ Interesting observation from someone who knew me about as well as anybody. How’s the saying go: ‘Amateurs borrow, professionals steal’? We’re all influenced by somebody.

“But after hearing that, I decided I was going to do something that none of these guys could do, that they couldn’t steal if they tried, and that’s what got me onto the expanded approach for the song. ‘G.O.D’ came about one morning when I woke up and something was bothering me, and I went, ‘Oh God!’ A light bulb went off in my head: How many times do we say, ‘Oh God’? We’re talking to God when we say that, aren’t we? We’re looking for some help, but he never talks back to us. And that’s where the idea came from.

“It sounds more like a sensual, edgy rock song, but it’s really about searching for answers and coming up empty – beseeching a higher power who remains elusive in the worst of times. Where is God when you need him?

“That song has so many bits and pieces to it. It’s funky, it’s got gospel, and it rocks like hell, along with a great solo, which I played on my ’59 ’Burst through that classic Marshall stack. The song takes you through a lot of changes. I wouldn’t call it a pop song, but it’s got a catchy chorus and a lot of hooks.”

5. “Harder on a Woman” single (2023)

“The big difference between this song and what I’ve done before is that I wasn’t concerned about sounding like Don’t Say No or creating a lavish production. I wanted it to be all about the song. I wanted it to be in your face, like we were playing the song right in your living room. There’s very minimal processing on it. We tracked in a small room using small amps. I’m playing through a fantastic Bluesbreaker-style amp that’s made by Bob Reinhardt, who builds amps and racing cars.

“I didn’t spend much time on the guitar sounds. We really went for the performance. Simon Kirke played drums, and I was very fortunate to grab my old bass player, Mark Clarke, when he was in town. Plus, I had G.E. Smith lurking in the wings. It’s a no-frills recording, very simple and direct. Mike Chapman laid that approach on me when he produced Tell the Truth, my last full-blown rock record, in 1993. He got me into bringing everything more upfront and direct.

“There are at least three hooks in the song. The guitars, which are driving the song, are really playing as one. To me, it sounds almost like a Stones song in places. The guitar I used is a James Trussart resonator. I think it might have been the first one he ever did. It’s basically got a steel guitar body with two pickups, like a standard two-pickup guitar, but also has a candy-box pickup in the guitar underneath the plate. It’s got one volume control for the two pickups with a toggle switch, one volume control for the candy box, and one tone control for the lot.

“You can use it like a regular electric guitar, or you can use it as a resonator or both. I’m using it as a hybrid on this song. When I got the idea that I wanted to play this with a drop D tuning, I thought of that guitar right away. I’d never recorded with it before but had the feeling that it was going to do the job, so I brought it in and didn’t play anything else.

“I did the six-note mini-solo with my ’59 ’Burst Number One, which I threw down upstairs in my carriage house, directly onto GarageBand as a demo so the guys could hear it, because we didn’t have time to rehearse. I had a little Vox Brian May amp lying around, so I just plugged it in, turned it up a bit, and ran off the tracks.

“When I was in the studio getting ready to re-record the solo properly, we put up the demo and noticed that it had this unique sound to it that we might not beat using conventional means. The carriage house has a high ceiling, a wood floor, a bunch of glass and no damping, and it turned out to have a great live sound to it. It’s a cool sound, and there was no way I was going to do it any better, so I just used the demo.”

“I have all the history on this guitar. It’s an interesting story. Back in 1998, the original owner – a guy by the name of Verlin Whitford – sent me photos of it. On the back of a photo, he’d written ‘1951 Tele and original case’ along with his name and phone number. So I called him right away and said, ‘Hey, that’s a cool Telecaster. Can you tell me about it?’

“As it turned out, Verlin and Leo Fender had a close mutual friend, and so he was able to visit the factory in person with the aim of collecting an Esquire he’d ordered. He lived right down the road in Fullerton. When he got there, he was told it wasn’t ready to collect. However, because his buddy was friends with Leo, the two of them were offered a tour of the factory. They walked around and when he was in the amplifier area, Verlin spotted an Esquire painted in sunburst – not the sunburst Tele featured here, although I do also happen to own the Esquire, too!

“When he asked the factory guys about it, they told him they didn’t normally make Esquires or Telecasters in sunburst [blonde was the standard finish] and that it was an experimental build. But Verlin offered to buy it anyway, even though it was something of a test mule. At that point, he asked if it would be possible for them to add a second pickup, making it a dual-pickup Esquire. So he bought it, took it home, played it and loved it.

“A couple of weeks later, Verlin goes back to Fender to collect the regular blonde Esquire that he’d ordered. While he’s at the factory, he decides to have another look around and spots one of the techs working with a gizmo that he’d never seen on a Fender guitar before. It was a Bigsby vibrato. But this one was different because it was made for a Telecaster body, rather than an archtop.

“At the time, the guitar’s neck and body were just raw wood – no paint. The tech told him it was a unit they just got in from Paul Bigsby and that they were trying to figure out how it all went together. So Verlin told one of the Fender guys, ‘If you can paint that guitar in sunburst, I’ll take it!’ They didn’t quite know if the Bigsby was going to work, but Verlin said, ‘If it does work, I’d love to take it to Korea with me.’ They agreed on a deal and several weeks later the guitar was done.

“This guitar is so ancient. The B16 Bigsby is different from any other B16 I’ve ever seen on a Telecaster. It’s got a fixed arm with a really wide spoon handle – giant! It feels very different to play and you can’t move it down. Engineering-wise, it seems kind of weird.

“The pickguard is bespoke in order to accommodate the Bigsby and the bridge plate is gone. There’s a wooden shim in the neck pocket – because the height and angle need to change – but on every other Bigsby Telecaster I’ve ever seen the shim is aluminum. This one is made from ebony and is stamped ‘Bigsby & Company’. It’s the prototype of the B16 Telecaster.

“So Mr Whitford is going off to fight in Korea and wants to take this guitar with him. He engraves his military identification number, social security number and phone number into the Bigsby in case the guitar is lost, or it can get back to his family in the worst-case scenario.

“Interestingly, when I first spoke to Mr Whitford, we could not agree on a price. He wanted $6,500 in 1998 and I told him I couldn’t give him $6,500 because that’s what I’d sell it for. We did not have an agreement. But we did agree prices on the sunburst and blonde Esquires.

"Several weeks later, he brought this Bigsby sunburst Tele out to a guitar show in Pomona, California. He was showing it around trying to get an offer, but nobody bought it. However, about six months later, a gentleman in Pennsylvania answered a classified ad and he was then able to sell it for $10,000.

“Fast forward to about four or five years ago, I got a call from a guy completely out of the blue. He said, ‘I have a very interesting guitar you might like to hear about.’ He goes on to tell me it’s a 1951 Telecaster in sunburst, so I said, ‘And it has a Bigsby?’ Which stopped him dead. He goes, ‘Yes!’ I said, ‘Did you buy it from a guy named Verlin Whitford?’ And he goes, ‘Yes! I guess this might be your second chance to buy it?’

“Suffice to say, I was on my way home with it the next day.”

Vintage guitar veteran David Davidson co-owns Well Strung Guitars in Farmingdale, New York
info@wellstrungguitars.com / 001 (516) 221-0563

Prog-rock blew my young mind in 1971, and it was largely thanks to Yes and a magnum opus called “Roundabout.”

I’d been amazed by the Beatles’ dreamlike “A Day in the Life,” thrilled to the Tilt-a-Whirl ride of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” and been dazed by the surreal centerpiece of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”

Each of those was a mini symphony, with the various movements added on like musical boxcars.

“Roundabout” was different, and in so many ways. For one, everything gelled together, with each new movement evolving harmoniously from the previous one, taking the song further along, sometimes to entirely new stylistic juggernauts, but always reconnecting to the original theme, not just seamlessly but joyously, like a thrilling homecoming.

I suspect that congruity has a lot to do with the song’s commercial success.

“Roundabout” has many sections and changes, but it’s never hard on the ears or requires harmonic leaps that detract from the music’s enjoyment.

It’s also entertaining as hell. That is largely down to the virtuosity of Steve Howe, Yes’s then rather new guitarist (he’d joined the year before) and the co-author of this bit of musical majesty.

Howe’s stylistic diversity was one thing, but he also played with remarkable precision and speed, and without ever relying on clichés.

“Roundabout” and Fragile, the album on which it appears, were major successes and helped prog-rock break into the mainstream, where it brought a new level of musicality and virtuosity to rock seemingly overnight.

But what is prog? It’s been notoriously difficult to define. Both rock-driven and symphonic, as well as folk and electronic (no popular genre of the time made more generous use of synthesizers), it’s the most catholic of musical styles.  

With Fragile, Yes brought a new focus to their music and showed that elaborate symphonic-like works could rock out. Not only did the album create a style and sound that would define the band’s place in music for years to come but it also shaped the look and sound of rock for a good part of the 1970s.

Throughout the ‘70s and beyond, Howe has relied on a variety of guitars to help stamp his sonic identity onto recordings. While he developed his sound using Gibson electrics – notably an ES-175D on The Yes Album and an ES-5 Switchmaster during the recording of Fragile – he has also used acoustic guitars extensively, including a 1953 Martin 00-18.

His love of fine guitars continues to this day, and in this fantastic interview film Howe walks us through the instruments he used to record Yes’s latest studio album, Mirror to the Sky.

Starting with a “satisfying and gutsy”-sounding blonde 1955 Fender Telecaster modified with a humbucker in the neck, Howe says this vintage axe featured on 1974’s Relayer LP. “I’d decided that after several albums featuring Gibson guitars that I’d bravely go into the area I hadn’t used before,” he explains, “which is the fantastic sound of Fender guitars.”

Martin acoustic guitars have long been central to Howe’s creative process and are featured throughout Mirror to the Sky. “To me, an acoustic guitar is the most important guitar in my world because I tend to not only practice but also write on acoustic guitars,” reveals the maestro, showing us his MC-38 Steve Howe, a signature model that was released in 2009. (Martin also produced the 00-18SH signature model in 1999).

Elsewhere, Howe shows us his iconic 1964 Gibson ES-175D, a Gibson ES Artist, and a Fender Deluxe 6 steel.

When asked in 2018 why he thought the 1960s created so many great blues guitarists – including himself, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page – Jeff Beck had a ready response that reached high, deep and wide.

“We were down on our luck until the blues arrived,” he replied. “And it became natural music for us. We became disciples. We had to discover more. Anyone who ever had the slightest fascination with music had to find out what that sound was and where it came from. Me, Eric and Jimmy Page were stricken to the soul. We were obsessed. Thank God we were.”

For Jeff Beck, the blues was just one part of a lifelong journey that encompassed rock and roll, fusion, soul, instrumental and electronica.

Deeply curious, innately inventive, he followed his muse where it led him. The first stringed instrument to arouse his interest was the zither, as heard in the theme song for the 1949 British film noir The Third Man. Anton Karas’s haunting title composition was an international hit that year, a tune that rang in his five-year-old ears.

“The people next-door-but-one had a zither, and that was actually the first stringed instrument that I touched,” Beck revealed to Jamie Crompton in Guitarist’s 2009 cover story. “There’s a scoop for you.”

It was shortly afterward, at the age of six, that he first heard the electric guitar. Les Paul and Mary Ford’s 1951 hit “How High the Moon” was playing on the radio, and Paul’s layered guitars, slathered with slapback echo, caught his ears. “What’s that sound?” he asked his mother. “An electric guitar,” she replied. From that point on, he was all in.

Years later, “The Third Man Theme” would be the first thing Beck attempted to pick out when he played a guitar. But it took years before he actually had the instrument in his hands. “My mum wanted me to learn piano, as learning the guitar was just not done,” Beck said. “I used to spend the money for piano class on model airplanes and mark my own books to make it look like I was going to lessons.”

With the help of an uncle he tried his hand at violin, but his efforts were no better. “It sounded so murderous that he switched me to cello, which is an instrument that I love,” Beck revealed. “I started plucking it because I didn’t get on with bowing, and he just stopped me and said, ‘Get out.’ No patience at all.”

Beck’s fascination with guitar – like that of all guitarists born toward the end of World War II – follows the instrument’s arc in popular culture. He was born Geoffrey Arnold Beck on June 24, 1944, to Arnold and Ethel Beck. The family lived at 206 Demesne Road, Wallington, some 10 miles south of London. He had one sister, Annetta, born some four years before. Music was a big feature of their house. Ethel played piano, and her baby grand was displayed in the family’s living room. “My mum played beautifully,” Beck told Guitarist.

As he could best remember, his first experience with guitar took place around the age of 12 or 13, in 1956 or 1957. “I was at a friend’s house who was slightly spoiled,” he told Crompton. “He had a record player, a tape recorder, a guitar – all the toys.” The guitar was unloved, evident by the absence of several strings. “I started playing around with it and he said, ‘Do you wanna borrow it?’ I said, ‘Yes please!’

I remember carrying it home in the rain and taking my coat off to wrap around it to protect it. Right then, I felt a kind of protective thing towards the guitar.” With no access to guitar strings, Beck replaced the missing ones with the control-line wire from a motorized model airplane, “the kind that made the model fly round in circles,” he said.

While his parents tried to direct their son’s interests to Andrés Segovia and Django Reinhardt, Beck was, like most kids his age, drawn to the emerging strains of rock and roll. Between his sister’s growing record collection and the nightly pop broadcasts on Radio Luxembourg, he developed an aficionado’s appreciation for the raft of guitar players in that early rock and roll era.

But it was the 1957 comedy musical film The Girl Can’t Help It that made the strongest impression on him. The movie featured cameos by Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, Fats Domino and the Platters. But it was Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps’ mimed performance of their hit “Be-Bop-a-Lula” that most deeply affected Beck. In particular, he was taken by the playing of Vincent’s guitarist, Cliff Gallup.

Though he had left Vincent by the time the film was released, Gallup cut some 35 sides with the singer, and Beck quickly set about finding every one of them. “I knew then that I wanted to play the lead guitar breaks,” Beck said, “the fiery stuff like Cliff Gallup. I didn’t just want to be a strummer.”

While Gallup influenced his interest in the guitar as a lead instrument, Buddy Holly helped him set his eyes on owning a Fender Stratocaster. Fenders were not available in England, and Beck couldn’t have afforded one anyway. So he enlisted his neighbor, a handyman named Jack, to build him a Strat copy for five pounds. Neither Beck nor Jack knew anything about scale lengths or fret placements, which were crudely approximated.

The results were far from perfect, but the instrument intonated well enough when capoed at the fifth fret, and Beck learned he could bend any flat notes to pitch – shades of things to come.

He had yet to pay Jack when he gave his first performance at a local youth club with another boy playing a cello as a substitute for a stand-up bass. Their appearance went over well and even got a positive mention in the local paper. But Jack was in the audience and sore about the money he was owed. “[He] made a complete twat out of me by telling everyone that I hadn’t paid him for it,” Beck recalled. “Five quid! I’d just been the belle of the ball and he said, ‘Right, I’m going to tell you all about your mate Jeff – you owe me five quid, ya cheapskate bastard!’ I thought, Right, for that, you won’t get the money!”

By the middle of 1960, Beck was finally in possession of a proper guitar, a Guyatone LG-50, and playing in his first band, having joined the Bandits, an instrumental act that was supporting Elvis Presley and Gene Vincent impersonators on a U.K. summer tour. “I was speaking to Hank Marvin about this recently and he played a similar one,” Beck told Guitarist in 2009. It had purfling around the body and a maple veneer, so it wasn’t such a bad old thing. It was about 25 pounds. Proper money when you haven’t got 25 pence!”

By this point, Beck, all of 16, had begun to attend Wimbledon College, an art school similar to those that became destinations for John Lennon, Pete Townshend, David Bowie and other musicians attempting to delay their entry into working-class society. “They had good meals” was about all Beck could say about his time there.

His true desire was to land a spot performing with a working band. The Deltones were a semi-pro local covers band, with players in their 20s, slightly older than Beck. He liked their sound and, as it happened, had known their guitarist Ian Duncombe, who, like Beck, was a Cliff Gallup disciple. Beck began sitting in on rehearsals and, when Duncombe announced he was leaving, asked to take his spot. An audition was arranged at which Beck showed up with his latest acquisition: a Burns Vibra-Artiste with a translucent cherry red finish and three Trisonic pickups – although Beck recalled the guitar as having “about six pickups and a hundred knobs on it. I never knew what any of them did.”

Beck won the audition, but that wasn’t enough for him. He insisted that his longtime friend John Owen accompany him on rhythm guitar. Either due to Beck’s talents or the Deltones’ lack of options, they agreed to the arrangement. As it happened, Owen had a white Fender Telecaster, and Beck managed to convince him to swap, as the Tele would be a more appropriate lead instrument. It worked, for a time, but when Owen reclaimed the guitar, Beck was stuck again with his Burns.

But with Fender guitars now available in England, he set his sights on owning one. “Me and a friend got a train and a bus up to London from Croydon and we asked a porter where all the guitars were,” he recalled.

“He happened to know and said Charing Cross Road, so we jumped on a bus, ran upstairs and looked out the window for guitar stores. My mate suddenly said, ‘Oh my God!’ We belted down the stairs, stumbling over one another, ran in front of all the traffic and there we found a Tele and a Strat in the window of Jennings Musical Instruments,” he said, referring to the original Vox Amplifier Shop, at 100 Charing Cross Road. “We stood there motionless, salivating, for at least five minutes and my mate said, ‘Shall we go in?’ I said, ‘No, no we can’t go in!’ We were completely freaked out.

“After a while we went in, and I said, ‘I’d like to try the Fender Stratocaster please,’ and the guy said, ‘Yes gentlemen, certainly, sir, you are intending to buy it, are you?’ We didn’t have a pot to piss in but we said, ‘Yeah, yeah.’

“Another shop in Charing Cross Road we used to bug was called Lew Davis. There we discovered a slap-back echo device” – most likely a Binson Echorec – “and we were in heaven. We made friends with a sales guy who used to let us play any guitar in the shop. He was great, he’d leave us alone and say, ‘Just don’t nick anything! We never did, and they couldn’t get rid of us.’ Then some 15-year-old kid would come in and his dad would buy him a Strat outright for cash. Case and all! Strap, strings, pick… We’d sit there scowling.”

Determined to get a Strat for himself, Beck appealed to his mother for the £147 required. She agreed to pay a deposit, allowing him to take possession of the instrument on credit. Now duly in debt, Beck quit art school to become a full-time working musician.

On May 22, 1961, he left Wimbledon College just in time for the Deltones to splinter. He briefly worked with Gene Vincent imitator Gordon Paterson, who performed under the nom de plume Cal Danger, and joined Deltones singer Johnny Del in his new group, the Crescents. But musically he was rudderless.

He found a direction in 1963 courtesy of a friend, Ian Stewart. A pianist, Stewart was a founding member of the Rolling Stones, who had become stars of London’s Marquee Club, in Oxford Street. Since 1962, the venue had been the home of Blues Incorporated, the seminal blues act founded by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, who brought the songs and sounds of the Mississippi Delta to England.

Stewart loaned Beck a cartload of blues albums, including Folk Festival of the Blues, a compendium of Chicago’s electric blues scene that featured key figures like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson and Buddy Guy. “I just wore out the album,” Beck said. He was particularly moved by Guy’s prowess on his Fender Strat. “It was total manic abandon that broke all the boundaries. Long, developing solos, just the opposite of all the pop stuff at the time.”

As he’d done with Cliff Gallup, Beck made exhaustive work studying the electric blues guitar greats, developing new skills and techniques. He put together the Nightshift, a blues act that played some of the music’s hot spots, including Eel Pie Island – a former trad-jazz spot that had shifted its musical affiliation with the emerging blues boom – and was even contacted by John Mayall as he was putting together the Bluesbreakers. In the end, Beck ended up with the Tridents, a blues act led by brothers John and Paul Lucas and which the Nightshift had supported at Eel Pie Island.

As a document of this period, the Tridents’ 1964 live Eel Pie recording of “Nursery Rhyme,” from the 1991 Beckology compilation, reveals the guitarist’s gifts with hammer-ons and pull-offs, trills,

It was September 1964, and it’s here that Jeff Beck the guitar hero begins to emerge. By this point he was playing a white Fender Telecaster through a Vox AC30 Top Boost, supplemented by a Binson Echorec, which he used to create spontaneous freak-outs, as well as an early homemade fuzz box.

“There wasn’t an ounce of musical sense to it,” he said in the liner notes, “but they loved it because it was different.”

It was a lesson that would serve him well for years to come.

Synonymous with everything from classic country to punk rock, the best Telecasters are up there with the most versatile electric guitars money can buy. While technically it was the Esquire that was the first commercially available solid-body guitar, the Telecaster quickly evolved from it, becoming one of the primary choices for guitarists at the time – and it remains so to this day.

I distinctly remember the first time I picked up a Telecaster. It was just a fairly run-of-the-mill Mexican Standard (the equivalent of a Player II series in today’s lineup), but it had a level of comfort I wasn’t expecting. Playing it was a joy – it almost felt familiar. Ever since then, I’ve searched for another Tele that felt that good – and it turns out, quite a lot of them do. From bargain Squiers to the highest-quality American-made works of art, the Telecaster has a remarkable knack for combining effortless playability with an eclectic array of tones.

If you want a brilliant all-rounder, then I suggest you take a look at the Fender Player II Telecaster. It mixes vintage and modern Tele design brilliantly, and at a price that’s very accessible. If you want the Tele experience on a budget, then the Squier Sonic Telecaster is low-cost and great value for money. For those looking to buy their first Telecaster, I’d highly recommend the Squier Classic Vibe 50s Telecaster, which massively overdelivers on the classic Tele experience versus the cost.

If you’re new to the world of the Telecaster, I’ve included loads of useful sections that will get you up to speed on your knowledge of one of the monoliths of the guitar world. In my how to choose section I break down what to look for when buying a Tele, and I’ve curated an FAQ section which answers all the most common questions guitarists have asked me. Finally, there’s a glossary of key terms that will get you up and running with all the Tele-specific lingo you’ll encounter in this guide.

My top picks

Best overall

Overview: The Player II line from Fender is one of my favorite series across the whole electric guitar market, offering supremely well-built instruments at an attainable price – all with the illustrious Fender name on the top of the headstock. The Player II Telecaster is a step up in just about every dimension from the original Player series, providing refinements throughout while sticking to the task of being a solid workhorse of a Telecaster.

Build quality: For the entry-level Telecaster in Fender’s range, the attention to detail on the build is very impressive, with the rolled fingerboard edges being a particular highlight and providing a ‘worn-in’ feel. The hardware throughout is of really high quality and gives rock-solid stability when playing. I’ve experienced some very minor issues with demo instruments shipped from Fender, such as slightly sharp frets and buzzing nuts, but nothing that a quick setup didn’t fix.

Playability: I’d argue this is among the best Telecasters you can buy for gigging, as it combines that excellent stability with fantastic playability. As it comes in at a sensible price, I’d also be happy enough taking it on the road – especially when just about every one of the many finishes it comes in would look just as good, if not better, with a bit of relicing.

Sounds: The Alnico 5 pickups are slightly more modern-voiced than vintage-styled Teles, with more bite and power, but this helps them cut through nicely in a band setting. It may be too much for some, but I really like the attitude of these pickups, particularly for playing rock.

Best for beginners

Overview: Fender’s Squier Classic Vibe range draws on their rich heritage of groundbreaking guitar design and offers some of the best vintage-inspired electric solidbodies money can buy. Highly regarded by pro players and beginners alike, the Classic Vibe Squiers easily hold their own against some of Fender’s more expensive instruments and represent incredible value for money.

Build quality: Harking back to Fender’s original design, the ‘50s Telecaster comes in a choice of two finishes: early ‘50s era Butterscotch Blonde and the paler White Blonde finish seen from the mid ‘50s onwards. It has also been decked out with vintage-style appointments such as a tinted gloss neck finish and nickel-plated hardware.

Playability: The slim "C"-shaped neck profile is comfortable and the 9.5" radius fingerboard and narrow-tall frets make navigating the neck a dream. If you’ve been unfortunate enough to buy a poor-quality starter instrument, you’ll immediately notice a significant upgrade if you pick up one of these – and I see it perfectly positioned as a guitarist's second electric.

Sounds: The pine body might seem a little strange, but it was found on some rare, very early Teles, so isn’t totally out of the blue, while the maple neck, on the other hand, is far more familiar. This combination of tonewoods means the Classic Vibe ‘50s Tele is bright and lively and the vintage tones from the pair of Squier alnico single coil pickups are surprisingly versatile.

Best budget

Overview: The Squier Sonic Telecaster is just about the cheapest Telecaster money can buy, but I’ve been astonished by the quality. I’ve always felt that a Tele is a strong candidate for new guitarists to learn on due to its simplicity, and the Sonic Tele is just about as perfect as a first guitar gets.

There’s an argument that you should save up and get an Affinity Telecaster (the next Tele up in the Squier range) instead, but the difference between the two isn’t that discernible, with the most notable difference being the addition of a couple of extra colors.

Build quality: The build of the Sonic Tele is suitably sturdy and will withstand a few bumps when taking it between music lessons or gigs; however, there are a few signs that give away its price. For example, you might find one or two slightly pointy fret edges, and while the hardware is robust enough, this would definitely be an area to look into upgrading.

Playability: As far as ‘first guitars’ go, the Sonic Telecaster is very comfortable to play, which I think is the most important thing for new players to look for – if it’s not comfortable, you’re not going to want to pick it up and play it. It is worth considering getting a professional setup from out of the box, but otherwise, it’ll be a great guitar for you to play for many years.

Sounds: One of the highlights of the Sonic Telecaster is its authentic Tele tones. Are the ceramic pickups as refined as more premium Telecasters? No, but do I still have a great time plugging the Sonic Tele into a gunned amp and strumming some huge chords? Absolutely. Again, it might be an area to consider modifying, but for most, you’ll be delighted with the tones.

Best vintage

Overview: The American Vintage II series marked a real return to form for Fender when it came to high-end, American-made, vintage-inspired electric guitars. “The idea was to go back to the original recipes and make sure we’re adhering to them,” said Justin Norvell, executive vice president of Fender products.

While the new American Vintage II series offers a generous selection of vintage-correct Teles (including a 60s-style rosewood-board guitar and three humbucker-equipped ‘70s instruments), the 1951 reissue is my pick of the bunch – a beautifully rendered version of the original Telecaster.

Build quality: From the ash body and Butterscotch Blonde nitro finish to the vintage-style hardware – much of it still manufactured on the same 50s- and 60s-era Fender factory machines – this feels like a fitting way to honor the original Blackguard Teles, matching their craftsmanship and build quality.

Playability: The “U”-shape neck is, unsurprisingly, very vintage-feeling in the hand, and deeper than the modern “C”-shape necks found on many newer Teles. Yet it slots comfortably into the hand and quickly feels just right. Details such as smooth fret ends and the rounded bone nut are to be expected on a guitar at this price, but they still contribute to a truly special playing experience.

Sounds: While the feel of this Tele is special, sonically it is flabbergasting. It oozes musicality regardless of setting, with swathes of top end from the bridge single coil that never grates, while the neck pickup is rich and bold. Cleans are remarkably smooth, while either pickup provides harmonically complex, organic overdrive when paired with a good tube amplifier.

Best modern

Overview: The latest iteration of Fender’s Ultra series has arrived, delivering the most modern Telecaster experience you can buy right now. The Fender American Ultra II Telecaster is perfect for those players who want modern playability with that iconic Telecaster single-coil pickup pairing.

Build quality: Alongside the classic alder body the Ultra II has a quartersawn maple neck, which delivers enhanced stability with a nice touch of the gold Fender logo on the headstock. The hardware is robustly applied, with knurled knobs that are easy to turn even with a sweaty hand, and a six-saddle bridge with chrome saddles to deliver a mix of traditional and modern.

Playability: The neck is satin finished which delivers an unbelievably smooth playing experience alongside the modern ‘D’ profile. It’s a beautifully balanced playing experience thanks to the rolled fingerboard edges, which really gives you the feeling of being able to play faster and more smoothly.

Sounds: The pickups of the Ultra II Tele certainly deliver plenty of classic Tele twang, but there’s a lot of versatility there too. The bridge pickup delivers supreme clarity, sounding amazing whether playing compressed clean tones or going into the drive channel of a tube amp.

Don’t be shy of applying gain to them either, as that Noiseless pickup design genuinely does reduce the hum. Add in the S-1 switching for a series pickup configuration and you’ve got one incredibly versatile instrument.

Best Thinline

Overview: I’m a huge fan of modern Telecasters, but there is something unmistakably special about a vintage Tele. Unfortunately, it can be quite hard to get your hands on a beautifully maintained one (without spending thousands) – which is where the Vintera II ‘60s Telecaster Thinline comes in.

Build quality: The first thing you’ll notice about the Vintera II Thinline is that it’s a really handsome guitar, with details such as the 4-ply aged white pearloid pickguard adding a subtle touch of class. And the classy features don’t stop there – the “F”-branded tuning machines provide vintage looks with a finer gear ratio and enhanced tuning stability.

Playability: The highlight of the Vintera II ‘60s Thinline is the neck, adorned with a 7.25” radius fingerboard that provides superb comfort and easy playing when paired with the vintage-tall frets – one of the few non-period-correct components, oversized for huge bends and vibrato.

The “C”-profile neck itself gradually thickens toward the 12th fret and feels lovely and full in the hand without being overly chunky. If you change tuning regularly, the vintage 3-saddle bridge may be a concern in terms of intonation, but I haven’t experienced any issues with this.

Sounds: The semi-hollow construction isn’t just beautiful – it gives the guitar a warm, rich tone with a slightly nasal quality, which is fantastic when you roll back the tone control for smooth jazzy moments. The vintage-spec pickups twinned with the slotted steel “barrel” saddle bridge provide crystal-clear chime with plenty of that classic, unmistakable twang.

Also consider

For most players, the above six guitars should have your needs covered when it comes to purchasing a new Telecaster. If you didn't find what you were looking for, then here are a few more options for you.

How to choose

Telecasters have been around for a long time and between vintage-correct, vintage-inspired with modern touches, and truly modern takes, there are a pretty astonishing amount of variants around – over 250 at some of the larger retailers.

Deciding what makes a particularly special Telecaster, then, can be a bit of a tricky task. My suggestion would be to break your search down by the following three categories, which will narrow your options down to the perfect Tele for you.

1. Budget

As one of Fender’s core models, Telecasters are available at every tier of their range, from beginner electrics to Custom Shop instruments that can run into the thousands – and even tens of thousands – of dollars. Regardless of your budget, there should be a Tele for you, ranging from traditional to more modern versions.

2. US, Japan, Mexican, or Squier

Something to consider alongside budget is the range you want your guitar to sit in. You’ll be faced with the choice of whether to buy a Squier – made across multiple factories in Asia – a Mexican model, which will be Fender-branded but sit as the lowest-priced guitars in their range, followed by Japanese models, which are considered premium instruments, and finally US-made models, which sit at the top of Fender’s line and also include their prestigious Custom Shop instruments.

Depending on what is more important to you – price or the name on the headstock – your decision may be made for you, as there isn’t much crossover between the different ranges in terms of price.

3. Type

Alongside the historic Telecaster first seen in the ‘50s, there are now a number of classic Telecaster “types” with different configurations that may be more suitable for your playing style. These include the Thinline Telecaster, which is largely similar to a standard Tele but, being semi-hollow, boasts a warmer and slightly more acoustic quality than its solid-bodied brother.

The Telecaster Deluxe is more obviously different, with a pair of humbuckers providing additional power, along with suitably different visual appointments – including a larger pickguard and a headstock more reminiscent of a ‘70s Stratocaster than a traditional Tele.

For those who love the Tele sound but fancy a different shape, Fender and Squier have occasionally released limited runs of Offset Telecasters, which typically have Telecaster pickups and feel but with an offset-style body.

FAQs

Key terms

• Alder: An affordable and readily available wood that Fender started using in 1956. It is relatively lightweight, with good resonance, sustain, and a generally balanced tone, with a little more brightness than some hardwoods, and is perfect for guitar construction as it is easy for luthiers to work with.
• Ash: The original Tele material. Ash can be sourced natively in North America, making it ideal for American-made Fenders. It boasts plenty of treble – even more than alder – and sustain, though less warmth than other woods. The bright tone is ideal for Telecasters.
• Ashtray bridge: The very vintage-looking Telecaster bridge assembly, which has a metal raised surround that looks like an ashtray, and in some models a removable chrome cover that fits over this assembly. It has been known to actually be used as an ashtray by some artists.
• Bigsby: A substantial, spring-loaded tailpiece-cum-vibrato system that sits at the base of your guitar. The Bigsby is famous for its retro looks and subtle tonal modulation when its arm is moved, compared to other vibrato systems that can have more dramatic effects. Bigsby is now owned by Fender.
• Blackguard: A nickname given to the original Telecaster models produced between 1950-1954, famous for their black pickguard, hence the name.
• Butterscotch: A finish synonymous with Telecasters that is a deep yellow color with a hint of brown. Usually paired with a black pickguard, butterscotch was the original Telecaster color and remains one of the most popular finishes to this day.
• C-shape: The traditional neck shape of a Telecaster, that, if a cross section of the neck were taken, would resemble the shape of the letter ‘C’. The C-shape neck is considered one of the more comfortable and versatile neck shapes and remains one of the most popular for electric guitars.
• Modern 'C': A newer take on the classic C-shape, with a slimmer feel to its vintage older brother. The modern ‘C’ can be more comfortable for smaller hands, compared to vintage C-shaped necks, which can feel deep and thick.
• Partscaster: A Telecaster built from a selection of independent parts e.g., neck, body, hardware. This can be a more cost-effective way of building a personalized Tele.
• Skunk stripe: The stripe of walnut down the back of Fender guitar necks which fills in the gap where the truss rod channel has been routed out.
• Spaghetti logo: The traditional Fender logo used throughout the 50s and featured on the original Telecasters. It is a thin, script logo with featured silver lettering and a thin black outline. The Spaghetti logo is still used today on many Teles, though depending on the model, it may feature a different logo, called the Transitional logo.
• Thinline: Thinline refers to the range of semi-hollow Telecasters that feature an f-hole on one side. Due to its semi-hollow construction, the thinline range of Teles has a slightly more acoustic, open, and warmer tone than solid-body Telecasters, but are still very versatile.
• Three-saddle bridge: A bridge type used in vintage Telecasters where each saddle supports two strings. It is particularly good for palm muting when playing, however it does suffer from less accurate intonation.
• Twang: A description of tone that is bright with a quick attack and snap. This is a common description used for the traditional Telecaster sound, which has these qualities in abundance.

How we test

When testing the best Telecaster guitars, we take a similar approach to that of any guitar. With over 60s years of reviewing gear, the Guitar Player team has encountered more than a few Telecasters in our time, so we know what makes a truly great T-type.

We'll start off by assessing the build quality of the instrument, checking for any finish imperfections, sharp fret ends, as well as the way the hardware has been installed. We'll also check things that go beyond superficial, like the snugness of the neck pocket, the break angle of the strings, and how neatly the electronics are done inside the guitar.

Next we'll move on to the playability of the instrument. Here, we're looking at how the neck feels in the hand, the fret size, the fretboard radius, string spacing, and any other comfort factors like bevels, the bridge position, and where the knobs are located.

We'll try various playstyles out, whether it's chicken picking, sweep picking, and everything in between. We're looking to see how easy the instrument is to play, how versatile it is, and if there's anything about the neck that hinders certain playstyles.

Finally, we get into the sound. In this particular instance, we'll immediately look for that classic Tele twang from the bridge pickup, and that dark, woolly signature of the neck pickup. We'll try it through various mediums whether that's a tube amp, a practice amp, or an amp modeler, as well as running it through a variety of pedal types to see how it reacts.

We'll play it at home and with groups to see how it cuts through the mix and where applicable, see how it handles when recording in the studio. This variety of testing ensures we can see how it performs in a variety of scenarios, and see if it has the renowned Telecaster versatility that makes this type of guitar so popular.

Read more on how we test gear and service at Guitar Player.

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I purchased Muddy Waters’ Chess Blues Masters Series around 1978, when I was a mere 20 years old.

This great double-record set was originally released in 1971 as McKinley Morganfield a.k.a. Muddy Waters and is a compilation of many classic Muddy recordings spanning 1950 to 1956.

At the time, I had enjoyed a few of the great bluesman’s tracks, but when I saw this album’s cartoonish cover, I knew it was the LP for me.

Soon after buying it, I became a Muddy Waters disciple. I listened to him at home and when I drove, and if I was going over to a friend’s house to play Monopoly, I’d bring a Muddy Waters cassette.

Basically, if I was awake, I was listening to Muddy Waters.

Muddy is known as the father of modern Chicago electric blues, and his singing and songwriting have made indelible marks on our musical culture.

The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan each owe a debt to him. When the Beatles first visited the United States in 1964, John Lennon said he wanted to meet Muddy and went on to mention him by name in his song “Come Together.”

“She’s All Right” is the first track from this record that I’ll spin for the uninitiated.

It features a repetitive riff that speeds up perfectly as the band’s emotion grows to a fury. The lyrics swell in intensity too: Muddy sings, “I could’ve had religion” and “Let the poor boy pray,” while the band digs in even harder.

It’s so raw, it’s bloody.

On the other hand, “The Same Thing” plays like a great pop song, with strong hooks and an almost film noir atmosphere, as Muddy sings, “What makes a man go crazy when a woman wears a dress so tight.”

“Rollin’ Stone,” “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” “Rolling and Tumbling,” “Long Distance Call,” “I’m Ready,” “She Moves Me,” “Kind Hearted Woman” and many other tracks included in this set are, in my opinion, masterpieces.

The musicians on these tracks include Little Walter, Willie Dixon, James Cotton, Otis Span and Tat Harris, to name a few, and they play a big role in transporting Muddy to another plane.

Little Walter’s crying harmonica is a large part of that trajectory. He and many of the sidemen are credible solo artists in their own right.

Additionally, Chess Records cofounder Leonard Chess (credited here with playing bass drum) once noted in an interview that a typical Muddy Waters recording session was packed with attractive female fans.

That might explain why many of the performances are so earthy, seductive and interactive.

Sure, it’s the singing and songs that matter most, but in my opinion, Muddy’s guitar work is vital as well. Playing the iconic red Telecaster he used for most of his career, he picked out slide licks so emotive that they transcended melody and became pure feeling.

His “take no prisoners” approach to soloing still inspires me to say something meaningful – to throw out the scale/theory book and get my fingers dirty.

And I’ve always been impressed by the rhythmic approach of these tracks, which often combine a straight feel and a swing feel.

I love how his band switches between the two without it being obvious or sounding manufactured, like they’re working some ancient magic.

Muddy Waters records are still my favorite blues music, and if I had to choose one blues album to take to a desert island, this set would be my first choice.

Julian Lage once attached a stethoscope to a Fender Telecaster so that he could explore its tone more thoroughly.

The experiment was too harsh on the ear, he admits, but it was indicative of where his mind is at, and how restless his curiosity is.

Lage started young, but even as a child prodigy – and, later, a Berklee grad – who at age eight could play jazz standards on a Tele held behind his head, he gave no indication of the player he would evolve into.

Lage’s compositions speak to something fundamental about the art form. Technically, he plays on the edge, a book-smart guitarist who is challenged by his own improvisational derring-do.

And tonally, whether on his Fender Telecaster or signature Collings 470 JL, he leans into the treble-forward tones of jazz guitar trailblazers like George Barnes and Charlie Christian, leaving himself nowhere to hide as he exploits his guitar’s irradiant overtones.

“It’s really important as an improviser to know when you’re not actually being asked to improvise,” Lage told Guitar Player. “If you’re in a rock band and they say, ‘Come up with a solo break that’s awesome,’ well, let’s for a second suspend the notion that that’s improvisation and think of it as you’re being asked to be a composer.

“That’s the way I think about George Harrison. Obviously, he and the Beatles were improvisers as humans and musicians, but you could also make the argument that George Harrison was one of the great arrangers, orchestrators, and composers with his solos. 

“And my experience is that the people who really call themselves ‘improvisers’ think about improvisation the way that people think about producing and composing. They’re obsessed with it. They're obsessed with parameters. They’re obsessed with limitations that inspire them to improvise stronger. Improvisation is a legitimate study.”

And in this amazing live clip filmed in 2017 at the National Sawdust venue in Brooklyn, New York, Lage demonstrates his sublime talent for “composing” while pushing the limits of a Telecaster.

John Frusciante likes strapping on this 1960s Fender Telecaster Custom to kick off Red Hot Chili Peppers shows.

It was acquired from Californian vintage guitar veteran Norman Harris of Norman’s Rare Guitars around 20 years ago by Frusciante’s former guitar tech, Dave Lee.

Prior to this, the guitarist was rarely spotted playing a Telecaster.

Though he famously plays Fender Stratocasters, his collection now spans a diverse range of electric guitars.

Guitar Player tagged along to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ October 9 gig in Austin, Texas for a look at some of Frusciante’s awesome vintage instruments.

There, we came across his 1940s Martin 00-15, a trio of Strats, a single-cutaway Gretsch White Falcon, and this beauty from Fender’s golden era...

“This was one we got from Norman’s Rare Guitars [in Tarzana, California],” recalled Lee. 

“John just decided he wanted a Tele – I believe this was around the time of By the Way – and I went to Norm and I said, “Hey, John wants a Tele.” And Norm said, 'What do you think of this one?'

“I brought it to John and he loved it. I normally don’t really like the sound of Teles that much, but that one just sounded so good. It had a lot of bite to it.”

“I’m pretty sure the guitar is stock,” says Frusciante’s current guitar tech, Henry Trejo. “John will use this guitar two or three times a night in the show.

“It’s always the guitar he uses at the beginning of the set, which will be either 'Can’t Stop' [from 2002’s By the Way] or 'Around the World' [from 1999’s Californication].

“He also uses it for “The Zephyr Song” [from By the Way] and “Tell Me Baby” [from 2006’s Stadium Arcadium].”

Watch this incredible guitar in action at the Austin City Limits 2022 concert on October 9 here...

See this guitar and more in our latest issue. Follow the link on our homepage to order your copy.

The bargains just keep on coming over at Fender in their epic '12 Days of Deals' sale.

Right now, you can save a massive $240 on this Vintage Edition Squier 40th Anniversary Telecaster in 1970s-style Satin Mocha. 

You can also get a huge discount of $240 on the Vintage Edition Squier 40th Anniversary Telecasters in 1950s-style Satin Vintage Blonde and 1960s custom color-style Satin Dakota Red finishes.

These high-quality axes honor the 40th Anniversary of Fender’s legendary Squier brand that was launched in Japan in 1982.

Back then, the impetus was all about providing genuine Fender designs at affordable prices, and this trio of retro Teles carries on that tradition.

Squier 40th Anniversary Telecaster, Vintage Edition (Satin Vintage Blonde/Satin Dakota Red)

Squier 40th Anniversary Telecaster, Vintage Edition (Satin Mocha)

Need more Christmas gift inspiration? Check out our expert buying guides

• Unplug with our pick of the best acoustic guitars
• Get the best of both worlds with the best acoustic electric guitars
• Want an affordable amp? Well, here are the best guitar amps under $1,000
• Nail the tone for cheaper with the best guitar amps under $500
• Save some cash with the best acoustic guitars under $500
• Upgrade your Tele tone with the best Telecaster pickups

There are “hit” songs and there are “big” songs. Hit songs are popular for a while and resonate most with the young-adult music listeners of the era. Big songs – like “Shout,” “Sweet Caroline” and “Don’t Stop Believin’,” to name a few – stick around for generations, transcend music trends, become part of our pop culture lexicon, and are must-plays at parties, clubs and public celebrations.

Big songs light up a room and get everyone from your nephew to your great-grandma singing along. The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” is a big song. Written by guitarist Dave Keuning with Brandon Flowers, the group’s lead vocalist/keyboardist, the 2003 modern-rock track has sold several million copies, been streamed hundreds of millions of times, topped numerous readers’ polls, appeared in multiple films and been adopted by several sports franchises as an unofficial anthem to play during games.

But even though “Mr. Brightside” may be a phenomenon, it was hardly a fluke. Over the past two decades, Keuning and fellow bandmates Flowers, drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr. and bassist Mark Stoermer have produced multiple hit singles and chart-topping Platinum albums, earned myriad industry awards and Grammy nominations and toured the world playing for millions of fans.

And much like a modern-day Andy Summers or Lindsey Buckingham, Keuning has earned props for his crafty, new wave-inspired guitar parts and melodic song-serving sensibilities, helping the Las Vegas-based quartet become one of the most successful and globally recognized bands of the modern rock era.

While on a brief hiatus from the band, Keuning also tracked two critically acclaimed solo albums, 2019’s Prismism and 2021’s A Mild Case of Everything. When we spoke with Keuning, he and the Killers were busy preparing for a fall tour while simultaneously recording a new studio album slated for release in 2023.

Before hitting the road, the guitarist was more than happy to catalog a quintet of career highlights with us…

1. “Mr. Brightside” from the Killers’ ‘Hot Fuss’ (2004)

“The popularity of this song has definitely grown over the years and I still get a thrill when I hear it played at a sports stadium. It’s the oldest song in the Killers’ repertoire.

“I had the riff that became the verse and pre-chorus demoed on a four-track before I even joined the band. I remember giving that tape to Brandon, and the next day he came back with the lyrics and vocal melody. When we played it with the chorus for the first time, I knew we really had something.

“After the song came out in 2004, I saw the opening riff transcribed somewhere on the top four strings, but I’m actually playing a Dadd9 voicing with the root on the 17th fret of the A string and the high-E string ringing open.

“The open E is the key to the whole thing. That song, just like about 90 percent of our debut album, Hot Fuss, was my Ibanez Destroyer into a Fender Hot Rod DeVille.”

2. “When You Were Young” from the Killers’ ‘Sam’s Town’ (2006)

“This is another track that came about during our soundcheck, from a riff our bassist, Mark, had. This song has a lot of sentimental value to us, because it was one that we all really liked and contributed equally to. I’m also not really sure where our career would be without it.

“It was the first single from our second album, and there was a ton of pressure to build on the success from our debut. Actually, the record company wasn’t sure it should’ve even been the first single, but thankfully it did really well.

“To record the track, I plugged a Fender Starcaster into a Hiwatt head, a Laney head and a Fender Hot Rod DeVille, which were each isolated, miked and tracked separately. [Co-producer] Alan Moulder has a really good ear for guitar tones, and this gave him different options to choose which guitar track or tracks he thought worked best for which part in the song.

“Recording is funny, because you can go out and buy a great amp you’ll think will sound amazing, and when you get in the studio some cheap amp you’ve had for 10 years beats it out! It all depends on how it’s miked and how it sits in the mix, and it’s hard to guess in advance what amp will be right for what part of what song.

“I had originally recorded the song on a Stratocaster, and everyone was pretty happy with it, but I decided to redo it. I’m glad I did, because the Starcaster just sounded fuller, and it’s one of the songs I’m most proud of.

“For the chordal sections of the song, I’m sliding a shape up the neck that keeps the open G-string drone going. For the solo, I’m just kind of wailing on the two notes that felt right, and keeping it minimal I think made it more powerful.

“‘When You Were Young’ was actually the subject of an episode of the Song Exploder series on Netflix.”

3. “All the Pretty Faces” from the Killers’ ‘Sawdust’ (2007)

“This was a song that we wrote during our first major tour for the Hot Fuss album. As the album got more and more successful, we added it to our setlist because we started playing bigger and longer shows as a headliner.

“We recorded it for our second album, Sam’s Town, but it was already a year old by then and didn’t really fit the vibe of the rest of the album’s material, so it wound up on a B-side and later on the compilation album, Sawdust. It’s definitely one of our heaviest songs, and that’s probably one of the reasons I like it a lot.

“It just kind of built from that six-note G sharp–minor opening riff I came up with while noodling around during soundcheck. Live, I played it with a Fender Stratocaster, but in the studio I used my Ibanez Destroyer for the crunch chords and a Fender Telecaster for the higher parts.

“I actually use that Tele a lot for the high chimey things, and it’s the best-sounding guitar I have for that type of stuff. But it’s not a guitar I want to take out on the road.”

4. “Human” from the Killers’ ‘Day and Age’ (2008)

“This is one of the first things we had written for our third album, Day and Age. The basic tracks were recorded in a few hours one night in London during an impromptu session at producer Stuart Price’s house, and thankfully the magic just happened.

“We had practiced it a few times in soundcheck but with a different arrangement and a very different guitar part. After we laid down the basic chords and beat, though, I decided to try something a little unusual and came up with that syncopated single-note line that runs through the whole song. It’s repetitive and slightly off from the downbeat, but it just felt right.

“A lot of people thought it was a loop that Stuart created but I’m actually playing it all the way through. I remember I just grabbed one of Stuart’s hollowbody guitars to track the part. I believe I played it through a Fender Twin Reverb, then double-tracked it straight into the computer.

“‘Human’ was definitely poppier and a bit more dance-oriented than the singles we’d previously released. When it first came out, an interviewer in Germany asked us, ‘How do you feel about selling out?’ I was really surprised, because, to me, selling out is playing music you don’t believe in, in an attempt to gain popularity.

“I loved that song and that style, and it was just one of the styles we’d explored on the album. We’re influenced by everyone from the Pet Shop Boys to Springsteen to Underworld, and any one of those influences can pop out at any given moment.”

5. “The Queen’s Finest” from Keuning’s ‘Prismism’ (2018)

“This has become my most streamed solo song so far. I had that opening arpeggio guitar lick for a while, and when I was recording my first solo album I decided to take it and develop it more.

“When I wrote it, it was kind of intuitive and I wasn’t thinking about the underlying chords so much, but it’s a fifth-position D5 to a G5/D, to an unusual voicing of a B minor triad on the 6th, 4th and 3rd strings, then back to the G5/D. I mapped the progression out, then put keyboards behind it, and the song kind of grew from there.

“This was a good example of just putting an idea down and seeing where it goes. The title doesn’t necessarily relate to the lyrics; it’s just something I called the original demo and decided to keep. The song also works with a solo acoustic arrangement, although it’s challenging to sing and play at the same time.

“For the album recording, I used a hollow-body guitar called a Volaré, which is made by a company out of Iowa called BilT. I’m tuned down a half step, which is something I do a lot both with the Killers and on my solo stuff.”

The purpose of the Celebrating David Bowie show is simply that – to praise Bowie’s music and rejoice in the joy of listening to some of his greatest songs in the rock canon.

The band is assembled from fans and former Bowie band members, who play with passion and verse as they aim to capture the essence of what made his music so iconic and influential.

The show has been put together by music business veteran Miles Copeland and guitarist Scrote, who has a long track record of producing shows celebrating landmark artists, including the Beatles and Miles Davis.

While the Bowie show has toured sporadically since 2015, this year sees the first full tour of North America and features the unique talents of Adrian Belew, who not only played on Bowie’s 1979 album, Lodger, but also toured extensively with him, acting as musical director for his global run in 1990.

Longtime Bowie admirer Todd Rundgren also features in the show, which covers material from the artist’s earliest days to the end of his career.

While all three guitarists are about to release new albums – Scrote’s Magnificent Bastard, Rundgren’s Space Force and Belew’s Elevator – and commence on intensive rehearsals for the Bowie tour (see clip below) they were happy to speak to Guitar Player about the project’s background and what audiences can expect from the upcoming shows.

What was the initial spark behind the idea of doing shows to celebrate the work of David Bowie?

SCROTE: I’ve been putting shows together for many years, working out of L.A. as a musical director.

Back in 2015, I was doing some dates on my own with some of the guys who played on David’s last album, Blackstar, and we actually heard that he’d died when we were in the break between sets at a show.

The next day I started talking to people about David’s passing, and they were suggesting that, given how much of a fan I was of his work, maybe I could put some kind of show together.

I reached out to a few people who’d worked with David, and the first show started to evolve, which ran at four hours with 70 performers. [laughs]

That project was so successful that I realized there was a lot of interest from Bowie fans for us to do more.

We did another really long show a few months later, and then I came up with a plan for 2016 to take the show on the road to seven cities around the world that were significant to Bowie.

In 2018, we lined up more dates around the world, including Iceland. Adrian came onboard after the second show, and Todd joined us when we went to Iceland.

TODD RUNDGREN: Yeah, the trip to Iceland was my first involvement, but originally it was only supposed to be that one event.

After that, I didn’t carry on with the rest of the tour, so I guess I wasn’t a permanent member of the entourage. But then, with the project kicking off again post lockdown, I’ve got back onboard.

ADRIAN BELEW: I first worked with Scrote on an event celebrating the Beatles. I watched the way that he put everything together, which seemed kind of haphazard at the time, but then it turned out to be really well planned, and I really enjoyed being a part of it.

When he told me about the Celebrating David Bowie idea, I knew he’d be able to put a great show together, so I really wanted to be a part of it.

Todd, I know you didn’t work with Bowie, but did you cross paths with him much over the years?

RUNDGREN: Yes, a few times. I actually met him on his very first American tour with the Spiders and then on various occasions over the years.

Ironically, just at the time that I moved from upstate New York to California, he moved to about a mile from where I’d been living, so I guess we’d have seen a lot more of each other if I’d stayed in New York.

I never really ever thought seriously about us working together. I know he had a core of people that he spent a lot of time working with.

I actually had a lot more contact with Mick Ronson, who also moved to upstate New York at the same time that I was living there, and I still see his wife, Suzi, occasionally.

BELEW: When I first met David, he was very different from all of the preconceptions that I had about him. I thought of him as an untouchable superstar. I was surprised to find that he was real down to earth and a fun person, with a great self-deprecating sense of humor.

He was always so interested in so many different things, not just rock music. We got on like a house on fire.

Todd, you and David both had very theatrical stage shows in the ’70s. Was there an influence going on there in either direction?

RUNDGREN: I had a permanent costume designer who traveled with me who would come up with weird ideas all the time, and I think his inspiration was what informed the theatrical things that I was doing to a degree. I know he was looking at things that David was doing and re-interpreting some of them for me.

I have no independent correlation of the fact that people David worked with may have taken some ideas from things I did, but it’s a possibility when you’re working with stylists and designers.

Adrian, were you already familiar with Bowie’s work before you first toured with him in 1978?

BELEW: Very much so. I’d been in a lot of cover bands, and I’d played a lot of his material.

A funny story is that I remember hearing “Heroes” for the first time when I was driving my broken-down Volkswagen. And then 18 months later, I was playing it live with David.

Given how many great guitar parts there are on Bowie’s records, is there much competition for who gets to play what?

SCROTE: Before Todd came onboard in Iceland, it was divided between Adrian and me, and things seemed to work themselves out naturally.

When Todd joined us, it was interesting, as I’d never worked with him before. He just naturally gravitated toward certain songs, but there was no ego from him or anyone else.

The whole set list is deliberately very guitar-centric. I think that Todd is kind of Mick Ronson meets Earl Slick, I’m kind of Reeves [Gabrels] with maybe a little Ronson and some Adrian.

And Adrian is Adrian too. [laughs]

Who’s Robert Fripp?

SCROTE: That’s a tough one. Maybe somewhere between me and Adrian.

RUNDGREN: Mick Ronson was such a great guitar player. I love to play some of the things that he did, and he was a really skilled arranger too. I think he’s always been very underrated.

I don’t think I’ll be doing a whole lot of shredding with Adrian in the show. [laughs]

David was a connoisseur of guitar players, so there’s certainly no shortage of great guitar parts.

BELEW: I really liked Mick’s playing too. I always thought David’s material was great for guitar players.

Are there any particular songs that you earmarked for yourselves?

RUNDGREN: I got turned onto David a little earlier than a lot of people, who probably picked up on him when Ziggy Stardust broke, but I’d been spending a lot of time in England before that and was already very familiar with Hunky Dory and “Changes” being on the charts in England.

That means that my leanings are very much toward the earlier stuff, and I get to do a lot of that, like “Life on Mars” and “Changes.”

I do some of the later songs as well, but I definitely have a soft spot for the earlier material. I really enjoyed the way he would change his sound from song to song.

SCROTE: I try to think of the show as a package and who suits what songs best. I don’t have songs that I have earmarked for myself as such, but I do like a lot of the material from the “Heroes” era.

RUNDGREN: I could take a pretty good stab at the Stevie Ray stuff. I started out as a blues guitarist, so I might make my case for “Let’s Dance,” although I’m not sure it’s in the set yet. [laughs]

BELEW: I tend to play a lot of the things that I was involved with when they were recorded, but Scrote will often make suggestions that turn out really well.

We have a lot of different singers and instrumentalists in the show, and we’re all very happy to share vocal duties or different parts.

How do you come up with the set list when there are so many great songs to choose from?

RUNDGREN: I think we’re not far from the set we did in Iceland. Scrote seems to have his finger on the pulse of what the fans want to hear.

It’s not like we’re going out there to deliver a college lecture or be comprehensive. We just want to do the stuff people want to hear, which is the guiding principle. There are songs that you know you have to play, so a good two-thirds of the set is pretty obvious.

BELEW: Scrote has a vision as the producer, and I have a lot of faith in his ideas. We work together quite closely, and we’ll suggest things to each other.

We have done some obscure things on previous shows, but I think we’re sticking to the more well-known songs for this tour.

What guitars are you using on the tour?

RUNDGREN: Things have been in a tizzy for me because my favorite guitar, Foamy, has disappeared. I’d just finished a Beatles tribute tour and was about to start rehearsals with Daryl Hall and the guitar just vanished somewhere between Missouri and Connecticut.

FedEx traced it and said it should have been delivered, but I haven’t found it. I suppose I can assume that it was stolen, but I can’t definitively say that. Maybe it will turn up at some point.

I was supposed to start rehearsals in Chicago, and I had to go to the store and make an emergency purchase of a new guitar. I ended up with a Schecter, which was laid out in the same way that Foamy was, which was one of my primary considerations.

Foamy was made by P-Project and given to me by the company in Japan many years ago. The Schecter has become my main guitar, but I think I might also take a vintage Telecaster that I spent a lot of money on as well.

I’ll probably also take my replica of the SG that I used to have called The Fool that I auctioned off because I owed the IRS a lot of money. [laughs]

SCROTE: I think we’re all thinking of traveling kind of light when it comes to gear. I’ll be taking a custom-made thinline Tele, a Les Paul with P-90s for the Slick/Ronson territory, a 12-string acoustic guitar and maybe a Strat, although Adrian has the Strat thing covered.

BELEW: I’ve had three new Stratocasters built for me by the [Fender] Custom Shop, so I’ll be taking those.

My live rig is very simple and fits in one case. It’s the first Axe-Fx built by Fractal. I’m not sure what the model’s name is. Other than that, it’s a couple of pedals and a Mastermind MIDI controller.

For a tour like this, where I’m playing the early music before I had the more complex equipment, I think it makes sense to try to use similar things.

What were your favorite albums from Bowie’s catalog?

RUNDGREN: Hunky Dory was the first record that I knew and one that I still really love, but there are so many great albums.

SCROTE: That’s a tough one. I guess I’ve always kind of leaned toward “Heroes”, but I also really love Hunky Dory.

BELEW: I really like Young Americans and “Heroes”.

There are going to be songs that Bowie never actually played live himself in the show, aren’t there?

SCROTE: Right. I don’t think he even toured for many years before his death. To do Bowie’s songs justice live, I think we need to bring everything to the table and cover as many bases as possible, to replicate things that happened in the studio.

There are no backing tracks anywhere; everything is live. We have a real pool of talent in the show, and everyone is really at the top of their game.

There’s a certain relaxed camaraderie, both personally and musically, with Adrian, Todd and the rest of the band that I’ve rarely found in anything that I’ve ever done before. It’s a real great fun hang when we’re together.

There’s a beautiful spirit about the show, and to be able to celebrate the genius of David’s work in such great company is a genuine gift.

BELEW: Everything is done on a much bigger scale than the tours I did with David, particularly in 1990. Whereas back then, we had to find ways to cover parts and even leave some things out, now we have the ability to reproduce everything.

It’s a lot easier for me these days, that’s for sure. I no longer have to try to sound like a saxophone or something. [laughs]”

Browse the David Bowie catalog here.

Visit the Celebrating David Bowie website for tour dates and tickets.

When Fender released their first Vintage reissue line of instruments some 40 years ago, the ’52 Telecaster proved an immediate success.

Signalling a return to form, the model remained a staple of the firm’s electric guitar line for many years and has since become a classic in its own right with original examples now fetching upwards of $5,000 on the vintage market.

Now, Fender has revisited their acclaimed American Vintage range with the awesome American Vintage II series.

Included among these 12 new models honoring Fender designs from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s is the 1951 Telecaster.

This groundbreaking design originally appeared in 1950 as the single-pickup Esquire, shortly followed by the double-pickup Broadcaster the same year.

As the famous story goes, Gretsch quickly put the kibosh on Fender's use of the Broadcaster name with a cease-and-desist letter claiming infringement of their Broadkaster trademark.

Consequently, for a short while, Fender simply snipped the offending model name off the headstock decal (these rare guitars later became known as ‘Nocasters’) before rebranding it the Telecaster in 1951.

Technically speaking, therefore, 1951 is the first year of Telecaster production, and Fender’s brand-new American Vintage II 1951 Telecaster pays homage to this.

The AVII '51 Tele has already caused a bit of a stir in the guitar world.

People are beginning to ask why Fender is taking on its own Custom Shop! 

Priced $2,249.99, the Californian-made American Vintage II 1951 Telecaster offers a truly authentic take on the electric guitar that started it all.

Like the original Blackguard Teles of the early ‘50s, the 1951 Telecaster is constructed with an ash body and is finished in Butterscotch Blonde using nitrocellulose.

Early Telecasters often featured chunky neck profiles and the American Vintage II 1951 Telecaster has been endowed with a girthy ‘U’-shaped hard rock maple neck. A 7.25-inch radius fingerboard and "vintage tall" frets add to that perennially popular ‘50s Fender feel.

Along with a triple brass saddle bridge, single-line Deluxe tuners, and Pure Vintage ’51 Telecaster pickups this new model fully embraces the timeless design that not only made Teles a hit but helped popularize electric guitars on a worldwide scale.

You can order the Fender American Vintage II 1951 Telecaster from Fender directly here.

Guitar Center’s Guitar-A-Thon sale has been called "the greatest guitar event on Earth.” 

With tons of money-saving deals now live there’s something for everybody among their massive range of guitars, amps, effects and accessories.

Right now, Guitar Center is offering $200 off the regular price of Fender Player Telecasters.

These limited-edition Plus Top electric guitars come in a choice of Sienna Sunburst and Blue Burst and feature a solid alder body with a gorgeous AA flame maple top.

Fender Player Telecaster Plus Top

In Guitar Center's awesome Guitar-A-Thon deal, these Fender Player Telecaster Plus Top axes come in a choice of two finishes: Sienna Sunburst and Blue Burst.

Constructed with a solid alder body – as used in standard Fender production since 1956 – these limited-edition models feature the rare addition of an AA grade flame maple top.

Enhanced by their transparent gloss finishes, these electric guitars are a unique alternative to regular Teles but maintain all the major appointments which have made this iconic design so popular since its release over seven decades ago.

A ‘C’-profile maple neck and 9.5-inch radius maple fingerboard provide an easy, comfortable feel, while a string-through bridge design offers maximum transfer of vibration from the strings to the body.

Loaded with dual Alnico 5 Player Series single-coil pickups, these Fender Telecasters deliver punchy vintage tone and as much classic Tele twang as you could wish for.

• Upgrade your Tele tone with the best Telecaster pickups

As musical acts go, the Tedeschi Trucks Band is a large, family-style affair consisting of a dozen of the finest, top-caliber musicians.

At the front of it all is the husband-and-wife team of slide virtuoso Derek Trucks and singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi.

Now some 12 years into their history, the Tedeschi Trucks Band has just issued a quartet of albums as sprawling and packed with musical virtuosity as the group itself.

Released under the umbrella title I Am the Moon, it consists of 24 new songs, with a total running time of more than two hours, presented in easily digestible servings as I. Crescent, II. Ascension, III. The Fall and IV. Farewell.

This avalanche of new music is the result of a period of feverish creativity, when the band was forced off the road due to the global shutdown in the wake of COVID-19.

The inspiration for the project came after TTB member Mike Mattison suggested the band should read the epic 12th century Persian poem Layla and Majnun, written by Nizami Ganjavi, which inspired “Layla,” the classic-rock tune penned by Eric Clapton.

Connections and coincidences between the song’s history and Trucks’ and Tedeschi’s own backgrounds are many: Trucks was named after Derek and the Dominoes, the banner under which Clapton released Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs on November 9, 1970, the very day Tedeschi was born.

Trucks has worked extensively with Clapton in the past, so his interest in the poem was already piqued.

“I had been meaning to read it for about 15 years,” he tells Guitar Player. “So when Mike proposed the idea, it wasn’t with the idea of making a record; it was more of a nice thought exercise for the whole band to be on the same page, because we were all stuck at home.”

Given the tragic nature of Layla and Majnun and its tale of unrequited love, one might naturally expect I Am the Moon to be a collection of maudlin, downbeat songs.

In fact, it is far from it.

Covering a broad spectrum of blues, soul and gospel, the record explodes with joyful, powerful and positive music.

“The poem details a sense of longing,” Tedeschi explains. “And I think the alternative ways of viewing that desire just seemed to fire up everybody’s imaginations. The songs sound positive even when, sometimes, lyrically, they are perhaps a little dark.”

Naturally, the four records are overflowing with killer guitar playing. Trucks’ slide playing has never sounded so expressive, and on the tracks where he and Tedeschi trade solos, the enthusiasm leaps from the grooves.

“The whole band is really thrilled with what we’ve created,” Tedeschi says, “and I think we all appreciated that this was a special project that we were really able to focus on.”

Trucks concurs. “It came together better than we could ever have hoped for,” he says. “We certainly didn’t think that we were going to write this much music, but we could tell that something special was going on as we were recording.”

Could this project have happened without lockdown and the enforced layoff from touring that it dictated?

DEREK TRUCKS The amount of time that we had available was definitely what allowed us to do this. Another aspect of that is, between us, we’ve been on the road for maybe 20 years without a break, and the fact that we were forced to stop gave us the chance to regenerate our creative spark.

Even though the pandemic and lockdown were really terrible for so many people, it was, ironically, kind of a perfect storm for us as a band.

Given that there is so much new music, did you always envisage that you would release it in stages, over four separate albums?

SUSAN TEDESCHI When we started recording and putting the songs up on the board, we realized that there was way more material than one record’s worth. I think we were all of one mind that the way records used to be made, where a great album would last between 30 and 40 minutes, was a much better approach from an artistic point of view.

It’s such a sweet spot for running time, and you can really focus your attention on the music. I think the CD format is largely to blame for the increasing length of albums, where there was so much more available space. Whereas when records only came out on vinyl, the optimum sound quality was around 20 minutes or so per side. The way we’ve divided it up means each set of songs works perfectly on vinyl.

You already had a big live repertoire. With the new songs added in, what would you be looking at?

TRUCKS It’s about 150 or so. When we did the Beacon Theatre [in New York City] a year ago, we performed about 118 songs over the course of seven shows, and that wasn’t everything we could have played.

TEDESCHI When we’re writing set lists, we run out of space because there’s so many songs we want to play. [laughs] We’ve already done some shows where we played the first record in its entirety, and I think we’ll do that for all four of the albums.

How do you keep so many songs stage-ready?

TRUCKS We use our soundchecks every day as a rehearsal, and we also set up a small rehearsal room at the venues where we can work on ideas and tighten up problematic parts or whatever, just with little amps. When we haven’t done a song for a long time, we need to really kick it around.

Given how many songs you recorded, the sequencing of the albums must have been quite a challenging process, I imagine.

TRUCKS We really spent a lot of time on that. We realized very early on that there was way too much music for a single album. A few more weeks down the line, I asked a good friend of mine, Jud Strickland, if he could sequence the four albums. He really got into the details. 

He had a card for each song with tempos, time signatures, what key it was in and what kind of feel each song had. I’d gotten way too close to the process, so he really managed to pull everything together on that front.

What were your go-to guitars for the albums?

TEDESCHI I used my ’93 Tele a lot. I was planning on using a whole bunch of guitars, but we were literally writing and recording ideas off the floor, live, thinking we might go back and add or redo some parts, but that never happened, and we kept the first versions pretty much as we came up with them on the spot.

That meant that we ended up mostly using the gear that we take out live. I actually played a Gretsch White Falcon a little bit, plus I used a guitar that I stole from Derek that I really love, which is a Custom Shop replica of Eric Clapton’s Beano guitar [as used on the John Mayall’s Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton album].

He had a couple of those made, and he gave one to Derek, but I’ve been playing it a lot. I also used a ’30s Martin 00-17 for a lot of the acoustic work.

TRUCKS I think the vast majority is the B2B [Brother to Brother] Dickey Betts reissue SG. I also used a ’65 Gibson ES-335 and a ’30s L-00. And I played an old National resonator guitar and an old Gibson Roy Smeck as well. 

With the exception of the acoustic guitars, we generally take the guitars on the road that we record with.

What were your amp choices? There are some seriously great tones all over the record.

TEDESCHI I mostly used my Fender ’64 Deluxe Reverb that I’ve had for years. I don’t use much in the way of effects. I have a Vox wah-wah pedal and a Moollon Zeppelin overdrive, but that’s pretty much it.

TRUCKS The main tracking amp for me was a ’64 Fender Deluxe Reverb, which has an incredible sound. I also used a Vibrolux occasionally and a little tweed Deluxe that I used here and there, plus a real old lightning-bolt Supro.

When you’re both working out your respective guitar parts, how much planning goes into who plays what? It must be difficult enough anyway to carve out your own sonic space with such a big band.

TEDESCHI I guess that’s pretty much become an instinctive, organic thing for us now. Of course, we already play so differently from each other, as Derek plays in open E tuning and I’m in standard.

Derek tends to use an SG a lot, so I would instinctively opt for my Tele, for the mix of humbucker and single-coil sounds. We try to avoid both using humbuckers, although the tone of the Beano Les Paul is very different from Derek’s SG, so that is an exception.

Sometime Derek will play all the parts on a particular song for the record if I’m concentrating on the vocals, but then I’ll figure out for the live show how to cover some of those guitar parts.

TRUCKS A lot of it is definitely instinctive at this point. Plus, since I’m in open E, if a song calls for open cowboy chords, that’s already a non-starter for me.

A lot of times it depends on who writes the song. Whoever writes it, the other tends to fold in around that. With so many years behind us now, we have a real instinct for what works. When we do find that something just isn’t working, we’ll really drill down on our parts.

You both have strong individual styles. What do you think is the secret to getting started and finding your own voice on the guitar?

TEDESCHI I think the best start is to find out who you like to listen to and try to play along to their records. For me that was Magic Sam, the three Kings, Otis Rush, Johnny Guitar Watson and T-Bone Walker.

I did five world tours with B.B. King, and I also used to tour with John Lee Hooker, so those experiences were unbeatable in really steeping myself in the traditions and roots of the blues. I learned so much.

When you start to study your favorite records, you begin to hear licks and phrases, which you unconsciously adapt to your own playing. But in doing that, they morph into an essential part of your own vocabulary as a musician.

The next thing you need to do is get up and play live, because that’s where you really forge your own identity. Then you see what does and doesn’t work with an audience, and you learn how to build a solo and the importance of rhythm.

TRUCKS Rhythm is so important. I think when people have blind spots in their music, it’s often due to rhythmic limitations. That’s where listening to great drummers can be inspiring. Playing the guitar isn’t just ripping and playing solos, although that can be incredible fun. [laughs]

TEDESCHI Finding your tone is crucial. That often comes down to experimentation. Make sure everything you play is musical, with a beginning, a middle and an end.

TRUCKS I started out when I was so young, so I was kind of lucky in that regard. By playing and meeting a lot of people and listening to what they were doing and recommending to me, I found things that really moved me. And that was where I drew inspiration from.

The more you listen, the more you find what moves you, and at some point you stumble across combinations that no one’s really come up with before. And that’s the entry point for discovering your own unique thing.

I think the starting point is always to absorb what you love about other people’s playing, because in the end, every player is a combination of their influences. No matter who your guitar heroes are, you always know what they were listening to.

But then the secret to their success is similar to how a great chef tastes food: Those legendary guitarists took their influences and found something in there that spoke to them and allowed their own identity to shine through.

Obviously, Duane Allman and being born into those waters were the starting points for me, followed by Delta blues and the three Kings. But then I really got interested in Indian classical music.

Do you think it’s important to listen to musicians who don’t play the guitar?

TRUCKS Totally. I really love tenor sax players, like Wayne Shorter, John Gilmore and John Coltrane. Things like that became the bedrock for me. People should be open to all areas of music, because you don’t know where inspiration might come from.

What sparked your interest in Indian music?

TRUCKS I got into it through our good friend Colonel Bruce Hampton. A drummer that was playing in his band, Jeff Sipe, turned me on to Pakistani qawwali music and Indian classical music artists like Ali Akbar Khan, who was really the guy for me. I really dove right into it for quite a period.

Later on with Kofi [Burbridge, Tededschi Trucks’ former keyboard player and flautist, who died in 2019], we’d really dig into those scales. I would go sit in on some of Ali Akbar Kahn’s classes at San Rafael in California.

Whenever we were out west, Ali would let us drop in and check things out. To say I studied would maybe be taking it too far, as I didn’t spend enough time, but I definitely did investigate it in depth.

When you started to explore Indian music and discovered the different microtonal subtleties, did you immediately connect that with slide guitar, where the fine microtonal nuances are something that is very particular to slide playing?

TRUCKS Yeah. The fact that I’m essentially playing a fretless instrument and the sarod is a fretless instrument was one of those little epiphanies that you get when you’re exploring music. I realized that, with slide, you’re really singing through your instrument. There are no frets on the human voice.

The melodies are so incredibly strong in a lot of Indian classical music, and that was something that really hit me. What Ali Akbar Khan did was very modal when he was exploring those ragas, and it was almost like the rules changed in mid-melody. It could be based on whether it was an ascending or descending melody.

Things like that just totally captured my imagination and opened up new pathways to expressing myself on the guitar.

Do you feel restricted when you’re not playing slide and you’re working with frets and a more definite sense of where notes sit?

TRUCKS I feel like it just gives me different ways to explore. There’s an Indian electric mandolin player that I listen to a lot, Srinivas, and when you hear him play you can’t even tell that it’s a fretted instrument.

I sometimes think about his approach when I’m playing without a slide. It’s a way to blur the lines between fretted and slide playing.

Did you ever learn solos note-for-note from old records?

TRUCKS Yeah, I definitely borrowed/stole a lot of lines from horn players. [laughs] Any time that I’d hear a phrase or a melody that really pulled my ear, I’d try to work out what they were doing and adapt it for guitar.

I think with horn players and the fact that they’re not playing the guitar, they can come up with ideas and approaches that you hadn’t imagined before.

What’s funny is when you find something like that on the guitar, it’s almost like you’re saying, “Oh yeah? That’s been sitting there on the neck the whole time and I never knew?” [laughs]

TEDESCHI T-Bone Walker’s “Here in the Dark” and “Right Place, Wrong Time” by Otis Rush were two real favorites. But as I said, even though you play what they played, you find that your own personality starts to change the way lines are phrased, and that’s when you start to put your own stamp on ideas that you hear other people play.

I would say playing with Derek has really improved my playing. I realized how dynamic a player he is, and that’s opened my eyes to the idea of being more patient and letting a solo build up.

He can play super loud or pin-drop quiet. It’s all about using dynamics to tell a story. It’s been such fun to play with Derek.

Do you think you brought influences to each other that you hadn’t previously been aware of?

TEDESCHI Definitely. When we first started dating, Derek would kid about how we had brought these new artists to each other. He didn’t know who Magic Sam was, and Derek liked a lot of people that I wasn’t familiar with, like Sun Ra and some really weird and wacky stuff.

The funny thing is that I went to jazz school, and he knows way more than I do about jazz, that’s for sure. [laughs] He can hear something and identify the artist in two seconds, whatever their instrument.

We both liked Wes Montgomery and Grant Green before we met each other.

TRUCKS That was one of the real fun things when we first got together, to explore our mutual likes and trade favorites.

Let’s discuss some of the tracks in detail. “Playing With My Emotions” sounds like you’re trading lines on the solo.

TEDESCHI Yeah, that’s right. That was a really fun one to play. Derek wanted us to both take lines on the solo, and I think it worked out really well. It has a joyful spirit to it.

TRUCKS That’s one of the tunes where we basically wrote it and played it in the studio. The trades were very spontaneous, we just went for the take right there on the floor. We don’t do that a whole lot on our records, so it was nice to get that on the album.

“Yes We Will” sounds like you are both taking a solo as well. There is a flavor of B.B. King’s work with the Crusaders on this one.

TEDESCHI Yes, I take the first one and Derek takes the second one. That is another real bluesy track, like “Playing With My Emotions.” Those two songs really reflected a lot of the live dynamic that Derek and I have, where we will often trade solos or call-and-response guitar lines.

I was definitely always pushing for us to get into more blues as that is such a big part of my roots and also Derek’s, so it’s very much a tribute to B.B. King.

You cover a wide range of styles on the album. A track like “So Long Savior” is a rollicking gospel number. Like many great gospel songs, the bleakness of the lyrics is in opposition to the spirit in which the message is delivered.

TEDESCHI It’s definitely a tribute to gospel music, but the acoustic feel is a little like Bukka White, where Derek plays a line and I sing it back. It is definitely rooted in the call-and-response of gospel music.

“La Di Da” has an interesting rhythmic pulse, and the solo on there is sublime. It is short, yet packs so much emotion and melody. Did you work out what you’d play beforehand?

TRUCKS That was just done live on the floor. Sometimes when you’re tracking, you think the track sounds really good, so I’m not going to leave a space for the solo, I’m just going to go for it, which does put quite a lot of pressure on me, because then I’m thinking that I really hope I don’t blow this, and we all have to start again. [laughs] 

It’s mildly intimidating. You really don’t want to fuck up.

One of the simplest, yet most effective songs is “I Can Feel You Smiling.” The slide solo on there is particularly sublime.

TRUCKS That’s one of my favorite tunes on the record. Again, it kind of played itself. It was another time where I thought I should just go for the solo as we were recording.

The other thing that can be intimidating is when you record a perfect track and leave a space for the solo; then there’s a whole world of pressure to make that solo count. It gives you a lot to live up to. [laughs]

TEDESCHI That is a really beautiful song. It definitely has a mixture of [Malagasy slide guitarist] D’Gary crossed with Dolly Parton. [laughs]

For the band, is the live experience more important than making records?

TRUCKS I think that is where our heads were for a long time. This band is incredible live. I do think that there is something very enjoyable about recording though, and I think that is almost a lost art.

There are times when people don’t spend the time to craft a really great record because they’re rushing to get back on the road. I think the only way you can make a lasting statement is by making great records.

I also think it limits a band if they aren’t creating the best record that they can. Your recorded music is your legacy. That’s what we have for all the great artists who are no longer with us.

As an artist, writing music and finding new things to say is really important. At a certain point, what you see with many acts is that they’re still playing the same songbook forever, and there’s only so much you can say.

The key point, though, is that whenever you bring new material in, it refreshes everything, gets everyone excited and inspired, and takes what we do to another level.

Order I Am the Moon (I. Crescent, II. Ascension, III. The Fall and IV. Farewell) here.

Let’s face it: The chances for a rock band to have any kind of success, much less maintain it, are statistically very low.

And then there’s Shinedown.

Together since 2001, and with record sales exceeding 10 million copies, the Jacksonville, Florida–based outfit has the kind of staying power that seems to defy all odds.

How does guitarist Zach Myers explain the group’s longevity? “It’s something I think about a lot, and I certainly don’t take anything for granted,” he says.

“Most of the bands we came up with aren’t here anymore. I think one of the things that’s kept us going is the fact that we write songs that mean something and speak to people.

“We don’t write about partying or doing drugs. Plus, we have a pretty unique sound. I don’t hear anybody that does what we do.”

He laughs. “And then there’s luck. You just can’t explain it, no matter how hard you try.”

Throughout Shinedown’s seven studio albums, which includes their just-released Planet Zero (Atlantic), Myers has distinguished himself as an inventive and reliable guitarist. His riffs are sparky and hooky, and his solos are marvels of punchy economy.

With surprising candor, he makes it clear that he’s not trying to challenge anybody for shred supremacy.

“This will be very unpopular to say, but I’m not looking to blow people away with my guitar playing,” he says.

“I’m friends with people like Joe Bonamassa and [Periphery’s] Mark Holcomb, but I’m not like them. I can’t do the crazy speed stuff, and I’d look foolish trying to impress people by playing flashy chops.

“If anything, I’m developing more as a songwriter than as a guitar player. I just want to write good songs, so I view the guitar as a tool for composing and creating the right parts for each track.”

Shinedown’s previous album, 2018’s Attention Attention, was a sonically adventurous cinematic concept record based around an overarching theme of personal alienation.

Tougher and leaner, Planet Zero travels down a similar lane (this time the narrative concerns a worldwide dystopian future), but as Myers points out, the sustained storyline that connects the songs was purely unintentional.

“We were just writing and recording. There was no grand design to it,” he explains. “When we were finished, [vocalist] Brent [Smith] said, ‘This is less of a concept record than the last one.’ Which was funny to me. I said, ‘Are you kidding? It’s way more of a concept album than before. It’s got a beginning, middle and end.’

“Somehow, we created a story without even trying. I think the whole band has Pink Floyd as its navigational system.”

On songs like “Dead Don’t Die,” “Clueless and Dramatic” and the pummeling title track, Myers’ guitar sound is a scorching, paint-peeling thing of beauty.

But what appears to be a multitude of overdubbed guitars is actually the opposite.

“There’s really very few guitars on each song,” he says. “It’s basically a hard-left and hard-right guitar, and that’s it.

“There’s no reason to dick around with endless overdubs. We found out long ago that minimal equals maximal on the sonic spectrum.”

On each Shinedown album, Myers has relied on his treasured 1965 Gibson ES-335, and on Planet Zero he also played a couple of PRS 305 models in addition to a 1976 Fender Telecaster that he refers to as “the magic Tele. It sounds like nothing else around.”

However, on most tracks, he found himself grabbing one of two Les Pauls owned by Shinedown bassist (and album producer) Eric Bass.

“They’re ‘pancake’ body Telecaster Deluxes from the 1970s, and they’re just incredible,” Myers says.

 “They sound great on their own, but when you pair one with that Tele, it’s the ticket, man.”

While recording at Bass’s home studio, Myers utilized an array of amps, including Marshall JCM 800s and a 1977 JMP, as well as a Roland JC-90 Jazz Chorus combo.

But no matter what combination of amplifiers he tried on the album’s title track, nothing seemed to click.

“Some songs just don’t want what they don’t want, and I was going crazy working on that one,” he says. “No matter what amp I played through, I couldn’t get it to sound right. It was driving me insane.

“Finally, we went back to the guitars I played on the demo, which went through a Kemper Profiler digital amp. And there it was! That’s what I was looking for!”

He sighs.

“I wish I would have tried doing that the first time. It would have saved me a lot of headaches.”

Order Planet Zero by Shinedown here.

With rehearsals for his tour just a week away, rising indie-rock star Bartees Strange is surrounded by his favorite guitars and amplifiers. From all indications, this is the hard part of the job.

“If you could see me right now, I have all of my amps in a circle around me and, like, five guitars,” Strange says over the phone from his home in Virginia. “And I’m just like, ‘What’s going to be the perfect combination?’ I can’t figure it out.”

Whether he’s strapped with his Gibson ’59 ES-335 Reissue, ’67 Epiphone Casino or ’59 Fender Jazzmaster, Strange will show up ready to blaze.

Over the past year, he’s toured with indie vanguards like Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Car Seat Headrest.

But as one can tell from his latest album, Farm to Table (4AD), his own music is a fusion of styles and influences stretching back to his youth, when hardcore and emo bands ruled his playlists and fueled his creativity.

“I got into guitars and playing music from having hardcore bands and punk bands expand my understanding of what you can do with a guitar,” he says, “the ethos of guitar playing and sounding like yourself being more important than sounding like anybody else.”

Strange’s music is rooted in the emotional heft of emo, but he pulls R&B and hip-hop into the layered madness of “Cosigns” and explores acoustic pop on “Tours” and “Black Gold.”

There is also a hint of Fleetwood Mac balladry on “Escape This Circus” and some fine dueling guitars on the surging and lyrical “Heavy Heart.”

On the eve of touring for Farm to Table, Strange spoke with Guitar Player about his journey to indie-rock stardom.

How and when did music come into your life?

I remember the first real moment that I was like, Oh, what is this? It was a Norma Jean concert. To see everyone react to it reminded me of church, like the spirit moving through a room and people going crazy, moshing. The music was so loud, and it was such a different context for me.

I went to some all-Black churches and heard some pretty wild, awesome church bands, but I’d never seen anyone making – let alone playing for an hour and half – music that was that intense. It really changed what I thought you could do with music and made it more accessible for me, because I was always so intimidated.

That was my on-ramp to getting into guitar-based music and finding the blues, falling in love with Albert Collins and Freddie King and Rosetta Tharpe, and copying all those licks.

Then I heard those same licks in country music and fell in love with Chet Atkins and Waylon Jennings and Brad Paisley.

Seeing TV on the Radio perform “Wolf Like Me” on [Late Show With David] Letterman and hearing those Telecasters on Bloc Party’s “Helicopter” completed the circle. I knew what I wanted to do with guitars.

What about Telecasters spoke to you?

Teles resonate with me and my guitar philosophy. I’m not a super-fast, technical player. I don’t really know how to read music. I like to write songs – I think about chords and the song construction and what the section means and why it’s there.

I need a guitar that’s not in the way, that I can treat just like a tool. Like, this is a hammer and I build houses with this hammer, and who cares what brand of hammer it is? That’s how I like to think of guitars, and that’s how I think of a Telecaster.

You can play jazz or country on a Tele. Some of my favorite emo bands, like American Football, Joan of Arc, Cap’n Jazz – these guys are all Tele players. And whenever I make records, there’s always two or three Teles in the room. They record really well, and I know what it’s going to sound like.

It certainly lends itself to the intricate picking you do.

I don’t really play with a pick; I play with my fingers. So every time I play a chord, I’m kind of picking it out and finding the loop within the chord, finding the lead.

Sometimes I’ll write a riff and build the song around it, but most of the time I write the chords and come back and solo on it.

It is literally just me with a looping pedal playing the chords and following along with it. I don’t put too much thought into it. I’m just playing what feels good.

What are your favorite guitar moments on Farm to Table?

My favorite is the end of “Heavy Heart,” where the solo kicks in. I just love that freaking guitar part and all the tones involved with that song. It’s a guitar symphony. It’s such a fun song to write and play. Every guitar line is a solo.

And then on “Hold the Line,” there is a guitar line at the end, which is a solo slide part played by my friend Dan Kleederman.

But my favorite part about the song is how the two guitars interact with each other. I’m playing the rhythm part on the left side, and the part is sneaky confusing. It’s a slow song, so there’s all this space, and you just have to sit in it. You can’t play through it. It took many years of overplaying to get a song like that.

On the song “Escape the Circus,” there is a guitar moment on the bridge where a cacophony of guitars swirl around each other and result in these weird bloopy tape loops, and oversaturated sounds that fade in and out. That’s probably the most Bartees guitar move of all time.

There’s just a combination of a lot of things I love smashed into that section, and then we leave it and move into this big Blink-182, nine-million-guitars, big-drums moment, which is the only moment like that on the whole album, but it’s a throwback to some of my favorite music.

What was your main rig on the record?

My ’67 Epiphone Casino, my favorite guitar, is on everything. There’s also a 1963 Gibson ES-125T, the slim one, with some funny quirks added to it. For that song it had flatwounds on it, and the string slots on the bridge were rubber, so it created a sound that was different from the other 125 I had played. It has the stock Gibson P-90, and so when you hit it, it crunches in a really unique, nice way on the hollow body. I played that guitar quite a bit.

I also used a 1964 [Fender] Jaguar all over the record. For the outro of “Escape the Circus,” I played a Danny Gatton Telecaster and that Jaguar through a Tone King amp and a Benson Vincent amp in stereo, with different ribbon mics on each.

I’m not really big on dynamic mics for guitar amps, ’cause I like how an amp breathes and sounds in a room. Sometimes when a mic is right on the cone, it can be a little too much for me. So I always use a ribbon mic about a foot away, just to catch the darkness and the air.

The amp I used the most on the whole album is an early ’70s [Fender] Vibro Champ. I think it’s my best-sounding amp. Almost every song starts on that amp. I actually broke it on this album, and I still haven’t gotten it fixed, which is killing me. But it’s also forcing me to use some of my other amps.

You were a football player before you took up music. Are there parallels between your days as an athlete and your career as a musician?

I don’t know if there are parallels, but there are definitely things I took from athletics that I apply to music. I’m a competitive person; I have goals of what I want to do with music. I’m extremely grateful that I get to make music, but it doesn’t stop there for me.

Ultimately, I think there are a lot more Black kids from Oklahoma and Arkansas and Missouri and Texas who are great artists and deserve opportunities like I have. Seeing Tunde Adebimpe [of TV on the Radio] on Letterman blew my mind, like, “You can do that?”

It’s like, you can’t tell a Black kid to be a doctor if they’ve never met a doctor before. They’ve got to see it, and I hope people see me and they’re like, “Oh, he did it! I’m going to do it better than he did it. I’m going to do it bigger than he did it.”

That’s really my dream with all of this.

Order Farm to Table by Bartees Strange here.

Great blues tone isn't rocket science – you just need to get a happening sound in your head, and then use the right tools to replicate the magic.

All great players have specific guitars, amps, and effects that are essential to their sound.

Some, like B.B. King, used the same setup for decades – in his case, a Gibson ES-355 through a Lab Series combo or a Fender Twin Reverb – while others tweak their systems incessantly in the pursuit of groovier tone.

Stevie Ray Vaughan favored one guitar – a Stratocaster – and a few key effects throughout his career, but he experimented a great deal with amps and speakers.

No matter which player you choose to emulate, it's important to understand that merely replicating every detail of their gear is no guarantee that you're going to sound exactly like them.

Tone is, after all, 90% touch and 10% hardware.

Buddy Guy would sound like himself no matter what equipment he used, and the same holds true for most great players.

Still, some guitars and amps can inspire you to play a certain way, and using rigs similar to the ones used by players you respect may help you zone in on a killer sound that can later be morphed into something uniquely yours.

ERIC CLAPTON

"Clapton Is God" graced many a structure in the late '60s, and for good reason – he practically wrote the book on how to play blues-rock electric guitar.

Attaining a credible Clapton sound requires that you first determine which period in his long career you like best.

During his time with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Clapton famously used a late-'50s Gibson Les Paul Standard through a model 1962 Marshall 2x12 combo.

Part of the secret here is that Clapton's amp was equipped with KT66 output tubes, which have a more refined midrange and clearer top end than either EL34s or 6L6s.

With Cream, Clapton went to high-volume heaven with 100-watt Marshall heads and 4x12 cabs.

He also used a Vox wah-wah and, occasionally, a fuzz.

After his Les Paul was stolen, Clapton played a '61 SG-style Les Paul, and then a Gibson ES-335 for Cream's farewell concert.

With Blind Faith, Clapton used a Gibson Firebird through a Fender Showman.

He then switched to maple-fretboard Strats through Fender tweed Champs during his Derek & The Dominos/"Layla" period.

Both setups yielded tones that rate among Clapton's best.

ALBERT COLLINS

The "Iceman" had one of the most original tones around – just listen to his fabulous sting on such classic cuts as "Frosty," "Too Many Dirty Dishes," "Iceman," and "Put the Shoe on the Other Foot."

Collins certainly did things his own way.

He played a beat-up Fender Telecaster, with a Gibson humbucker in the neck position, that he tuned to open Fm.

He used a capo – often at the fifth or seventh position – and he snapped and popped his strings with his thumb and forefinger.

Collins also favored '70s-era Fender Quad Reverb amps (100 watts into four 12s), and he used a 100' cord.

This latter detail allowed him to get friendly with the audience, while the added cable capacitance helped defrost his icy highs.

ALBERT KING

Almost every blues guitar player "borrows" something from Albert King – even Stevie Ray Vaughan based his blistering style on King's mammoth bends and lightning-bolt stabs.

Almost no one tries to duplicate the left-handed bluesman's gear, however, which isn't too surprising, considering that King played a flipped-over Gibson Flying V with the low-E string closest to the floor.

According to repair ace Dan Erlewine (who built King's replica V, "Lucy"), Albert strung his guitar .009, .012, .024W, .028, .038, .050, and tuned it C, F, C, F, A, D (low to high.)

Steve Cropper, who produced a number of King's albums, offers a different tuning – C, B, E, F#, B, E (low to high) – which he says allowed King to create a one-finger Em chord by raising F# to G. (Another important aspect of King's tone was that he played exclusively with his fingers.)

Onstage, King often plugged into an Acoustic 370 solid-state guitar amp driving a 2x15 enclosure with a built-in high-frequency horn – a real pawnshop prize!

While a Flying V is the way to go here, just about any quality, dual-humbucker guitar can be coaxed into the Albert zone.

Consider, however, that Otis Rush gets a chillingly similar sound with a Fender Strat!

Amps? That's a good question, as almost nothing available sounds anything like an old Acoustic 370.

Our advice is choose an amp (or amp channel) with enough clean headroom to preserve your note attack. Crank the volume, but go easy on the distortion – King's tone was big and bold, not squashed and compressed.

B.B. KING

The King of the Blues' sweet, singing tone stands out as one of the great guitar sounds of all time.

King's original tone recipe was a Gibson ES-355 through a long-discontinued Gibson Lab Series 2x12 combo amp.

From the '80s, he played a Gibson Lucille model stereo guitar, which features a TP-6 fine-tune tailpiece and no f-holes.

King used both pickups simultaneously and strung his guitar with light-gauge Gibsons (.009-.042).

Though he favored vintage Lab Series amps, he often ran through a Fender Twin Reverb onstage.

Replicating B.B. King's sound requires running your amp's output stage fairly hard, while avoiding the fuzzier distortion produced by high-gain channels or stompboxes.

T-BONE WALKER

Often called the father of electric blues, T-Bone Walker helped establish the guitar as a featured lead instrument in the 1940s.

Guitarists inspired by Walker's playing (or his flashy stage moves) include Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Billy Gibbons, Albert King, Otis Rush, Michael Bloomfield, and Duane Allman.

Walker cut his teeth on primitive acoustic-electrics, but his signature ax was a blonde, maple-bodied Gibson ES-5 that he bought at the peak of his career in the early 1950s.

Walker held the guitar perpendicular to his body (when he wasn't playing it behind his head or between his legs), and it's likely that he plugged into a Gibson tube amp.

T-Bone Walker forged the basic vocabulary of rock and roll using double-stops, half- and quarter-step bends, and his patented, third-to-second-string unison bends.

His unorthodox playing style probably created a little extra string lift and snap, and he preferred his tone dry, clean, and relatively bright compared to jazz guitar players of the time.

A deep-bodied guitar – preferably with P-90-style, single-coil pickups – running through a reasonably clean-sounding tube amplifier are essential ingredients for T-Bone tone.

STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN

Stevie Ray Vaughan forged a sound that defines big blues tone.

Five basic ingredients are required here:

• Rosewood fretboard Fender Strat strung with heavy-gauge strings (Vaughan used GHS sets as heavy as .013-.060)
• Ibanez Tube Screamer overdrive (either a TS-9 or an older TS-808)
• Rotating speaker (he favored vintage Fender Vibratones, but you may wish to substitute a stompbox-sized simulator here)
• Vox wah wah pedal
• Fender tube amp with four 10" speakers

Vaughan often combined amps – Fender Super Reverbs with 1x15 Fender Vibroverbs, Marshall and Dumble rigs with Fender combos, and so on.

Heavy electric guitar strings are an important part of the Vaughan recipe, but remember that Stevie tuned down a half-step – you'll want to do the same if you plan on performing his gargantuan bends on girthy gauges.

Choose your Strat carefully for lightness and resonance, and set your amp's controls to produce a clear, beefy clang from the neck pickup. (Fender Super Reverbs do this naturally.)

Today, on the anniversary of his passing, we remember Irish blues-rock legend Rory Gallagher.

Born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland, the first pieces Gallagher attempted to play were cowboy songs and Irish folk tunes on acoustic guitar, beginning at age nine.

American rock ‘n’ rollers such as Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley, and Chuck Berry had an early impression on the budding guitarist, though he discovered blues, à la Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, by way of Lonnie Donegan’s British skiffle hits.

At 15, Gallagher joined the Fontana Show Band, which toured England and Ireland. The constant work helped refine his playing, but the commercial nature of the repertoire caused him to look elsewhere for artistic satisfaction, jamming with the group's drummer and bassist in small clubs throughout Europe.

By 1966, Gallagher had formed Taste, the now legendary blues-rock trio, comprised of Eric Kitteringham on bass, Norman Demery on drums, and Gallagher on guitar, vocals, and, occasionally, saxophone.

In 1969, the group signed with Polydor Records, but had disbanded by the following year, at which point the guitarist began to pursue a solo career in earnest.

Throughout the ‘70s, Gallagher recorded a steady stream of solos albums, picking up legions of fans along the way and establishing himself as one of the era’s most influential guitarists.

In this interview extract from the March 1978 issue of Guitar Player, Gallagher talks about his various musical styles and techniques and the gear he used to arrive at his distinctive, energetic sound.

What he has to say about blues and rock ‘n’ roll should be required reading for any guitarist...

Hypothetically, if you were teaching blues guitar at a school, how would you go about it?

I’d keep it within a reasonably rigid blues framework, just to keep it on center. A lot of it would depend on what music the student had been exposed to.

I mean, if your parents were interested in music anyway – your father, for instance, had a couple of Bill Broonzy or Lonnie Johnson albums – or you were brought up listening to jazz programs on the BBC where they'd slot in the odd blues thing, you'd obviously have a head start.

Otherwise, you'd probably get into blues through rock 'n' roll – through Chuck Berry or maybe “High Heeled Sneakers” by Tommy Tucker. Then with the Rolling Stones era, you could sneak into the blues thing that way.

In my case, I started on the proverbial Lonnie Donegan skiffle music trail, where I heard Lonnie doing Leadbelly songs, such as “Rock Island Line” and “Bring Me A Lil' Water Silvy.”

Before I even owned records by Woody Guthrie or Big Bill Broonzy, I used to get library books out in Cork – because you couldn't buy the albums in Britain – and I’d learn the lyrics to these songs.

But at the same time I was interested in rock 'n' roll – such as Buddy Holly. Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino. I was listening to both of these strains, because at lots of points they'd cross.

Once you get beyond the Chuck Berry/Eddie Cochran thing, you begin to figure out that you've got Broonzy at one end of the scale – and that goes right back to the old tradition of Charley Patton – then John Lee Hooker has the Detroit electric blues style, which evolved from his acoustic style.

And you also get the Josh White sort of folkie style of blues. You just have to listen to a lot of records.

Which records do you think are essential for someone who wants to get into blues?

I suppose you'd have to go back to one of the main sources, say, either Robert Johnson, Lemon Jefferson, Willie McTell, or Leadbelly. The two Robert Johnson records [King Of The Delta Blues Singers, Vols. I & II] are obviously cornerstones; you'd have to get at least one of those.

It’s pretty hard to zone in on it, because some guys mightn't get into Robert Johnson and might prefer, say, Willie McTell. But if we try to break it down to the key blues albums, I think that a Robert Johnson record would have to be included.

Then Blind Boy Fuller is another favorite of mine, especially that album With Bull City Red and Sonny Terry, with “Pistol Slapper Blues” on it.

I think that Broonzy album where he does “Banker’s Blues” [The Young Big Bill Broonzy] is an important one, because he was broadening the scale.

It’s different from the ones he made around 1950, where it was blues plus ballads.

The Best Of Muddy Waters [reissued as Sail On] is definitely an archetypal electric blues album.

Do you think albums by people such as Elmore James and Howlin’ Wolf are important listening?

Oh yeah. You'd have to get The Real Folk Blues by Wolf, with “Spoonful” and “Shake For Me” [reissued in part on Howlin’ Wolf: the Chess Box] for Hubert Sumlin’s electric blues guitar.

He's the great undiscovered, underrated lead player. And Wolf himself harks back vocally to Charley Patton, and, besides, he plays a little bit of slide guitar here and there, too – like on “Down In The Bottom.”

And his harmonica playing is important, even though everyone seems to write it off as just, “He plays harmonica.” I think he plays good gut-bucket harmonica.

Which of Elmore James's albums would you single out?

Its hard to pin down one album for him, because there are so many oddball ones. I've got one on Ember Records – just sort of a bargain label – and it was reruns of some of his stuff, like “Sunnyland,” “Standing At The Crossroads.” and “Dust My Broom” yet again.

I find that any Elmore James album is good.

What about the older country blues players?

In terms of intensity, Son House has to be listened to. Of all the blues players, that's probably the closest connection with Africa. I've got that one album, with “John the Revelator.” [The Legendary Father Of Folk Blues] That's an ace album.

If people come to hear you in concert, and they want to learn how to play guitar themselves, do you think it's more important for them to buy your records or these old records you spoke of?

To learn guitar? Well, I write a lot of my own stuff, so it's a cross between ego and the heritage thing.

If you want to play like Rory Gallagher, I think you'd buy my records. But if you want to pick up on whatever echoes of the bluesmen that I respect and love, certainly go ahead and buy some blues records.

In my case, I’d say the obvious influences would be Hubert Sumlin, Earl Hooker, and Buddy Guy, electrically; and, acoustically, Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Blake, though I can't get anywhere near what Blake does.

But you see, I never started out to become a strict recreator of the blues or even a modern young bluesman, as it were. I mean, I wanted to be me.

I'm a huge blues fan, but I still have a bit of Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly hovering around in my head, plus certain folk people, such as Doc Watson – a pretty wide range of listening.

What type of instrument would you recommend for an acoustic blues novice to start on?

With acoustic guitar, for the first couple of years at least, I think you should leave a wound third string on and really build up strength in the fingers. In other words, don't try bending strings the first week you buy the guitar.

Kids are lucky nowadays; you can get a Yamaha or something, and the cheaper model guitars are much better quality than they were years ago when you got this stuff with terrible action.

The first guitar I got cost just over four pounds, which was about twenty dollars then, in the good old days.

After a while you get that urge to say, “To hell with this – I’m going to bend this string,” instead of sliding up. But you have to build that up.

But do you think a student should start out with, say, a wooden Yamaha or a metal-bodied National such as you sometimes play?

Well, lets put it this way: If you're a kid with ears the size of the moon and an amazing sense of direction, who heard Son House or Blind Boy Fuller or any of the National steel-body players and said, “They're the people I want to play like,” then go ahead and buy the National, because that's a great place to start.

But if you start with a National. you're talking about a guitar that weighs quite a bit.

Do you use a wound or an unwound third string on the National?

A wound third, because the numbers I happen to play need that fairly stiff action. I don't do any Broonzy-type bending with light strings on the National, whereas on a Martin acoustic I probably would.

Do you use an acoustic onstage?

I do; I play a Martin D-35. I use the National for things like “Pistol Slapper Blues,” which I play faster than Blind Boy Fuller did, and a J.B. Hutto song called “Too Much Alcohol,” which he plays electric, of course.

There's always the nature of the banjo in the National, I find, and you have to play it sort of like that. I do anyway.

Do you play acoustic with a plectrum or your fingers?

With a plectrum and the fingers. I fool around with National metal fingerpicks and the plastic ones sometimes.

How is your Martin set up?

Well, that's set up with the same strings, because at present I'm doing numbers like Leadbelly’s “Out On The Western Plain,” where the tuning is D - A - D - G - A - D [low to high]. It’s [open] D tuning, except that the G remains a G [rather than major third/F#.]

What do you use for an electric guitar?

I have two different electrics. I have a [Fender] Stratocaster with Fender light gauge Rock And Roll strings, which I use for basic playing and some slide work in straight tuning.

I also have a [Fender] Telecaster for A tuning and other open tunings, for songs like “Bullfrog Blues.”

Why the Stratocaster?

Well, that's the eternal argument among Fender fans. Buddy Holly had a Strat, and as a child you go after the appearance of a guitar; I don't care what anyone says. You look at the shape of the thing, and that's it. I've tried Gibsons, but I'm not a great fan of humbucking pickups.

Why is that?

Because as you bring down the volume from 10 to 9 to 8, after that – forget it; the guitar loses its sensitivity and drive.

Whereas with the single-coil or P-90 pickups – one of the old Gibson units with the black or white plastic covers – the volume control goes down nice and gradually, and even at 6 the guitar is still doing something.

Why do you usually switch to the Telecaster for slide?

I like a good bright tone, and I like the out-of-phase sound you can get with the switch set between the normal positions on a Strat.

Its comfortable, the scale seems right, and I like having the machine heads on one side – it just seems to make sense.

But if you want, say, a more luxurious, fatter sound, the Gibson guitar certainly would do the job, and it's got an extra fret – if anybody ever touches that fret; I'm sure they don't.

I thought it had a certain steel guitar type of tone which would work well with slide, but I was frustrated with the rhythm [neck/front] pickup – I thought it was too thin. So I put a Strat pickup there, and it remained that way for a year.

Then I said, “To hell with it – I’ll do the Telecaster à la Strat,” so now I've got two Strat pickups and a Tele lead pickup and a five-way Strat toggle switch.

It’s like the best of both worlds with the Telecaster lead pickup, which is slightly hotter than a Stratocaster’s.

What do you use for a slide?

It depends; I shift around. I sometimes use a bottleneck on my ring finger for electric stuff; otherwise I've got two stainless steel tubes, which I sometimes use on my small finger or the ring finger. They get a more stinging, Muddy Waters sound.

You get a different sound depending on what slide you use. For instance, if you're playing slide on a National with a glass slide, forget it.  You have to have something like steel or, even better, copper. Son House used copper, and I've got one of those as well.

What type of amplification do you use?

For years I used a Vox AC30, which is the best all-around European amp I've ever come across. I still have it. The Shadows used to use them, and the Beatles used them, so you know it was the popular amp.

But I found that when using the [Dallas Rangemaster] treble booster, that along with the treble boost you got a built-in gain, because the transistors were fairly primitive.

If I used the normal input – which was very bassy, as opposed to the brilliant input – I could get that nice rough edge without getting into a very fuzzy sound.

I used that for years, and I've had odds and sods in between, but then I moved on to an old Fifties tweed Fender Twin, which I still have.

Then I got into a tweed Fender Bassman, and recently I got a Fender Concert, which is an old brown one, from around 1959, with four 10” speakers.

I use a Hawk booster through that just to roughen it up a bit, or if it's a quiet number I plug straight in and keep the guitar clean sounding.

Do you think it's advantageous to learn acoustic before moving on to electric?

Well, I played acoustic for two or three years before I bought an electric. I wasn't particularly interested in electric for the first couple of years, because I was a Lonnie Donegan fan.

I think it's better to start on acoustic and then get into electric, but you could get into a fistfight over that. I mean, some people would say, “To hell with acoustic guitar; it never existed. You've got to get a solidbody right away.”

Fair enough, but I think they're missing out. Even if you're going to become the consummate 1978 electric guitarist, I think you're missing out on an awful lot, if only for the fun of playing an acoustic guitar at home as a hobby.

And it's nice to go from the acoustic, where even at the best of times the action is fairly taut, to the electric with light strings, where you float around like jelly. If you're always playing on light-gauge strings, you'll never really build up strength and subsequently real volume without turning up your amp yet again.

Are there any other techniques that you can adapt from acoustic to electric?

If you never played acoustic the odds would probably be three-to-one that you might never get into, say, playing with a plectrum and fingers or ever get interested in the various acoustic right-hand things.

I think if you're just playing with a flatpick full-time, you're only half playing the guitar.

So would you advise learning to fingerpick with bare fingers, with fingerpicks, or with a plectrum and the fingers?

Well, if you could wave a magic wand, you should tell the person to try all forms and be familiar with them all – anything instead of just using the plectrum alone.

I think at some point in every song you're going to need the fingers.

If you're interested in classical guitar, it's nice to get a couple of years training at that, and then you'd have very strong hands, and you could skip thumbpicks and metal picks or whatever.

Do you use fingerpicks mainly for volume, or do you use them for a specific sound?

I would use them for volume, you know, and to save wear and tear.

If I were a highly developed thumb-and-fingers person I’d just use the bare skin, but you do get the real sharp, biting sound with the metal claws.

Gary Davis just used the one plastic fingerpick, and he seemed to make great sense out of that.

So you think it's very important for a student to learn to use their fingers as well as a pick.

Yeah, even if they never touch folk or blues music. Of course, the sky's the limit nowadays, and I suppose for Chuck Berry rock 'n' roll it doesn't matter too much, but even Keith Richards uses his fingers on things like “Honky Tonk Woman.”

Do you think it's important for a guitarist to learn to read music?

I did it by ear, listening to records. I never had a teacher, and I regret that I can’t read music. I went into the library once and got Teach Yourself How To Read Music or something, and it said, “Sit down at your piano.” We didn't have a piano, so that went down the chute.

Then I worked out F, A, and C and gave up, because I was too impulsive, and I was already delighted that I could play “Lost John” and a couple of other songs.

Then, next thing, I was playing blues and rock 'n' roll, which is fairly instinctive and primitive stuff anyway. But later on you start getting beyond the open tunings and ragtime blues, you know, and you're listening to someone like Diango Reinhardt or modern jazz guitarists, even bossa nova stuff like Charlie Byrd, and you begin to feel a little inadequate if you're an all-around guitar fan.

So you get a couple of books on chords and try to make sense of that. That's where the reading would probably come in; it would help if you were a bit of a jazz fan.

When recording with other musicians, do you find that not knowing written music limits your ability to communicate ideas in the studio?

No, that's no problem. Because you can hum it to them or play it on the guitar. I don't think that's the drawback; the only drawback is if you were interested in playing a classical piece verbatim, or you wanted to play a Charlie Christian solo and really wanted to find out all the notes that he played and the harmony and theory thing behind it.

Sometimes you say. “To hell with it; it doesn't matter anyway,” but it kind of does matter. I’d say a year or two of just learning a little bit of theory wouldn't do any harm. Even tablature foxes me; I have no head for mathematics.

What advice could you give in terms of practicing the guitar?

Well, it's like the old cliché: You have to love the instrument and the idea of the instrument and the whole aura of the thing, and that will dictate how much you practice, really.

I don't think you have to sit down for eight hours a day or anything, but if you're really interested, you'll probably do that anyway in the early stages – and even after that, between trying to write songs and experimenting with notes and loosening your fingers.

I think you're bound to get in an hour or two a day anyway, although some guys say they only play five minutes a day outside the gig.

Could you offer any advice for guitarists wanting to become professionals?

If you wanted to get into, say, electric blues, I’d get into a band as soon as possible, no matter how bad it is.

Don’t be too proud – get into some kind of band; get playing with a drummer. That's essential for electric blues.

If you want to play acoustic music on your own, just hurry up and get a gig if you can; get out there and play in front of people.

You feel that playing in front of people is an important thing to do as soon as possible?

Yes, it brings something out. I know for a fact that if I'm off the road for a long spell, even if I'm rehearsing like mad and playing a lot at home, the real crunch comes when I get out in front of people.

The things you thought were really hot in rehearsal don't make any sense, because quite often you've forgotten the basic drive.

In rehearsals sometimes the basics get glossed over, because you're fooling around too much with the frilly stuff. If you get out there in front of an audience, drop your pick or break a string, that toughens you up, and it brings out projection in your playing.

You have to direct your playing somewhere – unless you want to sit in a room like the painter looking at the painting he's just done, and he won't show it to anybody.

You do get people like that, who think there's no one in the city who's good enough to play with. But even acoustic players should get to a folk club and listen to other people, play with other people.

There's always a thin line between studying the old records by the old masters and trying to develop yourself. I think both can be done at the same time, because if you forget the old masters, you miss out on a whole heritage and a whole world, really.

But you shouldn't get too clogged up with the old stuff to the point where you won't be moving on yourself, because you won't end up like an old master yourself anyway, you know.

Order the Rory Gallagher 1971 debut solo album 50th anniversary edition here.

Jack White has put his signature style on gear – from its sound to its look. 

As he drops his latest album, Fear of the Dawn, he gives Guitar Player an exclusive look at the electric guitars behind his blue period.

Here are five of the coolest...

1) 1964 “JB Hutto” Montgomery Ward Airline

Made by the Valco company, and distributed via Montgomery Ward department stores from 1958 to 1968, the “JB Hutto” Airline, which originally retailed for only $99, is perhaps White’s most iconic guitar, as it took the lion’s share of the heavy lifting in the band that would be his vehicle to stardom, the White Stripes.

Nicknamed the JB Hutto after the great blues slide guitarist who was its best-known proponent in its day, the Airline’s distinctive fiberglass body and space-age design made it a natural fit for the iconoclastic White, who so elevated the guitar’s public profile that Eastwood began making a fine replica version in 2000, albeit with a chambered mahogany – rather than fiberglass – body.

2) Fender Three-Wheel-Motion Low-Rider Telecaster (Blue)

“The kill switch on the blue Telecaster is a simple momentary switch that we’d used on the EVH Wolfgang Signature Model,” says Fender/EVH Senior Master Builder and Project Engineer Chip Ellis.

“That was one of Ed’s things. I don’t know if it was the first time that Jack had used an interrupter, or kill, switch, but when we sent Jack his first Wolfgang with the kill switch in it, he absolutely loved it.

"We built two custom Wolfgangs for Jack for that first solo tour, and since then, anything that we built for him after that got a kill switch. That’s just become part of Jack’s thing.”

The Tele’s current Thinline Wide Range Humbucker once belonged to Jack’s brother Eddie, who had it on his Thinline.

“I always loved that sound,” White says, “and I thought it would be cool to use my brother’s actual pickup on this guitar.”

3) Fender Three-Wheel-Motion Low-Rider Telecaster (Copper)

“The copper Telecaster was a gift that Jack received,” Ellis says. “It originally had the traditional B-Bender setup – the big one with the giant plate on the back and the huge mechanism, which he loved.

“It was clear that he wanted it to not be the typical Nashville Tele with the B-Bender. He wanted it to be very much his Tele. So there were lots of modifications. We basically hogged out a swimming pool rout in the body and glued in a fresh block of wood.

“We veneered the thing and turned it into something completely different with a Lace Sensor in the bridge position, something P-90-ish in the middle, and a Wide Range Humbucker in the neck. And then he wanted to add a G-Bender and the Hipshot bender for a dropped-D!”

4) Fender Acoustasonic Jazzmaster

“I’m the last guy you’d think would be interested in guitar modeling,” White says, “and even when I first picked up the Fender Acoustasonic, I was still worried that it might sound a little fake. 

"But that technology has come a long way from where it was 20 years ago.”

White’s custom Acoustasonics have pared the available models down to just three, which keeps things simple for him during long shows with lots of moving parts.

“There have been a lot of guitars over the years that have attempted to do both acoustic and electric sounds, but this is the first time I’ve heard a guitar that really does it well,” he tells us. “And it’s practical, especially for my solo catalog that has a lot of electric and acoustic guitars in the same song.

“I used to have to actually write sections with pauses long enough so I could switch from acoustic to electric onstage.”

5) Gretsch G6199 Bill-Bo Jupiter Thunderbird

“This guitar was inspired by seeing Billy Gibbons play one of Bo Diddley’s original Gretsch Jupiter Thunderbird guitars, which Bo had given to Billy,” White explains.

“When I was working on the theme song for the James Bond movie Another Way to Die, with Alicia Keys in 2003, my idea was that we’d play live at some point, and I’d outfit Alicia and myself and the entire band with these guitars, sort of like how Bo and his guitarist The Duchess did back in the day.

“While that never materialized, I ended up using the Billy-Bo for the ‘Another Way to Die’ video, and it then became the theme for my band the Dead Weather. 

"You can even see that this particular Gretsch G6199 Billy-Bo Jupiter Thunderbird has the Bond/Third Man logo on it.”

Order Jack White's new album Fear of the Dawn here.

When it was issued in 1992, The Police – Greatest Hits became a multimillion seller on CD, but its availability on vinyl was limited.

To mark its 30-year anniversary, the 16-cut set (which, not surprisingly, packs in monsters like “Message in a Bottle,” “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” Every Breath You Take” and loads more) is getting the deluxe vinyl makeover.

Each track has been remastered at Abbey Road and cut at half-speed, and the package contains two heavyweight LPs and expanded artwork, along with other bells and whistles.

For guitarist Andy Summers, along with his former Police bandmates (bassist-singer Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland), approving remixes of tracks he recorded 40 years ago is all part of the job, but he’s enthusiastic about the new vinyl edition.

“It’s superior audio, so why wouldn’t we want it out?” he tells Guitar Player.

He admits that listening to past work with the Police is the last thing he does on purpose, but on occasion he’ll hear a track while out in public, and his ears will perk up.

“It can happen at the weirdest times,” he reveals. “I’ll be in a bar in Mexico, and a Police song will come on, and I’ll go, ‘Wow, that’s really good.’ It’s interesting. You get away from something you did, and suddenly you’ll get a new take on it. It’s happened to me all over the world.”

In a remarkable career that lasted just under a decade – the trio formed in London in 1977 and called it quits in 1986 – the Police grew from a gritty pub-rock act that fused aggressive punk with elements of reggae to become a stadium-filling rock group that performed highly ambitious and sophisticated smash hits.

And unlike most bands that exist well past their shelf life, the trio didn’t stick around and start sucking.

They released five dynamite albums – Outlandos d’Amour, Reggatta de Blanc, Zenyatta Mondatta, Ghost in the Machine and Synchronicity – and left the building, their legacy complete and untarnished.

“There are so many reasons why we were a hit,” Summers tells us. “If I could narrow it down, I think the main thing about us was we didn’t sound like anybody else.

“It was something we were very conscious of. We didn’t want to sound like other bands. That was our natural instinct, but it could only have happened with the three of us. It’s a miracle of chemistry. If we were one person different, it would have been very different.”

Summers’ contribution to that chemistry cannot be overstated.

By the time he joined the Police, he was already fully formed as a player, having studied classical and jazz guitar, and he boasted a performing resume on both sides of the Atlantic (for a brief time, he was a member of Eric Burdon and the Animals).

With the Police, he dispensed with the blues-based licks and rote solos so prevalent in the ’70s and pioneered a crafty blend of minimalism built around tight but memorable riffs (played mainly on a 1961 Telecaster), shimmering chord voicings and an individualistic use of pedal effects that magnified the band’s sound in ways that were both thrilling and mysterious.

“I was a fairly trained guitarist, but I needed to open things up onstage,” Summers says.

“For me, the pedal thing started with the [MXR] Phase 90. We were playing for an hour, hour and a half, and there was just the three of us – we didn’t have keyboards to fall back on. I had to make the guitar sound interesting, and then these pedals turned up.

“I added more pedals and worked out all sorts of combinations. Before long, I had a big Pete Cornish pedalboard with eight or nine boxes, but it basically started with the Phase 90.”

By the time of the Police’s second album, 1979’s Reggatta de Blanc, his playing style and sound began to infiltrate the lexicon of other guitarists, a trend he became keenly aware of.

“We were a hot item, and people saw how successful we were, and yes, I certainly noticed a lot of players aping – I’ll say ‘copying’ – me,” he says.

“We were so popular and everybody thought, That’s how to get a hot sound. But that’s just where my ear went.”

The Police’s lean-and-mean ethos extended to their studio recordings, and even when they enjoyed lavish budgets and were able to work in the spiffiest facilities in the world (Synchronicity was cut at George Martin’s AIR Studios in Montserrat), they resisted the temptation to overburden their songs with superfluous instrumentation.

“That was a trap we were aware of,” Summers says. “We started as a punk band, which lasted about five minutes because we weren’t really punks, but I think part of the freshness of what we did was because the tracks were so stripped down.

“I never got into the army of guitars. The music was made out of the actual parts we were playing instead of multitracking. We tried to keep things as close as we could to the trio sound, and that made it easy for me to play the songs onstage, because I wasn’t missing six parts.”

He pauses, then adds with a laugh, “Of course, you have to be talented to do that. You have to be good.”

1. “Message In a Bottle” by the Police from Reggatta De Blanc (1979)

“Sting showed me the riff he had, but I embellished it. I had the chops to make it swing and rock. I could tell right away it had something, and I was thrilled to play something that started to progress our style.

“Rather than just strumming chords – C# minor, A, B, F# minor – I was outlining the figures in a way that integrated very well with Stewart’s hi-hat. I should say that the recorded version of this song is the best drum track Stewart ever did.

“In the studio, we added a second guitar part, so there’s a harmony going on there. Then it goes into a more of a rock chorus, but the verse is the classic Police sound, again outlining the chord, which is tonic, fifth and added ninth.

“I overdubbed some soloing. We were coming out of a sort of religious punk scene, and guitar solos at that time were supposed to be a mark of the old guard. Stewart was vehement about that, but I was a great soloist, so of course I was soloing my ass off.

“We were always in a weird position with that. As I started playing a solo over the end of the song, Sting went, ‘Oh, actually, this is really good. Keep it in, keep it in.’ It wasn’t up really loud, which I would’ve liked, but it was in there, with a lot of feeling.

“It’s a famous riff, and I have to admit, it’s hard to play. People want to play it, but a lot of them can’t – the stretches are too big. You have to be a real guitarist to do it well.

“I’ve played it a lot of different ways, in a lot of different positions, over the years, just trying to do stuff with it, sometimes playing the second chord, the A with the open A string, rather than going to the obvious sort of shape of the added-ninth chord. It’s pretty cool.”

2. “Bring On the Night” by the Police from Reggatta De Blanc (1979)

“It has that fingerpicked verse section. One thing that Sting and I shared was a love for classical guitar. As it turned out, I’d played classical guitar for years – I studied it for years at school in America.

“Once Sting and I got together, I discovered that he was a bit of a nut for classical guitar, as well. I would often play him classical guitar pieces – [Heitor] Villa-Lobos or some Bach – because I knew the stuff very well.

“He came up with this little pattern in A minor that was very easy for me to play – it was sort of in A minor and all over an A note. He had the part, but of course, I could play it. It wasn’t standard rock at all.

“I liked the atmosphere of the song. I put in that muted opening part before the main verse section. We played it like that in concert a lot. The solo of the song is rather striking. None of it was worked out beforehand. It was all sort of spontaneous, really, just me in the moment.

“It seemed like the appropriate, anguished response to the lyrics of the song. We kept all the noises in. I supposed that was our punk ethos coming in. You can’t be all po-faced about all of this.”

3. “Reggatta De Blanc” by the Police from Reggatta De Blanc (1979)

“It came about from jamming onstage. We didn’t have a lot of material at the time, so we had to stretch things out. Toward the end of our show, we’d play ‘Can’t Stand Losing You,’ and then we’d have this huge jam in the middle where I would play all sorts of stuff on the guitar. I used the Echoplex a lot.

“Sting and I would do this droning D pedal. It would go on for a while, and I’d do all these harmonics at the seventh fret and different whammy things. I learned the harmonics thing from Lenny Breau in Nashville. He was one of the greatest guitarists ever.

“Over time, this jam developed. Sting started doing some sort of incantatory thing to the audience, and we’d all be changing along together. Stewart was wailing on the hi-hat. We would build things up and get ready, and at the appropriate moment we would take off on that B to A movement.

“I would hit the fuzz and play this little riff, and we’d have thousands of people going nuts. You didn’t need to do more than that if your feel was right. We were very locked in as a unit, so we could come up with this stuff. It was great fun.

“We won a Grammy for that song. I mean, it’s true that we were very popular and could have just said ‘hello’ and gotten an award for it. But I was quite pleased about it, actually, because that piece of music was very typical of our trio.

“It was our thing, so to get a Grammy for something that had grown so organically out of our sweat onstage, it was very satisfying. And, of course, it didn’t sound like anything else.”

4. “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” by the Police from Zenyatta Mondatta (1980)

“By this point, we had the Police’s stylistic approach pretty much nailed down. It didn’t matter what the chord structure was or what kind of music we were playing; we could make it sound like the Police.

“On ‘De Do Do Do,’ I do a slightly rhythmic approach to playing the chords as opposed to just banging them out. I sort of fingerpicked the outlines of each chord, which made it sound different.

“I think this was a factor in making our songs endure. If you played them with big barre chords, they would sound old and ordinary.

“One thing in particular I would do is avoid a major or minor third in favor of a second. This song starts on an A chord, but I wouldn’t play the C# of A major. Instead, I’d play B, which is the second of that scale.

“I’d pluck between the fifth string, third string or fourth string with a slightly damped upstroke picking pattern. This was typical of what I’d do. It made the parts more interesting and less corny.

“We were recording pretty quickly, but I didn’t want to rush through my parts. I do this solo over kind of a weird section, and I knew I needed to work it out rather than just improvise it in one go.

“I said to Sting and Stewart, ‘Give me half an hour to come up with something.’ It worked out pretty well.”

5. “Driven to Tears” by the Police from Zenyatta Mondatta (1980)

“It’s quite a complicated arrangement. We’d have these creative jams, and Sting would eventually start wailing on the top and I’d play all kinds of stuff. They weren’t conventional guitar solos, but they were these big sounds and some passages, all kinds of stuff.

“With this song, I don’t think we did play it onstage before we recorded it; I think we just did it on the spot. It’s a classic situation where, six months after you record it, you go, ‘Oh, shit. I wish we’d done that when we recorded it.’ I know we played it a few different ways, moving it up and back in keys.

“I’m pretty sure I used my Telecaster. I had my amp on 11 for the solo – it was really loud, because it sounded appropriate for that sort of dissonant, chromatic solo. But I didn’t play standard blues guitar licks, which would’ve brought it down.

“It had to be something angry because of the lyrical content, which is basically about war and suffering.

“Feedback in the studio has always been an interesting technical thing. You don’t want to stand in front of the amp; you have to sort of contrive a way to get the sound while standing away from the amp so you don’t get your ears blasted.

“I think it was done in one take. We all heard it and went, ‘That’s it. It’s got it.’ I never played it onstage the same way twice. That’s kind of a prog-rock thing, where all the solos are completely worked out and rehearsed note for note.

“We were very loose onstage. Songs got extended, not in a fussy way, but in a way that just kind of expanded their scope. I think that made things more exciting.”

Order the new The Police – Greatest Hits deluxe vinyl release here.

British-born country-rock guitarist Albert Lee is one of the most revered players around. Beginning his career in the burgeoning rock ‘n’ roll scene of 1960s London he went on to work with the likes of Eric Clapton, the Everly Brothers, the Crickets and Emmylou Harris.

Though Lee has lent his name to signature Ernie Ball Music Man models, he has also been dubbed ‘Mr Telecaster.’ And for good reason.

Many guitarists have explored the deceptively subtle language of the Fender Telecaster, but few are as fluent or as eloquent as Lee.

Like Roy Buchanan or Arlen Roth, he is a master of the blistering Tele lick. And like Steve Cropper or James Burton, he can mold a disarmingly simple phrase into the perfect fill.

The following interview extract originally appeared in the May 1981 issue of Guitar Player…

Have you always used a Telecaster?

Since 1963. My first good guitar was a Les Paul Custom, a single-cutaway 3-pickup model. That was great. I sold it because I wanted to get a Scotty Moore model, a Gibson Super 400. Big mistake! It was just a disaster, totally wrong for the way I was playing.

When you started playing Telecasters, had you heard that sound before or did you discover it on your own?

Telecasters were quite rare in England. They had the image of being a rhythm guitar because the band over there in the early '60s was Cliff Richard and the Shadows.

The lead player had a Stratocaster, and the rhythm player had a Telecaster, so everyone thought that Teles were rhythm guitars and there weren't that many around.

I got an old Tele, about a '59 or '60, and it must have been one of the first with rosewood fingerboard. It cost about $120.00 and was pretty beaten up. The guy at the store said, "Look, a James Burton guitar."

It seemed really Mickey Mouse compared to the Les Paul Custom, but as soon as I played it I thought, this is great. It sounded so live, so electric, more so than anything I'd ever played. From then on it was always number one.

My style evolved around that guitar. I suppose my favorite is my '53 Tele.

More than any other guitar, the Telecaster seems to have fostered a whole school of players such as yourself, Roy Buchanan, and James Burton. It's almost as if the Telecaster has a language all its own.

That style just doesn't sound right on another guitar. I'll get really frustrated sometimes and dig out the Strat or my Les Paul and take it along to a gig, and I'll think, ah, shit, I wish I'd brought the Tele.

Even though the others have great characters of their own, you develop a style on a Tele you don't develop on another guitar.

Do you prefer a maple fingerboard over rosewood?

I haven't really found that much difference, although I know a lot of people have. I wish I still had my old rosewood-neck Tele, but I always wanted the older maple-neck kind because it looked so neat with a line running down the back of the neck.

When they first started importing Fenders to England in about 1960, you didn't see anything like the maple-neck Teles. You only saw them in photographs and on album covers.

That's why I just went crazy when I first came to the States – I just had to have a '50s Tele and a Strat as well. I finally got myself a Buddy Holly type sunburst Strat.

Do you find it difficult to go from one guitar to another?

I can adjust. I'll try and play licks that I would only play on the Tele and just don't sound the same on the Strat. You have to tailor your playing accordingly.

Moving to an acoustic guitar also takes some adjustments. I really like to practice on acoustic myself, and I don't do too much practicing at home on electric guitar.

On the Telecaster, do you play on the lead pickup most of the time?

All of the time. Sometimes for really honking rock and roll I'll put it out of phase for that funky sound. I love that sound. I've just put a phase switch in – that's about the only thing I've done to it.

Of all the different pickups that you've tried, have you found any that you like better than the stock Fenders?

Not really. They're all good in their own way, but there's something about the fatness and the inherent distortion in these old pickups. It's frightening to me, really – if anything happened to my '53 Tele I don't know what I'd do.

It gives you a feeling of insecurity when you're relying on something that isn't made anymore.

I know a lot of guys who'd probably disagree with me, especially Seymour Duncan. He'd say, "I could build something exactly the same or even better."

What do you think about the vintage guitar market?

It's real sad that there are people around who do it just for money. I see a lot of it on the road with Eric [Clapton] because people come along with primo guitars and just want the earth for them. They know that people like Eric can afford it, although he's stopped buying.

There are still a lot of guys who keep buying them. It's all right if you can afford it, but it's hard for people who really need these instruments.

I can't believe how much my '53 Tele is worth now. You can pay $1,500.00 for a real good one. I paid about $350.00 for it in 1972. I suppose that was a lot then.

Browse Albert Lee's catalog here.

Roy Buchanan (1939-1988) built a cult following, largely comprised of other guitar players.

His distinctive, whining blues licks used to pack venues with what can only be called worshippers.

Buchanan's allure has little to do with stage production or cosmetic appeal, however; he dished it all out with his fingers and a well-worn Fender Telecaster.

Here are five of his best tips for guitarists gleaned from the Guitar Player archive…

1) Mimic Other Instruments

“It's a good idea to listen to other instruments, like a saxophone, and duplicate the notes. It's a different feel, a different attack and rhythm. 

"Drums, I've gotten a lot of licks off of drummers. And bass players, singers – especially scatting – anything that makes you expand.”

2) Play the Field

“I used to jump from group to group at the drop of a hat. I just liked to play with different guys, different fields of music. It helped me, because every band I played with was another challenge. 

"I used to play with a lot of horn groups, and there wouldn't be any other chord man but me. I really learned rhythm guitar.”

3) Raise It Up

“I like to wear my guitar high. Les Paul used to do the same thing, wearing it up like a bib. We used to wonder why he didn't wear it low and look cool like the rest of us. But he was playing a hundred times better guitar than we were. 

"So I started raising mine up, and I understood. Everything's right there. You can get your wrist around, see everything, and it's like having it in your lap.”

4) Tension & Release

“I think the whole thing comes down to creating tension in your playing, using different volumes, working a scale from top to bottom, or bottom to top, and planning ahead a little. 

"I set the listener up with something simple to get his attention, then proceed to develop it. I have to beat the licks I've done just before in order to reach a musical climax.”

5) One Note Wonder

“Sometimes it boils down to one note. One note can be as effective as dozens. Somehow – and this may sound farfetched – I have the feeling that all notes are contained in one. 

"And if it's played with feeling, the reason it has such an effect on everybody is because it does have the other notes somewhere in it. It's the old "bring-the-house-down-with-one-note" thing. I've seen guitar battles won with one note.”

Browse the Roy Buchanan catalog here.

On his 2021 release, See That Light, L.A. blues legend and Mavis Staples guitarist Rick Holmstrom began to address the insanity of the current climate.

“Everybody’s staring at a screen, but we can’t see what’s in front of us,” he writes in one lyric. But on January 6 of that year, while waiting for See That Light to come out, the world became exponentially crazier.

“The news was driving me batty, so I started getting together with the guys, just playing and recording,” Holmstrom says.

“We were looking ahead to when we could get back together, have barbecues and listen to music. We were not thinking about anything other than entertaining ourselves and then being thrilled when we heard the playback. With the other record not yet released, it was nuts to be doing this, but it felt so good.”

Holmstrom, along with Staples’ bandmates Steve Mugalian on drums and Gregory Boaz on bass, found themselves quickly churning out Get It! (LuEllie Records), a record of short guitar instrumentals that hark back to the heyday of the Meters and Freddie King.

For this rapid release, the guitarist favored a small tube amp. “I used my Valco-made Bronson with one 10-inch field-coil speaker, two 6V6 power tubes and octal preamp tubes,” the guitarist says.

“It is the Valco equivalent of a tweed Fender Harvard. I used it with a reverb tank and an SIB Electronics Echodrive delay pedal set for just a hint of slapback. It was recorded with a Shure SM57 up close and a condenser mic a few feet away from the amp. When you hear tremolo, it is a tweed Fender Tremolux.

“I like amps that have the bias tremolo. You can set the depth to a sweet spot, where you can hear it but it’s not such a choppy, on/off sound. It’s a little greasier and more organic.”

Most of the tracks were recorded in Mugalian’s garage on a Zoom multitrack recorder.

“I mixed the record at Pacifica, a low-budget studio where I did many of my earlier blues albums,” he recalls.

“We did a lot of re-amping. We would put the whole drum kit through a guitar amp, and do the same thing to the guitar. We took the recorded Shure SM57 mic track from the Valco and ran it back through a Fender Tremolux or Vibrolux, just barely on, with two stereo condenser mics placed six or seven feet away from the amp.

"We would just put a taste of that track into the mix to add a bit more air, because the garage sounded kind of claustrophobic.”

Air is a crucial part of Holmstrom’s sound.

Though initially not a fan of the trio format, he eventually became fond of the intimate thing that happens when three people perform together.

“You throw a fourth person in and it changes everything,” he says.

Many guitarists, recording or playing in a trio scenario, would attempt to fill the space with distortion, flurries of notes or overdubs.

But while he’s adept at a style that lets him often play rhythm and lead simultaneously, Holmstrom is also unafraid of space.

“My friend and mentor Junior Watson came to see one of my first trio gigs in Long Beach,” he relates. “He said, ‘Man, the way you used space was great. You just hit a chord and let it ring out.’ I think it sounded good to do that because the room was so lively. I started doing it more often.”

The guitar on most of the record is Holmstrom’s 1953 Fender Telecaster that he has dubbed the Mariachi, but some of the dirtier tunes, like “Pour One Out” and “King Freddie,” feature his 1955 Gibson Les Paul Special.

It sports a push/pull pot on the bridge pickup tone knob that throws the two pickups out of phase for that vintage blues guitar honk.

“It’s a TV model that has been refinished,” he explains. “It’s got all kinds of stuff wrong with it, which scared away the collectors. That’s the only reason I could afford to buy it.”

The track “G for Junior” references Watson, a master of the West Coast swing shuffle. Holmstrom demonstrates that the pupil has learned well, while making the style his own. Here, he exhibits a grittier Telecaster tone, turning the amp up and driving it with the tube preamp of the SIB.

Though it may appear that he is playing exclusively with his fingers, the guitarist actually has a pick clutched between his first and second digits at all times.

“It started when I was playing with William Clark,” he explains. “Guys like Smokey Wilson, Philip Walker and others would come down after work, wearing their mechanics uniforms. Sometimes they would get up and play with us. I saw that none of them had picks.

“Maybe someone like Jimmy Rogers would have a thumb pick and some other pick on his finger, but most of what I was hearing from these old guys was the flesh of their fingers. I started trying to do that more, but I wouldn’t put the pick down.

“It somehow just migrated into my fingers; I didn’t even think about it. I sometimes use it when I’m playing rhythm or when I need to be cleaner, louder or faster.”

Another Holmstrom trademark is how his body motion seems so integrated into his playing. According to him, it’s connected to his listening process, and his first concern: rhythm. “That’s something I’ve been doing ever since I started playing,” he says.

“It’s like I’m off somewhere else listening to the groove of the whole group, and I’m definitely very rhythm conscious.

“I’ve been working with a metronome for many years, because a drummer I was playing with when I was younger told me, ‘You need to get a metronome, set it on two and four and make the music swing like crazy, or you’re wasting your time.’ I’m trying to do that.”

For Holmstrom, one advantage of lockdown was the opportunity to dive deep into the details and nuances of his guitar playing. A record he has been studying is Little Milton’s Chess album Sings Big Blues, which features chestnuts like “Sweet Sixteen” and the Milton classic “Feel so Bad.”

“Junior Watson told me in the late ’80s to get that record and practice along with it,” Holmstrom says. “I put it on a year or two ago, when all this started. I’d forgotten how much stuff I’d picked up from Milton. But there are some things I had learned wrong. Like, sometimes it’s not the flat seven but the sixth, bent up.”

He also began to examine the pick-up notes leading to the downbeat.

“I started to hear that on the Little Milton record,” he explains. “Then I went back to Freddie King and all these other people I was into in my early 20s and realized it’s the feel of the pick-up notes that makes it.”

For years, Holmstrom has been known as a blues master, and rightly so, but he is much more. Even at his “bluesiest,” he separates himself from many of the genre’s current generation by eschewing any hint of a Stevie Ray Vaughan influence, or cranking up the distortion to blues-rock levels.

Instead he exhibits excellence in lesser-exposed styles, like West Coast swing, Slim Harpo funk and Lightnin’ Hopkins’ down-and-dirty one-man band approach.

On the other end of the spectrum, he has pushed the tradition’s envelope by adding hip-hop production techniques to his 2007 release, Hydraulic Groove.

All of the above has been absorbed into a personal approach and sound that is instantly recognizable.

In more recent times, Holmstrom has added a deep knowledge and feel for gospel to his arsenal, with more songs reflecting the gentle, almost country lope of some of the early church styles.

“For many years, Mavis and her sister Yvonne would sit behind us while our band did a little instrumental section,” Holmstrom says. “I used to play the gospel tune ‘Oh, Mary Don’t, You Weep.’ I was knocked out by the Swan Silvertones’ version.

“Sometimes, I might not know what I felt like doing and would look over at Mavis for inspiration. She’d go, ‘You know what I want.’ ‘Oh Mary’ is a gospel feel with brushes or light sticks and a lot of air.”

The final song on Get It! – “Walking With Diane” – reflects this aspect of the guitarist’s playing.

“That song is about my mom, and I was trying to write something that would convey the feeling of thinking about her,” he says.

“I don’t know what you call the style. I just try to think of melodies and ways to play simple groove stuff without words. Most of this record is about fun. I’m sick of all of the existential, post-apocalyptic doom. I just want to have a funky good time. That’s all this record is.”

Order Get It! by Rick Holmstrom here.

After recording Spoon’s previous few albums on the East and West coasts, guitarist, songwriter and frontman Britt Daniel decided it was time to head home to Austin, Texas, where he started the band with drummer Jim Eno three decades ago.

The results were immediate.

“The Hardest Cut,” the first song written after the band returned to Texas, is the hardest-rocking tune in the Spoon catalog. Built on a boogie rhythm inspired by ZZ Top and a deceptively simple riff, and featuring a blistering solo from co-guitarist Gerardo Larios, “The Hardest Cut” set the tone for Lucifer on the Sofa (Matador).

Recorded at Eno’s studio, the sessions were marked by spontaneity, as heard throughout the album. The final takes include pre-song noodling, and that’s Daniel calling out section-change instructions to his bandmates in the middle of “Held,” the muscular Smog cover that opens the album.

“We tried to track live whenever we could,” Daniel says. “That was the sound we wanted. It’s a real band playing. I don’t know if that’s en vogue, but that’s what we wanted to do.”

Daniel shares guitar duties with Larios and multi-instrumentalist Alex Fischel, who rip the dueling guitar solos on “Satellite,” but Daniel’s right hand is the secret to the Spoon sound.

Somehow both tightly wound and loose at once, Daniel sculpts the album’s hard-rocking, post-punk riffs and soulful segues with precision, always in lockstep with Eno.

Lucifer on the Sofa is a raw rock and roll record made by guys who grew up worshipping artists like Prince and PJ Harvey.

“PJ Harvey was the sound,” he admits. “When we were starting out, that was it. She had just put out Rid of Me and that was the sound I was going for, for sure.” 

Daniel joined us to talk through the influences and gear – including his signature Fender Telecaster Thinline – he used to shape Lucifer on the Sofa.

Spoon had been a West Coast band for a decade. How did moving back to Austin influence Lucifer on the Sofa?

It was a reaction to how we made the last few records. I made a lot of [2010’s] Transference alone at home in Portland because I finally had a studio of my own in my house.

And I learned that I could do that, but it wasn’t as much fun as recording with other people. We wanted to make a record in Austin because we could do it at our own pace.

But more than that, it’s a town where there’s a lot going on. You can go out and see Dale Watson, come back home and write a song that takes some of that energy, or go see bands at the Hotel Vegas and use that kind of energy.

Your specialty is memorable, single-note riffs instead of chords. How did your style develop?

For me, it’s about establishing a rhythm and a feel with my right hand and knowing there’s usually going to be someone who can do something more technical as a lead. But for me, it’s the rhythm. That’s just what I’m good at. A good chunk of writing a song is knowing what that rhythm is going to be – that feel.

You’ve stayed in that ballpark, but Spoon’s sound has mushroomed around it.

It’s a rhythmic style. It’s not super technical. The way I started playing was I got a Beatles songbook, because I knew most Beatles songs. I would just sit there with that songbook and learn chord after chord.

I would learn a lot of Led Zeppelin songs, too, but I was not interested in the solos as much as what he was playing on those acoustic guitar parts or the main riffs.

I learned the entire “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You,” that picking style, just from getting a record and backing the needle up, over and over again, as I listened for what was going on with each string he was playing. That takes a long time, but I had nothing but time when I was 16.

“The Hardest Cut” was the first tune written when the band reconvened in Austin. What do you think was inspiring you then?

We had just gotten off the road. I came in to Austin, and then Alex came in behind me, drove in from California. But I saw ZZ Top for the first time in 2019. I’d had some records when I was a kid, but I’d never done a deep dive. And I went deep after I saw them.

Then I saw their documentary [2019’s ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas], and that was just another thing that made me invest a lot of time in learning a lot more about their catalog.

The creamy overdrive tone after the chorus really pops out. What did you use to get that?

Yeah, the gnarly part. I don’t even remember. I think it just came to me, and it’s funny that part gets singled out a lot when I’m talking to people, not only reviewers but also fans or friends. For me, it was always the part where the drums dropped out. That was all it was. But, yeah, I guess it does something kind of cool.

Did you go in any directions with gear that you normally wouldn’t?

We think about it a lot, especially when we’re doing overdubs. If we’re tracking live, we’re usually just going to track with whatever we happen to be playing as we’re setting up.

But I used my own Fender Telecaster Thinline a lot on this record, and, funny enough, I used a tiny Vox Pathfinder as the main guitar amp.

Every now and then I’d use something bigger, but there was something about the sound of that amp. It somehow replicates that AC30 British Invasion tone with just this one little speaker.

Fender debuted your signature Thinline Tele in 2019. What’s different about your model?

I had been playing Thinlines for a long time, so when they asked me to design one, I came up with a combo of the best parts of the few that I already had, in terms of not only its looks but also its sound.

I went through tons of pickups until I found something that had this sort of snarl and bite. The thing I really like about Thinlines is you get that sound even more than on a regular Telecaster.

You get even more of that sort of scraping sound of the pick hitting the strings. And for a guitar player like me, who’s all about the right hand, that’s a big bonus. It’s just another degree of being expressive with my right hand.

Grab a copy of Lucifer on the Sofa here.

The guitar players who most influenced Browan Lollar serve as bookends of a sort. In style and tone, the guitarist for horn-heavy soul purveyors St. Paul and the Broken Bones hangs out somewhere between Steve Cropper and Radiohead, and never more so than on his band’s latest album, The Alien Coast (ATO).

“I’m so impressed with somebody like [Radiohead’s] Jonny Greenwood or Ed O’Brien, because those guys were guitar players in the biggest band on Earth,” he explains. “Then they were like, ‘We don’t want to be a guitar band anymore; we want to be an electronic band.’”

Lollar says he and his bandmates can relate, although he’s reluctant to make the comparison.

“Our band is sort of at the same point, where we’re like, ‘We don’t want to make that type of music or be known for one type of music,’” says the guitarist, who previously played in Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit band in the early aughts.

“We want to explore and really press ourselves. I find myself thinking about those guys a lot and what they would do in certain situations.”

After forming in Birmingham, Alabama in 2012, the octet became darlings of the festival and club circuits for its throwback look and sound. It didn’t take long for the band members to grow out of their matching suits, though.

Once their experimental streak began to show, they tugged on that thread and kept pulling it forward.

“A lot of times, especially these days, we’ll bring in something that’s totally written on a synthesizer,” Lollar says. 

Once the other band members get ahold of an idea, though, that synth phrase could end up as a guitar riff or horn blast. And for Lollar, that’s the fun of it. 

On the eve of releasing The Alien Coast, he talked with us about finding his place in an eight-piece band and coming of age in a music town with a backstory all its own.

You grew up near FAME Recording Studio. What was it like to develop around so many great musicians?

I lived over in Florence, which is just across the river from Fame. Everybody knew exactly what Fame had done back in the day.

I grew up going to bars and seeing people like Kelvin Holly, who was Little Richard’s guitar player for a long time, play to people who were just ignoring them. I thought you had to be that good to play at a bar.

Years later, after I started touring, I realized how special what we have there is.

How did your early recording sessions impact you as a young player?

We recorded the Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit [2009] record at FAME. That was the first time I’d actually been able to set up camp in there with a band, where we had the studio for a week and got to move in.

It was also my first real opportunity to get into the studio with all the toys and have time to experiment and do things that Jason didn’t have planned out before going into the studio. I still think about that session a lot.

Which players were you most impressed by growing up?

I loved Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler, and people from the old style of playing. Then I got into more band-oriented players like Steve Cropper and David Gilmour. I felt those players knew their role and the spot in the music they needed to fill, and they filled it perfectly.

Steve Cropper isn’t flashy, but he would come in with a really raw sound. It was just crazy to me how he was able to make that Telecaster sound work in that setting.

For a long time I’ve been interested in guitar as an instrument that adds to a band instead of overtakes it, especially with St. Paul and the Broken Bones, because we’ve got so much stuff going on, and it’s so important to be dynamic in the band.

How did you find your place in such a large ensemble?

I had to discover that I didn’t have to go in there and be “guitar guy” and come up with riffs and stuff. When we first started, before [2014’s] Half the City, I told the guys I didn’t want to take a bunch of guitar solos. I didn’t think that this band needed to be a guitar solo-y band.

At that point in my life, I was pretty tired of it. I just wanted to focus on writing songs. Luckily, it doesn’t really lend itself to that, anyway.

Do you lean on any music theory tips or lessons to find complementary notes to what the horns are playing?

Very little. I’m the one guy in the band that isn’t great at music theory. I know it enough to have a grudging respect, because I have to. All our horn players can just spout the stuff off, and Al [Gamble], too, our organ player. I know what works and doesn’t over a certain chord.

What do you find most challenging about playing in this band?

There’s eight guys onstage, okay? All the low-frequency stuff is organ and bass. All the mid- to high-frequency stuff is pretty much covered by the horns, and all the high-frequency stuff with our singer.

Where does that leave the guitar player? For a long time, I was experimenting to find what kind of guitar tone really suited us.

Where did that journey take you?

I went from a [Gibson] ES-335 to an old [Gibson] Trini Lopez that I really love. It didn’t really work, though, so I went to a [Fender] Jazzmaster and finally settled on a [Southside Custom Guitars] T-style, because it’s got that Steve Cropper thing where it kind of threads the needle between all those other very rounded, beautiful instruments.

You’ve been upheld as a plug-and-play guitar player. Considering how far out you get on The Alien Coast, has that reputation held?

Yeah. Actually, it’s gotten a little better. When we fly, we’ve got 1,000 bags to get from point A to point B. Right now on my pedalboard, I’ve got one of those Cry Baby Mini Wahs, and I really like it a lot.

I’ve got a Boss ES-5 multi-effects processor; that’s what I use for flange and a little bit of echo. That goes into a Strata reverb pedal, and from there I go out.

I don’t have a lot of pedals because I have to focus on what I’m playing with my hands. If I start tap dancing too much, I can’t play well.

Your playing in this band is well suited to a combo amp. What are you using?

For a long time, I was playing the Supro Thunderbolt Plus, but our horn player Allen [Branstetter] is playing a lot of secondary guitar parts on the new record, and he’s going through the Thunderbolt now, and I’ve moved back over to a Fender Twin.

I can’t seem to get away from a Fender amp. Most of the time, if it’s not a Fender amp, I’m just trying to make it sound like a Fender amp.

As a band, it sounds like you threw out the rule book this time.

We have been evolving in that way ever since the second record. With this album, we asked about every single part of this record, “Does this song need this?” We didn’t just throw guitar on a track if it didn’t need it, and honestly that went for anything.

There’s barely any horns. We really just wanted it to be a challenge for us. We wanted it to be out of our comfort zone.

Order The Alien Coast here.

As Gene Parsons recalled, it was at a 1967 session that inspiration struck for creation of the B-Bender, a mechanical device that pulls an electric guitar’s B string a step sharp to facilitate the weeping sound of a pedal steel.

Parsons and guitarist Clarence White would both join the Byrds’ ever-changing lineup the following year as drummer and guitarist, respectively. But on this day they were performing on sessions for a never-released album by country artists Vern and Rex Gosdin when White needed an extra hand to bend a string – likely the B or high E – behind the nut as he played a harmonic.

“And then he wanted to do it at the second position and the third position,” recalled Parsons, a multi-instrumentalist who played guitar, banjo, pedal steel and drums. “‘He said, ‘Gee, I wish I could do that, but I’d need a third hand!’”

Parsons volunteered his, and the take was soon completed. Afterward, Parsons, a former machinist, set his mind on devising a mechanism that could pull a string sharp on demand and return it to pitch.

His first attempt using a pedal prompted White to complain, “If I wanted to play pedal steel, I’d play pedal steel!” On White’s advice, Parsons devised a pull-string mechanism comprising a system of levers, fulcrums and springs that could smoothly raise the pitch of the B string by up to a full step and return it to pitch simply by pushing the neck down and releasing it.

The key was the upper-bout strap button, which toggled and served as the system activator.

Parsons’ original design used parts from a pedal steel that he’d attached to the back of White’s 1954 Fender Telecaster and covered with a wooden frame and Masonite board, doubling the body’s depth. Later designs were sleeker and fit inside routings on the back of the body.

Parsons went on to retrofit them to order and licensed the design to Dave Evans, who made mods of his own.

Among the guitarists to adopt the B-Bender are Albert Lee (used on countless tunes), Jimmy Page (“All of My Love” and “Ten Years Gone”), Bernie Leadon (the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeeling”) and Marty Stuart, who owns White’s original modified ’54 Tele, which he calls Clarence.

Variations on the design have endured, including models like the Hipshot B-Bender that require no modification, and even double- and triple-benders for G, B and high-E strings.

The original Lord of Loud, Pete Townshend was on a mission in 1965 to have the most potent sonic weapon he could unleash on the audience and be heard over Keith Moon’s drumming.

The guitarist had also realized it was much easier to hear himself and get controllable electric guitar feedback when his speakers were elevated to ear level.

So he went to Jim Marshall and asked the amp maker to build an 8x12 cabinet to use with the new 100-watt amps Marshall had recently developed at Pete’s urging.

Since Marshall had already created a 4x12 to use with the JTM-45 head, his solution was to build a straight-front 4x12 and sit the angled-front cab (model 1960A) on top of it.

But Pete wanted one cabinet with all eight 12s in it. Told the cabinet would be despised by the roadies for its weight, Townshend snarled, “Sod ’em, they get paid.”

Marshall made him four 8x12 cabinets, each one open-back on the top half and closed-back on the lower.

After a couple of weeks on the road, Townshend returned and admitted Marshall had been right. He accepted the angled cab atop a straight cabinet, and the “stack” was born.

Townshend and Who bassist John Entwhistle were the biggest buyers of the towering Marshall rigs until a misunderstanding caused them to jump ship to Hiwatt.

But that’s another story.

In this live clip featured in a 1966 promo interview filmed at Townshend’s London flat, the guitarist can be seen pummeling his Marshall during one of the Who's notoriously riotous shows. Note the angled speaker cabinet and black block logo of Townshend's model T1959 100-watt heads, as seen on Marshall amps dating between 1964-1965.

“I used to get feedback on the guitar which is this big whining noise,” recalls Townshend, “We used to smash the guitar into the amplifier which made a bang… Ever since then I’ve always smashed up guitars. It gets bigger and bigger.”

This is a 1952 Fender Esquire that is factory-fitted with two pickups. Interestingly enough, ‘Esquire’ is not indicated on the back of the neck heel or on the body; usually, it would say “esq” in either of those places.

I’ve seen eight or so double-pickup Esquires from this era and this is the only one I’ve ever seen that isn’t marked as one. It doesn’t say it on the neck or the body, so my feeling on this particular guitar is that there are two possibilities: one, somebody bought an Esquire and ordered the $15 [neck] pickup option; or, two, the guitar went through [production] and was somehow decaled incorrectly.

It could have gone either way, but I tend to believe that this guitar was decaled incorrectly. Only because I strongly feel it would have been marked as an Esquire on the body and on the neck heel – not where the date is written [on the end] but on the back part of the neck where it mates with the body in the pocket.

This guitar is pristine. I mean, it’s in the top two per cent of any I’ve ever seen. I think it was played a little bit but not that much. Otherwise, it was kept away in the case. The hardware is in great condition – it’s so shiny, undisturbed, unpitted and unlined you would think they made it yesterday.

There’s a teeny bit of wear on the pickguard about the size of a half-dollar coin, and I think that’s just from normal pick work. To me, it looks like a ‘three-lesson guitar’.

There’s a little bit of a flame on the neck, and the back of the body is mint. It’s really very beautiful, as is the original thermometer case. It’s a fantastic instrument.

It has a one-piece ash body, which is pretty cool, and it plays very well, too. I mean the frets have zero wear on them. It is truly an under-the-bed kind of instrument. And it’s an anomaly. You know, I like those types of electric guitars – I like guitars you can’t see anywhere else.

Most people would think this guitar looks strange, but we obviously black-lit the decal and did all of our normal in-depth analysis to verify its originality. And it’s pristine. There’s absolutely no reason to think anything’s been changed whatsoever.

Of course, we really went through the guitar very carefully, and I’m pleased to say that what we have here is an amazing example of an original two-pickup Blackguard Esquire. It’s pretty remarkable.

Before the Broadcaster came out [in 1950] there was the Esquire [released earlier in 1950] and that could be ordered with either one or two pickups. The two-pickup model was referred to as a Dual Esquire.

People continued to order an additional pickup for their Esquire guitars, even after the Broadcaster became available. I think the charge was $15 including installation.

The factory would basically convert the single-pickup Esquire into a Dual Esquire. But the work was done at Fender before the guitar was delivered new, so it’s not like customers sent the guitars back afterwards to be changed.

Once the Broadcaster came along, that kind of goes away, except for some rare examples where people had already ordered a second pickup on their Esquire. Usually, people would place an order through their local music store.

The solder is original to the guitar, no pickup was added and, again, it’s not marked ‘esq’. That’s important to note because, to my mind, that’s pretty much defining that this guitar should have been a Telecaster.

Everything was factory-fitted at Fender, including the regular two-pickup ’guard; it hasn’t been cut to fit a second pickup later on. 

You sometimes see that, but you can always tell when an Esquire pickguard has been cut into a Telecaster-style pickguard.

This is just a standard black Tele ’guard, and the wiring is just the same as a Telecaster of the era where it’s no longer a blend knob – it has a regular tone knob.

Even when you work the controls it feels brand-new as they’re not dirty or crusty. It was kept in perfect climate conditions.

It plays well, which is an interesting thing when guitars aren’t used very much. I’ve seen plenty of clean guitars that don’t play well, but a guitar that’s very dirty almost always plays well. 

You have a 50:50 shot on a clean guitar – and this one also happens to play good!

It’s a pretty neat piece. It always amazes me when I see guitars like this. You don’t see things like this every day. And that’s exactly the sort of thing we love to do at Well Strung Guitars.

Vintage guitar veteran David Davidson owns Well Strung Guitars in Farmingdale, New York.

info@wellstrungguitars.com / 001 (516) 221-0563

• Upgrade your Tele tone with the best Telecaster pickups

This is a 1958 Fender Precision Bass. It has a white transparent blond finish over an ash body with a solid maple neck. It comes with its original tweed case and a matching 1958 Fender Bassman amplifier – both in impeccable condition.

This bass has a gold anodized pickguard, which Leo Fender started using in 1954 on special orders. They thought a metallic pickguard had good shielding properties, but the 60-cycle hum continued to be a problem.

In ’59, the [gold anodized] pickguard was replaced by the more familiar tortoiseshell [cellulose nitrate] ’guard and rosewood ’boards became standard.

In the late '50s, a variety of custom colors were available, but the regular Precision Bass finish was sunburst, moving from a two- to three-tone sunburst in February 1958.

This beautiful guitar has had two owners before me, both of whom are still alive. The instrument was originally purchased in Vermont. And it has virtually no wear at all. The case and the amp, too – they have barely a scuff.

The headstock and neck are completely straight, and it’s never needed any fret-dressing or filing. A lot of the time on these instruments the headstock will lean [forwards] because of the tension on the neck over the years. But this P-Bass has been stored properly.

It even has the original Fender flat-wound strings that it was shipped with. Suffice to say it’s in virtually ‘as new’ condition.  

The original receipt shows it was bought along with the [narrow panel 50-watt/4x10 tweed] ’58 Bassman from the same store. It was a ‘swimming supply and music store’. Back in the day, travelling salesmen would walk into stores and ask, ‘Would you be interested in selling Fender instruments?’ That’s kind of how things happened back then.

I’m not really old enough to remember stores like that, but I’ve seen many receipts over the years that had a mixture of different types of businesses under one roof, like furniture stores that also sold Gibson instruments, for example.  

The blond/ash body, maple neck and gold anodized ’guard spec P-Basses are kind of the Holy Grail pieces for some people. As are the Stratocasters. In fact, I recently sold a blond ’56 with a black anodized pickguard.

The [1957] prototype Jazzmaster was a Desert Sand finish with a black anodized pickguard. And I personally own an early ’59 Stratocaster with an anodized ’guard and Fullerton Red finish – the predecessor to Fiesta Red.

It’s very Pee Wee Crayton-looking. His was also Fullerton Red, although people often call it Fiesta Red. ’59 was the year Fender transitioned to Fiesta Red.  

This P-Bass is one of the scarce colored ones you’ll see from the era. Blond Fender guitars have an ash body, even after they switched to using alder in ’56, because the grain just looks so much better.

And with the gold ’guard it’s a super, super look, although I love them with tortoiseshell ’guards, too.

Blond is such a great color. There’s something specific about ’57 and early ’58 blond finishes; it’s a very white blond and very translucent looking.

If you look at, say, an earlier Blackguard, it’ll probably have much more of a honeyed color, and if you look at a ’59, they have much more white in the color and are less translucent. On this guitar, you can see the ash grain as if you’re looking through a slightly foggy window.

It made sense for Fender to move the P-Bass design away from the original slab-body ‘Telecaster’ bass to the Stratocaster-style contoured body [in 1954].

The Stratocaster was very popular in the late 50s – way more popular than the Tele. When the P-Bass changed again in ’57 [to also include a Strat-style headstock] it was because of the Stratocaster.

Similarly, the Jazz Bass [released in 1960] exists because the Jazzmaster’s offset body design was such a huge hit after it came out in ’58. By 1960, that was their number one-selling electric guitar, so they figured their next bass should mimic the look of the Jazzmaster.

Fender basses kind of followed that logic. Then, of course, the offset VI came out in ’61, followed by the Jaguar in ’62.  

I think the P-Bass is the quintessential rock ’n’ roll bass. The split-pickup design was a really interesting thing to do at the time [from 1957]: the location of the pickup on the body and the way it accentuates the bass in the lower two strings, while the coil for the higher two strings that sits further back towards the bridge gives it its unique voicing.

They even carried that split-pickup design on to the Electric XII model [released in 1965].  

The Jazz Bass pickups maybe do more tricks, but the P-Bass is often the instrument of choice for the person who wants that real thump and bottom-end.

That’s what makes the Precision Bass special for so many.

Vintage guitar veteran David Davidson owns Well Strung Guitars in Farmingdale, New York.

info@wellstrungguitars.com / 001 (516) 221- 0563

For '50s-era guitarists who would soon be playing rock and roll, the Fender Telecaster hit the music industry with the impact of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Leo Fender's so-called "plank" ushered in the era of the commercially successful solidbody – echoing the immense industrial and social impact of Henry Ford's Model T. While Ford was never one of Fender's idols, the car maker bestowed the wonders of the automobile upon the masses by standardizing a sound design, streamlining production techniques, and lowering costs.

Likewise, Fender's "Model T" – initially called the Esquire, then the Broadcaster, and finally the Telecaster – was a powerful, affordable tool that helped a vast community of working guitarists ignite a cultural revolution.

The tumult was so far-reaching that Gibson was compelled to introduce the Les Paul to compete with the Tele – and Leo himself was inspired to develop the Stratocaster in an attempt to make its older sibling obsolete.

These three models are still modern music's most important guitars – and they all have Leo Fender's 1949 "standard guitar" prototype to thank for kick-starting their enduring glory.

THE ARCHTOP ERA

As twilight fell on the Big Band era toward the end of World War II, small combos playing boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues, western swing, and honky-tonk formed throughout the United States.

Many of these outfits embraced the electric guitar because it could give a few players the power of an entire horn section.

Pickup-equipped archtops had reigned in these late-'40s dance bands, but the increasing popularity of roadhouses and dance halls created a growing need for louder, cheaper, and more durable axes.

Players also needed faster necks and better intonation to play what the country boys called "take-off lead guitar," and Rickenbacker Bakelites and other '30s-era solidbodies failed to deliver.

Custom-made solidbodies such as Merle Travis' Bigsby – as well as kitchen-table contraptions like Les Paul's "Log" – pointed in the right direction, but were beyond the means of the average player.

The demand for better electric guitars was as obvious as their reality was elusive.

ENTER LEO FENDER

Fender recognized the vast potential for an electric guitar that was easy to hold, easy to tune, and easy to play.

He also recognized that players needed guitars that would not feed back at dance hall volumes like the typical archtop. (Many guitarists had to stuff rags into their elegantly crafted guitars to stop the howling.)

In addition, Fender sought a tone that would command attention on the bandstand and cut through the noise in a bar.

By 1949, he had conceptualized the perfect tone – a clear, bell-like sound with distinct highs and lows, but devoid of muddled midrange frequencies that Fender considered "fluff" – and began working in earnest on what would become the first Telecaster at the Fender factory in Fullerton, California.

Although he never admitted it, Fender seemed to base his practical design on the Rickenbacker Bakelite. One of the Rickenbacker's strong points – a detachable neck that made it easy to make and service – was not lost on Fender, who was a master at improving already established designs. (He once said, "It isn't a radically different thing that becomes a success; it is the thing that offers an improvement on an already proven item.")

Not surprisingly, his first prototype was a single-pickup guitar with a detachable hard rock maple neck and a pine body painted white. The seeds of revolution were sown.

THE ESQUIRE

Don Randall, who managed Fender's distributor, the Radio & Television Equipment Company, recognized the commercial possibilities of the new design and made plans to introduce the instrument as the Esquire Model. (Although Randall – the company's de facto namesmith – gave the Esquire its moniker, Fender supported the name, saying that it "sounded regal and implied a certain distinction above other guitars.")

In April 1950, Radio-Tel started promoting the Esquire – the first Fender 6-string officially introduced to the public. The company prepared its Catalog No. 2, picturing a black single-pickup Esquire with a tweed form-fit case.

Another picture showed Jimmy Wyble of Spade Cooley's band holding a blonde Esquire. These debut models, with a planned retail price of $139.95, exhibited the utilitarian shape of thousands of Fender guitars to come.

"The Esquire guitar features a new style of construction which vastly improves the useability of this type of instrument," Randall wrote. The claim was further embellished by stating that the guitar could be played "at extreme volume," and that the fast neck was an aid to easy fretting.

Randall added, "The neck is also replaceable and can be changed by the owner in approximately ten minutes time. This feature eliminates costly repairs and refretting."

Fender believed that the neck was strong enough to resist warping without a trussrod. If a neck did warp, he planned to mail the customer a new one in a shipping tube.

Unfortunately, the necks didn't turn out to be as tough as Fender claimed. Randall reported that the necks on his samples had warped badly while traveling to the 1950 summer trade shows, and asked that the new guitars be outfitted with reinforced necks.

Initially, Fender had been contentious about the extra effort it would take to design and manufacture reinforced necks, but then a test guitar in his lab suffered the same problem.

Faced with mounting evidence that his guitar truly needed a reinforced neck, Fender bought a routing plate to install trussrods on October 3, 1950.

Randall's primary marketing ploy was to establish the Esquire in music instruction studios, reasoning that the affordable, practical guitar would be a hot commodity in those circles. In addition, a healthy response for the one-pickup version would prime the market for the more expensive two-pickup model that Fender already had in mind.

In fact, Fender's choice of a 3-position lever switch – which allowed three distinct guitar tones – probably coincided with his plans to add a rhythm pickup.

Fortunately, the Esquire's body design easily lent itself to both one- and two-pickup configurations. Ultimately, all production models had cavities routed for two pickups because Fender wanted players to have the option of adding a pickup in the future. (The one-pickup models hid an empty cavity under the pickguard.)

The two-pickup Esquires were manufactured with the second (rhythm) pickup positioned under the strings near the end of the fingerboard. Fender shielded the rhythm pickup with a metal cover to cut high harmonics and to emphasize fundamental tones.

A handy blend control knob mixed the rhythm pickup signal with that of the lead pickup when the pickup selector was in its lead position.

Putting the selector in the middle position activated the rhythm pickup alone.

In the forward position, the rhythm pickup was also selected, but along with a capacitor that rolled off high frequencies. (Fender called this sound "deep rhythm," and reasoned that guitarists could use the position to play bass lines.)

Dual-pickup Fender guitars featured these same electronics until 1952.

Although the single-pickup guitars used capacitors to mimic the mellow sound of a rhythm pickup, the real thing sounded better. Jimmy Bryant, who epitomized the new wave of postwar electric-guitar wizards, liked the jazzier sound of the dual-pickup guitar, as did Fender himself.

THE BROADCASTER

The factory finally went into full production in late October or early November 1950, and the name Randall chose for the dual-pickup guitar was "Broadcaster."

Musical Merchandise magazine carried the first announcement for the Broadcaster in February 1951 with a full-page insert that described it in detail. The guitar had what Randall called a "Modern cut-away body" and a "Modern styled head." And what player could resist the "Adjustable solo-lead pickup" that was "completely adjustable for tone-balance by means of three elevating screws"?

Finally, the industry had an up-to-date production solidbody. (Fender sold 87 Broadcasters on the guitar's initial release in January 1951.) Many people took note – including Gretsch, who claimed the Broadcaster name infringed on the company's trademark "Broadkaster." Faced with this fact, Randall wrote a letter to his salespeople on February 21, advising them that Radio-Tel was abandoning the Broadcaster name and requesting suggestions for a new one.

On February 24, Randall, who had some good ideas of his own, announced that the Broadcaster was renamed the "Telecaster."

The Broadcaster-to-Telecaster name change cost Radio-Tel hundreds of dollars and derailed the initial marketing effort. Brochures and envelope inserts were destroyed, and some unlucky worker had to clip the word "Broadcaster" from hundreds of headstock decals with a pair of scissors.

For several months, the new twin-pickup guitars sported nothing but the word "Fender." Years later, collectors would coin the term "No-caster" for these early-to-mid-'51 guitars.

TELE TWEAKS

In 1952, Fender replaced the Telecaster's blend control circuit with a conventional tone control.

Now the switch's rear position selected the lead pickup, the middle position selected the rhythm pickup, and the front position delivered the "deep rhythm" sound.

Teles were equipped this way until the mid-'60s, when the modern switch setup was introduced: the middle position selected both pickups, the front position selected the rhythm pickup, and the rear position selected the lead pickup.

One drawback of the 1952 to mid-'60s wiring is obvious today: The wiring made a two-pickup combination impossible unless the player delicately positioned the spring-loaded switch between settings.

However, once players learned this trick, they received a tonal surprise: Different models produced different dual-pickup sounds, depending on the rhythm pickup's magnetic polarity.

The "between" setting – which helped define the mystique of vintage Telecasters – could offer the robust tone provided by both pickups or produce a snarly growl similar to the Stratocaster's half-switch sound. (James Burton, playing his '53 Telecaster, exploited this unique tone on Ricky Nelson's "Travelin' Man.")

However, it was the Tele's lead pickup that captured the hearts of most players.

Early "level-pole" units offered outstanding tone with significant bass content and non-offensive highs (although manufacturing inconsistencies caused a small number of these pickups to produce an out-of-balance, bass-heavy low-E sound).

In mid-1955, Fender staggered the polepiece heights as he had on Strat pickups. The results were mixed. The volume balance from string to string was better, but the Tele's overall sound was harsher.

In 1953, the factory began notching the two outer brass bridge pieces under the low E and high E, which allowed a lower adjustment for these strings. By 1954, Telecasters employed steel bridges again, but they were rounded and made from a smaller-diameter stock than the 1950 bridges.

By 1958, the bridge pieces were changed yet again to a threaded stock with less mass, and the factory stopped putting the strings through the body.

In 1959, Fender introduced the Telecaster Custom and Esquire Custom, fancy versions of the originals with white binding that helped protect the edges from wear. These guitars had Jazzmaster-like rosewood fingerboards, which looked more traditional and wore better than one-piece maple necks.

Some early-'60s, pre-CBS Custom Telecasters had necks capped with maple fingerboards made in the same manner as the necks capped with rosewood. However, at no time during the pre-CBS years did Fender regularly produce Customs with the older-style maple neck. (The only exceptions may have been unlikely special orders.)

While the standard Telecasters and Esquires came with blonde finishes, the Customs were offered with sunburst finishes. A few even had more expensive custom colors.

THE PLAYER'S PERSPECTIVE

In the early 1950s, a broad spectrum of Tele players established themselves in combos – even young blues guitar legend-to-be B.B. King spanked the plank.

With its versatile sound, ease of playing, and reasonable cost, what better guitar to yellow with perspiration and cigarette smoke?

Most serious students could afford the $189.50 price, ensuring a new guitar generation would grow up on Fenders. Still, most players preferred top-of-the-line instruments, and almost all professional jazz guitar and pop players employed something other than a Fender.

And after Fender introduced the Stratocaster in '54, the Tele wasn't even Fender's top-of-the-line ax.

Then an interesting thing happened. By the late '50s, the Telecaster was becoming an integral part of the session player's arsenal.

California-based guitarist Howard Roberts endorsed Gibson and Epiphone but also played an old Telecaster on countless rock sessions, as did Tommy Tedesco. These players knew what models recorded best and pleased record producers.

The Telecaster and its solidbody cohorts produced the teenage sound that proclaimed a guitar generation gap: old versus new, jazz and pop conformity versus rock rebellion.

At the same time, the Tele was heard increasingly on pure country recordings, treading in the big-box domain of Chet Atkins and Hank Garland (who sounded anything but twangy).

As the '60s unfolded and rock guitar playing matured, the Telecaster's role, onstage and off, solidified. While the guitar played a small part in the rise and fall of instrumental rock and surf music, Steve Cropper played one with Booker T. and the MGs, as did the Ventures' Nokie Edwards.

James Burton and Tele moved from Ricky Nelson's band to TV's Shindogs, all the while chalking up hours as L.A.'s premier session stylist in rock and country.

Much of the British Invasion had the look of Rickenbackers and Gretsches, but Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck recorded many of their milestone sides with the Yardbirds on a Telecaster and Esquire, respectively.

Mike Bloomfield chose a Tele for his highly influential mid-'60s work with Paul Butterfield and Bob Dylan, and Jimmy Page played one on Led Zeppelin's first album and on the solo of "Stairway to Heaven."

As Roy Buchanan told Guitar Player in '76, "The Telecaster sounded a lot like a steel, and I liked that tone. I like the old Teles because of the wood, the way the pickups are wound, the capacitors, and the whole works."

THE TELE LEGACY

By the late '60s, it was clear the Telecaster had shaken the foundations of the music industry. The Tele – and the host of solidbody models introduced as a result of its success – changed the way the world heard, played, and composed music.

Ironically, Leo Fender, who worked incessantly after '51 developing new models such as the Strat, Jazzmaster, and Jaguar (and then, in the '70s and '80s, formulating Music Man and G&L; models), had a very hard time topping what he accomplished in his first go-round.

"Everyone thought his first guitar was his best, but no one would tell him that," said longtime friend and pioneering electric stylist Alvino Rey in the '80s.

The Tele was Leo Fender's Model T, but, unlike the old Fords, it didn't go away.

For thousands of guitarists, the Telecaster is still state of the art – an enduring battle ax for rock, country, or anything amplified.

• Upgrade your Tele tone with the best Telecaster pickups

The Weight Band may have been born in a barn, but it wasn’t just any old barn; we’re talking about Levon Helm's barn in Woodstock, New York. And with their eclectic blend of blues, soul and roots-rock (aka “the Woodstock sound”) guitarist Jim Weider and Co are back with a barnstorming new album.

Following up 2018’s World Gone Mad, Shines Like Gold is the Weight Band’s sophomore studio effort and is set for release on April 1, 2022.

Staying true to the group’s knockout live sound led by Weider’s punchy electric guitar licks, Shines Like Gold was tracked with long-time collaborator, producer Colin Linden, in just four days.

"He had a big hand and footprint on this record," commented Weider. "We go back, so there is a comfortableness working with him."

Alongside world-renowned Telecaster Master Jim Weider (The Band, Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble Band, Jim Weider Band), the Weight Band’s all-star line-up also features keyboardist Brian Mitchell (Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble Band, Bob Dylan), bassist Albert Rogers (Jim Weider Band, Jimmy Vivino), drummer Michael Bram (Willie Nelson, Jason Mraz) and keyboardist Matt Zeiner (Dickey Betts, Jaimoe.)

With a mutual appreciation and deep-rooted love for the “Woodstock mountain sound,” the Weight Band serves as a torchbearer for this unique brand of Americana. 

On Shines Like Gold, the veteran quintet conveys a sense of hope for the future in a musically dynamic work that swings from swamp pop to roadhouse rock, with hefty doses of blues, soul and country thrown in for good measure.

The Weight Band recently dropped the lead single and title track from Shines Like Gold along with an accompanying video. Take a listen here and check out Weider’s masterful guitar technique…

Pre-order Shines Like Gold by the Weight Band here.

As the shy, unassuming guitarist for Blur in the 1990s, Graham Coxon imbued the group’s Brit pop with urgent riffs, glorious leads and hooks that other guitarists would gladly hang entire careers from.

Playing mostly Telecaster electric guitars through Marshalls amplifiers, he uses distortion devastatingly, yet somehow never sounds the same.

Like a shapeshifting wizard, he gives the music exactly what it needs.

Though his work with Blur alone would place him among some of the best alternative rock guitarists around, he’s shown greater diversity in his solo career, where he’s explored lo-fi punk, power pop and even Albion folk.

His playing has earned him raves from producers like Stephen Street, the former knob twiddler for the Smiths who called Johnny Marr and Coxon “among the best guitarists in the world.”

Coxon holds a more modest opinion of his talents.

“I think I’m more in the free-jazz world when it comes to lead playing, and I play physically,” commented the guitarist.

“I like the sound of a guitar being thumped. I’d hear other people making rock albums that sounded really polished, but my records always sound like me – slightly shambolic and about to break. I cover my lack of technical ability with weird noises.”

Browse the Graham Coxon catalog here.

On this day in 1971, Carole King released her second album, Tapestry. Considered an era-defining masterpiece this Grammy Award-winning multi-platinum LP remained on the Billboard 200 for several years throughout the decade.

While King’s unparalleled output as a songwriter has seen her heralded as one of the most influential musical artists of all time, Tapestry was her breakthrough album as solo performer.

Embellishing the recording was King’s long-time collaborator Danny Kortchmar – an ace session guitarist and producer whose phenomenal list of credits also includes James Taylor, Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, David Crosby and Graham Nash.

“For the Tapestry sessions, we were cutting three tracks a day at A&M studios,” Kortchmar told Guitar Player. 

“Everybody was in the room sitting very close together, playing live. For a lot of the songs we had chord sheets, but for ‘It’s Too Late,’ Carole sat at the piano and played the song; I just had to absorb it.

“When it came to the solo, I was told, ‘Play something melancholy.’ I was using a Telecaster and probably a Princeton amp. I think I did two or three passes, and everybody seemed pretty pleased.

“I have to be honest: At the time, I wasn’t feeling crazy about my playing on it. I thought it was kind of lazy. I had no idea that the song was going to be a Number One record, and that I was going to be listening to it in supermarkets and drug stores my whole life.

“Over the years, I’ve learned to dig the solo, and I realized that what I played was very authentic and fit the song perfectly.”

Buy Tapestry here.

Two decades after Kurt Cobain redefined mainstream rock with his raw, uncompromising songwriting and anti-guitar hero way of playing guitar, a left-handed guitarist and art school student in Hobart, Australia, took inspiration from his example.

Courtney Barnett knew the rock music of several eras, thanks to a neighbor’s mixtapes, and her own modest CD collection consisted mainly of Nirvana albums.

While playing right-handed guitars upside down at first (due to the unavailability of good lefty guitars), she developed a unique way of playing rhythm and lead with her thumb and fingers, since she didn’t like the sound of a pick against the strings.

By the early 2010s, Barnett was playing in bands and appearing as a co-writer and guitarist on recordings by local singer-songwriters.

After a stint as a slide guitarist and co-lead singer in the psych-country-folk group Immigrant Union (you can hear her on their sophomore album, Anyway), Barnett released her debut EP, I’ve Got a Friend Called Emily Ferris in 2012 on Milk! Records, a label she cofounded with fellow artist and then-partner Jen Cloher.

The 34-year-old’s widely eclectic take on indie rock can be gleaned from a playlist of influential songs she curated for a streaming service for many years following those first band experiences.

Her selections show a wide tapestry of musical input, ranging from her parents’ favorite jazz singers to the ’90s bands of her generation, like the Lemonheads, EMF, Pavement and the Breeders, as well as Jimi Hendrix, Yoko Ono, PJ Harvey, Leonard Cohen, Sonic Youth, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.

Barnett signed with Marathon Artists in 2013 and combined her first EP with a new collection of songs as The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas.

Momentum quickly built. The international music press picked different tracks as their “favorite of the week,” while Barnett got booked on American late-night TV shows and landed a slot at the Coachella festival.

Her 2015 debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, became her commercial breakthrough and was lauded as a rock – not indie-rock – classic.

Her infectious songs were a meeting of uncompromising noise rock and American roots music, combining an exhilarating mix of sharp stream-of-consciousness lyrics and humor, delivered in an instantly recognizable half-singing vocal that sometimes recalls Lou Reed.

The album was accompanied by a series of fun music videos that revealed a self-deprecating artist who also played many of the album’s fills and solos on her black Telecaster.

You don’t see that too often, and people welcomed her with fervor.

It’s not hard to grasp what intense adulation can do to a person who suffers from anxiety and depression, as well as to their art, where it can be tempting to keep giving the audience the musical identity that they love, but that you are starting to outgrow.

And so Barnett started to expand her ways of expression on her 2018 follow-up, Tell Me How You Really Feel. This new direction is also noticeable on her new album, Things Take Time, Take Time, a lockdown memento born of change and calamity.

Barnett was struggling following her breakup with Cloher, the pandemic lockdown and the terrifying Australian bushfires of 2019-2020, known colloquially as the Black Summer.

When a friend suggested she make a list of what she looked forward to, Barnett gave it a try, focusing on small things: a cup of coffee, sunrise. That, in turn, gave birth to the songs on Things Take Time, Take Time, a collection of sprawling songs built from the minutiae of everyday things.

To record it, Barnett chose a studio that was new to her – Golden Retriever in Sydney – and worked without her usual gear or her band featuring bassist Bones Slone, drummer Dave Mudie and guitarist Dan Luscombe.

Instead, she created and coproduced the record with Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa, who had previously performed on Barnett’s 2017 collaboration with guitarist Kurt Vile, Lotta Sea Lice.

“Maybe that was a subconscious effort to push myself out of my comfort zones and try something different,” Barnett says of her decision to work amid so many changes. “I wanted to work with Stella again, and the timing was perfect because both of us were in the same country. If the pandemic hadn’t been there, we would’ve been busy with our other projects.”

The time is ripe for Barnett to enjoy a resurgence.

She’s the subject of director Danny Cohen’s brand-new documentary, Anonymous Club, which offers insights into the creative process and struggles of an artist Cohen refers to as an anti-influencer, a recluse acclaimed by audiences, and a strong female performer in conflict with herself.

We recently spoke to Barnett in Los Angeles, as she was kicking off her recent U.S. tour together with Sloane and Mozgawa.

Is surprise an important component to your music?

Not so much trying to surprise other people, but I think embracing the spontaneity. I’ve often gotten the majority of the song ready, where I know what it’s gonna do, but there are always bits that I don’t have planned.

Normally it’s things like guitar solos. A lot of the time, I leave them until the last minute to see what happens. Often, it’s that first thing you do that ends up being the best one. And every time I try to overdub a better guitar part or solo, it never has that same energy.

I think that’s what I try to capture; sometimes that’s what that slightly deranged thing is. There might be wrong notes and small things that aren’t completely right, but it captures a certain energy, and I try to trust that first-thought mentality.

“Small Poppies” [from Sometimes I Sit…] is a great song filled with beautiful ’50s retro guitar references, even though they also have that twist.

That is actually my friend Dan Luscombe who played on the song. I played pretty minimal rhythm guitar on it. Dan played on my first few albums, and I listened to that song the other day. His guitar playing on it is so incredible.

But after I finished that album and was ready to go on tour, I found out that he couldn’t join me, so I had to learn all of his amazing parts and all these different skills. It really pushed me as a guitar player, and I find him to be really inspiring.

How did you develop your playing style? Were there any influences, choices, or decisions on what not to do? We’re thinking of St. Vincent, who once said in an interview that she really tries to avoid playing “muscle memory licks.”

It’s hard to see what my own style is, because it’s what I know and what I’ve figured out over the years.

The muscle memory comment is a really good one, because I think it’s easy to fall into that comfort zone. I guess I try to keep myself on the edge of it, so that I’m not too comfortable but always learning new things.

Part of my style is playing rhythm and lead at the same time. I was 18 when I started my solo career shows; I played acoustic guitar and had to bridge this gap between rhythm and lead.

Over the years, as I started bands, I always tried to get a second guitarist to do the lead bits, but I’ve played as a three-piece for so much of my musical career that I had to learn how to blend the two out of necessity.

How would you describe your guitar aesthetic?

I would probably avoid doing that. It’s a combination of lots of ideas and trying to find the perfect blend of everything.

On Things Take Time, Take Time, you’ve moved away from the rock songs with punchy hooks and the feedback-driven solos that made your debut album a huge hit with fans and critics. This work is a lot more low-key, with a warm and comforting sound palette that mirrors the ruminating lyrics you’ve written. What brought about this new direction?

Over years of playing live, I’ve recognized that one of my safety fallbacks was to use a lot of distortion pedals: When in doubt, just make a big noise. And I recognized that it started to feel a little bit lazy and repetitive.

Obviously, it’s fun to do that, and a lot of the songs called for it. But – thinking of that thing St. Vincent said – I was looking for different angles: different ways to show emotions and find dynamics in the songs.

It’s easy to rely on the same tricks in songwriting or in the studio. I wasn’t trying to change patterns completely but just be aware when something came up that felt familiar and try a different way.

How did you and Stella work out the song arrangements?

For this album, we tried to use different instruments, and when things were sounding familiar or just a bit same-same, we would mix them up.

I only took one electric guitar into the studio, my sunburst Fender Jag [Kurt Cobain model with stock pickups]. I always get the best sounds out of that guitar. I also used a lot of acoustic guitar [a custom Maton] to thicken up guitar parts.

But a couple of times, we’d work on a song that sounded like it had too much guitar, and so I’d take the guitar totally out of it, highlight a Wurlitzer [electric piano] or something else instead, and replay the song from that angle. And that created a sonic space that allowed the lyrics to breathe differently.

You used a drum machine and percussion instruments, and throughout the album one can hear these little rhythmic accents popping up in the songs. It seems like they’re a central part of the arrangements because they sound like hooks, but in an understated way.

Yeah, I wanted that to be a feature. It created a meditative, repetitive feel that would build over the course of the songs. A big part of this album is the percussion, and a lot of the rhythms are the equivalent of a riff or a refrain. I thought it’d be so cool to find a different approach instead of using a melodic guitar riff or piano line.

Stella is an amazing drummer and percussionist. The rhythms might sound simple at first, until you tune into all the little things happening and realize how complicated it is, without being over the top.

You once said in an interview that you look for left-field sounds to make things interesting in headphones. Did that apply to this album as well?

I mean, always. That’s the fun part of recording. Doing the weird things, like banging a case against the floor and affecting sounds in ways that we aren’t used to hearing.

On my last album, I recorded the sound of my kettle boiling [on “Hopefullessness,” which also features a great feedback-driven solo]. It comes in halfway through the song and slowly creeps up and up like a weird, anxiety-inducing, drone sound.

On this album, we did a lot of field recordings. I’m not sure they made it onto the album, but they were inspiring to capture and hear. On one part of a song, I played my guitar with a cello bow to create a droning, synthy string sound.

Parts of your album are about healing after a breakup, and one of the songs, “Here’s the Thing,” has an instrumental passage that feels very cinematic and blue. It has lush rhythm guitars and these otherworldly-sounding notes that are floating above the chords. Is that a vocal or a guitar?

That’s actually the song with the cello bow. There are strings underneath it, and sometimes they sound like trumpets. It was just a weird frequency. But that main melodic door-bell type of sound that you’re referring to is an Omnichord [an electronic autoharp-synthesizer] that we had in the studio.

We messed around for quite a while, trying to find the right sound and the right idea, and then we probably put it through some effects as well just to make it more wobbly, like it was underwater.

What amps and effects did you use on the album?

I didn’t take any gear with me besides my electric guitar. I know I used the studio’s Mesa/Boogie and Roland Jazz Chorus [JC-120] amps. I also didn’t have my usual pedals, which forced me out of my comfort zone.

I used their [Death by Audio] Reverberation pedal a lot, and the [Electro-Harmonix] POG for the chorusy, wavy and wobbly sounds. The studio also had a vintage vibrato pedal and some overdrives that I used.

Are all your songs and solos created through inspiration by just staying open to whatever comes, or do you ever set up any sort of framework?

No, it’s normally pretty feel-based. I try to just trust that instinct and feeling.

You’re known for your lyrics, which tend to be conversational, often with a dry or wry sense of humor, and full of great observations about people and mundane things. Do lyrics inform your guitar playing in any way?

It happens sometimes. It’s fun to find the emotional match. In “Take It Day by Day,” which is a bass-driven song, the lyrics are slightly playful and cheeky, and the guitar kind of matches that. The bass is a little bit overdriven and bratty. When the guitars and the synths do the riff [sings a staccato melody], it also has a bratty quality to it.

You also went to a visual arts school when you were 18 to 20 years old, and you’re often involved in the making of your music videos and album cover art. How does art influence your music?

The visual stuff and music inspire each other. Just like the power of silence in music, there’s the power of negative space in visual art. It all overlaps, and there’s no formula. It all depends on the song and the moment.

And when one creative avenue dries up, it’s good to explore another one until the ground gets more fertile again.

Exactly.

Danny Cohen has made a documentary about you called Anonymous Club, where he followed you on the road for a couple of years. How did you connect?

Danny is a really good friend of mine, and he’s made a couple of my video clips. He came on tour with me pretty much from the album cycle for Tell Me How You Really Feel. He was on and off tours around the world, and made this really beautiful and pretty simple film.

What did you talk about, and what was the filming experience like for you?

We talked a lot about the art-making process and the fears behind being an artist. There was so much deep and personal stuff. So even if there was some confronting, for the most part it was an interesting process.

Browse Courtney Barnett's catalog here.

If your local deli is hosting a jam, you might consider going. In Fernando Perdomo’s case, he’d just moved to L.A. from Miami and become a regular at the Kibbitz Room sessions at Canter’s Deli. As he was channeling Neil Young one night during a spirited take on “Mr. Soul,” Andrew Slater, director of the 2018 music documentary Echo in the Canyon, sat in the audience.

“He came up to me and asked me to play on the soundtrack,” Perdomo says. “I’m on a track with Eric Clapton, two with Neil Young, and I got to be in the movie and play with Brian Wilson. Echo was a dream come true, and everybody in the backing band of that movie is actually a Kibbitz Room regular.”

Perdomo is stylistically versatile, equally passionate about producing and playing, and a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter. He counts Wings and Vanilla Fudge among his early influences, and recently got to co-produce Ram On: The 50th Anniversary Tribute to Paul & Linda McCartney’s Ram with former Wings drummer Denny Seiwell.

Now he’s joined forces with ex-Fudge drummer Carmine Appice on Energy Overload (Cleopatra Records), an instrumental album that shows off his fusion compositions, pop melody instincts and furious shredding on tracks like “Little Havana Big Havana,” “Maybe I’m Amazed” and “Blown Speaker Boogie.”

The two of you are on fire on the opening track, “Blown Speaker Boogie.”

The opening riff was the first thing I played on a Cuvave Fuzz pedal I bought. It’s also inspired by [Norman Greenbaum’s 1969 hit] “Spirit in the Sky.” Carmine got to do his famous shuffle rhythm, and it’s a friggin’ freight train. The main part of the song gets super modal and ascends in a cool Jeff Beck kind of way, while the ending is a fun jam that fades in and out.

“Rocket to the Sun” is equally intense. Is there a subtle reference to Ozzy Osbourne’s “Shot in the Dark” in the intro?

I’ve always loved that riff, but my slide riff is a distant relative of it. When I got the drum track for “Rocket to the Sun,” I loved its tribal nature. It made me play this modal groove with a pedal tone and the “Todd Rundgren chord,” which is a bass substitution trick he does often.

That led to creating a track that gets more frantic as it goes along. I imagined a spaceship burning up. I’ve never taken a solo at a stadium with pyro going off behind me. I’m sure it feels something like jamming with Carmine. He’s explosive.

What made you want to cover “Maybe I’m Amazed”?

It’s my favorite song. Carmine, who has played it with Rod Stewart, loves it as well. I rate the solo as the greatest of all time, tied with Jason Falkner’s “She Goes to Bed.”

Who else is playing on the album?

Apart from Durga McBroom, who did gorgeous choir vocals on “Maybe I’m Amazed,” and Derek Sherinian playing keys on the title track and “Pure Ecstasy,” it’s all me and Carmine.

How would you describe your guitar playing aesthetic?

I’m a vintage-minded guy who generally doesn’t use the typical pentatonic scales to solo. I always go for melodic motifs and picking out “juice notes” in chord progressions. I also have very specific and off-the-wall guitar heroes that I truly thank for creating my vocabulary as a guitarist, like Todd Rundgren, Jason Falkner [Jellyfish, the Three O’Clock], Jon Brion, Peter Banks, Adam Zimmon [Ziggy Marley, Vida Blue], Peter Svensson [the Cardigans] and Steve Caton [Tori Amos].

You came up in Miami’s Latin pop scene. What was that like?

Miami had a great ’90s, which gave the world Marilyn Manson, the Mavericks and Matchbox 20. I barely missed that boom but cut my teeth in the same Miami clubs. However, I needed to make a living playing guitar, so I did Latin pop sessions, which led to working with Jennifer Lopez, [Mexican pop singer] Cristian Castro, [Mexican vocalist] Paulina Rubio and [Puerto Rican hip-hop artist] Tego Calderón. I played on three Platinum-selling records, and toured the world by 23. It was invaluable as experience and to build my resume, but that was all that I could achieve in Miami.

How do you use your knowledge of production in your guitar playing?

Records were my greatest teacher. I listened to learn how players craft their parts, and how the parts make the song better. As a result, I listen to what everyone is doing, and fashion my parts to complement them. I believe in making yourself shine by complementing, not by showing off.

What’s your main rig?

My 1974 Fender Mustang, 1982 Fender Telecaster ’52 Blackguard, Shabat Lion Telecaster, Sparxx Peter Banks Replica guitar, Yamaha SG500 and Guild S100 and Starfire.

My pedalboard has always included a Boss tuner, a wah – these days a Hotone Wah Volume – a Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde or Mosky Golden Horse for dirt, a Boss TR-2 Tremolo, MXR Phase 90 and – my secret sauce delay – the Visual Sound Axle Grease Delay into a Boss Fender Spring Reverb.

I’m endorsed by Magnatone, and I use my Twilighter pretty much exclusively in the studio. It’s so versatile for guitar and bass. But my real secret is my guitar cabinet, which is a Billy Gibbons-approved Legend Combo with a birch cabinet and 1x12 E-V speaker in my closet, and it’s miked with a Cascade Fathead ribbon mic.

The combo of the Twilighter feeding that cabinet with the ribbon mic, and my Soundcraft 22 MTK console, is a winning tone that really comes alive on all the records I make. I also love Music Man amps, and I still have my first amp – a 1965 Ampeg Reverberocket that my dad bought me for $50 at a flea market. I use D’Addario strings and Pickworld heavy picks.

Where can people hear you as a singer-songwriter, band leader or band member?

I made a slew of singer-songwriter records, culminating in Zebra Crossing [2018]. Then I started making instrumental records with Out to Sea [2018]. That’s where my composition world is right now, and I’ve just completed Out to Sea 4.

I can say so much more with my guitar than lyrics these days. I’m also in a new band called Nine Mile Station with violinist Scarlet Rivera [from Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue], and that has filled my singer-songwriter void. I write with Will Hawkins, the band’s primary songwriter, and we have an EP coming out later this year. It was the final project mixed by [famed producer/engineer] Al Schmitt before he passed away.

I also play with an L.A. band called the Dirty Diamond that has been going strong for over a decade.

What inspired you to play music?

My high school music teacher, Doug Burris, who taught guitar and rock ensemble while quadriplegic with MS. He made me realize my potential, introduced me to so much music, and showed me the thrill of performing and recording. I would not be doing what I do if it wasn’t for Doug and music in public schools.

Buy Energy Overload by the Carmine Appice & Fernando Perdomo Project here.

Although Sue Foley is originally from Canada, on two major occasions her life has directed her to Texas. At the end of the ’80s, the guitarist and singer-songwriter moved to Austin when the city’s late blues impresario Clifford Antone signed her to his record label and became her mentor. The timing and location couldn’t have been more perfect for a 21-year-old blues guitarist building a career.

Right when Stevie Ray Vaughan was blowing the music world away and putting Austin on the map, Antone made sure Foley shared the stage with every national and local blues master who came through his eponymous club.

Playing three sets per night, six nights a week, Foley honed her chops and found her musical home and kindred spirits within the Texas blues community (one memorable off-stage moment involved shooting dice with Albert Collins). 

Seeing her potential and dedication, Antone also ensured Foley went on the road to open for Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor and Johnny Winter.

Following her pregnancy and marriage, Foley returned to Canada to raise her son but continued touring and releasing a number of albums, always staying faithful to her love for traditional blues, even as she began studying flamenco guitar and incorporating some of those influences into her blues.

Then she was suddenly contacted by Mike Flanigin, a Hammond B3 player with Jimmie Vaughan and Billy Gibbons, and an old friend from her Austin days. The Antone’s club had re-opened, and Flanigin wanted her to come down and play. This led to them working together on Foley’s critically acclaimed 2018 album, The Ice Queen.

Anchored in Texas electric blues, yet musically varied with horns and acoustic solo numbers, the album featured duets with Gibbons, Vaughan and Charlie Sexton, and showcased Foley’s talent for writing blues songs and lyrics that avoid genre clichés. 

It also showed that it’s fully possible to make a blues album with a modern approach and still win the Blues Foundation’s Koko Taylor Award for Best Female Traditional Blues Artist, which Foley did in 2020.

Riding a wave of success – including appearances with Vaughan at the Beacon Theater and Royal Albert Hall, and a packed calendar of festivals and international tours – Foley saw her performance schedule grind to a grim halt with the pandemic.

As a response to current circumstances and restrictions, she presents Pinky’s Blues with no overdubs and few guest musicians, capturing a heavyweight blues power trio with bassist John Penner, and drummer Chris Layton in electrifying interactions.

The result is a raw and unfiltered tribute to Texas blues and R&B. We spoke with Foley about the album after seeing her perform in Chicago with her trio, featuring Penner on bass and Corey Keller on drums.

You’ve followed up The Ice Queen with a straight-ahead Texas blues album. What made you go in this direction?

It was actually our producer, Mike Flanigin, who came up with the idea to make a blues guitar album. He produced The Ice Queen as well, and that was an artistic project that was really varied, where we were looking at each song individually and having different lineups of musicians. Then we did Mike’s album, West Texas Blues, which used the same group of players in the studio. So we decided to take the more stripped-down approach.

Since we were in the framework of not gathering in big groups, we knew it was going to be a small, close session, with just a few people spaced out in a big room, and that we had to do everything live with all of us playing together and in the moment.

The album sounds bold and ballsy, and your playing has the swagger to match.

Thank you. I listened to it recently to refresh my memory before touring, and I thought, Yeah, this sounds pretty greasy!

But we were also just having fun. Whatever vibe you’re picking up from the studio, we were letting out a lot of energy, since we hadn’t been able to play live for a while. So there’s some lighthearted fun there too. We were just happy to hang out together.

There is some tender and lyrical R&B playing on it too, but the overall vibe is intense.

Well, we took a deep-dive into some really great songs, mostly the Texas blues catalog, with Clarence Gatemouth Brown [“Okie Dokie Stomp”], Frankie Lee Sims [“Boogie Real Low”] and Lavelle White [“Stop These Teardrops”], but also Chicago stuff like Robert Nighthawk [“Someday”] and Junior Wells [“When the Cat’s Gone the Mice Play”], and then my own songs [“Hurricane Girl,” “Dallas Man,” “Pinky’s Blues”]. When you play that kind of stuff, you’ve got to be really committed to it.

The title track is a slow instrumental blues. Two minutes into it, you do a very cool thing that almost sounds like sparks are coming out of your Tele. Is that just a backward rake?

It is, and it’s something Freddie King did a lot on songs like “San Ho Zay,” but he was using metal fingerpicks. I use a thumbpick and my fingers, but I have acrylic nails on my right-hand fingers, and those kind of act as fingerpicks.

Those have got to be hard to maintain?

They are. I try to keep them up, because I do a lot of Spanish nylon-string guitar playing at home, and sometimes on the road, too. I find that you can apply some of the Spanish fingerstyle techniques to a Fender Telecaster, they’re very compatible.

Why the Telecaster in particular? Is it because of its tonal clarity?

Yeah. Teles are very simple and pure. There’s just a tone and a volume knob, and all the nuances that you do in that framework are yours.

Teles can be tough taskmasters, too, since they don’t sustain as easily as a guitar with humbuckers.

Exactly. You’ve got to get used to playing pretty clean. I think if you can play a Tele well, it shows that you have good technique, because you have to play kind of precise and clean. There’s nowhere to hide.

How did Chris Layton’s presence behind the drum kit influence your playing?

A lot. When I talked about the album sounding greasy, that’s Chris. He’s just got that really deep pocket. When you’re playing with somebody that strong, you feel really supported, and they also help direct where a song’s gonna go. And you trust them, because you know that they know where it should go.

It’s not that Chris is telling me how to play; he’s directing things to where the groove is so deep that you’re comfortable, and it’s just going where it needs to go. He knows what’s happening, and he’s in the driver’s seat in a lot of ways.

But you like where he’s driving, so you don’t mind.

I love where he’s driving, and I think the drums on this album sound amazing, partially because of that big open room we were in.

How did you record the album?

We were set up just like we’d be onstage at a live gig, but with a few baffles between us, and a lot of room mics. The drums were in the middle, with the guitars and bass on each side, and the vocals were up in the middle.

[Engineer] Chris Bell was capturing all of it, so you’ll hear mic bleed, like guitar in the drum mics. And the bass was going through a mic’d amp, as opposed to going direct.

Where did you record?

Fire Station Studios in San Marcos, Texas. It’s the same place where I recorded The Ice Queen. It was all done in about two and a half to three days. What you’re hearing is all live, and mostly first or second takes. Vocals and guitars recorded at the same time. We couldn’t even overdub if we wanted to.

On the slow blues, “Say It’s Not So,” your vocals are very emotive. You’re completely connected to the lyrics, and you go into a wailing solo on the next beat. It takes a lot of live performing to reach that comfort level with music and lyrics, and on both instruments.

Singing was never what drove me. I wanted to play guitar, but I had to sing, and over time I learned to enjoy it. It is about doing a lot of gigs and pushing yourself, but I always stress that it’s also important who you listen to. It used to be pretty common for a guitar player to also be a great singer. Think of T-Bone Walker, or Freddie, B.B. and Albert King.

You also do a blazing version of Gatemouth’s “Okie Dokie Stomp.”

I’ve been playing it since I was in my early 20s. That song is a rite of passage in the blues guitar playing world, especially in Texas blues, but Hollywood Fats in California also did a famous version of it in Eb, where he adapted those horn lines to guitar.

Ronnie Earl’s version is insanely great too, and it’s in C, which is the same key I do it in, so I kind of reference Ronnie’s version, to be fair. It’s a fun song to get under your belt, like the Freddie King instrumentals. Back in the day, we had to know these songs.

Your rig is minimal, but the tone you get onstage and in the studio is full and rich. Let’s talk about that, starting with your signature guitar of many years.

Well, Pinky is a stock Fender Telecaster with the pink paisley design that was reissued in the mid-to-late ’80s, and I got it in 1987. They’re made in Japan, and for whatever reason, the Teles from that era are really good. I haven’t changed anything on it. I use the stock pickups. I’m afraid to change them, since I like the sound so much and I might not get it back.

I’ve had it refretted a few times. [Foley has three “Pinky” Telecasters, and her first is now off the road.] As for strings, I’ve used D’Addario [EXL 110] .010–.046 strings for probably 30 years. I change them every few gigs if we’re playing steady, since I like them kinda fresh.

On Pinky’s Blues, you use your original Fender Bassman that you’ve had for the past 30 years. Have you modded it in any way?

I don’t really mess with the speakers. It’s very rare that I change them. The only thing I change a lot is the [6L6] tubes. But, man, you can’t kill those Bassmans! They stand up on the road, night after night. It’s a simple workhorse of an amp, but if you get one in good shape, you can get a killer sound.

If the amp sound has a lot of body, like the Bassman, which has 40 loud watts, the 4x10s get the sound across with the right amount of power. You can drive the amp and speakers without getting as loud as the 2x12s on a Twin. It’s really versatile and will handle a small, medium or big stage. I find that you can get a full sound and get it to move around.

How do you position the amp live?

It depends on the stage and the room. Sometimes when I play a smaller room, I’ll put the amp on its back, aiming it straight up. I learned that from Jimmie Vaughan. If you’re in a theater and you need the sound to be in the system too, you can baffle the amp to deflect the sound a bit, and if you’re on a big stage, like at a festival, you can have the two of them together and wide open.

You also don’t use pedals very much.

I do love reverb, so I use the Boss RV-5, and I also use some tremolo, like a Boss TR-2 or Strymon Flint, on a couple of tunes. Since the sound of a Telecaster is very clean and straight ahead, I sometimes use an Xotic RC clean boost, just to get sustain and widen the tone ever so much if I’m playing at a lower volume but still want to hear the pure tone. Cindy Cashdollar taught me that. But I literally keep the boost at the lowest possible setting. If I can drive the amp hard enough, I won’t use it. I like the sound out of the amp mostly.

Anybody can hide behind pedals. I don’t. You don’t want to lean on them too much or they’ll start to shape your tone when it really should come from the guitar, amp and your hands. You’ve got to create yourself and your tone, and then use the pedal, but a lot of times people go the opposite way. They use the pedal to create themselves. It’s backwards, and it’s so pedal-heavy that you can’t tell who that player is. So many players all sound the same – like the pedal.

Do you have any tips for improving tone?

I stress being picky about who you listen to, or at least spending a lot of time listening to the tone masters and soaking it in. Your creativity, phrasing, technique and inventiveness are so important, but your tone is your DNA and your musical stamp. You can have all the flash in the world, but if your tone sucks, you’re nowhere. I’d rather have a great tone and less chops than all chops and no tone.

It means so much that people have been saying that they like the tone on this album. But it isn’t just about me. There’s Chris with his mic placements, and Mike who was stubborn about all of us being in one room. So you’re hearing the guitar through all of these other instruments, too.

When we enjoy hearing master singers like Aretha Franklin or Ray Charles, the reason their voices sound so compelling isn’t just because of their phrasing or vocal technique. It’s also their timbre and sound that we love.

Yeah. It’s the same thing with guitar. Your tone is your voice.

Buy a copy of Pinky’s Blues by Sue Foley here.