Working with George Harrison and Joni Mitchell in the same year was an eye-opening education for a young Robben Ford — and not always in the ways a 22-year-old guitarist might have expected.

Of the two, Ford says his time with Harrison was the more surreal experience, marked as much by excess as by music-making. That brief partnership came during one of Harrison’s most turbulent creative periods: the 1974 Dark Horse tour, his first major run of shows since the Beatles’ breakup, which proved so chaotic it effectively pushed him away from touring for 17 years.

Harrison had first encountered Ford earlier that year through Joni Mitchell, for whom the guitarist had already become an unlikely rising star, contributing to The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Miles of Aisles. Impressed, Harrison described him as a rare talent who seemed to bridge blues and jazz instinctively. “Once in a blue moon,” he said, “there is an artist so natural to the blues and to jazz as Robben Ford.”

When Harrison began assembling a touring band, Ford—then just 22—was brought in.

“I was touring with Joni Mitchell, and we did two shows in London in 1974,” Ford tells Classic Rock. “I’m hanging out backstage, and I turn around and standing before me is the album cover to All Things Must Pass. You know, he had the hair, hat, gardening boots, big plaid coat.”

Ford recalls Harrison arriving at his Henley-on-Thames home the next day in similarly iconic fashion. “We got there about one in the afternoon. George was still asleep. At about four, he came into the kitchen, smoking a Gauloises, making tea—he only drank Typhoo.”

What followed, Ford says, was a night of escalating studio chaos.

“At one in the morning, the band all went up to the studio. Everyone had been drinking, smoking something, snorting something,” he says. “So we’re all set up in the studio, and there’s a shelf running along all four walls of the control room, with a box of cocaine on every shelf. So if you felt like it, you just popped over, had a little toot, and continued. And we did that until the sun came up.”

Despite the mythology, Ford has since downplayed the musical impact of the experience. He’s said he “didn’t learn anything” from his time in Harrison’s band, describing his role largely as playing simple rhythm parts each night. One of the few highlights was trading guitar lines with Harrison on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” the Beatles-era centerpiece that remained a live staple.

The Dark Horse tour itself was widely criticized for its loose structure and minimal Beatles material, and it ended up marking Harrison’s retreat from live performance for nearly two decades. Ford, however, moved on without difficulty, later working with Steely Dan — although his guitar solo for “Peg” didn't make the cut.

Elsewhere, Ford has credited another guitarist with sparking his lifelong relationship with the Fender Telecaster, and has described his stint with Kiss as one of the strangest gigs of his career. Harrison’s former bandmate Jeff Lynne has since reflected on how the Traveling Wilburys helped redefine Harrison’s post-Beatles identity.

From playing on one of the biggest albums of the 1990s to forming rock powerhouse Foo Fighters and launching plenty of projects beyond them, Dave Grohl has carved a unique path in music. But he says his daughter Violet Grohl’s development as a guitarist had little to do with him.

In fact, she’s even been teaching him a thing or two.

It’s an exciting time in the Grohl household. Foo Fighters have just released their 12th studio album, Your Favorite Toy. Violet Grohl, meanwhile, is preparing to release her debut album, Be Sweet to Me, on May 29 after signing a record deal with Republic Records/Island EMI.

“I’m totally uninvolved,” Dave said earlier this year (via MusicRadar). “I’m like the dad that wants to be there and know everything, and she’s just totally doing her own thing.”

Based on Violet’s early singles “THUM,” “595” and “Applefish,” the singer and guitarist appears to be channeling gritty ’90s alt-rock with a dash of horror-film-score unease. But while some might assume her father was her guitar teacher, Grohl says otherwise.

“There was a lot of feeling to what she would sing when she was eight years old. And then as she got older, maybe around 13, she’s like, ‘Hey, I want to make a record,’” he said on SiriusXM Lithium (via Louder).

“And I said, ‘Okay, well, you know, you have to write songs.’ And I didn’t tell her how to do it. I think I gave her a pen and a notebook and said, ‘Just start writing stuff.’ And she did.”

Foo Fighters fans likely heard her guest appearances with the band on “Making a Fire,” from 2020’s Medicine at Midnight, and “Show Me How,” from But Here We Are (2023).

“She taught herself all of the instruments she plays by ear and just learned in her bedroom,” he continues. “There were times when I’d walk downstairs and pick up a guitar. It’d be in some freaky tuning. And I’m like, ‘What is this tuning?’ And she’d say, ‘Oh, that’s a Joni Mitchell tuning.’ And then she starts doing this intricate Joni fingerpicking thing where I’m like, ‘Where the fuck did you learn how to do that?’”

Grohl says his daughter has always been determined to follow her own path in music.

“She wanted to leave school to play music,” he explains. “I was like, ‘Just stick through it.’ Then, right when she graduated, she met with her producer, Justin Raisen, and I had nothing to do with the recording. She would come home and play me things, and she wouldn’t really ask for advice.

“Now, as she’s getting deeper into stuff, we’ll sit and talk about the bigger picture of things, ’cause getting thrown into it is a lot. But I didn’t want to be like a stage dad.”

Violet struck a rich vein of inspiration in Mitchell’s tunings. The legendary songwriter developed her own guitar language — colloquially referred to as “Joni’s weird chords” — from more than 50 alternate tunings while eschewing electric-guitar convention.

Mitchell’s approach developed partly out of necessity. Her hands were weakened by childhood struggles with polio, making conventional fingerings difficult. Alternate tunings became a workaround.

“I tend to think of the top three strings as muted trumpets, or the high end of an orchestra,” she once told Guitar Player. “I think of the midrange as viola; the thumb is a very sparse, eccentric bass line.

“Tunewise,” she added, “the thumb can play vertically while the rest of the fingers are swinging, which gives a funny kind of Senegalese quality to my shuffle — as if my thumb is playing a monkey chant and the rest of me is swinging somewhere in the U.S.A., like Robert Johnson on Mars.”

For that matter, the guitar used on her first four records — a Martin D-28 — has a war-torn backstory, and her singular approach has inspired countless players eager to emulate her atypical style.

So don’t expect Violet Grohl’s music to sound like Foo Fighters lite. She’s carving her own path — with plenty of unusual tunings along the way.

Joni Mitchell recalls the pain from her earliest attempts to share her songs as a young piano student.

“I got my fingers rapped with a ruler,” she tells Guitar Player. “‘Why would you want to compose music when you could have the masters under your fingers?’”

Mitchell would go on not only to compose music but to invent her own guitar language, eventually creating more than 50 alternate tunings that helped define the harmonic richness of her songwriting.

Unable to form chords traditionally because of weakness in her hands — the lingering effect of childhood polio — Mitchell began turning her guitar’s pegs into open tunings.

Today she uses more than 50 different tunings, taking her well beyond the familiar territories of open E and DADGAD.

But the tunings do more than accommodate her hands. They reshape how she hears the instrument, allowing her to approach the guitar almost like an orchestra. The result is the harmonic richness of her music, with uncommon note choices and combinations.

“I tend to think of the top three strings as muted trumpets,” she says, “or the high end of an orchestra — horn stops. I think of the midrange as viola, I guess — not violins — but the orchestra's mid-register, say French horn and viola.

“The thumb is a very sparse, eccentric bass line. Tunewise the thumb can play vertically while the rest of the fingers are swinging, which gives a funny kind of Senegalese quality to my shuffle, as if my thumb is playing a monkey chant and the rest of me is swinging somewhere in the U.S.A. — like Robert Johnson on Mars.”

The music she heard in her head

As Mitchell recalls, the tunings actually predate her guitar playing, which began when she was 18 after an early flirtation with baritone ukulele.

“I think maybe it arrived first in the piano.”

After her family moved to Saskatoon when she was 11, Mitchell briefly took piano lessons to satisfy her desire to create the music she was already composing in her head.

“I think I had a prodigious creative ability as a musician, but the community that I grew up in disallowed it. I know I wanted to compose for the piano, that I heard music in my head at the age of seven and had to learn it.

But that expression was discouraged.

“The young Mozart was encouraged by his father, and the idea of composition coming at an early age wasn't ruled out,” she offers, “but it certainly was in this little community. The idea of being an original creative person was almost anathema.”

Likewise, learning on her own was frowned upon as something for the underclass.

“Playing by ear was considered to be déclassé. It was really misunderstood and discouraged.”

And yet she was drawn to sounds and musical styles that her lessons never revealed, leaving her to search for them on her own.

“Everything that thrilled me at an early age was harmonically wide and rich,” she says. “I heard a lot of swing music and things like Frank Sinatra. In order for musicians to play that stuff you have to have a background in European harmony and structure. I was hearing and absorbing this music with no real understanding.”

Or any intention of pursuing a music career, for that matter.

“Well, I picked up the guitar — or the ukulele — at the age of 18 with no ambition to have a career in music, just to accompany bawdy drinking songs.”

The melody that changed everything

But privately she was still writing songs, and one piece of music in particular left a permanent impression: Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” specifically its famous 18th variation.

“That still remains the most beautiful melody I ever heard,” she says. “I used to go down to the store where you could take a 78 and go into a glass listening booth, play it, and decide if you wanted it or not. Well, I couldn't buy it because I was a child, but I used to go in and listen from time to time. So that love of melody made me want to create music.

“My next passion was Chuck Berry and rock and roll. That took a different form. I became a dancer, a really serious dancer, doing the Lindy hop and swing dances. Then, at 18, I took up the guitar, and nobody knew who I was anymore.”

“People were always telling me I was playing things wrong”

Playing acoustic guitar brought a new complication: fretting chords. Her open tunings worked for her but confused those she performed with.

“My style was quite different. People were always telling me I was playing things wrong,” says Mitchell, who eventually acquired a Martin D-28 from a soldier in the Vietnam war and went on to composer many of her early songs with it. “When I started to write my own music, then I was the final authority on it.”

But as she later explained, the tunings also allow her to keep discovering new avenues of expression through trial and error.

“If you’re only working off what you know, then you can’t grow,” she told Acoustic Guitar. “It’s only through error that discovery is made, and in order to discover you have to set up some sort of situation with a random element—a strange attractor, using contemporary physics terms.

“The more I can surprise myself, the more I’ll stay in this business, and the twiddling of the notes is one way to keep the pilgrimage going. You’re constantly pulling the rug out from under yourself, so you don’t get a chance to settle into any kind of formula.”

The guitar that helped Joni Mitchell write timeless hits like “Both Sides, Now,” and “The Circle Game” survived a war zone, airline damage and years on the road, only to vanish around 1970.

Mitchell’s first four albums are the works on which she established herself as a folk talent for the ages. They not only introduced her singular voice and vision but also produced a durable repertoire that includes “Chelsea Morning,” “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock,” as well as the entirety of Blue — widely regarded as her masterpiece and one of the greatest albums of all time.

Remarkably, one guitar was central to each of those recordings: a 1956 Martin D-28. And before Mitchell became its keeper, it had already lived a full life.

She discovered the instrument while performing for troops at Fort Bragg. Although Mitchell is often associated with the 1960s counterculture, she told the CBC, “I was not a part of the anti-war movement.” Like other entertainers, including Bob Hope, she made a point of performing for servicemen. “I went the Bob Hope route because I had uncles who died in the war, and I thought it was a shame to blame the boys who were drafted.”

At the time, she was playing “a small-bodied Martin that didn’t have very good bass response.” One night after a show, an officer approached her.

“There was a captain there who’d been to Vietnam and returned, and he had two instruments that he’d taken with him,” Mitchell told Guitar Player. “I guess this whole place was a battlefield, and shrapnel hit his tent and demolished one guitar. The only surviving thing was a Martin D-28, which I’d always wanted but couldn’t afford.

“One night after I’d played, he told me, ‘Joni, you’re better than Peter, Paul and Mary, and you should have this guitar,’ and he told me the history of it. Being an independent girl, I said, ‘I couldn’t take it as a gift, but I’ll buy it off you.’

“So he sold it to me for nothing — really, far less than its value at the time. That guitar, which I used for at least my first four albums, was superb.

“It was a better D-28 than anybody ever heard. It was a 1956, built at a time when Martin was very selective. Their craftsmanship was at its pinnacle, I think. It wasn’t so mass-produced. Every acoustic player who ever touched that guitar just drooled over it.”

Its intonation, in particular, set it apart. A unique guitar stylist, Mitchell has long relied on open and alternate tunings, which she adopted after childhood polio made it difficult for her to form standard chord shapes. Those tunings demand an instrument that can maintain clarity and balance even under unusual string tensions.

“I need really good intonation,” she explained to Acoustic Guitar. “One of the signs of really good intonation is how flashy the harmonics are with a light touch. You should be able to get them to bloom like jewels.”

In that respect, the D-28 was ideal. “It just seemed to eat that up,” she told Guitar Player. “It traveled well, through hot and cold, and it was my true love.”

Unfortunately, life on the road took its toll. “It got cracked on the airlines,” Mitchell recalled. “Its face got crushed. It was repaired, but it never sounded right. It just died.

“After that, I became very promiscuous with guitars, and I could never find one with that balance and resonance.”

Soon afterward, the guitar disappeared entirely.

“It finally was stolen off a carousel in Maui, of all places, and that was the end of it. In the years that followed, I searched and bought old Martins, but nothing compared.”

In 1993 or ’94, she came close to recapturing the magic when she acquired a Martin D-45. That search also led her to Collings Guitars.

“The same dealer who sold me the D-45 introduced me to a new guitar maker called Collings, who fancies himself Martin reincarnated,” she said. “He’s making Martin clones, but in the old way — a small number a year, with the details that fell by the wayside as Martin moved into mass production.

“I picked up two more instruments that I think are really superb: a baby guitar with a 14-fret neck and a dreadnought. I need the long necks for my tunings, although I enjoy the wide, old 12-fret necks. So now I have an arsenal of acoustics to suit my music for the first time in my career.”

Mitchell’s legacy continues to deepen. Her archival collection, Joni Mitchell Archives — Vol. 4: The Asylum Years, recently earned her the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album, and she is set to receive a lifetime achievement honor from the Juno Awards — further recognition of an artist whose music helped define an era.

“I hate retirement,” David Crosby grumbles. The legendary, 81-year-old singer-songwriter and guitarist announced last year that he was calling it a day on touring life (this after six decades on the road), and he’s anything but happy about it.

“It’s miserable not being able to go out and play,” he says, “but after a certain point, it is what it is. Touring is too hard for a guy my age, and tendonitis has affected my ability to play guitar. It’s tough. There’s lots of guys who love being retired, but that isn’t me. It sucks.”

Crosby reveals that he’s still making music (“I can still sing as good as ever, maybe even better”), and he’s psyched about his continuing collaboration with Becca Stevens, Michelle Willis and Michael League, better known as the Lighthouse Band, which began with 2016’s aptly named Lighthouse album.

“Whoa, boy, are they fun!” he raves. “I’ve admired them since they started. They’re such brilliant musicians and singers, and they’re fabulous people. We get along great. It was an accidental thing – I met Michael and started writing some tunes with him. The chemistry just blossomed, and then I started working with the whole band. I bring stuff out of them, they bring stuff out of me – it’s beautiful.”

In 2018, during one of his last full tours, Crosby performed with the Lighthouse Band in support of his album Here If You Listen. Their gig at the famed Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY, has recently been released in both physical and digital formats. “That was a fabulous night, and the recording we made I tremendous,” he says. “Of the live albums I’ve done, this is by far my favorite. I like it even more than Four-Way Street.”

The musician admits that coming up with a setlist was never one of his favorite aspects of touring. “That’s what happens when you’ve got a lot of songs,” he says. “It’s not so much about what to play than it is what to leave out. No matter what I did, people would always say, ‘Why didn’t you do such and such?’” He laughs. “I could have worse problems.”

A number of Crosby’s most iconic songs are featured on David Crosby & The Lighthouse Band Live at the Capitol Theatre, and here he discusses four of them – the original recordings and how he reworked them – as well as a relatively new number that sat in his garage for nearly 50 years.

1. “Guinnevere” from ‘Crosby, Stills & Nash’ by Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969)

“It’s such a nice new version we did on the live album. The Lighthouse Band really loved the song, so we decided to play it together. We did it a little differently, but that’s OK. Songs aren’t static. Most people seem to have problems re-imaging their songs, particularly if they’re seen as famous or whatever.

“I never had that problem, and the Lighthouse Band were game to explore. The funny thing is, not only didn’t we play the song like it is on record, but we didn’t even play it the same way twice ourselves.

“When I wrote the song, I was playing around with an open tuning [E, B, D, G, A, D] somebody showed me. It was the first time I ever worked with anything other than standard tuning or a drop D. I retuned the guitar and started playing, and my mind was blown. That tuning game me ‘Guinnevere,’ “Déjà Vu’ and a number of other songs. It blended jazz and folk, which is a really cool place to be, although that wasn’t my intention. I was just transported by the tuning.

“Stephen [Stills] and Graham [Nash] thought it was a weird song. [Laughs] They knew it was good, but they thought it was pretty out-there. But that’s the point! That’s one of the things I liked about it. It sets a mood.”

2. “Déjà Vu” from ‘Déjà Vu’ by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1970)

“There’s several time signatures in this song. It starts off in 6/8 and then goes to a regular 4/4, but in the chorus it goes to 7/4. At the end it goes to 4/4. I wasn’t necessarily trying to put a jazz sensibility into it; it just came out that way. I’ve heard people say, ‘It spins me around in a circle,’ and my attitude is like, ‘Good. As long as it moves you.’

“I played acoustic guitars and electric guitars when we cut it. We did a lot of takes of the song. I’ve read somewhere that we did 100 takes – that’s just crazy. We would never have done 100 takes of anything.

“Stephen and Graham thought this was another weird song [laughs], but that’s the kind of stuff I write. Plus, it was weirdo days back then. But the guys came along and got into it. Funnily enough, they picked the song as the title of the album. It wasn’t my idea. I never even suggested it.

“The new version is way different from what’s on the Déjà Vu album. It spreads out very leisurely. The chemistry of the Lighthouse Band changed it around in a really cool way.”

3. “1974” from ‘Here If You Listen’ by David Crosby (2018)

“Almost 50 years after I started this song, it’s now a reality. This is a little like ‘Tamalpais High,’ in that I had a song without any words. So what I would do was, I’d stack vocals like horns. It’s a totally valid thing to do.

“I had one of those things sitting around in my garage, and Michael League found it. He got excited: ‘Hey, this is an unfinished song!’ I said to him, ‘Hey, if you want to write some words to it, go for it, baby.’ He and the ladies jumped on the song and wrote the words.

“There’s no significance to the title other than that’s when I started to write it. They came up with the title, not me. It’s mind-blowing that something from five decades ago is now a new song, but that just speaks to the creativity of the Lighthouse Band. They’re a creativity bunch. They see something and they just do. I have to work hard just to keep up with them.”

4. “Woodstock” from ‘Déjà Vu’ by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1970)

“Joni Mitchell gave us a demo of the song. It was just her singing and playing guitar, and it was beautiful, of course. But it was completely different from what we ended up doing with it. I loved it immediately and thought it offered us a lot of territory to explore.

“I wish I could say that I had a plan to really rock it out, but it just happened, like so many things. Stills came up with the electric intro – he had already been working around with the song. It’s the only track on the album where all of us played together in one room.

“I keep talking about chemistry – that was chemistry, boy. You drop a song on CSN and Y, and you’re gonna see stuff happen. I played acoustic, and Stephen and Neil played electric. That was one of our go-to moves – guitar heroics from those guys. We could do that because they were that good.

“I never thought it would be a single. None of us did – we thought it was too weird. At that time, our singles were ‘Marrakesh Express’ and ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,’ stuff that was a little softer. We weren’t known as a hard rock band, but we did an amazing job with this one.”

5. “Almost Cut My Hair” from ‘Déjà Vu’ by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1970)

“I once said this was a juvenile song. It’s not a complex song; it’s simple, but I still like it. I’m not ashamed of it. I wish I could take credit for the guitar parts, but that was Stephen and Neil [Young].

“I played them the song on acoustic, and they instinctively knew what to do. They attacked it. [Laughs] I never had to show them parts. When you have guys that fucking good, you don’t need to show them anything. It was such a joy to watch them go at it.

“It’s a fun song that has some guts to it. Many, many people say that it’s one of their favorites. And I say, ‘Thank you.’” 

Order David Crosby: Remember My Name here.

***This article was originally published in the October 2021 issue of Guitar Player***

David Crosby is an iconic acoustic captain at the helm of his ever-fantastic ship, always listening for a song on the wind that might lead him to some mystical, musical port of call. More than ever lately, he appears to be a man on a mission, perhaps making up for lost time.

He’s dropped five albums since 2014. Snarky Puppy ringleader and bass ace Michael League produced 2016’s Lighthouse, and they’ve continued a working relationship that Crosby regards as a band.

Otherwise, the guitarist’s primary co-captain is his son James Raymond. Crosby refers to their collaboration as Sky Trails, which is the title of their 2017 album, and James also produced the new album, For Free (BMG).

The colorful folk-rock legend sounds almost too good for having lived a pirate’s life. His voice is unbelievably unweathered. His fingerpicking and signature six- and 12-string sounds are well intact, but as Crosby reveals in this feature, there is trouble on the horizon in the form of treacherous tendonitis.

Before sailing into the sunset, he’s being as creative as possible. What he hasn’t been doing is working with the company of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. It’s well documented that much love has been lost on that front. No more new musical magic is expected from the quartet, but there is a fantastic new 50th anniversary boxed-set edition of Déjà Vu featuring insightful guitar-and-vocal demos and extensive liner notes by Cameron Crowe.

What we can expect at some point, according to Crosby, is a major documentary produced by Nigel Sinclair and Tim Sexton (Sinclair recently produced the stellar Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart).

For Free gets its title from the Joni Mitchell classic that Crosby covers on the new album. He credits her for opening his eyes to alternate tunings, which he still uses to create deep, cosmic textures.

“I Think I” is a crafty composition with exceptional acoustic guitars and vocals that exemplify Crosby’s breezy, existential vibe. Steely Dan fans will dig the funky groove and jazzy changes on his collaboration with Donald Fagan, “Rodriguez for a Night.”

Clever electric guitar comes courtesy of session legend Dean Parks (Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, Steely Dan), who also wrote the music for the soldier song “Shot at Me.” There are some catchy commercial hooks here as well, including “River Rise,” which features backing vocals courtesy of another cat from the Steely Dan camp, Michael McDonald.

Most cuts feature Crosby’s acoustic at the core, and he’s a better guitar player than he often gets credit for, considering how much attention is paid to his voice and character. He’s actually quite humble about his playing and understands why most of the guitar cred from his crew has gone to Stephen Stills and Neil Young.

“Naturally it would go to them, man,” he says. “Those guys are lead players and have different levels of competency.”

Crosby is a true acoustic guitar aficionado, and he can’t help himself from boasting a bit about his awesome collection. He still uses most of it, including his classic Martins from the Woodstock era.

Perhaps his most infamous Martin is his six-to-12-string conversion D-18. Martin has released limited-edition signature versions, first as the D-18DC in 2002, and then as the D-12 David Crosby, featuring a reversed string course in the third slot, in 2009.

Guitar Player fortuitously caught up with Croz on the heels of recent features with other notable 12-string appreciators from his generation, Leo Kottke and Taj Mahal.

How did your six-string roots start you down the 12-string path?

It’s an interesting story. The first guitar I bought was made by a banjo company that produced a 12-string guitar. Bob Gibson [an American folk singer and a key figure in the 1950s/’60s folk revival] played one, and he was one of the folk guys I liked, so I got one too.

But the first good one was a Martin D-18 that I bought at a music store in Chicago when I was living there. When I moved to California, I took it to Jon Lundberg in Berkeley and asked him to convert it to a 12-string because I was entranced with 12-strings. He did, and to this day it’s the best.

Kottke is going to argue with me about this, but I have a handful of the best 12-strings existing in the world. That one is still the king. It’s better than my D-45 12-string from the Martin Custom Shop, which is killer fucking good. Or my Roy Smeck Gibson that the folks at Alembic converted into a 12-string, and that looks exactly as if there had been a Roy Smeck Gibson 12-string.

Or the copy Martin made of my D-18 for the prototype of my signature 12-string. That has an ebony neck, and it is still hanging on my wall. I truly love 12-strings, and the best one I’ve ever had is still that first one.

Why?

Every single one is different, like snowflakes. Maybe it’s the wood combination. Maybe it’s all the love I’ve poured into it over the years. I’ll line them all up and let you play them, and you’ll come to the same conclusion. Although I’ve got to say that the D-45 rings like a bell.

The original modified D-18 has 12 frets to the body, correct?

Yeah, that puts the bridge a little further back, and for some reason that works. I don’t know why. It is what it is.

What inspired you to have the modification done in the first place?

It was the sound of the guitar. It sounded so good as a six-string, and I should have left it like that, but I was enthralled with the 12-string, so I took the chance, and it worked, out of sheer luck.

Why were you so enthralled with the 12-string? Who was turning you on at that time?  

Bob Gibson and Pete Seeger are the two that jump to mind. I just liked 12-strings right away, and I still do. I was playing that D-18 conversion last night.

It’s interesting that you come to the 12-string from a folk perspective and wind up in the Byrds, perhaps the most famous jangling-rock outfit ever, yet you jump to an electric Gretsch six-string and Roger McGuinn does all the jangling on a 12-string Rickenbacker, correct?

Yeah, it’s not me, it’s Roger. He was always a much better guitar player than me. When he got one of the first Rickies, it sounded like a glass avalanche. Unbelievable. He’s such a gifted musician. He basically does one thing, but he does it really well. He’s also brilliant at voicing something into a different form, like turning “Mr. Tambourine Man” from a terrible goddamned demo into that brilliant record.

I started out playing a Gretsch Tennessean in the Byrds, but then switched pretty quickly to a Country Gentlemen, which was a better guitar.

Even more interesting is that you wind up returning to the acoustic for the act that defines folk rock, Crosby, Stills & Nash. In fact, you all start out on acoustic for that, right?

Yeah, Stephen and I are both crazy about acoustic guitars. Graham likes them, but it’s not quite the same. Stephen and I kind of worship them. We love them a lot. We each have multiple stunning guitars, and that’s why we fall in love with them. I have five Martin D-45s.

What were you thinking when Martin re-introduced the D-45 in the late ’60s?

We knew that Martin had the best wood stashed, because they’d been buying it before anybody else, and that they’d uncorked their stash of Brazilian rosewood, which is now gone. And they had a stash of top wood that they thought was their absolute best. They combined them, and that was irresistible to us.

We could get one for about five grand, and as far as we were concerned that was the best guitar anybody was making. I think we were right. I have three of those 1969 D-45s. They’re the ones with all the wear from being played at the concerts. I also have one made of koa, and it’s a mind-boggling guitar with an unbelievable sound.

Can you share the story of “Wooden Ships” from the Crosby, Stills & Nash debut in 1969?

I wrote it on that 12-string [longtime tech John Gonzales says Crosby refers to the guitar as “the Wooden Ships 12-string”]. I’d say that 90 percent of the chord changes are mine. I brought the music to Stephen and Paul Kantner. Stephen added a couple of very significant changes that really helped.

We were on my boat in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I was docked at a friend’s house and they both came down to visit. We wrote it right there, sitting in the main cabin. Paul gave me some key lyrics that started it going really well. You can guess which verse Stephen wrote: “Horror grips us...” [laughs]

That’s in standard tuning, but you were into alternates, as evidenced by the haunting sound on “Guinnevere.” How did you arrive at that unique tuning?

A kid from the Midwest showed me that tuning that, from low to high, goes E B D G A D, and I got “Guinnevere” and “Déjà Vu” out of it. I’ll tell you what got me started: My brother turned me on to jazz early on and I liked some keyboard players, including Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner. They’d play chords that were like huge freaking tone clusters. Thick stuff. My hand wasn’t good enough to play them in standard tuning.

Some guitar players can approach playing the same stuff as a piano player, using closed positions in standard tuning, but the guitarist can only produce six notes, so the piano player has got you by at least four. I couldn’t do it, but in alternate tunings, different inversions of the chords came up. I started to get to those strange, mystical places I wanted to go.

The chords on “Déjà Vu” can be found simply by barring the top three strings at the 3rd and 5th frets. It’s a matter of which order you pick the notes. I fingerpick with my thumb and first three fingers. The rhythm on “Guinnevere” goes 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, which is actually very normal.

The main guitar is one of the 1969 D-45s. There are a couple of guitars along with it on the intro, and one of them is probably the 12-string. There are a couple of guitars on “Déjà Vu,” but I’m not sure which ones. We didn’t record it until the Déjà Vu album [released in 1970], but I had the music early on when I was leaving the Byrds and started hanging out with Stephen Stills.

The 50th anniversary edition of Déjà Vu includes the demos for “Almost Cut My Hair” and “Laughing,” which isn’t on that record but becomes a signature guitar track on your solo debut [If I Could Only Remember My Name, 1971]. Can you offer some guitar insights?

I’ll guess that I’m playing one of the ’69 D-45s on “Almost Cut My Hair.” That song is in standard tuning, although it might be dropped a whole step for the demo. “Laughing” is in an alternate tuning that, from low to high, goes D G D D A D, and again the demo might be dropped a whole step from the full studio version.

The vibe that tuning summons is similar to the slow section on “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” Did you get that from Stills, or did he get it from you?

More he got it from me. The people who taught me the most were Joni [Mitchell] and Michael Hedges. Stephen got into tunings pretty much right away, but he was a blues player, so he could take them to a different place than I could. Joni and Michael worked tunings to the most sophisticated level. They’re both geniuses at it.

And once I found out what kind of music I could write – “Guinnevere” being a good example – I loved it. So, of course, I kept exploring tunings. Over and over again, my best stuff is in alternate tunings.

“Music Is Love” [from If I Could Only Remember My Name] is another example, although I can’t remember that exact tuning right now [low to high, D A D G B D, and the original recording is dropped a half step]. That’s another good example of the original 12-string’s sound.

“I Think I” from the new album has a classic Crosby sound, perhaps in some kind of C tuning.

It’s in an alternate tuning that’s been very good for creating several songs, although I can’t say exactly what it is right now. There are two acoustic parts on there. Steve Postell played the beautiful acoustic lead at the end, and I played the fingerpicking part on one of the 1969 D-45s.

“Other Side of Midnight” is a lovely cosmic tune with a killer chord progression. What’s the guitar story?

You’re going to be pissed, because there isn’t one. Every single sound on that recording is synthesized. My son James played all the guitar sounds on a computer. He’s that good at it. You shouldn’t be able to do that, but he can. I’m not sure if we should allow him in the country. [laughs]

Who’s playing the high chimey intro on “Shot at Me”?

One of the best guitar players in the world, Dean Parks, wrote the music and played on that song. The lyrics are about guys coming back from the sandboxes in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. It wrecks them and really screws them up.

Do you still take your vintage Martins on the road?

I’ve been taking two of the three ’69s, even though it’s crazy to do so because they’re worth, like, a hundred grand each. But I’ve been taking them on the road anyway because they’re that good. I also have a Gibson J-200 made out of Brazilian rosewood from their custom shop that I have taken on the road.

And I have some guitars made by Roy McAlister up near Seattle. He showed up at my door one day saying he’d made me a guitar. It was a triple-0 body style, and I prefer dreadnoughts, but he mentioned that he was the guy at Santa Cruz Guitars who had made the copy of my 12-string, which is another one I have. So I invited him in, and it was one of the best guitars I’d ever touched. It’s still the one closest to the bed. I’ve given five of his guitars away to other players, and I have five others that he made, including a mind-boggling 12-string. I take four of his guitars on the road.

Including the 12-string?

No, when I play 12-string in the live show it’s an electric made by Alembic.

How do you electrify your acoustics?

We have gone through the stages of the cross when it comes to pickups. I don’t use any pedals. The signal goes straight to the house, and I have two monitors: one for my voice and one for my acoustic guitars. I use a Magnatone amp for the electrics. [John Gonzales reports that the acoustics all have D’Addario EXP16 strings and Fishman Matrix Infinity undersaddle piezo pickup systems that feed into Radial J48 direct boxes. The electric Alembic 12-string was custom built around 1970, and the Magnatone amp is a Twilighter.]

How are your hands?

I’ve got tendonitis in both. I can play, but I’m down to about 80 percent of what I used to be able to do, and it’s steadily deteriorating. The middle finger on my right hand doesn’t bend well. I had an operation done, but that actually made it worse.

I’m not trying to whine and snivel here. I’ve just got to cope with this reality. I’d guess I’ve got about another year to play guitar, if I’m lucky. It’s not a solvable problem. That’s just how it is. I’ve been playing for 70 years. I’ve had a good run, man.

Can you do any more tours?

I don’t think I can tour anymore. Well, maybe limited, but I do think I can make a couple more records. I’d like to do another Lighthouse record with Michael League and that lineup, but he lives in Spain now, so we’ll see.

James and I have already started the next record. They don’t pay us for them anymore, but we didn’t start doing them for money in the first place. We started doing them because we loved doing them, and we still love doing them. Albums are still our art form. They are what we have based our life on, and we still love making music. They are what we are going to leave behind.

Grab your copy of For Free here.

Although he’s recognized as one of the most gifted guitarists of his generation, Eric Johnson considers himself a student of his instrument.

“Playing guitar is being part of a journey that never ends,” says the artist, whose latest albums, The Book of Making and Yesterday Meets Today, were released in July.

“That’s what’s so great about it. You can’t just focus on a destination because there’s so much to discover along the way.”

One might assume Johnson was born with a guitar in his hands, but in fact he began his musical life as a child studying piano. By the time he picked up the guitar at age 11, he had already developed a musical ear.

“I took a few months of guitar lessons, which I really enjoyed,” he says, “but then I kind of started teaching myself.

“I would sit at the piano with the guitar, and as I played notes on the piano, I would find them on the guitar.”

Growing up in a pre-instructional video and pre-internet age, Johnson learned many guitar basics from playing along to records. He credits a childhood friend, Jimmy Shade, with helping him along the way.

“Jimmy had a great ear, and he could pick out anything off records,” he says. “He’d teach me stuff and give me lots of tips, and before long I was able to pick stuff up on my own.”

Here, Johnson offers five tips learned the hard way…

1. START SLOW AND GRADUALLY BUILD SPEED

“We all want instant gratification, and this is certainly true when it comes to guitar playing. You hear a piece of music with a lot of fast notes, and of course you want to play it at real-time speed right away. But if you jump in and try to play something fast, you’re setting yourself up for trouble.

“You won’t mute strings properly, you’re not going to pick correctly, and you’re basically going to sound sloppy. You’ll just graze over everything without looking at all the incidentals that actually make it a well-groomed piece of music.

“You can always learn to play something faster, and that’ll come once you start slow and look at all the elements of the music. Get a total sense of what you’re playing before you go full throttle. Get all your fundamentals together.

“Gradually, you can pick up speed and assimilate all the aspects that will make the piece sound better.

“This is something I’ve put into my own playing routine. Way back in the day, whenever I would listen to a record, I’d slow it down and listen to what the guitar player was doing. It really helped me kind of see it on the fretboard.

“That might not be possible these days if you don’t have vinyl records, but however you go about it, try to pace yourself and really take your time.”

2. MUTE YOUR STRINGS

“If you’re playing with a distorted or a gain-driven sound, it’s very easy to activate strings you’re not playing. This can result in a messy, sloppy and weird sound, and not in a cool way.

“To fix this, if you’re right-handed, use the side of your right hand to mute strings at the bridge wherever you’re not playing. Then you can use your other fingers you’re not fretting with to mute the strings on the fretboard so they don’t get activated.

“It sounds complicated, but it’s not. It’s a kind of hand choreography you can easily learn by being attentive to the fact that you need to silence the strings around where you’re playing. It makes everything sound better.

“It took me a while to learn how to navigate my hands to correct this problem. I would hear strings sustaining or getting activated that weren’t supposed to, and I thought it sounded bad. I put a little thought and time into it, and before long everything started to sound a lot better.

“Sometimes you want a little extra noise and craziness in your sound, but often you want people to hear what you intend for them to hear.”

3. OPEN YOUR EARS TO OTHER MUSIC

“I don’t know why people would want to limit themselves to one kind of music in the first place. There’s so much out there to enjoy, and a lot of it might surprise you. I grew up exposed to many different styles of music. My dad liked country, show tunes, swing, rock and jazz, so I heard it all. When I started playing guitar, I got into blues.

“If you listen to different types of music, you’ll hear many kinds of instruments, and you’ll appreciate their beauty. From that, you might take some of that sonic capacity and figure out a way to put it into your guitar playing. It could be intentional, or it can just sort of happen without thinking.

“I’ve learned so much from listening to Joni Mitchell. She’s a great guitarist. Her chord voicings amazed me, and I always loved how she could get in the pocket with her rhythm playing. That stuff influenced me.

“I realized there was a lot more to learn than just shredding leads. After learning a lot of her chords, I began to learn how to solo out of their structures. Suddenly, I was playing different kinds of things that were more outside the box of generic rock patterns.”

4. PRACTICE WITH A METRONOME

“This is a really good habit to develop. Using a metronome has been an ongoing part of my practice routine. I have a tendency to want to rush through parts, so it’s something I have to watch out for. Playing with metronome helps me keep that impulse in check, and it helps me relax.

“This is especially important for when you play with other people. If you sit in your room and play guitar alone without a metronome, you won’t develop an internal clock or a natural rhythm. This can lead to disastrous attempts at playing with other people. You won’t be in sync with everybody else.

“So I continue to practice with a metronome. I just did an acoustic show, and I used one for the first month that I was practicing my set. I’d figure out the beats per minute of the songs, and then I would keep practicing with the metronome, over and over.

“Once I felt like I was playing everything comfortably and in time, I shut the metronome off. I can’t stress what an invaluable part of the process it is for me.”

5. STAY A STUDENT OF THE GUITAR

“There’s so much to learn with guitar. Stay open to new sounds and ideas, or old sounds and ideas. They’re all valid. If you ever think you’ve learned it all, forget it. You didn’t.

“It’s great to learn mind-blowing, crazy playing, but it’s just as important to learn good rhythm playing. There are guys in Nashville who get hired to play on sessions just because they’re dependable rhythm players.

“They have a way of strumming that just makes a track sing. Some of the people who we think are the greatest players in the world can’t strum a guitar like those Nashville guys.

“I try to take it all in. I listen to people like Tommy Emmanuel, Doyle Dykes and Sonny Landreth, just to name a few, and I get so inspired. Some of the sounds they create and the places they go on the guitar, it makes me think, I’ve got some work to do!

“But that’s why you wake up and pick up the guitar. There’s always something new you can do.”

Order The Book of Making here and Yesterday Meets Today here.

As one of the world’s most famous guitarists, George Harrison was on the receiving end of some stunning and groundbreaking guitars, including a prototype Rickenbacker 360/12 12-string, in 1964, and a prototype Fender Rosewood Telecaster, in 1969.

But as astute Beatles fans learned in recent years, in 1967 Harrison became the recipient of an unusual prototype fretless electric guitar built by the short-lived U.S. Bartell company.

How the guitar came to be, and how Harrison came to own it, are among the subjects explored by British author Paul Brett in his recently published groundbreaking tome, Finding Fretless: The Story of George Harrison’s Mad Guitar (This Day in Music Books).

Brett’s interest in the guitar was spurred when his friend, veteran jazz-fusion guitarist Ray Russell, posted a cryptic message to his Facebook page to mark the Beatle’s birthday on February 25, 2019, accompanied by a photo of a fretless guitar.

“He took a little post on Facebook and said, ‘I’m remembering George today. He gave me this old guitar. I don’t know much about it,’” Brett recalls. “That just triggered my interest. It was a Bartell. I’d never heard of it.”

Russell’s post sent Brett on a journey to learn more about both Harrison’s guitar and the Bartell brand, whose venture into fretless guitars in the 1960s is among the guitar world’s most unusual evolutionary branches.

At the heart of the story is Paul Barth, one of guitar’s unsung heroes. “People don’t talk much about Paul Barth,” Brett says, “but he was really one of the founding fathers of the electric guitar.”

Barth’s introduction to the guitar industry came in the early 1920s, when he went to work for his uncle John Dopyera, inventor of the resonator guitar, at the National String Instrument Corporation. By the 1930s, Barth was working with George Beauchamp at Rickenbacker, collaborating with him on the Frying Pan electric and Beauchamp’s design for a guitar pickup.

In the early 1950s, he helped Leo Fender set up his Santa Ana assembly line and built many of the woodworking jigs from which necks and bodies were shaped for Stratocaster, Jazzmaster and Jaguar model guitars.

His work even extended to Semie Moseley at Mosrite as well as Magnatone and Hohner.

He launched his own Barth guitar brand in 1956, and in 1964 the Bartell company was created by owner and company president Ted Eugene Peckels and Barth, who served as director and head of design. The Bartell name was derived by combining Barth’s and Peckels’ surnames.

It was Tom Mitchell, a paint finisher at Bartell – he went on to create Mitchell Amplifiers – who suggested the company make a fretless guitar, around 1966 or 1967.

“Ted Peckels said, ‘That’ll never take off,’” Brett relates. “But Paul Barth, being a designer and inventor, said, ‘Yeah, let’s give it a go and see what happens.’”

A few prototypes were made, including two for Jimi Hendrix and one that Frank Zappa acquired in 1973 from a Guitar Center in California. How Harrison came to own one required some serious sleuthing on Brett’s part.

A vital lead came from his friend Richard Bennett, a guitarist with plays with Neil Diamond and Mark Knopfler, who owned a Bartell as his first guitar.

Bennett related a story about Al Casey, the owner of Al Casey’s Music Room retail outlet in Hollywood, sending a Bartell fretless to Harrison when the Beatle was staying at 1567 Blue Jay Way in Los Angeles in 1967.

The home is famous as the place where Harrison wrote “Blue Jay Way,” the haunting track from 1967’s Magical Mystery Tour, while waiting for the arrival of Beatles press officer Derek Taylor, who’d lost his way in the fog.

While browsing the internet hoping to find a photo of the Beatles with the fretless guitar, Brett entered “Al Casey Bartell fretless” into a search engine and was rewarded with a vintage print ad for Al Casey’s Music Room.

“You must have heard about them by now, so come on in and see the Bartell fretless guitars and fretless basses,” went the ad copy. Below the call to action was a cryptic parenthetical: “George Harrison got the first guitar, maybe if you hurry you can get the second one.”

The ad ran in The Los Angeles Free Press from the first week of September 1967, lending support to Bennett’s story.

Brett then learned that on August 3, while in Hollywood, Harrison and Beatles assistant Neil Aspinall attended a recording session where guitarist Mike Deasy was playing one of Bartell’s prototype hollow-bodied fretless guitars.

Harrison spoke with Deasy about the instrument for 20 or 30 minutes before leaving. Afterward, Aspinall reportedly ordered a fretless guitar from Al Casey.

It’s certain that the Bartell fretless made it to Abbey Road Studio. The guitar is documented in Beatles history through British DJ Kenny Everett’s recorded interview with John Lennon.

Their chat took place at Abbey Road Studio on June 6, 1968, shortly after the Beatles began recording the White Album. Lennon is playing the guitar, which can be heard on the recording. “What kind of guitar is that?” Everett asks at one point. “Very strange looking.” Replies Lennon, “A fretless guitar.”

“We know it was the Bartell, ’cause it’s the only one they had,” Brett says. From talking with others who knew Harrison, he learned that Lennon was more intrigued by the guitar than Harrison was. “He was more likely to pick it up and mess around with it when they were looking for a particular sound or effect.”

But was the fretless guitar ever used on a recording by the Beatles?

No documentation exists to support the notion, but Brett and others familiar with the tonal character of the instrument are convinced it appears on two White Album tracks: “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” where Brett believes it was used to perform the rubbery descending lick that precedes the lyric “I need a fix ’cause I’m going down”; and “Helter Skelter,” where it would have been used along with other guitars.

Brett says the sound of a fretless guitar is present and more apparent on the second take of “Helter Skelter,” a version clocking in at 12 minutes and 54 seconds, some four and a half minutes of which appear on Anthology 3.

“The suggestion is that it may have been used on others, mainly for overdubs, not as the lead guitar or the main instrument,” he says. “But you can certainly pick it out, because it is so unique.”

Brett points to an absence of the bright tone that comes from the strings vibrating against a metal fret. “I think George called it ‘fret sparkle,’” he says. Likewise, slides and bends sound different due to the absence of frets.

Brett also notes the microtonal characteristics of intonation that come from imperfect fretboard fingering. “The fact that it was a hollowbody guitar as well adds a bit to [the distinctive sound],” he says. “And I’m hearing the pickups – they weren’t great for volume as such.”

Though his research had proved where and how Harrison received the guitar, Brett was frustrated that he could find no photo of the instrument among pictures of the Beatles. But eventually his painstaking efforts paid off.

“It took me months of searching through tens of thousands of photos,” he says. “And there we had it: George Harrison at home with his collection of guitars.” The photo, taken some time in the 1970s, shows Harrison in a room at his Friar Park estate surrounded by mostly acoustic guitars. “And there it is right at the back next to him,” Brett reveals.

Harrison gifted the guitar to his friend Russell in 1985. In March 2020, it was featured on Antiques Roadshow, where it was valued at £400,000. Under the circumstances, Russell was unprepared to own and maintain an instrument of such value.

On October 13, 2020, this least-famous Beatles guitar went on Bonhams’ auction block, where it fetched a more conservative, but no less impressive, bid of £190,000 – roughly a quarter of a million dollars.

Brett’s dogged efforts have helped unearth yet another piece of Beatles history, but what tends to get overshadowed in the story is how Finding Fretless shines light on a previously unexplored tract in guitar history through research and stories about Barth, Bartell and other fretless guitars and their owners.

For his contributions, Brett has been nominated by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards (ARSC) to receive its 2022 award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research.

NAMM has also asked him to contribute to its oral history program when he’s in Anaheim for the annual musical instrument show next month.

“We’re hoping to have a reunion of Bartell while we’re there,” Brett says, “and give Paul Barth some of the recognition he deserves.”

Order Finding Fretless: The Story of George Harrison’s Mad Guitar by Paul Brett here.

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

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

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

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

What are some of your earliest memories of music?

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

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

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

What made you want to write songs?

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

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

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

What was the first song you learned to play?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is there a riff you wish you’d written?

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

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

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

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

Have you got any songwriting tips?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 1971, rock and roll guitar was barely in its teens. But, remarkably, what started as R&B- and western-swing-infused three-chord rave-ups had grown to incorporate elements of folk, Chicago blues, modal jazz, Indian classical music and flamenco. The music of the 1960s – especially that of the Beatles – proved that the pop charts could deliver expressive, high-quality artistry that rivaled that produced in jazz clubs and symphonic halls. The music of the time also became the de facto voice of one of the most significant cultural upheavals in American history.

As the new decade dawned, musicians were presented with a blank canvas on which they created what can rightfully be seen as the rock era’s belle époch. Indeed, many famous artists released their defining masterpieces during this fertile 12-month period.

Guitar Player has celebrated the 50th anniversary of this magic year with features on some of the greatest albums from 1971. Now, with it just about over, let’s have one final celebration of the albums, artists and guitarists that made the year so significant.

Power (Chords) to the People

The Who’s 1969 rock opera Tommy was an ambitious project that established them as major players, but it was 1971’s Who’s Next that is often considered their crowning achievement.

Ex. 1 is loosely based on the pugilistic power chords Pete Townshend delivers during epic anthems like “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” The consummate rock rhythm player, Townshend didn’t merely “strum.” Rather, he attacked his strings with powerful percussive jabs, pioneering a style that would evolve into punk and metal in the hands of the next generation. When playing this example, try using a short, controlled wrist motion, striking the lowest strings with extra oompf! 

Going for Soul

A 2020 Rolling Stone poll cited Marvin Gaye’s 1971 release What’s Going On as the greatest album of all time, and though polls are subjective and art isn’t easily quantifiable, the album’s merit is unquestionable. Gaye’s emotive vocals and heartfelt lyrics are front and center on this song cycle about a Vietnam vet returning home to find his country in turmoil. However, the unsung heroes of this and many other great Motown releases are the Funk Brothers, a loose collection of studio musicians who played uncredited on dozens of hits.

Ex. 2 recalls guitarist Robert White’s pulsating chord work on the title track, a clever combination of jazz harmony and funk rhythm. To play the percussive “scratch” strums (indicated by Xs), simply loosen your fret-hand’s grip on the neck without taking your fingers off the strings. This will effectively mute the strings, so that, when strummed, they produce the hollow, pitchless “chick” sound that is a signature of funk guitar.

Sticking It to the '70s

The Rolling Stones were indisputably one of the most popular and influential musical acts of the ’60s. As the decade drew to a close, however, dark clouds seemed to be forming on the horizon. The band experienced the death of founding member Brian Jones and watched in horror as the Hells Angels security detail they hired for a 1969 concert at Altamont Speedway murdered one attendee and brutalized several others. 

They also sought to extricate themselves from management and recording contracts. Come 1971, the band returned with their own label, a new iconic tongue-and-lips logo, and arguably their finest record to date, Sticky Fingers.

Around this time, Keith Richards had fully embraced open-G tuning (low to high: D, G, D, G, B, D), and Ex. 3 takes inspiration from his clever riffage and chord voicings on such Stones classics as “Brown Sugar” and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.” 

Meeting of the Masters

Miles Davis was a pioneer of multiple styles of jazz, including bebop, cool, hard-bop, and modal jazz, and when he incorporated electronic instruments and rock beats on 1969’s Bitches Brew, jazz-rock fusion was born. 

Two years later, former Davis guitarist John McLaughlin formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra, a quintet that blended jazz harmony and improvisation, Indian classical scales and rock instrumentation into an incendiary mix. Their 1971 debut, The Inner Mounting Flame, was a hit with rock audiences and established them as the premier fusion band of their time.

Ex. 4 is modeled after “Meeting of the Spirits,” a track that begins with McLaughlin’s hauntingly exotic arpeggiated chords before exploding into an impassioned exploration around the Phrygian-dominant mode (1, b2, 3, 4, 5, 6, b7). 

Tapping Into English Moods

Without a doubt, 1971 was a landmark year for progressive rock, a style of music that drew heavily on European classical influences.

Ex. 5 is an homage to guitarist Steve Howe’s use of classical guitar techniques to enliven songs such as “Roundabout” and the solo piece “Mood for a Day” that were featured on Yes’s brilliant album Fragile.

Another significant prog release from 1971 was Genesis’s Nursery Cryme. Although not as well-known as Fragile, the record did herald the debut of Steve Hackett, a guitarist who employed fretboard tapping several years before Eddie Van Halen.

Ex. 6 recalls his approach on “Return of the Giant Hogweed,” but unlike Van Halen, Hackett would tap the strings with the edge of his pick instead of using a fingertip. 

A Case of the Blues

Although often labeled as a folk artist, Joni Mitchell drew inspiration from many sources. Throughout her storied career, the eclectic composer has melded elements of jazz, pop, blues, and electronica in with her songwriting and has collaborated with artists as varied as David Crosby, Charles Mingus and Pat Metheny. 

Mitchell often wrote and performed in a wide variety of open tunings, many of her own design, but for 1971’s Blue, her instrument of choice was often a four-string Appalachian dulcimer.

Because of variances in string thickness, it’s impossible to match the dulcimer’s tuning and timbre on a standard guitar, but for Ex. 7’s approximation of “A Case of You,” we tuned the top two strings down a whole step, to A and D, respectively, and the G string up a whole step to A, resulting in two unison A strings. This makes our tuning, low to high, E, A, D, A, A D.

If you stick to the top four strings, it evokes the droning unisons, octaves and 5ths associated with dulcimer tunings. Perhaps the larger lesson here is inspirational and not technical. Mitchell’s fearless artistic exploration and constant experimentation is a beautiful reminder to step outside of our comfort zones. 

My Back Pages

As 1971 dawned, Led Zeppelin – the supergroup that Jimmy Page had formed in the wake of the Yardbirds’ dissolution – was already in full flight, but it was their fourth album (generally referred to as Led Zeppelin IV, but officially named by the four cryptic symbols that adorned a sticker on the album’s wrapper) that would cement their legacy as the greatest hard rock band of all time.

Ex. 8 is inspired by the outro to “Black Dog” and demonstrates Page’s clever appropriation of country and blues licks to extend rock’s lead vocabulary beyond simple pentatonic scales. Centered on an A dominant-7 tonality, it makes effective use of b3, b5, and b7 color tones (the C, Eb, and G notes, respectively).

For our final example, we’ve chosen to template what is perhaps the most culturally iconic and controversial guitar lick from 1971; Page’s intro to “Stairway to Heaven.” Recent lawsuits have pointed out a similarity to Spirit’s 1969 track “Taurus,” but to our ears, both songs are based on a common musical trope – an A minor chord arpeggio with a bass note that descends down in half steps. Its use in rock music predates Spirit (Google: Ace of Cups “Simplicity” 1968). And, like a 12-bar blues shuffle, it’s arguably fair game when songwriting.

What makes Page’s take on this cliché stand out is his incorporation of contrary motion between the outer voices, with ascending notes on top pitted against descending bass notes. This is a cleverly appealing compositional move, which we’ve also used for Ex. 9.

Although we’ve covered several albums with an enduring legacy, we’ve barely scratched the surface of the major releases that turned 50 this past year. David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, the Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East, Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, Pink Floyd’s Meddle, the Doors’ L.A. Woman, Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain, Black Sabbath’s Masters of Reality, Elton John’s Madman Across the Water, Janis Joplin’s Pearl, John Lennon’s Imagine, Van Morrison’s Tupelo Honey, George Harrison’s The Concert for Bangladesh, Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells a Story, and Sly and the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On are among the many great albums making a compelling case that 1971 was in fact the guitar’s – and modern music’s – greatest year.

Nancy Wilson was all of nine years old when she first saw the Beatles on TV. She remembers it as her “call to Mecca moment.” “That was it for me,” she says. “What the Beatles were doing was so mind blowing, it just went right through me. I immediately set my sights on learning the guitar.”

Her sister Ann was similarly besotted, and after much begging of their parents, the Wilson girls were rewarded with a $30 Lyle acoustic, which Nancy remembers as being nearly impossible to play. “You could not form a barred F chord on it to save your life,” she says. “It was such a struggle. A little later, Ann got sick and our grandmother gave her a much better guitar. I would sneak off and play it, which made Ann furious. But I could actually play that one.”

After college, Nancy joined Ann, now a lead singer, in the band that would become Heart. At their early gigs, she would hear a certain phrase: “Pretty good for a girl.” “It was as if people were shocked and stunned to see a girl who could actually play with any kind of competence,” she says.

“Up till then, there weren’t a lot of female guitarists, and those who did play were usually accompanying themselves and doing very soft folky stuff. You just didn’t see women playing rock and roll and attacking the guitar very aggressively. So yeah, when they saw me, it was like, ‘Whoa! You’re pretty good for a girl.’”

The backhanded compliment stung, but Wilson took it as a challenge. “I wasn’t about to fade in the background and be some wimpy chick,” she explains. “I made it my mission to prove myself and be a really good player – period. 

"I was really serious about it. You can see it on my face,” she says of early videos showing the band in performance. “I was very earnest onstage, concentrating really hard on what I was doing. I was out to prove myself, and I think I did.”

Whether playing alongside Heart co-lead guitarists Roger Fisher and Howard Leese in the band’s classic 1970s lineup, or with current axemen Craig Bartok and Ryan Waters, Wilson has been content to let her rhythm playing do most of the talking. “I like playing solos, but when I do, I try to make the phrases meaningful,” she observes.

“Give me somebody like David Gilmour any day of the week. I’m really into that kind of lead work. But rhythm is my main thing. I like to groove. A lot of people don’t take that role seriously, but it’s what drives a band. I like to play percussively and get inside the song. When there’s too much extra stuff going on, it can sound like clutter.”

1. “Magic Man” from ‘Dreamboat Annie’ (1975)

“We didn’t really have this song worked out before we started recording it. It was pretty much something we built in the studio. Ann had these cool words, so we found a groove for them with Mike Flicker, our producer at the time. Roger, Howard and I worked out our parts, and we left a lot of spaces for us to answer each other on our guitars. In terms of the music, this song is a real conversation between the guitarists.

“I admit I was very nervous when we recorded it. It was my first time seeing that red light come on in a studio and hearing, ‘We’re rolling.’ I felt this immediate sense of pressure come over me, like I had something to prove. That can play tricks with you; it messes with your nerves. Your guitar is so ultra-present in the headphones, so you start worrying you’re pushing too hard, speeding up. Then you start to think that you’re laying back too much.

“I really had to learn how to relax while recording. It was an eye-opening – and ear-opening – experience in so many ways. After we recorded the basics and I was listening to a playback in the control room, I wondered, ‘Is that how we really sound?’ My guitar playing was under the microscope, and it was kind of scary at first. But that’s what makes you grow and improve. You hear your mistakes and learn what you need to do to be a better player.”

2. “Crazy on You” from ‘Dreamboat Annie’ (1975)

“I was in love with the idea that we were making a sort of a concept album, one which had a prologue, an epilogue and a recurring motif. I wanted certain songs to take you on a journey, and this was one of them.

“We already had the rock part of the song – you know, the song itself. It had a big cool riff and those poetic lyrics, and the main rhythm was inspired by the Moody Blues. They had a song called “Question,” which was a definite inspiration for the strummy rhythm. But I wanted the song to have an intro, a free-floating piece.

“I always loved this acoustic instrumental piece [composed by Davey Graham] that Paul Simon played called “Anji,” and I wanted to emulate it. It’s a shuffle, and I just loved the way it moved. So I wrote my own take on that.

“I worked really hard on it for a couple of days. I didn’t want it to sound like this tossed-off jammy thing; I wanted it to have a definite structure and for it to feel like a true part of the song. It’s pretty intricate, and I did a lot of takes to get it just right. I was feeling a little less tentative than when we did “Magic Man,” but I still felt pressure to get it just right.

“I borrowed this big Guild acoustic guitar that belonged to Mike Flicker. It was this big warhorse. Then I just played the intro over and over to get a complete take without any mistakes. At the end, I had some real blisters on my fingers. What’s great is seeing people today learning how to play it. I go on Instagram and check out videos of people playing it. I love that.”

3. “Barracuda” from ‘Little Queen’ (1977)

“We were opening for Queen, and one of the other openers was Nazareth. They had a hit song with a version of Joni Mitchell’s “This Flight Tonight.” They turned it into a real rock-metal track, and it had a really intense riff. We loved it and said, ‘That’s such a cool groove!’ We had the idea to call a song “Barracuda,” so we decided to use that groove for ourselves. We saw the Nazareth guys later on, and they were pretty pissed at us.

“Roger Fisher was really an amazing innovator, and he came up with that really muscular style of muting the strings. That’s the secret to playing “Barracuda.” You have to really chunk down on the strings with the flat part of your hand. There’s a lot of finesse involved. I played acoustic guitar on the track, but I did add some electric guitar stuff with my red Strat at the end.

“We built the song up in sections: two bars here, eight bars there. We had a sense that it was going to be a monster song, so we took a lot of time getting it right. Every time we played it back, it sounded so huge and furious. The song was just galloping along. This was recorded in the days before automation, so everybody was riding the faders during the mix. We were all jostling for position to make ourselves louder. By the end, the VU meters were pinned red.”

4. “Even It Up” from ‘Bébé le Strange’ (1980)

“This was during a period of transition for us. We were soaking up the new-wave vibe, getting a little more garagey and Stonesy. You listen to albums like Dreamboat Annie, and the sound is very precise. There’s not a lot of slop anywhere. So we wanted to shake things up and get a little wilder, gutsier and dirtier.

“This song started out as something I was writing for another track. Annie and I were working with a songwriter named Sue Ennis, and we would go to one of our favorite spots on the beach of the Oregon coast. We had a drum machine named Ringo, and we would jam along to it. I had this intro written on acoustic, and that’s how I thought the song would go, but when we showed it to the band, another idea took shape. We said, ‘Let’s make it raunchier! Let’s have the Tower of Power horns!’ The whole thing changed and it became an electric number.

“It’s a lot less produced than what we had done before, but that was the idea. The guitars in the band were now played by me and Howard Leese, and I was doing a lot more leads. It was a lot of fun for me to have more freedom playing electric guitar. I was using more distortion and working with pedals. I blew up quite a few amps looking for the right sound. The whole vibe in the band was different. Annie and I were stepping out and being leaders, and that’s what this track was all about.”

5. “Tell It Like It Is” from ‘Greatest Hit Live’ (1980)

“We loved Aaron Neville’s original recording of this song. We had the single on our jukebox, and we played it all the time. It’s just so beautiful and melancholy. It’s got everything. We would sing it around the house and at beach-fire get-togethers. I would always play acoustic to accompany Annie. Her voice just slayed on it. It was a natural that we would record it and get the horn section in on it. Annie and I were really psyched to do our own version.

“In the studio, we worked hard to make the sound groovy. Tempo was key. It couldn’t drag, but it couldn’t be too fast, either. The main thing was keeping a lot of space in the track for the horn players to feel comfortable in their zone. It was just a matter of feeling it and laying back, but not too much. The whole thing had to sit in a nice place.

“I’ve got a lot of blues in my arsenal, and I played the song enough times to know what I had to do. I used a [Gibson] ES-335 and a [Fender] Deluxe, and I had this great warm tone. I would slide up to the diminished chord, and I would put in these little bursts of air, these magical spots that really pushed the rhythm. It was a lot of fun showing it to the guys and running through it with them. They fell into it beautifully. In many ways, playing a cover is easier than when you’re trying to create your own song in the studio. You’re starting with something that you know you like, and you’re intent on doing a good interpretation.

“We’ve run into Aaron Neville over the years. He always loved what we did with the song, and we’ve always loved what he did, so it’s been great. He’s a buddy.”

Roughly a year following the release of Joni Mitchell’s David Crosby-produced 1968 debut album Song to a Seagull the young artist gave her first major concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Among the sold-out crowd were her parents and partner, Graham Nash, along with fellow folk luminary Bob Dylan.

Though the acoustic guitar heroine's record company Reprise had planned to release a recording of the gig it would take over half a century to finally see the light of day. 

Better late than never!

More than 50 years have passed since that fateful Saturday but Mitchell can still recall the events of the evening in fine detail. 

“I flew my parents [Bill and Myrtle] in for the show,” she writes in the liner notes for Archives, Vol. 2: the Reprise Years. “We walked over to Carnegie Hall from the Plaza Hotel. Graham was wearing a floor-length maxi coat, black velvet, but with a pink-and-white chiffon tie-dye scarf. And I was wearing a green-and-white plaid coat. I’ve still got it. It looked like something from a Dickens play. My mother was embarrassed to be seen with us…

“My father came forward and said, ‘Oh, Myrt, she looks like a queen in those rags.’ I loved him for that. Thank God for Papa. He gave me back myself.”

In a performance that garnered rave reviews Mitchell opened her set with “Chelsea Morning,” a lyrically tactual song inspired by the surroundings of her Chelsea District apartment in Manhattan. 

The opening number “Chelsea Morning” is available now to stream for free here.

Joni Mitchell’s Archives, Vol. 2: the Reprise Years (1968-1971) 10-LP and 5-CD sets and 3-LP Live at Carnegie Hall, 1969 vinyl sets are due for release on November 12. 

Visit Joni Mitchell’s website for more information.

On this day in 1969, Dick Cavett's "Woodstock show" aired on American television. Filmed the previous day just hours after the Woodstock festival drew to a close, this historic episode features Jefferson Airplane, Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, and Stephen Stills – all of whom dropped in to perform and talk music following “the strangest thing that’s ever happened in the world.”

“We have two people who just happen to be passing through the studio looking for a payphone that works in New York,” says Dick Cavett. “They are Stephen Stills and David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.” 

Still reeling from the spectacle of the Woodstock festival he played earlier that morning, Stephen Stills walks on camera and carefully places down his Martin D-28 acoustic guitar, the festival mud barely dry on his trousers.

Jimi Hendrix was due to appear on the same show, however, following the guitarist’s late appearance at the Woodstock festival he was unable to attend.

“Where do you suppose Hendrix is?” asks Dick Cavett. “Asleep!” comes the answer. “He finished sometime about ten [o’clock],” adds Crosby.

Though Mitchell did not play at the Woodstock festival (she was invited but her manager advised her not to!) the now famous Dick Cavett “Woodstock show” was her television debut. Inspired by the stories regaled to her by boyfriend Graham Nash, Mitchell penned the song “Woodstock” which appeared on her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon.

That same year, a cover version of “Woodstock” was recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young for their Déjà Vu album, while the song became a number one hit for Matthews Southern Comfort in the UK.

While this episode of The Dick Cavett Show is famous for being Joni Mitchell’s first TV appearance, it is equally infamous for being the first time the F-bomb was dropped on American TV as Jefferson Airplane sing, “Up against the wall motherfucker!” during their live rendition of “We Can Be Together.”

“Talked with Joni Mitchell on the phone,” reads Jimi Hendrix’s personal diary (see image below). “I think I’ll record her tonight with my excellent tape recorder.”

On March 19, 1968, just days before the release of her David Crosby-produced debut album Song to a Seagull, a 24-year-old Joni Mitchell was gearing up to play another show at her Le Hibou Coffee House residency in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, when she was paid a visit by none other than Jimi Hendrix.

“They came and told me, ‘Jimi Hendrix is here, and he’s at the front door.’ I went to meet him,” says Mitchell, recalling that eventful night. “He had a large box. He said to me, ‘My name is Jimi Hendrix. I'm on the same label as you. Reprise Records.’ We were both signed about the same time. He said, ‘I'd like to record your show. Do you mind?’ I said, ‘no, not at all.’ There was a large reel-to-reel tape recorder in the box.

“The stage was only about a foot off the ground. He knelt at edge of the stage, with a microphone, at my feet. All during the show, he kept twisting knobs. He was engineering it, I don't know what he was controlling, volume? He was watching the needles or something, messing with knobs. He beautifully recorded this tape. Of course I played part of the show to him. He was right below me.”

Hendrix later described Mitchell and her acoustic guitar performance as a “fantastic girl with heaven words.”

Unfortunately, the tape was stolen within a few days, and for many years, those moments captured were lost in the mists of time. However, this historical recording has recently been unearthed, surfacing in a collection before eventually being returned to Mitchell.

Now, over half a century later, Mitchell’s performance (not to mention one of Hendrix’s most lengthy efforts as recording engineer!) will see the light of day while forming part of the Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971).

Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971) is due to be released on October 29 as a 5-CD set (as well as digitally) while a limited edition 10-LP 180-gram vinyl set will also be available from Mitchell’s website.

Pre-order your copy of Joni Mitchell’s Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971) here.

Born in Fort Macleod, Canada, in 1943 Joni Mitchell relocated to the US in 1965 and settled in southern California. Her talent as a songwriter was immediately obvious and classics like Big Yellow Taxi, Chelsea Morning and Both Sides Now heralded the arrival of an exciting new voice on the American songwriting scene. 

The aforementioned songs were quickly covered by other folk artists that served to spread her name and appeal even further. She released her debut album Song To A Seagull in 1968 with Ladies Of The Canyon (1970) and perhaps her best known album Blue (1971) following. Blue is 50 years old this week. 

During the 1970s her music took on a strong jazz influence and she began working with future jazz legends Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius and Michael Brecker.

As a guitarist, Mitchell has a unique approach to the instrument as virtually every song she has composed features an altered tuning. In fact, she has used over 50 altered tunings during her career. 

I’ve used open D (D-A-D-F#-A-D) for this lesson as that is one of her more accessible tunings and is also used in some of her most popular work (including Big Yellow Taxi). I’ve used a capo as this brightens the sound up considerably – in the early days Joni would capo up at the 2nd fret and sometimes the 3rd and 4th in order to accompany her voice. So in addition to giving the sound more clarity, the capo would help her sing within her register more easily and allow her to choose the chord shapes that felt best under her fingers.

Joni developed two interesting solutions to deal with the huge amount of altered tunings she has had to used over the years – firstly, and most practically, she has been using a Roland VG MIDI system since 1995, which allows her to program in all the altered tunings without actually having to re-tune the guitar. Secondly, she has a fascinating system of remembering the tunings. By way of an example she would notate this month’s tuning as D-7-5-5-4-5 where the first letter indicates the tuning of the sixth string and the ensuing numbers tell her which fret she would have to fret each string at in order to find the pitch to tune the next open string. Clever stuff

Another key feature of her strumming style is muted strings as we find here – she will keep a steady 16th-note (semiquaver) strumming pattern but adds variety by released her fretting hand fingers at points to give a percussive, muted quality. This is tricky to mimic at first as you have to really think where the accents and percussive parts are. As usual, persevere with it and you’ll find a great new dimension to strumming parts.

• Play like Joni with our pick of the best acoustic guitars

Lesson Audio:

Music and tab:

[Bar 1] Look out for the muted notes (those indicated with an ‘X’). Joni uses this technique often; simply release the pressure on the fretted notes but keep the strumming pattern going to get the percussive quality of these notes.

[Bar 5] No muted chords to deal with here but make sure you get the fretted chords in the right place as they aren’t always on the beat! [Bar 9] Open tunings are great for creating this sort of melodic accompaniment pattern. Rather than being stuck in the open position using common ‘cowboy chords’, this style of playing allows the songwriter to create a really interesting part with some movement to accompany the vocal. The parts are simple but perfect to accompany a vocal such as Joni’s.

[Bar 15] As with bar 5 make sure you really pay attention to where the fretted chords are played within the bar and try and accent these over the open strings.

[Bar 25] Here’s a first finger challenge: open tunings can allow you to use just one finger for chords. Joni had polio as a child, which affected her fretting hand. Using one finger barre chords are evident in Big Yellow Taxi, Morning Morgantown, Little Green and others.

[Bar 30] Note the change of chord at the end of this bar; this is a move not too dissimilar from another exponent of open tunings, Keith Richards.

This lesson originally appeared in our sister magazine Guitar Techniques, issue 253. For more, subscribe or buy single issues of Guitar Techniques. For the digital edition, try pocketmags.

June 22nd marks the 50th anniversary of Joni Mitchell’s self-produced Blue album. Recently ranked third in Rolling Stone’s list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time this 1971 acoustic classic is well-regarded for its use of alternative guitar tunings and was inspired by the Canadian star’s troubled relationships with fellow singer-songwriters Graham Nash and James Taylor.

In order to celebrate 50 years since the album’s original release Rhino has unveiled a digital EP entitled Blue 50 (Demos & Outtakes). It contains five previously unreleased recordings that are due to feature on Mitchell’s forthcoming compilation, Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971). These rare tracks - comprising of alternative versions of A Case Of You, California, Hunter, River, and Urge For Going - are a small taster of the Archives box-set of five CDs due for release on October 29th.

The same compilation will be available exclusively from Joni Mitchell's website as a limited edition ten-LP vinyl set and is intended to compliment The Reprise Albums (1968-1971). This four-CD set of definitively remastered albums due for release on July 2nd includes Blue as well as 1968’s Song To A Seagull, 1969’s Clouds, and 1970’s Ladies Of The Canyon.

Buy Joni Mitchell Blue

Every so often – and, actually, more often than not – Larry Carlton will be out and about and he’ll hear… Larry Carlton. “I’ll be at the supermarket with my daughter, or maybe we’ll be at a shopping mall, and I’ll hear a song and go, ‘Oh, yeah. I played on that.’ It’s always a funny kind of feeling, but it’s nice, too, especially when the song sounds fresh.” 

During the 1970s and into the ’80s, Carlton distinguished himself as one of the undisputed kings of the West Coast studio session scene. “I was the newcomer in town just as a lot of the Wrecking Crew players were moving on to other things,” he recalls. “I worked with a lot of them at the start of my career, but I never became part of the fold.”

In his time as a studio guitarist, Carlton logged 15 and sometimes 20 sessions a week, appearing on records by the likes of Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Michael Jackson, Herb Alpert, Andy Williams, the Fifth Dimension, Linda Ronstadt – even the Partridge Family. And there were TV and film scores, too, such as his Grammy-winning performance on Mike Post’s “Theme from Hill Street Blues.”

“I don’t know the exact number of records I played on,” he says. “We did an estimate of 3,000, and I’ll stick with that. I was very fortunate.” Carlton credits his ability to keep a cool head and stay focused as one of the secrets to his success in the studio. But there was one session that rattled him.

“Just as I was getting going, I was called in to play for Quincy Jones,” he says. “This was when he was scoring Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. I was young and felt a little intimidated to be working with Quincy. 

"I played my guitar part, and Quincy said, ‘Okay, take the flute part.’ He started redistributing everybody’s roles: ‘You play this guy’s part,’ and so on. I played the flute part, and I left the session with my tail between my legs. I didn’t think I did so well.”

Years later, Carlton ran into Jones and brought up the session. “I said, ‘Man, I don’t know how good a job I did for you.’ Quincy looked at me and said, ‘What are you talking about? I remember you did a good job.’ I was so focused on me at the time, but Quincy was focused on the whole session. That was a learning experience for me: Never know what you’re walking into. Expect the unexpected.”

Throughout his celebrated career (which includes a two-decade tenure with the jazz-fusion group the Crusaders, as well as 33 solo recordings), Carlton has relied almost exclusively on the same Gibson ES-335 that he purchased in 1969. His long association with the instrument even earned him the nickname Mr. 335. 

“It’s the crown jewel,” he says of the guitar. “I bought it out of the blue, and it’s been real good to me.” In recent years, he’s partnered with Sire Guitars and started his own line of signature models built to his exacting specifications. 

“They’re great guitars, but they’re also very affordable,” he says. “A lot of guitarists can’t pay $5,000 for an instrument, so I thought it was important to offer them great guitars for under $700. It’s been very exciting for me, the idea of giving something back.” 

Here, Carlton shares memories of five favorite sessions – a tiny portion of his massive catalog.

“So Far Away” – The Crusaders, Crusaders 1 (1972)

“I joined the Crusaders right before we did this. I got a call to do a Friday night session for Donovan, and when I showed up, Joe Sample, the Crusaders’ keyboard player, was already there. 

"I plugged in and joined Joe on a downbeat he played, and right away we had a moment of musical communication. Monday morning my phone rang, and it was the Crusaders’ office saying, ‘The guys are in the studio starting an album. Can you come in and join them for the next two weeks?’ 

“They already had David T. Walker and Arthur Adams playing guitar on their sessions. I got there, and we recorded our version of Carole King’s ‘So Far Away.’ Just by chance, I started to play parts using my volume pedal – I was just looking to fill the holes in an interesting way. The band loved it, and that sort of started my sound back then. 

"I was a young guy, 23 years old. I loved jazz, but I was also a pop player. So there I was trying to play my jazz licks over some minor turnarounds and major-seventh chords. When I hear it now, I think I sound so young musically. But it was great. I locked in with the band, and we were off and running.”

“Help Me” – Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark (1974)

“I was playing at [L.A. music venue] the Baked Potato with [saxophonist] Tom Scott, [drummer] John Guerin, and [bassist] Max Bennett. Tom was friends with Joni Mitchell, and one night she came in to hang out. After she heard us, she told Tom, ‘I’d like to go in the studio with you guys.’ It was that simple – probably an experiment on her part, just to see what would happen. 

“Joe Sample played on this cut and the album, too. Joni didn’t have a complete demo – just a cassette with her playing guitar and singing. Tom and I did takedowns as we listened to the cassette, and then everybody just grabbed a chord chart. Joni didn’t offer directions, really; she let us develop our own parts. 

“We spent an hour or so getting the form of playing it, and pretty soon after we had a take. I used my 335 through a Princeton Reverb. It was by instinct that I threw in that G major seventh after she sang the first line. It just went brrrring! – very simple. Nobody commented on it at the time, but it really worked. I think I had matured and was already thinking like an arranger.”

“Kid Charlemagne” – Steely Dan, The Royal Scam (1976)

“I’m honored that people talk about this middle guitar solo so much. I thought it was good when I played it, but I didn’t think, Yeah, I played the shit out of that tonight. When the record came out, there was a wonderful review of the tune in Billboard and they raved about the solo. I put the record on and listened to it with my wife, and at the end of it I said, ‘I don’t know. It just sounds like me.’ 

“We had recorded the rhythm track a month before, so when I showed up to do overdubs, Walter [Becker] suggested I play a Strat instead of my 335. We tried it for a few takes, and then he said, ‘No, go back to your guitar.’ He never said why. Maybe he thought I sounded more comfortable on the 335, more free, or maybe he just expected a different kind of sound.

“That was it as far as direction went. I think they liked to see what the guys might come up with before they started commenting. All they would really say was, ‘Yeah, that’s the right one. It’s working man,’ or ‘Do another one.’ I was pretty familiar with the tune, so I just improvised. People think I’m kidding when I say that, like I had worked the solo out beforehand, but I didn’t. It was straight improv, and it worked.”

“Room 335” – Larry Carlton, Larry Carlton (1978)

“A year before I did this song, I had played the rhythm parts on Steely Dan’s ‘Peg’ for Aja. I did three sessions for ‘Peg’ with different drummers, but when they cut the master they used somebody else on guitar. 

“But I loved the chord changes on that tune – D major 7th to C sharp minor seven plus five – so they were in my head. I was like, ‘Wow, what a cool sound,’ and that’s what inspired me to write ‘Room 335.’ Neither Walter or Donald [Fagen] said anything to me about it. 

“It was recorded live in my studio with [bassist] Abraham Laboriel, [keyboardist] Greg Mathieson, and [drummer] Jeff Porcaro. We had been playing the tune at clubs in North Hollywood, so we were feeling like a really tight unit. I got a really good sound on this one. I used my 335 through a Mesa/Boogie amp that I had bought when I was with the Crusaders. 

“A guy showed up backstage before soundcheck and said, ‘I have this new amp that just came out. You want to try it?’ I did, and I bought it on the spot. It was a very simple amp – three knobs – and I put my settings all at seven. It was easy to remember, and it sounded great. It became the sound I liked for my 335.”

“Smiles and Smiles to Go” – Larry Carlton, Alone/But Never Alone (1986)

“Until this record, I had never recorded an acoustic track. After four albums with Warner Bros., I was cut from their roster. One day I got a call from a producer I had worked with, Jimmy Bowen. 

“He was starting a new MCA label out of Nashville with Tony Brown, and he said, ‘We want to sign you. It’s a musicians’ label. Low budgets, but you can do whatever you want.’ I said, ‘Okay, Jimmy, but I don’t know what kind of record to make.’ He said, ‘Well, have you ever done an acoustic guitar album?’ I said, ‘Well, no, but that’s a thought.’ It was that simple. 

“I had been listening to a radio format that was big on the West Coast at the time, Quiet Storm. They were integrating some instrumental music with vocal music. So I got a feel for the programming and wrote a bunch of tunes with that kind of vibe.

“This song is a really fun one. I wrote it at the keyboard, but I’d never played guitar on it until the session. Ninety percent of the bass line is mine. I had some great guys on the session – Abe Laboriel, Rick Marotta on drums, and Terry Trotter on keyboards. I gave them the charts and said, ‘Guys, we need to take a few minutes. I haven’t put a melody on top of it yet.’

“But Abe heard this single-note piano melody that I had, and he said, ‘Larry, that’s your melody.’ I had never played it on guitar before, so we did a couple of takes and that was it. I used a custom-made Valley Arts acoustic that was designed after a Martin 00-28. I played that guitar for years and years. Martins could go out of tune, but that Valley Arts guitar never did.”