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January 2025

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33 articles

January 31
- “He’d already refused an offer from Eric Clapton.” Rudolf Schenker reveals the story behind Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and the guitar Slowhand couldn’t own
- “How the hell did I actually do that?” David Gilmour revealed his favorite solo and the guitar behind Pink Floyd’s biggest songs (it’s not the Black Strat)
January 30
- “You always have to have a dream. My other dream ran its course.” Mike Campbell on the lessons he learned from Tom Petty and the guitars he’ll never part with
- "You’ll have at your fingertips everything that Clapton and Hendrix played." Oz Noy explains the one thing every guitar player needs to unlock fretboard knowledge
- “That's the easiest part, the solos. There's no great thing in being a soloist.” Why Angus Young thinks rhythm guitar is harder to play than lead
January 27
- "He was going to put together his own band and continue on.” Les Dudek on playing “Ramblin' Man,” co-writing “Jessica” and making plans with Dickey Betts after Duane Allman died
January 26
- "That's my main instrument. If I couldn't have anything else, I would have to have it." Paul McCartney made some surprising revelations about his favorite guitar in our historic interview with him
- “What makes you think they stay in tune?” Jeff Beck on his microtonal guitar approach and how he set up his Fender Stratocaster for precision pitch bending
January 25
- “He looked at me and said, 'I can't teach you that.' So I said, ‘Then I can't take a music class!’” Buddy Guy on the one thing every guitarist needs to play the blues
- “I was using Strats with Lace Sensor pickups and a weird rack I built that. Somehow, it just worked.” Billy Corgan on 30 years of Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness'
January 24
- "Jimmy Page was a tour de force. Those first four records are just out of control." Joe Satriani talks Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck and the 10 records that changed his life
January 20
- "He had that flowing melody thing that feels like you're singing along with the music." Warren Haynes talks Dickey Betts' influence as he prepares to honor the Allman Brothers Band giant in a star-studded concert
January 19
- "I had simple tools. All my sound and tone came from my hands and a few pieces of gear." How Andy Summers used chord fragments and an Echoplex to change the sound of rock guitar
January 18
- "People at my own record label had decided that my career was not going to survive.” Steve Earle wrote a timeless tale of outlaws in America. It became a hit. Then Tennessee made it the state song
- "One of the first things I did was throw a capo on the 2nd fret and come up with different chord patterns. And that turned into a hit." How a guitar accessory and a rejection of grunge created one of the 1990s' defining songs
- “I’m going, ‘This guy is better at what I do than I am!' ” Eddie Van Halen on the one guitarist he said out–Van Halened him
January 17
- "Play one note per chord and watch what happens." Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal says his top guitar tips will help you break out of ruts and engage with the music
- "We hit this one lick, and the lighting director came rushing forward: 'Don't change a thing!”’ Billy Gibbons reveals how a soundcheck jam turned into ZZ Top's breakthrough hit
January 15
- “When I play a solo, the best score I can get is 75 percent. I got to a point where I accepted that.” Steve Morse on how to keep your cool when the going gets tough
January 14
- “The only way for Gene and Paul to win was to be as zany and nutty as I was.” Ace Frehley goes behind the scenes of rock's greatest TV interview — when Tom Snyder interviewed Kiss in 1979
- “Bob heard I was the ‘young Hendrix of London.’ He said, ‘How did you do that!?’ " Junior Marvin on being picked by Bob Marley as his lead guitarist on 'Exodus,' the album that brought reggae to the world
January 13
- "I take inspiration from a lot of places, but I try to turn that into my own thing.” Watch Grace Bowers riff on her Gibson SG while she shows us what’s on her pedalboard
- "That album and that tone changed the game. How many Les Pauls do you think it sold?" Joe Bonamassa names "10 Records That Changed My Life"
January 12
- “A lot of people quit when they experience failure. But there’s a turning point, and that’s when the magic happens.” Kiki Wong shares the five guitar tips behind her Smashing Pumpkins success story
January 11
- “When you have a new tuning like this, it’s like finding treasure.” Mark Tremonti reveals the way to create unique-sounding solos, and it’s easier than you think
January 10
- "You only hit a wrong note if you leave the note by itself.” Michael Schenker talks soloing and technique in Guitar Player's May 1984 issue
January 7
- "It’s on a lot of records, and it only cost me 285 bucks!" It's ugly and beat to hell, but Adrian Belew's Stratocaster is behind landmark albums by Frank Zappa, David Bowie, King Crimson and Talking Heads
January 6
- "Friends were phoning: 'Do you know your song's being played every 20 minutes on TV?’” It took 50 years, but this guitarist's tune has become an inescapable hit. You've probably heard it at least once today
January 4
- “He said, ‘Because you're a girl, you can't just be a good guitarist — you have to be the best guitarist.” Sophie Lloyd on how she’s learned to deal with haters — and why guitar makers need to think more about women's bodies
- "He had a brilliant mind and a strong vision for what he wanted; my job was to make that happen." Allan Holdsworth's engineer reveals what happened when the tape rolled for the guitarist's groundbreaking albums
January 3
- “The best Van Halen album — period.” Lzzy Hale tells us the 10 records that changed her life, including choice picks from Black Sabbath, Tool and Alice Cooper
- "I don't give a f*** if you boo, as long as you boo in key, you mothers..." Watch rare footage of the Jimi Hendrix's dramatic final performance at the Open Air Love & Peace Festival in Germany in 1970
January 2
- What Charlie Christian did with his reasonably sized toolbox was incredible. He showed guitar players the way forward. Here's what I learned