Blues
Latest about Blues

“Sister Rosetta Tharpe inspired artists like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Chuck Berry, and helped give birth to rock and roll, soul, and electric blues”: A brief look back at the career of a perennially under-appreciated rock guitar pioneer
By Guitar Player Staff published
With her impassioned voice and twanging double-stop licks, Tharpe imbued her religious tunes with elements of jazz, blues, and a joyful, hard-driving rhythm

“When you show up to a set thinking you’re gonna hear acoustic blues and you hear tapping on an overdriven resonator, it might make you stop and listen”: Buffalo Nichols on breaking with blues tradition, and charting his own resonator-led path
By Jim Beaugez published
With programmed drums, samples, some occasional two-hand tapping, and a renewed sense of purpose – as displayed on his sophomore album, The Fatalist – Nichols is taking the blues into the 21st century

“It's about the band. There’s a kind of confession in it…” How the fear, hope and sadness of a love affair mixed with secret band tensions helped Justin Hayward write the Moody Blues’ The Story in Your Eyes
By Joe Matera published
Justin Hayward lifts the lid on the making of the Moody Blues’ immortal 1971 hit single The Story In Your Eyes

”There’s 12 notes on a guitar and Steve Vai and Zakk Wylde sound like they have more. How do you do that?” Blues prodigy Kenny Wayne Shepherd on his new solo album Dirt on My Diamonds, Vol. 1, and why unpredictability is so important
By Gary Graff published
Looking for fresh inspiration, Kenny Wayne Shepherd left Nashville for Alabama’s FAME Studios. The result is the first half of a new album project that continues his breathtaking blues-rock evolution

"Waiting for the Bus and Jesus Just Left Chicago? In essence, it’s a blues suite in 4/4 and 6/8 time..." The career of Billy Gibbons, blues guitar supremo, in five songs
By Mark McStea published
From early days in Moving Sidewalks, opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience to taking the world by storm on 1980s MTV with ZZ Top, he’s defied convention. Here are five deep cuts Billy Gibbons considers his best

"He really lived it": Lightnin' Hopkins picked cotton and worked on a chain gang before becoming the most recorded of the postwar bluesmen – and schooling the likes of Billy Gibbons and Johnny Winter
By Jas Obrecht published
"Lightnin' did everything the way you'd think a real blues player would do…" The story of Lightnin' Hopkins: Sage, scoundrel and natural-born storyteller

“Guitar playing is a creative thing. If you come into it thinking that it’s a competition, you’re already screwed”: Rising U.K. blues guitarist Dom Martin on beating his inner demons and the ghost of Rory Gallagher
By Jim Beaugez published
After four years of sobriety and a slew of acclaimed blues albums, Dom Martin hits his stride on Buried in the Hail

“I had a gold Klon but I lost it in Hurricane Katrina...” Blues supremo Eric Johanson on being both a Metallica and Jack White fanboy and why he’s into tone as much as music
By Jim Beaugez published
With the help of "a really gritty velcro fuzz", blues guitarist Eric Johanson gets into the raw experience of the moment on his latest album, The Deep and the Dirty

From playing fiddle on street corners during the Great Depression to becoming one of the biggest Telecaster heroes of the 20th century – here's why you should immerse yourself in Jimmy Bryant's Country Cabin Blues…
By Jim Campilongo published
Jimmy and pedal-steel supremo Speedy West (aka “the country jazz John and Paul”) have a swingin’ good time on this fun 1960's shredfest which belies his difficult reputation

“Freddie King does it like this, Eric Clapton does it like that…” Watch Stevie Ray Vaughan break down the blues masters in rare TV lesson
By Jonathan Graham published
Filmed in the late 1980s — the legendary Stevie Ray Vaughan gives an up-close guitar demonstration highlighting how his idols would approach the track Hideaway
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