Blues

Latest about Blues

Keeley's 4-in-1 series pedals
Keeley Electronics Super Rodent, Muse Driver, Blues Disorder and Angry Orange review

By Art Thompson Published

The ability to mix and match different drive and tone stacks on these pedals gives them impressive sonic range and flexibility

Pedals & Pedalboards
Gary Clark Jr. plays his first guitar, a ’90s Ibanez Blazer
Gary Clark Jr. never asked to be a guitar savior

By Joe Bosso Published

Though he sometimes considers his own solos to be “gross,” the often-pigeonholed player took inspiration from the original G3 trio – alongside a potent cocktail of hip-hop, jazz, soul, R&B, and funk – on his stellar new album, JPEG Raw

Guitarists
One of B.B. King’s “Lucille” guitars shares a display case with Bo Diddley’s red Gretsch G6138
“We’re the birthplace of blues, country and rock and roll music, and the guitar is at the core of all of it”: The America at the Crossroads exhibit charts the guitar’s history with instruments owned by Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and more

By Jim Beaugez Published

A new exhibit at The MAX museum explores the guitar’s cultural impact through dozens of significant instruments – from a stunning custom Martin D-28 built for Elvis Presley's estate to a rickety Soviet-era Tonika model

Guitarists
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
“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

Guitarists
Buffalo Nichols performs at the 2022 SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas on March 15, 2022
“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

Music
Moody Blues The story in your eyes single sleeve
“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

Guitarists
Kenny Wayne Shepherd black and white portrait as he plays an electric guitar
”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

Music
ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons on stage playing an electric guitar
"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

Guitarists
Lightnin' Hopkins on stage
"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

Music
Colour portrait of blues guitarist Dom Martin seated with an Ozark Resonator guitar
“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

Music
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