Guitar Player

Guitar Player magazine helps you play better and sound better

Guitar Player3 min read
{From the Editor}
IF THERE IS a theme to this issue, it might be reinvention. The four artists in our main features have each released a new album that shows them taking a fresh approach to their music, instruments or career. Reinvention is part of Wilco’s DNA. Jeff T
Guitar Player2 min read
Opening Notes
Guitar Player sends a big thanks to VHT for offering their V-Drive stomp box to my Gear Stash. It has controls for volume, tone, drive, depth and texture, plus an 11-position select switch with 10 different clipping diode configurations and a clean-b
Guitar Player6 min read
Moving On
YOU NEED ONLY check out the music of Scott Henderson to recall why the guitar style known as fusion was so exciting at its inception, back when it was a fresh stew of raw rock and jazz sophistication. Over three decades and almost two dozen recording
Guitar Player5 min read
Recording Angels
THERE ARE DEDICATED music lifers who grind out gig after gig, and then there are musicians who are literally born into the business. Nashville-based singer-songwriter Lillie Mae can lay claim to both. Born with a prodigious musical talent and a buske
Guitar Player6 min read
Main Squeeze
CHRIS DIFFORD AND Glenn Tilbrook began writing songs together in 1973, after Tilbrook answered Difford’s ad seeking a guitarist for his band. In fact, Difford had no group, but the two men soon formed one together. Squeeze subsequently went on to bec
Guitar Player6 min read
Phoenix Rising
THIS HAS BEEN a landmark year for Gibson as the company moves forward under new leadership to rebuild its business and reclaim its place as one of the most revered brands in guitar history. Gibson was clearly on a roll at the Winter NAMM show last Ja
Guitar Player7 min read
Meet Your Maker
The Brian Ray ’62 SG Junior comes on the heels of your custom Shop ’63 SG. What was your aim for the new model? It’s a hybrid of an SG Junior and an SG Standard: a single-pickup guitar with an SG Standard neck, appointments and vintage-style binding.
Guitar Player3 min read
1976 Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble
THROUGHOUT THE DEVELOPMENT of the electric guitar and gear related to it, the first iterations of new designs haven’t always been the best. Gibson improved the Les Paul throughout the 1950s, Fender perfected the Bassman amplifier only with the final
Guitar Player3 min read
Marian Hall
MARIAN HALL WAS a steel-guitar pioneer. I was introduced to her by my pal, and fellow steel player, Cindy Cashdollar, who was good friends with Marian up until her death in 2006. Marian grew up in Los Angeles and started playing professionally in her
Guitar Player2 min read
Taking Orders
PEOPLE OFTEN ASK about the “proper” order of effects in an effects chain: Should pedal A be before or after pedal B? I think the best answer is, Try it both ways, and find out for yourself! Playing with effects should be fun, and there’s nothing like
Guitar Player2 min read
1967 Kent Model 834
AS THE GUITAR boom of the 1960s progressed, so too did guitar technology and quality. Guitar manufacturers like Teisco and Danelectro, who produced thousands of stripped-down entry-level guitars, slowly started to offer guitars that had some if not a
Guitar Player14 min read
Fables Of The Deconstruction
TO SAY THAT Wilco have their own thing going is a big understatement for a band that has been a defining force on the alternative-rock scene for the past quarter century. The brain trust of the lineup — drummer Glenn Kotche, bassist John Stirratt, ke
Guitar Player2 min read
Buddy Emmons, Emmons Guitar Inc.
MOST COLLECTORS KNOW Emmons Guitar Inc. as the Black Album, a fitting name for a record shrouded in mystery. It was released in the late ’60s, or as late as 1971, and distributed by the Emmons Guitar label through music stores, specialty record shops
Guitar Player8 min read
END Of The LINE
ALTHOUGH SHERYL CROW has been a household name since “All I Wanna Do” became a global hit in 1994, her album output has been anything but steady. She’s just released what is only her 10th studio album. Titled Threads, it will also be her last, barrin
Guitar Player10 min read
Larger Than Life
ADRIAN BELEW’S NEW self-released record, Pop Sided, is his first compilation of complete, immutable compositions since 2006’s Side Three. But Belew has been far from idle in the interim. Under the rubric Flux, he has released two apps: Flux by Belew,
Guitar Player9 min read
The CONJURER
“IT’S THRILLING, AFTER all of this time, to be both making new noises and rediscovering things I found stimulating at a very early age,” Robbie Robertson says. That sentence could conceivably sum up the legendary, songwriter/guitarist’s artistic care
Guitar Player8 min read
DANCING with DESTINY
FROM BACKING A newly electrified Bob Dylan to carving out woody, jagged guitar lines in the Band, Robbie Robertson has been part of the fabric of American rock. And no instrument is more associated with him than the bronze-coated ’54 Strat he used on
Guitar Player9 min read
The Art of Voice Leading
AT THE BEGINNING of every guitarist’s musical journey, you learn a set of open “cowboy” chords and barre chords — a few major, minor and 7th shapes that set you on your way to playing every song in an “easy guitar” songbook. But where do you go after
Guitar Player5 min read
Koto-Graphic
IN THEIR QUEST for fresh approaches to the instrument, guitarists throughout history have found creative ways to mimic the sounds and phrasing characteristics of other instruments. This includes valiant attempts at copying the musical methodology, to
Guitar Player3 min read
Body and Soul
MOST ACOUSTIC PLAYERS are familiar with a few body sizes but remain foggy about the many options available. This Frets column aims to provide clarity, not with a big chart you could find using a Google search but with some real-world examples that re
Guitar Player9 min read
Acoustic Trails
DOCUMENTARIST KEN BURNS isn’t a guitar player, but he is the Hendrix of history. His latest film, Country Music, is another virtuosic piece from the man whose previous documents of Americana explored the worlds of jazz and baseball. Burns has a gift
Guitar Player4 min read
Supro
ALTHOUGH MANY VINTAGE Supro guitars are known for having bodies made from alternative materials such as Res-o-Glas, the original Silverwood was billed as the company’s “finest electric” and was one of a handful to receive a solid-wood body to prove t
Guitar Player5 min read
Revv Amplification
Amplification is probably best known for its highly functional, high-gain, all-tube 120-watt Generator 120 head and the other handmade amps in its Pro Series. But the company is also looking to the future of studio and onstage guitar-tone generation,
Guitar Player3 min read
Tex Amplifiers
COBBLING TOGETHER TASTY guitar amps out of salvaged gramophones, P.A.s and other tube-fired audio gear of yore is nothing new, but not all such ventures are created equal. Among the most legendary are the handful of amps crafted by Canadian engineer
Guitar Player3 min read
Lollar
LOLLAR HAS A stellar reputation for crafting aftermarket replacements for every traditional pickup you can imagine, many of which have also become OEM for several boutique manufacturers these days. In addition, the company has re-created and reworked
Guitar Player3 min read
Gibson
GENERATION 45 ACOUSTICS are aimed at the player looking for a bona fide American-made Gibson at an entry-level price. Options include the G-45 studio ($999 street) and the G-45 Standard on review here. Built in Gibson’s Bozeman, Montana, factory, G-4
Guitar Player4 min read
Ross Audibles
CHARLES “BUD” ROSS built his fame on the Kustom amps he began creating in the mid 1960s. In the 1970s, he went on to launch the Ross Electronics stompbox company, and today his name is perhaps most famous for the number of clones that the company’s d
Guitar Player2 min read
Ric Ocasek
> As the primary songwriter and singer for the Cars, guitarist Ric Ocasek defined the early years of new wave with his music, vocals and style of dress. Tall, gaunt, sporting a shock of jet-black hair, and often wearing black jackets and sunglasses,

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