Guitar Player

Guitar Player magazine helps you play better and sound better

Guitar Player1 min read
Guitar Player
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Christopher Scapelliti, [email protected] SENIOR EDITOR Art Thompson, [email protected] ART EDITOR Rosie Webber, [email protected] PRODUCTION EDITOR Jem Roberts, [email protected] LOS ANGELES
Guitar Player2 min read
Ronno Played Guitar
GUITARISTS. DAVID BOWIE could pick them. His catalog is filled with the work of greats like Earl Slick, Carlos Alomar, Robert Fripp, Reeves Gabrels, Adrian Belew, Nile Rodgers, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Peter Frampton, David Torn and Ben Monder. But might
Guitar Player6 min read
Fast Fun
ON HIS 2021 release, See That Light, L.A. blues legend and Mavis Staples guitarist Rick Holmstrom began to address the insanity of the current climate. “Everybody’s staring at a screen, but we can’t see what’s in front of us,” he writes in one lyric.
Guitar Player5 min read
Perfect Ten
ALBERT CUMMINGS IS an electric blues powerhouse. Having shared stages with guitar masters of the sheer caliber of B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Johnny Winter, among many others, he is known today as one of the greatest players on the contemporary blues gu
Guitar Player5 min read
Artful Selection
GENE BAKER’S CAREER is the stuff of legend. After apprenticing under fabled luthier Roger Giffin, head of Gibson’s West Coast Custom Shop, for two years, he moved to the Fender Custom Shop in Corona in 1993, during its “Golden Age,” where he quickly
Guitar Player5 min read
My Career In Five Songs
ALTHOUGH THE BANGLES are most heralded for a string of top-10 singles and high-spirited MTV music videos from their ’80s heyday, a deep dive into the Los Angeles quartet’s catalog reveals them to be one of the most diverse, clever and flat-out rockin
Guitar Player4 min read
Hidden Charms
MUCH HAS BEEN written about Gibson’s most famous thinline semi-acoustic model, the ES-335. Virtually an overnight success upon its release in 1958, it has remained a classic and abiding design ever since, virtually defining the popular marriage betwe
Guitar Player3 min read
When An Album Finds You
RELEASED IN 1977 on TVP Records, the album 22 Original Gospel Greats entered my life during a visit to my Aunt Fran in Portland, Oregon. On an open-ended afternoon, I wandered into a local music store where I had no preconceived intentions of buying
Guitar Player7 min readMusic
Up The Funktion
A ROSTER OF THE artists signed to the Mascot Label Group reads like a list of the sharpest guitar players around. From Steve Vai to Robben Ford, the level of musicianship is incredible. But one artist on the roster seemed a little more intriguing. Lo
Guitar Player13 min read
Starman
In 1970, Mick Ronson changed the musical fortunes of David Bowie, a struggling singer-songwriter with two novelty hits behind him. Together, and with their band the Spiders From Mars, they reinvented Bowie musically and created some of glam-rock’s be
Guitar Player11 min read
Wham bam thank You, ma’am!
Even a cursory glance at producer/engineer Ken Scott’s resume is bound to fill someone with a sense of awe. Among the iconic artists he’s worked with are the likes of the Beatles, Elton John, Jeff Beck, Lou Reed and Harry Nilsson. During the early ’7
Guitar Player2 min read
Boy Could He Play Guitar
MICK RONSON IS arguably the best-loved and most iconic of Bowie’s guitar slingers. His playing techniques were eccentric, but they worked. One unusual attribute was that, unlike most other guitarists, he kept his left-hand fingernails fairly long. He
Guitar Player5 min read
Soul Love
FOR YEARS AFTER Mick Ronson’s death, the whereabouts of his stripped 1968 Gibson Les Paul Custom — the Ziggy Stardust guitar — were a mystery even to those who had been closest to him. When Rick Tedesco asked Ronson’s friend and fellow performer Ian
Guitar Player8 min read
A GOOD YEAR for the ROSEWOOD
DARK, HANDSOME, AND understated, the Fender Rosewood Telecaster has much in common with George Harrison. Custom-built for the guitarist in 1968 by Fender craftsmen Roger Rossmeisl and Philip Kubicki, it suited him down to the ground, although it was
Guitar Player8 min read
Better Days
LARRY McCRAY’S NEW album, Blues Without You, is his first record of original material since 2007. McCray burst onto the scene as a major new voice in blues guitar way back in 1991, with the release of his debut album, Ambition, followed two years lat
Guitar Player2 min read
Smart Money
JOE BONAMASSA’S KEEPING the Blues Alive label certainly lives up to its name. Not only has it brought neglected figures such as Larry McCray and Eric Gales back into the spotlight but it’s helped raise more than one million dollars to support struggl
Guitar Player6 min read
The Mad Axe Of King George
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
Guitar Player7 min read
SMOOTH & SOULFUL
LOOKING BACK ON the years I spent developing as a guitarist, I often kick myself for having taken certain musicians for granted — guitarists who always sounded so good but whose style I dismissed as “easy” to play. While I was focused on learning sol
Guitar Player7 min read
Back On Board
RY COODER AND Taj Mahal started out together with the short-lived Rising Sons before parting ways and going on to become two of the most important individual figures in American music. Now they’ve come full circle to pay tribute to two of their origi
Guitar Player3 min read
Writing and Recording Acoustic Rock, Pt. 1
FOR ROCK AND technology, 1969 was a most transformative year. A stellar synergetic example is how the BBC included rising star David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in its coverage of NASA’s Apollo 11 spaceflight to the moon. We’re still feeling the ripple ef
Guitar Player6 min read
Gibson
Collection is designed for players of all sizes, skill levels and bank accounts that are in the market for a genuine American acoustic built with solid woods in the venerable manufacturer’s Bozeman, Montana factory. These four no-frills instruments a
Guitar Player4 min read
Rivolta
MARRYING A NUMBER of popular styles, the new Rivolta Regata VII will present some familiar visual reference points for many players, not least of which is clear evidence of the design prowess of Dennis Fano, formerly of his own eponymous brand and cu
Guitar Player4 min read
Harbinger
WHEN PORTABLE LINE array sound systems first arrived on the scene, their compact size and quick setup made live performing easier. Thanks to their breakthrough speaker designs, players immediately enjoyed better sound quality. The smart integrated de
Guitar Player3 min read
Prs
EVOLUTION IS THE name of the game at PRS, so it’s not surprising that the new-for-’22 S2 Custom 24-08 (which is an advancement on the previous S2 Custom 24) carries things forward with a switching system that puts a range of tones intuitively at your
Guitar Player3 min read
How I Wrote… “Jessie’s Girl”
“HONESTLY, I DIDN’T have any idea it would be a hit, let alone a song that has endured for decades,” singer and guitarist Rick Springfield says about “Jessie’s Girl,” the pop-rock ear-candy smash from his 1981 album, Working Class Dog, that propelled
Guitar Player1 min read
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Guitar Player3 min read
Aero Instrument
GROUND-NOISE ISSUES are so commonplace for guitarists that many of us just take them in stride, all while keeping one hand on our strings or bridge to squelch the buzz coming from our amp. Just think about that as you cast your eyes over Aero Instrum

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