Innholdsfortegnelse for Holiday 2017 i Guitar Player

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 40 YEARS, GEORGE THOROGOOD is flying completely solo on his latest album, Party of One [Rounder]. On an inspired collection of blues, country, and folk covers (Robert Johnson to Hank Williams to Willie Dixon and the Rolling Stones), he didn’t call on his backing band, the Destroyers, opting instead to do live takes with no punch-ins, and leaving any missed notes intact. So one might assume he’d woodshed a little before undertaking such a naked and strippeddown project. “You heard the record,” says Thorogood. “Does it sound like I need to practice? Playing on my own is nothing new to me, and this is all stuff I used to do before most people even heard me— before I got locked into the Destroyers thing. I…

THE GOAL OF BUILDING SINGLE-NOTE playing technique and increasing speed is a popular and passionate one among many improvising guitarists in a variety of musical styles. While there are several paths one can follow to develop the finger strength and dexterity required to perform fast, clean licks and runs, you’ll find there’s much to gain by taking a small fragment of a scale or arpeggio and drilling on it until it becomes comfortable and seemingly effortless to perform. In this lesson, I’d like to show you what I find to be a particularly effective approach to achieving this objective, and that is to use what some call a “pivot” arpeggio as a musical springboard to generate cool-sounding repetition licks that flow and work well in a variety of musical contexts.…

LET’S START WITH THE CASE. SHAPED like a teardrop in stark black and white, it’s kind of a monument to the hot-rod diners of the ’50s. And, once opened to reveal the sky-blue flamedmaple Double Agent W resting in black velvet, the optional hardshell case fulfills its promise of showcasing something beautiful and special. The guitar itself is a celebration of 20 years of Reverend designs. Like some other noted American inventors, Joe Naylor—who holds a degree in industrial design and is also a graduate of the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery— started the company in a garage. A lot of Naylor innovations have made the scene since Reverend’s 1997 launch in East Detroit, and there have been some business evolutions, as well—a move to Toledo, Ohio, where the company is…

I RECENTLY RECEIVED THREE NEW Vox VX50 amps—the AG (acoustic guitar), KB (keyboard), and BA (bass) models, which were immediately put to use in band rehearsals. All performed above their weight class, and though the bass and keyboard versions were easily outgunned by the musicians’ standard stage gear, we all agreed that these new Voxes were impressive considering how small and inexpensive they are. Focusing on the AG for the balance of this review, this amp is equipped with everything found in pricier acoustic models, including dedicated Instrument and Mic channels (phantom power available on the latter), independent EQ controls, built-in effects (chorus and reverb on the Instrument channel, reverb only on the Mic channel), and a 50-watt output stage that provides good headroom and plenty of volume. Upstream of…

IT WAS A TRAGIC JOLT WHEN WE LOST Tom Petty on October 2, 2017—right after he had celebrated the 40th anniversary tour of his band, the Heartbreakers. Throughout the years, Petty and Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell had always made themselves available to share musical insights with Guitar Player readers, so we felt a fitting tribute to this rock and roll legend would be to dig out some wonderful quotes from his May 1999 and July 2006 GP cover stories. THE HEARTBREAKERS “We probably invented new wave, but we were running ahead of it. I didn’t want any label to be put on us, and I was very conscious that we were a rock and roll band and not anything else. I think the number one reason we’ve stayed together so…

IN A BUSINESS THAT HAS SEEN its share of hot pickers since James Burton demonstrated what could be done with a Telecaster so long ago, Brad Paisley stands out. Not only for his prodigious talent as a guitarist—and for the ways he has helped redefine the sound of country—but also for how he has done it on his own terms by not losing sight of one of the most important elements of traditional country: the song. Paisley’s tunes can range from dead serious to downright hilarious—see the Netflix special Comedy Rodeo for examples of the latter—but if there’s anything he has held onto, it’s the importance of crafting songs he feels are meaningful. On Love and War [Arista Nashville], this is expressed in darker tunes like “The Devil is Alive…

THE GENESIS OF THIS NEW SIGNATURE model is thoroughly documented in this month’s cover story on Brad Paisley, where the guitarist also details all of the elements he wanted for a Telecaster that’s designed to have broad appeal for players who need a guitar with excellent tone and playability, as well as an affordable price. Resplendent in its silver sparkle finish, paisley pickguard, and swaths of exposed wood on the upper and lower parts of the body (the “worn” part if you will), there’s more than meets the eye here thanks to a body made from lightweight paulownia wood with a top and back of harder spruce. Our review sample came in at just 6.18 lbs, making it feel very nimble and sound nicely resonant. For reference, paulownia is native…

ERNIE BALL 40TH ANNIVERSARY VOLUME PEDAL This anniversary edition of Ernie Ball’s classic volume pedal ($129 street) is a beautifully rendered unit that has been visually and mechanically updated to celebrate a whopping 40 years of EB volume pedals. So how do you go about improving on a classic that’s so ably stood the test of time? Well, the new pedal features include a stronger PVC-coated Kevlar cord connecting the rocker to the potentiometer, a 250kΩ pot that’s voiced for passive pickups, improved rocker traction for smoother volume swells, and a brushed black finish on the ultrarugged extruded aluminum housing. In use, I honestly don’t know what more you could ask from a volume pedal. The 40th Anniversary has a glass-smooth feel, and the tension of the rocker is so…

THIS SUMMER, FENDER MANUFACtured an affordable version of the Jimi Hendrix Monterey Stratocaster ($899 street; it had previously been a Custom Shop model) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first American appearance of the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Monterey Pop Festival on June 18, 1967. The new Monterey Strat celebrates a thrilling moment in pop-culture history, as Hendrix not only painted it himself, but burned it onstage in one of rock’s most infamous and enduring performance acts. To observe the Fender reissue, Janie Hendrix—Jimi’s adopted sister and CEO/President of Experience Hendrix and Authentic Hendrix—shared some thoughts about her brother and this legendary Stratocaster. Did you and your dad travel to see Jimi at Monterey? Unfortunately, we did not. We knew he was really excited about it, because he…

HOW DO YOU MAKE A BLUES RECORD WITHOUT making a blues record? For Vernon Reid and his band, Living Colour, this question fueled the recording of Shade [Megaforce], their first album in eight years. During that time, the veteran genre-bending group struggled mightily to find a cohesive musical thread they could all agree on. But nothing took hold until they performed Robert Johnson’s “Preachin’ Blues” at a benefit concert honoring the legendary bluesman at New York’s Apollo Theater in 2012. While on stage that night, Reid saw the direction for band’s next album laid out before him. “We went through a lot of different things trying to make a record,” he explains. “The biggest issue was that, whatever we did, it had to have meaning. When we played ‘Preachin’ Blues,’…

THE YEAR WAS 1975 WHEN AMERICAN country music singer-songwriter, author, poet, actor, activist, philanthropist, and badass guitarist Willie Nelson—who for years had been fighting record labels that discouraged his desire to record his songs devoid of the schmaltzy string arrangements and over-production values that pervaded popular country music of the day—finally put his foot down and got his way. The result was country’s first concept album, Red Headed Stranger, which marked Nelson’s move from RCA to Columbia Records, and presented for the first time Willie’s songs, along with select covers arranged in a narrative form and stripped down to their essentials with his trusty, well-worn Martin N-20 nylon-string acoustic soulmate, Trigger, mixed front and center. OUTLAW COUNTRY The album’s opening track, “Time of the Preacher,” recently featured on the AMC TV…

FENDER’S ICONIC TELECASTER HAS BECOME SUCH A CORNERSTONE of electric guitar that, over the years, the design has disseminated more broadly throughout the market, spawning alternative renditions from a wide variety of guitar makers. Although Fender originated the design—and owns the trademark to the precise shape of the slim, elegant Telecaster headstock—the T-style contributions of several other manufacturers still enhance the wonderful variety of bolt-neck single-cuts available to the player today, from extremely affordable options to the most detailed, high-end, hand-built examples. Here, we’ve identified 15 T-style manufacturers you should have on your radar. ANDERSON GUITARWORKS Long one of the most respected names in quality alternative American-made electric guitars, Tom Anderson cut his teeth on T-style creations, and the fact that titans of Tele tone such as Pete Anderson, Clint…

FULL DISCLOSURE: I AM A HUGE FAN of reverb. I love using it to wash over guitar solos, or provide a subtle and ghostly presence to chord progressions. So the BOSS RV-500 Reverb ($349 street) is definitely a machine after my own heart, as it offers a huge amount of options, sounds, and parameter control. Drawing on the rich, reverberated history of Roland/BOSS effects throughout the years, the RV-500 includes old and essential favorites such as Plate, Room, Hall, and Spring, as well as some wilder options like Shimmer, Non- Linear, and Space Echo. All of the reverbs sound fantastic, and you can not only use the A/B Simul mode to use two patches simultaneously, but a spill-over function ensures the reverb tails don’t cut off when you change patches.…