Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2020 i Guitar Player

IT’S HARD TO create an electric-guitar design that pays tribute to past classics while looking fresh and original. Yet, that’s what Frank Brothers Guitar Company of Toronto, Canada, has achieved with the Arcade, and it’s earned raves. The company was founded in 2014 by luthiers Nick and Tim Frank and their managerial partner (and older brother) Jon. They are the third generation of Franks to work in music making and engineering, following grandfather Philip, first violinist with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and father Jim, an award-winning recording engineer who worked with Peter Gabriel, Alice Cooper and the Guess Who. But their real motivation comes from a desire to bring their customers’ ideas to life. “The rarity of our guitars is part of the excitement,” Tim tells us. “Often, people who…

IN A REMARKABLE career that has spanned 50 years, Danny Kortchmar has recorded with an astonishing array of legends, including Carole King, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon—and, as the saying goes, the list goes on! Hailing from New York City, the guitarist cut his teeth in the late 1960s playing Greenwich Village clubs in such groups as the King Bees and the Flying Machine (which featured a pre-Sweet Baby James James Taylor) before he headed to Los Angeles to try his hand at the studio-session scene. As he explains, his timing couldn’t have been better. “Things were changing right as I got to L.A.,” Kortchmar says. “The Wrecking Crew were still cutting records, but there was this new batch of players coming in—friends of mine, like Waddy…

AS A GEAR collector and trader, Michael Robinson lamented that so many cool guitars from the outskirts of the electric guitar’s Golden era are either rare, unplayable or both. As the head of the Eastwood Guitar Company, which he founded in 2001, Robinson remedied the situation by creating beautiful and—just as important—excellent-playing re-creations of electric guitars from storied brands like Mosrite, Teisco and Valco. More recently, he launched Eastwood’s Bring It Back program to crowdsource limited-edition re-creations of vintage classics. Customers request a guitar they’d like to see revived, and if a model makes the list a few times, Robinson lets interested buyers pony up a refundable $150 deposit. If enough deposits are received, the model goes into limited production. Once it’s ready, buyers are billed, and the guitars are…

LIKE EVERY OTHER working musician on the planet, John Fogerty was forced to scrap most of his 2020 tour dates once the coronavirus pandemic hit. For his first few days of self-quarantine at home, the 75-year-old singersongwriter and guitarist was content to bide his time—happy to indulge in a little unplanned vacation, in fact—but his wife, Julie, had other ideas. “She said, ‘You should record something and put it online,’” Fogerty relates. “So I sort of grudgingly went along with it.” After filming a solo acoustic video of his classic Creedence Clearwater Revival hit “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” Fogerty figured he could go back to hibernation. That’s when Julie said, “Why don’t you get the kids involved?” This was an idea Fogerty immediately sparked to. His two sons,…

WHAT DO YOU do for a third act when you’ve spent three decades as one of the planet’s most influential solo acoustic players, renowned for fingerpicking your signature Taylor 12-string jumbo with a thunderous tone in lowered tunings? How about forming a duo with a jam-band bass player who not only thumps in the low end but also tends to meander melodically up into guitar territory? What seems unfathomable to most mortals makes perfect sense for musical mutants like guitarist Leo Kottke and bassist Mike Gordon. There’s no one quite like Leo. It’s been nearly 50 years since the improbable troubadour dropped the sound heard around the world via 1972’s 6- and 12-String Guitar on mentor John Fahey’s Takoma label. Despite his gargantuan influence on countless would-be folk heroes, Kottke…

THE DESIGNATION GT has long been applied to sports cars and other things that are agile and speedy, so it’s appropriate that Taylor’s new GT, or Grand Theater, is the sleekest model in the California company’s line. Size-wise, it sits between the GS Mini and Grand Concert, which is the smallest of the company’s full-size body shapes. Taylor’s reason for creating the ultra-compact GT is simple: Today’s guitarists are drawn to the playability of smaller flattops but don’t want to compromise tone. And this is what prompted design chief Andy Powers to develop a new guitar that combines the inviting playability of a “parlor” instrument with the rich sound of a full-sized guitar. For this review, we looked at the GTe model, which adds Taylor’s ES2 electronics system. The GT…

Thanks to you and the team for this great issue. I’ll try to make this quick. Mid ’80s summer, my drummer buddy tells me he’s got tickets for Stevie Ray Vaughan at the Pier in NYC. Who? (I hadn’t heard of him.) “He’s a great blues guitarist. Trust me, you’ll love him.” We are waiting outside the venue on the street. There was one way in for the audience and artists; the other end of the place is on the Hudson River. A limo pulls up, the band hops out, and this guy with cowboy boots, baggy suit and a big hat with a feather saunters by. I look at my friend. “What the f—did you bring me to?” “Trust me,” he said smiling. Stevie started playing, and saying I…

ARMED WITH A STONISHING chops, great tone and an encyclopedic knowledge of blues styles (check out his YouTube demos to see him in action), Kirk Fletcher is a veritable force of nature who has played with the Fabulous Thunderbirds, toured with Joe Bonamassa and traveled the world, playing what he calls “the music closest to my heart.” On his sixth solo release, My Blues Pathway (Cleopatra Records), the Blues Music Award–nominated guitarist presents a selection of original songs that run the gamut from classic blues forms, such as “Struggle for Grace,” “Heart So Heavy” and “D is for Denny,” to the Memphis-style soul of “Love Is More Than a Word,” the pop-savvy “Ain’t No Cure for the Downhearted” (co-written with Robert Cray bassist and songwriter Richard Cousins) and the funky…

OFTEN VIEWED AS a tweed Bassman with reverb and tremolo, the iconic blackface Fender Super Reverb combo is really a model entirely unto itself, embodying elements from the musical-equipment maker’s best designs of the late ’50s and early ’60s. Amplifier development was moving at breakneck speed at Fender in the early ’60s. In 1960, the company concluded its run of the tweed 4x10 Bassman combo, one of the greatest rock and roll amps of all time. Fender had already passed through its entirely new and short-lived line of brownface amps by late 1963 and early ’64, when it launched a new range of what would become classic models. Among these, the 4x10 Super Reverb seemed to take on the mantle of the hallowed tweed Bassman. In fact, it was a…

BE BELONGS TO an exclusive group of guitarists who rose to prominence in the 1960s and became the leading influencers of modern music for decades to come. But Jimmy Page looks back on his nearly 60-year career with a simple appreciation for the fact that it happened at all. “I’m just blessed to have had a life where I was able to make my living out of my passion,” Page says today. “Not only that, but to have been able to have made some important musical statements along the way in various genres, and to have made people happy and inspired people in the way that I was inspired. And that passes on the baton to the next generation.” Reflection has been on Page’s mind quite a lot lately as…

THE G UITAR IS a very expressive instrument. In the hands of a master player, it can sing, cry, laugh, scream, hoot and holler, and generally display just about any emotion known to man or beast. And when it comes to nuances inherent to the instrument, few techniques are as emotive as string bending. From vibrato to half- and whole-step bends, extra-wide bends and pedal steel-style licks, they’re all covered in this ambitious lesson. And to top it off, there’s an extended solo at the end that’s bursting at the seams with a variety of cool-sounding bends. So grab your ax with the lightest string gauges and let’s get going. BASICS Just to make sure we’re on common ground, this lesson will start with some bending basics. But have patience,…

THE NEW GIBSON Lukas Nelson Signature Les Paul Junior is a replica of the “student model” 1956 Les Paul Junior singer-songwriter Lukas Nelson purchased in 2013 and has been playing ever since with his band, Promise of the Real. That guitar was recommended to Nelson by longtime Neil Young tech (and owner of Vintage Instruments Rental in northern California) Larry Cragg, and this dead-nuts recreation of it aims to capture the tone and playing feel of the original. “Larry is a special guy, and he has been working with Neil for a long time,” Nelson says. “I took it seriously when he brought me this guitar. And he was right, it’s a fantastic instrument and it immediately spoke to me. Even before I started playing guitar, I was a songwriter,…

THE LAUNCH OF Gibson’s Acoustic Custom Shop in Bozeman, Montana, was one of the most exciting developments in an otherwise relatively dreary year. The latest addition to its Artist Collection is also thrilling: It’s a collaboration with Tesla guitarist Frank Hannon commemorating 30 years since “Love Song” became a radio staple and a must-learn song for any rocker with an acoustic heart. Once upon a time, Gibson chief merchant officer Cesar Gueikian was just that sort of guy. He and his wife chose “Love Song” as their wedding tune, and when Gueikian met Hannon and jammed with him at the NAMM Show, they set their sights on creating a signature model in the style of Hannon’s cherished ’76 Dove. Hannon went into great detail about his history as a Dove…

CO-DESIGNED BY FENDER’S Stan Cotey and amp guru Bruce Egnater—as are all models in the MTG line—the Tube Tremolo brings a high degree of control and flexibility to what could be the oldest electronic effect in the history of guitar sound modifiers. Tremolo has typically involved tube circuitry (at lease in guitar amplifiers), so it’s fitting that the Tube Tremolo incorporates a NOS American-made 6205 tube, which is gripped on a small PC board that’s affixed to the main glass-epoxy board carrying the majority of the circuit components. The metal enclosure is comprised of an orange-color anodized-aluminum upper section with a steel bottom plate, and it comes apart easily after removing four machine screws. Besides input and output jacks, there is a 2.1mm jack for the nine-volt power supply of…

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“ALL I EVER wanted to do was play guitar, and it’s taken me many different places—physically and mentally,” Peter Frampton writes in his new autobiography, Do You Feel Like I Do?: A Memoir. Written with Alan Light, the tell-all elaborates thoroughly on that statement, as the guitarist reveals his career highs with Humble Pie and his monster solo breakthrough album, Frampton Comes Alive!. and his personal lows, including his struggles with substance abuse and recent battle with the muscle disease inclusion body myositis. In addition to sharing stories about his friendships with artists that include George Harrison and David Bowie, Frampton discusses his own relationship with the guitar, including one very special—and now quite famous—instrument: his mid-1950s Les Paul Custom “Black Beauty.” That guitar is the subject of this excerpt…

RELEASED IN 1990 on Columbia Records, Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler’s Neck and Neck remains my all-time favorite Chet record. Although it’s certainly not a quintessential example of his work and style, it’s a world-class example of great craftsmanship and well-seasoned guitar playing. The masterful production was overseen by Knopfler. Les Paul once said the first song of a set is when the audience is checking out what shoes you’re wearing. In some ways, that’s how I feel about the Neck and Neck opener, “Poor Boy Blues.” Although this vocal track won Best Country Vocal Collaboration at the 1991 Grammy’s, it’s probably my least-favorite song on the record. That said, it’s an easygoing invitation to the second track, “Sweet Dreams,” which is so relaxed and lovely, it feels like one…

EVERY GENERATION OF jazz guitar has its magnet—that unique, new voice so powerful that its gravitational pull becomes unavoidable. Pat Metheny was the magnet for aspiring guitarists coming up from the late ’70s to early ’80s. Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall both exerted a profound pull on the previous generation of guitarists, including Metheny himself, and Charlie Christian’s influence was all-pervasive before Wes and Jim had come along. Certainly one of the most influential jazz guitarists of the past 20 years has been Philadelphia-born Kurt Rosenwinkel. His impact can be felt throughout the country’s conservatories and music schools, and his signature warm-toned, reverb-drenched legato lines can be detected in the playing of several rising star guitarists. The Berklee College of Music grad apprenticed with vibraphonist Gary Burton, then joined drummercomposer…

DAVID DAVIDSON IS no stranger to rare guitars. As the owner of Well Strung Guitars (formerly We Buy Guitars) in Plainview, New York, and COO and curator of the Songbirds Guitar Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he’s sourced vintage instruments for players and collectors for more than 40 years. His expert eye remains focused on rarities from the scarce to the absolutely unique, yet to this day he retains a soft spot for those all? time classics that piqued his interest in the beginning. “It was the Les Paul Custom that did it for me,” Davidson explains. “I remember watching Bill Haley & His Comets in [the 1956 film] Rock Around the Clock, and the guitar player, Franny Beecher, was playing a Les Paul Custom. I thought that was just about…

LAST MONTH, WE launched our lesson on how to solo with chords, a technique that blurs the line between lead and rhythm playing. As we discussed previously, soloing with chords requires both a knowledge of music theory and the fretboard in order to use it creatively and technically. However, as we saw in the first batch of examples, it’s possible to develop knowledge and skill in this area through a series of conceptual and practical exercises. Once again, our examples will focus on the genre of jazz, which will allow us to experiment with a wide range of melodic, harmonic and modal concepts and devices, from working with fundamental modes and harmonic contexts to resolving major and minor ii - V progressions. These approaches can also be applied to other…

WHILE DIG GING INTO chords and licks on the new Fender American Original ’70s Telecaster Custom, one word kept coming to my mind again and again: meaty. With its fulsome alder body, substantial (though comfy) medium-C maple neck, broad 15-screw pickguard and—especially—its Tim Shaw–designed resurrection of the near-mythic Seth Lover CuNiFe Wide-Range Humbucker, this is a Telecaster on a diet of porterhouse and pull-ups. No one will be kicking sand in your face with this guitar. While some guitars bowl you over with their svelte contours, sleek lines and even sleeker sonics, Fender’s revival of this oft-maligned cult wonder from the 1970s—given instant rock cred through Keith Richards’ embrace—is all about girth, grace and a little gristle. Built true to spec in most aspects, even down to the bullet truss-rod,…

MOST REVERB PED ALS shine when creating small-to-large spaces, but they don’t give you much at the extremes, where the imagined space is cramped or, conversely, infinite. For that kind of sonic sculpting, I’ve often turned to Eventide’s Blackhole reverb plug-in, a favorite in my DAW. It’s a classic reverb from Eventide’s rackmount DSP4000 processor that’s capable of cathedral-type ambiences, tightly gated and pre-delayed reverbs, and even freeze effects. Until now, performing guitarists could get Blackhole as an algorithm in Eventide’s powerhouse H9 stomp box, but the new Blackhole pedal puts this amazing reverb into its own sleek and compact box, with a full complement of control and switches, making it the perfect addition to your pedalboard. Like all Eventide pedals. Blackhole lets you fine-tune every aspect of your sound.…

DUANE EDDY HAD scored his first hit with the guitar instrumental “Moovin’ n’ Groovin’” when the master of twang got the inspiration for his second. “I was playing a rock and roll show in L.A. and thought I needed something that I could play as I was walking out to the stage, with the lights coming on,” he recalls. “Then, when I got to the center, the band could kick in.” From this small notion came the big reverb-laden track “Rebel-’Rouser,” Eddy’s enduring 1958 hit single. One of rock and roll’s pioneering guitarists, Duane Eddy influenced countless famous players over the years, including George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and John Fogerty. And “Rebel-’Rouser” is the song of his that many of them heard first. NO SAINT Though it sounds loosely based…