Jackson Maxwell
Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com and GuitarPlayer.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.
Latest articles by Jackson Maxwell
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“‘Those old Beatle bashers?’”: Paul McCartney talks Vox amps, and his love of dirty tones
By Jackson Maxwell published
In a 1990 GP interview, McCartney expressed his personal preference for getting gnarlier rock tones out of his Vox amps, despite his pop reputation
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Mark Knopfler on why he’s ditched the pick in favor of fingerpicking
By Gary Graff published
Read one of our top 20 stories of 2024: The former Dire Straits guitarist told us why he moved away from the plectrum but still regards the pick as “a superior thing”
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Brian Ray on the only time Paul McCartney and John Lennon got writer's block
By Jackson Maxwell published
“You have to remember,” Macca's longtime guitarist told us, “the Beatles did a record every six months”
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Jimmy Page reflects on the Yardbirds and his short-lived two-guitar tandem with Jeff Beck
By Jackson Maxwell published
Though the two budding virtuosos had plenty of respect for one another, it perhaps isn't a huge surprise that their respective styles occasionally clashed in the Yardbirds
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“Eddie asked me to show the solo to him, because he’d forgotten it”: Jennifer Batten recalls re-teaching EVH his 'Beat It' solo
By Jackson Maxwell published
“Not the most relaxed situation for me,” the former Michael Jackson guitarist told GP in a 1989 interview
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“Eddie asked me to show the solo to him, because he’d forgotten it”: Jennifer Batten recalls re-teaching EVH his 'Beat It' solo
By Jackson Maxwell published
“Not the most relaxed situation for me,” the former Michael Jackson guitarist told GP in a 1989 interview
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Pink Floyd's Echoes marked David Gilmour's emergence as a guitar hero – and its surreal tonal highlight was created by accident
By Jackson Maxwell published
Having spent years attempting to settle on a sonic direction in the wake of the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, Echoes was the sound of a band finally locking into place
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“Joe Walsh insisted that I buy it”: Jimmy Page on his “Number 1” 1959 Gibson Les Paul
By Christopher Scapelliti published
In this vintage chat, Page talks about his most famous Les Paul and some of its unique aspects, such as its sealed Grover tuners and bridge humbucker-splitting push-pull knob
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“Joe Walsh insisted that I buy it”: Jimmy Page on his “Number 1” 1959 Gibson Les Paul
By Christopher Scapelliti published
In this vintage chat with Gibson, Page talks about his most famous Les Paul and some of its unique aspects, such as its sealed Grover tuners and bridge humbucker-splitting push-pull knob
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“It’s all done”: David Gilmour dismisses talk of future Pink Floyd shows
By Jackson Maxwell published
Though two of the surviving members of Floyd reunited for the 2022 Ukrainian aid single, Hey Hey, Rise Up, Gilmour says there are no further plans to resurrect the band
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Jimmy Page on how Led Zeppelin's triumphant 2007 reunion took shape, and the tour that never was
By Jackson Maxwell published
Speaking to GP in 2020, Page said that he, John Paul Jones, and Jason Bonham “had honed ourselves to the point where we were ready” for a tour after the band's acclaimed full set at the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert
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“For me it was just frustrating”: Why Brian May never took to the Strat or Les Paul
By Jackson Maxwell published
In Queen's early days, May didn't have backup copies of the Red Special – let alone a company that manufactures replicas of it – leading him to keep both models around as Plan Bs
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“I thought about it as a possible James Bond theme”: Jack White on the origins of the iconic Seven Nation Army riff
By Jackson Maxwell published
Ironically enough, White would end up writing an actual Bond theme just five years later
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Scotty Moore details the legendary Elvis Presley That’s All Right session
By Jackson Maxwell published
Speaking to GP in 2009, Elvis Presley's original six-string sideman said the near-mythical session began somewhat inauspiciously
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Watch Steve Lukather cover Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing, with Jeff Beck's White Strat
By Jackson Maxwell published
The Toto guitarist revealed that Beck's camp has offered a number of other guitar heroes – including Billy Gibbons and John Mayer – a chance to use the Strat onstage as part of an ongoing tribute to the late guitar hero
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Derek Trucks on channeling the intensity and free spirit of jazz into his guitar work, and recording with the genre's giants
By Jackson Maxwell published
Speaking to GP in 2008, the Tedeschi Trucks Band and Allman Brothers Band virtuoso reflected on how recording with McCoy Tyner and other jazz luminaries kept him on his toes, and took him out of his comfort zone
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John Oates discusses the end of his longtime partnership with Daryl Hall
By Jackson Maxwell published
The seemingly dramatic end of Hall & Oates' incredibly successful run, the latter maintains, is a matter of “very boring business details,” rather than personal acrimony
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Why Noel Gallagher overhauled his Oasis rig at the peak of the band's success
By Jackson Maxwell published
The hangover (sonically and otherwise) from Oasis's infamously overstuffed and overlong third album, Be Here Now, led Gallagher to pursue a wholesale transformation in sound
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Dickey Betts initially “hated” having to play Duane Allman's slide parts
By Jackson Maxwell published
Though he did so with incredible creative and commercial success, leading the Allman Brothers Band in the wake of Duane Allman's untimely passing took a heavy toll on Betts, emotionally and musically
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Brian May on the trials and tribulations of building the Red Special
By Jackson Maxwell published
May famously built the original with his father while in his teens. The duo even originally built the guitar's pickups themselves, though on that particular front they faced some headwinds
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INXS's Tim Farriss on tonal touchstones, and that reality TV show
By Jackson Maxwell published
Speaking to GP about the studio rig he used for the band's then-new comeback album, Switch, Farriss cited his love for guitars both traditional and unusual for an arena-rocker
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Before he became a reliable rock hitmaker, Steve Miller was a child protégé of Les Paul
By Jackson Maxwell published
In an interview with GP, the Steve Miller Band leader recalled the monumental impression Paul left on him as a youngster
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