Player archive

December 2023

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21 articles

December 29
- "When I play with a pick and without a capo, I have a tendency to go right over to B.B. King's or Buddy Guy's house. I can't help it. But when I use the capo, I think I sound more like me." Jimmie Vaughan's wicked tone secrets
December 27
- "He really lived it": Lightnin' Hopkins picked cotton and worked on a chain gang before becoming the most recorded of the postwar bluesmen – and schooling the likes of Billy Gibbons and Johnny Winter
December 25
- "My solos happen so fast that I don't really know what I'm doing. It's like trying to tell somebody about a car crash: It's all over in two-fifths of a second, and then you talk about it for ten hours afterward": A revealing chat with Jeff Beck
December 24
- “Every guitarist should understand the drums. It's important to know where the kick and snare should land to complement your riffs.” Dave Grohl on the making of the Foo Fighters' There Is Nothing Left To Lose
- From sparkling duets with Joe Pass to sweat-soaked virtuoso TV guest spots, his playing was a wonder — here’s why you should take a deep dive into The Roy Clark Guitar Spectacular!
December 21
- "I took a screwdriver and stuck it under the strings at the nut…" Gary Rossington on how he came up with his sound on Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird
- “Guitar playing is a creative thing. If you come into it thinking that it’s a competition, you’re already screwed”: Rising U.K. blues guitarist Dom Martin on beating his inner demons and the ghost of Rory Gallagher
December 20
- "When I got the B-Bender, I learned how to find a way to bend so that it doesn’t sound just like a B-Bender but sounds like the strings are being bent by fingers…" Ex-Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin chats about Rio, his first new album of songs in 34 years
December 19
- “It's all about Bach and Beck. Before Beck, guitars used to just go ‘twang.’ Then they learned to sustain and scream and impersonate a woman’s voice and imitate brass instruments." The career and influences of Steve Hackett in five songs
December 18
- "Five strings, three notes, two fingers and one a**hole – that's all it takes to play guitar!" Keith Richards: The complete 1992 interview
December 15
- "We call it 'the claw': the hand shape you typically use on the neck. I change my tunings so that when I do the claw, it’s not something I would typically play.” Kelley Deal on the weird creativity of the Breeders' Last Splash
December 12
- "I feel like George Lucas, where you helped create this thing that becomes not just movies and stuff but a culture. We created a culture with Kiss…" The Gene Simmons interview
December 10
- Six By 5: John 5 picks his 6 favorite Paul Stanley guitar solos
December 9
- “The worst thing you can do is beat yourself up when you make a mistake…” John Petrucci’s top five tips for guitarists
December 8
- “I didn’t want to be the flashy lead player. Whether it was Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, David Crosby or Richie Havens, what the left hand was doing was more fascinating to me than what the right hand was doing": The Paul Stanley interview
- “Any good guitar player will tell you his vibrato is as sweet as honey…” Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, Joe Perry, Tom Morello and many more on what Paul Stanley’s playing brought to Kiss
December 7
- How Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet and "the Randy Rhoads school of soloing" helped Ozzy Osbourne and Zakk Wylde write No More Tears
December 5
- "I was playing the wrong key and everything, but it didn't seem to matter": Watch George Harrison play a Little Richard classic with Deep Purple in 1984
December 4
- “It was a way to kind of memorialize the folks that I lost”: Grieving the death of his grandparents and close friend Joey DeFrancesco, jazz guitar ace Dan Wilson found solace in creating his beautiful new album, Things Eternal
- ”If you don’t get your act together, then you can’t expect your band to be.” Session player and bandleader Ben Misterka shares his wisdom on playing savvy in the post-pandemic world
December 1
- “It’s the sound of the Stones: a five-string with a six-string on top. Guitars are amazing things – you can make an orchestra out of them…” Keith Richards on life without Charlie, The Beatles and the Stones, and new album Hackney Diamonds