As an amateur Jazz guitar player, I am often asked about the best guitar to buy for playing Jazz. That is a question I have wrestled with often, and the answer has come to cost me a lot of money and sweat, but I do feel prepared today to answer that inquiry for you in full.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been listening to the massive new Jimi Hendrix anthology called — “West Coast Seattle Boy” — and this four-CD installment brings a whole new era to the Hendrix musical canon: His early life as a session player.
Continue reading → Jimi Hendrix and the West Coast Seattle Boy Review
Buddy Guy is 74-years-old and his latest album — Living Proof — dropped today and that collection of gut and grit is, without a doubt, spectacular. Buddy Guy is one of our greatest American Blues Heroes. He has transformed his talent into something bright, white-hot, and unbending.
If you want to know what guitar a great guitarist really plays — you need to look beyond what they are playing now — and hearken back to what guitar they were playing when they were poor, unknown, and hungering for fame. I argue today, that the greatest guitarists of our time started off their careers playing the Gibson Les Paul — even though Fender and the Stratocaster and Telecaster were cheaper and beat the Les Paul to market.
Continue reading → The Best Guitarists First Played a Les Paul
Welcome, once again, to my ongoing Strings Saga: Yes, I’ve Gone Back to Elevens (And, “No, We Have No Bananas)! Yes, I know. This is like the 20th time you’ve read a strings review from me or found out that, once again, I had changed my mind about my Favorite Strings Ever. Welp, today is another day, and here’s another dollar: I’m back to .011-.049 strings — and this time — I’m staying! I think.
Continue reading → Strings Saga, Part Twenty: Back to Eleven
If you have more than one guitar, you will, one day, need some basic tools to maintain your stringed instrument. In the Guitar universe, there is one granddaddy supplier of tools and other neat stuffs — and thy name is “Stew-Mac” — or “Stewart-MacDonald” if you want to be more formal. I purchased all these tools on my own, with my own money. Stew-Mac are not even aware this review is being written.
There’s nothing more annoying than a vacillator writing reviews who cannot make up his mind. Dear and loyal reader Sean has rightly called me out on our Urban Semiotic blog for messing with him by changing my mind on what makes the best guitar strings gauge.
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