Guitar Magazine

6 November 2020

Eddie Van Halen was one of the Mount Rushmore figures of the electric guitar. Like Jimi Hendrix before him, EVH reimagined what it was possible to achieve with six strings, a whammy bar and magnetic pickups. And he didn’t just change the way people played the instrument or the tones they chased – Eddie Van Halen changed the way people designed and built guitars and amplifiers too. This month we celebrate the life, legacy and career highlights of one of the greatest of all time with a special 18-page feature and commemorative cover. Elsewhere in this issue, we sit down with Joe Bonamassa and Bernie Marsden to lift the lid on Bernie’s contribution to Joe’s new album, recorded inside the hallowed walls of Abbey Road Studios. We also find out how Bonamassa rates The Beast – the fabled 1959 Les Paul Standard with which Marsden wrote and recorded Whitesnake’s biggest hits – and get a tour of the Whitesnake legend's remarkable array of vintage acoustics. The Abbey Road connection continues as we head back to the home of the most famous pedestrian crossing in St John’s Wood to catch up with Idles, fresh from a live streaming performance in Studio Two. The Bristol rock band’s live shows are some of the most ferocious around, and they might be the only artists in the history of this magazine to arrive for a photoshoot with a guitar smashed on stage earlier that day. Get your copy of the December issue of Guitar Magazine now.