The power of change

ALL’S BEEN QUIET for several years on Jake E. Lee’s proverbial Western Front. The guitarist has taken extended breaks before, like the one after the demise of his beloved Badlands in 1993. Still, afte

IF ONLY HALF the rumors about him are true, Ozzy Osbourne should be dead. Yet, after 21 years of twisted public behavior, the man who brought you songs like “Paranoid,” “Bark at the Moon” and “Childre

MUSIC FANS KNEW Ozzy Osbourne as the Prince of Darkness or maybe even the Messiah of Metal, but among the hard-rock guitar community, he’ll always be remembered as the Godfather of Heavy Guitar. Thank

How’d you get this guitar? I worked at Hogan’s House of Music in Hawthorne, California, when I was younger. I bought it there. I paid $300 for it in 1980. Did you modify it? And what sort of rig did y

Every month we get inside the mind of one of the biggest names in music. This issue: Roy Harper . Since the mid-60s, the progressive folk singer-songwriter has enjoyed a successful solo career that’s also found him collaborating with everyone from Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel to Kate Bush and Ian Anderson. But he’s never quite reached the commercial heights of his peers. As his Final Tour: Part Two fast approaches, he looks back over highlights from his career so far and teases a brand-new album.

LAST MONTH, I talked about how I devised the primary riffs in the title track to my 2023 album Hard Wired, which is played in drop D tuning (low to high: D, A, D, G, B, E). I’d now like to share some