Blues you can use, part 4

CRAFTING AN APPEALING guitar solo for a song is always a creative challenge. There are many different approaches one can take: Do I follow the chord changes so that the notes line up perfectly with th

A CHIEF CONSIDERATION when playing with a slide is the tuning. Many of our favorite slide players — Elmore James, Duane Allman, Johnny Winter, Derek Trucks — play slide almost exclusively in an open t

Every month we get inside the mind of ...

JIMMIE VAUGHAN IS still kicking at 74, but he’s endured a few setbacks along the way, mostly in the form of three recent heart attacks. After the third of these — which happened in 2022 — the Texas bl

IT’S WIDELY KNOWN that Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were tough taskmasters when it came to the studio, particularly in terms of their session guitarists. The most famous example of thei

SINCE FOUNDING BIG Wreck in the early Nineties, Ian Thornley has filled his band’s songbook with arena-conquering melodies, Led Zeppelin-hailing heft and some of the most super-heroically knuckle-bust