Queen keep yourself alive

Album: New Light (Big Sun Records)

Richard Barrett is on a mission to make you a better blues player – with full audio examples and backing tracks

Fender’s Custom Shop had a precarious start in the mid-1980s, but the story of its formative years is full of big ideas, some bizarre instruments, and a queue of famous guitarists

In 1974, Mike Oldfield defied the critics and hit the top of the UK charts with Hergest Ridge, the ambitious follow-up to his unexpectedly successful debut Tubular Bells . To coincide with the release of the 50th-anniversary edition, the musician, his siblings and collaborators recount the story of an album created by an overwhelmed 21-year-old taking refuge near the Welsh borders.

The great and good of progressive music give us a glimpse into their prog worlds. As told to Grant Moon.

Mike Zaite explains how a background in electronics and a front-row seat to the British Invasion of the 1960s led to the formation of Dr Z Amplification – and why the sonics always lead the schematics