If you dig searing lead guitar, bluesy singing and slamming Stax-style power funk, grab Ana Popovic’s groovin’ new album Can You Stand the Heat, which entered the Billboard Blues Chart at #9 upon its release April 16.
Celebrated guitarist and vocalist musician Martin Harley has been powerfully taking over the music scene with his own unique take on traditional blues and folk music throughout the past decade.
Blues aficionados know that there’s also a bit of fun to be had when a blues man shows up with some over the top testosterone driven swagger. This fiery mixture defines the guitar work of Edgar Winter’s guitarist, Doug Rappoport.
As much as I was captured by the primitive blues art of bluesman, Lennie Jones, it was our conversation that pulled me in to fascinate. I became captivated by the full sweep of his life that found its way from the dark holler of a Virginia jail, to the sweat-filled isolation when hunting down swamp rats in Florida’s Everglades.
Fourteen year old rising child prodigy Matthew Davidson [www.matthewdavidson.net] has been making some major waves in the music world. Getting his first taste of the guitar at the age of 3, Matthew has been stunning the ears of multiple guitar enthusiasts and organizations across the country.
Blazing blues guitar master Dave Fields has rocketed into 2012 with his new explosive album, Detonation. With a new record simply overflowing with punching solos and dynamite vocals.
To many, Walter Trout is a contemporary guitar legend and his guitar prowess, prolific recordings and non-stop tour schedule provide more than ample evidence to support the claim.
Someone has to represent the new guard of young blues guitarists, and since 1995, Kenny Wayne Shepherd has been carrying the flag with a reckless abandon. All five of his studio albums have topped the Billboard Blues chart, the most recent being 2011′s How I Go, which was the first to feature Kenny himself on vocals along with his usual vocalist Noah Hunt.
Some musicians develop a plan while on the road to success, one that involves taking chances and making changes. Amid this strategy there’s a burning desire to perform and the ambition to hone a craft to its perfection with respect to both tone and technique. Instrumental musicians especially, know that they have to possess something diverse, a sound that differentiates them from the rest, one that sustains interest and curiosity. Without a vocalist, the lead instrument must have a voice of its own, one that speaks to the listener with a personality, resplendent with passion and emotion.
How did you become involved with Eastern music and how have you drawn from it to incorporate it into your traditional Western influences, especially the blues?
Derek Trucks: I think I was drawn into it just by being turned on to the music of other musicians. I think the more you listen to other things, the more you see what it’s all about musically. It all comes down to the same thing, which is intention and emotions, and trying to create that through music. The more broadly you can see it, at least for me, it’s easier to really pinpoint what you’re trying to get across musically. Hopefully it takes down all the walls between different types of music. Too much music is divided up into….
Do you love the guitar and all things guitar related? 
