Dick Wagner’s songs and lead guitar have been featured on more than 200 renowned albums, garnering more than 35 Platinum and Gold records, BMI songwriter awards, Emmys, and numerous prestigious international awards.
Classic GI interview: In 1963 an unknown but persistent bassist by the name of Chas Chandler took notice of Hilton Valentine’s aggressive guitar playing and onstage antics and asked him to join his group called The Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo, soon to be rechristened The Animals by their manager, Mike Jeffery. The Animals were quickly rushed into the studio where they recorded their first single “Baby Let Me Take You Home”, which included Hilton’s cool, aggressive guitar intro. A year after forming, the band struck gold with a moody cover of “House of the Rising Sun”. From his haunting, arpeggiated guitar intro on “House”, which became a rite of passage for budding guitarists who came of age in the ‘60s, to his fuzz-through-a-tremolo power chords of ”Don’t Bring Me Down”, Hilton’s knack for musical hooks greatly contributed to The Animals’ string of hits until the breakup of the original band in late 1966…
More often than not, it seems a musical group’s signature is defined by the vocalist up front. But as much as the legendary group Jethro Tull goes, Ian Anderson’s melodic grizzled vocals and flute gymnastics offered gripping definition, it’s the ripping crunch of Martin Barre’s lead guitar work and his ability to marinate Tull’s songs with emotional heft, are what turns our heads and grabs our guts with sinewy twists, turns and head-on collisions.
This is a classic Guitar International interview with Martin Barre dated June 23, 2009. by Rick Landers During the 1970s, Martin Barre’s gritty guitar work helped propel Jethro Tull up the charts with now classic tracks such as “Aqualung,” “Bungle in the Jungle,” “Cross-Eyed Mary,” and “Locomotive Breath.” While his riffs on “Aqualung” echoed vocalist […]
Forty-five years after releasing his debut album, The New Boss Guitar, jazz guitarist George Benson is still going strong. With the upcoming August 25, 2009, release date set for his latest studio album Songs And Stories, the ten-time Grammy winner pays tribute to some of his favorite songwriters and composers. Featuring an all-star line up that includes bassist Marcus Miller, guitarists Lee Ritenour and Toninho Horta, saxophonists Tom Scott and Gerald Albright, among others, Benson and company come together to produce an album that is not only a tribute to great songwriters, it is also a reflection of more than four decades of experience by one of jazz’s greatest instrumentalists and vocalists.
What can be better than performing music you love with some of the top musicians in the world, who are also some of your best friends? That’s a place guitarist, singer-songwriter extraordinaire, Steve Postell, finds himself with the new super group, The Immediate Family. Steve’s on board with the likes of Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, Waddy Wachtel and Russ Kunkel
For over 45 years George Thorogood and The Destroyers have travelled the globe playing gig after gig, until like all of us they were hit by COVID 19 that stopped them in their tracks. In 2019, they were on their Good to Be Bad Tour: 45 Years of Rock tour still packing venues and a dream of life in rock ‘n’ roll was a reality.
Ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the top fifty bass guitar players of all time, Sklar can count coup on laying down bass lines on such well known tracks as: “You’ve Got a Friend” (James Taylor), “Running on Empty” (Jackson Browne), “No Other” (Gene Clark) and literally thousands more by the pantheon of Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famers.
Driving the beat on a few thousand milestone recordings is the legendary percussionist, Russ Kunkel. For decades he’s been a first call drummer for folks like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Bob Seger, Warren Zevon, Harry Chapin, Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Neil Young, Steve Nicks, Dan Fogelberg and a long, long list of others.
The word is out that some of the top session players in the world have formed a new group, The Immediate Family, and they’ve locked into keeping their fans up to date on what’s happening with them individually, as well as a together as they release new songs, work on a new video, and plan the release of a new album on the Quarto Valley Records label.
