By: Staff
Lee Ritenour doing what he does best in the recording studio
As our article numbers and readership grow, we at Guitar International thought it’d be a good idea to list our most read articles each month for our readers who may not have had the chance to read every article. So here they are. The Top 10 most popular posts on Guitar International for the month of August, 2010.
1) Lee Ritenour: “6-String Theory” – I had to smile, just a little, when after inputting Lee Ritenour’s 2010 album 6 String Theory into iTunes, it came up listed as genre “unclassifiable.” I couldn’t have put it better myself, thanks Steve Jobs. This record is in a class all its own, and one couldn’t nail it down to one style, genre or category even if they tried, which is a direct reflection of Ritenour’s intent behind the project.
2) David Bowie: A Lad No Longer Insane – David Bowie is one of a handful of people who have directly influenced the course of popular music during their careers. It may even be safe to say that Bowie is the only musician who has been able to change the face of rock music more than once in his career.
3) Hagar the Horrible: Eddie Van Halen Interview – I’ve never seen Eddie Van Halen so angry. Maybe he never has been this angry. He storms around the lounge in his 5150 studio, clenching his hands into fists, and pointing menacingly into the air with wicked finger jabs. Cigar smoke wafts through the air, and the studio is strangely quiet-no music is playing.
4) Eddie Van Halen: The Guitar Interview – Edward Van Halen is the prototypical American guitar icon. No stateside guitar player since Jimi Hendrix has managed to capture the collective imagination and awe of the world’s electric guitarists like Van Halen – no one. We are proud to have Eddie as the subject of our first Guitar Interview. Over the course of two days, we spent time with him as he filmed the video to “Don’t Tell Me,” a part of the corporate music process he particularly dislikes.
5) Fender Stratocasters that Pay Tribute to Jimi Hendrix – As part of Guitar International’s interest in providing our new readers with a road map to our legacy interviews and articles, we are highlighting high reader interest content at our front gallery page for easy access. Jimi Hendrix consistently rates as the “Best Guitar Player” of all time by guitarist opinion polls and his guitars continue to draw interest of musicians around the world. This legacy article discusses insights into the various Jimi Hendrix models that have been introduced by Fender Guitars in order to get Hendrix styled guitars into the hands of Jimi’s fans who play guitar.
6) The Amp Wizards: Bogner, Rivera, Soldano and Arredondo – When you walk into your local Guitar Center or Sam Ash in need of a high gain amp, or an amp with channel switching, or an amp that can handle the thunderous bottom end of a seven or eight string guitar, chances are pretty good you can find what you’re looking for. This wasn’t always the case.
7) Interview with Guitar Sensation Orianthi – From the six-year old dreamer, to the lead guitarist for the King of Pop, to her red-hot solo career, guitar virtuoso Orianthi has a story to tell. A story that stars the young Aussie as she dreams of becoming a guitar master and recording artist, both of which would come to fruition with the crucial role of supportive parents who were behind her all the way.
8) Zep Gear: A Look at Jimmy Pages Geear During the Age of Led Zeppelin – Think Led Zeppelin gear, and you think of Les Pauls, doublenecks, and Marshall amps. But Jimmy Page’s early gear in Led Zeppelin was actually a continuation of his old Yardbirds setup. In fact, the first Zep disc from 1969 showed him using a Telecaster and Supro amp, plus a Fender 800 pedal steel, the violin box, a Vox wah-wah, and a Sola-Sound Tone-Bender fuzzbox.
9) Bring it on Home: Jimmy Page Walks into a new Future with an Old Friend – As the blues-rock of the late ’60s hurtled towards the hard rock of the ’70s, four men were pushing the limits: Jimi Hendrix, and the Yardbird triumvirate of Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Page. Jimi Hendrix is gone. This apparently doesn’t affect his legacy, but it does affect his ability to create new music that still matters, regardless of how many “lost” recordings are posthumously released. Jeff Beck, who continues to be an amazing and inventive guitarist – and has the edge over Hendrix in the still-alive-and-well department – tends to prefer spending time with cars instead of guitars.
10) Steve Morse Begins His Purple Reign – Steve Morse is sitting in a studio on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida, chewing on a chocolate chip cookie and waiting patiently for the members of his band to show up for rehearsal. The band that’s he’s waiting for, though, is not made up of his regular musical partners. They are not the members of Dixie Dregs, not the members of the Steve Morse Band, not even the members of Kansas. No, this time Steve Morse is waiting for Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice – a group of Englishmen known for almost 30 years as Deep Purple.
