In January 2007, Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel was handed a Golden Guitar award for “Best Instrumental Performance” at the Country Music Awards of Australia for “Gameshow Rag/Cannonball Rag” a track off his latest album, The Mystery, released in 2006.
With his formidable music industry connections and hard won experience, international marketer Peter Wolf launched his company, Brandwolf, while working his magic getting the word out on the new Knaggs Guitar brand and producing his own brand of music.
Starting up a guitar business in this economic downturn takes a lot of confidence in one’s abilities to design, build, market and sell, in fact, in nearly any economic climate you’ve just got to have the talent and the guts to live that kind of dream.
After over a decade of paying his dues, a fountain of good fortune is flowing endlessly for slide guitar virtuoso extraordinaire Derek Trucks. During these years of nonstop, grueling touring, he has built a name for himself as the bottleneck boogie guitar player to be reckoned with. Trucks has coordinated countless tours and recordings, playing with his own group, The Derek Trucks Band, played alongside mentors and kin The Allman Brothers Band and has appeared on numerous side projects and guest work from the Frogwings to Phil Lesh.
With a career that spans five decades and multiple genres, it’s no surprise that guitarist Tommy Emmanuel is respected by players and music fans the world over. His unique finger style technique of playing with all ten fingers has dazzled and amazed even legends, so much so that Emmanuel was presented with the “Certified Guitar Player Award” by the great Chet Atkins, an honor earned by only four other guitarists before Atkins’ death in 2001.
Legendary bass player Jack Casady has fired up his bass guitar on stages with the likes of Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, Jimi Hendrix, Warren Zevon, John Lee Hooker, Rusted Root, John Lee Hooker, members of The Grateful Dead, Gov’t Mule and Crosby, Stills, Nash& Young. Working with Jorma Kaukonen, Grace Slick and the rest of the crew of Jefferson Airplane, Casady laid down bass lines for such monumental songs as “White Rabbit”, “Volunteers” and “Somebody to Love.”
Edge of Paradise might be a new band, but when you’re your debut album includes the rhythm section of bassist Tony Franklin (Blue Murder, The Firm) and drummer Gregg Bissonette (David Lee Roth Band), you know you’re already in great shape. Now add the powerhouse vocals of Margarita Monet and Dave Bates’ towering guitars and you have a record essential to any fan of melodic metal.
Talk about your guitar legends. Well we have one here and her name is Nancy Wilson. Nancy Wilson talks about Heart’s latest Blu-Ray release, Night At Sky Church. The Heart album delivers the classics and the latest, both in a astonishing sound and visual qualities.
It’s been five years since the release of Nils Lofgren’s last studio album featuring his own songs, but now he is back and has something to say! An effort that’s been in the works since the culmination of Springsteen’s Working on a Dream Tour in November of 2009, Lofgren’s new album Old School covers a variety of topics including desperation, self doubt, true love, departed friends and holding on to your dreams while the world goes mad. I had the pleasure to speak with Nils about his new release and the importance of being true to yourself as an artist.
In my early development as a guitarist, I had aspirations to play as well as Jim Hall one day. Jim Hall and Ron Carter’s Alone Together is one of the main records that inspired me to learn how to play jazz guitar, and his melodic inventiveness maintains my attention even until this day. I saw him perform at the National Guitar Workshop this past summer, and his playing did not cease to surprise me.
In this interview with one of the most influential jazz guitarists alive today, we discuss his duet recording with Ron Carter as well as many other things. I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did!
