by Adam St. James
Ahhh, the road. Touring. On the road again. Road Trip! Sounds like heaven, don’t it? Keith Nelson and his mates in Buckcherry have seen a few miles of our great American highways from the windows of a tour bus and lived to tell about it. And we’re pretty sure they’re not really [...]
By Adam St. James
It started in Austin. From there it went to L.A., then back across the pond to U.K. Now just about everywhere you go, on radio stations and TV shows from coast to coast, you’re likely hearing the high-strung guitar sounds of one 1966 Gibson J-45 and the plaintive vocals of one James [...]
by Adam St. James
Disturbed has had a pretty fine ride for the past year-and-a-half. They released their debut album, The Sickness, in March of 2000, landed a spot on the second stage of Ozzfest shortly thereafter, then scored a hit in the song “Stupify.” They’ve seen their career blossom from there, highlighted by a series [...]
By Adam St. James
Most musicians would agree: Early musical influences can be, well, very influential. But when your father is a blues legend, you know something good is going to rub off. And no disappointments here: Bernard Allison does his late papa, Luther Allison, proud on his latest release, Across the Water. Bernard sat down [...]
by Adam St. James
Pete Anderson has played lead and rhythm guitar on and produced almost every record by multi-platinum, Grammy-winning country superstar Dwight Yoakam since the days when Dwight was sleeping on the floor in Pete’s back room. Together since the mid-’80s, the two have managed to reap the rewards of both critical acclaim and [...]
By Adam St. James
Jazz guitar history is largely dominated by a handful of players. Among those still recording, touring – and teaching – none are as revered as Kenny Burrell. Burrell has barely slowed his steady output since his first recordings, as a sideman to Dizzy Gillespie in 1951, and as a leader with the [...]
by Adam St. James
Deftones roared out of Sacramento, California in 1995 with their debut album Adrenaline. It was a fitting title for the band’s confrontational, metallic grind – a style they’d been developing since 1989 in relative obscurity. Tracks in the movies The Crow: City of Angels and Escape From L.A. earned the group widespread [...]
LYNYRD SKYNYRD TO RELEASE LIVE FROM FREEDOM HALL CD/DVD SET ON JUNE 22nd; LAST CONCERT RECORDED WITH LONGTIME MEMBERS BILLY POWELL AND EAN EVANS
SUMMER TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED
New York, NY: Lynyrd Skynyrd will release Live From Freedom Hall on June 22 as both a CD/DVD set and as a stand-alone DVD. Live From Freedom Hall [...]
Umphrey’s McGee will be launching their song “1348″ on the Rock Band Network this week. This marks the first release by the band in any video game, and the progressive-rock influenced music proves to be a great fit.
Umphreys McGee has been working with former Harmonix Music Systems employee and current Rock Band Network freelancer Andrew [...]
Celebrated Bluegrass Group The Grascals Release
The Famous Lefty Flynn’s March 30th on Rounder Records
Band to Tour with Hank Williams Jr.’s Rowdy Friends Tour in April
NASHVILLE, TN - The Grascals, one of bluegrass music’s most highly awarded and acclaimed bands, will release their brand new CD, The Famous Lefty Flynn’s, on Rounder Records March 30, just a [...]
Agent behind The Oak Ridge Boys, Reba McEntire, The Judds, Merle Haggard, Roy Clark, Tammy Wynette releases book
Jim Halsey set to appear on Fox & Friends, Fox Business Network, and SiriusXM all on March 4th
OKLAHOMA CITY – After building the number one country-music agency in the world, Halsey eventually sold it to found the Jim [...]
By Adam St. James
The band that launched the careers of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck is still out there rockin’… As of 2010, the Yardbirds are on tour again, with dates in the U.S. and worldwide.
This archive interview, in which I spoke with founding member Chris Dreja a few years back, details how [...]
I get a lot of email questions relating to things I teach in my various courses, and/or just things guitarists are working on in their own musical world. I just got an email from Christopher in the U.K. asking how to figure out appropriate chords for a melody.
Here’s what I told him:
Thanks for [...]
It’s here, the new guitar course that is going to really get your guitar playing fired up!
And it’s totally, completely, 100-percent free of any charge of any kind whatsoever!
Get started now:
12WeekGuitarCourse.com
Just for getting started you’ll receive, in addition to 12 weeks of guitar lessons by the author of Logical Lead Guitar, Shut Up ‘n’ Play [...]
Emails come in to Guitar Life all the time asking “How do I get a pro guitar tone?”
Obviously it’s an important question for all of us, and the quest for awesome tone is often referred to by players as the “Search for the Holy Grail.”
There are way too many variables regarding “what kind of [...]
Hours and hours of video lessons at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels — plus all the tab and sheet music to go with it!
12WeekGuitarCourse.com
Plus, when you begin studying with my new course, you’ll recieve a free download of my book, “25 Riffs You Must Know,” part of my Logical Lead Guitar DVD course — and [...]
Guitar Life Magazine gets questions all the time from guitarists wanting to understand modes and modal playing. This is a brief explanation — if you’re truly interested and determined to master modal guitar playing, you’ll have to dig into the resources we suggest below.
The first key to success with modal playing is to thoroughly understand and [...]
I’ve been getting a lot of email and blog comment questions about Jazz guitar lately.
There are definitely some great books and DVDs available that I would recommend for building your jazz rhythm and lead chops.
Check out some of these:
50 Licks Jazz Style will give you some great soloing ideas, and after you learn a bunch [...]
MILWAUKEE – Hal Leonard Chairman and CEO Keith Mardak, and Robert Wise, Chairman and Managing Director of the Music Sales Group, today announced the formation of Music Sales America (MSA), a new joint venture between their two companies created to expand the availability of Music Sales publications in North America.
With creative input from both publishers, [...]
By Adam St. James
Procol Harum’s self-titled 1967 debut album, featuring the hit “Conquistador,” and more importantly, “Whiter Shade of Pale,” produced more than just a couple of classic rock radio standards. The album, psychedelic though it may be, announced the coming of age of a young guitar whiz named Robin Trower.
Modern rockers may not recognize [...]
This quick lesson is an excerpt from my book “101 Guitar Tips: Stuff All The Pros Know And Use,” which I wrote for publisher Hal Leonard a few years back. The 88-page book itself contains tips on playing, music theory, gear, band advice, and the wisdom of many of the great stars I’ve interviewed over [...]
By Adam St. James
From Super to Supreme, 3 Doors Down continues their killer ride to superstardom with Seventeen Days. I spoke with guitarist Matt Roberts just before the new album dropped. Get your dose here. It’s super, man.
“Kryptonite” was just the killer beginning. For the guys in 3 Doors Down, who first scored big in [...]
Sources have revealed – leaked may be more like it – that, in lieu of a reluctant Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin mastermind Jimmy Page has tapped “Red Rocker” Sammy Hagar as replacement vocalist for an October date at Madison Square Garden in New York. Tickets are to go on sale April 18 exclusively through LiveNation.com. [...]
Most guitarists spend their entire musical life soloing out of just one or two scale patterns, typically at the 5th and 12th frets, depending on whether they’re playing in the key of A or E. How boring that is for the listener, and really, how boring that must be for the guitarist. There are only [...]
I’ve been playing a lot of guitar lately, due in large part to teaching several days per week, and playing a lot with my band, The Almost Brothers (www.AlmostBrothersBand.com)
But even with 30+ hours per week with the guitar in my hands, I still like to keep up a steady routine of guitar finger exercises to [...]
by Adam St. James
Pure decadence. It was the hedonistic ’80s. Lipstick wearing “hair” bands ruled Hollywood’s Sunset Strip – and MTV. Drink was flowin’, and blood-red spandex was thrillin’ when a throwback rock ’n’ roll band out of L.A.’s South Beach district evaded the tough-guy bouncers, scooted under the velvet ropes, and snuck in the [...]
by Adam St. James
Virtuoso guitarist Steve Vai has just about done it all: land a gig with controversial genius Frank Zappa – by transcribing into perfectly accurate sheet music one of that composer’s most difficult songs – share songwriting credits and the spotlight with hyper-kinetic frontman David Lee Roth at the peak of that singer’s [...]
Have you learned your seven diatonic scale patterns yet?
I know scales aren’t the most exciting thing in the world to practice, but learning these seven patterns — and learning them inside and out — is without any doubt whatsoever, simply the most important thing you can learn on guitar!
The seven diatonic scale patterns are the [...]
AFTRA (American Federation of TV and Radio Artists)
AFTRA represents actors and other professional performers in television, radio, sound recordings, and new technologies. AFTRA negotiates pay scales and contractual payments for over 80,000 performers. AFTRA also offers health insurance and retirement benefits for active members.
5757 Wilshire Blvd, 9th Fl.
Los Angeles, CA
90036-3689
P: 323-634-8100
F: 323-634-8147
E: swhite@aftra.com
www.aftra.com
Contact: Sidney White
American [...]
Berklee College of Music
Profile: Emphasis on contemporary music with an eye towards the music industry. Furnished with state of the art equipment.
Programs: Technical Recording, Production, Instrument Instruction, Performance, and Music Business. 1140 Boylston Ave
Boston, MA 02215
P: 617-266-1400
F: 617-536-2632
www.berklee.edu
Contact: Rena WareIndiana State University Music Department
Center for Performing and Fine Arts
Profile: Large Staff of 34 teachers and [...]
What Should You Be Practicing?
By Adam St. James
I teach from 50 to 60 private students each week. They’re at every end of the spectrum age-wise and playing-wise: I’ve got 7 year olds and 70 year olds, beginners and advanced players. Of course there are way more students closer to beginner than advanced.
I get a little [...]
By Adam St. James
[Adam's notes, 2008: I really loved George Lynch's playing in the hey-day of Dokken, the band that only mattered (to me) because of his incredible guitar playing. I used to put on Dokken's Tooth and Nail album and solo over it again and again, trying to keep up with George, and workin' [...]
by Adam St. James
Smooth open position riffs and rich Hammond organ sounds define the laid back approach of one the most well-known purveyors of retro-cool blues on the circuit today: Jimmie Vaughan.
With Do You Get The Blues?, the just-released third solo disc from the former Fabulous Thunderbirds guitarist (and founder), Vaughan carries on in a [...]
By Adam St. James
Sammy Hagar has one of the most instantly recognizable voices in rock. His work these past three decades – as lead vocalist for the seminal mid-’70s rock act Montrose, then for 10 years as a solo artist, followed by another 11 fronting Van Halen during that group’s most successful period, and since [...]
by Adam St. James
There is no more successful American rock band than Aerosmith. They are everywhere, and have been for most of the past 30 years – even despite the excesses that resulted in a few members taking a “leave of absence” during the early-’80s. Just Push Play, the band’s most recent release and another [...]
By Adam St. James
Second albums can be a bitch. But Away From the Sun, the sophomore release from 3 Doors Down, shows solid growth from the down-South quintet. That, and a couple of solid hits too, which of course never hurts.After the surprise hit of their first single “Kryptonite,” from their 2000 debut, The Better [...]
[Adam's notes, 2007: I did this interview with Dime a few months before his untimely death in December, 2004. He was a crazy mofo, that's for sure, and he's still sorely missed by those who knew him well.]
Born down in Dallas, raised on the rock ’n’ roll road. That’s an apt description of Damageplan [...]
by Adam St. James
Sophistication. The term describes Robben Ford’s music on a number of levels. The eclectic musician – he regularly touches on blues, jazz, R&B, rock – blends instrumental and lyrical ideas into a package so elegant, yet musically invigorating, it’s hard to say whether it’s more soulfully sweet or rippin’ jazz-bluesy.
Either way, Ford’s [...]
by Adam St. James
Little Feat is a national institution. The band’s slinky, sinuous songs drip with style like Cajun hot sauce bubbling from a freshly boiled crawfish. From the opening strains of their sensational slide-laden jams to the final passages of their deeply rhythmic sonic explorations, Little Feat carries forward many of the best musical [...]
by Adam St. James
Proof that nothing ever stays the same: The leaves are falling off the trees in my yard, and though it’s still 80+ degrees outside, I know the winter winds are comin’ my way soon. More proof: After three previous platinum releases, guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd sings LEAD vocals on almost every track [...]
by Adam St. James
Wherever it is they park rock ’n’ roll tour busses between road trips, that must be where Warren Haynes sleeps, one eye open, ready to hop the next velvet-lined Prevost that dares crank its overworked diesel and fire its yellowed running lights. Haynes is a road-warrior of the highest order, touring with [...]
by Adam St. James
Derek Trucks took the blues world and the guitar universe by storm a few years back as one of the meanest slide guitarists this side of Duane Allman, and that while still in his teens. And Trucks has all the reason in the world to be influenced by the late, great Duane. [...]
by Adam St. James
Jeff Beck wafts in and out of our lives like that enigmatic “Blue Wind” his guitar cried about on his landmark album Wired, way back in ’76. He has sometimes let years pass between releases, largely disappearing from public life into his alter-ego persona, the hot rod auto mechanic from London, before [...]
By Adam St. James
More so than almost any musician in the rock world, Joe Satriani has managed the impossible: maintaining a career based almost entirely on instrumental recordings. When I did this interview, Joe had just released his Engines of Creation CD and was preparing to tour. The disc was definitely a diversion from Satch’s [...]
This is a list of resources and links you might find useful. If the links below don’t seem to work, you need to click the title of this post, where it says “Click Here For Our Resources & Links.”
RockChops.com
BluesLessons.com
JazzGurus.com
LogicalLeadGuitar.com
Click Here to Slow Down The Music You’re Trying to Learn without changing the pitch, with Song [...]
From Ign.com
Marginally more necessary than Revolution X.
by Erik Brudvig
June 29, 2008 – While playing Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, one of Steven Tyler’s lyrics struck me as particularly relevant. The song “Dream On” begins, “Every time that I look in the mirror, all these lines on my face gettin’ clearer.” It’s a line that speaks of [...]
by Adam St. James:
Go ahead and try to keep up, few will ever be able to claim they could. Keep up with what, you ask? Think about this: It’s been more than 50 years since he scored his first hit single, but he’s still out there traveling and performing – at the age of 77 [...]
Existing as a “store within a store” Best Buy musical instrument locations will feature trained musical instrument specialists. In addition to retail sales, Best Buy musical instrument stores will offer group and individual guitar lessons.
“Whether they’re just learning to play, or have been playing for years, customers can trust the knowledge and expertise of our [...]
New album Skin Deep released July 22 …
Guy receives one of his signature polka dot Stratocaster guitars from Fender’s Del Breckenfeld.
Photo by Paul Natkin
Guy’s latest album, Skin Deep, released only days after the Chicago tribute concert.
Image courtesy Zomba Label Group
Veteran blues guitar master Jimmie Vaughan headlined a free tribute concert honoring Chicago blues living legend [...]
