Although often regarded as a “shredder’s” technique, the notion of sweeping (or raking) the pick across the strings to produce a quick succession of notes has been around since the invention of the pick itself.

Jazz players from the Fifties, such as Les Paul, Barney Kessel and Tal Farlow, would use the approach in their improvisations, and country guitar genius Chet Atkins was known to eschew his signature fingerstyle hybrid-picking technique from time to time and rip out sweep-picked arpeggios, proving that the technique is not genre specific. Within rock, Ritchie Blackmore used sweep picking to play arpeggios in Deep Purple’s “April” and Rainbow’s “Kill the King.”

Fusion maestro Frank Gambale is widely considered to be the most versatile and innovative sweep picker and the first artist to fully integrate the technique into his style, applying sweeping to arpeggios, pentatonics, heptatonic (seven-note) scales and modes, and beyond. Gambale explains his approach wonderfully in his instructional video, Monster Licks and Speed Picking. Originally released in 1988, it remains a must-watch video for anyone interested in developing a smooth sweep-picking technique.

It was Stockholm, Sweden, however that would produce the name most synonymous with sweeping in a rock context, one that gave rise to a guitar movement known as neoclassical heavy metal. Swedish guitar virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen was influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore and Uli Jon Roth but was also equally enthralled by 19th-century virtuoso violinist Niccolò Paganini. Attempting to emulate on his Fender Stratocaster the fluid, breathtaking passages Paganini would compose and play on violin, Malmsteen concluded that sweep picking was the perfect way to travel quickly from string to string with a smooth, fluid sound much like what a violinist can create with his bow. Malmsteen’s style has since influenced two generations of guitarists, including Tony MacAlpine, Jason Becker, Steve Vai, Mattias “IA” Eklundh, Ritchie Kotzen, Marty Friedman, John Petrucci, Vinnie Moore, Jeff Loomis, Synyster Gates, Alexi Laiho and Tosin Abasi, to name but a few.

The first five exercises in this lesson are designed to give you a systematic approach to practicing the component movements of sweep picking: from two-string sweeps to six-string sweeps, and everything in between. Practicing each exercise with a metronome for just two minutes every day will improve your coordination and your confidence to use the technique in your own playing. Work from two strings up to six, keeping your metronome at the same tempo. This means starting with eighth notes, and while this will feel very slow, the technique will become trickier with each successive note grouping: eighth-note triplets, 16th notes, quintuplets and, most difficult of all, 16th-note triplets and their equivalent sextuplets. Focus on synchronizing your hands so that your pick and fretting fingers make contact with the string at exactly the same moment. Only one string should be fretted at any time (this is key!), and any idle strings should be diligently muted with your remaining fingers. If you fail to do this and allow notes on adjacent strings to ring together, it will negate the desired effect and sound like you are simply strumming a chord. When it comes to sweep picking, muting is the key to cleanliness. It is also the aspect that will take the most practice to master.

The second set of five exercises handles some common sweep-picking approaches. These are shown in one position and based on one chord type each, thus focusing your attention on the exercise until you have become accustomed to the technique. The final piece helps you tackle the various aspects of sweeping while bolstering your stamina, as the bulk of it consists of nonstop 16th notes, with only a few pauses for “breathing.” Break it down into four-bar sections and practice each with a metronome, gradually building up to the 100-beats-per-minute (100bpm) target tempo.

Get the Tone

In rock, this technique is best suited to Strat-style guitars, using the neck pickup setting for a warm, round tone. Use a modern tube amp with the gain set to a moderate amount—just enough to give all the notes a uniform volume and sustain, but not so much that string muting becomes an impossible battle. The thickness and sharpness of your pick will hugely impact the tone of your sweep picking. Something with a thickness between one and two millimeters and a rounded tip will provide the right amount of attack and still glide over the strings with ease.

[FIGURE 1] This Cmaj7 arpeggio on the two middle strings works just as well on the top two or bottom two. Lightly drag your pick across (push down, pull up) the two strings so that there’s very little resistance. This teaches your picking hand to make smooth motions rather than two separate downward or upward strokes.

FIGURE 2 is a C7 arpeggio played across three strings. Strive to maintain the same smooth down/up motion with your pick used in the previous example. Focus on the pick strokes that land on downbeats, and allow the in-between, or “offbeat,” notes to naturally fall into place. Every three notes your pick will change direction.

Now let’s move on to four strings with this exotic C7 altered-dominant lick, reminiscent of one of Gambale’s fusion forays. Remember, sweep picking is most effective when each note is cleanly separated from the last, so aim to have only one finger in contact with the fretboard at a time in order to keep the notes from ringing together.

Now we move on to some five-string shapes, the likes of which you can hear in the playing of Steve Vai and Mattias Eklundh. The phrasing here is 16th-note quintuplets (five notes per beat). Once again, if you focus on nailing the highest and lowest notes along with the beat, the in-between notes should automatically fall into place. Move your pick at a constant speed to ensure the notes are evenly spaced. Say “Hip-po-pot-a-mus” to get the sound of properly performed quintuplets in your mind’s ear.

This six-string arpeggio is an A major triad (A Cs E), with the third in the bass and a fifth interval added to the high E string’s 12th fret, so we have the right number of notes for 16th-note triplets (six notes per click). When ascending, use a single motion to pick all six strings, making sure only one note is fretted at a time. The descending section includes a pull-off on the high E string, which, although momentarily disruptive to your picking, is preferable to adding another downstroke.

This major triad shape is an essential part of the Yngwie Malmsteen school of sweeping. Pay special attention to the picking directions in both the ascending and descending fragments. The alternating eighth-note triplet and quarter-note phrasing allows you to focus on the picking pattern in small bursts and then rest for a beat.

This example includes ascending and descending fragments again, this time played together. Concentrate on the general down-up motion of your picking hand rather than each pick stroke. Once you are comfortable with this shape you can apply the same approach to minor, suspended and diminished-seven arpeggios.

This example is reminiscent of players such as Jason Becker and Jeff Loomis. We start with the three-string shapes from the previous example, followed by the six-string shape from FIGURE 5. This is quite challenging for the picking hand, so start very slowly and remember to keep the hand moving smoothly.

Here we utilize two-string sweeps with pentatonic shapes. Use your first finger on the fifth fret and third finger on the seventh fret. Keep your fingers flat against the two-string groups, and transfer pressure between strings using a rolling action to mute inactive strings and prevent notes from ringing together.

Economy picking requires that your pick take the shortest journey possible when crossing from string to string. This essentially means that when you play a scale, there will be a two-string mini-sweep whenever you move to an adjacent string. This exercise combines the eight-note B whole-half diminished scale (B Cs D E F G Gs As) and a Bdim7 arpeggio (B D F Gs).

This piece is in the key of A minor. The first part is based around a “V-i” (five-one) progression, with the arpeggios clearly outlining the implied chord changes. We begin with some ascending two-string sweeps using alternating E (E Gs B) and Bf (Bf D F) triads. Next come some A minor triads (A C E), played with a progressively increasing number of strings; this is a great way to build your confidence in sweep picking larger shapes. The Bm7f5 (B D F A) arpeggio in bar 4 has a series of three-string sweeps combined with some challenging string skips. Bar 7 is an A minor pentatonic scale (A C D E G) played in fourths using two-string sweeps/economy picking.

The second part of the piece has a more neoclassical approach and begins with some Yngwie-style three-string triads incorporating pull-offs. Be sure to follow the indicated picking directions. Bar 12 is the trickiest part of the piece to play and utilizes some Jason Becker–inspired six-string shapes. If you have problems with string muting or note separation, apply some light palm muting to the notes as they are picked. This is an effective way to improve note clarity. The final bar is based on the A harmonic minor scale (A B C E D F Gs) and incorporates economy picking when traveling from the fifth string to the fourth.

Are you looking to spend a week on intensive songwriting instruction by a master craftsman in one of the most beautiful mountain resorts in the world? Read on! Legendary artist and songwriter Steve Earle will be presenting a weeklong workshop called Camp Copperhead at Full Moon Resort from July 7 to 11, 2014. The resort, nestled in the Catskill mountains in Big Indian, NY, offers a serene and lovely setting for what I'm sure will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Take it from me, I've been to Full Moon Resort and would pretty much do anything to go back!

With decades of experience and dues-paying under his belt, Steve Earle has matured—year by year, album by album—into a singular artist and songwriter. As a teenager in the early 1970s, he learned everything he could from his mentor, legendary singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. In his early 20s, Earle worked as a staff writer in Nashville. He released his impressive debut Guitar Town in 1986, and has followed with many strong recordings since. Along the way, Earle’s songs have been covered by some of the greatest voices in Country, Americana, Rock, and Folk—including Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, the Pretenders, and Joan Baez.

In 2000, Earle decided that it was time to share some of the wisdom he has gleaned, so he presented a songwriting course at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. He fine-tuned that material in 2012, presenting classes as part of Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch workshop.

This summer (July 7 – 11, 2014), Earle will be donning his teaching cap once more to present his most refined and in-depth course yet: Camp Copperhead. This fully immersive learning experience will take place at the Full Moon Resort, about 30 miles west of Woodstock in the enchanting Catskill Forest Preserve. Earle will be the sole instructor at Camp Copperhead, with about 100 students in attendance.

This once-in-a-lifetime experience offers students uniquely intimate access to a true master craftsman. It’s open to people of all levels of skill and enthusiasm. The cost is all-inclusive—covering classes, meals, and accommodations. Find out more at http://camp-copperhead.com/

Discussing his vision for Camp Copperhead, the Grammy-nominated artist says, “It’ll be an intensive, all-day-long songwriting workshop, which I’m going to teach every minute of. I love to teach. I have fun doing it.” Each morning, Earle will present a class on a specific aspect of writing. There’ll be workshops in the afternoons—time when students can pair up to work on their assignments under Earle’s supervision. There’ll be an open-mic every night after dinner, offering students the opportunity to play the brand-new songs they’ve written.

Earle is zealous about writing and teaching, but pragmatic as well. “I can’t teach anyone to be a songwriter,” he admits. “But I can teach the things that I’ve learned—from doing it—that make you a better songwriter if you already are one. Even if you weren’t put on the planet to be a songwriter, I think you’ll appreciate and understand songwriting better through taking this course.”

More about Steve Earle at http://steveearle.com/

Below, check out guitarist Daryl Kellie's solo acoustic arrangement of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Over the past two years, Kellie, who incorporates a heaping helping of guitar-body percussion, harmonics and fret tapping into his playing, has been touring with everyone from Toploader to Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

He'll release his debut album, Wintersong, February 10. One track from the album, "Would," is available for streaming on Soundcloud. You can check it out here.

By the way, Brian May's solo on "Bohemian Rhapsody" was ranked the 20th Greatest Guitar Solo of All Time by Guitar World. For more about that, head here.

For more about Kellie, follow him on Facebook.

Today is Day 12 of our annual 12 Days of Holiday Deals Sale at the Guitar World Online Store!

Get any Guitar World instructional DVD for only $5!

You have four (web) pages of top-notch DVDs to choose from! You'll find everything from Acoustic Rock Guitar to Metal for Life! to Learn Shred Guitar!— and so much more.

Head to the Guitar World Online Store now!

From the GW archive: This feature originally appeared in the May 2005 issue of Guitar World.

He's been known to play guitar through a pack of cigarettes and his wooly mammoth tone-and facial hair-have inspired guitarists for decades. But what Guitar World readers really want to know is...

Why did you start using a peso as a pick?— Paul Shuffield, Jr.

Tommy Carter of Jimmie Vaughan's Dallas band the Chessmen used a quarter to play bass. He described the serrated edge of the coin as producing a delightful scratchiness as he scrubbed the strings. That gave me the idea, and our love of the Mexican border is what drew us to the peso. The peso coin is a rarity, but we've still got a few filed down for the ready.

Does the fur affect your beloved tone? — Chris Tracyr

The fur on the guitar or my face?

You use six Bixonic Expandora pedals for distortion, which would seem to create a muddy mess. Do you set the levels differently on each one to create the desired sustain while maintaining a cleaner distortion sound? Please help. Not knowing makes my medication less effective. — Kevin Potts

You are correct. Combinations of multiple effects are manageable when using a slight edge from each, which avoids the unwanted collision of tones. However, at this point, sometimes the grind of excessive noise becomes its own thing! Experiment...just not with your medication.

Do you really use .008 gauge strings? If so, how do you keep them from flapping when detuning? And how do you get such a great tone, since I have always believed the bigger the strings, the better the tone? — Brian Wachter

I, too, once believed in the heavier gauge string as a superior tone source. However, thanks to the graciousness of B.B. King I learned that a lighter gauge string offers superior playing comfort. Detuning requires some adjustment of attack, approach and feel. Try it. You may like it.

Where can I get one of those pimp-ass hats? — Garen Henry

From a Bamileke tribal member in Cameroon, West Africa. Be sure to take a Texas 10-gallon along for good trading.

Please tell me about your fantastic-sounding Pearly Gates. Was it love at first sight, and how and why does it sound so damn good? — Peter Ohmer

She is a 1959, and I acquired her when I was 18. While I have always been in love with her, I would have to say it was luck, not love, at first sight. We've studied the varying construction techniques used on a wide range of Les Pauls, and Pearly Gates seems simply to have been on the assembly line on the right day at the right time. It was the right glue, the right wood, the right finish on the right day. It's just all good.

I apologize if my question causes you nightmares, but if you had to choose between blowing up all of your custom hot rods and chopping up all of your guitars and amps with an ax, which would you do? — Dallas Tringali

Oh my God! We'd probably prefer to take a quick cruise and play each guitar, and burn the whole house down!

Did Frank play drums on Eliminator and did you play any guitar synth on the album? — AC Johnson

Frank played his trusty acoustic kit and used triggers to activate sounds on his drum modules. Although a guitar synth was present, we focused our attention on one of Mr. Moog's keyboard contraptions.

Ever jam with Johnny Winter when you were both young Texas bucks? — Michael Mosley

I was fortunate enough to join the legion of Johnny Winter fans when he first launched the great Johnny Winter trio [with bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Uncle John Turner]. We were content to remain in awe and admiration without attempting to crowd the stage.

What was your gear setup for Rhythmeen? I'm interested in how you obtained such a great low-end growl for that album. — Steve

That was the fine work of a detuned '55 Goldtop running through a modified Marshall 100, in conjunction with Marshall's JMP-1 preamp. The two amp sources working together created a curious organic delaylike effect that we still use in our studio today.

As a fan of ZZ Top and Queens of the Stone Age, I am wondering how you ended up appearing on Queens' new Lullabies to Paralyze album, how you felt about the experience and what gear you used. — St. Jimmy

The invitation to work with Josh Homme and company came by way of a phone call to our on-road production office. At the insistence of our road crew, I engaged in a studio session and had an absolute blast. Those guys are quite creative. They're willing to go out and try things. They had so much great gear in there that I really cannot relate what I ended up using, but they had an incredible array of choice-sounding guitars, amps and effects, both vintage and current. I just showed up and started trying out gear, having a blast. Hard to say what ended up on the tracks.

You are the king of artificial harmonics. How do you hit them so smoothly and exactly? — Matt Bush

Quite simply: it's meat on metal on wood. Roll the picking fingers slightly off edge of the plectrum and move around a bit. The sound changes drastically and requires some experimentation until you get comfortable finding your sweet spots.

You are well known for your pinch harmonics. What boggles my mind is how you do harmony between the pitches on the same fret. I'm thinking of "La Grange." How do you know each note's pitch and harmonize them perfectly? — Josh Berry

See the answer to the question above. It's a tricky thing to do, until muscle memory becomes second nature. Striking exactly where you want to requires some guesswork, especially while you are learning the technique. Again, experiment until you're playing what you want to hear.

I love the way it sounds like two guitar players dueling back and forth on Deguello and would like to confirm what I know but still find hard to grasp: that is all you, right? — Russell d Lancaster

Correct. The magic of multitracking turned our trio into a multipiece combo. Having to do it all simply requires the virtue of patience.

Why don't you use Marshall amps onstage anymore? — Scott Cronn

Marshalls are still present in our lineup and remain the cornerstone for our guitar and bass tones, though their presence may not be as visually apparent. We're using the Marshall tube preamp and loading that into Marshall's now out-of-production 120/120 power amp.

You had a keyboard player on the first ZZ album. How did the group decide to become a three-piece? What are your likes and dislikes about playing in a trio? — Brian Birckbichler

Our first recording did feature ZZ top as a trio, but instead of using guitar, drums and bass, we used guitar, drums and a Hammond B-3 organ. [ZZ Top's first single, "Salt Lick" b/w "Miller's Farm," features this lineup. The tracks are available on the Chrome, Smoke & BBQ box set (Rhino)]. The power of the kick [bass] pedals from the keyboard allowed us to create a four-piece sound with the minimalism of a trio, which is what we have always loved. Presently, ZZ Top enjoys the challenge that trio performance requires. Quite lively.

Have you always been a sharp-dressed man? I saw some old photos of you guys in cheesy blue cowboy suits, which stopped me in my tracks. — Ryan Jones

To borrow Dusty's expression, we're immune to fashion. Thank goodness for the notion that accompanies the vision of sharp-dressed man. We're still trying to figure that one out.

You have always had fabulous tone. What amps and guitars did you use on ZZ Top's first few albums? — Rick Paulus

Thanks very much. We have been fortunate to enjoy the luxury of a spot-on crew, and we've maintained an archive of each instrument, amp, drum kit and ancillary devices used on each track. It's all on record, and any piece of gear can be lifted from the vault for most particular sounds. At the heart of almost everything we've done, however, is Pearly Gates run through either a Marshall or an old Fender. That simple-but-deadly combination is still tough to beat.

Steve Stine, highly sought-after guitar educator, teaches live group and private classes at LessonFace.com.

It's no secret that virtually every kid who picks up a guitar dreams of one thing — playing super fast.

And I don’t blame them. Playing fast is fun. It is exhilarating. And it sounds awesome when done right.

But here's the thing when it comes to guitar playing and speed: It is fairly easy to learn but hard to master.

If you take some of the greatest shredders of our time, for instance, guys like Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Kiko Loureiro or Jeff Loomis, you'll notice how, even when you slow down their solos to a crawl, each note sounds crisp, clear and purposeful. And therein lies the secret of mastering speed.

One of the most commonly used and effective techniques for building speed is the simple 1-2-3-4 exercise using a metronome. This is where you focus on playing four notes per string, to a metronome and work on developing your speed gradually.

This exercise looks something like this:

This is one of the fundamental exercises guitarists learn, and it's great for building speed, strength and dexterity. But what I have realized with this exercise is that sometimes guitarists can become restrained when it comes to building speed past a certain point. For example, let’s say you are doing the exercise at 120 bpm, playing 16th notes; it can sometimes be hard for you to push the speed envelope past a certain point while remaining faithful to the metronome.

So what I want to do with today’s lesson is introduce you to a little technique that helps you tackle speed from a different angle. I call this technique "bursting."

When you’re doing the basic 1-2-3-4 exercise with the metronome, what you are trying to do is maintain your left hand-right hand coordination while playing the notes to the metronome. But with bursting, what I want you to do is take the first four notes of the basic 1-2-3-4 exercise and try and play them as fast as humanly possible. I want you to forget about making it sound clear (at least for now) and just play it as fast as you can manage.

If I were to tab that out, it would look like this:

If you've never done this before, it's probably going to sound messy at first. But you need to understand that the basic principle of this exercise is completely different from that of the basic 1-2-3-4 exercise.

If you were to think of the basic 1-2-3-4 exercise as jogging to a designated beat, you should think of bursting as sprinting for your life with a pack of dogs running after you. What we want to do here is play these four notes as fast as we can, and then start trying to calibrate it backwards to synchronize the left and right hands.

Now to start introducing synchronization to this exercise, the first thing you should do is separate your left hand and right hand. What we are going to do first is take our picking hand and first focus on picking the four notes as fast as possible. And remember, you don’t need to do this to a specific rhythmic pattern or structure. You just need to focus on playing the four notes as fast as you can, all while maintaining your down-up-down-up picking pattern, making sure you end on the up stroke.

Next what we are going to do is introduce our fretting hand into the mix and try to get it synchronized with the picking hand. But remember, we are not going to try do this by slowing down our picking hand. Instead what we are going to do is try and get our fretting hand to keep up with our picking hand.

So what we are basically doing is trying to line up what we are playing with our fretting hand with the four notes we are picking with our picking hand. During the initial stages of doing this exercise, you will most likely find that your left hand has difficulty keeping up with the right. So it is important that you keep at it until your two hands achieve harmony and synchronization with each other.

It is also quite common for guitarists to realize that their ring and pinky fingers on the fretting hand aren’t strong enough to keep up with the exercise. But don’t worry, as long as you keep working on your finger strength and dexterity, this should get easier over time.

By doing this exercise over and over again, what we are basically doing is approaching the art of building speed from the other end of the spectrum. Whereas with the basic 1-2-3-4 exercise we were focusing on playing cleanly to the metronome while building our strength and technical capacity; with this exercise, what we are doing is sort of flipping things upside down by trying to play as fast as we can and then calibrating backwards for synchronization.

Another thing that I want to mention is that it is important that you keep doing your basic 1-2-3-4 exercises with these bursting exercises. Think of bursting as your incredibly fast shredding speed and your 1-2-3-4s as your fastest possible playing speed. Your plan should be to work on pushing your playing speed upwards until it eventually reaches your bursting speed.

Now the next important step in this exercise, and the step where most players get stuck, is migrating from one string to another. So what we are going to do first is to again isolate our picking hand.

We are going to first focus on playing four notes on one string and then playing one note on the next, while maintaining our down-up-down-up pattern. In other words, your last note on your starting string should always be an up stroke and your starting note on the next string should always be a down stroke. This is what this looks like on a tab:

And once we have mastered that what we are going to do next is add our fretting hand back into the mix, and keep trying to synchronize it with what our picking hand is playing.

When you first start doing these bursting exercises, don’t be surprised if it sounds really sloppy, and don’t be surprised if you aren’t able to do it for long periods of time. As with all things new, it will take you time and a great deal of effort to really see results.

So make sure that you add bursting to your daily exercise routine and stick with it. And make sure that you pay attention to the little things. Be merciless when trying to eliminate any sort of sloppiness when doing this exercise. If you work on it hard enough, you should be playing super fast and super clean in no time.

LessonFace.com offers live online music lessons via videoconference, allowing you to access top teachers in a wide variety of instruments from anywhere with a broadband connection. Steve is offering a live online group class for intermediate players this summer called “The Players Series” via the LessonFace.com platform. More information about live online lessons with Steve is available at lessonface.com/player.

In the video below, Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready describes three of his favorite 1959-era guitars: a Les Paul 'Burst, a Fender Strat and a Les Paul TV model.

"It all started with the Strat," McCready says in the clip, which was posted to YouTube last month. "I was reading an article with Stevie Ray Vaughan a long time ago, and the number '1959' stuck out to me for some reason.

"So I started searching those out as the band got more popular and I could actually afford one. And I found this one in Los Angeles. That's what introduced me to the whole world of 1959s."

Enjoy!

Last year brought us a shiny new Van Halen album — the first, in fact, to feature David Lee Roth behind the mic since 1984.

That means the bar was set pretty high for 2013 — at least in terms of major rock events.

Luckily, Black Sabbath came along with a killer of a reunion album (OK, partial reunion) called 13, the band's first studio release to feature Ozzy Osbourne since 1978.

Truth be told, 2013 was a fairly strong year for guitar-centric releases. We got to hear new riffs and/or blinding runs by guys named Tony Iommi, Joe Satriani, Guthrie Govan and John Petrucci. We also were treated to a double dose of Buddy Guy, a touch of Richie Kotzen (and Billy Sheehan), some Warren Haynes, Steven Wilson, Brad Paisley, Chris Broderick, Dave Mustaine and more.

If there's one thing to take away from the 30 albums below, it's this: The guitar is very much alive and well in 2013. It survived the rise of the keyboard in the '80s and the overwhelming bass-barrage of electronic dance music of the early 21st century and shows no signs of waning in relevancy.

Whether you're still plugging into a vintage Vox AC30 with your trusty Strat or just got your hands on an Axe FX and a new Ibanez eight-string, the guitar isn't going away any time soon.

Below, check out Guitar World's picks for the 30 best studio albums of 2013, as chosen by the editorial staff.

Look out for our upcoming year-end lists of 2013's best reissues/box sets/archival releases, plus rock books and more. In the meantime, check out Guitar World Editor-in-Chief Brad Tolinski's picks for the 10 Best Albums of the Year.

See you next year!

Welcome to Guitar World's roundup of the top 20 reissued/remastered or archival releases of 2013.

The common theme of these 20 albums is easy to follow: They all feature classic or well-known songs that have been repackaged and presented anew, but with a twist, whether it be in the form of previously unreleased live versions, expanded liner notes, alternate versions, demos, remasters, etc.

Music fans were treated to a host of strong box sets, reissues and remasters in 2013, including the outstanding deluxe, 20th-anniversary edition of Nirvana's In Utero and the 30th-anniversary edition of Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas Flood.

While you're in a "looking back" mood, be sure to check out two other lists, namely Guitar World's Top 30 Albums of 2013 and Brad Tolinski's Top 10 Albums of 2013.

Electro-Harmonix has announced the latest addition to its range of overdrive and distortion pedals: the Soul Food.

This transparent overdrive can fatten a guitarist’s tone in all the right places without compromising or changing it.

The Soul Food’s unique design features boosted power rails for extra headroom and definition. Uses range from a clean boost all the way to heavy amp saturation—all achieved without adding coloration. This pedal was built for the tone conscious player who needs to cut through a mix without altering the voice of his or her instrument.

The control layout includes Volume, Treble and Drive knobs. Volume sets the overall output level of the pedal while Drive adjusts the saturation and gain. The Treble control seemingly pulls shimmering upper harmonics out of thin air without sounding shrill. With an internal switch, the player can choose to run the Soul Food in high-quality buffered or true bypass modes to help keep a healthy effect chain.

The Soul Food pedal is housed in a compact die-cast package, is shipped with a 9.6-Volt/DC200mA AC adapter, can be powered by a 9-volt battery and carries a U.S. list price of $83.74.

For more about the Soul Food, visit ehx.com.

This week, we're checking out the new Route 66 Modern model by Monoprice guitars. You might remember my review — posted last summer — of one of the company's California Series models.

You’ll instantly notice similarities between the Route 66 Modern and another iconic guitar design — but Monoprice found a way to offer the sound, look and feel of that model for less than $150.

The Route 66 Modern has 22 frets on a bolt-on maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. The carved-top body is basswood with two humbuckers, a three-way toggle switch, separate volume and tone knobs for each pickup and chrome hardware.

Finish options are Black, Honey Burst, Vintage Sunburst and Gold. Accessories include a gig bag, truss rod wrench and certificate of inspection. Each guitar Monoprice ships out is inspected by in-house luthier Roger Gresco in southern California.

Out of the box, my Route 66 Modern (in Gold) was ready to go with a straight neck and no sharp fret edges or string buzz. The stock strings are 10s. They’re Monoprice’s own coated steel strings. The neck is slim and easy to play.

Strapped on, the guitar feels well balanced. My scale puts it at 9 pounds. A peek inside the tidy electronics cavity shows there’s plenty of room for mods if you choose to go that route. Looking at the headstock, you’ll noticed it’s angled. I’d suggest upgrading to a hardshell case if you plan to take it on the road.

I was pleased with the stock electronics. The bridge pickup can scream without harshness, and the neck pickup can get fat and mellow without sounding muddy. The knob arrangement is a bit different; both volume knobs are up top and the tone knobs are closer to the floor. I've included a labeled photo below.

Here are a few clips of the Route 66 Modern plugged into my Fender Bassman amp.

Clip 1: Open chords, clean with both pickups on
Clip 2: Bridge pickup with some distortion
Clip 3: Neck pickup, clean.

Web: monoprice.com
Street Price: $136.32

You can't believe everything you read on the Internet, but Billy Voight is a gear reviewer, bassist and guitarist from Pennsylvania. He has Hartke bass amps and Walden acoustic guitars to thank for supplying some of the finest gear on his musical journey. Need Billy's help in creating noise for your next project? Drop him a line at thisguyonbass@gmail.com.

It always starts with something small, a seemingly insignificant act that can have a huge effect on the rest of your life.

Horror stories usually begin like this.

Guitar tuners. We all use them. Clip-on. Stomp box. Software. Part of your modeler. Built in to your guitar.

I use them every day in the studio. But have you ever had to get in tune without one? No problem, right? Just do all the little tricks we do to get a guitar in tune and keep it in tune. After all, if you aren't in tune, nothing you play will sound good.

I was commenting this morning on a group page on Facebook. We were discussing robotic guitar tuners, tuning machines that tune themselves. I first saw this on a Gibson guitar. Now I saw a new one. Then I did a search. I even saw a robotic tuning tool.

It got me thinking: How may young guitarists are taught to tune the guitar by ear these days? I mean really taught, as in making it a requirement?

Back in the day, when dinosaurs walked the earth and a Strobo-Tuner cost a small fortune, we had to tune our guitars by ear. We'd tune to a pitchfork, piano or another guitar. This was an acquired and required skill. Imagine not being able to tune your own instrument! How would that affect your intonation? Your ability to bend in pitch to a half-step or whole step or more? Even pressing down too hard can alter the pitch.

Now let's take this part of our craft even further. If you don't learn how to hear pitch properly, you also will not be able to sing in tune — or listen deep for better part playing ... or hear intervallic relationships. Depending on an outside source to properly pitch your instrument is not very different than allowing Auto-Tune to pitch your voice! Or instrument! Does anybody but me see a problematic trend here?

How many of you are budding producers or engineers? Yesterday I was mixing a track that had bells on it. I felt they needed to be doubled with strings. They just didn't sound right. So I played the part and thought the string sample I was using was slightly out of tune. Then I shut off the bells and the strings sounded in tune. That meant the bells were the culprit. I had to tune the bell samples up by 10 cents. That is not a lot, but it's enough to make them uncomfortable.

I don't believe everything must be in perfect pitch. But I do require relative pitch. And being able to accurately tune slightly out of pitch and doubling to a guitar in perfect pitch gives a chorus effect a million times better than any digital emulation. Analog, baby! See? It's not only about being in tune! It is about controlling tuning. And you must be able to do this on the fly. Even locking systems go out.

I'd like you to try something. Buy a tuning fork — or use a keyboard to tune your guitar. Learn to hear and match pitches at least once a day. I agree with using a source to tune if you are onstage or in a noisy environment. And they certainly have their place in the studio or if you are recording alone. But a guitar is not a perfect instrument. String gauge, temperature fluctuations, fret height, tuning pegs, how hard you fret and pick, are the strings properly stretched, how many windings around the pole and actual quality of the construction can all have dramatic or subtle fluctuations that need to be constantly checked.

But for your practice time, try tuning by ear. Tune to a track, the radio, television or, if you are lucky enough these days, another instrument/player. This habit and skill can only improve your overall musicianship! Let's be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Be the best you can be. Start with a small, "insignificant" thing like tuning. It might be more important than you think.

I'd love to hear your comments and a raise of hands on how many tune by ear regularly or not.

Ron Zabrocki on Ron Zabrocki: I’m a session guitarist from New York, now living in Connecticut. I started playing at age 6, sight reading right off the bat. That’s how I was taught, so I just believed everyone started that way! I could pretty much sight read anything within a few years, and that aided me in becoming a session guy later in life. I took lessons from anyone I could and was fortunate enough to have some wonderful instructors, including John Scofield, Joe Pass and Alan DeMausse. I’ve played many jingle sessions, and even now I not only play them but have written a few. I’ve “ghosted” for a few people that shall remain nameless, but they get the credit and I got the money! I’ve played sessions in every style, from pop to jazz.

Domino Records are very honored to announce the North American release of the 30th anniversary edition of Aztec Camera's classic debut album, High Land, Hard Rain. With the original album remastered from the analog tapes and the CD package full of all sorts of super rare nuggets (many not available before digitally), this deluxe re-issue does not disappoint.

This announcement comes in the wake of three sold-out command performances by Aztec Camera founder Roddy Frame in the UK to commemorate the 30th anniversary by playing the album in its entirety (complimented by additional material from his repertoire) to universal acclaim. Here's a peek at what you missed from his recent hometown show in Glasgow:

Contemporary with fellow Glaswegians Orange Juice, Aztec Camera made their debut on vinyl with the release of the "Just Like Gold" single on the seminal Postcard label when Frame was only 16 years old. Another single followed on Postcard with "Mattress Of Wire" before the band made their move to the more firmly established Rough Trade label to record their debut album, High Land, Hard Rain (released in North America on Sire Records).

The album opens with the exuberant pop of "Oblivious," one of the enduring songs of its decade, which very nearly became Rough Trade's first UK Top 40 hit in the early days of 1983 (Fear not, the song's re-issue on WEA later that year would drive it into the Top 20 eventually). Follow-up single "Walk Out To Winter" is yet another tour-de-force of pop songwriting, as well as showcasing Frame's prodigious talents as a guitarist. Frame re-visited the Postcard b-side "We Could Send Letters" to end side one. A sweeping dramatic masterpiece of heartache and yearning, it is easily one of his most beloved compositions to this day.

High Land, Hard Rain will be in stores on February 4, 2014.

Tracklisting:

CD 1/LP
Oblivious
The Boy Wonders
Walk Out to Winter
The Bugle Sounds Again
We Could Send Letters
Pillar to Post
Release
Lost Outside the Tunnel
Back on Board
Down the Dip

CD 2/LP Download
Pillar to Post (original single version)
Queen's Tattoos
Orchid Girl
Haywire
Walk Out to Winter (Tony Mansfield 7" version)
Set the Killing Free
Back on Board (live on CFNY)
We Could Send Letters (live on CFNY)
Walk Out to Winter (Kid Jensen Session)
Down the Dip (Kid Jensen Session)
Back on Board (Kid Jensen Session)
Release (Kid Jensen Session)
Walk Out to Winter (John Brand unreleased single version)
Walk Out to Winter (Tony Mansfield 12" version)
Oblivious (Colin Fairley remix)
Oblivious (Langer / Winstanley remix)

The vinyl version is pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl and includes a complimentary digital download card for both the original album and the rarities included in the compact disc package. The first 400 pre-orders will also receive a bonus 7" of rarities:

A1. The Boy Wonders (Capital Radio Session)
A2. Release (Capital Radio Session)
B1 We Could Send Letters (C81 Version)
B2 The Bugle Sounds Again (Bedroom Demo)

North American pre-order release page:
http://www.dominorecordco.us/usa/albums/09-12-13/high-land-hard-rain

The Christmas Classics Tab Book is available now at the Guitar World Online Store for $9.99.

The songs in the Hal Leonard Essential Elements Guitar Ensembles series are playable by multiple guitars. Each arrangement features the melody (lead), a harmony part, and a bass line.

Chord symbols are also provided if you wish to add a rhythm part. For groups with more than three or four guitars, the parts may be doubled. All of the songs are printed on two facing pages so no page turns are required. This series is perfect for classroom guitar ensembles or other group guitar settings.

Your guitar ensemble will enjoy playing these 15 holiday hits:

• "Angels from the Realms of Glory"
• "Angels We Have Heard on High"
• "Away in a Manger"
• "Coventry Carol"
• "Deck the Hall"
• "The First Noel"
• "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen"
• "Good King Wenceslas"
• "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing"
• "It Came upon the Midnight Clear"
• "Jingle Bells"
• "Joy to the World"
• "O Come, All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles)"
• "Silent Night"
• "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

Head to the Guitar World Online Store now!

Critics snubbed it upon its release in 1972, but Exile on Main St. has become one of rock’s greatest landmarks. Keith Richards recalls the making of the Rolling Stones' masterpiece and how the album’s new reissue project became a walk down memory lane.

"To me, Exile on Main St. was probably the best Rolling Stones album as far as the connection between the band members,” Keith Richards says. “We were coming up with song ideas like crazy. And the ideas were catching on. Everybody was going flat-out.”

The anniversary reissue of the Rolling Stones’ landmark double album this May will provide a heavy blast of nostalgia to those who were around when Exile was first released, in 1972. The newly remastered tracks, as well as the session outtakes, will also be a revelation even to those who know the album inside and out.

But perhaps no one feels the nostalgia, or the revelations, as profoundly as Keith Richards. There’s no denying that the album is quintessentially Keef in its swagger and the cocky sprawling grandeur of its musical scope. Hedged all about by rough edges, Exile’s elegantly wasted, slightly messy nonchalance is what imparts a frisson of raw truth to the overall beauty of the thing. Perhaps it’s not coincidence that Exile was recorded, amid scenes of legendary rock star decadence, in the vast, dank cellars beneath Richards’ home at the time, a palatial villa called Nellcôte, on the sunny French Riviera.

“I’m listening to these tracks, and suddenly I’m back in that old basement in the south of France,” marvels Richards, phoning in from another tropical paradise, a small island in the West Indies. “It’s amazing, especially for me, that ability to transport myself back in time.”

The Stones in 1972 (Photo Credit: Dan Volonnino)

The Stones guitarist played a key role in preparing the Exile reissue, which will be released in three formats. The basic package is a CD containing newly remastered versions of the 18 tracks from the original album. The Deluxe version includes a bonus disc with 10 previously unreleased tracks from the album’s era, while the Super Deluxe release adds on two 30-gram vinyl albums containing the original album and bonus tracks, a DVD on the making of Exile and a 50-page collector’s book with photos.

The Exile reissue project reunited Richards and his lifelong Glimmer Twin Mick Jagger with Jimmy Miller, the Rolling Stones’ late-Sixties/early Seventies producer who recorded and mixed the original album and many other great Stones records. A rock-solid drummer in his own right, Miller has always had some kind of primordial connection with the Stones’ profoundly rhythmic essence. Richards says, “I look back on it all, and I’ve got to say Jimmy Miller was the perfect producer for the Rolling Stones.”

Also onboard for the reissue project was the band’s present-day producer, Don Was, who sorted through hours of tapes to resurrect the bonus tracks. These include alternate takes of “Loving Cup” and “Soul Survivor,” plus an early version of “Tumbling Dice” titled “Good Time Women.” There’s also a cache of previously unreleased tracks, including “Dancing in the Light,” “Plundered My Soul,” “Following the River,” “Aladdin’s Story” and “Pass the Wine,” which has appeared on bootlegs under the working title “Sophia Loren.” For the Exile reissue, every effort was made to unearth fresh material from the vaults. In some cases, Jagger wrote and recorded brand-new vocals for what had previously been instrumental tracks. Richards overdubbed some guitar on a few tracks, but he stresses that he did as little as possible to the original recordings.

For Richards, the project triggered fond memories of those who have since departed the Stones, including original bassist Bill Wyman, and those who have since departed this life, such as session piano great Nicky Hopkins. “To hear Nicky Hopkins’ piano on ‘Sophia Loren’ was a treasure,” he says quietly. “And Bill’s solid as a rock, man. What a bass player! I’m actually more and more impressed with him, listening to this. You can get used to a guy, but listening back, going over this stuff to make this record, I’d say, ‘Jesus Christ, he’s better than I thought!’ ”

Richards also speaks fondly of his former Stones co-guitarist Mick Taylor, who joined in 1969 as a replacement for founding member Brian Jones. But Richards denies murmurings that Taylor, who left the band in late 1974, contributed overdubs to the reissue package. “That’s a rumor, babe,” he says. “If he was on there, I would know. We’ve had no contact with Mick for a long time.”

Keith Richards, circa 1972 (Photo Credit: Dina Regine)

Hearsay seems to be dogging Richards’ footsteps these days. There’s another story going around that he has completely forsworn alcohol and all other intoxicants. “That’ll be the day, honey,” he says. The remark is punctuated by one of those long, slow Keef laughs, a groundswell that starts as a faint rumble in the nicotine-coated larynx and terminates in a rheumy expulsion of breath. “Let me put it this way: the rumors of my sobriety are greatly exaggerated. Hey, I cut down a little.”

Perhaps these suspicions of temperance are fueled by the disciplined rigor of the guitarist’s schedule these days. Along with preparations for the Exile reissue and DVD, Richards has been the subject of a new film biography directed by his longtime friend—and most dead-on impersonator—Johnny Depp. Keef is also completing a book-length autobiography, due out in October, with co-writer James Fox. “It’s the story so far, so to speak,” he says. “James has really put me down memory lane. It’s weird, man, trying to remember everything, and then reliving it as the memory comes back. Like, ‘Oh God, I gotta go through this thing twice!’ ”

But one life experience that Richards doesn’t seem to mind reliving is the making of Exile on Main St. It would be difficult to overstate the album’s importance in the great scheme of rock music. It is the climax of the Stones’ four-album winning streak that began with 1968’s Beggars Banquet and continued to gain momentum through the superb Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers, as the Sixties gave way to the Seventies. On Exile, the Stones attained a perfect balance between the American roots genres that had inspired them all along: blues, country, R&B, early rock and roll, and gospel. In this regard, Exile is almost like an Olympian athletic feat, one of those rare moments when nature, human effort and sheer random happenstance all come into graceful cosmic alignment.

“All those musical styles were part of what we’d been picking up while touring America,” Richards explains. “To us English boys, hanging out watching guys in America play music was like a dream come true, man. We were soaking stuff up like sponges wherever we could find it—south side of Chicago, those downtown juke joints…anywhere. New Orleans… Shit, man.”

“I think this is the first album where we didn’t have a 45 [rpm single] hit on it,” says Richards. “We picked some singles off it, but it was made for what it was. It was an album album. Of course, when it first came out, sales were not up to par to start with. But after six or nine months, they started to pick up as people got into it.”

Created with sublime indifference to the pop market, Exile on Main St. is one of the first DIY rock albums, recorded at the guitar player’s house at a time when that sort of thing simply wasn’t done. While Exile is not exactly lo-fi, there’s a delicious murkiness to the sound, a sense of mystery shrouded in messiness. It’s a sure bet that the New York Dolls were listening to Exile when they were getting started in the early Seventies. The roots of punk are right there in the snarling, brittle mesh of Keith Richards and Mick Taylor’s guitars. You can’t quite tell who’s doing what. It’s not too far a leap from that to the intertwined double-guitar approach of Television’s Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, which in turn gave rise to thousands of latter-day punk bands. And, of course, Exile also set the pattern for the dual-guitar dynamic that Richards and Ronnie Wood have pursued ever since Mick Taylor’s departure, a guitar style that Richards often describes as “an ancient form of weaving.”

So, many roads lead back to Exile on Main St.“The thing about recording Exile was it was the first time we weren’t in a studio to make a record,” Richards says. “It all sort of happened by circumstance, really. We all decided we were going to move out of England, due to great pressure from H.M. Government. So we said, ‘Let’s keep going. We’ll do it somewhere else.’ And we figured, Oh, the south of France sounds good. I mean what’s wrong with that?”

The “great pressure” he refers to came from Britain’s graduated tax laws, which required big earners like the Stones to pay some 90 percent of their income. That, combined with the band’s frequent drug busts and harassment from the police, forced them out of England. But the early Seventies were a time of heavy change for the Stones in many regards. They’d moved away from their manager, the notoriously belligerent Allen Klein, and launched their own label, Rolling Stones Records. Mick Jagger married Nicaraguan beauty Bianca Pérez Morena de Macias and settled down to a life of quiet domesticity in France, with the other Stones living nearby.

Richards had been together with Anita Pallenberg since 1969, after he’d won the striking blonde German/Italian fashion model away from Brian Jones. But, unlike Mick and Bianca, Keith and Anita had never felt the need to sanctify their union via anything as bourgeois as marriage. Their son, Marlon, was about a year and a half when they settled into Villa Nellcôte, a grand maison with stately neoclassical columns, capacious salons and a killer view of the Bay of Villefranche. Built in 1899, Nellcôte had been inhabited by a succession of financiers and diplomats before it became the domicile of Keith Richards and his bizarre ménage. “Anita and I went looking at a couple of places, but Nellcôte kind of chose us immediately,” he says. “It was just an incredible joint. It was like a mini Versailles, and it didn’t cost a lot.”

Nellcôte’s basement became the Stones’ recording studio by default. The original plan was to find a commercial facility nearby. “We figured there’s gotta be some decent studios in Cannes or Nice or somewhere around there, even if it was Marseilles,” Richards says. “But we checked them all out, and it was pathetic. This was 1971. No doubt they’ve got great joints there now, but then, no. It was, like, forget about it. So then it became, ‘Let’s rent a house and see if we can do it there.’ Which is where the idea of bringing our mobile truck came in.”

The Rolling Stones Mobile Studio

That would be the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. Though mobile recording facilities are now commonplace, they were in their infancy in the early Seventies. The innovative Stones had put their own recording truck together, income source than for their own use. The unit had been loaned out to Led Zeppelin for their third and fourth albums, and the Stones had used it when recording tracks for Sticky Fingers at Jagger’s home, Stargroves. It had also been used for “location recordings for TV and the BBC, and stuff like that,” Richards explains. “But suddenly we realized, We got a truck, man—a mobile control room. But then we couldn’t find a house to record in. So we ended up using my basement.”

Below Nellcôte’s ground floor lay three levels of basement, subdivided into chambers of various sizes and shapes. Together with pianist/road manager/de facto sixth Stone Ian Stewart, Richards set about hanging microphones and carpets to control acoustic reflections. Home recording was virtually unheard of in 1971. The equipment was bulky and expensive and, thus, strictly the province of rock royalty like the Beatles and Stones. People didn’t really know much about recording in spaces that weren’t acoustically designed for that purpose. The Stones were moving into uncharted territory when they ventured below stairs at Nellcôte.

“There were all these little subdivisions in the basement, almost like booths,” Richards recalls. “So what would happen was that, for a certain sound, we’d schlep an amp from one space to another until we found one that had the right sound. Sometimes the guitar cord wasn’t long enough! That was in the beginning, anyway. But once we started to work there, my little cubicle became my cubicle, and we didn’t change places much.

“But at first, it was just a matter of exploring this enormous basement, saying, ‘What other sound is hiding ’round the corner?’ ’Cause you’d have weird echoes going on. Sometimes we wouldn’t be able to see each other even, which is very rare for us. We usually like to eyeball one another when we’re recording.”

“It was a dirt floor,” he says. “You could see somebody had walked by, even after they disappeared ’round the corner, because there’d be a residue of dust in the air. It was a pretty thick atmosphere. But maybe that had something to do with the sound—a thick layer of dust over the microphones.”

Despite the challenging environment, the songs came fairly quickly. Before leaving England, the Stones had started some tracks at Olympic Studios in London and at Stargroves. Down in France, they picked up these threads. Keith remembers the acoustic-driven country number “Sweet Virginia” as one of the first they worked on. “I can’t remember if that was the actual first,” he says. “That would be beyond even my phenomenal memory. But I recall that Mick had ‘Sweet Virginia’ prepared and ready to go. I have a feeling that we’d been playing around with that one on the last sessions. Maybe on Sticky Fingers, or whatever. So it was a work in progress.”

Another work in progress was the aforementioned “Good Time Women” which soon became Exile’s one big single, “Tumbling Dice.” “I know we did that one fairly early on in France because I remember the weather,” Richards says. “The basic idea, as you can hear from ‘Good Time Women,’ was already there. But it took a while for it to turn into ‘Tumbling Dice.’ We were stuck for a good lyrical hook to go with this really great riff, so we left it in abeyance for a bit. And then I think Mick came up with the title ‘Tumbling Dice,’ although he may have got it from someone else. Ha!”

The evolution from “Good Time Women” to “Tumbling Dice” is a classic example of the Jagger-Richards songwriting partnership at work. It also exemplifies the way the Stones will often allow a track to develop over time, re-recording it repeatedly and often in many different locales. “If you chase a song far enough, you’re gonna corner it—like a rat!” Richards says with a laugh.

But the pace was generally brisk. “Sometimes we’d get two tracks in a night down there,” he says. “And then there’d be other times when we’d be three days on one song.”
The work schedule was fairly regular, the guitarist recalls. “Charlie Watts was living a long way away, a six- or seven-hour drive, for some reason. But then drummers are quirky, you know. So we’d generally work for four days a week, five at a push. But the weekends would be off.”

Various Stones would sleep over at Nellcôte from time to time, but occasionally inspiration struck when some of the members were away. Such was the case when Richards’ signature track, “Happy,” came into being.

“It was pretty early in the afternoon,” he recalls. “Jimmy Miller was there checking on the previous night’s session tapes. I said, ‘Oh shit, I’ve got an idea, Jimmy.’ He said, ‘Well, just lay it down with the guitar.’ So I start laying it down, and suddenly Jimmy’s behind me playing the drums. He’d come down from the truck, and I hadn’t even noticed. I’m just hammering away, figuring this thing out. Suddenly I hear these great drums behind me, and now it’s starting to rock. It’s one of these ‘three feet off the ground’ feelings. And then, suddenly, I hear this baritone sax, and there’s Bobby Keys honking away. Suddenly it’s becoming very happy.”

Even the song’s lyrics sprang from that initial inspiration. “Most of ’em anyway, in some garbled form,” Richards says. “The whole idea was there. ‘I never kept a dollar past sunset…’ That was all there.”

Exile does contain some of the most sympathetic guitar teamwork that Richards and Mick Taylor ever committed to disc. They mesh seamlessly, almost telepathically, on track after track. With the exception of “Happy” and possibly “Ventilator Blues,” Richards left the bulk of the slide guitar work to Taylor. But where Taylor’s leads can stand out a little too assertively on some earlier Stones recordings—particularly the live Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out album—here he’s dug in deep, roiling along with Keef and fully integrated into the guitar juggernaut. Perhaps this is in part due to the album’s ad hoc recording circumstances, combined with the fact that Taylor had been a Stone for about two years at this point and was well settled in. And maybe by living close by and actually sleeping over at Nellcôte on many occasions Taylor had fallen into sync with Richards on some elemental level.
“I also think it was because we were writing songs on the spot,” Richards says. “So I automatically fell into doing the chording and figuring out the whole thing, which gave Mick Taylor a freedom. He just came up with line after beautiful line. What a player, man.”

Exile is also awash in great guitar hooks based around Richards’ signature five-string open G tuning (omitting the low E string and tuned, low to high, G D G B D). He’d first used this tuning on “Honky Tonk Women” in 1969 and had integrated it into his approach more and more thoroughly on Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers. But it really explodes on Exile and is the secret behind riff-mad classics like “Rocks Off,” “Tumbling Dice” and “Happy.”

“I was really bathing in that stuff at the time, finding out more and more about the tuning as I was going along,” Richards acknowledges. “In a way, with a lot of the five-string stuff on Exile, I’d just found that space. You’re listening to me in school!”

For a few magic months at Nellcôte, everything seemed to fall into place. With sax player Bobby Keys and trumpeter Jim Price right on the premises, the horn charts on Exile are a deeply organic part of the music, rather than an overdubbed afterthought, as horn parts all too often tend to be.

“I think that’s another one of the beauties of the album,” Richards says. “The fact that the horns are actually playing with the band. There is something to be said for having it all in one room. Bobby and Jim were amazing, ’cause they had to make up their parts virtually on the spot. The songs were coming out two or three a night. Sometimes I’d lay an idea for a song on them at the end of a session, early in the morning, so they’d have it in their heads by the time they got back the next day. There were only two of them, a sax and a trumpet, but Jimmy played great trombone as well, so we’d double them up until they became a section.”

Many extraordinary musicians passed through Nellcôte during the Exile sessions. The list of those who were there but didn’t play on the album is as impressive as the roster of gifted players who did. John Lennon stopped by at one point, drank a bottle of red wine and vomited. Country rock pioneer Gram Parsons and his girlfriend Gretchen were long-term houseguests. The American musician and tunesmith was a major factor behind the Stones’ pronounced country influence in the early Seventies; he was also a close friend and drug buddy of Keith’s. There has been much speculation about Parsons’ uncredited, behind-the-scenes role in writing many of the Stones’ country-tinged classics. But if he was hanging around Nellcôte for so long, how come he didn’t end up playing on Exile? Or did he?

The basement sessions were a separate world from the ’round-the-clock party taking place upstairs and in a small adjacent guesthouse, where the roadies were residing. “Upstairs was a continual ball, if you know what I mean,” Richards says. “Unfortunately the Stones were rarely involved, ’cause we were busy working.”

But every party has its price and painful morning-after hangover. And on October 1, 1971, burglars got into Nellcôte and made off with somewhere between 11 and 17 guitars (accounts vary), purportedly in retribution for money not paid to dope dealers who had been supplying guests at the villa. For Richards, the memory is especially unpleasant.
“When they put the documentary ogether for Exile, they showed me some footage, and there I am, holding my favorite stolen guitar, a 1964 Telecaster. It was like, ‘Oh baby, don’t rub it in.’ There she was. Had a lovely sound. I just got used to that one, you know? I can play almost any Telecaster, but the more you play just the one, the more it becomes attached to you. I almost went into a blank after the guitars were stolen. I didn’t want to think about it. But I slowly started to build up a new collection since then. I haven’t lost one since. I learned my lesson: don’t leave them hanging around on a Saturday night!”

Just about every notable rock and roll junkie has a tale of guitars going missing, and Richards is no exception. It’s well known that he and Pallenberg were heavily into heroin during their tenure at Nellcôte. In one famous incident, the couple were so out of it that they accidentally set fire to their bed. Observers have marveled at Richards’ ability to be as creative and prolific as he was during the making of Exile while seriously strung out on dope.

“Well, I’m not going to get into those questions.” He laughs and then assumes a thick Northern English accent. “ ‘Did Charlie Parker play better because he was on the stuff?’ I found that [heroin] didn’t inhibit whatever it was I wanted to do. If I thought it was diminishing me or that I wasn’t putting my fair share into the music, then I’d have been off the stuff right away. And that’s a fact. I’m a funny kind of guy. I’ve got a metabolism you wouldn’t believe.”

Still, as the glorious Mediterranean summer gave way to winter’s chill, the idyll at Nellcôte was clearly drawing to a close. The local police were starting to get ugly, and the Stones’ phenomenal creative streak was wending toward a natural conclusion. Richards remembers “Casino Boogie,” as one of the last Exile songs to fall into place.

“I think when we got to ‘Casino Boogie,’ Mick and I looked at each other and just couldn’t think of another lyrical concept or idea for the song.” At that point Richards recalled another great junkie artist, the novelist William Burroughs. “I said to Mick, ‘You know how Bill Burroughs did that cut-up thing—where he would randomly chop words out of a book or newspaper and then try to sort them up?’ That’s how we did the lyrics for ‘Casino Boogie,’ and that was Bill Burroughs’ biggest influence on the Rolling Stones.”

At the end of November, barely one step ahead of the police, the Stones decamped for Los Angeles. Working at the historic Sunset Sound studio, they began laying overdubs onto the tracks they’d cut at Nellcôte. Billy Preston, who just a couple of years before had worked with the Beatles on Let It Be, lent his formidable piano and organ talents to “Shine a Light.” Pedal steel ace Al Perkins imparted a tearful country lilt to “Torn and Frayed,” and upright bass player Bill Plummer left his mark on no fewer than four tracks: “Rip This Joint,” “Turd on the Run,” “I Just Wanna See His Face” and “All Down the Line.” A phalanx of backing vocalists added loads of soul and gospel grandeur. Among their ranks, on “Let It Loose,” was none other than Mac Rebennack, better know as the celebrated New Orleans pianist and singer Dr. John. “He just walked in,” Richards recalls. “Mac Rebennack’s like that. If there’s music going on, in one way or another, he’s gonna get his ass in there. I love the guy.”

“The fact that the Beatles had done it probably gave us a sense of, ‘Oh, there is a precedent,’ ” Richards says. “But our point was that we’d put down this body of work and when it came to chopping it down to one album, nobody could agree on which songs to cut. After a while, Mick and I looked at each other and said, ‘This is impossible. How about a double? This is all one piece. It’s gonna be unique just because of where it was recorded and the way it was recorded.’ We sort of nodded at one another and said, ‘Let’s go for it.’ Which gave us hell from the record company: ‘Aw, the public hates double albums,’ and all of that. But we insisted.”

Richards adds that mixing the album was daunting, “only from the point of view that there was so much of it. Mixing a double album was different than mixing a single album. So we were going into uncharted territory. Mick and I would look at one another and say, ‘How many more songs to go?’ mopping our brow, so to speak. But I can’t remember it being that difficult. I think we were so intimate with the tracks by then that, listening to the overdubs and mixing, it just put the icing on the cake. I remember it as being a very joyous couple of weeks. We were all on top of it. Jimmy Miller, all of us—we all knew what we were doing. It was just a matter of watching it fall into place. It was one of those rare things: a perfect mixing session.”

Sequencing the album, however, was more of a chore. As mentioned previously, much of Exile’s magic lies in the way the songs flow from one to the next. But that magic didn’t just happen spontaneously.

“Trying to get the track order down was murder, actually,” Richards says, laughing. “I’d be sending cassettes to Mick in the middle of the night—putting my version of what the order should be under his door. I’d come back to my room and there’d already be a cassette under my door with his version of what it should be. ‘Hey, Mick, that’s pretty good, but you’ve got four songs in a row in the same key. We can’t do that!’ You’d come across all these weird little problems that you never thought of. It was like making a jigsaw puzzle. By the time I got the final version, I didn’t give a shit anymore!”

While the music on Exile is a product of that summer in the south of France, the album’s packaging and conceptual framework were largely inspired by L.A.’s late-Seventies aura of faded Hollywood decadence. The “Main Street” referenced in the title was a seedy thoroughfare in downtown Los Angeles, which harbored a Chinese restaurant that the Stones liked to frequent at the time. The black-and-white cover images—a bizarre and vaguely disquieting assortment of showbiz freaks and geeks from days gone by—were snapped from the walls of an L.A. tattoo parlor by photographer Robert Frank. All these elements contributed to a wistful fin-de-siècle mood that permeates the album packaging and perfectly reflects the mood at the time of the album’s creation. It was indeed the end of an era. The Sixties were dead and long gone by the time Exile was released on May 12, 1972; so were Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, as well as the Beatles, a band with which the Rolling Stones had long been associated. The hippie dream had failed to materialize.

And so on Exile, the Stones seemed to be enshrining themselves among the yellowing photos of yesteryear’s forgotten entertainers. A series of 12 postcards included with the original album—and faithfully reproduced in the Deluxe reissue—offered a comedic depiction, also in blurry black and white, like an old movie, of the Stones arrival “in exile.” The caption for the final card reads:

“Taylor realizes the fall is complete, ‘they’ll be Forever Exiles on Main Street.’ He suggests early retirement. ‘No better not, it’s getting quite late and we’ll be fogged in forever quite soon.’ ”

The reference to “early retirement” is especially rich 40 years on. But what was it that enabled the Stones to not only endure but also triumph when so many of their Sixties contemporaries had either dropped dead, split up or become woefully irrelevant?

“I’m probably the worst person in the world to answer that question,” Richards replies. “I suppose at that particular period, the early Seventies, everything else had run out of steam—the Beatles and whatever. And I think maybe it’s just the fact that we kept going that did it. At the same time, what was picking up then was stuff like Zeppelin. A whole new energy came in from another generation. There was a lot going on. As I think about it, we didn’t see any reason to stop, and we were on a roll. So we just followed it. And suddenly, you find you’re 66 years old.”

As for the possibility of the Rolling Stones or some younger band making a modern-day equivalent of Exile on Main St. today, Richards demurs. “I’m not saying it’s impossible,” he says. “But, hey, it’s probably highly unlikely.”

With their major-label debut, Damage, climbing the Billboard Heatseekers charts, and the single “Bounce” doing the same at rock radio, guitarist/songwriter Justin McCain was finally experiencing long-awaited success with his band, Emphatic.

But just as they prepared to join the Carnival of Madness tour, lead vocalist Patrick Wilson fractured his larynx, leaving Emphatic without their singer and bringing in a replacement to complete the dates.

That wasn’t all. With Wilson gone and time going by, McCain knew he had to make some decisions. He split amicably with his managers and record label and began the process of rebuilding his band.

Emphatic today includes former Fuel frontman Toryn Green, guitarist Bill Hudson, bassist Jesse Saint and drummer Patrick Mussack. Their new album, Another Life, was recently released on Epochal Artists Records. The first single, “Remember Me,” entered the iTunes charts at No. 6.

McCain is optimistic about the band’s coming year, and remains steadfast in his determination to continue building on the groundwork that Emphatic previously established.

GUITAR WORLD: When did you part ways with your label and management?

First and foremost, Atlantic and Indegoot were phenomenal in the year and a half that we were together. If you look at it through their eyes, imagine signing a new band and all the work it takes to develop a new band, especially a rock band, these days. That’s a long-term commitment and there’s going to be a lot of money and time invested in doing so.

They took that on and they did a brilliant job, but their hands were tied to a certain point because what do you do when the frontman isn’t there? There was only so much they could do with this band before momentum naturally slowed down. When it got to the point that we figured Patrick wasn’t going to come back, and if he did it would take a long time for him to be able to sing the way he used to, during that whole process the record label had a lot more obligations aside from us.

They had several records they were working, so the fire just kind of burned out naturally. It wasn’t anything they did wrong by any means. They weren’t going to pick up our second option because they didn’t know the future of this band. Indegoot and Atlantic told me that they believed in me as a songwriter and businessman, but as far as the band, they just didn’t know what was going to happen. So we all decided to part ways, and that’s the timeframe where I had to think about what I was going to do to rebuild.

Are you self-managed now?

No. Our label deal is an in-house deal, so they’re overseeing management and acting as label as well.

This is your second label deal.

Third. A lot of people don’t know that, but our first deal was with Universal Records. That was four years before the deal with Atlantic. This label is distributed through Caroline. That’s Universal/Capitol, so there are a lot of labels affiliated, and we have some Universal and Capitol people behind us.

You recorded in Los Angeles at Validus Recording Studios. Why did you select that location?

That’s what the label wanted to do. They have an engineer there, Ryan Greene, that they work hand-in-hand with. They asked me how I felt about that, and I said, “Cool, as long as I produce the record and do what I need to do.” Ryan is a phenomenal engineer, and about halfway through I saw that he was the type of guy who works day and night.

One day we were having lunch and I asked if he’d like to be the co-producer He said, “Absolutely,” so I brought him on because I try to be fair to everyone and I saw a guy getting the engineer label and doing more than that. It was an awesome experience all the way around.

After working with Howard Benson on Damage, what were you able to bring to the table as producer of Another Life?

I produced the independent records, except for one that was produced by Matt Noveskey, the bass player for Blue October. We did another independent recording that we didn’t release, and I did that one with Shawn Crahan from Slipknot. We worked with a couple of different people prior to getting a deal. There’s a long history of this band. When it comes down to it, you can learn something from anyone you work with. Working with Howard Benson was a dream come true because he’s one of my favorite producers of all time.

There’s a difference between a producer and an engineer, so when you're talking about a producer, it’s really all art and opinion. We’re not talking pushing buttons and stuff like that. That’s what a good engineer does. From a production standpoint, I wanted to create a record that sounded uniform, where every song had similar tones and they all sounded like they should be on the same record. Part of that is choosing the right songs. Part of that is staying consistent on your tones across the board. But also I wanted to bring new life to it, and that ties into the title. I wanted to make it sound alive and honest. As the producer, it was all about getting the performances.

What made Epochal Artists Records the right label for you?

We have a great partnership with them. They’ve been absolutely phenomenal. They’d seen our history, they pay attention to sales and charts, and they came to this knowing that they had some work to do to take the next step with the band, but also respecting that we put a lot of work into it. They legitimately liked the music prior to this new record and they believed in it. That made them believe in me, because I was the primary writer and the one who took care of business, so they gave me a lot of room to do what I wanted to creatively.

They allowed me to produce the record. I wrote all kinds of songs, and when I brought in Toryn, he and I sat down and went over songs I had and songs he had and worked on things together, so as far as the creative process, we were allowed our space and time to do what we needed to do. The label has been really good about that. We’ve done a lot of stuff and so have they, but ultimately it comes down to a team, a partnership, and the decision made between the label and I, so it’s a good situation.

Photo courtesy of Epochal Artists

Read more of Justin McCain’s interview here.

— Alison Richter

Alison Richter interviews artists, producers, engineers and other music industry professionals for print and online publications. Read more of her interviews right here.

If you look toward your mantle this holiday season and notice that your stocking overfloweth, you can thank me next year for maybe half the items you’ll find in it.

It took me some time to compile a list of gear that I believe will delight many guitarists but that also includes essential tools they’ll need or could use the most.

I’ve done all the heavy lifting. All you have to do is just hand this list over to your girlfriend or boyfriend (maybe your parents), and it’ll be the best stocking you’ve ever had!

10. Gamma Go The Shredder Cheese Grater, amazon.com; $9

It’s a Flying V-shaped cheese grater. Give that cheeseball guitarist in your life a chore in the kitchen that’s more useful than just grating on your nerves.

09. IK Multimedia iRig HD, ikmultimedia.com; $99.99

The IK Multimedia iRig HD is a 24-bit high-quality audio interface that connects directly into your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Mac so you can plug in your guitar and launch IK’s Amplitube FREE app to rock anywhere, anytime.

There are additional Amplitube apps (Slash, Hendrix and Fender) that include more amp models and features for recording or jamming along.

The iRig HD has a gain control to dial in a proper signal level and is powered from your Apple device. You can use iRig HD for various other guitar-related apps.

08. Ernie Ball Power Peg Pro, ernieball.com; $54.99

I use this to quickly change strings before every gig.

The Power Peg Pro is the latest version with an ion-rechargeable battery. It will work with just about every guitar and bass tuner.

Just be mindful when whirling up the high E because you’ll snap that string if you’re not paying close enough attention.

07. Planet Waves NS Micro Tuner, planetwaves.com; $32.99

The Planet Waves NS Micro Tuner clamps stealthily behind the guitar headstock or in front of it to provide spot-on tuning accuracy for those times when you are too far away from your tuning pedal.

The multi-color display is easy to read, and the unit has a built-in metronome in case you need to warm up before hitting the stage.

The micro tuner also works well for tuning other instruments like banjo, mandolin and ukulele.

06. MXR Super Bad Ass Distortion, jimdunlop.com; $169.99

The MXR Super Bad Ass Distortion is a Marshall-in-a-box and everything in between.

The controls for output, distortion, bass, mid and treble allow you to dial in everything from AC/DC- to Pantera-type gain, and it works incredibly well as a boost. It’s the best affordable distortion pedal out there, and I’m not trying to be biased; it’s just a fact.

Try it out. You’ll thank me later.

05. Orange Micro Terror, orangeamps.com; $199

Can you fit an amplifier in a stocking? Yes, you can. And the Orange Micro Terror is the one to pick.

Why? It’s terrifyingly loud at 20 watts, can drive a 4x12 speaker cabinet and sounds outrageously crunchy.

Pick up the matching PPC108 cabinet ($139) if you can get over the steep price for both.

04. Guitar strings, various.

Wanna try something fun and educational? Try out five different guitar string sets.

I’m not kidding. Just wrap these five unique string sets together in a bow, stuff it in the stocking and let the guitarist you’re gifting to become a convert to a new brand:

Ernie Ball Phosphor Bronze Everlast Coated Acoustic Guitar Strings (Medium-Light). These coated strings repel moisture and oils from your fingers and offer longer string life with warm tone. Ernie Balls have a tendency to feel slinky, and if you bend a lot on your acoustic, these are ideal.

D’Addario EHR310 Half-Rounds Electric set (10-46). These stainless steel strings have a flatter feel than typical strings, bend easily and sound twangy. It’s a nice in-between sound if you don’t want to commit to using flatwound strings.

DR Strings K3 Neon Hi-Def White electric guitar strings. DR Strings Neon Hi-Def White strings glow under UV and stage lighting and just look cool on your favorite axe. They feature DR’s proprietary K3 coating that makes them last four times longer than an uncoated string.

Cleartone Nickel-Plated Electric set with “No Feel Coating.” These are for players who have yet to warm up to coated electric guitar strings. Cleartone’s coated string feels transparent (it’s the lightest coating in the industry) and lasts three to five times longer. But the key here is the strings sound louder.

Dunlop Heavy Core Nickel Plated Steel. Dunlop Heavy Core is designed for guys tuning lower than standard and is also great for slide guitar. The increased tension and stability from its thicker core provides a stiffer feel without having to modify the nut of your guitar for a thicker gauge.

03. GrooveTech Guitar/Bass Multi-Tool; cruztools.com; $19.95

If you can’t swing the Cruz Tools Tech kit I mentioned in my previous blog, this all-in-one pocket tool is a must-have to chuck in your gig bag when you need to make some quick adjustments.

It features four metric and three fractional hex keys, two Phillips screwdrivers, a 2.5mm slotted screwdriver and many more necessary tools that unfold with ease.

I never leave home without it.

02. TC Electronic HOF Mini Reverb, tcelectronic.com; $109.99

Everyone needs a splash or dollop of reverb, and this mini pedal does the trick by keeping it simple with a single knob and a small footprint.

It’s TonePrint enabled using TC’s proprietary technology that allows you to download your favorite reverbs from TC Electronic’s extensive TonePrint library of artist and user sounds or create your own by using their TonePrint editor appliction.

You can even check out my very own TonePrint I created for the HOF here.

01. Dunlop Ultex Jazz III and Ultex Jazz III 2.0 pick, jimdunlop.com; 6-pack, $4.38

I’ve been preaching the virtues of this pick for years. It’s the fastest and most tone-filled plectrum out there.

Don’t believe me? Match it up against another pick unplugged and you’ll find the notes just jump out at you. It’s louder and brighter, and you can shred your face off with its precision sharp tip.

The newer all-black 2.0 has a slightly more oval feel when gripped but is just as crisp in attack as the original.

I try very hard to remain under the radar despite being on camera as gear editor, but in this age of social media it was only a matter of time before it had to come to this. So with that, I will make my blog painless and a quick and easy read so you can get on to more important things like sweep picking, or if you’re like me, obsessing how to race the Tour De France and trying to be Kristen Stewart’s next mistake. I will use this blog to inform you of things I find cool; like new gear I’m playing through and what I’m watching, reading or listening to at any given moment. So feel free to ask me anything that’s gear related—or if you have a problem with your girlfriend, you know, life lesson stuff, I’m pretty good at that too—and I’ll do my best to answer or address it here.

The third single released from Livia Ferri’s debut album Taking Care is now online. The video, produced by Black Back Calico and M.I.L.K., directed by Marco Arturo Messina, recalls in a symbolic and dreamlike language the atmosphere and the narration of "Pavlov," a folk rock song written for piano, acoustic guitar and sansula, played entirely by Livia Ferri.

The video, as the song itself tells in a surrealistic way, is about those emotional reflexes that come to life between people and in relationships. The impulsive fear, the overreacting, the instinctive discomfort and the acceptance of it all. It shows Livia Ferri's world under a new light. The first two singles released from the album were "Hopefully" and "Cassius Clay."

"Just like other songs I wrote, "Pavlov" is not a tale, it is a feeling, an inner fight. Some years ago it happened to me to feel the need of crying every time I looked at my mum. I couldn't understand why, I was filled with sadness, the emotion was overwhelming but I couldn't find a trigger event, a rational explanation. I was feeling confused and frustrated. After a lot of thinking I began to recognize a pattern: instinctive reactions, uncontrolled, impulsive reactions, they were going against my rational thoughts, reacting to various kind of inputs, undermining relationships and work. "Pavlov" is the revelation of being my worst enemy and, at the same time, the claiming of the desire to live life with lightness, with honesty, facing my weakness, fearless, without blame or disgust," shares Ferri.

Watch "Pavlov"

Find out more at http://liviaferri.org

The guys at R&M Tone Technology recently sent over their new 20-foot PowerWire audio cable.

The PowerWire is a 20-, 30- or 40-foot guitar cable with an embedded amplifier (gain options of 0-6 dB), solid strain-relief and long-life batteries to deliver a clean, flat boost from 20 Hz to 20 KHz. It's the first of it's kind in the music industry.

PowerWire, with its internal low-noise amplifier, provides a clean drive of the cable length and makes passive, ordinary cables of the same length sound dull in comparison. TS-09-style distortion effects are also available.

You can check out Guitar World's video review of the PowerWire below.

For more about R&M Tone Technology, visit rmtonetech.com.