Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of Back From Beyond, the new album by Massacre.
The album was released today, April 1, in North America via Century Media. Be sure to tell us what you think in the comments or on Facebook!
“We are very proud of Back From Beyond," says Massacre's Terry Butler. "All the hard work over the past year from Massacre and Century Media is reaching its apex today.
"We believe fans old and new are going to enjoy this slab of Florida death meta!”
Back From Beyond was recorded and mixed by Tim Vazquez of CGM Studios, Florida, and features original Massacre members Rick Rozz (guitars; ex-Mantas/Death) and Terry Butler (bass; Obituary, ex-Death/Six Feet Under), plus Ed Webb (vocals; ex-Diabolic/Eulogy) and Mike Mazzonetto (drums; ex-Pain Principle).
Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the music video for "Jekyll Better Hyde," a new song by New York City's IKILLYA.
The song is from the band's upcoming album, Vae Victis, which will be released April 29 through Megaforce Records.
Vae Victis— Latin for "woe to the vanquished ones," according to the band — is the follow-up to IKILLYA’s strong debut, Recon. Vae Victis is available for pre-order at iTunes right here. When you order the album, you can download the title track ASAP.
The band also has announced a major tour, the dates for which you can check out below the YouTube player.
For more about IKILLYA, check them out on Facebook.
IKILLYA U.S. and U.K. Tour Dates
4/12: Syracuse, NY, 3 Fat Guys
4/13: Indy, IN, Birdys
4/14: Chicago, IL, Cobra Lounge
4/15: Appleton, WI, Venue TBA
4/17: Denver, CO, TBD
4/18: Salt Lake City, UT, Dawg Pound
4/19: Vegas, NV, Venue TBA
4/20: Anehiem, CA, Venue TBA
4/21: LA, CA, Loaded Hollywood
4/22: Phoenix, AZ, Joes Grotto
4/24: Dallas, TX, The Boiler Room
4/25: ATL, GA, The Masquerade
4/26: Fayetteville, NC, The Rock Shop
4/27: Wilmington, DE, Mojo 13
4/29: New York, NY, Duffs
5/2: Peterborough, The MET Lounge
5/3: Belfast, The Limelight
5/4: Keighley, The Exchange
5/5: Edinburgh, Opium
5/6: Glasgow, Ivory Blacks
5/7: Huddersfield, The Parrish
5/9: Halifax, Cookies
5/10: London, TBD
Avatar will be hitting the road with Escape the Fate and Pop Evil. You can check out all their current dates here. For more about the band, visit avatarmetal.com and their Facebook page.
GuitarWorld.com presents the premiere of “Hope,” the new single by New York's Frank Palangi.
After releasing his first two EPs — Frank Palangi and I Am Ready— Palangi decided to self-produce his next single. “Hope” delivers a strong, inspirational message, exploring what the idea of hope means to Palangi.
“Hope” was recorded at Rivergate Studios, just outside Nashville, with Palangi handling guitar, bass and vocal duties and Michael McManus (12 Stones, Saving Abel) on drums.
It was mixed and mastered at Nashville’s Labelmix Productions by Rob Coates, who produced Palangi's last release. The track, which was influenced by Johnny Cash, Creed, Full Devil Jacket and Three Days Grace, has elements of Nineties hard rock fueled by chunky guitar riffs.
Palangi’s positivity extends beyond his music into the way he interacts with his fans. "It has been a blessing meeting great people and reaching them with my music to help them through their hard times," he says.
“Hope” is available for FREE download at CD Baby. It's also available at Amazon and iTunes.
If Jerry Garcia played in a death metal band instead of the Grateful Dead, he might have designed a guitar like the Guardian.
At least that’s kind of the idea that Nashville luthier Sean Farrell had in mind when he conceived this guitar.
“I wanted a double-cutaway design that was somewhere between a Stratocaster and an SG,” Farrell says, “something like Jerry’s Rosebud guitar, which falls in that lovely aesthetic where there are just enough curves and points, yet it isn’t too abstract.
"The guitar’s Celtic and Nordic aesthetics complemented the Amon Amarth death metal sound I was going for with the guitar’s woods and electronics. They’re also a nod to my Irish and Danish roots.”
Farrell is an experienced guitar builder who attended John Marshall’s Luthiers International in Lilburn, Georgia, but with the Guardian he added some new craftsmanship techniques to his repertoire—namely wood burning and leatherwork.
“Working with leather was a challenge,” he says. “It requires a dedicated process of preparation, forming, coloring and sealing, and carving and embossing leather can’t be reversed. I made every opportunity to fit the Guardian with leather armor, because leather is not often seen on guitars. It contributed to both the organic feel and cultural influence I wanted.”
The Guardian features an alder body with a highly figured claro-walnut top decorated with a Celtic knot Purflex center strip developed by Petros Guitars. Embossed leather ornaments adorn the back of the body in addition to the area surrounding the neck pocket. The rock maple neck is stained dark green, and the headstock features a lacewood veneer to “represent a sort of reptilian skin.” Hardware includes a Seymour Duncan Alternative 8 humbucker, Schaller model 456 bridge/tailpiece and Schaller Da Vinci tuners.
While the Guardian is Farrell’s personal instrument, he is introducing the New Breed brand to offer several one-off instruments he’s built, as well as a line of 3/4-size guitars and other instruments.
“I will not be building custom orders,” Farrell emphasizes. “Each guitar is designed, built and distributed by myself without any outside specifications added to the creative aspect, which I believe would be an invasion of the artistic process. If you like my art, you can take it, but only as it was originally imagined and created.”
In the new video below, Guitar World's Paul Riario checks out the new CV-75 speaker from Eminence.
The CV-75 is part of the company's Red Coat series of British-voiced speakers.
From the company:
The CV-75 is the epitome of British tone with a complete tonal balance. Grunt and punch in the lows, warm/tailored mids and nice, clear, open/airy highs.
Be sure to tell us what you think of the CV-75 in the comments or on Facebook!
For more information about the CV-75, visit eminence.com.
This is an excerpt from the May 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the rest of this story, plus features on Death Angel, John Frusciante, how to build a pedal board, a complete finger picking lesson, columns, tabs and reviews of new gear from Line 6, Ibanez, Strymon, G&L, Ernie Ball and Orange, check out the May 2014 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.
Ax-Men: Guitar superheroes Zakk Wylde and Joe Satriani team up to riff on their craziest concert moments, Jimmy Page and the state of rock guitar in 2014.
It’s difficult to imagine two human beings more different than Joe Satriani and Zakk Wylde, even just in terms of physical appearance.
Satriani is slight and slender, with a clean-shaven face and head. Wylde is big and hairy, with full beard and black-leather biker garb encasing his paunchy frame.
As the two men stand side by side before a white backdrop inside a San Francisco area photo studio, the contrast is even more dramatic. To a stranger viewing the scene, the guitars they’re holding would be the only clue to why the hell they’re posing together.
Not surprisingly, the inner man matches the outer in both cases. Satriani has always been an introspective guitar hero. He broods long and hard on the creative processes behind the records and concerts that have placed him at the vanguard of virtuoso rock guitar playing for the past three decades.
On the other hand, it’s hard to conceive of Zakk Wylde ever experiencing anything like moments of introspection, let alone being familiar with the term. His abundant store of energy is direct outward, mostly in the frenzied flurry of rapid-fire guitar notes that have made him a metal guitar icon. His conversation is, oddly, like his guitar playing: it comes in nonstop verbal torrents heavily peppered with off-color jokes and personal references that only a Wylde fan could understand.
Riffing on his Catholicism, he rattles off the names of his guitar heroes as if they belonged to some ecclesiastical hierarchy—Saint Rhoads, Pope Page, Father Vai… And like all true rock and roller outsiders—especially one from New Jersey—Wylde is an advanced master of the fine art of inserting the f-word into every sentence whether it fits or not.
And while Satriani and Wylde seem so different as people, they are nonetheless brothers-in-shred and good friends of many years. So when Guitar World suggested that they meet up to share stories and insights from their many years of fretboard glory, they were happy to oblige. Wylde paused en route to a business meeting with iTunes to make the date, and Satriani valiantly rose from a sickbed, where he’d been battling an exceptionally nasty cold recently.
At the end of day, all agreed that it was well worth the effort to get together and compare notes on life at the pinnacle of rock guitar mastery.
Can you remember the first time you heard one another’s playing?
ZAKK WYLDE I’d just gotten my gig with Ozzy when I first heard Surfing with the Alien. And I thought, Wow…great melodies, great chops. Just awesome songs. Whenever I hear Joe playing, it kind of sounds like Billy Gibbons if Billy Gibbons had Al Di Meola’s fucking technique. ’Cause it grooves like Billy, but it’s got this insane technique. But aside from how ripping it is technically, there’s that blues in there all the time. And that’s what it’s like with a real player, like Joe. You know where they’re coming from, but they put their own unique spin on it and make it their own thing.
JOE SATRIANI I first heard Zakk probably around the same time, when he started playing with Ozzy. What a shock! The years between 1978 and 1987 were a decade of solid teaching and club work for me. So I was getting exposed to the next generation of guitar players who were starting at a higher level than I did. Higher expectations. Zakk was one of the first players I heard where I was like, “Wow, this bumps it up to a new level.” That was exciting, because the musicianship and the showmanship were both there. You have to have that, because it’s rock and roll.
And what a tough gig Zakk had! He had to follow the legend of Randy Rhoads and Ozzy’s history with Black Sabbath. Zakk’s a multi-instrumentalist as well, and his technique on electric guitar translates beautifully to acoustic. That’s a very important indicator of the power he has, which I noticed right away.
Joe mentioned teaching guitar, which you did as well, Zakk, right?
WYLDE Yeah, before I started playing with Ozzy. Teaching’s great, man. But I also had normal jobs like working in a gas station and in a [supermarket] produce department. I didn’t plan on doing that for the rest of my life, but I had no problems with it because I was doing it to save up for a Marshall amp or a Les Paul or some other piece of gear. But when I taught, it was definitely cool when there were students who would practice and had a passion for the instrument. Not all of them did. But when you had a student who’d come to a lesson and could play all the scales you taught them last time, it was really rewarding.
How did teaching feed into your own playing?
WYLDE It pushes you—especially with the advanced students. They learn all the shit and you gotta have something new to show them the next week. They know all the diatonics and all the pentatonics, so now we start breaking out the diminished scales.
SATRIANI And your job is to crystallize musical concepts—put them into a couple of sentences. ’Cause maybe the kid’s showing up for 30 minutes or something.
WYLDE But then, Jimmy Page always used to say, “The reason I love the guitar is because they didn’t teach it in school.” And I get that. But I always say, if you get a car with a stick shift, eventually you’re going to learn to drive it by yourself. But before you blow through about three transmissions, usually it would be pretty cool if somebody just showed you how to do it. Eventually, sure, you can learn how to play “Stairway to Heaven” by yourself. But you’ll learn it a lot quicker if somebody shows you where to put your fingers.
Apart from obvious names like Hendrix and Page, do you have any guitar heroes in common?
SATRIANI Pete Townshend is one of my heroes, because he’s another guy who brings it all. He can play great, write great songs, and he puts on an amazing show. Quite crazy. I was just reading Pete’s autobiography [2012’s ] and I learned something I never knew before, and that was that he used a G string that was the same gauge as his B string. So when he did his double-stop bends, both strings would move at the same degree. That hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s an old blues player’s trick, but no one had suggested it to me before.
Photo: Kevin Scanlon
For the rest of this story, plus features on Death Angel, John Frusciante, how to build a pedal board, a complete finger picking lesson, columns, tabs and reviews of new gear from Line 6, Ibanez, Strymon, G&L, Ernie Ball and Orange, check out the May 2014 issue at the Guitar World Online Store.
For their third album, 2011’s The Black Crown, Suicide Silence guitarists Chris Garza and Mark Heylmun messed around with eight-string guitars and used Fractal Axe-Fx amp simulators, Apple Logic, Pro Tools and drum machines to create songs that were both brutal and contemporary.
Yet for all its savagery, The Black Crown lacked a human touch.
So for their as-yet-untitled follow-up—the first Suicide Silence studio record since the death of vocalist Mitch Lucker in 2012—the guitarists went back to basics. They put away their gizmos, dragged out the Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifiers and cabinets they used for their 2007 debut, The Cleansing, and wrote on seven strings.
“We jammed everything out together in my parents’ garage, which is where we started out,” Garza says. “It felt much more real than writing with computers, and we were able to capture the power of everyone’s collective emotions.”
While working on the new album with producer Steve Evetts, Suicide Silence decided to release a CD and DVD of a December 16, 2012, tribute concert in memory of Lucker.
Titled Ending Is the Beginning: The Mitch Lucker Memorial Show, it features the group playing its songs with various vocalists, including Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe and Machine Head’s Robb Flynn. In addition to giving the band more time to fine-tune the new album, the tribute concert release creates a smooth transition between the Lucker-fronted lineup and the current band, which features ex–All Shall Perish vocalist Eddie Hermida.
“Doing the memorial show was very therapeutic,” Garza says. “It was a healthy distraction. Because there was so much to plan out the whole month before the show, it helped with the grieving process.”
After the concert, the members of Suicide Silence took some time off before moving forward again in September 2013 with Hermida. Working together again was comforting, and the guitarists quickly bashed out a batch of songs that are angry and impulsive, yet structurally more complex than most of their past material.
“There is a lot riding on this record,” Garza acknowledges. “But we’ve been so focused. We look at it as an opportunity to do what we love and make something that Mitch would have been really proud of.”
Check out this rare clip of Paul McCartney (accompanied by then-current wife, Linda McCartney) strumming through a few classic numbers of his expansive catalog.
McCartney performs “Blackbird,” from the Beatles’ White Album; “Blackbird,” from Wing’s Band on the Run; “Michelle,” another Beatles cut from Rubber Soul; and “Heart of the Country,” taken from McCartney’s RAM solo LP.
Watch below as he playfully strums through a couple verses and chorus of each tune, while Linda casually snaps photos and offers the occasional backing vocal.
This footage was included as part of a television special titled James Paul McCartney that aired on ABC on April 16th, 1973. The special was broken up into eleven different segments, each showcasing McCartney's songs from his career with The Beatles and as a solo artist.
The special also features numerous appearances and live performances from Wings, McCartney’s band at the time.
James Paul McCartney was produced and directed by Gary Smith and Dwight Hemion, the same team behind the Elvis''68 Comeback Special. It has never been released on any home video format.
In March singer/songwriter Wendy Beckerman won best song of the month at the West Coast Songwriters Contra Costa Chapter competition.
Her winning song, “Things the Times Haven't Changed,” is a beguiling recitation of timeless delights. It sounds like home in a most wonderful way.
Beckerman has been at this songwriting business for quite some time, and so I was delighted to find out more about this talented musician.
I understand you started on piano, what made you shift your focus to guitar?
My first instrument was actually player piano at about 3 years old. Not yet tall enough for my feet to reach down from the stool, I stood on the pedals, pumping my little legs, and holding on under the front edge of the keys.
Later, actually studying piano laid a good foundation of basic music theory, plus the challenge and satisfaction of committing to daily practice and occasional recitals. Also, my oldest brother Joel is a gifted pianist and composer, and filled the house with great sounds. At 19 years old I made the switch to guitar, largely inspired by singer/songwriters Suzanne Vega, James Taylor, and Joni Mitchell, and the natural warmth of the instrument. It's a good fit for my voice.
You’re originally an east coaster. What brought you out to California?
Cupid's arrow!
How have you found the songwriting/performance scene out here? Is it more or less challenging?
The music scene in New York was a vibrant place for me from 1987-2000, including Fast Folk Musical Magazine, and weekly Songwriters' Meetings. In those days, I toured nationally and in Europe.
Since moving to CA in 2001, I have continued writing songs, and co-host (with Patrice Haan) a monthly Songwriters' Exchange here, but have mostly performed at a local community level while earning my living teaching Mindful Yoga and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. I've just begun to step out more again musically through West Coast Songwriters and other events.
Your songs have included some really unique thoughts. Do you keep a journal or list of song and title ideas?
I do keep a journal, more as a way to center myself, and I write songs regularly. Most of all, I find that writing on a self-imposed deadline of the Songwriters' Exchange keeps me open to ideas on an ongoing basis, and helps midwife each song.
Give us a peek into our songwriting process. How do you typically begin?
It may sound simple, but I begin by just making sound -- usually in voice. I find that one sound leads to the next, and if I keep making sound, and stay with it, it can be shaped into song. Unpredictable melody is important to me, so I always move the line in the other direction to see what happens. Same with lyrics.
Tell us the story behind your song that won February’s WCS competition. What’s the story behind the song?
Check out her winning song here:
The idea came when I noticed a classic barber's pole with the helical stripe as I was driving through my town. It harkened back to an early era, and occurred to me that cutting hair hasn't changed that much in the information age.
Then I wondered, what else has been relatively unaffected by technology in my lifetime? Thus the song: “Things the Times Haven't Changed.” When people hear the song without the backstory, it evokes simplicity, like the slow pleasures we experience in leisure time.
You’ve released several CDs. Do you have something new in the works?
Yes! I'm getting ready to record my best writing of the last 13 years (my last CD, Canyon Heart, was released in 2001), and bring a more mature voice and perspective into the studio to make something beautiful to share.
What’s next for you? How can people hear your music?
I'm excited to be rehearsing for a concert with Louise Taylor and Karen Almquist on Friday, April 4 at Lamorinda Music Store. Luscious 3-part harmonies, original songs, and long-time friends stirring up fun making music together. We're expecting a full house, so we're encouraging people to buy tickets in advance at 3voices.brownpapertickets.com
Among historic Gibsons, Tom Scholz’s 1968 Les Paul “Goldtop”—the first of two that he purchased in the Seventies—certainly ranks high.
It’s the guitar heard on every massive Boston hit and all six of the group’s albums to date. As such, it was an ideal instrument for Gibson to replicate as part of its Collector’s Choice Series.
An MIT-educated engineer and successful manufacturer of guitar gear in his own right, Scholz collaborated closely with Gibson on the replica. “I gotta say, they really worked at it,” Scholz remarks.
“They went back and forth and took all these measurements. Then they’d send it to me and I’d tell them, ‘Well it’s off by 30/100s of the width at this end…’ You know, highly technical stuff. And they stuck with it until it is virtually identical to my guitar. I couldn’t tell the prototype from the one I’ve been playing for years. Gibson did an amazing job.”
Over the years, Scholz modified his 1968 Les Paul in a number of ways. He removed the pickguard, stripped off the original goldtop finish to reveal the natural maple finish beneath, replaced the original P-90 bridge pickup with a DiMarzio Super Distortion humbucker and installed Schaller M6 tuners in place of the original Klusons.
The Collector’s Choice replica incorporates all of these features. Produced in a limited run of less than 300, the Gibson Collector’s Choice #10 Tom Scholz 1968 Les Paul is a significant slab of classic rock history.
For more about this guitar, visit its page at gibson.com.
On June 16, 1965, a young man sporting a Jewfro walked through the rain on New York’s Seventh Avenue to Columbia Studio A, a white Telecaster slung over his shoulder like John Henry’s hammer.
Once inside, he wiped down the wet guitar, sat on a folding chair and played his way into history.
Until then, few people outside of his native Chicago had heard of Michael Bloomfield.
A little over a month later, after that session’s first single, “Like a Rolling Stone,” was released, he was nearly as well known among musicians as the tune’s writer, Bob Dylan. Bloomfield’s roiling fills and lightning-strike licks in Studio A had put the high-voltage in Dylan’s first electric album, Highway 61 Revisited.
Just a month after that LP appeared, Bloomfield’s reputation was etched deeper with the release of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
On that debut by his hometown outfit—Chicago’s first integrated blues band signed to a major label—Bloomfield played guitar with the authenticity and intensity that Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Peter Green, Jimmy Page and the other young guns of British blues aspired to attain. Clapton himself observed, “Mike Bloomfield is music on two legs.”
Bloomfield was 22 when he arrived on the music scene, blazing a path for guitarists that burned through the strata of multiple elements—jazz, country, world music, atonality—while staying faithful to his beloved blues. And while the legacy of Bloomfield’s artistry is still embedded in the muddy terra firma of American music, his influence is virtually uncelebrated today.
The new three-CD-plus-DVD box set From His Head to His Heart to His Hands, curated by Bloomfield’s friend and playing partner, rock and roll legend Al Kooper, aims to correct that.
“I’m trying to replicate what King of the Delta Blues Singers did for Robert Johnson in 1961,” says Kooper, referring to the 1961 compilation that rescued Johnson’s recorded legacy from obscurity.
“A lot of people didn’t know about Johnson because so many decades had passed since he recorded, and yet when that album came out, English kids like Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton were swept up by it. I want to do the same thing—catch people who don’t know what Michael sounded like or maybe don’t even know his name.
“I loved Michael’s music for the intellectualism of what he played, which is why I came up with the title. I think his music started in his head and then went to his heart before he played it. That’s what’s so great about it.”
Kooper spent a year going through tapes from the Columbia Records vaults, Dylan’s archives and other sources, including his own collection, to make the case for Bloomfield’s enduring greatness.
The set begins with three previously unreleased demo recordings from Bloomfield’s 1964 audition for the legendary record producer John Hammond, whose signings—which included Billie Holiday, Charlie Christian, Aretha Franklin, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan—spanned several generations. (Hammond was also the driving force behind the King of the Delta Blues Singers compilation.)
The songs from Bloomfield’s 1964 audition feature him playing acoustic Delta blues and an absolutely stratospheric high-torque country rag inspired by the great Kentucky-born picker Merle Travis. In all likelihood, those recordings would be lost if Kooper and Hammond hadn’t become neighbors years after the session. One day Hammond surprised Kooper with a two-track reel-to-reel copy, which is now the only one in existence.
Another gem comes at the set’s opposite bookend: a live recording of Bloomfield reunited onstage with Dylan at San Francisco’s Warfield Theater in 1980, months before his death from an overdose on February 15, 1981, at age 37. Sitting in on “The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar,” Bloomfield exorcises blitzing chromatic lines, quivering bends, warbling fingerpicked triads and keening slide from his head, heart and hands.
There are demos Bloomfield recorded with his own group after he was signed by Hammond, tracks from Highway 61 with the vocals peeled off to reveal the underlying brilliance of his playing, and roaring cuts from the Butterfield Band and Bloomfield’s own eclectic flower-power-era ensemble, the Electric Flag.
His celebrated 1968 Super Session and Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper recordings are well represented, and Bloomfield’s slide guitar on Janis Joplin’s “One Good Man” is like a blade to the heart. The final recording, a gorgeous fingerpicked solo acoustic live take called “Hymn Time,” brings the performances full circle.
It’s here that the DVD Sweet Blues takes over. An hour-long documentary directed by Bob Sarles, the film expands on the music with interviews featuring Dylan, Kooper, Elvin Bishop, Electric Flag vocalist Nick Gravenites, Bloomfield’s ex-wife Susan Beuhler and others.
Bloomfield himself serves as narrator, with Sarles using sections of a sprawling tape-recorded interview with the late guitarist to propel the narrative of his career—from his apprenticeship playing in Chicago clubs with Muddy Waters, Big Joe Williams and his other blues heroes to the sessions and festivals that were part of the apex of his popularity.
In the 16 years spanning the CDs, Bloomfield’s electric tone darkens and expands as he shifts his preference from Telecasters to Les Pauls and swaps the roles of bandleader, sideman and solo performer, playing like a champion every step of the way. The consensus among Bloomfield’s friends is that by age 16 or 17, his six-string style was fully formed.
Reached by phone at his northern California home, 75-year-old Gravenites says that he was just learning to play blues when he first met Bloomfield at the Fret Shop, a folk music store near the University of Chicago campus, “but Bloomers—I called him Bloomers, I don’t know why—already knew it cold.
"He played like all of the older black guys he idolized. He was an authentic stylist as a teenager.”
Five years later, when Kooper met Bloomfield at the Highway 61 Revisited sessions, Kooper says he wondered, “How can a guy my age play so good? I was taken aback. I had brought my guitar hoping to play on Dylan’s record, but when I heard Michael warm up, I put my guitar away.” Instead, Kooper played the album’s barebones organ tracks—his first shot at the Hammond B-3, which became his signature instrument.
Despite his deep blues grounding, Bloomfield was an omnivorous listener, and that had a profound impact on his playing. He shared his fascination with Bulgarian vocal choirs and intense jazzmen like Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus with Kooper.
Those fascinations are reflected in the sweeping, cinematic passages of their Live Adventures album, cut in 1968 at promoter Bill Graham’s legendary Fillmore West, as well as the cluster bombs of chromatic notes Bloomfield would inject into his solos in concert.
“Live, everything he played was golden,” Kooper recalls. “My guess was that he was intimidated in the studio by producers. I wanted to get great playing out of him, so my premise with the recordings we made was ‘let’s go in and jam and it’ll be fun.’ ” Both Super Session and Live Adventures were hits, reaching numbers 12 and 18, respectively, on Billboard’s album chart.
Bloomfield’s picking technique also came from a varied base. He could use a flatpick on a whim but preferred the organic tone generated by plucking strings with his fingers or thumbnail, or by using his index finger’s nail as a pick. He reserved fingerpicks or thumb picks for lap steel and resonator guitars. Unlike Clapton, Beck, Jimmy Page and Duane Allman, he also preferred running his Les Pauls and Telecasters through loud, clean amps with plenty of headroom and minimal breakup, for a more open tone.
Kooper describes his musical relationship with Bloomfield as symbiotic—“We never had to discuss a thing we played. We’d just start and it would all be there.” Gravenites, for his part, spent a decade of his 20-year friendship with Bloomfield sharing the stage and studio. Yet, both say Bloomfield’s overall approach to guitar was subjective, idiosyncratic—a code they ultimately never cracked.
“I could never make heads or tails of his technique,” says Gravenites, who, like 69-year-old Kooper, continues to perform. “I called it ‘the Cloaking Device.’ It was like he was part Romulan. We’d be having a conversation. Everything about the music we were about to play would be perfectly clear, and then he’d start to play and the Cloaking Device kicked in. I’d watch his fingers moving everywhere and have no idea what the hell he was doing.”
The excellent 1979 album If You Love These Blues, Play ’Em As You Please provides some hints. In the liner notes Bloomfield explains his amp and guitar choices for each of the tracks, provides the genesis of each number, and lists the keys and further salient details for the songs.
The 2004 CD reissue also includes acoustic guitar duets Bloomfield recorded with Woody Harris. Combined, these 31 tracks trace many veins of Bloomfield’s roots, from African-American work songs to Appalachian spirituals to T-Bone Walker swing to primal country, and his playing is absolutely inspired.
Bloomfield was an entirely self-made—and unlikely—bluesman. In 1943, he was born into a wealthy Jewish family whose fortune was based on his ex-boxer father’s invention of the flapper-topped sugar dispenser, the institutional coffee brewer, revolving pie displays and other restaurant staples. His mother was a Wrigley’s Spearmint gum model. School and Michael didn’t mix, but to his father’s dismay, he loved guitar.
At age 14, Bloomfield’s passion for Elvis Presley and guitarist Scotty Moore as well as the other Sun rockabilly cats led him to recordings by bluesmen like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, who, he soon discovered, were regularly playing in his own town. After that, it was on.
Bloomfield chased down the potent first-generation electric Chicago blues players in urban nightspots where few white people ventured. His youth and nervous energy made him stand out as much as the innate talent he displayed when he got onstage. Often, he couldn’t contain his enthusiasm, leaping up with the likes of Magic Sam or Buddy Guy, plugging in, hitting notes and asking to sit in, all at the same time.
Even as an adult, “Michael was always on 10,” Kooper says. “He was funny and smart and always very much in the moment.”
“Michael was a special character,” Gravenites concurs. “He’d say exactly what was on his mind to anyone without any concern for repercussions. If he didn’t like what you were playing, he’d tell you to get in line. But he was also very kind and generous with people.”
Bloomfield also suffered from chronic insomnia and bouts of depression. He spent many nights awake playing guitar in his formative years. As his playing developed, Bloomfield became interested in older bluesmen with acoustic roots. Hired to book the Fickle Pickle coffeehouse, he scheduled nine-string guitarist Big Joe Williams, mandolinist Yank Rachell, guitarist Sleepy John Estes and pianist Little Brother Montgomery specifically so he could play with them.
He and Williams became close and recorded together several times. He also got his first pointed taste of the volatility of some of the older bluesmen when Williams stabbed him in the hand during a disagreement.
During July 1966—the same month that Cream played its first unofficial gig in England—Bloomfield, harmonica demon Paul Butterfield, guitarist Elvin Bishop, pianist Mark Naftalin, drummer Billy Davenport and bassist Jerome Arnold released the second Paul Butterfield Blues Band album, East-West.
Many consider that recording Bloomfield’s crowning achievement. His playing on the disc is knotty, dramatic and unpredictable, his sonorous tone snaking in all directions, from needling staccato licks to burnished metallic slides to warm wail-and-moan bends to dark sustained notes singing with his B.B. King–inspired vibrato.
On the band showcase “Work Song,” Bloomfield’s melodies climb through scales like free-jazz saxophonist John Coltrane’s, balancing chromatic ascents and descents with radically slurred bends and off-the-beat accents.
The tune “East-West,” a 13-minute exploratory fusion of blues and Indian modality that showcases Bloomfield and Bishop, flipped the switch for long-form rock improvisation. Thus Bloomfield ran neck and neck with Clapton in transporting blues guitar into the psychedelic era.
So the question raised by Kooper’s quest to elevate Bloomfield to Robert Johnson–like status remains: Why don’t more people know about this profoundly talented six-string genius?
“First of all, he didn’t dress up,” Kooper says. “All those guys—Clapton, Page—they dressed like rock stars. In the set’s booklet, there’s a photo I chose of Clapton and Bloomfield backstage at the Fillmore. It’s like a sight gag. Clapton’s in sartorial and hair-and-moustache splendor, and Mike’s just wearing a plain denim shirt and a vest. They couldn’t look more different.
“Second, he was done with the music business by the time he was 34,” Kooper continues. “He had done it all—dealing with the crooked promoters and record labels—and said, ‘Enough of this shit.’ ”
Gravenites agrees. “Back then the music business was packed with thieves,” he says. “I don’t mean crooked accountants and rigged books; I mean they were a bunch of gangsters who’d break your fingers to get a penny out of a jukebox. When we started out, we were launched into a sea of ugly.”
There’s also, of course, Bloomfield’s premature death, which forever pre-empted any second winds or late-career comebacks. “People who say they were surprised by Michael’s death didn’t really know him,” Gravenites contends.
“Michael had died in every major city in America—New York, Chicago, L.A., Detroit, San Francisco—but he was revived every time because he was with junkies who knew what they were doing.
Around heroin, he always wanted to be first on the bag, and he always took too much. It didn’t work out sometimes, so he’d OD. That was Michael. A crazy guy.
“But I never thought of him as a junkie,” Gravenites continues. “He’d junk up for a while and then he’d stop. Michael was a genius. And comical. He was like Lenny Bruce or something. He was very well read and could talk intelligently about all kinds of topics: art, poetry, history. I’m lucky enough to still be alive. And having been his singer and his friend, I look back on those years—his generosity, his humor, his intelligence, his amazing musical vision—and they’re beautiful memories.”
He’s an albino blues guitarist who’s jammed with Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman. But what Guitar World readers really want to know is …
How old were you when you started playing blues? — Gene E. Levi
I was probably around 12 years old. I started out playing ukulele, but when I was around 10, my father encouraged me to move to guitar.
He thought I’d have a better chance for success with the guitar, and he was right! I found a great teacher who was into Chet Atkins and country music who got me into playing with a thumb pick, which I still use today.
But my life really changed when I heard Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. They wiped me out! I never heard nothing like that before. After that, I started buying every blues record I could find and learning licks every chance I had. I couldn’t get enough of the blues.
Before you signed your first major record deal, you spent quite a few years playing clubs. What was the roughest or worst club you ever played? — Billy Houston
We played a lot of bad places, but I remember this club in Galveston, Texas, back in ’65 that was particularly nasty. This huge drunk guy kept staggering over to me and demanding that I play “Midnight Hour.” I told him, “Man, we already played it twice.”
He said, “Well, I didn’t hear it, and if you don’t play it I’m gonna rush the bandstand and tear up everything!” True to his word, he started charging me, so I took off my guitar, grabbed it by the neck and swung it like a baseball bat and hit him in the head and knocked him completely out! It was a good thing, too, because he was big.
I spent a lot of time playing the Louisiana club circuit, and in many ways it was rougher than Texas. My band had to play behind chicken wire, because people used to throw things at us. Even if they liked what you were playing, they’d still throw bottles at you just for the fun of it. There’s a scene in the Blues Brothers movie that shows what that was like. Most people think John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd made that up, but bands played behind chicken wire all the time.
Freddie King, Albert Collins, T-Bone Walker and so many other great blues players have come from Texas. Was it something in the water? — Charles Whitehouse
When you come from a place where there are a lot of great players, it forces you to get good real fast. There’s a gunfighter tradition in Texas—you gotta be better than the other guy, or else you’re finished.
You’re one of the great innovators of slide guitar. What kind of slide do you use, and what finger do you use it on? Also, do you have a favorite slide song? — Alex Williams
I was practicing in New York City at S.I.R. Studios and a guy made me a slide by hacking up some drum hardware. He made me just one, and I really like it, so I’ve never lost it. I wear my slide on my little finger, and through the years I’ve played primarily in open A or open E. These days, I tend to favor open E, especially live, I think partly because I’m too lazy to carry another guitar around.
One of the greatest slide guitar performances I’ve ever heard is Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground).” The way his slide mimics his vocals and vice versa always gives me the chills. It’s maybe the deepest blues performance I’ve ever heard.
You’ve played some left-of-center guitars through the years—a Gibson Firebird, a Fender Mustang and a Lazer made by Mike Erlewine. Can you tell me what you liked about each of those guitars? — “The Mack”
They were all just really good guitars. I was initially attracted to the Firebird because I liked the way it looked, and when I played it I discovered I liked the way it sounded, too. The Firebird is the best of all worlds. It feels like a Gibson, but it sounds closer to a Fender than most other Gibsons. I was never a big fan of humbucking pickups, but the mini-humbuckers on the Firebird have a little more bite and treble.
People always ask me about the Lazer. When I first bought one, I thought I was just going to use it as a travel guitar. But the first day I plugged it in, it sounded so good I wanted to use it for a gig that night. It had .010s on it, and I’m used to .009s, so I tuned it down one whole step to make it easier to play. I kept thinking that I would switch back—but I just never did. I like how it sounds, and the bonus is I break fewer strings.
You produced and played on several albums with the legendary Muddy Waters. What did you get from that experience? — Warren Waterman
Muddy just had such extraordinary presence and naked emotion in his voice and slide guitar playing, especially on a slow blues. When I worked with him, I was amazed at how fast he worked. You had to stay on your toes and know what you were doing, ’cause he never wanted to do more than one or two takes of a song. Luckily for me, Muddy always nailed it in one or two takes.
That attitude sort of rubbed off on me. In many ways, I’m pretty similar. I’ve discovered if you have to do more than a few takes, all the life goes out of the performance.
You just released a really great box set of your work, True to the Blues. In the liner notes Eddie Van Halen calls “Be Careful with a Fool” one of his favorite songs. I can understand that—it’s pretty damn fast! What are some of your favorite moments? — Ray Lauerman, Jr.
I liked my version of B.B King’s “Be Careful with a Fool” too. It’s a great song, and I think I did a pretty good job of it. I played a lot of fast licks on that one, but I wasn’t trying to show off. Speed is just something that always felt right to me. I was playing what I heard in my head.
Can we expect a new album anytime soon? It’s been a while. — Mark Jenkins
We’re in the process of mixing a new one, and it should come out in April. I think it’s gonna surprise a lot of people. I’m calling it Step Back, and I invited some of my favorite guitarists to play with me on a bunch of tracks, including Billy Gibbons, Eric Clapton, Joe Perry, Mark Knopfler and Joe Bonamassa. I don’t want to give too much away, but for example, Eric joins me on the Bobby “Blue” Bland classic “I Don’t Want No Woman.”
One of your signature songs is your cover of Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61.” What inspired you to play that one? — Dale Showler
I’ve always been a big Bob Dylan fan. You can’t be my age without loving Bob Dylan. We’d been doing the song in clubs for quite a while, but I didn’t play it with a slide until I recorded it in the studio. It worked out real well.
The most natural musical sound to the human ear is the voice.
The voice is built into us in a way that no other instrument is. As a result, we latch onto musical sounds that remind us of the voice. That might be a certain kind of tone, a smooth legato technique or a singable melody.
This might seem like the territory of melodic playing, but keeping the human voice in mind is just as important when playing chords.
If you treat each note of a chord as a different voice, paying attention to how each note transitions to the notes of the next chord, your playing will take on a new maturity. This is known as voice leading. Think of it as directing a choir on your fretboard, rather than playing a series of shapes.
Here’s an exercise you can try to get a feel for voice leading on the guitar.
Setting the Scene
For this exercise, we’re going to focus on the key of G major, which contains the notes G, A, B, C, D, E and F#. We’re also just going to focus on the second, third and fourth strings, which have a nice mid-range tone for building chord shapes.
So first let’s take the notes of the G major scale and lay them out on the fretboard on the second, third, and fourth strings. Here’s the result:
Start on a Triad
We’ll start off the exercise on a basic root-position G major chord: third fret on the second string, fourth fret on the third string, and fifth fret on the fourth string.
Once you’ve got the first shape, here’s the exercise. Move the note on the second string up the scale one note, while leaving the other notes where they are. Then move up the scale one note on the third string. Then move up on the fourth string.
Every time you move up a note, you should get a whole new shape. Some of these shapes may be familiar, and some may not. Here’s what this example looks like when written out:
You can try the same exercise starting off with other voicings of the first chord. For example, try starting on the first inversion or second inversion voicing of G major.
You also can try the same exercise moving downward. Just move each string down one note in the scale instead of up.
Start on Something Weird
Let’s say you’re feeling adventurous and want to try something new. Why not try the same exercise, starting on a made-up shape?
Take another look at the map of the G major scale above. Rather than reaching for a familiar triad shape, see if you can grab a note from each string to create a shape you’ve never played before.
Then run through the same exercise, moving up the scale one string at a time. Here’s an example:
Know What You’re Doing
With each of the above versions of the exercise, take a look at just what notes you’re playing in each shape. Consider what sort of harmonies you’d get running through the whole exercise over each chord in the key.
What would you get if you ran through Exercise 1 over a G major chord? Or what would you get if you ran through Exercise 2 over a G major chord? You’ll find some pretty interesting harmonies in there, which might work in surprising ways, thanks to the smooth voice leading.
This August, songwriting legends John Fogerty and Jackson Browne will co-headline two east coast concerts.
The shows will take place on August 4 at PNC in Holmdel, New Jersey and Jones Beach in Wantagh, NY on August 5.
Fogerty and Browne will each perform full sets with their respective bands.
The two recently joined up for last year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductions where they helped celebrate the music of Randy Newman.
Below, watch Fogerty and Browne – along with Tom Petty and Randy Newman – deliver a lively version of Newman’s “I Love LA”:
Jackson Browne was honored with induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, and the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 2007. Beyond his music, he is known for his advocacy on behalf of the environment, human rights, and arts education. He's a co-founder of the groups Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE), Nukefree.org, and the Success Through the Arts Foundation, which provides education opportunities for students in South Los Angeles.
John Fogerty, or the “Father of the Flannel Shirt,” was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005. He is also a BMI Icon Award Winner. Fogerty and his recording “Centerfield” were honored during the 2010 National Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies - the first time the National Baseball Hall of Fame has immortalized a musician or song as part of the annual ceremonies.
Tickets go on sale April 5th at 10:00am (local times) through Ticketmaster.
Tickets for Jones Beach will be available here and PNC here.
This is a 16th-note run built with melodic ideas, shapes and arpeggios borrowed from some of Claude Debussy’s Preludes for Piano.
It combines a variety of shapes and tonalities into an unbroken line that moves between various harmonic "colors," but it’s also fast, technically exciting and challenging to play.
I start off with an Amaj7 arpeggio, beginning on the seventh, G#. The first three beats incorporate legato phrasing [hammer-ons and pull-offs used in combination]. I play a total of five notes using the "2-2" form [two notes per string]. I then move to a D augmented arpeggio with a #11, again using the 2-2 form but only playing a group of four notes this time.
After this, I play a series of arpeggios, using the 2–1–2 form, that move intervallically up, down and across the neck. At this point the melody no longer accentuates the downbeats and starts developing an interesting rhythmic pattern that keeps moving around.
For the remainder of the run, the 16th notes are grouped in fives [2-1-2] and sevens [2-2-1-2], and everything is based on sweep and alternate picking. It’s important to keep the pick-hand’s movement relaxed, efficient and flowing when transitioning from one technique to the other. The goal is to keep the 16th notes even.
There are two consecutive down-strokes with a string skip in between, first seen in bar 2, beat one, and repeated throughout the remainder of the run. Executing this while maintaining the sweep-picking motion will probably require the most amount of attention and practice. The objective is to create a continuous flow of notes. Use a metronome, start slowly and gradually build up to speed.
This is a descending E Mixolydian [E F# G# A B C# D] run that moves across the strings and eventually down the neck in a cascading type of contour.
It’s based on a recurring nine-note melodic motif of three 16th-note triplets, with three alternate-picked notes followed by two double pull-offs.
I begin in ninth position with a fairly compact shape that spans the ninth to 12th frets. At the end of bar 1 and moving into bar 2, the fret hand shifts down two frets and spreads out to cover a four-fret span, from the seventh fret to the 11th. Use your first, second and fourth fingers to fret the notes.
The fret hand quickly shifts down to a lower position at the beginning of bars 3, 4 and 5, so try to make these transitions as smooth and seamless as possible. Make sure your pull-offs are loud and clear, and use the palm of your pick hand to mute the unused lower strings during bars 1 and 2.
Vanguard Records is proud to announce the reissue of classic recordings available exclusively on Record Store Day – April 19, 2014.
Featuring releases from Big Mama Thornon, Doc Watson, Joan Baez and Rambin’ Jack Elliott, the albums were selected after a voting process on VanguardRecords.com and RecordStoreDay.com.
Record Store Day is an occasion for all independently owned record stores to come together in celebration of the art of music.
Limited edition vinyl and CD releases are made available exclusively for the day, and hundreds of musicians across the country perform at various events. For more information and events in your area, please visit: recordstoreday.com.
Below are the four titles selected. These recordings have been newly re-mastered from the original tapes by David Glasser at Airshow Mastering and are presented in ‘exact replica’ LP packages.
Big Mama Thornton Sassy Mama
A scorching 1975 live set from Big Mama including "Rolling Stone,""Lost City," and "Mr. Cool."
Doc Watson Southbound
Doc’s classic 1966 album including “Walk On, Boy,” “Blue Railroad Train," and "Tennessee Stud."
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack's Vanguard debut, notable also for the appearance of Bob Dylan (credited as Tedham Porterhouse) on harmonica. It includes such staples as "Roving Gambler,""Diamond Joe,” and "Black Snake Moan."
Joan Baez Blessed Are
Baez's seminal 1971 double album is presented here in an 'exact replica' gatefold package. Included are "Blessed Are,""The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,""Salt of the Earth," and many more.
In addition, Matt Nathanson’s performance of “Kinks Shirt” appears on the Record Store Day release from Omnivore Recordings: Live From High Fidelity Podcast: The Best of the Podcast Performances. This is the first ever physical release of musical segments from the popular podcast Live From High Fidelity, which finds vinyl obsessives Tom DeSavia and Eric Gorfain talking about recent finds and wish lists. The translucent green vinyl features some of the best of the musical guests who have been recorded Live From High Fidelity.
To further celebrate Record Store Day, The Barenaked Ladies will be performing at Toronto’s Sunrise Records. For details visit facebook.com/sunriserecords.
"Same Old Roots" is a lush song influenced by the late '60s early '70s British folk era.
As a band piece it can often sound huge, so I was after a guitar that sounded like an orchestra to deliver this interpretation.
This 1943 Martin D-18 guitar is one of the stars in the collection, mahogany back and sides, spruce top with an ebony board and bridge.
This iconic golden era guitar shimmers like a river in the afternoon sun. The back tones take some finding but once you hit on them they are just incredible. It also demonstrates incredible attenuation and clarity.
Needless to say I loved playing the D-18 and found it hard to give back, way out of my price range and probably always will be, I dream of having me one of these, (stranger things have happened)!
Dan Clews is a British born singer/songwriter from Sevenoaks, Kent, England. He has toured in support of Level 42 that culminated with a performance in front of 5,000 people at a sold out Royal Albert Hall. The first video from his album, Tourist in My Own Backyard is titled ‘That’s Enough For Me’ and features Clews driving around the Kent countryside 1950’s Triumph Tiger Cub with leather cap and gloves to match! George Martin Music Publishing has signed an admin deal with Eagle iMusic (the new publishing arm of Eagle Rock) who will now work closely with Clews on syncs and exploiting his extremely commercial catalogue of songs. Find out more at www.danclews.com
Taylor pickup designer David Hosler had been studying under-saddle piezo transducers and how they capture a guitar’s energy as it is transferred from the strings through the saddle and soundboard.
The industry’s prevailing understanding had been that the top and string vibration cause the saddle to “bounce” up and down.
This has long been the basis for the placement of a piezo-electric transducer under the saddle. But Hosler found that the vertical movement is heavily restricted because the string tension’s downward pressure essentially locks the saddle down.
That’s why a traditional under-saddle pickup with piezo-electric crystals often responds with a sound often characterized as thin, brittle or synthetic. In reality, the saddle’s natural range of movement is back and forth like a pendulum.
That revelation led Hosler to relocate the piezo crystals from under the saddle to behind it, just barely making contact with it.
The new positioning enables the crystals to respond more naturally to the guitar’s energy as it was transferred through the saddle.
