POST # 267 Steve Khan on Wes Montgomery's Compositions

Wes' octaves, chords, and sound were wonderful, but his writing is perhaps the most memorable aspect of what he did. His tunes were very clever and used a lot of blues-based material. Unlike a lot of guys who write only a line and wait for the accompaniment to take care of how things are really going to sound, he wrote tunes that were complete in terms of the line, the rhythmic feel, and the chord voicings that punctuate the line. Each of his tunes-including "Four On Six," "Mr. Walker," "Movin' Along," "West Coast Blues," and "Twisted Blues"-is great in its own way. - Steve Khan

( I love how Wes' tunes have interesting chord progressions yet never just to be clever and always so melodic at the same time! - Ed )

POST # 266 Angus Young on his Stage Antics

See, when I first started to play, I was very shy, so Malcolm would sort of pull me forward. Then I put on a school boy suit on, I was so scared, standing out there onstage dressed like a loony, that I finally decided that I had to start moving around. I figured, I’m just going to keep on moving because I’m a target here. Especially when we were playing in clubs and bars God knows where in the middle of Australia, it was much easier to dodge things like bottles if you didn’t stand in one place. I thought, if you keep their visual interest and the guitar happenin’ and hold it all together, you might come out alive at the end of the night without the natives getting restless and say, “Let’s spear that little f*****. - Angus Young

( Bluesy rock 'n' roll at its best! - Ed )

POST # 265 Jeff Beck on Vintage Guitars

"Not really. I don’t really care. I don’t want to get attached to any more inanimate objects (laughs). I’ve got cars and stuff like that… I’ve become a little more worldly wise about things and not as fanatical about owning something. Obviously if it helps forward your career, but it’s not all about vintage Tele’s anymore with eight million bucks on the price tag (laughs)." - Jeff Beck

( You would probably sound amazing on any guitar if you play like Beck! - Ed )

POST # 264 Sheryl Bailey on Essential Books for learning Jazz

My book has come from subjects I’ve worked on with students, mapping out II-V-I arpeggios, simple re-harm studies, drop two voicings, some ideas for altered dom7 voicings and lines – it’s certainly not the ultimate guide – I’m always developing it too. I think the essential books are The Charlie Parker Omnibook, Joe Viola’s Technique of The Saxophone, Brett Wilmotts’ Chord Voicing Book, The Barry Galbraith Comping Series, and Mick Goodrick’s Advancing Guitarist. - Sheryl Bailey

( Check out music inspirations from other instruments too, although we are guitarists are also musicians! - Ed )

POST # 263 Dave Grohl on Nirvana's Nevermind

“I was in awe of what was happening with Nevermind. I was in awe of those songs. And intimidated. I didn’t feel like my own songs were anywhere near the ones that we were doing. When you’re in a band with somebody like Kurt, who’s an amazing songwriter, you do anything you can to keep from polluting the songwriting process. I thought, I don’t want to be the person responsible for ruining these songs. There’s a famous old joke: ‘What was the last thing the drummer said before they kicked him out of the band? “Hey guys, I got a new song I just wrote.” - Dave Grohl

( I am dreading the 'grunge' revival, which can't be far away, why do every cool music style gets bastardized 20 years later?? And was there really a Grunge style? Here Nirvana pays tribute(?) subverts stereotype (?), taking the piss (?) in the music video as clean cut 60's rock group. Haha cool. - Ed )

POST # 262 George Fullerton on Leo Fender's Feeling on the Sale of Fender to CBS

“I think he did eventually. Not at the time when he was sick. At that time he thought it was the right decision. Leo wanted to be in charge and would never at that time have given in to letting someone else run it. And he was willing to sell it due to health. It was sold not because he wanted to ~ but I think he felt he was dying.
Later on, he definitely regretted it, especially after he saw CBS run it down. He was so angry that’s why he never used his office that CBS had for him at Fender and had one down the street. He wouldn’t have an office at that factory he was so upset. - George Fullerton

( I wonder how much input Leo was allowed to have on guitar designs after the sale? Don't you just hate big companies that simply 'buy'the competition/market instead of doing the hard work themselves by being innovators, wonder what would have happened if CBS had setup their own guitar company and left Fender alone? Epiphone would surely make much more interesting guitars today if it was still competing with Gibson! Its now pretty much just churns out Gibson clones. Although I do love my Epi ES-295 :) - Ed )

POST # 261 Jim Hall on Playing what You are Hearing

Players should force themselves to hear something and then play it, rather than just do whatever comes under the fingers. I try to make my playing as fresh as possible by not relying on set pattersn. When I practice, I tie off some of the strings with rubber bands to force myself to look at the fingerboard differently. For instance, I might play on the G and D strings only, or even just the G and A strings. - Jim Hall


( Sometimes limitation can lead to creativity! Whats that cliche...necessity is the mother of invention? I remember breaking the top E string during a guitar solo once and just had to wing it with 5 strings live! I think we have all done that one time or another. - Ed )

POST # 260 Joe Pass on How to Practice Scales

If you just play a scale for two octaves, you’re doing it by rote. You don’t really learn anything because you’re not exercising your mind—which you must do if you want to improvise. Play the scale using interval skips. - Joe Pass

( Exercise your mind :) I like that. We shouldn't just be guitar playing robots! - Ed )

POST # 259 Ray Brown on Jazz

Well, jazz is to me, a complete lifestyle. It's bigger than a word. It's a much bigger force than just something that you can say. It's something that you have to feel. It's something that you have to live. - Ray Brown

( Live the music you love. Three bass players jam the blues - Ed )

POST # 258 Jim Marshall on Hendrix and Marshall Amps

I met Jimi Hendrix through one of my drum pupils, Mitch Mitchell. Jimi was playing at Ronnie Scott's in London, the group there was using a Marshall and so he had to too. He liked it a lot and he told Mitch he had to have some and that he also wanted to meet me because we shared the same name - as you may know, Jimi's full name was James Marshall Hendrix, you see. When Mitch brought him into the shop the first thing Jimi said to me was "I've got to use Marshalls" and I immediately thought, "Bloody hell, here's another American guitarist wanting something for nothing." But straight away Jimi said, "I want to pay for everything at the going rate. All I want is service wherever I'm playing in the world." So, we had his roadie spend two weeks at the factory with Dudley learning how to change valves - or tubes as you call them - do the bias and so on. The chap picked things up really quickly and must've done a great job because we never got called out to do service by Jimi even once! - Jim Marhsall

( I think Hendrix have voided his warranty on that strat though :P - Ed )