POST # 450 Pat Metheny on Guitar and Jazz

The guitar for me is a translation device, it's not a goal. And in some ways jazz isn’t a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination - a musical one that describes all kinds of stuff about the human condition and the way music works.

POST # 449 B B KING on T-Bone Walker

And when I hear T-Bone play, his tone setting is like no one else’s. He has a strange way of holding his guitar, slanting it away from him instead of having it lay flat against his stomach. It’s almost like he were playing a steel guitar, but he curls his left arm underneath, and reaches his fingers up over the top. And he seems to kind of scrape his pick across the strings. How he’s able to hit specific strings, I just don’t know. And that touch he gets! I’ve tried my best to get that sound — especially in the late ’40s and early ’50s. I came pretty close, but I never quite got it. I can still hear T-Bone in my mind today, from that first record I heard, “Stormy Monday,” around ’43 or ’44. He was the first electric guitar player I heard on record. He made me so that I knew I just had to go out and get an electric guitar.

POST # 448 Eric Johnson on how he developed his style.

“I developed my style by listening to records and by taking things in different ways. I really enjoyed listening to good guitarists, from Chet Atkins to John McLaughlin. There is a certain energy that happens when someone devotes a lot of time to their playing no matter what style they play.

Through junior high I was never really interested in sports or anything like that and after school I would just run home and get out my Jeff Beck Truth record, sit there by myself, and learn all these songs.

POST # 447 Herb Ellis on Whether Jazz Improvisation can be Taught

Well, the crafts and the tools—the intellectual part of it—can certainly be taught, and your technical ability can be improved. But if you can’t move people, then all that other stuff doesn’t count.

New Layout for the New Year!

Here's the old layout header for one last time!

POST # 446 Merry Xmas Everyone

MERRY XMAS from GUITAR EUREKA!

Thanks for your patronage this year. Have a safe and fun holiday season, hope Santa brought u all lots of GEAR this year :)

POST # 445 MYSTERY CASE # 19 WHO Am I ??

G'day Guitar Eureka detectives, you are given 10 clues to the identity of this mystery person, see how many clues you need to solve the mystery! Have fun!

1. I was born on April 25, 1923 in Indianola, Mississippi.




2. I am also known as The Velvet Bulldozer.





3. I had to work nonmusic jobs to survive (including bulldozer operator and mechanic), but in the late '40s I settled in Osceola, Arkansas, and worked local gigs with the In the Groove Boys.





4. I also played drums for Jimmy Reed and sang and played guitar on my own singles, including "Lonesome in My Bedroom" and "Bad Luck Blues" for the Parrot label in 1953.




5. I was left-handed, but usually played right-handed guitars flipped over upside-down so the low E string was on the bottom.





6. I had my first minor hit came in 1959 with "I'm a Lonely Man" written by Bobbin Records A&R man and fellow guitar hero Little Milton, responsible for my signing with the label.




7.I was a large man, standing 6-foot-4-inches and weighing well over 250 pounds. I was a moody man and known to carry a .45 in the band of my pants.




8. I used very unorthodox tunings (i.e., tuning as low as C to allow to make sweeping string bends).




9. My guitar is nick-named 'Lucy' and it's a Gibson Flying V.





10. In 1966 I signed with the Stax record label. Produced by Al Jackson, Jr., King with Booker T. & the MGs recorded dozens of influential sides, such as "Crosscut Saw" and "As The Years Go Passing By", and in 1967 Stax released the album, Born Under a Bad Sign.



I am ?????


ADDITIONAL TRIVIAS


My guitar playing had a wide and long-term influence on Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Robbie Robertson, and later Gary Moore and Stevie Ray Vaughan.


Eric Clapton has said that his work on the 1967 Cream hit "Strange Brew" and throughout the album Disraeli Gears was inspired by me.

Eric Clapton has admitted that the riff for "Layla" was a direct lift from "As The Years Go Passing By" by me.

I died on December 21, 1992 from a heart attack in Memphis, Tennessee



ANSWER:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5dpp2iCRwM

POST # 444 Pat Martino on Being a Guitarist

In the first five or six years of my playing I did, but not after that. I’m an observer of environment, including the guitar; I see the guitar in everything. I think that at certain levels of performance the player becomes de-personalized by the instrument, and I don’t particularly care for that. It’s hard to retain one’s identity when you’re locked into the identity of a machine.

POST # 443 B B King on Big Joe Williams and Lightnin' Hopkins

Big Joe Williams is another great one. His playing with Sonny Boy Williamson was beautiful. Tunes like “Baby Please Don’t Go” were really setting a pace.

Lightnin’ Hopkins was another one like that, another style setter. Blues guitarists have to all come through players like these two. In the same way, lady singers have to come through Bessie Smith, and, later, Dinah Washington — these two covered everything. So did Big Joe and Lightnin’.

POST # 442 Slash on his Guitar Rig

Thanks. People ask me this question all the time, and it's sort of funny. Because, to be honest, all you need is a decent-sounding Les Paul and a decent-sounding Marshall 100-watt or 50-watt head. That's it. The only other things I use are the occasional Boss EQ and wah pedal. I'd love to make it sound more interesting, but I'd be lying.