Features archive
March 2026
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53 articles
- March 21
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- “Those Fender Jazz basses sounded fantastic, but they scared the hell out of me”: Why bassist Paul Samwell-Smith chose a short-scale Epiphone for his “rave-ups” with the Yardbirds
- “Fender execs were miffed that the brand was being represented by such a worn-out Strat. They gave Rory a new one to replace the ’61. It saw little use”: The story of Rory Gallagher’s ’61 Stratocaster, one of the most iconic guitars of all time
- March 20
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- “There were no frets left on it. I’d never seen anything as horrible!” How a new recruit turned Swedish adventure rockers Hällas into a band of gearheads
- “I’d never met B.B. and thought he’d look at me like, ‘Who the hell are you?’ So I just froze”: Warren Haynes remembers B.B. King – from being in awe to playing with him
- March 19
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- “It’s a triangle – gear, hands, feel. Where do they meet? What feels right, sounds sick, and is helping you play better?”: Varials’ Shane Lyons believes the band's new album is an “ear assault” that defines their pummeling sound
- “The Gretsch was given by John Lennon to his cousin. He kept it for almost 50 years”: The magical mystery of the $1.3m Gretsch that might have recorded a Beatles classic
- March 18
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- “I dream of him a lot – only the positive stuff. But the negative stuff hits me in reality. The night he joined, he said, ‘I haven’t learnt the songs’”: Francis Rossi on the Status Quo groove, Kempers, and his relationship with the late Rick Parfitt
- “It puts the Black Strat in the neighborhood of the most expensive Stradivarius violins ever sold”: I was there when records were broken at the biggest guitar auction in history – and witnessed a new dawn in the value of the instrument
- “I was told to pack for three months, learn four albums' worth of material and be ready to leave in three days!” How bassist Eva Gardner landed the gig with Pink
- “I try to avoid rehearsals at all costs now. It’s the only way I can survive”: I’m a drummer. You guitarists have made me hate being in bands
- “It was kept in Lennon’s attic studio… You can see the guitar in photographs right by his Farfisa and Brenell tape machines”: John Lennon’s ’64 Rickenbacker is officially a $1.3m guitar – but it was originally a replacement for a Beatles live show
- March 17
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- “Harrison put the SG into immediate use on recording sessions for Revolver”: George Harrison’s 1964 Gibson SG Standard is officially part of the multi-million dollar guitar club – but as a piece of Beatles history it’s priceless
- “Living in the shadow of my grunge parents, Courtney and Billy… it was a complex and exhausting shadow to come out from under”: Melissa Auf der Maur on joining Hole amidst tragedy and her “Master’s in Music” with the Smashing Pumpkins
- “I get up to the counter and the guy’s like, ‘Ah, you know what? I just don’t like that guitar. I’ll give it to you for a few hundred bucks’”: Cory Wong on not buying the Klon hype and vintage unicorns lost and found
- March 16
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- “When you plugged in a guitar it would overdrive like crazy – it was incredible!” How a Radio Shack pedal and a fiery Fall Out Boy guest spot helped Filth is Eternal live up to their name
- “After the set, Hendrix came knocking on the dressing room door and said, ‘I want you to come on tour with me’”: Chicago bassist Peter Cetera reflects on signing for Columbia Records, opening for Jimi Hendrix and why Paul McCartney changed everything
- “The wood was underwater for thousands of years. It’s shocking it works as well as it does”: Jason Isbell on the acoustic that was eons in the making and how a stolen guitar brought him into the Martin lineup
- “It’s weirdly heavy, which you wouldn’t necessarily expect from its diminutive size”: Up close and personal with Prince’s $635,000 Yellow Cloud guitar
- March 14
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- “A lot of people said it was Ozzy’s worst record ever. By the late ’90s, I thought, ‘I guess it was. I just really sucked on it’”: Jake E. Lee on his battle to make Ozzy Osbourne’s The Ultimate Sin – and how he learned to love it in spite of the critics
- “There was a lot of mythology around there being ‘secret drugs compartments’”: How 2,000 hours of work and some of the world's most exotic tonewoods birthed Jerry Garcia’s “Tiger”
- March 13
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- “Joe Walsh and I go on guitar safaris. He’ll say, ‘You only bought one!’ I say, ‘But it cost more than the 10 of yours!’” If the Eagles quit this year, Vince Gill will leave with gratitude and great memories
- “I feel like I’ve been molded for this gig. Trent has been an influence on me from the beginning”: How new Nine Inch Nails bassist Stu Brooks went from pop royalty to one of rock’s most sonically adventurous gigs
- “It was the first production guitar with three pickups. Gibson only made 22 that year – one became the instrument T-Bone Walker used”: How the Gibson ES-5 paved the way for a new wave of electric blues (and maybe even the Strat, too)
- “Left-handed necks of that era typically say ‘Custom’ or ‘Special’ because they were so seldom made and used”: What Kurt Cobain’s record-breaking 1969 ‘Competition’ Mustang tells us about Fender’s guitar building in the ’60s
- March 12
- March 11
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- “All I need is insurmountable odds. Give me your worst guitar, an amp made in a garage and a pedal that’s not meant to be there. We’ve got something”: Josh Homme is finally ready to talk tone
- “I’ve spoken to a lot of people about it – many of them think it will make more this time around”: David Gilmour’s Black Strat could be about to break records all over again
- March 10
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- “We couldn’t play those songs properly. It’s a bunch of kids, playing a lot of chords, not always successfully”: Glenn Tilbrook on the resurrection of the Squeeze concept album that never was
- “He felt a responsibility to look after these things. He was aware that you can’t be buried with them – you are but the temporary custodian”: Inside the greatest guitar auction of all time
- March 9
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- “I would go by John’s room and he’d be working on alternate picking to a metronome. I’d never seen anyone do that before”: He arrived on the shred scene with Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker and John Petrucci… then he vanished
- “Joe said, ‘Check this out.’ It just so happened to be a quarter-of-a-million-dollar guitar that got the job done”: How Eric Gales enlisted Buddy Guy, Kingfish, Joe Bonamassa (and his guitar collection) to pay tribute to his brother
- March 8
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- “Sometimes David had suggestions. If he wanted a specific thing, he'd ask for or try to explain it. Lenny's the opposite – he wants it to sound exactly like he did it!” How Gail Ann Dorsey honed her bass craft with David Bowie and Lenny Kravitz
- “When everyone’s staring at you, you can’t run off and cry. You just gotta deal with it”: Witch Fever’s Alisha Yarwood on superhero stompboxes, dream tours with IDLES, and why ‘That Great Gretsch Sound’ was doom-punk all along
- “We’d get a note from the tour manager, ‘Prince is here and would love to play with you.’ It was like, ‘What? Here, take my guitar, please!’” Vicki Peterson on a gift from the Bangles’ most famous fan – and their garage approach to an ’80s pop classic
- “I hate bass player albums. It's an ugly instrument, solo-wise. Probably the only person I can tolerate is Marcus Miller”: Grammy-winning bassist Meshell Ndegeocello favors restraint over fretboard theatrics – but Marcus Miller (and Jaco) get a pass
- March 7
- March 6
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- “We could hold our own with any company. It didn’t bother us if we were put on the bill with Crimson or Zeppelin. Nothing phased us”: Remembering the late Mick Abrahams, co-founder of Jethro Tull and purveyor of “good, honest music”
- “How I rap correlates with how I play. There’s a lot of syncopation and dead notes”: Ando San on marrying hip-hop with prog, thumping, and his eight-string guitar personally spec'd by Jeff Kiesel
- “I remember he had these massive hands… I said, ‘Mr King, my name is Joanne and I’m 13, and I think I’m going to be a blues guitarist’”: Joanne Shaw Taylor’s life-changing first meeting with the great B.B. King
- March 5
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- “He played guitar like an orchestrator, arranging in real time around his own voice”: Jeff Buckley is an underrated guitar genius – and deserves a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- “When I heard Train Kept a Rollin' I said, ‘Man, Joe Perry and Brad Whitford have gotten really good!’ After Steven left, Jack Douglas said, ‘Don’t say anything, but that’s not Brad and Joe’”: Angel’s Punky Meadows on why he didn’t join Kiss or Aerosmith
- “Rick Rubin heard something. He had to convince those guys – they were kind of tentative. But Aerosmith was up for anything”: Joe Perry on how Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. united rock and rap – and the secret role the Beastie Boys played
- “Ed was under the same pressure we all were. You can play your old gear, but it sounds old”: Billy Corgan on what drives guitar heroes to change their tone – and how it led him to package his sound in a pedal
- March 4
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- “He was like, ‘Who's your favorite guitar player?’ I said, ‘Django Reinhardt.’ He’s like, ‘Wrong answer – go home!’”: The key Berklee lesson that kept giving to Big Thief's Buck Meek as he built his new solo album
- I spent the weekend testing the best guitar gear of the year at The Guitar Show in Birmingham – these are the 9 hottest products you can buy right now
- “There was a big snowstorm. The governor asked him to postpone the show. He wouldn’t do it. He goes, ‘I told them I’m going to be here and I’m here’”: Joe Bonamassa on his friendship with the ultimate bluesman, B.B. King – and paying the ultimate tribute
- “I was using my Line 6 POD. He said, ‘I’ve got something that may work better.’ He sent me two things in the mail…” When Joe Satriani volunteered to help Dethklok mastermind Brendon Small with his home recording
- March 3
- March 2
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- “There’s more to life than just guitar. Once you've had a heart attack there’s always that thing in your mind that it could happen again”: How Al Di Meola’s heart attack led to his anti-ICE concert with Tom Morello and Bruce Springsteen
- “It’s the only guitar I’ve kept from then. I paid $900 for it. Today it might be worth $45,000”: How Europe’s John Norum learned to love The Final Countdown – and the guitar he used to track its iconic solo
- He wrote chart-topping hits and one of the greatest Christmas songs of all time, but all he wanted to do was play deep slide blues – remembering the late, great Chris Rea
- March 1
