Fresh off the announcement of his Marshall endorsement, Jared James Nichols is taking it back to his roots – and by that, we mean the very reason he decided to ditch the pick and play fingerstyle exclusively, in a journey that took him from rural Wisconsin to world stages.

“I remember the first guitar I picked up, I picked it up, and I wanted to play it like a lefty. The first real guitar I got, though, the guy at the store was ‘Dude, flip the guitar, you're holding it wrong,” he says in his new Gibson documentary, The Long Road: A Jared James Nichols Documentary.

“He was like, ‘If you want to be a real guitar player and play really good guitars, you got to play righty. They don't really make great left-handed guitars.’”

Nichols was 15 at the time, and while he quickly got used to his newly purchased right-handed guitar, one thing that felt unnatural to him was playing it with a pick.

“It was fucking me up,” he says matter-of-factly, “and I needed to feel the strings under my fingers. I started to play without a pick, and I distinctly remember people telling me, ‘Man, it's never gonna work, you're never gonna be a great guitar player without a pick.’”

Discovering “guys like Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler and Derek Trucks,” was the epiphany that he needed to stick to his own unique brand of fingerstyle playing.

“I was like, ‘Well, they do it,’ and then I just started to kind of do it my own way. No one taught me how to do it. I just said I don’t care. I’m just gonna try and see what happens. And what ended up happening was, I started to develop my own sound and technique with it, and I’m so happy now that I did.”

In one of his Guitar World columns, Nichols broke down his one-of-a-kind fingerstyle technique and waxed lyrical about the players who inspired him.

“Fingerpicking felt like the most natural approach. I use my thumb for downstrokes and my first three fingers for upstrokes,” he wrote.

“There was one player in particular who inspired me the most in regard to playing fingerstyle, and that was blues legend Hubert Sumlin, who was known most notably for his work with Howlin’ Wolf.

“When I heard Hubert play, it changed the way I approached the guitar. Then I heard Albert King, Derek Trucks, and Mark Knopfler, all fingerpickers. All these players demonstrated the incredible range of sounds available when fingerpicking.”

The art of luthiery is equal parts art, engineering, craftsmanship… and a whole lotta dreaming.

Les Godfrey from Godfrey Guitars is one such individual who, in his own words, “dreams of guitars all day and night. I just move lines around, and I do like to have fun with the classic shapes,” and has been doing so since his first attempt to make electric basses in 1995.

An apprenticeship with Carl Thompson, Les Claypool’s go-to luthier, and later, a move out to the country were catalysts for Godfrey’s career. “The isolation allowed my obsession with building instruments to be more realized,” he says.

In fact, the Canadian luthier's latest oeuvre, the Telecasso, turns the tried-and-tested Telecaster design on its head – with a touch of Cubism, and, as the name suggests, Picasso – and is the result of thousands of drawings.

“The motivation behind the Telecasso was merely to make a crazy guitar that I want to rock the crap out of!” he says. “Make people think, what the fuck is that?! The Telecasso is very comfortable to play, and it functions on a high level, regardless of the visual differences.”

Godfrey had a few guitar players in mind when he drew up his first back-of-the-napkin sketch.

“The person I design for, or imagine the designs on first, is ’70s era Ace Frehley, as well as Albert King and several others. I also make them with new talent in mind and imagine them throwing down like a maniac with their one-of-a-kind guitar!”

Godfrey explains that the design itself took two to three months to realize, from the initial sketch to actually crafting the two prototypes.

“The Telecasso design just came from drawing lines and arcs [but] I [mainly] based the design on the classic Tele format. That long, curved line and straight line of a Telecaster pickguard... I changed many things, but the weight is similar, and the influence is very much there.

“I see what I like and what I want to stretch, or chop, warp…” he adds. “I like to repeat a primary shape and have that theme and variation carried throughout the design.” As he himself admits, “It’s a challenge. It’s a puzzle and a mind-bender.”

Specs-wise, Godfrey opted for a one-piece butternut body – with a nitro lacquer finish – for the off-kilter model, alongside “one-piece [oil-varnished] necks [with] a very thick profile, no truss rods, [and] special pickups made by MJS [Mike Smitty Smyth] Pickups, which include a hidden coil wired in series with the bridge single coil.”

There is also a push-pull tone knob for switching between series and parallel wiring – the guitar is always in hum-canceling mode, so players can go “from a thicker tone to a more twangy tone, without the hum”.

After Godfrey posted photos of his creation, the Telecasso set guitar geeks’ tongues wagging – an experience that caught Godfrey, who’s been at it for the better part of three decades, offguard.

“I was very surprised by the reactions to the design!” he confesses.

“For the most part, people seem to really like it, while there are others who have been very vocal about hating it. It’s just a guitar. As long as I like it and the customer likes it, that is all I care about. It has always been a custom thing. It’s personal and not made for mass appeal. Almost the opposite.”

Godfrey is already working on his next idea, so expect more off-kilter designs in the not-too-distant future.

“Form and function. It has to excite me,” he says. “I enjoy making many different instruments. My favorite one is usually the next one!”

For more information, head to Godfrey Guitars.

When Bernard Allison started playing blues guitar, he found himself in a familial atmosphere. “Back then, the blues field was especially tight-knit,” he tells Guitar World. “It was different from the battles you hear about from when my dad grew up, with the west side versus the south side.”

He’d been playing for two years before his guitar legend father, Luther Allison, found out he’d even picked up an instrument. Along with family friends Albert King, Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Luther encouraged Bernard to be himself.

“Stevie, Albert and my dad all said the same thing: ‘You got all the licks. Don’t copy anyone else. Your heart, your feelings; every person’s different. Be true to who you are.’ And that’s how it unfolded for me.”

At 18, Bernard was asked by Koko Taylor to join her band. By his mid-20s, he’d progressed to the point where his dad didn’t just ask him to join his band but to be the band’s leader. “It’s hard to describe the feeling of being up there with your father,” Allison says.

“He was one of the creators. To receive his trust, and for him to allow me to be next to him, open the show, and even arrange his music – nothing gets better than that.”

Since Luther’s death in 1997, Bernard has led a distinguished solo career. Now 60, he isn’t slowing down. “I’m blessed to stay healthy, and I’m grateful that I can still go out and do what I love to do,” he says. “I just want to play music and put smiles on people’s faces. And we definitely need it during these hard times.”

Did your dad inspire you to pick up the guitar?

I actually started playing on my own. I was listening to his recordings and I started playing two years before he knew. He was home to make a record and caught me playing guitar! I’d wanted to be able to play his first album totally before letting him know I was interested in playing music at all.

What did he think of what he heard?

He was like, “Well, if you’re playing like that, you didn’t just start!” It came as a shock to him!

He introduced you to Muddy Waters, Albert King and Hound Dog Taylor. What was that like?

They were my dad’s friends, and you just never knew who’d come to our house. We knew who they were as kids. All those influences and stories, listening to them jam with my father, impacted me. I studied a lot of my dad’s idols. It helped me get an idea of what direction I wanted to follow.

Did your dad’s friends offer you advice?

The biggest thing was from Albert King. When I was in Koko Taylor’s band we toured with Albert. He’d take me aside and explain things to me. He said, “The biggest thing about music is you can’t play what people want you to play.” My dad said that, too.

Albert said, ‘If you want to be a follower, become a rhythm player. But if you’re gonna be a leader, you have to sing and play guitar.” My dad was really keen on that, saying, “You have to be a leader. I don’t want you to be a follower. Stick to being Bernard Allison.”

You joined your dad on stage at the Chicago Blues Festival in 1983.

That was pretty crazy. I’d never been on a big festival stage. He’d bring us to clubs and smaller things to get me to play a couple of songs, but the festival was pretty mind-blowing. I’d been taking one step up the ladder at a time, trying to have patience and following my head to study music.

What led to your joining Koko Taylor’s band when you were 18?

Literally two days out of high school graduation, I got the call. It comes back to the relationship Koko had with my mom and dad. I think they discussed it – I was never told directly, but I kind of figured it out. They wanted to give me a chance to see if I was serious. They said to Koko, “Show him the rules of the road. See if he’s serious about it.”

Your dad had given you a Strat by then. Was that what you were using with Koko?

Yeah – it was a ’79 anniversary Strat. I had a Music Man amplifier, but Koko didn’t allow us to use effects pedals. She called everything a “wah wah!” If she heard a chorus or anything like that, she wouldn’t let us use it.

She came in the old-school way under Willie Dixon, and they didn’t use effects back then. She could play a little guitar herself, and the natural sound was what she considered true blues. There was no reverb, or anything. If she heard it she’d freak out!

You got to know Johnny Winter while you were with Koko.

I remember Johnny and Edgar coming to visit my father as kids. My brother and I were actually afraid of them because we’d never seen albinos before! But I’d always been a fan of Johnny.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my dad took me to Rochester, New York. We were on stage, and I saw this big flash of light in the crowd. My dad was like, “I’m gonna invite a friend up to play.” It was Johnny Winter! I stuck to my corner and wouldn’t even look at him. I could hear him, and he was trying to pass it back to me, and I’d play a little, but that was a real experience for me.

Once I was with Koko we did a package tour with Johnny. Every day he’d bring me on his tour bus. He showed me how to play slide guitar and use drop D, open E and open D tunings. Once he showed me that, everything made sense.

Through your dad, you also got to know and play with Stevie Ray Vaughan.

When I was no more than eight, my dad took us to New Orleans. I remember seeing this kid onstage who I thought sounded like Albert King. That was Stevie. Then he was in my hometown, Peoria, playing a show at Illinois State University. I was supposed to open that show, but they removed us, and we ended up doing the grand opening of a blues club called Duffy’s Tavern.

So Stevie contacted my mother and said, “Don’t tell Bernard, but we’re gonna surprise him for his birthday.” We’re on stage at this new club and it’s my first major gig. The place is jam-packed and the owner runs up and says, “You have to stop!” I was assuming we were fired, or playing too loud!

As I’m walking toward the dressing room I see this bus, and I’m like, “What’s a tour bus doing in Peoria Heights?” I get to the dressing room, and there were Stevie and Double Trouble. He said, “Happy birthday! You ready to play?”

There was no way to get Stevie through that crowd. They had this little door on the side of the stage, and that's where Stevie and the band snuck in without people realizing it. The only giveaway was the white tail feather in his hat! The place just went crazy. And that was my 16th birthday, where I got to share the stage with Stevie and Double Trouble.

After touring with Koko for several years, you became your dad’s bandleader in 1989. His band backed you up on your solo debut, The Next Generation, a year later.

That had always been a dream. He didn’t realize how much I’d progressed while I was with Koko. I’d learned how to actually be a rhythm player, as opposed to just jumping out and playing solos. I’d learned how to support someone.

When he invited me to record his live album in ’89, the plan was for me to play on the record and go back home. But then he was like, “No, I want you to stay on the tour.” He really started digging what I was playing. And he was really shocked by what I knew.

I wasn’t trying to step on him, just trying to push him, ‘cause he loved to push, and I knew exactly the spots to do it. And it gave him freedom, where he didn’t have to come to rehearsals every day. He’d send me with the band, and I’d share the rehearsal tapes with him. He could get the rest he needed to do all the dates.

It was like a dream come true. And then I taught him how to open-tune his guitar and play slide, just as Johnny Winter had taught me. You can hear it on his last three albums. Once I showed him that, he was just ripping slides everywhere!

It was kind of me giving back. And he was my biggest fan; he liked music, and I got a chance to arrange Soul Fixin’ Man, his comeback record. I was on my first major tour with my own group, so I couldn’t make the recording. I said, “Dad, this is another appreciation from me. Take these arrangements and go do your thing.”

From there, he took off Stateside and followed it up with three more albums. That’s when everybody was like, “We got a new king of the blues!” I was like, “My dad’s been around for years!” But I got what they were trying to say – and that was a new highlight for me.

Where does your rig stand today?

I have quite a few of Dad’s guitars. He was endorsed by Gibson. Before he passed, he wrote down a list and said he didn’t want his guitars going into the halls of fame; he wanted them to be played. I distributed at least 40 Gibsons to various artists and kept his main guitars for myself.

I’d been using a Mesa/Boogie for almost 12 years, but I wanted to change my sound, so I started using a Fender Hot Rod III. I pair that with DB Mark 212 and an Eric Gales Raw Dawg head. So I have a clean sound on one side, and if I want dirty, I have the Hot Rod. And for pedals, I use AnalogMan.

What’s next for you?

We’re heading back to Europe in March for a tour. Then we come home to record my next album. We may have it out later in 2026, but I’m thinking we’re going to release it in the first quarter of 2027.

• Catch Bernard Allison on tour.

Now in his mid-60s, Larry McCray’s career has taken him all the way from new kid on the block to elder statesman of the blues.

With mentors such as Albert King, Buddy Guy and Albert Collins, McCray was schooled in the art of pentatonic conversation like few others and learned how to make his guitar speak as profoundly as any human voice.

This year the Michigan-based musician is back with new album, Heartbreak City, which was produced by Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith and features a host of special guests including the producers themselves, along with Kirk Fletcher and Double Trouble keyboardist Reese Wynans.

This is a very uplifting record that crosses over into lots of areas of the blues.

That’s the intention. Whenever I’m asked what kind of music I play, I usually say I play ‘feel-good music’. I like to sing songs that are soothing in any kind of situation. I always felt that blues was broader than how it was depicted. Whenever I meet people who don’t have the same appreciation for it, I realise they haven’t discovered the right presentation of it.

The opening track, Try To Be A Good Man, kicks everything with some Albert King-inspired lines that really wail.

He was one of my biggest mentors. I loved Albert King. He would notice if you were trying to be good. You always had to show a bit of respect to Albert because that’s just what he was like.

He’d come around saying stuff like, ‘Hey boy, what you playing? Quit doing all that skipping and gimme something from the gut!’ like an antagonistic coach [laughs]. I’m lucky I got to meet people like him, BB and Koko Taylor. They made me fall in love with music in the first place. I used to be the youngest of all these players and now I’m the fuckin’ oldest!

The title track is a G minor blues that runs seven-and-a-half minutes long. What’s the secret to holding people’s attention like that?

It’s because I’ve listened to a lot over the years and incorporate other elements into my sound. Being a teenager in the ’70s, I was a big funk fan, listening to Larry Graham and Louis Johnson.

Then I left Arkansas and moved to Michigan and got exposed to heavy metal. I ended up becoming a big Def Leppard and Judas Priest fan. My criticism of blues at the time was that everybody was going for the post-war or Delta acoustic sound. Nobody was trying to take things to the next level, which is something I’ve always strived for.

You’re holding a Guild electric on the cover. Is that what we’re hearing?

That’s the one. It’s a Polara S-100 reissue with push-pull switches to split the coils. It’s a great-playing guitar, man. I wrote them a letter this morning trying to see if they would endorse me.

Because I love guitars like the Bluesbird, which is a bit like a Les Paul, and the X-175, which is reminiscent of the ES-175. The tones you hear are incredible.

I think Guild guitars sound in between a Fender and a Gibson. They are brighter than Gibsons, but still have the low-end punch of a humbucker. I’ve played Gibson my whole career – now I want something different.

And what were you plugging into?

I played through Joe’s rig. He has a nice collection of Dumble amplifiers. It was a little combo that was about the size of a Princeton, with a really warm tone. I plugged into Joe’s MXR FET Driver and a Klon clone. I have a real Klon, but I don’t take it anywhere because it’s worth so much. Effects are great, but the more you have, the more things can go wrong.

It’s amazing how lyrical your solos can be, almost most like a voice at times.

I use vocals for inspiration. I’m a baritone singer; I can only go so high, so I use my guitar to visit places I can’t with my voice. It’s like I’m singing through the guitar. I forced myself to learn all five pentatonic positions. Most people only tend to play in the 1st and 2nd [positions].

The best key to learn in is A minor: you can start with a G note on the 3rd fret and then climb into the 1st position, moving up the neck horizontally. You can mix minor with major for a blend.

You can transfer this knowledge to any key and find melodies naturally. We all know how the pentatonic scale sounds. It’s such a big part of the guitar, so it’s important to know how to play it across the neck.

Beyond that, what’s the secret to a good blues solo?

When I start playing, it’s usually with a slow bluesy lick. The second time I come around, I might throw in something a little jazzy. The third time, I might be all-out rocking and then the final pass is bringing it all back home.

It’s good to change it up. Try not to think in the same vein, whether it’s how you attack the notes, what notes you play or the rhythm. You have to tell your truth. As long as you’re speaking your truth and playing from the heart, people will listen.

This is your second time working with Joe. What have you learned from him?

I learned I’ll never be able to play like him and it’s best to stick to what I know. Joe is a one-in-a-million kind of player. He’s a special talent, and the same goes for Josh Smith, who wrote Bright Side and the title track. Even though I can’t play like Joe, I still use him for inspiration.

I have good dexterity for moments that call for me to play fast and step outside of the box. It was fun jamming together on the track I Know What I’ve Done. It reminds you to stay humble and be as good as you can be. Music isn’t a competition against other players. It’s a competition against yourself.

It really is an all-star cast on this album, especially with Reese Wynans involved.

I loved talking to Reese about his time with Stevie [Ray Vaughan], who I never got to hang with. The night he died, I was at Buddy Guy’s Legends club [in Chicago] waiting for Buddy, Stevie and Clapton because there was a rumour they were about to come and jam. All these musicians were waiting to see them.

Then we were told they’d all gone down. You’ll never see a house full of people get so quiet, it was pin-drop silence, and eventually we found out Buddy and Eric were okay. It was a terrible thing. I’ll never forget that day.

You’ve seen this kind of music rise and fall numerous times over the years. Where does the blues stand in 2025?

There are some great people trying to keep the blues alive. My biggest criticism is that the format seems to have changed. When we were coming up, there was always a structure; you’d know where the changes are. Nowadays, young people just change when they want to.

I know I’m getting older because I sound like my dad! I’m just happy there are people interested enough to preserve it. I love Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram. I have a 25-year-old son who’s a better singer and guitarist than me, so I have high hopes for him. And there’s another great young man in Arkansas called Josh Parks. He’s one to watch.

• Heartbreak City is out now via KTBA.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Journey's Neal Schon may be best known for timeless classics such as Don't Stop Believin’, Stone in Love, and Still They Ride.

However, the genre-hopping guitarist cut his teeth playing the blues, trading licks with Carlos Santana in Santana’s classic lineup, and becoming a keen student of B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and Michael Bloomfield.

“My roots were R&B and blues, and it's so crazy that I've never been in a band that did that!” Schon says in a recent interview with Rick Beato.

One of the blues greats he regularly jammed with was Albert King, the Flying V-slinging player and one of the Three Kings of Blues.

“I played with B.B. quite a lot,” Schon reveals. “I played with Albert even more so. He was a funny human being. Had his little wine bottle at the back of the amp.

“I played with him so many times. [One time] we were downtown in San Rafael, close to where I live in Marin County, and he was in town. He was playing Uncle Charlie's – a cool little blues club – and so I went down to see him for the soundcheck and said, ‘Hey, man, I would love to come by and jam tonight.’

“He said, ‘Sure, man. Bring your guitar and I'll bring you up in the second set.’” However, the jam didn't quite go as planned...

Schon continues, “So I go up, and I'm talking to him, and he goes off to the bar to get a drink, and I pick up his V. And he screams across from the bar, ‘What you doing, boy!’ I jump out of my shoes. He goes, ‘Put that guitar down. Nobody knows my tuning!’”

As for what he noticed about King's guitar from that very fleeting encounter, Schon remembers, “[His strings] were light but tuned [way] down, and in a weird tuning.”

It was clearly a careful setup that lent itself well to the bluesman's penchant for dramatic bends.

Earlier this year, the Journey guitar hero took his jaw-dropping, 9-string Ibanez Custom Shop model out for a spin across a series of Instagram videos.

Joe Bonamassa and Marcus King locked fretboards somewhere on the North Pacific Ocean last month as they traded licks over an Albert King classic.

The inter-generational jam between the celebrated blues of Bonamassa and the fiery playing of Marcus King ensured the Keeping The Blues Alive At Sea Alaska cruise lived up to its name. There were guitar solos galore.

The two guitar stars were at the top of the event’s billing, with Little Feat and Joanne Shaw Taylor other notable inclusions. It was during Bonamassa’s headline set when he invited King to the stage to bring a new energy to Albert King's Breaking Up Somebody's Home, and there was plenty to admire.

King was playing his gorgeous Cherry Red Gibson ES-335, which had been recreated for his first signature guitar, and showed just why blues lovers, young and old, have been championing his fast-moving fingers and tasteful ear.

Bonamassa, who went toe-to-toe with him on another Cherry Red Gibson, offered a slinkier approach, weaving in and out of the pocket of the song's groove. Their trade-offs got quicker and more fierece as the song developed, but not a shred of rivalry was detected.

Speaking on his Live From Nerdville podcast in 2021, Bonamassa hailed Marcus King as “the future” of the blues, saying, “You lit a fire under this genre. You're the talk of the town.”

Four years later, JoBo’s appreciation of King’s take on the blues hasn’t diminished, and their fretboard blazing is met, understandably, by a hugely appreciative crowd.

Elsewhere, King recently discussed the time he forgot he'd bought a vintage guitar after one too many drinks, and reflected on taking Rory Gallagher's legendary Isle of Wight Telecaster for a spin.

If there's one thing that Isaiah Sharkey knows how to do on guitar, it's play tastefully.

And throughout his years as connoisseur of the instrument, whether as a solo artist, as part of D'Angelo's lauded Vanguard on Black Messiah, or as a sideman and session player to the likes of John Mayer, Chris Martin, Corinne Bailey Rae, Keith Urban, and Paul Simon, he has come to realize the magic ingredient for concocting a good guitar solo… and it's simpler than you may think.

“One thing I found out, playing with different artists, is when you're looking at the front row [when] you're on stage, and you're seeing these people sing melodies or sing [a] solo from the record, that means something,” he says, in an interview with Reverb – his Ritter Princess Isabella jazz guitar in hand.

“A George Benson, or John Mayer, or B.B. King, or Albert King solo, you can almost sing it. The complexity is in the fact that you're thinking of it as the human voice, and it's something about that that connects to the soul and energy of other people.”

As Sharkey explains, it's “definitely taking the ego out of it all”. While it's easy to show off the breadth of your chops, the nuance is asking yourself, “What does it [the song] call for? What is the moment? What's gonna make the moment shine and stand out and make people feel good?”

He continues, “And if it makes you feel good, then that's all that matters. And my dad used to always say, ‘What comes from the heart reaches the heart.’”

In an interview with Guitar World a couple of years back, the in-demand session ace talked about the difference between playing guitar and being a guitarist, and why he's never chased the prospect of being a celebrity player.

One of my biggest musical influences is the king of blues power, Albert King. There are so many things that define his unique approach to playing, and I think about these things every time I pick up my guitar.

The first thing is that, like me, Albert didn’t use a pick. He fingerpicked his strings aggressively, mostly with his thumb and index finger, snapping them against the fretboard and creating a distinctive and deeply expressive sound. Albert also played the guitar “upside down.”

With the instrument strung conventionally for a right-handed player, he flipped it over and played it left-handed, with the order of the strings being reversed: the lowest string was closest to the floor while the highest string was closest to the ceiling.

He also played in an unorthodox tuning, which is still a mystery; the prevailing wisdom is that he tuned down one-and-one-half steps, to C# standard (low to high: C#, F#, B, E, G#, C#).

I was first exposed to the “Albert King” sound through the playing of Stevie Ray Vaughan, for whom Albert was a major influence. One of the greatest examples of Stevie emulating Albert’s phrasing is SRV's playing on the title track of his debut album, Texas Flood.

Figure 1 offers an example of a lick played in Albert’s style, with a nod towards the way Stevie would express King’s influence in his own playing. The phrase is based on the G minor pentatonic scale (G, Bb, C, D, F), and I pick the strings with my index finger and thumb, snapping them against the fretboard, and add wide finger vibratos to any held note.

Other signature Albert King elements here are the half-step bend from Bb to B at the end of bar 1, and the half-step bends from B to C in bar 2.

When I first heard this type of playing on Texas Flood, I thought, “How is Stevie getting that sound?” Then, when I heard Albert for the first time, it struck me as more of a “silky” kind of sound, such as the phrase shown in Figure 2. After playing the initial G note, I fret Bb and then perform an array of different string bends from that one note to sound D, C#, C and B.

Once I saw Albert King on video, I could see that he was a master of playing on one string and was able to perform expressive solo lines from a single note at a single fret.

Figures 3 and 4 present great exercises in this playing approach. First, play the chromatic row of notes Bb, B, C, C# and D on the B string then move back down chromatically to Bb, as in Figure 3.

Then, as shown in Figure 4, fret only the Bb note at the 11th fret and proceed to bend up to each of the other notes from it, starting with a half-step bend, then a whole step, then one-and-one-half steps, then two whole steps. Figure 5 offers another example of bending in stacked half-step increments.

The magic of Albert’s playing is that he was able to nail each of these bends at will. Figures 6, 7 and 8 offer more examples of phrases built from this technique.

Snapping the strings in this way sounds especially cool in the guitar’s lower register. Figure 9 offers an example played down in 3rd position.

Licks like these are a staple of Albert’s style, as well as Stevie’s, and can also be heard in the playing of Jimi Hendrix.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Jimmy D Lane, the son of Chicago guitarist Jimmy Rogers, enjoyed his early induction into the blues.

“Watching him practice around the house, man, that did a thing for me,” he says. “It struck me very curiously, and it gave me the desire to do it. I would watch him and sneak his guitar out from under the bed to play it when he was gone.

“One of those times, I broke a string! I put it back in there thinking, ‘Oh, there’s six strings – he won’t miss that one.’ He told me later that he realized what happened and knew I was curious about it. He didn’t get on me; we laughed about it. He knew I wanted to learn.”

Despite growing up around Rogers, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Albert King, Lane was mostly self-taught.

“I never sat down with Pop,” he says. “I would watch him and listen to records to figure it out. I was trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to do. It wasn’t until I got out of the military that certain sounds started to catch my ear.”

Like many others, it wasn’t the blues that spurred him on, but Jimi Hendrix. “I had a set of headphones and a boombox. I remember Hey Joe came on. I’d heard it a million times – but this time, it sounded different. The only way I can describe it is how preachers know their calling.

“I only had $60 in my pocket, but I ran into a pawn shop in Chicago. I had to buy a guitar. I bought a Harmony – which a guy had carted in because he didn’t have any money – went back to the house and practiced until I figured it out.”

By the age of 28 in 1993, he was touring Europe, appearing on late-night TV and performing at the Chicago Blues Festival. Debut record Sir Real arrived in 1995, followed by 1997’s Long Gone. His dad and Hubert Sumlin appeared on 1998’s Legacy, and he performed for President Bill Clinton. Then in 2004 he hooked up with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble for It’s Time.

Since then Lane has kept at it, balancing his father's legacy with perpetual low-key comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. “I got real serious about it,” Lane says. “It came over time. But I’ll tell you: when I knuckled down, I was really able to stretch out.”

Currently on tour, it’s been a long time since his last proper album. “There’s some work that may be coming up in the future,” he says. “I’ll try to put some things together and see what I come up with.”

Even though you're self-taught, with a father like Jimmy Rogers, you must have picked up a few tricks along the way.

“When I first started I would learn a word or a little phrase; then you get a sentence, and maybe put a couple sentences together. When you’re finished you’ve got a paragraph. That’s how I threw it together in my mind for the steps of learning to play.

“All these guys were coming over to have a drink and laugh with the old man. I would be there right in the middle of things, listening to everything that was going on with those guys. My ears were open for it because I was messing with my father’s guitar.”

How did being around blues legends like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Albert King impact how you approached the guitar?

“I didn't really know who these guys were. All my knowledge was made with my eyes – they were just friends of the old man. It was, ‘Oh, there’s Mr Junor… there’s Mr Albert.’ Or, ‘There’s Mr Wolf’ – who scared the hell out of me because he was so big and loud!

You saw them as people before you saw them as legendary artists.

“I didn’t look at them that way until I started playing and listening. That’s when I realized, ‘That's what he sounds like – that's what he’s doing.’”

Once you got serious about it, were you able to incorporate some of that into what you were doing?

“I tried my best to take all the things I heard and hone them with what I was doing to create a sound. To this day I don’t know if I created a sound – but I’ve tried.”

Once you got rolling in the ‘90s, you found yourself in the post-Stevie Ray Vaughan blues landscape, which saw artists like Buddy Guy and others find a second life. What was your perspective then?

“Stevie did pretty much the same thing I’ve been talking about. He listened to those guys – especially Albert King and Hubert Sumlin. He took their sound and created a sound much like Hendrix did back.

“There was a big soul revival in the ‘60s, with some great music that was a good step forward for black musicians. But blues had kind of died out in the era of my father; the money kind of died out. But in the ‘80s, with the Texas Flood album, Stevie busted things wide open. A lot of other musicians came on after that, like Robert Cray; and even Eric Clapton came back.”

How did you wind up playing for Bill Clinton?

“There was a convention or some type of speech here in Chicago, and the drummer I had at the time was doing the booking for the band. Somebody he knew said, ‘Hey, do you want to perform for the Clintons?’ They were having a little gathering at City Hall, and we did it.

“When we finished, Bill came up and introduced himself – with the Secret Service all around . He’s a saxophone player, so he was into music. We shook hands and I went to another gig.

“But a couple of weeks later, I got this manilla envelope in the mail from the White House. It was a letter from him thanking me for the performance and the music. That blew me away. It was fun. I could tell he really enjoyed it because he was bobbing his head to the tracks we did!”

Then in 1999 you found yourself in Montreux, Switzerland, with B.B. King.

“I’d played there with the Jimmy Rogers tribute the day before. I was due back in the States, and I got called up in the hotel room – ‘Hey, B.B. wants you to play,’ I had to rebook my return flight.

“It was a very exciting experience, and very humbling to be in the presence of a cat like B.B. King. He had a line of guitar players up there. We got up to jam for the encore, and we all went down the line, and he gave everybody a chance to solo.

“Gary Moore was there too – he played his thing and we jammed there. I was actually sitting next to Gary for that. But all those guys respected my father, which is a very beautiful thing, man.”

How did you end up recording It’s Time with Double Trouble?

“The label I was on at the time, APO, had something to do with that. I was visiting the director and we were thinking about the next project. They contacted Eddie Kramer, who was into it, and we said, ‘Okay, who do we want?’

“We thought about Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox. Billy was good to go, but Mitch's wife said, ‘No, he’s tired and he’s going to stay in England for a while.’ I said, ‘How about Double Trouble?’ I liked how Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon played together. We contacted them and they were available.”

“Man, it was a fun session. We got all kinds of other bad people; we went on down to Blue Heaven Studios and knocked that record out in about two weeks. I don’t think Tommy is playing anymore; he’s got some issues with his hand. But we had a blast making that record.”

What gear have you leaned on most along the way?

“A Fender Strat is my weapon of choice. I have a Vox amp because I like feeling of the tubes. You know that warm tone you get from tube amps – I like the Vox because the electronics are good and I can get the warmth.

“I’ve got a Boss Blues Driver pedal, and for a couple of songs I use a Jim Dunlop Rotovibe [chorus/vibrato]. I can switch from doing Chicago blues to urban blues and right into other stuff with that very easy setup.”

In 2013, you were inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame. Given that it’s your hometown, that must have been gratifying.

“If you’re gonna play Chicago blues, you have to go to the few people who created the sound. It’s a very deep sound, rhythmically and emotionally. It’s not just me, man – everybody that’s playing blues guitar should acknowledge that sound.

“Chicago blues is very influential, especially the circular guitar chords and leads that were played. I learned it from my pop. It’s certain rhythms and not getting in the way. If there’s a harmonica player, you don’t step on what he’s doing. If he’s doing solos, you get under him and play chords in certain fashions that feed emotion, timing and sounds.”

• For more information, head to Jimmy D. Lane.

Blues rock guitarist Jared James Nichols has established himself as a high-energy pick-less guitarist. Wielding a variety of P-90-loaded Les Pauls, Nichols has developed an intriguing technique that enables him to achieve the same kind of attack he would get with a pick – albeit with an added, distinctive flair.

Speaking about how he developed his fingerstyle technique in the first place, the blues player tells Guitar World that being left-handed led him to approach the guitar in a slightly unconventional way. “Now, I don't mean I hold the guitar like a lefty where I would flip it. It's that everything I do in life is with my left hand,” he clarifies.

“When I picked up a guitar, I held it righty, but the pick never felt right in my hands, so I started to make up my own technique for how to play, which was essentially very simple.”

In his early days, he would use his thumb as a downstroke, while his index, middle, and ring fingers functioned as upstrokes. After discovering Albert King, Derek Trucks, and Mark Knopfler, he decided to take a page from their playbook and hone his own version of the fingerstyle technique.

“I'm [now] using my thumb as a down, pulling up with my index finger as well as my middle finger. Now playing that slowly, you can hear I'm sliding into that and I'm snapping up on the string. It gives it a percussive attack,” he explains while playing a blues riff in the key of G.

“There's a lot of snapping going up. It's almost as if my string is hitting the frets. And that gives me a certain tone that has a little bit more of, not only a shimmer, but a snap and a sparkle to it that I really like for sitting out of the mix."

Nichols also mentions how his technique allows him to pay more attention to dynamics. Essentially, the harder he snaps, the louder the volume.

“As hard as I pick with my fingers, I can feel all the notes underneath my fingers; it’s almost all about the pressure,” he says. In addition to dynamics, his fingerstyle technique enables him to manipulate tone depending on whether he plays more toward the bridge or the neck.

“So for instance, if I go near the bridge more and I get [plays the riff] more towards the neck, as you can tell by the bridge, it gets a little bit more bright. It gets a little more snappy. And as I move up the neck towards the frets, it starts to get a little bit warmer. So that's one of the big things using my fingers that I do.”

To further bolster his tone, Nichols recently teamed up with Blackstar on a new signature guitar amp head and corresponding plugin.

On my latest release, Blues Deluxe Vol. 2, I covered the Albert King classic You Sure Drive a Hard Bargain. My guitar of choice for the recording was a 1967 Gibson Flying V in Sparkling Burgundy. 

I once had the pleasure of having an audience with all three of Albert King’s main Flying Vs: his 1959 Korina V, which is the guitar he used to record Blues Power at the Fillmore West; his early ’70s custom-made Dan Erlewine V, which has Albert’s name inlaid in the fretboard; and his 1967 cherry red Flying V.

The ’67 V may be less well known than the other guitars but it’s equally important, as rumor has it that Albert used this instrument to cut Born Under a Bad Sign, Crosscut Saw and many other songs.

Warren Haynes once said, “Albert King was the most immaculate blues guitar player because no one played like him before, and everyone played like him after.” I totally agree. You can’t listen to Albert and say, “He got that lick from T-Bone Walker,” because his sound and style are completely unique. 

It may have been of some consequence that Albert was originally a drummer and can be heard on drums, credited as Albert Nelson (his birth name) on recordings with Jimmy Reed. Along with his innate sense of melody, Albert’s sense of rhythm is perfect.

Albert’s great signature as a soloist was his use of string bending, especially “overbends” beyond a whole step.

For our version of Hard Bargain, I used a few specific approaches to emulate his sound. Played in the key of B, with licks based primarily on B minor pentatonic (B, D, E, F#, A), bar 1 of FIGURE 1 features E, 1st string/12th fret, bent up a whole step to F#. I then shift down to 7th position to finish this “Albert approved” phrase.

In FIGURE 2, I begin in the same position, but starting on beat 4 of bar 2, I shift up to 12th position and play two-step bends from D on the B string’s 15th fret. Notice how I catch the G string under the bending finger here, resulting in double-stop bends.

FIGURES 3-5 offer more examples of these kinds of Albert-style bend licks. Notice the “stepped” bending at the end of bar 1 into bar 2, as I combine half- and whole-step bends on the notes D, Eb and E.

When playing this way, I like picking the strings with my thumb, as Albert would primarily do. He also played “upside down” – his guitar was strung for a right-handed player, but he flipped it over and played it left-handed.

As a result, the thin strings were near the top side of the fretboard. Because of this, he would pull them down to bend them, instead of pushing them, which produces a completely different sound.

Whenever I play a solo over a slow blues, I’ll think, “What would Albert do?”, which leads me to playing licks like those shown in FIGURES 6 and 7.

FIGURE 8 illustrates an approach to emulating Albert’s style that was taught to me by the great Larry McCray, starting with the index finger fretting the G string and setting up the big vibratos on the B string, fretted with the ring finger.

Joe Bonamassa has recently recalled an era when B.B. King used to borrow his amp without any additional effects – and still sound bigger than Bonamassa himself.

“One of the things that I always noticed about the front guys, they always had a bigger sound,” says Bonamassa on the Jay Jay French Connection podcast.

“B.B. King, up until probably the last 15 years of his career, never travelled with an amp. You know, he had a twin back in the day for Live at the Regal. I can hear that. But in the '70s and '80s and early '90s, when I met him, like in '89 or '90, he didn't have an amp.”

“He would use my amp when we played with him because he just travelled with his guitar. So he would use my Twin Reverb and turn it all the way up. And he would sound like B.B. King. And it was a bigger sound than I got out of the Twin Reverb and I never understood that.”

Bonamassa credits B.B. King's fuller and distinct sound, to “manually manifesting the sound in his soul [and] in his mind through the guitar amp, so he would lighten up his attack. The amp would bloom, he would dig in.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Bonamassa also mentions how other blues guitar legends, like Albert King and Freddie King, did the same thing.

“And Albert King same thing you plug into whatever sound bigger than the band. Freddie King, same thing, Quad Reverb and you know, two finger picks, plug into whatever. It sounds like Freddie King, and it always sounded bigger than the band when it was like this.”

In a recent interview with Total Guitar, Bonamassa talked about what makes for a great blues guitarist, sharing it's “taking on influences that aren’t blues-based. It’s got to be something that’s a little bit off the main trail, you know?”

Bonamassa also recently showed his support for emerging jazz fusion guitarist Matteo Mancuso by inviting him up on stage in Berlin.

Not many players earn the title ‘king of the blues’, but then not many players have been as influential as the great Albert King. One of the leading players of his generation alongside fellow blues Kings, BB and Freddie, Albert was central to the ’60s wave of electric blues.

Without Albert and his fellow bluesmen, B.B. and Freddie, we wouldn’t have many of the household names we know today. Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan were all admirers of Albert’s work, and that’s just to name a few.

But what was it about Albert that inspired a whole generation of now legendary players? With regard to his guitar playing, it was his wonderful vocal quality, singing sustain, expressive vibrato and powerful string bending. Albert favoured huge bends, often pushing strings a tone-and-a-half to create those screaming, crying notes.

Although his early work was of a traditional nature, Albert eagerly embraced the sound of funk and in 1972 released I’ll Play The Blues For You, with Stax Records. A collection of beautiful, soulful tunes, Albert blends his blues sound with gospel and funk orchestration, giving him a hip and contemporary sound, while keeping his distinctive blues guitar style to the fore.

Albert was famous for his use of Gibson’s Flying V, now probably more commonly associated with heavy metal guitarists, but Albert popularised its bold and distinctive shape way before the high-gain tones of Metallica, Michael Schenker and the like.

Part of Albert’s unique bending style was down to the unusual tuning he favoured. Reports vary on how he tuned his guitar, but Steve Cropper is reported to have said that Albert tuned C-B-E-F#-B -E  (low to high) during the ’60s Stax Sessions. Luthier Dan Erlewine has said C-F-C-F-A-D. However, you’ll be pleased to learn that our two studies are in standard tuning! 

Aside from his unorthodox tuning approach and distinctive bending style, Albert had a wonderfully rich musical vocabulary with a distinctively raw, driving tone. His sound was much more aggressive than that of his contemporaries and his gnarly tone is evident even on his earliest records (check out the track Cold Feet). 

Our two studies show one example of Albert’s guitar style in the traditional blues context, and one on a funkier piece. Both studies focus on his use of bending, leaving space and using thematic ideas as a basis for improvisation.

To get the most out of these studies, take these licks and phrases and try moving them through all the positions of the major and minor pentatonic scales to see how many different permutations you can achieve from this small collection of ideas. This is a great way of using Albert’s style as a springboard for inspiration and to broaden your own palette of ideas. Enjoy! 

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 6, Bass 5, Middle 4, Treble 6, Reverb 2

Albert used various Flying V electric guitars with humbuckers. There is some debate about whether different wiring gave his sound that nasal, out-of-phase quality. Any low to medium output instrument will do the job nicely. But if your guitar is quite mid heavy, compensate by scooping the mids to help re-create his ‘hollow’ sound. Add light drive and minimal reverb.

Solo 1. Blues in A

This study hinges around the major pentatonic scale with the occasional b3 and b7 thrown in. Traditional blues generally drew from major scale tonalities and it was the inclusion of minor intervals, often hinted at with microtonal bending, that gave the blues its sound. 

Approach these pieces with this mindset and the phrases will start to reveal more melodic options as you adapt them into your own playing. To get the right feel will take practice.

Solo 2. Funky blues in E

This study focuses more on the minor pentatonic tonality in a funky major blues setting. Make note of the inclusion of the major 6 interval (C#) over the IV chord from bar 8. 

This note then functions as the major 3rd of the chord, helping the listener hear a more melodic narrative through the chord changes. While fairly simple from a harmonic point of view, this is a highly effective move and wonderfully pleasing to the ear. Again, getting the correct feel will take practice.

Eric Clapton has dropped a previously unreleased cover of Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign ahead of the release of his forthcoming remaster vinyl box set.

Clapton’s rendition is faithful to King’s original – which was originally released in 1967 on an album of the same name – with a cool arrangement of swampy blues electric guitar, rousing horns and effortlessly soulful vocals. Check it out below.

Born Under a Bad Sign has been widely acknowledged as a blues/rock and roll classic. The album was once inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, while its title track was listed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 songs that shaped rock and roll.

The Complete Reprise Studio Albums Vol. 1 box set – which contains 12 discs in total – is set to feature remastered versions of several of Clapton’s albums from the ‘80s and ‘90s, including Money and Cigarettes (1983), Behind the Sun (1985), August (1986), Journeyman (1989), From the Cradle (1994) and Pilgrim (1998).

One of its discs includes rare cuts from the same period, including the newly released cover of Born Under a Bad Sign. Other recordings on this disc include live versions of White Room and Crossroads, and a B-side entitled Theme From a Movie That Never Happened.

Curated by longtime Clapton co-producer Simon Climie, The Complete Reprise Studio Albums Vol. 1 was remastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Studios in Maine, and vinyl mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering in LA.

The Complete Reprise Studio Albums Vol. 1 arrives September 30. You can preorder it now for $249.98. 

A second box set – The Complete Reprise Studio Albums Vol. 2 – will arrive in early 2023, and will include Clapton’s albums spanning 2001 to 2010, in addition to more unheard rarities.

Eric Clapton is scheduled to play a series of US dates with Jimmie Vaughan starting next month. The trek will run from September 8 in Columbus, Ohio until September 19 in New York City.

There’s a pop-psychology theory that left-handed people are more creative. Supposedly, the right hemisphere of the brain is more associated with creative activities and controlling the left side of the body.

The argument goes that people with dominant left hands are likely to have more developed right brain hemispheres, and be better at creative tasks. As with everything in neuroscience, the truth is probably that it’s more complicated than that. Still, looking at famous wielders of upside-down guitars, it’s a tempting idea. 

Arguably, the GOATs of rock, blues, surf and metal have all been left-handed guitarists, while Paul McCartney and David Bowie – not the worst songwriters ever – are both lefties, too (even if Bowie plays guitar right-handed).

Perhaps it’s that left-handers are forced to be more creative, because the world is full of things that weren’t designed for them. Left-handed guitar players have never had as wide a range of quality instruments available, so they’ve often had to overcome substandard gear to make great sounds.

A surprising number of left-handed guitarists simply learned on upside-down right-handed guitars, again having to discover their own approach to the instrument because conventional techniques were impossible.

Whatever the reason, we salute the determination and inventiveness of these 30 greats of left-handed guitar, who are presented in no particular order.

1. Jimi Hendrix

When the greatest electric guitarist of all time happens to be a lefty, choosing the greatest left-handed guitarist is simple. Have you thought about how Hendrix’s left-handedness influenced his technique, though? His upside-down tremolo arm put him off palm muting, facilitating his combined rhythm and lead style with the strings ringing freely.

Meanwhile, the reverse headstock made the treble strings feel looser, encouraging his outrageous string bends, and his reverse-angled bridge pickup helped him avoid the piercing treble that plagues some Strat users.

2. Kurt Cobain

It’s serendipitous that in 1991 the only decent left-handed guitar Kurt could find for sale was a Fender Jaguar. Its short scale undoubtedly influenced his playing style, and visually and sonically the guitar underlined the fact Nirvana’s music was a clean break from the 1980s mainstream. 

Offset guitars’ cult following might never have kicked off without Kurt’s Jaguar, just as grunge might never have happened without his intelligent blend of power chords, melody, and dissonance.

3. Tony Iommi

Iommi’s left-handedness is less significant to his unique sound than the loss of his fingertips in a work accident, but his awesome catalog of riffs certainly adds weight to the hypothesis that lefties are more creative.

From power chords to diminished fifths, distorted tones to down-tuning, Iommi wrote the metal guitar rulebook and then stuck around to show the young upstarts how it’s really done.

4. Albert King

Few would have suspected that the Flying V was capable of such subtlety before King got his hands on one. His reversed strings meant King had to pull down rather than push up to bend the high E and B strings, and this enabled his immense control.

Influencing every electric blueser since – most notably Stevie Ray Vaughan – King might be the greatest string bender of all time.

5. Dick Dale

You may only recognize Dick Dale from the Pulp Fiction theme, Misirlou, but that’s enough to know he’s one of the most ferocious pickers to ever let rip on an electric guitar string.

“I rip my guts out when I play,” he told Guitar Player in 2017. “My fingers hurt so bad when I’m pulling on the strings, but I do it because that’s where the sound comes from.” No-one who heard his monster attack would doubt it.

6. Elliot Easton

With Rick Ocasek’s killer songwriting, the Cars seemed destined for greatness, but Elliot Easton’s lead style was the ace up their sleeve. His epic chord-melody break in My Best Friend’s Girl pre-empted Brian Setzer and the rockabilly revival, and Easton’s tight palm-muted power chords have become the default choice for every hit pop-rock single since.

7. Elizabeth Cotten

Elizabeth Cotten wrote Freight Train around 1904, but when it became a hit in the ’50s, two English songwriters took credit for it. It’s fortunate this injustice was eventually corrected, because Cotten’s self-taught style (now known as ‘Cotten picking’) was an important development in fingerstyle.

Reversed strings meant she plucked the bass strings with her fingers and played the melody with her thumb. She won her first Grammy in 1984, aged 91.

8. Paul McCartney

McCartney’s position as one of the great left-handed musicians is unquestioned, but his guitar contribution may actually be underrated. His approach to fingerstyle, epitomised on Blackbird, using both sides of his index finger to pluck, gives a sound you would get from conventional travis picking. His solos on Taxman, Good Morning Good Morning, and The End, meanwhile, rival George Harrison’s best.

9. Al McKay

Earth, Wind & Fire aren’t primarily known as a guitar band, but Al McKay’s interplay with second guitarist Johnny Graham was essential to the groove of the band’s 1970s hits.

McKay’s masterful combination of single-note lines, jazz chords, and funky triad voicings puts him up there with Nile Rodgers as a disco guitar master.

10. Otis Rush

The Chicago blues pioneer was a primary influence on Eric Clapton, Mike Bloomfield, and Peter Green, making his licks some of the most imitated in blues history. He also recorded the first version of I Can’t Quit You Baby 13 years before Led Zeppelin. On his death, Joe Bonamassa called him “one of the last of the true masters”.

11. Babyface

Better known as one of the most successful R&B songwriters and producers of all time, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds’ jaw-dropping resumé includes hits with Whitney Houston, TLC, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin, and pretty much every other artist of note in the genre.

It’s unsurprising, then, that he knows his way around a guitar, as he’s showcased in stripped-down solo performances of his hits. He produced Clapton’s Change Your World, too.

12. Jimmy Cliff

Recipient of Jamaica’s highest honour, the Order of Merit (also held by fellow reggae greats Peter Tosh and Bob Marley), Jimmy Cliff is a reggae pioneer and songwriting great.

His hits I Can See Clearly Now and You Can Get It If You Really Want are reggae standards, he’s been covered by everyone from Springsteen to New Order, and his 2012 comeback album was produced by fellow southpaw, Rancid’s Tim Armstrong.

13. Bobby Womack

Starting out as backing guitarist to soul legend Sam Cooke was the best possible apprenticeship for Womack, who quickly became a star in his own right. His melodic double-stops and hammer-ons are a clear touchstone for Hendrix’s approach, and he wrote the Rolling Stones’ first number one, too.

14. Omar Rodríguez-López

For someone who has described the guitar as “this thing I hate”, Rodríguez-López is quite good at it. Unafraid to use effects to sound entirely un-guitar-like, and drawing influences from jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter and minimalist composer Steve Reich, Omar has been a key figure in expanding the guitar’s palette with At the Drive-In, Mars Volta and his solo work.

15. Barbara Lynn

A comparative rarity among soul stars as a guitarist and vocalist, Lynn was also a prolific songwriter. Her use of a thumbpick meant she got a range of sounds just by switching between pick and fingers, and she had all the groove you’d expect from someone who’s toured with James Brown, Stevie Wonder, and Gladys Knight. Still, Lynn didn’t play second fiddle to anyone, as the 1966 footage above shows.

16. Mdou Moctar

Even the most jaded observers of guitar are excited by Mdou Moctar, who provides something genuinely new to rock audiences. His Tuareg and assouf (desert blues) influences bring fresh rhythms and note choices to the guitar hero vocabulary, while his fiery improvisation shows him to be a worthy heir to Hendrix.

17. Eric Gales 

A right-handed interloper on this list, Gales learned to play this way by learning from his left-handed brother. His use of upside-down Strats draws inevitable Hendrix comparisons, but Gales has the feel, tone, and chops to weather those comparisons. His live versions of Beethoven’s Für Elise also show that classical influences aren’t just for Yngwie Malmsteen.

18. Tim Armstrong

Armstrong understands better than most the importance of a great song, and he’s written more than a few both for his own bands – Rancid, Operation Ivy, and Transplants among them – and on his collaborations with P!nk and Joe Walsh.

With his Gretsch slung around his knees, Armstrong’s playing has the epic precision needed for punk and ska.

19. Malina Moye

Her dad’s a pro bassist, her mom sang backup for Tina Turner, so Malina Moye’s stardom seemed inevitable. Her trademark surf green Strat has graced stages with Hubert Sumlin and Chaka Khan, and in 2012, she became the only woman on the Experience Hendrix tour.

Her blues-inflected brand of funk rock grooves extremely hard, exemplified by her single K-yotic, featuring Bootsy Collins.

20. Doctor Isaiah Ross

Born in the Mississippi Delta in 1925, Ross drew comparisons to John Lee Hooker and Sonny Boy Williamson, but he had the novelty of performing as a one-man band. He never achieved major stardom, perhaps because he kept his job at General Motors even after he got signed, but this also spared him the poverty many blues pioneers suffered. His single Cat Squirrel was covered by Cream and Jethro Tull.

21. Doyle Bramhall II

The blues seems an unlikely genre for the creation of dynasties, but Bramhall’s dad, Doyle Sr, played drums for Freddie King and was a lifelong friend of the Vaughan brothers. Accordingly, Bramhall II toured with the Fabulous Thunderbirds at 18 before joining Roger Waters’ touring band and then playing with Clapton and BB on Riding with the King.

22. Ernie C

Left-handed guitarist with Ice-T’s pioneering rap-metal crossover Body Count, Ernie C’s brutal riffing has been the bedrock for incendiary moments like Cop Killer, No Lives Matter, and KKK Bitch. As if that’s not enough, Ernie C also produced an early Rage Against the Machine demo, which makes him both a legend and ultimately to blame for nu-metal.

23. Shamir

Because his first guitar was an acoustic with a symmetrical body, the young (right-handed) Shamir did not realise he was playing it upside down. He's since turned this into a strength though.

“Since I play upside down, I can’t use the cutaway,” he commented, “I can’t do ‘guitar hero’ solos, but I think it’s made me a pretty damn good rhythm guitarist… It’s forced me to write with really intricate chords and riffs that also feel big.”

24. Courtney Barnett

Rolling Stone called her “one of the world’s sharpest songwriters”, and Barnett has a knack for producing guitar parts that serve those songs without being anonymous.

Her fingerstyle approach to electric guitar gives her a big dynamic range and she creates unaccompanied guitar breaks that are both melodic and rhythmic at the same time.

25. Hayley Kiyoko 

Her pop hits, with streams running to the hundreds of millions, make little use of her guitar talents, but Kiyoko started out performing self-penned guitar songs on social media. She shows guitar is still an effective tool for crafting great songs, even when those songs are later produced with electronic arrangements.

We hope she’ll return to guitar though, because the sliding major 7ths on Bittersweet are just cool.

26. Ben Howard

With his unusual pick-and-go technique, extreme altered tunings, and inventive use of a partial capo, Howard is rightly acclaimed as a modern acoustic trailblazer. On Only Love, for example, his guitar is tuned A#-F-C-G-G-C, a tuning more likely to show up with Meshuggah than John Martyn. 

27. Toronzo Cannon

It’s generally accepted that the list of Chicago blues greats is complete, with no names to be added, but Cannon shows the Windy City is not done teaching us about electric blues.

Sometimes toting a dual-humbucker Strat, Cannon is a real-deal blueser, combining social commentary in his songs with heartfelt guitar playing topped off with killer vibrato.

28. Maria Taylor

Taylor’s guitar parts have a vulnerability and intimacy that complements her songwriting perfectly. Like Keith Richards, she only uses five strings (although Taylor prefers to ditch the high E).

She’s collaborated with Phoebe Bridgers, Michael Stipe, and Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz, but her work stands on its own two feet.

29. Zacky Vengeance

The less heralded of Avenged Sevenfold’s guitar partnership, Vengeance keeps pace with Synyster Gates on their shredding harmonised passages and lays down some of the most intense riffing of the 21st century.

Modern metal players need to be improbably tight and wildly aggressive, and this left-handed guitarist can bring both effortlessly.

30. Michael Angelo Batio 

While some may see his double-guitar playing as something of a gimmick, there's no doubting Michael Angelo Batio's ambidextrous chops. We can't find footage of him playing a purely left-handed guitar, but his wizardry on those double-guitars leaves no doubt he's got chops enough for two guitarists. A truly ridiculous shredder.

Eric Gales and Devon Allman have partnered with Gibson Gives for a two-night Albert King tribute concert, which will take place at the National Blues Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, on May 7 and 8.

The event will also serve as a benefit concert for the museum, with 100% of the proceeds going towards supporting its mission, music and education programs.

For both dates, Gales and Allman will hang up their electric guitars and dust off their acoustic guitars to perform a number of Albert King tracks, for what’s been described as “a pair of acoustic duo concerts in tribute to the late, great blues master”.

No doubt this setup will please Gales, who recently revealed that, despite establishing himself as one of the greatest electric guitar players on the planet, he actually prefers playing acoustic.

Accompanying the news is the announcement that Gales has also been appointed to the National Blues Museum board of directors, with the blues guitar icon saying he’s “honored and excited” by the move.

“I am so honored and excited to be brought on as a board member of the National Blues Museum,” he said. “This is going to be a great event to honor the legendary Albert King.”

Allman, who himself is a longstanding member of the museum’s board, commented, “I’m excited to have another active musician on the board and I know Eric will bring a lot to the table.

“We’ve been friends for years,” Allman added, “and I look forward to working with him side by side.”

Of Gales’ appointment, National Blues Museum Deputy Director Erin Simon said, “The National Blues Museum board members are a dedicated team of blues enthusiasts and community leaders committed to racial equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

"We are pleased to welcome the talent, expertise, and energy of Eric Gales into furthering our mission. The benefit concert is only the beginning of Devon Allman and Eric Gales' ambitions for the museum!"

Tickets for Eric Gales and Devon Allman’s Gibson Gives Albert King tribute concert will start from $139. VIP packages will be available to purchase from March 25.

For more information, head over to the National Blues Museum.

In last month's column, we explored an Albert Collins-like approach to soloing over a medium-tempo blues shuffle in the key of G. This month, I’d like to highlight the key stylistic aspects of one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time, Albert King, using the same soloing format. 

For quick review, the rhythm part I solo over is based on a standard 12-bar blues progression in G, but I have added a few passing chords here and there. In the key of G, a typical dominant 7th-style blues consists of the I chord, G7, the IV, C7 and the V, D7. 

Many guitarists, myself included, will often substitute a 9th or 13th chord for a 7th. The rhythm pattern starts with four bars of G7, and I substitute Db9 on beat 4 of bar 4, in order to resolve chromatically to the IV chord, C9, on the downbeat of bar 5. On beat 3 of bar 6, I use a Dbdim7 chord as a way to strongly “push” back to the I, G7, at the start of bar 7.  

Through bars 7 and 8, I switch chords every two beats – G7 - Dm9/A - Em7/B - Ebm7/Bb – to set up the V chord, D9, that falls on beat 1 of bar 9. Bar 10 ends with a chromatic “walk-up,” F7 to F#7, which sets up the G7 in bar 11 nicely. In bars 11 and 12, I again switch chords every two beats, G7 - Bb7 - A7 - Ab7. This turnaround leads back to the I chord, G7, at the top (beginning) of the form.

Figure 1 is an Albert King-inspired solo played over this progression. Like Albert, I fingerpick here, using my index finger and thumb primarily and occasionally snapping the string against the fretboard for emphasis. 

Most of the phrases are based on the G minor pentatonic scale (G, Bb, C, D, F), with the exception of bar 9, wherein I reference the parallel G major pentatonic scale (G, A, B, D, E).

When aiming to emulate Albert, one should focus on the vocal-like aspects of his style. All of the melodic lines are fairly simple and often broken into two- and three-bar phrases, with spaces in between, akin to the way a singer breathes between lines.

Another essential element of Albert’s signature sound was his finger vibrato, with its unique width and speed. Listen to Live Wire/Blues Power! for spectacular examples of Albert’s mastery of string bending and vibrato techniques.

Generally speaking, Albert’s pitch was usually a little bit sharp, due to his aggressive fingerpicked attack. The width of his finger vibratos was rather wide, and the speed was fairly slow, making them characteristically big, bold and vocal-like. 

The initial vibrato in bar 2 is a “floating” style, wherein only the fingertip touches the guitar neck. In bar 3, I pull down on the string to create the vibrato, which yields a different vibrato sound than that produced by pushing the string upward.

Figures 2-5 focus on the distinct elements of the primary one- and two-bar phrases played in this solo. Work on each phrase separately, then explore how to best transition from one to the next.

Guitars from Jimi Hendrix, Albert King and Bob Marley are set to go under the hammer as they headline the forthcoming Icons & Idols Trilogy: Rock ’N’ Roll auction from Julien’s Auctions.

In particular, Albert King’s 1967 Gibson Flying V is notable for being the first of the blues legend’s guitars to ever go to auction.

It was his main guitar for studio and live performances between 1967 and 1972, and used on Born Under a Bad Sign, and I’ll Play the Blues For You.

The V is signed “Love / you / Albert King” and was given to King by Gibson to replace his original Flying V, named ‘Lucy’, which went missing.

It’s expected to sell for $300,000-$500,000.

Also going under the hammer for the first time is one of Bob Marley’s guitars, a 1975 Ovation 1612-4 Custom Balladeer acoustic-electric.

It features a natural spruce top and shallow back and ebony fingerboard, and is estimated to fetch between $80,000 and $100,000.

Two Jimi Hendrix guitars are up for sale, the first of which is a left-handed 1969 Olympic White Fender Stratocaster, kept and played by the guitar hero when he was in New York. It’s expected to sell for $300,000-$500,000.

The other is a 1960s WM. C. Stahl Style 8 acoustic made by the Larson Brothers, and owned and played by Hendrix.

It features a spruce top, Brazilian rosewood back and sides, and mahogany neck with ebony fingerboard, and comes with a copy of Life Magazine that features a photo of Hendrix with the guitar in question, as well as a handwritten letter from Experience bassist Noel Redding vouching for its authenticity.

Its estimated sale price is $200,000-$500,000.

Icons & Idols Trilogy: Rock ’N’ Roll is scheduled to take place on December 1 and 2. For more information, head over to Julien’s Auctions.

We all know a great lick when we hear one—Jimmy Page’s solo breaks in “Whole Lotta Love” and Mark Knopfler’s blistering triads in “Sultans of Swing,” for example.

Moments like these grab your attention and aurally brand your ears forever. Or, sometimes it acts more subliminally: You suddenly find yourself playing a certain lick over and over again, wondering, Where have I heard this before?

Through the years, these licks have evolved into a vocabulary for the guitar. And like great writers who are always able to find the right word to make a point, great guitarists always have that essential lick at their disposal to express, in the moment, what they’re feeling.

And whereas the best writers are able to string those words together to form remarkable prose, the best guitarists link their licks to form living, breathing, musical statements. Today, we bring you an essential blues lick in the style of the late, great Albert King.

Origin: An Albert King funk-blues lick à la “Born Under a Bad Sign,” this lick—like so many classic blues licks—originated from a Delta slide lick.

Theory: King stays with the C# blues scale (C#–E–F#–G–G#–B) on this lick.

Playing Tip: Use a little extra elbow grease and give the bent C# a medium vibrato.

A new Rory Gallagher career-spanning collection, Blues, will be released May 31 via Chess/Ume. Drawn from the vaults of the Gallagher estate's tape archive, the package presents rare and unreleased recordings of Gallagher playing his favorite blues material. Ranging from previously unreleased tracks to special guest sessions with legendary blues artists (Muddy Waters, Albert King) and lost radio sessions, Blues uncovers Rory's love of the blues throughout his solo career, from 1971 through to 1994.

Blues will be released as a 16-track CD and digital edition; 2-LP vinyl and limited edition 2-LP blue vinyl editions; and a deluxe 36-track 3-CD and digital edition. The Deluxe Edition boasts 90 percent unreleased material and features performances with legends such as Muddy Waters, Albert King, Jack Bruce, Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber. The 3-CD Deluxe Edition also includes an extensive booklet with previously unseen pictures of Gallagher, plus a new essay by writer Jas Obrecht. 

Blues is available for pre-order here. You can check out the full track list below.

Rory Gallagher: Blues (3-CD deluxe edition):

DISC 1: Electric Blues
Don’t Start Me Talkin (Unreleased track from the Jinx album sessions 1982)
Nothin’ But the Devil (Unreleased track from the Against The Grain album sessions 1975)
Tore Down (Unreleased track from the Blueprint album sessions 1973)
Off the Handle (Unreleased session Paul Jones Show BBC Radio 1986)
I Could’ve Had Religion (Unreleased WNCR Cleveland radio session from 1972)
As the Crow Flies (Unreleased track from Tattoo album sessions 1973)
A Million Miles Away (Unreleased BBC Radio 1 Session 1973)
Should’ve Learnt My Lesson (Outtake from Deuce album sessions 1971)
Leaving Town Blues (Tribute track from Peter Green Rattlesnake Guitar 1994)
Drop Down Baby (Rory guest guitar on Lonnie Donegan’s Puttin’ On the Style album 1978)
I’m Ready (Guest guitarist on Muddy Waters London Sessions album 1971)
Bullfrog Blues (Unreleased WNCR Cleveland radio session from 1972)

DISC 2: Acoustic Blues
Who’s That Coming (Acoustic outtake from Tattoo album sessions 1973)
Should’ve Learnt My Lesson (Acoustic outtake from Deuce album sessions 1971)
Prison Blues (Unreleased track from Blueprint album sessions 1973)
Secret Agent (Unreleased acoustic version from RTE Irish TV 1976)
Blow Wind Blow (Unreleased WNCR Cleveland radio session from 1972)
Bankers Blues (Outtake from the Blueprint album sessions 1973)
Whole Lot of People (Acoustic outtake from Deuce album sessions 1971)
Loanshark Blues (Unreleased acoustic version from German TV 1987)
Pistol Slapper Blues (Unreleased acoustic version from Irish TV 1976)
Can’t Be Satisfied (Unreleased Radio FFN session from 1992)
Want Ad Blues (Unreleased RTE Radio Two Dave Fanning session 1988)

Walkin’ Blues’ (Unreleased acoustic version from RTE Irish TV 1987)

DISC 3: Live Blues
When My Baby She Left Me (Unreleased track from Glasgow Apollo concert 1982)
Nothin’ But the Devil (Unreleased track from Glasgow Apollo concert 1982)
What in the World (Unreleased track from Glasgow Apollo concert 1982)
I Wonder Who (Unreleased live track from late 1980s)
Messin’ With the Kid (Unreleased track from Sheffield City Hall concert 1977)
Tore Down (Unreleased track from Newcastle City Hall concert 1977)
Garbage Man Blues (Unreleased track from Sheffield City Hall concert 1977)
All Around Man (Unreleased track from BBC OGWT Special 1976)
Born Under a Bad Sign (Unreleased track from Rockpalast 1991 w/ Jack Bruce)
You Upset Me (Unreleased guest performance from Albert King album Live 1975)
Comin’ Home Baby (Unreleased track from 1989 concert with Chris Barber Band)
Rory Talking Blues (Interview track of Rory talking about the blues)

We have one more bit of Grammys news for you.

Amid all the chatter about James Hetfield's uncooperative microphone, the confused house band playing a Metallica tune as Megadeth walked to the stage and Bruno Mars' shred-packed Prince tribute, there was a fine blues performance by Gary Clark Jr. and legendary R&B singer William Bell.

The duo played a tight (albiet truncated) version of "Born Under a Bad Sign," which Bell actually wrote—with Booker T. Jones—in 1967. The song was recorded by Albert King in '67 and by Cream a few months later.

You can check out a pro-shot clip of the performance below. Clark delivers some ace Albert King fills and a killer guitar solo. Enjoy!

Enjoy this sale at the Guitar World Online Store!

With his distinctive bends, rapid-fire phrasing and sweet vibrato, Albert King is considered one of the greatest guitarists in blues history. He's influenced Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and countless others, and this amazing instructional DVD — How to Play Blues: Albert King — will teach you everything you need to know to unlock the secrets of his indelible style. Learn his licks, patterns and tricks, and transform your blues playing overnight!More than 45 minutes of instruction! • Essential Licks & Phrases
• Uptempo & Slow Blues
• Fast 6/8th Grooves
• Wide String Bends & Vibrato
• Combining Positions

It's available now at the Guitar World Online Store for $9.99.

Exactly why legendary blues guitarists Albert King, B.B. King and Freddie King never got together to make a blues-themed Christmas album called We Three Kings is one of the great mysteries of the universe.

I figure it would've been an obvious move.

However, one thing that isn't so obvious is this: Who among the three axe-wielding Kings — Albert, B.B. or Freddie (no relation, by the way) — should be considered the king of Kings?

Was it the late Albert King, whose famous "Albert King bend" was the cornerstone of Stevie Ray Vaughan's slow-blues technique? Was it the late Freddie King (who was born on this date in 1934), whose early-'60s instrumentals inspired Eric Clapton to grab a Les Paul and morph into "God" for a year-plus? Or is it B.B. King, who can say more with one note than (fill in the blank) can say with 90 notes?

Cast your vote below!

P.S.: My vote goes to Freddie, based on one album — Let's Hide Away and Dance Away — alone. But that's just me ...

Damian Fanelli is the online managing editor at Guitar World.

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of the Stax Remasters edition of Albert King's Born Under a Bad Sign album.

This new deluxe version of the classic album, which originally was released in 1967, will be available April 2, courtesy of Stax Records. It features several bonus tracks, including an untitled instrumental and alternate takes of "Born Under a Bad Sign," "Crosscut Saw," "The Hunter" and "Personal Manager."

The deluxe album also features updated liner notes by music historian Bill Dahl. “Thanks to Born Under a Bad Sign, Albert King became a full-fledged blues luminary, masterfully bridging the gap between the Chitlin’ Circuit and the rock arena," Dahl writes. "He would make more great Stax albums, but he’d never top this one.”

There's no denying Born Under a Bad Sign's place in rock and blues history. It features “Crosscut Saw,” one of King’s best-known recordings, which was covered by Eric Clapton, plus the title track, “Born Under a Bad Sign,” which reached No. 49 on the R&B chart in 1967 and was quickly covered by Cream in 1968.

King's recording of “Oh, Pretty Woman” highlights Steve Cropper’s rhythm guitar work, which augments distinctive King’s lead lines. The song went on to be be a signature track for John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, who recorded the tune during their Mick Taylor era.

King will be posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame April 18. Keep up with the latest Albert King news on Facebook.

For more about King, check out the new issue of Guitar Aficionado magazine, which celebrates the blues master's overdue induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with a look at his life and legacy. It's available at the Guitar World Online Store!

On April 2, Stax Records, a unit of Concord Music Group, will release the deluxe edition of one of Albert King's most revered albums — 1967's Born Under a Bad Sign.

The album will feature bonus tracks and updated liner notes by music historian Bill Dahl.

“Thanks to Born Under a Bad Sign, Albert King became a full-fledged blues luminary, masterfully bridging the gap between the Chitlin’ Circuit and the rock arena," Dahl writes. "He would make more great Stax albums, but he’d never top this one.”

The deluxe release will include previously unissued alternate takes of “Born Under a Bad Sign,” “Crosscut Saw,” “The Hunter,” “Personal Manager” and an untitled instrumental.

There's no denying Born Under a Bad Sign's place in rock and blues history. It features “Crosscut Saw,” one of King’s best-known recordings, which was covered by Eric Clapton, plus the title track, “Born Under a Bad Sign,” which reached No. 49 on the R&B chart in 1967 and was quickly covered by Cream in 1968.

King's recording of “Oh, Pretty Woman,” which was written by WDIA DJ Williams, features Steve Cropper’s rhythm guitar work, which augments King’s lead licks. The song went to be be a signature track for John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, who covered the tune during their Mick Taylor era.

The album is also known for its many covers: King gave the Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller R&B standard “Kansas City” an urban blues treatment. He’s right at home with Fenton Robinson’s “As the Years Go Passing By.” Ivory Joe Hunter’s “I Almost Lost My Mind” is a rare King ballad with countrypolitan overtones and jazz flute, an unlikely showcase for his rich baritone.

King will be posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame April 18.

Follow along with the latest Albert King news on Facebook.

For more about Albert King, check out the new issue of Guitar Aficionado magazine, which features King on its cover and celebrates the blues master's long-overdue induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with a look at his life and legacy. It's available now at the Guitar World Online Store!

Earlier today, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame officially announced its list of inductees for 2013. Heading up the class is Canadian prog-rock trio Rush, who have long been noted as one of the Hall's most egregious omissions.

"We are honored to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," said the band in a post on their official Facebook page. "The 3 of us are especially appreciative of our loyal fans whose support and dedication has gone a long way to making this possible. P.S. And special thanks to our moms for voting 6000 times!"

Joining them will be blues-guitar great Albert King, Heart, Randy Newman, Donna Summer and iconic rap group Public Enemy.

The induction ceremony is set to take place on April 18th, 2013 at the Nokia Theater. It will be aired on HBO the following month.

Rush's latest album, Clockwork Angels, landed at No. 2 on Guitar World's list of the 50 best albums of 2012.

Just released from Guitar World is the new instructional DVD, How To Play Blues: Albert King, which features over 45 minutes of video instruction focused on the legendary guitarist's signature licks, uptempo & slow blues, fast 6/8 grooves and more. Pick up it in our online store here.

Nineteen hundred and seventy-two is one of those rare years -- like, say, 1967, 1969, 1971 and 1991 -- that saw the release of several seminal rock and modern-blues albums.

As we wrote last year in our 1971 roundup, "Even for a year that falls squarely in the heart of the 'classic rock' era, it was a particularly classic year."

It was the year of Exile On Main St., Thick As a Brick and Close To the Edge, albums that are so renowned that we don't have to name the bands that created them (But, just in case, it was The Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull and Yes). Tull actually outdid themselves that year, also releasing Living In the Past.

[[ Ziggy Stardust co-producer Ken Scott discusses creating the album with David Bowie and Mick Ronson. ]]

On the heavier side of things, while Led Zeppelin took the year off from vinyl, Deep Purple released what is perhaps the Deep Purple album, Machine Head, plus the live classic Made in Japan. Black Sabbath followed up 1971's Master of Reality with Vol. 4 -- and Scorpions, Wishbone Ash and Uriah Heep chimed in as well.

In the world of blues, all three ax-wielding Kings released albums -- Texas Cannonball by Freddie King, Guess Who by B.B. King and I'll Play the Blues For You by Albert King -- not to mention Eat A Peach by The Allman Brothers Band, Rio Grande Mud by ZZ Top, and Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive by John Lee Hooker.

With that in mind, below is our list of 50 classic albums celebrating their 40th anniversary in 2012. Remember: Life begins at 40!

We all know a great lick when we hear one—Jimmy Page’s solo breaks in “Whole Lotta Love” and Mark Knopfler’s blistering triads in “Sultans of Swing,” for example. Moments like these grab your attention and aurally brand your ears forever. Or, sometimes it acts more subliminally: You suddenly find yourself playing a certain lick over and over again, wondering, Where have I heard this before?

Through the years, these licks have evolved into a vocabulary for the guitar. And like great writers who are always able to find the right word to make a point, great guitarists always have that essential lick at their disposal to express, in the moment, what they’re feeling. And whereas the best writers are able to string those words together to form remarkable prose, the best guitarists link their licks to form living, breathing, musical statements.

We called upon our mighty stable of instructional writers to assemble these 101 Amazing Guitar Licks, spanning over eight decades and ranging from rock, metal, and blues to jazz, country and bluegrass. Regardless of what style music you play, it will do your ears and your chops good to go through each of these licks. Learn them, master them, and keep them on file for the next time you’re looking for just the right way to say what’s in your soul.

BLUES

FIGURE 57

Origin: An Albert King funk-blues lick à la “Born Under a Bad Sign,” this lick—like so many classic blues licks—originated from a Delta slide lick.
Theory: King stays with the C# blues scale (C#–E–F#–G–G#–B) on this lick.
Playing Tip: Use a little extra elbow grease and give the bent C# a medium vibrato.

Check back tomorrow for Figure 58!