After Pat Smear suffered a “bizarre gardening injury” in January 2026, the Foo Fighters needed a capable replacement for their three-guitar brand of sonic chaos. Luckily, Jason Falkner – St. Vincent and Beck guitarist, and long-time pal of Dave Grohl – was up for the challenge.

“I’m a fan of the band,” Falkner tells Guitar World. “I wasn’t familiar with their entire catalog, but what I’d heard I loved. I got the first two records when they first came out. I was definitely curious to size up another one-man band guy!”

His curiosity paid off as he learned 23 songs at lighting speed, leading to his Foo Fighters debut 10 days after Grohl asked him to fill in. “Needless to say, that was a bit hectic,” Falkner says.

But it didn’t take him long to find his feet – and then the shows became a blast. “Dave’s amazing,” he says. “The atmosphere he creates is super-fun, as you can imagine. It’s just the right amount of energetic looseness, but the arrangements are tight. A perfect juxtaposition!”

He played his final show with the Foos in Manchester, UK, in February, with Smear ready when the band returned to action for new album Your Favorite Toy. But if Falkner is needed again, he says, “they all know I’m down.”

How were you asked to fill in for Pat Smear?

I was getting ready to rage per usual on New Year’s Eve, when Dave called and told me about Pat's injury. He asked if I’d be interested in filling in and obviously, I said yes. Then he told me I had four days to learn 23 songs at home before we started five days of rehearsals on January 5, with the first show in Mexico on January 10.

Why do you think Dave called you?

Well, I’ve known him for quite a while. I’d like to think he and Pat knew I’d rock out in this situation. And Dave had called me in 2018 for a single show at Warren Haynes’ Christmas Jam, where we played Dave’s opus Play. I think he knew I’d fit in quickly.

I was truly chuffed when he said that he and Pat had thought of me basically at the same time. I’m a Pat fan going back to the Germs, so it’s all just really cool.

What did you find interesting about Pat’s playing?

His guitar playing rules – it’s direct and heavy and I don’t want much more than that! He’s famously a Hagstrom guy, and I have quite a few ‘60s Hags, as well as a collection of oddballs, so we clearly share an interest in the obscure.

I spent four days at home learning the records, trying to get comfortable enough that I could leave space or not, depending on what Dave and Chris were doing live.

The one mistake I made was not listening to the live versions earlier – they can be quite different from the record's arrangement. I learned that the hard way at full band rehearsals!

Were you able to make the parts your own, or did you play them straight as Pat does?

Pat was incredibly sweet. We talked a lot, and he texted info and tech support when I had a question. I feel like I started from the angle of trying to do what Pat does; but once I got comfortable I stretched out a bit.

Was it tough to integrate with Chris and Dave, seeing as those fellas have long-term chemistry?

Not really – Dave or Chris would tell me when Pat lays out or when he steps out in front musically. It was a lot to learn in a short time, but the communication made it easy. I didn’t just have to know it all from minute one.

What was the key to finding your own chemistry with Dave and Chris?

Whenever I’m asked to be a part of something, I’m very aware that there’s a significant chemistry that has existed long before my involvement. Being sensitive to that is important. But in this case I felt pretty comfortable, since I knew the guys to varying degrees already.

Did you have to alter your rig from your usual gear and approach?

Luckily most of the set is pretty maxed out sonically, so I used the same ’board I use with everything. I’ve got several gnarly distortion pedals on that, so I used my judgment as far as what to engage song by song – it wasn’t always the same.

These were stadium gigs. Was that nerve-racking?

Well, my first show was 10 days after Dave called me, so that was pretty nerve-racking! The first show was in Mexico, and even though I was out-of-body pretty much the whole time, it went very well. I had done a lot of work at home, learning everything, so all that paid off.

What did playing with the Foo Fighters teach you?

It reminded me that I enjoy nipping on Jägermeister on stage! We parted with sweet sorrow – the last show in Manchester was a bit emo, knowing it was my last. I certainly hope I work with them again.

Fender and Gibson are two of the most iconic electric guitar brands of all time – and Todd Rundgren has stated that, in his heyday, you either played one or the other. Players had to pick their poison.

The versatile guitarist, producer, and songwriter, who's worked with Meat Loaf, New York Dolls, and Grand Funk Railroad, emerged from the psychedelic scene of the 1960s. He was well aware of what was happening across the Atlantic at the time, and that awareness informed his choice of guitar.

“In those days, there were kind of two camps,” he tells Guitar Player in a new interview. “I came out of the Yardbirds camp – the Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck kind of things – and you played a Gibson guitar.”

The other camp, which played Fenders, had Jimi Hendrix as its leader. But Rundgren aligned himself with the “classical” playing styles of the other Yardbirds group, in contrast to Hendrix's liquid fire.

Indeed, it was Hendrix's unique prowess with a Strat, as well as the differences in their individual styles and techniques, that solidified Rundgren's early loyalty to Gibson. At the time, he felt he couldn't get what he needed from a Fender.

“I played a Les Paul, which had no whammy bar, no tremolo tailpiece on it,” he explains. “Jimi played a Stratocaster and made full use of the whammy bar. I personally didn’t have the sense of freedom Jimi Hendrix had, in that he might not play the same thing every time.

“A lot of what I was listening to before that was kind of classical guitar solos that Beck and Clapton would play, and you would learn those literally in the same way you would learn every George Harrison guitar solo – literally. They’re like primers in guitar playing; you’d learn how to play this melody and be expected to play it at the drop of a hat.”

As Rundgren notes, it was the work of Cream- and Yardbirds-era Clapton and Beck – both of whom played Gibsons at the time – that pushed him towards that camp. Notably, Jimmy Page, another Yardbirds alumni, also played a Les Paul during his time in the group.

Ironically, while Page has largely remained loyal to Gibsons – though by no means has he played them exclusively – Clapton and Beck would go on to softly change camps. So too would Rundgren himself.

For example, Beck's Oxblood Les Paul, which he used to record his game-changing solo record Blow by Blow before it became the world’s most expensive LP last year, was later joined by a Fender Strat.

Despite previously waxing lyrical about the instrument’s tonal quality, Beck explained his U-turn by describing the Strat as providing “endless color,” and it was that instrument that he played almost exclusively for the last 40 years of his career.

Clapton, meanwhile, also developed an affinity for Fenders. While Rundgren would eventually take ownership of Slowhand's iconic 'The Fool' SG, Clapton himself later stuck largely to Strats.

Maybe that's why Rundgren also began embracing Fenders and S-types later on. Indeed, although Hendrix's liquid fire on the whammy bar may have seemed out of reach for Rundgren at the time, he later began playing a black Fender Mustang, making its tremolo system a core part of his sound in the late 1970s.

Clapton's 'The Fool' SG, which Rundgren once bought for $500, sold earlier this year as part of the Jim Irsay Collection auction for $3,003,000.

As musical director for Beck, one of alternative rock's most progressive acts, Justin Meldal-Johnsen was driven to master his voice as a low-end interlocutor, free to cast his wildly inventive basslines in fresh, funky tones.

Through his work with Air, Ima Robot, Macy Gray, Gnarls Barkley, Nelly Furtado, Garbage, Pink, Ladytron, They Might Be Giants, and Goldfrapp, Meldal-Johnsen has shown that his range as a bassist is rivalled only by his versatility as a player – in the broader sense – on the business side of music.

He has produced too many hip alternative acts to mention, and worked as A&R rep for Dangerbird Records, an independent label with releases from Eric Avery, Sea Wolf, and Silversun Pickups.

Back in May 2007, a serendipitous twist in Meldal-Johnsen's career took place when his fan letter to industrial music icon Trent Reznor (following Reznor's free online release of The Slip) resulted in an invite to join Nine Inch Nails. That it happened the very week he and Beck decided to suspend their longtime working relationship is fitting for a bass man who's among the busiest in the business.

“I downloaded The Slip the day it came out,” Meldal-Johnsen told Bass Player. “I got so excited about it I decided to write to Trent. I wrote something along the lines of, ‘Hey Trent – I'm Justin, bass player for Beck, and I just wanted to let you know as a peer that I'm really digging how lean and focused the album is. I like it. Thanks for the free record.’

“A few days later, Beck told me he needed to restructure his band to make it more lo-fi than what we'd been doing. Then I got a call from Trent's manager, who asked, ‘Are you at all interested in being in a big rock band?’ Then Trent called and said, ‘I've been hearing about you for years, and you come really highly recommended. I think we should meet.’

“After meeting, he emailed me a list of songs to learn, and I came in to audition. I rocked out, and they were stoked. Trent asked, ‘Who wants Justin in the band?’ and they all raised their hands. We talked some logistics and we were done. A few days later, I was digging into the setlist for a world tour!”

The following Bass Player interview took place in October 2008.

From a playing perspective, what's it like being part of a Nine Inch Nails production?

“I can't even tell you, It turns up the volume on your whole emotional landscape. I'm like a wide-eyed kid. When everybody on board is contributing to the same goal, it creates an almost military mentality. That's what I like most about touring. I like exciting large groups of people, and I like working in an army.”

What makes you the right person for this gig?

“Trent is looking to achieve a new level of musical flexibility in his band. We're going to be rendering material he's never done, and the savvy he needs spans from sensitive arco upright bass to synth programs and larger sound design. Trent needs musicianship, but he doesn't just need a great rock bass player; he needs something broader, and that's what I bring.”

“Another thing is more basic – a clear, drug-free persona, because that's the way he rolls. We're all grown men, and we want to do this really well. We're pros, you know? Punctuality, preparedness, a direct understanding of the human-to-gear interface – he needs all that.”

How did you approach designing your bass sounds in this new setting?

“Trent would give me a daily assignment of three or four songs to learn. I would go home, chart them, and play them until I didn't need the chart anymore. I would think of the tone and make notes on the chart of what I might want to drum up with pedals and amps. Then I'd come in and dial up sounds.

“Trent would occasionally make comments like, ‘That should sound zingier’, or ‘brighter’, or ‘dirtier’, and in minutes I'd have a whole different sound for him. I'd take digital photos of the settings to keep track.”

What basses do you have in your touring rig?

“I have a custom Fender Jaguar with two P-Bass pickups. I bought three Gibson Thunderbirds and modified them with new old-stock '70s pickups, Badass bridges, bone nuts, and Grover tuners. They have a twangy-ness that I love – a Rickenbacker-like sprang – and they’re woofy on the very bottom.

“The American Standard P-Bass I have has a lively sound and a lot of sustain, and the Jaguar is like a thicker Jazz Bass. For me, the sound of Nine Inch Nails comes from the Jaguar and Geddy Lee basses.”

You're playing challenging material from the instrumental Nine Inch Nails release, Ghosts I-IV.

“There are some songs we think are transcendent and interesting, and others that might not go over that great because they are dramatic in a way that might be too subtle for the audience. It's a grand experiment, and it's what gives us a lot of drive for this tour.

“When we started busting it out in rehearsal, we realized we could essentially do modern chamber music in a way that could blow some minds. I'm playing upright bass, electric bass, mandolin, electric guitar, a Guild acoustic bass guitar, and keyboards. It's kind of a new frontier, and – sink or swim – we're excited.”

How much freedom is there for you in Nine Inch Nails?

“Not a lot. In Nine Inch Nails, the bass parts are bass parts. But as the days go on, I'm adding my own personal inflection, and Trent welcomes that. It just needs to be done with taste and discretion.”

You're also singing on a lot of songs.

“Back when I first started with Beck, he asked me, ‘Do you sing?’ I said no, and he said, ‘Good. Here are the parts.’ With nearly everything I've done since then, there's always been vocals. I'm not a great singer, but I enjoy trying.

“In Nine Inch Nails there are a lot of odd times or oblique phrases in the bass, and singing over them has been a real pat-your-head, rub-your-tummy thing. It's a beast, but it's nothing people haven't done before.”

How do you view the state of the music industry and your place in it?

“Record sales are abysmal, labels are contracting if not closing, and no-one's signing any big advances anymore, things are in a poor state. But I've been doing better each year, probably by the virtue of my love for playing.”

Spanish indie rockers Hinds have an ethos best encapsulated by a phrase from their home country: “No dejes para mañana lo que puedes hacer hoy,” or “better now than later.”

The lilting exuberance of their first singles, Bamboo and Trippy Gum, which intoxicated the indie world and sustained their career over three albums, still comes across the screen as co-founders Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote dial in from Madrid, clutching coffees and finishing each other's sentences.

However, it's now coupled with a passion, creative determination, and an “against all odds” conviction that contrasts the nonchalant, off-the-cuff delivery – and isn't that exactly what we want from our guitar heroes?

Their new (and fourth) album, Viva Hinds is a hard-earned statement of grit, heartbreak, and healing that caps a fraught few years for the group. In 2023, just as Hinds were getting on their feet after the pandemic, drummer Amber Grimbergen and bassist Ade Martín announced they were leaving the band.

“It was one thing after the other,” admits Perrote. “As soon as it happened, I remember just having a meeting, which is what we do every day, which is just meeting for coffee.

“And just being like, ‘Okay, this is happening. We need to protect our energy and the will because we have finally found the excitement to make a new album. We don’t want to wait for a record deal or manager and all of those things that were a bit shaky.”

“We were finally there, regardless of everything, so it was like, ‘Okay, the thing we need to protect the most is that feeling that we have, so we just need to carry on,’” she adds, as Cosials nods in agreement.

You previously mentioned that you both started playing guitar while on holiday together. Is that true?

Cosials: “I'll never let the truth ruin a good story! No, that's true. It wasn't the first time that I picked up a guitar, but I think I only knew three chords. We learned how to properly play guitar while creating the band. So we completely developed our guitar skills on stage.”

So did you decide to start a band while on that trip?

Perrote: “We fell in love with it [the guitar] instantly. Like CC was saying, we obviously loved music. And it was one of the things that bonded us. We met through ex-boyfriends. Actually, my ex-boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend had a band together, and we would go to their rehearsals and cheer them on.

“So it wasn't until I broke up with him that we decided to do this trip. We decided, ‘Should we just bring the guitar?’ Yeah, whatever. It was one of those very casual trips. We were staying in a hostel that had many beds but we were lucky enough that it was only the two of us.

“I remember CC was showering, and I was finding these chords for a Bob Dylan song. And we started sort of teaching each other and rehearsing it, and we're like, ‘Oh, what if we sing it, but you sing this part and I sing this part?’ and just instantly, we were addicted to the feeling of playing together. And during those days, we didn't do anything else.”

Cosials: “Even the sunburn that we got from the beach. It was in the shape of the guitar!”

Perrote: “That's when we realized that we loved it so much. We were like, ‘Should we turn it into a band? Should we try to play one show before the end of the year?’”

What did the guitar give you that other instruments didn't?

Cosials: “I just love it. When we first got into a rehearsal space, there were some drums, and we weren't sure if we were going to keep the band acoustic or what the hell we were going to do. But I told Ana, ‘I'm so sorry, I’m no good at drums. I still prefer the guitar.’”

Perrote: “Even when we decided to go electric, one should have gone to bass. But we both were like, ‘I just don't want to do it.’”

Cosials: “Probably there's a little bit of personality attached to all instruments. If you're a guitar player, even if you try to fight against it, it's very difficult to change your core.”

When you released your first singles, there was a lot of talk about the fact that your success was “instant”. Did this pressure force you to develop your sound quickly? Or did you have an idea of what you wanted to sound like from the start?

Cosials: “In the beginning, when everything started to move really fast for the natural growth of a band, we were like, ‘We should protect what we are right now. We shouldn't change as fast as the outside world is moving.’ When you get attention with only two songs out, it's very dangerous to start listening to what people want. You need to make a lot more music and create to your own taste.”

When you got into the studio for Viva Hinds, did you just record everything between the two of you?

Perrote: “It was actually really cool because, if you're in a band, [you’ve got] four people, a lot of opinions, a lot of egos. It's sometimes tough for everyone to be happy [with an album]. So it was refreshing to have that space to decide everything for the song, rather than the instrumental part. It was challenging, but it wasn't too hard.

“Our producer, Pete Robertson [The Vaccines], is an amazing drummer, so we did it between the three of us. That's the bit that changed the most: we had to work more. I remember we were saying, ‘Fuck me, I can't even have a break.’ Because if we weren't recording, he's playing the drums, and we're obviously directing him. It was a lot more work than usual!”

I've always noticed that your guitar parts complement each other. Was this always something you took into consideration while songwriting?

Cosials: “Yeah, one hundred percent. It's like that because we want to have a good conversation [between the guitars]. In this album, we introduced the same [element] with the keys.”

So Ana, you're known for using Jazzmasters while Carlotta, you've mostly used Danelectros and Gibson SGs. What drew you to these guitars, as opposed to say, Strats or Les Pauls?

Perrote: “One of the main reasons is how comfortable it is. I remember the first time we were in a studio. We won a contest and had a day in a studio in Berlin. And I remember trying a Telecaster, especially for solos and stuff.

“I was doing the solos for Castigadas En El Granero, and finding the sliding so complicated, like a fucking mountain between one fret and the other and I absolutely hated it. That's kind of the reason why I stuck with Jazzmasters.

“But for this album, we used other guitars, and now, for live, I'm going with a new one. It's a Fender Meteora. So that's exciting!”

Cosials: “I chose Danelectro because I wanted to copy my heroes. And my heroes at that time were all these California wave [guitarists]. You start by copying what you see with your eyes, so that was the main reason. I didn't test it out, or anything like that. Then I changed to a very common guitar, the [Gibson] SG, and it's a fucking monster. It just rages. I think it fits me very well.”

Are these the guitars you also used on this album?

Perrote: “We used the [Fender] Acoustasonic Jazzmaster lot. And also Pete's one, a Fano Alt De Facto SP6 [a kind of Les Paul/Telecaster hybrid]. CC's guitar [the Gibson SG] was more for solos, and then for this [the Fano guitar], we used it to create a lot of layers doing what we call “cowboy guitars”, which is like, what would have been a bass, but it's really like a guitar [layer] on top of the bass. For bass, we had a Mustang that we own and a black [Fender] Aerodyne Jazz bass.”

This year, you released En Forma, your first single that's fully in Spanish. Are there any Spanish-inspired elements in your guitar playing at all?

Cosials: “I don't know what my roots are, to be honest. The language is definitely something very, very big, but I wouldn't say that I have a [Spanish] sound or guitar style that I could actually go back to.”

Perrote: “In some of them, there's a nylon Spanish guitar in the background. But that's about it.”

You collaborated with Beck on the single Boom Boom Back. Did he play guitar as well?

Perrote: “No! So for us, he just appeared and we felt like we were his session musicians, his band. He appears, sings, and then he leaves. You know, the song was already done.”

So it was already called Boom Boom Back before you knew whether he was actually going to sing on it?

Perrote: “Can you believe it?! Sí. Also, our goal with this album was not to wait or rely on anyone else. Even though he had said, ‘Yeah, I want to sing,’ we were ready for him to not sing. So we went ahead and recorded everything prior.”

Hinds are known for opposing perfection and the pressure to sound or be “perfect”. Do you think that's still a value that defines you, and the band?

Perrote: “It's important to let, especially women, be natural. Life, and being natural, is [all about] fucking up. And especially a band like us. We're very punk. We're very hands-on. We don't have all of those things that you see that make a show perfect.

“So we should be allowed to be free and decide that if we want to be yelling, it's because we want to be yelling. It's not a mistake. It's just a decision. There aren’t many examples of natural women in the music industry, I think, in any sense.”

Cosials: “When you think about a female artist, it's easier to go to a mainstream artist, and joder, that's a league that we cannot compete with. We spend our time in the rehearsal place, loading in and loading out. You end up wearing a T-shirt and something comfortable because of the job, because of the instrument that I play and the kind of show that I want to give.”

What have been the highlights of your career so far?

Cosials: “We've been to Japan three or four times, and that was super-cool.”

Perrote: “I'm also really proud of the fact that we are the first-ever Spanish band to have an international career. Like, you know, when we go to London, we have British people, and when we go to New York, it's American people. No one has done it before, which is crazy.”

Cosials: “We used to be huge fans of this band that doesn't exist anymore. They were called The Virgins. But we met the guitar player and drummer on our very first tour in America. And we had this night that, for the very first time, we felt admired. They kept asking us to play more songs.

“It's not like you need confirmation, but having it from people whose music you admired when you were a teenager hits differently. It gave us the strength for maybe a couple of years.”

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a band, but feels like they’re not good enough, or maybe haven’t even started playing an instrument?

Perrote: “If we had waited, we would probably be a completely different band with a less fun career. We are proof that waiting is for people who are scared.

“If you can, find a good friend and stick with them. And you know, when you are scared, let that person be the strong person and just lean on each other. Because having someone next to you is what makes this the most enjoyable thing.”

• Viva Hinds is out now.

Beck, the master of retro-hipster musical eclecticism, has been on the cultural radar for over two decades now, so it's easy to take his uniquely groovy stew for granted. But when an artist is drawing from genres as disparate as 1960s soul and R&B, '70s big-band Elvis, country, and hip-hop, it takes musicians who somehow get it all, are able to come up with parts that work every stylistic angle at once, and do it – on live gigs, anyway – while dancing. 

The guy who leads that charge is Beck's bassist, musical director, and friend of over 15 years, Justin Meldal-Johnsen.

In 1999, when Beck released the high-energy Midnite Vultures, the leadoff track, Sexx Laws, became a huge hit. Amidst the jam-packed arrangement, the track's bassline stood out as a masterful example of what's possible when the rules are all being broken at once, and yet the groove is still steering the bus.

“Beck wanted something distinctive and driving. I think he wanted the bass to seem like it was coming unhinged at every turn,” Meldal-Johnsen told Bass Player. “The bass guitar was the first non-sampled instrument recorded. Beck looped the song for me, I jammed on it until I came up with parts Beck really liked, and then we tracked a few takes.”

The tune kicks off with a greasy vamp that serves as the intro and outro, verse foundation, and interlude between choruses and verses. The changes alternate between B major and G# major three times before the two-bar turnaround of A major and F# major.

Meldal-Johnsen lays into the roots with pulsing eighth-notes and an anticipated quarter-note, usually followed by a quick note run-up to the next change. 

There are slight alterations to the end-bar lick throughout the tune, but the purest form of the line can be found in the first verse.

One of the coolest parts of the whole bassline is the turnaround (bars 7 and 8), where Meldal-Johnsen cranks out a wild, stuttering run of 16th-notes, beat three anticipations, and approach tones that would make James Jamerson blush. 

“The guys were getting some amusement at the fact that I was sweating bullets trying to correctly play this monster I had created. That's my favorite thing to do: write things that are at the threshold of my ability.”

Over A major in the verse, Meldal-Johnsen hits the root, followed by the 7th (G) and 5th (E), before sliding up into the 9th (B) and finally working his way back down the chord tones with the help of an open D string. 

The coup de grace occurs over the F# chord, where he string-skips through a blinding-fast major pentatonic run of A#-C#-D#-F# and then plows down to the root, hitting the b3 blue note (A) along the way. And mind you, Meldal-Johnson plays this entire line with a pick. 

“Sonically, the ideal scenario would be some sort of medium- or short-scale hollowbody with flatwounds: Get a gritty tone, and dig in fairly hard with a pick to get some attack. Have fun, but push the envelope.”

The chorus is a quirky and relentlessly major and dominant progression (there's not a single minor chord in this song!), over which Meldal-Johnsen cranks out a furious and frenetic line of 16th-note funkiness. 

Using the first chorus as an example, the E7 bars climb up chromatically and then fall down on the 7th (D) and 5th (B), with hammered-on grace notes. The two following bars have a similar rhythmic feel as they hit the octave, 5th, and 7th chord tones of G# and C#. 

Another two-bar climb (bars 21 and 22), this time in G, leads in to a high root-5-octave line in F#. Then a chromatic climb in E falls into a two-bar line in D before finally breathing for four consecutive quarter-notes ... and then the vamp re-enters, and the groove starts all over again.

The second verse flies off into a whole other universe, containing an alternate-picked, slightly ‘out' lick and an entirely new root-5-octave motif. Further on, after the banjo breakdown there's a fancy one-off lick in F# that sets up the final chorus and outro vamp. 

By this point, Meldal-Johnsen starts playing around more with the line, but he never loses the essence of what makes it work in the first place. That includes the tone: dark and boomy, and not always completely articulated in the mix.

He did it with a '98 Guild Starfire Reissue, with the signal split into a Brent Averill API 312 mic preamp and a Tech 21 SansAmp PSA-1, and then into a Urei 1176 and “some other compressor.”

From his early gigs with The Three O'Clock, Jellyfish and The Grays, Jason Falkner learned quickly that the music business is filled with left turns.

Thankfully, Falkner – who recorded the indie classic Bellybutton with Jellyfish in 1990 – has long had songwriting chops and accompanying licks for days, leading to five solo records, numerous studio works with Air, Noel Gallagher, Daniel Johnston and Cheap Trick, and mega gigs with Beck and St. Vincent.

Whether playing bass or guitar, he keeps things fresh, quirky and highly textural. That keeps him in demand, no matter the genre or the gig. Lately, when he’s not on the road with Beck and St. Vincent, he’s pondering his long-awaited sixth solo record, which he admits has taken “an embarrassingly long time”.

What sorts of sounds were you attracted to as a young guitarist?

“I was a classical piano kid starting at six years old, and then I got into FM radio stuff, like Led Zeppelin, Boston and Queen. I remember thinking my guitar sounded distorted when I first plugged it in – I felt it would sound like Tom Scholz!

“My parents had avoided getting me a guitar, but they finally relented and got me an early ‘70s Fender Mustang when I was 13 and new wave was kicking off. New wave, punk and classic rock were all things that came from different schools but were always present in my brain then.”

You joined The Three O’Clock and then Jellyfish not long after. What was your rig like around then?

“In The Three O'Clock, I had one guitar – the Fender Mustang from my parents. A bit later I also had a John Lennon Rickenbacker [1958 325] and I used both in that band. As for amps, I only had a little Gibson one my parents gave me, which was a 12-watt that got lost. I often borrowed amps from friends.

“But in Jellyfish, I became more sophisticated with gear and I got obsessed with Vox AC30s. Jellyfish producer Albhy Galuten had a gear hookup with vintage shops in LA, and we’d rent all this Holy Grail stuff. I had five AC30s to choose from, and we’d jog back and forth depending on the song.”

No more Mustang by then?

“We had all these amazing guitars, and the producer noticed me fooling around with my Mustang, which had lost the whammy bar. I developed a technique where I’d strike a chord and push down on the tube sticking out from the bridge where the whammy bar went – I’d push that forward and jog back and forth. That was my vibrato.

“It sounded so fucking cool, and the producer said, ‘You’ve created your own thing. That’s your guitar.’ And it was no joke – it was original, so I used the Mustang mainly.”

Gear aside, what memories do you have of putting together Jellyfish’s Bellybutton?

“We did the demos in San Francisco in the summer and plowed through them. They had written many of the songs, and I remember liking them a lot. I certainly thought I’d eventually be able to write more, which was false hope.

“I felt like I could flex my classic rock inclinations more, which was cool because previous bands had been more psychedelic and bubblegum stuff. I was excited by the idea of getting a little heavier.”

It didn’t work out with Jellyfish – but do you look back on the record fondly?

“I still love how sparse that record is. While tracking as a live trio, I got most of my guitar sounds down in one of the booths with an AC30. If you listen, my rhythm parts disappear whenever I play a solo because it’s the same take, which was a classic way to make a record.

“Since then I’ve become all about multiple overdubs and having a wall of guitars, so that was a different kind of experience.”

How did your gear evolve once you started your solo and session career?

“I’ve always just recorded whatever I felt the song needed until it was done. I’m a big fan of the art of reduction, where you pull things instead of adding. But I’m so in love with the electric guitar; that thing, to me, is a living, breathing thing.

“I have a crazy collection of oddball guitars. All of them are extremely playable – I never keep anything junky. People will come say, ‘What the hell is that?’ And then they pick it up and say, ‘Holy shit, it plays just like a Les Paul.’ And I say, ‘That’s why I have it!’”

Which of those guitars do you most often turn to?

“A ’61 Fender Jazzmaster, which is Fiesta Red with a matching headstock. I’ve been playing that on stage a lot with St. Vincent lately. Another is a first-year [1981] Hammer Prototype; it’s such a cool guitar. I got into that from James Honeyman-Scott; it's just like his.

“I loved seeing him with it because it didn't look like some stupid heavy metal guitar or nonsense like that. Nick Lowe also played one, which is probably how James Honeyman-Scott got into it, as Nick was involved with the first Pretenders record.

“I also have a couple of Framus guitars from the ‘60s and some ‘60s Hagstroms, too. Some of them are very rare, like my Retroscape Impala, one of my favorite guitars. And then I have some early ‘70s Guilds called Aristocrats; they look like a Les Paul.

“I have stuff by Gretsch and Dean, with the giant V headstock and others. I’ve got tons of weird guitars. There’s no reason you’ve never heard of them, like they suck. They’re all great guitars.”

You’ve been with Beck for a long time. How did that happen?

“We met in the mid to late ‘90s. He used to come to my shows, but he was already very successful. Around that time, we became pals, and he’d say, ‘Hey, man, we should really do something together.’ He didn't just want to collaborate – he wanted me to be in his band, which eventually happened.”

Your first record with Beck was Sea Change. Was that that like?

“The guy is just so creative. He’s a real trailblazing musician and writer. We bonded early over a lot of obscure things that are generational for us. We both love weirdo, outsider stuff, and hip-hop, which led to having no set way to approach things. I learned early on that he doesn’t nitpick, and it was and is a very easy musical friendship.

“He invited me to the studio for the Sea Change sessions. The first thing I did was grab my ’73 Fender Telecaster Custom and play this little wiry guitar thing that ended up on Paper Tiger.

“I found out the string part on that was done around the guitar lines I’d recorded. If you listen, you can hear the strings follow this spidery lead thing I did, which I took as a huge compliment.”

You appeared on Noel Gallagher’s Who Built the Moon? and Council Skies.

“I only play bass on those records. I also played bass on the last few Primal Scream records. The whole bass thing is interesting because I didn’t have a bass for the longest time. I would just tune my guitar way down to where the strings were super-loose!

“By doing that, I created this style of playing, and once I got a real bass, I kept doing all these palm mutes where I was playing with a pick, but I was resting my hand before the bridge. I’m not the first to do that, but I figured it out on my own and combined it with an Ampeg amp with just a single 18-inch speaker and a Fender Mustang bass. 

“I get a nice, throaty, low-mid quality of that bass since it's short-scale and has pickups positioned between the neck and the bridge. That bass, combined with the massive bottom end of the speaker, is like my favorite thing in the world – that’s the combo I use with everything I play bass on.”

What’s playing with St. Vincent been like?

“Oh, she’s phenomenal. She’s an amazing guitarist and songwriter. I absolutely adore her. The thing with her happened during the lockdown in 2021, when I was just sitting around my house, recording songs, and drinking too many margaritas because I thought the world was ending.

“I got a call asking if I’d be interested. The first thing we did was Saturday Night Live, and then, when things loosened up, I went on tour with her for a couple of years.”

Balancing that with your duties with Beck and your solo career must be challenging.

“Playing with St. Vincent is one of the most thrilling things I’ve ever done. I assumed she would be more of a dictator musically but was pleasantly surprised to find out otherwise. She’ll hear me play things and ask, ‘What’s that? It’s so cool – how did you do that?’

“I can add things to her songs that may not be on the record, and she’ll like them and say, ‘Hey, can you teach me that?’ It’s been a truly rewarding experience, and I’m hoping to tour with her and Beck this year. I don’t think I’ll be able to do everything with her once Beck ramps up again, but I’ll be able to do some.”

Do you plan to release another solo record soon?

“I’m trying to figure out the best way to put it out. It’s been too long and I’m thankful to my fans for being patient. They’re very vocal – in a good way – about being disappointed that it’s taking so long, which I appreciate. 

“If I'm being honest, I am most excited about finally getting my solo record and doing some touring to support that, which I expect to happen this year. So it’s gonna be pretty busy.”

• Follow Jason Falkner on Instagram.

Despite kicking things off with a bang alongside Jeff Beck for 1981’s Amnesty International benefit in London, which many signaled as “a return to form,” Eric Clapton wasn’t ready for the Eighties.

It seems obvious now, but looking back, even Clapton would probably agree. To that end, the downfall, if you could call it that, wasn’t so much steep as it was somber, with Clapton progressively moving away from his patented “woman tone,” which had come by way of blending various humbucker-equipped guitars with cranked Marshall amps.

Going into the Seventies, Clapton was still considered “God” by some. But by 1980, at 35, he was perhaps one of your lesser gods, shelling out soft rock accented by even softer – but still kinda bluesy – licks. 

But it wasn’t all bad, as by the early Eighties, Clapton had assembled a rocking, all-British band featuring Gary Brooker on keys, Dave Markee on bass, Henry Spinetti (younger brother of actor Victor Spinetti, who starred in three Beatles movies) on drums, and most importantly, the ever-capable and entirely essential Albert Lee on guitar.

When Lee wandered into Clapton’s camp in 1978, the idea was to spice up Clapton’s backing band. 

“We’d known each other for a long time, and we ended up doing a session together in London in 1978 for Marc Benno,” Lee says. “We played together for a week on that. At the end of the session, Eric’s manager [Roger Forrester] came up to me and said, ‘How would you feel about coming out on the road with Eric to play second guitar?’ I thought, ‘That sounds like fun’ – and off we went.”

Considering that Clapton was grappling with self-inflicted issues including (but not limited to) drug and alcohol addiction, Lee coming along wasn’t just about providing a capable live partner; with his fingerstyle approach and hybrid-picking technique that was entirely different from Clapton’s, Lee brought new flavors and positive energy to the party. Moreover, he inserted some sorely needed blues edginess – or call it country sharpness – into a mix that had become increasingly soft-rock.

Despite the softness seeping its way into his studio recordings, once on the road with Lee, Clapton seemed invigorated, leading to the recording of two December 1979 performances at Budokan Theater in Tokyo that became the beloved 1980 double live album, Just One Night. 

Unlike what was to come, Just One Night found Clapton and friends brimming with passion and raw energy (case in point: the band’s dramatic, eight-minute-long take on Otis Rush’s Double Trouble). More memorable still is the fact that the record showcases the interplay between Clapton and Lee – especially when it came to their respective solos on the extended version of J.J. Cale’s Cocaine.

It’s important to know that Lee – despite the pride associated with the performance (he played the country-tinged second solo while Clapton played the bluesy first solo) – doesn’t quite look at it that way. 

“I never really felt it was a guitar battle,” Lee says. “I felt it was a conversation, really. Also, I sang two or three songs [including Setting Me Up and Rick Danko’s vocal parts on All Our Past Times]. Throughout the whole time I was with Eric, really, I was the harmony singer. There were no girl singers in those years. It was mainly down to me.”

One would’ve assumed that Clapton would take the energy he found on the road into the studio for his next record, and its title, Another Ticket, seemed to foreshadow as much. Instead, when Clapton and his band hit Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, in 1980, the edge that once defined him was still missing in action.

Retrospect says that 1981’s Another Ticket was a modest success, as evidenced by its position at Number 18 on the U.K. charts (and the Top 10 status of its Clapton-penned single, I Can’t Stand It). 

But Clapton’s music was never meant to be modest – especially with such a rocking yet blues-leaning band. That’s not to say Another Ticket is poor; it’s more to say that at 35, it seemed Clapton was more interested in blues complacency than juicing up the genre as he had a decade prior. 

Still, Floating Bridge features some interesting tones, and the overall tragic nature of the album, which centers around death – and in the case of Rita Mae, murder – could be seen as an example of Clapton leaning into his blues heritage, albeit in a highly mellowed-out fashion. Indeed, it seems Slowhand was wallowing in misery by this time, which is precisely why Another Ticket is a bit low on gusto.

It was bad enough that Clapton had gone from innovative dragon slayer to a yacht rock-leaning softy nearly overnight, leading to cookie-cutter album after cookie-cutter album. 

But making matters worse – and this was nothing new by the early Eighties – was his worsening alcoholism, which by 1982 had reached code red status. Somewhere in between fits of complacency and a sudden ‘come to Jesus’ moment that saw him “deepen his commitment to Christianity,” Clapton checked himself into rehab to sort himself out.

Specifically, he checked himself in during January 1982 – but not before hopping on a plane and drinking himself into oblivion one last time out of fear that he’d never drink again.That sounds pretty damn awful, and according to Clapton, it was. 

“In the lowest moments of my life, the only reason I didn’t commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn’t be able to drink anymore if I were dead,” Clapton said in his autobiography. “It was the only thing I thought was worth living for, and the idea that people were about to try and remove me from alcohol was so terrible that I drank and drank and drank, and they had to practically carry me to the clinic.”

Despite doctors’ orders not to engage in activities that would trigger alcohol consumption or stress, Clapton, seemingly brimming with energy, hit the studio to record what would be his next album, 1983’s Money and Cigarettes, a name chosen because Clapton is said to have felt that those two things were all he had left. 

Sadly, Clapton’s new and more clear-headed lease on life did not result in a change of musical course, with Money and Cigarettes providing more of the same low-energy content he’d been perpetrating since the mid-to-late Seventies. The only difference is that now Clapton couldn’t lean on addiction as an excuse for his amour-propre.

And to be sure, it wasn’t his band’s fault, either – especially given that slide ace Ry Cooder and master bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn were added to the mix, moves that should have been inspiring. But this was Clapton, after all, and while Money and Cigarettes might have been past its sell-by date out of the gate, it does have its moments, such as Man in Love, the All Along the Watchtower-esque Ain’t Going Down and – best of all – the blazing six-string interplay between Clapton and Lee on The Shape You’re In, which Lee remembers well. 

“We had such different approaches to the music,” he says. “I was always very conscious about trying to accompany and supplement what he was doing. That’s what people pay to hear, and he was happy to let me step out and play.”

Money and Cigarettes dropped in February of 1983 and was touted as a comeback album, which was to feature a sober and supposedly more creative Clapton. But success was again measured in modesty, with the album topping out at Number 20 in several countries. In short, this was not a level of success for someone who had achieved “God” status.

Another wrinkle showed up when a younger, hipper, far more aggressive-sounding (and also Strat-wielding) gunslinger from Texas – Stevie Ray Vaughan – inserted himself into the conversation via his debut record, Texas Flood, which was released in June 1983. 

For too long, Clapton had been asleep at the wheel, mainly providing records to use as white noise for lazy drives through the countryside or the desert. It had been years since he unleashed himself and made his Strat squeal, but now SRV was here with a record stacked with tracks to bump, grind, and sweat to – including Love Struck Baby, Pride and Joy, and his version of Buddy Guy’s Mary Had a Little Lamb – quite possibly leaving Clapton a smidge envious. 

For the first time since the aforementioned “Clapton is God” graffiti, Clapton’s status as a premier bluesbreaker had been challenged. And while you might think his ego and track record kept him from caring, if Albert Lee is to be believed, Clapton was, at the very least, listening to what SRV was doing. 

“[Eric] got a great joy out of listening to other guitarists,” Lee says. “He especially loved Stevie Ray.” Literally within months of Texas Flood's release, Clapton changed his style, guitar tone, and overall vibe to something – well, with a bit more heft to it. More on that later.

Looking back on his time with Clapton, Lee says, “I think I did a pretty good job, but I never really looked at the whole deal as me competing with him. We were all there to make music, and my style worked alongside him. It was complementary rather than competitive.”

Meanwhile, SRV released another barnburner of a record in 1984’s Couldn’t Stand the Weather, further loosening Clapton’s once ironclad grip on blues-rock guitar. Vaughan also was being compared (in these very pages) to Jimi Hendrix; after all, he was serving up blistering covers of Voodoo Child (Slight Return), Little Wing, and Third Stone from the Sun night after night.

But Clapton had a retort of sorts – 1984’s masterful The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking – which saw him partnering up with Roger Waters for the latter’s first post-Pink Floyd foray. Once he was perched beside Waters, Clapton was a man on fire, dishing out solos that still read back as some of the best of his career. 

To this point, Clapton had made a tactical error by meandering around and releasing blues-like but mostly blues-adjacent pop filler, forsaking the “song within the song” approach that many of his Cream, Blind Faith, and Derek and the Dominos solos had shown. But with Waters – as evidenced by songs like 5:01 AM (The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking) and 4:41 AM (Sexual Revolution) – Clapton threw everything he had at the wall, and nearly all of it stuck.

In short, the album and its subsequent tour showcased the array of E minor, heavily compressed, tone-perfect solos and riffs that proved Clapton could still be “God” – even if SRV were here to stay; and SRV wasn’t going anywhere. But that shouldn’t have been an issue, as Clapton was back amid the conversation and primed and ready to take on the remainder of the Eighties, right?

You would have thought that, and in some ways, it was true. Yes, Clapton did revamp his look, tone, and approach. And yes, he was prepared to back up the success alongside Waters with his own success. But the thing is, Clapton wasn’t ready for the Eighties, and by late 1984, he had become painfully aware of that. And so, while on a split from his wife, Pattie Boyd, Clapton teamed up with – and this still seems odd – Phil Collins to help right the ship, along with legendary producer Ted Templeman, resulting in 1985’s Behind the Sun.

One of the most significant issues with Clapton's work, dating back to the mid-Seventies, was that his guitar playing had taken a backseat to whatever sounds he felt would grant him chart success, stripping him of what made him great in the first place. 

Surely, Clapton was aware of this – especially with the guitar-forward SRV gobbling up headlines and air time – and Behind the Sun certainly has its share of memorable solos and riffs. 

So that was one problem sorted; but now, another presented itself, which admittedly is subjective: an over-reliance – probably at the behest of Collins – on drum machines and synthesizers. 

Case in point, here’s how Guitar World put it back in 2015: “The last minute and a half of Just Like a Prisoner might represent Clapton’s mid-Eighties high-water mark, at least from a shred perspective. The song features what could easily be considered one of his ‘angriest’ solos. 

“He even keeps playing long after the intended fade-out point, until the band stops abruptly. Maybe he was upset about the overpowering Eighties production, ridiculous synthesizers and obtrusive, way-too-loud drums that threaten to hijack the song at any moment.”

But on the bright side, while Clapton’s old band was gone, Behind the Sun does feature a ton of quality players, such as Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, who played rhythm guitar on Something’s Happening, and Toto’s Steve Lukather on See What Love Can Do and the album’s most memorable track, the polarizing yet beloved Forever Man.

Looking back on how he ended up at the Behind the Sun sessions, Lukather almost seems embarrassed, saying, “I wasn’t very important to the album at all. Honestly, I feel like I did very little in those sessions. I remember being very nervous and thinking I should play really simple so that people wouldn’t even know I was there.”

As for Clapton’s state of mind at a time when the urgency to deliver a competitive record must have been at the forefront, Lukather says, “Eric was really nice to me, but we weren’t close. I added very little to his stuff, I think. I remember walking in, and Eric examined my fingers and said, ‘You don’t have any calluses.’ He seemed disappointed, but I had just gotten out of the shower, so my hands were soft!”

Indeed, Clapton now seemed ready for the Eighties… or he was at least prepared to try and sound like something out of the Eighties. 

On the strength, if you could call it that, of Templeman and Collins’ techy production, Clapton had a hit on his hands. Forever Man was very well received, even if it, along with the rest of the album, sounded more akin to Steve Winwood a la High Life than anything he’d done back when he was universally considered the greatest guitarist on the planet. 

The reinvigorated Clapton wasn’t letting any time go to waste, either. Only a year after Behind the Sun (not to mention the Edge of Darkness soundtrack, which he recorded with Michael Kamen), he delivered the super-slick August, which was successful courtesy of tracks It’s in the Way That You Use It and Tearing Us Apart, which featured Tina Turner. 

But retrospect tells a different story, and it’s hard to deny that August is probably Clapton’s worst record – especially as far as the Eighties are concerned. Not even a track like Miss You, which features some of Clapton’s most inspired playing of the decade, could save an album entirely bogged down by synths, gated reverb, and guitars that are often buried in the mix.

In his search for success, Clapton not only fell off the wagon of sobriety but also saw his marriage to Boyd come to an end. The latter was a bit of karma, seeing as he’d stolen her from his best friend, George Harrison, in the Seventies, but the former was especially unfortunate, as it came at a time when Clapton was seen as regaining his footing. 

In the wake of a second and still successful trip to rehab, Clapton emerged prepared to reclaim the throne again. And much like he had with Waters in ’84, he set his own music aside and played session man, this time for Harrison, who was due for a renaissance of his own – and got one via 1987’s Cloud Nine.

It was a serendipitous meeting of musical minds – with Clapton seemingly unencumbered by the pressures of measuring up to his past, he laid down some of his best Eighties work on tracks like Cloud 9, That’s What It Takes, Devil’s Radio, and Wreck of the Hesperus. 

On the backside of those tracks, among other hits, Cloud Nine was a success, and a now sober and soon-to-be-single Clapton began ruminating on his next move, seeing him begin to write many of the songs that would appear on his final – and best – album of the Eighties, Journeyman.

Everything about Journeyman was different. For starters, it came on the heels of the successful (and truly awesome) 1988 box set, Crossroads, which showcased many of Clapton’s older and sometimes out-of-print-on-vinyl hits to a new and now CD-consuming generation. 

The positive reception for Crossroads, coupled with the fact that SRV had been slightly down for the count while battling his own addiction demons, allowed Clapton the space to reorient himself. 

Moreover, Clapton had found himself, meaning he rediscovered that long-lost “woman tone” he’d been missing, much of which can be attributed to his new signature Fender Stratocaster. Yes, Journeyman has its share of Eighties production – no one can deny that. But it’s also loaded with blues numbers, including Before You Accuse Me, Running on Faith, and Hard Times.

A critical addition to the sessions was Robert Cray, who lent his licks to six of the album’s 12 tracks and even co-wrote Old Love with Clapton. Sadly, Cray declined to be interviewed for this story; however, another venerable six-string veteran – Phil Palmer – also played a role on Journeyman, especially the album’s signature track, Bad Love.

“I had run into Eric in a little club in London called the Mean Fiddler,” Palmer says. “I looked up while playing and was shocked to see Eric standing there. Long story short, we got to talking, and Eric said to me, ‘Phil, it’s nice to see you. I’m making a record, and I’d like you to drop by and play on a few tracks.’ I did so, and the first track we did was Bad Love.”

Looking back on how he approached the track, given that his fingerstyle approach was in stark contrast to Clapton’s, Palmer says, “Musically, Eric was a very generous guy. I loved working with him because he encouraged me to play. Of course, you have to learn not to step on what Eric’s doing, but through my session work, I’d learned how to adapt, and Eric had a good way of letting me know in an unspoken way when I should jump in. He’d give a nod, and off I’d go.”

Of note, Palmer is only credited with lending a hand to Bad Love, but he recalls being heavily involved with two additional tracks, Old Love and Running on Faith, saying, “Eric encouraged me to play loud, which was like a dream come true. I wasn’t always encouraged to do that in other sessions, but Eric did. 

“And I remember that by that point, I’d gotten the idea that my long-used [Fender] Nocaster was pretty valuable, so I didn’t use that with Eric. Eric supplied me with one of his signature Strats, which were great guitars put together in the Fender Custom Shop. I still use them.”

Looking back, it’s easy to see why Journeyman is considered Clapton’s best album of the Eighties, even if some reviewers, such as Robert Christgau, likened it to a “fluke,” saying, “[Clapton] has no record-making knack. He farms out the songs, sings them competently enough and marks them with his guitar, which sounds kind of like Mark Knopfler’s.”

That’s harsh criticism, and perhaps there’s some truth to it, but regardless, Journeyman gave Clapton the success and singularity he needed. Moreover, it finally gave him something to compete against SRV, who released his own comeback album (of sorts) in 1989, In Step. But this time, Clapton bettered SRV, as Journeyman reached Number 1 on the Album Rock Chart and landed him a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1990. Not too shabby.

As for Palmer, he stayed on with Clapton, hitting the road in support of Journeyman and proving his most capable sideman since Lee left him half a decade prior. Looking back, Palmer says, “That album was just great… but it’s hard to quantify. The band was magnificent, and spontaneous things would happen daily.”

As for what he learned from Clapton, Palmer says, “The biggest lesson I got from Eric was to relax. I played with him hundreds of times, and when I stood behind him on stage, I saw that he was most at home. Maybe not in the studio, but live, Eric was free. He wasn’t nervous on stage, so that was the biggest lesson – to enjoy the moment.”

Palmer makes a good point: Clapton was always freer on stage than in the studio. It’s probably why he kicked off the decade so successfully with Just One Night, and it’s perhaps why many felt his appearance alongside Jeff Beck at the Amnesty International benefit would signal a return to form. And if he’d carried that same vigor into the studio, we’d look back on Clapton’s decade in the doldrums a bit differently.

But then again, it wasn’t all bad, and some of us, even though albums like Behind the Sun and August play back more like dollar bin and thrift store fodder than albums to remember, have a ton of personal memories tied to the likes of Forever Man, It’s in the Way That You Use It, and She’s Waiting. And to be sure, no one can take away the God-like strokes of genius heard on Clapton’s collaborations with Roger Waters, and to a lesser extent, George Harrison.

And so, the Eighties did little to encourage the idea that Clapton was “God,” but in the end, it didn’t entirely dispel the notion, either. As for Lee, when he looks back, he admits, “I haven’t listened back [to Clapton’s Eighties music] in a long time, so I can’t name a specific track. But I like the later stuff; the solos are really melodic, even though I’m not really into Eric for the guitar solos. I think he’s a great writer and a really good singer. The whole package works for me as a listener.”

As for Lukather, who sheepishly lent a hand to one of Clapton’s most polarizing Eighties moments in Forever Man, he seems to echo Lee’s sentiment, saying, “I am embarrassed even to be a part of the whole thing, but Eric is great. He was a huge influence on me, and I wore his stuff out. What can I say that hasn’t already been said?”

While the Eighties may have been choppy for Clapton, if anything, what he’ll most be remembered for is the redemptive way he rounded the decade out. In truth, not many artists could survive such critical onslaught, the unintentional creation of eventual thrift store fodder and those perpetual assertions of “God” status being revoked, but Clapton did. 

And so, for Eric Clapton, the Eighties wasn’t only about music or even about guitar; it was about across-the-board survival and living to fight another day. Clapton might not have been ready for the Eighties, but he sure as hell did his damnedest to survive them – and to eventually come out on top.

It is difficult, in retrospect, to convey the impact that Eric Clapton had on the world of electric guitar playing in 1966. 

For one thing, Clapton himself has spent most of his career since 1970 in denial about his achievements in revolutionizing the sound and status of the instrument, and he has been only too happy to let the spotlight fall instead on those who followed in his footsteps, including Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, and too many others to count. 

But even allowing for Clapton’s latter-day reticence, it takes a supreme effort of either memory or imagination to fully appreciate how different the state and sound of electric guitar playing was prior to the release of John Mayall’s Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton in 1966.

The prototype guitar heroes of the Fifties and early Sixties were either moody types such as Link Wray and Duane Eddy, or bands like the Ventures and, in the U.K., the Shadows, whose guitar star was the clean-cut Hank Marvin. 

What they shared was a guitar sound that seemed to have been recorded at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Layers of echo and reverb were added to a precise plectrum and fingering style that placed the ability to conjure a haunting melody cloaked in a deep, twanging tone above all other considerations. 

Clear enunciation of individual notes played cleanly in tandem with a deft tremolo bar technique was central to the sound of records ranging from Wray’s Rumble to any number of Shadows hits, from Apache to Man of Mystery.

As the new wave of beat groups got into their stride, particularly in the U.K., guitarists became emboldened and started to take a more unfettered approach, often informed by the stylings of the original American blues guitarists. 

Brian Jones supplied a loud, super-aggressive slide guitar part to the front of the Rolling Stones’ I Wanna Be Your Man. Dave Davies offered a raw, runaway solo on the Kinks’ first hit, You Really Got Me. Pete Townshend introduced some startling feedback effects on the Who’s Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere. Jeff Beck layered experimental, Eastern-sounding, psychedelic solos across the Yardbirds hit Shapes of Things and its B-side, You’re a Better Man Than I. 

But none of these early outliers had truly captured what a full-blown, modern electric guitar sound could be – or was about to become. 

Clapton, meanwhile, had been not-so-quietly working up to his piece de resistance for some time. As the guitarist in the Yardbirds from 1963 to 1965, he gained a cult following that was out of proportion to the traditional status of a non-frontman musician in a band. This was thanks in part to his cool fashion sense and stage presence, but in even larger part to his incendiary soloing skills. The band’s debut album, Five Live Yardbirds, released in the U.K. in December 1964, was both a blueprint and a harbinger of what was to come.

A raw, scrappy, low-budget production, Five Live Yardbirds was recorded without fuss or fanfare at one of the band’s regular shows at the Marquee Club in London on March 20, 1964. 

It was notable for many things; the incredible energy of the performance was evident from the opening surge of Chuck Berry’s Too Much Monkey Business, in which Clapton and bass player Paul Samwell-Smith engage in a whirling, skirling, insanely propulsive blast of soloing that had a foretaste of the punk aesthetic about it. 

Clapton’s developing skill as a soloist was clearly on display throughout numbers such as Eddie Boyd’s slow blues Five Long Years and a rip-roaring take on John Lee Hooker’s Louise. 

The recording also captured several extended improvised passages – what the band referred to as their “rave-ups” – in songs such as Howlin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning and a ragged version of Bo Diddley’s call-and-response epic Here ’Tis, in which Samwell-Smith and Clapton performed a high-speed duel amid a closing sequence of indistinct aural mayhem from band and audience alike. 

These rave-ups were quite unlike anything that any other “pop” or beat bands of the pre-rock era had committed to tape and were a precursor of the working practices that Clapton would later pursue with monumental results in Cream.

What Five Live Yardbirds did not possess was anything remotely resembling a modern lead guitar sound. Throughout his tenure with the Yardbirds, Clapton mostly played a red Fender Telecaster through a Vox AC30. The sound this produced, although perfectly acceptable for the period, was comparatively thin and trebly with virtually no sustain. 

Clapton continued to use the Telecaster when he initially joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in April 1965. But the following month he bought a sunburst 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard with humbucking pickups, which turned out to be a game-changer. 

This instrument, which became known as “the Beano Burst” after the nickname of the album he recorded with the Bluesbreakers the following year (Clapton is reading a Beano comic in the cover photo), has acquired a mythical status in the guitar world – not least because it was stolen soon after Clapton joined Cream in 1966 and has since vanished into a swirling mist of rumors as to its whereabouts, rumors that continue to surface to this day.

“The Les Paul has two pickups, one at the end of the neck, giving the guitar a kind of round jazz sound, and the other next to the bridge giving you the treble,” Clapton explained in his 2007 autobiography. “What I would do was use the bridge pickup with all of the bass turned up, so the sound was very thick and on the edge of distortion.

“I also used amps that would overload. I would have the amp on full and I would have the volume on the guitar also turned up full, so everything was on full volume and overloading. I would hit a note, hold it and give it some vibrato with my fingers until it sustained and then the distortion would turn into feedback. It was all of these things, plus the distortion, that created what I suppose you could call ‘my sound.’”

While the heavy, humbucking resonance of the Les Paul was key to the overall sound, so too was the new Marshall amplification that Clapton also bought into at this time. A small, innovative business run by Jim Marshall, an ex-drummer, the company was at that time based in Hanwell, West London, from where Clapton acquired a Marshall model 1962 2x12 combo based on the JTM45 design. 

This new setup produced a much fuller, more powerful sound than his Tele-and-Vox combo, and even before the release of the Beano album, it was clear something special was in the air.

Mayall’s Bluesbreakers didn’t tour, exactly; they simply played six or seven nights a week as a matter of course. “We were paid £35 a week,” Clapton recalled. “It was a set wage no matter how much work you did. The idea was that you would play a gig, and when you were done you might have to play again that night. 

A not un-typical night might involve traveling up to Sheffield to play the evening gig at eight o’clock, then heading off to Manchester to play the all-nighter, followed by driving back to London and being dropped off at Charing Cross station at six in the morning.”

It is not altogether clear when the graffiti proclaiming that “Clapton is God” started to appear on the streets of London. But the equipment overhaul and the intense gigging schedule had clearly elevated the guitarist into an exalted zone as a performer. 

There is a live recording of the Bluesbreakers playing Call It Stormy Monday at the Flamingo Club on March 17, 1966 – two weeks before Clapton’s 21st birthday and a month before the Beano album was recorded – that has been hailed by several commentators as one of the best blues guitar solos ever. 

Clapton’s tone, along with the outrageous timing and aggressive phrasing on this recording, is little short of supernatural. Nashville guitar great Kenny Vaughan [Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives] spoke for many when he called it “just the most wicked-ass… frantic, most intense guitar solo you ever heard on a blues in your life.” 

It sounds phenomenal in every department – even today. But imagine how it must have sounded to the guy who had just wandered into the bohemian neighborhood of nightclubs, strip joints and coffee bars on Wardour Street in 1966 and happened to hear that solo. It must have been like hearing music from another planet. 

Against the odds, the Beano album caught something of the thrill of that moment in time, making it one of the most successful exercises in the art of capturing lightning in a bottle yet undertaken in the modern recording era.

“We went into the Decca studios in West Hampstead for three days in April [1966] and played exactly the set we did on stage, with the addition of a horn section on some of the tracks,” Clapton said. “Because the album was recorded so quickly, it had a raw, edgy quality about it which made it special. It was almost like a live performance. 

“I insisted on having the mic exactly where I wanted it to be during the recording, which was not too close to my amplifier, so that I could play through it and get the same sound as I had on stage.”

That was all very well for Clapton. But for producer Mike Vernon and engineer Gus Dudgeon, it wasn’t quite that simple, as Mayall recounted in his 2019 autobiography. 

“I recall that the engineer, Gus Dudgeon, was horrified that Eric was intending to play through his Marshall amp at full volume,” Mayall said. “This simply wasn’t the acceptable way to do things in 1966. However, Eric stood his ground, refusing to turn his amp down. Mike Vernon had to mediate in order for us to start.”

“It took a while to get a sound that everybody was happy with, especially Eric, but everybody had to take on board that we were going into an unknown era,” Vernon told Harry Shapiro in 2011.

“Nobody in Decca studios had ever witnessed somebody coming into the studio, setting up their guitar and amp and playing at that volume. People in the canteen behind the studio were complaining about the noise. Normally they’d never hear it, but this was travelling around the studio complex. People were saying, ‘What the bloody hell is that?!’ and coming to see what was going on.”

The resulting album – Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton by John Mayall – marked Year Zero for the modern electric guitar sound. Clapton’s tone was nothing short of revolutionary and, harnessed to the skill and visceral emotional quality of his solos (especially on slow numbers Have You Heard and Double Crossing Time), produced an effect of a different magnitude to anything that had gone before. 

Kudos to Mayall for assembling a great collection of new and traditional blues songs and stamping his singular English mark on them. And respect to the fine rhythm section of John McVie (bass) and Hughie Flint (drums). But this album was all about Clapton using his Gibson/Marshall setup to redefine the sonic and technical norms of electric guitar playing.

Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton ushered in a new era, not just in the playing of music but also the marketing of it. It was released July 22, 1966, with little fanfare, and promptly rose to Number 6 in the U.K. albums chart.

This was unheard of for an act that had enjoyed no previous success in the singles chart, and its unexpected yet emphatic progress was a key moment in the process whereby albums started to take over from singles as the barometer of a band’s success.

With its revolutionary guitar sound and compelling spiritual vigor derived from the musicians’ deep love and knowledge of American blues forms, the impact of the album was seismic on many levels. A generation of guitarists received the wake-up call of their careers, and within a year the British Blues Boom would be in full swing. More than that, it was effectively the first “rock” album.

“When we heard the Beano album, that was like… Nobody had ever heard a guitar sound like that,” Kenny Vaughan said. “Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson records from the 1950s had some wicked-ass sounds. And, of course, Guitar Slim and Earl King – they both had great sounds. And Link Wray had a brash, rude sound. But they weren’t like that. Nobody had that Eric Clapton sound on that record.”

Nobody had it – and now everybody wanted it. Unfortunately for Mayall, by the time the Beano album was released, Clapton had already left the group. Ever the pragmatist, Mayall immediately recruited Peter Green to replace him and continued his eight-days-a-week schedule playing to ever-expanding audiences. 

Clapton, meanwhile, had embarked on another project that would further define the role of the modern guitar hero and redraw the boundaries of the rock genre he had already done so much to invent.

Cream were the first power/guitar trio and the first group of any kind to bring a flamboyantly virtuoso musical technique to bear on the traditionally basic structures of popular music. Drummer Ginger Baker and bass player/vocalist/harmonica man Jack Bruce were highly evolved musicians with backgrounds in jazz, where the impulse to experiment and improvise at length was taken as part of the basic motivation for performing.

To play with musicians like these gave Clapton an opportunity to deploy his technique to its full extent and explore musical avenues that took him far beyond the confines of performing in a regular band. 

Cream were a short-lived and volatile combination of individuals, but it’s worth remembering the spirit of optimism that brought the group together. “Musically we are idealistic,” Clapton told Penny Valentine in July 1967. “When I first met Ginger and Jack I realized they were the only two musicians I could ever play with.”

Cream played their first gig at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester on July 29, 1966, the night before England won the World Cup, and the trio’s first album, Fresh Cream, was released just five months later on December 9. 

The chronology of the 1960s gets a bit hazy after all this time, but it is worth noting that Jimi Hendrix released his first single, Hey Joe, one week after Fresh Cream. 

Indeed, when Hendrix’s manager, Chas Chandler, was trying to persuade Hendrix to move from New York to London, one of Chandler’s key bargaining chips was to promise that once they were in London, he would arrange for Hendrix to see his hero, Eric Clapton, playing with Cream. It was perhaps no coincidence that Hendrix also elected to form a trio as opposed to a conventional four-man band on his arrival in London. 

With Fresh Cream, Clapton further extended the range of sounds and musical sensibilities available to the modern guitar hero. On Sweet Wine, he constructed a latticework of interlocking guitar lines – some of them little more than wails of feedback, others hauntingly melodic – to create a passage that was more of a soundscape than a guitar solo.

He developed an extraordinary sense of narrative in his solos – which even on the extemporized blues rumble of Spoonful or the two-chord chant of I’m So Glad seemed to hang together as if they were totally spontaneous and carefully structured at the same time.

As they toured America, the trio’s facility for improvising around a commonly understood framework became ever more finely developed. They played many times at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, where promoter Bill Graham gave them carte blanche to play for as long and as loud as they liked, even if the show went on until dawn the next day.

“It was very liberating,” Clapton recalled. “We’d go off in our own directions, but sometimes we would hit these coincidental points… and we would jam on it for a little while and then go back into our own thing. I had never experienced anything like it. It was nothing to do with lyrics or ideas; it was much deeper, something purely musical. We were at our peak during that period.”

This semi-improvised approach led to one of the most celebrated guitar solos of all time, in the shape of the comparatively concise and structured live version of Crossroads recorded on March 10, 1968, on a mobile studio parked outside the group’s gig at the 5,400-capacity Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, and first presented to the wider world as the opening track on the live disc of the double-album Wheels of Fire, released on August 9 of that year in the U.K. (June 14 in the U.S.).

Clapton’s phrasing, timing and choice of notes on this version was sensational, as he started in a low register and gradually climbed over two verses building tension and excitement. After another verse of vocals, he came back in for a second stretch of solos, doubling the intensity in all departments for another three verses. 

Never repeating himself or losing his way through the intense three-way wrestling match going on between the guitar, bass and drums, he pulled out a succession of soaring blues licks and double-stop bends to create a thrilling climax that was both super-aggressive and intensely focused. In the many polls, lists and tabulations of Clapton’s greatest guitar solos, this is the one that invariably comes out at the top.

Surprisingly, by modern standards, all the sound of the guitar (and the bass, for that matter) at Cream’s shows was generated from the back line. None of the speakers for the instruments were miked up and put through the PA, even in venues of 5,000 capacity or more. 

The PA systems of the time were still unbelievably rudimentary; a couple of WEM columns or a Marshall 200-watt system for the vocal mics and maybe a couple of overhead mics for the drums was considered sufficient for a gig at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

The incredible sound that Clapton got with Cream (as with Mayall before that) was a function of the outrageous volume at which he played his Gibsons, which were usually either the 1964 SG Standard affectionately known as “The Fool,” a ’63/’65 one-pickup Firebird 1 or a ’64 ES-335. 

He generally used two 100-watt Marshall stacks, each comprising a model 1959 100-watt head, a model 1960 angled 4x12 cabinet and a model 1960B flat-fronted 4x12 cabinet. 

“I set them full on everything,” Clapton told Rolling Stone in 1967. “Full treble, full bass and full presence, same with the controls on the guitar. If you’ve got the amp and guitar full, there is so much volume that you can get it 100 miles away and it’s going to feedback – the sustaining effect – and anywhere in the vicinity it’s going to feedback.”

Clapton gradually introduced various pedals into his setup. He was the first “name” guitarist to release a track featuring a wah pedal – the Vox V846 (later reissued as the Clyde McCoy) – which he used on Tales of Brave Ulysses, released as a U.K. B-side to Strange Brew in June 1967. 

Although Hendrix ultimately made much more extensive use of the wah and did far more to popularize it, his first use of the pedal wasn’t heard on record until Burning of the Midnight Lamp, a U.K. single released in August 1967. 

Clapton also used a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, notably to beef up the iconic riff of Sunshine of Your Love and to add extra saturation and sustain to his sound on White Room and others. 

He used other pedals and effects – including the revolving (Leslie) speaker sound heard on Badge – but often his amp and guitar settings, combined with his extraordinary touch, were all it took to generate a specific sound, such as the high, pure “woman” tone he conjured on Outside Woman Blues and others.

The huge popularity and acclaim that greeted Clapton and Cream inspired a transformation in popular music on many levels. The sheer volume at which they played and the heavy, riff-based style of songwriting they developed paved the way for Black Sabbath and Deep Purple – both founded in 1968 – and the subsequent birth of heavy metal. 

And Cream’s fondness for improvising unleashed a tsunami of extended jamming among the heroes of the heavy rock genre they had done so much to create. It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that by their example Cream transformed a concert and record industry previously dominated by the three- or four-minute song structure into a world where long-form improvisation and instrumental free-for-alls became commonplace, if not the norm. 

Hendrix certainly took it as the model for his live performances, as did Led Zeppelin – who, of course, started life as the New Yardbirds and thereby carried forward the legacy of the original Clapton rave-ups that got the ball rolling in the first place. And over the next few years, bands such as Ten Years After (at Woodstock), Mountain, Humble Pie and many others piled in with ever more extravagant performances that trod an increasingly erratic line between grand musical visions and wanton grandiloquence.

In 1968 Canned Heat filled two sides of their double-album Living the Blues with one track, Refried Boogie, a 40-minute epic of non-stop noodling and nebulosity.

It all got to be a bit too much for Clapton. He was particularly affected by a negative review of a Cream show in Rolling Stone by Jon Landau, who described the band as “three virtuosos romping through their bag… always in a one-dimensional style” and Clapton as “a master of the blues clichés of all of the post-World War II blues guitarists.” 

“And it was true!” Clapton said later. “The ring of truth just knocked me backward.” 

By that point, Clapton had been performing for many years at a level of intensity that had become impossible to maintain. There was an emotional cost to digging so deep into his reserves of musical creativity night after night, not to mention the physical toll of doing so at such punishingly high volumes.  

“When you’re in your mid-20s you’ve got something that you lose,” Clapton reflected in an interview with Q magazine in 1986. “If I was a sportsman I would have retired by now. You’ve just got a certain amount of dynamism that you lose when you turn 30. You have to accept that otherwise you’re chasing a dream.”

Looking back on that period much later, he recalled that, “There were times too when, playing to audiences who were only too happy to worship us, complacency set in. I began to be quite ashamed of being in Cream, because I thought it was a con. Musically I was fed up with the virtuoso thing. Our gigs had become nothing more than an excuse for us to show off as individuals, and any sense of unity we might have had when we started out seemed to have gone out of the window.”

Clapton made one last roll of the guitar hero dice with the ill-fated supergroup Blind Faith, which came into being, recorded and released a U.S. and U.K. chart-topping album, headlined a massive show in Hyde Park, toured in Scandinavia and America and then split up – all between January and August 1969. 

“I think just playing the guitar isn’t enough,” Clapton told Rolling Stone the following year. “If I was a great songwriter or a great singer, then I wouldn’t be so humble about it. I wouldn’t be shy.”

So saying, Clapton very firmly stepped down from the pedestal onto which he had been placed and turned his back on the world of rock virtuoso superstars he had been instrumental in creating. 

He (along with George Harrison) instead joined forces with Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett, a husband-and-wife duo from Los Angeles whose loose-knit band had supported Blind Faith on their tour of America. Delaney & Bonnie’s soulful blend of Southern rock, blues and gospel music was a soothing balm to Clapton’s troubled spirit. 

“You really have to start singing, and you ought to be leading your own band,” Delaney told Clapton. “God has given you this gift, and if you don’t use it he will take it away.” 

Clapton took Delaney’s advice to heart, and his subsequent campaign since the 1970s to reinvent himself has been so successful that as far as many casual observers of the rock world today are concerned, he is now regarded as a singer who also plays a bit of guitar. 

And yet the influence that Clapton had, whether directly or indirectly, on just about every electric guitarist who followed him is undeniable. Just listen to Mick Taylor playing Snowy Wood on the Bluesbreakers’ 1967 album Crusade. Or check out the incredible off-the-cuff recording of Eddie Van Halen conjuring a note-perfect recreation of Clapton’s solo from Crossroads during a 1984 radio show called The Inside Track. 

Then there’s John Mayer’s emotionally charged playing (and soulful singing) on Gravity. Mayer once described Eric Clapton as his “musical father” and has often performed Crossroads in his live shows, while many latter-day guitarists ranging from Joe Bonamassa to Gary Clark Jr. have testified to Clapton’s towering influence on their playing.

“Cream explored the outer reaches that three players could accomplish,” said Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, another trio that emerged from under the long shadow of Clapton, Bruce, and Baker. Gibbons nominated Fresh Cream as one of the albums that changed his life, no less, delivering his verdict on the group’s sound with a typical Texas flourish: “Killer tones.”

• With thanks to Geoff Peel, London.

Few non-bassists hear the name Led Zeppelin and immediately think of John Paul Jones. But with his seemingly bottomless skill set, Jones was the ultimate addition to what is argued to be the most influential rock band of all time.

Armed with years of experience as a session bassist and arranger – having worked with the Yardbirds, Dusty Springfield, the Rolling Stones, and Jeff Beck – Jones brought an ear for experimentation, folding keyboards, mandolin, and much more into Led Zep’s potent brew of blues, folk, rockabilly, and hard rock.

“When we first met it was just to see if we could even stand each other,” Jones told BP. “Robert had heard I was a session man, and he was wondering what was going to turn up – some old bloke with a pipe? Concentration is what made it successful – anybody could take anything anywhere, and we’d all follow.”

Gibson, Fender, Manson and Alembic bass guitars have all fallen into the hands of John Paul Jones at some point. He was also one of the first bassists to experiment with an 8-string bass. “I had to fill out a wide frequency range – just low bass with drums wouldn’t do the trick, but an 8-string covers the bass and the midrange very well. When Jimmy Page first saw my 8-string rig, he said, ‘I’m not playing to that!’ But of course he did. It covered most of the stage and the parking lot; it wasn’t a subtle instrument.”

On the subjects of rhythm-section magnetism, and general rock ’n’ roll entropy, Jones is an undisputed expert. Here’s a look at some of his finest work.

1. Good Times Bad Times (Led Zeppelin, 1969)

With all the majesty of the greatest riffs in rock, Good Times Bad Times is the perfect introduction to Led Zeppelin’s singular bass man. Jimmy Page explained how it came together in his 2012 Rolling Stone interview: “John Paul Jones came up with the riff. I had the chorus. John Bonham applied the bass-drum pattern. It was like, ‘Wow, everybody's erupting at once.’” After the rocking root-5-root movement in the second bar of the main bass riff, Jones cuts loose with some killer fills into the song's breakdown sections.

2. Ramble On (Led Zeppelin II, 1969)

Heavier, groovier, and more melodic than their debut, Led Zeppelin II replaced The Beatles at the top of the album chart in Feb 1970. For much of the album, Jones doubles Page’s guitar riffs, helping the songs achieve the potency a generation of headbangers came to love. But that wasn’t all, as the expertly nimble bass playing on Ramble On showed. “You’ve got to have the big picture in mind when you’re playing,” Jones told BP. “It’s not about playing whatever the lowest note available is. You have to consider melody, rhythm and harmony.” 

3. Since I’ve Been Loving You (Led Zeppelin III, 1970)

Exhausted by 18 months of touring, Page and Plant holidayed at Born Y Air cottage in Wales, resulting in half of Led Zeppelin III being acoustic-based. Enter Jones as Mr Multi-instrumentalist: Mandolin? Upright bass? No problem. The album also featured Zeppelin’s best blues to-date, Since I’ve Been Loving You, impossible to imagine without Jones’s keyboard part. 

“Everyone was saying, ‘Oh, they’ve gone acoustic now’ Well, no, actually! We were just listening to a lot of Fairport Convention and Joni Mitchell. And that’s what you do – you assimilate what you like from what you hear and you reinterpret it. So yes, I hear licks now that I probably wouldn’t have done before.”

4. Black Dog (Led Zeppelin IV, 1971)

It was Jones, not Page, who wrote the main riff of Black Dog, though the band had to simplify it before they had the storming result. “I wrote that riff on the back of a train ticket coming back from a rehearsal at Jimmy Page’s house. We had to smooth it out in order to make it comprehensible. When I first played it for Bonzo, the look on his face was a picture!” 

As this point in his career, Jones was predominantly playing fingerstyle, but he was equally adept at using a pick. “My preference is always to play fingerstyle, but I often had to play with a pick in the session days, so I got quite used to it. I can play Black Dog with my fingers, but it just sounded better with a pick.”

5. No Quarter (Houses of the Holy, 1973)

Though he played a mean bass guitar, John Paul Jones was every bit the bassist on his Moog Taurus keyboard bass pedals. Written for 1973’s Houses of the Holy, No Quarter was a majestic bit of mood music anchored by Jones’ spooky keyboard hook. With low pedal tones in the verses, the bass figure steps up in the buildup to the tune’s heavy pentatonic riff. “I had bass pedals littered all over the stage. I’d be there with a triple-neck guitar, bass pedals, and keyboards, and Robert Plant would ask, ‘Can you sing, as well?’” 

6. Kashmir (Physical Graffiti, 1975)

Fed up with touring, Jones nearly quit Led Zep in the late summer of 1973. After a rest, he was persuaded back for the group’s most ambitious record, Physical Graffiti. Kashmir shows Jones playing an essential role in giving Zep a new mid-period symphonic sound, the perfect backdrop to Bonham’s battering and Page’s riffola. “At first it was just Bonzo and myself,” Page told Louder. “He started the drums, and I did the riff and the overdubs.” The eight-and-a-half minute epic was completed with Jones sketching out what would later become the orchestral parts with his Mellotron.

7. Achilles Last Stand (Presence, 1976)

Recorded in difficult circumstances after Robert Plant’s serious car accident in August 1975, the group’s seventh studio album, Presence, showed by default just how important Jones had become to the brilliance of a Led Zeppelin LP. Achilles Last Stand harnessed the amazing power of the Bonham/Jones rhythm section, as they plough their way through nearly 10 minutes of furious rock and cannoning 5/4 breaks. “The timing was interesting in Achilles because of the 5/4 bits. When Page came out with the first riff he said, ‘What are we going to do with the rest of it?’ I said, ‘The 8-string bass!’ It fitted perfectly.”

8. Dazed and Confused (The Song Remains The Same, 1976)

Filmed during a three-night stint at Madison Square Garden in 1973, The Song Remains the Same was released during an enforced layoff due to Plant’s injuries. The film shows Jones nonchalantly coping with every kind of musical mayhem Page and Plant could create out front. His experience as an arranger is immediately apparent on the spaced-out melodrama of Dazed and Confused, which features more epic rhythm section interplay. “I really wanted the drums and the bass to be one unit – that’s what drove the band along. It’s not two instruments playing separately, it’s one rhythm section.”

9. All My Love (In Through The Out Door, 1979)

By 1979 Led Zeppelin were heading in a new direction as they tried to surmount personal tragedy and hostile opinion that cast them as prog dinosaurs. Jones is all over their final studio album, with keyboards to the fore on tracks like In The Evening, Southbound Suarez, Hot Dog and All Of My Love where he even takes a synth solo. Not comparable to past glories, though the orchestral intro to I’m Gonna Crawl is impressively melancholic.

10. Rock And Roll (Celebration Day, 2007)

Since John Bonham’s death in 1980, Jones had performed just twice with surviving bandmates Jimmy Page and Robert Plant: at Live Aid in 1985 (with Phil Collins on drums), and at an anniversary concert for Atlantic Records in 1988 (with John Bonham’s son Jason on drums). That all changed when the group came together for a full-blown reunion in 2007 at London’s 02 Arena. Taking the stage for the first time in twenty years, Led Zep proved after just a few explosive numbers that it had lost none of its arena-rocking power.

Jason Becker is putting his “most treasured instrument” – the #69 Peavey EVH Wolfgang given to him by Eddie Van Halen – up for auction to raise funds for his ongoing medical care.

Becker – who was diagnosed with ALS in 1989 – initially put the guitar up for sale via a broker earlier this year, but now it seems as though the instrument will be sold to the highest bidder when it goes under the hammer on December 14.

The electric guitar itself is an especially significant and meaningful six-string, and we imagine Becker would not part with it lightly. As for the guitar's story, it was gifted to Becker by Van Halen himself when the pair had their first meeting on August 31, 1996.

Designated #69, this particular Peavey (famously named after Van Halen’s son) was drafted from the first 100 examples that Eddie personally checked before the guitar went into production later that same year.

With its basswood body, quilted maple neck, EVH/Peavey-designed humbuckers and a D-Tuna Floyd Rose tremolo, the guitar was developed by Van Halen and Jim DeCola and built to the guitar hero’s exacting specifications.

As if this provenance didn’t make it valuable enough, the guitar also bears the thumbprint of Becker on the back of the neck, and was wielded by Van Halen upon his visit to Becker’s home in Southern California. It also carries the inscription: “Jason. We will play guitar together in the future. Love – from heart to your soul. Eddie Van Halen, ‘96.” As such, it carries the histories of two electric guitar icons.

The pair’s touching meeting was captured on film by Becker’s family, who shared the footage after Van Halen’s death in 2020. The film shows Eddie demoing the guitar’s D-Tuna function, and playing a section of Eruption, for Becker.

“This is the 69th one,” Van Halen can be heard saying in the footage. “The first 100 I personally checked. I named it after my son, Wolfgang.” It was the first meeting between the pair, who maintained a lasting friendship following the visit.

Now, the Peavey Wolfgang – which has been described as “Jason’s most treasured instrument” – has been put up for auction in an effort to raise money to fund Becker’s ongoing care, which costs north of $100,000 a year.

The instrument was discussed by Becker during his recent Guitar World interview. “A while ago, I was looking at the guitar Eddie Van Halen gave to me, hanging on the wall, covered in dust, and I thought, 'That's a shame. It should be with someone who would love to have it and can give it the attention it deserves,’” Becker said at the time. “I can't play it, and the best part of it for me now is the memory of his kindness.”

The guitar has been listed with a starting price of $100,000, with auction host site Live Auctioneers giving it an estimated sale price of $300,000 – $400,000. The recipient of the guitar will also receive a Certificate of Authenticity and, if the buyer wishes, an opportunity to meet with Jason Becker.

Owing to the circumstances of the sale, here’s hoping that the guitar eventually sells for something close to the upper end of that spectrum – or, hopefully, even more.

Head over to Guernsey’s for more information.

This past weekend (September 23 and September 24), possibly the greatest lineup of guitar talent ever assembled came together at LA's Crypto.com Arena for the 2023 Crossroads Guitar Festival.

The festival saw John Mayer jam with H.E.R., Joe Bonamassa and John McLaughlin honor Jeff Beck with a stunning version of Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers, and Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram trade licks with Eric Gales and Samantha Fish, among other highlights.

Carlos Santana was the electric guitar icon chosen to close the star-studded proceedings, and he did so with some help from festival organizer Eric Clapton. 

The two played out the festival with a tip of the cap to the late Peter Green, in the form of a smokin' cover of Fleetwood Mac's Black Magic Woman, and a spirited version of the Doors' bar-band classic, Roadhouse Blues.

You can see fan-filmed footage of the performances below.

When paying tribute to the original owner of one of the most famous Gibson Les Pauls in history, a single-cut is in order, and indeed, Santana arms himself with the single-cut version of his PRS signature guitar, finished in – obviously – gold.

Clapton, meanwhile, uses a uniquely finished Stratocaster that was custom-built specially for the festival and inspired by his previous collaborations with New York street artist, John Matos.

Black Magic Woman certainly isn't the lead guitar version of a Formula 1 race, and indeed, the two guitar legends take the song as an opportunity to showcase their enviable vibrato and deft melodic touch. “The doctor['s] in the house,” Santana says in reference to his old friend at the conclusion of their equally smooth version of Roadhouse Blues, “Mr. Eric Clapton.”

Guitar Center's 25th Anniversary Crossroads Collection of guitars also, aside from the Matos-inspired Strat, features two gorgeous Martin acoustic guitars – a D-45 and D-28 – a Todd Krause-built Blu Scozia Strat inspired by one of Clapton's Ferraris, and a Private Stock PRS Carlos Santana I model finished in Santana Orange.

All five guitars will be sold, with part of the proceeds going toward Clapton's Crossroads Centre in Antigua.

For more info on the 25th Anniversary Crossroads Collection, visit Guitar Center.

Welcome to Guitar World’s weekly roundup of the musical highlights from the, erm, world of guitar. Every seven days (or thereabouts), we endeavor to bring you a selection of songs from across the guitar universe, all with one thing in common: our favorite instrument plays a starring role.

Rodrigo y Gabriela – Descending to Nowhere

What is it? The new single from the Grammy-award winning guitar duo, who recently shared news of their upcoming album, In Between Thoughts… A New World, due April 2. The album – their first in four years – is said to be one of the pair’s “most revelatory offerings yet”, and it’s a tease that sounds entirely plausible if Descending to Nowhere is anything to go on. It’s a particularly groove-driven entry to the duo’s discography, combining the usual nylon-string escapades with some snappy steel-string strums.

Standout guitar moment: From 2:45 onwards, the track reaches its climax, delivering panned guitar grooves and a swelling instrumentation that brings proceedings to an awesome close.

For fans of: Rodrigo Sanchez, Gabriela Quintero

– Matt Owen

Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives – Country Star

What is it? There’s something distinctly wonderful about hearing a veteran musician operating right in their wheelhouse confidently, cleanly and competently. Such is the case on Country Star, the somewhat weary but defiantly rocking and autobiographical new single from Nashville titan Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives.

Standout guitar moment: Stuart is one of the all-time-great country guitar players, and his sense of what’s needed for a song is impeccable. Given the song’s life-on-the-road subject matter and party-ready tempo, Stuart wouldn’t be blamed for really burning one here, but his tasteful, lyrical and expressive eight-bar solo around halfway in fits Country Star like a glove.

For fans of: Old ‘97s, Wilco, Sweetheart of the Rodeo-era Byrds

– Jackson Maxwell

Beck – Thinking About You 

What is it? A haunting standalone single from Beck, who – for the first time since 2020’s Hyperspace reissue – picks up his dynamic nylon-string acoustic for an emotive three-and-a-half minutes of tidy fingerstyle progressions. 

There’s plenty of action around the guitar for the listener to unpack, but the heart of this song is Beck and his acoustic. Strip away the post-production trickery and ditch the additional instrumentation, and Thinking About You will still be a standout guitar track thanks to Beck’s sumptuous feel.

Standout guitar moment: Beck’s acoustic work here is enough to get fingerstyle fans salivating, and though it’s not the most complicated piece on the planet, it’s delivery is dynamic and exquisite.

For fans of: Hozier

– Matt Owen

Chris Shiflett – Black Top White Lines

What is it? If a UK radio DJ is to be believed, Foo Fighters have a new album out next month. But lead man Chris Shiflett is also planning to release a solo record – written with Jaren Johnston (The Cadillac Three) and John Osborne (Brothers Osborne) – and judging from Black Top White Lines, it’ll be a country-rockin’ doozy.

Standout guitar moment: That spruced-up Life in the Fast Line riff was a shoo-in for the coveted SGM slot, but dang, the Dyna Comped to hell solo melds Hendrix and ZZ Top in such a cocksure manner, we can’t help but defer to those leads.

For fans of: Eagles, ZZ Top, Cadillac Three

– Michael Astley-Brown

Feist – In Lightning

What is it? One of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s three new singles – her first new material in six years – In Lightning is an astonishing piece of avant-pop that’s full of surprises. 

Standout guitar moment: One of said surprises is the gnarling, psychedelic guitar break that re-arranges the tapestry of the song at 1:40 and brings to mind George Harrison’s game-changing, reversed leads on The Beatles’ I'm Only Sleeping.

For fans of: Dirty Projectors, Kate Bush, Björk

– Jackson Maxwell

Lamb of God & Kreator – State of Unrest 

What is it? A new joint single from heavy metal heroes Lamb of God and Kreator, who will be donating the proceeds from the track to Dallas Hope Charities in the name of Riley Gale – the late Power Trip vocalist who passed away in August 2020 before he had the chance to record State of Unrest’s vocals. After his death, Lamb of God and Kreator linked up to finish the track, which was first written back in 2020, in his memory. The song’s powerful emotional core is channeled into an equally powerful guitar throwdown, which pays tribute to Gales through mammoth riffs and raging solos.

Standout guitar moment: It’s a Lamb of God track, so naturally the riffs are a highlight. But here, there’s an extra edge to them, with the recurring gut-punch-of-a-riff cropping up every now and then to launch another six-string assault on the ears with a blissfully devastating effect.

For fans of: Power Trip, Slipknot, Korn

– Matt Owen

Squid – Swing (In a Dream)

What is it? Yelpy UK post-punks Squid have toned down the quirk and upped the mood on this hypnotic hint at what’s to come on this summer’s sophomore effort, O Monolith. Based around a brooding, hypnotic math-rock figure, it’s an altogether darker affair than anything we’ve heard so far from the art-rock five-piece, and we are here for it.

Standout guitar moment: Shoutout to the twangsome single-coil tone on that main riff, which showcases every buzz and rattle, only adding to the track’s menacing vibe.

For fans of: Radiohead, Bloc Party, Black Midi

– Michael Astley-Brown

nhomme – 一種の過音iii (a kind of overtone iii)

What is it? The rollercoaster ride of a closing track from 一種の過音 (a kind of overtone), the incredible new EP from Japanese math-rock band nhomme. With bracing screamo vocals, lurching, whiplash transitions and breakneck tempos, a kind of overtone isn’t for the faint of heart, but even if math-rock isn’t your thing, the instrumental virtuosity on display here is worth your time.

Standout guitar moment: a kind of overtone has a remarkable variety of standout guitar moments for an EP that’s less than 13 minutes long, but the stuttering, high-register, Morse code guitar figure that opens iii is not only the coolest of the bunch, it’s one of the most exhilarating guitar-led intros we’ve heard from anyone thus far in 2023.

For fans of: Tera Melos, TTNG, Covet

– Jackson Maxwell

Bully – Lose You (feat. Soccer Mommy)

What is it? Two of the frontrunners of the ongoing '90s alt-rock revival team up on this fuzzy sugar rush of a single – released, appropriately enough, via Sub Pop. With lashings of scuzz and slacker fire, it’s a guaranteed hit with Gen X and Z alike.

Standout guitar moment: Those vibrato’d two-noters at the start are pure nostalgia – we love the production on this track, which enhances the woozy vibe by shifting the riff around the speakers.

For fans of: Beabadoobee, Beck, Weezer

– Michael Astley-Brown

Beck recruited Dave Grohl, Greg Kurstin, Jack Black and Kyle Gass of Tenacious D and actor John C. Reilly during his set at filmmaker Judd Apatow’s Victims First LA benefit show for a performance of Seals and Crofts’ 1972 hit Summer Breeze.

The collaboration – which marked one of Grohl’s first public performances since the death of his Foo Fighters bandmate Taylor Hawkins in March – resulted in an acoustic guitar-fueled rendition of the yacht rock classic, with some accompanying piano chords and Jack Black’s trademark nasal vocals. Watch it below.

Apatow’s benefit concert was held at Los Angeles’ 280-capacity Largo club, and also saw a standup performance from comedian Sarah Silverman, and further performances by Jack Black and Kyle Gass of REO Speedwagon’s classic ballad Keep On Loving You and The Rolling Stones’ Dead Flowers. For the latter they called on Beck and Reilly to assist.

Proceeds from the event were donated to Victims First, an organisation which aids victims, educates communities and advocates for survivors of mass casualty crime.

Foo Fighters will play two tribute concerts honoring Taylor Hawkins next month: one at London’s Wembley Stadium on September 3 and the other at LA’s Kia Forum on September 27.

For the events, the band have tapped a star-studded lineup of special guests, including Brian May, Wolfgang Van Halen, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Josh Homme, Stewart Copeland, Chris Chaney, Omar Hakim, Mark Ronson, Hawkins’ side band Chevy Metal and many more.

The Wembley Stadium show will be streamed live in its entirety via Paramount Plus.

Jack White made a humorous cameo at the opening of Beck’s set at Nashville’s Basement East on March 21, in which he pretended to be the singer-songwriter and launched into a cover Chumbawamba's Tubthumping.

Footage posted on White’s Third Man Records Instagram account shows the singer/songwriter take to the stage before Beck’s set begins and pick up an acoustic guitar. 

“Hello, ladies and gentleman, I’m Beck,” says White, with a faux-Southern twang. “I’d like to do one of my favorite Beck songs from the 1990s, that I wrote.”

White then proceeds to play a countrified version of Chumbawamba’s sing-along Tubthumping, which he then morphs into The Proclaimers' I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles). However, White’s plan is soon foiled as Beck joins him onstage.

“What are you doing, Jack?” says Beck. “You asked for some nail clippers. I went out to my car to get them. I come back, and you’re playing my show. That’s Chumbawamba. That’s not me.”

White eventually relents, and introduces the true headliner, “Ladies and gentlemen, Beck, the real one…”

It’s an enjoyably pointless and amusing exchange between the two artists, which appears to take the phrase ‘steal the show’ quite literally. It’s surprising White has the time to spare for such cameos, given he’s currently gearing up for a world tour and the release of two albums, but then here we are, talking about it, so perhaps it’s not entirely pointless, after all.

If his Chumbawamba rendition has whetted your appetite, you can catch White on his aptly-named Supply Chain Issues world tour, which begins April 8 at Detroit’s Masonic Temple Theatre.

For tickets and information, head to Jack White’s official site.

17 artists are up for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, the organization announced today.

Among the artists on the ballot this year are Rage Against the Machine, Fela Kuti, the New York Dolls, Dionne Warwick, Devo, Kate Bush, MC5, Eurythmics, Pat Benatar and Judas Priest.

Making the nominee list for the first time, meanwhile, is an eclectic group that includes hip-hop legends (Eminem, A Tribe Called Quest), new-wave hitmakers (Duran Duran), a country superstar (Dolly Parton), an alt-rock non-conformist (Beck), and two hugely successful singer/songwriters (Lionel Richie and Carly Simon).

Nominees are voted on by a voting body that includes over 1,000 artists, historians and music industry figures.

Starting today, through April 29, the public can also participate in the selection process by voting at the Rock Hall's website or at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame museum in Cleveland. The public's top five artists will comprise a “fans’ ballot” that will be tallied along with the other ballots to select the 2022 inductees.

The 2022 inductees will be announced in May, while the induction ceremony will take place this fall, though the date and venue have yet to be announced as of press time. 

2021's ceremony saw the induction of the Foo Fighters, Tina Turner, Carole King, the Go-Go’s, Jay-Z and Todd Rundgren, and the posthumous awarding of the Musical Excellence Award to late Ozzy Osbourne electric guitar player Randy Rhoads.

For more info on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame museum, ballot and induction ceremony, stop by Rock Hall.

Nirvana’s surviving members - Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear - reunited over the weekend to perform a five-song set, with special guests St. Vincent, Beck and Grohl’s daughter, Violet, filling in for Kurt Cobain.

Held at the Hollywood Palladium, the set was in aid of the 2020 Art of Elysium Gala, which pairs artists with communities in Los Angeles undergoing emotional life challenges.

The set opened with Lithium, followed swiftly by In Bloom, where Beck unleashed a fiery, chorus-drenched lead.

Been A Son came shortly after, before 13-year-old Violet Grohl took the mic for Heart-Shaped Box. The reunion ended with the band’s cover of David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World.

St. Vincent mostly stuck to using a gold-finished version of her signature Ernie Ball Music Man model, as well as the Fender Lead II she recently employed for her spot-on cover of Little Wing.

Beck, meanwhile, opted for his Silvertone 1448, the $60 particle board guitar he used to record most of his albums.

Grohl, Novoselic and Smear previously reunited in 2014 for Nirvana’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which featured guest vocals from St. Vincent, as well as Joan Jett, Lorde and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon.

Beck has played a variety of guitars over the years, including Schecter, Fender and Harmony electrics, and he even has his own impressively spec’d limited edition Martin signature model.

But as he recently told the New York Times, there’s one very humble electric guitar that is central to his music: a Silvertone 1448.

“It’s a cheap guitar from the Sears catalog, basically made out of particle board,” he said. “It’s not considered remotely in the pantheon of great instruments; it’s sort of looked down upon by real musicians. I think I bought it for about $60.”

These days, Beck continued, he has “dozens of incredible, classic guitars.” 

But, he said, “I keep going back to this one that’s supposedly not so good. It barely stays in tune. But it just has this sort of rickety sound - beautifully hellacious, but also a little broken and tender.

“I’ve recorded so many of my albums with it. I’ve been playing it my entire career.”

Just goes to show you don't need to spend much cash to get a great guitar...

Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, Jakob Dylan, Beck, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Brian Wilson and others are featured in a new documentary, Echo in the Canyon, which celebrates the fertile mid-Sixties music scene in the storied L.A. neighborhood of Laurel Canyon.

The doc, produced and directed by former music journalist, record producer and label executive Andrew Slater, traces the music that “shaped the second half of the 20th century.” Among the artists lauded in the film are Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas.

Echo in the Canyon will open in L.A. on May 24 at Arclight’s Cinerama Dome and the Landmark, and in New York at the Angelika and the Landmark at 57 West in New York on May 31. Both the L.A. and New York showings will also feature performances by artists who appear in the film. More dates throughout the U.S., as well as a companion soundtrack, are scheduled for June.

For more information on Echo in the Canyon, head here. 

There’s a reason folk music has remained one of America’s most enduringly popular genres.

You can find fragments of it in almost every strain of popular music: from the singer/songwriters who utilize its personal, narrative style, to the country singers who take its image-driven lyricism and give it a Southern twang.

Rock music, at first the domain of simple songs of love and lust, was forever altered when Bob Dylan dropped his acoustic guitar and plugged in, injecting a lyrical sophistication into the genre that hadn’t previously existed.

Like any genre, though, folk and its close cousin, country music, have splintered over the decades into innumerable sub-genres. Many of the more adventurous, unclassifiable artists within the quagmire of these sub-genres often get the umbrella of “alt-country” or “alt-folk.”

Here, we present 15 of the best artists within these genres, some of the most artistically progressive six-string artists in the world today. Actually, in standard GuitarWorld.com fashion, we've included a bonus band. Enjoy these 16—and feel free to recommend more good listens in the comments below!

Beck

Since his brilliant, unlikely 1994 hit single, “Loser,” Beck has delighted in being one of the most unpredictable voices in music. Always with a singer-songwriter’s heart, Beck has toyed with hip-hop on 1994’s Mellow Gold, sound collages on 1996’s Odelay, R&B on 1999’s Midnite Vultures, and most recently, club-ready dance-pop on his newest single, “Wow.” Where many alt-folk artists have blurred genre lines, Beck has destroyed them.

Wilco

Originally rising from the ashes of alt-country legends Uncle Tupelo, Wilco never seemed destined for greatness at first. Though tuneful, their first album, 1995’s A.M., missed the mark. That’s partly what made their astonishing artistic evolution, from 1996’s assured double album, Being There, to 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, a zeitgeist-defining, near-perfect rock record that still stands as one of the best of the millennium, so amazing to watch.

Old 97’s

Some bands undergo spectacular rises and equally spectacular falls, dazzling us for a year or two before making us cringe on the way down. Some bands though, just keep stubbornly chuggin’ along, cranking out consistently solid records and never failing to put on a professional, but entertaining performance. If there’s ever been an example of the latter, it’s Texas’ Old 97’s. For 20 years, this former bar band has stood tall through just about anything and everything the music industry could throw at a band. They even have a rare stamp of approval from Bob Dylan, who let the band borrow the melody from his “Desolation Row” for “Champaign, Illinois,” one of the band’s classic tunes.

Drive-By Truckers

Southern rock, despite its endearing popularity, was never known for its artistic elasticity. And yet, Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and their always-revolving, always-tight supporting cast of players have been creating fascinating tales examining “the duality of the Southern thing” for close to 20 years now. Raw, honest and provocative, their songs incorporate the vivid characters of folk, the beautifully desolate Southern landscapes of country and the attitude of a veteran bar band that’s seen it all.

Ed Sheeran

Originally brought to the world’s attention by Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran has become a global superstar in his own right, effortlessly making the transition from a confessional singer/songwriter, to a confident pop showman. Indeed, few other 25 year-olds can claim to have made enough of a mark to design a Martin Signature guitar.

Jason Isbell

While we’re on the subject of Drive-By Truckers! Though Jason Isbell was only a member of the DBT’s for six years, he more than made his mark, writing some of the band’s most endearing songs (“Decoration Day” and “Outfit,” from 2003’s Decoration Day, specifically come to mind.) Unsparing in his examinations of himself, his circumstances and the characters around him, Isbell channels the same genres as his former band, while giving his songwriting a more personal touch.

Ryan Adams

Like Wilco, Ryan Adams got his start cranking out punk-influenced country-rock in the mid-1990’s. But, when Adams’ band, Whiskeytown, called it quits, Adams decided to go solo, and immediately made his mark. His solo debut, 2000’s Heartbreaker, effortlessly merged melancholy folk ballads, country instrumentation and an outsider spirit. In the years since, Adams has maintained a prolific, versatile output. His most recent release, a full-length, song-for-song cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989, (no your eyes aren’t going bad, you read that right,) is just one demonstration of Adams’ restless artistic spirit.

The Jayhawks

While other bands may have gone further with, and found far more commercial success in the alt-country genre, it’s hard to imagine it existing in the first place without the Jayhawks. The band’s uncompromising style blazed the trail down which every alt-country band that sprung up in their wake followed.

Feist

Though often unfairly pegged as a one-hit wonder due to her ubiquitous 2007 smash, “1234,” one listen to The Reminder, the album that spawned “1234,” would show just how deep the Canadian singer/songwriter’s chops are. “I Feel It All” crackles with pop energy, while “The Limit To Your Love” can stop time.

Mumford & Sons

Since Mumford & Sons first conquered the world with their spirited, anthemic take on folk, there has been a gluttony of bands banging bass drums, slapping stand-up basses, digging the banjos out of their grandpa’s garage and looking to the Nineties (the 1890s) for outfit inspiration. And though this trend grew old fairly quickly (even on the band themselves, who “went electric” for their 2015 album, Wilder Mind,) the band’s first two, acoustic albums show precisely why the group became such trend-setters. Smash hits like “Babel,” “Little Lion Man” and “The Cave” explode with an endearingly nerdy commitment to conveying the energy and hooks of arena rock through acoustic instrument.

The Tallest Man On Earth

Kristian Matsson’s sneer has inevitably brought him endless comparisons to folk’s most enduring icon, Bob Dylan. But Matsson, a native of Sweden, writes songs with a bright lyricism far less cynical than Dylan’s, and imbues it with the serene beauty of his native country. He offers an unexpected, but fascinating twist on a genre that too often gets associated solely with Americans.

The Milk Carton Kids

It can be easy to look at a well-dressed, academic-looking duo with a love of folk music and falsetto harmonies and assume that you’re in for a Simon & Garfunkel knock-off. On a 1951 Gibson J-45 and a 1954 Martin 0-15, Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan evoke landscapes and images of time gone by, while utilizing their impeccable fingerpicking skills and harmonies to bring a fresh taste to an old style.

The Head and the Heart

Hailing from Seattle and Sub Pop Records (though they’re now signed to Warner Brothers,) The Head and the Heart always seemed well-positioned to become an indie-folk mainstay. And indeed their luscious, breezy songs have made them a favorite of those looking for the brighter side of a sometimes dark genre.

Bon Iver

Justin Vernon, recording under the name Bon Iver, burst into the limelight in 2007 with his debut, For Emma, Forever Ago. Recorded almost entirely alone in a remote cabin in the Wisconsin woods, it was the rare album whose contents matched its origin story. Brimming with unforgettable melodies, spare instrumentation and Vernon’s haunting falsetto, it immediately marked Vernon as a rare talent. 2011’s Bon Iver cemented this, vastly expanding the project’s sound to remarkable heights while losing none of the intimacy of Vernon’s songwriting.

Iron & Wine

From the humid, muted landscapes of 2002’s The Creek Drank the Cradle, to the dazzling full-band workouts of 2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog, to the unexpected jazzy inflections of 2013’s Ghost on Ghost, the evolution of Sam Beam has been remarkable to watch. With Bon Iver, Beam’s Iron & Wine project has taken the indie/alt-folk genre to avenues both unexplored and entirely unexpected.

Blitzen Trapper

These Portlandians play Nineties Americana rock that sounds a lot like like pre-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Wilco. Yet the quintet's Eric Earley performs the amazing feat of making alt-country seem fresh—time after time. The band's latest album, 2015's All Across This Land, has been called "a sepia-toned ode to the past that manages to feel very much of the now."

One of the more memorable songs from Nirvana's early nineties MTV Unplugged performance (and accompanying CD and DVD) is the band's surprise cover of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World."

The performance, with its distinctive fuzz guitar highlights and oddly appealing drum sound, helped introduce Bowie to a younger generation of fans a good 10 years after Let's Dance.

Sunday night at Clive Davis' Grammys pre-party, the surviving members of Nirvana, including Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear, were joined by Beck for a an almost-surreal reprise the of performance. This time, it served as a fitting tribute to Bowie, who died of cancer January 10 at age 69.

Below, you can check out Sunday night's performance, as well as Nirvana's original MTV Unplugged performance of the 1970 Bowie track.

1st #PreGRAMMYGala performance is a tribute to David Bowie: @Beck and the living members of Nirvana (@DaveGrohl!) pic.twitter.com/g0SgrRtug5

— Brian A. Hernandez (@BAHjournalist) February 15, 2016

Guitar news from a Taylor Swift show? Well, yes!

Swift rocked a Fender Jaguar during last night’s sold-out show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Sure, we recognize Swift as an ultra-successful pop/country singer, but these moves (top video) show a femme fatale rocking out in front of 15,000 people.

As a bonus, Swift was joined by Beck and guitarist Annie Clark—better known as St. Vincent—who provided some fine shredding while strutting around onstage in high heels (bottom video).

What do you like? Something rockin’? Sweet or introspective? Masterful or mournful?

Whatever your preference, 2014 delivered.

We’ve listened to a huge amount of music throughout the year, and picking favorites is hard.

But we owe it to you to steer you toward some that stuck with us.

Wanna hear some good stuff…read, and listen, on!

John Butler Trio - Flesh and Blood

I’m not gonna lie. I am strongly biased when it comes to John Butler. His 2014 release Flesh and Blood maybe just be the perfect album.

Masterfully written, and even more amazingly performed, Flesh and Blood showcases the unlimited potential of this fun-loving guitarist, singer and songwriter.

Flesh & Blood is the John Butler Trio's sixth studio album, and you should listen. Really.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Butler and of seeing him play live. Not only did he and the trio blow me away, they were just so incredibly in the moment, and willing to stick their necks out to go in new directions.

More at http://johnbutlertrio.com

Beck - Morning Phase

12 years ago Beck released his breakup opus with Sea Change.

A set of heartrending songs written after ending a relationship up with his longtime girlfriend, the album is viewed as a classic in the Beck repertoire, and I wouldn’t be the first to call it the breakup album of the 00’s.

This year, Beck gave us Morning Phase, the 2014 companion piece to Sea Change. Like its predecessor, Morning Phase hits hard emotionally, mixing dusty acoustic guitars with moody orchestral arrangements (contributed by Beck’s father, David Campbell).

Having a bad day? It’s the perfect record to soak in at full volume while sinking into your couch. 12 albums in, and Beck’s output is as creative and honest as ever.

More at www.beck.com

The Belle Brigade - Just Because

I was first introduced to The Belle Brigade through the track “Losers,” which if you haven’t heard, is a true anthem among anthems.

A Simon & Garfunkel-tinged folk/pop release, the band’s self-titled album was great, but their 2014 offering Just Because shows the breadth of this brother/sister duo’s ability to pen great pop songs and present them in sonically fascinating ways.

A standout on Just Because is “Likely To Use Something,” a track that should be raking in the licensing dough for this band (I can imagine hearing it on pretty much any TV drama or movie these days).

Simply put, Just Because is the sound of a band with intention. Every detail—from a chord change, to a distorted bass line, to a random percussion sound—is placed with the utmost thought and care.

More at www.thebellebrigade.com

Richard Thompson - Acoustic Classics

Richard Thompson’s studio-recorded Acoustic Classics offers a wholesome compilation of newly recorded songs, which were carefully selected from Thompson’s 40-year repertoire to reflect the intimate nature of his live shows.

• The album features 14 tracks (all but one written by Thompson), with lilting guitar,
• a soothing sense of nostalgia, and songwriting that tugs at the heartstrings – all in true Thompson fashion.

Acoustic Classics is laden with gems, but tracks that stand out include “When the Spell Is Broken,” “Beeswing,” and “I Want to See The Bright Lights Tonight.” Plus, how cool is that album cover?

More at www.richardthompson-music.com

Rodrigo y Gabriela - 9 Dead Alive

Rodrigo y Gabriela’s 9 Dead Alive is a well-thought-out masterpiece with nine tracks that each pay homage to a figure in history who has died, but whose legacy lives on in the 21st century (hence the name 9 Dead Alive).

That concept alone is fantastic, and when you listen to the music it only gets better.

Packed with a punch, the album celebrates the lives of people like Spanish guitarist Antonio de Torres Jurado with track “The Soundmaker;” Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky with “The Russian Messenger;” and even animals and nature with “Torito.”

This album is the perfect convergence of history and music, and certainly deserves a spot in your playlist – especially if you like rock-focused nylon string guitar.

More at http://www.rodgab.com

Ed Sheeran - X

Armed with tender vocals and his trusty Martin Guitar, British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran offers nothing but raw talent in his second studio album X (read as multiply).

Throughout the 12 tracks, Sheeran takes listeners through a wide range of styles including heartfelt ballads like “Photograph” and “One;” groovy hip-hop in “Sing” and “The Man;” and straight-out pop in “I’m a Mess” and “Tenerife Sea.”

It’s truly like a box of chocolates because each song brings a pleasant an unexpected surprise and shift in styles.

In X, not only does Sheeran display extreme dexterity on the guitar, but also a refreshing talent as a singer-songwriter - which goes to show he’s extraordinarily versatile and a veritable bad-ass worthy of all the recognition he can get.

More at http://edsheeran.com

LP - Forever For Now

Okay, so Forever For Now is not technically fully acoustic but since LP’s main instrument is ukulele, I say it counts.

The petite LP is so full of talent and power, so smartly artistic, that you can’t help but be inspired.

Her melodic direction is unique. And truthfully her monster range makes it hard to sing along, but so what! Plus, she throws in a tuneful whistle riff throughout. What can this woman not do?!

Favorite cuts include “Night Like This,” “Into The Wild,” and the grand “Tokyo Sunrise.”

Can’t wait to see where this artist goes next…

More at www.iamlp.com

Alex Skolnick - Planetary Coalition

You might have heard of Skolnick from his escapades with the metal band Testament and later with his jazz trio.

Now Skolnick has gone in a new and exciting direction with his acoustic-focused project, Planetary Coalition. The collective’s first release, simply named Planetary Coalition, includes an impressive array of 27 musicians from around the world.

Multi-cultural and incredibly musical, Skolnick has somehow brought together a variety of musical influences, interesting instrumentation and intricate rhythms for a wholly enjoyable experience.

If you have a chance to see the Coalition live, grab it!

More at http://planetarycoalition.com

David Gray - Mutineers

Somehow David Gray’s Mutineers made it into the iTunes library on my iPhone. When I plug into my car charger, his “As The Crow Flies” kicks off due to its alphabetical advantage. Masterfully written, this album is packed chock-full of original ideas interpreted in memorable ways.

Gray seems to be comfortable reinventing himself and Mutineers is a worthy fruit of his disruptive methods. Smart and singable, what more could you want?

From the ebullient single “Back in the World Again,” to the esoteric and gritty “Gulls” and far beyond, this well-rounded album is a worthy listen.

More at http://www.davidgray.com/

Better Than Ezra - All Together Now

The single, “Crazy Lucky” off of Better Than Ezra’s release All Together Now was one of my favorite songs of the year and maybe of all time! Intelligently written, catchy as hell, and expertly executed.

All Together Now is the band’s eighth studio album that was produced by Grammy nominated mixer/producer Tony Hoffer (Fitz and the Tantrums, M83, Beck, Silversun Pickups).

Themed around chance, the album spins out from the serendipity-marveling “Crazy Lucky” into reflective, if relatable, fare such as the vibratory, folk-inflected “Insane,” the falsetto-kissed “One Heart Beating,” and the more sprawling “The Great Unknown.”

This video was constructed from fan submissions relating to their craziest and luckiest moments. Super cool all around.

More at www.betterthanezra.com

These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the December 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.

While Beck’s 2014 release, the sublimely organic, orchestral and acoustic Morning Phase, may have caught some fans off guard, the fact remains that acoustic guitar has always been at the core of his musicality.

Beck’s earliest performances in New York City, at age 18, were more akin to folk music than anything else (Beck’s a fan of Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Woody Guthrie and other American folk giants).

And lest we forget, his first radio hit, “Loser,” revolves around a droning acoustic slide riff, while other successes, such as “Tropicalia,” “Lost Cause” and “Girl,” rely heavily on acoustic guitar. Perhaps it was only fitting that Beck marked his 20th anniversary as a successful recording artist in relaxed acoustic fashion with Morning Phase.

Last night, Beck got Conan's George Harrison Week off to a rousing start with his quick and to-the-point cover of Harrison's 1970 album track, "Wah-Wah."

This week's Harrison-themed festivities over at Conan are in celebration of a comprehensive new eight-disc box set, George Harrison: The Apple Years 1968-75, which compiles the guitarist's first six solo albums. The box set came out today.

For a lot more information on the box set (plus a look at every disc in the set), head in this general direction.

"Wah-Wah" originally appeared on Harrison's celebrated All Things Must Pass Album, which some people (me, perhaps?) consider the greatest solo Beatles album — ever.

We've included Harrison's original version of the song below — for your listening pleasure!

Having been teased for days at heartisadrum.tumblr.com and during Beck's performance on The Colbert Report, the video for "Heart Is A Drum" can now be viewed in its entirety below.

Beck also performed "Heaven's Ladder" on The Colbert Report, from the Beck Song Reader compilation album released today by Warby Parker/Capitol Records.

Available at smarturl.it/BeckSongReader, the album is an all-star collection of interpretations of the legendary Beck Song Reader – 20 Beck compositions released exclusively as stunningly illustrated sheet music in partnership with McSweeney's – by the likes of Jack White, Jeff Tweedy, Jarvis Cocker, Jason Isbell, Fun., David Johansen, Jack Black, Juanes, and several more including Beck himself.

Directed by Sophie Muller and shot in Bergman-esque black and white, "Heart Is A Drum" finds Beck in a rural backwoods limbo, encountering figures from his past, present and possible future-including one with an uncanny resemblance to his former self as captured in 1993's immortal "Loser" clip.

"Heart Is A Drum" is the latest single from Beck's overwhelmingly acclaimed Morning Phase (Capitol). Still lodged in the Top 100 some 21 weeks since its February 25 release, the album has been hailed as one of if not Beck's finest effort to date.

BECK 2014 TOUR

• 08/14/14 - Salt Lake City, UT - Pioneer Park
• 08/15/14 - Morrison, CO - Red Rocks
• 08/19/14 - Vancouver, BC - Deer Lake Park
• 08/20/14 - Seattle, WA - Marymoor Park
• 08/21/14 - Troutdale, OR - McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater
• 08/23/14 - Monterey, CA - First City Festival
• 08/29-31/14 - Stradbally, Ireland - Electric Picnic
• 09/04/14 - Isle of Wight, UK - Bestival
• 09/06/14 - Portmeirion, UK - Festival No. 6
• 09/08/14 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Heineken Music Hall
• 09/10/14 - Brussels, Belgium - Forest National
• 09/11/14 - Paris, France - Zenith
• 09/13/14 - Madrid, Spain - dcode Festival
• 10/03/14 - Austin, TX - ACL Music Festival
• 10/10/14 - Austin, TX - ACL Music Festival

Find out more at beck.com

Summer is finally here! And with that, the schedule of album releases slows a bit, letting everyone digest the musical offerings of spring.

Although the year is still somewhat young, there have been some incredible releases already.

Acoustically speaking, it has already been a year rife with innovation.

This is a list of the six best acoustic tracks of 2014 so far, in my humble opinion. They’re a scattered group, a group of songs made by artists from different genres, generations and attitudes.

Together, they show the incredible (and increasing) diversity in the world of acoustic music.

6. Neil Young- “Girl From The North Country”

What an anachronism, and what a treat, Neil Young’s cover album A Letter Home is.

For all of its faults, it has some truly remarkable performances. None are greater than hearing Young, one of rock’s most unforgettable and familiar voices, tackle a classic from another one of rock’s most unforgettable and familiar voices.

Recorded with 75-year-old technology, Young’s solo, acoustic cover sounds distant, like if you reach out to it, it’ll disappear from view.

And in that, Young flawlessly captures the loneliness and melancholy of the original tune, while simultaneously making it, a song that was an early key in establishing the myth and legend of Dylan, his own.

5. Fanfarlo-“Myth Of Myself (A Ruse To Exploit Our Weaknesses)”

Aside from its slightly over-the-top title, this acoustic-driven thriller from this London-based band’s third record is gorgeous.

Fluttering acoustic riffs open the song, giving it an air of importance, but not of pompousness.

The acoustics soon give way to equally impressive horns and strings, but it’s the song’s opening riff that’s the tone-setter, one that allows the rest of the song to take off as well as it does.

4. Beck- “Heart Is A Drum”

Beck’s Morning Phase may not have been the perfect comeback album, but it showed an artist who still doesn’t have to try very hard to sound impressive.

A sonic follow-up to 2002’s acoustic masterwork Sea Change, Morning Phase has within it some fantastic acoustic moments.

“Heart Is A Drum”’s main riff sounds as if it is descending from the heavens, working its way beautifully around Beck’s angelic vocals.

Beck has always been a great acoustic player, Sea Change to the bizarro, out of tune folk of his early career, and on “Heart Is A Drum,” he shows that his chops are definitely still intact.

3. Damon Albarn- “Hostiles”

Damon Albarn’s solo debut was a long-awaited, more personal look into the creative mind of one of rock’s most fascinating and enigmatic talents.

Although Everyday Robots may have been slightly underwhelming at times, it sure had its moments of greatness.

Sleepy but beautiful, and led by a perfectly simple acoustic riff, “Hostiles” is one of the album’s early highlights.

Albarn perfectly evokes the grey, rainy locales of his childhood in this track, giving us an unprecedented glimpse into where he comes from.

2. Marissa Nadler- “Dead City Emily”

I listened to this song almost daily while immersing myself in the various novels I read for my dystopian literature class.

That sort of reading material, coupled with the chilling New England winter, went hand in hand with “Dead City Emily.”

This song’s central riff manages to be gorgeous, unsettling and richly technical all at once.

The track sounds like it should be in the “Game Of Thrones” soundtrack, or scoring some other tragic, medieval tale filled with death and despair.

It may not exactly be something you want to put on the stereo during your summer barbecue, but as a deeply personal, vibrant, acoustic examination of a darker character, its absolutely beautiful.

1. Sun Kil Moon- “I Watched the Film the Song Remains the Same”

Everything else on this list is certainly worthy of praise, but this song’s hold at the top was never really much of a question.

Singer/songwriter Mark Kozelek’s sixth album as Sun Kil Moon, Benji, is simply without parallel.

“I Watched the Film the Song Remains the Same” remains an absolutely staggering centerpiece to the album, and not only 2014’s best acoustic song, but its best song period.

For nearly 11 minutes, over perfectly measured but rock-solid finger-picking, Kozelek paints a conflicted, elaborate picture of himself and his identity.

He is blunt about his past actions, how they have affected him and how they’ll affect him in the future. Through the interweaving set of vignettes Kozelek lays out, he addresses death, aging, grief and friendship.

Devastatingly intimate, it is simply a peerless example of acoustic songwriting.

Jackson Maxwell is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is double majoring in history and journalism. He is an editorial assistant at the Massachusetts Daily Collegian and has his own music blog entitled "Broken Drums." You can follow him here at http://broken--drums.tumblr.com/ or themotorcade.tumblr.com.

Normally, I’ve got so much music swirling around in my computer that when something new and noteworthy comes around, a day or two passes by before I actually get around to listening to it.

But Beck’s Morning Phase was a major exception. I couldn't wait to dive headfirst into Beck’s first full-length album in almost six years.

One of the most talented and creative songwriters of ours, or any generation, Beck has been a fascinating enigma for twenty years now.

Morning Phase, coming out on February 25, 2014, is a sonic sequel to his 2002 album Sea Change; the definitive acoustic break-up album of the 21st century. Taking its cues from Sea Change, Morning Phase has some defining strengths and weaknesses. But its few flaws almost make it a more endearing return.

Grand, warm, and buoyed by an incredibly wide sonic palette; Morning Phase is a widescreen, high-definition album. With the album’s stunning production, even its lesser songs sound impressive. Beck’s ability to weave intricate and nuanced sonic details with his always-sharp lyricism makes Morning Phase an incredibly strong return to form.

After the instrumental intro, “Cylce,” “Morning” gloriously announces Beck’s return. Its serene opening chords wash over like a wave, Beck’s vocals effortlessly hitting the falsetto the melody requires. It’s a fairly simple ballad, but Beck’s talents make it seem like so much more, with gorgeous harmonies and small instrumental flourishes occurring in just the right places.

“Heart Is A Drum” is propelled restlessly forward by a driving acoustic riff, with Beck’s relaxed, airy vocals providing a beautiful counterpoint to the riff’s determined movement.

Check out "Waking Light" here:

“Blue Moon” may seem, as it did to me, overly saccharine at first listen. But closer examination reveals an exquisitely detailed ballad. The rhythm section is solidly in place, while the song’s guitars weave themselves around the song’s framework, adding consistently to the beauty of the melody and Beck’s vocals.

“Turn Away” has a more simple riff, letting Beck’s voice and songwriting skill really come to the fore. “Country Down” is an expansive beauty that evokes the wide-open, desolate landscape its title implies. When Beck unleashes a beautiful harmonica solo, you could practically imagine listening to this track while engaged in a round of debauchery in “Red Dead Redemption.” “Waking Light” leaves the album on a fittingly gorgeous note. The song’s echo and sense of scale make the track seem like it was written to be listened to in the middle of a canyon.

Morning Phase is an album that shows that Beck has lost none of his touch during his time away from releasing new music. Beck develops on old sounds and experimentations, crafting an album that is completely controlled and calculated, but warm and inviting at the same time. Simply put, Morning Phase is an exhibition of one of the world’s finest songwriters doing what he does best.

Find out more at www.beck.com

Jackson Maxwell is a freshman at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is double majoring in history and journalism. He is a staff writer for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian and has his own music blog entitled “Two Dudes, Two Computers” with his friend Zach Newman. You can follow him here at twodudestwocomputers.tumblr.com/ or http://themotorcade.tumblr.com/

As we reported in August, Beck Hansen — better known as Beck — will release his next album, Song Reader, December 7 through McSweeney's.

Song Reader is a collection of 20 new, unrecorded Beck songs in the form of sheet music, intended for fans to learn, play and record on their own. There is nothing to listen to — no disc to insert or MP3s to download.

"Writing the songs, I began to wonder: How do you ask people to take the time to learn to play them?" writes Beck in a blog posted last night on newyorker.com. "Part of the answer involves acknowledging that some people won’t be interested in making that leap. We’ve attempted to make a book that’s able to stand alone as an object, aside from the music."

"Traditional album releases can have a self-contained value in their physicality; the photos and art and titles can draw you in before you ever hear the songs. This is a book that takes inspiration from that feeling. The art, the ads and the other text hopefully convey something all by themselves," continues Beck, who is best known for his physical albums Mellow Gold and Odelay.

While Beck acknowledges that some fans will dismiss (or have already dismissed) the project as "a stylistic indulgence, a gimmick," he writes, "I think there’s something human in sheet music, something that doesn’t depend on technology to facilitate it; it's a way of opening music up to what someone else is able to bring to it. That instability is what ultimately drew me to this project."

You can download the sheet music to "Old Shanghai," one of the songs from the album, at songreader.net. You also can pre-order Song Reader at mcsweeneys.net.

Here's the staff of The New Yorker presenting their own version of Beck's "Old Shanghai":

If you want to hear Beck's new studio album, you'd better know how to read music and have access to a recording studio. Or at least a guitar.

That's because the album, Song Reader, is being released as individual pieces of sheet music. Beck wants fans to "bring the songs to life" themselves.

The album, which is being released by a publisher -- Faber and Faber -- in December, will consist of the notation for 20 new, unrecorded Beck tunes.

The sheet music will be accompanied by color art work pertaining to each song, plus a hardcover carrying case. The album's 20 "tracks" include two instrumentals, and some of the song titles include "Do We? We Do," "We All Wear Cloaks" and "Don't Act Like Your Heart Isn't Hard."

"Beck is one of the great maverick pop stars of this, or any age, and as soon as I saw Song Reader the relevance of the concept struck me," Lee Brackstone, Faber and Faber's publishing director, told NME.com. "It is thrilling to welcome Beck onto a music list at Faber that is already home to Julian Cope, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Jarvis Cocker, Nicky Wire and others. Song Reader makes a radical statement about the value and importance of performed and recorded music at a time when these very things are under threat."

Song Reader sports 108 pages, including 20 individual song booklets. The illustrations are by Marcel Dzama, Leanne Shapton, Josh Cochran, Jessica Hische and others.

What do you think of this idea? Brilliant? Ridiculous? Too 1912? Sound off in the comments below!

Here's a photo gallery of Beck performing at the 2012 Sasquatch! Music Festival, which took place this past Memorial Day Weekend -- May 25 to 28 -- at The Gorge Amphitheatre in Gorge, Washington.

Earlier today, we posted a photo gallery of Jack White, Gary Clark Jr. and Alabama Shakes performing at Sasquatch!. You can check out those photos here.

For more about Sasquatch!, visit the festival's official website.

All photos by Robert Delahanty.