Yamaha is a bit of an anomaly compared to all the other gear brands you’ll read about in Guitar World. The company’s history stretches all the way back to 1887, when reed organ manufacturer Nippon Gakki Co. was established by Torakusu Yamaha.

At the turn of the century, they were responsible for the very first pianos made in Japan. By the mid-’50s they were at the cutting edge of motorcycle design, which led to their expansion into a number of motor-related industries, including boats, generators and robots.

The Guitar Research Division was founded in the mid-’60s by Yamaha’s president at the time, Genichi Kawakami, who told his team to create something that could rival the finest instruments in the world.

All these years later, their guitars have been seen in the hands of many a musical legend, from folk heroes like Paul Simon and John Denver and classic rockers like Brian May and Randy Bachman all the way through to alternative greats such as Billy Corgan and Chino Moreno.

The company’s most famous designs include FG series acoustic guitars, the Carlos Santana co-designed SG-2000, RGX Superstrats, ultra-versatile Pacificas, and the newer Revstar models seen in the hands of modern trailblazers Chris Buck and Matteo Mancuso.

In celebration of their 60th anniversary in the business, we tracked down Electric Guitar Product Manager Yusuke Ota and Acoustic Guitar Product Manager Shingo Ekuni for an exclusive look into the company’s evolution.

What can you tell us about the very first Yamaha guitars?

Shingo Ekuni: The first Yamaha guitar was the FG-180 acoustic, which was designed in 1965 and released the following year. Our president was very ambitious and wanted to make the best guitar possible. We were already known for making high-quality pianos and orchestral instruments. The new guitars had to live up to that benchmark – built well enough to last forever. That was how it all got started.

Yusuke Ota: The first electric models came the same year, originally called the S201 and S302, though we changed the names to SG-2 and SG-3. We’ve changed the strategies and names behind our guitar lines a few times; in this case it was because Yamaha was planning to launch a semi-acoustic range like the Gibson ES-335 and wanted to call it the SA series.

The plan was to match the model name with the models, and the meaning behind SG was “solid guitar.” Back then, the ideas were a bit more fluid, so they were happy to change things around.

Even that early on, there was a focus on making guitars of all kinds, rather than sticking to one core design or sound.

Ota: That’s one of Yamaha’s greatest strengths. We have a wide range of styles, sounds and affordability. Things like the Pacifica became well-respected for being one of the best entry-level beginner’s guitars, but we have a lot of high-end instruments for professional artists. It’s a wide operation that caters to players of all skill levels and budgets, which can only be a good thing.

The SG-1000 and SG-2000 were introduced in the mid-’70s. Their names were soon cast into legend as “the Les Paul killer,” ending up in the hands of Al Di Meola and Phil Manzanera.

Ota: Early on, our development team didn’t really define what SG stood for very clearly. We actually call many different body shapes the SG, because it stands for solid guitar. In 1974, we made a very iconic model with the symmetrical body shape of the SG-1000, which officially arrived in 1976 along with the SG-2000, designed in collaboration with Carlos Santana.

He gave us a lot of feedback, which we utilized to make the best-sounding guitar of its kind. Our goal during that era was to produce “Made in Japan” models that could be used by professional guitarists. The construction was a set neck with a maple top and mahogany back, almost like a Les Paul but made in a Japanese factory with all the benefits of artisan Japanese craftsmanship.

We also gave the guitar some unique tonal features, like the bi-sound system, which worked like a coil split with push/pull tone pots. We wanted to provide single-coil sounds even though the guitar had two humbuckers.

What have been the best-selling acoustic models over the years?

Ekuni: It would probably be the FG series, because every dealer will stock them and a lot of people end up having those models as their first guitars. Some people even carry on using those entry-level guitars on a professional level. We’ve seen players with vintage FG-180 acoustics, the first model we ever made, on stage or in the studio. We also started making folk-style acoustics, which is what American folk artists like Paul Simon wanted.

The singer/songwriter players came back in the ’90s after all the metal generation kids in the ’80s, so the FG models had a revival. Gradually the lineup has expanded. In 2010, we did the vintage reissues called the FG Red Label, as well as the FG9 and FS9.

These were high-end guitars that looked back to our earliest models. We are proud to see vintage FGs still being used by professional artists, as well as the newer reissues. Today’s artists are more picky when it comes to sound, so it means a lot when someone like David Ryan Harris from John Mayer’s band is using the FS9.

In the 1970s, the quality of the Japanese guitars famously created a wave of fear and controversy for some U.S. brands. Now these “lawsuit era” models are highly collectable.

Ota: For sure. Many of the guitars made in Japan back then were copying Fender and Gibson. The currency exchange rate at the time made it hard for people to buy American guitars – it was super expensive. So the local manufacturers made their own versions to sell to the Japanese market.

The difference with Yamaha is that we were trying to make original guitars rather than copies. We wanted to invent a Yamaha-ness, if that makes sense, by adding unique features or coming up with quirky body shapes.

Then there was the age of the Superstrat, starting with the now-discontinued RGX series in the mid-’80s and then the Pacificas of the following decade.

Ota: In 1985, hard rock and heavy metal was very trendy. We wanted to make a guitar for that market, with a pointy body shape, a thin and compact neck profile plus high-output pickups even with the HSS configuration. It was like a guitar for the younger generation who were pursuing more of a technical playing style.

That was definitely us going into the Superstrat world. In 1990, we launched the Pacifica series by getting the Japanese and American teams to collaborate and make a guitar for all the session players in L.A.

That was a big thing around that time, so we wanted to create something that was ultra versatile and able to cover just about any kind of sound and genre. Another consideration was the price point, we wanted affordable versions of these guitars, as well as mid-tier and higher-end ones.

Which players would you say are most connected to the Yamaha brand and encapsulate the sound?

Ota: Of course there are a lot of legendary players who have used Yamaha guitars, but of the classic players, Carlos Santana is one of the biggest names we’ve been associated with. He really loved the SG series in the 1970s. We made that great guitar together that really influenced the market.

The SG-2000 had this really fat sound that was rich in the mid-frequencies, almost like a vocal. That’s why his guitar lines would sound like he was singing, with all that long sustain. It was such a thick tone even without any distortion or overdrive. It would always cut through thanks to the neck-thru construction, tonewoods and our pickup design.

In the ’70s, players were after a more powerful sound with a little bit more output but without sacrificing that very musical tone. After that, Carlos went on to PRS, but he was mainly using Yamaha electrics before that and helped make the SG series very iconic. As for contemporary players, we have to mention Chris Buck and Matteo Mancuso who are both using our Revstar series.

In terms of contemporary players, you couldn’t have asked for better endorsees. Both of them were born with this one-in-a-million kind of magic touch.

Ota: Exactly. I think they are two of the greatest guitar talents of this era. Chris is a very dynamic player who uses his right hand to create this very unique feel and tone. On the other hand, Matteo is super-technical and has a very clear tone.

They are such different players, but both of them want something similar – lots of dynamics and transparency. I think the Revstar is one of our most iconic models right now. I’m proud to see those two players using our guitars and look forward to seeing them both become even more popular.

Other famous names connected to Yamaha over the years include Billy Corgan, Wes Borland, Steve Lukather, Mike Stern and Rodrigo Y Gabriela. It’s been quite a mix, when you think about it.

Ekuni: We’ve always loved catering to many styles. Billy Corgan has been using the LJ16 as well as the FGX5 from the Red Label series. I’ve spoken to him directly about what he wants and expects from his acoustic guitars. What he mentioned was that our pickups are perfect for him to express himself. I think it’s partly because our development team is so big – we are making professional mixers, pianos and all kinds of equipment.

We pull from the same resources, which means we have more technology than other brands. Billy’s playing style is quite wide; he might go from very soft fingerpicking to hard strums with a pick. He needs a pickup that can do both, and most pickups that are good for one aren’t particularly good at the other. We made our pickups to handle every kind of playing style. Billy has told me that’s why he chooses Yamaha.

What are your current bestsellers?

Ota: The Revstar is doing really well right now. I think that’s because it’s so different to what other major brands like Gibson and Fender are putting out.

Again, it helps that Chris and Matteo are using them. The Revstar allows the player to really create the tone from their fingers, which a lot of electric guitars don’t always do. It’s all about what they hear in their head and translating that through the wood and the pickups.

What can we expect next from the gang at Yamaha?

Ota: The Revstar is our key series right now, so we’re looking to expand the lineup. For 60 years, Yamaha has been designing guitars with musicians at the center. That won’t change, but players are changing. Styles and expectations aren’t what they used to be.

We’d like to keep evolving and offer the instruments our customers need. People will always expect great guitars from Yamaha, and we want to make sure we deliver.

Ekuni: Compared to other brands, we’re quite unique. I’m working from Japan while Yusuke is in the U.S. We have teams across the world in Europe and other Asian regions correlating with each other, feeding back what our customers and artists are saying. We use this information to carry on developing better and more unique guitars. It was the mission statement for when Yamaha Guitars first launched and still is today.

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

In the annals of Ween's storied, ever-eclectic catalog, the 2003 full-length, Quebec, is a standout entry.

Starting out with a bang with the roaring opener, It's Gonna Be a Long Night (ed. note: Mötorhead fans would do well to give it a spin), Quebec was by all accounts a difficult record to make.

Colored by physical and emotional turmoil (drummer Claude Coleman was involved in a serious car accident during its creation, and Ween co-leader Gene Ween was in the midst of a divorce at the same time), the album took well over a year, and a multitude of sessions in all manner of studios and rehearsal spaces, to wrap up.

It was in the midst of one of these endless sessions that the group's other co-founder, Dean Ween, received an eyebrow-raising call from his roadie.

“My roadie (nameless) also worked for a backline company (nameless) that supplied amps, drums, lights, etc. to bands touring in the Northeast,” he wrote in a lengthy Facebook post in 2014.

“My roadie told me that Carlos Santana’s equipment (including his guitars) had arrived via a trucking company that night at their depot. Carlos was recording an appearance on Good Morning America the next morning and his equipment was to be delivered to the set in NYC in a few hours.

“What needed to be done was immediately clear to me,” the guitarist recalled. “I had an opportunity to play the solo on Transdermal Celebration through Carlos Santana’s amplifier and guitar.”

Now, this wasn't just a case of punk disrespect. In the post, Dean Ween cited Santana as one of his all-time favorite players: “As a guitarist he has aged like a fine wine. Only Neil Young, Prince, and a small handful of others can make that claim as they become members of the AARP.”

Respect or not, though, the image was the one that every musician who's ever gotten a single road mile under their belt dreads – a group of people sitting around, trying to figure out how to roll up to the location where your gear is stored in the middle of the night, undetected. As the perpetrator himself put it, the plan “resembled an early morning bank heist.”

“I had one shot at it. It meant taking a hard disk recorder to a storage space where all of Carlos’ stuff was sitting in transit,” Dean recalled. “I arrived at 2am. We very carefully unpacked his equipment and set up his stage gear, and in one take I recorded the guitar solo for Transdermal Celebration (the one that appears on the album) playing through Carlos Santana’s guitar, pedalboard, and amplifier.

“The whole thing took 10 minutes and we were terrified we were going to get caught. A lot of people would have lost their jobs. We got the fuck outta there really fast after that.”

Someone in the band's camp was wise (or unwise, some might say) enough to capture the clandestine operation for posterity, lest readers or listeners call BS. Can't mistake that PRS Santana model, the sticker on the 'board, or, more distantly, the vintage Mesa in the back.

Ween ended the anecdote with a plea. “Don’t tell anyone about [this] please.”

Eric Gales arrived on the blues scene as a child prodigy, but the guitarist says he'd been keeping his talents under wraps until Carlos Santana blew his cover.

As this video footage of the southpawed virtuoso blowing the roof off a battle of the bands, aged just 14, shows, Gales has always had serious chops. Originally, however, he never intended to make himself known in guitar-playing circles.

Speaking to Rick Beato, Gales reveals he was first known as a drummer, playing in marching, symphonic, and jazz bands in school, all while hiding his secret six-string powers.

“I didn't want any of my high school friends to know that I played guitar at all,” he notes. “So I kept it as quiet as I could, until Carlos Santana was asked who the next young gun guitar player to look out for was [on Arsenio in 1992]. And Carlos said, 'This guy in Memphis, Tennessee. He’s absolutely incredible.’

“I went back to school the next day, and everybody was like ‘Dude, why you ain't saying nothing man? All this time…’

“It's because I didn’t want to hold on to new fake friends. I didn’t want everybody wanting to be my friend because of… I wanted to keep things quiet, but at that time, the lid was off the top.”

Santana is actually Gales’ godfather, and tapped the youngster to play in his band at Woodstock ‘94. There, he shared the lineup with the likes of Jimmy Cliff, Green Day, and a Paul Rodgers supergroup featuring Slash and Neal Schon.

“I was 17, and there were a million people out there, man,” he remembers of the gig. “It was one of the most exciting times in my life. We still communicate a couple of times a week. Through his gifts, I've been afforded relationships with people I admire and am influenced by. It's crazy.”

Elsewhere, Gales recently launched a surprise new signature guitar with Kiesel, and the hotly anticipated Stat-style axe looks to be a serious player. His latest album is a tribute to his late brother Little Jimmy King, the man who started him on guitar, and had a promising career before his passing.

Carlos Santana was one of the earliest champions of Paul Reed Smith’s guitars, first playing custom electric guitars before agreeing to a collaboration that helped catapult PRS with a landmark signature guitar.

However, as Smith himself explains, Santana wasn’t immediately taken by the PRS design brief. Rather, he took some convincing. Not because PRS guitars were bad, though. On the contrary, it was because they were too good, and Santana thought them too good to be true.

Speaking to Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto in an upcoming episode of Guitar Center’s new ‘Inside the Noise with Gabe Dalporto’ podcast, Smith looks back on the early days of PRS, and reveals how his partnership with the man who helped transform PRS fortunes first came about.

“Three years of making him guitars,” Smith says when asked how long it took to convince Santana. “The first guitar he said was an accident of God. The next one, he said it was an accident. Third one, he didn't say anything.

“By the fifth one, he called me up and says, ‘OK, you're a guitar maker.’ In other words, the first one was an accident, it was that good.

“It was almost like somebody written him a hit song, and he didn't trust the next song to be hit. But after the fifth, he goes, ‘Okay, you're in.’ He made me earn his trust. He didn't give his trust, which I thought was really grounded.”

Smith draws parallels between his early days working with Santana and his experiences working with John Mayer and other big-name players. Namely, they have a set idea on what they like, and they’re not afraid to fly in the face of convention to get it.

“The thing I like about Carlos and John Mayer and all these great musicians is, they don't decide they like something because somebody told them to like it,” Smith says. “They decided to like something because they decided that's what they liked.”

Santana became one of PRS’ earliest major endorsers and elevated the brand onto the global stage, helping the company on its way to becoming the major industry player it is today. Over the years, the flagship Santana I model from the mid 1990s has been rebooted and refreshed with a run of SE, Private Stock and standard signatures.

Smith’s full interview with Dalporto will be released in the near-future. Inside the Noise with Gabe Dalporto will feature a run of behind-the-scenes interviews with high-profile musicians and industry execs.

The first episode, which features current Fender CEO Andy Mooney, arrives today, and will be followed by interviews with Smith and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer, Chad Smith. Blu DeTiger, Kenny Aronoff, Martin CEO Thomas Ripsam and more will also feature on future episodes.

Visit the Guitar Center YouTube channel to watch the first interview. Season 1 episodes will drop weekly on Tuesdays at 3pm PST.

Last year, Paul Reed Smith sat down with John Mayer and Guitar World to discuss the making of the Silver Sky.

40 years ago, Maryland native Paul Reed Smith took a chance on starting his own guitar company with no idea how things would pan out. It’s a good thing he chose to roll the dice.

He’s since become one of the world’s most respected builders – someone whose creations encapsulate the very notion of a well-crafted and custom-made boutique instrument.

Early on, he’d made guitars for Peter Frampton, Al Di Meola and Carlos Santana, and having witnessed firsthand how well his innovations had been working out for them, he launched PRS Guitars at the 1985 NAMM Show, debuting the newly designed Custom 24.

It’d be fair to say a lot has happened over the four decades since then, with top-shelf musicians like John Mayer, Orianthi and John McLaughlin signing up to become signature artists, as well as the more metallic players from bands like Alter Bridge, Opeth and Periphery.

While it’d be fair to say Smith’s output has taken some degree of influence from the classic formulas pioneered in the ’50s, models like the Custom 24 are notable for having their own kind of identity – from the 25-inch scale length that sits right in between the original Gibson and Fender designs to the custom bird inlays, jaw-dropping flame finishes and highly dependable tremolo system.

With the U.S.-made Core line retailing for several thousands of dollars, there were many years where these guitars were generally regarded as instruments for doctors, dentists and lawyers. That all changed in 2001 with the launch of the overseas-produced SE Santana, which kick-started a whole line of models marrying quality with affordability.

Since then, the line has expanded with various semi-hollow, extended range and piezo options – building up a fierce reputation as the best guitars you can find within their price range. It’s been one hell of a journey, says Smith, whose company now stands as the world’s third best-selling brand.

If you could go back in time and talk to the young man just starting out, what would you say?

“Don’t stop – it’s going to take you longer to mature than you think, but you’ll survive, so don’t worry about it too much!” I had a dream once, and I’ve never told anyone this, but I heard this loud voice and woke up in a cold sweat. The words I heard were, “It’s 10 times more complicated than you ever imagined.”

And that’s been true, from finally getting the pickups right for John Mayer, getting our necks to remain stable and our finishes to not injure the tone. I decided not to be a hermit – like “Nobody gets to talk to Paul!” – and instead, be the kind of person who talks to everybody.

What do you think has helped separate you from every other brand?

Guitars are tools for a job. I remember watching Carlos Santana playing the Oscars, and all I wanted was for the guitars to stay in tune and do what he needed. I just want my guitars to do their job.

I don’t sit there and feel this sense of pride, like, “I made that.” I just hope the performance goes well. You only get one shot when you’re on the Oscars. You break a string? You’re dead. That’s it – sharp bridge saddle? Done. It only takes one thing to go wrong.

How’d you get into building?

There are two kinds of people. One will say, “I’ve got nothing to offer” and people will say, “No kid, you come with me.” Then you’ve got the other kind who keep shouting about what they have, and everybody is like, “You’ve got nothing. Shut up and go home!” I was in group two.

Some of the musicians I’ve worked with are in group one. They’d go to the studio and get told to sit in a chair and not move. Brent Mason is that way. He’d send in demos of himself singing, because he’s a great singer, and they’d ask, “Who is on guitar?”

When they found out it was him, the deal was done. I’d show people my guitars and everybody would say, “No, no, no!” But nice people like Carlos Santana would say, “What have you got?” He didn’t care about what anyone else thought.

You had to make your own luck, to some degree.

Well, I didn’t get invited to make Eric Clapton a guitar at 13. I started my journey because I wanted to play guitar, but like oil and water, it ran away from me. But if I opened a case on the counter of the biggest music shop in Washington, D.C., it would draw a crowd. The world was saying, “This is what you have to offer,” but it still wasn’t “Come with me.”

I was told my whole life that if you make something magical, the world will beat a path to your door. What a load of bullshit. If you make something magical, you might be able to get an appointment for 15 minutes.

Guitar makers come around once every 30 years, and I’ve studied them all. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put guitars in cases and said, “Go do your job.” I don’t need to be there when the case is opened.

I also realized you can be a nice guy and get no orders, or you could be a difficult human being and the world will give you tons. It’s nothing to do with how you are, it’s to do with the caliber of the art you make. Guitars will sound good and play well regardless of how nice the builder is.

You were a custom builder for high-profile artists before launching your own company.

I made a deal with all of them saying if they didn’t fall in love with the guitar, I’d give them their money back. Carlos would say, “You mean, if I don’t love it, I don’t have to buy it? Under that deal, I’ll take it!” At that time, asking $2,000 for a guitar was outrageous. I think $900 was the ceiling. When we came out with a guitar at $1,000, it was pretty out there.

I remember having a meeting with our reps and all of them telling me we can’t do this. It’s not that I wanted to charge more; it cost more to make because it took more time and the parts cost more money. That’s just the way it was – and is.

Ted McCarty was an early mentor. What do you remember about him?

He wasn’t famous when I met him. He was a forgotten man, and I love that he got put back on the map. The last time I took him to NAMM, I rolled him around in a wheelchair and everybody came out to say goodbye to him, knowing it was the last time. He was cool, a real champion.

He’d fall asleep and then I’d wake him up saying, “Ted, you’ve got an interview,” so he’d do that and go back to sleep. He was kinda like the grandfather I never had. He trusted me. He handed us the baton, like in a relay race.

The SE line felt like a long time coming. It’s incredible how close they can be to your Core models.

That was our goal. At one point, the SEs were going to go away; we were having trouble with sales. And all the guitar teachers in America made their students buy SEs because they couldn’t teach kids how to play guitars that wouldn’t stay in tune. The teachers saved the line and we were back at the races. But it was almost done. That happens a lot in the guitar business.

Your guitars are no longer just for doctors, dentists and lawyers. Did that perception ever bother you?

No. The reason people would say those things is because doctors and dentists would have enough money to buy early Private Stocks and 10 Tops. When the S2 and SEs came out, that was over. Did it bother me? No. What bothered me was that one time I saw a catalog that said, “Best fit and finish in the entire industry” on our page, but on the Gibson page it said, “The sound of rock and roll.” I thought to myself, “Wrong comment on the wrong page!”

Frankly, there’s a new sound we’ve come up with on our TCI guitars that doesn’t sound like a Gibson, Fender, Les Paul, SG, Strat, Tele, Ibanez or anything. It’s a humbucker that sounds like a single coil, and I couldn’t be happier.

There’s a lot of speculation out there about where tone comes from. You’ve always seemed to be on “team wood”.

According to the internet, the only thing that’s important when you play a Stradivari violin is the Neumann microphone hanging over the top of it. People say the same about guitars. I don’t buy it. That means dead strings mean nothing. I mean, really? Put Vaseline all over your strings, pluck it and tell me your guitar sounds the same. I just don’t buy it.

What I do buy is that the pickup is half of it, but it ain’t all of it, no way. For some people, if a guitar has no sustain, they buy a compressor. If it has no after-ring, they buy a reverb pedal. I understand that. I mean, Jimi Hendrix had a Uni-Vibe, a wah-wah, this and that, but I’m sorry, if you listen to the rhythms on The Wind Cries Mary, that’s just him playing a new guitar and amp and he sounds gorgeous.

I don’t buy the simplistic view. You can’t take one of the only pieces I have away from me, saying it makes no difference. Alright then, make a guitar out of balsa wood and rubber, then add your pickup. I just don’t buy it.

What’s the greatest sound you’ve ever heard from a PRS on an album?

Smooth by Santana. I went to Japan when that song was a hit and it was the sound of Tokyo. You walked down the street and every store with speakers outside would be playing that song. I was in a grocery store yesterday and that song is still playing. Out of all the PRS guitars I’ve made, the one used for that song had the most impact.

He got something like 10 Grammys for that song. He walked into my office after that, slammed the door and said, “I swear to God I haven’t changed,” basically telling me the fame hadn’t gone to his head. And he said thank you to every single person in my factory. In the Jewish world, we call him a mensch, the very highest level of human being. He was spectacular that day and has always been.

Who would you love to work with that you haven’t had the chance to yet?

Jimmy Page, except I did make a guitar for him. He used one of our guitars on the Outrider tour, and it was some of the best tremolo work I’d ever heard. I did make a guitar for Eddie Van Halen, but that’s a long story and he’s gone.

People don’t know this, but Jeff Beck had a PRS at home and he loved it. He told me I’d never see him with it but he used it to record. We’ve been trying to get it back; it wasn’t part of the auction this year, but I know he loved that guitar. Of course, he’s not with us anymore either – and the same goes for Stevie Ray Vaughan. I could say Eric Gales, but he’s played our guitars plenty of times.

Joe Bonamassa told me that the first guitar he bought with his lawnmower money as a kid was a PRS McCarty. I like Joe, but I don’t think we are in his destiny right now. There are an awful lot of people playing PRS guitars that you don’t know about, but I do know they do. So I’d have to say David Gilmour.

I’ve met him, he’s a sweetheart and was really nice to me. The way he plays guitar is very written and intentional. American players are more like wild Mustangs – they just go for it. English players look for more beautifully written parts.

Apparently, David spent two weeks on the Comfortably Numb solo. That’s the story. I don’t know if it’s true, I don’t even care if it’s not true, it’s just a good story.

What can we expect from PRS over the next couple of years?

I’d like to see the McCarty IIIs and TCIs accepted. It’s staggering, the amount of artists playing the Silver Sky, which came out of us retooling an old 1963 pickup. I played a Charcoal Phoenix at our 40th-anniversary party. That went well. The new John McLaughlin went well. I’d like to see this stuff establish itself.

You have to remember Les Pauls were out of business until Slash picked one up. Strats were out of business until Hendrix picked one up. Then people like Danny Gatton, Roy Buchanan and Bruce Springsteen brought Teles back.

The guitar market is slow to move. I want some of our new products to get their feet more grounded in the longterm evaluation. I would like to see more acceptance across the board.

• Find out more at PRS Guitars.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

There are varying degrees of guitar hero, but Carlos Santana is a name you’d expect to find near the top of any list. Like Jimi Hendrix, Brian May or Slash, Santana has transcended guitar music and permeated his way into popular culture, immortalizing his name into legend on every corner of the globe.

Of course, he’s a tremendous player, but it goes way beyond that; he’s a highly prolific composer and collaborator, the type of musician who can thrive in just about any musical environment, drawing from an impressively wide pool of influences to make his guitar speak to any kind of audience or listener.

His latest album, Sentient, serves as yet another reminder of these universal talents. It consists of 11 tracks, three of which were unreleased until now, and the rest reimagining some of his most famous partnerships over a storied career, from a moving live version of Michael Jackson’s Stranger in Moscow to classic cuts alongside Miles Davis and Smokey Robinson.

It’s an impressive body of work that captures the breadth of his sound and imagination while taking the listener on an unforgettable journey that defies all notions of boundary or genre. And, as the chart-topping veteran explains to GW, it’s mainly because his approach to music is a profoundly holistic one.

You’re one of the most prominent faces for PRS, but you’ve played all kinds of guitars throughout the years.

“Guitars are like crayons to me. Life is the canvas, and guitars are the colors you use to express your soul, your spirit, your heart, your passion and emotions. Those are the ingredients to create beauty, and guitars are the tools.”

How many guitars do you own these days?

“I don’t know, but probably not more than 100 and not fewer than 75. I guess the Fender Strats and Gibson Les Pauls would be the oldest models in my collection. I’ve got Strats from 1954; some of my Les Pauls go all the way back to 1959.”

You even had a Yamaha signature model in the ’80s.

“That’s right. I had a good time with Yamaha. I learned from each one of the guitar companies. They all have their own sound, texture and feel. But I always go back to my PRS models.

“Paul Reed Smith has mastered creating an instrument that behaves. No matter what the weather is like, it will stay in tune and always give you that great tone. I’m very grateful to Paul. He came up with his own vision to create a different tone and feel.

“I’m grateful he did that because his designs suited my personality when it came to self-expression. We’ve had a relationship since the late ’70s. He convinced me to come on board. Back then, there were only three companies I knew of – Gibson, Fender and Gretsch. There were others, but those three were the main ones.”

The PRS signature guitar you call “Salmon” is the guitar you’re most associated with lately. What makes it so special?

“I also think of it as my Supernatural guitar, because that’s what I used for 99 percent of that album [1999's Supernatural]. As for what’s special about it, I think it’s the most fluid. It’s the easiest instrument for me to materialize my inner-vision, thoughts and emotions. There’s not much struggle translating myself onto that guitar. But sometimes that struggle is nice, you know?

“Some people struggle with playing Stratocasters. It’s not easy to play a Strat and get really nice tones without pedals, because some people use pedals for extra sustain. But when you play loud enough like Jimi Hendrix going straight into Marshall stacks, they can become a whole other canvas. That’s why players like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy stuck with Stratocasters.”

PRS has continued to evolve through the years with models like the Silver Sky. Have you ever tried one?

“A bit here and there. I thought they were pretty close to the original design it had been clearly inspired by.”

The company’s SE models are also pretty well known for being some of the best guitars you can find for that kind of money.

“That’s right! From guitars to food or whatever, there are two words that are important for any business – impeccable integrity. When people put love and attention into what they make, it stands out.

“When my guitars arrive from Paul Reed Smith, they are always perfectly in tune. I’m not making it up! They come to me set up perfectly because somebody at the factory is doing that final check. A lot of companies don’t do that.”

You play PRS single-cut models, too. What kind of situations call for that over a double-cut?

“It’s like wine. You’ve got choices like burgundy, merlot and cabernet sauvignon. The singlecut is more like a merlot, it’s a more robust sound. When you play a double-cut, the sound changes dramatically and you get more treble. So in situations where I want more of a rounder sound, I will go for the single-cut. Both have their uses for different sounds and songs.”

On your new retrospective album, you turned your guitar into a voice for an instrumental version of Michael Jackson’s Stranger in Moscow. Not many players can make their instruments talk like that.

“There are components to articulating. It’s a bit like how a chef thinks about ingredients, from flavors to nutrients. To cook a delicious meal, you need more than salt and pepper. Nothing is closer to the heart than the voice. To make a guitar speak to people, it’s more than just volume and control.

“You need to put your soul into each note; when you do that, it changes the sound. There are a lot of people who play music that’s more mental, which has a different type of feel. It’s okay for certain things, but I prefer the sound of someone playing from their heart because of players like Wes Montgomery and Otis Rush. They made you feel what you hear.”

Which singers helped you most with your phrasing?

“If I sang, I’d want to sound like Marvin Gaye. If I were female, I’d want to sound like Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston or Billie Holiday. That’s what I’m thinking of when I play guitar – how to articulate.

“I’ve spent a lot of time taking my fingers for a walk with Smokey Robinson, so when I play my guitar, I become the voice through my fingers on the fretboard. It’s the same way I approached Stranger in Moscow. I had to morph myself and get into a character, almost like an actor.

“When you see Robert De Niro on a talk show and he’s not in character, sometimes he can be a little boring. But when he turns into the guy from Heat, Taxi Driver or The Godfather, he’s incredible. It’s a frame of mind. When I’m playing Stranger in Moscow, you’re hearing a different Carlos, because I’m thinking of Michael Jackson and phrasing everything differently – even if it’s still got my own fingerprint.”

On a technical level, what were you doing to sound like the original vocal?

“I chose to play more relaxed and behind the beat, choosing my notes carefully. It’s like putting your fingers in water and sprinkling someone’s face with water, or if you take a spoon to grapefruit and it squirts.

“Those are the good notes. A lot of people don’t know how to squirt their best notes! I learned this stuff from Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Albert King and Freddie King. If you don’t know how to squirt, everything is contained, and it can get boring after a while.

“I like being squirted in the face by music because it makes me feel alive. The goal of any guitar player, whatever the style may be – from funk and flamenco to heavy metal – is to make the listener feel alive. A good guitar solo should sound like an orgasm. I can hear it in Eddie Van Halen’s playing, and the same goes for Jimi Hendrix. I live for the juicy notes.”

There’s almost a Jeff Beck approach to your improvisation on that track. You knew each other and famously played together on The Nagano Sessions [with Steve Lukather] in 1986. What do you remember most about Jeff?

“Jeff Beck took guitar way beyond. His approach was like letting the hamster out of the cage. I was a big fan of Jeff from the second I heard him play. What I loved most was his imagination and passion. He was a very untraditional player, even though he had learned the traditional approach to blues to start with.

“I remember hearing Truth [Beck's first solo album from 1968] a long time ago and loving it, but I think the first song I heard by him was Over Under Sideways Down by the Yardbirds. He had this fuzz sound that was very special. You could also tell he’d been listening to people like Ravi Shankar or Ali Akbar Khan.

“He was a multi-dimensional player in that sense, the opposite of a one-trick pony. He learned from Roy Buchanan and Buddy Guy – I mean, we all took a lot from Buddy – because he put the turbo inside the blues. Like Jeff, I learned how to take a deep breath and trust my fingers almost like a child going down a water slide.”

Is it because in situations like that, it’s more about heart and soul than technicality?

“Anybody can practice scales up and down. But there’s something about coming down a water slide. You don’t know how you’re going to land; it might be on your head or on your feet.

“That’s what happens when you deviate from the melody. John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter taught me a lot. It’s the art of improvisation, entering the unknown. People would ask Wayne how he practices, and he’d tell them, ‘We don’t know what we are going to play; how do you practice the unknown?’

“I learned improvisation from Coltrane. I learned cosmic music from Sun Ra. I learned down-to-earth music from the Grateful Dead because they were heavily immersed in the folk and bluegrass worlds. And don’t dismiss the guitar playing of Bob Dylan. He played a lot of great guitar, which worked beautifully with his vocals. I’ve learned from many musicians, especially the incredible women I mentioned earlier.”

Playing along to soul singers is something nearly every guitar player could learn something from.

“I don’t care who you are, whether you are Al Di Meola or not, I’d recommend this to any guitar player. If you spend even one day learning how to play and phrase like those lady soul singers, you will become a better musician. This is the truth. This is genuinely the most important part of the interview – right now. The only thing people will remember about your music is how you made them feel.

“They are not going to remember all the fast scales and ‘Look at what I can do!’ moments. But they will remember those three notes that made the hairs stand on the back of the neck and tears come out of their eyes, even if they don’t know why. That’s a whole other element, one I call spirit. Some people don’t know how to play with spirit, heart and soul. Those are three very important ingredients.”

Music isn’t a sport at the end of the day – especially for the listener.

“If you just practice all day and night going really fast, after a while, it’s a bit like going to the gym and seeing somebody flexing their muscles. Big deal. So what? Playing with spirit is like giving someone a hug that lasts for infinity. Time stops.”

Are there any songs that you think demonstrates this best?

“There’s a note Jimi Hendrix plays in All Along the Watchtower that makes you feel like you are entering eternity. It’s like being from Kansas and having only seen the Pacific Ocean on a postcard, then going to Hawaii and putting your feet in the water. That’s when you understand the totality and absoluteness of an ocean. A lot of musicians don’t understand how to play like that, but Chick Corea can.

“You have to learn how to dive into infinity through one note. It’s like learning how to French kiss correctly – to be fully alive with all your senses but no guilt, shame or embarrassment. Take the inhibitions and all that stuff out. You will see how beautiful it is to interact so intimately. That’s what a guitar player is. The guitar is a very naked and sensuous instrument. That’s just the way it is.”

The other Michael Jackson track on the album, Whatever Happens, has some harmonic minor lines, but on nylon acoustic. Where’d you learn to use that sound?

“I got a lot of it from my father because he played violin. It’s funny; when I started, people would say I was using a Dorian scale. But the only Dorian I knew was a girl who went to my junior high school. She invited me to go over to her house when her mom was working. I had a good time with Dorian.

“They also said I was using tonic scales, but the only tonic I knew was in gin and tonic. I don’t know, nor do I want to know, about scales because that will get in my way. I would rather feel like a blind man touching someone’s face. They are memorizing something in a completely different way to how someone else would see it.

“I’m not saying ignorance is bliss; I’m saying that if you learn everything, you can take some of the magic away. Don’t lose the magic of self-discovery. There’s something so beautiful about purity and innocence. Again, it’s like that first kiss.”

The Smokey Robinson track, Please Don’t Take Your Love, has a distinct, lively blues tone. What were you using?

“That sound is a combination of three things. The guitar was a really old white Stratocaster going straight into a Dumble amplifier that was lent to me by Alexander Dumble. The tone of that Strat with the Dumble is something magical.

“You stop playing notes, sounds and vibrations, and it all becomes a living sensation. How many players can say they play with a living sensation? Manitas De Plata, Paco De Lucía, John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock. The main ingredients for me are spirituality and sensuality. Without those two things, I wouldn’t play guitar like this. I wouldn’t want to be on this planet.”

Get On is an interesting piece of music. Do you play differently knowing someone like Miles Davis is on the same track?

‘I’m almost 80. I’ve learned how to diversify my portfolio and my Rolodex of expression, tones and vibration. When I first heard this song with Miles, I had to trust that I knew enough about what he was doing.

“Certain music comes from Africa, and that went on to influence stuff played by Cubans and Puerto Ricans, all this sensual music like guahira, bolero, charanga. If you listen to the African band Kékélé, you will hear a lot of Santana in there. I have to give credit to the musicians because they knew how to make music feel like it’s alive. It’s not just notes and clever inversions. I always go back to something physical.

“You have to make people feel. They can’t take it or leave it. The song has to speak to them. They will stop all conversations because they are enthralled and captivated. The sound is making love to them. And it takes trust. If there’s no trust, you won’t get the goods. With music, you gotta give the goods, man. Otherwise it’s just too clever and intellectual, and that stuff is boring.”

You’ve said Stevie Ray Vaughan once came to you in a dream and told you to use his Dumble Steel String Singer amp for a performance at Madison Square Garden. Not many people can say that.

“I call them visitations. I get visitations from Miles Davis sometimes, as well as B.B. King. You don’t have to be dead to visit me. Sometimes a dream is not a dream; someone has come back to communicate with you.

“I had a dream about Miles where I went to his concert and someone said, ‘Miles knows you are here and wants to see you in his dressing room.’ He asked how I was doing and started writing on a bit of paper, which he then gave to me. And just as I was about to read it, I woke up. I have to analyze what he was trying to tell me.

“It’s like that with Stevie Ray and Jaco Pastorius. I feel very honored that these people come to me. Sometimes I feel like I’m like [John F. Kennedy International Airport] and all these musicians are landing on me and sharing things. I have to figure out what it all means.”

What exactly did Stevie tell you?

“With Stevie, he was saying, ‘Carlos, where I am, I don’t have any fingers; I am only spirit.’ He missed putting his fingers on a guitar and making the speakers push air. He told me to call his brother Jimmie [Vaughan] and ask him to lend me his amp, the #007 Dumble, and then play it with a Strat so he could feel it through me. You know that Ghost movie with Whoopi Goldberg? There’s a part where a ghost comes into her body so he can feel. That’s what Stevie was doing.

"He wanted to utilize my body and hands because he missed playing guitar. Jimmie wasn’t sure at first. Fortunately, Stevie’s tech, René Martinez, had the same dream and called Jimmie, which is how we convinced him to lend me the amplifier. The last person to borrow it was John Mayer. Let’s just say Jimmie doesn’t loan that thing out very easily.”

Rightly so. For those of us waiting in vain for Jimmie Vaughan to give us the green light on the Dumble, how would you describe the sound of that amp?

“It sounded like everything I love about Peter Green when he played a certain kind of heavenly blues. My mom once asked me, ‘Mijo, do you like Whitney Houston?’ and I said ‘of course.’ She then told me that when Whitney sang, her voice would become a legion of angels. I think my mom knew what she was talking about.

“Sometimes when you play, you channel things. One person I haven’t mentioned too much is Michael Bloomfield. I miss him a lot. He was a great player who knew how to tap into things. Those Paul Butterfield Blues Band albums, like the [self-titled] debut and East-West, are incredible, with songs like Born in Chicago. And the stuff he played with Bob Dylan, forget about it. Michael Bloomfield was a hero beyond heroes to me.

“But the guy who got me out of all that stuff was [Hungarian jazz, pop and rock guitarist] Gábor Szabó. The way he could play ballads was amazing. Listen to his album Spellbinder [1966] and you will hear a lot of Santana in there. Anyone reading this should listen to Hungarian gypsy music. There is nothing more romantic than hearing that stuff. It really pulled me out of the blues, which is something we all need from time to time.”

• Sentient is out now via Candid.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Mexico’s ever-colorful guitarist, Carlos Santana, has a hot tip for players wanting sweeter licks, and it has nothing to do with the electric guitar.

The PRS-endorsed artist, who has 26 Santana albums, seven solo LPs, and 10 Grammy wins to his name, believes players need to look away from other guitarists to expand their palette.

“I don't care who you are, whether you are Al Di Meola or not, I'd recommend this to any guitar player,” he says in a new interview with Guitar World. “If you spend even one day learning how to play and phrase like those lady soul singers, you will become a better musician. This is the truth.”

Players, he says, shouldn’t get lost in shred. They won’t stand out from the pack on skills alone. Emotions usurp talent when it comes to winning over the listener.

“The only thing people will remember about your music is how you made them feel,” he believes. “They are not going to remember all the fast scales and ‘Look at what I can do’ moments. But they will remember those three notes that made the hairs stand on the back of the neck and tears come out of their eyes, even if they don't know why.

“That's a whole other element, one I call spirit,” Santana adds. “Some people don't know how to play with spirit, heart, and soul.”

As Guitar World scribe, Amit Sharma, rightly points out, guitar playing isn’t a sport. It isn’t about how many notes someone can play or who can play chords that would break a mere mortal’s hand into tiny pieces. Santana agrees. He has a fitting analogy in return.

“If you just practice all day and night going really fast, after a while, it's a bit like going to the gym and seeing somebody flexing their muscles. Big deal. So what?” he quips. “Playing with spirit is like giving someone a hug that lasts for infinity. Time stops.”

The 78-year-old also has a trump card for his argument. Speaking to Forbes in 2023, the guitarist says this exact approach won the heart of one of the best guitar players the world has ever laid eyes and ears on: Jimi Hendrix.

“He said, ‘Santana, right?’” he recalled of their interaction. “I say, ‘Yes.’ He grabs my hand. And he goes, ‘I love your choice of notes.’”

The interview also saw him claim that the ghost of Stevie Ray Vaughan came to him in a dream and begged him to play his #007 Dumble so he could vicariously enjoy the feel of a tube amp one last time.

Santana's full and illuminating chat features in the latest issue of Guitar World. The Smashing Pumpkins grace the cover, and there are also revealing chats with Steve Jones, Zakk Wylde, Inhaler's Josh Jenkinson, and dynamic duos from Khruangbin, Momma, the Voidz, and Phoneboy.

Carlos Santana may have transcended guitar music and permeated pop culture, yet in his latest interview with Guitar World, the veteran musician reveals multiple brushes with the supernatural – including a “visitation” from Stevie Ray Vaughan.

“I get visitations from Miles Davis sometimes, as well as B.B. King. You don’t have to be dead to visit me. Sometimes a dream is not a dream; someone has come back to communicate with you,” he says matter-of-factly.

“It’s like that with Stevie Ray and Jaco Pastorius. I feel very honored that these people come to me. Sometimes I feel like I’m like [John F. Kennedy International Airport] and all these musicians are landing on me and sharing things. I have to figure out what it all means.”

As for what his dream with SRV meant, Santana is keen to elaborate. “He was saying, ‘Carlos, where I am, I don’t have any fingers; I am only spirit.’ He missed putting his fingers on a guitar and making the speakers push air. He told me to call his brother Jimmie [Vaughan] and ask him to lend me his amp, the #007 Dumble, and then play it with a Strat so he could feel it through me.

“You know that Ghost movie with Whoopi Goldberg? There’s a part where a ghost comes into her body so he can feel. That’s what Stevie was doing. He wanted to utilize my body and hands because he missed playing guitar.”

Safe to say that SRV's brother, Jimmie, wasn't sure at first, and it took some persuasion from Stevie’s tech, René Martinez, who also had the same dream and told him about it, for Santana to borrow the amplifier.

“The last person to borrow it was John Mayer. Let’s just say Jimmie doesn’t loan that thing out very easily.”

So, how did Stevie Ray Vaughan’s famed Dumble sound? According to Santana, it “sounded like everything I love about Peter Green when he played a certain kind of heavenly blues.

“My mom once asked me, ‘Mijo, do you like Whitney Houston?’ and I said, ‘Of course,’” he recounts. “She then told me that when Whitney sang, her voice would become a legion of angels. I think my mom knew what she was talking about. Sometimes when you play, you channel things.”

Santana has just released Sentient, a pared-down, 11-track retrospective of his career, featuring recordings unearthed from archives stored in his house.

Born in Mexico, Carlos Santana moved to the US with his family as a teenager and was in a unique position to combine his own musical heritage (partly gained from his father, who was also a musician) with the stylistic melting pot that was taking place in San Francisco during the ’60s.

Initially, his strongest influence was the blues; B.B. King, Mike Bloomfield and Peter Green, among others, inspired him to form the Santana Blues Band in 1966. Within a couple of years, his Mexican heritage began to surface and combined with the influences of Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Tito Puente and Gábor Szabó.

By 1969, he had assembled the first line-up of the Santana band and was signed to Columbia Records, recording their debut LP. Santana was an early adopter of the singing, sustained notes made possible by playing at high volume.

Earlier gear setups included Fender amps and Gibson guitars, though he was quick to notice the potential of the Mesa/Boogie Mark I – and was allegedly responsible for part of its name by exclaiming the following while trying it out: “Man, that thing really boogies!”

These days, he is most associated with various models of his PRS signature guitar, using a wah pedal as a tone filter. This is often set at a fixed point – but not always.

The examples here are inspired by Santana’s soulful phrasing, combining long, held notes with exuberant flurries of picking. Pentatonic ideas are mixed with a jazz influence, picking out minor 9ths, suspended 4ths and partial arpeggios.

This is more about playing and embellishing a melody than thinking about music theory – and, as in Jimmy Page’s playing, the faster phrases are not intended to be perfectly ‘on the grid’ in terms of timing. Try that and you’ll find it loses something…

Example 1

This first example establishes a melodic and rhythmic pattern that is embellished with bends, slides and rhythmic picking. There is a blues influence, but this isn’t a ‘straight’ blues.

Check out the C minor arpeggio in the pick-up bar, then the brief Bb7 arpeggio leading into bar 3, where the sus4 (Ab) is stressed over the Eb chord. The tail end of the phrase in bar 4 is more of a blues motif with the ‘thrown away’ pull-off.

Example 2

Again, there is an arpeggio fragment leading into the main body of the phrase. This builds with some faster legato and picked repeated ideas. These are transcribed in strict time for ease of reading, but in reality this is more relaxed and pulls back a little against the beat.

Try playing ever so slightly behind without going completely out of time, and you’ll be in the right ballpark. Note that the wah is rocked slightly forward to add some extra expression at the end of this example.

Example 3

We’re reaching something of a peak with the held and then tremolo-picked bend that starts this phrase, leading to more of a pentatonic feel in the follow-up.

We don’t stay pentatonic for long, though – a rapid-picked repeated phrase is followed by some more triplet-based ideas that mix staccato and held notes. Like Example 2, these are transcribed in strict time, but you’ll want to experiment to get the right ‘lilt’ going on here.

Example 4

This closing phrase returns to a more controlled feel, picking up on a few of the arpeggios for the underlying Gsus4/G chords, then emphasising the sus4 (F) over the final Csus4/C chords.

You don’t necessarily need to learn the arpeggio shapes for each chord, but it’s fair to assume that Santana would have absorbed a lot from his eclectic influences going back decades. Also remember: sometimes one note played rhythmically can be all you need!

Hear it here

Santana – Santana

The band’s debut was released in 1969 just after their successful appearance at the Woodstock Festival. There had not been a fusion of rock, blues and Latin sounds like this before.

Though the guitar tone and overall production have become more refined over the decades, this is a definitive statement to start his career. With the heartfelt playing and emotional impact on tracks such as Evil Ways, Soul Sacrifice and Jingo, Carlos had already formed his own unique style.

Santana – Abraxas

The follow-up to Santana, Abraxas, was released in 1970 and it’s essential listening for anyone getting into Carlos Santana. It contains his famous cover of Black Magic Woman segueing into Gábor Szabó’s Gypsy Queen.

Oye Cómo Va remains a well-deserved classic, showcasing Carlos’s ability to quote from an impressive variety of styles in just one guitar solo. Finally, check out Samba Pa Ti – there’s plenty to learn from the way he pushes and pulls the rhythms on this one.

Santana – Supernatural

Fast-forward to 1999 and this nine-times Grammy Award-winning album (with featured special guests) thrust Santana firmly back into the mainstream spotlight.

Singles such as Smooth (featuring Rob Thomas), Maria Maria (with the Product G&B) and Put Your Lights On (featuring Everlast) showcase his playing, often in a more contemporary setting. And, suffice to say, it’s lost none of its vitality over the ensuing decades; the tones are more refined, but the essence remains.

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Come 1998, it was Santana’s turn to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Clive Davis and John Popper did the honors, handing over the award.

The band, led by Carlos Santana, had come a long way from their early rehearsals in San Francisco’s Mission district, from their incendiary and lysergic 1969 performance at Woodstock.

The original Santana lineup is hard to beat. Besides, Carlos, you had keys player Gregg Rolie, while drummer Michael Shrieve, congueros José Chepito Areas and Mike Carabello with David Brown on bass guitar provided one of the all-time great rhythm sections in rock history – a band with such a lithe sense of groove and style they could swing between O.G. electric blues and Latin jazz within the same measure.

This fusion, Santana told Guitar World in 2021, was the “best of both worlds,” and we were all welcome to explore it.

“I’ve always really loved B.B. King and Peter Green, and I wanted to combine that with Tito Puente and Mongo Santamaria,” he said. “To have that Latin feel and underpin it with blues guitar is – for me – the best of both worlds combined, really. It’s a winning combination.”

This was Santana’s time; they had certainly earned their place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“He could take a rock tune like Peter Green’s Black Magic Woman and transform it by adding a hint of salsa clave rhythm,” wrote Daisann McLane, in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame program notes. “Or take a salsa standard like Tito Puente’s Oye Como Va and translate it for rock listeners with some delicious brush strokes from that magic guitar.”

But did the award come a year too soon for Carlos Santana?

Ironically, it would be the following year – when Supernatural (a nod to Peter Green surely) dropped, 30 years on from the band’s self-titled debut – that Carlos Santana was everywhere, on every stage, on every radio station.

Most people would have been familiar with his electric guitar sound, his inimitable way of phrasing, but with Smooth, featuring Rob Thomas, dominating the airwaves and all over music television, everyone the world over could now put a face to the name – and to the sound.

Everyone wanted to be a part of it, and that included music’s best and brightest. Santana has always had an open-door policy for collaboration. Supernatural welcomed the likes of Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, and CeeLo Green to the party.

Eric Clapton, who could play a bit of guitar himself, joined Santana on The Calling. But no, 1998 was not too soon. Besides, after Supernatural, Santana’s awards ceremony schedule was all booked out. Santana took home nine Grammys for Supernatural – more than Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

It was appropriate that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Awards took the Santana story back to the start. Yes, their cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Black Magic Woman arrived on sophomore LP Abraxas – the acme of Santana recordings – but Peter Green’s playing with the Mac shaped so much of how Santana approached his instrument and how they phrased their licks.

The above footage is gold, not least because it serves as a lasting tribute to Green. This was Santana’s night, but he was going to share the glory and invite a player along who left a lasting influence on him and gave him one of his biggest tunes.

This was a celebration of Green’s talent, and a reminder, particularly when he takes a solo, of why so many of the greats – Santana, chief among them – were in awe of him.

Santana said Green’s playing put him in a “headlock” and showed him that you didn’t always need to have a singer to get your message across. Players like Green, like B.B. King, had an honesty with the instrument. They couldn’t be anything but themselves.

“Emotion, passion, and feelings are what we all have, and if you keep yourself open, you can let these things express themselves through your playing,” said Santana. “I grew up on Peter Green and B.B. King and, of course, those two players have very different individual styles.

“The essence of that is that they let themselves honestly express what they were feeling through their instrument. B.B. King was originally the template for how I wanted to create my voice on the guitar, but after that period that players go through when they try to sound like their heroes, they have to find out who they are. I am very grateful that I’ve found something that is uniquely my own style.”

Finding your own style: those are words to live by.

Carlos Santana has been hospitalized in Texas for observation after a pre-show medical emergency forced him to cancel yesterday (April 22)'s show at San Antonio's Majestic Theater.

According to a statement released by his manager, Michael Vrionis, “Mr. Santana was at the venue (Majestic Theatre) preparing for tonight’s show when he experienced an event that was determined to be dehydration.

“Out of an abundance of caution and the health of Mr. Santana, the decision to postpone the show was the most prudent course of action.”

Vrionis assured fans that the veteran guitarist is “doing well and is looking forward to coming back to San Antonio soon as well as continuing his US Tour.” Furthermore, he confirmed that the San Antonio show "will be rescheduled soon.”

So far, Santana is still scheduled to perform tonight in Sugar Land, Texas, with a packed schedule through mid-November that sees the 77-year-old performing across the States and Europe as part of his Oneness Tour.

The guitarist is also returning to Vegas to continue his House of Blues residency, which had to be postponed from its original January and February dates after he suffered an accidental fall at his home in Hawaii.

Santana has suffered similar episodes in the past that have forced him to reschedule concerts. In 2022, he collapsed onstage during a performance in Michigan – after which he postponed six shows – while in 2021, he canceled his Las Vegas residency following an “unscheduled heart procedure”.

Julian Lage is one of the world’s finest electric guitar players, so it will come as absolutely no surprise to learn he was already being tipped for greatness before he was even 10 years old.

In a new episode of the Broken Records podcast, the jazz virtuoso reflects on his early guitar-playing years, and looks back on the time he shared the stage in front of 20,000 with a bona fide guitar legend… when he was just nine years old.

The guitar legend in question was Carlos Santana, who at the time was touring the US with Jeff Beck. In the late 1990s, a chance encounter between his father and a friend of Santana’s put the aspiring guitarist on a path to the guitar gig of a lifetime.

Lage recalls: “My father worked at Fog City diner in San Francisco and someone came in who he was friends with and he said, ‘I know Santana and I heard your son's playing guitar.’ My dad said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Well, Santana's playing at [a San Francisco venue] in two weeks. You should just show up. Usually they get there by 2pm.’

“That's all the information we had. So we got in the car and we drove there and showed up at 2pm. This would have been when I was seven”

After showing up out of the blue, it was clear Santana had been expecting the Lage entourage: “We go backstage. ‘Where's Carlos?’ ‘He's in that room.’ ‘Okay.’ So my parents and I, we knock on the door, and he's, ‘Oh, you're the kid I heard about. Come in.’

“We sat, we played, and that night it was Jeff Beck and him doing this tour. But check this out. The best part about it to me was he said, ‘Do you want to play tonight?’”

Playing in front of 20,000 clearly wasn’t what Lage had planned for the evening and so – as you’d probably expect from a seven-year-old aspiring guitarist – he politely declined Santana’s offer. Fortunately, the offer was extended for another 12 months.

“I said, ‘No, I didn't come to play in front of 20,000 people. I came to meet the master! That's the point,’” Lage continues. “And he said, ‘Well, no worries, enjoy the show. And we come here every year, so when we come back, you should just come again and bring your guitar.’

“So with no communication, a year later, almost to the date we drove up, got there at two, knocked on the door and he said, ‘Oh, you came. Do you have [your] guitar this time? Yeah? Okay.’”

Lage’s long-awaited cameo – which saw the youngster solo through a cover of Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain – was captured on the night, and can be seen via grainy fan footage online.

“It was surreal,” Lage says of the experience. “But also, I don't think I was in an environment that hyped anything up. It also didn't push me down. And I've known people who have that figure in their life who says, you know, ‘Don't get too comfortable, kid.’ There was none of that good cop, bad cop, macho stuff. It was just like, just respond, be present.”

Gibson has announced Randall Smith – the legendary amp founder that masterminded the Mesa/Boogie guitar amp brand – has exited his role as the firm’s Master Designer and Pioneer.

Rumors of Smith’s departure made their way online over the weekend, and now Gibson has officially announced it will be parting ways with the influential boutique amp designer, who was initially brought onboard after Gibson acquired Mesa/Boogie in 2021.

“I am incredibly grateful for Randy’s pioneering insights, design, and trust in Gibson,” says Gibson’s CEO Cesar Gueikian. “Randy’s DNA will always be present, and over the last few decades he has trained the new generation of designers that have been leading the way for Gibson and MESA/Boogie amps.

“As we evolve our Gibson Amps collection, including our Gibson and MESA/Boogie brands, Randy, and his original design ideas, will continue to inspire us to make the best and highest quality amplifiers we’ve ever made.”

Mesa/Boogie’s Director of R&D Doug West adds, “Few in this world ever get the chance to be mentored, coached to excellence and to perform at their consistent personal best in the ways our design team, and everyone here at MESA/Boogie, have under his tutelage.

“Randy leaves us in good stead to carry on his legacy and tradition of excellence.”

No statement from Smith himself was provided in the release.

Smith first launched Mesa Engineering in the late ’60s, and over the decades helped pioneer some of the most heard and widely regarded high-gain amps in the guitar industry. Examples include the Dual Rectifier, Mark Series and the Roadster range.

Over the decades, his amps have been built for – and used by – the likes of Carlos Santana, Kirk Hammett, Adam Jones, The Rolling Stones, Steve Lukather and others.

Gibson’s acquisition of Mesa/Boogie three-and-a-half-years ago was seen as a hugely significant move from both firms, and that has since proven to be the case, with Mesa/Boogie releasing a raft of new amps in recent times.

The partnership has also seemingly aided the return of Gibson-branded amps, which made a comeback earlier this year in the form of the Falcon combo.

Now, Smith has not only exited the Gibson family of brands, but he’s left the amp brand he founded more than five decades ago. In an official release, the company noted Smith “has completed his time with Gibson”.

It remains to be seen what will be next for Smith, who was 75 years old at the time of the acquisition, but if his words from a few years ago are anything to go by, it might not quite be the end of his amp-building journey.

“My whole life has been coupled with music and it’s an honor to be able to build equipment for musicians,” he told Guitar World. “I will never tire of it because it’s thrilling.

“I’m 75 years old now and I will continue to do this,” he continued. “I have a whole family of people here that have built their lives around working here – they have rent to pay, cars to drive. It’s funny, the people who have been here for 20 or 25 years are still called the new guys by those who have been here for 40 plus. It’s a reciprocal commitment.

“I want to see those people’s futures secured as much as possible. When I’m gone, they are not going to be dependent on me! It’s a win-win all round.”

Carlos Santana came to prominence in the late ’60s and quickly pioneered a powerful blend of blues-rock and Latin influences. The appeal of this fusion continues to this day with an impressive career that continues to thrive.

Carlos is also a musical adventurer and even made an album with his longtime friend, jazz-rock pioneer John McLaughlin. Another notable collaboration was his appearance on John Lee Hooker’s comeback album, The Healer.

One of Carlos’ early influences was British blues great Peter Green. Green’s classy and vocal phrasing, combined with a detailed understanding of modern blues language made him a powerful example for a young player.

Many have tried to emulate Carlos’ distinctive approach, but to get a grasp of his style it’s important to have an understanding of minor key harmony. A casual listener might think that Carlos is playing out of the Aeolian (natural minor) scale with a little blues scale action mixed in. A closer look reveals a more sophisticated approach to minor key harmony.

Carlos has an unusually detailed method of addressing the V chord in the minor key, considering that he’s seen as a blues-rock kind of soloist. In a minor key, the V chord will generally have altered extensions, commonly a b9 and b13. In the key of A minor the V chord (E7) may have F and C notes in its voicings.

To fully observe the minor key harmony, the best way to create lines and chord voicings for E7 resolving to the tonic A minor in this key would be to use the notes of A harmonic minor starting on E. This creates a mode of A Harmonic Minor which is called E Phrygian dominant, as highlighted in example 1.

This mode is really useful in minor key tunes. One thing that’s interesting is that you can use the fifth mode of the tonic harmonic minor on the V chord, but it’s very common to play Dorian or Aeolian on the I chord when you get to it.

In the examples and in the solo here, I mixed up various approaches on the A minor chords, even adding the blues scale with its b5, as Carlos often does with great style.

Santana is equally comfortable on uptempo Latin burn-ups and slow atmospheric tunes, and his sense of rhythm is also worthy of a mention. Santana solos always have a certain shape, drama and poetry to them, and it’s this pacing of his guitar breaks that are such a crucial part of their enduring appeal.

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 8, Bass 6, Middle 4, Treble 7, Reverb 3

Carlos is known for using humbucker-equipped guitars and has been a long term PRS fan. More important is the relationship with the guitar amplifier. He has used various tube amps including Mesa/Boogie and Dumble, but the most important thing is to aim for a roaring lead sound but with the ability to clean up the tone by rolling back the volume knob.

You’ll need at least one drive pedal in front of a clean amp. Reverb is going to be essential and you might want a little delay. Several of Carlos’ classic solos feature a wah pedal, often in the ‘half cocked’ position.

Example 1

This example is based around the Aeolian mode (Natural Minor), whose 5th mode gives us E harmonic minor, the most appropriate scale for E7 in the key of A minor.

Example 2

This is a melodic line that waits until the second bar before we hear the G#, the major 3rd of E7, having already used the b9 (F) for a more moody colour.

Example 3

This is over the contrasting harmony on the IV chord (Dm7). It could be seen as an A Aeolian line but just as easily coming from D Dorian.

Example 4

Here’s a classic sextuplet-based Carlos idea using a repeated three-note motif but ending by running down the blues scale.

Example 5

This flowing blues line is played way up on the fretboard. Carlos really gets around the instrument and it’s great to explore the various registers of the guitar.

Example 6: The Solo

This final solo spans 20 bars and includes many of the topics previously discussed. Notice the use of A harmonic minor/E Phrygian dominant in bars 2 and 3 while the cascading line in bar 8 is nice for both your hands and ears.

The blues rock repetitive bends in bar 13 are fun and the speedy descending and ascending line in bars 14-15 is particularly ear catching. The repetitive high C and B notes are typical Santana terrain. Enjoy!

Randall Smith’s first foray into guitar amp building began as something of a prank. When repairing amps at the back of his San Francisco music store in the late 1960s, Randall was commissioned to hot-rod an unassuming Fender Princeton combo, turning it into a 100-watt wolf in sheep’s clothing, guaranteed to give its owner a fright to remember.

But before the amp reached its new owner, a passing Carlos Santana was persuaded to try it out, reluctantly at first, but on the assurance that this was no ordinary Princeton.

His oft-quoted reaction was: “Man, that amp really boogies!” Many ‘Princeton Boogies’ would follow, leading to Randall creating his own Boogie Mark I in 1972. By now, Santana and The Stones were enthusiastic users and this, along with the undeniable quality of the amps, helped establish a reputation that still goes from strength to strength today.

Since 1980, all Mesa products have been made in Petaluma, California. This includes the famous Dual/Triple Rectifiers and the Mark Series, of which the Mark VII incorporates many notable features. In fact, you could say this is a ‘greatest hits’ of the Mark Series, all rolled into one amp.

To say an amp can achieve any sound may seem a rash claim, but we’d wager you won’t get closer to that possibility than with the Mark VII. There are three channels, each with three modes, three-way switchable output power and Mesa’s own discrete spring reverb control.

Each also has its own four-band EQ (Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence) and can be routed through the onboard Graphic EQ – or not, as you prefer.

There’s even a choice of several excellent cab IRs (Mesa’s own CabClone IR interface is built-in) for recording, DI or silent headphone practice. We can attest that these sound as good as any we’ve heard, and you can assign a different IR to each channel if you wish.

Sounds

As you might expect, there’s the facility for crystal cleans up to ultra-high gain, with thousands of possibilities in between, all delivered with impeccable focus and clarity. The detailed instruction manual is very helpful, too, and gives some excellent advice on how to get the best from the Mark VII, which can also be applied to dialling in many other amps. Next, then, let’s examine those three channels…

Channel 1, with its Clean, Fat and Crunch Modes, is where the clean to medium-gain tones live. The most sparkly/tight tones are achieved with the gain set below 11 o’clock, warming up a little at two o’clock.

Moving beyond this warms and loosens things up further, and adds low-end. On gainier tones, keeping the bass set low and adding in extra lows with the Graphic EQ at the end of the signal chain is a great way to keep the bottom-end tight.

Switching to Fat mode gives us fuller bass and mids, a bit like turning off a bright switch. There’s more potential to gently drive for ‘pushed’ sounds that retain every note of a chord. Humbuckers prefer less bass in this mode, which is to be expected; Crunch takes us a step further. With the gain between 12 and two o’clock, there is what Mesa calls “classic British territory where chords break up more smoothly and evenly, yet with urgency”. We’d concur!

Below the Mode switch we have another, offering the option to auto select/disable the Graphic EQ when using the (included) footswitch. Squeezed below this is the three-way Power Select switch, offering a choice between the full 90-watt Simul-Class, 45-watt Class A pentode or 25-watt Class A triode, which uses only two of the four 6L6 power amp valves. Each has its own sound, with the tightest/boldest being the 90-watt.

Moving to Channel 2, the controls here are identical to Channel 1, except for the three modes: Fat, Crunch and the brand-new Mark VII mode. The Fat and Crunch modes function identically to Channel 1, with this duplication meaning you don’t have to choose either/or.

However, the Mark VII mode is where we first hear Mesa’s latest version of its signature focused high-gain loveliness. From a “Brit-style colour” with the Gain set between 10 o’clock and 11:30, to a hybrid between the previous Mark Series and more British-sounding circuits such as the Triple Crown, this mode has more pronounced mids and sounds great without the Graphic EQ, perhaps leaving it free for the other channels.

Once again, Channel 3 has a full complement of EQ, Reverb and power modes, but this channel brings the Mark IIB, Mark IIC and Mark IV modes. The Mark IIB mode is the least saturated, giving what Mesa calls ‘Turbo-Traditional’ sounds, preserving the character of your guitar, rather than all-out heavy drive.

The Mark IIC mode is more saturated, as the Treble Shift function of the Mark II+ is duplicated, giving us that sound, which has characterised so much great rock music. The Mark IV mode notches this up a step further, with thicker gain and more low-end. Though this does excel at the heavier tones, there are quite a few tasty lower gain tones in there as well.

Verdict

If you’re paying $3,799/£4,199, you would rightly expect an incredible amp, and we’d certainly say that is true of this latest Mark VII. It can genuinely hold its own in any genre, with an amazing amount of projection, spread and thump from such an unassuming looking 1x12 cab. Obviously, there are options to hook up to extension cabs, but we really didn’t feel the need.

Yes, there are a lot of controls/options, but the basic tones are fantastic and there is plenty of helpful, practical advice in the manual. In this era of quiet stages and portable multi-effects, some might say the era of the valve amp is waning.

But with tones of this calibre available without having to scroll through a single menu, on top of the ability to connect via USB and use top-quality IRs, we’d say that’s not going to be happening just yet: the direct tones stand up to market-leading amp modellers with their heads held high.

You couldn’t really put the Mark VII in the hold of a plane, but it does comfortably fit in any car. At 26.4kg (58lb), however, you won’t want to carry it long distances, but it’s not much heavier than a Blues DeVille and does come with heavy-duty castors.

For international travel, then, we might go for the rackmount version, but as a stage/studio amp in any other scenario, it’s hard to imagine why you wouldn’t want one.

Specs

• PRICE: $3,799 / £4,199
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: 1x12 multi-function combo amp
• VALVES: 5x 12AX7, 4x 6L6 (or 4x EL34 using bias switch)
• OUTPUT: 90W (45W or 25W via power switches)
• DIMENSIONS: 476 (w) x 292 (d) x 463mm (h)
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 26.4/58
• CABINET: Marine-grade Baltic birch
• CHANNELS: 3, with 3x preamp/power amp modes on each
• CONTROLS: Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence, Gain, Volume, 3x Reverb, plus extra modes and switchable Graphic EQ
• FOOTSWITCH: Included, controls channels plus reverb, loop and EQ
• ADDITIONAL FEATURES: The Mark VII has an effects loop and is compatible with MIDI footswitching devices for further versatility on the fly
• OPTIONS: Custom cabinet finishes, EL34 or 6L6 power option
• RANGE OPTIONS: Head and Rackmount Head also available, both £3,849
• CONTACT: Mesa/Boogie

Red Witch has unveiled its latest stompbox, the Euphemia – a sample hold filter pedal that can also deliver the 'notched' guitar tones of Carlos Santana and Brian May. 

For the uninitiated, a sample and hold pedal takes a series of snapshots of an input signal, with the signal ‘frozen in time’ until the next snapshot. What that creates is a warbling, synthy effect that throws bubbling, randomized frequencies out through your amp. 

Frank Zappa's Ship Ahoy will give you an idea of the kind of effect the pedal is going for as it draws from the sonic tamperings of two '70s pedals, the Maestro FSH-1 and Oberheim VCF-200. 

Both those pedals fetch a tall price on the second-hand market, and while the Euphemia isn't exactly a budget alternative, it still comes out cheaper and vies to seduce players with its modernized magic and improved functionality.    

Typically, sample hold filters offer control the speed of the effect's shift, which here comes from the Velocity control. However, the Euphemia bolsters its scope with via three additional controls. 

The Mix control is self-explanatory, detailing the balance between wet and dry, but elsewhere things get a little kookier. Its Frequency dial lets players point the effect towards lows, mids, or highs specifically, while an Aggression control cranks up its psychedelic weirdness from mellow and maniacal. 

Turning the Aggression fully clockwise engages a bandpass filter mode, with which the guitar's tone can be tethered to a particular frequency for the notched EQ sound. 

Red Witch founder and designer Ben Fulton says it's a unique sound that Carlos and Santana have both enjoyed, adding that it's “a fantastic tone to have at your disposal.”

“I've always loved the sound of sample hold filters,” he adds. “The only issue is that they're a bit of a tone trick pony. A fantastic trick, for sure, but there's never been much to experiment with other than adjusting the speed.” 

As such, he believes the Euphemia’s “unique, controllable parameters open the doors to a lot more versatility, creativity, and otherworldly sounds.”

A mere 59 Euphemia pedals will be made, with each unit numbered, and hand-signed by Fulton. They’re priced at $349 each. 

Its release follows on from another limited edition run, with the Falcor chorus pedal created as a tribute to Fulton's late father.

Head over to Red Witch for more information. 

“I think a lot of people are afraid to play jazz on anything other than an L-5,” says Cecil Alexander, the man who recently broke the internet shredding bebop on a Jackson Soloist.

Jazz only gripped the Michigan-born guitarist after he fell in love with Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix. As such, he hasn’t allowed himself to be regimented by tradition. “When I was doing my master’s, my main guitar was a Thinline Tele,” he explains. “My tutor told me, ‘Wes Montgomery would never play something like that; you need to get a real jazz guitar.’

“I played a Wes Montgomery tribute show in San Diego in November, and that was the first show I played with my Jackson Soloist. I didn’t think about it before taking it on the road, but it's kind of an anti-establishment statement.

“A lot of jazz guitarists would shudder at the thought of playing a Jackson, but you should play what feels comfortable and allows you to express yourself. I’m trying to make it okay for jazz guitarists to go out with their metal guitars.”

That’s not to say Alexander hasn’t played his far share of traditional jazz guitars. For a while, he thought they were obligatory – but after turning to solid bodies he’s never looked back.

“I had been chasing a very thick sound for a while, using really big boxes, heavy strings and only playing through Polytones and Princetons,” he says. “Then I saw this Soloist on Reverb and thought it was the coolest guitar.

“The previous owner had swapped out the original chrome Floyd Rose for an antique bronze one, which looks so sick, and he put all the stickers on it. It was an impulse buy; I got it and it felt amazing.”

“I’ve played 24-fret guitars in a jazz setting before. I used a PRS Santana at Berklee and I always thought, with the neck pickup being a little offset, it made the tone too thin – but the Jackson has a perfect brightness to it.” 

When he posted clips of that San Diego show on social media, he proved himself an enigma. Close your eyes and he’s a jazz aficionado with a fat, warm and woody tone, tearing it up on an L-5 with the spirit of Wes Montgomery smiling down upon him. Open them, and he’s playing a Jackson. What sorcery is this?

“It took less tweaking to get the tone than I initially thought it would,” Alexander reveals. “I was playing through a Fender Twin; I put the treble pretty high and used the tone knob to take a little bit of the unwanted like high-end out, but keeping the clarity from the high end of the amp. I tend to pick pretty close to the neck, and that warms things up quite a bit.”

Since graduating Berklee with a masters in jazz composition, Alexander has written and released two albums. Introducing – a solo album and love letter to bebop – came in 2022. It was followed by a guitar/vocal duo album with his wife Ari Alexander last year. With that project, named Visen, he “had to be the band” with his choice of full-chord voicings.

He’s also toured extensively with jazz trumpeter Chief Adjuah. Now he’s melding his love of jazz with math rock and heavy and progressive music for a new album, expected late 2024.

“In the last two years I’ve been jumping back into some of my earlier influences, like Animals as Leaders and Mahavishnu Orchestra,” he says of the stylistic shimmy. “I’ve also been going off the beaten track with Hendrix’s posthumous releases. The music is definitely in a heavy progressive rock vein, but it still has some of the nuance and subtlety of jazz.”

“I wasn’t looking for the material to just a prog metal thing,” he continues. “I wanted to incorporate jazz harmony without it feeling out of place. I was particularly inspired by Tosin Abasi for that.”

He’s enlisted two of his Chief Adjuah bandmates for the project: drummer Elé Howell and hotshot teenage bassist Ryoma Takenaga, who also plays in Ravi Coltrane’s band. “I actually thought about doing programmed drums at first, but when I showed a demo to Elé he begged me to let him play on it,” Alexander recalls with a short, cheeky laugh.

“One of the first instances of being amazed by drumming in a heavy setting was Mars Volta’s Bedlam In Goliath album. Thomas Pridgen comes from a gospel and jazz fusion background, so hearing him in that context chopping it up like nobody's business was a great inspiration.

“Elé has been amazing at channelling that and they’ve both brought their own personalities to the music. I love playing with them.” 

The Pridgen parallel is an interesting one – especially since the guitarist sees a strong connection between jazz and prog. “They’re very similar in terms of the collaborative nature of the music and how that takes things in different directions,” he states. “One is with composition, the other improvisation, but they both use a lot of different pieces to work towards the aggregate structure of the song.”

Despite their similarities, playing progressive metal meant relearning some core basics. “It definitely took some adjusting,” he admits, “especially in terms of my technique. The way I was phrasing was very much in bebop territory. I had to think about articulation, tapping, sweep picking and even palm muting, which I hadn’t explored in years.”

As well as convincing the world that jazz on a Jackson is kosher, Alexander is also keen to demystify the complexity of jazz guitar.

“For players that are coming from rock, blues and metal backgrounds, starting with the players that are closer to those styles makes it far more approachable,” he says. “Check out Chris Kane, Robben Ford and Grant Green. A lot of their vocabulary is similar to the minor pentatonic, just with a few unfamiliar bits added in.”

In the case of Green, he’s eager to point readers in the direction of the track It Ain’t Necessarily So. He explains: “There’s one moment where he plays these repeated figure through the blues scale and even keeps it going over a load of II-V changes and it sounds like Angus Young. With that song, it felt I was tiptoeing into bebop. 

“I feel like we tend to overcomplicate jazz,” Alexander continues. “The more you listen to specific players, you start to find out that they’re not just making it up all on the spot; they all have go-to licks. John Coltrane and Miles Davies have things that they do in every solo. Everyone does.

“There’s this expectation that you have to have so much vocabulary and never repeat yourself – but the people that sound the most improvisatory are actually the people that have the most stuff already worked out.”

If it doesn’t need overcomplicating, does that make theory less imperative? “There’s such a thing as learning too much theory, where I feel like it might even get in the way of your playing,” he says.

“Getting together knowledge of major scale modes, arpeggios and being able to look at a set of chord changes and know what’s going on will help. But you don’t need to dive much deeper than that to have a solid jazz vocabulary.”

• Cecil Alexander’s prog metal album will be released in the fall. For more information in the meantime, head to CecilAlexander.com.

IK Multimedia has created captures of five classic Mesa amps for a total of 70 tone models for its TONEX Pedal, including an exact recreation of Carlos Santana’s original Budokan Mark I amp.

The Mesa/Boogie Reference Signature Collection continues a near-decade-long partnership between IK Multimedia and Mesa with a major update to its TONEX modeler.

The five amps have been fine-tuned by Mesa’s in-house tone wizard, Doug West, and recording engineer Sean Beresford. They include a 1984 Boogie Mark IIC+ and a Boogie Limited Edition King Snake, which is a careful recreation of Santana’s Budokan. There are also three amps from the early '90s, a Boogie Mark IV, and two-channel Mesa Engineering Dual and Triple Rectifiers.

The quintet of amps celebrates five decades of Mesa’s tone sculpting history and has been “carefully preserved” in Mesa’s Tone Lab. The resulting reference amps, Mesa says, serve a dual purpose in preserving their legacy as well as providing “insights to shape future designs and guide Mesa forward”.

The 70 tone models are split between the five amps, with 46 captured with cabinet and 24 without. The cabs used were a 4x12 Slope and a 1x12 Widebody Extension.

These cabinets have been used by West for decades, offering a ‘broken-in’ and touch-sensitive playing experience. The King Snake combo, meanwhile, is loaded with a Jenson Blackbird 100 Alnico speaker. That gives it a warm, singing quality when cranked.

The captures took place at IK’s modeling-tailored studio in Northern California, where its acoustics have been engineered for precision tone capturing. Cutting-edge AI machine modeling technology was also used during the process.

The resulting collection is compatible with all TONEX incarnations, including the TONEX CS plugin and TONEX app. IK Multimedia has strived to make the loading of these new captures as easy as possible, priming players for Mesa-flavored live performances.

Of the amps selected for the collection, the King Snake (12 tone models: eight with cab, four without) is an exact recreation of the Mesa/Boogie amp Carlos Santana Mark I toured with in the early '70s. Limited to 600 models, it was designed to be a single-channel “monster”, producing the Latin rock tones that are quintessentially Santana’s.

The versatile Mesa/Boogie Mark IIC+ (14 tone models: nine with cab, five without) is revered by rock and metal guitarists. It’s featured on records by Metallica, Toto, and Dream Theater.

Of the early '90s amps, the Boogie Mark IV (10 tone models: seven with cab, three without) offers a thicker lead tone than the Mark IIC+ and has inspired a raft of amplifiers in its wake.

The Dual Rectifier (nine tone models: six with cab, three without) is synonymous with intense high gains and has been favored by Metallica and Tool, whilst the authoritative Triple Rectifier (25 tone models: 16 with cab, nine without) is all about delivering a tight low-end and harmonically rich overdrive.

IK Multimedia, from the small town of Modena in Northern Italy – the sports car capital of the world and the birthplace of balsamic vinegar – is continuing the town's legacy for innovation. It’s been dedicated to the digitization of classic analog equipment since 1996.

Since then, IK has worked alongside Fender, Gallien-Krueger, Seymour Duncan, and Orange, among others in its time. It's also collaborated with the likes of Joe Satriani and Slash, who features on the psychedelic-tinged new single from The Dandy Warhols.

For Mesa, the release follows in the wake of its role in the resurrection of Gibson Amps. The Falcon 20 and Falcon 5, which channel Gibson's classic '60s builds, were hand-built under the stewardship of Mesa/Boogie founder Randall Smith. 

The Mesa/Boogie Reference Signature Collection is available now and priced at $99.99.

For more information, head to IK Multimedia.

Journey were formed in 1973 in San Francisco, California, by ex-Santana guitarist Neal Schon, now the only original member left in the lineup. The band’s most successful period was in the 1980s, where Schon featured alongside singer Steve Perry, bassist Ross Valory, keyboard player Jonathan Cain, and drummer Steve Smith. 

This era saw the release of legendary songs such as Don’t Stop Believin’, Any Way You Want It, and Open Arms.

Journey in many ways epitomize the sound of rock from the 1980s, and this era saw them blend guitar riffs with what was then modern synth sounds, big choruses, and shredding solos. During this time they toured as a headline act with support coming from artists such as Bryan Adams, and headlined festivals with special guests Van Halen and other massive acts.

Schon also found time to work with keyboard legend Jan Hammer, and Paul Rodgers, as well as forming the side project band Bad English, which featured John Waite on lead vocals. 

There have been numerous legal battles between band members over the years, which include some in very recent times, but they did manage to release a new album in 2022 called Freedom, with Arnel Pineda on vocals and Randy Jackson playing bass. 

Neal Schon joined Carlos Santana’s band as a 17-year-old, apparently turning down Eric Clapton’s offer of joining Derek and the Dominos. His guitar playing style inevitably draws influence from Santana, as well as many of the blues greats, such as B.B. King and Clapton. 

Schon also played as a session musician in the 1980s for artists like Michael Bolton, and his blues- and jazz-influenced playing spearheaded much of the rock style heard on records of that era, when fantastic guitar players like Schon himself, Dann Huff, Steve Lukather, and Michael Landau were regularly heard playing on the pop radio hits of the artists of the day.

The track this month is very much focused on the sound of Journey from the 1980s and has a chord-based riff in the key of G Major (G-A-B-C-D-E-F#). It doesn’t at any point stray outside of this key and the main parts are built on a I-V-VI-IV chord progression of G Major, D Major, E Minor 7, and C Major. 

The second section of the rhythm track has a C Major chord and a D Major chord, each played over a C bass note. This gives us the sound of the C Lydian mode (C-D-E-F#-G-A-B) when the D Major chord (D-F#-A) appears over the C bass note – the F# in the chord is the #4th interval, which gives us the sound of the Lydian mode.

The solo is mostly melodic, but with some fast flurries of notes that might catch you out if you’re not prepared. It’s one of the main features of Schon’s lead playing style.  

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 8, Bass 6, Middle 7, Treble 7, Reverb 4

It’s classic 1980s rock to aim for this month, so any Marshall amp style sound with a good amount of preamp gain will work well. Add some chorus, delay and reverb to taste. Schon tends to favor humbucking guitars such as Gibson Les Pauls, PRS models or Super Strat-style guitars by the likes of Tom Anderson. Select the bridge pickup and you’re good to go.

Example 1. Rhythm

There are a lot of chords accented loudly in the track. The main G, D, Em7 and C chords are played strong and loud, with the eighth-note chords in bars 9-16 accenting the changes. 

There are also lightly palm-muted notes in between the chord changes. The low C note in bars 17-24 is also palm muted, which again allows for the other notes to be accented loudly. While this may sound rather complex, it should prove intuitive once you start playing the example.

Example 2. Lead

This solo has a good blend of melody and technique, with the fast phrase in bars 37-38 accenting the first note of each sextuplet. There is a mix of alternate picking and legato in this phrase: try out the picking suggestions below the tab, otherwise swap them around to start with a down pick.

Hello, and welcome to Essential Guitar Tracks. As you may well know, 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.

Our goal is to give you an overview of the biggest tracks, our editor’s picks and anything you may have missed. We’re pushing horizons and taking you out of your comfort zone – because, as guitarists, that’s something we should all be striving for in our playing. 

So, here are our highlights from the past seven days – now with a Spotify playlist…

Intervals – mnemonic

Since Wolfgang Van Halen named Aaron Marshall (aka Intervals) as his favorite guitarist on the planet, Marshall’s star has risen, and deservedly so. Now, with his first new material in three years, he gives his newly minted Schecter signature model a serious workout with an infectious slice of melodic progressive metal.

It’s rare that we call instrumental rock anthemic, but there’s something uniquely vocal about Marshall’s chops, which blend rhythm and lead in a way that updates the EVH ‘everything all at once’ template for the social media guitar generation. Hooks for days with tone and technique to match. (MAB)

Sophie Lloyd – Imposter Syndrome

The road to Sophie Lloyd’s first studio solo album (due November 10) has been littered with countless examples of fretboard mastery and a handful of A-list collaborations. Now, Lloyd has linked up with Lzzy Hale for Imposter Syndrome, the title track of the album.

Not only is it an apt title from the Kiesel signature artist – who recently spoke to Guitar World about her own struggles with having to block out such feelings in the wake of her meteoric rise through the guitar ranks – Imposter Syndrome is a triumphant reminder of just why Lloyd is one of 2023’s standout guitarists. (MO)

Santana feat. DMC – Let The Guitar Play

Carlos Santana is no stranger to successfully reaching across the (genre) aisle – after all, this is a man who turned a collaboration with an of-the-moment pop star into one of the biggest (and most unlikely) hits of the 1990s. New single Let The Guitar Play teams Santana with rap icon DMC, and finds each legend giving each other plenty of space to do what they do best. Darryl McDaniels brings his impeccable, scene-setting lyricism, while Santana puts on an absolute tone clinic.

The latter has repeatedly talked about how just a single note can be the axis around which the soul of a whole song spins, and the crystalline clarity and drama of the one he hits at around the :24 mark shows exactly what Santana means, and why he remains a paragon of soulful lead playing. (JM)

Note: This track is currently only available on YouTube, so no playlist for you this week.

Philip Sayce – Oh! That Bitches Brew

Sayce returns with a pummeling rock track that uses all of the riffs. The Led Zeppelin influence is inescapable here, with hints of Good Times, Bad Times in the punching stop/start riff, all complemented by some monstrous percussion and Sayce’s unignorable, almost piercing tone. (MP)

Unprocessed – Blackbone

When thinking about the guitarists and bands who are pushing prog music into new territory, the mind immediately springs to Polyphia, Animals As Leaders, Ichika Nito, and a handful of others. Manuel Gardner Fernandes and his band, Unprocessed, deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. 

If their previous single, Thrash, was “a moment for modern guitar playing”, Blackbone continues the precedent, showcasing Fernandes’ pinpoint percussive slap technique and virtuosic phrasing. There are also some battering ram chugs, as well, just for good measure. (MO)

HEALTH – Children of Sorrow (ft. Willie Adler)

LA industrial experimentalists HEALTH have a knack of attracting killer collaborators, featuring everyone from Soccer Mommy to Trent Reznor. But the addition of Lamb of God guitarist Willie Adler’s god-like palm-muted chops lends Children of Sorrow an otherworldly thrash vibe that sounds like nothing else. It’s expansive, hypnotic and thoroughly disconcerting. (MAB)

Sleater-Kinney – Hell

The hard-hitting first preview from Little Rope, the forthcoming LP from punk legends Sleater-Kinney, does a phenomenal job of balancing the band’s trademark dual-guitar attack and the more offbeat, electronic elements they’ve incorporated (to some consternation from longtime fans) into their sound in recent years.

When Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker get into Sabbath-y lockstep with one another before the last verse, though, it should be more than enough to reverse the thinking of anyone of the opinion that Sleater-Kinney just don’t have it anymore. (JM)

Slift – Ilion

Slift’s mind-expanding mastery of heavy dynamics, six-string flair and psychedelic experimentalism marks them out as one of the most exciting metal bands we’ve heard since Mastodon cracked the skye. No wonder Sub Pop has scooped up the French crew for their forthcoming third album, Ilion. 

According to Slift, the eponymous lead single represents the album as a whole. “It depicts monuments to ancient gods rising skyward from the dusty desert floor of a dying planet, battered by fierce winds. It's about the people condemned to live on this desolate land. And about the murderers of this world, who leave it for space and the hope of a new world, in a frantic crusade which will lead them to madness.” To which we would add, “Yes, but with guitars…” (MP) 

Alluvial – Bog Dweller

As Alluvial kick off their tour with tech-metal champs TesseracT, Wes Hauch demonstrates why he’s one of the most trusted names in heavy, with the kind of right-hand precision that requires more than just woodshedding; there’s something superhuman about the anatomy of that wrist.

Haunch’s otherworldly chops and sophisticated ear set the stage for Bog Dweller’s groaning pre-bent riffs, which churn your stomach and pummel it at the same time. Meanwhile, those pinched lines are Dimebag incarnate, and the solo is so precise it’s scary. Death metal has never sounded more alive. (MAB)

Kvelertak – Morild

Norway’s premier hard-rocking, heavy-metal loving punk hybrid monster gift us… Morild. It’s the closer of the new album Endling (the ending of Endling, if you will) and comes accompanied by a short but unsettling film, which was reportedly six months in the making. 

Like the video that accompanies it, the track is ambitious, morphing in and out of a tangled – yet, nonetheless, grooving – web of harmonic leads constructed from intricate layers of pedal tones and hammer-ons. Later, we’re treated to a series of Iommi-esque riffs and it somehow finishes in an euphoric melodic punk singalong. (MP)

Torres – Collect

Mackenzie Scott, who records under the name Torres, has put together quite the teaser for her upcoming What an Enormous Room album. First single Collect has an absolute belter of a riff that puts the humbuckers on her Telecaster to very good use. (JM)

Dope Lemon – Derby Raceway 

Since 2016, the Dope Lemon moniker has been Angus Stone’s musical outlet of choice, giving the seasoned singer-songwriter (who once went by the pseudonym Lady of the Sunshine) the medium to wade through alternative, indie and borderline psychedelic waters.

The self-produced Kimosabè – his fourth album to date – is a continuation of Stone’s trip into this sonic territory, with Derby Raceway excellently showcasing the key components of his irresistible sonic DNA: hypnotic hooks, infectious layering and no-nonsense fizzy riffs with some subtle grunge to boot. (MO)

Also on this week's playlist...

• Joe Bonamassa – Is It Safe to Go Home?
• FIDLAR – Nudge
• Ida Mae – American Cars
• Hinayana – Triptych Visions
• blink-182 – Dance With Me
• Rosie Frater-Taylor – Hold The Weight
• The Lathums – Thoughts of a Child
• Wayfarer – A High Plains Eulogy
• Laura Jane Grace – Dysphoria Hoodie
• Vixen – Red
• English Teacher – Nearly Daffodils

Carlos Santana’s list of high-profile admirers makes for quite the read, even considering the PRS-playing pioneering electric guitar star has boasted the likes of Miles Davis, Eric Clapton and B.B. King as fans across his career.

But in a recent conversation with Forbes, Santana recalled the time he met another one of his guitar heroes, who in turn gave the emerging guitar player a much-needed confidence boost.

When asked about his experiences as an up-and-coming musician finding his own voice and melodic sensibilities, Santana reflected on the time he crossed paths with Jimi Hendrix, who paid particular praise to Carlos’s approach to phrasing.

“One of the things that really gave me a lot of confidence is when I was with Jimi Hendrix,” Santana explained. “And he said, ‘Santana, right?’ I say, ‘Yes.’ He grabs my hand. And he goes, ‘I love your choice of notes.’”

Praise really doesn’t come much higher than that, and those sentiments would have no doubt been especially influential for Santana. After all, he is a well-known, die-hard Hendrix fan, and once ranked him above Eddie Van Halen during an interview with Billboard.

But at that particular point in his career, Santana was already well-versed with receiving such compliments. Elsewhere in his interview, the blues-rock veteran recalled how even as a youngster he’d be singled out for praise.

“In Tijuana, being next to my father, I remember somebody saying, ‘Well, that gentleman is really good, but his son is like something else,’” he said. “My dad kept entering me into this radio contest and fair contest. I would play a fair or a radio contest, and I kept playing Fascination, with my violin and I kept winning. I would just win.”

As mentioned above, Hendrix wasn’t the only star to tip his cap to Santana. As the Latin rock master further explained, he was also lauded by a suite of other blues virtuosos who helped instill a strong sense of self-belief in the young six-stringer.

“So when I'm playing Concierto de Aranjuez and Miles Davis goes, ‘You know how to do it right. A lot of people don't know how to play it right.’ So when I get a compliment from Miles Davis and Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix and B.B. King, I must be pretty good,” he mused. “After a while you just accept that you are the real deal.”

But that’s not to say Santana took such praise directly in his stride. Instead, the absence of “a deep sense of self-worth” meant such compliments made him feel “uncomfortable”.

“And first in the beginning I used to feel uncomfortable because I wasn't used to getting adulation and so much attention,” Santana admitted. “I was like, 'Ooh like give it to somebody else.' And that's because like most people, I didn't have a deep sense of self-worth. 

“Now when I say a deep sense of self-worth, that doesn't mean you're arrogant. It means that you have a knowing that you're priceless and you're precious because God loves you and He believes in you.”

Though Santana and Hendrix never became close collaborators, the PRS signature artist did develop a musical partnership with one of his other admirers: Eric Clapton.

The two have shared the stage on numerous occasions across the decades, and most recently joined forces to close out Clapton’s Crossroads 2023 star-studded festival with a performance of Black Magic Woman in tribute to Peter Green.

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.

A new Santana documentary, Carlos: The Santana Journey, is set to premiere in a three-day event next month – and you can watch the trailer and an early clip of the film below.

The new film traces the story of the electric guitar icon, from his childhood violin playing, through to his days as a street musician, on to Woodstock and the ’60s and his commercial highpoint in the late ’90s, following the stratospheric success of the album Supernatural.

A co-production of Sony Music Entertainment and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment, the film has been directed by Rudy Valdez, who holds two Emmys to his name and has previously made the documentaries The Sentence and We Are: The Brooklyn Saints.

As such, it looks like it’s been done right and reportedly features interviews with some of Santana’s key collaborators, among them Smooth singer Rob Thomas and music industry luminary Clive Davis. 

The latter is particularly notable, given he signed Santana twice – initially to Columbia in the ’60s and then again in 1999, to Arista – and masterminded the Supernatural project.

The film has already made its festival debut, but will receive a wider premiere across a three day cinema event on September 23, 24 and 27, which takes place at multiple venues and features “exclusive introductory content” from Santana and Valdez.

The trailer certainly whets the appetite, as does the clip below in which he reflects with his family on his first Ed Sullivan Show appearance. 

In addition to new and original interviews, we’re also promised the film includes “never-before-seen archival footage, including home videos recorded by Santana himself”.

If you’re keen to catch it on the big screen, head to the Carlos film site to buy tickets for your local screening. 

Meanwhile, those of you lucky enough to get tickets to Crossroads 2023 will be able to catch Santana in person next month, alongside a host of guitar talent, including Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa, John Mayer, Buddy Guy and Billy Gibbons.

UPDATE 8/25: The lead image on this article was changed. The original selection appears to have been a reflected image.

Universally regarded as one of the best blues guitarists in the world today, Buddy Guy is a true link to the genre’s heritage – the last of the original Chicago blues titans still rocking stages around the world.

Last year, though, Guy – now 87 – announced that his next world tour would be his last.

In a newly published interview in the latest issue of Guitar World, Guy revealed that, though he'll play guitar “until [he] can’t,” he decided to retire from touring before he became unable to perform onstage to the best of his ability.

“I don’t want someone coming away from my show thinking, ‘He doesn’t sound any good,’” the blues guitar legend explained to GW, also mentioning the toll age took on the live performances of some of his own heroes.

“I watched all the old guys like B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters go until they got old,” Guy explains. “Often, when you watch older people playing shows, you think, ‘Man… they just don’t sound the way they did when they were younger.’ I remember listening to some of my heroes when they got older and thinking it wasn’t the same.”

That said, the electric guitar hero certainly isn't going out with a whimper. Back in June, he was joined onstage by Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave guitar A-lister Tom Morello for some bluesy six-string dueling. 

Next month, meanwhile, Guy will take part in Eric Clapton’s 2023 Crossroads Guitar Festival, which is set to feature a truly dizzying lineup including (but not limited to) John Mayer, Joe Bonamassa, Santana, ZZ Top, H.E.R., John McLaughlin, Marcus King, Stephen Stills, and Gary Clark Jr.

To read Guitar World's full interview with Guy – in which the bluesman reflects on his nearly 70-year-long career, and a particularly unforgettable Fender Bassman guitar amp – pick up a copy of the newest issue of the mag at Magazines Direct.

A PRS Silver Sky John Mayer signature guitar that once belonged to Carlos Santana has gone up for sale on Reverb, but there’s a twist: this specific Silver Sky is dubbed “the birth, the mother, and blueprint of all the others that were built."

What makes this Silver Sky so important? Well, this particular Silver Sky is a prototype electric guitar, created when Mayer’s modernistic Stratocaster reimagining was still in development. 

According to the listing – which is verified by Paul Reed Smith himself – the early prototype guitar was distributed to Santana via the brand’s Artist Relations team sometime in the year before the guitar’s official release in 2018 in order to get his personal feedback on the prospective model.

The Silver Sky in question has also been affectionately named the “Magic” model owing to the “Magic” inscription that can be found on the inside of the pickguard. Apparently, during the Silver Sky development phase, only one or two prototypes received “Magic” status, and were the ones that would set the foundation for all other Silver Skys to come after it.

Not only that, the concept of the “Magic guitar” has been previously discussed by Mayer himself over the past few years. Specifically, Mayer told Guitar World back in 2018 that he hoped to eliminate the concept of the one-off “magic” guitar, hoping instead that his signature model would be magic every single time.

“I wanted to make a guitar that did away with the concept of ‘the magic guitar,'” Mayer said. “You know, the idea that you could play 10 different guitars of the same model, but only one would be magic. 

“I want all Silver Sky guitars to be great. I want them all to be magic,” he continued. “I don’t suspect I will ever really have a Number One Silver Sky, because all of them will be good. I wanted to eliminate that idea that one has magic wood and the other doesn’t. 

“The thinking was to build a well-designed instrument that would be consistent, no matter which one you played.”

Because of this, the spec sheet is identical to the Silver Sky we know today. That means there’s an alder body, a maple neck with a unique, John Mayer profile, and a 7.25” radius Indian rosewood fretboard, with the latter flashing small Bird inlays and 22 frets.

To our eyes, the maple neck here looks to be slightly more figured, but apart from that, it’s a standard Onyx Silver Sky, which also flashes 635JM single-coils, nickel hardware and, of course, the reverse PRS headstock.

The Reverb listing has also helpfully posted an email exchange the seller had with the PRS team, meaning the Silver Sky’s provenance as a Carlos Santana-owned tester model – and its like-for-like spec sheet – is confirmed.

The exchange also notes that the guitar never made it to the hands of Mayer, and was instead sent exclusively to Santana for his seal of approval. According to the listing, Paul Reed Smith had also said this particular model should be in the PRS Archive, and shouldn’t have made it out into the wild.

Owing to its pre-release provenance and the nature of its previous ownership, the “Magic” Silver Sky commands a fairly premium price tag. Specifically, it’s currently listed for $82,926, making it likely one of the most expensive Silver Skys on the market at the moment.

To find out more, head over to Reverb.

It's not the first time our attention has been grabbed by an especially unique example of Mayer's Silver Sky this year. Last month, Journey's Neal Schon showcased his own radical take on the template, which boasts a bridge humbucker and Floyd Rose tremolo.

Paul Reed Smith is nothing short of a legend when it comes to the electric guitar and acoustic guitar game. Having started his own eponymous boutique brand back in 1985, PRS has since gone on to become one of the biggest names in the guitar world, sharing the spotlight with the likes of Gibson and Fender.

Indeed, his guitars are used by a league of A-list axe-wielders from across the genre spectrum, from John Mayer and Mark Lettieri to Carlos Santana and Mark Tremonti. 

Thus, it’s fair to say Smith knows a thing or two about building guitars, so when he talks about the ins and outs of constructing a six-string, we listen.

Recently, the guitar builder weighed in on the hotly contested tonewood debate: a topic of conversation that either supports or contests the idea that a guitar’s chosen tonewood – such as maple, mahogany, ash or alder, for example – has a formative impact on its overall sound.

It’s a topic that’s as fiercely contested as the Stratocaster versus Telecaster and Gibson versus Fender debates, with some instead believing the tone comes entirely from a guitar’s pickups. However, it’s a school of thought that Smith doesn’t even think to entertain, as he explained rather matter of factly to Dipped In Tone.

“I found an argument in Germany when I was over there that I think sticks,” Smith said. “If the instrument doesn't matter, and it's only the pickup, then a concert violinist would go up to a Neumann microphone and the violin would not matter at all. It's his hands and the microphone. That's it. That's all that matters, according to the internet. What a load of crap.”

As for how this applied specifically to the six-string conversation, Smith went on, “A really good guitar is bright on the bass strings and really thick on the high strings, and that the pickup picks it up. 

“And the idea that the pickup is going to ignore that… That red guitar in the rig [behind one of the interviewers] is hollow and has a note that's coming out of it all the time, those harmonics are added to every note you play.

“I've heard it over and over and over and over again that the tonewoods don't make any difference whatsoever. It's just not true.”

To hammer home his point, Smith recalled an anecdote from when he went wood-selecting with a couple of violin makers, who had free reign to select some material from PRS’s wood supplier. Miraculously, they all ended up choosing wood from the exact same tree without knowing.

“I took a couple of violin makers to my wood supplier once,” Smith recalled. “And they went and knocked on every piece of wood in this entire area. And they were listening not for the note but how long it rang.

“At the end, the woodcutter's jaw-dropped. I said, ‘What's wrong?’ And he goes, ‘Look what they picked out.’ They picked out 40 backs for violins. They all had the same number on it. 

“I said, ‘What does that mean?’ And he said, ‘They're all from the same tree, Paul.’ I mean, they had picked out the ones that rang the longest – it was all coming from the same tree. So that doesn't matter? It's just nuts!”

Enough evidence to put the debate to bed for good? That’s for you to decide, though we imagine there will still be those out there who continue to believe it's the pickups that make the biggest tonal difference of them all.

Two members of rock royalty, Alex Lifeson of Rush and Robby Krieger of The Doors, came together at a recent benefit concert to jam Santana’s 1969 classic, Evil Ways.

The event, the Scott Medlock-Robby Krieger Golf Classic and All-Star Concert, took place on Monday (October 24) at Bogie's Westlake Village Inn in California to honor artist Scott Medlock, a friend of Krieger’s who passed away last year aged 53 following a battle with cancer.

In new fan-shot footage, the pair of electric guitar legends serve the six-string goodness in an eight-minute jam, in which they regularly trade the track’s abundance of Latin-inspired lead lines alongside Santana vocalist Andy Vargas. Check it out below.

Robby Krieger and Scott Medlock launched their benefit concert and accompanying golf tournament in 2008, first in aid of the Pat Tillman Foundation, which provides academic scholarships for veterans and their partners, and later St. Jude Children’s Hospital, which helps treat childhood cancer and other pediatric diseases. 

Proceeds from this year’s event went to the Pat Tillman Foundation and the Colontown/PalTown Development Foundation & Cancer Support Community.

Since its foundation 14 years ago, the Scott Medlock-Robby Krieger Golf Classic and All-Star Concert has raised over $3 million for various causes.

Alex Lifeson has participated in the event numerous times over the years, his most recent appearance being in 2018.

2022’s been a busy year for the Rush guitarist. Back in January, he launched his new band, Envy of None, through which he has released songs written shortly after Rush’s breakup in 2018.

“After the last Rush tour in 2015, I made sure I started writing immediately,” he told Guitar World back in May. “I didn’t want to lose it; I didn’t want to feel like that was the end. So I continued to write, just for my own benefit. A few of those tracks are on my website, some of them are on the Envy of None album.”

The guitarist also made appearances alongside his former bandmate Geddy Lee at the two Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts last month, which took place at London’s Wembley Stadium on September 3 and LA’s Kia Forum on September 27.

The duo reunited to perform Rush classics 2112 Part I: Overture, Working Man and YYZ, the latter of which Hawkins himself had performed with the pair during a Foo Fighters gig in 2008.

Back in May, TG conducted a series of polls on Guitar World. A staggering number votes were cast – just over 150,000, in fact – and now the results can be revealed. Here, we present The Greatest Guitar Albums Of All Time. 

Now, because we wanted to represent every era, from early classics to contemporary guitar heroes, we divided up our polls decade by decade from the 1960s all the way through to the 2010s and 2020s. 

We will profile the top 10 albums, and offer an in-depth look at your favorite from each decade, speaking to the guitarist who made the record, or a player notably influenced by it.

Here, we are going to kick things off with the '60s. It was the decade in which Beatlemania inspired millions of kids to pick up guitars. And with the dawn of the rock era and the elevation of the album as an art form, a golden generation of guitar heroes emerged – Clapton, Beck, Page, Santana and Hendrix...

10. The Beatles – Revolver (1966)

With the burden of Beatlemania weighing heavily on their shoulders, the Fab Four channelled their energies into expanding the possibilities of studio recording on Revolver.

As well as incorporating elaborate orchestrations, tape loops, sound effects and exotic instruments, the band updated their guitars from the early Rickenbacker-dominated sound. 

Harrison, Lennon and McCartney introduced the Gibson SG, Epiphone Casino, and Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 into their arsenal, beefing up their tone in line with the more rock-orientated sounds brought to the fore by the likes of Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck in 1966. 

The experimentation yielded stunning results, like the raucous psychedelia of She Said She Said and the harmonized twin lead guitar lines of And Your Bird Can Sing, courtesy of Harrison and McCartney. 

George Harrison was starting to experiment with Indian music, and his sitar playing on Love You To brought something new to rock music, but it’s McCartney’s electrifying solo on Taxman that provides the album’s greatest guitar moment. 

The result was one of the highlights of The Beatles’ career. After Revolver, guitar music would never be the same again.

9. Cream – Wheels Of Fire (1968)

Cream’s third LP was released at the apex of their short career, showcasing everything that made them special. It became the world’s first platinum-selling double vinyl album, consisting of two sides of new studio recordings and two sides of live recordings. 

The opening track and hit single White Room is the quintessential Cream power rock sound, with Eric Clapton’s wah solo a highlight of the album. Born Under A Bad Sign and Sitting On Top Of The World present British Blues at its finest, and the live rendition of Robert Johnson’s Crossroads features arguably Clapton’s greatest guitar solo.

8. Jeff Beck – Truth (1968)

Beck’s first solo album is a cornerstone of the heavy rock sound of the late 60s, pre-empting Led Zeppelin’s debut by a few months. Indeed, the cover of Muddy Waters’ You Shook Me bears remarkable similarities to Zeppelin’s version of the same song. 

Two of Zeppelin’s lineup even appeared on Truth, with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones joining Beck, The Who’s Keith Moon on drums and Nicky Hopkins on piano for the fearsome Page-penned instrumental Beck’s Bolero. 

The album opens with a slowed-down, rockier version of his former band’s Shapes Of Things, featuring some virtuosic lead guitar work to kick things off. 

Elsewhere, Morning Dew and I Ain’t Superstitious showcase his dexterity with a wah-wah pedal, Blues Deluxe and Rock My Plimsoul has him mastering the blues rock sound of the future, and an acoustic rendition of the classical Greensleeves demonstrates his astonishing breadth of styles.

7. Santana – Santana (1969)

Mexican-born Carlos Santana enchanted the rock world in the late-60s with his unique fusion of latin rhythms, blues sensibilities, psychedelic sonics and all-out rock guitar. 

On this debut album the music is largely jam-orientated, perfectly capturing the improvisatory nature of Santana’s talent, as he weaves his sweetly singing lines around frantic percussion and funky organ to stunning effect. 

His guitar tone is unique, combining sharp dynamics with a powerful sustain. Listen to the aptly-named Treat or the lengthy finale Soul Sacrifice for perfect examples of his power as a soloist.

6. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Axis: Bold As Love (1967)

Hendrix mixes blues, rock and jazz with a broad sonic palate of psychedelia to stunning effect on his second album with the Experience. 

His songwriting had developed in the few months since the band’s debut, and he pushes his guitar into new territories with unique combinations of fuzz, Uni-Vibe, wah-wah, backwards guitar and flamboyant use of his Strat’s whammy bar. 

The chugging rhythms of Spanish Castle Magic, the spaced out psychedelia of If 6 Was 9, and the funky rhythms of Bold As Love and Castles Made Of Sand and the sublime Little Wing showcase Hendrix at his peak.

5. Cream – Disraeli Gears (1967)

Disraeli Gears, Cream’s second album, was the highpoint of their career. Incorporating the prevailing psychedelic sound of 1967, and taking the baton from The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Are You Experienced and the Beatles’ Sgt Peppers..., they forged a template for the hard rock of the future. 

Strange Brew, Tales Of Brave Ulysses and SWLABR fused blues with acid rock, while Sunshine Of Your Love foreshadowed the riff-based hard rock soon to be adopted by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. 

The album is also a perfect showcase for Eric Clapton’s so-called ‘woman tone’, a warm, mellow sound he achieved using his 1964 ‘Fool’ Gibson SG and his late-50s black Gibson Les Paul Custom, through mid-60s Fender Twin Reverb and Marshall amps. 

4. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin (1969)

Forged by Jimmy Page from the ashes of The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin recorded their first album shortly after the group was formed. 

The songs were honed during a short tour in Scandinavia prior to the recording sessions, and it’s an explosive debut, packed with stomping riffs, thundering rock grooves, violin-bowed psychedelia and the pioneering sound of British hard rock guitar. 

For most of the album, Page used the 1959 Fender Telecaster that Jeff Beck gave to him in 1966, known as the Dragon Tele due to the design Page painted on it. Other than that, he tried out a Gibson Flying V on You Shook Me, a Fender 800 pedal steel on Your Time Is Gonna Come, and borrowed a Gibson J-200 for the album’s acoustic guitar parts.

• 4 guitar tricks you can learn from Jimmy Page

3. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland (1968)

This sprawling double vinyl album, Hendrix’s third and final studio LP, marked the point at which he took full control of his own production. It’s a compelling mixture of chaos and precision, with his insistence on recording multiple takes resulting in some of his most accomplished cuts. 

The music spans the whole spectrum of guitar music, from the funky blues jamming of Voodoo Chile, the jazz shuffle of Rainy Day, Dream Away, through the driving rock of Crosstown Traffic to the wah-wah-infused psychedelic pop of Burning Of The Midnight Lamp. At this point, Hendrix was speaking a new language on guitar, one that would influence generations to come.

2. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II (1969)

Zeppelin were in the middle of a brutal touring schedule when their record company pressed them to record the follow up to their debut. April to August 1969 was one of the busiest periods of their career, and sessions for Led Zeppelin II took place in thirteen different studios, fitting in around hotel rooms, gigs, rehearsals and the debauchery that accompanied their hectic touring schedule. 

According to producer Eddie Kramer, Jimmy Page even recorded some of his guitar solos in hallways. This no doubt accounts for Led Zeppelin II’s charged mixture of flamboyant virtuosity and raw sexual power, ushering in the hard rock boom of the 1970s. 

Page showcases all aspects of his virtuosity, from the legendary rock riffage of Whole Lotta Love, Heartbreaker and Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman), through the sensitive bottleneck blues soloing of What Is And What Should Never Be to the folk-rock jangle of Thank You and Ramble On. 

Page’s instruments of choice were his Dragon Telecaster, a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst he bought from Joe Walsh (later of the Eagles) and a 1967 Vox Phantom XII 12-string, with a mixture of Tone Bender fuzz pedal, Vox Grey Wah and VOX CO2 Deluxe Echo effects. For the acoustic work, he used his E-ROS Model 606 Dakota.

1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced? (1967)

The debut album by The Jimi Hendrix Experience is many things. As modern blues star Samantha Fish says: “Are You Experienced is historically important, innovative, and such a creative album. He took us to places that I don’t think music had been [before].” 

But if anything, she slightly understates it. Beginning with this album, Hendrix reinvented guitar. It’s easy to miss the extent of his genius because many of his innovations are now taken-for-granted guitar techniques, but guitar playing pre-Hendrix was a markedly less interesting world. And no one could sound like him.

We don’t just mean this in the boring sense that every player is unique. Literally no one could sound like Jimi, because Hendrix’s playing required impractical volume levels. In 1967, that type of amp distortion and feedback couldn’t happen any other way. 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience were kicked out of recording sessions because of noise complaints, or else producers didn’t know how to record such intense sound pressure levels. 

An engineer for John Mayall’s Blues Breakers had described Eric Clapton as “unrecordable," and that was only a 30-watt combo. 

Hendrix used a 100 watt stack. It was only when they moved to Olympic Studios that they found Eddie Kramer, a collaborator with the talent to capture Jimi’s full sonic fury.

“I can’t make a Strat sound like Jimi Hendrix,” Samantha Fish admits. “When I think of Stratocasters in general I think of Stevie Ray Vaughan, and that’s the kind of twang that I get out of it when I when I pick it up. Jimi’s tone was so aggressive. It screams in a way that I can’t make a Stratocaster scream, and I think a lot of guitar players might agree with me.”

There were precursors to Hendrix. Buddy Guy had been performing live with distortion and feedback for years, but his label boss Leonard Chess refused to record that way. Hendrix, a veteran of ‘chitlin circuit’ blues clubs, would have seen the likes of Guy at their unfiltered best. 

In his session days, Jimi worked as a sideman to Curtis Mayfield, who particularly influenced Jimi with his clean playing and his signature take on chord-melody playing. But none of this detracts from Jimi’s status as a visionary.

Growing up in Kansas City, Samantha Fish was a fan of Hendrix’s songs before she even knew who he was. 

“Like most kids in the 90s, I heard Jimi Hendrix on the radio,’ she recalls. “We didn’t really have a big record collection, but I had heard all the hits. As I got older I realized ‘holy hell, all these songs are from the same album!’ I can’t imagine being 25 and putting out something so prolific. I just think about myself at 25 and the tone he has, the presence he has, the command he has over the guitar – the songs are just so well thought out.”

Samantha’s career began at blues jams, and when she performed Red House, a cornerstone track from Are You Experienced, audiences groaned because there song had been covered so often. “I would hope that he’d be tickled by that,” she laughs. Like Hendrix, Fish is rooted in the blues but crosses genres.

“I just write songs and the blues the blues part of it comes through my playing and singing,” she says. “It comes from my foundation and how I learned how to play guitar. If I write a progression that’s kind of poppy I’m going to try and bring this other element to make it something else. I can only imagine Jimi was just writing good songs and putting them out there.” 

As to whether Are You Experienced is a blues album, she states: “It’s blues and beyond. Jimi was paving his own way and creating his own sound. I don’t think genre can really can really confine him or describe him. 

“He has some blues licks, some blues phrasing and feeling the way he sings, but he was writing the book on rock’n’roll. There have been so many prolific guitar players in the blues historically and I think I think he fits into that too just by way of being so damn beastly on the guitar.”

Are You Experienced was notable for the number of new sounds Hendrix pulled from his guitar. The title track has a noise that sounds like record scratching, a full decade before hip-hop DJs were around, and Third Stone From The Sun has a solo that barely sounds like conventional music, with Hendrix manipulating and controlling feedback using his Strat’s tremolo. This is an inspiration for Fish’s approach: 

“He was so innovative with the guitar. Even today people aren’t doing the things that he was doing, even via recording and how he was utilizing the instrument as a pure effect. Like on the title track, it sounds like a remix. Just using the guitar not in the traditional sense. He’s putting a texture and a tone on there that gives the song a certain vibe that you can’t get from a solo or riff or guitar chords. He using it in different ways and making it talk. 

“I think every guitar player spends a fair amount of time trying to figure out how the hell he did that. That’s something that I really like to do, and Jimi is the godfather of doing stuff like that.” 

Another example was Hendrix’s pioneering backwards guitar. As Samantha says: “He wasn’t the first to record backwards guitar solos, but he did it in a pretty iconic way.” 

George Harrison had beaten Hendrix by a year with I’m Only Sleeping, but it had been a painful process. In his memoir, Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick says of the nine-hour session “We all wished we had never come up with the concept of backwards sounds.”

Hendrix, by contrast, had spent time listening to his guitar recorded backwards to learn how it would sound, and put the Are You Experienced solo together with apparent ease. 

Samantha Fish grew up with the US release of Are You Experienced, which added three classic singles - Purple Haze, The Wind Cries Mary and Hey Joe – omitted from the UK release. She admired Hendrix’s way of weaving lead lines around chords.

“I think The Wind Cries Mary is one of the most beautiful songs ever written,” she says. “It’s just so delicate and well put together. He’s not just throwing licks out there, he’s playing really melodically and delicately through different chord structures and building memorable melodies. That’s definitely something I strive to do with my solos.”

As a singer-guitarist, Fish recognizes that much of Jimi Hendrix’s genius was in the interplay between his voice and guitar. 

“The way that he arpeggiates chords, like in The Wind Cries Mary. He’s sliding up to different chords and his voice is this kind of counterpart to these really intricate guitar patterns. On some of his rougher songs there’s so much call and response between his singing and his playing, it’s like two voices talking to each other. 

“BB King is the king of that, but Jimi did it in such a bombastic way that I think goes over a lot of people’s heads. The amount of work he’s doing and the amount of energy he’s putting out by singing and playing – it's mind-boggling.”

An update has been issued after Carlos Santana collapsed onstage during a performance in Michigan last night (July 5).

Santana’s show at the Pine Knob Music Theatre was cut short after the electric guitar great reportedly passed out mid-song, with many concertgoers reporting they were asked to “pray” for the 74-year-old’s well-being.

According to a tweet posted by journalist Jo-Ann Barnas, who was in attendance at the gig, “Santana was about one minute into a song he had collaborated with Chris Stapleton” before he reportedly collapsed. 

Fox 2 broadcaster Roop Raj shared video footage from the evening, and reported that Santana was swiftly attended to by medical personnel after he suffered a “serious medical” issue.

Further footage shared by Huffington Post Editor Philip Lewis showed an alert Santana waving to those who had remained at the Pine Knob Theatre as he was taken out of the venue. He was then transported to the emergency department at McLaren Clarkston for observation.

Santana promptly shared an update on his personal Facebook account, in which allayed fears for his well-being by saying he “forgot to eat and drink water so I dehydrated and passed out”.

“Thank you for your precious prayers,” Santana also said. “Just taking it easy.”

A further statement has been issued by Santana’s manager Michael Vrionis, which revealed the guitarist's medical emergency had been brought on by “heat exhaustion and dehydration”.

As a result of the incident, Santana’s show at The Pavilion at Star Lake – scheduled for today (July 6) – will be postponed to a later date.

“Carlos Santana was over-taken by heat exhaustion and dehydration during a concert Tuesday (July 5) evening in Michigan,” the statement read. “The guitar great was taken from his show at Pine Knob Music Theatre (formerly DTE Energy Music Theatre), an outdoor amphitheater in Clarkston, some 40 miles northwest of Detroit, Michigan. 

“Carlos was taken to the emergency department at McLaren Clarkston for observation and is doing well.”

In December last year, Santana canceled his Las Vegas residency following a health scare that forced him to undergo an “unscheduled heart procedure”.

Head over to Carlos Santana’s website to keep up-to-date with his recovery.  

There are few popular music icons who had the level of impact on music and contemporary culture than Prince. Although most widely known for his disco, soul and funk sensibilities in his most famous releases, Prince was actually one of the most diverse and musically rich artists pop music has ever known.

His love for a wide range of genres clearly helped feed his ever increasing creative output. He loved artists like Earth Wind and Fire, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Parliament Funkadelic, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Carlos Santana, Miles Davis, Larry Graham, James Brown and many, many others. Even in that short list, there are tons of musical influences, styles and approaches that all informed his broad and creative imagination.

From a purely guitar-centric point of view, Prince’s playing style was influenced by the likes of Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Freddie Stone, Tom Scholz and many others. You can hear the melodic sensibilities of Carlos Santana in songs like Purple Rain, while the fiery pentatonic blues-rock stylings of Hendrix come through in tracks like American Woman and his cover of Creep, by Radiohead. 

His funk chops were hugely influenced by his lifelong friend Sonny T. Even though Sonny is known for his virtuosic bass playing, Prince said this of him in an interview in 1994, “I listened to everybody. My favourite of all time is Sonny T. I thought Sonny was God. Sonny was my hero. A lot of what I do on guitar, I learned from him. I’d go over to his house and we’d play records and he’d show me things on the guitar.”

While it’s fair to say that the backbone of Prince’s back catalogue broadly fits under the disco, soul, funk and pop labels, he was clearly captivated by rock and blues guitar. 

Our two studies this week focus on those particular influences, with study 1 tipping the hat towards his soulful Santana influenced style of playing, while study 2 gives us a nod to his rich knowledge of blues guitar that all lent to his wonderfully lyrical, melodic and passionate style of playing. 

Get the tone

Amp settings: Gain 8, Bass 6, Middle 5, Treble 6, Reverb 3

Prince can be seen playing a wide variety of guitars, from custom designs to Teles, Strats, Charvels, and semi-hollowbodies. He did tend to favour guitars based on Fender-style, single-coil design, like the Hohner Tele copy. His lead tone was relatively high gain, leaning closer to a rock or even metal sound, so keep the gain high and add reverb, delay, or extra overdrive pedal should you need it.

Example 1: Study 1

This study is all about the melody and the sustain. The double-stop bends need to be played with real authority and passion.

If you have a floating bridge, make sure you also bend the second string a little bit too (it’s likely to happen anyway), so that the note doesn’t go flat as you bend the third string.

Example 2: Study 2

Much of Prince’s music has bluesy stylistics (as heard on The Ride from Crystal Ball) and this study shows how he combines Major and Minor Pentatonic.

The phrases are mostly based around shape 1, but visualise it more as Major Pentatonic with ‘blue’ notes thrown in - notably the b3 and the b7.

Dumble guitar amps are some of the most celebrated in history, and such is their exclusivity that only a handful of high-profile players – among them Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robben Ford and Carlos Santana – are known to play them on a regular basis.

Another name on that list is John Mayer – a guitar gear connoisseur whose personal Dumble stash is so well stocked that, if one malfunctions on stage, he always has a spare waiting in the wings to bring into action.

Though his collection comprises a number of models, there is one particular Dumble amp he considers his (ahem) pride and joy: a Dumbleland Special with the serial number 005, which was once used by late blues guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan to record Texas Flood.

Mayer made the revelation during an appearance on Cory Wong’s Wong Notes podcast, and said the amp in question had been living in singer-songwriter Jackson Browne’s personal home studio when Vaughan rocked up to record his debut studio album.

“The one on the left [the amp Wong is playing through during the podcast], I got in Japan,” Mayer explained, “and that’s basically an Overdrive version. That’s one of my favorite amps – that’s the one I had out with Dead & Company for the last couple years.

“The one on the right is a Dumbleland Special, serial number 005,” he continued. “That amp belonged to Jackson Browne, and was in Jackson Browne’s studio when Stevie Ray Vaughan recorded Texas Flood. He recorded the entire album through that amp.”

“That is the Texas Flood Dumbleland Special. No-one knew this before I mentioned this to you, but I used that amp when I played Stevie’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inauguration ceremony. That was a special thing."

During the 2015 ceremony, Mayer was not only plugging into his hero’s amp, but he was also playing a Fender Stevie Ray Vaughan signature Stratocaster. Footage from the event, which sees Mayer join Jimmie Vaugan, Doyle Bramhall and Gary Clark Jr. to perform Pride and Joy, can be found below.

Elsewhere in the conversation, Mayer and Wong jammed an unreleased Continuum-era track titled Over and Over, which never saw the light of day because, according to the Sob Rock star, "the bridge made no sense".

It was the second installment of Mayer’s extended appearance on the Wong Notes podcast. In the first part, which aired last week, Mayer revealed he had a secret stash of uniquely finished PRS Silver Skys that would make people “flip out”.

Earlier this year, Alexander Dumble – the genius behind the amps – passed away. Recently, it was revealed that one of the last-ever amps Dumble made was for Guns N’ Roses rocker Slash.

Eric Gales and Carlos Santana are two of the guitar world's standout electric guitar stars. While Santana has cemented his legacy through sultry melodies and infectious Latin guitar work, Gales has constructed his own reputation with a fiery brand of blues that has positioned him as one of the finest guitarists currently around.

However, the two have more than just a celebrated style of six-string playing in common. Santana is, in fact, Gales’ godfather, and way back in 1994, the Smooth hitmaker was joined onstage by an up-and-coming Gales at the prestigious Woodstock Festival.

Footage from that seldom-discussed team-up can be found below, courtesy of Gales himself, who posted it to his YouTube channel in July 2020.

While Gales gets comfortable on stage with his Sunburst Fender Stratocaster, Santana takes up the mantle of “master”, using his fabled PRS for some seasoned pentatonic runs and wah-tinged licks.

Gales then finds his feet and, without showing any sign of his relative six-string infancy, belts out one of the most technically challenging blues solos that any 16-year-old could ever hope to play. It’s got all the hallmarks of what would later become his trademark style, too – lightning quick flourishes and searing two-string bends – as well as some suitably SRV-style scale runs.

The pair then take the spotlight together, and for about three whole minutes absolutely take their guitars to town. Throughout the following years, Gales’ playing style would later blossom to become far more selective, with an almost untouchable grasp on phrasing.

Two years prior to the team-up, Santana made an appearance on the Arsenio Hall Show, during which he dubbed the 16-year-old Gales a “Hendrix-caliber” guitarist, who also possessed the powers of fellow blues legend Steve Ray Vaughan.

“There’s a young brother from Memphis, Tennessee, his name is Eric Gales,” Santana said. “Still in high school, and he’s absolutely incredible. There’s nothing cute about this 16-year old, you know?

“[In him] we also have another brother who carries on that legacy of what one note [can do],” he continued. “The way they hit one note just penetrates. Yeah, Eric Gales has a bright future.”

Santana was, of course, correct. Gales' influence on the blues scene has been huge throughout his career, and his impact on the genre was most recently evident in his latest record, the Joe Bonamassa-produced Crown.

However, despite being one of the greatest guitarists on the face of the earth, Gales recently revealed that actually prefers playing the acoustic. In fact, he loves it so much, he's got a whole acoustic double album in the pipeline.

Buddy Guy’s dedication to his role as a mentor and torchbearer for blues musicians is being celebrated in a documentary, The Torch, which is set for theatrical release on March 18.

Guy is renowned as an iconic blues guitarist and inspiration to the likes of Jimi Hendrix, yet his role in supporting young musicians has often been overlooked. Guitar World has lost count of the many players we’ve encountered over the years who got their break when they were given the chance to perform onstage with Guy. 

This has not happened by accident. As one of the last surviving Chicago bluesmen and contemporaries of the likes of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, Guy was tasked with passing the torch by his own late peers and mentors. As Waters put it to him, “Last man standing, don’t let the blues die.” 

Now The Torch, directed by Jim Farrell, aims to showcase this side of Guy’s musical journey, focusing on the guitarist’s recent efforts to support new players like Quinn Sullivan and Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram. 

“Our aim in The Torch was to showcase Buddy’s brilliance and collaborative generosity onstage, while also achieving a fly on the wall intimacy for those backstage moments where he shares his vast life experiences,” Farrell told Rolling Stone.

“Like Derek Trucks says, ‘I always look forward to getting just whatever time we can with him because you walk away and you feel like there’s been this amazing knowledge dropped on you.’ The Torch shows how both onstage and off, Buddy’s dedication to young talent is truly unprecedented.”

The film includes footage and interviews from a wide variety of players, including Sullivan and Ingram, plus Carlos Santana, Joe Bonamassa, Jonny Lang, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi. Sullivan’s story, in particular, is highlighted in the trailer above. 

“He never told Quinn what to play or how to play it,” observes Farrell, for Rolling Stone. “He simply shared his stage and audience and gave Quinn enough leash to figure it out on his own. A lot of artists promote the younger generation, and Buddy has done it with other artists, but I’d never heard of anyone doing it to this level. He brought Quinn around the world for more than 10 years and put him on some of the biggest stages, without any expectation of payback.”

In addition to tracking the stories and progress of these young players alongside Guy’s own incredible journey with the guitar, the film also reportedly documents the creation of a new Guy song, The Long, Hard Road – and you can hear a snippet in the trailer.

The Torch is released in selected theaters and on-demand on March 18, 2022. Head to IFC Films for more information. 

Eric Gales, heralded as one of the greatest blues and rock guitarists of his generation, has lived a life of soaring heights alongside deep, dark lows.
His brilliant, spectacular playing has garnered the respect of generations of guitar fans as well as peers like Eric Johnson, Joe Bonamassa, Dave Navarro, Gary Clark Jr. and Zakk Wylde, as well as his own heroes, such as Carlos Santana who says, “Eric is absolutely incredible.”

Since 1991, the Memphis-born Gales has redefined the language of blues guitar with stunning virtuosity and on-the-edge musical daring, combining the influences of Albert King and Jimi Hendrix with an infusion of the harmonically complex sounds of jazz and classical music, all delivered with a combination of emotional intensity and masterful precision. 

When he was just 16, Gales released his Elektra Records debut, The Eric Gales Band [1991], instantly earning high praise as a guitarists’ guitarist. Over the course of 30 years and 18 albums, his passion for the guitar and his boundless desire to keep his music vital has never waned. 

But like so many before him, the track of his career was derailed numerous times due to substance abuse. “I put myself in the backseat through my drug addiction,” Gales says candidly. In 2009, he hit bottom and served jail time at Shelby County Correctional Center outside of Memphis for possession of drugs and a weapon. 

Now five years sober, a rejuvenated Gales has released Crown [via Provogue/Mascot Label Group], the strongest album of his career in terms of songwriting, singing and his signature explosive guitar playing. 

Produced by Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith, Crown showcases Gales sharing his feelings of positivity and dedication as well as his reflections on the fraught state of the world today. The album was recorded in Nashville at Ocean Way and Sound Emporium studios. 

What led up to making this new record with Joe Bonamassa as producer?

“Back in 2019, Joe had invited me to join him on a blues cruise, where we did an impromptu jam during his song The Battle of John Henry. A video of the performance hit social media and within 10 days, it was up to 3 million views! The world took to that very, very well.”

You and Joe became friends way back at the start of your careers, yes?

“Yes. Our history as friends and musical compatriots goes back over 27 years. At that time, he was playing in a group called Bloodline, with the sons of Robbie Krieger, Miles Davis and Berry Oakley [Waylon, Berry Jr. and Erin, respectively], and I met Joe when they opened up for me. 

“On the blues cruise, Joe and I did an interview together. Beforehand, I had said to my wife, ‘Babe, I’m just going to throw this at Joe: Will you produce my next record?’ The worst thing that could happen is that he’s going to tell me ‘no’ – but he’s going to have to say ‘no’ in front of a thousand people! I sort of backed him into a corner, but the truth is I couldn’t have gotten him to do something he didn’t already want to do.” 

“He said to me, ‘You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting and watching. You are a badass guitarist; it would be more than an honor for me to help you get your rightfully deserved seat at the table.’ And we cried when we talked about it. He said, ‘I am going to do my part to lift you up where you’re supposed to be. I think your head is in the right position for the crown to properly fit.’

“It was a great day. I asked, ‘What would it cost me to get you to produce my record?’ he said, ‘First of all, I’m not cheap.’ I said, ‘OK, name the price.’ He said, ‘All I require is two Diet Cokes.’ I went back to my suite and said, ‘Babe, let’s get two Diet Cokes right fast!’ I took them back to him and said, ‘Deal!’ We shook hands and that was it.”

Something that comes through on many of the tracks on the new album is autobiographical material about your personal struggles as well as the nature of the world today. Songs like The Storm, Stand Up, Survivor, My Own Best Friend and You Don’t Know the Blues represent you revealing different aspects of your life, along with your feelings about the world.

“My brother Eugene, who was with me in the original Eric Gales Band, was my mentor. He taught me that the best thing I can do is to write about what I know about. I could make up something, but there’s no better material than personal experience. 

“There’s a world out there that’s being heavily consumed by addiction, of many types and many forms. I think it is a large enough subject for the world to relate to – if not directly through one’s own struggles, then indirectly through the struggles of those around us. Many of us have close family members or best friends that are going through the stuff I am talking about. 

“Now, there’s that stuff. But there is also a heavy cloud that’s been hanging over the United States for quite some time in regards to race relations and the politics of race relations. I was overly compelled to touch on things of that nature because the day before we started writing for this record was the day George Floyd died. 

“That event, as we all know, caused a cataclysmic, epic circumstance of events that not only affected Minnesota, it affected the USA. And let’s go bigger than that: it affected the entire world. To look on CNN and see people across the globe saying, ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I think George Floyd’s death brought attention to other countries that have been dealing with the same issues forever. 

“To see Canada, France, England, Germany – everywhere – I have never in my life known of something to affect the entire world in this way. This was an event that unified the world in saying, ‘I’m tired of this, and something has got to be done about it.’

“I would say that 40 to 50 percent of the material on this record came from things that have happened to me, but I was too high in my own mind to even realize that I had been confronted with things of that nature. Now is the time to talk about it. These things need to be addressed, and I need to let people know that I have a platform to get a message to people that I think they should hear.”

The opening lyrics to the song The Storm are, “How can you love what I do but hate who I am?”

“There are people watching and listening to my music and my social media posts that may sincerely not be aware of what the current state is in this world because of their skin color. They don’t know what it is to wake up in black skin. Take the guitar away from me, take away that people know what it is that I do… take me as a regular human being, as a black person living in America. 

“If I can’t stand there on the merit of how I present myself in front of you, then I don’t want to get to know you. It’s not cool if you need to like me for what it is that I do, but not for who I am.

“I will say to my audience, “I want you to understand something: this road goes both ways.” And what I mean is, give me the opportunity to make you hate me, instead of you deciding to hate me to begin with. Does that make sense? Don’t dislike me because of my skin color or what I look like; give me a reason for you to not like me.” 

This is a message that many artists choose not to address because subjects like racism are so incendiary, especially right now. There are artists who avoid politics because they don’t want to lose fans. 

“I think this is something that needs to be put out there, and I am someone that doesn’t choose to be passive about this aspect of our lives.”

Have you found that sobriety has helped you to focus and be aware of your feelings more clearly?

“Absolutely. Before, as long as I got some dope, you could call me the N-word, and I might get furious about it, but at different points in time, I allowed myself to get engulfed in things that demeaned me. But, truthfully, I was immersed in a place where everything demeaned me, because I was demeaning myself. It’s something I struggled with for almost 30 years. So the racial stuff was just another piece of wood in the fire to burn. 

“But now that the heat has cleared, I am much more present about what is and isn’t cool. You have to go knock next door, because right now, I am firmly standing in my sobriety and I am aware of everything that is coming in front of me, so much so that I can see it even before it’s coming.” 

“This comes from the evolution of me getting older as well as my sobriety, amongst several other things that have been perks of me getting my shit together, and it’s all part of the gambit that I am stepping into. I am 100 percent prepared and standing firm to go forward with everything that comes my way. You might like me for what I do, but if you don’t like me for who I am, then it means nothing. 

“I get riled up about it, but these are things that our forefathers fought dearly for. The musicians in the '40s, the '50s and the '60s went through horrific sacrifices, like not being able to have a meal, or even stay in the same places where they were hired to play. I look at the road that was paved for this black African-American by the black African-Americans that came before me, that went through torture and had to smile in the face of it. 

“If I can, I’d like to change that paradigm going forward for the next generation, and hopefully not have these things happen to them. History is supposed to be the best teacher, or else nothing is learned and we will continue to go through the same cycles. I will go to my grave hoping and praying that this cycle does not keep getting repeated.”

One of the greatest blessings of being a musician is that you can use music to communicate with an audience in a language that everyone understands, and you can touch people if they’re open to it. There’s no color, no race, no age. Music has the power to touch everyone if they’re willing to listen. What are you thinking about when you first walk out to play, in the moments before you embark on delivering your musical message to the audience?

“Truth be told, I don’t think about it beforehand at all. It comes to me the moment I step up to the mic. I believe my role is to transmit this energy that’s coming through me from a higher being, and to do my best for it to be accepted the way I am giving it. There’s no preparation for that. 

“I have no intention to try to force something down someone’s throat; no matter how much I might take a stand on how I feel things are dissatisfactory for minorities, it doesn’t deserve to be pushed down someone’s throat, and I try to be aware of that. By the time I’m done playing, my only goal is for the audience to understand very well what it is I am saying, who it is meant for, and my reasons for saying it in the first place.”

“The people that come to my shows, they don’t come to hear me talk about that, and I understand that; they come to hear me play. But I have manifested a way to integrate my conversation about my platform without it turning into something overly political. That is a dog-and-pony show in and of itself. I would rather speak from my own experiences and shed some enlightenment if I can. 

“I met someone after a show the other day that said to me, ‘I’m so glad that my friend brought me to this show, because it opened my eyes to a whole style of music that I had no idea about.’ 

“As great as it is to touch the people who may have never heard me but come with an open mind, I honestly want the people who come with a closed mind. If the energy that drives me connects with that person with the closed mind, then their mind will really be blown, because they showed up with their arms crossed in front of them but left with their arms wide open.” 

You are saying that music has the power to change the way people understand and feel about life and about society overall. 

“Yes, absolutely. I believe there is a synergy that provides me with the gift that I have been blessed with, and there could be people in my audience that are atheists or agnostic that have never experienced what it feels like to be in a black Baptist church, which is the power that happens from music and the emotions it taps into. That is the kind of spiritual power I want to communicate in my show. 

“I was raised in the church, and while there are people in my audience that are feeling the same feeling that I got in church, so am I! I am playing two roles: I am not only playing this show for them, I am also playing this show for me, for my own enlightenment and connection to a spiritual feeling. I am feeling the same thing that I am sending out to the audience, just as if I am out there with them. The power is coming through me and I can feel it, too.” 

“When people see me yelling while I’m playing, I’m having a conversation with somebody, and it’s not myself – I’m getting hit with it just like everyone else. And I don’t mean that in any kind of braggadocio way; the feeling overwhelms me. I’m just a vessel, and when the feeling comes through, I just get out of the way and let what happens happen. I feel very blessed that I have the opportunity to communicate these feelings, especially to those in the audience that may have never felt these things before.

“The truth is, my addiction almost killed me at least five or six times, and the fact that I am standing here today is a miracle. I take it as a great blessing that I am here today to share my story and strive to pass along a positive message to anyone that will listen. 

“All of the people I have known through my life that died from drug addiction are standing on my shoulders today, helping me try to get through to the one person that may be going through what I went through, or they know someone that is going through it, and I want to show them that there is hope. That’s what my whole mission is.”

Playing blues is all about expressing your emotions. Has becoming sober changed the way you play and the way you feel about blues?

“I thought in my high-getting days that I was playing some of the most dopest shit ever. But when I decided to put everything I could into sobriety, I was very afraid as to whether I’d still be able to tap into what I thought was ‘it,’ only to find out that I’ve been shutting myself off for 30-something years! The connection I feel now is as raw and authentic as it could ever be and supersedes by a million miles anything I could do while I was high. 

“It’s incredible the barometer for emotional intertwinement that I feel now, and that’s true whether I’m in front of a crowd or just sitting at home playing acoustic guitar. I can go to crying, and I live for that now. I could just look at a guitar and almost start crying! [Laughs] I have never been more in touch with myself than I am now. The 5 percent that I used to tap into is nothing compared to the 10,000 percent that I can tap into now that the fog has lifted. 

One of the most powerful tracks on the record is Too Close to the Fire.

“Joe and I had spoken a lot about the things I wanted to address in the songs, and that song is all about letting yourself get burned, or allowing yourself to be in a dangerous place for yourself. Joe had a riff and I had the privilege of having Keb Mo’, Tom Hambridge and James House as co-writers, and the majority of the songs on the record came together with everyone’s input. 

Songs like Stand Up, My Own Best Friend and Survivor have a gospel vibe to them, and that uplifting spiritual feeling is so strong that most listeners cannot help but to be touched by it.

“Growing up in the Baptist Church and being immersed in gospel music has made it a heavy part of my genetic makeup. I’m so glad we were able to present that style of music, along with all of the other ‘roads’ we traveled through the entire record.” 

You’ve also got heavy in-the-pocket funk tunes, like Put That Back and Let Me Start with This, combined with a Jimi Hendrix/Stevie Ray Vaughan feeling. 

“On Let Me Start with This, I was playing through a Leslie, which really gives it that ‘Jimi’ vibe. Joe and I were putting the song together and I said, ‘Let me start with this,’ and I started playing, and it was the perfect title. 

“Those are both heavy pocket tunes, and when you combine these with the blues songs and the R&B/soul ballad-type tunes, we tried to cover the whole pie. This is what gratifies me the most about the record: it’s not just blues, or just gospel, or just funk; we got everything on there that I love the most.” 

Tell me about the acoustic track, I Found Her.

“My intention is for 70- and 80-year-old couples to play that song on their anniversary day. Joe said, ‘Let’s put an accordion on it,’ and it gives it that Italian, romantic vibe. The song is about how I feel about my wife, LaDonna.” 

Of course, there’s the title track, I Want My Crown, for which you and Joe made a great video of going at each other in a boxing ring.

“We’ve been playing that song live and it is smashing the audience. The video concept came out of a dream I had, which originally stems from that video of Joe and me on the ship playing The Ballad of John Henry. So we just made it a real ‘battle,’ in the ring. And even though we present it as a guitar duel, in our eyes it’s a conversation.” 

LaDonna is singing on Take Me Just As I Am, yes?

“Yes she is. It was a flip-around in that the whole idea was for me to back her up, after all of these years of her backing me up. She killed it.” 

You also have a new Eric Gales signature guitar from Magneto Guitars, the RD3. 

“A few years ago, Magneto came out with the RawDawg guitar, but it was in the range of $4,500. This time, we decided to make it more consumer-friendly without sacrificing any of the quality or the materials, and it’ll be around $1,250. The new one feels exactly the same as the one I’ve been playing. 

“It’s an incredible guitar. The first 20 will be sold exclusively through ericgales.com. I plan to do a bundle package with the album, the guitar, my MXR Raw Dawg pedal and my DV Mark signature amplifier, which is a hybrid tube/transistor and runs at 250 watts. I run two or four at a time and it sounds incredible!” 

• Crown is out now via Provogue.

“This whole journey is based on right place, right time, and luck, for the most part,” says Bad Religion guitarist Brian Baker about playing music for a living. “I didn’t realize I was a professional musician until I’d been one for 20 years.”

That may come as a shock to fans who have followed Baker through his time with punk legends Minor Threat and Dag Nasty, as well as the underrated late-'80s L.A. sleaze-rock band Junkyard. But it wasn’t until he landed his current gig with the O.G. SoCal punk crew that he was able to give up his day job.

“In Junkyard [who were signed to Geffen Records], I think we got a thousand bucks a month for a while there,” he says, “and that was just from stupidly selling our publishing and merchandise rights. Just being drunk and dumb and in your early 20s. I didn’t realize I was a professional, doing-it-for-a-living-guy until I was in Bad Religion for a little while.”

Baker could argue that his career began as early as age 12, when he was thrust onstage at a Santana concert in Detroit. He and some friends had scored backstage passes, and when Baker, then a budding guitar player, walked past a room full of guitars, he picked up one and started playing. Some members of Santana’s crew saw him, and during the band’s encore a roadie handed him a guitar and ushered him out of the wings.

“I’m standing in the middle of the stage in the spotlight, and Carlos Santana comes to me and goes, ‘What’s your name?’ Like, ‘Oh, Brian.’ And he walks me to the front. I got this guitar on. It’s live. And he says in the mic, ‘This is my friend Brian!’ They start playing Black Magic Woman, and I just remember kind of noodling along. I know I found the key, whatever it was, and was playing my child solos.”

Perhaps more remarkable, though, has been Baker’s ability to adapt his guitar playing to the dozen or so bands he’s performed and recorded with during his career, although he’s prone to deflect. “I basically have played the same way in every band, because I’m not that complicated,” he deadpans, brushing off the suggestion. “I don’t really know much more than what I do, which is minor pentatonic scales that sound like Gary Rossington. I mean, not even Allen Collins.”

Baker’s right hand earns his keep in Bad Religion, crunching speedy riffs with precision and dexterity, while his left guides the eight-bar eruptions of “ridiculous metal solos” he often plays between verses. It’s easy to overlook that he had the job backing Peter Buck in R.E.M. for their amped-up Monster tour in 1995. 

Before rehearsals started, though, Bad Religion called with an offer he couldn’t turn down: instead of being a hired-gun utility guy, he would be a full member of the band. The choice was easy, even if the call he had to make wasn’t.

“[It was] horrible because I love R.E.M.,” he says. “They were totally cool about it, and I found the guy that they wound up taking. It was cool. It worked out well for everybody.”

Baker grew up worshipping primal players like Angus and Malcolm Young of AC/DC after being weaned on the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. As a teenager in 1980, hard rock coexisted with punk, at least in the insular Washington, D.C., scene. It wasn’t uncommon to listen to Van Halen and punk rockers like Discharge back to back. 

The range of styles he grew up on informed the melodic tendencies he brought to hardcore punk in Dag Nasty, while his shit-kicking roots came to the fore in Junkyard. In the latter, Geffen paired Baker and the boys with A-list producers Tom Werman and Ed Stasium for albums in ’88 and ’90, respectively, and landed them the opening slot on a run of arenas and amphitheaters for a resurgent, reunion-era Lynyrd Skynyrd. Still, the stardom enjoyed by other L.A. bands eluded them.

“We were ugly [and] dirty. [Our music] was like Motörhead meets Skynyrd,” he says. “If you’re listening to the XM hair-metal stations and one of our songs drops in between Winger and Dokken, it sounds like a whole ’nother life form.”

One of Junkyard’s lasting contributions to hard rock was passing the baton to the Black Crowes by giving them their first national tour, a six-week run across the U.S. 

“It was fortunate that our audience didn’t realize how much better the Black Crowes were than we were until after the tour was over,” he laughs. “It wasn’t that classic ‘Guns N’ Roses blowing Aerosmith off the stage’ thing – we still held our own. Just time proved that the Robinson brothers were actually incredible songwriters, and that their band was real and they knew what they were doing.”

Stepping into an established band for the first time in Bad Religion, Baker staked out a spot somewhere between playing the songs note-for-note and improvising his own parts. “I refined my rhythm playing a little bit because they were stylistically a little different than I was,” he says. 

When it came to replicating guitar solos originally performed by Brett Gurewitz, whom Baker replaced but has since rejoined, he took a different approach. “If one had a melody line you could hum, I would attach myself to the melody line, but then I would go other places because Brett is really more of a stylist. He does a lot of noisy, artistic stuff that I was just not able to reproduce. So I would throw in my own, like, Billy Squier riff instead of whatever he was doing.”

While he’s reliably coy about his own guitar playing, Baker is enthusiastic about gear, and vintage gear in particular. On the road, he takes two of his three ’55 Gibson Les Paul Juniors, both of which were refretted and loaded with ceramic Seymour Duncan pickups, while he keeps a “clean” ’55 Junior and a ’57 Special at home for safekeeping. He’s not strictly a Gibson guy, though; he has Telecasters and Tele-type Nash T Series guitars in his collection, as well as Strats and Jazzmasters. 

“When you want a guitar to sound like a Jazzmaster, why not have a Jazzmaster? It’s a tool,” he says. “I’m not known for playing Rickenbackers, but I sure as shit have a 330 [and] a 360 12 [-string], because you have to, because that’s the sound.”

Baker says he was late to the collecting game and only started acquiring instruments a decade ago, after prices shot up when Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day traded his Fernandes S-style “Blue” for an LP Junior. 

“My friend Jonny [‘Two Bags’ Wickersham] in Social Distortion, I hate him,” he jokes. “He got a ’58 TV model for like $1,100, and he has a bunch of Juniors that were thousand-dollar guitars. He’s got a ’54 Goldtop that I think was like $1,200. You just want to kill people like that, because he’s hanging out in Social Distortion playing a $30,000 guitar. I love him.”

With amplifiers, though, Baker is monogamous. His ’89 horizontal-input Marshall JCM 800, which he bought new while in Junkyard, is still his go-to amp. Even after Chris DeMakes of Less Than Jake convinced him to get a pair of Kemper profiling amps to take on tour, he stuck by the sound of his JCM. “It’s just the perfect amp – it’s that good Marshall,” he says. “And that one profile is still the one thing that’s in each Kemper I have, and the only thing. I use just that profile of my own head.”

When he’s not banging out riffs in Bad Religion, Baker keeps his gear in working order playing with bands that aren’t so much side projects as they are punk-rock supergroups. Fake Names, which put out an eponymous album in 2020, pairs Baker with members of S.O.A., Embrace, Girls Against Boys and Soulside, fronted by Dennis Lyxzén of Refused; he also recently formed Beach Rats with members of Jersey punks Lifetime and the Bouncing Souls.

“[Fake Names] sounds a little like late-'70s U.K., but it’s not new wave, and it’s got some classic rock elements,” he says, before getting in one more jab of self-deprecation: “No one’s trying. There’s no focus. It’s just a bunch of guys who’ve known each other forever getting in a room and seeing what sticks. That’s how everything starts when you first start playing music. And it’s such a pleasure to be able to do it now at my advanced age.”

• Fake Names is out now via Epitaph.

Celebrated amp builder Howard Alexander Dumble, the man behind the revered Dumble guitar amps, has passed away.

The news was confirmed today (January 18) on Dumble’s official Instagram account in a statement that read, “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Howard.

“His work brought joy and inspiration to countless musicians and engineers,” it continued. “May he Rest in Peace.”

Dumble’s legacy will undoubtedly portray him as one of the most iconic amp builders of all time, having forged a career that saw him build amps for the likes of John Mayer, Robben Ford, Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton.

Noted for their ultra-responsive character – thought by many to be the most responsive amps on the market – and celebrated for the personal approach that influenced their design, Dumble amps are among some of the most highly regarded, sought-after amps of the modern era.

The Dumbleland, Overdrive Special and Steel String Singer are arguably Dumble’s three most well-known – and rarest – models, though amps such as the Phoenix and Dumbleator were also personally designed by the mythical gear maker at various points across his career.

Dumble started officially producing amps in the mid-’60s, and by the end of the ‘70s his client list boasted the likes of David Lindley, Jackson Browne, Lowell George and Bonnie Raitt. Dumble’s clientele would expand exponentially over the next decade, and soon featured Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robben Ford.

In fact, it was his friendship with Ford that ultimately inspired the creation of the two-channel Overdrive Special. Speaking to MusicRadar in 2017, Ford said Dumble “told me he’d got the idea to build the Overdrive Special from listening to me play through a '60s piggyback Fender Bassman and cabinet”.

“I’ve always been very proud of that,” he added. “I think it might have something to do with the really warm relationship we both have. I consider him a really close friend; I mean, like family.”

In recent times, his amps have been used by the likes of John Mayer and Kenny Wayne Shepherd, the latter of whom responded to the news of Dumble’s passing by saying, “He was a bona fide genius and I don’t use that term lightly."

Shepherd – who hides Dumble circuits in his Fender cabinets – spoke to Total Guitar last year about Howard's ingenuity, and said it was the designer's surgical approach to tone-tweaking that made Dumble amps so great.

"He has got these amplifiers built to specifically respond to the way that I play, so they effortlessly do the things that I am intending them to do," Shepherd observed. "Like, I want a certain sound to come from it and I want it to feedback on a certain note, it just does it instead of me really having to try and manipulate it out of the amp.

"And I think that’s why in the early days you had that whole thing about when [Dumble] built people amplifiers he wouldn’t want people to sell them because that amplifier was built around that specific person’s style of playing. It was intended for that guy to play it.

"I go to his house and I sit for hours and hours and he just listens to me play. And he plugs me in to a variety of amps and he listens to what I am trying to get out of the amplifier; he closes his eyes and hears the way that I am playing it, and he anticipates what it is I am trying to get the amp to do, and then he goes and builds an amp around that.”

Of his amp-making philosophy, Dumble once told Guitar Player in a rare interview, “I try to be flexible. I've always been aware that whatever I make has to be crafted with the best intentions. Never have anything shoddy. 

“Always make sure that it works and looks perfect,” he continued, “The actual techniques I use to get the sound that I go after have evolved extensively. It's a growing process. That's the toughest thing about staying with one thing. You're always thinking of new ways to do it."

Orianthi and Joe Bonamassa were among the first to pay tribute on social media in the wake of Dumble's passing.

“RIP Alexander Dumble,” wrote Orianthi. “[It] was an honor to know him. First time I met him was when I was 18. I was invited to his house a few years back and he showed me a lot of his collection, including the first amp he ever built that he let me play through. What a legend.” 

JoBo, meanwhile, posted "Rest in Peace Alexander", and called Dumble "a genius and a one of a kind".

Carlos Santana is one of a handful of guitarists whose style is so instantly recognizable that – if you hear just a handful of notes anywhere on the neck – there’s no doubt who’s playing them. 

He released his debut album, Santana, in 1969 and famously played at the Woodstock festival (where, some argue, he stole the show) that August. The following year, he cemented his rep with Abraxas, a now-classic album that stars three of his most popular songs – Oye Como Va, Samba Pa Ti and his cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Black Magic Woman – all of which have been staples of rock radio for the past 50-plus years.

As successful as Santana already was, however, his career shot to another level with the release of the star-studded Supernatural in 1999. Its worldwide crossover hit, Smooth, turned him into a household name. 

“It was certainly an experience to have that level of exposure,” he says. “I remember I was in a hotel in L.A., and Jeff Beck was there. He looked at me and said, ‘It must be really something to be Carlos Santana right now, huh?’” [Laughs]

Santana's new album, Blessings and Miracles, is certainly his most commercial album since Supernatural – and it, too, features its share of big-name guest stars, including Kirk Hammett, Chris Stapleton, Rob Thomas and Steve Winwood. It’s packed with radio-friendly, hook-filled tunes that cover the entire gamut of his range, from Hendrix-fired rockers to his patented Latino blues dance tracks such as Rumbalero.

“I’ve always really loved B.B. King and Peter Green, and I wanted to combine that with Tito Puente and Mongo Santamaria,” he says. “To have that Latin feel and underpin it with blues guitar is – for me – the best of both worlds combined, really. It’s a winning combination.”

Santana, a deeply spiritual man, is a strong believer in the powers of the universe and positivism. Taking nothing for granted in his career, the word he most often uses to express his happiness with his life, his art and the new album is “joy”.

The new album is called Blessings and Miracles, which is a very spiritual title. You’ve always been spiritual. Are you making a personal statement with this record?

“Yes. It’s about 'frequency' – the frequency that the shamans around the world understand, also the aborigines, the American Indians, shamans from Siberia, every kind of shaman. For clarity, someone like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page or myself, the thing with music for us is that it is a holy experience. 

“You can tell by the title of the songs that we deeply believe. It’s not show business or entertainment, with all due respect to that. This is like a mystical, meditative music to heal a twisted, crooked, infected world. I feel like we’re almost 'spirit doctors.' 

“I wake up to bring hope and courage to people, and I also wake up to receive the same thing. I love to hear all the music that I love, which is pure inspiration and joy. With this pandemic, people have become really thirsty for integrity and righteousness. There’s a lot of deception and corruption in the world.

“You need to go inside your heart to hear what’s really real in these times. It seems like TV news is only promoting fear and separation, and I find it to be very boring. I’m excited to hear the sound of birds, children and the stars at night twinkling. What I learned from this epidemic is to go even deeper into my heart.

How easy was it to put the album together, given COVID restrictions, etc.?

“There is someone who orchestrates everything that happens and guides me to the incredible artists who come and partake with me. I think this has been true of my whole career. I’m one of the few artists, for example, who has worked with all three of the Kings – B.B., Albert and Freddie. 

“Then you think of the artists from other genres, such as Paco de Lucia, John McLaughlin, Eric Clapton. It’s like it’s being orchestrated, and I just have to show up. So many people who I really admire! These days it is possible with technology to record with someone who can be on the other side of the world. That doesn’t really matter, because I feel like we are sharing some kind of frequency in the moment.”

Your career has spanned many decades, and therefore many changes in technology. Do you feel analog was always a better fit for music that’s as organic as yours?

“The principal is still the same, you know? You can cook with a microwave or a stove, and as long as the ingredients are right, it will taste good. The ultimate result is that it has to be delicious. [Laughs]”

You have your wife, Cindy, on drums, and two of your children – Salvador and Stella – also appear on the album. I imagine it’s pretty special to be able to share the creative process with them.

“It is a wonderful, delightful experience to share the record with my family. Stella sings Breathing Underwater beautifully, and Salvador adds so much to Rumbalero. It’s like whipped cream on top. [Laughs] I get so much extra joy from making music with my family – it is a very special experience.”

Are you always creating and stockpiling songs, or do you prefer to work to a deadline when you know you have a project coming up?

“I believe it’s important to constantly expand, expand and expand –by always creating and challenging myself. I’m looking forward, at the moment, to creating an album that is purely instrumental. Nothing will be geared up to radio or radio-friendly commerciality. 

“In a way, I’m picturing something like a soundtrack, perhaps in the vein of an Ennio Morricone score for an imaginary spaghetti western – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, that kind of thing, you know? 

“I talked about this with Eric Clapton and Derek Trucks, and that is something we will be working on together in the near future. We aren’t going to be concerned about songs; it will be more about moods.”

It’s interesting that your next album won’t be focused on radio airplay – since your new one is packed with commercial songs that are almost guaranteed airplay. It plays out like a collection of hit singles.

“Thank you for saying that. It is a blessing to be able to work with writers like Diane Warren and great singers such as Stevie Winwood. It’s a joy, a real joy. It’s so stimulating. It is wonderful to be able to present yourself as a multi-dimensional person that can cover everything pretty much from A to Z in music. 

“I can’t wait for people to hear what an amazing job my brother Stevie Winwood does on Whiter Shade of Pale. He also plays the organ on it, but what we did differently from the original is that there is a hint of African about it, and it is a very, very sexy version. [Laughs]”

What made you choose that song to cover?

“I just heard it in my head, you know? I was in Hyde Park in London with Eric Clapton and Stevie and I just heard it. I told Stevie about it to see if he had eyes to do something about it. I described what I was hearing and he heard what I heard; he understood exactly what I was trying to achieve.”

America for Sale – which features Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Death Angel’s Mark Osegueda – is a full-on burst of blistering rock. 

“It worked out by grace again. I think there is some kind of divine intelligence orchestrating for me to participate with these incredible artists. All I have to do is take a deep breath, be honest and sincere and play music that complements the artist I’m playing with. We really tried to push ourselves to the outer limits with the solos on that song, though.”

Peace Power – featuring Living Colour’s Corey Glover on vocals – will probably be a standout track for a lot of listeners. It channels the spirit of Jimi Hendrix and, again, showcases the high-energy rock side of your playing.

“You’re right; there is definitely something of the spirit of Jimi on that song, and Corey did a fantastic job. It was originally going to be Lenny Kravitz, but he couldn’t do it because of COVID. He was on an island and so was I, actually, in Hawaii, so we couldn’t connect. But my wife Cindy suggested I call Corey; of course, things turned out brilliantly in the end.”

The album covers a lot of different styles, and I guess rock fans will connect with America, Peace Power and Mother Yes, which also has the feel of Hendrix in the groove. In fact, the short piece at the end of the album, Ghost of Future Pull II, feels like Jimi’s Third Stone from the Sun.

“I’d love to do something in the future that is all rock-type material. I love rock music, you know? One of my favorite bands is AC/DC, and I am a huge Led Zeppelin fan, so I am really hoping I can do a pure rock album at some point. 

“I know as well that there is a huge appetite from fans for heavy rock songs with a lot of guitar to the fore, and that is something I would really enjoy doing – as a change of pace from what people perhaps expect me to do. I think people are thirsty for energy and high vibrations where people can ward off darkness and insecurities.”

I know you mentioned the notion of a soundtrack-like album coming up next. The track Santana Celebration sounds very much like a piece from a movie. It actually reminded me of Lalo Schifrin’s work, particularly, oddly enough, Enter the Dragon.

“You are absolutely correct. I love Lalo’s work; I like music that is very visual and multi-dimensional. I’d love to do an actual soundtrack in the future. I’m open to offers. [Laughs]”

On Joy, you have a huge tone on the opening notes. That lulls us into thinking more of the same is about to follow – but you suddenly shift into a reggae groove that takes the listener by surprise. Although, given your love of the genre, and Bob Marley in particular, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised?

“Yes, I love Bob’s music. Joy sums up everything about working on the record, and working with Chris Stapleton on vocals was a particularly joyful experience. We had the track partly prepared, but without lyrics and a vocalist, and we were discussing who could bring something special to the vocal. 

“When I did my last album, Africa Speaks, in 2019, I didn’t really care about having a hit single, but this time I wanted to get the songs on the radio. I asked my producer, who has really got his finger on the pulse of commercial radio at the moment, who would be cool for us to work with. 

“A few names were thrown out, and then Chris was suggested. That seemed to be the very thing I was looking for. We called up his manager to see if he would be interested in taking part and writing the song with us.

“Again, whenever you ask the universe, God, Jesus or whatever you want to call it will answer you and give you what you want. The universe will comply with your request. If you ask, you’re open, and if you’re ready then things will come to you. It’s not chance or luck or fortune; it’s grace. Grace is a very tangible component or element that can work for you and with you.”

Move reunites you with Rob Thomas, who sang on Smooth in 1999. Was that a conscious effort to reproduce some of that feel and magic?

“Pretty much like the Supernatural album, there was an element of putting different bits and pieces and different artists together. At the time that Move landed on my lap, Rob called me up and asked me to see if I thought I could put some guitar on the track. 

“As soon as I heard it, I thought, ‘Oh, yes.’ [Laughs] I heard the Smooth connection right away; it seemed to be such a natural, logical progression from that song to Move. I like to say it’s a song about awakening your molecules, igniting and activating yourself.”

When you’re collaborating with other artists, is there a lot of give and take, or will you have some fixed ideas that you might insist upon?

“Collaboration is pure joy for me. I like to just let things unfold in front of me and see where the spirit of the music takes me. 

“Once I’m ready to play, everything is always done in one take; I’m always so present in the moment of what I am playing that I can express everything in that one take. I learned that from so many great artists – nail it on the first take and make sure that’s the one.”

Much like B.B. King, you have such an instantly identifiable style and sound.  What’s the secret to finding your own style on guitar?

“If there is such a thing as a secret, I guess it would be to not think about what you are doing. Emotion, passion and feelings are what we all have, and if you keep yourself open, you can let these things express themselves through your playing. I grew up on Peter Green and B.B. King and, of course, those two players have very different individual styles. 

“The essence of that is that they let themselves honestly express what they were feeling through their instrument. B.B. King was originally the template for how I wanted to create my voice on the guitar, but after that period that players go through when they try to sound like their heroes, they have to find out who they are. I am very grateful that I’ve found something that is uniquely my own style.”

When you’re playing around the house or whatever, what kind of things do you play? Do you ever explore styles you’re not familiar with?

“When I was preparing to record this album, I spent a lot of time listening to Lady Soul lines, the horn parts, the keyboard parts, I learned every one of them. Eric Clapton does an incredible solo on Good to Me As I Am to You. 

“If you want to learn how to play the guitar and find something new, maybe make it sound like a voice, take your fingers for a walk with Aretha Franklin. [Laughs] I really just focus on what I’m going to need for the stage or the studio when I’m playing at home, I guess.”

You’ve been a PRS Guitars player for many years, with a number of signature models. Are the PRS guitars you play off-the-shelf instruments, or are they customized?

“You know, not so long ago I was actually playing a Stratocaster, but I got that out of my system and I’m back now with Paul Reed Smith. I use some of the signature guitars. They maybe tweak them a little here or there for my preferences, but they are basically the same guitar. 

“Someone like Eric or Jeff or Stevie Ray, we can grab any guitar and we will sound good. It’s you – it’s not even the guitar anymore. I don’t deceive myself into thinking, ‘Without this guitar, I won’t sound good.’ It’s you – you are the gift God gave you. We all have preferences in the instruments we choose, but in all honesty, you are the sound.”

Amp-wise, is it still Mesa/Boogie for you?

“I research sound all the time. I’ve been using Dumble amplifiers as well, plus Paul Reed Smith has just designed a new amplifier. I tried it last week and it sounds really, really good. Like an artist, you’re always looking for different brushes and pencils. 

“Expand and expand, don’t be predictable, always find ways to make something new happen, you know? I’ve never been much of an effects fan, mainly just the wah. Believe it or not, I was in an elevator with Miles Davis and he asked me [does a spot-on impression of Davis’ husky voice], ‘Hey, you got a wah-wah pedal?’ I said, ‘No.’ And he says, ‘I got one for my trumpet. You’ve got to get yourself a freakin’ wah-wah pedal.’ I laughed and said, ‘OK, Miles. That was what got me to buy my first wah pedal.”

You compiled Sacred Sources, Vol. 1: Live Forever about 30 years ago, based on your archive of live recordings of SRV, Hendrix, Marley and Marvin Gaye. You said at the time that you were an avid collector of live recordings. Are you still as passionate about it?

“I am. I’m always looking for performances by Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley and particularly John Coltrane and Miles Davis in a live setting. It is easier to track down lost recordings with the aid of the internet than it used to be way back then, though. What I love about the internet is that when I wake up at 3 in the morning and can’t get to sleep, I can go hunting for music from Africa, or the people that I love, or whatever.”

Samba Pa Ti seems to be played on radio stations across the world nearly every day. I wonder, after 50 years, when you hear it, do you hear parts you wish you’d done differently?

“Your intuition is incredible, because I was just thinking about that song a short while ago, because it was the first song I ever heard on the radio by Santana, and it was like looking at myself as another person. 

“I was remembering a conversation I had with Eric Clapton when we were playing with Earth Wind & Fire in ’75. He said, ‘Hey, Carlos. When you did Samba Pa Ti, did it just come out all at once as one continuous piece of music?” And I said, ‘Yeah, Eric.’ [Laughs] I did record it in one take without any overdubs or anything, and to hear Eric Clapton express admiration was a very special moment. 

“It’s also cool to know that so many women got pregnant to the soundtrack of that song. [Laughs] What can I tell you? It never gets old. When a song comes to you as fully formed as that, it makes you believe there is a higher power out there that is giving us the music.” 

Given the many years you’ve been playing, have you ever experienced any painful hand problems? I know quite a few of your contemporaries have had some struggles in recent years, including Robby Krieger and John McLaughlin.

“No, not at all. By the grace of God, I don’t have any kind of ‘itis.’ No arthritis, tendonitis, meningitis. ‘Itis’ and Santana don’t get along, so I just dismiss them. [Laughs] I say go bother somebody else – don’t bother me!” 

• Blessings and Miracles is out now via Starfaith.

Carlos Santana has been forced to cancel his eight-show residency at Las Vegas’ House Of Blues following an “unscheduled heart procedure”.

Speaking in a video message posted to YouTube, the PRS-wielding legend addressed “rumors” that had been “flying around” regarding his health, and said he had been taken to hospital by wife/bandmate Cindy Blackman Santana after experiencing chest discomfort.

“Just wanted to share with you some clarity with specificity what’s been going on with my physicality,” Santana said. “There’s been rumors flying around here and there about this and that. 

“So, I’m just here to crystallize and make it clear,” he continued. “Last Saturday I had an incident where I asked my wife Cindy to take me to hospital because I had this thing happening in my chest.

“So, when we went there we found out that I needed to take care of it. So I am, and so I’m going to be taking time out for a little bit to make sure I replenish and I rest and catch up with my health, so that when I play for you I would play that way I’m used to and give you 150 per cent.

“I wouldn’t show up unless I can do that. So other than that, I hope you and your family are enjoying good health, peace of mind, and joy. I know I will. Thank you for being a fan, and your oneness and your caring.”

Santana’s management company, Universal Tone Management, issued a statement, with president Michael Vrionis revealing Santana had undergone an “unscheduled heart procedure”.

“Carlos is doing fantastic and is anxious to be back on stage soon,” said Vrionis. “He profoundly regrets that this speed bump necessitated the cancellation of his upcoming performances.”

The 74-year-old was due to perform eight shows this month at the House of Blues, Mandala Bay. His management company has said Santana hopes to return to the stage in the new year.

It’s been a hectic year for Santana, who recently released Blessings and Miracles, which featured an all-star cast of guest collaborators.

Names on the A-list roster include Kirk Hammett, Steve Winwood, Rob Thomas, Chris Stapleton and Ally Brooke – many of whom he collaborated with virtually and never even met in person.

“I’m very grateful [for Blessings and Miracles],” Santana said in a new interview with Guitarist. “It was divine intelligence that orchestrated all of these wonderful artists, writers and musicians to align themselves to be part of my life. 

“It’s pretty crazy because about 60 per cent of them, I have yet to meet in person,” he added. “We did a lot of it by Zoom. But once you close your eyes and use your imagination, they’re right next to you anyway.”

As an interviewee, Carlos Santana operates on a higher plane. Not for him the oily talk of truss rods and trim pots, nor analysis of such earthly tangibles as scales and modes. 

For the famously spiritual Mexican guitar god, music is a thunderbolt from the cosmos, the guitar a magical lightning rod, and his fingers the emissaries of some higher power. 

He can’t explain how he does it, other than via some of the most extravagant metaphors ever uttered by a rock star. “Every day, when I play guitar,” he muses, “I’m a kid with a first-class ticket to Disneyland, and I can go on any ride I want.”

As one of the star turns at 1969’s Woodstock festival, Santana is a glorious product of those peace-and-love times. But that’s not to say the 74 year old hasn’t moved with them. 

Following three decades of genre-busting, jazz-tinged output, Santana exploded into the mainstream with 1999’s all-star Supernatural album, and this year’s Blessings and Miracles is a sequel of sorts, corralling everyone from Kirk Hammett to Steve Winwood. “What message do I want to spread with this album?” ponders Santana. “Hope and courage.”

Are you pleased with Blessings and Miracles?

“Yes, I’m very grateful. It was divine intelligence that orchestrated all of these wonderful artists, writers and musicians to align themselves to be part of my life. It’s pretty crazy because about 60 per cent of them, I have yet to meet in person. We did a lot of it by Zoom. But once you close your eyes and use your imagination, they’re right next to you anyway.”

What emotions do you feel when you walk into the studio to play guitar?

“It’s stimulating. Intoxicating. Inspiring. Elevating. I don’t find it a challenge any more. It’s very natural to trust in the unpredictable and know that what you’re bringing to the song will complement it.”

Do you use a framework or fly by the seat of your pants?

“Yeah, by the seat of my pants. Miles Davis used to say, ‘Play like you don’t know how to play.’ Purity and innocence are the best components for any kind of music.”

The guitar instrumental Santana Celebration is like an explosion. What emotions were going through you while recording that?

“Woodstock, Tito Puente, BB King… I feel all of them on that track. A track like that, you just have to do it on the spot. Say your piece. I feel it is important to tell my mind to shut up. Because the mind always wants to criticise and analyse everything. 

“I don’t want to give my mind any room for disturbing what I’m doing. When you create a CD like Abraxas [1970], Supernatural [1999] or Blessings and Miracles, literally, it’s like giving birth to a baby. And you don’t want your mind to disturb the baby. So you tell it to get the hell out of the room.”

It takes balls to improvise like that, doesn’t it?

“Well, take someone like John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker. Look at the way they improvise. It makes you feel like you should venture into discovering something you also have in you: the language of light that can bring clarity to darkness. You have to trust that your fingers will know what to do, where to do it, how to do it, with how much feeling, passion and emotion.”

How about your guitar work on the first single, Move, with Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas? 

“I felt like a child going on a waterslide. Some people get in trouble because they have a mother who doesn’t like to clean the floor after you splash water out of the bath. To me, it’s like, I keep splashing – and it’s okay. Rob trusts me. I trust him. We’re like surfers, waiting for the seventh wave.”

Do you think about things like scales and modes?

“No, I left all that in junior high school. A friend of mine, he says, ‘Some people use pentatonics. Some people use hair tonic. I drink gin and tonic…’”

What are your memories of recording America For Sale with Kirk Hammett?

“That one, we did play in the same room. Kirk was stood right next to me, and I said the same thing to him that I said to Eric Clapton once: ‘Look, man, we don’t need to do the duelling banjos thing. Why don’t we just have a nice conversation?’ Kirk has a vast vocabulary as a guitar player and gunslinger. And he’s in the most important band in the world.”

What’s the secret to collaborating successfully with another guitarist?

“I utilise fear as fuel. Not to scare me but to dare me.”

Did Kirk bring along the Greeny Les Paul?

“Yes, he did – and he let me touch it. It was like the first day I ever touched it. Because when Peter Green was getting ready to leave Fleetwood Mac, he would catch a plane, show up at a Santana concert, hang out with us – and I would invite him to play. So he let me touch Greeny then, too. And it was like, ‘Whoa.’ It’s like the Holy Grail, or Merlin’s magic wand.”

Did it hit you hard when we lost Peter?

“Yes. He was my brother, my friend. I played Peter Green every night when I played Black Magic Woman. I remember the first time I ever played that song, in a Frisco parking lot, when we were doing a soundcheck. I said to myself, ‘Okay, this is Peter Green’s song, but I have to reach out to Wes Montgomery and Otis Rush, and play that.’”

What guitars did you use to record Blessings and Miracles?

“I used my gold Paul Reed [Smith] single-cut [gold-leaf Private Stock model]. Under any weather or any condition, that guitar delivers whatever is needed. I don’t know what pickups I’ve got in there; I’ll have to ask Paul Reed. All I know is that they sound really good. 

“This is the first album that I did not use Mesa/Boogie amplifiers on. We have parted ways. I used Dumble amplifiers, the 100-watt Overdrive Reverb. Dumble is the sound of flesh against flesh. I also used the Bludotone 100-watt Universal Tone: it’s an amplifier that’s made in Colorado. I try a lot of different things, but I always go back to just my fingers, a Cry Baby wah-wah and the amplifier.” 

How has the design of your PRS signature evolved since the 90s? 

“Paul Reed is very committed, like I am, to expand and grow and glow. Y’know, don’t be stuck with just one thing. I love that he has a pursuit for developing the way the guitar looks but especially the way it sounds. So he’s working with pickups to make it sing, like a violin with the longest bow. It’s a natural development. The guitar evolves like a spirit. I am always looking for a guitar tone that sounds bigger than life.” 

The SE models have been successful, too…

“It took me almost 20 years to convince him to make student models. The guitars that I play – young people in high school, they can’t afford them, unless they have rich parents. And they have become a very profitable and lucrative endeavour. 

“I take the student models on the road. Because I don’t want to take the crème de la crème. They have earned the right to stay in a special place, here in our vault. So I take a student model because they’re very reliable. They stay in tune and they sound great.”

Do you think you could you make a $100 guitar sound like you?

“Absolutely. I can make any guitar sound like me.”

Have you found you’ve ever been tempted by other guitars?

“For five or seven years, I played a Strat a lot – not so much on stage but in the studio. I recorded three or four albums just with a Stratocaster. That was the last 10 years, until this album, which is purely Paul Reed, in the studio and on stage. But before that, I was using this funky old Strat I found in Chicago. A really beat-up one. I wanted to get a gnarly, scratchy, cheap-guitar sound. But I’m done with that.”

What’s happened to your old SG? 

“I’m sorry to tell you I threw it against a brick wall and it became a bunch of toothpicks. Because it wouldn’t stay in tune. That’s why, at Woodstock, I said that I was wrestling a snake – because the SG wouldn’t stay in tune.”

You once said rock ’n’ roll is a swimming pool, jazz is an ocean and you hang out on a lake: is that still how you view it?

“Pretty much, yes. An ocean is Charlie Parker, Coltrane, Miles, Wayne Shorter and John McLaughlin. It’s a different form of supreme improvisation.”

And do you feel like you can you drop into that world quite naturally?

“Y’know, what comes more naturally to me is making a melody come true.”

Could you ever go in the other direction – play with a punk band, say?

“Oh, yes. Absolutely. I would love to do an album that’s just heavy metal. Because I love AC/DC, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix. The original Fleetwood Mac, with The Green Manalishi and Oh Well – that was heavy metal before heavy metal.”

Do you ever worry we’ll eventually run out of original guitar parts?

“No, I don’t – because it’s a language that will always develop, like living water. I think it was Tony Bennett that said, ‘If you take from one person, it’s called stealing. But if you take from many, it’s called research.’”

Do you feel your influence on the guitar scene?

“I was kind of curious, so I looked, and there’s, like, 70 Santana tribute bands, all over the world. There’s people who make their living playing Santana music. I’ve watched them, here and there.”

What advice would you give a Santana tribute band?

“I would just say, ‘You were born with your own fingerprints. You were born with your own sound, uniqueness, authenticity, individuality. I’m grateful and it’s a compliment that you play my music. But I would invite you to find your own because you’re going to be happiest when you create music that is totally you, by you.’”

Which guitarists are you listening to lately?

“What really excites me lately is Sonny Sharrock. I love how he became a living hurricane and tornado. He can play a melody, but you know that he’s just going to burn, on a whole other level that’s between Jimi Hendrix and Coltrane. I love Gábor Szabó – he was a Gypsy guitar player from Budapest. 

“At home, I put on my guitar and I take my fingers for a walk with Gábor Szabó. I play a lot of Marvin Gaye, too. Why? Because they’re really sexy guys. Their whole thing is romance and S.E.X. And I need that in my life. I need to have romance and sex to keep me feeling young and vibrant.” 

Do you think guitarists can keep evolving – or do you think you reach a certain point where you’re as good as you’ll ever be?

“They’re both one. You’ll be as good as you’ll ever be every time you get out of the way and let your spirit play. But there’s always room for more Mona Lisas, more Picassos, more Stravinskys. There’s always room to discover the unknown and unpredictable.”

Are there any guitar techniques you’d still like to perfect?

“I don’t want to perfect a technique. I’d rather develop innocence and purity.” 

Do you think the music and messages of the 60s still resonate today?

“Yes. When I close my eyes and I play, I always think of The Doors, which is one of my favourite bands. I love The Doors more than anyone or anything. There’s something about The Doors and Light My Fire and Robbie Krieger… I guess he was listening to Ali Akbar Khan and also Ravi Shankar. But The Doors is the ultimate garage band.” 

Does music still have the power to make the world a better place?

“Yes, absolutely. If they played more music by The Doors or John Coltrane in elevators, shopping malls, radio. Music reminds people that we are divine. No matter what your mind says or what the media says. A ‘media mind’ is not necessarily good for you. Sometimes you turn off the TV and you can hear the clouds moving, the birds chirping, children laughing.”

When you listen back to 1969’s self-titled debut album, can you recognise yourself as a player?

“The last time I saw my friend Joe Cocker, I said to him, ‘Hey Joe! We used to be charcoal and now we’re diamonds.’ He looked at me – he was putting on his pants – and he goes, ‘Did you just come up with that?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ I love Joe Cocker, and I love what we did with Little Wing. But anyway, he agreed, and when I listen to that music from ’68 or ’69, it’s kind of like charcoal, but it has become more like diamonds now.”

Do you have any favourite memories of that debut album?

“It was funny to be, one minute, in high school and then, next minute, we’re in the studio, and then we’re hanging around Miles and Herbie, and then it’s Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix. It was a little daunting to go from washing dishes and dreaming you could be onstage with BB King and Peter Frampton. And then – you are!”

You partnered with John McLaughlin on 1973’s Love Devotion Surrender. Would you ever consider working with him again? 

“Yes. We were talking about it. I think we made a lot of people angry with that album. Which is a good thing. When you make someone angry, at least they’re paying attention. They all jumped onboard 20 or 30 years later, but when they first heard that album, it was like, ‘How dare you?’ And I was like, ‘That’s a good word. Because we dare.’”

Why do you think there was criticism of that album?

“Because people who are intellectually living in their minds, they couldn’t conceive of John McLaughlin and I desecrating John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. But I knew it was great because the one person that meant the most was Alice Coltrane – and she loved it.”

How have you coped mentally with the lockdown?

“I was doing time in paradise. Some people do time in San Quentin or some kind of correctional institution. I was in Kauai. So my lifestyle was rainbows and waterfalls. Beauty and grace. And being with my wife, Cindy, we’ve learned to crystallise our intentions, motives and purpose, and we have become better human beings. More spiritual, powerful warriors.”

Did you find yourself reaching for the guitar during lockdown?

“I put it away – knowing that any time I grabbed it, I could still find the G spot.”

Were you worried about catching Covid? 

“No. I don’t think about it. I did take the shot, the injection. But I don’t succumb to fear and worry. I trust that when the time comes for me to transcend into another realm, I will. But right now, I got some things to do, so Coronavirus, fear and worry – I dismiss them.”

Finally, would you ever take LSD again to see how it affects your guitar playing?

“You got some…?”

• Blessings and Miracles is out now via BMG.

It’s been the year of collaborations thus far for Carlos Santana, who recently teamed up with a number of electric guitar players for his most recent album, Blessings and Miracles, which features Chris Stapleton, Steve Winwood, Kirk Hammett and more.

If his recent comments are anything to go by, though, the 15-track album – which also reserved guest spots for Rob Thomas, American Authors, Ally Brooke, Diane Warren, Mark Osegueda and Avi Snow – is only the start of Santana’s plans. To continue his collaborative form, the PRS-playing guitar powerhouse has now teased an instrumental project with Eric Clapton and Derek Trucks.

And, judging by what’s been hinted at, it could be one of Santana’s most intriguing – and certainly most eclectic – offerings to date.

Santana spilled some tentative details in this month’s holiday issue of Guitar World, teasing the trio have a very particular sonic niche they hope to occupy.

When asked about his future projects, Santana commented, “I believe it’s important to constantly expand, expand and expand – by always creating and challenging myself. I’m looking forward, at the moment, to creating an album that is purely instrumental.

“Nothing will be geared up to radio or radio-friendly commerciality,” he continued. “In a way, I’m picturing something like a soundtrack, perhaps in the vein of an Ennio Morricone score for an imaginary spaghetti western – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, that kind of thing, you know? 

“I talked about this with Eric Clapton and Derek Trucks, and that is something we will be working on together in the near future. We aren’t going to be concerned about songs; it will be more about moods.”

No other details were given, though if the final product sounds anything like we imagine, count us in.

Elsewhere in the interview, Santana touched upon the philosophy and secrets behind his trademark tone, commenting, “If there is such a thing as a secret, I guess it would be to not think about what you are doing.”

Name-dropping Peter Green and B.B. King as the inspirations behind his approach, he continued, “Emotion, passion and feelings are what we all have, and if you keep yourself open, you can let these things express themselves through your playing. I grew up on Peter Green and B.B. King and, of course, those two players have very different individual styles. 

“The essence of that is that they let themselves honestly express what they were feeling through their instrument. B.B. King was originally the template for how I wanted to create my voice on the guitar, but after that period that players go through when they try to sound like their heroes, they have to find out who they are. 

“I am very grateful that I’ve found something that is uniquely my own style.”

Blessings and Miracles, Santana’s 26th studio LP and his first-ever to be recorded without the aid of a Mesa/Boogie amp, was released on October 15 and is available now via BMG.

Head over to Magazines Direct to scoop the year-end legends issue of Guitar World, featuring the full Santana interview, a cover feature with The Edge and a previously unpublished conversation with the Cramps’ Poison Ivy.

Carlos Santana’s tone is usually associated with two things: a PRS electric guitar and Mesa/Boogie guitar amp. Over his career, the tried-and-trusted combination has been the rock-solid foundation behind Santana’s sound, and is at the heart of some of his most famous tracks.

For his recently released effort, however, Santana reinvented his own sonic wheel. Rather than opting for his stalwart set-up once more, he instead swapped out his revered Mesa/Boogie for a different selection of amps altogether.

As such, Blessings and Miracles marks the first-time ever that Santana has entered a studio to track an album without the aid of his trusted Mesa/Boogie. 

Perhaps even more notably, it marks a potential end to Santana’s longstanding relationship with the company, which began back in the '60s when Randall Smith started developing products in his Prune Music store. In fact, legend has it that it was Santana who initially named the amp in the first place.

According to popular lore, Santana, after testing one of Smith’s designs, exclaimed, “That little thing really boogies!” thus giving birth to the Mesa/Boogie name.

Speaking in the November issue of Guitarist, Santana discussed his recent gear change, revealing, “This is the first album that I did not use Mesa/Boogie amplifiers on. We have parted ways.

“I used Dumble amplifiers, the 100-watt Overdrive Reverb,” he continued. “Dumble is the sound of flesh against flesh. I also used the Bludotone 100-watt Universal Tone: it’s an amplifier that’s made in Colorado.

“I try a lot of different things, but I always go back to just my fingers, a Cry Baby wah-wah and the amplifier.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Santana discussed the guitars that made it onto the album, saying he only used his “gold Paul Reed [Smith] single-cut [gold-leaf Private Stock model]” that always “delivers whatever is needed”.

“I don’t know what pickups I’ve got in there,” he admitted. “I’ll have to ask Paul Reed. All I know is that they sound really good.”

And, when quizzed about whether he’s ever had his head turned by an electric guitar that wasn’t a PRS, Santana admitted he once had a brief fling with the Fender Stratocaster, saying, “For five or seven years, I played a Strat a lot – not so much on stage but in the studio.

“I recorded three or four albums with just a Stratocaster,” he revealed. “That was the last 10 years, until this album, which is purely Paul Reed, in the studio and on the stage. But, before that, I was using this funky old Strat I found in Chicago. A really beat-up one. I wanted to get a gnarly, scratchy, cheap-guitar sound. But I’m done with that.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest copy of Guitarist, which features an exploration of Jimi Hendrix’s surviving Strats, a breakdown of John Mayer’s Sob Rock tones and the full interview with Carlos Santana.

For a brief period in early 1973, the Record Plant in Los Angeles was the funkiest place in the universe. Stevie Wonder was recording his landmark Innervisions album in one studio, while across the hall the Isley Brothers were making the funk-rock masterpiece 3+3.

The Isleys’ album is best known for the single That Lady, a remake of the group’s 1964 single Who’s That Lady? modernized, rocked up and funkified by Ernie Isley’s blistering phase-shifted fuzz guitar solos. 

The lead guitar sounded like a psychedelic fusion of Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana, but with a distinctive voice that was all Ernie Isley. The new version was a huge hit single for the band, reaching Number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Number 21 on Billboard’s 1973 year-end chart. 

Guitarists who heard the song had another question: what’s that sound? For years the prevailing argument circulating on the internet was that Ernie plugged his Strat into a Roland Jet Phaser to generate that glorious phased fuzz lead tone, but that’s impossible – unless he also had a time machine as Roland didn’t introduce the Jet Phaser until 1975.

The actual answer was revealed long before that in a feature article on Ernie that appeared in the September 1981 issue of Guitar Player, which mentions his use of an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff fuzz and a Maestro phase shifter. Isley later revealed that his amp on the song was a Fender Twin Reverb.

Ernie’s Strat was a black 1971 model, which he purchased brand new at Manny’s in New York City on Christmas Eve with a blank check that his brother Ronald gave him. While Ernie’s phased fuzz lead track fully deserves the acclaim it has earned over the years, take a closer listen to his clean rhythm part, which features tantalizingly tasty chordal work and percussive Cry Baby wah accents. 

Ernie learned those wah tricks from the master, Charles Pitts, who recorded the legendary wah guitar part on Theme from Shaft in 1971. 

In addition to That Lady, the 3+3 album features Ernie’s stylish fuzz guitar solos on several other tracks: What It Comes Down To, Sunshine Go Away Today and an awesome cover of Seals and Crofts’ Summer Breeze. The album is an essential funk-rock classic that every guitarist who wants the funk must hear.

Get the sound, cheap

Squier Classic Vibe '70s Strat

Fender Mustang LT50

Electro-Harmonix Ram’s Head Big Muff

Virtuoso Heptode phase shifter

Dunlop GCB95 Cry Baby

TONE TIP: Use a clean amp setting that emphasizes treble to get ideal fuzz cut and rhythm sheen. The Virtuoso pedal has a boutique price, but it nails the elusive, swirling Maestro phase-shift effect.

If you say the name Carlos Santana to anyone passing by on the street, not only will they almost invariably know who you’re talking about, but they’ll also likely have their own fond memory of the prolific guitar player.

Whether that personal history began with early Santana hits like Black Magic Woman or Oye Como Va, or the bond was born later in the '90s with hits like Smooth, Santana is a legend due to his bright energy and wailing notes from his talented fingers. 

Santana has a new 15-track album out this month called Blessings and Miracles, on which he recruited artists like Kirk Hammett, Chris Stapleton, Diane Warren and old friend Rob Thomas.

We caught up with the Mexican-born 74-year-old guitar legend to ask him about the new record, how he works with his cadre of famous singers, and what he remembers from the original Woodstock…

You played violin first at five years old and your father was a mariachi musician. You also worked as a busboy early on in your life – and I’ve worked in restaurants for many years. So, may I ask, how did these influence your life and entry to playing the guitar?

“Thank you for asking that question. It’s all part of learning how to articulate impeccable integrity, whether bussing dishes, washing dishes, peeling potatoes, cleaning the yard, all of that. And also playing the violin in such a way that I was trying to make my father happy. Because he’s the one that wanted me to play the violin.”

Working in restaurants, you're often exposed to lots of music. Did you go after your shift to find the best nightclub or anything like that?

“No, it actually was the jukebox at Tic Tock’s. Now it’s a parking lot, but it used to be a Tic Tock burger joint, fast food, across the street from where the [San Francisco] Giants play now. 

“And the jukebox was everything for me, because it played everything from King Curtis to John Lee Hooker. I mean, I put so much money in that jukebox like crazy because I had to play music or I would go crazy just washing dishes and peeling potatoes and just doing that kind of menial job.”

How does your heritage influence the way you think about the guitar? You played a lot early on in Tijuana and then San Francisco, of course. But how much do your parents, where you’re from and what’s in your blood influence the way you think about the instrument?

“I pretty much became like a multi-dimensional sponge. Even at that age in ’57, ’58, ’59, ’60 and all the way to ’63, once I got into Haight-Ashbury in ’64, that was different, but the whole time I still knew what would go – like Miles Davis would say – some would go into my body and some things would not. So, like John Lee Hooker would go into my body, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, BB King, Little Richard, Chuck Berry. Elvis Presley would not.

“There was certain music – it wasn’t the color, it was just the sound. If a sound is not what I need, which is mufti-dimensional via Africa, then my body would reject it. I love Willie Nelson, I love Merle Haggard, I love Chris Stapleton, but there is certain music that my body would just not allow it.”

What was it like for you to discover the guitar? Were there almost cartoonish lights emanating from it like angels on high; was it mystical, holy? Or did that type of relationship grow over time?

“It’s everything that you said plus flying saucers, seeing the first White Whale like Moby Dick and at the same time discovering the S.O., the spiritual orgasm. So, all of that.

“Because it’s an assault on the senses to hear the first electric guitar, especially from this guy [I first heard] who was articulating already like BB King and Lonny Mack. He had that plang thing tone like Peter Green, BB King and Lonny Mack. So, me being so young, that sound was and is the gateway to my eternity.”

On your new record, tracks like Santana Celebration and Move are filled with so much joy. How do you bring such big energy and brightness to your music through the guitar?

“It’s very easy, you know. When I first heard this song, which is called Soul Fiesta, it’s actually Manu Dibango’s song, the same person who did mama-say mama-sa mama-ko-sa, anyway, as soon as I heard it I said, ‘Oh, he likes Santana.’ 

“Because it sounds like Soul Sacrifice. So, I took a song from him that he took from us. And the majority of the album, for me, is built with two words: enthusiasm and exhilaration. 

“I call it high energy. When you have enthusiasm, you have a lot of energy. People who are boring, pathetic, pitiful and predictable, they have no energy. There’s no enthusiasm in there. I’m not trying to put anybody down. I’m just saying there’s no energy in there.”

What was it like to work with Kirk Hammett? Are you a Metallica fan?

“Yeah, this is our second time – we did another song on [Santana’s album], Shaman, with Kirk Hammett and a slide player, Robert Randolph.”

“So, it’s always great. Kirk Hammett and I are brothers, we go back. Who isn’t a Metallica fan, you know? I love Metallica, I love AC/DC, Led Zeppelin. And Peter Green when he did [the songs], The Green Manalishi, and Oh Well, and all that, that’s the first heavy metal, you know?

“Peter Green before Led Zeppelin and then later on, of course, AC/DC. What I like about that energy is that it’s very, very raw and very vibrant. There’s a reason why Metallica is the premiere number one band in the world.”

You’ve worked with a lot of different vocalists over the years, from Rob Thomas to Chris Stapleton. How do you approach meshing with a new vocalist on a particular song?

“Well, I don’t think about it. It just shows up. Like, for example, if I say to you with specificity and clarity, this album was created out of pursuing and submitting a request to get back on the radio. So, I had a think-tank meeting at our office with everybody around me and I said, ‘I want to get back on the radio. Tell me names of people who have their finger on the pulse proverbially.’

“And so they gave me a lot of names and Chris Stapleton was one of them. So, I said, why don’t we call his manager and find out if Chris Stapleton would have eyes to create something for us, either write a song for us or with us. What I’m trying to tell you is that divine intelligence orchestrated this all to happen.

“Some things I went after and some things went after me. Like Dianne Warren, she sought me to see if I wanted to play on one of her songs. And she liked so much what I did that she sent me another one. So, with divine intelligence, again, you just submit your request.

“This is a good interview for aspiring musicians, not just guitar players. Believe and achieve. Submit your request ‘prayer’ and trust that God, Sweet Baby Jesus, whatever the name, Buddha, Krishna, Allah, Rama, universe will give it to you. 

“You just have to be diligent with intense intentionality and trust – rejoice like you’re receiving it, even though you’ll be receiving it like six months from now. But rejoice knowing what it feels like already and you’re halfway there, more than halfway there.”

Black Magic Woman was the song I first heard from you when I was about six years old. It’s such a great rendition; it’s in my soul. What are your memories of that track and the solo you played?

“The first thing I think of when I hear the song Black Magic Woman from Peter Green or myself, I think of one person and one thing only, and that is Otis Rush. [Sings] ‘All your love, pretty baby, got a Black Magic…’ Same thing. Peter Green got it from Otis Rush and I got it from Peter Green. But I added, when Gregg Rollie brought the song, we were in a parking lot in Fresno, doing a soundcheck. 

“And Gregg brought the song and I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve heard a lot of Peter Green but I haven’t heard this song!’ So, when it came time for me to do my solo, put my guitar on it, at that time, I already had a portfolio, which is like a Rolodex of names and emotions. 

“So, I put some Peter Green in there with some Wes Montgomery: octaves. You know how Wes Montgomery plays with octaves? [Sings] ‘Bee-doo-doo-doo.’ Octaves. And it fit perfectly.”

Do you think about Woodstock at all, or is it something that’s water under the bridge? 

“No, no. What I think of is ardent, intense prayer. God, baby, please, please, please, please God help me! I’m in front of 100,000-people-plus and I am totally in outer space because Jerry Garcia turned me onto mushrooms, ayahuasca, peyote or mescaline, whatever it was it was kind of like LCD but not a pill or a capsule, more like herbs. And so when I took it I didn’t realize that they would invite us to play, like, really, really soon. 

“They told me – I said, ‘Jerry, what time are you guys going to play?’ And he said, ‘You’re supposed to go on two bands after us and we’re not going on until, like 12:30 at night.’ I was like, ‘Oh.’ And he said, ‘And would you like to try some of this?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah!’ So, I said, it’s only 12 o’clock in the afternoon. 12 o’clock at night-plus, ‘Oh yeah, sure, I’ll be fine by then!’ But that didn’t happen.”

“The next thing I know there’s a face saying, ‘If you don’t play right now, you’re not going to play at all! You got to go on stage, now!’ So, when I think of Woodstock, I don’t even think of the notes or the songs or the performance, I just think of holding on for dear life, to God’s coat, saying, ‘Please help me. Help me stay in tune and on time and I’ll never do this thing ever again!’ God helped me. But I didn’t keep my promise!”

People talk about the girl or guy that got away – is there a guitar that got away for you?

“Never.”

You held onto them all?

“Eh, until I found something that stays more in tune or it sounds better. I don’t invest emotionally in pretty much anything, other than my wife and my children.”

What about the passing of time? Do you think about aging? About time passing, aging or even death?

“Not at all. To me, all that stuff is an illusion. Gravity and time are an illusion. I’m only in the now. I’m only in the now, now, now, right now. And so I don’t have any Igor telling me, excuse the expression, Some stupid shit that I don’t need to accept. I have my light, my spirit and my soul and my heart saying, 'Go for it, it’s just now!' Dive in into the unknown and unpredictability. 

“I catch myself here and there once in a while in front of the mirror when I walk around and I see myself walking a little different and I go, ‘Hey, hey, hey! Walk differently! Don’t walk like a freaking old tired camel!’ I scream at me. And then I’m like, 'Oh!' And then for the next three days I straighten up and walk differently. 

“I command my energy to behave differently. You can actually do that: you can program yourself, your light, your spirit, your soul, your heart can tell your mind and your ego, ‘Straighten up and fly right.’”

What do you love most about music and, more specifically, the music you make with the guitar today?

“Thank you. What I love the most about music is that it’s one of the most incredible gifts from God to humans. Because it comes straight from God through us for the people and you can see immediately you rearrange molecular structure and also you can alter their destiny. I’m not presuming, I’m just telling you the truth.

“Very few musicians – all of them should, but only very few actually do it, like Coltrane or Bob Marley, those musicians – when you listen to them, they change your destiny forever. They dare you to look at the grand design and accept your divinity and create miracles and blessings.

“The guitar I love the best because if you just look at the shape of it, that’s all I need to tell you.”

Thank you, Carlos. It’s a real pleasure to speak with you.

“Stay splendiferous!”

• Carlos Santana's Blessings and Miracles is out now via Starfaith.

When Carlos Santana announced his upcoming album, Blessings and Miracles, he promised a collaborative tour de force featuring a huge array of electric guitar and acoustic guitar heavyweights.

So far, the PRS-wielding magician has joined forces with Steve Winwood for the soulful Whiter Shade of Pale, and rekindled his musical relationship with vocalist Rob Thomas for Move, their first single in 22 years since Smooth.

Now, Santana has once again delivered the goods, recruiting country singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton for the album’s latest groove-infused single, Joy.

As per the name, the track is a joy to listen to, and was composed by the pair with the intention of being a “healing force” to combat “fear in the world”. And how do the duo go about achieving this goal? Well, with some irresistible guitar licks, smooth grooves and dense vocal swirls, of course.

Much like the rest of Santana’s repertoire, there’s a bounty of guitar work to sink your teeth into. Punctuating Stapleton’s vocal passages with sporadic flourishes and lyric-mirroring motifs, Santana then gets an opportunity to unleash on a classically classy solo, supercharged with some pinpoint bends and high-octane licks.

Of the song, Santana said (via Rolling Stone), “I was very intrigued to work with Chris. We talked on the phone about the Covid situation and how there’s so much fear in the world, and I said, ‘We need to create music as a healing force. We must bring hope and courage and disinfect twisted minds infected with darkness.’ 

“That gave him the ammunition to write such incredible words," he continued. "Somewhere I said, 'Flying on the wings of angels,’ so it’s a collaboration. And what an incredible song it is. The choir in it – it’s like the Staple Singers.”

Joy is the fourth single taken from the much-anticipated Blessings and Miracles, which will feature guest appearances from Kirk Hammett, Rick Rubin, Diane Warren, Corey Glover, Ally Brooke, Narada Michael Walden and the late Chick Corea.

Named after Santana’s belief that “we’re born with heavenly powers that allow us to create blessings and miracles”, the upcoming effort will also see drummer Cindy Blackman Santana, singer Tommy Antony and bassist Benny Rietveld in action.

Said Santana, "The world programs you to be unworthy of those gifts, but we have to utilize light, spirit and soul – they’re indestructible and immutable. Those are the three main elements on this album."

• Blessings and Miracles will be released via BMG on October 15, and is available to preorder now.

Carlos Santana has released the third single from his upcoming album Blessings and Miracles, a soulful cover of Procol Harum’s Whiter Shade of Pale, for which he’s recruited fellow electric guitar icon Steve Winwood.

The wholly faithful rendition comes complete with an equally hypnotically smooth keys progression, though is amped up by way of some up-tempo percussive trills and a healthy dose of Santana’s super-sustained licks and flourishes.

Just over a minute of flat-out soloing closes the track out, with Santana rattling off wah-tinged pentatonic licks, rapid-fire ‘board-spanning embellishments and searing, high-end bends.

Of how their partnership for Whiter Shade of Pale came about, Santana recalls that the two met at a show in London’s Hyde Park, and that he had a very specific sonic direction in mind for the single.

“I said, ‘You and I have to do it, but we’re going to do it very sexy, like a Hare Krishna but with congas,’” said Santana. “I played the components in his ear, and he said, ‘I hear it, Carlos. You’re right.’ So that’s what we did – it’s Santana, Cuban, Puerto Rican in an African way. And man, you talk about sexy. Steve’s voice is so sexy and beautiful.”

Added Winwood, “Carlos has been doing what I’ve been trying to do for the last fifty years, namely combining elements of rock, jazz, folk and Latin/Afro-Caribbean music. 

“Carlos’ genius comes in large part from a wonderful combination of rock music with Latin-Cuban rhythms,” he continued. “I’ve played with Carlos on numerous occasions over the past fifty years and I’m very excited to be working with him again still.”

Whiter Shade of Pale joins the the previously released Move, which marked the first time Santana had teamed up with singer Rob Thomas since the pair released their monumental megahit Smooth in 1999.

Winwood and Thomas are just two of many notable collaborators set to crop up on Blessings and Miracles, with Kirk Hammett, Chris Stapleton, Rick Rubin, Diane Warren, Corey Glover, Ally Brooke, Narada Michael Walden and the late Chick Corea all confirmed to be making an appearance on the album.

The record itself – named after Santana’s belief that “we’re born with heavenly powers that allow us to create blessings and miracles” – was recorded over a two year period, and also features drummer Cindy Blackman Santana, singer Tommy Anthony and bassist Benny Rietveld.

Other members of Santana’s touring band – including percussionist Karl Perazzo, keyboardist David K. Matthews – will be joined by Carlos’s children, Salvador on Stella, who will provide vocal support.

"The world programs you to be unworthy of those gifts, but we have to utilize light, spirit and soul – they’re indestructible and immutable," said Santana. "Those are the three main elements on this album."

• Blessings and Miracles will be released via BMG on October 15, and is available to preorder now.

Whether you’re reading this at the beach, at the office or at home, you deserve a few minutes to kick back and enjoy some new music.

This week, we’ve got some sweet, guitar-heavy serenity from Hoogway & Softy, the exciting reunion of Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas, the theatrical return of Dream Theater, and much more.

So take your mind off of whatever’s troubling you. You’re here ‘cause you love guitar music, so why not try some new tunes?

Halestorm – Back From The Dead 

Three years after 2018’s rock-solid Vicious, Halestorm are truly Back From The Dead with their new single. 

If this sounds like a harsh assessment, it isn’t – it’s exactly how the band’s lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Lzzy Hale, envisioned the song, a made-for-blasting-in-the-red hard-rock anthem about coming out of the depths of depression ready to conquer any and every obstacle. 

With a hammer-of-the-gods riff, a blistering percussive performance and a heroic guitar solo from Joe Hottinger, it’s an undeniable mission statement and formidable first volley from an as-yet-untitled new album, set to arrive in 2022. (JM)

Dream Theater – The Alien

Dream Theater have a new single, and yes, it’s almost 10 minutes long. Is that any surprise? The first single from the prog metal giants’ upcoming 15th studio album, A View From The Top Of The World, The Alien sees guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, keyboardist Jordan Rudess and drummer Mike Mangini perform an instrumental masterclass, while frontman James LaBrie ponders life on Earth from an extraterrestrial point of view.

As you’d expect, the track plays host to an endless supply of unfathomably impressive lead work courtesy of Petrucci, including rapid-fire alternate picking runs, soaring bends and just about everything in between.

A View From The Top Of The World will also mark Petrucci’s first-ever use of an eight-string guitar on record.

“When I got my seven-string, I had never played one before and I didn’t know what to expect,” he explained. “The way I approached it was that it was just an extension of the range of the guitar.” (SR)

Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas – Move 

Well, it was about time, wasn’t it? A cool 22 years after they smashed a multitude of records and scooped a slew of awards with their monumental megahit Smooth, Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas have finally teamed up once again for a follow-up, which arrives in the form of Move.

It’s as if Smooth was strapped into a time machine and hurled head first into 2021. The swagger is there in spades, as are Thomas’s ridiculously catchy vocals, though both have been loaded with a mosaic of modern production sounds and arrangements. A dance-style clap track and a lo-fi-esque loop are the most notable contemporary additions, though the track never loses sight of what it’s really meant to be: a scorching Santana x Thomas team-up.

Are we missing anything? Oh yeah, Move’s guitar parts. It truly is quintessential Santana, with the PRS-wielding legend squeezing every drop of flavor, and wringing out every ounce of color, from his highly selective catalog of notes, supercharging them with a blinding wah pedal that holds its own against the wall of studio-produced sound.

We dare say it’s been worth the wait, considering it’s been over two decades in the making, though it certainly shows that the pair’s fierce musical chemistry hasn’t slipped an inch. Let’s just hope part three doesn’t take so long to arrive. (MO)

L.A. Guns – Knock Me Down

Arriving ahead of L.A. Guns' forthcoming album – and third since the reunion of original members Tracii Guns and Phil Lewis – Checkered Past, Knock Me Down sees the LA rockers deliver a healthy dose of unbridled rock ‘n’ roll.

Gain-heavy electric guitars abound, as Tracii Guns offers no shortage of classic rock-inspired, powerchord-driven riffs, and a killer solo, to boot.

But the album, as the band explain, will be anything but predictable; it’s divided up into “sets” or “suites," where a musical style is explored across several songs before moving onto the next. So throw your expectations out the window, because L.A Guns’ new LP is sure to bring some surprises. (SR)

Hoogway & Softy – Open Skies

The (largely) instrumental lo-fi hip-hop beats genre has grown rapidly in recent years, with Spotify playlists devoted to the music and its calming, study/focus-friendly tenants commanding millions of monthly listeners and, famously, a YouTube channel devoted entirely to a never-ending stream of lo-fi beats attracting tens of thousands of listeners at any given moment.

Obviously, to put the entire genre (as it would be for any genre) under one umbrella would be to over-simplify, but – for expediency’s sake for those unfamiliar – the kind of pieces that dominate these playlists and the aforementioned channel are characterized by plaintive piano motifs, gently swinging beats and, often, woozy, sun-streaked lead guitar playing. 

Though this musical uniformity has attracted some degree of controversy and derision, its best practitioners imbue the templates – like all great artists – with their own stamp. Among these standout lo-fi artists is Hoogway, for this writer’s money one of the genre’s best guitar players.

A collaboration between the Belgian producer and guitarist and Softy, a South Korean pianist and producer, Open Skies is a gorgeous sampler from the duo’s new record, Alley of Trees. Softy lays down an enchanting bed of dreamy keys, over which Hoogway freely and leisurely lays down licks that – in the way they touch on the dynamic heart of soul and the tradition of the blues with ample melodic ear candy to go around – recall John Mayer at his finest.   

We always love to say that the guitar isn’t dead, but with the undeniable decline of traditional rock music on the charts, one must reckon with how listeners are hearing the guitar today in this day and age. Again one mustn’t generalize, but it’s a fair bet to say that at least some frequent listeners of lo-fi beats are getting their first exposure to guitar-heavy music through these playlists. 

With gorgeous six-string displays like that found on Open Skies, that’s not a bad thing at all. (JM)

Ross Jennings – Violet

While he’s known for fronting English prog metallers Haken, Ross Jennings’ forthcoming solo debut, A Shadow of My Future Self, looks set to establish a fresh musical identity for the vocalist.

His new track, Violet – which follows the downtempo Grounded and the funky, anthemic Words We Can’t Unsay – is testament to Jennings’ creative reinvention, trading the dizzying high-gain electric guitar work of Haken for an infectious, soulful pop-rock arrangement colored by an array of jazz-flavored scale runs and silky-smooth leads.

“Despite my history, I rarely regard myself as a metal singer, so I was in desperate need to scratch a long time itch and make a record that appeals to the broader spectrum of my musical palette,” Jennings explained. 

“With A Shadow of My Future Self, I unashamedly wear my influences on my sleeve but this is the kind of music I always imagined I’d be making before I took the path less traveled into prog metal. Needless to say, this is somewhat more accessible and radio-friendly stuff!” (SR)

Bad Bad Hats – Walkman 

The title track from Bad Bad Hats’ upcoming album – their third studio effort and first since 2018’s Lightning Round – is a testament to the three-piece’s everlasting creativity and their evergreen ability to churn out one certified indie rock romp after another.

Walkman’s innocently simple instrumentation and cleverly curated arrangement is suitable for both intimate listening sessions and festival fields, with the almost-three-minute cut boasting an abundance of both ear-catching guitar parts and vocal hooks that are so infectious you’d be hard pressed not to sing along.

The loose, where-is-this-going-to-go intro gives way to some super-tight chordal see-sawing, which in turn plays host to some ethereal, modulated lead guitar lines. Less is more, as the age-old saying goes, and Bad Bad Hats’ latest effort is proof that truer words have never been spoken. (MO)

Spirit Was – I Saw The Wheel

Though the seminal Purchase, New York indie band LVL UP sadly played their last show in 2018, its former members – all phenomenally talented songwriters themselves – are all flourishing in their own right.

Dave Benton has Trace Mountains (a project whose praises we’ve sung in these pages before), Mike Caridi has The Glow, and the band’s one-time bassist, Nick Corbo, has Spirit Was.

I Saw The Wheel, the first single from the project’s debut album, Heaven’s Just a Cloud, is a thing of beauty with some welcome LVL UP DNA (those subtle hooks that really sneak up on you) and some new approaches (that frenzied death-metal finale). 

Guitar-wise, there’s plenty to sink your teeth into here: Corbo’s biting acoustic riff, the endlessly satisfying sludge of his electric tone and the all-enveloping sonic hurricane he creates in the song’s final minute and change. No doubt aided by some of Corbo's own, custom pedals, I Saw The Wheel is the work of an innovator more guitarists should have their eyes on. (JM)

Eric Krasno – So Cold 

You don’t win a Grammy Award for nothing, and Eric Krasno’s new single So Cold – taken from his upcoming album, Always – is a sumptuous return for the guitarist who hasn’t released a solo album proper since 2016’s Blood from a Stone.

The Soulive and Lettuce co-founder is on hand to flex the tone and feel of his gorgeous guitar playing, cutting through the retro-inspired mix with some piercing lead lines and decorative, modulation-drenched flourishes. 

Boasting a huge sonic canvas dripping with chime-y percussion hits, punctuative rhythmic stabs and throwback musical motifs that pay homage to the heyday of soul music, the track gives us an insight into Krasno's new musical direction, and we're all for it.

Unfortunately, you’re going to have to wait a little while longer before you can fully sink your teeth into Always – it’s not slated to be released until February 2022. (MO)

Santana have shared the first single from their upcoming studio album Blessings and Miracles, which sees legendary electric guitar behemoth Carlos Santana reunite with Matchbox 20 vocalist Rob Thomas for the first time in over two decades.

Titled Move, the pair’s newest collaboration has big boots to fill, seeing as it serves as a follow-up to the duo’s monumental megahit Smooth, which went on to win three Grammys after it was released in 1999.

Despite such lofty expectations, the track delivers in spades, with a similar, supercharged swagger, plus some neat modern production sounds and arrangements. As if there was ever any doubt, Santana and Thomas are on top form, showing their musical chemistry hasn’t slipped an inch over the past 22 years.

Thomas’s instantly sing-along-inducing vocal hook is decorated with some classically Santana licks, with the latter layering on the wah pedal for a series of six-string tricks that we wager will have you immediately reaching for your own guitar.

The pair were also joined by American Authors, with the US rock band’s lead singer Zac Barnett taking center stage in the second verse.

Of the track, the PRS-wielding icon explained, “[How] Move came about was very much like how Smooth happened. It was like divine intelligence behind the scenes.

“I just knew I had to record it with Rob,” he continued. “The song is about awakening your molecules. Ignite and activate yourself – you know, move. When Rob and I work together, we have a sound that’s splendiferous.”

Move will feature on Santana’s highly anticipated upcoming studio LP Blessings and Miracles, for which the guitarist has recruited a slew of six-string heavyweights.

Recently, it was confirmed that Kirk Hammett had a guest spot, with Santana teasing the Metallica man will be heard “tearing it up”.

Other notable collaborators include Chris Stapleton, Rick Rubin, Diane Warren, Steve Winwood, Corey Glover, Ally Brooke, Narada Michael Walden and the late Chick Corea.

The album – which also features an appearance from two of Santana’s children, Salvador and Stella – was recorded over a two year period, with the guitarist acting as the album’s producer while collaborating with guest musicians over the internet.

“It’s amazing how we can record together these days without being in the same studio,” he commented. “I just close my eyes and I’m in the same room with whomever I’m playing with, even if they’re somewhere far away. We share frequencies together.”

Santana continued, “I’m honored to work with such incredible artists. I’m a surfer riding those waves that become songs by different artists, creators and architects. I’m very fortunate that I have the opportunity to do that. It’s a gift I don’t take for granted."

Blessings and Miracles will be released via BMG on October 15, and is available to preorder now.

The Holland-born, Hawaii-raised bass guitar star Benny Rietveld is no stranger to demanding gigs, having played with the late Miles Davis towards the end of the late jazz icon’s career, and having held down the low-end with the mighty Carlos Santana since 1990. 

His most-heard bass part is undoubtedly the line anchoring the inescapable Smooth from 1999, but he has also delivered miraculous contributions to recordings by Herbie Hancock, Eagle Eye Cherry, John Lee Hooker, Sheila E, and as a solo artist.

Let’s find out what he’s up to...

What’s happening, Benny?

“We just came back from a week of doing some recording with the Santana band – just personal projects that Carlos wanted to do. That’s what all the rock stars are doing now. They can’t play live, so they want to record. I’ve been writing a lot, and doing bass lessons, but bass is a hard one to do remotely. 

"It’s a rhythm section instrument, and I can’t even clap along with the students to give them a sense of where to go in time. I don’t do a lot of those lessons, because they don’t really work.“

Do you still need to practice to keep your chops up?

“Oh, I think everyone can benefit from practicing. I know I can. If I wanted to try to do some of the things that Victor Wooten does, it would probably take me the rest of my life. It’s the whole body stamina thing – like, this is more tiring than I remembered. There’s a little bit of work on chops, but it’s mostly about the stamina and the physicality of it.“

After decades of playing bass, have you managed to escape injury?

“My basses aren’t that heavy, and I stretch a lot. Relaxed playing helps, too: I tell my students only to put their energy where it’s supposed to go. Everything else should be relaxed. So far, knock on wood, I haven’t really had very many problems.“ 

What was your journey into bass? 

“It was the typical one: I was shunted off onto bass from another instrument! I was a drummer at first in the little band that I had, and our bass player quit, and we didn’t know any other musicians except another drummer. So I said, ‘Okay, we’ll hire that guy, and I’ll be on bass.'"

What was your first bass guitar?

“It was a Hagström with a plastic front that looked like a speaker grille. I liked it. The first bass-line that I played, although it was on a guitar that I had, was the one from The Ballad Of John And Yoko by the Beatles. The first actual line that I played on bass, or tried to play on bass, was Lovely Rita, which is also by the Beatles. When I played it, I only used two strings. My cousin saw my left hand jumping up and down and said, ‘You can use more than two strings, Benny.'"

Which bassists influenced you?

“The first bass guy I gravitated towards was Chris Squire. I heard Yes and I was like, ‘What?!’ I still use little parts of [his solo] from The Fish live in my bass solo. I even wanted a Maestro Bass Brassmaster [Squire’s fuzz/octave pedal] when I was a kid, but it was so expensive. I had a Big Muff instead.“ 

When would you say you were up and running as a bass player?

“Maybe by the age of 14, playing simple music – dance music and all that. I was able to play a bunch of gigs, and I thought I was pretty good, but I wasn’t in New York or any place where I could really seriously learn about the bass. I don’t think I was really aware of how to create a foundation until my twenties – and when I did know that, it was a rude awakening, because I found out how little I knew."

Are you thinking of a specific gig that you played when you say that?

“Yes. It was via the Crusaders, actually, of all bands. They hired me to play three shows that, inexplicably, they couldn’t find a bass player for. They had two bassists at the time – Alphonso Johnson and Abraham Laboriel – but neither were available for these three shows. 

“They flew me to LA to audition, but as far as playing a groove, apparently I didn’t have a clue. They let me know that pretty early on, in no uncertain terms [laughs]! But it was great. They still had me play. I guess they decided they’d suffer through it. It was a rough experience, but really good.“ 

Tell us about playing bass with Miles Davis. 

“Well, we would develop the arrangements, and sometimes he gave me a few specific instructions, like, ‘Put a little lift in this section,' with maybe just a pedal or something like that, but mostly they were set. I would develop a bass line over that, based on what had come before. 

“There was a lot of freedom, and there was some great jamming, but with bass, especially in that kind of music, it’s a heavy responsibility. I always use the Spider-Man line with my students – ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. If we start changing things because we feel like it, then things don’t feel right. You don’t want to cause the destruction of the universe.“

Indeed. What kind of man was Miles?

“He was fine. He was completely devoted to the music and the experience. He insisted on being very present the whole time you were on stage and being 100 percent committed to the music. I’m pretty sure that was the way he was, his whole career. 

“It was intimidating, because if you drifted just a little bit mentally, he would feel it, and those laser eyes would suddenly go on you! But he was fun. He made plenty of jokes. He’d tell me, on the side, when somebody was doing a solo or whatever, ‘Guys always play louder when girls are on their side of the stage’, and I would laugh. So he was actually kind of a sweetheart, but very guarded, and insisting on a high level of commitment.“

How did you come to meet Carlos Santana?

“That was when I was still playing with Miles. Carlos had seen me play because he was a big Miles Davis fan, and he said, ‘Hey man, great to meet you. I might be looking for a bass player. Are you interested?’ I was planning to leave Miles anyway, perhaps not consciously, but I knew I was reaching a point where I should jump off. So later on I called Carlos and I auditioned with his band. I grew up playing all his songs, and they seemed to think I was good, so I was hired.“

How did Miles take the news that you were leaving?

“It was at the end of a tour, and we were all going our separate ways. I told him, ‘Hey, I’m leaving,’ and he thought I meant I was leaving for the airport. He said, ‘Oh, okay. See you’, and I had to say, ‘Oh no, actually I’m leaving the band’. It was really awkward, and I think he was a little bit puzzled, but in terms of guys like me coming through the band, I think he wanted to see people develop and go, so it was all right. That’s the impression that I got.“

Tell me about your bass gear.

“I use a QSC 1000-watt power amp. Brian Montgomery, who is our monitor guy, makes cabinets under the name Bad Monkey, and I use those on the road. They’re beautiful, and they really take a lot of SPL. I could probably get away with less power now, because I remember the days when the band was super-loud. 

“When I joined, Carlos had tons of cabinets. The percussionist and the drummer were playing on 11, so I really needed an insane amount of power not to clip all the time. For basses, my mainstays are my Music Man Sterling Deluxes and my NS Design CR series electric upright. 

“At home I've been playing an MTD Andrew Gouché model, which is also a beautiful bass. The NS has a really huge, full sound. The house guys are like, ‘Can you please play it all night?'"

The COVID-19 shutdown has left artists unable to tour for a year, but if there’s any look-on-the-bright-side outcome, it’s that many of them have had plenty of time on their hands to write and record.

One of those artists is electric guitar legend Carlos Santana, who recently told ABC Audio that he has not one, not two, but three new albums in the works, including one, Blessings and Miracles, that he says is “90-percent completed” and will feature a guest spot from Metallica’s Kirk Hammett. 

What’s more, Santana said, "He's tearing it up."

Hammett, it’s worth noting, also appeared on the 2020's album Give the Drummer Some from Santana’s wife, Cindy Blackman Santana.

Additional guest musicians on Blessings and Miracles, Santana hinted, may include Steve Winwood and Living Colour frontman Corey Glover.

As for the effect the pandemic has had on his creativity, Santana said, "I just feel really, really grateful. I'm 73 and…because of this time that I'm allowed to just replenish and nourish…[a]ll the notes are like really, really juicy and powerful."

John Mayer recently sat down with Paul Reed Smith to discuss why there will never be a sunburst PRS Silver Sky model. But there are also plenty of other gems to be found in the conversation between the Dead & Company guitarist and the premier electric guitar builder.

Among them is the fact that Smith once attempted to build Carlos Santana a PRS with an onboard effect system.

“Carlos Santana and I worked on this project for a long time,” he tells Mayer. “We put about 25 tones in the guitar that you could rotate through different people’s pedalboards. You would set the pedalboard, and then you would have all that circuitry on a DSP in the guitar.”

“And so I built him this big pedalboard and it had [EarthQuaker Devices] Bit Commanders and all these wild-sounding pedals on ‘em. I put tape over the whole thing so he couldn’t see it. He just had switches to hit.”

Smith continues, “It sounded immense. And I wanted to put it in the guitar so somebody sitting in the store just goes, click click click… I think it’s a good idea. Never gonna make it.”

Mayer, for one, was impressed with the idea. “I love hearing about things that are good ideas that nobody’s gonna want,” he says. “It excites me tremendously!”

Mayer then ends the interview with his own challenge: “Finish this sentence,” he tells Smith. “Hey guitar manufacturers, cool it with the blank.”

Responds Smith, “Bad guitars. The frets being in the wrong place, the nut’s in the wrong place. Buy a guitar it won’t stay in tune, it won’t play in tune. You can’t get a recording tone out of it. The kid gets frustrated and gives up the guitar because the guitar wouldn’t do its job. That hurts."

He continues, “It happened to me once and I sent the guitar back to the manufacturer. I said, ‘This doesn’t work. My nephew can’t play it.’ I got a new one!”