Two guitars from the collections of Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan are up for sale and are set to fetch a combined $1.55 million.

A classical guitar from the King of Rock n’ Roll, and a unique Fender Stratocaster from folk icon, are both up for grabs via New Orleans antique experts M.S. Rau. They have $900,000 and $650,000 price tags hanging off their headstocks, respectively.

Dylan’s custom Strat, as revealed by Robb Report, was crafted in 1993 at the then-new Fender Custom Shop by master builder J.W. Black, who also worked closely with Jeff Beck.

It features a unique aluminum body engraved with an impressively intricate Art Nouveau-style design that extends across its fretboard, making it a little more Tim Henson than typical Dylan.

The guitar was one of four experimental builds showcased at NAMM 1993, while beneath the pickguard an inscription reads: “J. Black for Bob Dylan.”

Though Dylan started his career on an acoustic guitar, he controversially pivoted to electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, with a Strat as his weapon of choice.

The Telecaster played by his foil, Mike Bloomfield – which was dubbed the guitar that killed folk – went up for sale for $275,000 last year. The $900K price tag here puts the Tele to shame.

Elvis’ classical guitar, meanwhile, represents a more traditional instrument and is believed to have been his sidekick circa 1958, when he was stationed in Germany during mandatory military service.

It sports a natural finish with a smart black trim, and single-dot inlays at the fifth, seventh, ninth, and 12th frets.

Presley reportedly gifted the guitar to a close friend in Las Vegas in 1976 after an impromptu rendition of That’s All Right. He then signed the acoustic’s soundboard as one final parting gesture. Although a little worn now, that signature is still visible.

Between Germany and Las Vegas, the guitar reportedly remained by Elvis’ side for nearly 20 years as he became a global superstar in the 1960s and ‘70s.

The instrument is being sold with a certificate of authenticity issued by Graceland Records in 1995, as well as “unique images” of the late icon.

It comes after the King’s 1968 Comeback Special Hagstrom Viking II hit the auction block with a $1 million estimate in April.

“Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan are two of the most influential musicians in history, and these guitars are among the most important examples of music memorabilia I have ever encountered,” says M.S. Rau owner Bill Rau.

“To have a classical guitar owned, played, and signed by Elvis Presley alongside a limited-edition Stratocaster custom-built for Bob Dylan is nothing short of extraordinary, with comparable examples having approached and surpassed the million-dollar mark.”

Head over to M.S. Rau for more.

Backstage Auctions has launched a new collection of historical musical items, which includes gear used by Eddie Van Halen, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and more – and it's expected to fetch a cumulative figure of up to $1.5 million.

The auction is already live and taking bids, with storied and oddball pieces – many from the collection of the late Small Faces founder, Ian McLagan – making up the lots.

It includes the Don Musser acoustic guitar that Eddie Van Halen reportedly used on two 1990s Van Halen albums, Balance and Van Halen III. It can be heard on the likes of Take Me Back, Without You, and Neworld.

According to a 1995 Guitar World interview, EVH had bought the acoustic from Norman's Rare Guitars, and it was regularly put to work at 5150 Studios.

Also featured is Eric Clapton's stage-played 1974 Fender Strat, which Ronnie Lane also played after it was gifted to the Small Faces/Faces guitarist circa 1977.

See also Keith Richards' 2005 semi-hollow Duesenberg Starplayer Outlaw electric guitar, which sports a unique mosaic-mimicking finish described as a “custom pearl finish.” It was a birthday gift from Richards to McLagan, and it features chrome skull knobs to really tap into the Outlaw vibe.

There's also a movie star up for grabs... sort of. When Elvis Presley was filming Viva Las Vegas, he fell into a pool with a guitar, and when it was discovered to be water-damaged, a Gibson acoustic was drafted in for the remainder of the scenes. Yes, that back-up guitar is up for auction.

McLagan's 1965 Telecaster, customized with a Strat neck and featuring a “custom-painted psychedelic pickguard,” is also of note. Bought for his first show with the Small Faces, it was later used by Steve Marriott to record Tin Soldier and All or Nothing.

It was originally Cream, but that finish was stripped off to reveal a natural look in 1969. That same year, Peter Frampton hand-carved its neck pickup hole to accommodate a Gibson humbucker salvaged from the SG that Townshend had been brutally smashed to pieces during a show at the Marquee Club.

Consequently, Backstage Auctions has dubbed it “a singular piece of rock and roll history.”

Bidding is now open. See Backstage Auctions for more.

The Hagstrom Viking II electric guitar that Elvis played during his ’68 Comeback Special is headed to auction via Sotheby’s, after selling for $625,000 in 2021. It is now expected to fetch between $1 million and $2 million.

“This guitar became a symbol of Elvis’ legendary comeback,” comments Craig Inciardi, Sotheby’s Music and Pop Culture Specialist.

“Guitars have always been central to his image, but seeing Elvis return to the stage after years away, dressed in his iconic black leather outfit and playing this guitar, created one of the most enduring images in rock history. It marked a pivotal moment, reconnecting him with a generation of fans and cementing his status as the King of Rock ’n’ Roll.”

Inciardi explains that most of Elvis’ guitars were acoustic, making this a standout. It’s also historically significant because it helped relaunch his live career during a specially aired music event on NBC on December 3, 1968, marking his first live performance in over seven years.

While Presley planned on wielding another guitar this particular Hagstrom – which originally belonged to session guitarist Al Casey – worked because it matched the set’s red and black color palette.

In fact, it’s the only time Presley used this guitar, and it has since been in the possession of several private collectors. Between 1998 and 2000, it was also showcased in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Bidding for the online auction has just opened today (April 9) and will wrap up on April 23. Furthermore, it will also be on display at Sotheby’s New York Breuer Building between April 13 and April 20.

For more information, visit Sotheby's.

Following the records broken at the Jim Irsay Collection auction, this Elvis guitar may well fetch amounts that exceed expectations, especially as, according to guitar expert Matthieu Lucas, the values of artist guitars are only continuing to appreciate over time.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that there’s a strong through line between guitars and cars – with the Fender finishes inspired by the automotive industry immediately springing to mind. So it comes as no surprise that Elvis had a “Guitar Car” – a 41-foot Cadillac literally shaped like a giant guitar, which is now being restored inside Florida's Dezerland Park.

When the car arrived earlier this year, after decades away from American soil, it was far from reflecting its former glory. Now, Jaime Figueroa – Dezerland Park’s general manager and a former certified mechanic – and a team of classic car enthusiasts are deep into bringing it back to life.

“When you open the hood and realize you’re rebuilding a car designed for the King of Rock and Roll, you take it personally,” says Figueroa. “It’s an honor to bring this legend back to life for fans around the world.”

And to continue paying homage to the guitar concept, the team is also recreating the “guitar strings,” which are currently missing.

Once complete, the Guitar Car will take center stage in a new exhibit dedicated to Hollywood custom-car builder Jay Ohrberg – the brains behind the original vehicle – who is widely believed to have taken two years to construct the art-piece-meets-working-vehicle.

“Elvis Presley’s Guitar Car isn’t just a showpiece – it’s a symbol of American creativity and culture. We’re thrilled to restore it and share it with fans from around the world,” concludes Michael Dezer, founder of Dezerland Park.

And, speaking of Elvis, Guitar World recently looked back on how, at the suggestion of guitar picker James Burton, the King of Rock and Roll set up an audition with an unlikely bass candidate – Jerry Scheff.

From 1956-1958, Elvis Presley ruled the pop charts, scoring No. 1 hits like they were going out of style. But following a stint in the Army and a shift in focus to acting, the King's cachet in the music world was pretty much kaput by the time the Summer of Love had come and gone.

Presley's 1968 television special, Elvis, resuscitated his slumping career, but he needed more. He needed a new band – a new sound.

On January 23rd, 1969, Elvis entered the American Sound Studio in Memphis, with producer Chips Moman to record Suspicious Minds, a song written by songwriter Mark James. House bassist Mike Leech anchored the tune with a no-frills bassline that bounced between roots and 5ths.

As the record went into production, Elvis packed his bags and flew to Los Angeles to find a new live band.

At the suggestion of guitar picker James Burton, Elvis set up an audition on the evening of August 18th with an unlikely bass candidate: Jerry Scheff.

In his memoir, Way Down: Playing Bass with Elvis, Dylan, The Doors & More, Scheff explains: “I didn't like Elvis Presley's music. I thought he was just some Southern white guy trying to sound Black. I was into Black rhythm & blues and modern jazz, and by this time I was enjoying some classical music, too. I had definite opinions about what was cool and what wasn't. Elvis wasn’t.”

As it turns out, Scheff's independent style was just what Elvis was looking for in a new outfit. Scheff, along with Burton and drummer Ronnie Tutt became the core of Elvis' famed TCB – Taking Care of Business – Band, and began rehearsing for a string of shows at the International Hotel in Las Vegas starting July 31, 1969.

Bolstered by two gospel vocal troupes, the Imperials and Sweet Inspirations, the TCB Band was a juiced-up juggernaut of a group, propelled by the powerful duo of Scheff and Tutt. With Tutt on drums, Scheff was free to dig in harder than any of Elvis' previous bass players. The King fed on that raw energy.

“In 1969, Elvis's energy levels were out on the edge. He wanted us to kick him in the ass at all times, and if he felt someone wasn't contributing their fair share he would turn around to that person and symbolically bowl them over with a tidal wave of encouragement (but never anger). This didn't happen very often – we were a very tight, creative little band, and he loved what we did.”

No performance captures the raw energy and gutsy grit of the TCB Band better that the August 24, 1969 live recording of Suspicious Minds at the International Hotel. Scheff's performance embodies a magical blend of down-home Memphis soul with a more aggressive aesthetic of dynamic intensity.

“My approach to bass playing has always been to listen to the music, starting with the vocalist or instrumental melody. The lead singer's phrasing sets the tone for me. Then it's my job to compose a bass part and slip it into place.”

On other live versions of Suspicious Minds from the era, tempos often crept up to breakneck speed. “Ronnie may have given a count off, but James played his opening riff the way he felt it. When Elvis came in with his vocal, his first line came out however he was feeling it. James was sensitive enough to go with him.”

“I was playing mostly downbeats at that point, so I wasn't about to rein anyone in. Anyway, I was up for anything – if a performance felt like a bunch of punk speed freaks, so much the better. I can't ever remember Elvis coming up to us after the show and saying, ‘Suspicious Minds was too fast tonight.’

“When a bass part worked, I would tend to repeat it, but I was always experimenting, trying to put together a better rendition of a song – and, of course, my ears were and still are open for a new stroke of genius coming from the other players, something on which to hang a new musical hat.”

Guitarist and songwriter Mac Gayden – best known for his work on Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde and co-writing the long-standing pop hit Everlasting Love – has died at the age of 83, at his home in Nashville. According to his cousin, Tommye Maddox Working, the cause of death was complications due to Parkinson's disease.

Gayden played a key role in helping turn Nashville into the cross-genre recording hub it is today. As part of an elite group of session players known as the “Nashville Cats,” Gayden gained a solid reputation for being the first call from that group. Bob Dylan producer Bob Johnston once dubbed him, “The best guitar player I ever heard.”

One of his most notable contributions was his work on Dylan's seventh studio album Blonde on Blonde. His percussive guitar work on Absolutely Sweet Marie showcases his breadth as a player – which makes it all the more unfortunate that it went uncredited for decades.

Non-country artists flocked to Nashville to work with Gayden – which is why he ended up on records by Elvis, Simon & Garfunkel, The Valentines, Linda Ronstadt, Leonard Cohen, Bobby Vinton, and The Pointer Sisters.

“I first met Gregg and Duane [Allman] when they first came to Nashville and played the Briarpatch for a while. Jammed a little with Greg one night and did a session with Duane at RCA studio B one night,” he told Blues GR in 2013, giving a sneak peek into his day-to-day life as one of Nashville's hottest tickets.

“We were both beginning to play slide guitar at the time. So we would swap licks with each other in between songs. Everyone thought that it sounded cool but it didn’t go down on record.”

In fact, it was his slide guitar and wah pedal combination – epitomized on J.J. Cale’s 1971 Top 40 single Crazy Mama – that cemented his signature technique and sound.

“A few years ago, a writer called me ‘father of the wah slide,’” Gayden wrote in his 2013 autobiography, Missing String Theory: A Musician’s Uncommon Spiritual Journey. “It’s humbling to realize I developed a stylistic approach to playing slide.”

As a songwriter, his most enduring success came in the form of Everlasting Love – the evergreen song he co-wrote with Buzz Cason and which eventually found its way onto records by artists as diverse as Town Criers, Gloria Estefan, Sandra Cretu, Love Affair, and even U2.

However, his exploits didn't end there. As the ’60s rolled into the '70s, Gayden and a couple of other alumni of the early ’60s pop combo the Escorts formed two improvisational country-rock outfits: Area Code 615 and later, Barefoot Jerry.

The former – a supergroup of sorts consisting of some of Nashville's most prolific session musicians – was formed in the wake of Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline album and managed to record two albums, which included their best-known track, Stone Fox Chase, before resuming their session work.

Barefoot Jerry, on the other hand, was an early Southern rock group, which also featured Gayden on vocals and a hodgepodge of Nashville session players. Gayden would depart after just one album to record his first solo album, McGavock Gayden, in 1971.

After a series of other projects and accomplishments – including being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame as part of the Nashville Cats, and being featured in the 2015 exhibit Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville – Gayden released his last album, Come Along, in 2020.

Speaking about his intimate relationship with music and its links to spirituality in the Blues GR interview, Gayden concluded, “I knew from an early age that music comes from another dimension, because it grounded me. In other words it relaxed my physiology and allowed me to feel Bliss, something as child that comes naturally.”

“On days when I didn’t have some music or art, I felt something was missing. So as an adult, meditation takes me every day to that subtle place of experiencing the world, and thus feeling that inspiration and bliss once again.”

Chibson USA – known for its wildly popular guitar gear memes on social media – has released its first feature-length documentary, which focusses on Robert Plant's “favorite band”.

Dread Zeppelin: A Song of Hope is currently free-to-air via Chibson’s YouTube channel, and it tells the story of, erm, a Led Zeppelin reggae cover band that is fronted by an Elvis impersonator.

It’s a match made in heaven, in truth. If there was ever a band that embodied the Chibson spirit – the lovable lunatics that have brought you the Humbuckle, the treasure map guitar, and cease/desist toggle switches for Gibson Les Pauls – it most certainly has to be them.

“Here’s what's great about Dread Zeppelin,” journalist Kyra Phillips quips at one point in the doc. “They create this illusion. They want people to look at them and say, ‘Is this for real, or is this a joke?’”

Steel Panther’s pun-loving vocalist Michael Starr narrates the film, which, across just shy of 90 minutes, “chronicles the unlikely journey of the ’90s cult sensation… a band known for their revolutionary mashup of Led Zeppelin’s music with a reggae beat, led by the unforgettable 300-pound Elvis impersonator.”

The thing is, the documentary smartly touches on the fact there is more than just satire behind the band and their Dracula-meets-Elvis singer: they rose to fame in the late ’80s as the “comedic break” between rock and grunge, and offered a reprieve during a period when “people were looking for something authentic”.

As the trailer shows, they’ve also been described as “anti-rock ’n’ roll” during their time, with many people clearly failing to see the appeal. At one point, a news anchor asks them: “What would be worse, if someone told you you were lousy musicians or lousy comedians?”

Yet, despite the adversary they faced, Dread Zeppelin achieved impressive success, and a host of oddball hybrid bands have followed in their wake – most notably Elvana, an Elvis-fronted Nirvana tribute.

Chibson USA trawled through “hours of unreleased archival footage, personal tape recordings, and hundreds of unpublished photographs” to put the documentary together. It also features sit-down interviews with various band members and others who have been caught up in their madness along the way.

“Chibson USA is proud to bring this incredible untold story to the digital screen and celebrate a band that changed the face of satire in music,” it says.

Head to the Chibson USA YouTube channel to watch the doc in full.

Some big auction news has just broke – Paul McCartney’s “Paul McCartney woz here” 1960 Höfner Violin bass guitar and a 1962 Fender Stratocaster that became a backstage favorite of the Beatles when touring with Chris Montez are going under the hammer. 

The cherry on top? Well, the King of rock ’n’ roll, Mr Elvis Presley, is represented, too, with his “Loving You” Gibson acoustic guitar also up for grabs.

You’ll need serious dough for all three lots. Macca’s Höfner 500/1 would strike us as the most sought-after instrument here. Could we be talking record money? Well, Gotta Have Rock And Roll, which is hosting the auction, estimates that it will take north of $300,000 to take this one home. The Strat? We’re talking an eye-watering $500,000 to $1 million. 

That would be something; this, remember was Montez’s electric guitar. It didn’t appear on any Beatles album. But given the market demand for ’62 Strats (astronomical), plus the celebrity kudos of the Montez ownership (considerable), and the force multiplier of it having been regularly played by John Lennon, George Harrison and reportedly McCartney (though as a southpaw he would have to have played it upside-down) this could make it the next million-dollar guitar.

Gotta Have Rock And Roll describes the Höfner 500/1 as a “Holy Grail” and they’ll get no argument here. And yet that’s exactly the term we would use for a slab-‘boarded ’62 Strat.

Elvis’s Gibson LG-1, estimated at $30,000 or thereabouts, looks a bargain in comparison, and fans of the King’s movie output will certainly think so after considering that it was used in the 1957 movie Loving You, Elvis’ first lead role, in which he plays young up-and-coming truck driver turned country star Deke Rivers alongside noir bombshell Lizabeth Scott (Too Late For Tears). 

There are better Elvis flicks. Director Hal Kanter might have been a comedy writer, but here he shows he has a strong stomach for schmaltz, too. 

Sadly, despite being lined up for the first musical number, when Elvis as Deke takes to the stage to rock the cowpokes with Let’s Have a Party at the Longhorn Community Fair, this small-bodied Gibson never made the final cut and was swapped out for a J-45 – the slope-shouldered dreadnought a better gear choice all things considered. 

And when it comes time for Elvis to perform the title track, Loving You, he has traded up for a Gibson SJ-200. If that's not a sign of upward mobility, nothing is.

The kicker in that scene is that he breaks a string on the J-45, while the LG-1 was fated like many of the King’s movie guitars – Paramount gifted him the guitar and it was duly taken home and well-loved. Provenance comes by way of Elvis’s old friend and “Memphis Mafia” cohort Charlie Hodge.

Back to the Beatles, and this 500/1 Violin Bass. Again, this was a gift, from McCartney to an unnamed music executive. McCartney did play this one, however, it is a right-handed model strung for a leftie. And he signed the top, “Paul McCartney waz here!” It comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by famed Fab Four authenticator Frank Caiazzo.

The Strat’s story is that it blew the Beatles’ mind. There weren’t many Fender Stratocasters in England at the time. This was cutting-edge gear, a little like being in 1990 and someone opening a guitar case and pulling out an Ibanez Universe.

The Beatles were on a UK tour in March 1963 with Montez and Tommy Roe. When the tour rolled through Liverpool, Montez suggested the Beatles close out their home town show. It was reportedly their first headlining slot on a major tour.

The Strat remained in Montez’s possession and comes with a letter of authenticity from Montez and Gotta Have Rock And Roll. For more information, head over to Gotta Have Rock And Roll.

Who knows, if the bidding gets out of hand, maybe that Strat will be up there with some recent big auctions, like Kurt Cobain’s 1993 Fender Mustang – aka the Sky Stang I – which sold at auction on Saturday (18 November) for more than $1.5 million. To think that the Mustang was made for student budgets…

Heritage Auctions has unveiled the latest crop of electric guitars and acoustic guitars it’s set to place under the hammer, with the bumper collection including a handful of attention-grabbing instruments.

Chief among those awaiting auction is a 1966 Fender Jaguar signed by Kurt Cobain, as well as a 1968 Fender Rosewood Telecaster prototype that was built for Elvis Presley.

It’s the second time the latter model has cropped up on the sales circuit, having been listed on Reverb last November with an asking price of $295,000.

As was reported back then, Elvis’s Tele is said to be one of six prototypes, and a sister model to George Harrison’s well-known example, and had been used by the King of Rock and Roll intermittently for a period of few months.

However, Elvis supposedly sent the Tele back to Eddie Miller – Fender’s Nashville rep of the time – because the guitar was too heavy for him.

The guitar itself is all original, said to be in excellent condition, and arrives accompanied by a handful of letters written by Hal Blaine, Harold Bradley (former president of the Nashville Association of Musicians), and Miller himself, confirming the guitar’s authenticity – the same certificates that came with the original listing.

It’s joined at the top of the auction pile by a Cobain-signed ‘66 Jag. Cobain’s guitars are veterans of the auction circuit, and currently occupy the two top spots of the most expensive guitars sold at auction list.

At number one is the $6,010,000 Martin D-18E Cobain used for Nirvana’s immortal MTV Unplugged set, while second spot is reserved for his Smells Like Teen Spirit Mustang, which sold for $4,550,000 last year.

Given the lack of historical importance this particular Jag has, we don’t see it getting anywhere near those kinds of numbers. Still, whenever a Cobain-related guitar emerges on the market, a sizable price tag usually follows suit.

Carrying the inscription “To the Guitar Hall O Fame,” as well as Cobain’s signature, the Jaguar is said to be one of the many instruments the Nirvana frontman crossed paths with while he shopped around to replace his stage-smashed guitars.

It arrives with certificates of authenticity composed by authenticator Roger Epperson and PSA Authentication Services.

Heritage Auctions' catalog also has room for other instruments bearing the signatures of multiple guitar heroes: a 1989 Fender Stratocaster signed by both Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan can be found, as can a Gibson Sonex sporting the signatures of numerous players.

Few details are supplied for the Sonex, which carries the scrawls of Steve Vai, Adrian Belew, Al Di Meola, Eric Johnson, Vivian Campbell, Warren Haynes, and many others. 

The auction – which also boasts a range of vintage Gibson Les Pauls –  is set to go live on July 24, and will close August 11.

For more information on the sale, head over to Heritage Auctions. 

A Fender Precision Bass that was once played by Elvis Presley is set to go under the hammer with an auction estimate of $100,000 – $150,000.

Offered as part of the latest Gotta Have Rock and Roll auction, the 1966 P-Bass belonged to top Memphis session player Tommy Cogbill, and comes with provenance from the family and a letter of authenticity. There are also photos of Elvis playing around with the bass at American Sound Studio, where he recorded with Cogbill in 1969.

As a member of the studio house band, informally known as The Memphis Boys, Cogbill went on to play bass on four albums with Elvis, closing with hits like Suspicious Minds, Don’t Cry Daddy, In The Ghetto and Kentucky Rain.

Prior to joining The Memphis Boys, Cogbill worked numerous dates around Nashville, New York, and especially at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals. His inventive, in-the-pocket basslines were essential to the success of classic R&B hits like Aretha Franklin’s Respect, Wilson Pickett’s Land of 1000 Dances, and Memphis Soul Stew by King Curtis.

Talking to BP magazine in 2006, Nashville session bassist Michael Rhodes said: “Tommy played bass on all the great Atlantic stuff, like Funky Broadway. After a cut, when he had played something outstanding and compliments were paid, he never claimed all the credit. He always passed credit around, but his dynamic interpretation on bass guitar was uncanny; his sense of time was amazing."

Cogbill’s trademark busy-yet-unimposing bass playing also graced Dusty Springfield’s 1969 hit Son of A Preacher Man. “What strikes me is how sparse and laid back that track is, except for Tommy's bassline,” said Rhodes. “He takes up the bulk of the real estate and you can hear everyone sort of following Tommy because he’s really in the zone, right in the middle of the pocket.”

Tommy Cogbill’s 1966 Fender P-Bass was a production model with a double-cutaway alder body and a three-tone sunburst finish. Coupled with an Ampeg B-15, Cogbill tracked some of the most iconic bass tones in studio history. 

“Tommy Cogbill’s profile has always been subdued – as he wanted it to be," says Rhodes. "However, from a historical perspective, he should be listed among the top-five most important popular-music bassists of the last century." 

The auction is set to take place on June 30. For more info visit gottahaverocknroll.com.

For all the praise that Paul McCartney’s earned as a songwriter it’s quite possible that he doesn’t get enough credit for his bass guitar playing. “You just think of him as Beatle Paul,” said producer Rick Rubin. “But in my opinion he is the best of all bass players, he’s number one.” 

McCartney’s melodic style owed much to Motown’s James Jamerson, whom he’s often credited as his biggest influence. From there, he became interested in seeking out other bass players, including one of the most famous singers of all time, Elvis Presley, as he told Music Radar. “When we met Elvis, he was trying to learn bass, so I was like, ‘You’re trying to learn bass, are you … son? Sit down, let me show you a few things.’ So I was very proud of being the bass player.”

The Fab Four paid a visit to Presley’s Beverly Hills mansion during their US tour in 1965. "The party really had been a bit lifeless and unexciting,” remembered Tony Barrow, who was The Beatles' press officer at the time. "But as soon as Presley and The Beatles began to play together, the atmosphere livened up. Elvis strummed a few bass guitar chords for Paul and said: 'See, I'm practising.' And Paul came back with some quip about: 'Don't worry, between us, me and Brian Epstein will make a star of you soon.’"

So why did Elvis initially greet The Beatles with such studied casualness? "He was simply affirming his role," said Priscilla Presley of her former husband. “But I heard later that Paul had told Jerry Scheff that once Elvis picked up that bass guitar he knew he was in.”

The Beatles were all heavily influenced by Presley’s 1956 hit, Heartbreak Hotel, which they would perform live in the early 60s. “Elvis is a truly great vocalist, and you can hear why on Heartbreak Hotel,” said McCartney. “It’s a perfect example of a singer being in command of the song. Musically it’s perfect, too. The double bass and the walk-in piano create this incredibly haunting atmosphere. It’s so full of mystery, and it’s never lost that for me. The echo is just stunning. When The Beatles were recording, we’d often ask George Martin for ‘the Elvis echo.’ I think we got it down perfectly on A Day in the Life.”  

Taken from Chaos And Creation at Abbey Road, McCartney's own rendition of Heartbreak Hotel sees him unveil the double bass that was used on the original track. “I’m gonna have great pleasure in revealing this,” he says. “This is the bass. Those Elvis fans among you will notice this white trim that was on all the early album covers. It was played by Bill Black, Elvis Presley’s bass player.” As you would expect, McCartney’s cover is as stripped back as you can get.

“One of the stories I heard about this bass was that in the early days Elvis, Scotty Moore, his guitar player, and Bill Black used to work as a trio, and they would be working locally in Tennessee – places like that. So, you have to imagine, it’s a beautiful starry night driving along the interstate: Elvis driving, Scotty Moore and Bill Black, and this little baby strapped to the roof rack.”

For more Beatles news visit thebeatles.com.

Having played on literally thousands of studio sessions, Carol Kaye’s credits are enough to humble even the greatest names in music. That’s her on The Beach Boys Pet Sounds album, on records by Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Simon & Garfunkel, Elvis Presley, Sonny & Cher, Frank Sinatra, the score for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the theme from Mission Impossible.

As one of LA's top session players during the 60s, Kaye was a favourite among producers like Phil Spector and Lou Adler, while Quincy Jones wouldn’t book a film session without her. Jones later wrote in his 2001 autobiography, “The Fender bass player Carol Kaye could do anything and leave the men in the dust.”

One of the important things about bass playing styles of this period was that almost everybody used a plectrum with flatwound strings. Kaye also used a piece of foam to dampen the strings at the bridge. “We were all mute-conscious back then, because when you go into the studio, you can't possibly have all the same sounds that you do playing live. Since I played with a pick, I took a piece of felt, doubled it up, and taped it on the strings.” 

Aside from her special muting technique, we’ve selected 10 things you probably didn’t know about one of the most recorded bass players in history.

1. She began as a jazz guitarist with Sam Cooke

Kaye’s session career began in December 1957, not as a bass player, but as a jazz guitarist. Having been impressed by her chops at LA’s Beverly Caverns jazz club, music mogul Bumps Blackwell invited Carol to play on a recording session for a young singer he had recently discovered called Sam Cooke. Over the next five years Carol’s Epiphone Emperor guitar was to appear on records by Richie Valens, Bobby Darin, The Ventures, The Ronettes and The Beach Boys.

2. She played on the first two Frank Zappa albums

“Frank was very warm to Dennis Budimer, Tommy Tedesco and me, his guitar section," Kaye once told BP . "I played 12-string. He had his own rhythm section and just added us on Freak Out and Mothers of Invention. I admired Frank, but later declined to work for him when I read his porn lyrics. It was my way of protesting as a mother raising three children! We always sent our best regards to each other though and I always stuck up for him. He respected musicianship, so we liked him and his music very much."

3. She switched to bass because of Phil Spector

Everything changed in 1963 when Hollywood’s first call bassist, Ray Pohlman, became unavailable and producer Phil Spector persuaded Kaye to fill the vacant bass slot. “Suddenly I was able to play a lot of the stuff that had been in my head for years; all those funky basslines. But there was the added advantage of not having to cart around a whole bunch of acoustic and electric guitars, 12 strings and two or three amps. I became obsessive about practising on this new instrument to get my approach together.”

4. She played fuzz bass on Good Vibrations

On the out-takes from the Good Vibrations sessions Carol can be heard playing a fuzz bass part. “That didn’t make it onto the released hit version though; it was just another experiment that Brian wanted to try," she says. "I used a Gibson Maestro box. In all we took 36 hours to cut Good Vibrations. We knew it was a biggie, so we didn’t have a problem with the long hours.”

5. She rescued Sonny & Cher’s The Beat Goes On

Recorded at Hollywood’s Gold Star Studios on December 13th 1966, The Beat Goes On is credited to arranger Harold Battiste, yet, according to Kaye, her bouncy bass lick in F, which replaced the original walking bassline, rescued the entire session. “I mean, it was a nothing song, and then I found a bassline that kind of made it. But you could say that about all of those songs. About 95% wouldn't have been hits without us."

6. Her basslines on Pet Sounds inspired Sgt Pepper

Paul McCartney has repeatedly cited the bass playing on Pet Sounds as the inspiration for the bass style that he developed around the time of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. “Pet Sounds was my inspiration for making Sgt. Pepper. I was really blown away with how clever it was and how intriguing the arrangements were. There’s a very interesting bass, it’s always nearly an off beat. If you’ve got a song in C the first bass note will normally be a C. But Carol would play a G. It still fitted, but it gave you a whole new field.”

7. She was recruited by Music Man to demo the first-ever StingRay

In 1978, Music Man sounded out Kaye to help launch the StingRay, with the session legend subsequently putting the new model through its paces on a wild fusion track titled Changes, for which she recruited drummer John Guerin. “It was a great clean sound,” Kaye said of her experience with the StingRay. "It was always a commercial bass, but I thought, 'Yeah, that’s a great bass.'”

8. She gave Gene Simmons an impromptu lesson

Kaye once gave an impromptu bass lesson to Gene Simmons of Kiss at Sunset Sound Studios in Hollywood. The clip is actually an outtake from a 2012 documentary called Sample This. “You've got to do it with the beat, Gene," Kaye tells Simmons. “That’s the secret, right there.”

9. She jammed with Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey at the 2000 NAMM Show

Old school met new school at the 2000 Winter NAMM Show in Anaheim when Kaye found herself alongside bass virtuosos Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey. All three are playing different iterations of the Aria Steve Bailey Signature model. Despite playing a P Bass for most of her session career, in around 2001, Kaye turned to the Ibanez SRX700 as it “gave me the jazz sounds that I wanted”.

10. Some of her work was wrongly attributed to James Jamerson

According to Kaye, some of her work was wrongly attributed to Motown bassist James Jamerson. In an article called Reconstructing the History of Motown Session Musicians: The Carol Kaye/James Jamerson Controversy, Brian F. Wright detailed his research into some of Motown's contested history. “I can tell you that Kaye is definitely playing on I’m Ready For Love by Martha & The Vandellas, Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone by the Supremes, In And Out Of Love by the Supremes, and Brenda Holloway’s You’ve Made Me So Very Happy. I can back those up 100 percent, and all of those were hits.”

Carol Kaye’s work with a group of studio musicians known as The Wrecking Crew led to her prominent role in a 2008 documentary, which is available on Amazon.

A prototype 1968 Fender Rosewood Telecaster built for Elvis Presley has been listed for sale on Reverb.

According to the music marketplace, the electric guitar is one of six prototypes, and a sister six-string to the Rosewood Tele beloved by George Harrison, who used his during the Beatles’ iconic 1969 rooftop gig atop the Apple Corps headquarters in London.

The listing states that the King of Rock and Roll used the ‘68 Rosewood Tele “intermittently” for a period of a few months, but at 9lbs and 9oz, Elvis ultimately deemed it too heavy for him, and so sent it back to Eddie Miller, Fender’s Nashville rep at the time.

Currently listed for $295,000, the guitar looks to share the same spec sheet as George Harrison’s Rosewood Tele, with a chambered rosewood body and maple veneer center with a poly finish, rosewood neck and fretboard, two single-coil pickups – the bridge with staggered pole pieces and the neck featuring a chrome-plated cover – and controls pots dating back to 1964.

The guitar also comes with a letter written by Eddie Miller dated September 16, 1969, verifying its provenance, as well as its original hardshell case and additional photo documentation.

For more information about the listing, head to Reverb.

Following George Harrison’s championing of the Fender Rosewood Tele, regular production of the guitar commenced in 1969, with a few changes from the prototype models. These alterations included a bolder mid-’60s ‘transition’ logo, instead of a black CBS-era decal, which was trickier to see against dark rosewood.

Despite the Beatles association, the initial launch of the guitar was somewhat underwhelming, with no bespoke advertisements created. Instead, the guitar simply appeared on a Fender price list in May 1969, described as “Telecaster, (Dual Pickups) Rosewood”.

The Rosewood Tele has been in and out of production since the early ‘70s. Fender launched the George Harrison Rosewood Telecaster in 2017 with a run of 1,000 instruments, and following a spike of Beatles hype as a result of Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back documentary, the same model was re-released this year as a “limited-edition tribute”.

The Telecaster was not the only Fender model to get the all-rosewood treatment. Fender once built a Rosewood Stratocaster – of which only two were ever built – one of which was intended for Jimi Hendrix. Sadly, however, Hendrix passed away before the guitar was made.

James Burton – a Nashville-based guitarist who has played alongside Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and many more – has been diagnosed with kidney cancer.

Revealing the diagnosis on social media on Friday (September 30), the 83-year-old said he’s due to have an operation today (October 3) at Nashville’s Vanderbilt Hospital, adding: “Even though I have a great team of doctors, I know God is in control.” He also asked his fans and followers to pray for his “total healing."

Born in Dubberly, Louisiana in 1939, Burton has worked with a remarkable list of musicians throughout his career, including The Everly Brothers, Glen Campbell, John Denver, Judy Collins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison and loads more.

But perhaps his most noteworthy gig was alongside Presley, as part of the rock and roll icon’s TCB Band. Burton played with the group for almost a decade, until Presley’s death in 1977.

A self-taught player, Burton is regarded by many as one of the best rock ‘n’ roll six-string players of all time. He has been a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 2001, when he was inducted by Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. In his speech at the time, Richards said: “Let me put it this way: I never bought a Ricky Nelson record, I bought a James Burton record.”

In an interview with Guitar Player, Burton recalled his time working with Elvis Presley, saying the icon “always worked real close with the musicians."

“The way Elvis liked to work was that he would listen to a record and sort of copy some of the things that caught his ear and he thought he could enjoy working with,” he said. “He had a certain way of singing other people’s songs, and he could even make them sound better sometimes."

Baz Lurhmann’s 2022 Elvis biopic offers a rich insight into the life of the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, and has brought his iconic catalog of songs to the attention of a brand-new generation of fans. 

Naturally, though, the film’s two-and-a-half-hour runtime isn’t nearly enough to document some of the crazy stories and anecdotes from Elvis’s life.

Despite famously gaining weight in his later years, the King stayed in great shape for the majority of his life, due to both his energetic stage presence and other pursuits, including his love of karate.

And as Chip Young, a session guitarist who worked with Elvis on several of his recordings, once explained in an interview, the icon was once urged to display his martial arts prowess in the studio, and subsequently caused serious damage to one of Young's guitars.

As Young recalled, while Elvis and a group of other musicians were gathered at Nashville’s RCA Studios, a backing singer asked the star how he would disarm someone if they were to draw a pistol on him.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Elvis replied, before urging Red West, his bodyguard and a songwriter in his own right, to bring over a pistol so he could demonstrate.

“Red reaches in his pocket and pulls out a pistol,” Young remembered. “I said: ‘God, is that pistol loaded?’ Red said: ‘I wouldn’t bring an unloaded pistol in here!’ I said: ‘How about unloading it?’ He opens it up and the bullets fall down on the carpet.’”

Unsure of what move Elvis was about to pull, Young noticed that if the gun were to be knocked out of West’s hand, its trajectory would likely carry it towards his guitars that were leaning against a kick drum the other side of the room.

“Right about the time I said, ‘Let me move [the guitars]’ – Pow, Elvis hit [West’s] hand and that gun went flying right into the back of my gut-string guitar. The barrel went into the guitar and hung there.”

Young recalled that while everyone present found the incident hilarious, he, as the owner of the guitar, was not best pleased. Fortunately, Elvis was immediately apologetic, and offered to buy Young a replacement guitar.

• 10 essential Elvis Presley guitar tracks

“I could have gone and gotten a Ramírez for $2,000 or $3,000 – it wouldn’t have made a difference to him,” Young continued. “I picked up the guitar, took the gun out, and gave it back to Red. I said: ‘Actually, Elvis, I think this guitar is probably worth more now than it ever has been!’”

Fast-forward to the present day, and the punctured guitar now sits in a plexiglass cabinet at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame – donated by Young some time between the incident and his death in 2014 – with the story of its demise on a plaque next to it.

A new wave of fans have been turned onto Elvis since Baz Luhrmann’s biopic landed earlier this year. Following its release, online guitar lessons provider Fender Play reported double the number of users seeking to learn his songs.

Back in June, footage emerged of actor Austin Butler – who portrayed Elvis in the biopic – playing Presley's iconic Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar at Graceland, the King's former mansion in Memphis, Tennessee.

With the Baz Luhrmann Elvis biopic rocking the multiplex over the summer, it is perhaps understandable that the world has gone crazy once more for the King, and a new generation of guitarists have been introduced to his guitar legacy.

Here, we look at 10 tracks that make for the perfect introduction to the Elvis Presley rock 'n' roll phenomenon, and a cultural footprint that has made its presence felt on acoustic and electric guitar styles over the years – a young modern beat combo from Liverpool, England were but four musicians to have paid particular attention to his work.

And, to finish off, we'll walk you through three Elvis classics, which could be branded as a foundational lesson in rock 'n' roll guitar, as the riffs to these are woven into the very fabric of the art form.

1. Hound Dog (1956)

Elvis’s treatment of Hound Dog is very unlike the 1952 original by Big Mama Thornton, written for her by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. The lyrics were altered to reflect Elvis’s gender and to clean up the original’s sexual innuendo. 

Elvis chose ‘take 28’ of the 31 attempts, but by this time his trusted guitarist Scotty Moore was getting frustrated, so on his second solo – the first is a brilliant spontaneous outing – made a few weird percussive noises and knocked out a couple of random licks. 

Keith Richards said it sounded like Scotty had thrown the guitar on the floor, picked it up and got the perfect sound.

2. Too Much (1956)

This track contains one of Scotty Moore’s most outlandish solos. We’ll let Scotty explain, as he did to Guitarist magazine in 1992. 

“There’s a boy on this tour we just finished, plays every note I ever played – even the bad ones,” he jokes.

“Too Much was in an unusual key for us at the time. It was in Ab, and we’d done two or three takes, but on this particular cut I just got absolutely bonkers, just got lost, but somehow I came out of it and that’s the one Elvis picked. But anyway, this young guitarist would play that sucker note for note!”

3. Love Me Tender (1956)

The song was written by Ken Darby and George Poulton for the movie of the same name, but producer David Weisbart did not want Presley’s usual band on the recording and insisted that Ken Darby’s trio, with Vito Mumolo on guitar, did it. 

A simple nylon-string guitar part using spread chords interspersed with bass notes, Love Me Tender is in D, but for the bridge chords of D, F#m, Bm, D7, G, Gm, D, Mumolo plays D, F#7/C#, Bm, D/A, G, Gm, D, providing a partial chromatic rundown in the bass. It’s a simple but effective arrangement trick.

4. King Creole (1958)

This was the title track to Presley’s fourth film, for which he garnered critical praise for his performance of cajun guitarist Danny Fisher. The song itself is a hot-tempo 12-bar blues in B, with Elvis and his band augmented by harmony vocals from the Jordanaires. Scotty Moore powers the track from top to tail, with a driving riff played on his Gibson Super 400. 

The inevitable guitar solo is an explosion of tremolo-picked B notes high on the top string, cascading into tasty blues scale licks, string bends and doublestops. It’s one of Scotty’s most exciting lead breaks ever.

5. Guitar Man (1967)

This superb song was written and originally recorded by country guitar phenomenon Jerry Reed. Reed used the classic pick and fingers technique pioneered by Merle Travis and dubbed ‘Travis picking’, and even though Reed used nylon-string on both his and Presley’s first recording of Guitar Man, it gives the track both movement and excitement. 

Presley had tried to record the song before, but was unhappy with the feel so demanded that they get “that red-neck picker who played on the original tune.” Jerry obliged, nailing it in just a few takes.

6. Always On My Mind (1972)

There are great versions of this song by ‘Little Miss Dynamite’ Brenda Lee, country megastar Willie Nelson, and British synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys. Yet somehow Elvis made it his own. 

By this time he was using his Las Vegas live band for studio sessions, including guitarist James Burton. Burton had made his name with Ricky Nelson, and his solos on tracks such as Hello Mary Lou are legendary. 

There’s not much lead work here, but what there is perfect – just plaintive string bends and a perfect solo that apes the song’s melody. Could it have inspired Clapton’s playing on Wonderful Tonight?

7. Burning Love (1972)

Still depressed after his failed marriage to Priscilla, Elvis only seemed interested in singing ballads, but Burning Love seemed an obvious hit to all around him, and Presley finally caved in. Six takes and it was done! 

The electric guitar is attributed to James Burton, but the heavily effected solo and fills are not typical JB (there’s whammy bar here and James played a Tele). 

But it’s a great example of rhythm guitar used as lead instrument so was it in fact Elvis’s rhythm guitarist, John Wilkinson, with James playing the verses’ chord stabs? It remains a mystery. But this was Elvis’s final hit before his death in 1977.

8. Mystery Train (1955)

Often cited as the first real rhythm and blues song to be recorded by a white artist, Mystery Train was written by bluesman Junior Parker, but the Presley version is almost twice as fast as Parker’s original. 

Propelled by just Elvis on vocals and his ‘Sun Sessions’ Martin D-18, with Bill Black on bass and Scotty Moore on electric rhythm and lead, it was a straight live take. Piling on slapback echo, Scotty played the riff – E and A/E, with alternate E octave notes using pick and fingers; cracked out a solo featuring string bends, chord tones and fragments, and more or less invented rockabilly right there. 

Our video lesson takes you through Moore’s intro and verse lines, which, although comprising a lengthy section of the song, boils down to just four chords (E, A/E, A7 and B7) and some repeating picking patterns. Learn the chord shapes first, then slowly experiment with picking out the notes. 

For a smooth change when changing from the E chord to the A/E, use your third finger to barre across the 2nd fret and hold all three notes of the open A major. 

9. Jailhouse Rock (1956)

This song is ultra-cool for several reasons. First is Elvis Presley’s stunning dance routine in the film, wearing a jailbird’s striped T-shirt. Second is the ‘stops’ and anticipatory drums between Elvis’s spat-out verses. Then there was the key. 

The song is in Eb and Scotty Moore plays the typical ‘walking arpeggio’ riffs, but when it comes to the low Eb note (an E in standard tuning), he plays the open sixth string. Scotty did sometimes tune down (as he did on Don’t Be Cruel), so who knows? Anyway, our video lesson is in E, to save you the hassle of tuning down! 

We’ll cover the D# to E major intro chords and the walking bassline from the chorus. It’s a simple one-bar lick – you just have to transpose it note for note through the A, E, B, A, E progression. Navigate the tricky move to the implied B chord in the chorus by sliding up to the 6th fret with your third finger. 

10. Suspicious Minds (1969)

With Elvis delivering an impassioned vocal fuelled by his recent split from wife Priscilla, Suspicious Minds was recorded during the same Memphis sessions that yielded another classic, In The Ghetto – and both tracks featured Reggie Young on guitar. The whole of Suspicious Minds hangs on Reggie’s super tight fingerstyle playing (on a Gibson Super 400, we think), performed with impeccable timing and squeaky clean tone. 

Though the phrasing is similar to In The Ghetto (which uses an open A shape), here you’ll be following a 3rd-fret G barre chord and a C/E on the adjacent strings, before moving the riff up the fretboard to the 8th and 10th frets. 

We’ll give you the finer details in the video lesson. Suffice to say, if you can manage the opening bar of music the rest should feel familiar and, dare we say, fairly easy! 

Avoid finger fatigue and try not to play a full barre on the opening G chord – you only need to pick the four bass strings here.

Elvis, the new Baz Lurhmann biopic charting the life of the King of Rock and Roll Elvis Presley, has caused a spike in the number of people seeking to learn how to play his songs on guitar.

According to Fender, whose Fender Play online guitar lessons platform includes tutorials on tracks like All Right, Jailhouse Rock, Heartbreak Hotel and Burning Love, double the number of users have been trying to learn Presley’s music since the film’s release.

Addressing the rise in popularity of Elvis’s music on the Fender Play platform, Fender SVP of Marketing Matt Watts says: “The lasting impact of an artist like Elvis is undeniable.

“His music is still inspiring people across the globe, young and old, to begin their own musical journeys and this is evident via this spike in activity we have seen.”

Elvis has once again illustrated the impact the inclusion of guitar music in popular films and TV shows can have on the appetite of a wider audience to begin playing guitar.

After Metallica’s 1986 thrash metal classic Master of Puppets was featured in the popular Netflix sci-fi series Stranger Things, online music learning app Yousician reported that the track became the number one song aspiring guitarists wanted to learn on its platform.

The company said that “despite it being a challenging song to pick up”, demand for the song from its users had risen by about 1,700 per cent since July 1, when the finale of Stranger Things season four debuted.

Additionally, Master of Puppets received 17.5 million Spotify downloads in the week following the episode’s release, and similarly, Elvis Presley’s music videos enjoyed a massive spike in views following Elvis’s opening weekend according to Vevo (per Digital Music News). For example, the video for Jailhouse Rock received five times more views that weekend than the previous 10 weekends.

Elvis is still showing in cinemas, though it became available to watch on Amazon Prime on August 8.

• JD Simo unpacks the legacy of Elvis Presley and reveals how he nailed Scotty Moore’s guitar tone for Baz Luhrmann’s new biopic 

When working with producer Dave Cobb, guitarist JD Simo has learned to expect the unexpected. Cobb’s unconventional studio methods are the stuff of industry legend, and while the two are longtime colleagues and friends, Simo knows that every project will be different in sound and approach. 

So it was when he began work on Elvis, the Baz Luhrmann biopic, which opens on June 24. From June 2018 until December 2021, while touring on his own, recording his third solo album, Mind Control (released November 2021), and during the pandemic, Simo, who is based in Nashville, was in and out of RCA Studio A, tracking for the film and soundtrack with drummer Chris Powell, keyboardist Philip Towns, and bassist Brian Allen. 

“Dave called and said, ‘I’ve got this relatively big project that I’m involved in, and I want you to be a part of it,’” says Simo. “He said it was a movie about Elvis, and that got me very excited because that's how I learned to play guitar when I was 4. I was obsessed with Elvis Presley, and Heartbreak Hotel was the first song I learned to play. 

“Other than that, he didn’t say much, which is typical with Dave. I rarely know what I'm getting into, or the scope of it, until I show up. Over the course of doing sessions every few months, it became very clear what a monumental task and big deal it was.” 

Your work is entrenched in guitar solos and walls of sound. By comparison, with Elvis’s music, the guitars are a “less is more” approach. How did you go from one to the other over the recording timespan? 

“First of all, I’m such a fan of Elvis’ music, but also the music of that period and the other stuff we recorded for the film. Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup, Muddy Waters, B.B. King – all of that is a big part of my musical DNA. 

“Going in and working on stuff periodically for the film was like fantasy camp for me, because I got to play dress up, musically, as these heroes of mine and really have fun. 

“Because Baz is such a detail-oriented filmmaker, every aspect of the sonic chain – the equipment we used, obviously the parts we played, every element of trying to make it authentically correct – was encouraged and required. 

“Early on in the process, for example, Dave and I went shopping for equipment because we needed specific sounds for specific elements, and for some of it, we did not feel we had the ample tools.

You own a lot of gear, and it’s an understatement to say that so does Dave Cobb. What else did you need? You had to cover the span of several guitarists. What did you use? 

“We knew going into it that we were going to have a Scotty Moore setup, a James Burton setup, and then some others, like Tommy Tedesco, who played on some of the ’60s, stuff, and Reggie Young, who played on the From Elvis In Memphis album in ’69. 

“The Scotty stuff was definitely the most daunting, and that's what Dave and I focused on first. We went to Carter Vintage Guitars in Nashville and picked up four or five archtop electrics they had from the ’50s. We went through each of them, trying to find one that we both felt really sounded like Scotty. 

“We knew Scotty used a Gibson L5, a Super 400, and obviously a 295 in the earliest days at Sun, but rather than saying, ‘We need a 295, we need an L5,’ we got a bunch of different ones because we were looking for the sound. That's the important aspect. Sometimes you can achieve the sound without using exactly what somebody used. 

“And quite contrary, you can a lot of times get the exact same gear that somebody used and it doesn't sound right. So we auditioned several different things, and it ended up being an old 1950s Gibson L5 – a ’56 or ’57 with flatwounds – that just had the sound. 

“From an amplifier perspective, that was really tough, because Scotty used a Ray Butts EchoSonic custom amplifier. Those are not only incredibly rare, but also there’s nothing quite like them. 

“We tried Tweed Deluxes, I have a little Alamo, we tried a bunch of different amps, and we ended up using Dave’s ’65 Rickenbacker combo with a solid-state Echoplex from the 1970s. It sounded perfect, and that became the Scotty Moore setup for the entire movie. 

“The James Burton stuff was probably the easiest, in that Dave has a beautiful 1956 Fender Esquire that sounds incredible plugged into his ’66 Super Reverb. Those two things sounded like James Burton, and so that was the rig. The Reggie Young and Tommy Tedesco stuff was generally the same, the Esquire and Super Reverb, because it suited that 1960s Telecaster-y, twanging kind of sound.” 

“Yola plays Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the film, and I have this old Jazzmaster that is tuned to B that I tune down normally. Sister Rosetta tuned her guitar down a lot, sometimes a whole step and sometimes a step and a half. 

“At least at one point in her career, she played an SG, but it had three pickups in it, so the middle position is an out of phase, weird, honky kind of sound. My Jazzmaster is wired out of phase, so even though I’m not using at all what she used, it sounded perfect into that same Rickenbacker amp that we used for the Scotty stuff.” 

In an interview with Sound and Soul Online, you said something about Hendrix and Led Zeppelin that connects to Elvis: “The thing that is the least special about them is what has been mimicked and copied; the actual depth and what made them incredible, all the nuance, is not even noticed.” 

What do you think people still do not understand about Elvis Presley's music? 

“With Elvis, it’s even more superficial than in the case of Hendrix or Zeppelin. The parody of the tragic ending of his life, first and foremost, is very mean-spirited. They forget that he was a human being. In a way, that has overshadowed his greatness, more so than anything else, and that's even more tragic and more not okay. 

“Elvis, like few other things in modern history, was a conduit for this incredible shift in both pop culture and art in general. At the core of it, he was just doing what felt natural to him, and so the importance and significance of his contribution is in many ways above and beyond. 

“It has nothing to do with him and his daily life and what he was looking to do. I think that's probably part of the paradox that became such a heavy burden for him to bear, because at the core of it, he was just a guy who was singing and enjoying himself. 

“The world changed from this post-World War II, very conservative era into what became the Baby Boomer era of the 1960s, and Elvis was the bridge that made it possible in one form or another. 

“He was part of a very special time in this transfer of music, along with a lot of his compadres in that time – Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Little Richard, the rock and roll era. But he was such a bigger star, and every great star that followed sort of follows in the footsteps of his path. I find it super-fascinating that he was genuinely the first to go through anything remotely like what he went through. 

“I can’t speak for Baz Luhrmann, obviously, but I'm sure that part of the motivation of what they're looking to do with this film is to give a true picture of who and what Elvis was to a generation – or two or three at this point – that maybe think of Elvis impersonators or all these things that have nothing to do with what truly is amazing about this guy.”

In a quote accompanying the release of Mind Control, you describe the album as, “using the creative process for therapy and the fun of playing music,” and “a positive theme of growth, self-help, and also struggles with addiction and mental health.” How are music and guitar therapeutic for you? 

“I started playing guitar when I was 4, and even before I started playing, listening to music was a beautiful escape. From my earliest memories, it's something I was able to go to to feel better about things I was not okay with. It was a way to escape reality into something that made me feel good. It’s the exact same for me today. 

“That’s the universal truth of music. The added bonus when you write, create, or play music is there's this purging, like when someone learns to journal, or they go to the gym to work out stress. You're able to purge what’s negative, frustrating, hurtful – anything that is not joyful.

“The other thing is that it encompasses all of your emotions, and it’s addicting. It serves in a way that nothing else I've ever experienced in my life has the ability to do. When it’s really great, it’s such a euphoric feeling that there's no wonder to me why so many people in this line of work end up chasing addictions and stuff like that. It’s because the feeling is so great and it’s fleeting and you just want to stay there.” 

“Music has certainly helped me live a happier, healthier life. It's a positive thing to go to to work out trauma, and if you create something that is passed on to somebody, maybe they hear it and think, ‘I'm not alone.’ 

“The thing with mental health is that when you're in the pit of it, you feel very alone, like you're the only person feeling it. But the truth is that we all feel it. It’s the human experience. At least in my path, the moments when I'm reminded that I'm not alone, that other people feel the same way, immediately help snap me out of that pit.” 

Is your battle with depression? Anxiety? Panic? 

“All of the above. Starting therapy four years ago was incredibly helpful. I also became very involved in ACA and Al-Anon, and both helped me tremendously. 

“Like many people, I grew up in an environment that was very ‘stiff upper lip.’ You grin and bear it, and if you can’t handle it, you're not a man. It took understanding that there is help out there and things you can do to not only work out past trauma or things that need to be dealt with, but also to learn how to reprogram all of your hamster-wheel reactions to those things. 

“There are programs where you get to know other people who are in the same situation and that give you a pathway to actually enjoying your life. It’s amazing. 

“I would have sought it sooner, had I known that it even existed, but I'm just grateful that I found it when I did, four or so years ago. I talk about this all the time because we need to talk about it. People get help and take medication for blood pressure, for diabetes. Well, there are things you can do for mental health, too. The fact that it's still so taboo is just ridiculous.” 

It’s no secret that Elvis had his struggles, and he had them during a time when this was even more stigmatized and taboo than it is today. During the sessions, did you feel a personal connection to Elvis, in addition to the musical one? 

“Absolutely. The ongoing vibe of the sessions was from such a place of love and care. Baz’s intention was to do justice to a man who deserves it. He even said that multiple times when we were working. 

“So many things have been filmed and written and done about Elvis in all different aspects of sensationalism, parody, ridicule, however you want to look at it. Baz wanted to do service to his greatness and give him proper respect. That was incredibly omnipresent. 

“On top of that, all the sessions I did were at RCA here in Nashville, in the same facility where a lot of stuff we were recording had been recorded originally. We were in a room where that greatness came from. So yes, it was really easy to attach to it and do it from a loving, caring perspective.” 

Mental health resources

• Al-Anon 
• Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families (ACA) 
• Sweet Relief Musicians Mental Health Fund 
• The Mental Health Coalition 
• Boys Do Cry (Australia) 
• Music Minds Matter (U.K.) 
• “I’m Good Bro: Unmasking Black Male Depression”

There are all kinds of stories cropping up about how Austin Butler went deep into character to portray Elvis Presley in the Baz Luhrmann biopic that opens next Friday, June 24. 

But perhaps to really walk a mile in Elvis’ blue suede shows, you’ve got to pick up the very same acoustic guitar that the King played, and in a post-production pilgrimage to Graceland, Butler did just that.

Butler was accompanied by Elvis’ granddaughter, the actor and filmmaker Riley Keogh, who captured some of the footage on her Instagram account and revealed that Butler was in esteemed and select company. 

Few others besides Elvis have played his 1956 Gibson J-200. Paul McCartney, who has enjoyed some success himself as a recording artist, once tuned it. 

The J-200 was produced for 1930s country stars and had the proportions and build to make it sing. It also looked the bee’s knees, with solid Sitka spruce on top, curly maple on the back and sides, and a moustache-style bridge. It is the same guitar Elvis used on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1957, albeit with a tooled-leather covering for a little extra visual pizazz. 

According to Scotty Moore, Elvis acquired it stock in October 1956. The model was officially designated as a J-200N, with the N standing for natural finish. 

The J-200 was acquired stock, and notably was paid for on account of Elvis’ manager Tom “The Colonel” Parker forbidding him to take on any artist endorsements. The guitar was put in for repair when Elvis served in the United States Army, and had his name inlaid on the fingerboard in time for him leaving active duty on March 5, 1960.

Describing Butler as one of her favorite people besides her grandfather, Keogh said that visiting Graceland in his company was “a special and overwhelming experience”.

“One of many sweet things that happened while we were there, Austin played my grandfather’s guitar in the house,” she wrote. “This guitar hasn’t been played by many people. I know it was tuned by Paul McCartney once, but as far as people sitting down and playing it Austin Butler is one of very few people aside from my grandfather.”

Other custom details that were added to Elvis’ number one acoustic while he was in the army included a custom pickguard, which makes an appearance in Philip Dunne’s 1961 film Wild in the Country. We watch with interest to see what Butler plays in Luhrmann’s Elvis. Not long now…

Gibson has tipped its cap to the one and only Elvis Presley with two new signature acoustic guitars, the Elvis SJ-200 and Elvis Dove.

Based on two of Elvis's personal favorites, the new signature guitars both feature a maple body with a sitka spruce top and maple back and sides. Both acoustics are also graced with a stripped-down ebony finish, and feature an LR Baggs VTC under-saddle piezo pickup and preamp with soundhole-mounted volume and tone controls. 

The SJ-200 is based on an acoustic that was given to Presley as a gift at a recording session at RCA Studio B in Nashville in the mid '60s. The King would go on to use the guitar extensively onstage, and later gifted it to his friend Marty Lacker at Graceland in 1976.

It boasts a two-piece maple neck with an Indian rosewood fretboard sporting 20 standard frets and mother of pearl graduated crown inlays. 

The Elvis SJ-200 is also outfitted with an SJ-200 rosewood 'Moustache' bridge with mother of pearl Hourglass and Teardrop inlays, and an SJ-200 tortoise pickguard. 

The Elvis Dove, meanwhile, is based on a customized 1969 Gibson Dove that was gifted to Elvis by his father, Vernon. Elvis played the guitar onstage throughout his later career, including during his enormously successful 1973 Aloha From Hawaii concert. In a surreal twist, he later – during a 1975 concert in Asheville, North Carolina – gifted it to an audience member mid-performance.

The guitar features a mahogany neck with an Indian rosewood fretboard sporting 20 standard frets and mother of pearl parallelogram inlays. The acoustic also features a rosewood Dove bridge with mother of pearl inlays and a none-more-black Dove pickguard.

On both acoustics, Grover Keystone tuners are fitted to a headstock adorned with a Gibson crown and an 'Elvis' logo located just above the nut. Gold hardware is also standard all around.

The Gibson Elvis Dove model is available now for $4,499 (the same as a standard Dove), while the Gibson Elvis SJ-200 rings up at $5,299 – a few hundred more than your standard SJ-200. Both models come with hardshell cases.

For more info on the acoustics, visit Gibson.

A recent auction hosted by Julien’s Auctions, which featured a number of electric guitars and acoustic guitars played by the likes of Eddie Van Halen, The Edge, David Gilmour, Eric Clapton and more, brought in nearly $5 million as part of the company’s two-day Icons & Idols: Rock 'N' Roll event.

The highest-selling instrument of the event was Eric Clapton’s stage-played 1968 Martin D-45, which was used at Derek and the Dominos' debut performance at the Lyceum Theater, London, in June 1970, and sold for a staggering $625,000.

Clapton’s D-45, which the guitarist also used to write and record a handful of his hits, including Layla, more than doubled its original estimated auction price of $300,000.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the auction saw the Edge’s stage-played 1976 Gibson Explorer – used mainly as a backup during the 1987 Joshua Tree tour – sell for a sensational $437,500, with the U2 guitarist’s concert-used Gibson Les Paul Standard also going for $96,000.

The Edge’s U2 bandmate Bono had one of his own stage-played and hand-signed guitars up for auction – a 2005 Gretsch Irish Falcon G61361 – which sold for $115,200.

There were a fair few Fenders up for grabs, too. A ‘57 Fender Stratocaster reissue that had been owned and stage-played by David Gilmour during Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason tours in ‘87, ‘88 and ‘89 – affectionately known as Cream no. 2, back-up to Cream no. 1 – fetched $200,000.

The Strat had also seen action during the band’s 1990 show at Knebworth, and was taken on the road for their The Division Bell tour in 1994. A second Gilmour Strat, a custom-made black number signed by the man himself, sold for $51,200 in support of Teenage Cancer Trust.

Elsewhere, an EVH-played Frankenstrat, which was gifted by the late Eddie Van Halen to childhood friend Kevan Hill – who had been bandmates with Eddie and his brother Alex in their first band, Broken Combs, in 1964 – was included on the roster, and sold for $83,000.

That guitar, which also sported the signatures of Eddie and Alex Van Halen, featured some suitably EVH-style tweaks, including bike reflectors and five 2012-era Van Halen picks.

Plenty of other six-figure six-strings featured throughout the auction, with Amy Winehouse’s Daphne Blue axe selling for $153,600 and an Elvis Presley-played 1972 Martin D-28 going for $187,500.

Winehouse had played her Daphne Blue piece during a string of early shows, including a performance on Later… With Jools Holland in 2003 and in the video for Take the Box. Presley, meanwhile, had extensively donned his D-28 in the mid-to-late ‘70s both on-stage and off-stage.

To explore the entire Icons & Idols: Rock 'N' Roll lot, head over to Julien's Auctions.

The sale of Clapton's prized Martin D-45 comes off the back of intense controversy surrounding the guitarist, who recently doubled down on his anti-vaxx stance and claimed that Rolling Stone had “helped break up Cream”.

Clapton’s comments were made after fellow blues guitar player Robert Cray disassociated himself with Slowhand, saying, “I’d just rather not associate with somebody who’s on the extreme and being so selfish.”

A trio of guitars belonging to David Gilmour, Elvis Presley and Eddie Van Halen are set to hit the auction block next month.

Up for sale as part of Julien's Auctions' Icons & Idols: Rock 'N' Roll auction – which will be held both online and at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York on November 19 and 20 – the guitars are a Gilmour-owned, heavily stage-used Fender Stratocaster Vintage '57 reissue, a 1972 Martin D-28 acoustic guitar once belonging to Presley, and a stage-used Fender “Frankenstrat” signed by both Eddie and Alex Van Halen.

The Gilmour-owned Fender is one of six vintage Strats reportedly purchased in the mid-'80s by the Pink Floyd guitarist, and is customized to his exact specifications, most notably with EMG single-coil pickups. A backup for his famous Cream #1 guitar, Gilmour refers to this six-string as Cream #2.

It was taken on Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason tours in 1987, 1988 and 1989, as well as their tour supporting 14th album The Division Bell in 1994. The guitar is expected to fetch between $80,000 and $100,000.

The 1972 Martin D-28 acoustic was, according to Julien's, played onstage, and used during the mid- to late-'70s, by Elvis Presley. Gifted to him by his friend Norman Taurog – who also directed the films in which he appeared – the guitar was, until recently, displayed at the Elvis-A-Rama Museum in Las Vegas. It's expected to fetch between $70,000 and $90,000.

And lastly, a Fender “Frankenstrat” played on stage by Eddie Van Halen, and signed by the late guitar icon and his brother and bandmate Alex Van Halen, is also up for grabs, though you'll need somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000, according to Julien's estimate.

The guitar – which features bicycle reflectors on the back to reflect stage lighting – and five guitar picks taped to its body – was reportedly gifted to Kevan Hill, a childhood friend and bandmate of Eddie and Alex Van Halen in their first band, Broken Combs.

Also part of Julien's Auctions Icons & Idols: Rock 'N' Roll auction is a Eric Clapton-owned and stage-played 1968 Martin D-45 acoustic guitar. The strummer was used heavily during Derek and The Dominos' debut concert at the Lyceum Theatre in London on June 14, 1970, and is expected to sell for between $300,000 and $500,000.

For more information on any of the guitars listed in this auction, head to Julien's Auctions.

UPDATE: an earlier version of this story reported $500,000 as the guitar's final selling price.

When it was reported that an Elvis Presley-owned and -played Cherry Red Hagstrom Viking II electric guitar – revered for its use in the iconic ‘68 Comeback Special – was hitting the auction block, it was noted that the axe carried a staggering starting bid of $250,000.

Now, it has been confirmed that the legendary semi-hollow has been sold for a whopping $625,000, with the proud new owner of the lot managing to outbid six other plucky bidders to get their hands on the prized piece of music memorabilia.

The guitar itself, which was sold by GWS Auctions as part of its Artifacts of Hollywood & Music Collection, had not been put up for auction since its last public appearance 25 years ago.

Famous for the role it played in helping Elvis relaunch his live career, the Hagstrom was wielded by the rock ‘n’ roll legend during a specially aired music event on NBC on December 3 1968 – Presley’s first public performance in over seven years.

The guitar originally belonged to Elvis’ bandmate Al Casey, though the semi-hollow showstopper ended up in Presley’s possession after the producers requested it be used by the Jailhouse Rock singer himself, due to its photogenic appearance.

A handful of notes, including a notarized letter of authenticity from Al Casey, a statement from ‘68 Comeback Special drummer Hal Baine, and a letter from legendary producer Bones Howe, all came with the Hagstrom.

Along with the letters, the winner of the auction also received a collection of photographs of Elvis from the filming of the special, as well as various loan paperwork forms from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, where the Hagstrom previously resided as part of an exhibit for Presley.

Despite selling for a six-figure sum, the Hagstrom isn't the most expensive Elvis-owned guitar to be sold in recent times. Last year, Elvis's "Sun Sessions" Martin D-18 acoustic guitar went for an incredible $1.32m.

Elvis Presley’s 1942 Martin D-18 acoustic guitar may have recently sold for $1.32 million, but fear not – another of the King’s axes, this one his cherry-red Hagstrom Viking II electric guitar, famous for its use in the legendary '68 Comeback Special, is hitting the block.

The semi hollow instrument is a highlight of Kruse GWS Auctions’ Artifacts of Hollywood & Music auction, which begins on March 27. It's being offered with a starting bid of $250,000.

The ‘68 Comeback Special marked Elvis' return to live performance after seven years spent focused on acting in Hollywood films. The televised concert, which launched Presley's return to live touring, featured him playing the Hagstrom for the opening segment as well as during one of the live "stand-up" segments. 

The Hagstrom belonged to musician Al Casey, a member of Elvis’ backing band during the special. According to an accompanying letter from Casey, he was asked to let Elvis use the guitar by the producers, as they "thought it would look beautiful on camera and with the set."

Elvis is also pictured with the Hagstrom on the cover of the 1969 album, From Elvis in Memphis, and it was included in a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame exhibition.

The Hagstrom comes with a notarized letter of authenticity from Al Casey, a second letter of authenticity from Casey, a notarized statement from Hal Blaine, the drummer on the ‘68 Comeback Special, and a letter from the show’s music producer, Bones Howe.

The lot also includes several photographs of Elvis during the filming of the special, including three negatives, and various loan paperwork from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

For more information or to bid, head to GWS Auctions.

”I tell young musicians that we recorded 35 tracks in five nights, and they tell me that’s impossible!” snickers Norbert Putnam, bassist with Elvis Presley from 1970 to 1977. 

The kids’ reaction is understandable: Even by the prolific standards of the Seventies, when bands routinely released two or three albums a year, that’s a work rate that beggars belief. It really happened, though, and it’s a privilege to speak today with a musician who saw it take place. 

We’re talking to Putnam – ‘Putt’, as the late King called him – because RCA, Elvis’s record label for the last 65 years, is releasing From Elvis In Nashville, a new box set. These recordings come from a sustained five-night session at RCA’s Studio B in Nashville in June 1970, plus an additional one-off event in September.  

Alongside the house band, the Nashville Cats – of which Putnam was a key member – Elvis did indeed cut 35 songs, live, and on peak form. 

These songs went on to form three albums, That’s The Way It Is (1970), Elvis Country (I’m 10,000 Years Old) (1971), and Love Letters From Elvis (also ’71). The songs have been remixed to get rid of subsequent overdubs and orchestration, getting us closer to the original feel of Elvis plus band in an efficiently creative space.  

Although we know now that within a couple of years of the Nashville session, Elvis sank into a state of poor mental and physical health that culminated in his death in ’77 at the age of only 42, Putnam makes it clear that the great man was firing on all cylinders in 1970.

“You couldn’t see an ounce of fat on him,” confirms Putnam, now 78 and still taking occasional bass sessions. “He was working out, and he was doing karate. His bodyguard Red West was there, and he and Elvis gave us a few karate demonstrations. They were pretty impressive, believe me.

“Elvis used to lean forward with his index and middle finger out, and throw a punch right at Red’s eyes. He could stop one inch from Red’s face, which scared the shit out of everyone, ha ha!”

Elvis was famously fond of guns, as you’ll know if you’ve read any of the sometimes damning books about him, and it wasn’t long before the subject of firearms came up, explains Putnam.

“Someone asked him, ‘Elvis, what do you do if someone points a gun at you?’ and he said ‘Red, get a revolver’. All of [Presley’s entourage] the Memphis Mafia carried a shiny aluminium camera case, and of course one of them contained weapons. So Red goes over to the weapons container and gets a revolver. He takes the bullets out– thank God – and assumes the position, pointing the gun at Elvis’s face.“

“Elvis leaps forward and does a karate chop across Red’s wrist, and the weapon goes flying across RCA B. Now, at the back of the room, our guitarist Chip Young had two or three guitars leaning against the wall, with the backs of the guitars facing outwards. 

“So this gun goes somersaulting across the studio and goes right into the back of Skip’s beautiful, handmade Spanish guitar. He had paid a lot of money for that guitar, so I’m looking at it, and Chip’s looking at it, and then we all look back at Elvis.

“All the Mafia were saying ‘Oh Elvis, that was great’ because they were paid to applaud everything he did, and Elvis goes right into another karate demonstration. Meanwhile Chip Young is having a heart attack because he’s paid several thousand dollars for that guitar, but then the guy who looked after Elvis’s money comes up to Chip, asks ‘How much for the guitar?’ and writes him a cheque on the spot!” 

We’ve already talked about guns and rock’n’roll –we might as well ask about drugs. Did Putnam ever see Elvis taking the uppers and downers that eventually contributed to his death? 

He pauses to consider before replying, “I don’t think he was taking hard drugs, but I can tell you that in June of 1970, I’m sure he was taking what they called ‘medication’. Every hour, one of the guys would take Elvis into the bathroom, and we were not allowed to go in when he was in there.”

“Then again,” he points out, “I’ve had a lot of music friends get hooked on drugs. There was one drummer I knew, a famous L.A. musician, who used to tie off his arm and shoot heroin five minutes before a session started. 

“After he got the smack in his veins, he was totally normal. He led the band through the session and never made a mistake, because he’d built up some resistance. Maybe Elvis had that sort of resistance too, because he was always so sharp.”

You know what the popular history of Elvis Presley suggests: That he was a red-hot rock’n’roller in the Fifties, sank into a terrible movie career in the Sixties, and ended up a fat joke in a white jumpsuit in the Seventies.

Of course, there was more to him than these simple clichés. In 1970, Elvis was performing with maximum skill, still enjoying a wave of public appreciation after his 1968 Comeback Special, on which he had appeared lean and mean in black leather –and he was still only 35.

As Putnam tells it, the King was full of enthusiasm for music, and for life, when he walked into Studio B. “Back then, I was booked every night at RCA from six to nine PM and then from 10 to one AM. All the Nashville studios ran that way. I’d play sessions in the morning and the afternoon too – in 1970 I played 625 record dates! 

“Anyway, the producer, Felton Jarvis, called me and said ‘Hey, you can come and play for Elvis, can’t you?’ I said yes, because I thought it would be another great notch on my belt. I’d already worked with Ray Charles and a lot of the big pop stars, so I went down there with my 1965 Precision and an Ampeg B-15 bass amp – and at six PM we were all there, with all the instruments levelled and ready to go.”

Make no mistake, this was a band for the ages. It included pianist David Briggs, multi-instrumentalist Charlie McCoy, drummer Jerry Carrigan and Elvis’s live guitarist James Burton; between them, these musicians had either worked with or would go on to work with Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bob Seger, Willie Nelson, Dean Martin, Joan Baez, Nancy Sinatra, B.B. King, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, George Harrison, Todd Rundgren, Kris Kristofferson, and Alice Cooper, among many other artists.

Putnam himself has shared a stage or studio with a galaxy of stars, Roy Orbison, Jimmy Buffett, Henry Mancini, Dan Fogelberg, Linda Ronstadt, J. J. Cale, and Tony Joe White among them. And now it was Elvis’s turn.

Again, if you refer to the canon of Presley literature, you’ll find that he is often depicted as a moody, petty, insecure individual at best – and while some of these traits probably emerged at a later point in his life, in 1970 none of this was evident, at least to the Nashville Cats.

As Putnam recalls: “Elvis always came in at eight o’clock precisely – two hours late! – with a big smile on his face, saying ‘Guys, do I have a funny story to tell you’, and he’d talk about himself, sometimes in the third person. 

“He’d gather us all around him, because he was a great raconteur – a great storyteller – and because all the seating was around the walls, we all sat on the floor in a circle, even though the tiled floor wasn’t exactly clean. Let me tell you, over the next two hours, until 10 PM, Elvis had us rolling with funny stories.”

He muses: “What’s funny is that after hearing him talk, I’d convinced myself that I knew this guy, because he grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi. I’m talking to you today from Florence, Alabama, which is where I grew up. That’s only 70 miles from Tupelo, and Elvis was just like all the kids I knew when I was growing up, except he was seven years older than me.”

Finally, the producer stepped in to crack the whip. “Felton Jarvis would come up and say ‘Now, Elvis, RCA is expecting us to turn in some tracks this week, and it’s 10 o’clock, and we need to get started’ and Elvis said ‘Okay, Felton – what are we doing first?’ 

“Felton said ‘Well, we talked about doing an album of country classics, and we want to do a second gospel album, and we might get started on a Christmas album too, and I’ve got seven pop songs’. As he says this, I’m adding this up – and that’s 37 songs, which I thought was impossible to do in five nights. But Elvis said ‘Let’s do this!’ and we went straight into 20 Days And 20 Nights, an old country song.”

The setup was clean and simple, he remembers. “Elvis had them put a long, 20-foot cable on his microphone so he could walk over and stand about eight or nine feet in front of us – guitar, bass, drums, and piano. No headphones back then, either. We had to play quietly so his mic wouldn’t pick us up.”

The band was so finely honed, he adds, that recording progressed swiftly. “The Nashville players had special knowledge. They would play us a demo, and I would grab a legal pad and sketch out the chord progression, the bass-line and any prevalent syncopation. I would draw five lines and sketch it in. We would literally hear a song one time and be ready to play it, based on the arrangement we’d just heard.”

Elvis himself matched their prowess, recalls Putnam, although the King was taken aback by how fast the band worked.

“He was so quick and so good,” he says. “Elvis was a quick study, I have to tell you; he’d only go through a song two or three times, and he had great ears. He’d turn to us and say ‘Do you guys have that? What key was it?’ and Briggs would say ‘That was E flat’.

“Elvis would say ‘Can you move it up?’ and we’d go up to E. ‘A little higher?’ so we went to F. Carrigan would count it off, and the band would play the song flawlessly. Elvis would look at us, like ‘How do you do that?’ because he was used to spending a lot of time on songs, because he had to learn it by rote.

“What’s really weird is that he rehearsed his vocal with a demo singer – a guy who sounded like Elvis. Haha! It was bizarre. I’d be standing there, and I’d hear Elvis Presley sing with an imitator who’s imitating Elvis Presley. I should have asked him why he did that. 

“But he wasn’t interested in working up to a performance, in other words starting gradually on take one and building up to take three or four. No, he was full-on right from the start. We would run the song once for the engineer, and then record it with vocals. He’d be like ‘Let’s get it in the first take’ and start breathing like an athlete. We played to his dynamic. He was almost conducting us with his body language, and I think that’s the reason those records have such a great feel.”

Did he give Putnam any feedback on the bass parts? “No he did not, and that really bothered me on the first night, so when I found myself standing next to him in the control room I said, ‘Hey Elvis, are the bass parts sounding good to you?’ He said ‘Oh, Putt, they sound great!’ and slapped me on the back. Over the next seven years, I did 120 tracks with Elvis, and he never, ever changed a note.”

Elvis dabbled in bass himself every now and then; did he contribute musically to the sessions? “No,” says Putnam. “It’s been said that he picked up an acoustic guitar, but he never did that. He was so centered on his vocal performance. Sometimes he got it on the first take, with a really great vocal, but we realized that we needed another take to get a better rhythm track, so we’d say ‘Elvis, we gotta do it again’ and he’d say ‘Fine’.

“I remember once I was standing beside him while we were listening to a take, and he said ‘Hey Putt, what do you think?’ I said ‘Well, Elvis, could you do one more for me? I’m gonna change my part on the chorus, and David and Chip are gonna make some changes too’. He said ‘Go do it. Felton, we’re doing another one’. One night I walked in there and asked for another take, and he said, ‘Oh, you wanna see me do it again? Let’s go!’”

Elvis was so impressed with the Nashville Cats that he made them an unexpected offer. “He said, ‘Look, you guys have made this so easy for me, I want you to come and be my Las Vegas band. What would it take for you to come and be my band?’ We said ‘Well, could you pay us what we would normally make in a week’s work in Nashville?’ and he said ‘I’ll have Colonel Tom call you’.”

Enter the dread specter of Colonel Tom Parker, the manager who famously made Elvis a star and infamously took 50 percent off the top for doing so. What was he like, we ask?

“Oh, he wouldn’t talk to us lowly musicians!” chuckles Putnam. “I met Colonel Tom when he came to RCA B one night. I remember his assistant walked in, holding a five-gallon jug of Mountain Valley water, because that was the only water the Colonel would imbibe, and behind him, in came the Colonel. He said ‘Elvis, come here!’ They talked for about 20 minutes and then he was gone, without saying goodbye.

“Six weeks later, Charlie McCoy got a phone call from Colonel Tom’s assistant, who said ‘Elvis wants you boys to come out. I understand you want $2,000 a week’. Now, even back in 1970, I could make $100,000 a year in Nashville just by going down to the studio every day, right?

“And this guy goes on, ‘Colonel Tom’s willing to pay $350 a week and $700 to the leader’. Charlie said ‘We’re going to have to pass’. Ha ha! So we never played live with Elvis Presley. In the film Elvis: That’s The Way It Is, you can see the band that did play in Las Vegas listening to the songs we recorded, getting ready to play them on stage.”

When Elvis and the band went their separate ways, Putnam didn’t see him for another two years, by which point the King’s later-life malaise had started to make itself obvious. 

“By the time ’73 rolled around, his wife Priscilla had left him,” he recalls. “We were asked to come over to Stax Studios to track, and when he came in, I saw that he had started to gain weight – maybe 15 pounds or so. He was a little pasty-looking, and was wearing this loose-fitting exercise outfit. His demeanour had changed: He wasn’t as much fun.”

He adds, regretfully: “Four years after that, he was gone.” How did Putnam hear of Elvis’s death? “By 1977, I was an established producer. It was a great year for me: Two of my artists had gone triple platinum. Dan Fogelberg had sold three million albums, and Jimmy Buffett had recorded Margaritaville, which went on to sell 40 million copies.

“That summer, I got a phone call from Felton Jarvis, and he said ‘Hey Norbert, could you come and overdub bass on a Presley song?’ I said ‘Just one song?’ ‘Yeah. Elvis was on tour and he decided to go over the piano and sing the Everly Brothers song Unchained Melody. It’s the best vocal he’s done in years, and we got it on multi-track. I want you to add bass to it’.”

During the recording, Putnam asked Jarvis about his old boss’s health. “He said, ‘Well, Putt, he just gained so much weight. Last week I saw him eat a dozen eggs and a pound of bacon for breakfast’. I said ‘You’re kidding?’ and he said ‘The day before that, he binged on banana splits – he had a dozen of them’.”

“I said ‘Is it just obesity that’s the problem?’ because I thought that could be dealt with, but he said ‘No, it’s more than that. Elvis has been pretty depressed lately’. I said ‘Can’t the Colonel or someone do something?’ and he told me that Elvis had been in the hospital several times to get off his medication, but it just hadn’t worked. And I said ‘Well, give him a hug from me’.”

He continues: “Two months later I was on vacation in Hawaii, and I was in my car with the radio on, and they were playing Elvis tracks over and over. That made me smile, because American radio did not play Elvis Presley’s songs after 1970. 

“We had payola back then, and the record company admitted to me that they stopped paying payola after 1970. I said ‘Why?’ and they said ‘Because we had this new guy from England called David Bowie, who was going to be the new Elvis’.

“I went into a store to buy some items, and this hippie guy said to the cashier, ‘Did you hear about old Presley?’ The guy said ‘No?’ and the hippie said ‘He checked out’. I ran to my car and turned on the radio, and they were announcing it. I could not believe it. I thought, ‘They let him die’, and I sat there and cried.”

Fifty years since those sessions, how does Putnam remember Elvis? “I remember him for how much fun he was, back in 1970. We were young, we were all playing great, and we had a great time. The reason we got 35 sides in five days was because he was having so much fun. He was just the absolute best, and that’s how I’ll always think of him.”

• From Elvis In Nashville is out now on RCA/Legacy Recordings. 
• Norbert Putnam’s autobiography, Music Lessons, is also available to order at his website.

Elvis Presley’s 1942 Martin D-18 acoustic guitar recently went up for auction with Gotta Have Rock and Roll, and now the iconic instrument has sold – for a whopping $1.32 million.

The sale price set a new record for a piece of Elvis memorabilia, and it’s not hard to understand why. Often referred to as Presley’s “Sun Sessions” guitar, he used the D-18 extensively while recording at Memphis’ Sun Studios and onstage between 1954 and 1956, and can be seen playing the acoustic in many photographs from the era.

That said, the final price didn’t reach the original $2m - $3m estimate set by the auction house. The identity of the buyer has not been disclosed.

The D-18 is currently on display at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and was featured in the 2019 Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We recently reported on Prince’s custom “Goldfinger” gold-leaf prototype Fender Stratocaster going up for sale, and now the same auction house, Gotta Have Rock and Roll, has announced another one-of-a-kind offering, this time for Elvis Presley’s historic 1942 Martin D-18 acoustic guitar.

The Martin is often referred to as Presley’s “Sun Sessions” guitar. He used the D-18 extensively while recording at Memphis’ Sun Studios and onstage between 1954 and 1956, and can be seen playing the acoustic in many photographs from the era.

According to Gotta Have Rock and Roll, Presley purchased the guitar at O.K. Houck’s Piano Store in Memphis, trading in his Martin 000-18. He decorated the body with adhesive metal letters spelling out his name, and the letters “ELVI" remain, with the "S" missing. There is also extensive wear visible on the guitar due to Presley’s hard strumming.

The D-18 is currently on display at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and was featured in the 2019 Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The guitar comes with extensive documents of provenance, and is listed with a minimum bid of $1,200,000.

It is estimated to sell for $2,000,000 - $3,000,000.

For more information, head to Gotta Have Rock and Roll.

A couple years back, (during the 2017 Winter NAMM Show), I walked out of the Observatory—a concert venue in Santa Ana, California—and took an Uber to my hotel in Anaheim. As soon as we left the curb, the driver—a young guitar-playing greaser with plenty of tattoos—asked me about the show I'd just seen.

"It was rockabilly," I said. "Jeff Beck and Darrel Higham played a bunch of Gene Vincent songs at a Gretsch Guitars event. Cousin Harley and Duane Eddy played too."

"Oh, cool," the driver said. "I love rockabilly."

I figured he'd say that—based on his greased-back hair and Sailor Jerry ink—despite that very wise saying about not judging a book by its cover.

But when I asked him what rockabilly bands he listened to, it was ASAP obvious that he really didn't know what rockabilly was—even though he had adopted "the look," a common practice in Orange County. He mentioned Johnny Cash at one point, but as soon as he listed some baseball-cap-wearing modern country dudes, I cut him off and filled the rest of our trip with a verbal version of what you're about to read.

Simply put, it's a guide to rockabilly guitar; to be more precise, it's a list of 10 killer vintage rockabilly songs that every rock fan—let alone every guitarist—should know and/or learn how to play. These are the songs modern players like Darrel Higham, TK Smith, Paul Pigat, Jim Heath (Reverend Horton Heat), JD McPherson, Buzz Campbell, Brian Setzer and Australia's Firebird Trio listened to back in the day—as did Jimmy Page, George Harrison, Dave Edmunds and Jeff Beck.

Nothing has changed; listening to these songs now—and learning the solos note for note—is just as helpful as it was back when Setzer's pompadour was a foot tall.

Rockabilly is a form of rock that dates to the mid-Fifties. Wikipedia hits the nail on the head here: "It blends Western musical styles such as country with rhythm and blues; some have also described it as a blend of bluegrass with rock and roll." I've always described it as horn-free (I will not waver on that), hard-driving early rock with a rural accent, delivered with a beat so heavy and deep that you think your head's gonna explode.

If you need a detailed history lesson, head here. If not, let's get to the tunes.

Two comrades—TK Smith and Paul Pigat—graciously added their two cents (more like $5.67!) to this list. Smith, a master guitarist (think Charlie Christian in a cowboy hat) and respected guitar builder (he's the man behind the Smith Special), was a fleet-fingered founding member of rockabilly bigwigs Big Sandy & the Fly-Rite Trio in the Nineties. Pigat, the Gretsch Guitars-endorsing gent behind Canada's Cousin Harley, is simply one of the top two rockabilly players within a 134.6666667-mile radius of wherever he might be standing, not to mention a mean country blueser and bebop jazzer. This list was compiled by Smith, Pigat and me. Enjoy!

You can find all these songs in a Spotify playlist. Click here to hear it.

RACE WITH THE DEVIL
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (1956)
Guitarist: Cliff Gallup

"This says all there needs to be said about the Cliff Gallup style, which has influenced everyone, whether they know it or not," Pigat says. Gallup—who was 26 when he joined up with Vincent, one of rock's great early heroes—was one of the mostadept, versatile and influential electric guitarists of his generation. You can find two Guitar World lessons dedicated to Gallup's ahead-of-his-time skills here and here. We've also supplied a handy little "Race with the Devil" lesson below.

LONESOME TRAIN (ON A LONESOME TRACK)
The Johnny Burnette Trio (1957)
Guitarist: Grady Martin

"To me this is a perfect guitar solo—great guitar tone, too," Smith says. "I spent a good part of the Eighties chasing this tone. At that time, I was under the impression it was done with a Fender bridge pickup. I tried dozens of amps back then with my Tele with no luck. It wasn’t until later that I found out it was Grady Martin with a Bigsby pickup." For more about Martin (who also plays on Marty Robbins' "El Paso"), head here.

DUCKTAIL
Joe Clay (1956)
Guitarist: Hal Harris

"I still remember hearing this for the first time," Smith says. "Hal Harris' use of the dominant 7th in the bass while he Travis picks, to me, is the quintessential rockabilly sound." Be sure to read up on Harris right here.

CRAZY LEGS
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (1957)
Guitarist: Cliff Gallup

"This is a great song to learn note for note," Smith says. "I still use some of these licks today." For this one, we've included the original version and a recent performance by Jeff Beck and Darrel Higham. By the way, "Crazy Legs" was written by guitarist/singer/actor Jerry Reed of Smokey and the Bandit fame.

I'M COMING HOME
Johnny Horton (1957)
Guitarist: Grady Martin

"Anything by Grady Martin is essential to a well-rounded rockabilly guitar player's arsenal," Pigat says. "He's truly a cornerstone of guitar history." For your viewing pleasure, we've included a 2016 live performance of the tune by the Subway Cowboys.

HOW COME IT
"Thumper" Jones (1956)
Guitarist: Hal Harris

"Somewhat crude—but great feeling on this one," Smith says. Thumper's voice might sound familiar to country music fans; he is, in fact, a very young George Jones. "How Come It" appeared as the B-side of "Rock It" in the spring of 1956.

MYSTERY TRAIN
Elvis Presley (1955)
Guitarist: Scotty Moore

"I think all young players should lock themselves in their rooms until they can cleanly play Scotty Moore’s lick on this tune," Smith says. "Learn it slow at first and get it right. I hear a lot of people play it sloppy." To help you get started, we've included a live performance by Moore and Eric Clapton, plus the internet's most popular "Mystery Train" lesson video (If you don't dig this lesson, there are plenty more to choose from on YouTube; some even have tab).

SUN MEDLEY
Danny Gatton (1992/1993)
Guitarist: Danny Gatton

Although this list is supposed to be an homage to rockabilly guitarists from the Fifties, this Danny Gatton track from the early Nineties accomplishes the same goal. It finds Gatton blazing through a medley of songs originally recorded by Elvis Presley and Scotty Moore in the Fifties—the songs he listened to as a kid.

For this list, "it's a tie between Gatton's 'Sun Medley' and the original recordings of the same tunes by Elvis and Scotty," Pigat says. "It's undeniable that Scotty Moore changed the world with his playing. It's also undeniable that Danny Gatton did the same." Below, you can check out live and studio versions of the song.

BE-BOP-A-LULA
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (1956)
Guitarist: Cliff Gallup

What's this? A third song by Vincent and Gallup? Yes! I have a personal connection to this song; it represents my introduction to rockabilly—although I admit I knew John Lennon's mid-Seventies version before I knew Gene Vincent's version. Simply put, if you can play this solo correctly (and nail the tone), you're officially "playing rockabilly." It's a fine introduction to Gallup and to the genre—and it always makes me happy when I play it.

We've included an interesting live version by Tom Jones and Nigel Tufnel—I mean Jeff Beck! Please try your best to ignore the horns, which simply do not belong there. Don't get me started on horns...

TWENTY FLIGHT ROCK
Eddie Cochran (1957)
Guitarist: Eddie Cochran

Leaving Eddie Cochran off this list would be like leaving Doc Watson off a list of influential bluegrass pickers; his music and look had a huge influence on scores of later musicians, including Brian Setzer and Paul McCartney. His "Twenty Flight Rock" guitar solo, a lovable mish-mash of frantic hammer-ons and pull-offs, captures the frenzy of rockabilly. For the lesson video, we've included a guide to Setzer's juiced-up version of the song, which leads us into a different era—and to our bonus 11th song...

STRAY CAT STRUT
Stray Cats (1981)
Guitarist: Brian Setzer

When I joined a swing/jump-blues band in 2009, I discovered—based on all the jazzy new chord progressions I was learning (many of which bore a strong resemblance to this song)—that "Stray Cat Strut" isn't rockabilly at all. Pigat agrees: "Although not technically a rockabilly tune—it's probably closer to a swing—this tune single-handedly resurrected the genre in the Eighties. There were other great artists at the time [Don't forget Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"], but no single song did as much for the music as this one, and it's a hell of a guitar solo."

In 2014, Setzer actually included it on his own list of "The 5 Best Guitar Solos Ever!" on esquire.com. "This might sound bigheaded of me," Setzer says in the article. "I thought that up when I was 19 years old. And people still come up to me who play guitar and ask me how I play it. It's lasted a long time."

You can find all these songs in a Spotify playlist. Click here to hear it.

A FINAL NOTE: Please remember this list isn't meant to be complete; that would be impossible, not to mention pointless. Regardless, I hope you get some use out of it.

Actually, let me leave you with two more clips. First, there's "Crazy Eyes Baby" by Australia's Firebird Trio. It's an example of how fun, exciting and brain-melting modern rockabilly and hillbilly blues can be in the right hands. Below that, check out Buzz Campbell & Hot Rod Lincoln playing "Slow Down" at the 2010 Winter NAMM Show. Nice solo (and great tone)!

Sonny Burgess, Sun Records veteran and legendary rockabilly guitarist, died August 18. He was 88.

While not one of Sun's most famous mid-Fifties alumni, Burgess was integral to early rockabilly, sharing bills with Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash with his band, the Moonlighters.

Burgess' debut single for Sun—"Red Headed Woman"/"We Wanna Boogie"—was one of the label's most raw, unpolished rockabilly tunes; it perfectly captured the rebellious spirit of the genre.

Burgess never lost his touch, performing consistently with various groups—most notably Rockabilly Hall of Famers Sonny Burgess and the Pacers—for the remainder of his life.

Below, you can watch him tear through "Red Headed Woman" at the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum Theater in 2015, when he was 85.

For more information about Burgess and his career, you can stop by the Pacers' website.

Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley's first guitarist and one of the most important and influential figures in early rock and roll, died Tuesday (June 28) in Nashville. He was 84.

According to several sources, Moore had been in poor health in recent months. In October, he was too ill to attend his induction into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, so Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards accepted the award on his behalf.

Richards' generation of Sixties rockers—a crew that includes the Stones, the Beatles, Jimmy Page, Hank Marvin and everyone from the Animals to the Zombies—was profoundly influenced by Moore's tasteful and exciting guitar solos on countless Presley masterpieces from the Fifites, including "That's All Right," "Good Rockin' Tonight," "Milk Cow Blues Boogie," "Baby Let's Play House," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Mystery Train," "Blue Suede Shoes," "Hound Dog," "Jailhouse Rock" and "Hard Headed Woman."

While Moore was working on his memoir (That's Alright, Elvis: The Untold Story of Elvis's First Guitarist and Manager, Scotty Moore) with co-author James L. Dickerson, Richards told Dickerson, "Everyone else wanted to be Elvis—I wanted to be Scotty." Richards has said many times that he could never figure out how to play the "stop time" break and figure Moore plays on Presley's "I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone"—and he hopes it will remain a mystery.

Along with bassist Bill Black, Moore was part Presley's original band, the Blue Moon Boys, playing on the singer's legendary Sun Records singles and continuing to work with Presley into his time with RCA Records.

Moore was a noticeable presence in Presley's early performances, despite his introverted demeanor. His unique fingerpicking style, which incorporated a thumbpick, represented a segue from the pure "Chet Atkins style" into what became known as rockabilly and rock and roll guitar.

While with Presley, Moore initially played a Gibson ES-295 (which has been called "The Guitar that Changed the World") before switching to a Gibson L5, followed by a Gibson Super 400. Moore also is known for his use of the Ray Butts EchoSonic (first used by Atkins), a guitar amp with a built-in tape echo; the mechanism allowed him to take his trademark slapback echo on the road.

Sure, the late, great Elvis Presley covered everyone from Bob Dylan to the Beatles during his extraordinary lifetime.

But now, long after his lifetime has expired, we get to hear—well, sort of—what it would've sounded like if "the King" covered AC/DC.

In the rapidly aging clip below, footage from Presley's Las Vegas sets has been mashed up with the voice of Presley impersonator James Brown, who can be heard singing AC/DC's "Whole Lotta Rosie." We appreciate hearing the guitar solo as we watch James Burton cradle his Paisley Telecaster.

The recording is actually from Brown's 1997 album, Gravelands. Enjoy!

Glenn Danzig, former frontman of The Misfits, is set to release "Devil’s Angels," the first single from his still-untitled upcoming album of covers.

On the album, Danzig takes on tunes by Black Sabbath, Elvis Presley and several other artists.

“It’s [got] lots of different stuff [on it],” Danzig told Loudwire. “Of course there’s an Elvis Presley song on there, there’s a Black Sabbath cover … Then I took some old biker-movie theme songs and made them all old punk-sounding or whatever … Just f—ing around, really — just having a good time taking songs and giving them a different life or a different dimension. I just do what I feel like doing, as long as I don’t just cover it, because that’s boring to me. I wanna take it and change it and give it some other kind of thing. Otherwise just leave it alone.”

The first single, "Devils Angels," is the theme from a 1967 exploitation biker film. Danzig discussed his desire to cover the song through a news item posted on his website.

“I’ve wanted to record this song since 1979, and this is exactly the same arrangement I had for it back then, so it pretty much sounds like that late ’70s style of mine,” Danzig wrote. “I’m really happy with the way it turned out; it actually came out much better than I had hoped it would. We’re going to be playing it live on these upcoming shows.”

Danzig's 2012 Tour Dates:

• 05/26 – Irvine, Calif. @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (Danzig Legacy)
• 05/27 – San Francisco, Calif. @ Warfield Theatre (feat. Misfits guitarist Doyle Von Frankenstein)
• 05/31 – Kansas City, Kan. @ Uptown Theatre (feat. Doyle)
• 06/01 – Indianapolis, Ind. @ Egyptian Room (feat. Doyle)
• 06/02 – Detroit, Mich. @ The Fillmore (feat. Doyle)
• 06/04 – Silver Spring, Md. @ The Fillmore (feat. Doyle)
• 06/05 – Pittsburgh, Pa. @ Stage AE (Danzig Legacy)
• 06/07 – Philadelphia, Pa. @ Electric Factory (Danzig Legacy)
• 06/09 – Manchester, Tenn. @ Bonnaroo Festival (Danzig Legacy)

More news from the dental files:

Remember when John Lennon's tooth was auctioned off a few months ago? It was purchased by a dentist for more than $30,000 in November.

Well, according to ABC News, a model of Elvis Presley’s teeth, along with a crown made for the King by his former Memphis dentist, Henry J. Weiss, will be up for grabs as of Februarry 25.

The one-of-a-kind item (for lack of a better word) –- which will be auctioned by Omega Auctions -- is estimated to bring in at least $15,000.

Weiss was Presley’s dentist until 1971. Legend has it that, in February 1971, he was called upon when Presley cracked his crown on a microphone while performing at the International Hotel, now the Hilton, in Las Vegas. He called the crown the “King’s Crown.”

The model of the King’s teeth is enclosed in a glass showcase.

The folks at Fender have just announced a brand new acoustic guitar fit for a king -- the Elvis Kingman, a guitar meant to evoke "the freewheeling Fender acoustic that Elvis Presley wielded with consummate cool in ’67 cinematic romp Clambake."

According to Fender: "In addition to honoring the King, the Elvis Kingman dreadnought also recreates Fender’s famous mid-’60s 'Wildwood' finish, in which living beech trees that provided the backs and sides of the unusual instruments were dyed in several elegantly striking colors before being harvested.

"Highly distinctive features include Presley’s signature on the front of the Wildwood-style headstock, solid spruce top with scalloped X bracing for full and resonant tone, laminated Wildwood-style back and sides, Ivoroid neck and body binding, stylish dual checkerboard rosette, maple neck, 20-fret rosewood fingerboard with block position inlays and bone nut, Fender “Viking” rosewood bridge with cream-colored pins and compensated bone saddle, chrome hardware and gloss neck and body finish."

The suggested MSRP is set at $599.99

Chris Isaak grew up in California idolizing the Million Dollar Quartet and other legendary artists nurtured by Sun Records visionary Sam Phillips.

He never abandoned those roots, even as he climbed the charts with hits like “Wicked Game” and gained wider fame as a film and television actor.

When he finally decided to pay tribute to Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and the rest of those rockabilly pioneers, he went all-in, hauling his band and signature, monogramed Gibson J-200 to the place where it all began. The results — recorded mostly at Sun Studio in Memphis — are documented in his new Vanguard Records album, Beyond the Sun, which makes its debut on October 18.

Beyond the Sun will be offered in three trims: a single 14-track set with Sun-drenched gems such as “Ring of Fire,” "Great Balls of Fire” and “I Walk the Line”; a deluxe package with a second 11-track set that includes “My Baby Left Me” and “Lovely Loretta”; and a double-vinyl album (with all the deluxe tracks) scheduled for release in November.

Standing on or close to the exact spot “where Elvis started rock ’n’ roll,” Isaak stacked the deck with special guests including Cowboy Jack Clement, who wrote and produced several of Johnny Cash’s early sides and also discovered Jerry Lee Lewis, and Roland Janes, who played guitar on most of Lewis’ hits and helped to shape rockabilly as a core member of the house band at Sun. He also brought in Michelle Branch to sing with him on one of his favorite Elvis sides, “My Happiness.”

Having spent most of the year on the road, Isaak and band are touring once again, adding many of the songs that appear on Beyond the Sun and have been staples of their soundchecks for years. If you can’t catch one of his shows, tune into Turner Classic Movies on cable and you might see him introducing one of your favorite old flicks.

GUITAR WORLD: Given your influences and signature sound, why didn’t you do a record like Beyond the Sun a long time ago?

You know, I always wanted to. If you had asked me early on, “What are your favorite songs to sing,” these are the songs. I found lists I was making when I was [growing up] in Stockton [California]. Everybody was listening to the radio, but I was listening to second-hand records. And on my list would be Hank Williams, Ernest Tubbs. And then there would be Johnny Cash, Elvis, Carl Perkins, those guys.

Even when I went into the city to be in a band — which I had no idea what the music business was about — but I imagined, based probably on some old movies that I had seen, that I would go to the city, and I would go to some nightclub, and somebody would ask me to come up and sing with their band. That never happens. But I thought, “I'd better know a bunch of these songs,” so I learned all this Elvis, Carl Perkins and all these things. But nobody was playing any of these songs.

This was around what time?

Early ’80s, and they were playing … Heart. It was a whole other kind of music that they were playing. Fleetwood Mac was probably huge at the time. It’s funny because now I’m friends with Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac, but at the time it was like, “I don’t sound like that.” But I can kind of take my guitar and kind of sound like those simple, early rock ’n roll songs. Yeah, I always loved that music, always wanted to make it. But when I first got signed, I also kind of thought, “You know, I better show people I can write a song, or have my own style, otherwise they’re just going to think I’m a cover artist.”

From there, it took you about 25 years to do this. What was it like at Sun Studios?

Fantastic. And you say it the same way I do, which they say is wrong, It’s supposed to be Sun Studio, and not plural. I thought well, I guess they’re right. There’s only one studio. But it was fantastic. The people couldn’t have been nicer. Sometimes you go places and people go, “Oh, our lawyers won’t allow you to do this, or you can’t take pictures here.” [At Sun] They were like, “Well, we do tours during the afternoon, but if you guys don’t mind starting later, you guys can have it all night and into the day.” I said, “We’re musicians, we stay up all night anyway. No problem.”

I’ve taken that tour. Did you run into any tourists?

Some Swedish group was coming through, looking at the studio and one of them goes, “You’re Chris Isaak.” And I go, “Yeah.” She asks, “What are you doing here?” And I said we’re recording. And she’s like, “I saw you in Malmö.”

How was it working in the studio?

We’d go in there in the afternoon and play until really late at night. And they have a little diner next door that was there in the ’50s, and it’s still there, too. It’s just amazing that that place has stood the test of time. Most places that are cool, you go back there and they go, “Oh, they put a Wal-Mart there in the ’70s or ’80s.” And this place for some reason — I think the fact that it’s on the outskirts of Memphis — they just thought it’s not worth the property to tear it down.

Treasured American history preserved, almost by accident.

It really just blows my mind to stand in a studio and go, “Elvis Presley started rock ’n' roll right about here. Bill Black and Scotty Moore made up the riffs that Keith Richards, and everybody else afterwards, started copying, right about there.”

Any ghosts in the walls?

You know, I’m not like Carlos Santana. I’m not somebody who is always in touch with spiritual things. I don’t go on the roof and go “I feel angels guiding me.” I’m pretty pragmatic. But in that room, I get it. Now I understand what Carlos is talking about. I go in that room and I was singing a Carl Perkins song. And I looked up on the wall — they have pictures of all the artists — and there’s a picture of Carl Perkins, and the angle of it made it look like he’s looking right at me, smiling. … You feel good to be in there.

And I hear you had some guests in the studio who helped channel the vibe.

In the room with us, playing on some of the stuff and helping out, was Cowboy Jack Clement, who produced a bunch of the Johnny Cash Sun sides, and who wrote several songs for Johnny Cash, and who produced all the Jerry Lee Lewis, so it was fantastic to have him there. We also had Roland Janes, who played guitar on all the Jerry Lee, and I was nuts about him. Not a lot of people know Roland Janes because Jerry Lee takes up a lot of space on a record. But Roland is my favorite guitar player. To hear him on those records blows my mind. And he couldn’t have been nicer.

So it was kind of cool … we wanted to do it without doing overdubs, so we don’t have headphones, everybody’s doing this in one take and we’re in the room just listening to each other. And I go [to his band], “It’s just my voice, so you can’t play louder than me because you have to hear me singing.” And I said to Roland, “How loud did you guys play, because I’m worried about my voice. How loud do I got to sing?” And he goes, “We played as loud as we wanted to, Chris.” My guitar player [Hershel Yatovitz] gave me a look like, “Ha-Ha.” Then [Janes] said, “But it was 1956, so we didn’t want to play that loud.”

So you had your whole regular band there with you as well?

Oh yeah. It made such a big difference, too. To come in and do this instead of coming in with, I just, I don’t know how to tell people who aren’t in the music business, but your Guitar World people will probably get it. This was a project that, I guarantee, you could not go to the best session guys in L.A., hire them all, you couldn’t go in and cut this record. Because everybody is playing together. We’ve been playing together for 26 years, my drummer and I, and bass player, and you start to have a feel.

And then we rehearsed like, you couldn’t afford to rehearse as much as we did. We all stayed at my house in San Francisco. We would rehearse, go upstairs and eat spaghetti dinners, and about an hour later, you would hear somebody start playing piano downstairs and, one-by-one, everybody would get sucked back down to work. We practiced and rehearsed this stuff [so much that], by the time we went in, all we had to do was have fun. It wasn’t like, “How many bars is that?” Or “Where’s the end?” All those kind of questions had been solved. When we got to Sun, it was just like, “Now we get to play.”

Did you go with vintage instruments to match the studio, or did you have those already?

If you see pictures of me, all the time I’m playing the guitar that about 89 percent of the time you hear on the records. It’s a Gibson J-200, and I’ve got my name written on there in mother-of-toilet-seat. I’ve had that since the late ’80s or whatever. It’s just a great-sounding guitar and I play it a lot.

Who wrote your name on it?

[Laughing] I had them cut it out of wood at wood shop.

And yours was not the only J-200 heard on the album?

Jack Clement came and brought his J-200 that he’d used on all the Johnny Cash things. I thought more power to Gibson, because they sound good. They sound the same.

What other guitars did you use?

For the big guitar, I have a blonde Super 400 Gibson. For those people who don’t know, Scotty Moore played a blonde Super 400, or he had a big Gibson like that, that big hollow body, looked like a coffee-table-sized guitar. And we were trying to get a lot of that Scotty sound, and so my guitar player would alternate between those big Gibsons. I lent him my guitar for some of the leads, and he had a Fender Strat, which is his go-to guitar. And he played that on a few things that were kind of more bluesy.

I remember one song, we played it, sounded great, but I said [to Yatovitz], “You need a funkier sound, cause all these blues guys have funky guitars. They always had a $20 guitar. [At Sun], there was a guitar in the studio that they used just to take pictures with, and it’s kinda like there more for decoration than guitar. It’s got a Gibson neck and a Silvertone pickup. It’s a hodgepodge of different things and everybody signed it, and it’s got bumper stickers on the back. And I said, “Play that one.” [Yatovitz] looked at me like I’d asked him to have sex with a zombie or something. He said, “But it’s all out of tune up the neck and it needs to be ...” And I said, “Just try it.” He played it, and it sounded awesome. It made the record.

What was your approach to actually recording these iconic songs with iconic musicians? Is there a fine line between tribute and imitation?

Believe me, the idea came into my head, “You’ve gotta be careful not to” … there’s certain songs. I’ll give you an example. There’s certain Elvis songs that I don’t know how you’re going to do because he’s got a talking part in the middle. Like [he sings] “Are you lonesome tonight?” Then it’s [talking like Elvis], “The stage is bare and I’m standing there.” The minute you start doing the talking part on that song, it becomes an Elvis imitation. … So you have to look for ways to make it different. But I think that what we did on those songs — I knew all these songs coming in — I said, let’s learn them really good. Let’s listen to the songs and make sure we all know the changes and things that we like. We really honed in on them, and once we really knew it, then I said, “Now we just forget it, and play it our way and have fun with it.” That was kind of the method. I wanted them to sound like they came out of Sun Records, but were cut by somebody else.

I heard some of the tracks and they sound great. And not imitations at all. “Ring of Fire,” for one.

I think the “Ring of Fire” we did, it’s a little different. For sure it’s different than Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.” Johnny Cash doesn’t have a B3 organ on his “Ring of Fire,” and we’ve got a lot of B3 organ kicking through that. In modern records, there’s all kinds of instrumentation and overdubs and sound effects, but in those early rock ’n’ roll records, it’s usually just a three- or four-piece band. … Rhythm guitar is heard very little, just a little click-clack sound in the back. The drums are heard very little. And we kind of kept to that. Kept it pretty simple. But on “Ring of Fire,” yeah, that’s pretty different. We’ve got the B3 swinging along.

So now all these old songs on tour are new cuts from your new record?

The nice thing this is this is the stuff that I’ve [always] been playing. I don’t know what people imagine I play at my house. I guess they picture you at home playing “Wicked Game” or something like that. But the reality is that when you go home, you play what you want to hear. I would always go home and play this kind of music, sitting on my stairs. When the band would get together at sound check, we would always throw this stuff in. And now when we play it live, people love it.

It would seem that a lot of people like you because they like that style of music already. Or is it the other way around sometimes?

Part of me is hoping that. I listen to this music and I think everybody knows it. And I’ve been kind of surprised that a lot of people don’t really have the background, you know? And it’s a shame people forget how pretty these songs are. I love to take “My Happiness,” which I think of as a classic song, a love ballad that is really pretty, And I thought, Michele Branch and I singing on it, maybe somebody new will hear it and that will keep it going.

You tour a lot. Is that the plan going forward?

The last tour was about a four-haircut tour. I count them by how man haircuts I get. We were out all summer, at least four, five months on that. This one, I’m thinking will take us through Christmas and into the New Year, because we’re going to Australia, then coming back to the states for some more.

Does it ever become a grind?

We never stop and if that sounds like a complaint, it isn’t. So many people don’t have a job right now. I’m thrilled to have one. Plus my job isn’t like moving boxes at the back of a store or something. I get to wear a sparkly suit and stand up in front of people and play a fancy guitar. I was playing yesterday, playing to a bunch of executives. They were like radio and record people. It was all young women, beautiful, and I’m getting to stand up there playing a Super 400 guitar, my old Gibson, and I’m just having so much fun. I love my job.

I hope I get a chance to see you play these great songs. The last time I saw you live was in, I think, 1994, and you were opening for Tina Turner.

Oh my God, you saw us on our very first tour. We’re a much better band now. I’ve got Tina Turner stories I can tell for days. That was probably the toughest tour ever because she was just so tough to be on tour with. She wouldn’t let you walk backstage. She had security guys with guns back there. You couldn’t walk in the hallways. I go, “You know, we like Tina Turner but we weren’t, like, stalking her. We just wanted to get a drink of water.” Know what I mean?

Couldn’t have been your first tour. First big tour, perhaps?

Yeah, we played lots of clubs and bars before that. That was, I remember, the first time we had a tour bus.

How about acting? Are you going to get back to that?

I’ve been doing some hosting at Turner Classic Movies. [TCM host] Robert Osborne is on vacation and he’s a friend, so he asked me to come in and I hosted for a while.

How about acting roles?

Every time I have a down moment, somebody gives me script and I go in and do something.

Do you get to pick and choose at all, like you do with the songs you play?

I’m not Tom Cruise, They don’t come to me first, but when they come to me, I’m happy for the work.

Beyond the Sun, the new album by Chris Isaak, comes out October 18 via Wicked Game/Vanguard Records.

A new 5-CD Elvis Presley box set -- Young Man With The Big Beat -- will be released September 27 by RCA/Legacy. The set celebrates 1956, the year that transformed Presley from a promising regional performer to the most popular figure in the world.

Young Man With The Big Beat includes Presley's complete 1956 masters as well as never-before heard interviews, performances and outtakes. It will be released with a deluxe, 12"x12", 80-page book featuring rare photos, memorabilia, plus RCA and Elvis Presley Enterprises documents.

The package also includes a day-by-day 1956 timeline that includes several detailed entries, including:

August 4, 1956: Presley traded in his graffiti-plagued lavender Lincoln for a 1956 Lincoln Continental Mark II (pictured on the right) during a Florida tour attended by upwards 15,000 people.

Young Man With The Big Beat is available for pre-order at elvis1956.com.

Currently on the block through Heritage Auctions is a Martin 00-21 played by Elvis Presley during the early years of his career.

This particular 00-21 was later given as a gift by Presley to actor and Hawaii Five-O star Jack Lord. Presley befriended Lord and his wife Marie while working on his Aloha from Hawaii TV special. Elvis gave Jack a gold Walther PPK, and Jack reciprocated with a banjo from his collection of vintage musical instruments. Months later, when the Lords visited Elvis in Las Vegas, Presley gave Marie a custom-made belt, and Jack received this remarkable guitar.

The instrument, which is said to be in Excellent condition, comes with the original hardshell case included. LOAs from Elvis associate Joe Esposito and the Jack Lord Estate.

For more information, visit Heritage Auctions.

You can find more from Guitar Aficionado at their website.