With Mötley Crüe, John 5 has a job to do. There are expectations and a legacy. Of course, 5 has plenty of cache; he doesn’t allow it to impact what he does with the ‘Crüe. “In my eyes, that’s what the people want,” he tells Guitar World.

“They want the songs performed how they were written because that’s what they hear every day.”

5’s commitment to the ‘Crue brand runs deep, which is why Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, and Vince Neil tabbed him for the gig as Mick Mars’ replacement in 2022. Clearly, the band took a shine to what he’s done during his various stops, and according to 5, the feeling is mutual.

“It is so exciting for me,” he says. “I love nothing more than getting up on stage with those guys and playing these songs. It’s so fun, and we have a blast doing it. We are all up there just yucking it up and having a great time.”

By the looks of it, the good times will keep on rolling, as Mötley Crüe has an impending Vegas residency kicking off on October 3, 2025. “I don’t take it for granted,” 5 says. “I’m just so thankful to be playing these songs and having a good time doing it.”

“And I love Vegas,” he says. “To do a residency with my friends, dude, it’s ridiculous. You don’t have to travel. You just go down and play. I’m more excited than anybody. I’m super psyched. It’s going to be a blast, man. We’re going to have a rock ‘n’ roll party. That’s for sure.”

5’s enthusiasm for Mötley Crüe’s Vegas adventures is sky high. But that’s not all that’s stoking his six-string flame. Also in October, he’s kicking off a joint tour with fellow Tele-toting shred-head, Richie Kotzen. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this would be a great tour for me and Richie,’” he says.

“Rehearsals for Mötley start next month, and then there’s the tour with Richie, and it’s off to the races until the end of the year,” 5 says. “I’m super excited. I’ve always loved looking forward to things, even when I was a little kid; I was that way. And these are all things that I’m super-excited about.

One last bit that 5 leaves out, which he’s certainly excited about, is the release of his 11th solo album, Ghost. The album is his first solo effort since 2021’s Sinner, and to be sure, he’s jazzed about it, as he kept it old-school. “I was very draconian with how I approached this,” he says. “I play the songs from the beginning to end like they did back in the ’30s or ’40s.”

“It was all live recordings,” he says. “I just started playing, and if I messed up, I’d start again from the top. So, all of these songs that you hear on this record are completely live takes.”

That approach is based on lost-in-time simplicity. And that mindset extends to 5’s gear, too. “I could probably just play the show with the amp and a guitar, and do it that way,” he says. “I just love when things are simple.”

5 has been brandishing his signature Fender Ghost Tele of late, giving his beloved Goldie a much-needed break. Along with the Ghost Tele, an all-black version, the Phantom is on the way, and he’s been using that, too. “You can pretty much do anything on that guitar,” he says. “I’m very proud to be a Tele player, and I’ll always be a Tele player. I love it.”

But besides that, 5’s rig is decided under the radar. “Like, if anything happened to my rig, I could just go to Guitar Center and have anything replaced,” he says. “Nothing is custom, nothing is anything like that.”

If all of this seemed like a lot, meaning it looks like John 5’s schedule is packed to the point that it would exhaust a typical human, you’d be right. But John 5 isn’t your typical human. Sure, he suffers from OCD, but he’s also deeply driven by perfectionism, and a haunting need to learn more, be better, and switch things up.

And so, aside from the Mötley Vegas residency, his tour with Richie Kotzen, and the impending drop of Ghost, he’s got an idea: to perform 50 shows, in 50 states, in 50 days. But it’s not just an idea; it’s officially a thing.

“It’s 50 shows in a row,” he says. “But that answers the question of how obsessive I can be, but I can’t wait. Everybody is dreading it, like, ‘Oh, no,’ but we have backups for everybody in case somebody gets sick, hurt, or anything like that. God forbid, we’ll bring in another guy until they heal up, you know?”

John 5 will need to stock up on extra strings, have his amps serviced, and harden up his calluses, as he prepares to do what most wouldn’t even think of trying. “I’m ready,’ he says. “I play so much every day into the night, so this is gonna be like a vacation for me. [Laughs]”

There’s a lot of players who probably would have vied for the Mötley Crüe gig. What made you perfect for the role?

“I think I have such respect and fondness for the music. I’ve been playing these songs – and this is going to sound funny – but I’ve been playing these songs for as long as they have. I was in my bedroom or at a talent show, and those guys were on a huge stage, but I’ve been playing these songs since they came out.

“So, when Nikki [Sixx] said, ‘Okay, here’s the setlist to learn,’ I was like, ‘I know all these songs.’ Like, of course, we all know the songs, but I could have done the show that night. And that’s just because I have such a fondness and respect for the music, and for those guys.

“And I’ve known Nikki, Tommy [Lee], and Mick [Mars] for years and years and years. But the very first time I met Vince [Neil] was at Tommy’s birthday party when I got in the band, so that was cool.”

Seeing as these are classic parts that Mick crafted, which come with expectations, what’s the key to interpreting songs like Home Sweet Home and Shout at the Devil, for example?

“It’s such a great question. I think when you go to the music store, and you see sheet music written out, and how it was performed, and how it was written by the artist, and how it was recorded, that’s how I look at learning these songs. I look at them as, ‘This is how they were written. Am I to throw a couple of arpeggios in there? No. If that’s what they wanted, they would have done that.’”

There’s also a mystique about bands that stick to what’s on the record, rather than deviating.

“I play these songs live, how they were written, because of the fact that I would go and see these bands when I was a kid, like AC/DC, or Rush, you know, I saw everything when I was growing up. And some of the bands played it just like the record, which I loved. You grow up listening to these songs, and there’s certain guitar licks that you play air guitar to.

“With Mötley, I play the songs exact, exact, exact. And then, at the end of the song, I’ll do some crazy guitar work, or something like that. But what these songs deserve is to be played like they were written. We grew up listening to Home Sweet Home a certain way, and you want to hear them performed how they were written.”

You’ve proven that you’re comfortable with any style, but Mick’s playing is filled with subtle nuance. Are there any licks that don’t come naturally to you?

“Well, how I do everything, how I look at guitar playing, is if things are a challenge… I have such horrible OCD now, I mean awful. Ever since I was a little kid, if I couldn’t get something, I would stay home from school fake sick, and I would just play it over, and over, and over, until I mastered it.

“So, that’s what I do; if I have any kind of trouble with any song whatsoever, I will obsess and just make sure it’s like breathing to me. So, there’s not really anything in my music, or anybody’s music, that I’ve learned that I’ve really had a hard time with because of that fact. I’m not saying, ‘Oh, I could play anything,’ I’m saying that I will sit and obsess about it until it’s like breathing.”

Over the last few years, you’ve made a few additions to your rig as far as amps, pedals, and especially guitars go. Will your rig for Mötley’s Vegas residency be essentially the same as the rig you’ll use while touring with Richie Kotzen?

“I’m so glad we’re talking about this because these are great questions! So, what I’m using are EVH [5150] amps, and I’m using a pedalboard with Boss stompboxes. I’m using a Super Overdrive [SD-1], a Chorus [CE-2], a Digital Delay [DD-5], and a Noise Suppressor [NS-2]. So, I have four stompboxes.

“And then I’ve got the EVH amps and cabinets, so it’s simple. It’s so simple that it’s almost comical. My guitar tech probably has the easiest job ever. [Laughs] And so, I use the exact same thing for my solo tour as I do with Mötley.”

You’ve had your signature Gender Ghost Tele for a few years now. Are there any updates there?

“With my guitars, I have my Ghost, with a Floyd [Rose] on it. And then, I have my new Fender that’s coming called the Phantom, and it’s all-black. It’s just blacked-out. Everything is in black, and then, I’ve got a white binding; it’s just a monster.

“So, that’s what I’m going to be using for the residency, and it’s just beautiful. You can see pictures of it on my Instagram. I’ve been playing it lately, it’s got a black Floyd on it, and it’s just gorgeous. So, I’ve got the Ghost and the Phantom.”

Aside from the looks, are there any updates to the specs of the Phantom compared to the Ghost Tele?

“Actually, there is. It’s minute, but it’s also imperative in my hands and my eyes. Like, there’s the cutaway, which I love… there’s this beautiful cutaway that you can get way up on the neck. And I never knew that, you know? Originally, it got in the way because I had a non-cutaway.

“But there’s also a contour that seems so minuscule, but it’s so imperative to me. And it’s just beautiful because I have the Phantom with a hardtail, you know? And there’s nothing, and it doesn’t have the cutaway, and it doesn’t have the contour. And I’m like, ‘Oh, man, I really miss that cutaway and contour,’ so it’s really cool.”

Your upcoming tour with Richie seems apropos since you’re both versatile players who do things with hot-rodded Teles that traditionally, people think you shouldn’t or can’t do.

“I love the Telecaster so much. It was really our first electric guitar, and pretty much, a huge part of rock ‘n’ roll. I grew up loving the Telecaster because, of course, I saw it on Hee Haw, and everybody on there played Teles. So, I just thought that it was the only electric guitar.

“I thought that was it. I was like, ‘Oh, I want an electric guitar,’ and I saw that shape, and thought that was the only shape. I mean… I was like six years old, and the Tele was just burned in my brain. But there are some Tele players that are terrifying, and it’s just the greatest thing ever.”

How do you see your joint tour with Richie shaking out?

“I love Richie. What a voice, what a player, and what a musician. I always loved how Richie plays, and his voice, of course, is incredible because, you know, I don’t sing. [Laughs] I leave that to the singers. So, I’m really super-excited. We’re playing everywhere, at tons and tons of places.

“I always look at it like, ‘Oh, man, this would be a great night out. This would be something that I would want to see myself.’ I always look at packages that way. I’ve always loved it when an eclectic array of these artists comes together, you know, an amalgamation of different styles of music. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This would be a super-great tour.’ We bought it to the powers that be, and it was just a runaway hit.”

Elsewhere, you’ve got a new solo album set for release in Ghost. The ghost imagery is something that’s followed you. What’s the genesis of that?

“Well, it’s odd. It didn’t use it just because it’s a cool name, or it’s my guitar, or something. I’ve lost so many people around me in my life, and there’s ghosts all around me. They’re not bad ghosts, but there’s just ghosts all around me, all the time. And I’m aware of it. I’m just in tune with it. So, that’s why I named the guitar that, and that’s why I named the record that. I’m in tune with it, and it’s good.”

So, there's a symbology to it. With your primary form of expression being guitar, how does that extend into the ghost symbology, and how are you relaying that through your music?

“I started writing a long time ago. What I would do is I would do is, well, like I mentioned before, I have OCD, and I’d play, play, play, and that’s all I did. I looked at this music like I was a musician in the ’30s or ’40s, where I’d play everything from beginning to end, with no mistakes.”

Why do you prefer that process compared to punching in and out and editing with multiple takes?

“I just like to have that sense of dedication and authority to go into the studio like that. I hate to be like, ‘Oh, I’m going to punch in,’ or ‘That was out of tune, I think I’d like to start over.’ Doing the way I did is a lost art that we don’t see anymore. Now, we can pretty much do anything, but back in the ’30s or ’40s, sometimes you didn’t even get a chance to practice. Sometimes, you just got charts, and it was like, ‘Alright, don’t mess up.’” [Laughs]

While recording, did you mainly use your Ghost Tele, or was Goldie part of the process?

“Goldie is taking a rest. [Laughs] It’s funny because I played that guitar so much that they had to replace the chrome metal pickguards because there were dips in it. I went through two chrome pickguards, so that’s a lot of playing. I don’t want it to, like, fall apart, and break, so what’s when I adopted the Ghost, and made that my new toy.”

Have you enjoyed connecting with the Ghost Tele as you did with Goldie?

“I’ve been playing it like crazy. And now, I have the Phantom that I’m playing, too. It’s funny… my dad was the kind of person who bought one really good thing, and he had it forever. Like, if you buy one really nice backpack, for example, and it was the best backpack, and you kept it for your whole life, that’s kind of how I am with guitars.”

You’re a guitar minimalist.

“Like, I’ll get a guitar, and I’ll use it so much until I have to be like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to retire that.’ That’s just how I am with things. I have like four pairs of shoes, like 10 shirts, and like five pairs of pants. [Laughs] It’s very strange… I’ll just wear those certain things, along with a couple of jackets, that I’ll wear every day. So, I guess you would say that I’m a minimalist in certain aspects… until it comes to my Kiss collection. [Laughs]”

I can relate with you on the wardrobe and the Kiss stuff! But as far as your connection to the instrumental, how does that tendency impact that? Can you track your growth as a player, and maybe how it’s apparent on Ghost?

“Let me tell you… you are the first one – because I’ve done a billion interviews – you are the very first one that has that question. And I think that if I ever did interviews, that would be like that first question you would ask because of the fact that there are a lot of players where you’re like, ‘Wow, their last record could sound like their first record,’ but I never stop learning. I learn things like once a week. I will learn different styles, tricks, or certain vibes, and I will put them in the record, so I don’t forget them.”

So, if we listen to your early records, we’re not going to say, “Wow, his first record sounds just like his new record.”

“You can listen to my first instrumental record [Vertigo] and then listen to this [Ghost], and it almost sounds like a different player in my eyes. There’s so many different things going on, so many different kinds of licks, and all that stuff. So, I really love to evolve. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I love it.”

About a year ago, you chatted with Guitar World in person, naming a few of your favorite solo licks. You called out My Name is John 5, Land of the Misfits, and The Chorus. As you’re always evolving, has your list of favorite licks evolved, or would you add any of your new licks to that list?

“Oh, yeah. There’s so many to add to the list. I love my song called Fiend. I’m using four-fingered tapping, and like a Jeff Watson thing. And then, I have this song, an old standard, called Moonglow, which is this beautiful jazz standard that I grew up listening to with my parents and grandparents.

“So, I’d add that. And then, there’s a song called The Devil Makes Three, which kind of has a Robert Johnson flash in it. And there’s string skipping, which is kind of Paul Gilbert-esque. So, I’m just so proud of this record.”

Is there any music that influences you that people might not expect?

“One of my all-time favorite bands is Steely Dan. I love Steely Dan more than anything. I love how they were so obsessive. Like, it took them six weeks to pick out a chair, you know? [Laughs] I love Aja, I love Gaucho, I love Royal Scam, and Pretzel Logic. I love everything they’ve done.

“And I love their use of studio musicians. I understand and I love that. I love having a certain musician for a certain song, and having the perfection. I mean… the perfection on this record [Ghost] is not with Pro Tools, or anything like that. It’s with the obsessiveness. With this record, when you hear it, everything there is performed and meticulous. That’s what I love. I’m very proud of it.”

Your attention to detail and drive to progress seem to keep you constantly active. Do you plan to give yourself a break, or is it pedal to the metal for the foreseeable future?

“I think it’s getting worse because, well, I will tell you this, which I haven’t really talked about at all, but I have to stay busy, or I go crazy. I’ve worn out my agent. I’ve worn out my manager. I make them nuts. [Laughs] But next year – and I think only a couple people have done this – I’m going to do 50 shows, in 50 states, in 50 days.”

That’s an aggressive undertaking. How will you pull it off?

“So, I’m going to have a backup road crew. I’m going to have a backup bus that we’ll be able to jump on if something goes wrong. I will have doctors on call. And everybody, you know, after the show, will eat, and then everybody has to go to bed. It’s going to be really militant because of what we’re going to pull off. So yeah… 50 shows, 50 states, 50 days. We’re going to start in Alaska and end in Hawaii.”

• Ghost is out on October 10. Mötley Crüe's Las Vegas residency continues until October 3. See Mötley Crüe for dates and ticket details.

It is hard to overstate the impact of the ‘60s British blues guitar scene, when a new generation of guitar heroes mined the original source of blues playing and put their own spin on it.

In doing so, they not only brought blues into the mainstream, calling attention to the original pioneers, but reconfigured popular culture, providing a launching pad for the big beasts of rock that would emerge in the decade that followed.

But this boom did not exist in a vacuum, and here we offer 9 essential albums that had an immeasurable impact on the scene and its players.

Robert Johnson – King Of The Delta Blues Singers (1961)

Released more than 20 years after his passing, Johnson’s small but extraordinary recorded output had a huge impact on the fledgling blues scene in Britain. The mystique surrounding the Johnson legend ticked all the boxes for a new generation of blues fans. Essential listening.

Standout track: Terraplane Blues

Muddy Waters – Live in 1958 (1993)

Although released decades later, this is the only known recording of Waters and the Chris Barber band from the groundbreaking tour of 1958 – also featuring Muddy’s regular pianist Otis Spann, an important bluesman in his own right. You can only imagine the effect this tour had on the young Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Clapton who witnessed it.

Standout track: Hoochie Coochie Man

Big Bill Broonzy – The Bill Broonzy Story (1960)

Recorded over several sessions in 1957, this three-volume set showcases the intimate side of Broonzy that UK audiences would have heard when he became the first blues artist to tour there with Chris Barber. Although entirely acoustic, one can hear how he would have left a big impression on the music when it transitioned to electric.

Standout track: Joe Turner Blues

Chris Barber Jazz Band & Skiffle Group – New Orleans Joys (1955)

This 10-inch album epitomises the link between jazz, blues and skiffle that existed prior to the 1960s. It’s the album that features Lonnie Donegan’s versions of Rock Island Line and John Henry and its impact on the British blues boom cannot be overestimated.

Standout track: Rock Island Line

Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Gospel Train (1956)

Tharpe’s soulful bluesy gospel approach provided another key ingredient in the development of the 1950s and 60s blues revival that led to the more pop-oriented direction many of the UK blues bands took. That’s aside from her often ferocious guitar style!

Standout track: Up Above My Head…

Various Artists – The Original American Folk Blues Festival (1962)

Here’s an example of what happened once the blues scene had established itself to the point where entire festivals featuring US legends began touring Europe from the early 60s onwards.

This was the first time audiences outside the US could see the likes of T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and a host of other pioneers on the same stage.

Standout track: Shake It Baby (John Lee Hooker)

The Rolling Stones – The Rolling Stones (1964)

This is the band responsible in many ways for bringing blues into the mainstream. This, the Stones’ debut album, paved the way for rock to develop. Quite simply, the rest of the 60s and early 70s blues rooted bands would have sounded different without it!

Standout track: Route 66

John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers – Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton (1966)

As hyperbolic as it may seem, it is often said that Blues Breakers is one of the most important albums ever recorded.

Also known as ‘The Beano Album’, this LP marks the crossroad between the initial blues craze and the beginnings of a heavier sound that paved the way for such heavyweights as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Free – among many others.

Standout track: Hideaway

Maybe it’s all the bending and vibrato, and the associated pain that comes with steel-string manipulation, but there is something deeper about the connection between the blues player and their guitar. 

The great blues players do something with those guitars; they take on a life of their own. Blues guitars are often named, as though a surrogate for a lover, past or present. 

Here we’re going to take a look at some of the most famous blues six-strings in history, and also suggest some reasonably priced options on today’s market for the next generation of players to tell their story on. That’s us, right?

1. Robert Johnson's circa-1926 Gibson L-1

We might imagine Robert Johnson’s life in sepia and monochrome but that’s an illusion sold by archive photography. His reality was lived in vivid colour as the Delta blues godfather breathed life into the art, mostly in juke joints but, thankfully for posterity, across two recording sessions too. 

He played a number of guitars but the 1920s Gibson L-1 flat-top – spruce topped, round-bottomed – is the one we remember.

2. Muddy Waters’ 1958 Fender Telecaster

Someone needed to take that sound pioneered by Johnson and the acoustic forebears of blues and electrify it. Enter Muddy Waters. Mississippi born, made in Chicago, Waters’ Telecaster (aka The Hoss) was his number one. 

Serial number: 026176, ash-bodied refinished red, upgraded with a six-saddle bridge and rosewood neck, it gave Waters some spike to work with. The Stones, Clapton et al were listening. 

3. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s circa-1963 Fender Strat Number One

Number one, aka ‘First Wife’, is the greatest guitar in Texas blues, recognisable for its engraved pickguard, three-colour sunburst, and a left-handed vibrato on a right-handed guitar. Bought at Ray Hennig’s Heart of Texas Music, Austin, Number One is a mongrel with a ’63 body, ’59 pickups ’62 neck, but it had guts.

4. Eric Clapton’s 1959 Gibson Les Paul ‘Beano Burst’

Eric Clapton used it to track Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton in 1966, and it’s named Beano because Slowhand is reading the Beano on the album cover. What makes this the Loch Ness Monster of Les Pauls is that it was stolen in ’66 and hasn’t been seen since. The late Peter Green said in 1999 it’d be worth £50 million. Where is it?

5. B.B. King’s Gibson ES-355 Lucille

There have been many Lucilles in B.B. King’s arsenal over the years, but they all share the same story: named after a woman two men were fighting over in a dancehall. The tale goes that they knocked over a barrel of burning fuel in the process and started a fire. 

King ran into it in order to save his beloved guitar and subsequently named it after the subject of the feud. Typically, Lucille was an ES-355, dressed in a tux, f-holes filled in, and a TP-6 bridge because intonation is everything.

6. Billy Gibbons’ 1959 Gibson Les Paul ‘Pearly Gates’

Another Holy Grail Les Paul, and one that ZZ Top’s whiskered master of ceremonies says is irreplaceable. Gibbons bought Pearly Gates in 1968 for $250, from a country player turned rancher whom he described as “a John Wayne guy”. A feature of every ZZ Top record since, it is one of the best-sounding Les Pauls ever made. 

7. The Greeny 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard

Not another ’59 Les Paul Standard? Yes, and how could we leave Greeny off this list? Owned by two blues greats, first Peter Green, from whom it takes its name, then Gary Moore, and now by Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, Greeny has the iconic out-of-phase tone and mismatched controls. 

8. Johnny Winter’s 1964 Gibson Firebird V

They say dogs look like their owners (or is it the other way round?) but what about guitarists and their instruments? There was something truly simpatico about Winter and his beat-down Polaris White Firebird V, bearing the scars of its removed maestro, the worn Firebird log on the pickguard, all the signs of a life lived hard. And then it had that voice, the perfect vehicle for Winter’s animalistic playing style. 

9. Albert King’s 1959 Gibson Flying V ‘Lucy’*

We’re putting an asterisk on which Lucy is considered Albert King’s main squeeze because, like his namesake B.B., he loved a few in his life, but the korina V from the first batch out the Gibson factory helped establish one of the most captivating presences in blues. Legendary luthier Dan Erlewine built King some custom Lucy V’s, replete with her name on an open-book style headstock. 

10. Albert Collins’ 1966 Custom Telecaster

The Iceman cometh! Now here’s a Telecaster to pin the audience to the back of their seats, which Albert Collins, the undisputed Master of the Telecaster, did on a nightly basis throughout his career. 

Famously, he’d tune his Tele to open F minor, using a capo to change the key, playing with his fingers through a dimed Fender Quad. With a Gibson PAF at the neck position, what else could anyone need from a guitar?

Today we are lucky to have our pick of the best guitar slides in a variety of materials and for a range of budgets, but the slide as we know it has humble origins. First utilized by players of the African folk instrument called the diddley bow, the slide graduated to the guitar after being pioneered by blues legends including Robert Johnson and Elmore James. Since then, players have carved their own style with the assistance of the slide and Jack White, Joe Perry and Seasick Steve are a few modern artists who have done so to great effect.

It’s no coincidence that the slide has stuck around through the evolution of the guitar and has been adopted by a huge range of inspiring players. Slide guitar enables players to improve their fingerpicking game and is perhaps the most accessible way to start exploring open tunings. Most of all, the slide is a great outlet for musical expression, allowing you to hear all of the notes between the frets and to create vocal-like inflections.

Slides come in all different shapes, sizes and materials, and with brands like Dunlop, Ernie Ball and D’Addario offering a variety of slide types, how do you decide which one to go for? That’s where we step in. Whether you’re the next Ry Cooder or are just finding your feet in the world of slide guitar, there’s an option on our list to suit you.

Our top picks

Best overall

The Ernie Ball Glass Slide is the best all-rounder on our list. Made from Borosilicate glass, this slide is incredibly sturdy – perfect for those who are a little wary of the fragility of a traditional glass slide. Better yet, Borosilicate has fewer imperfections than standard glass, meaning it glides across the strings with ease.

We really love the sound this slide produces. It's smooth and warm with a breathy mid-range that comes into its own when used with an acoustic guitar. In addition, the slide’s walls are quite thick and dense, which certainly helps note sustain, giving you the confidence to play those long held notes for as long as you wish.

That said, we can see why this extra bulk and weight may be uncomfortable for players with smaller fingers. This slide is quite wide internally, so bear that in mind if your fingers are skinny.

On the plus side, this is a very modestly priced slide and a great option for those wanting to dip their toes in the world of slide guitar.

Best premium

MagSlide has a pretty unique product on its hands – it’s the only magnesium slide on the market that we know of. This unusual material makes for a lightweight and durable slide that’s so comfortable it will make quick work for your open G country licks.

Now, many players fear a slide that’s too lightweight can lead to a less-than-favorable tone. However, you needn’t worry with the MagSlide. Magnesium’s inherent dampening qualities produce a lovely warm note when struck and the heavy wall thickness and density really help sustain.

Since it’s so weightless, it works great on electric guitars and acoustics with a lower action as it won’t rattle off the fretboard like a heavy slide would. Unlike glass, metal won’t smash, so taking this on the road is a safe bet.

The indentations on the bottom allow your hand to bend more naturally when playing and the inner walls have material to stop the slide from spinning. This is a premium slide, which comes with a premium price tag. For those unsure of the benefits of magnesium, the price may put you off.

Best brass slide

The Dunlop 222 Brass Slide and a bold hollowbody guitar are a match made in heaven for rock ’n’ roll and electric blues. The brass produces a certain harshness in tone and, coupled with an electric guitar through an overdriven tube amp, delivers fantastically raw tones.

This slide is surprisingly light, weighing in at a mere 22g, so fast lead lines and ripping solos are made easier thanks to its manoeuvrability. Tonally, there is real clarity and the bite of each note is pleasing and pronounced.

One thing we’ve found is the walls of this Dunlop slide feel quite thin. Dunlop categorizes it as ‘medium’ thickness but it feels a little slimmer than that to us. It’s also quite a tight fit, so if you have large hands it may work best on the pinky finger rather than the ring finger.

Best porcelain

Porcelain is an interesting material for a slide, sonically sitting somewhere in-between metal and glass. The Dunlop Mudslide is really well-balanced and has a rich, deep tone that is less harsh than brass – and you could say it is not quite as buttery as a glass slide.

The outer wall has a glossy exterior to help aid a smooth glide across the strings, while on the inside it has a matted texture to help keep the slide in place on your finger. The Mudslide is rather bulky compared to others on our list and its large outer diameter means you have to be bang-on with your notes. It isn’t very forgiving, so perhaps not a beginner’s option.

If there is one thing that has to be said about porcelain slides, it’s their fragility. Drop this thing on hard ground and you’ll have to get the dustpan and brush out. So maybe grab one of the cheaper options on this list as a backup.

Best lightweight option

Ariel Posen is one of the most revered slide players today. Hopping on board with The Bros. Landreth in 2013, Posen’s ear-catching phrasing is most notable when playing with his signature slide.

Constructed from brass, this is a pretty lightweight option, with thin, tapered walls that are slimmer at the base and get a lot thicker and denser towards the top. From our experience, due to the slim taper, the slide will probably fit best on your pinky, especially if you have bigger hands.

The secret weapon of the Rock Slide is the generous cutaway at the bottom of its base. This unique design allows users to bend their hand more naturally without the slide digging into the palm. The ball tip on the top helps keep the slide in place and adds a bit of weight to an already thin slide helping resonance and longer vibrato.

This slide is ideal for electric players thanks to its gritty tone and light weight, while it won’t automatically make you play like Posen, it’ll certainly help.

Best wooden slide

Taylor creates these slides from ebony offcuts that don’t meet the exacting standards of their guitars. By doing so, wood isn’t wasted in the guitar manufacturing process and a sustainable practice is encouraged. The ebony comes from Taylor’s co-owned ebony mill in Cameroon, which was opened in 2011.

This is one of the lightest guitar slides on our list so for those who enjoy wide sweeping runs up and down the neck the light weight makes this easier. This slide has a unique tone, a lot duller than glass and we feel that those nuances are heard most clearly on an acoustic guitar.

Since it’s made from wood, no two slides have the same grain pattern and will be unique to themselves. However, since the wood grain is porous we did find it dragged a little bit on our guitar string windings compared to a glass or metal slide.

Best for beginners

Released in November 2022, the Ernie Ball Comfort Slide is the company’s attempt at making slide guitar easier on your fingers. This slide comes with a padded inner sleeve, which piqued our curiosity and somewhat surprisingly, feels superb. The padding doesn’t distract and it stops the outer diameter of the slide from digging into your finger.

The slide’s material is chrome-plated brass, so it’s as zingy and punchy as you’d expect. With a solid build and eye-catching color options, this is a fun choice.

The thin walls make this slide ideal for a guitar with a lower action as it’s less bulky, easier to control and it’s less likely to rattle off the fretboard. We weren’t sure how much of a problem an unpadded slide was, but the option for a bit more comfort will appeal to some.

Best reversible

Shubb is known for its great quality and robust accessories and the AXYS Reversible slide is no exception. This slide has been designed to sit comfortably on the back of your finger and, when you need to inject some magic, it can quickly rotate and you can slide away. The swing function is fluid, and after a bit of practice, it becomes rather an enjoyable manoeuvre.

That said, weighing in at 90.7 grams this is a heavy slide. An upside to that is the slide’s elongated sustain and resonance. The heavy weight also allows you to play quite aggressively which means you can dig in and play some strong vibrato parts as and when needed.

The slide comes with four different ring sizes, so you can choose what finger to use it with. Shubb recommends you play with the third finger for the most effectiveness.

Best bottleneck slide

If you’re into Duane Allman, then this is the slide for you. Legend has it, Duane was recovering from an elbow injury sustained from falling off a horse and was brought a bottle of Coricidin pills from his brother to help with the pain. After a few hours, and taking inspiration from Taj Mahal’s debut album, Duane had emptied the bottle, placed it around his finger and was jamming to the album. The rest, as they say, is history

Styled from an old medicine bottle, very similar to the glass Coricidin bottle Allman used, this Planet Waves slide is made from durable Pyrex glass. This slide isn’t just a retro gimmick, it glides over the strings really smoothly and produces a sweet rounded, warm tone.

It is quite a wide fit, so those with smaller fingers may find it hard to control as it isn’t the most snug. That said, it comes with a genuinely modest price tag, so if you are unsure about the design you won’t take much of a hit.

Spec comparison

Struggling to decide between some of the options? Well, our handy spec comparison table should help you narrow down your choices.

FAQs

How we test

Guitar World is a leading authority in all things guitar gear, with a team of experienced musicians and experts who have tested and reviewed countless guitar products, including many guitar slides.

To create our list of the best guitar slides, we combine our practical experience, user feedback, and in-depth discussions with our editorial team to arrive at a consensus. We evaluate various factors such as pricing, comfort, and tone to ensure that we showcase the best guitar slides currently available on the market.

As guitar players ourselves, we know that a great slide can make a big difference in terms of expression. That's why we are committed to providing reliable and knowledgeable recommendations to help guitarists find the ideal slide to suit their specific needs and preferences.

Find out more about how we make our recommendations and how we test each of the products in our buyer's guides.

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Now and again, it’s good to put electric guitars and their associated paraphernalia aside and sit down with an acoustic to make some music. But keeping the rhythmic and melodic interest happening as a solo performer is a very different proposition to playing in the context of a band or, come to think of it, even a duo. 

I have unapologetically gone for E, the easiest key to execute these ideas, though it could be argued that I’m also following in the footsteps of the greats and playing to the strengths of the acoustic guitar! Of course, it’s perfectly possible to play in other keys while keeping lots of open strings by using a capo, but you do lose a bit of resonance that way. If anything, many prefer tuning down. 

The example piece is played entirely with a pick to maximise power and volume, but it’s interesting to experiment with the different options hybrid and fingerpicking can give, as well as the different tones. 

While this piece isn’t played to a strict tempo, tapping your foot can help keep things together and is even a feature on some recordings! If that proves difficult at first, then play to a metronome (or recorded foot taps) to calibrate your sense of time – but this type of music seems to work better when allowed to ‘push and pull’ a bit. 

If you’re playing a longer piece, then spend a bit of time establishing the chords/harmony in the mind of your listeners, taking a few more liberties with single-note solos and licks later on – in this single 12-bar it felt appropriate to keep a balance and interject a few licks between the rhythmic chords. 

I hope you enjoy the piece and I’ll see you next time!  

Example 1. 

Starting with a two-bar E7-based triad lick as an intro, the basic structure of this piece hangs on the I-IV-V7 (E-A-B7) you would expect from a standard 12-bar blues. 

I’m using fairly short, sharp hits on the chords and deliberately contrasting these with smoother backward rakes across the strings (a technique loved by SRV) to articulate a couple of quicker ideas. The A7 chord with a G on the top reminds me a little of Son House or Robert Johnson, and the B7 is also a classic blues move. 

However, you’ll find that things deviate a little in the last few bars of the piece, courtesy of a descending chord pattern that was inspired by Jimmy Page’s playing on Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You from Led Zeppelin I. 

Bear in mind that this piece is semi-improvised, so don’t fall into the trap of examining every single tiny detail in your own playing. Try to remember that old recording maxim: the road to hell is paved with takes that were almost perfect!

Hear it here

Robert Johnson – The Centennial Collection

Robert Johnson’s acoustic blues led directly to so much of today’s music. Even with the age of these recordings, it’s a remarkable experience to hear his playing and singing in such intimate detail. Check out Kind Hearted Woman Blues to hear his rhythmic backing, decorated with blues licks that have been stolen by everyone ever since! 

The same can be said for Sweet Home Chicago, which benefits from fingerpicking technique, allowing a more piano-style approach; When You Got A Good Friend is another great example. A further bonus of this album is the enhanced sound quality and multiple takes of these tracks to compare, which is very informative.

Eric Clapton – Unplugged (Deluxe Edition) Live

More than 50 years after Robert Johnson’s last recording sessions, Eric Clapton demonstrates that the style has changed little and increased in popularity. First, check out Before You Accuse Me, which relies completely on Eric and Andy Fairweather Low’s rhythmic acoustic guitars (and a few hand claps!). 

Hey Hey follows a similar pattern, though might give a few alternative rhythmic ideas. Malted Milk features a few more useful ideas in the same key as the example piece, so it would be well worth giving this a listen. Finally, like the Robert Johnson album, there are alternative takes that can give a great insight into a player’s approach.

Skip James – The Complete 1931 Recordings

Rewinding back even further than Robert Johnson, these recordings – though obviously old – showcase a guitarist with fine technique and pioneering ideas. Check out Devil Got My Woman, a departure from the classic 12-bar structure but every bit as traditional sounding. 

Cypress Grove Blues features some particularly strong-sounding fills and omits the IV chord while retaining a 12-bar structure. Finally, I’m So Glad is a real tour de force, with intricate banjo-style picking, octaves and descending chord progressions. 

Surely one of the top players of his day, and unlike Robert Johnson, Skip James was fortunate to live long enough to participate in the blues revival of the 1960s.

Peter Capaldi, the Scottish actor best known for his stint as the title character in Doctor Who, has revealed that he dreamed up an episode of the time-travelling sci-fi show in which he invented the wah pedal and presented it to Jimi Hendrix.

Speaking ahead of the release of his first album, St Christopher, the actor told The Guardian he’d mooted it the concept, along with the idea of the Doctor playing electric guitar (which did happen) between the first and second seasons.

“I said it’d be fun if the Doctor had a guitar to plug into the Tardis console,” says Capaldi. “It was just an idea, I never dreamed it would happen. I imagined the Doctor might have invented the wah-wah pedal. We could’ve done an historical episode where he met Jimi Hendrix and introduced him to this piece of alien technology.”

In addition, Capaldi said he felt the mythology around blues icon Robert Johnson would have made fertile territory for the show.

“I also thought there could be a great blues episode,” he continued. “When Robert Johnson meets the devil at the crossroads, the Doctor could discover something extraterrestrial going on.”

Capaldi, aged 63, has recently completed work on his debut solo album, St. Christopher, with the aid of his friend Dr. Robert from the Blow Monkeys. The record was reportedly written across a period of four months, while Capaldi was staying in Atlanta and shooting for The Suicide Squad.

“I had a lot of downtime,” he says elsewhere in The Guardian article. “So I bought a cheap electric guitar and made demos on GarageBand. I’d send them to Robert, who very sweetly rejected a whole pile of my efforts until eventually we had enough to take into the studio.

“We’d booked Konk Studios in Crouch End, north London, which was great because it was the Kinks’ old studio and I love Ray Davies. That was cancelled due to lockdown but we sent the demos back and forth until we had something that appeared to be an album.”

• St. Christopher will be released November 19.

One of the problems we encounter around Robert Johnson’s history is that so little is known about the man himself. We know he was born in 1911 and that he died at the age of 27 in 1938.

A virtuoso guitarist and singer – someone who Eric Clapton refers to as “the most important blues singer who ever lived” – he was recorded only twice: once in San Antonio in 1936 and again in Dallas a year later. Both sessions resulted in a total of 29 songs that have gone on to influence generation upon generation of blues guitarists and singers ever since.

A new book released in the summer of last year aims to shade in some of Johnson’s hitherto unknown background. Entitled Brother Robert: Growing Up With Robert Johnson (Hachette Books), it was authored by Johnson’s stepsister, Annye C Anderson, and it paints an entirely different picture to that of the troubled 20-something who visited the crossroads at midnight to do a deal with the devil. 

On the contrary, it conjures up a picture of a warm-hearted, shy individual who was dedicated to his music and guitar playing – but also that the blues wasn’t his only stylistic string.

The book reveals that Johnson could turn his hand to practically any tune, from jazz and popular songs of the day to spirituals. There’s even an occasion mentioned in the book where he sits on a step and plays nursery rhymes for the local children to sing and dance to. That’s a long way from the picture we might have formed about a man who sang about a hellhound on his trail.

The book’s biggest revelation is its cover image, which shows a relaxed and smiling Johnson with his guitar in hand, looking directly into the lens. Up until now, only two pictures were known to exist, but the third was revealed by stepsister Annye, it having been stored in a bank safe deposit box since the 1930s. 

Annye was born in 1926 to Johnson’s stepfather and third wife, Mollie – nobody knows who Johnson’s real father was, but his mother’s name was Julia, whom Annye refers to as ‘Mama Julia’ in the book.

Other characters who make an appearance here are stepsisters, Carrie (who bought Johnson his first guitar) and Bessie, and a stepbrother nicknamed Son who Johnson would sometimes perform with in a duo. 

When Johnson’s mother split up with her husband she couldn’t take care of her son and so Johnson went to live with his stepfather, who taught him to play the guitar. Eventually, Johnson was reunited with his mother.

Johnson was soon to spread his wings, disappearing for days on end, hitching a ride on the trains that passed through the town, a local railroad worker commenting at the time that Johnson spent more time riding the rails than he did. Johnson’s song Walking Blues details this part of his itinerant musical life.

Later in the book, Annye offers some insight into her stepbrother’s performances. Apart from playing songs for the local kids and passers by, Johnson would perform in juke joints, playing up-tempo songs for people to dance to. And, by any account, he knew a few moves himself.

The final part of Annye’s story about her celebrated stepbrother surrounds his death. Legend has it that he was poisoned by a jealous husband in a bar somewhere, but nobody knows the facts for sure. 

The family didn’t hear about his passing until two weeks after it happened, by which time Johnson was already buried – they received a telegram bearing the news and tried to claim the body, but were too late.

• Brother Robert: Growing Up With Robert Johnson by Annye C Anderson is available now via Hachette Books.

There have only ever been two published photos of Robert Johnson, the man whom Eric Clapton famously called “the most important bluesman who ever lived.”

In one, the blues acoustic guitar legend poses with a cigarette dangling out of the left side of his mouth and a serious look on his face. In the other, used for the cover of the 1990 Complete Recordings box set, he is sitting on a stool in a pinstripe suit.

Now, a new photograph of Johnson, believed to be third in existence, has been revealed.

The image, taken in a nickel portrait booth in Memphis in the 1930s, will appear on the cover of Brother Robert: Growing Up With Robert Johnson, the forthcoming memoir by his stepsister, Annye Anderson.

In an excerpt from the book shared with Vanity Fair, Anderson recalled the day the photo was taken.

“There was a make-your-own-photo place on Beale Street, near Hernando Street,” she writes. “I’ve since learned that a man named John Henry Evans owned it. The photo place was right next door to Pee Wee’s, the bar where Mr. Handy wrote his blues. 

"One day when I was 10 or 11 years old, I walked there with Sister Carrie and Brother Robert. I remember him carrying his guitar and strumming as we went. You just walk in, drop a nickel in the slot, pull the curtain, and do it. There was no photographer. I had my picture made. Brother Robert got in the booth, and evidently made a couple.”

And while a big part of the Robert Johnson legend has always revolved around his supposedly selling his soul to the devil at a crossroads, as well as his mysterious death by poisoning at age 27, Anderson writes that the newly-revealed pic offers a glimpse at a lighter side of the bluesman.

“It shows Brother Robert the way I remember him – open, kind, and generous. He doesn’t look like the man of all the legends, the man described as a drunkard and a fighter by people who didn’t really know him.

“This is my Brother Robert.”

Delta blues giant Robert Johnson (May 8, 1911 - August 16, 1938) is one of the most fascinating and mysterious performers in music history.

He created an essential body of blues guitar music, recording 29 songs in 1936 and 1937 that would exert a powerful influence on the likes of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Johnny Winter and many others.

In this edition of In Deep, we’ll examine the variety of picking techniques and tunings that Johnson used to craft his timeless, deeply emotional music. One of the staples of Johnson’s style is his ability to sound at times like two guitar players, combining driving rhythms on the lower strings with melodic figures on the higher strings. Due to the fact that his recordings were intentionally sped up when first released, definitive analyses of his tunings and capo positions is near impossible.

That said, the interpretations offered here are practical and easily achieved. Johnson’s tunings can be broken down into four categories: standard tuning, open G, open D and drop D. Some of the songs interpreted as open G or open D may have in fact been performed in open A or open E, respectively. Let’s start with standard tuning, which is the tuning Johnson used for the recordings Kind Hearted Woman Blues, I’m a Steady Rollin’ Man, Love in Vain and Sweet Home Chicago. The last song was performed in standard tuning with a capo at the second fret. 

The intro is a turnaround, normally found in the last two bars of a 12-bar blues progression. Johnson started many of his songs in this way: through bars 1 and 2, the high E tonic note is used as a pedal tone while other notes descend the D string. At the end of bar 2 into bar 3, he transitions to B7, the five chord. The verse is initiated at bar 3, and at this point Johnson creates the sound of two voices by playing a solid rhythm on the bottom two strings, alternating between root-fifth, root-sixth and root-flatted seventh chords while adding melodic notes on the G and high E strings. In bars 13 and 14, he performs a different turnaround, alternating between descending two-note figures on the G and B strings and the open high E.

Johnson achieved great definition between the low and high string parts by fingerpicking and using a thumb pick. I perform these licks using hybrid picking, holding a pick between the thumb and index fingers and using the other pick-hand fingers, primarily the middle and ring, to fingerpick. Played in the same tuning and capo position, When You’ve Got a Good Friend features a similar intro, albeit one slightly more complex in the fingerpicking pattern. Here, Johnson incorporates irregular bar lengths, a common practice among country blues guitarists.

FIGURE 1 includes a bar of 3/8 at the end of the intro, which functions as a pick-up for singing. In evidence again is the inclusion of simple melodic additions on the G and high E strings played against the driving rhythm of the low strings.

Love in Vain was performed in standard tuning in the key of G, with the capo at the first fret, as approximated in FIGURE 2. This excerpt starts with a turnaround consisting of chromatically descending double-stops (two-note figures), thirds apart and played on the top two strings.

In the verse section, the strong rhythm is maintained on the bottom strings while harmonic interest is added through subtle changes in chord voicings on the top two strings. While these high notes are allowed to ring, the lower notes should be slightly palm muted and played with staccato accents. Bar 9 offers a twist, with a shift to the II7 (two-dominant seventh) chord, A7, before resolving to the five chord, D7/F#, for which the low F# bass note is thumb-fretted.

Johnson employed open G tuning (low to high, D G D G B D: see FIGURE 3) for tunes such as Crossroad Blues, Walkin’ Blues and Come on in My Kitchen. He utilized specific chord voicings designed to work with open tunings, as shown in FIGURE 4, akin to Stones in My Passway. The example begins with slide guitar (Johnson wore a metal slide on his pinkie), before switching to chord voicings made up of all open strings combined with notes fretted on the top two strings.

• The verse section (bar 5) features classic Johnson chord voicings for G6 and G7 on the downbeats of beats two, three and four. In bar 5, the four chord, C7, is sounded by barring across the top three strings at the fifth fret, adding and removing a high Bb note at the eighth fret of the first string.

The final example is played in open D tuning (low to high: D A D F# A D), illustrated in FIGURE 6.

FIGURE 7 offers an example in the style of Ramblin’ on My Mind and features slide guitar extensively. The example begins with slide figures, positioned on the top four strings at the 12th fret and played against the open low-string rhythm part. When playing these slide licks and vibratos, position the slide directly over the fretwire for proper intonation. The verse (bar 6) consists of four bars of the one chord, followed by two bars on the four chord, G7, fretted at the fifth fret.

Likewise, the five chord, A7 (bar 14) is positioned at the seventh fret. Each Robert Johnson composition offers an invaluable lesson in country blues guitar. Hopefully this column has shed light on his playing style and will inspire you to investigate his music further.

This historic 1936 recording by Robert Johnson of one of his classic songs showcases the pioneering Delta bluesman’s trademark funky, aggressive fingerstyle attack and rhythmically free and quirky phrasing style that often weaves back and forth between groups of triplets, swing eighth notes and duplets (even eighths), with an occasional pair of 16ths thrown in. Those accustomed to the standard, modern 12-bar blues progression can be somewhat baffled and thrown at first, upon hearing and trying to recreate Johnson’s freestyle phrasing, which deviates from the standard form, in terms of when you go to the IV chord, for example, or how many beats you’re supposed to stay on a particular chord. The fact that Johnson was a self-accompanying solo performer gave him the freedom to do whatever the hell he wanted, and that he did!

Many of Johnson’s recordings were intentionally sped up, which raised the pitch, and on this song, he most likely used open G tuning with a capo at the third fret, which is how we transcribed it. Everything sounds in the key of Bb, slightly sharp (more on that in a moment), and all tab numbers are relative to the capo and its “open” strings, which are tabbed as zeros. So when you see a “12” or “5,” that actually means the 15th or eighth fret, respectively (tab number + 3).

In order to play along with the recording, you’ll need to tune all strings approximately a quarter tone sharp. Alternatively, if you have a digital media player with pitch-shifting capability on your computer or phone, you can lower the pitch of the recording playback by approximately 50 cents, to put it at Bb concert key.

Johnson wore a metal slide on his pinkie, which gave his acoustic slide licks that raspy tone and also freed up his first three fingers for regular note fretting, of which he did a lot in this song, as indicated. Good luck, and enjoy!

Robert Johnson, the man who Eric Clapton called "the most important blues musician who ever lived," was born around 107 years ago, on May 8, 1911, in Hazlehurst, Mississippi.

Although he lived only 27 years, his haunting singing, guitar skills and compositions have influenced generations of musicians and continue to fascinate the most gifted of guitarists.

Johnson created an essential body of blues guitar music, recording 29 songs in 1936/1937 that would exert a profound influence on guys like Clapton, Elmore James, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Peter Green, Mick Taylor and many others.

"Robert was the only guitar player with a little different style than all the other guys had," "Honeyboy" Edwards, Johnson's contemporary and friend, told Guitar World in 2011. "'Cause he had the turnaround to his blues. The turnaround is when you have a solo in betwixt the verses. You stoppin' to have a solo. But all the rest of the guys, like Tommy Johnson and them, they had a little short time. Wasn't enough for you to pay attention to. So Robert had a different style than the other blues players."

Below are five great covers of songs attributed to Johnson. You'll notice I've decided to leave out Cream's uber-famous 1968 live version of "Crossroads" because, well, isn't that choice a little obvious? Yes, it's a great recording, it's 100 percent classic, it's got great guitar and bass playing by Clapton and Jack Bruce, but enough already. You've heard it 9,037 times!

If you really need a Clapton fix, check out my far-less-obvious choice below, a track from his 2004 Johnson tribute album, Mr. and Mr. Johnson.

Enjoy!

Led Zeppelin, "Traveling Riverside Blues"

Big Joe Williams, "Hellhound on My Trail"

Eric Clapton, "Milkcow's Calf Blues"

Howlin' Wolf, "Dust My Broom"

The Rolling Stones, "Love in Vain"

Regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Delta blues wizard Robert Johnson recorded only 29 songs (plus 13 alternate takes, in two sessions) during his 27 years of life.

They were cut when he wasn’t playing for tips on street corners, in juke joints or in front of barbershops and other commercial establishments.

In his youth, Johnson copped licks directly from Son House, who later in his life vividly recalled how Johnson developed from a bad guitarist to a “master” in just two years.

Ike Zinnerman allegedly inspired Johnson to practice guitar in a graveyard at night while perched atop tombstones. These are only a few of the stories that helped cultivate the legend that Johnson earned his chops by making a deal with the devil.

Johnson played his Gibson L-1 using a thumb pick and occasionally used a slide. His recordings were largely unknown until they were rereleased in 1961. Their raw intensity and gut-wrenching soulfulness laid the foundation for bands like the Rolling Stones, Cream and Led Zeppelin as well as players like Jimi Hendrix, Billy Gibbons and Jack White.

In this column I’ll examine Johnson’s genius with a study of “Cross Road Blues,” “Walking Blues” and other songs. All examples are in open-G tuning (low to high, DGDGBD), though Johnson employed numerous other tunings, often in conjunction with a capo.

FIGURE 1 mimics Johnson’s hugely influential “boogie blues” riff, as heard in “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom.” Prior to Johnson’s recording of the song, this groove was played only on piano, but it became the basis for countless guitar-based tunes after he used it.

Thumb-picked thumps of low-register notes like these are at the core of Johnson’s style, and they often support a melodic component,such as that shown in FIGURE 2, which is reminiscent of Johnson’s moves in “Love in Vain.” Though these passages work only in open position, others, like FIGURE 3, lend themselves to higher fretting positions, as Johnson used in “Walking Blues.”

Another key component of Johnson’s style was his use of a slide. FIGURES 4 and 5 illustrate two of Johnson’s favorite slide phrase styles, informed by “Traveling Riverside Blues” and “Walking Blues,” respectively.

Wear the slide on your fret-hand’s ring finger or pinkie, and use your remaining digits to dampen the strings behind the slide to lessen extraneous string noise. Position the slide parallel to and directly over the indicated frets for intonation accuracy, and lay the slide lightly against the strings, making sure they don’t touch the frets. Pluck the indicated strings with your bare fingers, and try to dampen strings you don’t wish to sound by touching them with your unused pick-hand fingers.

FIGURE 6, a composite of “Cross Road Blues” and “Walking Blues,” weaves many of the above approaches—including a tasty turnaround move (bars 5–6)—into an extended stylistic tribute.

We hereby direct your attention to Larkin Poe, a pair of badass Georgia-bred sisters who—we kid you not—are distantly related to 19th-century American writer, poet and critic Edgar Allen Poe, the tortured artist behind The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death and "The Raven."

OK, I majored in English (writing and literature), so, yeah, I think that's cool.

However, the fact that they're 20-something-year-old Southern sisters playing gritty, modern roots rock and blues on a Fender Jazzmaster and an ancient Rickenbacker lap steel makes them a hell of a lot cooler.

That's Rebecca Lovell on guitar, mandolin and vocals and Megan Lovell on lap steel and vocals. Rebecca and Megan (along with their older sister, Jessica) started performing together in 2005 as the Lovell Sisters. After a level of success that's definitely nothing to sneeze at (unless you happen to be coming down with something), they split up, eventually reforming—just Rebecca and Megan this time—in 2010 as Larkin Poe, the name of their great-great-great grandfather, a Civil War wagon driver (and good ol' Edgar Allen Poe's cousin).

Their 2017 album, Peach, is overflowing with hints of their Southern upbringing, not to mention lots of wiry guitar, strong songwriting, magnetic melodies, sweet harmonies and a comforting level of authenticity. They also bring an updated sense of pathos and grit to some incredibly ancient tunes, including Robert Johnson's "Come on in My Kitchen," Son House's "Preachin' Blues" and Blind Willie Johnson's "John the Revelator."

Mind you, this is not a "throwback" band (or album); some of the tracks from Peach would sound natural following an Ed Sheeran tune on the tinny speakers at the Veggie Grill in Pasadena. It is, however, commendable that they're blending vintage blues motifs with a modern sound.

Sometimes Megan's playing sounds like Derek Trucks, Hop Wilson, Jimmy Page or George Harrison—maybe even George's buddy, Eric Clapton. Most often, however, she sounds like herself, a new "voice" in blues-guitar land, which is refreshing.

"The first slide instrument I was introduced to was the dobro," Megan told us in 2014. "At that time, I was taking lessons in guitar and mandolin and I couldn't seem to make headway with either of them. As soon as I saw, heard and appreciated slide guitar, I knew I had found my calling. I was immediately taken with the sound, versatility and almost vocal quality of the instrument.

"Later on, with...Larkin Poe, I found the need for a grittier, electrified sound and picked up the lap steel. I'll always love the dobro, but my true passion lies in the lap steel. I love how multifaceted the lap steel can be; the sound can mimic anything from a roaring electric guitar to a whiny pedal steel. I play a 1940s bakelite Rickenbacker lap steel—and I couldn't be happier."

"My standby guitar is a Fender Jazzmaster," Rebecca told us in September. "Ever since I saw Elvis Costello pick one up when we were out on tour with him a few years ago it’s stolen my heart. I also have a Sixties Princeton Blackface that I love. I don’t take it out on the road much because it’s so fragile, but it’s my ideal combination."

You can check out a few of Larkin Poe's 2017 videos above, plus a lap-steel demo clip Megan shot for Guitar World's Acoustic Nation. Below, behold their cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs."

Peach is featured as an honorable mention in Guitar World's guide to the 10 essential rootsy releases of 2017. For more information (plus tour dates), check out our 2017 interview with Rebecca and Megan and visit larkinpoe.com.

Damian Fanelli | damian@guitarworld.com | @damianfanelligw

San Francisco Bay area slide guitar master Dennis Johnson released his new album, Rhythmland, September 15 via Root Tone Records.

Today, we present the exclusive premiere of Johnson's performance video of “Walkin’ Blues,” a magnetic track off the new album.

On the album—and in the video—Johnson (guitar, vocals) is backed by his band, the Mississippi Ramblers, featuring Tim Metz (drums), Jonathan Stoyanoff (bass) and Craig Long (keyboards, background vocals).

Rhythmland features nine songs composed by Johnson, plus a cover of “Walkin’ Blues,” a classic Robert Johnson (and/or Son House) song that has been covered by a host of blues/rock greats, including Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa, Peter Green and Roy Rogers.

Robert Johnson's approach to guitar was the blueprint for Dennis Johnson’s evolution as a guitarist. “Robert‘s guitar playing sounded like two guitars,” Dennis says. “It’s a blend of rhythm and slide phrases that sound like two guitarists are playing when it’s really one. I approach guitar in much the same way."

Rhythmland also features a few innovative slide techniques. “I came up with techniques like halftime rhythmic slides and artificial harmonic slides," he says. “I've learned to think rhythm first, and it takes slide guitar to a whole new level. It’s not about how many notes you play, but what you do with the notes you choose. I want to support the rhythms of the song.”

In the studio, Johnson worked with co-producer Craig Long to find unique tones that fit with the songs and the other instruments.

“There are some great guitar tones on the record,” Johnson says. The 12-string Dobro just sings on “Walkin’ Blues;” his 1961 Martin New Yorker demonstrates a beautiful acoustic resonance on the jazz-flavored “My Love Is Here for You” and just rips on the barrelhouse “High Heel Shoes.”

For more information, visit dennisjohnsonslide.com.

Dennis Johnson Tour Dates
10/7 Emerald of Siam Richland, WA
10/10 McMenamin’s White Eagle Portland, OR
10/11 McMenamin’s Old Church Wilsonville, OR
10/20 Live from the Divide Billings, MT
11/3 Silo’s Napa – 8 PM Napa, CA

Like his last two studio releases, 2013’s Old Sock and 2014’s The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale, Clapton's new album—I Still Do—finds the guitarist in a reflective mood, looking back at the artists and songs that inspired him as a young man, connecting with old friends—including producer Glyn Johns—and honoring family memories. And it all starts with the title.

“I Still Do is a tribute, a quote from my aunt, who passed away the year before last,” Clapton tells us.

“When I went to see her, I said, ‘I want to thank you for being who you were and looking after me when I was a little boy—and a difficult little boy.’ She said, ‘Well, I liked you and I still do.’ I thought, That's it.”

Besides several brand-new songs (including "Spiral," which we shared this week), a handful of "legacy" JJ Cale covers (check out "Can't Let You Do It") and more, I Still Do features a hefty chunk of guitar-driven blues.

Below, Clapton discusses several blues tracks, including his new versions of Robert Johnson's "Stones in My Passway" and Leroy Carr's "Alabama Woman Blues." For my complete interview, pick up the all-new July 2016 issue of Guitar World, which features Clapton—and his Strat—on the cover.

Although you’ve never officially recorded it until now, you played a solo-guitar version of [Robert Johnson’s “Stones in My Passway] on the Sessions for Robert J DVD in 2004. Around that time, you said it was a very difficult song to play because there’s a melody that’s happening beneath the vocal melody.

CLAPTON: Yes, there’s a passage. If we talk about it in terms of a 12-bar blues, it’s in the second section. The first section is the A section; when you get to the B section, and you move up to the IV chord, there’s a phrase he plays underneath his vocal that I can’t do. I can’t sing it and play that phrase, and I will never do it, I don’t think. I think I’ve tried all my life to figure out how to do that—because the time signature of the singing is one way and the playing is another.

They’re syncopated in very different ways. So it's always needed to be an ensemble piece. We did it well, but I'm still... Glyn would tell you I'm still not satisfied. I still think we could do it better. [laughs] You'll be hearing that again.

Which explains the approach you took on this new version of the song, where the entire band imitates, in a way, Johnson’s guitar—or acts as an extension of your guitar—just as they did on several tracks on 2004’s Me and Mr. Johnson. Also, “Stones in My Passway” is one of at least three songs on the album that originated in the Thirties. Is that something you planned?

I’m not sure. I think it’s because they were important to the people I was learning music from, which was my family. My grandmother, my mother and my uncle were very, very influential to me. They would sing all day long. They’d be buying records and listening to stuff, and a lot of it was early jazz and swing. Paul Whiteman, Stan Kenton, the Dorsey brothers and a lot of those bands had singers, you know, like Frank Sinatra or Doris Day or Peggy Lee. So I heard all that stuff when I was knee-high.

By the time I got to be 9, 10, 11, when I was starting to hear blues, I was already well-versed in popular music of the Thirties and Forties. I kind of knew it, especially Fats Waller. I was hearing black and white music—without knowing what was black or white—in my home, from my family. So these songs, there's a deep kind of a reservoir of that stuff that I’m still tapping into. I know Rod Stewart’s been doing that for a while. I just chuck a couple in every now and then. But there's some great stuff back there.

You also cover Leroy Carr’s “Alabama Woman Blues,” which you’ve played in concert in the past. Around 12 years ago, you listed it as one of your 10 favorite songs of all time. What do you find so alluring about it—or at least about Carr’s original recording of it?

I think it was where it hit me in my own life. It was one of the first songs I heard as a teenager, not really knowing anything about Leroy Carr. But there’s something about the sadness of that song. There's a certain atmosphere to his recording. Something about it is so poignant, moving, simple and sad. My version is much more out there and upbeat, but you really should listen to Leroy Carr’s version.

There’s a lot of slide guitar on I Still Do. Besides Robert Johnson, who were—or are—your slide influences?

Well, there are two other guys. There’s Elmore James; there’s something about his vibrato that I’m absolutely riveted by. He plays it so beautifully. The other guy is a Texan musician called Hop Wilson who played on records and in the clubs around Fort Worth in the Sixties and Seventies, I think.

He played on a lap steel, so he played liked Robert Randolph, except he wasn’t “church,” he was blues, and I think he was unique in that respect. He plays some awkward tuning, I’m told; I think Jimmie Vaughan knows the tuning. It sounds to me like an open G or an open A, which leads me to play some of his phrases. I recommend you check him out. [Check out Wilson’s Houston Ghetto Blues on iTunes—Ed.]

I Still Do, which will be released Friday, May 20, is available for preorder on iTunes; three songs—"Can't Let You Do It," "Stones in My Passway" and "Catch the Blues"—are available for purchase now.

What happens when a 14-year-old white girl sits down with blues legends and shoots the breeze?

Ask guitarist Rory Block. She’ll tell you the blues is in her blood. In her soul. In her hands.

Block picked up the guitar at age 10 and by her early teens was learning from the men that birthed the blues. We’re talking Reverend Gary Davis, Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt.

Block left home at 15 with her guitar and a few friends and headed for California. After a few attempts to fit into a more commercial mold, she admitted defeat and went back to her blues roots. The result was a record deal with the Boston-based Rounder label, which released her High Heeled Blues in 1981. Rolling Stone referred to the album as “some of the most singular and affecting country blues anyone – man or woman, black or white, old or young – has cut in recent years.”

Fast-forward to today, and Block has more than 20 highly acclaimed releases and five Blues Music Awards under her belt. Last year, Block published her autobiography, When a Woman Gets the Blues, a chronicle of her life that features many photos and personal accounts of her interactions with the blues greats.

We had a chance to speak to Block from her studio, as she was recording her latest effort, a tribute to the Reverend Gary Davis. Here’s what she had to say.

GUITAR WORLD: Why don’t you tell me about what you’re working on now, your new project?

Well, I have a larger project that I call “The Mentor Series.” What I’m doing is making a series of tribute albums to the blues masters who I met in person. The re-discovered blues masters, thus far. And my concept is to have a boxed set of the final result.

So far it’s Son House, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and now we’re doing Reverend Gary Davis. All of the blues masters mentioned were ones I was lucky enough to meet in person. And the lifelong influence has been huge from everybody I met. I also met Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Bukka White. I’ve also done a tribute to Robert Johnson that came first, but of course, I couldn’t have ever met him in person because he died before I was born! It’s too bad, because in a way, that began The Mentor Series. He was the first of the blues masters who I absolutely was smitten by.

So this is my box set concept, and it’s felt really emotional and really powerful for me to be immersing myself again in a music of the artists that I knew in person. But the memories are just so powerful. The other day when we were doing “I Belong to the Band,” as I listened to it, it just brought back the period of my life when I was 14 and 15, where this is all that I did morning, noon and night. Play music, play blues, listen to blues, visit the blues masters, go to their concerts, travel across the country. Music, music, music all the time. It just brought tears to my eyes, and I just thought, “Wow, what an amazing period of history. What an incredible time in my life that was.”

Since you’re working on this album about Reverend Gary Davis, can you tell me about what you took away from that experience with him? And some of the other blues masters as well.

The first of the blues masters I met was probably either Reverend Gary Davis or Mississippi John Hurt. Friends of mine knew everybody that was rediscovering and looking for the old blues masters. And so we would be informed immediately if that person had been found, that person was being brought in to the city for a concert, and we would go. That was a rock-my-world moment where the person’s charisma, like Mississippi John Hurt, was just giant for me. It was just giant. It was like here is this legendary human being who created these songs that I love. Here’s the person whose voice and music I listened to. And so there’s this feeling of knowing somebody, in a way, and then there they are. Really powerful.

And then also, with Mississippi Fred McDowell, he came to the place where we were staying in Berkeley, California. Just the door was open one day, and there was Mississippi Fred McDowell, and I was just knocked out. And then we played music together and we interacted and we were able to visit and talk and hang around, and that was incredibly powerful. And watching him play slide, when I recorded his music recently, I remembered watching him play, and it helped me not only become a better player, the memory of it today, revisiting that memory. I look back and I go, “Wow, let’s see. He had the slide on his third finger. That’s why I have a slide on my third finger. That’s right, that’s the way Fred McDowell did it.”

And then, Reverend Gary Davis lived in the Bronx. He was really funny, really witty. And it was also entertaining, in that regard, it was like watching him and Stefan [Grossman] sort of trade jabs. It was like being at a roast, haha. And so it was really funny, and it was really entertaining and it was musically inspiring. And he was giving lessons to Stefan, and I didn’t do that style at all, for some reason. I dabbled in several songs but not really. I went in the Mississippi slide and strumming styles, but not in that super high intensity picking style of Reverend Gary Davis. Now I have to revisit that altogether.

I have a little bit of information from when I used to play, “I Belong to the Band.” I used to play “Sit Down on the Banks” just enough to go, “Oh my god, he does everything in reverse.” His bass notes are absolutely the reverse of what you expect. The little rolls that he does require vast amounts of dexterity to get it right. So I am stretching as I do with each one of these albums, stretching beyond the limit to get it to the best of my ability. But it’s really good for me as a player. And it helps to remember the men in person. It really helps... The memories float back, and I think that I’m revisiting what I looked at then with new perspective.

I read that on the two previous albums that you’ve done in this series you took the music and then added your own touch to it. Are you doing the same thing with this project?

Yes, that has happened thus far. I’ll go back to the Robert Johnson recording, The Lady and Mr. Johnson, because with that one, I just felt like I didn’t want to improvise. It was my goal to crack the code and do it as accurately as I humanly could do it.

Then with Son House, Blues Walkin’ Like a Man, it started veering out a little bit. I didn’t have a goal to make it any different but it just sort of felt like it opened up a little bit and my current-day energy sort of folded into the tracks. But I didn’t write any music for that CD.

Then with Mississippi Fred McDowell, Shake ‘Em On Down, a new door opened up where I definitely felt a bunch of my energy from today was weaving into the tracks. And then I wrote some stuff, which I didn’t expect to do. So I’m thinking four tracks maybe are original. “Steady Freddy,” “Mississippi Man,” “Ancestral Home,” and “Bread Line.” It just is what happens in the studio; because it’s a birth, and you don’t really know a lot about what the baby’s gonna look like.

But you love it no matter what, right? Let’s talk about guitars a little bit. I’m guessing you continue to use your signature Martin guitar?

Yes, yes. I thought I would try a different a guitar. The reason is Reverend Gary Davis used a narrow neck guitar, which is a Gibson J-200 that he used, and he had huge hands. They’re probably twice the size of mine, at least. And there’s all of this activity where you reach over the top of the neck and you use your thumb, not only for one note but two notes. I’ve always used my thumb in my playing, and I probably got the notion and the idea early on from Reverend Gary Davis. But I mean, if you cover two notes with your thumb and then you have to bring all your fingers down to your average chord, say a C chord, that’s really painful on a wide neck.

And I always loved wide-neck guitars, so Martins I grew up playing were wide neck guitars, and I felt really comfortable. It’s really interesting because your hand gets used to the spacing between the strings and the frets. And to switch to a different width neck, your fingers sometimes go to the wrong string literally, or you land between the strings because you’re used to a different spacing. So as I look at this record and I look at the guitar parts, I really have to reach over the top of the neck.

So I called up Martin and I said, “Listen, I have to do this Gary Davis album.” So they sent me a model guitar they had in their inventory just for this record. Which is amazing, I love them so much. They’re such a great company, and the fact that they would help out in that way is unprecedented. So they shipped it out to me right away. But, and I’m gonna tell them this, I somehow managed to maintain all the work on my existing signature model guitar. I just sort of kept working at it and I’m coming along and I haven’t yet felt like the other guitar was really needed yet.

So you really are stretching then, in every sense of the word.

Oh, yes. It’s a little bit of torture but it’s good. This is what always should happen to me when I do a focused project like this. It stretches the limits.

Rory Block is touring this spring! Check out roryblock.com to find out when she’s coming to a town near you and release dates of her tribute to Reverend Gary Davis!

Here Rory Block takes on Robert Johnson’s “Crossroad Blues.”

Here's a rousing “Me and the Devil.” Killer.

Laura B. Whitmore is a singer/songwriter based in the San Francisco bay area. A veteran music industry marketer, she has spent over two decades doing marketing, PR and artist relations for several guitar-related brands including Marshall and VOX. Her company, Mad Sun Marketing, represents 65amps, Acoustic Bass Amps, Agile Partners, Guitar World and many more. Laura was instrumental in the launch of the Guitar World Lick of the Day app. She is the lead singer for the rock band, Summer Music Project. More at mad-sun.com.

Eric Clapton did it. Peter Green did it. Now it’s Todd Rundgren’s turn to pay homage to Delta blues legend Robert Johnson by recording an album of reinterpretations of Johnson’s iconic songs.

But as its title suggests, Todd Rundgren’s Johnson isn’t nearly as reverent as Clapton and Green’s efforts (Me & Mr. Johnson and Robert Johnson Songbook, respectively). Rather, the album gives props to the electric bluesmen who introduced Johnson’s music and style to rock and roll.

“The album is a tribute to the white players of the Sixties who were influenced by Robert Johnson — guys like Clapton, the Bluesbreakers and Michael Bloomfield,” says Rundgren, the 63-year-old former Nazz and Utopia frontman.

“It was modeled after the Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton album from 1966. That one really turned heads. It was like an atom bomb for guitarists.”

Todd Rundgren’s Johnson finds the guitarist blithely shredding his way through rocking arrangements of 12 diverse Johnson compositions, including “Crossroads Blues,” “Sweet Home Chicago” and “Hellhound on My Trail.” The album is packed with crunchy Strat tones, blistering pentatonic solos and Mick Taylor–meets–Albert King bends — all performed by Rundgren, who, except for some help from former Utopia bassist Kasim Sulton, played every instrument and sang every song on the disc.

“This album was an opportunity to put myself into an 18-year-old frame of mind,” says Rundgren, who began his career as a member of Woody’s Truck Stop, a mid-Sixties Philadelphia-based outfit that was heavily influenced by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. “I decided early on that I wanted to be Michael Bloomfield, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton — not George Harrison.”

And while Rundgren’s own music has at times tended toward sophisticated pop, soul and jazz-fusion workouts, he loved the opportunity to cut loose and solo over chugging three-chord patterns. “I’ve always done very ‘composed’ music and worked-out solos,” he says. “But sometimes it’s fun not knowing where you’re going.”

In 2004, Eric Clapton paid tribute to Robert Johnson with an album of the Delta King’s classic blues.

Back when he was a blues-obsessed teenager in England, something happened to Eric Clapton that caused him to fall down on his knees and ask the Lord above for mercy: he heard, for the first time, the music of Delta blues king Robert Johnson. Throughout his long and brilliant career, Clapton has often revisited that early encounter, likening it to “a religious experience” that “called to me in my confusion.” The depth and brutal honesty of Johnson’s music, he has said, “seemed to echo something that I had always felt.”

Not surprisingly, the emotions triggered in him by Johnson’s music also frightened Clapton a bit. “I could take the music only in small measures because it was so intense,” he recalls. Clapton immersed himself in the music but was also seduced by the Johnson mystique: the claim that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his musical prowess, the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death at the age of 27, and the lack, at the time, of even one photograph of the blues great. Clapton’s identification with Johnson was total, and not always benign: he admits, for instance, that he looked forward to dying in his late twenties.

Fortunately, as he battled and ultimately triumphed over his own well-publicized personal demons, Clapton came to focus more on the music than the mystique— on the Johnson who was “the best guitarist I ever heard,” the Johnson whose songs expressed “every angle of emotion.”

In 2004, Clapton at long last paid tribute to the great bluesman with the album Me and Mr. Johnson, an electric affair that featured brilliant guitar work by Clapton, his longtime collaborator Andy Fairweather-Low and Doyle Bramhall II. In the following interview, the Prince of the British Blues graciously consented to spin a verbal riff on the subject of his King.

GUITAR WORLD ACOUSTIC So you’ve finally taken the plunge and recorded an album of songs by Robert Johnson.

ERIC CLAPTON Yes. I realized that if I didn’t do it now I probably never would. What made it possible for me to do it in the first place was that I was no longer driven by any need to somehow match, or compete, with the originals. Also, the fact is that I’m very comfortable now in a way that I’d never been before. I think the primacy of my wife and children in my life had a lot to do with that.

GWA It occurred to me that the very fact that the recordings on Me and Mr. Johnson differ so completely from Johnson’s own arrangements indicate a certain comfort level you had about the entire project.

CLAPTON That’s very true.

GWA I understand that your comfort in doing the material made it possible for you to record the material with a band. But why did you choose to not record any of the songs on Me and Mr. Johnson solo acoustic, just you and your guitar?

CLAPTON I actually tried to do “Terraplane Blues” solo acoustic, and it just sounded weak. There was no point in doing a second-rate version of a Robert Johnson song.

GWA When did you learn to play his music on the acoustic guitar?

CLAPTON To tell you the truth, I never really did; I have never actually sat down and played Robert Johnson unaccompanied. Even when I played “Malted Milk” on Unplugged, I did it as a duet with Andy Fairweather-Low. I can play pieces of Robert Johnson songs but not entire tunes note for note. I can play Big Bill Broonzy’s stuff, but there’s something very symmetrical about his music: once you learn the fingerpicking pattern, it’s easy. But Robert’s music is so asymmetrical, and there is always something new going on. I find it very difficult to play by myself.

GWA Johnson’s impact on you is well documented. I remember reading that as a young guitarist you often turned your back to your audiences when it came time to play a solo, and that this was associated with your obsession with Johnson.

CLAPTON I don’t know if this is true or not, but it was reported by Don Law, the man who recorded him, that prior to one of his sessions there were some Mexican musicians in the room with him. It seems he was unable to play in front of them; he had to turn and play to the corner of the room. When I read this I thought, That makes sense. How could he play in front of other people when he’s exposing his emotions so entirely?

GWA When you first discovered Robert Johnson, very little was known about him; he was a mysterious, romantic figure. Within the past three decades, however, two photos of Johnson were unearthed and blues scholars have learned much more about his life. Has that in some way diminished him in your eyes?

CLAPTON No, not at all. The music, which I digested and placed in a certain location a long, long time ago, is in a very safe place in my heart and mind. I could watch a documentary about his life with a great deal of interest, but it would have absolutely no effect on what I gathered from the music, then or now.

GWA Some revisionist blues historians have downplayed Johnson’s influence as a blues artist, maintaining that his importance was a creation of his later, white audience. Others point out that much of his material was actually derived from previous work by bluesmen like Son House, Lonnie Johnson and Kokomo Arnold. What’s your view?

CLAPTON I recently read Elijah Wald’s Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues, and he made what I thought were some pretty rash statements. One was that Robert could have been removed from the picture and nothing much would’ve been affected. I thought that was an extraordinarily hasty thing to say, and I’ll explain why: Before I heard Robert Johnson, I had already been exposed to a lot of rhythm and blues artists like Chuck Berry and Jimmy Reed. As soon as I heard Johnson play boogie on things like “When You Got a Good Friend” and “Rambling on My Mind,” I immediately understood where a lot of R&B grooves originated. No one else from that period—not Son House, not Charlie Patton, not Blind Lemon Jefferson— played anything like that. I think that was Robert Johnson’s invention, which is a considerable contribution to the blues, and it enabled me to make a direct connection from Robert Johnson to Jimmy Reed.

GWA I once read of a guitarist who described Johnson as a “one-man power trio” because of his penchant for simultaneously playing a bass line, a rhythm part on the middle strings and a lead riff on the treble strings, all while singing the song.

CLAPTON Yes, it was a natural thing for him to do, and I think that’s also his invention. You mention that while playing a line on the low strings he would simultaneously pick little reference notes on the high strings, something he does on “When You Got a Good Friend,” which we recorded on Me and Mr. Johnson. Well, Freddie King used to do that all the time, and I’ve heard countless electric guitar players do that. It was like Johnson was playing electric guitar before there were electric guitars; that’s the bizarre thing. And while I accept that he was a product of influences like Lonnie Johnson and Kokomo Arnold, I don’t think anyone summed up the whole Delta blues experience in the way—or had the impact—that he did.

GWA What would you say distinguishes Robert’s playing from that of his Delta bluesman peers?

CLAPTON He had finesse! I heard Johnson before I heard Son House and Charley Patton, and people kept telling me I had to check them out. When I did, my first reaction was, Whoa, these guys are kind of noisy; they’re kind of clanky! “Clumsy” is probably too harsh a word. But then I’d go back to Robert and think, There’s no comparison, this guy’s got finesse. His touch was extraordinary; it was so refined, which is amazing in light of the fact that he was simultaneously singing with such intensity.

GWA It must have been thrilling for you when, as a member of the Yardbirds, you played with Sonny Boy Williamson II, who reputedly knew Johnson quite well. Did you ever ask him about Robert?

CLAPTON No, partly because we became enemies on the first day we met. I went up to him and asked, “Isn’t your name really Rice Miller?” Of course, his name really was Rice Miller. I must’ve come off like some naïve blues collector. And our relationship never recovered after that. I think he thought I was making fun of him. Sonny Boy was a very difficult and strange man.

GWA Did you actually learn anything from this “difficult and strange” bluesman?

CLAPTON While we didn’t get along, he did make me realize how important it was to pay attention to detail in the blues. For example, the Yardbirds would be rehearsing with him, he would call out one of his songs—like “Nine Below Zero”—and we would start playing. Suddenly, he would stop and say, “That’s not how you play it.” And the other guys in the band would say, “What do you mean—it’s a blues, isn’t it?” But I had heard the record and knew that there was actually an intro, a motif, a balance of who played what, and that we weren’t playing those things correctly. I suddenly became aware through working with him that even though you had this general thing called “the blues,” each song had its own identity and had to be rehearsed and respected. We were very young and just didn’t know any better. The truth is he had every right to be upset. We were supposed to be playing his hit songs and we just didn’t learn them properly. I would not be very happy myself if I was playing with a bunch of musicians who didn’t bother to learn all the parts to my songs.

GWA Is there anything else about Robert or his music that you didn’t get in your youth but which you now understand?

CLAPTON God, you stumped me. I don’t think there’s anything I understand more about him now than I did then. I may be a little more comfortable playing his music now, because it’s very much part of who I am, but that’s about it. When I was a teenager, I could take the music only in very small measures because it was so intense. But do I grasp it any better? I’d have to say that I don’t: it’s as mysterious to me now as it ever was. I still don’t know how he did some of that stuff. Take “Kindhearted Woman Blues”: there’s an instance in one of the verses, on a IV chord, where he plays an odd single-note kind of accompaniment behind the vocal. I can’t do it—I can’t see how anybody could do it. [laughs]

GWA Once the greatest, always the greatest.

CLAPTON No question about it.

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

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

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

BLUES

FIGURE 65
Origin: Originally conceived by Robert Johnson and played with a slide in “Come on in My Kitchen,” Jimi Hendrix borrowed the lick and made it famous as a lead-in at the start of “Red House.”
Theory: Pretty much taken from the B blues scale (B–D¬–E–F–F#–A), Hendrix adds a bluesy major 7th (A#[Bb]) for extra chromaticism in measure 2.
Playing Tip: Apply heavy vibrato to the bends in measure 1, and to make the line sing, keep solid time throughout.

Check back tomorrow for Figure 66!

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

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

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

BLUES

FIGURE 55

Origin: This blues-rock line in the style of Albert Collins and Stevie Ray Vaughan originated from a Robert Johnson slide lick.
Theory: The root, b3rd (#9), and 5th of the D7 chord provide color for this lick.
Playing Tip: Bend firmly; don’t let the A “droop.”

Check back tomorrow for Figure 56!

We all know a great lick when we hear one—Jimmy Page’s solo breaks in “Whole Lotta Love” and Mark Knopfler’s blistering triads in “Sultans of Swing,” for example. Moments like these grab your attention and aurally brand your ears forever. Or, sometimes it acts more subliminally: You suddenly find yourself playing a certain lick over and over again, wondering, Where have I heard this before? Through the years, these licks have evolved into a vocabulary for the guitar. And like great writers who are always able to find the right word to make a point, great guitarists always have that essential lick at their disposal to express, in the moment, what they’re feeling. And whereas the best writers are able to string those words together to form remarkable prose, the best guitarists link their licks to form living, breathing, musical statements. We called upon our mighty stable of instructional writers to assemble these 101 Amazing Guitar Licks, spanning over eight decades and ranging from rock, metal, and blues to jazz, country and bluegrass. Regardless of what style music you play, it will do your ears and your chops good to go through each of these licks. Learn them, master them, and keep them on file for the next time you’re looking for just the right way to say what’s in your soul. BLUES

FIGURE 49

Origin: Another Robert Johnson–inspired move, this modern blues lick is in the style of John Hammond’s work on Tom Waits’ “2:19” from his Wicked Grin record. Theory: This one uses a Bb minor blues scale (Bb–Db–Eb–E–F–Ab). Playing Tip: Pick hard—especially on the sweep in measure 2. Check back tomorrow for Figure 50!

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

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

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

BLUES

FIGURE 46

Origin: This Delta blues lick is in the style of Robert Johnson’s “Kind Hearted Woman Blues,” but it originated from the union of African rhythms and melodies with Protestant chorales, which were performed on keyboards, thus the pianistic approach.
Theory: The b3rd (blue 3rd) of Bb (Db) acts as a #9, the archetypal tension of blues.
Playing Tip: Pluck the strings either with metal fingerpicks or with your fingers.

Check back tomorrow for Figure 47!