Steve Morse has looked back on the origins of his decades-spanning partnership with Ernie Ball Music Man, recalling how the collaboration first started thanks to a chance encounter – and a broken volume pedal.

Sometimes, collaborations just aren’t meant to be, and Morse’s failed link-up with Fender is a classic example. But as one door shut, another opened, and the former Deep Purple guitarist later forged a different partnership that’s still going strong today.

Morse was courted by Fender in the mid-1980s. It made sense, seeing as a Frankenstein'd Telecaster was his go-to guitar at the time. But the relationship disintegrated when Fender insisted he used own-brand parts.

As chance wold have it, Morse wouldn't be waiting long for a run-in with his dream collaborator. One broken pedal later, and Morse soon forgot all about Fender.

“More than 40 years ago, I was playing at a NAMM Show. My volume pedal to control the delay in my demo setup failed,” Morse told Guitar World during an interview at NAMM 2026 earlier this year.

“The gear stripped out, and there was no way to fix it. So I went looking for a volume pedal, and the Ernie Ball booth was nearby. I saw they had this really cool pedal that’s basically the same one they still sell.

“I said, ‘That looks rugged. It’s everything I need. Can I buy that?’” he continues. “They said, ‘No, that’s a show thing.’ ‘Can I borrow it to do my demo?’ ‘Well, let me ask Ern.’”

It turned out Morse was talking to David Ball, son of Ernie himself. After the random run-in, one thing lead to another, and before long Morse was gigging with Ball's other two sons, Sherwood and Sterling.

It was a serendipitous start to a powerful partnership, as Morse would later find out.

“I ended up playing gigs with Sherwood and Sterling, and then got to be friends with Ernie, because he made a really warm family vibe out of it,” Morse remembers. “And he was the grumpy older guy who had to tell people, ‘Come on, let’s get to work. What are we doing here?’

“It was literally a family thing. But I felt like part of it. So I became an endorser way back then.”

Ernie Ball was no shrinking violet even back then, but Morse helped propel the company’s status by becoming its first signature artist, pulling off a coup from under Fender’s nose.

“40 years ago, they bought the Music Man line, and they were going to release the StingRay bass,” Morse says of Ernie Ball's early plans. “And they said, ‘Well, you know what? We’d like to get the guitars where they should have been, and we want you to design a signature one.’”

His FrankenTele became the template for his signature guitar, which was designed to Morse's exacting standards and specifications. It's one of the firm's most recognizable and historically significant guitars – and succeeded serving Morse's signature guitar requirements where other bands had previously failed.

“Dudley Gimpel was the luthier at Music Man and he really put in the time, and was very analytical about it," Morse says. “We started with the head stock, which is shorter [on the signature]. And the guitar, when you put it on your leg to practice, you can let go, and it balances perfectly."

That same signature came with him as he replaced Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple, subsequently becoming the band's longest-serving guitarist.

Guitar World’s full interview with Steve Morse will be published online in the near future.

Steve Morse and Ernie Ball Music Man’s partnership is one of the guitar world’s most enduring, spanning back to a chance encounter between the pair at a NAMM show in the 1980s.

In fact, the Dixie Dregs and Deep Purple electric guitar legend was the first player to receive a signature guitar from the company.

Before that, though, Morse was being approached by other brands for potential signatures. One such rival was Fender – a solid choice, it would seem, given the fact Morse had been relying on a heavily modded Frankenstein’d Telecaster up until that point.

But, as Morse explained to Guitar World in an interview during NAMM earlier this year, it wasn’t to be, as logistical difficulties and creative differences meant the project ultimately failed.

Speaking of how his collaboration with Ernie Ball started, Morse said, “They [EBMM] were going to release the StingRay bass, and they said, ‘Well, we’d like to get the guitars where they should have been, and we want you to design a signature one.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve been through this already with Fender. It didn't work out.’

Morse explained, “With Fender, it was like, ‘Alright, here's what we need. We need this bridge. We need this pickup.’ [Fender said], ‘Oh, sorry, those aren't Fender parts.’ I said, ‘I know, but we need this bridge.’ ‘No, you have to use Fender parts.’”

Ultimately, says Morse, the conversation started to run in circles. “I said, ‘Yeah, but you don’t make this bridge,’’ he recalls. “‘[It was like] ‘Right, but you have to use Fender parts...’ I said, ‘Alright, I'll see you guys later. Bye.’ That was the end of that.”

Morse says he found it was a different experience with Ernie Ball Music Man, though, which was more than happy to accommodate Morse’s ultra-specific spec requests.

He continues, “Dudley Gimpel was the luthier at Music Man and he really put in the time, and was very analytical about it. We started with the head stock, which is shorter [on the signature]. And the guitar, when you put it on your leg to practice, you can let go, and it balances perfectly.

“And it was lightweight, because I specified the lightest wood possible, so we got poplar. Then we started talking about the shape. I wanted more of a rounded edge, but not a cutaway, because I use it to support my arm, kind of like an acoustic or a classic guitar.”

Morse was also highly particular about the pickups, which were positioned and angled in a deliberate way to improve tone and prevent phasing issues.

Fender, meanwhile, has changed its tune somewhat since the ’80s administration, making some concessions on third-party components – for instance, the Floyd Rose-equipped builds in last year’s Player II Modified series.

Morse’s full interview with Guitar World will be published on YouTube in the coming weeks.

The Deep Purple guitarist has continued that experimental ethos towards guitar making throughout his entire career. Back in 2024, he showed off a DIY mute that he fashioned himself as a way to help him play through the pain of arthritis.

Steve Morse's articulate and expansive technique is admired the world over. His new power trio album, Triangulation, features his versatile picking, colorful riff sequencing and searing string bends – plus two guitar elite friends in Eric Johnson and John Petrucci.

Steve has kindly agreed to this unique tutorial on big intervals, a core component of his trademark style. He defines big intervals as anything larger than using adjacent notes, such as playing a linear scale (eg root, second, third). Typically, big intervals involve skipping strings, and he does this in both his compositions and general playing to outline chords.

Wide intervals often have an ear-grabbing quality, be they quickly played or sustained as long as possible to give the effect of accompaniment and melody happening at the same time. To facilitate this, Steve often uses open strings as they can be left to ring on while the fretted notes change.

For the video performance, five contrasting approaches are stitched together with eighth-note chugging to create a functioning mini etude. We have carved this up into five tabbed four-bar examples. Steve then talks us through these five examples, highlighting all the extra details and we have included all the relevant notation markings in the tab so you can follow along.

There are technical hurdles to overcome when articulating wide intervals, and in the video Steve demonstrates ways to approach string skipping and the use of open strings. He also sometimes frets the bass notes on the sixth string by wrapping the fretting hand thumb over the top of the neck. If you find this awkward, Steve demonstrates that it’s possible to rework the fingering of the chords.

This performance is fairly involved so we’d recommend starting slowly and using the slowdown feature to really focus on the picking hand.

Example 1. Arpeggiating chords

This first example is an arpeggio melody idea using diatonic chord changes from the key of D. The open voiced triads are played with a down, down, up picking pattern as shown under the tab. Steve uses any and all available strings to transition from chord to chord smoothly.

The open first and second string notes are a colorful addition, helping with fluid transitions and tonal contrast to their fretted counterparts. The bass notes on the sixth string are played by wrapping the fretting hand thumb over the top of the neck.

Example 2. Using open strings

For this second example, Steve goes all out to demonstrate the power of using open strings by using all six! You'll start by targeting the open first string and then move down in order to the sixth string. The picking pattern is down-pick, hammer-on, up-pick, and this creates a cascade effect.

Steve goes for a little bit of economy picking here (bar 3, beat 2) either side of an outside picking movement and the double E down picking. We have included all of the picking directions in the tab, but feel free to experiment and find a method that feels comfortable to you.

Example 3. Skipping strings

This starts with an octave interval and then moves in contrary motion: as the top melody note ascends, the bottom note descends. This sounds sophisticated, but as there are only two notes, it is relatively easy to play.

Once again, the open strings are used to create a cascade effect over the C and G5 chords. As with the previous examples, there is some eighth note chugging on the open A5 to take us into next example. Steve uses down-picking to play this.

Example 4. Linear motion with string jumps

This next example is Steve’s favourite as it gives the impression of two parts happening at once. To improve the facility required to make the big stretches, the fretting hand thumb is placed back a little bit on the neck. It’s also good posture practice to keep the headstock of the guitar pointing up to the ceiling whilst maintaining a straight back.

Steve uses alternate picking for three notes on the fourth string and then the high melody note on the first string is played with an up pick. The ability to sustain the high note may feel awkward at first so perseverance – with some fretting hand relaxation/shake off pauses – is the ideal focus for progress.

Example 5. Melodic repetition and variation

Here, we are working on establishing a continuous obligato part (E-D#-E notes on the third string) underneath higher-string melodic motion. The example exploits Steve’s excellent picking technique.

We’d recommend taking this slowly to start with, just to get it under the fingers and to get all of the picking directions dialled in. Steve explains that he slightly changes his pick angle to make this easier to play, so feel free to experiment with the angle of your wrist. It's also worth exploring the angle of the pick when addressing the string: angled makes for an easier 'cut' (but often a raspier tone) while flat to the string can sound thicker (but results in more picking resistance).

How deep your pick goes either side of the string will provide you with further tone and technique realizations.

Example 6. Melodic repetition and variation (part 2)

To finish off you have a bonus example that demonstrates a variation on the previous example. Instead of just changing the top note and keeping the other notes underneath the same, you can also change the notes underneath.

Changing the notes underneath the melody note helps to clearly outline the tonality of the chord changes as they pass.

Steve Morse in action!

Steve Morse Band - Triangulation

Steve's trio in the studio – check out the riff, changing key centres and (of course!) sophisticated intervallic action. While John Petrucci isn't in the studio with them, you can hear his Morse influenced soloing very clearly.

Music school can be an intimidating place. Just ask former Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse. Enrolling at the University of Miami School of Music was to be the making of him, but not after the occasional humiliation.

In a recent interview with Louder, Morse recanted a story that would be familiar to many a college freshman; he just did not fit in. And unlike regular college, where you could drop geography and take up, y’know, material engineering or astro-physics, Morse couldn’t just swap the guitar for tuba. It doesn’t work like that. Morse had to find his niche with the guitar.

“The music programme at Miami wasn’t ideal,” he says. “I was very interested in classical guitar. I wasn’t that interested in the jazz department, because I was playing Jimmy Page songs and weird, teenage angsty music. So I didn’t know how that was going to work out.”

It is hard to believe that Morse would struggle in any guitar-playing company but this was a long time ago, and he was yet to accrue his powers. One of the first lessons he learned was that there were other streams of guitar playing that were beyond him at the time.

“When I got there I didn’t fit in with the classical people,” he says. “I wasn’t advanced enough.”

Worst still. There were some on campus who really did not care for Morse’s choice of electric guitar – and they were not slow in letting him know.

“The jazz people were laughing when they saw me at the audition with my Telecaster,” says Morse. “That wasn’t the right presentation. You were supposed to have an acoustic hollow body guitar with a pickup on it, like Wes Montgomery.”

This, of course, would be news to a lot of jazz guitar players today. Yes, the big ol’ jazz box was the archetypical tool of the trade, of Montgomery, Charlie Christian, Joe Pass et al.

And yet, look at today’s finest jazz players, the likes of Bill Frisell and Julian Lage, who have made the Telecaster their weapon of choice. The late Ted Greene was another virtuoso who could make the Tele work for jazz.

None of this was any use to Morse. He flunked the audition. But it was there he found himself among like-minded players.

“They rolled their eyes and said, ‘Put him in the rock ensemble,’ which was really a Latin jazz group,” says Morse. “There were only six of us in that programme; guitarists like me that failed the jazz audition. So Miami started off really bad, but being around all those other guitarists, suddenly I could relate to them.”

It was then Morse started writing and collaborating and combining different styles, the fusion of jazz and rock, using polychords, moving away from Led Zeppelin, and the rest is pretty much history.

Morse doesn’t specify whether it was his legendary FrankenTele that he used for the audition. This, a hybrid build featuring the neck from a 1967 Fender Stratocaster and the body of a Tele and a suite of bespoke wiring and hardware mods, would have been a little avant-garde for the jazz crowd.

But Morse did tell Guitarist in 2024 that his time on campus at Miami did yield his greatest gear find, when he acquired a hand-built classical guitar on the cheap.

“The most incredible find I’ve ever had was buying a handmade classical guitar in Miami in 1971. The builder needed money,” said Morse. “I was a broke student, and with the warning that the finishing was not complete, I bought it.

“I also never finished it because I was too busy playing it every single day to learn my studies at the University of Miami. It has a cloudy hand-rubbed finish and one crack, I think, but it’s a big part of my early history.”

Steve Morse enjoyed a 28 year stint with Deep Purple, making him their longest serving guitarist. Morse played on eight studio albums during his time with the band, including 2021's Turning to Crime, and cemented his name as an integral part of the group’s legacy.

Morse stepped down in July 2022 to care for his late wife, Janine, who was diagnosed with cancer. However, those hoping for Morse-Deep Purple reunion anytime soon shouldn't hold their breath.

“There's a couple guys in the band that were really glad for me to be gone,” he explains in an interview with Guitar Interactive Magazine. “They were sort of heading back to their roots and wanted just to be a rock band – ‘Don't give me any of that fancy crap.’

“And when you look at me as a writer, I definitely give you that fancy crap – I can't help it. So I think the band's happier the way they are. And it would be kind of a step back for them to want to do something like that.”

However, Morse does divulge that there were plans for him to “play on something and actually do another gig,” but that didn’t end up happening.

“That was when my wife was in remission. Everybody knew it was a wild card whether I was going to be able to be around or not, but we could schedule that boat [referring to Rock Legends Cruise] thing, and we were looking forward to it.

“We were on that tour – that boat – the year before when it got cancelled from COVID. The whole band got bumped off anyway. They're happier and better off… and I think, ‘Same here.’”

In related Morse news, the virtuoso recently opened up about his struggle to prolong his gigging days amid an ongoing battle with arthritis.

Ritchie Blackmore has previously heaped praise on Steve Morse, but the man who took his place in Deep Purple had a difficult job of impressing the group’s fans as he tried to put his spin on their material.

Morse joined in 1994 after Blackmore stepped away from the band for a second time. He spent 28 years with the band, producing eight studio albums, and even embarking on a tour shortly after breaking his wrist.

But, despite being a valued member of the group, the fusion-minded virtuoso had a harder time reimagining Blackmore’s blues-y licks in the eyes of the fans.

“Now, the fans, when I played the Purple songs and took it out, some of them – a certain percentage of them – just hated me,” he says to MusicRadar. “And pretty much stayed in that position till 28 years later!

“I tried to incorporate my stylistic mixture with respect for what Ritchie did but with some of my own personality, too,” he develops. “And [it was for] the people there that hadn’t heard us yet. They had the old albums, of course – that’s why they came and bought tickets – but they got used to me being me, and that was kind of new.”

Deep Purple were notorious for changing up their songs live, typically expanding sections out into long, virtuosic jams. Morse’s mindset was very much in keeping with that spirit, even if the band’s more conservative fans weren’t bowled over.

Speaking of his predecessors’ legacies, the band’s newest guitarist, Simon McBride, says he’s quickly learned just how different Morse and Blackmore are in terms of style.

“The Steve Morse stuff is very different from the early Ritchie Blackmore stuff,” he states. “Steve had a bit of an injury to his wrist, so he doesn’t play the way he did in Dixie Dregs. If I had to play what he did there, I would give up!

“And with Ritchie’s style, for example, there’s a solo like Highway Star that I can’t change – [tell that to Morse!]. When you’ve got 65,000 people all singing the solo back at you note-for-note, it’s like, ‘Okay, I am so glad I did not change this at all!’

“But there are other solos, like the one in Smoke on the Water, where I changed it around and put my own flavour on it. There’s no point trying to compete with Steve Morse or Ritchie Blackmore.”

Over the past few years, Morse has been battling arthritis in his wrist. He's invented a hack to help his playing, and has now revealed how his wrist's ever-changing condition dictates how he approaches every show.

Still, that hasn't stopped him from writing a new album with the Steve Morse Band, and Eric Johnson and John Petrucci are along for the ride, too.

Steve Morse has revealed the extent to which his battle with arthritis is affecting his guitar playing, and what it means for his career going forward.

The Dixie Dregs and Deep Purple ace has been defiant in the face of his worsening condition, revealing last year that there is no cartilage in his right-hand wrist anymore after he “practiced about 10,000 notes a day for decades.”

Yet, like Peter Frampton, Morse is refusing to “roll over” and let his arthritis cut his playing days short. Instead, he is doing everything in his power to prolong his live career.

Indeed, Morse has already modded his Ernie Ball signature guitar with a nifty, hinged string mute to aid his rally against arthritis. But speaking to MusicRadar, he's explained how he has to accommodate his physical limitations night after night while on tour.

“I have had to come up with new ways of picking – several new ways – because different bones in my joint have different pain levels when I change the angle,” he details. “So during the set, you’ll see me change. During the show tonight, I’ll be changing positions constantly.”

He’s speaking from the road, having reunited the Steve Morse Band power trio and announced a new album that features guest spots from Eric Johnson and John Petrucci. Expanding on his struggles, Morse says the fundamentals of guitar playing – right down to how he holds a guitar pick – are constantly under the microscope.

“I have to practise those different ways of holding the pick, and the different angles, and whether to bend my arm or pick from the elbow,” he says. “It’s a lot. I mean, you have to really, really, really want to play, to deal with the advance of arthritis.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. When I wake up, am I going to be able to move my hand or not? I don’t know. So far, I have been able to, [and] make every gig. I think my time of doing the performance grind is closing. That window is closing.”

But, still, Morse isn’t looking to call it a day. He has a contingency plan.

“My time for writing, and possibly performing with some help, with some other musicians, is very possible,” he adds. “I see a future, but I don’t see me being a hired gun because I couldn’t stand up to the level of players you can get now. And guitarists are literally dime a dozen.”

Still, when tasked by American Music Supply with adding a guitar solo to a Coldplay classic, he’s proved that he still has plenty to offer in that respect. He’s also underscored the importance of warming up before shows, naming one player who nails it, and has spilled the tea behind his intriguing pedalboard and live rig.

As the co-founder of the Dixie Dregs, the longest-serving guitarist for Deep Purple, and with over five decades of gigging experience under his belt, Steve Morse knows a thing or two about the importance of warming up before a show.

“There's technical practice, there's stretching, there's left-hand strength, right-hand strength, and I've got this condition that has developed from 50 years of playing,” he says on The No Cover Charge Podcast, referring to his struggles with arthritis.

According to Morse, one guitarist whose commitment to a warm-up routine is particularly impeccable is Dream Theater’s John Petrucci.

“We did some shows with Dream Theater. One thing I love seeing is how John Petrucci will just sit down and do a warm-up, no matter what, even if you're talking to him, he's going to keep on,” he explains.

“Got a metronome going. He's going to build it up, build it up. And when he goes up on stage, it's no problem. And of course, he keeps getting better with his musical ideas and everything, too.

“So he's blown me away with the level that he's been able to keep that alternate picking and even incorporating some hybrid things, just to serve the music. That's as high of a level [as] I've seen of somebody preparing for a gig.”

And for those interested in putting themself through the paces of Petrucci's regimented warm-up routine, the shredder did share his ultimate warm-up regime in a 2012 interview with Total Guitar for us mere mortals to try out.

Steve Morse will release his first album since leaving Deep Purple on November 14, with Eric Johnson and John Petrucci as guest recruits for the Steve Morse Band.

Triangulation is the group’s first album since 2009’s Out Standing in Their Field. It will see Morse team up with bass player Dave LaRue and Enrique Iglesias drummer Van Romaine as the core trio. His son, Kevin, stars on the closing track, Taken by an Angel.

All eyes will be on Johnson and Petrucci, though, with the two greats of blues guitar and prog metal, respectively, trading licks with Morse on the songs TexUS and Triangulation.

Lead single Break Through is guest-free, with its music video nodding to Morse’s aviation past. For Morse, it was important to pull the spotlight away from his guitar playing with the first single.

“This may start with a guitar riff, but the bass carries the melody,” he says. “It's just a great feel to play over, and a positive vibe to start the album.

“Dave and Van have been the bedrock of this trio, and this recording shows why. These guys are unique and incredible musicians on their own, and together, our chemistry is magical. While making the album, we played together, working through parts, riffing off each other, and collaborating on arrangements. We made this album together, and you can hear it.”

While the arrivals of Johnson and Pettruci will excite the guitar community, its third guest appears on the song’s most poignant track. Taken by an Angel is a tribute to Morse’s late wife, Janine.

“That song is new territory for me,” he explains. “It was put together for my late wife's memorial service, with my son Kevin playing along. It brought tears to many folks' eyes because Janine was a huge part of my life and career. People knew her from the Steve Morse Band tours. She was the smiling face opening CDs for me to sign, selling t-shirts, listening to people's stories in the crowd, and taking photos for VIP visits.”

In related news, Morse was recently put through his paces when he was tasked with adding a tasteful solo to a Coldplay classic, which came after he joined a covers band for an intimate showing of his talents.

He spent 28 years in Deep Purple, making him the band’s longest-serving six-stringer. Simon McBride, who has discussed the differing styles of his predecessors, replaced him.

Triangulation releases November 14 via Music Theories Recordings.

Visit Steve Morse for more.

Coldplay may not be known for shredding, but Steve Morse has been challenged to change that perception by punching in a guitar solo on their 2005 hit, Fix You.

It’s his second appearance on the American Musical Supply YouTube channel in recent times, having delivered a sumptuous Jeff Beck cover last time out. This time, he’s been tasked with making one of the British pop rock group’s biggest hits a little more virtuosic.

For his performance, Morse pairs his Music Man signature guitar, which was derived from the carcass of his heavily modified 'FrankenTele', with his Engl 20W head. And, shock horror, his tone is fantastic.

First, he gets to listen to the track, and as the first droning organ chord plays out, he brushes his fingers across the fretboard, saying, “Gotta find the key!”

“When you're sticking with that super diatonic thing, as a guitarist, I would try everything I could to give it a different identity,” he says. “I'm obviously not a pop artist, so I don't base my life on what's going to sell.

“The producer is betting that the vocals and the lyrics are gonna sell the whole thing and probably just wants the guitar to be limited. Still, I'm gonna try to sneak some stuff in there to give it more personality.”

He also says that, while a studio musician might be forced to “play it safe” he wants to “explore” his options. “You find your best ideas by going, ‘Hmm, I wonder what...’” he adds.

As for tricks employed, there are some pedal steel imitating swells, played on the bridge pickup with the tone knob, rather than the volume, rolled as he plays the note, although it’s scrapped in the final version. It’s replaced by a beautiful tapping refrain, and a call-and-response approach to playing through the chorus in the lead-up to his solo proper.

There’s something engagingly candid about Morse’s performance that gives the solo a more human feel – it’s not perfect, but it’s honest, and it lets Morse’s talents shine in their own light.

“The main things are: work around the vocals, if you play over the vocals, you're gone,” he reflects. “And think melodically. On a song like this, no one wants to hear riffs. They want it to be something they can sing or whistle. There's gotta be little nuggets like that, and it's easy to do when the chord changes are common to each other. Almost anything would work.”

Eagle-eyed viewers will also note Morse’s strange muting device sitting on his headstock, which he once developed to help with his battle against arthritis.

Elsewhere, Morse recently joined a covers band to play rock classics at an intimate jam session, and Steve Lukather has recently let slip about his secret supergroup with Morse, Eddie Van Halen, and Albert Lee.

It’s interesting to speculate on how the instrumental guitar boom might have gone if Eric Johnson hadn’t released his 1986 debut solo album Tones. It was a pivotal moment – but the virtuoso admits he enjoyed session work so much that he considered sticking with it.

Johnson insists that Satch and Vai had “a lot” to do with the explosion in technical players, and his record came after years of working with the likes of Cat Stevens, Carole King, Christopher Cross and Steve Morse. But Johnson admits that others were probably better in the session field, as his style of creativity thrives on a slow burn rather than a light-speed race.

“Sometimes I came up with stuff that was just different than jumping in and playing a generic guitar part,” he says of his best sessions. “It’s composing something like a part, instead of just filling stuff in.”

His departure from that world worked out. Tones was the gateway toward virtuosic success, culminating in 1990’s Ah Via Musicom, which featured signature track Cliffs of Dover.

“Sessions helped me get a wider grip on music,” he says. “It’s impossible not to let a little bit of that rub off on you when you watch songwriters like the ones I worked with. Without that I’d probably be like a chimpanzee hacking at the guitar!”

How did you first get into session work in the ’70s?

“I was in a contract that just wasn’t working out, and I wasn’t able to pursue records and touring. I kind of went insular and underground for a few years, and I got offered different session things.

“I guess it started with Cat Stevens. I moved to New York for a while, and I had a manager called Nat Weiss, who had Emperor Records at the time. I met Cat Stevens through Nat and he asked me to play on some of his recordings.”

On the surface – mostly based on what you’ve done since – working with Cat is an interesting juxtaposition.

“I didn’t play with him for that long. I played on a couple tracks, and we were going to do a tour and we were rehearsing for it. But it was right at the point where he was deciding to get out of music and follow his spiritual practices, so the tour never happened.”

What were Cat’s expectations of you as a guitarist?

“Well, it never got to the point where I felt like I could add as much as I wanted. I don’t mean playing crazy guitar – just stuff that would have supported him. He just wanted some kind of atmospheric guitar behind what he did.”

What was your typical rig like at the time?

“I’d either use a Fender or Gibson guitar, and a Fender Twin Reverb. I might have used a tube overdrive or an Echoplex. That was pretty much it – either a clean tone, or urn the amp up for a semi-dirty tone. And I had this thing called a Mini-Boogie, which was a predecessor to the Tube Driver.”

How did you end up working with Carole King?

“That was great – I was fortunate to play and tour with such a brilliant songwriter. She liked Austin, Texas, and wanted to come down here to make a record. There was a real nice studio on Sixth Street at the time. When she started a record here, they were looking for musicians and they called me in to audition.”

What kind of tones and textures did you use on Carole’s album, Pearls: Songs of Goffin and King?

“It was mostly clean guitar and rhythm stuff. Every once in a while there’d be some kind of little lead thing she’d want me to do. But it was mostly just backing her up with rhythm parts and little licks behind her vocals.”

You also worked with Christopher Cross – you’d known him since the early ’70s.

“I met Chris when I was in a group called Mariani. We were opening for Deep Purple, and Ritchie Blackmore got food poisoning and was in the hospital overnight. Deep Purple had to do this gig, and Christopher was a real hot-shot guitar player, and he knew all the songs, so they hired him for that gig.

“I met him that night. At the time he was more of a rocker. He played a Gibson Flying V and had long hair! He was totally different from what he did later. We got to be friends after that gig.”

Is that why you played on Minstrel Gigolo from his album Christopher Cross?

“Yeah – years later, after he became very successful with his first record, he asked me to do a guest spot. He had three or four different guitarists, like Larry Carlton and Jay Graydon. He asked me to play on that one song with him.”

Given Chris is a player himself, did he have different expectations than Carol or Cat, for example?

“A little bit. Hard rock guitar had been his main gig, and he just happened to have a really great voice and he got more and more into writing pop tunes. But he had a real affinity for guitar; he understood all the old guys – rock players, blues players. He was well aware of all that vocabulary on guitar.”

Before you recorded Tones you did a session with Steve Morse’s band, which ended up being the song Distant Star. That seems like it was the start of what we’d come to know as your style.

“Steve and I became friends when I was in the Electromagnets and he used to play with Dixie Dregs. We’d be touring around and we’d cross paths. Steve really, really helped me get my career started – and he also gave me a lot of good musical direction.”

A year later you went solo as a career. Could you have become a go-to session ace instead?

“Yeah, because I always enjoyed doing that. It felt good – it’s fun, you know? It’s not about having to be in the spotlight; it’s about how can you contribute to helping someone make their song better. But I think a lot of cats would be better at it than me because they write faster.

“Sometimes I take too long, you know? I want to sit and think about what to write. When I was working with Carol or Cat, during rehearsals, I’d have time to formulate a part. But sometimes a session pro only has five minutes to come up with something and nail it.”

Did you ever encounter any disasters during your session career?

“Oh, yeah! There was a famous country artist – I can’t remember his name. The piano player had played almost every fill in-between the vocals. He was doing a thing between every vocal.

“The producer wanted me to put something in there besides chords, but I couldn’t find any room. I hadn’t learned every lick the piano player had done, so I couldn’t harmonize, double, or come up with a continual part. I got fired from the session because I couldn’t get it.

“I once worked on a session for Donald Fagan – that didn’t work out too well either. Not because of him; he was just looking for a certain thing, but I don’t think that I came up with it immediately.

“Sometimes you want to go with that first impulse. But I guess the first thing I came up with wasn’t good enough or something. So, those two things were learning experiences – or examples of times that it just didn’t work out.”

Tones pre-dates the virtuoso explosion of Satch and Vai. Could you have set the table, so to speak, without your training as a session player?

“I like to approach guitar like a compositional, orchestral type of thing. With Carol, Cat and Chris, I saw these great songwriters. Doing an instrumental thing, it’s about how you can make it speak like a song with constructed, composed parts.

“I learned to try to have a melody and to compose structural parts that would make the song play as if it were a vocal tune.”

What do you think the instrumental boom might have looked and sounded like without Tones?

“Oh, there’s so many great players, as we know from watching YouTube today. There’s a lot of great players you’ve never heard of, or who never pursued a career. Maybe they just didn’t have ambitions to do it as a career, or to get known.

“So I think it would have always been there. People like The Ventures and Duane Eddy, and even some things with Hendrix – even though he was a vocalist – did that. The groundwork was already laid. But as far as the ’80s instrumental guitar stuff goes, of course, Joe and Steve have a lot to do with that.”

The culmination on your end is Cliffs of Dover. How did your session experience contribute to writing it?

“It allows you to be tuned into when you’re ready to step into something. It’s not always simple. When you do all this homework, you learn about music and you construct something. It’s more than just ‘you do your part’.

“That’s readying yourself technically and emotionally. You have to have the mechanical ability to reproduce something that comes out of the air. With some songs, I don’t think we can really take full credit for them. I think they’re just floating around as ideas.

“I think I wrote Cliffs of Dover in, like, five or 10 minutes. And then I could take a song I’d spent months trying to write, and it wouldn’t work. I don’t know where that all comes from.

“But I think it’s important that I learned a lot from those guys about not just settling for some guitar things. That’s kind of the purpose, you know – It’s about trying to come up with something that is really built into the songs, and to lift the song up.”

• Eric Johnson’s next tour commences on September 28.

Steve Morse recently made a surprise appearance at a book launch in Annapolis, Maryland, where he handled classic rock staples with aplomb.

The guitarist once quit music altogether to become a commercial airline pilot, only to be lured back into the arms of rock ’n’ roll by Lynyrd Skynyrd. His showing at the intimate jam session ties into his pilot days.

“Steve and I have been friends since we met aboard the aircraft carrier Kennedy in '86 when I was in my first F-14 Tomcat squadron,” explains author and military commentator, Ward Carroll, who wrote the book the event was celebrating.

Morse was plying his trade in Kansas at the time, with the band aboard just off the coast of the Greek Island Crete for a USO (United Services Organizations) show.

“After the performance, he joined the aviators in our ready room for some guitar jams and a lot of talk about flying,” he continues.

Carroll then leaned into their long-standing friendship ahead of the release of his latest novel, Punk’s Force. Morse was joined by his solo band drummer Van Romaine, Dangerboy bassist TJ Collins, Carroll (on guitar), and guitarist/vocalist Tom Butwin for a five-song set.

That saw the group take on Led Zeppelin’s Good Times, Bad Times, Mountain’s Mississippi Queen, dedicated to the late, great Leslie West, and Cream’s 1968 hit, White Room. They rounded out the set with two Lynyrd Skynyrd classics, Gimme Back My Bullets, and Free Bird in light of the band’s role in his rock revival.

Morse was plugged into his signature and travel-friendly 20W Engl head, and his soloing is on point throughout – faithful to the glory of the originals, but with plenty of Morse-ified flair.

“When we were planning for the release of my latest novel, I asked Steve and his drummer Van Romaine if they'd join me for an ‘all-star jam’ of covers that would showcase Steve's guitar prowess,” Carroll continues. Morse certainly did that.

YouTube legend Rick Beato was also in the crowd, and he bore witness to the quintet of covers, and some hearty quips from Morse about that famed show with Skynyrd after a gruelling nine-flight shift.

For more classics given the Morse treatment, check out his take on Jeff Beck’s Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers.

He's also opened up about how a love for modding led to the creation of his ‘FrankenTele’ and Music Man signature, and he’s also revealed what's on his “hybrid” pedalboard.

Steve Lukather has recalled the time he performed secret jam shows with Eddie Van Halen, Steve Morse and Albert Lee, surprising audiences by booking the gigs under false names.

In his latest conversation with YouTube music sage Rick Beato, Lukather brought up the band after a prompt about his lesser-known talent for chicken-picking – a skill Lukather humbly dismisses as something he can “bullshit” his way through.

“I used to do these fun little tours with Sterling Ball, who was Ernie Ball’s son,” explains Lukather in the clip below [approx. 7.45].

“We’d have this thing called Biff Babies All-Stars. We would just show up places and the guitar players, it was me, Steve Morse, Albert Lee and Eddie Van Halen. And occasionally somebody else might come sit in too.”

The group initially came about thanks to all of the player’s association with Ernie Ball Music Man and featured Sterling Ball on bass, Sherwood Ball (“a great singer”) on vocals, Jim Cox on keyboards and session pro John Ferraro on drums.

“We play at the Palomino under some weird name, we’d just show up, so nobody would know. By halfway through the set, the place was jam-packed, and we’d just mess around – call out goofy tunes, like we would in junior high school.”

While the gigs were just for fun, Lukather says he was still stretched on occasion – as you might be in that kind of company. Not least when it came to Albert Lee’s signature tune, the masterful hybrid-picking monster that is Country Boy.

“Occasionally, because of Albert and Steve, they'd end with Country Boy,” explains Luke. “I would practice for a little bit to get in that, because it's all major chords. You can't just play the blues!

“So you try to play through that, you have to define the thirds and try to find a way around here and there. But I'll leave that [chicken-picking stuff] to the big boys. Under pressure back then, with a couple of beers in me, I would go for it – and I'd do alright!”

The guitarist recently told Guitar World about another star-studded appearance, which also involved his late friend Eddie Van Halen, as Lukather recalled the first-time he jammed with George Harrison – and loaned him his ’59 Burst for the gig – a move he says has since added a million dollars to the guitar’s value.

This month in Bought & Sold, the venerable rock guitar legend Steve Morse checks in to discuss his greatest gear hits and misses over the years.

The former Deep Purple guitarist (it still takes a bit of getting used to saying that) might not be a collector, but he knows exactly what he wants from the instrument – which is why his Ernie Ball Music Man signature guitar has four pickups. It’s a radical design, but as he explains here, everything – yes, including that neck pickup – is in its right place.

But we start as we always do, with his first good guitar. Like many of us, that’s when things got serious…

What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money?

“The first serious guitar I bought with my own money was a new sunburst Strat in 1967. I later took the neck off that one, put it on a Tele, and ended up with humbuckers and single-coil pickups – my ‘FrankenTele’. The pickup layout became the starting point of my [Steve Morse signature] Music Man guitars.”

What was the last guitar you bought and why?

“The last guitar I bought was a Godin classical. The reason was that my custom-made Buscarino classical guitar, with the Roland synth module built in, was stolen while we were on tour.”

“I needed something quick to do the duets and nylon-string stuff – the quiet moments of the [Dixie] Dregs set. The Godin was a nice guitar, but I sold it to a fan as soon as I got my Buscarino back.

“And yes, I got it back, thanks to some people who worked with Joe Bonamassa. They somehow had contact with the guy and talked him into returning it anonymously.”

What’s the most incredible find or bargain you’ve ever had when buying guitars?

“The most incredible find I’ve ever had was buying a handmade classical guitar in Miami in 1971. The builder needed money. I was a broke student, and with the warning that the finishing was not complete, I bought it.

“I also never finished it because I was too busy playing it every single day to learn my studies at the University of Miami. It has a cloudy hand-rubbed finish and one crack, I think, but it’s a big part of my early history.”

What’s the strongest case of buyer’s remorse you’ve ever had after buying gear?

“The strongest case of buyer’s remorse I ever had was when I traded an ES-335 for a ‘Black Beauty’ Les Paul. I couldn’t grab the strings to bend since the frets were so low, as it was probably meant for jazz players.

“It sounded decent, but since I couldn’t play it I traded it away in 1972. I didn’t know I could’ve just had it refretted – I was a teenager. But ergonomically, the Les Paul setup didn’t fit me anyway.”

Have you ever sold a guitar that you now intensely regret letting go?

“The one guitar I’ve intensely regretted selling was a Ramírez, which I didn’t like at the time due to tuning issues.

“Much later, I learned that there are ways of cutting the nut and bridge to lessen those issues, as well as trying different gauges of strings at the crossover point between plain and wound strings.”

What’s your best guitar-buying tip?

“My best guitar-buying tip is to make a deal that’s good and fair to both parties. Basically, then you’re starting your ownership on a good karma footing. Guitars are super important, but ultimately they are the least expensive thing you need to pay for if you count how many years they last.

“I’m not a collector, so I don’t have any tips, except I love it when real collectors make a find that an elderly person has in their closet and offer them more than the owner wanted because they know how valuable the instrument is nowadays.”

When was the last time you stopped and looked in a guitar shop window or browsed online, and what were you looking at?

“The last time I was window shopping was really at the NAMM Show. Every year, somebody has a new type of accessory, guitar electronic, folding guitar or different body material. In particular, I’m always curious about folding guitars for minimalist travel practice.

“In reality, I designed my Music Man to fit in the overhead bin of small aircraft and be carried into a three-quarter-size gigbag, so it’s very easy to carry aboard a plane, so I don’t really need the folding guitar, but I love the ingenuity people have shown.

“Also, the adjusted frets to give better tuning temperament, the various tuning improving bridges, and so on. In the end, in order to know I’ve got the best compromise on my Music Man, I need to keep up with what’s around to see the advantages and disadvantages of various mods.”

If forced to make a choice, would you rather buy a really good electric guitar and a cheap amp, or a cheap guitar and a top-notch high-end guitar amp?

“Man, that’s a tough one, but the guitar wins. I need to have various tones coming straight from the instrument. The amp is a big part of things, but the guitar is the biggest. That is partly because some cheap amps sound like 80 per cent as good as a great amp. But most guitars that are cheap can’t do anything like the range of sounds on my guitar.”

If you could only use humbuckers or single coils for the rest of your career, which would it be and why?

“Humbuckers. They are versatile in that you can play with the series wiring and pick off a coil to give you that single-coil type of sound, too. The actual hum rejection part of the design helps me stay sane when I’m in buildings with real RF problems; I simply always park my setting on a humbucker during a quiet part, even if I use the single coils during the song. I prefer the basic single coil to the stacked single coils in my applications.”

“It all starts with the guitar: my Music Man signature with four pickups – plus, usually, a Roland synth pickup GK-2. This guitar gives me control over volume and tone and allows me to bring down the gain and boost the high-end back up as I do so by selecting one of my single-coil pickups mounted further from the strings.

“The neck pickup is designed to be in the exact spot it’s mounted, which keeps the guitar down to a 22-fret fingerboard – but there is that all‑important fatness in the neck pickup as a result.

“I plug straight into a TC Electronic PolyTune Mini, and from that into my trusty Keeley Compressor. From there, it’s straight back to my Engl 100-watt signature amp. Channel 1 is a beautiful clean channel that can be driven hard to warm up smoothly or, with normal gain, is clean enough to run my Buscarino electric classical guitar into it without distortion.

“Channel 2 is the bread-and-butter rock sound. Channel 3 has the most midrange control knobs and can be used to make a solo ‘pop’ out in the mix without having any more noticeable level on the VU meters on the mixing board.”

Steve Morse's relationship with Ernie Ball Music Man goes back a long way, prior to his decades-long tenure in Deep Purple, before Lynyrd Skynyrd revitalized his career with an onstage guest spot, and, oh, before he took time off his music career to become a pilot.

Despite this now 40-year relationship, though, the seeds for Morse's Ernie Ball Music Man signature guitar go back further still, to the purchase of his first serious six-string.

Unsatisfied with the limitations of that first serious purchase, a Strat, Morse took matters into his own hands, a lá Eddie Van Halen.

“The first serious guitar I bought with my own money was a new sunburst Strat in 1967,” he told Guitarist in a recent interview. “I later took the neck off that one, put it on a Tele, and ended up with humbuckers and single-coil pickups – my ‘FrankenTele.’ The pickup layout became the starting point of my [Steve Morse signature] Music Man guitars.”

As you'd expect, the Morse signature, the guitarist – who recently (and apologetically) became the latest in a long line of guitar heroes to salute Jeff Beck with an onstage rendition of his signature tune, Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers – elaborated, is the anchor of his rig.

“It all starts with the guitar: my Music Man signature with four pickups – plus, usually, a Roland synth pickup GK-2,” he told Guitarist. “This guitar gives me control over volume and tone and allows me to bring down the gain and boost the high-end back up as I do so by selecting one of my single-coil pickups mounted further from the strings.

“The neck pickup is designed to be in the exact spot it’s mounted, which keeps the guitar down to a 22-fret fingerboard – but there is that all-important fatness in the neck pickup as a result.”

Since his amicable departure from Deep Purple, Morse has kept plenty busy, getting his solo band back together, and releasing a feature-packed signature 20W tube head with Engl.

To read the full interview with Steve Morse – which covers his guitar-buying highs, lows, and tips – pick up the new issue of Guitarist at Magazines Direct.

Steve Morse has become the latest guitar hero to pay tribute to Jeff Beck by serving up a stirring rendition of the late guitar great's signature track, Cause We've Ended As Lovers.

“I apologize for what's about to happen,” says the former Deep Purple guitarist before launching into the performance, which was hosted on the American Music Supply YouTube channel.

Armed with his Blue Burst Ernie Ball Music Man signature guitar and his new small-but-mighty and feature-lavished 20-watt Engl head, Morse adopts a tone that is tender and pulled back, yet punchy enough to let his pinch harmonics scream and wrung-out notes soar.

A quirky string mute can be found at the nut of his guitar. The virtuoso's virtuoso crafted the handy gizmo to help him adapt his technique having suffered with arthritis.

Despite the purring beauty of the cover, Morse looks almost relieved as its final notes twinkle and fade, such is the difficulty of nailing both Jeff Beck’s unique playing style, and the tune that demonstrates his famed technique so masterfully.

It's a song that has been taken on by some of the best players in the world, from Eric Clapton and Gary Clark Jr.'s stirring duet to Joe Bonamassa and John McLaughlin. Marty Friedman also once covered the song – and had to perform it in front of Eddie Van Halen.

Many of those players have previously spoken about the challenges that come with covering the song, and the difficulties in emulating Beck's unique touch.

“Beck is a peerless role model,” noted Friedman. “His touch is inimitable; you would have to literally live his life and go through his experiences to play like that. And then you would need a master’s degree in unique techniques that he invented and polished over the years.”

As such, it’s understandable why Morse was seemingly so daunted by the prospect. But, thanks to his delicate harmonics and faithful intro volume swells, he’s come out the other end in style.

From founding the Dixie Dregs to becoming Deep Purple's longest-serving guitarist and beyond, Morse's career is full of highlights. At one point, he had retired from playing completely to become an airline pilot, but was practically forced back onto the stage by Lynyrd Skynyrd and has never looked back since.

German amp builder Engl has linked up with Steve Morse to cram his “distinctive sound and versatility” into a signature 20-watt amp head.

The former Deep Purple and Dixie Gregs guitarist uses an innovative wet/dry live rig, and so this small but mighty Engl has been designed to play a key role in that setup. ENGL says its resulting creation provides “the perfect combination of power, tone, and portability.”

The portability is a key reason the amp exists. In an age where digital modelers like Neural DSP’s Quad Cortex are a huge draw to guitarists wanting a compact but versatile live rig, the head’s 20-pound weight and shrunk-down sizing (34 x 14 x 22cm) offer similar benefits in tube amp form.

Granted, Morse is a champion of the Kemper, but he's sticking to Engl tube amps live as he believes there's one thing that digital modelers can never do quite as well, and so this amp was born out of a desire to rehouse the magic of his 100-watt head into a smaller package.

Its clean and overdrive channels are meant to be highly tweakable, delivering everything from clear, unblemished cleans to crunching rhythm tones and leads that will cut through the mix like a knife through hot butter. “This amp,” Engl proudly says, “can handle it all.”

Of its “super clean,” Morse says, “It's a sound that you pretty much can't get anywhere else… It doesn't fall apart when you increase the gain.”

There's a gain control for each of the two channels, and a three-band EQ shared between. In addition, the clean channel has been gifted a Presence control, while a Lead Volume dial sits alongside the Master Volume.

A built-in noise gate negates the need for an external pedal to scare off feedback and unwanted noises, and the amp offers full MIDI compatibility for integrating third-party gear.

That’s also helpful to make the most out of the delay and reverbs housed within the amp, alongside a suite of other quirks, including a 2db boost for soloing. Other features include a gain boost with additional midrange, helping give single coil guitars a sound more in line with the full-bodied power of humbuckers.

Engl and Morse have also found room within for eight IR speaker emulators. The first three are channeling a suit of Engls, the E212VHB, E412VSB, and E412XXL (all V30 models). The remaining five slots are open for users to add their preferred IRs.

Its wattage output can be rolled down to five- and one-watt settings, too. Beyond that, there's also a zero-watt setting, intended to be used with headphones, with players hearing its IR reactor in full swing.

Importantly, the amp was fine-tuned by Morse and Engl's Horst Langer on the road rather than “in a lab,” with Langer consistently providing new prototypes as Morse performance reports from show to show.

“There are characteristics of tubes that you have to design around,” says Morse on the amps blend of 12A7 and E84 tubes. “Horst Langer is great at getting the most out of each tube without having to resort to external EQ.

“This is a great example; it's all tube all the time. The idea is to be versatile, and nothing beats Engl for doing that exceptionally well.”

The Engl E658 Steve Morse Signature 20 costs $1,600.

Visit Engl to learn more.

In related news, Morse recently spoke about how he once quit music to become an airline pilot, only for Lynyrd Skynyrd to persuade him to return.

“My ’board is sort of a hybrid now. I used to run basically no effects on the front end between the guitar and the amp and only a little delay into the second wet amp, leaving the dry amp to stay the same. But now I have a little more on the front end in case the balance isn’t right between the wet and dry. I’m getting closer to a single mono sound, so let’s discuss how I do that.

“My guitar goes right into a TC Electronic Polytune [3], which goes into my Keeley Compressor [C2], the silver two-knob. From there, we go to a small board that I keep on top of my amp, and I do that to filter out noise. So, up there, I’ve got a Voodoo Lab Digital Power Supply, a TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb and a TC Electronic Flashback Delay, which leads into my GigRig Wetter Box, which has a variety of tones. I control it with a pedal at my feet.

“So, we go back to my main ’board and have the dry portion, two more TC Electronic Flashback Delays with different TonePrints. Both Flashback Delays go into two separate Ernie Ball [6165 500K Stereo] Volume/Pan pedals, one for short delay and one for long.

“Having both allows me to change the output’s impedance and let the single output circle travel back to the wet amp and into the effects loop, making it a slave.”

If I had to choose only one pedal for a full show...

“I’d want to use one pedal with a controller – the TC Electronic Flashback Delay going through the effects loop. I’d need that control to go along with my most crucial pedal to get the infinite sounds I’m used to.”

Just over two years ago, Simon McBride was set on a path that would lead him to permanently joining Deep Purple as the classic rock outfit’s lead electric guitar player.

After initially filling in for Steve Morse, who announced a temporary leave due to personal reasons, back in March 2022, McBride was then appointed on a full-time basis in September of that year.

Since then, he’s performed live with Deep Purple, and has also helped them craft =1 – the group’s 23rd studio album, their first to feature McBride as their guitarist, and a record that cements the blues-rock ace in the annals of Deep Purple history.

It was well-documented that McBride was stepping in to fill some fairly sizable shoes, joining a list of Deep Purple guitarists that features the likes of Morse and Ritchie Blackmore.

Speaking in the new issue of Total Guitar, McBride discusses just how he managed to adapt to his new role, and how he's been able to follow in the footsteps of Blackmore and Morse.

And the key, he says, has been to remain true to himself as a guitarist, recognizing that, while he can homage to the players that have come before him, he can never truly be them – and that’s not a problem.

“You just have to be yourself, you know? If you try to think about what was before – and this applies to any situation – you’ll get a bit strangled musically,” McBride reflects. “There’s no point trying to compete with Steve Morse or Ritchie Blackmore.

“I mean, nobody can do it better than them. Certainly not me! So my attitude is not to try to be like them. One of the things that the guys in the band like about me as a player is I do my own thing.

“I’m very respectful of the old songs because some of those parts that Ritchie and Steve played are huge parts of the songs, and there’s no way to change them.”

As he mentions, McBride has to draw from a catalog of tracks that has been assembled by two very different guitarists, who each have different qualities to their playing. When it comes to tackling their more iconic parts, each song requires a different approach.

“The Steve Morse stuff is very different to the early Ritchie Blackmore stuff,” McBride observes. “Steve had a bit of an injury to his wrist, so he doesn’t play the way he did in Dixie Dregs. If I had to play what he did there, I would give up!

“And with Ritchie’s style, for example, there’s a solo like Highway Star that I can’t change. When you’ve got 65,000 people all singing the solo back at you note-for-note, it’s like, ‘Okay, I am so glad I did not change this at all!’ But there are other solos, like the one in Smoke On the Water, where I changed it around and put my own flavour on it.”

Visit Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Total Guitar, which features the full interview with Simon McBride.

Steve Morse has had a stellar career. From founding the Dixie Dregs to becoming Deep Purple's longest-serving guitarist, his name is forever etched in rock history.

However, he recently revealed that there was a period in his life when he quit playing guitar professionally altogether. Instead, he embarked on a career as a commercial airline co-pilot before Lynyrd Skynyrd reignited his passion for music as a profession.

“The [Dixie] Dregs kind of broke up in 1981. We've done six records. I felt like maybe the music business was a little bit too weird for me. So I started doing some odd jobs, running a bulldozer, cutting hay for people, stuff like that. Not trying to work as a musician. It didn't last too long, because I felt like I really missed it,” he says in a new interview with Ernie Ball.

“So I had to figure out something to do, you know, to eat and pay my bills. Phil Walden from Capricorn Records was encouraging me to try to make my own band, you know, 'Wherever the problems were, in the past, do your own thing.' You know, I thought that if I had a trio, I could manage everything and get through the lean times better.

“It would be a real workout for me, musically, but that's something I really relished. So we did the Steve Morse Band, starting in the early to mid-'80s. And went through that for, I don't know, we went for years. And kind of burned out. Or, you know, we've been around the circuit enough times where it was getting repetitive.

“I got the opportunity to work on a new song with Kansas that turned into me doing more songs with Kansas and finally turned into me doing an album and then a tour, then another tour, then another album and tour.”

After this rollercoaster of a career, Morse became jaded by the highs and lows of the music industry, and seriously considered switching jobs.

“I felt maybe I should take advantage of the fact that I had a bunch of flying time from flying my band around. My friends, they were airline pilots. They were telling me what a great job that would be.

“And I thought, ‘You know what? If I had that job, I could just record anything I wanted. And I could do music without having to worry about, you know, pleasing anybody in the business end.’ And that really appealed to me.

“So during that time, I recorded my first solo album called High Tension Wires. And the whole intent of that to record company people was just, ‘I don't care. I'm here to make music and that's it.’

“Getting that job was a lot of fun. A big challenge and I really enjoyed it. But once I did it and did it repetitively, I realized every job has things you don't like about it. Sometimes you just have to deal with stuff.”

It was at this point that Lynyrd Skynyrd got in touch with Morse and offered a spur-of-the-moment opportunity that would change his life forever. “I remember coming back from a long, long day.

“It started in two in the morning and I still have my uniform on, and on the phone was Gary Rossington [Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist] and said, ‘Hey, we're down at the Omni [an indoor arena in Atlanta, Georgia]. Man, you gotta come down. Bring your guitar. We're recording tonight.’

“I said, ‘I've been at work all day and I cut off all my hair.’ He said, ‘Bring your guitar. I'll see you at six.’ I didn't make it at six. I couldn't. I mean, I'm too far away.

“So I [finally] got there. They're already playing. They look over, and Gary gets the message that I'm here. He says, ‘All right, everybody, we're gonna bring up Steve Morse to play on the song Gimme Back My Bullets.’

“So somebody pushed me up on stage. And here's an amp I've never plugged in before…”

Morse didn't have time to think things through, as the band had already started recording what would later become 1998's Southern By The Grace Of God: Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute Tour 1987.

“One of the Lynyrd Skynyrd albums is me sitting in with them. And I said, ‘If it's ever going to be this cool again, I should get back into music full-time. Because this is awesome.’”

Morse would go on to join Deep Purple, who he played with 28 years before stepping down in July 2022. The following year, he reunited the Steve Morse Band for their first tour in 10 years, all while battling pain in his picking hand.

When Simon McBride joined Deep Purple in 2022, he was tasked with learning all the band's repertoire, including founding Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's guitar work. McBride has now revealed which Ritchie Blackmore guitar lick he finds most challenging to play.

“Most of it is actually not too bad. There's one little lick which annoyed me for a long, long time, it's in Lazy,” he says in a new interview with Ultimate Guitar. I don't play the same solo he plays in Lazy, but Lazy is one of those songs where I feel I can just improvise a bit more and just have a bit more fun with it.

“But there's this one lick he does in it, and I said, ‘I have to play that.’ And it's a bitch of a lick. It's not ultrafast. It's just there's a lot of chromatic stuff in it and slides in a very tight space, within three or four frets, and that's it. So that, to me, is the hardest thing about playing Purple.”

McBride also notes that while Blackmore was never the most technical of guitar players, melody-driven compositions are his forte. “Even Highway Star, the fast part in that, it's fast, but it's not John Petrucci from Dream Theater or something ridiculously fast. It's fast, but it fits the song.

"But everything else that he played was more just melodies. Ritchie played for the song most of the time. But yeah, that lick in Lazy – that still haunts me every night when I come up to it. I'm like, ‘Oh shit, don't screw it up!’”

In a 2022 Guitar World interview, McBride talked about his unique way of learning and tackling ex-guitarist Steve Morse's guitar parts, particularly the unison lines between Morse and Purple keyboardist Don Airey.

“To learn things, I don’t necessarily pick up the guitar for the first two weeks; I’ll just sit and listen to the songs over and over until I’m sick of listening to them. When I actually sit down with the guitar, I like to be able to nearly play it already just from familiarity, knowing the chords and what positions they’re being played in.”

He continued, “I don’t think there’s too much that will be challenging for me. It’s mainly just remembering all the parts as a whole. It’s not like just learning a normal set with standard issue songs, which are verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo and done. They have all these alternate endings and, as you said, those mad sections with unison lines.”

Deep Purple recently paid homage to one of their best-known songs, Smoke on the Water, by performing on a stage set up on the lake in Montreux, Switzerland that inspired its lyrics.

Like it or not, digital modeling amps are on the rise. Many electric guitar legends – from The Edge to Dave Mustaine and Mike McCready – have made the switch in recent years. Steve Morse is also a fan, but he’s conceded there is one thing digital amps can't get right. 

Such guitar amps are revered for their travel-friendly footprint and unbridled versatility, but in conversation with Ultimate Guitar, the Deep Purple and Dixie Dregs guitarist has said there’s one trick his ENGL amp does better than its digital counterparts. 

“With any digital amp,” he says, “I'm not able to get the interaction between reducing the level of the guitar in the input, and having the tone change from distorted to slightly distorted to smoother and to clean, like I can with the ENGL. 

“That, and maybe the clinical tiny little artifacts of digital distortion that I still can hear when I interact with it and do a lot of changes.” 

Backing up his point, he adds, “If you were to do a set, part where you're just chugging along, hardly anybody would be able to tell if you were playing through a digital amp or not.

“However, if I were to be soloing and playing a super-saturated sound, and then switch pickups and bring down the volume to about three out of ten, you would hear that it's not the same roundness, or as full. It's an elusive quality that hasn't really been captured by modeling amps.” 

For that reason, while Morse owns a Kemper, he’s sticking with tube amps for his upcoming US tour with Dixie Dregs. He’s revealed his live rig consists of “two ENGL amps, one dry, one wet [and] a little pedal board [that] has two volume pedals”. 

The digital modeling and profiling world has become ultra competitive in recent years. Neural DSP’s Quad Cortex was an early game-changer, with Kemper and Line 6 also throwing their hats into the ring with their own range of floor-based units.

Fender got in on the action last year with the release of the Tone Master Pro, which became the first modeler to gain endorsement from the EVH gear brand.  

Ultimately, the magic of real amps is yet to diminish and Morse’s approach is evidence of a snowballing trend for touring players that don’t regard it as an ‘either/or’ debate – and are open to employing both tube amps and digital alternatives, dependent on the gig scenario.  

In this lesson, we are looking at Steve Morse’s performance on Guitar Techniques editor Jason Sidwell’s track The Pledge. For this, Steve used a combination of composed phrases and improvised ideas to link up the melodic hooks. 

There are plenty of chord changes and pivots in tonality, and Steve skilfully negotiates these with simple melodies that are based around the chord tones. No single scale can be used effectively, so Steve’s combination of composed ideas and chord tone playing helps to ensure the melodies fit with the track. 

Studying Steve’s solo will hammer home the concept of playing arpeggio notes as the chords change. Many players do this by ear, but establishing a pathway or fretboard roadmap to navigate the target tones as they pass, is a good idea. 

Steve demonstrates his use of various techniques such as trilling, string skipping, alternate picking, artificial harmonics and legato. He also employs his pickup selector to achieve a tone that works with the section or phrase he is playing – typically it’s neck pickup up high, bridge pickup down low.

To keep the notation easy to use, and to allow you to see all the note choices clearly, we have used an open key signature (that said, there’s a home key reference to D major overall). Steve also uses chromatic notes that link the arpeggios into long, colourful lines.

He also shares the secret to adding chromatic notes in the video, and that is to make sure the diatonic notes fall on the strong parts of the beat. This helps to create a flowing line with a core structure that still fits in with the underlying harmony. 

Another striking feature of the lead work here is much of this solo is right up in the high register. Playing up the ‘dusty end’ of the fretboard takes a lot of control and practice. For the big string bends way up here, Steve sometimes uses his fourth finger to play the notes as this fits into those closer-together frets. To keep the notation tidy and easier to use we have used 8va lines where appropriate. 

The amount of different rhythmic subdivisions used in Steve’s solo is another factor of note. The lion’s share of the ideas uses 16th-note subdivisions, but Steve spices things up with triplets and sustained notes. 

The notation contains all of the fingerings, articulations and phrasing from Steve’s video performance. As always, it’s well worth taking a very close look at the way he fingers and picks the phrases in the video, as outside of conventional picking and fretting he also uses artificial harmonics to add further colour to his performance. For these he uses the brighter-toned bridge pickup.

To get these sounding right, begin by holding the pick with your thumb and second finger. This will free up the picking hand’s first finger to touch the string directly 12 frets above the fretted note (aim for the fretwire). Done correctly, you should get a lovely bell-like tone so the harmonics chime out as we want them to. 

As we always say, hopefully there will be a new technique, lick or phrase in here somewhere for you to perfect. If you find one that’s particularly tasty (and there are many throughout this piece) then please memorise it and use it in future where the natural minor sound would be appropriate. 

Once you have mastered some of the concepts in Steve’s performance, why not use the chord chart below to map out a solo of your own for The Pledge? Finally, thanks to Steve for his time and creativity!

Get the tone

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

Steve used his blue Ernie Ball Music Man signature guitar. You will need at least a two pickup guitar so you can switch between bridge and neck pickups, be they humbuckers (like Steve’s guitar) or single-coils. Whatever pickups you use, make sure to dial up a rich sounding overdriven tone with plenty of sustain. Add spring or plate reverb to taste.

Chord chart

Playing notes

Intro, bars 1-3: Steve starts the track by playing a melody in octaves. The third finger is used to damp or mute the strings that aren’t required.

Chorus 1, bars 4-11: Steve opens the solo with some well-chosen runs and arpeggios. He is always mindful of the tone and so selects the thicker sounding fourth string as a starting point. The descending arpeggios (bar 10) are alternate picked so this may take some practice to get up to tempo.

Verse 1, bars 12-19: In this section Steve uses artificial harmonics to get the melody to sing out. To articulate the harmonics, Steve holds the pick between the thumb and second finger. 

The first finger of the picking hand is then used to lighlty touch the fretwire 12 frets above the fretted note. The tricky aspect here is to follow the fretting hand exactly with the picking hand – tackle just a few notes at first to get the harmonics sounding clearly then add in the others.

Verse 2, bars 20-27: Steve opens up here with a focus on making the melody ring out. The main techniques used are string bending and emotive finger vibrato - Steve is brilliant at both. He also uses a phrasing style where he slightly pre-bends the string before picking certain notes.        

Bridge, bars 28-41: Here, Steve leans more towards 16th note groupings to add excitement and propel the section forward. He also adds chromatic colour - we have tabbed out the bebop/bluegrass style lick in bars 32-33 again for Example 1 as Steve discusses it in the video.

Chorus and outro, bars 42-end: The final chorus features a repeat of the opening intro and chorus 1 sections. To up the excitement, Steve plays variations on his original ideas. 

To end the track there is an ascending idea that incorporates the 4th interval. Much of this solo is in the high register; note his use of the neck pickup here for a warm and round distorted tone. Take your time with this solo as the rewards, both musically and technically, are great.

A full-on, decades-long career playing with the likes of Deep Purple and Dixie Dregs – as well as a genetic predisposition to arthritis – has meant electric guitar virtuoso Steve Morse has been playing through considerable pain in recent years.

A particular problem area can be found in the picking hand. Specifically, at the top of the right-hand wrist, which has been the driving force behind Morse’s virtuosic picking style – an approach defined by both its breakneck speed and multi-functionality, from dual harmonic picking to subtle single-finger string muting.

But such relentless playing over the years has taken its toll on Morse, who has now been forced to adapt his technique in a number of different ways in order to replicate the sounds and reach the speeds that have underpinned his career.

Speaking to Rick Beato, Morse recently revealed how such a stylistic shift has materialized in the form of not just physical changes to the ergonomics of his playing, but also as an innovative new gadget that Morse himself designed to help with string muting.

Said device looks to be an evolution of the standard fret wrap, which Morse has fashioned in such a way that it can easily be snapped on and off depending on the situation.

When asked about how his current technique differs from his old style, Morse explained how greater stress was placed on his right-hand wrist as a result of his picking approach, which saw the guitarist angle his wrist and ‘bridge’ over the strings using his pinky finger.

“It made this kind of movement, and I practiced about 10,000 notes a day for decades,” he said. “And my genetic history of arthritis led me to where these bones don’t have the cartilage anymore, and then they get worn away so they’re ‘diseased’ and very painful.

“But rather than roll over and die, I’m like, ‘No, I still want to play.’ There’s a way to do it. So, what can I do? For the muting, I’m still working on some solutions but up here [headstock] I’ve made a device so that when I’m playing up high… it’s muting it for me.”

At this point, Morse demos the sponge-like, Ernie Ball-branded gizmo, which seems to use the locking nut as a rocking point for attaching and reattaching to the strings.

When quizzed whether this was his own invention, Morse elaborated, “It’s obviously been done before, but I invented a different way of making the structure and making it more immediate.” Beato puts it quite nicely, likening it to a “Hipshot tuner but for muting”.

Aside from the impressive piece of innovation, Morse has also had to alter his actual playing style in order to play around the pain. For example, for particularly busy picking passages, Morse now opts for fingerpicking rather than alternate picking, even if “it doesn’t sound the same”.

Another adaptation involves ditching rocking wrist movements altogether, and instead relying on a sweeping motion from the elbow to accommodate speedy, alternately picked solo lines.

“I’m very busy switching things around and being mindful of what’s necessary for each tune,” Morse summarized.

Later on, Morse and Beato discussed the origins and onset of the former Deep Purple guitarist’s wrist pain problems, which have been particularly troubling for the past 10 years.

“I had shooting pains for a long time, but I always thought it was ligaments and tendons that I’d strained earlier,” he reflected. “And it had been those injuries, too. I’ve got it all. Whatever you can get from playing for half a century relentlessly.

“I thought it was soft tissue stuff that would be fixable. A sports doctor looked at it and he was laughing at me. He said, ‘Why do you have so much arthritis? You’re too young for this.’ He said, ‘Yeah, you got a problem.’

“I went up to Harvard medical and said, ‘Can you guys do something, and give me some cartilage?’ They said, ‘No, it would be like a tumor if we do. But we can fuse your bones.’”

Though Morse didn’t go ahead with the op, he let the principle inform his playing: “I thought, ‘I could play that way, I guess,’ and that’s what I chose to do: fuse the bones in my wrist for most of the strenuous stuff.”

Head over to Rick Beato’s YouTube channel to watch the full interview with Steve Morse.

Reb Beach and Steve Morse jammed onstage together recently, covering Robert Johnson’s blues classic Crossroads in shred-heavy fashion at the latter’s show in Oakmont, Pennsylvania last Friday (May 26).

Following the performance, Beach took to Twitter to express his gratitude to Morse, whom he dubbed “one of the great guitarists of our time." 

“It was such a huge honor to jam with my childhood hero, Steve Morse,” wrote Beach. “He is such an extraordinary person. He is incredibly kind and humble for being a musical genius. 

“Like Jeff Beck, he is one of the great guitarists of our time, and a mind-blowing songwriter. It was a night I will definitely never forget. Thank you so much for letting me play with you, Steve.”

Beach is best known for his time in Winger, but has also served stints in Alice Cooper, Dokken, Whitesnake, and Night Ranger – and seems to have brought his A-game when it came to jamming with his hero. 

The guitarist also handles vocals for the track, which is loosely inspired by Cream’s take on the Johnson standard, but soon strays into more vicious, ’80s hard rock-style territory, as Beach throws in some devastating lead runs.

As connoisseurs of the art form, we also need to give Beach a special mention for what might very well be the finest display of ‘guitar face’ this side of NAMM 1987. It’s a masterful, kaleidoscopic array of tonal contortion and we can only applaud it.

He does it all with what appears to be a loaner guitar from Morse, too – who’s endorsed by Ernie Ball Music Man. After all, Beach told Guitar World in 2021 that he usually considers himself “a big John Suhr guy."

For his part, the ever-inspiring Morse uses his four-pickup Music Man signature guitar and brings a smoother, rounder tone to the table. He favors a little less distortion, making a nice contrast between the two virtuosos – and the two of them clearly have a blast exchanging licks in the track’s later stages. 

The former Deep Purple man remains humble, as Beach would have it, and seems equally bowled-over by Beach’s performance. “I’ve never heard him play a bad solo, ever,” Morse says at the end of Beach’s Crossroads guest spot. “Man… he plays the right thing at the right time, every single time.”  

Morse is currently undertaking a series of tour dates with The Steve Morse Band, having reprised the group following his departure from Deep Purple last year. 

Update 07/10/2023: This article was edited to change a passage in which we accidentally misquoted Morse's final comments about Beach [from "play that solo" to "play a bad solo"].

Steve Morse has announced he’s getting the Steve Morse Band back together for the trio’s first tour in a decade.

Notably, the tour will also mark the electric guitar icon's first major musical activity since leaving Deep Purple last year.

Having reunited for a handful of shows already this year, the band – which comprises Morse, Van Romaine and Dave LaRue – have now laid out their formal touring agenda for the year, which will span seven dates across April and May.

It’s a notable return for the group, which joined forces for their first live show since 2019’s Morsefest show in February this year. In fact, February saw the trio perform five consecutive shows, presumably as a warmup ahead of this mini-tour.

Their 2023 tour will kick off in just two days (April 22) at the Rams Head in Annapolis, Maryland, and at the time of writing is scheduled to run until May 28. Visits to the states of Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York and Ohio are all penciled in.

According to the band’s site, though, more shows will be announced throughout 2023.

Of the upcoming tour, Morse said, “This mini tour is us getting back to what made us the happiest, musically. Working with friends you know and trust, playing snippets of the best part of your lives together is too much fun to call ‘work’.”

Morse reunites with Van Romaine and Dave LaRue after leaving Deep Purple in July 2022 in order to look after his wife, who is battling cancer. At first, Morse – who worked with the band for 28 years – announced a temporary hiatus from the band with hopes to return, though later confirmed his departure was permanent.

“We both miss being at shows, but I simply couldn't commit to long, or far away tours, since things can change quickly at home,” Morse said in a statement last year. At the time, the guitarist hinted at the possibility of “shorter nearby concert tours” to “get both of us out the house” – something that looks to have been made possible with the Steve Morse Band.

As for Deep Purple, Morse was replaced by blues rock guitar ace Simon McBride, who spoke to Guitar World soon after his appointment to speak about the “big boots” he had to fill in Morse’s wake.

For a full list of tour dates, head over to Steve Morse’s website.

Earlier this month, electric guitar icon Joe Satriani hosted the latest edition of his G4 Experience. 

Held from January 3-7 at the Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa, the experience featured an eye-watering lineup of guest instructors, among them Peter Frampton, Steve Lukather, Mateus Asato, Cory Wong, Nili Brosh, Steve Morse, Alex Skolnick, Eric Gales, Andy James, John 5, and, of course, Satch himself.

Typically – for those of us who can't attend them in person – the highlights of these camps tend to be the late-night, all-star jams, typically featuring lineups you're unlikely to see elsewhere.

Such was the case at this year's edition of G4, when Satriani took the stage with Steve Morse and blues guitar titan Eric Gales for an electrifying rendition of the blues classic, Going Down.

Thankfully, G4 host Dreamcatcher Events caught the jam on camera, and uploaded video of it to YouTube earlier this week. You can check it out below. 

Going Down is very much in Gales's wheelhouse, but it's cool to see Satriani and Morse get their jam on.

Gales takes lead vocals, and the first solo, a hard-driving outburst packed with blazing runs. Morse goes next, focusing more on bite-sized phrases that he executes with laser-like precision.

Satriani, for one, definitely wins the guitar face competition amongst the three, hitting some whopping bends that delight both the crowd and his fellow virtuosos.

Gales, after two rounds of swapping solos, says to the crowd, "I don't know about y'all, but this is some of the funnest shit I've done in my life."

The trio – all of whom are armed with one of their signature guitars – were backed by Satriani's live band – Kenny Aronoff on drums, Bryan Beller on bass guitar and Rai Thistlethwayte on keyboards.

Satch will be taking that very group on the road with him this spring for an extensive European tour, the itinerary for which you can check out at Satriani's website.

In this lesson, we welcome back Steve Morse to wow us with a performance over Guitar Techniques editor Jason Sidwell’s track, The Dude Ranch. With a straight eighth-note rock feel and a tempo of 110bpm, it has a steady groove with space for lots of colourful rhythmic and melodic phrasing. 

To begin his solo, Steve plays with strong blues phrasing in the style of players such as Albert King. To keep the delivery authentic plenty of space is left between the phrases. From a melodic perspective, Steve alternates between F# Major Pentatonic (F#-G#-A#-C#-D#) and F# Minor Pentatonic scales (F#-A-B-C#-E). 

For the chorus he switches to C# Minor Pentatonic (C#-E-F#-G#-B), and elaborates on the C# Minor Pentatonic shapes using extra chromatic notes. Steve uses chromatic notes throughout the solo – it’s been a trademark throughout his career – to link up the chord tones and add extra non-diatonic spice. 

To take us into verse 2 Steve plays an ascending phrase using pedal tones. The pedal note anchors the tonality; here the melody notes are played alternately against the pedal tone, and the semiquaver phrasing fits in nicely with the rhythm of the track. Steve is an expert alternate picker and this type of lick is a great workout for the picking hand (why not isolate it and use it as such?). 

For verse two Steve delivers a pre-composed motif which provides a  cohesive thread. Again the idea is based around F# Minor Pentatonic (F#-A-B-C#-E). Chorus two switches tonality once again and this time Steve shifts to D Major Pentatonic as his home base (D-E-F#-A-B). D Major Pentatonic contains the same notes as B Minor Pentatonic so feel free to think of it this way if you are more familiar with Minor Pentatonic fretboard shapes and positions.  

Jason has written a middle eight for The Dude Ranch, and Steve cleverly negotiates the chords with another pre-composed idea. He says his inspiration for this was imagining the type of line that a horn section might play. To add energy and power, Steve naturally adds string bends and finger vibrato to these phrases. There follows a two-bar break in which he plays a lovely descending chromatic line and this brings us neatly into the final verse.

To begin the climax of our piece, Steve releases some tension by letting rip with some F# Blues scale licks (F#-A-B-C-C#-E), while to finish his solo he reaches for some ascending unison bends, which players like Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen used to great effect. 

As Steve explains, the unison bends add power and you can also adjust their dissonance by adding finger vibrato to the bent note. This creates a spooky effect and a bit of extra thickness and voodoo. 

Hopefully there will be a new technique, lick or phrase in here for you to perfect. If so, memorise it, tweak and alter it for use in your own solos. Once you have mastered some of these concepts, be encouraged to try your own solo over The Dude Ranch – we’ve included a full chord chart with which you can plan your lead assault. Have fun! 

Chord Chart

Get the tone

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

Steve used his blue Ernie Ball Music Man signature guitar. Bridge and neck pickup both get a lot of use so we suggest you do likewise. Steve has a general rule to even out his tone; above the 12th fret use the neck pickup, below the 12th fret use the bridge pickup. Any electric guitar will work well. Just dial up a clean sound for the start of the solo then switch to a rich overdriven tone with plenty of sustain. Add reverb to taste.

Steve Morse – The Dude Ranch

Intro [Bars 1-2] The intro section features a C7#9 sound  from the band so Steve nails this down this by playing a C# root note. 

Verse 1 [Bars 4 -15] In verse 1 Steve alternates between the F# Major Pentatonic (F#-G#-A#-C#-D#) and F# Minor Pentatonic scales (F#-A-B-C#-E. The phrasing is sparse and constructed in a musical, question and answer style fashion. 

Keep an eye out for any A Natural notes (Minor 3rds over F# chords) as these can be bent slightly sharp – there’s no need to be exact, as you’re aiming to bend the note ‘to nowhere’ to give it more of a classic blues feel. 

Chorus 1 [Bars 16-23] Here the scale of choice switches to C# Minor Pentatonic (C#-E-F#-G#-B). Steve uses chromatic notes throughout the solo to link up the chord tones and these also add extra colour. He demonstrates in his analysis how to bounce melodies off a pedal tone. The ascending lick in bar 23 is a good picking technique exercise and builds nicely into verse 2.

Verse 2 [Bars 24 -31] This section features an idea that groups together five notes. When this idea is repeated it means the next part of the pattern starts on the offbeat and this sets up a revolving syncopated accent. 

Chorus 2 [Bars 32-47] For this section Steve works an ascending pattern into the melody. For the super high string bends of this section he uses his fourth finger to reach and fret the notes. 

Being the smallest of our digits the fourth finger is the perfect choice when requiring accuracy in the cramped confines of this part of the neck. The other three fingers can be used to provide support, as of course the fourth finger, being the smallest, is also not the strongest.

Break [Bars 48-49] To take us back into verse 3 there is a pretty cool descending chromatic run to navigate. As already mentioned, Steve uses chromatic notes throughout the solo to link up the chord tones and to add tension and colour. This descending lick provides another good workout for the picking hand.

Verse 3 [Bars 50-end] Steve launches into the final straight with some cool F# Blues scale (F#-A-B-C-C#-E) licks before ending with some Hendrix-style unison bends. Bend the note on the third string until it matches the pitch of the fretted second string. Adding vibrato to the third string provides a cool dissonance. 

Although Steve Morse deserves full shred credentials for his incredible speed and dexterity on the instrument, he has always resided outside of the genre. 

His history with Dixie Dregs and Kansas means he has carved his own niche with a mixture of classical, country and classic rock, combined with a ferocious alternate picking style that makes most shred guitarists weep.

As well as classic Dregs albums like Freefall and What If, Steve has a discography of solo records including must listens like High Tension Wires and Southern Steel. For 28 years, he was Deep Purple's guitarists, leaving in July to care for his wife, who has cancer. He also has side project Flying Colors.

Our first three examples are based around alternate picking arpeggios as this is such a huge part of Morse’s style. First we have a baroque inspired ascending progression that alternates between two shapes and moves across the fretboard chromatically. 

This is a fantastic warm-up as it will allow you to focus on your picking hand; especially important with the string skipping element.

Example 2 is a palm-muted arpeggio part. The approach here is to form the chord shapes with your fretting hand and use the pick to articulate the arpeggio. Lightly resting the side of your palm on the strings at the bridge should produce a nice percussive effect, as well as separating the notes so only one is played at a time. 

Our third example is a lick similar to Steve’s work with Flying Colors. These arpeggios are articulated with the fretting hand, in much the same way as sweep picked arpeggios, but in Steve’s world, alternate picking is king, so start with a downstroke and keep the pick moving down and up throughout, no matter what the string change happens to be.

The aim is to give the notes a more mechanical sound, rather than the smoother sweeping sound. Both have their uses, but alternate picking generally requires more maintenance in order to achieve accuracy at higher speeds.

The key to the technique is to not dig in too much with the pick and to use just the very tip to strike the strings. This should give you the sensation of hovering, or dancing between the strings, rather than forcing the pick through them. You can also adjust the pick angle, or ‘pitch’ of the pick tip both up and down in order to clear the strings without accidentally hitting the wrong one.

Example 4 is in Steve’s riffing style, in which he often uses open strings and a combination of Minor scales, with passing chromatic notes to spice things up  and not sound too diatonic. 

Again, palm-muted alternate picking is the key to pulling this off, along with synchronised fretting. Continuing with the scalar theme, Example 5 is an A Blues scale lick using the three chromatic notes on the fifth string as home-base and the higher notes as accented melodic ‘pops’ which are played with snappy pick strokes.

In some of the examples the phrasing of the lick is at odds with the subdivision. If you are playing triplets, try groupings of four and, conversely, play groupings of three or six notes within 16th-note rhythms. The challenge is to never speed up or slow down, but to stay within the subdivision exactly; which is made easier with alternate picking. 

Get the tone

Amp settings: Gain 7, Bass 6, Middle 7, Treble 7, Reverb 3

Although Steve does use a fair amount of drive, it’s not what you would call a ‘shred’ tone, since there’s more ‘note’ than distortion in the sound. 

You want a smooth, sustaining drive tone so try bridge pickup and go easy on the treble (easier if using humbuckers). Set you amp to ‘just breaking up’ then add some drive from a pedal, and reverb/delay to taste.

Example 1 

Play the D triad with first, third and fourth fingers, and as you pick each note, lift the fingers slightly so as to keep the notes separated. For the second arpeggio shape use first, fourth and second fingers in ascending order and use the same muting techniques. Repeat those two shapes as you ascend the fretboard.

Example 2

Start by fretting the chord shapes and strumming in order to check the notes. For parts like this Steve frets the sixth-string note with his thumb, but you can play it with first finger too. 

Hold the chord shapes and palm-mute the lower four strings and move your hand from the wrist as you alternate pick the arpeggios.

Example 3

Play these Major triads using your first, second and fourth fingers, using first finger barre rolls to move between the 12th frets and 10th frets on the first and second strings. 

Start with a down stroke to alternate pick the arpeggios, so each note has a separate and precise stroke (we don’t want it to sound like sweep picking). 

Strike the strings with the very tip of your pick to reduce the chance of becoming caught between the wires.

Example 4

This riff uses a combination of A Minor scale (A-B-C-D-E-F-G), A Blues scale (A-C-D-Eb-E-G) and some chromatic passing notes. Keep the pick moving in even 16th notes using strict alternate picking and use the momentum of the pick to keep the volume of the notes even throughout.

Example 5

This lick is based in A Blues scale and is played with first, second and third fingers on the fifth string and interval jumps and string skips to other strings, while staying within the scale. 

The phrasing switches between six and four-note groupings, but remember there are always six notes per beat throughout.

Steve Morse has stepped down permanently from Deep Purple to care for his wife, Janine, who has cancer. Earlier in March, the guitarist announced that he would be taking a hiatus from the band, in the hope of returning to the fold once her health improved.

In a statement shared on the official Deep Purple Facebook page, Morse said that there was no way he could commit to tours under such circumstances. The situation had come to head in last fall, when Morse had to leave a writing session in Germany, after which he suggested to the band that they might need a substitute. Simon McBride duly stepped in to the touring lineup when Morse announced his hiatus.

“Almost a year later, we are learning to accept stage 4 aggressive cancer and chemo treatment for the rest of her life,” Morse wrote. “We both miss being at shows, but I simply couldn't commit to long, or far away tours, since things can change quickly at home. I suggested lining up a substitute guitarist last autumn, hoping we could see the miraculous cancer cure all of us have heard about. As time went by, I could see the way things were heading though, after 28 years of being in the band.”

Morse’s final show with Deep Purple was at the Rock Legends Cruise on February 14. As for his replacement, Morse said that McBride had the gig “nailed”. 

“I’m now handing over the keys to the vault which holds the secret of how Ritchie’s Smoke on the Water intro was recorded,” Morse wrote. “I guess you have to jiggle the key just right because I never got it open.” 

Morse thanked fans for turning “every show from a dress rehearsal to a thundering, exciting experience” and said he will miss the band and crew.

“Being Janine’s helper and advocate has made a real difference at many key points,” he continued. “As Janine adjusts to her limitations, she is able to do many things on her own, so we will try to play some shorter nearby concert tours with friends to, hopefully, get both of us out of the house!”

Morse joined Deep Purple in 1994, recorded eight studio albums with the band, and is their longest-serving guitar player. Paying tribute to him, Ian Gillan described Morse as a “musical genius.”

“I first became aware of Steve through the Dixie Dregs, particularly the track Take it off the Top, which was the theme tune for Tommy Vance’s BBC rock show and impressed me mightily,” wrote Gillan. “I didn’t realise at the time that one day I would be lucky enough to stand on stage with Steve and enjoy his consummate skills up close and dangerous.

“I got to know him as a very kind man, full of ideas and the patience to see them developed. He would say, ‘You never know until you try it’. We sure had some fun debating that approach, but mostly in good humor and he always gave as good as he got.

“Steve has a legacy with Deep Purple that can never be forgotten, and that smile will be missed. It would be wrong to comment on his personal circumstances, suffice to say he’s in a bad place right now but dealing with it bravely and as best he can; we all admire his devotion; he’s been a strong family man all his life.”

Drummer Ian Paice echoed Gillan’s comments that family came first, and that Morse’s talents had reinvigorated the band, presenting them with new ideas and musical possibilities. “Like most great creative musicians, he has the ability to come up with musical ideas that no one else has thought of,” wrote Paice.

Bassist Roger Glover said that playing with Morse was an education, and that the band had recorded some of their strongest material with him. 

“He’s a teacher, he inspired us, me in particular, with his energy, encouragement and wisdom, and his contribution and legacy in this band is beyond words,” he wrote. “He will be missed but our friendship will remain. Sadly, life has intervened, and different challenges are upon us. Janine needs him now, and my best wishes and thoughts go out to them.”

Don Airey, who joined the band on keys in 2002 after Jon Lord announced his retirement, described Morse as a “shining light both musically and personally”. With Paice, Glover, Gillan, Morse and Airey, Deep Purple enjoyed their most stable lineup in their history. 

Joe Satriani has announced the lineup for the star-studded 2023 G4 V6.0 Experience, which will take place early next year at the Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa in Las Vegas.

Satch has enlisted a wealth of electric guitar A-listers, encompassing a huge range of heritage names and more contemporary players.

Chief among them are Peter Frampton, Steve Lukather and Steve Morse, who will be on hand to offer instruction, share their knowledge with attendees, and provide intimate advice in a series of classes and workshops.

Joining them will be players of all styles, including Alex Skolnick, Eric Gales, John 5, Mateus Asato, Cory Wong and Nili Brosh, all of whom will partake in a variety of clinics, jams and intimate breakout sessions.

Satch will also be hosting nightly live performances with his longtime backing band – comprising drummer Kenny Aronoff, bassist Bryan Beller and keyboardist/vocalist Rai Thistlethwayte – for which he will be joined by his guests.

The four-day event takes place on January 3-7 2023, and will see guest tutors address a range of topics, from songwriting and soloing to gigging, gear and more.

Of the G4’s inception, Satch said, “When I first put together the G3 concerts, it was to create a camaraderie that is often missing in the general day-to-day competition of the music industry.

“From there we came up with the concept of the G4 Experience,” he added. “I didn’t want to do a traditional clinic, just getting up in front of people and giving impersonal lessons to a room full of people – I thought, what can we do that will truly reflect my values as a teacher? 

“With the G4 Experience, we create an interactive community where I’m joined by these other stars that have been making amazing music and pushing the art form of guitar forward for decades. From all stylistic approaches and musical walks of life.”

He continued, “We bring together this eclectic mix to show all the different sides of playing guitar. They’re all brilliant musicians with styles that are all over the map. They all have such different jobs, they’ve made millions of people happy with their playing, and yet they do it so differently.”

According to the website, all backline gear is provided, meaning attendees just need to bring their guitars. They will also have access to accommodation, food, and meet and greet sessions with their guitar heroes.

“The G4 Experience is all about the community,” Satriani went on to say. “I can’t state that enough. Everyone is not only there to enjoy the music, they’re trying to learn everything they can. 

“There’s a lot of information stored up in this head that I want to give to the fans and I’m very much looking forward to sharing it with everyone who attends.”

To find out more, head over to G4 Experience.

Guitar Player recently got electric guitar legends Steve Morse and John Petrucci together for a wide-ranging conversation that touched on technique, guitar design, the music business, practice, and a whole lot more.

During the chat, the two shred titans revealed their admiration for one another, with Petrucci citing the first time he heard Morse's playing as a "life-changing" moment.

Introduced to Morse by the older brother of a friend, Petrucci first heard the former's electrifying rock-by-way-of-bluegrass style via The Bash, a song by Morse's band, the Dixie Dregs.

“It [The Bash] totally blew my mind,” Petrucci said. “I couldn’t understand how anybody could play like that. I wasn’t very familiar with bluegrass, but Steve mixed it with rock in such an exciting way. His technique and phrasing hooked me immediately.”

Overall, the Dream Theater axeman said, "There are moments that you can pinpoint and say they were truly life-changing, and for me, hearing Steve Morse play guitar was one of them.” 

Morse and Petrucci's lengthy conversation is filled with a number of other similarly insightful tidbits and stories, but perhaps none are more amusing (or terrifying) than Morse explaining how he used to – during leaner times on the road – get... creative with his guitar practice.

"Sometimes on long trips there just wasn’t any time to practice," Morse explained. "What I would do was, I’d put this fleece pad – like one of those shoulder-belt pads – on the steering wheel, and I would drive with my knees while playing the guitar. If the road was crowded, I wouldn’t do that, but if I was on an interstate and no cars were around, sure, I could manage it. 

"It’s only a few inches from the guitar neck to the steering wheel," he continued, "so you can get your hands back on the wheel pretty quickly."

[Editor's note: Before our legal team finds this article, Guitar World does not endorse the practice of playing guitar while driving, no matter how empty the road is.] 

To read the full conversation – which also covers, among other topics, how the guitarists each came to endorse Ernie Ball Music Man, how they collaborate effectively with keyboard players, and how they work as band leaders – pick up a copy of the latest issue of Guitar Player at Magazines Direct.

The publication of the conversation comes just days after Ken Scott – a producer who's worked with Jeff Beck, the Beatles, Mick Ronson, and Pink Floyd, to name just a few – stated that Morse, above all others, stood out as the best guitarist he has ever worked with.

Producer Ken Scott has recorded everyone. Or maybe it just seems that way. Graduating through the ranks as engineer at Abbey Road, Scott worked with the Beatles, the Jeff Beck Group, Pink Floyd to name a few.

Later he would produce and engineer David Bowie’s Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust …, and Visions of the Emerald Beyond by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. He would reunite with George Harrison, engineering his solo albums, Wonderwall Music and All Things Must Pass. 

Scott has seen it all, some of the world's greatest players first hand, but out of all the great guitarists he has worked with, Scott says Deep Purple's Steve Morse is the best. Indeed, Morse is so good that, after working with him on the Dixie Dregs, Scott had an enhanced appreciation of pitch that made everyone else sound out of tune.

Scott was speaking to Gary Kemp (Spandau Ballet) and session bass legend Guy Pratt (Pink Floyd, Roxy Music etc) as a guest on their Rockonteurs podcast when he was asked about the guitar players he has worked with. Morse, he says, was the best, even better than Beck, whom Scott worked with on Truth, Beck-Ola, and There & Back.

“Steve Morse, as far as I’m concerned, is the best guitarist I’ve ever worked with,” Scott said. “He could cover every style and he knew what was needed. Jeff Beck is great, but Jeff has a certain style which he is brilliant at, whereas Steve, he covers all styles, from classical, acoustic – there’s one track on one of the albums called Little Kids which is him and just solo violin, which is brilliant.”

Scott observed Morse’s genius up close in March 1978 when he produced and engineered the Dixie Dregs’ sophomore studio album, What If, and its follow-up, Night of the Living Dregs. Working with Morse spoiled him for musical projects to follow. 

“He has perfect pitch,” says Scott. “I did two albums with him and the next couple of albums after that, I was having major tuning problems with the band. My sense of pitch had become that much closer to perfect pitch that when they were slightly out, it became painful.”

Not that there was ever much wrong with Scott’s ear. In a wide-ranging interview that covers all eras of his career, Scott described David Bowie’s processes, his talent for acquiring talent and letting them shape his sound. Talent such as Mick Ronson, with whom Scott recorded one of the greatest guitar solos of all time – the Moonage Daydream solo from 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

Scott revealed that what we are hearing there was some post-production work on Ronson’s guitar, recording his '68 Les Paul Custom flat and then adding and subtracting reverb to taste.

“I have this thing, I’ve done it with other guitarists as well. I like the low end of the guitar to be right in your face,” explained Scott. “And the higher they go, I like to be airier. So as he’s going up the fret board I’m adding more reverb, and as he comes back down, I pull the reverb back down. I’m playing the reverb as he plays the guitar.”

Scott also talks about Ronson’s cocked-wah electric guitar sound, where he would be “messing around” with his wah pedal’s treadle until he found the sweet spot in the filter, parking it there and using that for his sound. “That was the sound,” he said. “Every one of his guitar sounds was done exactly the same way.”

You can listen to the full interview with Scott and more on the Rockonteurs podcast.

At the tail end of March 2022, Deep Purple shared the news that guitarist Steve Morse would be taking a temporary hiatus from the group in order to support his wife, who is currently battling cancer.

“I am not leaving the band,” explained Morse in the official statement, adding that he hoped “after she gets a clean bill of health, I can re-join the tour”. The Deep Purple legend also extended a warm welcome to the man who will be filling his spot for the live shows – Northern Irish blues rock ace Simon McBride – praising him as a “certified world-class guitarist… whom everybody will surely be happy to hear”.

For McBride, who has previously toured with Deep Purple members Ian Gillan and Don Airey and become well-acquainted with the band in general, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime – but also understandably one born out of incredibly sad circumstances.

“To be honest, I’ve known about this for a while,” he explains, talking to Guitar World from his home studio, with various PRS and Fender guitars hanging on the walls behind him. “There was talk of it before, since the end of last year. Steve wants to do the shows obviously, because he is the guitar player in Deep Purple. 

“It’s very unfortunate with his wife… so yeah, it’s very hard for him to leave and come over to Europe. It’s a bittersweet emotion for me, because it’s under sad circumstances, but on the other hand I’m also going ‘Yes!’ because it’s a dream opportunity. It’s a bizarre thing.”

As he goes on to explain, the initial discussions with Deep Purple felt surreal, to the point where McBride wasn’t too sure what to make of it. He agreed, like any guitar player would, but was careful not to get too attached to the idea and instead tread with caution. After all, it’s not every day you’re confronted with the prospect of playing in one of the most influential hard-rock bands of all-time.

“When they first mentioned it, I was like, ‘Yeah, okay, whatever…’ because I take everything with a pinch of salt these days,” McBride continues. “I thought if it happens, great, if it doesn’t, then don’t feel too let down. We knew for sure in March, so I said, ‘Wow, cool, this will be great fun!’ But it’s also not great… which makes it so weird. In the back of my mind, I know it’s happening under crappy circumstances.”

For the fans, sad as they’ll be to miss out on Morse’s technical wizardry, McBride’s appointment is certainly one that makes sense – he has no shortage of talent and established a strong chemistry with each of the group’s members long ago. 

“I’ve known the guys for a while,” adds McBride. “I’ve toured with Ian [Gillan] and Don [Airey] a fair bit over the years. I’ve also played with Roger [Glover] and [Ian] Paicey, so I’ve played with them all, just not at the same time! [laughs] Now I get to do that, and I’m very excited about it, running through all those classic iconic songs we all learn when we’re young. Now I get to play them as part of the band. Steve is an amazing guitarist, so I know I’ve got big boots to fill…”

What do you see as being the main challenges of the gig, technique-wise? Some of the unison lines between Steve and Don on the newer material can get pretty intense…

“I don’t think there’s too much that will be challenging for me. It’s mainly just remembering all the parts as a whole. It’s not like just learning a normal set with standard issue songs, which are verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo and done. They have all these alternate endings and, as you said, those mad sections with unison lines. 

“There are some solos that aren’t just standard solos; they’re more like creative pieces, so I’ll have to learn them exactly and remember. I’ve spent the last few weeks working on all of the stuff, taking it all into my brain. Whatever gig I’m doing, I always try to include a bit of myself where it works and also stick to the original solos as a mark of respect.”

And which solos might those be?

“Well, there are some leads you just can’t get away with playing different, like Highway Star. I will just play it as is – what’s the point in trying anything else? I won’t come up with anything better. And some of Steve’s solos on the new stuff are also like that. I won’t be able to top them, so I’ll just learn them note-for-note. 

“Fortunately, though, there’s nothing too technically complicated with it. And when I play with Don, we do a lot of stuff from the [’70s fusion supergroup] Colosseum II days, the Gary Moore stuff. Now that’s complicated, and can be a bit of a nightmare technique-wise. There tends to be a lot of notes flying around. 

“To learn things, I don’t necessarily pick up the guitar for the first two weeks; I’ll just sit and listen to the songs over and over until I’m sick of listening to them. When I actually sit down with the guitar, I like to be able to nearly play it already just from familiarity, knowing the chords and what positions they’re being played in. 

“I guess you could just say it’s all challenging, from timing to feel, there are all sorts of things coming together to make Deep Purple sound like Deep Purple. I have to try and get onboard with that and bring the same sort of energy that Steve would.”

You have a new solo album, The Fighter, that’s coming out soon. What exactly are we hearing on the tracks?

“The main guitar was my red PRS 408 Singlecut, which I don’t think they make anymore. That ended up on nearly everything. I also used a Telecaster for certain clean sounds, just to get that ’80s kind of bright and compressed thing. There’s a song called Show Me How to Love and the chorus part is really clean with delays and reverbs and chorus. I had about seven guitars for that one part – including two Telecasters on the bridge pickup, my PRS Silver Sky and my PRS Starla…

“I also used my PRS 245 on one track for more of a vintage Les Paul kind of thing. My main guitar has higher-output pickups whereas the 245 has the ’70s classic rock vibe with not a huge amount of output but bags of tone. I didn’t really use much beyond that. I’m not the kind of person who uses a guitar for each song. 

“My main PRS is very versatile: it can do so many things, and though the pickups are hot you can still split them in different ways using the two switches. From rock to blues, metal and beyond, it can do everything.”

You’ve been using Victory amps a lot in recent years – is that still the case?

“Yeah, I used some of the Victory stuff on the album. There was the V30 and also a Super Kraken. I even used a Kemper, which maybe some people might be disappointed by, but in the studio they can be great tools. The line between real amps and digital stuff is getting very blurry. It can be hard to tell the difference sometimes. Having the Kemper there was very cool, because I could get some Vox AC30 kinds of sounds, or something more like a vintage Fender tone. 

“On some of the riffs, like the track High Stakes, I’d use my 408 – which is basically a humbucker guitar into a Victory for that classic Marshall sound – as well as a Telecaster into a Vox AC30 profile.

“There’s something that happens when you layer up a humbucker guitar into a Marshall-style amp and single coils into something like a Vox. The Telecaster and Vox alone can be just nasty, but you blend those two together and the guitars seem to poke their head through the mix that bit more. I do that all the time for my big riffs, because it helps them sit in the track.”

Don’t Dare has some really interesting usage of sixth intervals served up with Led Zeppelin swagger, and some creamy fuzz for the solo, too…

“That song is a funny one. I actually wrote the riff about 15 years ago, but I didn’t know what to do with it. Everything I came up with sucked. For this album, I showed it to a singer-songwriter friend of mine. I asked him what he thought, he liked how it sounded and suggested where it should go. And it made my day… because I loved that riff. 

“As you mentioned, it has that Zeppelin-y feel to it. The sixth intervals are also harmonized up the fretboard from halfway through. For the solo I got out this Octavia I use all the time, made by a German company called Vahlbruch who do a lot of different pedals. I just love this one. It’s always on my ’board because it sounds nasty.

“It does that classic thing where you switch to the neck pickup and play around the 12th fret, and you get that octave up vibe, but it also sounds filthy when you play chords on the bridge pickup. It’s the kind of sound I could have used for the whole record but no, thankfully I didn’t!”

Kingdom has some pretty colorful modulation at points. What were you using?

“I used my Uni-Vibe as well as some harmonizer stuff on the verse sections, just on the odd little lick here and there. For the vibe sounds, I used a Jam Pedals RetroVibe, which has two knobs and works great. 

“I’m very simple when it comes to pedals. You can get Uni-Vibes with six knobs and it’s like, ‘I don’t know what to do with this!’ The Jam one is great – you plug in, choose your speed and depth and you’re off.”

Was there anything else of note on the ’board?

“I could talk all day about pedals! I have quite a bizarre old pedal that I use a bit, made by Pearl, as in the drum company. They used to be into pedals for a bit. They made this flanger and I used it on the track 100 Days, for the noisy solo in the middle, and the song King of the Hill. It’s not a normal flanger. When you play notes through it, that thing just goes bonkers. It’s total madness, but I love it. 

“The only problem is that it’s old and not true bypass, so it’s very noisy. I don’t use it live, only on recordings. I also have a Hartman flanger I use live, which is another old one, and that’s also on this album.

“The reverbs and delays were done in post-production, because I record everything dry. I used some chorus effects, like the Boss Dimension-C, and some fuzz pedals for different tones. Actually, for the second solo in 100 Days, I did use a Boss DD-500 delay going into a fuzz pedal – I think it was the Keeley Monterey – with some overdrive from the amp. Normally I have my delays in the loop so that they’re crystal-clear, but for this part I wanted a distorted delay that was really thick and heavy. 

“It’s a cool sound, though I wouldn’t use it all the time. I don’t tend to use fuzz a lot; it’s just on the odd solo over here. I like to keep my albums fresh in terms of my guitar tones. There’s nothing worse than hearing an album where it’s the exact same sound for every song. It’s better to mix it up a bit!”

There are some fast two-note-per-string pentatonic runs on tracks like The Fighter and Show Me How to Love, reminiscent of Eric Johnson’s approach to the scale and the modern players he influenced like Joe Bonamassa and Eric Gales…

“I grew up in the ’80s with all the three-note-per-string stuff. That was beaten into me because I guess it was what guitarists were doing back then. I could do that no problem. But then it got cooler to play two-note-per-string lines. Like you say, there are a lot of people doing that kind of stuff now like Bonamassa and Eric Gales, and it does stem from Eric Johnson. 

“I didn’t want to go down the road of being a copy of players like that, but I wanted to learn more about different sequences. Obviously with Eric Johnson, a lot of it is in fives, which can sound really cool. Then there’s the classic Thin Lizzy one, which is threes, or you can try sequences of six. If you want to get really adventurous, you can try sequences of seven. Mixing sequences can be really good for learning this, as well as for phrasing in general…”

Because the accents change?

“Exactly. I might do a sequence of five, then four and back to five, then maybe a three or something… that’s where the rhythm starts to come in, because you’re placing your accents in different places. It’s constantly changing where the one is, and that’s where it starts sounding more rhythmically musical. Lots of people can fly up and down the fretboard sounding amazing and I sometimes think, ‘That’s cool… but I won’t remember it!’ Personally, I prefer the sound of more rhythmic ideas.

“So I just sat down and learned all those sequences in each of the five pentatonic positions. It’s great when you get it up to speed, but the biggest problem is crossing the boxes and moving down the fretboard instead of staying on the same frets. That’s where it gets more complicated.

“Just like anything, you’ll need to get your metronome out and do the hard work. And it gets harder once you’ve learned the technique, because then you have to figure out how the hell you can use it on a track.”

So what helped in terms of understanding how and where to use these techniques?

“My only advice to people trying to play faster stuff in songs is sneak it in by breaking it down into little fragments. Don’t do the whole scale; just play a one or two-second burst. That can be more impressive than a five-second run. 

“I learned about this stuff from Neal Schon and Steve Lukather – they’re the masters of throwing in those sneaky little runs that seem to come out of nowhere. Like you mentioned, on Show Me How to Love, I do that fast run at the end of the solo and it’s the one everyone asks me about…

“They’re always disappointed when I explain it to them: it’s just the A-minor pentatonic scale from the bottom to the top. It’s just played fast, that’s all. When it comes to short and fast bursts, things can get a bit blurry. I could have played something more complicated, but I decided it worked perfectly as a ramp up to that high note.”

Let Me Go nods to the greatness of another Belfast guitarist, Gary Moore. What did you learn most from him?

“Gary is a massive influence on me, like many others. I first saw him play live when I was a kid. My dad took me to King’s Hall in Belfast, which had four or five thousand people and big lights on a big stage. Seeing that show made me realize I had to do this with my life. That’s what got me started off. 

“When it comes to writing leads, everybody should go and listen to what he did. He was the master of gearing a solo, getting the build just right. He starts and gets more and more intense until you feel as if you can’t take it anymore and then you’re out of it. He was the king of that. The solo for Let Me Go had that kind of vibe, though to some extent I try to do that with every solo I play…

“When you’re writing solos, you really only need to think about one thing, and that’s the song. That’s what it’s all about. Does it suit the song, or are you shredding for the sake of shredding?

“I’ve gotten more ruthless in my older age. I ask myself if those massive runs are needed. For Let Me Go, I wanted it to build like a classic Gary Moore lead with a fast run at the end. You can always get your wind machine out when you play that way!”

• The Fighter is out on May 27 via earMUSIC.

Deep Purple electric guitar player Steve Morse has announced he will be taking a temporary break from the band this year to support his ill wife, who is currently battling cancer.

It's also been confirmed that Morse will be replaced by blues-rock guitar player Simon McBride, who has been drafted into the lineup for Deep Purple’s upcoming shows this May, June and July.

In a statement posted to social media, Morse said he is “not leaving the band” and will instead spend the next few months with his wife, Janine, in the hope that she soon “gets a clean bill of health”.

“At this point,” Morse said, “there are so many possible complications and unknowns, that whatever time we have left in our lives, I simply must be there with her. I am not leaving the band – I hope that after she gets a clean bill of health, I can re-join the tour.”

He continued, “However, I am not seeing any likely situation which would allow me to do overseas touring in the immediate future. I continue to be privileged to be a part of the Purple family tree, and also to get to feel the amazing support of so many loyal fans and the rest of the band. 

“There's a certified world class guitarist ready to take over for the live shows whom everybody will surely be happy to hear.”

The certified world-class guitarist he speaks of is Simon McBride, a Northern Irish blues-rock maestro who has previously toured with both Deep Purple lead singer Ian Gillan and keyboardist Don Airey. McBride, who is set to release his upcoming album The Fighter on May 27, will accompany the band for their Middle Eastern and European shows this summer.

The tour will start on May 22 in Tel Aviv, Israel, and is currently scheduled to conclude on July 30 in Alesund, Norway. Between those dates, Deep Purple and McBride will play shows in Germany, France, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and more.

“I'm deeply honored to be asked to stand-in for Steve and play for such an iconic rock band like Deep Purple,” said McBride. “They are amazing musicians and amazing people. I'm very excited to get out and play all those iconic songs and rock the stage with such legends. My thoughts are with Steve and Janine and their family.”

In their own statement, Morse’s bandmates said, “All of our thoughts are with Janine during her fight against cancer and also with Steve while he supports his wife at a very difficult time. We hope that Steve will be able to join us back on the road later this year.”

After completing the first leg of the tour, Deep Purple will hit the road once again and return to a number of European countries in October.

For a full list of tour dates, visit Deep Purple’s website.

Earlier this year, McBride teased his upcoming album The Fighter by releasing the effort's first single, High Stakes, which you can hear below.

Last September, Deep Purple bass guitar legend Roger Glover told us that the band's 2020 offering, Whoosh!, "may be our last album.”

“Every album we do could be our last album, at this stage," he elaborated, "but there was a feeling about this one..."

Well, not all predictions end up coming true. Deep Purple, in fact, have today announced a new album called Turning To Crime. A covers album featuring the band's interpretations of tunes by a wide variety of artists – among them Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, Ray Charles, the Yardbirds, and Little Feat – the LP is set for a November 26 release via earMUSIC.

You can check out the album's first single, a rollicking rendition of Love's 7 and 7 Is, below.

The band's first-ever covers album, Turning To Crime was produced by Bob Ezrin, who also manned the boards for the hard rock giants' previous three studio efforts.

In an interview with Guitar World earlier this year, the band's resident electric guitar wizard, Steve Morse, highlighted Ezrin's importance in the band's creative process, likening him to a judge of sorts.

“We’re a good group of different personalities, and everybody knows their strengths,” Morse said. “Something we have that I think is important is how somebody usually notices what nobody else does. In the songwriting process that can be very helpful, but it can also create friction. So we kind of use Bob Ezrin to be the police or judge. He comes in and acts as the final vote. At the end of the day, it works.”

You can examine the cover art and tracklist of Turning To Crime below.

Deep Purple – Turning To Crime:

1. 7 And 7 Is
2. Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu
3. Oh Well
4. Jenny Take A Ride!
5. Watching The River Flow
6. Let The Good Times Roll
7. Dixie Chicken
8. Shapes Of Things
9. The Battle Of New Orleans
10. Lucifer
11. White Room
12. Caught In The Act [Medley: Going Down/Green Onions/Hot ‘Lanta/Dazed and Confused/Gimme Some Lovin’]

Steve Morse

BACK TO LIVE: First thing is to keep your calisthenics/mechanical practice to where you can handle your difficult parts without strain. I figure that if I can make a part 10 times in a row in my home, that I have a decent chance of pulling it off at a gig where there are multiple distractions, and no second chances. 

Left-hand strength is something I concentrate more on before a tour. The vibrato, bending, and building up calluses is very important. Most players find that their fretting fingers are sore after the first or second gig. 

Toughen up two weeks before with extra fretting work. Make some chord and drum loops to play along with, preferably of solo sections you might play at the gigs. Just spend time experimenting, getting comfortable. It’s different than doing technical practice, and is a very important part of the ‘gearing up’ process.

Never forget that the people out there took money out of their pockets to be there, and that your preparation is something you owe them. But once you’re onstage, laugh at everything that goes wrong, enjoy the things that are great, and give out that positive energy which makes live music the one universal language!

Paul Gilbert

I start bending strings like crazy, to get my fingers’ calluses back in shape. If my calluses are really gone, I’ll bring a few sets of what I call ‘Anti-Gravity’ strings. 

Here’s how to make a set:

1. Get a set of 9s. (9-42)

2. Throw away the 42.

3. Use the 32 as your sixth string, and keep going from there.

4. Use an additional 8 for the first string.

5. So your gauges will be, 32, 24, 16, 11, 9, 8. Your chords won’t tune up very well, but you’ll be able to bend all night without ripping up your fingers too badly.

After two or three gigs like this, you can go to a standard set of 8s. (8-38) I usually stay there, as I like to bend, unfettered.

Kirk Fletcher

Preparing for gigs can be very exciting and also stressful. If I have been off the road for a while, I’ll be a little rusty. Number one thing is to know all the material inside and out. That will put your mind at ease. 

Guitar gear-wise: triple-check all gear including guitars and all the hardware on the instrument or instruments you will be taking out. Bring more than enough strings – I’ve had it happen on the road where I snap strings like crazy for various reasons. 

Check all cables and bring extra. Make sure if possible your pedals can run on batteries. I learned this the hard way by having my power supply die on me. The road can sometimes be strange with gear; if something is going to stop working, a Sunday when everything is closed is when it’s most likely going to happen!

Make sure you bring a power strip and a long enough AC cord. Also, it's a good idea to have a clock and pen and paper. I like to pack at least the day before so I’m more calm and I can really think of everything I might need. I also always check in early to the airport, as airports are always an adventure, so the earlier you are the better.

Also an old trick is, bring enough undergarments for every day you’re away. You just never know how long before you have time to do laundry. Have fun and maybe I’ll see you somewhere out there!

Steve Lukather

Every tour starts out a little different. Trying to add more deep cuts and just getting my chops up. There’s nothing like playing hard for two-plus hours a night, five to six days a week, to really feel ‘on your game’. I sure have missed it. I do vocal exercises, hike and really rest up. It’s also about getting your own head together for it. 

I don’t have the same guitar routines always – I see how I am feeling as the time gets closer. I can’t tour till 2022 as it looks at the moment, so it will take more time to get my full chops back up. Band rehearsals usually get me close to 100%, then by the time we leave I am ready. Been doing this for 45 years now. I can’t wait to get back out!

Michael Landau

Play your fucking guitar… make sure your rig is working and that it sounds great… do your fucking homework regarding the songs… so basically, don’t show up to a paying gig unprepared! 

I’m not a fan of reading music on stage, so use some common sense like: warm up and reconnect with your instrument by playing a lot in the days leading up to a gig. Make sure your rig is sounding great. 

If it’s a band that I don’t play with on a regular basis, I’ll make a small setlist ‘reminder sheet’ for myself with some basic notes on the songs. I lay it on the floor so I can glance down at it if I need to, and this also helps to see what’s coming up next in the set.

Marty Friedman

Songs that I’ve played on recent tours will come back to me within the first rehearsal and need little or no prep. So here is how I prepare for any additions to the setlist. 

Step one: try to play new songs in the set list, see where any weak spots are. 

Step two: look closely at those weak spots and try every possible fingering until deciding on the easiest fingering. This is important because remember you will have to perform the music, not just play it. Massive difference. 

There are tons of important nuances in my music that I am very detailed about when recording, but many of those things would not translate to a live setting and would take concentration away from my performance if I tried to replicate every tiny thing on the record.

Think of the big picture. It’s no fun dreading certain tricky parts of songs that no-one will notice if you nailed or not anyway. Simplify your parts down to the most important parts that get the job done, and enjoy performing. 

Step three: once you have decided on those fingerings, practice the hell out of those weak spots, standing up (as most likely the parts were recorded sitting down, and practicing sitting down will not help you perform). And finally, don’t waste time working on things that don’t need work. Spend all your practice time focused on anything that is not coming out easily.

Ernie Ball Music Man has updated its line of Steve Morse signature electric guitars with the release of two new models for 2021.

Arriving in the form of Steve Morse and Steve Morse Y2D offerings, the new-and-improved models sport eye-catching finishes and versatile tonal controls, which seek to provide an impressive range of sonic offerings, befitting of the rock legend's high-gain guitar sound.

Ernie Ball Music Man Steve Morse Y2D

First up is the celebratory Y2D model, which pays tribute to the Deep Purple guitarist's 20th anniversary as a Music Man artist. Featuring an elegant Blue Burst finish, the ornate guitar seeks to combine the unique elements of Steve's signatures that he's used throughout the years with a feel and playability of a high-caliber instrument.

Build-wise, the Y2D is composed of a poplar body with a figured maple top, and features a figured maple neck and 22-fret rosewood fretboard. Other appointments include a tune-o-matic bridge, Music Man chrome-plated tail block, clear pickguard and Schaller locking tuners.

In a bid to achieve Steve Morse's signature sound, the guitar comes equipped with a HSH configuration, consisting of DiMarzio DP-205 and DP-200 Morse Signature humbuckers in the neck and bridge, and a proprietary custom-wound single-coil sandwiched between.

These are controlled by a conventional five-way lever pickup selector, master volume and master control knob.

The Steve Morse Y2D is available now for $2,999.

Ernie Ball Music Man Steve Morse

Joining the celebratory Y2D is the updated, oh-so-sparkly Steve Morse signature. Flashing a striking Blue Sparkle high-gloss polyester finish, the guitar sports a lightweight poplar body, black pickguard, figured maple neck and 22-fret rosewood fretboard.

The 25.5" scale length model also comes equipped with a tune-o-matic bridge and Music Man chrome-plated tail block.

In terms of tone, the Steve Morse model boasts four DiMarzio pickups arranged in an HSSH configuration, which seek to deliver a wide range of tonal possibilities. Two single-coils – the DP-108 Vintage and a proprietary custom wound pickup – are flanked by the DP-205 neck and DP-200 bridge Morse signatures humbuckers.

These are controlled by a conventional three-way pickup selector, as well as additional two-way and three-way toggle switches, which open up a seriously impressive number of pickup combinations.

The two-way toggle lets you combine the bridge pickup with either the single-coil that sits next to it or the neck humbucker. The three-way switch, meanwhile, controls the remaining single-coil, combining it with any of the other three that adorn the guitar.

While it's not exactly Morse code, the complex control layout may take some getting use to. Don't worry, though, as you can watch Steve run through it himself in the video below.

The Ernie Ball Music Man Steve Morse Signature is available now for $2,799.

Head over to Ernie Ball Music Man for more info.

Nobody quite knew what to expect when Steve Morse joined Deep Purple in 1994. The Dixie Dregs/Kansas kingpin was stepping into a situation that didn’t bode well for longevity. 

First there was founding guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, who came and went over the years; his initial replacement, Tommy Bolin, lasted only two years before the group’s first breakup in 1976. Joe Satriani stepped in for a tour in 1993 but was unable to join full-time because of his solo commitments. 

Would Morse, hailed as one of the most gifted and versatile guitarists of his day, manage to stick around? As it turns out, he was a natural fit for Deep Purple; in fact, his 26-year tenure with the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers makes him the band’s longest-standing axman. 

“Yeah, I passed that mark a long time ago,” Morse says with a laugh. Detailing the group’s protocol, he likens the fold to a dog pack. “There’s a natural inclination for people to hold positions based on seniority. For a while, I was at the bottom, but when [keyboardist] Jon Lord retired, Don Airey joined, so I moved from the number five to the four spot.”  

However, Morse notes that being the sole American in a group of Brits has its disadvantages. “Once Don started talking soccer – English football – with the other guys, that was it,” he says. “I went back to being number five, and I’ve been there ever since.”

But his lack of UK football knowledge notwithstanding, Morse has made his mark on Deep Purple (which also includes three members from the classic Mark II lineup – vocalist Ian Gillan, bassist Roger Glover and drummer Ian Paice).

In concert, he’s put his own stamp on the group’s rich cavalcade of hits, and in the studio he’s proved to be a dominant and invigorating force, dishing out robust guitar riffs and lyrical solos while becoming a central figure in their songwriting process.

The guitarist weaves blistering six-string runs throughout the band’s latest album, Whoosh!, an almost absurdly enjoyable – and surprisingly youthful-sounding – set full of spunky prog rock (Throw My Bones), quasi-rockabilly/boogie (What the What), lush power balladry (Nothing at All) and fist-pumping stompers (The Long Way Round, No Need to Shout).

It’s the outfit’s third consecutive release they’ve made with veteran producer Bob Ezrin, best known for his work with Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd. According to Morse, Ezrin serves a key role when he’s sometimes called upon to mediate songwriting disputes.

“We’re a good group of different personalities, and everybody knows their strengths,” he says. “Something we have that I think is important is how somebody usually notices what nobody else does. In the songwriting process that can be very helpful, but it can also create friction. So we kind of use Bob Ezrin to be the police or judge. He comes in and acts as the final vote. At the end of the day, it works.”

Were it not for the pandemic, the plan was for Deep Purple to be on tour in 2020, correct?

”That was what we were thinking, yeah, but as of now we won’t be out again till 2021. We only got to play one show in 2020 – that was it.”

Clear something up, though: wasn’t the band’s The Long Goodbye Tour supposed to be a farewell to the road?

”That’s what I thought, but it turns out there’s evidence of UFO sightings and everything. The guys say they’re from the UK, but they’re actually from outer space – they’re from Krypton or somewhere. [Laughs] They have a lifetime span of 250 years, apparently, and they don’t realize I’m just a normal human. Everybody has been in the hospital for various surgeries and what have you, but they keep coming back with this upbeat attitude. I think music just keeps you young.“

Was this album cut with everybody together in the studio, or did you finish any of it remotely?

“No, we did it old school, before COVID. We were in this gigantic room at RCA Studios in Nashville. It had the traditional kind of room echo like we used to see in every other studio. 

“It’s awesome to have that physical cubic feet for the drums to decay in and not reflect around. We had everybody facing each other in a circle. The speaker cabinets were remotely situated. We each have those little mixers – or actually pretty big mixers – that we can fine tune our headphones or earbuds.“

Aside from recording the best batch of tunes possible, does the band have a particular agenda going into the studio? 

“To me, it’s funny and very true when Bob says, 'Let’s just make the kind of record we want to make. No one is going to buy it. Nobody’s going to play it on the radio.' [Laughs] Bob has got this sour kind of Don Rickles personality that he can switch on and off. 

“If you didn’t know him, you’d think he’s being negative, but what he’s saying is, 'Make it for yourselves and the fans. Don’t worry about whether anything’s going to fit into any kind of niche or be suitable for radio airplay.' I love that starting point.“

Is there a particular process to the band’s songwriting? Do you initiate songs with riffs? 

”There’s four ways it happens: One, I’ll bring in a lot of ideas and demos, but I won’t try to influence anybody; I just present the ideas and see which ones catch fire. The second way is, Roger will bring in ideas, but he’ll sometimes say, 'I really want to do it just like this.' 

”That’s hard, because if you bring an idea to a band, you’ve got to be prepared for it to be taken apart and put back together differently than you imagined. The third way is we’ll just jam and see what happens, and the fourth way is Paicey will simply play a drum beat. He’ll set up a feel for something he wants in a song.”

What happens if you think a song is bad? Can you make it come alive? Can a bad song become a good one, or is it just destined to be bad? 

“I guess it depends on what you call bad. For instance, if you have a song that just isn’t inspiring, maybe there’s a few things you can do to improve it. As for myself, I don’t even bring an idea in unless there’s something that grabs me. I have to be able to say, 'I don’t know if you’ll like this, but I do.' 

“I’m that guy who can come up with 10 variations on a song: 'Why don’t we try this?' 'Let’s try this!' I’m always trying to see what we’re missing in songs. A lot of times, it’s the other way around: the guys think it’s a good song, and I don’t yet. So I’m pushing for these little incremental changes. When you add it all up, we finally achieve a good balance.“

Your guitar solo on Throw My Bones is one of the best on the album. It sounds very expressive, but there’s an improvised quality to it. 

“It’s good that you think that. I do have the ability to take a good solo and screw it up. [Laughs] I can get a take in eight or nine passes. Sometimes I’ll need 20 takes, by which time Bob runs out of the room screaming. I think he’s heard too many guitar solos during his life. There have been times I’ve played something and I thought it was really smooth, but Bob will say, 'Nope. It’s too smooth. I want to hear you do something that you’re not comfortable doing.'“

What did he say about your solo on We’re All the Same in the Dark? You throw some country twang into a funky rock song. 

“Well, I think there’s a limited amount of natural me that can be played before Bob gets into his producer role: 'Yeah, Morse, that’s great. Save it for your solo album. Now give me something that fits the song.' Yeah, I don’t know how that got past him. Sometimes he comps solos from the simplest parts of each take, making me sound like I’m on Quaaludes or something. I think he’s just sick of high-energy solos.“

I assume you used your signature Ernie Ball Music Man guitars on the album?

“That’s right, the SM-1 Music Man and the Y2D. They work for pretty much everything. But on Dancing in My Sleep I played a baritone guitar that was strung with guide wires from a radio antenna.“ 

Are you serious? 

“No, I’m joking! [Laughs] But it felt like it.“ 

What about amps and effects? 

“The amps were ENGLs that were made for me. That was basically it. For effects, I used the Keeley C2 Compressor, along with the TC Hall of Fame Reverb and the Flashback Delay. The effects on the delay are the TonePrint that I did for TC Electronic. So I use a wet and dry delay, and I blend them. I’m very happy with those little pedals; they’ve helped reduce the size of my rig.“

While waiting till you can tour again, what have you been doing with your time?

”I’ve actually been busy. I’m not getting paid for a lot, but I’m staying active. I still keep the same schedule I always have, which is during the day I work on the farm and do whatever needs to be done. At night, generally when everyone is asleep, I work on music without any interruption.

”I have my own studio, which is great. A lot of my friends are doing recordings, and I’ve helped them out, added guitar parts remotely. I’m also working on a project with Greg Bissonette, Billy Sheehan and Mark Rivera. We’re doing kind of a virtual online camp thing. I did a masterclass for Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. So there’s still a lot going on even though things aren’t, you know, 'normal.'”

• Deep Purple's new album, Whoosh!, is out now via earMUSIC.

”I’m very proud to be still playing with my British brothers,” says Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse. 

Though he’s regarded by some as the band’s new guitar player – taking over from original virtuoso Ritchie Blackmore and brief touring replacement Joe Satriani in 1994 – the American has actually been their longest-serving gunslinger by over  a decade.  

The hard rock pioneers’ 21st album, titled Whoosh!, is their seventh with Morse. And while their legacy is one built on sonic evolution, fusing all kinds of progressive, blues and metallic thunder into its own mutative wall of noise, certain shades of Deep Purple have always been a staple... 

“Diversity has been a big part of the sound,” says Steve, referring back to the game-changing interplay between Blackmore and keyboard player Jon Lord, who passed away in 2012. “When you hear Highway Star – it wasn’t just blues. It had that structured element, there was a classical sequence that Jon would arpeggiate through in a descending sequence, against that chromatic riff. 

”They were putting something beyond into a rock piece and turning it into something classical. There’s always been that blend, it’s been a part of Deep Purple for a long time.” 

Following two studio albums with Jon Lord before the founding keyboard player left the group in 2002, the pairing of Morse with Don Airey now stretches almost two decades into their career. The speedy unison lines heard on new tracks like The Long Way Round and Remission Possible are in many ways very typical of Deep Purple, and yet at times more complex than any era within their five decades.

And as Steve admits, some keyboard parts are a lot easier to replicate on guitar than others. “I’ve gotten used to spotting things that sound good but might actually be non-intuitive for me to play on guitar,” he says. “Which is why I try to race  and come up with something before Don! That way I can remember it and play it easily.”

As for the intervallic colours employed to further intensify his phrases, the Deep Purple guitarist looks back to his jazz roots – having originally cut his teeth in fusion rockers Dixie Dregs – as an enduring source of inspiration. “For chromatics, a lot of it comes from jazz saxophone solos,” he explains, in reference to his note choices on opening track Throw My Bones.

“Anyone wanting to explore that style should listen to and learn some of Charlie Parker’s lines. He was a wizard, man! Almost everything he did was mind-blowing. Donna Lee was one of his best, a beautiful melody over these standard changes. That’s what those musicians would do, solo over the changes of a tune everyone knew and record a whole album that way. They would then be the writers of that…”

It was this ability of dancing around the more inside or expected notes – stumbling impossibly far out only to slip back into a more routine orbit – that captured the guitarist’s attention early on and continues to do so to this day.

“Every one of Charlie Parker’s solos was a gem,” continues Morse. “He would play around the obvious notes, and include the obvious notes, for the added tension. I love how he played over dominants – it’s a style many people now use but I feel he was the pioneer of that – outlining the chord without just arpeggiating it. 

“Over an E7, he would play a D, F, G#, Bb, C, B and then E. Some basic notes would be in there but he’s coming in from below and above! I’m a very tonal player, so that kind of dissonance has always appealed to me.”

On the subject of dissonance, there are tracks on Whoosh! – notably Step By Step – in which the harmonic minor scale runs add a classical swing to the funereal organs and darker minor riffs. Steve agrees and explains it’s the fifth mode of the scale, Phrygian Dominant, which he finds himself drawn to most of all.

“You play the b2 as well as the major 3rd, which is really interesting. Say if you were in B7, you could play a C and then an A which you could bend up to B before a big jump up to the D#. I like that mode a lot, it’s one of my go-tos for that baroque feel.”

As one of the first Ernie Ball Music Man signature artists, the 20th anniversary of the partnership marked by their Y2D series, and with his own Engl amp launched back in 2008, Morse admits he doesn’t have much cause to update his rig. That’s not to say he’s averse to finding new approaches with the tools in front of him.

“I think the big difference this time was that I really worked on my clean sound,” he says. “When we did the new version of And The Address – which was the first thing Deep Purple wrote and recorded – I was trying to get close to that tone without completely copying Ritchie. I used a  bit of level overdrive on the clean channel, because it can be very clean on those Engls, but they also accept varying amounts of input and still break up smoothly…

“In addition to that, I used the TC Electronic Flashback Delay and Hall Of Fame Reverb. There was also the two-knob Keeley Compressor pedal. The ambiences go through a separate amp, so the guitar straight into the amp is what you’re mainly hearing. In fact, in some of the mixes I could have used a little more wet amp, but producers don’t listen to guitar players!”

Technically speaking, Morse was covering more than the traditional guitar register this time round – picking up producer Bob Ezrin’s Danelectro Bass VI for the artificial harmonics on ballad track Man Alive and even leads on Dancing In My Sleep.

Infinitely more difficult to play than his trusty Music Man, the guitarist recalls “bending notes on that thing felt like pushing steel pipes, like playing a 12 foot-long guitar with telephone guy-wire for strings” but the pain was worth it because “the super low notes sounded so cool with distortion, almost like a Johnny Cash kind of thing”. It all came down to the veteran producer pushing the musicians to tread new ground…

“If I do anything that sounds like me, Bob puts his head in his hands and says, ‘Morse! C’mon, save it for your solo album, gimme something melodic!’ Often by limiting ourselves we can automatically institute a change in our playing. The effect was interesting – it’s hard to say that’s a baritone or six-string bass you hear there. Being put on the spot by Bob forced me to play slower and more melodic. That’s his job, to make the album different to what it would be like if he wasn’t there.”

Occasionally those differences would catch the guitarist by surprise, but a seasoned veteran like him understands the importance of compromise in any kind of collaborative situation. Even more so when it’s a band with this kind of legacy.

“I don’t really plan out my solos,” he admits. “It’s not really a solo if you do! I don’t mind taking bits of improvisation and fitting them together. In fact, Bob does that sometimes without my knowledge!

“He might take the parts he likes best, which are often not the parts I like best, and put them together into a new solo I never would have played. And I don’t mind that at  all, it becomes a whole new section  to explore.”

As Morse rightfully points out, this is a band who have always dared to go into the beyond. With open minds, there’s no sign of that ever changing.

• Deep Purple's new album, Whoosh!, is out now via EARMUSIC.

Deep Purple veteran Steve Morse has revealed that he sought to combine the playing styles of original guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and touring member Joe Satriani during his first gig with the band.

In a recent interview with FOX 17 Rock & Review, Morse was asked if he found replacing Blackmore "intimidating", to which he replied: "Actually, technically, I replaced Joe Satriani, because he finished the tour – they had some Japanese dates, and he finished the tour with them.

"They gave me tapes of [both] Joe and Ritchie playing the set, so I kind of made this character of combining the two of them and their approach to the first gig. That's what I brought – to make the other guys feel comfortable. I met them 24 hours before we did the first show. And my job was to be ready and go up and play."

Morse's strategy clearly worked, as the band's early jams proved successful.

"The first thing we did – thank god – we were at the coliseum and we had the roadies set up the stuff in the dressing room – small amps, drums and everything," he continues. "Ian Gillan was playing conga drums, and we just jammed. 

"I'd play something and Jon Lord would play it back. I was, like, 'Wow! He heard that, like a jazz keyboard player.' And I'd play it back differently, and he'd play it back differently, then add do it. And I went, 'Wow! This is cool. We're really jamming.' 

"So I was surprised by how good the band was, and they don't like me to say that. But actually, I was surprised. Because a lot of people can live off their name and so forth and get soft, but they were going for it, and it felt so comfortable."

Blackmore co-founded Deep Purple in 1968, and was the band's guitarist until his departure in 1993. He's credited as writing many of their most iconic riffs, including Smoke on the Water. Satriani took Blackmore's place at the tail end of 1993, until Morse stepped in as a full-time member in 1994.

Deep Purple released their 21st studio album, Whoosh!, on August 7 2020.

As one of the original and most prolific American guitar virtuosos, founding member of the Dixie Dregs, lead guitarist of both Deep Purple and Flying Colors and even a brief member of Kansas in the mid '80s, the shockwaves of Steve Morse's influence on generations of guitar players have been indisputably far-reaching.

Here, prompted by song titles, the man himself tells the story of his first guitar, preparing for shows after 50 years and how to become a good guitarist...

Got my first real six-string…

“My first guitar was given to me by my grandmother. She’d actually found it thrown out in a case at the end of the driveway, but it was cracked and broken, the neck was bowed. I ended up renting a Gibson LG-0 acoustic for a year. 

"Then I wanted an electric guitar, so I got a Fender Musicmaster. It played great but sounded terrible. Its only single-coil pickup was halfway between the bridge and the neck. I played it through a portable radio with a preamp input. It sounded stupid!”

I’m a speed king, see me fly… 

“As guitar players, I think we have it pretty good. But I would say finding a place to practice comfortably is quite a hard thing. Even without an amp, I annoy people when I play because I pick my strings pretty hard and make a lot of acoustic noise. It can get pretty weird if others are in the room! 

"Throughout my life, I’ve always annoyed people. The guys in Deep Purple used to put me in a separate van for that reason ha ha! I’d just be playing the whole way in between gigs and going to airports.”

The show must go on…

“For about 50 years, I played with my thumb and two fingers on the pick. It really helped me play with exceptional clarity and muting. There are a lot of advantages with it. The only disadvantage is it wears out your wrist after 50 years. But I was doing 10,000 notes a day… most people should be fine! Now I’ve had to switch to one finger and the thumb because I have arthritis in my right wrist. It’s very painful to flex my wrist, so I save that for gigs.

"I prepare with topical painkillers and other things too. I’ve switched to playing from the elbow. Certain string-skipping patterns and direction changes need the wrist to ensure you don’t hit adjacent strings… So now I have to practice longer and think it through. I’ve even changed how I play certain things, choosing a more laborious left-hand fingering to avoid skips with the right. It’s far from ideal, but I have to keep my chops up and finish strong!”

Smoke on the water, fire in the sky…

“When choosing guitars, I’ll listen to all the pickup combinations on a clean setting and try to see if any notes jump out. Is there too much boom from the bass? Is the bridge pickup too brittle and harsh? Then I’ll add in the distortion, which chops the signal at the top and makes new sharp edges in the sound wave, producing sideband harmonics that our ears perceive as high-end, which can get irritating. 

"In a band, the guitar lives in the midrange, so that’s what I care about more than anything. I might just do minor scales or random chords, not even looking at the guitar. I’m not looking to make a musical statement, it’s about the reaction.”

I get by with a little help from my friends…

“I like people that ask questions and let me do the same. I’ve been able to do that with guys like Bumblefoot, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. They’ll always explain exactly what they’re doing over long jams. We all love exchanging ideas and commenting on each other, you might realize you’ve been dragging across a string that isn’t doing you any favors. 

"To become a good guitarist, you have to be open to things. When I first played with Al Di Meola, I asked how he sounded so percussive. We switched picks and there was a difference, so I changed from nylon to celluloid for the rest of the tour! I’d love to get to know Jeff Beck and see if he really is pulling it all out of nowhere, which is how it seems. It feels like he’s really improvising and making art through his guitar.”

Flying Colors’ new album Third Degree is out now on Mascot.

As part of Guitarist's regular One For The Road series, the Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple and Flying Colors guitar hero details his approach to live sound, how he kits out his various Ernie Ball Music Man models and his favorite venue to play...

What was the first gig you played and how did it go?

“This was in the 60s - ’66 or ’67. We were kids and got driven to the gig by my dad with my brother’s drums, my little amp and guitar, and we met up with the other guys and played a dance. 

"We did Gloria, You Really Got Me, Respect by The Rationals, not the Aretha Franklin version, then Paul Revere & The Raiders’ Steppin’ Out, and my favourite was Can’t Explain by The Who. 

"In the end we got paid enough for a pizza from Domino’s - and it was the first Domino’s Pizza place in the country, up in Michigan. I had two slices that were just for me and it was awesome.”

Describe your current stage rig...

“First of all I play my Music Man guitar, the Steve Morse model. With Purple I play the three-pickup one more and with Flying Colors and The Dregs I play the four-pickup one more. That goes into a Keeley compressor that I use sometimes for boosts or rhythm stuff. On a clean sound it helps it from sounding too rinky-tink, you know? 

"If you set the compressor correctly it can really help bring out the single coil and double coil pickups together. Then it goes into my TC tuner and on into my ENGL Steve Morse model amp - three channels - and the best part about that amp is you can set everything on ‘6’ and it sounds amazing.

“That’s my dry amp and it goes straight to the speakers - ENGL loaded with Celestions - but the preamp out of that goes to two different TC Flashback delays and they hold whatever sound you put in them.

"I happen to put in my own presets and it has the modulation in it and I can use it for long or short delays. The long is close to 500ms; the short is as short as the pedal will do and it gives more of a chorus-y sound.

"Those are set to 100 per cent wet and are routed to two Ernie Ball volume pedals that are normally sitting up, but when you press them down the sound goes to a little passive mixer into a second Steve Morse amp - the wet amp - and its own cabinet. 

"So if I want long delay I press down on the pedal and it doesn’t change the dry sound at all, it just brings up the delay. With Purple I have a third pedal for a pitch-shifter for octave down or octave up.”

What’s on your rider?

“For me, personally, it’s some sparkling water and, if I’m lucky, some Diet Dr Pepper. Sliced cheese, peanut butter and jelly, bread, some yoghurt and that’s it. My Deep Purple rider, that’s a book. What happens is that it gets passed down from one tour manager to the next and sometimes we have to tell them to take stuff off if we see that something’s out there that no-one’s using.”

What’s your best tip for getting a good live sound?

“As always, you want to create dynamics or create the illusion of dynamics on your own. Thinking that the sound man will catch your solos and bring them up and magically put you down in a great spot is a lot to ask. 

"So, for instance, if I’m playing a power chord and a vocalist is singing I will hit the chord and roll off the high-end on the tone control, sometimes turn it all the way down to zero while that chord’s ringing. So it has the low power of the chord and you hear the initial attack but it doesn’t stay using up all that bandwidth.

"Then when someone else is soloing I will continue playing but go to what I consider a weaker-sounding pickup - like a single coil pickup - and bring the guitar down to maybe ‘7’ or ‘6’ and play more sparsely, and mute the strings so they don’t ring as long. 

"In other words, create space as another way to give dynamics. Then when I take a solo I’ll push down on the short delay and that adds another sound source.”

What non-musical item couldn’t you do without on tour?

“I would say it would be my stash of vitamin supplements. I’m up to over 12 pills and they’re all different things. If you read the labels I should be 20ft tall and green and able to lift cars with one hand…”

What’s the best venue you’ve played in and why?

“There’s been a lot of them. I remember the auditorium at Augusta College [in Georgia] – it was a small auditorium but you could see every seat in the audience and they could see you.

"The sound would travel perfectly for the levels we played at in the 70s. Everybody I went to listen to there sounded great and when we played there with the earliest Dregs, a three-piece, it just seemed perfect.”

What’s the worst journey you’ve had either to or from a gig?

“Going from Reno to Las Vegas in a truck that I owned. It was 117 degrees in the city and we started by taking the transmission out to replace the clutch, put it back in, started driving covered with grease. It’s unbelievably hot and the air conditioner stops working.

"Then the engine starts to overheat, so we’re stopping and trying to put water over the radiator, nothing we’re doing helps and we gotta get to this next gig. So we took off the entire front of the truck, disconnected all the wires for the lights and lifted it into the back so when you opened up the roll door it looked like a truck was coming at you. 

"So we’re going down the highway like this and I was just riding the temperature gauge. If I went very fast it would overheat, but it was getting more air to the radiator - but then we got pulled over by a cop who wanted to give me a ticket for going too slow.

"I explained the situation and he eventually let us go, but I was driving on the shoulder doing 40 miles an hour and what should have been an afternoon’s trip took an entire day.”

What’s the nearest you’ve come to a Spinal Tap moment on tour?

“We were playing a gig in Minnesota and the travel agent had booked our drummer and manager to Grand Rapids, but the limo driver couldn’t find them. He was at the airport and they just weren’t there - and this went on for hours. 

It turns out that they’d landed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we were in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. So they had to charter a plane and fly up to Minnesota while we waited. It kinda reminds me of [Spinal Tap’s] stage prop being measured in inches rather than meters…”

What’s your favorite live album?

“The first live album that I really got into was by Grateful Dead. Back in those days they just taped them and this was a tape that had been bequeathed to me to try to influence my playing - and, sure enough, it did. My favorite [live track] was Dark Star. That was when they were young and the jams were really lively with a lot of guitar playing, which was perfect for a young teenage kid to get into and learn from.”

• Flying Colors’ latest album, Third Degree, is available now via Mascot

This column is taken from the May 2007 issue of Guitar World.

This month, I’d like to focus on an approach to chord playing inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorales. As a musical form, the chorale originated as a vocal hymn of the Lutheran church, often constructed in four-part harmony wherein the top voice is the melody. Bach composed many chorales of incredible beauty; the way he harmonized for four voices was impeccable, and his chorales served as the textbook for studying Western harmony for over 100 years.

One of the compositional devices Bach used when writing chorales is the common tone, which is a note within the four-part harmony that stays the same when one chord changes to the next. The practice of having notes remain unchanged from chord to chord, or moving them as little as possible, to the closest chord tone, is known as voice leading.

Inspired by Bach’s chorale writing style, I composed a piece called “Omnis Mors Aequat,” which in Latin means, “All things are equal in death.” I recorded it for four voices, but it began as an instrumental guitar piece. FIGURE 1 depicts the first six chords of the piece: the first three chords, G-Em-Cmaj9, all include the same top two notes, as the note on the G strings moves from D to E and then back to D. While these “voices” on the top three strings remain mostly unchanged, the bass notes descend from G to E to C, thus dictating the chord movement.

When playing this type of idea on electric guitar, I like to use the tone control to swell into each chord. I begin with the tone control rolled down to full bass, and as I strum across the chord with the pick, I simultaneously use my pick-hand pinkie to turn the volume control from bass to treble, creating a sort of “French horn in the distance” effect. This is illustrated in FIGURE 2a. I simply grab as many notes as I can with the fret-hand, usually three or four depending on the specific chord voicing. FIGURE 2b shows another sequence of chords played in the same manner.

FIGURE 3 depicts the first 20 bars of “Omnis Mors Aequat,” wherein each chord is played with a tone swell. Following the first six chords, bars 3 and 4 present the next six chords. Notice that the first three chords here, Am, F/A and Dm7, share a high C note on top. If you now look at the first five chords, you will see that, as the bass notes move around, the higher voices either remain constant or move only a half step or whole step up or down. Now play through the rest of the progression through the first ending, taking notice of the voice leading—the notes that stay the same versus the notes that change. The first nine bars are then repeated, followed by a different ending wherein the progression resolves nicely to an A major chord.

In chorale music, the four voices move independently, and the only thing to think about when writing in this style is what it’s going to sound like, because you’re not limited to the confines of a specific instrument. Voicing chords on the guitar this way sounds cool and unusual because it’s very un-guitaristic and enables one to break away from the more familiar sound of the way chord progressions are typically played on guitar. In chorales there are often wide intervallic gaps between the voices, and in bar 4 of FIGURE 3, for example, the third string is muted. while notes are fretted on the strings on either side of it, creating a spacious, open sound.

Looking at the piece as a whole, you’ll discover that there are only a few variations in the chord voicings used. Try experimenting with the ordering of these voicings to create your own original chord progressions. It’s chiefly the way the bass line moves against the melody that creates the characteristic chorale-like sound.

Also, depending on how your guitar/amp combination sounds, you might want to change the voicings to different strings. FIGURE 4 shows two different ways to voice Cmaj9; FIGURE 5 offers another example of this concept, using wider stretches.

If you were raised on rock and roll like I was, something like this represents a big departure. This is all the more reason to try it. It may take some work to get a sound you like. For a start, use a clean sound and your guitar’s bridge pickup, and try adding a compressor and some long delay.

Steve Morse's almost mythical musical capabilities need no introduction.

Marrying blazing chops to a singular sense of hook writing creativity, his distinctive brand of rootsy American virtuosity has inspired generations of players to think outside of the pentatonic box.

Morse is renowned for reeling off what he calls "un-guitaristic" lines of seemingly impossible complexity. These keyboard- and fiddle-inspired trademark phrases often consist of no more than a single note on any given string.

This kind of one-note-per-string arpeggio picking is typically regarded as the domain of fingerpickers, not flatpickers. Yet the effortlessness with which Morse nails these gymnastic routines is the obvious clue that something mechanically magical is happening under the hood.

I was fortunate enough to interview Morse for the Cracking the Code documentary project, and the high-speed camera provides a rare look at the mechanical magic of his arpeggio picking technique.

Morse has written on a number of musical topics right here at Guitar World under the "Morse Code" banner. Now it's time to take a crack at identifying the elusive ingredients of his arpeggio code.

Getting into the Swing

The most important of those ingredients is rotation. Morse moves the pick with a highly unique rotational method that's immediately apparent under the camera:

This smooth, graceful swing serves dual purposes. The most obvious is simply as a way of generating the alternate picking movement itself. In Cracking the Code terminology, we call this the "motion mechanic." Morse's smoothly swinging motion mechanic is very beautiful and quite different from what we see when we look at most other hyperspeed pickers.

For example, Morse contemporaries like John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola utilize wrist-based movements, which move the pick back and forth in a mostly flat plane:

Anatomically, this type of side-to-side, "clock face" movement of the wrist is what we'd call "radial-ulnar deviation"—or simply wrist deviation, if you like. Along with rotational movements of the forearm, wrist deviation is probably one of the most common motion mechanics in guitar picking.

But how do you take a flat movement like deviation and, somehow, jump over to a new string? We've already seen in this column how Eric Johnson and Yngwie Malmsteen get around this problem, and the solution is pickslanting.

In the pickslanting world, the plane of the picking motion is angled so that every other pickstroke lifts above, or "escapes" the strings. This can happen on all the upstrokes, like it does in Malmsteen and Johnson's approach. Or it can happen on all the downstrokes, as in the McLaughlin and Di Meola approach. Either way, it requires at least two notes on a string in order to work.Rotation to the Rescue

But in Morse's arpeggios, we have to switch strings after every single note. And for that, we're going to need more than pickslanting. And this is where the second purpose of the motion mechanic reveals itself. The gentle arc of the picking motion allows the pick to rise above the strings with every pickstroke.

So it's not just a motion mechanic—it's also a string-switch mechanic. And to achieve this effect, rather than using small movements, we actually have to go big:

With the help of a little high school trigonometry (SOHCAHTOA, anyone?), we can see that the flattest possible swing is paradoxically achieved, not by using the smallest possible picking movements, but actually by using the largest.

If we use anywhere from 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch of pick on the string, which is variable "y" in our graphical example, we can achieve a maximum pickstroke swing, which is radius "R," of anywhere from 1 to 2 inches without hitting any of the surrounding strings. And when we look at Morse's playing under the camera, this is exactly what we see:

The pickstroke that hits this note on the D string actually begins its travel way up above the low E string and finishes its travel way down above the B string. That's a four-string spread, or approximately an inch and a half. Incredible. The arc is so wide and flat, that when viewed from a few feet away, as I did when I interviewed Morse, it's almost entirely invisible. This flatness is where the speed comes from.On the Right Track

One challenge of performing Morse's swinging rotation is keeping it centered above the string you're playing. That's a process we call "string tracking" in Cracking the Code, and it is commonly achieved several different ways:

If you hard anchor the wrist to the bridge, you can use wrist deviation as the string tracking mechanic, tracing out the clock face movement we've already looked at. If you loosely anchor the wrist, you can use an elbow and shoulder method of string tracking that looks almost like sawing, where the entire forearm slides across the strings. Or you can blend the two, as many players tend to do naturally without thinking too much about it.

The point here is that if you have only one note on every string, you'll need to cover a lot of territory quickly, and string tracking is what allows you to do that. You may need to vary the speed of it, or perhaps vary the particular method you choose to achieve it, but timing it exactly right is what helps keep the swing of the pickstrokes from hitting the surrounding strings.Pickslanting

The third and perhaps most unexpected ingredient of Morse's arpeggio picking technique is one we're already familiar with: pickslanting. In addition to generating the swinging pickstroke, and tracking it across the strings, it turns out Morse also simultaneously slants his pick slightly in the direction the lick is moving:

The reason this works is mechanically complex, and involves making sure all the "inside" string changes are effortless. But in actual practice, we can forget about the theory somewhat because doing it turns out to be pretty natural. If you think about the gentle directional slant that is present in most strumming movements, and also in sweep picking, this is the exact same thing.

What's amazing and unexpected here is that Morse is actually doing it during alternate picking, which is not something we're used to thinking about.The Three Ingredients

So now we've got all three ingredients in our mixing bowl. We've established the swing, we're tracking it across the strings, and we're slanting the pick ever so slightly in the direction of our movement. And when we get the blend just right, cool things begin to happen:

Rotation, string tracking and pickslanting are an incredibly powerful mixture, and they aren't just the three pillars of Morse's arpeggio technique. It turns out they also are the foundation of all single-note arpeggio picking. Because of this, you will also see them mixed together in varying amounts in other styles of music, like bluegrass, that rely on flatpicked arpeggios.

The incredible mechanical engineering of Morse's technique is beautiful to look at under the camera, but it's also a vastly powerful musical tool. Because of the tricky design of the guitar itself, players have historically had to make all sorts of compromises to create lines they could actually play.

So if learning to navigate the strings the Morse way helps us generate musical ideas we might not have even considered possible, well that's the greatest gift he could have given us.

Watch my complete Steve Morse interview in Masters in Mechanics, a monthly series brought to you by the Cracking the Code project, which explores an even wider array of fascinating topics at the intersection of mechanics and music.

Troy Grady is the creator of Cracking the Code, a documentary series with a unique analytical approach to understanding guitar technique. Melding archival footage, in-depth interviews, painstakingly crafted animation and custom soundtrack, it’s a pop-science investigation of an age-old mystery: Why are some players seemingly super-powered?

Steve Vai has announced the first round of guests that will perform at his "Big Mama Jama Jam-a-Thon," an open, improvisational music and art event where the music won't stop for 52 hours.

The lineup for the event, which will take place at Musicians Institute’s brand new venue, LiveHouse, in Los Angeles, on September 28-30, will include Dave Navarro, Moby, Dweezil Zappa, Al Di Meola, Steve Morse, Lee Ritenour and Andy Vargas and Souleros, with more to be announced. Vai will serve as the host and musical director.

One-hundred percent of the profits raised will benefit Extraordinary Families, a leading nonprofit foster family, and adoption agency in the Los Angeles area dedicated to improving the daily lives of children and youths in foster care. Professional and novice musicians, visual artists, poets and speakers from all walks of life are welcome to join in on the event, which will be streamed live worldwide through various cable TV stations, websites and radio outlets. 

The current schedule is available here.

Auction items, including instruments donated by Vai, Slash, Devin Townsend, Gregg Bissonette, and online lessons open to the public donated by Steve Vai, Tommy Emmanuel, Stu Hamm, Bumblefoot, plus other unique and fulfilling opportunities to donate to Extraordinary Families are now available online. 

A PledgeMusic store offering upcoming CD and vinyl volumes to be culled from the Jam-a-Thon, limited edition “Jam-a-Thon Jammies”, VIP t-shirts, a dad-style baseball cap, and much more can be viewed here. 

Tickets for the event are available at jamathon.org.

A new tribute album dedicated to legendary guitarist Gary Moore will be released on October 26 via earMUSIC. Titled Moore Blues for Gary—A Tribute to Gary Moore, the album is the brainchild of Bob Daisley (Rainbow, Ozzy Osbourne), who had played bass with Moore since the early Eighties. It features guest contributions from Steve Lukather (Toto), Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple), John Sykes (Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake), Doug Aldrich (Dio, Whitesnake, the Dead Daisies), Jeff Watson (Night Ranger), Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Black Country Communion), Eric Singer (Kiss) and more.

"In my opinion, Gary was one of the best guitarists who ever lived," Bob Daisley said in a statement. "It was an honor for me to have worked with him and to have known him so well.”

Daisley continued: "When Gary passed away in 2011, the world lost one of the all-time greats. I don't think that enough was said or done at the time to acknowledge the loss of such a great player so I took it upon myself to pay personal tribute to the man and record some new versions of his music, mostly from his blues catalog.

"I asked many members of the Gary Moore family tree, and some other great players, to contribute to the project. The response was not only encouraging but very moving. It seems that the name Gary Moore is also synonymous with the words 'respect,’ 'honor' and 'greatness.'

"I didn't set out to recreate anything that Gary had done, or to compete in any way. These arrangements and performances represent a 'hats off' to Gary and nothing more.

"Long live the memory of Robert William Gary Moore. Yes, he was another 'Bob' — something that I wasn't aware of for all of those years that I worked with him.

"I feel such gratitude towards the people who contributed to this album and I'm honored to have worked with them all."

See below for full track listing and personnel details:

Moore Blues for Gary—A Tribute to Gary Moore

01. That's Why I Play The Blues

Vocals - Jon C. Butler

Guitars - Tim Gaze

Bass Guitar - Bob Daisley

Drums - Rob Grosser

Keyboards - Clayton Doley

02. The Blues Just Got Sadder

Vocals - Joe Lynn Turner

Lead Guitar - Steve Lukather

Rhythm Guitar And Slide Guitar – Tim Gaze

Bass Guitar - Bob Daisley

Drums - Rob Grosser

Keyboards - Clayton Doley

03. Empty Rooms

Lead Vocal, Keyboards – Neil Carter

Bass Guitar, Harmonica, Backing Vocals – Bob Daisley

Drums - Rob Grosser

Guitars - Illya Szwec

Backing Vocals - Rosanna Daisley

04. Still Got The Blues (For You)

Vocals - Danny Bowes

Guitars - John Sykes

Keyboards - Don Airey

Bass Guitar - Bob Daisley

Drums - Rob Grosser

05. Texas Strut

Vocals - Brush Shiels

Bass Guitar - Bob Daisley

Guitars - Tim Gaze

Drums - Rob Grosser

06. Nothing's The Same

Vocals - Glenn Hughes

Fretless Acoustic Bass – Bob Daisley

Cello - Ana Lenchantin

Guitars - Luis Maldonado

07. The Loner

Guitars - Doug Aldrich

Drums - Eric Singer

Bass Guitar - Bob Daisley

Keyboards - Don Airey

08. Torn Inside

Vocals, Lead Guitar – Stan Webb

Bass Guitar, Riff Guitar – Bob Daisley

Drums - Darrin Mooney

Keyboards - Lachlan Doley

09. Don't Believe A Word

Vocals, Lead Guitar – Damon Johnson

Bass Guitar - Bob Daisley

Drums - Rob Grosser

Rhythm Guitar - Illya Szwec

10. Story Of The Blues

Lead Vocal - Jon C. Butler

Bass Guitar, Riff Guitar, Backing Vocals – Bob Daisley

Lead And Rhythm Guitar – Tim Gaze

Drums - Rob Grosser

Keyboards - Lachlan Doley

Backing Vocals - Rosanna Daisley

11. This One's For You

Vocals - Gus Moore

Lead Guitar - Jack Moore

Bass Guitar - Bob Daisley

Drums - Rob Grosser

Rhythm Guitar - Illya Szwec

12. Power Of The Blues

Vocals - Joe Lynn Turner

Lead Guitar - Jeff Watson

Bass Guitar, Riff Guitar – Bob Daisley

Drums - Darrin Mooney

Rhythm Guitar - Illya Szwec

13. Parisienne Walkways

Guitars - Steve Morse

Vocals - Ricky Warwick

Bass Guitar - Bob Daisley

Drums - Rob Grosser

Keyboards - Clayton Doley

In a recent interview that surfaced on the Ritchie Blackmore Channel on YouTube, Ritchie Blackmore discussed Joe Satriani, and his successor in Deep Purple, Steve Morse. You can read excerpts of what Blackmore had to say about the guitarists, and their styles, below.

"Joe Satriani is a brilliant player, but I never see him really searching for notes; I never hear him playing a wrong note. Jimi Hendrix used to play lots of wrong notes because he was searching all the time—'Where the hell is that correct note?!' And when he did find that right note—wow, that was incredible.

"If you're always playing the correct notes, there's something wrong—you're not searching, you're not reaching for anything. But that's not to say that he isn't a very brilliant player. Same thing with Steve Morse—fantastic player.

"I'm just glad they [Deep Purple] found a guitar player to carry on because I thought I was going to be shackled to this band for the rest of my life. It was like a ball-and-chain thing, and luckily they said, 'Well, we found someone.' 'Thank God, I can get out!'

"I haven't listened much, I just know that Joe Satriani and Steve Morse are brilliant players. I remember Steve Morse with the Dixie Dregs, they're fantastic.

"I think what you mean is that certain people play from the heart and other people play from the head. I prefer a heart player, I prefer someone like a blues player, like Jeff Healey. Jeff Healey I think is tremendous.

"If I hear someone really technical running up and down a fingerboard, I can hear that for a couple of minutes and then I start to kind of get bored and think of other things like playing football or something. But I do like to hear someone reaching for something, not quite making it and then sometimes they do make it.

"And Joe Satriani is a very polished player—almost too polished, that's what worries me sometimes. But it's different strokes for different folks, as an enemy of mine used to say—which is such a corny thing. Some people are into that head music, that head technique; some people are into the heart technique, some people are into blues technique.

"I personally am into the minstrel technique—if I hear someone playing a lute or playing a crumhorn, it just moves me, I don't know why. Guitar players I find kind of boring—and that's not meant as a dig. I find myself boring.

"I think the main objective is to move people, make people think in their heart. I personally am not interested in appealing to other musicians. To me, it's more inspiring to move someone who doesn't know anything about music, but has a feel. They can say, 'I don't know what you're doing, but I just feel that's something there.' That to me is an incredible compliment, as opposed to, 'Well, you've just run up and down the fingerboard. That's wonderful, very fast.' All that means is I've just practiced the hell out of the guitar and I'm not really saying anything. I'm going from A to B, but not seeing anything on the way."

You can hear Blackmore's full comments in the video below, and be sure to check out our feature on Blackmore from the June 2018 issue of Guitar World while you're at it!

Judas Priest and Deep Purple will embark on a joint North American tour this summer. The month-long jaunt through North America will take place from late August through late September.

Tickets for the 25-show jaunt are set to go on sale to the general public on Friday, April 27 at 10am local time at LiveNation.com. You can check out the full itinerary below.

Deep Purple's latest album is 2017's inFinite, while Judas Priest's latest album, Firepower, was released last month. You can read our interview with the band about the album—taken from our May 2018 issue—right here.

For more tickets and information, head on over to judaspriest.com or deeppurple.com.

Deep Purple and Judas Priest North American Tour Dates:

8/21 — Cincinnati, OH — Riverbend Music Center

8/22 — Chicago, IL — Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre

8/24 — Detroit, MI — Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill

8/25 — Mt. Pleasant, MI — Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort

8/27 — Hamilton, ON — FirstOntario Centre

8/29 — Montreal, QC — Bell Centre

8/30 — Quebec City, QC — Centre Videotron

9/1 — Wantagh, NY — Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater

9/2 — Bethel Woods, NY — Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

9/5 — Darien Center, NY — Darien Lake Amphitheater

9/6 — Holmdel, NJ — PNC Bank Arts Center

9/8 — Virginia Beach, VA — Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach

9/9 — Camden, NJ — BB&T Pavilion

9/11 — Charlotte, NC — PNC Music Pavilion

9/12 — Jacksonville, FL — Daily's Place

9/14 — Atlanta, GA — Verizon Amphitheatre

9/16 — Biloxi, MS — Mississippi Coast Coliseum

9/18 — Kansas City, MO — Starlight Theatre

9/20 — Welch, MN — Treasure Island Casino

9/21 — Council Bluffs, IA — Harrah's Council Bluffs

9/23 — Denver, CO — Pepsi Center

9/26 — San Diego, CA — Mattress Firm Amphitheatre

9/27 — Irvine, CA — FivePoint Amphitheatre

9/29 — Mountain View, CA — Shoreline Amphitheatre

9/30 — Wheatland, CA — Toyota Amphitheatre

Although Music Man CEO Sterling Ball has spent most of his adult life building a brand, the guitar has always played a important role in his own personal development.

There’s also a deep, mutual love and respect that exists between Ball and the artists his company serves. That’s probably why, after word got out that Ball was working on an album of his own, guitarists like Steve Morse, Steve Lukather, Steve Vai and John Petrucci were eager to join in.

The resulting compilation, The Mutual Admiration Society, is an eclectic mixture of songs and tasty guitar work done in a way only the best of friends can do. In addition to showcasing Ball’s own impressive guitar virtuosity, the album also allowed the guest guitarists to step outside the box of what they're known for, and explore other areas of their musicality.

Whether it’s Morse’s fretwork on the Dobie Gray classic, “The In Crowd,” Steve Lukather’s Delta Blues version of “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” John Petrucci’s Disney medley or Steve Vai’s rendition of the Jimmy Gilmer and The Fireballs’ hit, “Sugar Shack” (one of Vai’s favorite songs as a youth), Mutual Admiration Society is a record of appreciation and admiration for both the instrument as well as each other.

Guitar World recently spoke with Ball about The Mutual Admiration Society and more in this new interview.

How did the The Mutual Admiration Society come about?

Over the years, I’ve toured Australia with Steve Morse and Albert [Lee]. We’ve also played in England and Germany and done club gigs as a combo in places like L.A. and Atlanta with Luke [Steve Lukather]. It was fun and low key, but I always kept the idea of doing an album on the back burner because I didn’t want to present myself in any way as a peer.

A few years ago, I did an album called Better Late Than Never. Everyone was very supportive of it and gave me confidence. So, I asked John Ferraro (drummer) about doing another album—just him and me. We got some of the basics together and I played them for Steve Morse. Steve really liked it and gave me advice for some things to try. I later sent him back the updates and the song, “The In Crowd.” He said, "You know? I really love that groove. It’s something I’ve never been able to play on since we were in our band." I said, “Steve, what are you asking?” and he said, “Can I put the guitars on that track?” [laughs]. There went the idea of doing a record with the drummer. You don’t say no when Steve Morse asks to put guitars on your track!

I talk to Luke just about every morning and one day he called me and said, “Hey, Morse told me about the record you’re working on. I want to play on it too.” Then came [John] Petrucci, who said, “Hey, I don’t want to be the one left out.”

How would you describe The Mutual Admiration Society?

It’s an album of fun songs with good grooves and solos. The kind of music you play when you're jamming in a garage when you aren’t worried about pleasing a demographic. Songs that happen when you're just making music with friends. I still remember when Vai picked his song. He said, “There’s something I’ve always wanted to play on that I can't do on my own. If I give it to you, will you cut it?” That was “Sugar Shack." In Petrucci’s case, we already knew what Disney songs to do, but had no idea going in how he was going to interpret them or what the arrangements would be like.

I’d like to ask you about a few of the guests on the album and get your thoughts on them. What comes to mind when I say, “Steve Lukather”?

Passionate. Fiery. Expressive. Smooth. Steve can back a singer and play the most inspired, off-the-cuff solo you can imagine. He's the most un-sterile guitarist I know and an incredible force of nature.

Steve Vai.

I remember when I first played with Steve years ago. I walked off the stage and said to him, “You play from a different corner of the school yard” [laughs]. His phrasing isn’t where you'd expect it to be and its perfect. It’s like he’s possessed, and it really shows in his articulation.

John Petrucci.

Dream Theater is a perfectly beautiful, genre-defining band, but you really get to see just how deep of a musician John is on this record. Technically, I don't know if there's anyone who can match him. He has such a musical mind as well as the command to play it.

Steve Morse.

Steve has the love of so many genres, and along with that love comes an authentic and natural feel. Whether it’s his chicken pickin’, harmonics, solos or vibrato, you're talking about a guy who’s backed [Luciano] Pavarotti with a classical guitar, played at Carnegie Hall and has been in Deep Purple for years. Each one of these guys was born with a gift they discovered at a very early age.

What satisfies you the most about the Mutual Admiration Society?

Two things. First, that it wasn’t planned. This was an album from the heart and is not at all what you’d expect. It’s a different side to these artists, both in terms of musical performance and soloing. The other thing that satisfies me is that I was able to hold my own. I remember something Steve Vai told me. He said, “There’s no more self-depreciation. You’re one of the most intriguing guitarists that I listen to. You should never hide the fact that you’re a musician.”

James Wood is a writer, musician and self-proclaimed metalhead who maintains his own website, GoJimmyGo.net. His articles and interviews are written on a variety of topics with passion and humor. You can follow him on Twitter @JimEWood.