Yesterday, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced their 2009 inductees. First on the list? None other than Jeff Beck. I’ve been a fan of Jeff’s for years, almost as long as I’ve been playing guitar. My favorite all-time guitar solo is one he laid down for the Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi [...]

Queensryche’s guitarist Michael Wilton has laid down all the guitar tracks for their new CD, American Soldier, due out this April. Via Blabbermouth.net: Due in April 2009 via Rhino, QUEENSRŸCHE’s twelfth studio album, “American Soldier”, is a concept effort which finds the band once again tackling some heavy subject matter, this time focusing on telling [...]

Riverwalk Jazz today posted The World on Seven Strings: Jazz Guitar Master Bucky Pizzarelli to honor a definitely under-appreciated jazz-guitar great (in the music mainstream, anyway–most guitarists with a jazz bent know about him). I’ve listened to Bucky for years, thanks to a mutual acquaintance who told me about him–I worked with a woman who [...]

The Americana Music Association is auctioning off a guitar signed by ex-Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant: Named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on New Year’s Eve, Robert signed the Gibson acoustic guitar last fall during the Americana Honors & Awards show at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Also applying [...]

If you just happen to be someone lucky enough to have a job that requires you to attend the Sundance Film Festival, you’re probably going to want to check out the Gibson Lodge: The Gibson Lodge will be open from Friday, Jan. 16 – Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2009. The “By Invitation Only” events will be [...]

Carvin’s got a new Legacy series coming out soon: If you’ve heard about modern rock, then the name of Steve Vai should be no news for you, as he’s one of the greatest guitar players in modern history. Now, it’s quite possible that you didn’t know that Carvin is one of the top-shelf names in [...]

I don’t know, I’m kind of fond of all the little dings and pits that give my favorite guitars some character, but GuitarGuard has come up with a way to help protect your investment if that’s your thing: Tired of dings, dents, scrapes and scratches on your pride and joy (SRV). That’s over! GuitarGuard, is [...]

I must get one of these things: The harmony processor creates 2- to 4-part harmonies directly from your vocals, in the same key as your accompanying instrument. Studio-quality reverb lets you independently add depth to your dry and harmony vocals. The focused 256-band articulate vocoder, designed by the same EMS genius who made vocoding famous, [...]

The Aquarian Weekly has a nice write up about legendary jazz pianist McCoy Tyner’s new CD, Guitars, released a few months ago (Sep. 2008). The Amazon.com link also includes a great 10 minute embedded video about it. Guitars features Marc Ribot, John Scofield, Bela Fleck (!), Derek Trucks, and Bill Frisell. There are a couple [...]

Altsounds.com has some 2009 tour dates for excellent blues/rock guitarist Pat Travers. He’s touring in support of his live album, Stick with What You Know: Live in Europe.

If you live in a part of the world where it’s winter, keep your guitars safe: The dry winter season is upon us, and if I was forced to pick the single most dangerous  environment for a guitar (other than in the hands of Pete Townsend when he’s in the mood to smash one) it [...]

Jazz.com has an interesting blog that I recently stumbled across and thought I’d plug by adding it to my “blog roll” (the list of URLs under Sites to the right there…). It’s filled with lengthy, article-length posts about jazz, which make for great reading. The reason it caught my eye is because the lead post [...]

By way of Blabbermouth.net: As previously reported, Steve Vai is offering an unprecedented, masterclass opportunity to all music students and guitar enthusiasts … This three-hour-plus unique package gives the student a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear Steve discuss music theory, guitar techniques, the music business, and most importantly, techniques on how to discover and unlock your [...]

Sad news today from the AP that the man responsible for giving us the brand-name “Stratocaster,” Don Randall, has passed: Randall’s marketing savvy elevated electric guitar designer Leo Fender’s instruments, played by such musicians as Ritchie Valens, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, into a hugely successful franchise during the brand’s first two decades. Tom Wheeler, [...]

Here’s your pointless trivia for the day: Led Zeppelin released their first album 40 years ago today on Jan. 12, 1969. Led Zeppelin’s eponymous debut album was released on 12 January 1969, during their first US tour. The album’s blend of blues, folk and eastern influences with distorted amplification made it one of the pivotal [...]