I love books like this. Dave Hunter has a new book out, The Guitar Pick-Up Handbook, about one of the most important parts of our electric guitars. From Gibson.com, which today posted a lengthy excerpt: As the electric movement began to show some legs, established guitar manufacturers — those who naturally approached the challenge from [...]

The first biography of Darrell “Dimebag” Abbott, Black Tooth Grin: The High Life, Good Times, and Tragic End of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, by Zac Crain is available for preorder and will be published on May 25, 2009. Blabbermouth.net has a good article on the book and the mild controversy surrounding it posted today: “Black Tooth [...]

Author John McDermott has written 3 books about Jimi Hendrix: Jimi Hendrix: Sessions: The Complete Studio Recording Sessions, 1963-1970, Jimi Hendrix: An Illustrated Experience, and Hendrix: Setting the Record Straight. This January, he released another: Ultimate Hendrix: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Live Concerts & Sessions. Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix packed so much into so few [...]

Rolling Stone guitarist Ronnie Wood released an autobiography this past November: Ronnie: The Autobiography. From Amazon: For the first time, a member of the world’s most famous rock ‘n’ roll band tells his—and their—story.  Raw, unsanitized, nasty and fascinating. An incredible journey. The first of his family to be born on dry land, Ronnie Wood [...]

Times Online (UK) has a nice review of Gypsy Jazz: In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing by Michael Dregni. Looks like an interesting read: “In search of Django Reinhardt and the soul of Gypsy swing”, as the subtitle has it, Dregni journeys across Europe, following a trail which leads him [...]

Coming from a rock/jazz-fusion background, I found playing traditional jazz solos something of a challenge.  I purchased lots of instructional videos and many books, but usually they told me something I already knew: which patterns I should play over which chords. This isn’t helpful at all. I knew how to do that. That doesn’t make [...]