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Hello Guitar Players!There’s a lot of great stuff to tell you about this week, but let’s start off with the winner of this month’s Sweetwater Giveaway. The winner of the Ebow electronic bow is, drum roll please, MiahMinister! Congratulations MiahMinister and thanks again to Sweetwater for making our monthly giveaway possible.Next month we’ll be giving away a Digitech HarmonyMan intelligent pitch shifter. It’s super easy to sign up for the Sweetwater giveaway so watch this space next week for more details.We’re also working on a special promo right now and while we can’t let you in on what it is just yet, we should be able to tell you about next week. Watch this space for more next week.We’ve got two new tutorials that we’d like to tell you about. Ben Lindholm has got a great tutorial on diatonic intervals. This is a great tutorial for beginners. It introduces several key terms and concepts that you’ll use as you continue to learn more. You can find Ben’s tutorial here.For you more advanced players, Hanspeter Kruesi has an excellent new tutorial on advanced rock improvisation concepts. The seven lessons will give you a good basis to get into creative improvisation work in a very easy way. If you’ve already worked through Hanspeter’s basic and advanced rock licks and have mastered his basic improvisation lessons, this is the next step. The tutorial will get you to the point where you can start to be creative with the minor pentatonic scale over the entire fretboard. Click here to start the tutorial.As always, thanks for reading and keep on pickin.
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Lucinda Williams – It’s a Long Way to the Top
By Hunter60
“You should put time into learning your craft. It seems like people want success so quickly, way before they’re ready.” –Lucinda Williams As someone who has been tagged with the some what uncomfortable moniker of “late bloomer”, Lucinda Williams seems to have stuck by the idea of learning her craft and learning it well. At 51 years old, Williams is finally beginning to be discovered by others than her adoring cult-ish fans and it appears that it’s not just for her wonderfully smoky and yet piercing vocals or the hypnotic music she coaxes from her guitar but she is finally receiving the proper acknowledgment from music fans for her incredible songwriting skills. A number of critics have placed her near the very top of contemporary American songwriters and they do that for a good reason. Lucinda Williams writes songs that can touch the hidden parts of your soul to make you smile at the light moments of your life or to resurrect and soothe the pain of a broken heart from the graveyard of your mind.
The daughter of poet and literature professor Miller Williams (he read one of his poems at President Bill Clinton’s second inauguration), Lucinda, a native of Lake Charles, Louisiana, grew up in a very literate atmosphere. In various interviews she has said that she was fascinated by her fathers students who would stop by the house to discuss their poetry. “Poets don’t hold back. They write about everything from a cat sleeping in a window to a wreck on the highway – from, you know, suicide to going to the grocery store to get tomatoes for a casserole to trying to meet a guy in a bar … you try to say something important and in a way that is different.”
As a young woman, she discovered the Southern gothic writers like Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty and devoured their works, finding a muse in their words. Other major literary influences on her were the likes of Charles Bukowski, John Ciardi and Kenneth Patchen. But it was music that took hold in her life. Williams has said that her father not only passed along his love or language but his deep appreciation for the Delta blues and country singers like Hank Williams. Her mother introduced her to the music of Joan Baez, which, coupled with her other influences like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, inspired Lucinda to pick up a guitar and try her hand at song writing. But it was one of her fathers’ students that inadvertently set her on her musical journey when he brought by Bob Dylan’s album Highway 61 Revisited by the house. She was captivated by the lyricism of Dylan and how his words could “cut you to the bone”.
Her first real foray into the music business was in the early 70′s in the clubs in Austin and Houston, making her way along in the same fashion as the majority of young musicians. “You could work a few days a week, play a few clubs, share a house with a few friends, and get by on $125 a week. Nowadays you have to work 40 hours a week and squeeze music into what’s left over. It’s really hard for young kids just starting out today.” She relocated to Jackson, Mississippi in 1978 where she made her first recording were for Folkways Records. Her debut album Ramblin’ On My Mind, recorded in one day, was released later in 1978. Her follow up Happy Woman Blues was released in 1980. Although her first album was all covers, Happy Woman Blues consisted of all songs written by Williams. Neither album garnered much attention.
Williams relocated again in the 1980′s to Los Angeles where she was briefly married to Long Ryders drummer Greg Sowders. In 1988, Williams self-titled album was released on Rough Trade Records. The single “Changed the Locks” did get a little radio play around the country but more importantly, it brought Williams some attention from fans and folks in the music industry. It also caught the attention of Tom Petty who later recorded the song himself.
In 1992, Williams, having moved once again, this time to Nashville, Tennessee, released Sweet Old World on Chameleon Records. This album was a more melancholic affair with its underlying themes being suicide and death. Although the album barely made it to #25 on the Billboards Heatseekers chart (a weekly chart that tracks new and developing artists), it established her reputation as a songwriter. Mary Chapin Carpenter had a smash with her cover of Williams’ “Passionate Kisses” from the Sweet Old World disc. Not only did Chapin receive a Grammy for her recording, Williams earned her first Grammy for Best Country Song – 1994 for the effort. Emmy Lou Harris recorded a cover of the title track “Sweet Old World” on her 1995 album Wrecking Ball.
A perfectionist by nature and an almost tortuously slow artist when it comes to recording, it took six years for her next release. But the wait was well worth it. Her follow up was 1998′s Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, which according to most critics and fans alike, is the best album in her catalogue so far. Rolling Stone, notoriously tough on folk artists, gave it a near perfect rating, calling it a “country-soul masterpiece” and SPIN called it a contender for Album of the Year. It won her a Grammy for The Best Contemporary Folk Album and was part of the soundtrack to the Robert Redford film The Horse Whisperer. Singles “Still I Long For Your Kiss” and “Can’t Let Go” were widely played on radio stations around the country and the album quickly went gold. In support of the album, Williams opened for an early icon of hers, Bob Dylan, on a national tour.
Her next disc, Essence released in 2001, was a clear shift for Williams as she moved from her somewhat solid fan base in the country music genre to a more mainstream adult alternative crowd. She scored another Grammy award for Best Female Rock Performance with the single “Get Right With God” (which featured Ryan Adams on the Hammond organ).
Williams continues to experiment with various styles in her later recordings. World Without Tears brought Williams back to a blues base while her 2007 album “West” seemed to echo the pathos of Sweet Old World revealing a cathartic release about dealing with the death of her mother and a rather nasty breakup of a relationship.
Her latest, Little Honey, is pure Williams with her soulful lyrics and powerfully touching voice – covering blues, folk and country but all with a rock undertone including a rather unique cover of AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top”.
There are a lot of truths about Lucinda Williams but one that will never change is her desire to stay true to her own vision even if it has slowed down her almost certain arrival at world-wide acclaim. She does things the way she wants to do them. This attitude has won her a legion of fans and has made her into a critics favorite but it has also caused more than a few run ins with record companies. But it is her fiercely held independence and vision that allows Lucinda to stay true to what it is that she wants to do.
A good example of her independence was seen in the fall of 2007. Williams announced a set of shows in Los Angeles and New York where she played five nights in each city. The idea was to perform her complete catalogue over consecutive nights. The second set of each night featured guests to perform along with Williams. The guest list was a varied as you might expect with performers like Steve Earle, Mike Campbell, David Byrne, Ann Wilson, Yo La Tengo and Chuck Prophet. Going one step further, each performance was recorded and made available to the audience the night of the show.
Lucinda Williams is moving, quickly now, from the fringes of cult adoration to a more main stream acceptance while keeping in step with the adoration of critics and music insiders. Her music is evocative and captivating, her voice, now, is mellow at times and a truly pained expression of heartbreak and loss at others but it is her lyrics that truly elevate her to an almost iconic level.
Her lyrics seem like they could be the soundtrack to an Edward Hooper canvas and they have a tendency to bring back memories of Springsteen in his Ghost Of Tom Joad and Nebraska period. The characters are real people, living real lives, laughing at the joys in life or reeling from the pain. It’s not formulaic by any stretch and it works.
When it comes to how Lucinda plots her career, she answers thoughtfully. “You’ve got to look at the big picture. I’m not willing to make certain compromises. The only thing that lasts is your art and your principles and staying true to them. Finding the musical mainstream shouldn’t be the end all be all of your existence. Tastes change quickly. Some want to go for it and get it quickly. Do you want a long, slow ride or a short, quick one?”
Guess which ride Lucinda Williams chose. __________________
“All I can do is be me … whoever that is”. Bob Dylan
From: www.guitartricks.com
The Seattle Sound: The Evolution of Chris Cornell — Temple of the Dog and Solo Work
by wildwoman1313
Chris Cornell Montreux Jazz Festival, 2005
When Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose in 1990, a day after Chris Cornell came off tour with his band Soundgarden, Cornell dealt with the grief at the loss of his friend and vocalist for the band Mother Love Bone by writing a couple songs in Wood’s honor. “Reach Down” and “Say Hello 2 Heaven” had a softer, more melodic sound than the music Soundgarden was putting out, so Cornell approached Wood’s former bandmates, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, with the idea of a one-off collaboration as a tribute to their mutual friend. With the addition of guitarist Mike McCready, backing vocalist Eddie Vedder, and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, Temple of the Dog was formed. Named after a line in the Mother Love Bone song “Man of Golden Words”, the band released the self-titled album Temple of the Dog, which included the aforementioned singles as well as “Hunger Strike”, a duet between Cornell and Vedder that still receives regular airplay. Released in 1991, Temple of the Dog was praised by critics but failed to catch on until a year later, when Vedder, Ament, Gossard, and McCready broke commercially with Pearl Jam. At that time, A&M Records re-released Temple of the Dog, realizing that what they had in their catalog was essentially a Soundgarden/Pearl Jam collaboration. The album has gone on to sell more than a million copies. Temple of the Dog didn’t tour as a band but performed short sets together on a handful of occasions when both Soundgarden and Pearl Jam shared a concert bill.
The Stevie Ray Vaughan Tone: Free Video Lesson
The Stevie Ray Vaughan Tone: Free Video Lesson |
Free Guitar Lesson!
 Ron Sayer This week we’re featuring a free lesson by Ron Sayer that looks at how Stevie Ray Vaughan got his signature tone. If you’ve often tried to wrangle that certain sound out of your strat but find a certain something missing, this is the lesson for you. Ron looks at the effect of SRV’s guitar and amplifier settings and clues you in on another unexpected element of his tone. Click here to find out more : |
The Rickenbacker Frying Pan
by Bryan Hillebrandt
It’s hard to imagine, when looking at the range of electric guitars available, that everything from the most fancy boutique custom guitar to the mass-produced Les Paul and Strat knockoffs owe their very existence to a small cast aluminum lap-steel guitar known as the Rickenbacker Frying Pan. This instrument, besmirched now with the patina of aged aluminum, was the first solid body electric guitar. It stands now as the beginning of a new epoch that made possible everything from Bo Diddley to the metal insanity of Yngwie Malmsteen and all points in between and beyond.
The Frying Pan came into existence to fill a need. In the 1920s and 1930s Hawaiian music was enjoying considerable popularity in the US. The lead instrument in Hawaiian music was an acoustic guitar that was played much in the style of modern dobros, on one’s lap, with a steel (a bar of metal that works in the same way as a bottleneck or slide that blues players use).
The increased popularity of Hawaiian music created the opportunity to sell out larger venues. The only problem was that the acoustic instruments weren’t loud enough to be heard by the larger audiences.
George D. Beauchamp was a Hawaiian music enthusiast and musician. In an effort to amplify his acoustic guitar he mounted a magnetic pickup to the top of his guitar. While it did amplify the signal, it also produced copious amounts of feedback as a result of the guitar’s sympathetic vibration.
He resolved to deal with this problem by building a solid-body instrument. Beauchamp enlisted the help of a machinist by the name of Adolph Rickenbacker who Beauchamp had worked with while developing Dobro resonator guitars. Rickenbacker and Beauchamp together designed the guitar that came to be known as the Frying Pan.
The body and neck of the Frying Pan were cast of one piece of solid aluminum. The pickup consisted of two rather large horseshoe magnets wrapped with wire. These magnets surrounded the six strings and each string had a small iron pole piece to increase the pickup’s sensitivity. This was still a lap steel guitar, not meant to be held and played in the “Spanish style” like most modern guitars.
While the Frying Pan was only made between 1932 and 1939, its creation was one of the most catalyzing events in 20th century popular music. Other guitars which took advantage of the Frying Pad’s innovations were soon on the market. These guitars have shaped the sound of much of the popular music that has come after the Frying Pan’s creation.
So the next time you’re playing your electric guitar, whether that be a mint condition Fender Broadcaster or a $30 beater you found in a thrift store, take a moment to consider how we went from a lowly aluminum lap steel made for playing Hawaiian music to the axe you have in your hands now.
The Seattle Sound: The Evolution of Chris Cornell — Soundgarden
by wildwoman1313
Chris Cornell, with his four-octave range, is blessed with the voice of a rock god. As one of the founding fathers of Seattle’s grunge movement, he has fronted such innovative bands as Soundgarden and Audioslave. I recently caught Cornell at Cleveland’s House of Blues as he stumps in support of his latest solo effort Scream, which dropped in March. Scream, stirring up controversy for its pairing of grunge-rocker Cornell with hip-hop producer Timbaland, has ruffled the feathers of fans, critics, and contemporaries alike who have accused Cornell of selling out. While it’s true Scream forces fans out of their Cornell comfort zone, I have to wonder if the panning of the new record isn’t more a knee-jerk reaction to change rather than to the music itself.
Born and raised in Seattle, Cornell spent a two-year period between the ages of nine and eleven fixated on The Beatles. He suffered a severe case of clinical depression during his teenage years and rarely left the house, spending that time drinking and playing drums and guitar. Then in 1984, when he was twenty years old, Cornell, on drums and vocals, formed Soundgarden along with Kim Thayil on lead guitar and Hiro Yamamoto on bass. The band soon recruited Scott Sundquist as drummer when Cornell assumed lead vocalist role for the band. Sundquist was replaced in 1986 by Matt Cameron, current drummer for Pearl Jam, while bassist Ben Shepherd replaced Yamamoto in 1990.
Named after a wind-channeling pipe sculpture that stands on property adjacent to Magnuson Park in Seattle, Soundgarden was the first of the Seattle grunge bands to sign with a major label and the last to achieve fame. It was only after Nirvana put grunge on the map with Nevermind and Pearl Jam scored with Ten in the early 1990s that Soundgarden rose to prominence. Since then the band has sold an estimated twenty million albums worldwide.
In addition to its punk and alt-rock roots, Soundgarden was influenced by the heavy metal bands of the 1970s, in particular, Led Zeppelin. Superunknown, the band’s breakout album, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts in 1994. Inspired by the writings of Sylvia Plath, Cornell wrote a dark and mysterious album whose lyrics are often interpreted to be addressing substance abuse, suicide, and depression. More experimental than the band’s previous releases, Superunknown incorporated Middle-Eastern influences and yielded the Grammy Award-winning singles “Black Hole Sun” and “Spoonman”. The album has been certified five times platinum in the States and earned Soundgarden international recognition.
Tensions arose within the band, however, during the recording of the 1996 follow-up album, Down on the Upside, when Cornell wanted to steer the band away from its grunge roots and the heavy guitar riffing that had become its trademark, and in April 1997, Soundgarden called it quits. Any future reunion of the band seems unlikely.
Coming up, Chris Cornell joins forces with members of Rage Against the Machine to form the supergroup Audioslave.
Hello Guitar Players!
| Hello Guitar Players!
The big news at Guitar Tricks is that we have decided to put our newsletter out every week. That gives you access to more free lessons and keeps you in the loop with our monthly giveaways as well as what’s new on the site. Another reason we’re putting out the newsletter every week is to keep you up to date with what Neal’s up to over on the Guitar Tricks Channel. We’ve been posting new videos to the channel every week and we really want to give you a chance to check it out. Neal’s always got great tips and an awesome review of the gear that’s being featured in the monthly Sweetwater Giveaway. This week we also welcome a new writer to the GuitarTricks.com stable. Bryan Hillebrandt is a musician and writer who’s writing some great articles about the evolution of the electric guitar as well as a series that looks at some of the most iconic axes in Rock and Roll. We know you’re going to love his stuff. Be sure to check out his first article this week which is a history of one of the first solid-body electric guitars: The Rickenbacker Frying Pan. As always, thanks for reading and come on by for some lessons.
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