I was trying to find examples of tunes to demonstrate guitar comping styles and I came across YouTube videos of jazz greats playing Sweet Georgia Brown. You may know the tune as the theme for the Harlem Globetrotters Basketball Team. But the tune has been a jazz standard for a…
I watched this years Grammy awards and spent part of my time doing what I always do when watching guitar players on television. I played guitar spotting. How quickly could I name the brand and model of the guitars on stage? I’ll admit that I’m slipping and a few threw…
The internet is wonderful because you get to discover so many things you might otherwise have missed. It can also be a bit embarrassing because you learn about something terrific which other people have known about for years. “How could I have missed that?” That’s how I felt when I recently discovered Garfunkel…
Adding a 7th string to a six string guitar is probably an idea that has occurred and been tried repeatedly in the history of the guitar. You can search for history about 7-string guitars and discover there had been a 7-string guitar in Russia tuned to an open G tuning in…
Dust My Broom The first slide guitar riff that many guitarists learn is the opening riff to “Dust My Broom” by Elmore James. He took the older Robert Johnson tune, “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom” and made it his own. Robert Johnson included slide parts in some of his…
T-Bone Walker was one of the first guitarists to front a band. The blues style we now call Jump Blues started with horn players who also sang as being the featured artist leading the band – out front, such as Louis Jordan. We take lead guitarists for granted but T-Bone…
My wife has recently been listening to the The Complete Folkways Recordings of Lonnie Johnson. She seems to think we have a competition to discover the best recordings on eMusic.com each month and is quite proud of herself with the Lonnie Johnson recordings. I knew the name Lonnie Johnson but…
Herb Ellis is another of those great bop guitarists. He passed away last year (2010). Herb was from Texas and had a great feel for the blues. Towards the end of his career he recorded with Duke Robillard, the founder of the group, A Roomful of Blues. Duke Robillard paid…
Do you remember: “Sugar and spice and everything nice”. An old rhyme for what little girls are made of. Or, “Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails.” Little boys, right? But what about guitarists and guitars? How about these rhymes: Guitarist Rhymes (( Guitarist Rhymes by Dan Sissors is licensed under…
Johnny Smith is one of the greatest jazz guitarists of all times. Unless you ask Johnny Smith who says he’s not a really a jazz guitarist. Well, who are you going to believe. Johnny Smith, or guitarists Jimmy Bruno, Pat Matrino, Barny Kessel and Bill Fresell. Johnny Smith was active…
