Fender Online

I went this summer to a concert in Europe to see Ritchie Blackmore playing with new Rainbow band.
He is now in his 70's.
In 2016 finally in hall of fame of R&R as a founding member of band Deep Purple.

Its because of him I spent all my savings and borrowed money at age 15 to by my first Fender Stratocaster and started a garage band etc.
After 5 years of classical music in B&M Music school I finally felt that it was the Rock music I wanted to play.
Especially Classic Rock when I could take Bach and make a riff out of it etc.
Be it Blackmore or Big Gym or Elvis, Guitar man was always the magician on stage.
There is a lot of interest by young people today in the type of music that was created in the 60's 70's.
New generations of guitar virtuosos will rise.

 

Yeah, and I've heard that buggy whips will be making a comeback any day now.:yes(1)::lol:

 

I've always been a Gibson guy, although I do have a Strat and a Tele.

I took the usual route of learning the guitar at first, sitting in front of a record player and trying to copy Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, etc., until I found out who influenced them, which brought me to Freddie King (my favorite King), Albert King, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and T-Bone Walker, just to name a few.

Then I got into Charlie Christian, which brought me into jazz, which I've pretty much stayed with recently. My #1 guitar was always a 1985 Gibson Les Paul Custom that I ordered from the Gibson Custom Shop with 3 humbuckers and nickel (instead of gold) hardware, but that doesn't come out of the case much these days. Although I admit that once in a great while, I'll take it out, plug it into my 30W Marshall Bluesbreaker amp, crank the volume, and let loose. :mischievous:

Lately I've been playing my old Epiphone Emperor hollowbody (made in Japan) with telephone pole strings and a wound third. Even on my Les Paul, I go heavy with .52-.13 nickel strings.

 

My favourite King, too. Taken from us far too soon. T-Bone was one of my early idols. Back in 63-64, I spent quite a lot of time trying to play like him. Lessons didn't work out well, for me. I could already read "the dots" so that wasn't a problem. But I was "holding it wrong" according to my teacher. Wrong for playing the "Baby Bach" pieces in the book, that is. I was doing OK for a blues beginner - and T-Bone held the guitar any way he wanted, including behind his head, if he felt like it.

Nowadays, I can go get a "T-Bone lesson" from Berklee Online - any time I want with Prof. Mike Williams - or a funk lesson with Prof. Thaddeus Hogarth. Fine players - excellent teachers.

OK - a little bit, maybe - not that much, though. Back when I started, I learned my first dozen cowboy chords from a book - then (after giving up on lessons) I watched other players and listened to records. Nowadays, you have slowed-down videos to show every note. Whole new world! A musician Dad brought his young son, about 13, into my favourite music store, to buy the boy his first good guitar. Kid was already playing very well - salesman asked him if he'd learned his chops from Dad? He said "not that much, really. I get most of it from YouTube."

BTW, Bruce - T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian, both pioneers of electric guitar, were friends since boyhood. When Charlie was about 17, he introduced T-Bone to his teacher (Ralph "Big Foot Chuck" Hamilton) and they both took lessons from Mr. Hamilton.

J.

 

Johann:
OK - a little bit, maybe - not that much, though. Back when I started, I learned my first dozen cowboy chords from a book - then (after giving up on lessons) I watched other players and listened to records. Nowadays, you have slowed-down videos to show every note. Whole new world! A musician Dad brought his young son, about 13, into my favourite music store, to buy the boy his first good guitar. Kid was already playing very well - salesman asked him if he'd learned his chops from Dad? He said "not that much, really. I get most of it from YouTube."

Abner

It's incredible how much you can learn on Youtube. I watched a video and learned how to change the air filters in MBZ thus saving me a lot of duckets. :smile:

 

I think my sons have been Youtube-trained mechanics for every car problem they've had in the past ten years. I've gone through videos for everything from woodcarving to computer programming.

J.

 

Johann, if you haven't seen it, you'll probably enjoy this Freddie King live cut of "Goin Down" recorded in 1972. I think it really captures his tone and the power of his economy of notes;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g53udCXpuY

 

It sure does! Thanks!

J.

 

Fascinating discussion--particularly for someone like myself who has been a guitarist for 44 years. It is true that electric guitar sales are down and acoustic guitar sales are up (thanks in great part to Taylor Swift). Most of the iconic guitar heroes are in the twilight or their lives and some of the younger ones (e.g. Joe Bonamassa, Brad Paisley) are now in their 40s.

The state of guitar chops is higher than it has ever been, but sweep picking, finger tapping and running up and down scales at blinding speed on YouTube videos has become ordinary and boring.

Because music tends to be cyclical, I expect that some young, talented kids will grow tired of the current processed, auto-tuned and sterile music scene and will lead a resurgence of the guitar. Fortunately, they won't have have to pay much to do it, as the quality of many Epiphones, Gretsch Electromatics, PRS SE, Ibanez, etc. make it difficult to justify over $1,000 for an electric guitar.

I played a Strat through a Fender Twin during most of the 70s. It was a CBS-era instrument with some of those failings, so it was heavily customized. An Ibanez AM-50 through a Mesa Boogie and a '67 Rickenbacker 360/12 have been "assisted" by other instruments over the years (my Gretsch Pro Jet is a lot of fun), but I will put that Ibanez (which has doubled in value since I bought it in 1983) against any Gibson.

 

Glad you mentioned Joe Bonamassa. He's a great player; however, his name popped into my head as the antithesis - in ways - of Freddie King. The man from New Jersey has chops galore - but one thing he doesn't specialize in is economy of notes, as Freddie often did. I'm sure Joe could do so, but I don't think he wants to. Not his style.

Indeed so - but there's so much more out there, instruction-wise! I've recently seen some great videos on Robert Johnson's techniques - and being a "Gypsy Jazz" freak, I was blown away by instruction videos from Stochelo Rosenberg, world-famous in that genre.

Always nice to hear informed opinion from a long-time player. Thanks.

J.

 

Gypsy jazz? I will have to check that out. Never heard of that. Thanks :smile:

 

Here are some names for you to check out, Abner. Start with the late Django Reinhardt, who pretty well started it all, back in the 1930s. His sons, Babik and Lousson, played in the same tradition. His grandson, David Reinhardt, is well into his own career, now. Other greats, (mostly or all) still with us are Fapy Lafertin, Bireli Lagrene, Stochelo Rosenberg, Wasso Grünholz, Andreas Oberg (Swedish), Romane, Angelo Debarre, Tchavolo Schmitt, Dorado Schmitt... lots more.

Young guy, in his teens, really making waves: Andreas Varady.

J.

 

close but no guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEpVDafY6Z8

 

Before I saw what she was playing, I was thinking "This tone sucks". :lmao:

 

This album was my epihany; I spent HOURS learning all of Eric Clapton's licks & solos, and only afterwards learned that he was "borrowing" a lot of stuff from Freddie King and others.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-fD9fD61kA[/video]

 

I think the Korean gayageum is related to both the Japanese koto and the Chinese guzheng. Since the 60s I've had Koto music (Kimio Eto comes to mind) and I also have some (slightly, in places) jazz-oriented Koto and Flute performances. Yes, - Kimio Eto again - and Bud Shank on flute. Those were very good times for me, musically. A few years ago, I was looking at all zither-like instruments, exploring similarities and differences among more distant relatives of the Mountain dulcimer - I have one of those : Finnish kantele, Icelandic langspil, French èpinette des Vosges, etc. That's when I first found out about the Asian varieties.

I have two copies of the John Mayall & Bluesbreakers album. One vinyl that I pretty well wore out in the late 60s and a CD reissue that's more playable. I was lucky, in that I'd been listening to original blues guys: Muddy, T-Bone, Wolf, Freddie King etc. for quite a while and I "got" what Clapton was doing. I said I "got" it - i.e. I understood his playing and from whence much of it came - not that I could play it myself! :smile: I had fun trying, though...

J.