Truthfully, the first time I heard ZZ Top I didn't really want to sound like Billy Gibbons. My introduction to the band was as a teenager, watching a compilation of the MTV videos they had put together for their best selling album Eliminator. I had only recently started playing the guitar, and...
The Ibanez Tube Screamer is one of the most popular guitar pedals of all time. Initially made famous by Stevie Ray Vaughan, it has since been used by a whole variety of notable blues guitarists, including Gary Moore, Joe Bonamassa and John Mayer, amongst others. Many aspiring guitarists have added a...
Duane Allman is one of the greatest blues and rock guitarists of all time. During his short life and career, he changed the landscape of the blues. He adapted and built upon the bottleneck style of bluesmen like Elmore James, blending the blues with country rock and roots music. In...
There are very few guitarists that sound like Albert Collins. His tone is instantly recognisable and sets him apart from almost every other blues guitarist in the modern era. Blues guitarists often use words like 'thick' and 'warm' to describe the type of tone they consider desirable. Albert Collins took...
Beautiful blues tones come from marginal gains. There are no magic guitars, amps or pedals out there that will transform your tone. To get a killer blues tone, you need to optimise every stage of your signal chain for maximum impact. And today, we'll be looking at how you can use...
Boost pedals are an amazing tool for blues guitarists. They help to shape your tone and give you a lot of control of your sound - especially in a live setting. But knowing which pedal to buy is always a challenge. There are so many different brands and pedals out...
Of all of the different guitar pedals out there, the humble boost pedal is one of the most underrated. A lot of blues guitarists add overdrive, fuzz and wah-wah pedals to their boards before they even consider using a boost. And many guitarists neglect boost pedals altogether. Yet adding a boost...
Freddie King is the ultimate blues guitarist. He plays with passion, intensity and feeling - and does all of this with an amazing sense of melody and timing. He wrote some of the most iconic blues songs and instrumentals of all time and in the early 1960s, had a huge...
Last night I had the great pleasure of attending an online tone and gear workshop run by Dan Patlansky. Not only is Patlansky a killer player, he has an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of tone. Crafting a beautiful blues and blues rock guitar tone has been a life long passion of...
Dialling in a beautiful blues tone is no easy task. You can have all of the key elements in place - a great guitar, the right pedals and a brilliant guitar amp. Yet for some reason, you just can't get the tones you want. The great news, is that a lot...
Truthfully, the first time I heard ZZ Top I didn’t...
There are very few albums that capture the essence of a...
The Ibanez Tube Screamer is one of the most popular guitar...
One of the key ways to develop as a blues guitarist is to...
Texas Flood, by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble was...
Duane Allman is one of the greatest blues and rock...
It is not easy to play a killer blues shuffle. The masters...
I can still remember when I learnt how to play the blues...
The blues shuffle rhythm is one of the most common rhythms...
If you want to be a proficient blues guitarist, you need to...
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