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The Latest Breaking News from Charlie Christian

“For King, there was nothing particularly special about the show… It would go on to rank among the best live albums of all time”: The life and times of B.B. King

To celebrate the King of the Blues' centenary, we rewind the reels of a life story that’s equal parts pain and redemption…

Guitar World

Hotel bombings, car crashes, conspiracy theories, towering infernos and more: The A to Z of B.B. King

Introduction written by Joe Bonamassa

Louder

“Demonstrates just how extreme Gibson’s custom division was prepared to get in order to make a customer happy”: When is a Gibson Barney Kessel not a Gibson Barney Kessel? This 1967 unicorn explains all...

It looks like a Kessell and almost sounds like a Kessell, but upon closer inspection we have a custom order that’s a “total freak”…

Guitar World

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“He made me want to push the blues-rock envelope. He had this hip-hop persona, playing fiery blues riffs with all the soul you’d get from B.B. King”: Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram has learned from the masters on his road to becoming a modern-day blues great

He might be young, but the Clarksdale, Mississippi phenom has already announced his presence as the world’s bluesman-in-chief

Guitar World

“I met him in 1990 when I was 13 years old. We became lifelong friends”: Joe Bonamassa pays tribute to B.B. King – and shows us why blues starts and ends with the King

Bonamassa says King was the kind of player who could say it all with one note – “Just one stinging vibrato and you know it can only be him”

Guitar World

“All I can tell you is what my father said to me: ‘Someone stole my guitar off the stage.’ Those were his exact words... he couldn’t find another guitar just like it”: T-Bone Walker and the guitar that gave birth to electric blues

The author of the newly released Electric Blues! T-Bone Walker & TheGuitar That Started It All, Tony Bacon, joins us to spotlight T-Bone’s personal contribution to the creation of this game-changing style

Guitar World

“You look at everyone who’s ever stood in front of a band playing guitar and it all traces back to one man”: How T-Bone Walker invented electric blues guitar

T-Bone Walker may have been the first true hero of modern electric blues, but he stood upon the shoulders of jazz and blues giants

Guitar World

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“I would like people to know that I was the true inventor of ska and reggae”: Ernest Ranglin on working with Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, James Bond – and how he influenced “almost every aspect of Jamaican music”

Bob Marley asked him to teach him how to play and how to write. He wrote music for Dr. No. He worked with Jimmy Cliff, Millie Small, and more. Ernest Ranglin reflects on his peerless legacy

Guitar World

“Leo Kottke used this guitar and described it as ‘the best‑sounding New Yorker I’vepersonally played’”: This 1942 New Yorker proves why D’Angelico’s acoustic archtops are widely regarded as the peak of Jazz Age lutherie

Over the past 80 years this well-travelled archtop has had illustrious owners and featured on landmark recordings from Miles Davis, Leo Kottke and more

Guitar World

“I went, ‘You've made a big mistake. The E string on this guitar is worth that!’” How Marty Stuart came to own Clarence White’s iconic B-Bender Telecaster

Stuart paid under the odds for the historic electric – but White’s widow needed the guitar to go to the right home, not the highest bidder

Guitar World

Can you keep up? 6 minor pentatonic licks that go FASTER!

Turbo-boost your pentatonic lead playing by learning from Nuno Bettencourt, Joe Bonamassa, Jimmy Page and more

Guitar World

Bend it like B.B.: What you can learn from these 6 blues and jazz guitar greats

Bends, embellishments, arpeggios and more – from Charlie Christian to BB King and George Benson, how to unlock the genius of the jazz and blues icons

Guitar World

“I discovered open tunings on the electric because of The Rolling Stones and Keith Richards. It opened up a whole new palette”: Meet Julian Taylor, the Canadian musical encyclopedia who plays a custom Tele called the ‘Barncaster’

Pathways finds the Canadian singer-songwriter welcoming soul, R&B, blues and folk into the mix and letting his guitar lead the way for the first time

Guitar World

“We don’t want to be an old-school death metal band. But if you say ‘progressive death metal’, people expect hyper-sweeps and polyrhythms”: How Blood Incantation fused B.C. Rich, doom and David Gilmour to make one of 2024’s most talked-about metal albums

Metal Hammer named Absolute Elsewhere their album of the year. Paul Riedl and Morris Kolontyrsky explain how they made their masterpiece at the studio beloved by David Bowie, weaving ’70s prog and krautrock into death metal, and how to make a B.C. Rich sound like a Strat

Guitar World

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Guitar World

“Some people think its gloss black top was a response to Gibson’s Les Paul Custom – but that didn’t launch officially until ’54”: The Duo Jet took Gretsch’s ’50s innovation to new heights – and was loved by George Harrison, Jeff Beck and Malcolm Young

As solid-bodied models began taking the guitar world by storm in the early ’50s, Gretsch joined the party with the revolutionary single-cut 6128 Duo Jet and its twangsome DeArmond ‘Dynasonic’ single coils

Guitar World

“Eric Gales’ rendition of Hendrix’s Little Wing sounds like the gates of heaven opening up”: Melanie Faye names 13 guitarists who shaped her sound

The neo-soul prodigy’s huge social media following and signature guitar follow a passion ignited by Michael Jackson, Guitar Hero III, and the players she discovered from there

Guitar World

“Peter Green is tasked with filling the shoes of Clapton, the man referred to as God”: Tracking the phenomenal guitar lineage of John Mayall in 12 essential releases

We trace the evolution of the six-string linchpin behind the British blues rock boom of the 1960s

MusicRadar

“The new Ibanez guitar is exceptional, won’t be too expensive… I am pretty excited about it”: Pat Metheny’s new signature jazz box is out now – and the Charlie Christian-inspired pickup is star of the show

The Ibanez PM3C is a pro-quality, affordable, available in Natural Amber and Black "low-gloss" finishes, and has a single-coil based on the pickup from Christian's ES-150

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Guitar World

“The Bigsby Standard actually made by Paul Bigsby is one of the most special – there’s only 25 or so known to still exist”: Meet Amy Rose Mills, the accidental luthier who sets up some of the rarest guitars on the planet

The noise improv specialist for Brooklyn’s Couch Slut is also a luthier at NYC institution Retrofret. She details some of the most treasured instruments she’s encountered, the magic of running a Gretsch at high gain, and grabbing one of her hero’s pedals before anyone else got the chance

Guitar World

“When I play the trill with my finger, my hand is not on the neck at all. It all comes from the wrist”: The story of B.B. King, the greatest blues guitar player of all time

How the King of the Blues heard his calling, found a guitar, and developed a style that made him the undisputed greatest of all time

Latin Times

Musical legends Juan Gabriel, Héctor Lavoe honored in Library of Congress National Recording Registry

The institution considers "Amor Eterno" and "El Cantante" as "audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time"

WEKU

ABBA, The Notorious B.I.G. and Green Day named to the National Recording Registry

Every year, the Library of Congress names 25 "audio treasures" to be preserved permanently. This year's selections range from ABBA and Green Day to World War I-era jazz pioneer James Reese Europe.

The Guardian - UK

Grégoire Maret/Romain Collin: Ennio review – emotional, ecstatic Morricone homage

Harmonica star Maret and pianist/composer Collin pay homage to Ennio Morricone with drifting church-echo and trancelike sounds

Guitar World

“I could have headed towards blues or shred. I chose blues… Fast-forward to 2020, I decided to become a 12 year-old learning guitar again – I went the other way and got an Ibanez with a Floyd Rose!” Gary Clark Jr. is finally unleashing his inner shredder

On his powerful and experimental new album, Gary Clark Jr. is channeling the pioneering spirit of the greats and finding new shades of blue

Guitar World

“Django stretched the guitar imagination to its limit. He was the fastest, the most creative”: What Django Reinhardt can teach today’s blues players

Idolized by B.B. King and George Benson, Django Reinhardt was gypsy jazz guitar’s most legendary player. Improve your jazz vocabulary with this primer in his pyrotechnic style

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