As I’m starting to blog each week now, one of the things that I want to do is introduce you to guitar players that you may not have heard of. One of the advantages of having large community of guitar enthusiasts here at ActiveMelody is that site members introduce me to lots of obscure guitar players, and I always end up learning something new. Last week I got a call from a long-time site member named Russell, and he told me about a guitar player named Howard Carroll who played for the Dixie … [Read more...]
Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler Play Live
I came across this one on YouTube today and had to share. You'll learn real quick on this website what a huge Chet fanatic I am, although it may not seem that way because of all of the blues lessons that are on the site. I guess I've always been conflicted as a guitar player because I love both styles of music equally but they are so different. On one hand you have Chet Atkins who is about as white as they come, classical, super technical, jazz, Lite FM style - and then on the other hand I love … [Read more...]
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton
I was responding to a post in the forum on this site in which someone asked what they should be focusing on in regards to learning to play the guitar and the first thing that immediately popped into my head was the John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers album featuring Eric Clapton. That album was the one that did it for me with the guitar - the Crown Jewel of guitar albums. If you're interested in the lessons I've been putting up recently on electric blues lead guitar, then you really HAVE to add … [Read more...]
Robben Ford
If you took blues and jazz and put them in a blender you'd end up with something that resembles Robben Ford. Robben is one of my all time favorite guitar players (and singers), and for whatever reason he's relatively obscure. He actually has quite an impressive resume playing with Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, and Michael McDonald to name a few. On top of being a great backup / session artist he has an equally impressive solo career. If you're interested in picking … [Read more...]
Any Bill Kirchen Fans In The House?
Back in the mid / late nineties I was living in Memphis and being a big fan of blues guitar you can imagine the Euphoria I was experiencing regarding the local music scene. Great music, great food, although not necessarily a great place to live... at least not the area I was living in. Any way, I went out on a mission to find a decent band to listen to and stumbled into Young Avenue Deli (great place for music) and Bill Kirchen happened to be playing that night. At that time, I hadn't heard of … [Read more...]
Mark Knopfler – Brothers In Arms
In preparing the Mark Knopfler guitar lesson that I just launched the other day, I was looking through a few clips on YouTube for inspiration and I came across Mark Knopfler playing "Brothers In Arms" at the Montserrat concert in London back in the mid to late 90s. I remember buying this DVD when it came out and being blown away when he plays Brothers In Arms (this sounds incredible in surround sound by the way) - so I was happy to see that some generous soul out there posted this. I've always … [Read more...]
Eric Clapton playing “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Allright”
I was recently surfing YouTube looking up specific performances by my favorite artists and I came across this one of Eric Clapton playing Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" from the Bobfest concert back in 1992 or early 1993. Being a huge Clapton fan, I've seen (or listened to) just about every bootleg / legitimate concert media there is in existence on him and in my opinion, this particular performance is EC at the top of his game. We all have our favorite eras with his career (and … [Read more...]