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DARK SECRETS: Clarence white - The Real Truth

“Ithought, ‘Is the guitar in open G tuning?’ But I soon discovered it wasn’t a standard guitar at all”: Charlie Starr on the magic of the B-Bender – and 5 bender-inspired licks you can play on any electric

The Blackberry Smoke guitarist gives us a lesson in how to sound like you've got a B-Bender, even if you don't

Guitar World

“Legend has it that, while recording, Clarence said, ‘Hey, I need another finger to play this chord!’” Charlie Starr on the origins of the B-Bender – and how you can play those licks without one

No B-Bender, no problem, as the Blackberry Smoke frontman shows us 9 licks for that faux pedal-steel sound

Guitar World

"We let John take this out and beat it up for a while. This is about as robust a unit as we can make – because it needed to be”: Inside Fender’s B-Bender revival – and the making of its very first in-house design

Fender’s Chief Engineer Tim Shaw lifts the lid on the making of the John Osborne Telecaster, the challenges around creating a B-Bender for a heavy-handed player, and the freedom that comes with designing hardware in-house

Guitar World

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“I heard Clarence White, and there were parts that I couldn’t physically do. Then I heard that there was this mechanism within the guitar...”: With Led Zeppelin over, Jimmy Page returned to the Telecaster, and embraced a particular, beloved mod

After a few years slightly adrift, the guitar god found his way back into arenas with the Firm in 1985, and leaned on some new tools along the way

Guitar World

“Bob Dylan wrote some notes on a napkin and said, ‘Give this to McGuinn. He’ll know what to do withit.’ It was like the Holy Grail”: Roger McGuinn on the making of The Byrds’ countercultural classic

Roger McGuinn explains how Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Bob Dylan and CBS-era Fender amps all factored into the making of The Byrds’ 1969 classic, Ballad of Easy Rider

Guitar World

“Morrison was very clever. He was a regular guy but he really played that image of his well. He was an actor”: The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn on John Lennon’s dangerous side, the myth of Jim Morrison and the forgotten guitar player who was as good as Hendrix

Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, The Beatles –Roger McGuinn has crossed paths with the them all

Louder

“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

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“I don’t think LSD had a real big impact on the songwriting or guitar playing… it was just that we saw brighter colors and got high!” Roger McGuinn on The Byrds’ influential guitar style, and why they didn’t follow The Kinks and The Who into distortion

The banjo-inspired Rickenbacker guitar icon recalls how Miles Davis got them signed and weighs up the merits of David Crosby and Clarence White

Guitar World

Australian property prices are accelerating again – nearly twice as fast as wages

Experts say interest rate cuts – past and prospective – are sending buyers to auctions with ‘confidence’ and ‘gusto’

The Guardian - AU

Rate cut hammers in immediate spike in home auctions

Home buyers regained confidence after the Reserve Bank cut interest rates for the second time in 2025, but sellers might still need to lower their expectations.

AAP

Freya and Max will save $150 a month after the RBA’s interest rate cut. Like many Australians, they want more

Tuesday’s decision has helped ease the ‘stranglehold’ on mortgage holders – but many hope the official cash rate will fall further

The Guardian - AU

The RBA is expected to cut rates on Tuesday. Will Australia enter a new economic era, and what happens if it doesn’t?

The money is on a rate cut but chatter about US tariffs imposed by Donald Trump could interrupt the predicted cycle

The Guardian - AU

“When Clarence White entered the band, it elevated their guitar work. White and Roger McGuinn were electrifying”: Christian Parker on the Byrds’ legacy as folk-rock trailblazers, gear innovators and righteous players in their own right

Parker’s two consecutive albums of Byrds covers showcase the brilliance of one of the '60s most underappreciated guitar powerhouses

Guitar World

“People should really do their homework and learn about the history of music and what came before whatever style you wanna do”: Logan Ledger on paying his dues – and what he learned from Clarence White and Merle Haggard

The golden-throated Nashville-via-California singer-songwriter shares his love of the B-Bender and discusses how the greats informed his dynamic playing style

Guitar World

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Louder

"I jammed with Hendrix and Clapton in a loft in New York": Roger McGuinn's stories of John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and more

The Byrds' Roger McGuinn played with Jim Morrison, was part of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder revue, gave John Lennon granny glasses and Brian Wilson speed, and he's got some tales to tell

Guitar World

“I'm still slammed with orders. Each B-Bender is made with care and love, just like I did with the first one for Clarence White”: How Gene Parsons reinvented electric guitar playing with the B-Bender

He was the drummer for the Byrds, but Parsons is best known in guitar circles for pioneering the Parsons/White B-Bender, a mind-bending mechanical contraption that changed the face of country guitar playing and beyond, finding fame in the hands of Marty Stuart, Ricky Skaggs and Jimmy Page

Guitar World

The Black Crowes' Rich Robinson names 11 guitarists who shaped his sound

The seasoned tonesmith reflects on spending "some of the best moments of my life" with Jimmy Page, the guitarist with a tone so unbelievable that "no-one on this Earth can touch him" and why Duane Allman is just as important as Jimi Hendrix

Guitar World

Marty Stuart: “It started with my Clarence White Telecaster. That old guitar is kinda like an invisible band member. It has a tone of its own”

The country legend on channeling the Byrds’ guitar tones, how YouTube helps him cope with the loss of Johnny Cash and finding the amp he’d been searching for all his life

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The Guardian - UK

‘I’m a roads scholar!’ Marty Stuart’s five decades at the country university

Since joining his first band aged 12, Stuart has played with the likes of Johnny Cash and the Byrds and is now building a country music museum. He explains the roots of his lifelong passion

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