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EXPLAINED: 5 - The Real Truth

Told to get clean or he had two weeks to live, guitar great Stevie Ray Vaughan did, and recorded his greatest album

How Stevie Ray Vaughan put blues music back in business

Louder

“I went for the lowest-priced one. My heart broke as I handed my jazz box over. However, as soon as I pulled that Strat down, sadness was replaced with joy”: Nile Rodgers on how he found The Hitmaker – and how the Fender Strat changed the world

The funk guitar superstar looks back at trading in his old Barney Kessel for the budget Strat that would go on to become The Hitmaker – the fabled instrument heard on Get Lucky, Le Freak and countless others

Guitar World

“Watching a player like Stevie Ray Vaughan play, you begin to understand how much violence the guitar can actually take”: Larkin Poe's Rebecca Lovell on why the secret to great Strat tone is in the right hand

From blues riffs to heavier rock tones, Lovell reveals how she leverages the Strat to create a distinctive sound for Larkin Poe

Guitar World

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10 legendary blues guitars, from Lucille to Lucy and the ‘Loch Ness Monster of Les Pauls’ – a priceless Gibson that has been missing for more than 50 years

Named and famed! Behind every great blues player is a great guitar, and they don’t come more iconic than this...

Guitar World

John Mayer and Kenny Wayne Shepherd are two of the biggest names in modern blues – and boy, do they know how to introduce a guitar solo

Learn how to phrase spellbending blues intro licks in the style of Kenny Wayne Shepherd and John Mayer

Guitar World

“We had to come up with the songs pretty quickly – Stevie wasn’t a fluent songwriter”: Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton on the making of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Couldn’t Stand the Weather

In 1984, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble needed new tunes and needed them bad, and necessity became the mother of invention as they put together a bona fide blues classic

Guitar World

“Is it wrong in every possible way or do you dig it?” This guitarist transformed their John Mayer PRS signature guitar into a Stevie Ray Vaughan Number One Strat tribute – and now we really want a sunburst Silver Sky

John Mayer once asserted he’d never produce a sunburst version of his popular PRS signature guitar. Now we know what it would look like, and it's quite something

Guitar World

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“It actually gave me more Hendrix vibes than Stevie vibes”: Watch what happens when you play a Strat through a cranked Super Reverb in an empty warehouse

Pedal Pawn’s Chris King Robinson conducts an experiment that shows how strange and magical things happen when you dime old tube amps in large, empty spaces

MusicRadar

"Stevie liked a clean sound. He really didn't turn everything up until the last song": Stevie Ray Vaughan's tech Rene Martinez remembers his boss, friend and blues guitar legend

Classic interview: "The way he had it configured was so that everything acted like one big gigantic speaker"

MusicRadar

“It’s kind of sad that sax or trumpet players can get up there and play like Miles and people appreciate it. But if a guitar player does that, some people think, ‘Oh, that guy has no chops’”: Scott Henderson on virtuosity and musical journeys

Returning with a new instrumental album seamlessly fusing rock, blues and jazz, Scott Henderson checks in to talk gear, style and what we can learn from vocals and horn

Guitar World

Someone has turned their John Mayer PRS Silver Sky guitar into an SRV Number One Strat tribute and it looks much better than you might think

This Silver Sky ain't crying

MusicRadar

“A lot of kids are getting millions of hits because they can play Eruption. If you want to impress me, write Eruption”: Jesse Dayton is glad he didn’t have a hit years ago – it might have taken away his freedom

Fresh from his “Bonnie and Clyde” success with Samantha Fish, the six-string outlaw talks low-string droning, Texas storytelling and why it’s worth struggling with vintage gear – in the studio at least

Guitar World

Learn the greatest licks from over 100 years of trailblazing blues guitarists, from Robert Johnson to B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Eric Gales and more

These 15 must-learn licks take you from blues guitar's acoustic beginnings to its electric present day

Guitar World

“I can only say I am 1,000% happy with the end result”: Seymour Duncan and Eric Gales team up for a pickup set to give your S-style a “perfect balance of vintage warmth and modern clarity”

We might not be able to play like the blues-rock phenom but now we can feed our Strat what Gales' Magneto RawDog has been eating

MusicRadar

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'Many classic songs use chords that sit outside of the regular shapes that we learn in the early stages of playing': 9 iconic guitar chords from classic songs and how to play them

From The Beatles to Bond, Mr Britherside to Hendrix and The Police – these are historic chords

Guitar World

The blues scale isn’t just for blues – it’s been used in some of rock and metal’s biggest riffs and solos, too. Here’s how to make it work for you, no matter what style you play

It’s one of the essential guitar scales, and this lesson takes the blues scale from its classic context to place it in the style of Joe Satriani, Cream-era Clapton and Dimebag Darrell

Guitar World

Lonnie Mack is an unsung hero in the development of the modern guitar solo – learn the blues guitar pyrotechnics that lit a fire under Stevie Ray Vaughan

A key influence on SRV classics such as Scuttle Buttin', Lonnie Mack's trailblazing style is worth another look

Guitar World

“Not a stitch. I can’t pull anything off!” Joe Bonamassa names the one technique he cannot nail – and reveals what prompted him to pivot from Strats to Les Pauls

It's a technique that Allan Holdsworth and Eric Johnson are masters at, but the revered blues guitarist has had to pursue a different approach to counter his shredding kryptonite

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Guitar World

“That take was live from beginning to end, 7 minutes of pure guitar energy without a single miscue”: Stevie Ray Vaughan’s producer and bassist recall being in the room when SRV tackled his game-changing cover of Voodoo Chile

SRV’s other massive Hendrix cover proved a pivot point in his playing career – helping the Texas bluesman to find his way through his fraught second album sessions

Guitar World

“Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Ry Cooder, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Healey and Buddy Guy... I naturally gravitated towards a Strat because my main influences were all playing them”: Philip Sayce on why the best studio magic is live

Returning with new solo LP The Wolves Are Coming, the blues ace discusses big studio energy during downtime for the world, his enduring guitar heroes, and his exacting standards for the Strat

Guitar World

“I built a trailer that was big enough for me and eight guitars. Then I proceeded to travel, seeing everything that was out there”: How Gabe Mangold tracked a death metal record in the desert – and how the Quad Cortex redefined his songwriting

Cramming every style of metal into Enterprise Earth’s Death: An Anthology, Mangold learned to push the limits of his playing like never before – while feeling lucky he got one of “the best guitars in the world” before the company responsible lost its way

Guitar World

“The bridge between at least three generations. He was genuinely happy to share the joy with those around him”: W. C. Clark – the ‘Godfather of Austin Blues’ who mentored Stevie Ray Vaughan and many others – has died aged 84

Clark gave guidance to many of Austin's brightest talents, and remained an avid performer right up until his death

Guitar World

“I’ve done gigs where they’re like, ‘You’re good for an Instagram guitarist.’ I was like, ‘I’m not one!’” Meet George Collins – the Bieber-backed British Berklee grad navigating Nashville as part of the next generation of session players

The young guitar ace discusses how guitar lessons from Neil Young (no, not that one) shaped his love of music, the best tips he learned from Berklee and how he's carving out a career in one of music's most competitive session scenes

Louder

"One of the last genuine bluesmen out there – he is a legend and should be revered as such": Strong Persuader by Robert Cray - Album Of The Week Club review

Robert Cray's 1986 album Strong Persuader album took blues to the masses and sold more than two million copies in the US

Guitar World

The minor pentatonic is the ultimate guitar scale, but it can get stale quickly. Here are 5 ways to get more from it

Plot an escape route from your routine licks with this tab and audio lesson

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