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HISTORICAL FACTS: 3 - Caught on Camera

“The call was, ‘Michael’s interested. Can you come down, rehearse with the band, and take a year off?’ I said, ‘Take me anywhere for any length of time’”: Jennifer Batten on how she landed the gig of a lifetime with the world’s biggest superstar

Batten was Michael Jackson’s go-to touring guitarist for a decade – standing side by side with the King of Pop on the Bad, Dangerous, and HIStory world tours

Guitar World

“A week later, I got a message from my manager asking, ‘Did you meet Jeff Beck?’ He wanted me to sing on his record”: That time Jeff Beck gave an impromptu guitar lesson to a future pop pioneer – who didn’t know who he was

The serendipitous hangout led to the pair working together on Beck’s 2000 album, You Had It Coming

Guitar World

“I hadn’t seen him in a while, and I wish I had”: Jimmy Page pays tribute to original Yardbirds guitarist Chris Dreja, who has died aged 79

Dreja played alongside Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page before turning down a chance to join Led Zeppelin to pursue a career in photography

Guitar World

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“There’s so much style in playing blues. The new blues scene is kind of like guitar teachers. They’re great players, but it’s a different thing”: How the triple-guitar threat of the Texas Headhunters is keeping a Lone Star tradition alive

With three prodigious gunslingers all bringing their secret sauce to the cook-off, Jesse Dayton, Ian Moore and Johnny Moeller are channeling the blues they grew up with – and taking it to new places, too

Guitar World

Founding Yardbirds guitarist Chris Dreja dead at 79

Chris Dreja played in The Yardbirds alongside Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page

Louder

“I was sitting outside playing guitar very badly to myself and he said: ‘Let me show you some shapes.’ I said: ‘Wow, you’re good!’”: When Jeff Beck gave Imogen Heap an impromptu guitar lesson she had no idea who he was

“A week later I got a message from my manager asking: ‘Did you meet Jeff Beck?’”

MusicRadar

Imogen Heap: ‘We’re making a horrendous job of existing. Maybe AI is the next stage of evolution’

The pop-electronica musician answers your questions on hanging out with Jeff Beck, cheering up babies, and what she has learned from her ADHD and autism diagnoses

The Guardian - UK

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“One thing led to another, and a jam session turned into Warren Haynes sporting some of rock and roll’s most iconic guitars on stage”: Warren Haynes becomes the latest to wield Jeff Beck's ‘Yardburst’ on stage – following Marcus King and Craig Ross

The guitar icon is currently out on tour with Gov’t Mule, and was spotted brandishing Beck's Yardbirds Gibson Les Paul Standard while jamming with Derek Trucks at their tour stop in Chicago

Guitar World

“The crowd went crazy. Somebody threw a 9-volt battery, and it hit me right above my eye”: Ricky Byrd on charged encounters onstage with Joan Jett and how Jeff Beck turned him onto smaller amps

With his new solo album, NYC Made, out now, the former Blackheart checks in to talk first and favorite guitars – and confesses he should practice more

Guitar World

“We got about an hour in, and I was like, ‘I haven’t even pulled the slide out of my pocket yet!’” Derek Trucks is one of the greatest slide guitar players of all time but sometimes forgets he even has one – here’s how he decides when to use it

Trucks says you can be just as lyrical playing fretted – just look at what Jeff Beck did with his Strat

MusicRadar

Watch members of Iron Maiden and Tool jam a Jeff Beck song at a wedding last week

Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith and partially-retired drummer Nicko McBrain performed with Tool bassist Justin Chancellor at Smith’s daughter’s wedding on Friday

Metal Hammer

From Little Richard to Strauss: David Bowie’s favourite tunes revealed as new exhibition opens

Influential musician was a fan of Jeff Beck, Sonic Youth and The Beatles

The Independent UK

"It was only £45 or something, and all the other guitars were getting into the hundreds": Jimmy Page's 5 most iconic guitars, in his own words

Jimmy Page tells all, sharing the stories behind his most significant guitars – plus we tell you how to nail his iconic tone at home at various price points

Guitar World

“Memo for radio show - list of favourite records": Jeff Beck, Roxy Music and Miles Davis all make the list of David Bowie’s 15 favourite tracks

List was made for a putative radio show

MusicRadar

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Guitar World

“I was drinking a lot and forgot that I bought it. The folks at Carter Vintage called me and were like, ‘You gonna come get this guitar?’” Marcus King on the vintage guitar he accidentally bought while drunk

King recently played Rory Gallagher’s famed white Fender Telecaster and Jeff Beck’s iconic Yardburst Les Paul

Louder

Watch Jeff Beck's mind-boggling version of You Know What I Mean on The Midnight Special

Jeff Beck joins a stellar lineup of musicians including Billy Preston, Buddy Miles and Willie Weeks

Guitar World

“I almost cried when I first saw John Frusciante live. But when I got involved in extreme music, people would say, ‘Don’t mention RHCP’”: How Arve Isdal carved his own extreme metal path with Enslaved – and became Norway’s answer to Slash

The blues-schooled shredder shows off some unlikely examples in his guitar collection, explains why he quit an Iron Maiden icon’s band and shares the fate of his supergroup with Dani Filth, Rob Caggiano and John Tempesta

Guitar World

“A good guitar solo should sound like an orgasm. I can hear it in Eddie Van Halen’s playing, and Jimi Hendrix. I live for the juicy notes”: Carlos Santana on playing like a soul singer and his visitations from B.B. King, Miles Davis and Stevie Ray Vaughan

Single-cuts are like merlot, solos are like grapefruit… the inimitable, peerless Carlos Santana shares stories from his legendary career and insights from the cosmos

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Guitar World

“It suffered a broken headstock, was completely refinished, refretted and had P-90s replaced with humbuckers”: Untangling the history of Jeff Beck’s Oxblood Les Paul, the most expensive Gibson Les Paul ever sold at auction

Will we ever know the true story of this fabled guitar? For some it’s iconic, for others it was simply a cobbled-together working tool for a master

MusicRadar

“Dumb idea to give a guitar away that has meant so much to you. I had given it to a 12 year-old kid, shortly after Creedence broke up”: John Fogerty explains why he let go of the iconic guitar he played on his classic hits – and at Woodstock

Fogerty admits the return of his Acme Rickenbacker used on many of Creedence Clearwater Revival's greatest tracks gave his Legacy rerecordings an authenticity – but why did he let it go?

Guitar World

“I’d been playing guitar full-time for 25 years, and when I got to play on a Deep Purple album it was just one chord!” Meet Tommy Denander, the session guitar great who’s worked with everyone from Jeff Beck and Michael Jackson to Joe Perry and Ace Frehley

You’ve heard the Swedish guitarist on over 100 gold or platinum records. He tells his war stories from decades of session work, from fighting for all-important missing credits to playing with his heroes – and writing the song that finally brought Alice Cooper and Jeff Beck together…

MusicRadar

“It's the first heavy metal riff ever written – and I wrote it!”: How Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page combined to create a groundbreaking song – and then argued over the writing credit

It also features Keith Moon drums – and screams

MusicRadar

“I don’t have many guitar players’ albums on my iPhone, but I can tell you this – Jeff is there”: John McLaughlin discusses the magic of Jeff Beck – and names his favourite underrated guitarist

"His tone was like butter," McLaughlin says of his late friend

Guitar World

“One of my favorite medium-slow shuffles is Jeff Beck’s Rock My Plimsoul... based on the B.B. King blues classic Rock Me Baby”: Joe Bonamassa invites you to join him on medium/slow blues shuffle – don’t worry, he’ll show you the notes

Set your phone on silent, your brain on shuffle. JoBo has a blues lesson coming in hot

MusicRadar

“He was a very untraditional player, even though he had learned the traditional approach to blues to start with”: Carlos Santana on what made Jeff Beck a guitar great, and why he had to get into character to cover Michael Jackson

“Jeff Beck took guitar way beyond. His approach was like letting the hamster out of the cage,” he says

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