2008 has been by far the best year ever for Guitar Lifestyle, and I’d like to thank each of you for stopping by and reading! It’s been a fun and exciting year with a lot of changes around here. I appreciate each of the comments and e-mails that I’ve received. I hope that you’ve enjoyed the posts on the site as much as I’ve enjoyed creating them. Thanks for a great year!

Happy New Year!

Guitar Messenger recently posted a nice interview with Eric Johnson taken while Johnson was on the Experience Hendrix tour. There’s both video and a transcript of the interview that you can read. In the interview, Johnson gives some good advice to aspiring musicians:

I think just have fun with the instrument. I think maybe the most important thing is to play what really gives you joy on the guitar, and couple that with pushing yourself. You have to be discriminate, and you have to push yourself, I think, and that’s not always going to feel comfortable. In fact, most of the time it’ll be uncomfortable. But it’s a sweet kind of pain, and I think you have to make peace with that sweet pain, and realize that’s actually sweeter than it is painful, you know what I mean?

One of my favorite genres of music is the blues, and 2008 did not disappoint. Some very good blues music was released this year. Here’s a list of a few of my favorites, listed in order of release.

Michael Burks is a blues guitarist from Arkansas. Burks has a powerful vocal and guitar style reminiscent of Albert King and Freddie King. However, Burks brings his own style to the blues.

Burks has a number of tour dates scheduled for early 2009, and I’ve heard his live shows are great. I hope he’ll travel through Nashville sometime soon.

Iron Man is the latest release from Burks, and it is one of his best. If you’d never heard of Michael Burks, I highly recommend checking out Iron Man.

Sonny Landreth is a guitarist that doesn’t get enough respect in my opinion. Sure, a lot of guitarists know and appreciate his work, but somehow the mainstream audience largely ignores his contributions to music.

Landreth’s latest release, From the Reach, is another great album from Landreth. Not only his he a great guitarist, but he’s also a very good songwriter and vocalist, as highlighted on this album. But, rest assured, the guitar playing on this album is fantastic, not only from Landreth but also from his guest artists, including Eric Clapton, Robben Ford, Mark Knopfler, and Vince Gill. Dr. John and Jimmy Buffett also make appearances on the album.

While not strictly a blues album, John Mayer’s release Where the Light Is includes some great blues guitar playing.

Like him or not, Mayer is a very good guitarist, and this live album highlights his playing, especially in the Trio section, where he plays with Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan.

I reviewed Where the Light Is earlier this year, so I won’t go into detail again here. But, suffice to say I really enjoyed this album.

A true living legend, Buddy Guy released his new album Skin Deep in July of this year. The album features a number of guest artists, including Eric Clapton, Robert Randolph, Derek Trucks, and nine-year-old Quinn Sullivan.

As usual, Guy’s playing is fiery on this album and each guest adds their own unique touch. One nice addition to the liner notes is an indication of what guitar Guy used on the recording of each song. Buddy will be performing a number of shows with B.B. King in early 2009, which should be a great combination!

Joe Bonamassa is one of my favorite guitarists. I’ve now had the opportunity to see him live twice, and he just keeps getting better. I can’t wait until his new album coming out in February.

Live From Nowhere in Particular is a collection of live songs from Bonamassa’s 2007 tour. It is not a straight recording of one live show, but a collection of the best performances from the tour. When I saw him here in Nashville earlier this year, he mentioned that the song “Sloe Gin” on the album was recorded in Nashville, which was nice to hear. The rest of the songs were recorded around the world at various locations, hence the title.

Speaking of B.B. King, he also released a new album this year, One Kind Favor, which was produced by T Bone Burnett. In my opinion, this is one of King’s best album in year’s. It’s nice to see that even at 83, King is still going strong.

TheGearPage.net forums have a nice collection of photographs of the gear that the guitarists on the Experience Hendrix tour were using. For example, there are photos of Eric Johnson’s rig, Brad Whitford’s rig, Mato Nanji’s rig, Bernard Allison’s rig, Eric Gales’s rig, Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s rig, Jonny Lang’s rig, Buddy Guy’s rig, and there are also pictures of some of the artists’ pedalboards.

Interestingly, the guitar techs were asked to tape over the Fender logos on the Fender amps because Gibson was sponsoring the show. Seems like a silly move to me. I’m sure that most people in the audience knew what kind of amps they were.

Check out the gear photos here.

I recently stumbled across this 2006 interview with David Grissom by Vintage Guitar magazine. Grissom is a highly regarded guitarist who has played with many people, including the Dixie Chicks, John Mellencamp, Joe Ely, Robben Ford, Buddy Guy, and many more. Here’s a snippet of the interview where Grissom is discussing getting his guitar tone:

I think lucking into finding a Paul Reed Smith guitar was a really big thing. When I moved to Austin, everyone was playing Stratocasters, and I had an incredible Strat – still have it – but some part of me said, “I don’t want to play what everyone else is playing.” I got the Paul Reed Smith in ’85 or ’86, just about the first year they came out. And I got them to make me a goldtop a year later. To me, playing a Paul Reed Smith is somewhere between a Les Paul and a Telecaster. Its scale length is between the two. Playing rhythm, there’s a certain clarity to it – which you don’t necessarily get out of a Les Paul. But there’s a certain beefiness that you don’t get out of a Telecaster. The pickups I put in mine are weaker, because I want a clear-sounding humbucker.

I recently found out on the forums on Joe Bonamassa’s Web site that Joe will be releasing his next album, titled The Ballad of John Henry, on February 24, 2009. I’m a big fan of Bonamassa’s, so I’m really looking forward to this upcoming album.

I had a chance to see Bonamassa live for the second time this past fall, and he was even better the second time I saw him. He puts on a great live show, so if you have a chance to see him, I highly recommend it.

Lick Library recently posted an interview with Bonamassa, as well as a live clip of Bonamassa playing the title song from the The Ballad of John Henry. I’ve embedded the live clip below, but I encourage you to check out the interview as well. During the interview, he even mentions playing with Larry Carlton at his show here in Nashville.

Editors note: This is a guest post written by Ava Corrothers, one of the administrators of the Jemsite guitar blog.

Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Joan Jett, Susanna Hoffs…so yesterday! Yes, these are the names of amazing female guitarists who some might consider modern day female rockers, but when I say modern, I mean MODERN-like in the last two decades.

This is the time when guitar strumming femmes are taking it to a whole new level. So here’s my list. You may hate some of the choices, you may love them…but we should all give major props for these women who changed the modern music rock world for women in the new generation, one guitar string at a time.

Melissa Etheridge

I’ve read on other posts that all songwriter/guitarist Melissa Etheridge does is strum chords, but I’d like to believe she’s so much more.

She’s already released ten albums, three of which have gone multi-platinum…and when she plays in a club or bar with just one guitar, it’s like she has a whole band behind her!

She’s bluesy, a little bit pop and rock, and totally fierce!

And she constantly jams away!

Jennifer Batten

She’s more than just the girl with the statement-making wild blonde hair. She was Michael Jackson’s main guitarist on his Dangerous tour, plucked from over 100 other guitarists who auditioned to be part of the tour.

And, have you ever seen the YouTube video where she plays “Flight of the Bumblebee” on her electric?

Unbelievable!

Allison Robertson

The Donnas are my favorite hardcore glam girl group and Allison Robertson is their star guitarist.  But while they may all seem about fun, she’s totally about guts.  What makes her so sexy? She takes risks with her riffs and you can see it in her fingertips, with every lick coming out quite intensely.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a female play a Gibson or a Marshall better. “I’m sort of an old soul,” she once said in an interview, and it’s true, Robertson takes her influences and reinvents them like rock n’ roll royalty.

PJ Harvey

If The Donnas are the epitome of hardcore glam, then PJ Harvey is the epitomy of real glam-rocker chick style.  PJ has had five Grammy nominations, been Rolling Stone’s 1992 New Artist of the Year and had two of her albums on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.

She’s an amazing guitarist…and yet, she’s told music magazine The Wire that she leaves instruments untouched when she’s not recording. At one point, she had to learn guitar all over again.  And yet, her hands on guitar strings are amazing!

Ani DiFranco

This feminist icon may not be the first person you think of when you think femme guitar rocker, but she’s been playing Beatles covers in local bars with her guitar teacher since the age of nine!

Her guitar playing style is also iconic, represented by what Wikipedia calls a “signature staccato style, rapid fingerpicking, and alternate tunings.”

She’s been called quite a controversy for her song material, but she puts on quite a show.

Primal Twang: The Legacy of the Guitar is a DVD of performances from September 2006 in San Diego featuring some great guitarists. From the Primal Twang Web site:

The story of the “instrument of the gods” was told through a combination of onstage narration, video projections of rare historical footage and electrifying live performances by world music legend, Dan Crary and an all-star ensemble of international guitar greats, including Grammy-winners Eric Johnson, Albert Lee, Andrew York, Mason Williams and Doc Watson. Together, in person, for the first time on any stage!

This looks like a great DVD for guitar lovers! You can purchase the DVD on the Primal Twang Web site. Check out a preview below:

I was browsing YouTube the other day and noticed this early performance of Eric Johnson playing Song for George. You may be familiar with the version that appears on Johnson’s album Ah Via Musicom. However, in early performances, he played the song on a Dobro, as shown in the following video. I like the Dobro version even better than the recorded version!

Speaking of David Gilmour, I recently found a site called Gilmourish.com, which is a fan site written by Bjorn Riis and is devoted to all things David Gilmour. Bjorn claims that Glimourish is “the largest David Gilmour gear resource on the net” and I think he’s probably right. There is a ton of information about David’s gear throughout the years, including a description of his guitars, amps, and effects. Riis not only covers the gear that David used in the recording studio, but also the gear that he used for live performances.

Not only does Riis cover David’s gear, but he has a series of posts about how you can get similar guitar tones. For example, he gives some tips on buying a new guitar, such as selecting and upgrading Fender Stratocasters.

Gilmourish is a very well done site, and I encourage you to check it out if you’re a fan of Pink Floyd or David Gilmour. There’s even some backing tracks you can use when playing some of Pink Floyd’s biggest hits.