Earlier this year, Kenny Wayne Shepherd was featured during one of the Guitar Center Sessions events. They recorded the session and have provide the videos on YouTube. Below is Shepherd and singer Noah Hunt playing “Shotgun Blues”:

The other available videos from the session include:

Introduction and “King Bee”
Shepherd discussing his history
Shepherd discussing his influences
Shepherd discussing changes in writing and why he started singing
Shepherd and Hunt playing “Blue on Black”
Shepherd discussing his effects
Shepherd and Hunt playing “Losing Kind”
Shepherd discussing Fender
Shepherd discussing recording
Shepherd discussing his last album, 10 Days Out

Speaking of Joe Bonamassa, Cherry Lane Music is going to be releasing a tablature book for Joe’s album Blues Deluxe on August 24th. You can preorder the book from Music Dispatch.

On May 4 of this year, Joe Bonamassa celebrated his 20 years in the music business by performing at the Royal Albert Hall, which fulfilled a dream that he’s had since he was a child. The show was recorded and will be released as a DVD later this year, on September 21.

Joe brought out all the stops for the Royal Albert Hall show. Eric Clapton joined him on stage to play “Further on Up the Road”, and Joe also expanded his regular band to include two drummers and a horn section.

Reports from the show indicate that it was a great show, so I’m really looking forward to the release of the DVD. I had a chance to see Bonamassa earlier this year a few months before the Royal Albert Hall show, and he was on fire.

Here’s a trailer for the DVD:

TinyLick.com is a fun Web site that lets you create licks and then share them on other sites, such as forum sites or on your own Web site. For example, here’s a three-note per string lick in G:

Guitar-Techniques.com recently had the chance to ask Derek Trucks a few questions about his guitar playing and his gear. In the interview, he mentions that he doesn’t use any pedals; he just plugs straight into his amp and lets the tubes do the talking. He also discusses his favorite amp and how he sets it up for gigs:

Blackface Fender Super Reverb – volume 8, treble 8, mid and bass 4, reverb 3, bright switch on!

Read the rest of the interview here.

Virtual Woodshed has an interesting interview with pickup designer Lindy Fralin. If you’ve ever looked into buying aftermarket pickups for your guitar, then you know that Fralin is one of the best out there when it comes to making pickups. In the interview, he discusses tone, how he got started playing guitar, how he got started in the pickup business, and playing in his own band. Here’s his take on why he’s mostly known as a “Fender guy”:

That’s probably Hendrix’s fault.  But I was always, even on an acoustic guitar or anything, I was always attracted to that bright wound string. [ed note: Fralin pickups are highly regarded by tone purists for their remarkable clarity on the bass strings] I can remember the first guitar I noticed [that on] was “Hanky Panky”.  And what I liked about it was not the singing or anything else, it was when he went “duh duh duh duh”, how it started at a verse you know?  And it was low guitar, but you could hear clarity on it, it was a single coil pickup sound. I liked that sound! My dad had a classical guitar, before I ever owned anything of my own.  And it had real bright wound strings on it and I would just sit around and noodle on it and think how cool they sounded.  I’ve always liked that to this day.  I’m a big fan of single coil pickups.  I like distortion too, but I like to hear where I’m playing.  Especially playing rhythm, I like to hear that really bright wound string.

Check out the rest of the interview on the Virtual Woodshed site.

Adam Levy has a series on his Web site where he asks the same 13 questions to different guitarists. Recently, he asked those 13 questions to guitarist Alvin Youngblood Hart. In one question, Hart gives his opinion on what makes a good guitar:

Well, it certainly isn’t the name on the headstock. The difference is what goes on between the nut and the saddle. By that I mean, if those variables are straight, a $60 guitar will sound every bit as good as, if not better than, a $6000 guitar.

Check out the rest of the questions and Hart’s answers here.

The 88 have recently recorded an entire song titled “Love is the Thing” using the FourTrack iPhone application by Sonoma Wire Works. They describe a bit of the process and reasoning behind recording a song using the iPhone on their site.

This Spring, we were on tour opening up for the B-52s, with shows all around the East Coast. One day while we were driving, Keith was browsing through the applications on the iPhone and came across FourTrack. We thought this app would be a great way to record song ideas while we are away from home.

So we downloaded it, and I thought it would be a neat experiment to record the full band on a phone. I was very curious to see how it would sound.

You can judge for yourself below, but I think their experiment turned out pretty well. And, it’s not only a great advertisement for the FourTrack app, it’s turning out to be a great marketing tool for the band.

I was watching the Today Show the other morning and was surprised to see a profile of young 10-year old blues guitarist Quinn Sullivan. If you’re not familiar with Sullivan, Buddy Guy took an interest in Sullivan a few years ago and even featured him on his last album Skin Deep. While most of his peers are probably enjoying their summer vacation by riding bikes, swimming, and playing video games, Sullivan is spending his summer vacation touring and recording an album. The future looks bright for Quinn Sullivan.