Andy Timmons is a phenomenal and versatile guitarist. He’s probably best known for his rock fusion licks, but the video below shows that he also has some great country licks! The video is from Andy’s DVD Live Resolution and is of the song “Headed For the Ditch”.

I’ve mentioned Alvin Youngblood Hart on this blog before, but he definitely deserves another mention. Here’s a video clip of Alvin playing “Big Mama’s Door”. I love the groove of this song, and the trio format really works for Hart’s music.

Atlanta-based blues and roots guitarist Joe McGuinness was recently featured on My Fox Atlanta where he did a short interview and then played a song. I like Joe’s approach and his rootsy vibe. Atlanta’s blues scene has some great musicians, and I’m glad to see Joe getting featured on TV.

A little over a week ago, David Grissom played and demonstrated his signature guitar at a Paul Reed Smith clinic here in Nashville. If you don’t know, Grissom is a guitarist who has played with Joe Ely, John Mellencamp, the Dixie Chicks, and Storyville, among others. He’s also a well-respected studio musician both here in Nashville and in Austin. In addition to his sideman work, he’s also released two solo albums and a blues/rock guitar instruction book.

Prior to seeing the clinic, I had never played the DGT guitar. However, Grissom’s PRS guitar is widely considered to be one of the best signature guitars PRS makes, and it was nice to be able to hear both Grissom and Paul Reed Smith discuss the thought process that went into making the guitar. For example, while the guitar is based on Grissom’s McCarty model that he’s played for many years, there were a few features that he was adamant about including on his guitar. One such feature is the inclusion of two volume controls, one for each pickup. This allows him to blend the two pickups together in various ways when both pickups are selected. The guitar also features coil-taps, which split the humbuckers into single-coil pickups adding even more tones that this guitar can achieve. Grissom likes to use heavy-gauge strings, so he wanted big frets on the guitar; this makes the heavy strings a little easier to bend. The DGT guitar also features a tremolo bar, which he explained helps the strings reverberate more than a stop-tail does.

Of course, in addition to discussing the guitar, Grissom played the guitar. And, what a great player and what a great sounding guitar! He played the guitar through a PRS Sweet 16 amp, which also sounded fantastic. I’ve always been impressed with the quality of craftsmanship that goes into a PRS guitar, and the DGT exemplifies this. It’s clear that a lot of thought went into the design of the guitar and the pickups, and the payoff is an excellent looking and sounding guitar. After seeing the clinic, I spent some time playing a DGT model and I’m very impressed. I think a DGT model is going to be in my future!

Paul Reed Smith also spoke at the clinic, talking about not just the DGT guitar but PRS in general. He’s a pretty funny guy with some very interesting stories. Specifically, it was interesting to hear his take on the music instrument business and the tough year that it seems that all the manufacturers have faced. Unfortunately, he’s had to do some layoffs this year and reduce the workforce to a four-day workweek. He’s also had to cut out extras like bonuses. He mentioned how difficult it is for a non-traditional guitar manufacturer in an environment where everyone seems to want vintage-style instruments. He said that dealers are always looking for the Next Big Thing, even when the current inventory is almost brand new. For example, in Europe shorty after the release of the DGT guitar, the guitar received numerous accolades in the guitar press. However, even while these accolades were just coming out, the dealers were calling asking about new stuff. As a result, PRS has had to constantly evolve their guitar line, leading to them to discontinue a large amount of guitars over the past year or so.

If you get a chance to see a PRS clinic, I recommend going. It’s a fun night of guitar geekery!

Speaking of Cream’s Politician, here’s Cream bassist Jack Bruce playing the song with Rory Gallagher. Notice that at the beginning of the video, Bruce is singing the riff to Gallagher, so maybe Gallagher didn’t know the song. I think he did a pretty good job!

In 2007, Eric Johnson participated in a concert called Love-In: A Musical Celebration, which was a celebration of the music of the ’60s. In addition to Johnson, the concert featured Buddy Miles of Jimi Hendrix and Electric Flag fame, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Jesse Colin Young of the Youngbloods, Vince Martell of Vanilla Fudge, among others.

For his part of the show, Johnson played songs by Cream and Jimi Hendrix. The video below features Johnson playing Politician by Cream as well as Johnson discussing how he felt when hearing the music of the 60s:

Gov’t Mule recently performed their new song “Broke Down on the Brazos” for Sirius XM’s Jam On channel. This is one of my favorite tracks from their new album, and I like their live take on it as well. It’s also interesting to watch Warren Haynes switch between the neck and bridge pickups throughout the song. Here’s the video of the performance:

Tim Thompson is a local Nashville guitarist who won the 2008 Walnut Valley Festival International Guitar competition. He’s a phenomenal player, as the video below displays.

I had a chance to see Tim live earlier this year as part of a collection of awesome acoustic guitarists, and Tim was definitely one of the stand out performers from the night. (To give you an idea of the other musicians he played with, the show included acoustic guitar legends Stephen Bennett, John Knowles, and the incomparable Tommy Emmanuel.) Thompson puts on a lively and entertaining show, and I highly recommend checking him out if he comes to your area.

(Thanks to David for the video link.)

Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam recently released a live DVD titled Live at the Gaiety Theatre recorded in the Isle of Man, where Knowles is from; the show was a bit of a homecoming for Knowles. I’ve seen Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam live several times, and although I’m a fan of their recorded music, it doesn’t do justice to their live shows, so I’m glad to see them release a live DVD.

The DVD features two hours of music from Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam, including songs from their two studio albums and a few selected covers.

The set list for the DVD is:

1. Riverbed
2. Coming Up for Air
3. Messin’ with the Kid
4. Almost Cut My Hair
5. Come Home
6. Gotta Leave
7. You Don’t Love Me
8. Tear Down the Walls
9. Outside Woman Blues
10. Country Girl
11. Amber’s Song
12. Keep on Searching
13. In a Little While
14. It’ll All Come Around
15. Hear Me Lord
16. Roll Away

Also included on the DVD are some bonus features, including the full set of the opening band Strengyn, behind-the-scenes footage of Back Door Slam, and a tour of some of the Isle of Man’s historic areas.

Rob Hylton, owner of TeachWombat, let me know about some of his teaching tools for guitarists. His Guitar Teacher’s Toolkit contains many useful items for guitar teachers.

Included in the package are a number of tools for simplifying the entire process of teaching guitar, including administering lessons as well as managing and promoting your lessons. For example, the package includes five main sets of information.

The “lessons” set provides some sample lesson plans to help provide an outline for a lesson. Also included are a couple of backing tracks to help the student get a feel for playing in a band setting.

The “guitar” set provides a number of PDFs designed to be used in a lesson. There’s a selection of blank sheet music pages as well as blank guitar neck pages. The set also includes scale and mode worksheets that can be handed out to students.

The “managing” set provides several PDFs designed to aid in the running of a lesson shop. For example, there are sheets for tracking expenses and student payments.

The “promoting” set provides several PDFs designed to help promote your lessons business. These PDFs can be used in the creation of advertisements or business cards.

The “big grids” set provides PDFs of guitar chords. These PDFs can be used to help students learn chords.

You can get the Guitar Teacher’s Toolkit for $12 at the TeachWombat website. In addition to the Guitar Teacher’s Toolkit, TeachWombat offers backing tracks and additional handouts you can purchase, as well as a Bass Teacher’s Toolkit if bass is more your speed. I’m not a guitar teacher so I can’t speak to how well these products actually work in practice, but for $12 it looks like you get quite a bit of materials to aid you in your teaching.