News & Updates — guitar

Bill Broonzy had a long and distinguished career, from spirituals to jazz to country blues to urban and back to folksy. One of 17 children born to a Southern family (precise date and location, unsure), he grew up in Arkansas. His first instrument was a cigar-box fiddle and he sang spirituals. He was a preacher, farmer, soldier and husband for awhile before he went north to Chicago around 1920. In Chicago he started playing guitar and gigging, signed to Paramount and released his first sides in 1927. He did some recording in NYC and toured with Memphis Minnie as her...

An underrated jazz guitarist (and a custom instrument-builder), Attila Zoller was from Hungary. He started playing jazz in Budapest after WW2. After picking up his chops he went to Austria in '48 and then Germany in '54, where he played with notables Jutta Hipp and Albert Mangelsdorff. He backed several visiting American jazz musicians and in '59 won a scholarship to the Lenox School of Jazz in Western Massachusetts. While at Lenox he was roommates with iconoclasts Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. He worked with Benny Goodman, Herbie Mann and Chico Hamilton, as well as cutting music for films before...

An OG proto-punk, Chester Burnett aka "Howlin' Wolf" was born on this day in 1910. In my opinion, one of the meanest sounds to ever grace records was his distinctively nasty growling voice and his raging tunes. "Smokestack Lightnin", "Moanin' At Midnight", "Evil", "Spoonful", "Killin Floor"...dosn't get any sicker! He came from Mississippi and learned guitar from Charley Patton, learned harmonica from Sonny Boy Williamson II and his vocal style was influenced by Jimmie Rodgers. In '51 he recorded for Sam Phillips in Memphis and moved to Chicago the next year to record for Chess. In the '50s he learned...

One of the great icons, Skip James was one of the dark princes of the blues and his songs and guitar style was a huge influence on Robert Johnson. He came from the Mississippi Delta and recorded several sides for Paramount in '31 but they sold poorly during the Depression, yet upon discovery by a newer generation of blues fans leading up to the early '60s he became a legend. John Fahey, Henry Vestine and Bill Barth found James in a Mississippi hospital in '64. That same year he played the Newport Folk Festival which helped kick off the blues...

Groovy Guitarist Grant Green was a regular presence on Blue Note Records and with funky organ combos. He was rooted in bop, blues and R&B and adapted his sound and approach to many different styles. He was inspired mostly by horn players, although he rarely worked with them. He effortlessly laid down lots of fluid single-note runs, and the only guitarists he seems to have cited as influence were Charlie Christian and Jimmy Raney. From St Louis, was playing in gospel bands by 12, before getting into rock & roll and R&B. He first recorded in '59 with Jimmy Forrest...