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EXPLAINED: Chet atkins | Vintage Vibes

“The Gretsch was given by John Lennon to his cousin. He kept it for almost 50 years”: The magical mystery of the $1.3m Gretsch that might have recorded a Beatles classic

Amelia Walker of Christie's takes us behind the scenes at the Jim Irsay auction to look at the 1963 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins that was rumored to have been used on Paperback Writer

Guitar World

“My playing has always sucked, but it sells because I keep it simple”: Steve Cropper was one of guitar’s most modest yet influential figures. In one of his final interviews, he looked back at making Booker T & the MG’s classics and working with Jeff Beck

The co-writer of classics including Green Onions and (Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay proved you don’t need technical wizardry to make a mark. In 2024, he walked us through a career marked by hits, groove and soul

Guitar World

“Page must be mental giving away such a terrific guitar”: The incredible story of Jimmy Page’s 1957 Gretsch 6120 that fetched over $130,000 at auction – 50 years after the Led Zeppelin icon gave it away for free

Gretsch 6120s from 1957 in such good condition are thin on the ground. And this one has the rare distinction of being the one that the Page gave away for a competition prize. The question is why?

Guitar World

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“Of all the artist-associated instruments I’ve been involved with, this has been my favorite journey”: A guitar once owned by Jimmy Page and given away in a magazine competition goes for over three times its estimate at auction

The 1957 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 was originally bought by Page in 1972 and won by a New Music Express reader

Guitar World

“I had no way to play Hotel California live. I played so many guitar tracks on that song”: Don Felder on why he had to mod his white Gibson doubleneck to play the Eagles’ biggest hit – and how he got the idea from Chet Atkins

What do you do when a standard doubleneck is just not enough?

MusicRadar

“I see other players with one of them on their ’boards and say, ‘You get that off of me?’ They go, ‘Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did’”: Brent Mason on his affordable secret tone weapon – and how it's become a go-to pedal for session guitarists

The $130 stompbox has been a vital tool across 40 years of session work – and other players have started to take note

Guitar World

“Being called a guitar hero was just awkward. Whether I’ve written a good song or not, that’s what counts to me”: Mark Knopfler on 40 years of Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms – the guitars, the riffs… the pressure of learning to play in time

From his lucky ’83 Les Paul and Fleetwood Mac-inspired soloing to “getting away with murder” at the sessions, the Dire Straits legend opens up in his most revealing interview in years

Guitar World

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“She gets on the intercom and says, ‘There's a boy from Australia here to see you.’ I hear him say, ‘Is he a fingerpicker?’” Tommy Emmanuel knocked on the door of his biggest guitar hero – and ended up jamming with him

The acoustic virtuoso took a pilgrimage to Nashville and swung by the house of his hero, and came away having learned a lesson he still holds close to this day

Guitar World

“Chet had such facility and knowledge, and yet what he wanted to do was play two chords all morning long. He’d say to me, ‘You’re pretty good, but you’re no Mark Knopfler’”: Mark Knopfler looks back on his jams with fellow fingerstyle legend Chet Atkins

The pair traded licks after the release of Brothers in Arms, and went on to release an album together

Guitar World

“The biggest pain in all guitar playing”: Jason Isbell names the hardest thing for beginners to learn on guitar – and how mastering it leveled up his own playing

Isbell sympathizes with newbie players struggling with them, but discusses why they’re a vital songwriting tool

Guitar World

“We had four guitarists, which was unheard of at that point”: Johnny Hickman on his pre-Cracker band, the Unforgiven, revisiting the Cracker catalog, and big, bone-headed riffs

Re-recording their catalog for the epic Alternative History, Cracker are taking control of their own story, and it's one that begins with a riff and their own Mick and Keef creative chemistry

Guitar World

“Being a guitar player is a way of life. Everything comes down to commitment": Tommy Emmanuel explains the difference between being a guitarist and a guitar player

The Australian fingerpicking legends reflects on a life of guitar and what made Chet Atkins so great

Guitar World

“If we had tried to plan it, it would’ve never happened. The thing happened just by magic”: From Beatlemania to All Things Must Pass and beyond – the definitive guitar history of George Harrison's greatest recorded works

Guitar World's Beatlemaniacs assemble for the deepest of deep dives into the recorded output of a pop-cultural icon and genius player to find that there was no one quite like George Harrison

Guitar World

“Ray Manzarek hated the sound of distorted guitar chords. He didn’t think they belonged in music”: X’s Under the Big Black Sun is a stone-cold L.A. punk classic, produced by a legendary figure who “didn’t really like punk rock” – here's how it was made

In X guitarist Billy Zoom's mind, the band could have been Eddie Cochran meets the Ramones, but they ended up being much more. A renaissance man with a love of Gretsch, Zoom takes us back to revisit the band's seminal 1982 album

Guitar World

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Guitar World

“We often overlook this humble technique, yet it’s such an important tool for expressive rhythm and lead playing”: Palm muting is an essential guitar technique – but there’s a lot more to it than just chugging. Are you using it to its full potential?

First used by ’50s legends Chet Atkins and Les Paul, it is rock, metal and punk that have made palm muting so popular today

MusicRadar

"I remember saying to Eric, 'I'm going to play him off the stage one day'. But what Eric did was even more peculiar, he said, 'Well, I'm going to pretend that I am Jimi Hendrix!'": Pete Townshend looks back in this classic 1990 guitar interview

Best of 2024: "The thing that really stunned Eric and me was the way he took what we did and made it better"

Guitar World

“I always liked bluegrass a lot because the tempo is a lot closer to a NOFX beat”: Meet the Bad Ups, the Philadelphia punks inspired by country-and-western, reggae and Chet Atkins

The Philly punks kick down the walls of genre orthodoxy on their debut album Life of Sin, complementing their powerchord assault with new-wave vibes, acoustic guitar, and licks Chet Atkins taught 'em

Guitar World

“I don’t practice, because I don’t think that practicing in itself is necessary”: Yes icon Steve Howe on why he rarely runs scales, thrashing acoustics –and why you won’t catch him playing unfamiliar guitars

The prog legend checks in to talk all things guitar, from drawing inspiration from his parents' record collection and cutting his teeth on a cheap arch-top to finding his sound on the ES-175 and six-string explorations on Guitarscape

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Louder

"We weren’t fiddling around and wondering what to do, we were going to nail this sucker": Steve Howe names the best record he's ever made

Yes guitarist Steve Howe picks his records, artists and gigs of lasting significance

Guitar World

“My playing has always sucked, but it sells, because I keep it simple, I guess. I’m not a guitar player, I never took the time”: Soul icon Steve Cropper on writing Green Onions, stressing out Brian May – and the secret of Billy Gibbons’ guitar style

Cropper says he isn't it a great guitar player but if you co-wrote Green Onions and (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay, you don't need technical wizardry. He walks us through a career marked by hits, grooves and soul

MusicRadar

“I was thrashing that guitar to pieces, and I don’t play like that anymore”: Prog rock legend Steve Howe of Yes reveals what he’s learned in 60 years of playing

His first guitar, his favourite Yes song, and much more…

Guitar World

“I played poker with Freddie King during one of the tours he did with Eric Clapton. I lost half my tour money!” Session legend George Terry on eating Whoppers with Diana Ross and high times as Eric Clapton’s go-to ’70s six-string lieutenant

George Terry looks back on a decade of hits with the Bee Gees, Barbra Streisand, ABBA, and Diana Ross, and his adventures and misadventures with Slowhand

Guitar World

“I’m always true to the melody but I try to do something unique with it. That makes it sound like me, even if it’s a Paul McCartney or John Lennon song”: Tommy Emmanuel on the art of arrangement, performance and why there’s no shortcut to virtuosity

Tommy Emmanuel does things with the acoustic guitar that defy belief. He does things with pop-culture's canon that blow our mind. Here he walks through his approach, sharing wisdom as he goes

Guitar World

Cotten picking, ‘picking and flicking’, open tunings, Travis picking and banjo techniques on guitar – learning Americana guitar styles opens up a whole new world for your acoustic playing

From Maybelle Carter’s famous ‘pick and flick’ approach to Pete Seeger’s banjo-style techniques – it’s all here in a lesson that will make you a more rounded player

Guitar World

“When I heard the Rolling Stones, they sounded like a bad high school band to me. I didn't get it”: Tommy Emmanuel explains how a love of Chet Atkins meant he initially struggled to understand The Rolling Stones and Beatles hype

Emmanuel now “loves” both bands, but back in the day it took him “a long time to appreciate them”

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