Jody Stecher

Feb 21, 2024 | acousticguitar.com | Jody Stecher |Adam Perlmutter |Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

Joni Mitchell’s effervescent “Help Me,” from the breakthrough album Court and Spark, was her biggest hit single—breaking the Top Ten in 1974. The album track is lushly arranged with layers of electric guitar, keyboard, flute, saxophone, and more over bass and drums, courtesy of the jazz fusion band the L.A. Express. Mitchell’s strummed acoustic guitar kicks off the song and continues throughout, but the details of her playing are tough to discern in the mix.

Feb 11, 2024 | acousticguitar.com | Maurice Tani |Scott Nygaard |Jody Stecher |Alan Barnosky

This guitar solo, from the ever-popular song “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” comes from Bill Napier, one of the great and underrated musicians of early bluegrass music. He was a stellar mandolin player, performed often on banjo, and flatpicked spectacular guitar leads long before the instrument was considered more than a rhythm machine in bluegrass. Raised in Virginia, he relocated to Michigan for work before joining the Stanley Brothers in 1957 at age 22.