Guitar Player

Guitar Player is a well-known magazine in the United States that caters to guitar enthusiasts. It was established in 1967 in San Jose, California. The magazine features a variety of content, including articles, interviews, reviews, and lessons that cover a diverse range of artists, music styles, and products. Since its launch in late 1967, it has maintained a print presence. Currently, Michael Molenda serves as the editor. Guitar Player is also a member of the Music Player Network.

National, Consumer

English

Magazine

Outlet metrics

Domain Authority

Ranking

Global

#36828

United States

#8756

Arts and Entertainment/Music

#94

Traffic sources

Monthly visitors

Articles

“I felt so crestfallen. I wanted to throw my guitar away.” Alex Lifeson on the gig that made Rush feel like they’d made it — and how a one audience member brought them crashing down to Earth

5 days ago | guitarplayer.com | Phil Weller

After nearly half a century of envelope-pushing and genre-defying music, the curtain fell on Rush for the final time on August 1, 2015, at the 16,000-capacity Los Angeles Forum. Speaking to Classic Rock as the band’s final tour rolled into life, Alex Lifeson painted a very different picture of what life in the band’s early days was like, pointing to a show that made them think they’d made it big, before being brought crashing down to Earth.
“It’s tongue in cheek!" The story of The Beatles song with three guitarists, three bassists, McCartney on drums — and a lyric that made enemies

5 days ago | guitarplayer.com | Phil Weller

Although they reshaped music as we know it, the Beatles never shied away from their influences. Their earliest albums included covers of songs by some of their favorite American artists, including Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Carl Perkins and groups from the Motown stable. Those influences were rooted deep in their music sensibilities.
“He goes, ‘Play, boy,’ in that very southern way. I start taking my solo, sweating: ‘He’s going to hit me! I know it’s coming.’” How Jerry Lee Lewis terrorized Rory Gallagher, Dave Davies and Ritchie Blackmore

5 days ago | guitarplayer.com | Christopher Scapelliti

He called himself “the Killer,” and he lived up to the name, if not literally then figuratively. Jerry Lee Lewis was one of rock and roll’s founding fathers, a piano-pounding boogie-woogie rocker with a piled-high pompadour and a smirk that said he didn’t give a shit if you liked him or not.
“I had just been turned on to Ravi Shankar, and I had an album in my suitcase. I gave it to George.” How David Crosby's casual recommendation changed George Harrison’s guitar playing forever

6 days ago | guitarplayer.com | Phil Weller

When George Harrison’s "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" Les Paul was kidnapped in 1973, he called on his former sitar mentor Ravi Shankar to issue an appeal for its safe return, such was their deep-rooted connection. The Indian musician music introduced Harrison to the Eastern tonalities he brought into the Beatles' music from 1966 onward. But Harrison didn't discover Shankar's music by chance.
"I know Stevie always sounded the same.” Jimmie Vaughan says Stevie Ray Vaughan would agree - there's no tone difference between rosewood and maple fretboards | GuitarPlayer

6 days ago | guitarplayer.com | Phil Weller

Does the wood choice of a fretboard really impact a guitar’s tone? Ask big-name players like Joe Bonamassa and Joe Satriani and they’ll give you passionate reasons for why they lean on either side of the long-raging debate. Ask Jimmie Vaughan and he’ll tell you it doesn’t make one iota of difference either way. And he’ll point to his late brother for proof. Today, as manufacturer’s look for alternatives to dwindling supplies, fingerboards can be made out of a huge variety of woods.
“Jeff Beck used to love seeing him and Lenny play live! It feels full circle.” Jeff Beck’s $490,000 Yardbust Les Paul was just played on Lenny Kravitz's full tour by guitarist Craig Ross

1 week ago | guitarplayer.com | Phil Weller

When Jeff Beck’s wife put the late virtuoso’s guitar collection up for auction last year, she did so in the hope that they would be “shared, played, and loved again”. Even before that, John Mayer used his 2014 Custom Strat during Dead & Co’s shows at The Sphere, and, now, having bought Beck’s famed Yardburst Les Paul for $490,000, Matt's Guitar Shop is ensuring the guitar’s days continue to play out on stages across the world by lending it to Lenny Kravitz’s foil, Craig Ross.
"We tried everything we could to dirty it up." Why the Beatles couldn't have made "Helter Skelter" without the Who

1 week ago | guitarplayer.com | Phil Weller

Few songs can claim to be ground zero for heavy metal. Black Sabbath’s eponymous 1969 album opener is largely accepted as the genre’s starting point, but Blue Cheer's "Summertime Blues," released in January 1968, also bears substantial sonic weight. And then there's "Helter Skelter," the Beatles dark and savage hard rocker from 1968's White Album.
“Make sure I’m dead.” Eddie Van Halen’s former wife Valerie Bertinelli hopes a Van Halen biopic never happens. Alex Van Halen has other plans

1 week ago | guitarplayer.com | Phil Weller

Valerie Bertinelli says filmmakers need to “make sure I’m dead” before committing to a biopic about her late ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen. “Oh god, I hope they never do one of Van Halen,” Bertinelli exclaimed on Monday's episode of The Drew Barrymore Show.
“Is it going to revitalize American industry, or is it a big disaster?” Chapman Guitars owner Rob Chapman raises concerns about the impact Trump’s tariffs will have on the guitar industry

1 week ago | guitarplayer.com | Phil Weller

YouTuber and Chapman Guitars owner Rob Chapman has hit out at Donald Trump's yo-yo-ing tariffs. In a newly posted video, Chapman warns that the new 145 percent fee on Chinese imports will have a lasting and possibly devastating impact on U.S.-based firms. “Forty-three percent of all instruments imported into America currently are from China,” Chapman explains. That includes guitar parts, from potentiometers to capacitors and screws, as well as pedals and ready-to-be-sold electric guitars.
“That's enough to make anybody who writes songs want to retire." Mark Knopfler on his difficult collaboration with his childhood hero, Bob Dylan

1 week ago | guitarplayer.com | Christopher Scapelliti

The saying “Don’t meet your heroes” is one worth heeding, particularly if you’re in the creative arts. The pure feelings we harbor for artists when they’re afar often become tarnished by exposure to the all-too human qualities they exhibit in person, often to extremes. Producer Rick Rubin writes in his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, “Many great artists first develop sensitive antennae not to create art but to protect themselves. They have to protect themselves because everything hurts more.