Talking Guitar ★ Jas Obrecht's Music Magazine

Articles

The Bluebird Beat: Tampa Red’s Marathon 1937 Lession

5 days ago | jasobrecht.substack.com | Jas Obrecht

During the years before World War II, Mayo Williams and Lester Melrose were the go-to men in Chicago for blues recording. Both worked as recording supervisors, music publishers, and A&R men. Both had been associated with Paramount Records during the 1920s. Earlier in that decade, Lester and Walter Melrose had opened the Melrose Brothers Music Company on Chicago’s South Side. Lester became a freelance A&R man in 1925.
Uli Jon Roth: The 1985 “Astral Skies” Interview (Podcast)

1 week ago | jasobrecht.substack.com | Jas Obrecht

Recorded on March 20 and 21, 1985, these interviews capture the German guitar hero at a transitional moment in his career. Uli Jon Roth had already recorded classic albums with the Scorpions—Fly to the Rainbow, In Trance, Virgin Killer, and Tokyo Tapes among them—as well as two albums with Electric Sun. At the time of our conversations, he had just wrapped up the sessions for his Beyond the Astral Skies solo project.
Tips for Buying an Acoustic Guitar

2 weeks ago | jasobrecht.substack.com | Jas Obrecht

Note: In 1980, an editor at Rolling Stone asked Tom Wheeler and me to write an article for their July 10th issue. Published as “Won’t Get Fooled Again: Tips for Buying an Acoustic Guitar,” this article was aimed at helping prospective buyers navigate the pre-online world of music stores. Forty-five years later, our advice about assessing new and used acoustic guitars still holds true.
Carlos Santana: “The Best Way to Rehearse”

3 weeks ago | jasobrecht.substack.com | Jas Obrecht

In 1988 Carlos Santana reassembled the original late-1960s Santana band to tour in support of a three-LP career retrospective called Viva Santana. It had been twenty years since Carlos, keyboardist Gregg Rolie, drummer Michael Shrieve, and percussionist Chepito Areas had played together. After two weeks of intensive rehearsals, Carlos called me on his last day home before the tour and offered to share his views on how musicians can make the best use of rehearsal time.
Keith Richards: An Epic 1992 Interview (Podcast)

1 month ago | jasobrecht.substack.com | Jas Obrecht

This 102-minute interview took place on September 17, 1992, in the Manhattan office of Keith’s personal manager, Jane Rose. In a great mood that evening, Keith had just finished mixing his Main Offender solo album and was happy to talk about a wide range of subjects.
Dave Hole’s “Short Fuse Blues” (Podcast)

1 month ago | jasobrecht.substack.com | Jas Obrecht

Being an editor for Guitar Player magazine in the pre-internet days brought endless opportunities to listen to reader-submitted cassette tapes and CDs. The vast majority of ’em featured generic playing, albeit often expertly performed. Once in a great while, though, something quite extraordinary—thrilling, even—showed up in the mail.
The Georgia Cotton Pickers

1 month ago | jasobrecht.substack.com | Jas Obrecht

To listeners of Atlanta-based radio station WSB, Dan Hornsby was known as “Cheerful Dan, The Man With the Two-Octave Voice.” His pop and hillbilly recordings under his own name and with the Dan Hornsby Trio enjoyed decent sales, especially his original “The Shelby Disaster.” Cheerful Dan’s greatest claim to fame, though, are his accomplishments during his tenure as Columbia Records’ go-to man in Atlanta.
Suzanne Vega: The 1987 “Solitude Standing” Interview (Audio)

1 month ago | jasobrecht.substack.com | Jas Obrecht

Taped on July 23, 1987, the interview you’re about to hear was originally done for Guitar Player magazine. Three months earlier Suzanne’s breakthrough Solitude Standing album had come out, and at the time we spoke her hit single “Luka” was #3 on the U.S. record charts. We focused our conversation on Suzanne’s approaches to songwriting and playing guitar.
Leo Kottke: “Fingerpicks Just Aren’t Necessary”

1 month ago | jasobrecht.substack.com | Jas Obrecht

While an editor at Guitar Player magazine in the mid-1980s, I came up with the idea of asking famous players to send me one of their guitar picks. (We eventually published three fold-out poster displays of these picks.) I was surprised when one of the musicians I contacted, world-class fingerpicker Leo Kottke, sent me a note instead: “I don’t use picks.
Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown: The Complete 1978 Interview

2 months ago | jasobrecht.substack.com | Jas Obrecht

Gruff, direct, and fiercely individualistic, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown had a rich singing voice and a spirited, horn-like approach to the electric guitar, which he played bare-fingered. Unlike his contemporary T-Bone Walker, who unabashedly declared himself a bluesman, the Stetson-wearing, pipe-smoking Brown took umbrage at this classification. “I’m a musician,” he once growled at me, “not some dirty lowdown bluesman. I play American and world music, Texas-style.