Fingerboard Stories

John Mayer: Three Incendiary Live Covers
Being a great songwriter comes from understanding great songs. And, as Mayer’s impressive covers repertoire shows, he has that knowledge in spades. Not just a great player and a great writer, Mayer knows how to interpret other peoples’ material to maintain the character of the original while injecting his own unique flavour.
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Remembering Dusty Hill
“When I started playing in a three-piece, I realized that you have to do the song, not your personal performance, so you have to be tasty with it and enjoy the playing. Writing the song helps a lot; if I’m involved in the writing process, it comes to me. I think one of the best bass players in the world for that is Paul McCartney; he played the perfect part for everything, in every song. Sometimes you don’t even notice the bass — I hate that in a way, but I love that in a way. That’s a compliment. That means you’ve filled in everything and it’s right for the song, and you’re not standing out where you don’t need to be.”
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Whitesnake Were a Blues Band?
The version of the band that Coverdale formed in the late 1970s is pretty far removed from the iteration that cracked the American market in the subsequent decade. For many years, Whitesnake only really found success in their native UK. And the BritSnake was more like a down-and-dirty blues-rock extension of Deep Purple than the hair-rock flock that Coverdale established later down the line. 
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