There’s a really cool project underway that when complete, will result in a guitar music (and player) documentary film.

The project involves a global search for six guitar players who have a story to tell about themselves, their guitar, their music, or better yet… all of those subjects combined.

James Smith, the Director & Writer of “Six Strings” says this:

“I am a film director and writer based in London, UK and am making a documentary film called SIX STRINGS about one of my passions: guitar music. My aim is to deliver a superb film and with the help of my production team, market it to film festivals around the world.

James Smith, Director and Writer

[CLICK HERE] to be re-directed to the official web site.

The commercial says: “it’s not just a phone, it’s a collector’s item.”

The myTouch 3G Fender Limited Edition is available for $179.99 with a new two-year T-Mobile agreement.

I will admit, it’s pretty cool!

Jason Bonham, Glenn Hughes, Derek Sherinian and Joe Bonamassa have formed a new super group calling themselves Black Country.

They are in the studio NOW with legendary producer Kevin Shirley.

My initial thought was… “is Joe breaking up the current band?”  Joe responded to that question on his own forum saying “…My solo band has about 140 shows booked this year.. So the answer is nothing will happen with my current lineup.  It means a bit more work for me but I am very happy with the way everything is going on…”

Shirley made the announcement on his website:

“So there it is folks – the cat is out the bag! This is Black Country.

The songs are all original and what a lineup. They are all the very best players in the world, for my money!”

Jason Bonham (Led Zeppelin, Foreigner) is a totally unique drummer and a supreme, yet oh-so-tasty powerhouse. Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Billy Idol, Alice Cooper) is super versatile, and is playing mostly overdriven Hammond organ in this ensemble and is the color on the palette. Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Trapeze) plays bass and sings with a range VERY, VERY few can even get close to, and Joe Bonamassa, perhaps the best Blues guitarist around, plays hard riffing guitar as well as adding his signature vocals alongside Glenn.

“You’ll just have to wait – we’re planning to get this out late summer, and it’s promising to be phenomenal!”, said Shirley.

Well Kevin… we can hardly wait!

(note: the photo is a compilation courtesy of GuitarDaddy and TheGuitarBuzz.com and is NOT an official band photo…)

This morning started out as just another day at the office…  I had a full backlog of “to-do’s” that were all part of playing catch-up after a busy NAMM week.  But along about 10am the mailman arrived and neatly camouflaged in a brown bubble envelope was a promotional copy of Joe Bonamassa’s BLACK ROCK CD.

CANCEL ALL APPOINTMENTS!

BLACK ROCK was recorded at, and named for, Black Rock Studios in Santorini, Greece.

“With this album, we wanted to explore a “world feeling”, and this was the inspiration behind going to record in Greece and using some of the best Greek musicians to add a little flavor to a couple of the tracks.  But it’s by no means a “world” album.  We wanted Joe’s usual youthful and energetic tones to play alongside the worldly vibes of the Greek bouzouki and clarino,” said Kevin Shirley, producer (Black Crowes, Aerosmith, Led Zepplin and most recently “The Ballad of John Henry”).

Bonamassa added: “It’s the kind of record Kevin and I wanted to make.  We needed to rock again a bit like on my first album”.  And rocking is exactly what they did.

Joe scored big-time when he signed up blues legend B.B. King for a duet on a rendition of “Night Life” whigh originally appeared on King’s 1967 album, “Blues is King”.

Other tracks include Jeff Beck’s “Spanish Boots”, Leonard Cohen’s poetic “Bird on a Wire” (which I have had on auto-repeat for about an hour…), Otis Rush’s “Three Times A Fool”, Bobby Parker’s “Steal Your Heart Away”, Blind Boy Fuller’s “Baby, You Gotta Change Your Mind”, John Hiatt’s “I Know A Place” and James Clark’s “Look Over Yonder’s Wall” as well as the Bonamassa originals “Quarryman’s Lament”, “When The Fire Hits The Sea”, Wandering Earth”, “Athens to Anthens” and “Blue and Evil”.

Joe Bonamassa has been on quite a roll over the past 2 years with the release of the double CD “Live From Nowhere in Particular”, followed by “The Ballad of John Henry” and then the double DVD “Live From the Royal Albert Hall”.  He was named “Best Blues Guitarist” in Guitar Player Magazine’s 2009 Readers Choice Awards for the 3rd consecutive year and recently awarded the “Breakthrough Artist of the Year Award” at the U.K.’s prestigious Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards.  Guitar World Magazine dubbed Bonamassa “The Blues Rock Titan” and finally… (demonstrating the true measure of musical success in the 21st Century), his single “Lonesome Road Blues” is a part of Guitar Hero V’s New Blues Masters Track Pack!

Even with all of that, Joe is not taking a break.  BLACK ROCK demonstrates truly ground-breaking territory for the young blues legend by integrating international sounds with sizzling blues and good old fiery rock n’ roll.

BLACK ROCK will be in stores on March 23, 2010 and you won’t want to miss it!

I was roaming the isles at NAMM and came across a demonstration for what quickly became a must-have electric guitar application for my iTouch.

The PRS JAM AMP combines a great-sounding guitar amp simulator, a backing track audio file player and a super-accurate tuner into an all-around first class application that allows me to jam along to backing tracks and slow down riffs and solos for optimal practice — all through my mobile device and the privacy of my headphones.

The PRS JAM AMP lets you load, loop and slow down audio clips for repeated practice of those tricky parts. Upload and play back popular riffs and songs in MP3, ACC (unprotected) or AIIF formats using the onboard web interface.

You can even adjust the tuning of your audio tracks to your guitar. For example, if the backing track was recorded in the key of C#… you can adjust the pitch upward by three tones and play along on your guitar in E!  That means any track can be played in your favorite key!

The amp application includes the standard tone controls as well as input boost, reverb and crunch (overdrive). There is even a slider to adjust for room size.

As far as I am concerned, this is the ultimate iPhone-iTouch application. I can walk around in my house with my Les Paul strapped on and my iTouch in my pocket. The optional (but required) Guitarbud cable that connects my iTouch to my Guitar and headphones is neatly tucked in my back pocket and I am jamming along (walking room-to-room) to a backing track — all the while listening to everything through my headphones.

The best part is…. I am playing LOUD… and my wife hears nothing!

Whether you’re practicing, recording your latest idea, or just killing time, true inspiration and killer tone is finally as close as your iPhone or iTouch.

I returned from NAMM last night with a massive backlog of things to write about on the BUZZ.  I also recorded several videos that I will upload over the next few days.

One of the highlights was a 3rd row seat for The Gary Hoey Band at the Fender booth. Gary has been with Fender for 14 years and showed his appreciation by putting on a free (and killer) 30-minute set which included the title track of his upcoming cd… UTOPIA.

Note: More Gary Hoey Band videos can be viewed on my “YouTube Channel”…

Check this out:

I just returned from NAAM 2010…

NAMM, (The National Association of Music Merchants) is the longest running trade show in the United States and is attended by thousands of musical instrument and product retailers and manufacturers from around the world.

As a guitar blogger, my focus was clearly to check out the latest guitars, amps and guitar gear.

That said, I was quickly reminded of the mission of NAMM which is:

To unify, lead and strengthen the global music products industry and increase active participation in music making.

The crowd of over 80,000 registered attendees clearly illustrated the mass appeal of “music making“. At any given moment you could see young teens ripping out riffs on the newest Ibanez electrics while just a few isles away a man who reminded me of my grandfather was tickling the ivories of the latest Roland synth. It was cooler than cool.

From guitars and amps to fiddles and pianos, from trumpets and flutes to sound boards and drums.. virtually every type of musical instrument and accessory was on display by their passionate manufacturers who were ready to discuss their product offerings.

World-renowned artists were there. Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder, Vince Gill, Yoko Ono, Gene Simmons, Peter Frampton and Orianthi are only a few of the dozens and dozens of musical icons that roamed the halls.

The NAMM show was informative… and VERY inspiring. Over the next few weeks, I will have a lot to write about. And I can hardly wait!

UPDATE: Just after writing this post, I found this link on YouTube. Not my favorite song, but the video is a total reminder of what I saw this week…

Thanks “gh05trider9“!  Check it out…

I read last week that CD sales are down over 45% in the last 9 years.

No doubt, the shift to “downloading music” has changed the industry — forever.

I have active accounts with iTunes and eMusic. I prefer the pricing on eMusic (between .41 and .54 cents per track depending on the plan you choose) vs iTunes (.79 to $1.29 per track).

The only downside to eMusic is, (or maybe was), their limited catalog of artists.

Well… that has changed in a BIG WAY.

eMusic just added, over 10,000 albums!

It’s a colossal new addition to the eMusic catalog! Whatever music you’re into there’s a lot to be excited about, with more than 10,000 NEW titles from labels including Warner Bros., Atlantic Records, Nonesuch, Rhino, Roadrunner, Epitaph, and Rykodisc.

Including classics from the Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Aretha Franklin and the Talking Heads.

Plus new albums from the Flaming Lips, Built to Spill and the Dead Weather. And Jazz essentials from Brad Mehldau, John Coltrane and the MJQ.

They promise to add even more titles in the coming weeks – so check back regularly to see what’s new.

If you have not checked out eMusic yet, now is the time!

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Joe Bonamassa’s next CD titled: “Black Rock” will be released on March 9, 2010.

Produced by Kevin Shirley, the new material was recorded at Black Rock, a brand-new studio/villa in spectacular Santorini, Greece.

“This is our sixth project together,” Shirley says. “When we started recording together way back when, one of the tenets of our working relationship was that we were going to push the boundaries. I recognize where Joe’s roots are, but we were going to take the blues to different places. So over the years, we’ve gone swampy, we’ve gone eclectic; in our conversations, we’ve recognized that there are different blues genres: Memphis versus Chicago, Delta blues, Appalachian music, New Orleans, and it’s all related — even back to Celtic music. We’ve always wanted to explore blues around the world and see how all that fitted in.”

Shirley went on to say: “The first thing we did was have a session with these two Greek guys, Thanasis Vasilopoulos on clarino and Manolis Karadinis on bouzouki,” Shirley says. “Neither of them spoke English, and it was an interesting way of getting the music going. We actually recorded one track sitting outside on the patio outside the studio. At night it’s so quiet there, the recording was beautiful. These were different elements that we introduced into Joe’s sound.”

Read the entire article from MixOnline.com by CLICKING HERE.

POST UPDATE – CLICK HERE