Template:Portal:Guitarists/Featured Article
Contents |
Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa was a musician born December 21, 1940. He played guitar, keyboards, synclavier(synth/sampler), and vocals. He was born Frank Vincent Zappa in Baltimore, Maryland. He grew up with interest in multiple genres of music. In 1965, Zappa joined the Mothers of Invention (previously the Soul Giants and later, simply the Mothers). Zappa greatly extended the range of rock, composing oratorios, symphonic pieces, ballets, digitized extravaganzas for the Synclavier keyboard, and satirical musicals. A brilliant guitar soloist who recruited similarly adventurous musicians, Zappa helped further the art of improvisation in a rock context. Over the years, his ensembles included such notable musicians as keyboardist George Duke and guitarist Steve Vai. More...
James Hetfield
James Alan Hetfield was born in Downey, CA (a suburb of Los Angeles) on August 3, 1963, to Christian Science parents, a religion he would dismiss later on. During high school he started to play drums but quickly changed to the guitar His main influence was Aerosmith, and he has said that they were the reason why he wanted to play guitar. Other bands such as Black Sabbath, The Beatles, Queen, Led Zeppelin and Thin Lizzy also had a major influence on him.Together with Drummer Lars Ulrich he formed the future biggest Metalband of the World METALLICA as a contrary to the dominating glam Metal movement. Ulrich turned Hetfield on to the sounds of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement (Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Motörhead, Diamond Head, Venom, Saxon, Angel Witch, etc). In the early days, Hetfield did not have an interest in being a lead vocalist, that is... More...
Jason Becker
Jason Becker is a US-guitarist who plays mostly in the style of neoclassical metal /rock. He's born on 22th july in 1969. To the guitar he came through his father who played classical guitar and his uncle, who played jazz guitar. In fact he started to play when he was 5(!) and performed at school a lot of times. It's also said that the gave even lessons to his guitarteacher. With 16 he met Marty Friedman, who should become his closest friend. The time Marty say Jason play, he was kind of enthusiasted, as a result the idea to make a record together came up. More...
Angus Young
Angus Young was born on March 31, 1955 of William and Margaret Young in Glasgow, Scotland. He was one of nine children. He and all his siblings were brought up in Syndey, Australia. Angus started playing guitar when he was five years old. A local child had one and Angus would play it during visits. He got his own guitar by taking a banjo his family had lying around and restringing it like a guitar.
Angus did not get into guitar playing seriously until his family moved from Scotland to Australia in 1963. He had been playing on an old Höfner guitar he inherited from | More...
Zakk Wylde
Born on the 01.14.1967 in Bayonne, New Jersey as Jeffery Philip Wielandt, Zakk Wylde has become a great influence in the Music world. He started playing guitar at the year of 8 but lost interest and picked the guitar up again at the age of 14 after trying out his friends Les Paul with a Big Muff Distortion Pedal. First he covered Black Sabbath and ZZ Top songs with his band Stone Henge, at High school he joined several other bands, including Zyris. While he was with Zyris he changed his name to Zachary Wyland. Without any More...
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is born on the 24th of may in 1941 in Minnesota with the name Robert Allen Zimmerman. He is an american Folk- and Rock-musician, painter and also a poet. He plays the guitar, the piano, the harmonica and sings. He is said to be one of the most important musician of the 20th century. He began in the 1950s with Folk-music and turned in the mid-1960s to Rockmusic. Besides his music, the lyrics he wrote a very special; as they were influcend by the Folkmusician Woody Guthrie in his early times, they were influenced later on by symbolist poets like Charles Daudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Dylan Thomas. But since the end of the 70s the bible became an growing influcene on his writings. His oeuvre has – as his real life has – changed very often and More...
Luca Turilli
Luca Turilli is a guitarist for the Italian symphonic powermetal band Rhapsody of Fire, his own solo project named Luca Turilli, and the newly founded band Luca Turilli's Dreamquest. His style of music is heavily influenced by classical musicians such as Antonio Vivaldi, Niccoló Paganini and Johann Sebastian Bach. He writes songs with great melodies which have that epic feel about them, so most of his songs could be played during a final battle in Lord of the Rings or another epic movie. When Luca was 21 years old, he started the band Thundercross. When they recorded their first demo, they renamed the band to Rhapsody. More...
Steve Lukather
Steve Lukather is a guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He is best knows for his work with Toto. He has also released solo albums, and has done a lot of sessions with other famous musicians. His work with Toto was mostly pop rock, but his solo work contains a much wider spectrum of genres. They contain rock, progressive music, jazz and funk. Steve Lukather was born Steven Lee Lukather on October 21, 1957 in San Fernando Valley, California. He started out playing keyboards and drums and then learned himself how to play guitar at the age of seven when his father bought him a Kay acoustic guitar and a copy of The beatles album More...
B.B. King
B.B. King is a legendary American Bluesman, gifted guitarist, composer and singer. King has taken part in more than 60 albums, with different artists or on his own. He has won 14 Grammys and received dozens of awards and honors over the years, and he still performs several nights a week. He belongs to the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, and stands in the 3rd position of Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Riley Ben King, known as B.B. King, was born the 16th of September of 1925 in Itta Bena, Mississippi. His father abandoned the family and his mother died when King was just 9 years old, so he spent the rest of his childhood living with More...
Jeff Healey
Born:- Norman Jeffrey Healey March 25th 1966 - March 2nd 2008. Jeff Healey was born in Toronto, Ontario and raised in the West End of the City. As an infant he had been adopted, his adoptive father was a local Firefighter. Healey lost his sight to Cancer (Retinoblastoma) when he was only 8 months old, having both his eyes Surgically removed and artificial ones implanted.
He lived for 38 years Cancer free but developed Sarcoma in his legs and despite undergoing Surgery for this the sarcoma spread to his lungs causing his death in 2008. More...
This week... Randy Rhoads!
Randy began playing guitar at the age of 6, he began learning on his grandfathers classical acoustic guitar learning folk music, shortly after he began taking piano lessons till the age of 12 when he became interested in rock guitar! Randy took lessons till the age of 14 then formed his first band ... More
