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Win a Gibson Custom ES-335 Autographed by J.J. Cale!
An enigmatic cult figure. A world-class guitarist. An American music icon. J.J. Cales lasting impact on music is celebrated on his new disc Rewind: Unreleased Recordingsand with this historic contest to win a legendary Gibson ES-335, just like Cale himself has long played.
The songwriter behind Eric Clapton hits like After Midnight and Cocaine, Cales earliest work is arguably some of his most influential. On Rewind: Unreleased Recordings, Cales so-called Tulsa Sound is in full bloom, combining his laid-back guitar playing and hushed vocals with influences from rock and roll, country, blues, and jazz.
The grand prize winner of this contest gets a gorgeous Gibson Custom Shop ES-335 autographed by J.J. and a copy of Cales Rewind: Unreleased Recordings.
Ten runners-up will receive a copy of the album.
Enter now!
Nab This Week's Free MP3 Downloads:
Devendra Banhart, U.S.S.A., Grand Mal, and J.J. Cale
Each and every week Gibson's serving up a healthy platter of free MP3 downloads from some of our favorite Gibson artists. Included in this week's installment is a download of Devendra Banhart's "Seahorse" off Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon. Also, score the single "Dead Voices" from U.S.S.A.'s latest CD, and "I'm A Believer" from New York indie rockers Grand Mal. And don't forget to check out the latest offering from J.J. Cale who's granted readers of Gibson.com a free download of "Ever Since You Said Goodbye."
Check back every week for more great Gibson.com downloads.
Click here for downloads...
Big Sounds from Small Amps: Recording with Gibsons GA5
Plenty of players going into a professional studio for the first time imagine hauling in the big amp stack they use live on large stages, miking it up for enormous sounds, and wailing away. The truth is, though, the recording environment and live environment are so far from each other in their requirements that they could exist in different galaxies. Forget the scenario of your favorite guitar hero slamming his Les Paul or SG through a pair of 100-watt full stacks the way he did it at the last major arena-rock show you attended: the chances are he didnt record those blistering lead sounds on the album that way, and trying to do it yourself might only result in disappointment, frustration, and a lot of wasted studio time. The solution? Enter sweet little single-ended, all-tube recording amps like Gibsons GA5 Les Paul Junior. In addition to belting out 5 watts of juicy, pure class A tone that is thoroughly rehearsal- and neighbor-friendly, the GA5given an Editors Pick Award by Guitar Player magazineis the perfect amp for easing the job of achieving stellar studio tones.
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Gibson Tone Tips: Clean It Up
One of the things that players love most about Gibson guitars is that they yield a hot, fat, full-throated sound when compared to so many other makes and models. Whether your Gibson has PAF-style alnico humbuckers, hotter buckers like the ceramic 500T, or P-90 single coils, chances are it packs a bigger punch than most other instruments out there with inferior humbuckers or thinner single-coil pickups. Plug your Les Paul, SG Special, ES-335, or Flying V straight into a vintage-style tube amp, crank it up, and wail. Its the way the blues, classic rock, and even heavy metal were born.
Sometimes, however, you want a cleaner, tighter, more focused sound from your Gibson, for rhythm playing, jangly arpeggios, or just for styles of music a little further out of the grinding rock context. These guitars can provide clarity and definition when called upon to do so, fear not, but achieving this tonal shift is a less frustrating endeavor if you take a couple of tips to heart. Note that these are techniques that most players were aware of back in the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s, but which somehow drained out of the knowledge pool in the high-gain eras of the late 70s and early 80s when, more often than not, players thought they wanted more gain, rather than less.
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James Blunt: The Gibson Interview
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Hes no Deadhead, but James Blunt has certainly learned the meaning of long, strange trip in the three or so years since he ceased toiling in the singer-songwriter trenches and began his ascent to multi-platinum status. Blunts best known, of course, for the ubiquitous Youre Beautiful, but as he proves on All the Lost Soulsthe just-released follow-up to his 11-million selling debut Back to Bedlamhes not just a one-trick pony. The Brit, who divides his time between piano and guitar (he wields both a Gibson J-45 and a vintage LG-1), exudes a burnished warmth throughout the disc, bringing to mind Lindsay Buckingham and James Taylor.
Has there been a downside to the success youve experienced over the past couple of years?
I love my job as a musician and Ive had the most amazing journey with a group of mates in a band touring the world playing music that has become the soundtrack to their own lives. Along with that have come some other thingslike the dehumanization that one goes through in the terrible construct of celebrity. That Ive not enjoyed, but my job as a musician, I love.
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Them vs. The World:
Finger Eleven Take on the Road with a New Album and Several SGs
 | | photo by Adam Bielawski |
The adage that good things come to those who wait is clearly engraved in the collective DNA of Finger Eleven. The Canadian combo first crashed stateside charts nearly four years ago with the hugely popular anthem One Thing, but when it came time to construct the follow-up they went in a surprising directionstraight home, where they spent the better part of two years crafting what would become Them vs. You vs. Me, which hit stores in the spring.
I dont think we wanted to rush things, said singer Scott Anderson of the bands deliberate pace. You know, you come up with a new batch of ideas and theyre so great because theyre new and everybody loves the new idea. And you try to work on that as best you can and a couple of weeks go by and maybe it doesnt sound as good as it did. Its like, okay, lets fix this or lets just kill it. But thats one of the great things about taking as much time as we did. The good ideas stuck around longer than a week or two.
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Gibson Custom Proudly Presents the ES-339
 | | photo by Jason Carpenter |
In 1958, Gibson debuted a guitar that provided the perfect combination of solidbody and hollowbody featuresthe ES-335. With a solid maple block running down the center of its thin, hollow body, the ES-335 provides the fat, resonant tone of a hollowbody guitar while delivering the sustain and feedback resistance of a solidbody. Gibsons hybrid design, known as a semi-hollow guitar, remains a perennial favorite of players of nearly every style of music from jazz and blues to rock and punk.
While the ES-335 is thin like a solidbody, its body width and length are similar to the large dimensions of an archtop guitar. As a result, many players accustomed to solidbody instruments often find the ES-335s size and weight somewhat unwieldy. Now solidbody players can enjoy the distinctive tones of a semi-hollow guitar thanks to Gibsons new ES-339 model, designed and built by the experts at the Gibson Custom Shop. The ES-339 features smaller body dimensions but sacrifices none of that huge semi-hollow tone that makes the ES-335 universally appealing. Lighter, more compact and comfortable than a traditional semi-hollow guitar, the ES-339 feels like a Les Paul but sounds like an ES-335.
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Revisiting Black Sabbath: The Dio Years
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Heaven and Hell may wrap up its North American tour this week but that doesnt mean you need to kick yourself for missing out on the fleeting reunion of Black Sabbaths founding membersguitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Terry Geezer Butler, vocalist Ronnie James Dio, and drummer Vinny Appice.
In March, Rhino Records sent its crew to document Black Sabbaths first tour date at New Yorks Radio City Music Hall, which sold out in just 20 minutes, and the result is the incredible Heaven & Hell: Live from Radio City Music Hall.
During a tour stop in Chicago last month, Dio said the band was taken aback by the overwhelming response to the reunion of the post-Ozzy Black Sabbath line-up that recorded just three studio albums between 1979 and 1982, plus the classic Live Evil.
We didnt really know what was going to happen when we announced the show, Dio said. Deep down inside I felt that it would do well. I thought the entire tour would do well just because we havent been together for such a long time and theres always been interest. Whenever I go out on tour with my own band the question is always there, you know, Are you guys going to get back together again? So I was confident it was going to do well but it was pretty amazing.
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Get on the Right Track!
Unsung Heroes of Early Rockabilly and Rock and Roll
Its fitting that the Gibson electric guitar was in the teen years of its existence during the birth of rock and roll music in the mid-'50s. Gibson guitars were the preferred choice of the most influential early rockabilly and rock and roll guitarists like Scotty Moorewho played Gibson ES-295, L-5, and Super 400 models with Elvis Presley; Carl Perkinswho cut tracks like Blue Suede Shoes and Honey Dont with a goldtop Les Paul; and Chuck Berrywho virtually defined rock and roll with a Les Paul Custom and a ES-350T. Bill Haley and the Comets Rock Around the Clockperhaps the first bona fide rock and roll hitfeatures a blistering solo recorded by session guitarist Danny Cedrone playing an ES-300, and Comets guitarist Franny Beecher, armed with a beautiful black Les Paul Custom, ripped an impressive version during live performances to thousands of screaming kids. That, to paraphrase Jerry Lee Lewis, is a whole lotta P-90 pickups goin on.
These players have all rightfully become heroes and icons for their contributions to the birth of rock music, but many other lesser-known guitarists also helped shape the image and sound of rock and roll in notable ways. Guitarists like Link Wray, Ersel Hickey, and Hank Garland may not be household names, but their influence lives on in the subconscious DNA of almost every rock guitarist today. Each wielded a Gibson to make his own small but significant contribution to the style of music we all know and love as rock and roll.
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