Archive of Weekly YouTube Guitar Videos

Van Halen 5150

This week I'm finally getting around to Eddie Van Halen. Eddie's approach to the guitar involved several distinctive components. His innovative two-handed tapping techniques, use of natural and artificial harmonics, speed picking, melodicism, and rhythmic sensibility influenced an entire generation of guitarists.

Eddie has been going through some trials and tribulations in the past few years, but we wish him all the best. For more on Eddie Van Halen, including his guitars, Marshall amps and tuning techniques, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Van_Halen

Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton: Crossroads Blues Fest - Jingo

Two of the best guitar players in the world together. One of the comments on YouTube was "I love how Clapton looks like some doctor on vacation who got lost, found his way on stage and just happened to be one of the greatest guitarists of all time."

For all you bass players out there, the latest Gibson newsletter had a link to an article about Tal Wilkenfeld, a 20-something bass guitar prodigy from Australia. She's played with artists like Marcus Miller, Chick Corea, the Allman Brothers and the legendary Jeff Beck.

This video is from the Crossroads concert in 2007, but if you go to YouTube and search for Tal Wilkenfeld you can find some songs off her debut album "Transformation" or you can wait til the end and choose "Table For One" or Truth Be Told" from the list at the bottom of the video.

This week's guitar video is Stevie Ray Vaughn playing "Dirty Pool" live at Montreaux in 1982. I don't know if there's such a thing as 'Texas style blues' but if there is then Stevie Ray is your man. He has a different take on blues licks that are all his own.

This week's guitar video is Jeff Beck playing "Beck's Bolero" live at the Fuji Speedway.

For those of you who don't know about guitarist Jeff Beck, I'm not sure how to describe his music. He started with the Yardbirds (in between Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin fame) and branched off into 40 years of music including rock, blues and jazz-fusion (Jan Hammer Group). This week's song "Beck's Bolero" was actually co-written by Beck and Page.

Playing mostly Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters, Jeff Beck uses a finger-picking style with lots of tremelo bar and occasional slide guitar. Check out his style... 

I remember this movie from years ago. It was a pretty (okay, VERY) lame movie about a kid (Ralph Macchio) learning guitar at Julliard, but all he wants to do is play the blues. He busts an old bluesman from out of a nursing home. To save him from a deal he made with the Devil they head down south to  the Crossroads and challenge the Devil to a guitar duel, kind of like "The Devil Went Down To Georgia".

This is the best part of the whole movie, where Stevie Vai is the Devil's rep in the duel, a truely demonic guitar player. 

Okay, I tracked it down and, while FunTwo got all the publicity, the actual original arrangement was done by JerryC. Here he is playing what's known now as Canon Rock. There's also a version on YouTube showing both he and FunTwo on a split screen, but the audio is in mono so you can't really tell which is playing what. Both guitar players are pretty darn good, though.
 

This is a version of a South Korean kid (called FunTwo on YouTube) doing a version of Canon in D Major, arrainged by JerryC.

This week's guitar video goes all the way back to Woodstock and Alvin Lee, guitarist for Ten Years After, playing this live version of I'm Goin' Home in front of half a million people. I just wish the audio was a little louder.

You have to remember, this was almost 40 years ago and Alvin Lee was one of the pioneers of hard, driving blues/rock. Take a listen and you'll see what I mean...