Unplugged
Mountain - Climbing! (1970)
In the early ‘70s, the transition of rock as a form of expression towards the mass market entertainment industry swept aside in its wake a large number of musical pioneers – pioneers such as Mountain, the missing link to heavy metal’s beginnings, among others. The rock behind the mountain is none other than Leslie West, one of history’s...
Rush - Roll the Bones (1991) / R40 Live Tour (2015)
Alex Lifeson is probably the most admired and followed guitarist by lovers of this instrument, no matter what their musical taste may be. Just about everybody is an admirer of Rush, a band that has been a reference in the progressive rock genre for four decades. Going into the final straights of 2015, this fortieth year landmark is being...
Joe Bonamassa
"OK, I'll just do everything, then" With his childish face and fiendish grin, it's easy to imagine Joe Bonamassa (New Hartford, New York, 8th May 1977) answering in this way to the poor soul that had just given him some typical all-American advice: "Keep to what you know and just do your best". Clearly, he had no fear of becoming...
Queen - A Night At The Opera (1975)
Brian May learnt how to discover the magic hidden in the stars - both those to be found in the night sky and those in the music business. A professor in Radio astronomy and a maestro of the guitar, the former surely served to better understand what he accomplished by means of the latter – namely, to convert Freddie Mercury into a supernova....
The Robert Cray Band - 4 Nights of 40 Years Live (2015)
Four nights lit up by a guitar-shaped moon and the soft touch of the blues massaging your ears. Forty years commanding a Stratocaster crammed into four nights. This is the life of Robert Cray, one of the few musicians who not only knows how to play guitar, but also puts their heart and soul into their craft. A magical mix of soul and rock -...
Tony Iommi
Our heavy legends series kicks off with rock's man in black, a man whose singular sound can be traced back to an unlucky accident he had as a teenager when, quite literally, he was working with heavy metal. With the tips of two of the fingers to his right hand amputated, Tony Iommi tuned down his guitar strings to relieve the pain and by doing...
Aerosmith - Toys In The Attic (1975)
Out-and-out children of the '70s. A loud and raunchy band of rockers hell-bent on living the rock 'n' roll life to its ultimate consequences, swimming in a sea of alcohol and taking any illegal substance that they chanced to come across along the way. Halfway through the decade and with only two records to their name, the band had already...
Dream Theater - Images and Words (1992)
There are probably many Dream Theater fans who’d choose another title as the best album recorded by a band with 30 years at the forefront of progressive rock under its belt. If we were to also focus exclusively on the figure of guitarist John Petrucci, a consensus would be impossible to reach. Image and Words, their second...
Lynyrd Skynyrd - One More For The Fans (2015)
The umpteenth self-tribute to the legendary band converted into the symbol of southern rock boasts the virtue of bringing together a goodly number of leading figures of genuinely American music to perform the greatest hits of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Some of the guests are as unexpected as Cheap Trick and an older gentleman with a shaved head who turns...
Gary Moore
A calling card lasting over nine minutes long. Grinding Stone is the name of the first song that Gary Moore performed at the start of his recording career. We're back in 1973 and that is also the title track of his debut album under his own name with his own band. He was 21 years old and another guitar legend began to take shape in the damp...
Keith Richards - Crosseyed Heart (2015)
It was 20-odd years ago, the equivalent of a couple of Ice Ages in rocker chronology, when yours truly had the pleasure of attending one of the concerts presenting Main Offender, featuring Keith Richards and his X-Pensive Winos on the stage of a small, long-gone Madrid venue. The most influential rhythm guitarist in history hadn't yet fallen...
Toto - Toto (1978)
They deserved to win that 1979 Grammy for Best New Artist. But the award went to A Taste of Honey, a disco group that has not exactly gone down in history, despite the resounding success in record stores and on the airwaves of Toto's debut album. The critics, however, went for the throat, something that soon became the norm with very few...
Yes - Close To The Edge (1972)
There are any number of reasons to bring a masterpiece of '70s progressive rock to our jukebox, an album that almost inaugurated an entire era by itself. The least important one is that it was released 43 years ago, on 13 September 1972. Another one, unfortunately, is the death this June of Chris Squire, a bassist who deserves his own chapter...
David Gilmour
Back 50 years ago, the future Commander of the Order of the British Empire was dragging along half dead from hunger in search of non-existent adventures in France and Spain. He had barely turned 20 years old as the '60s started drawing to a close. His dream ended when he returned home, but only so a new one could begin. Pink Floyd was...
Buddy Guy - Born To Play Guitar (2015)
On the cusp of turning 80, finally he admits that he came into the world with a guitar –a Fender in his case- for an umbilical cord and that his first cries as a baby were in fact a blues ditty. Even his own website has trouble listing the immense discography Guy built up over the course of a career so long that he can boast of being one of...
Johnny Winter - Johnny Winter (1969)
Hearing the introductory chords to the opening track on his first album is all it takes for anyone to understand Johnny Winter. Even the provocative title I’m Yours and I’m Hers is a trademark of his unmistakable style of living blues and rock through the neck of a guitar. His long albino mane became a part of the musical landscape for...
Billy Gibbons
On the outskirts of town, between the traffic lights and road signs, the neon lights shine. Not everyone hears their call. And not everyone who hears the call knows the secret. The road to paradise goes by way of winding roads, and you have to know how to take your chances, understand the signs, get in the car, slam it in gear and put the...
Ritchie Blackmore
You don't have to be sporting a mane of hair (or what’s left of it) or wear a studded wristband to include Smoke on the Water in your life’s soundtrack, as many human beings would concur. Just as you’ll find this song on the playlist at most New Year's Eve parties, its melody marks the "heavy" side that we all secretly carry inside us...
Carlos Santana - Abraxas (1970)
It was a case of second time lucky. A very young Carlos Santana had already made his presence felt when his debut album slammed its fist, or better yet, his guitar, down on the table of a rock world gearing up to enter the '70s. Abraxas suddenly turned the son of a mariachi musician into the #1 gun with the best-selling record of the...