The Album That Changed the World Below is a terrifically perceptive article just written by my old friend, blues guitarist and songwriter, John Phillpott, for World Music Central, your connection to traditional and contemporary world music. Link to the latest edition of World Music Central here: ARTICLES.   Nearly 60 years ago, in the spring of…

Introducing Pete Carroll: hiding his brilliance under a bushel for 37 years. I heard an exquisite new blues track the other day. It’s ‘Going Down (Sell My Soul)’, written and performed by Pete Carroll, a talented composer, vocalist, guitarist and music producer. Based near Lanark, south of Glasgow, Pete deserves greater recognition, especially internationally, for his fabulous…

The song that inspired the British musicians who sparked the British invasion. In July, 1955, a London Dixieland/trad jazz guitarist, Lonnie Donegan, recorded a speeded-up version of a 1930s American folk track, ‘Rock Island Line’, made famous by blues icon Lead Belly. Donegan’s ‘Rock Island Line’ directly inspired a generation of British musicians, from the…

If you thought pop and rock’s most recorded session guitarist was the virtuoso who is Jimmy Page, think again. Certainly, Jimmy played guitar on an amazing amount of hits and in great sessions for top bands like the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Brian Poole and the…

Hands up those who think the Dutch-born American rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen invented two-handed guitar tapping? It’s not true, of course, with Eddie always saying he was originally inspired by Jimmy Page’s ‘Heartbreaker’ solo, on Led Zeppelin’s self-titled 1969 debut album. But guitar tapping goes back much farther. In Jim Carlton’s 2009 book, ‘Conversations…