Carl Kress Kress started on piano before picking up the banjo. Beginning in 1926, he played guitar during his brief time as a member of Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. For most of his career, he was a studio musician and sideman buried in large orchestras, and his name was little known. His work in the 1920s…
J. J. Cale J. J. Cale (December 5, 1938 – July 26, 2013) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Though he avoided the limelight, his influence as a musical artist has been widely acknowledged by figures such as Mark Knopfler, Neil Young, and Eric Clapton, who described him as “one of the most important…
Lonnie Johnson Alonzo “Lonnie” Johnson (February 8, 1899 – June 16, 1970) was an American blues and jazz singer, guitarist, violinist and songwriter. He was a pioneer of jazz guitar and jazz violin and is recognized as the first to play an electrically amplified violin. One of a large family of musicians, Johnson played violin in his father’s string band, and he also played guitar…
Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician, best known as the guitarist and frontman of the rock band Nirvana. Regarded as a Generation X icon, he is considered to be one of the most iconic and influential rock musicians in the history of…
Eddie Lang Eddie Lang (born Salvatore Massaro, October 25, 1902 – March 26, 1933) is known as the father of jazz guitar. During the 1920s, he gave the guitar a prominence it previously lacked as a solo instrument, as part of a band or orchestra, and as accompaniment for vocalists. He recorded duets with guitarists…
Larry Coryell Larry Coryell (born Lorenz Albert Van DeLinder III; April 2, 1943 – February 19, 2017) was an American jazz guitarist. In the Seventies, he led the group Foreplay with Mike Mandel, a friend since childhood, although the albums of this period, Barefoot Boy, Offering, and The Real Great Escape, were credited only to…