editor’s Welcome

This month’s cover feature on acoustic blues – the wellspring of so much that we play on guitar today – ironically gave rise to a lot of conversations not about the past of guitar playing, but its present. Michael Messer, the superb British blues guitarist and all-round student of blues history (see p70) raised a really interesting point when he remarked how orderly everyone’s approach is to blues today, particularly when it comes to rhythm. A strong, propulsive 4/4 beat is pretty much standard when a guitarist gets up to play the blues now. But as you go back in time to the recordings of artists such as Blind Willie Johnson you hear a different blues, unconstrained by tidy structures, emanating directly from the soul. It’s the same with folk music from many cultures around the world – verses last for irregular lengths and maybe there isn’t a chorus or even any chord changes to follow. What you hear instead is the natural ebb and flow of the music stirring within the players, unadulterated by cliché or convention – and the effect can be magically powerful.

That’s why acoustic blues is still hugely relevant to guitarists today: it reminds us that the transmission of emotion and human experience is at the root of all great music and that you don’t have to follow convention instead of your instincts. So we hope you enjoy the acoustic blues insights you’ll find in this month’s issue – and hopefully they’ll bring a little more mojo into your own playing, unplugged or otherwise. Enjoy the issue and see you next month.