Sonia Leigh Well, here it is again: “The Country Issue.” I’ve already written about the great country session players, and we’ve covered “chicken pickin,” among other country-related topics, so I was going to write about my favorite Townes Van Zandt , Emmylou Harris , and Rodney Crowell songs. Then, as I was listening to four [...]

When I was playing around with my Dad’s guitar when I was a kid, I discovered you could “snap” the strings by pulling up on them to get a sound like a chicken “talking.” You know, like “buck-buck-buckaw.” I could also do a cow, a cat, a seagull and a mosquito, but I digress. James [...]

In the early history of recorded country music, the recordings were done in places other than Nashville. Country guitar players in the 1920s included Sam McGee, Riley Puckett, and the legendary songwriter Jimmie Rodgers, but there was no such thing as a “session player” back then. Maybelle Carter and The Carter Family recorded the classic [...]

On March 5, 1951, a song called “Rocket 88” was recorded by Jackie Brenston at Sam Phillips’ Memphis Recording Service (now known as Sun Studios). Some people call it the first rock and roll record ever made. It wasn’t the first record made in Memphis by any means, but it marked the beginning of a [...]

My first experience in a recording studio was back in the Dark Ages. 1965, to be exact. In Memphis, there was a guy names Roland Janes who owned and operated Sonic Studios on Madison Avenue. Most of us didn’t know it at the time, but Roland was a great guitarist who played on many Memphis [...]

Nobody’s perfect, but you can improve your guitar playing greatly by paying a little more attention to a few details. Chances are, even if you’ve been playing for a while, you’re still making one or more of these common mistakes. So let’s work on making your playing better with just a few changes. Changing From [...]

Back in the ‘60s in Memphis, I listened to and played a lot of Aretha Franklin, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Booker T. and The M.G.’s, Percy Sledge and Wilson Pickett. We used to call it “soul music.” Some people called it R&B (rhythm and blues). Now they call it “old school.” A lot of [...]

It’s virtually impossible to think about country music without thinking of guitars. The guitar is essentially the logo of country music. Even more so than in rock music, the guitar has been on every country record that’s ever been made. I’d be willing to bet that 95 percent of country songs have been written on [...]

One of the biggest problems for beginners is staying in tune. There’s more than one way to stay in tune. There are several different types of clip-on guitar tuners available now, but several of them seem to have a hard time reading the 6th (low E) string. That’s the big one. (I hope you’re still [...]

As you probably guessed by now, we’re talking about legendary songs in this issue. From a guitar player’s perspective, I’d like to select a few well-known songs in which the guitar playing is especially memorable and is an integral part of the song. There are three main ways in which a guitar part can help [...]

By the time you read this, he’ll be gone. My father Charles Talley is in the end stage of Alzheimer’s. The hospice people are there every day. He can’t walk, talk, or eat anymore. There’s no way to know for sure if he recognizes any one. When his eyes are open, he just stares into [...]

I just drove back to Nashville from Memphis and had a blow-out on I-40 in over 100 degrees of heat. This reminds me to remind you: NEVER leave a guitar in a car on a hot day. It can literally come unglued. Don’t take the chance. You can also strike up some interesting conversations by [...]