“Strats had that great shape, Les Pauls have those beautiful curves, but the Telecaster always looked like it was thrown together with leftover parts!” Mike Campbell on what makes the Telecaster magic (even if he thinks they’re kinda ugly)
“He wasn’t listening to anything I had to say. So I went home and wrote that song and took it back the next morning. I sang it and he was crying”: How Dolly Parton’s heart-wrenching ballad became one of the most famous songs of all time
“We could play the same groove for a number of hours – Prince would walk in and out of the room saying, ‘Don’t stop! Nobody move!’”: Lisa Coleman on how Prince insisted on perfection from his Revolution bandmates
“I was infatuated with slide guitar. I’d use a comparable motion on my fretless by sliding up to the note”: Manning the world’s first production fretless bass, Rick Danko had to be laser-sharp in the Band
“I was playing a reggae cover of The Beatles’ song This Boy and King Charles was really interested in it – I had to relax and answer his questions”: We speak to the DJs behind the legendary sound systems of London’s Notting Hill Carnival
“A fantastic-sounding instrument, with the concept of the supersaw placed at the very core of its makeup”: Native Instruments SuperStarSaw review
“Everybody goes on about how brilliant Kraftwerk were, but they were only brilliant because they were rich!”: Heaven 17 legend Martyn Ware on how financial barriers can prevent great music from ever being heard
My pick of the best guitar gear launched this week: holy grail tube tones, Sleep Token’s debut signature collab and a guitar that might be a bass
“A refreshingly simple interface with excellent audio fidelity and some extremely handy features”: Solid State Logic SSL 1 review
“The schoolgirl thing was hers. At the time I made that video, I was a 40-year-old British guy – I had no idea what was going through the mind of a 16-year-old American girl!”: The director of Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time video looks back
