TOP 10 GUITARISTS THAT CAN SING!

I thought it would be cool to showcase top guitarists that can sing.

The reason is that I myself started out as a guitarist and got tired of being held hostage by “the singer.”

In addition, learning to sing was a great tool for writing and expressing my ideas.

I hope you find this video inspiring on your musical journey and remember:

A Singer Is Only As Singer Because They Have The Guts To Be One!

Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy – Where The PROOF Is In The Singing!

Here are some fun facts about these “Guitar Singers.”

Stevie Ray Vaughan

In 1982, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble was the first unsigned band to book the Montreux Jazz Festival. At that performance David Bowie saw SRV play and asked to record with him. SRV then played lead guitar on several tracks of SRV’s “Let’s Dance.” It is Bowie’s best-selling record to date.

The Rolling Stones hired Double Trouble to play at a private party for in New York City in 1982.

James Hetfield

James Hetfield was a janitor before Metallica.

Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering an advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler.

Hetfield has been involved in a number of onstage accidents, most notable for being an incident with pyrotechnics at Olympic Stadium in Montreal during the Guns N’ Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour on August 8, 1992. Hetfield was the victim of a pyrotechnics accident during the song “Fade to Black”, in which a pyrotechnic charge reacted. Hetfield’s guitar protected him from the full force of the blast; however, the reaction struck his left side, burning his hand, arm, eyebrows, face and hair. He suffered second and third-degree burns, but was back on stage 17 days later, although his guitar duties were delegated to former guitar tech and Metal Church guitarist John Marshall for four weeks while he made a full recovery.

Hetfield also suffered a broken arm a number of times while skateboarding, which prevented him from playing guitar on stage, and subsequently caused Hetfield’s management company, Q Prime, to put a clause in Hetfield’s contract, forbidding him to ride a skateboard while Metallica was touring. During a live performance on tour for Metallica, Hetfield experienced complications with his vocals after performing a cover of the Anti-Nowhere League song “So What?”, forcing him to take vocal lessons for the first time. He did basic warm-up exercises to piano keys with his vocal coach, who also gave him a cassette tape of the piano warm-up for future use. Hetfield still uses the same cassette he was given in the early 1990s to this day before any live performance or any recording Metallica does.

Jack White

Jack prides himself on only recording in analog, cutting his tape himself with a razor blade. “It’s sort of like I can’t be proud of it unless I know we overcame some kind of struggle,” he told the New York Post.

He was once interviewed by his childhood hero, Buzz Aldrin. The chat was for Interview Magazine and occurred when Jack, asked who his dream interviewer would be, cited the astronaut as a huge inspiration.

White doesn’t mess around when he hits the studio. The first two White Stripes records both only took 2 weeks to record and The Dead Weather’s ‘Sea of Cowards’ only took three. “It’s a big mistake to spend too long on a record, it spoils the energy of the original performance,” says the man himself.

Jack’s love of red and black extends to his choice of cigarette – during his time in the White Stripes, he would only smoke Embassy No 1’s because of their packaging.

Jack made his movie debut in 2003’s Cold Mountain, also starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellwegger. Jack didn’t seem too bothered about hob-nobbing with the stars – he was more interested in the 200-year-old skull they let him buy from the set, adding to his collection of taxidermy and animal skeletons.

When Jack broke his finger in a 2003 car crash, he decided to ‘make it up’ to fans disappointed by White Stripes show cancellations by filming the experience of his operation that helped viewers “better understand the complexity of the situation” and included gory close ups of screws being inserted into his finger.

In 2005, Jack produced country legend Loretta Lynn’s comeback album ‘Van Lear Rose’. In 2011, he played a similar role in orchestrating ‘The Party Ain’t Over, a late-career comeback record from Wanda Jackson.

White is a huge Bob Dylan fan, once famously saying that he had “three dads: my biological father, God and Bob Dylan.” Dylan was the first concert he ever attended, and he insists that he was sat in seat 666.

Jack has never performed his Bond theme duet with Alicia Keys ‘Another Way To Die’ live. On the track, Jack can be heard playing drums, bass and guitar, as well as being on production and mixing duties.

Dave Mustaine

“I liked the way [guitar playing] looked, and it was interesting to me,” he explained to Guitar World. “I was a curious kid, and it made noise. I had a sister who played piano, who was terrible. I realized the better I was at guitar that I could drown out her dreadful noise.”

“I had radial neuropathy happen to my left arm,” he said. “I had been sitting in a chair [with] my arm around the back of the chair, being a lounge lizard. I fell asleep, and the inside of my bicep, the nerve circles your arm. There’s a little notch that the nerve sits in. it was above the bone, and it got pressed against the bone, crushed. It took me four months for the nerve to talk to the arm again.”

“One of the most important things for us to do is just come together as people,” he explained to Lick Library. “When you’re on stage and you’re playing – without sounding gross – it’s the closest four [guys] can get without actually having sex with each other. You can’t really get closer to a guy to play music with him. It is really that spiritual. What we try to do before we go on stage is just get together, get grounded [and] play [our instruments] a little bit.”

“I used to go watch the funny cars,” he told Ask Men last year. “One of the things that I did because I was a little street urchin — you gotta remember that I grew up like Oliver Twist and I had to take care of things myself — I was out at the race track, I spent the last $20 I had to my name, bought a ticket, and as soon as I could get in I ran out the other side of the racetrack. I had my hand stamped … and I learned how to draw the stamp on peoples’ hands and that’s how I made my money, sneaking people in there all day.”

“I took two vocal lessons, but I wont tell you their names,” he told Hard Rock Haven in 2010. “One was a 70 year old woman in Hollywood who stood behind me and stuck her hands down my pants. I thought, you know, this is f—ed up. Then there was another one by a guy in Hollywood who asked me to unbutton my pants so he could examine my diaphragm. I said ‘Dude, my diaphragm is up here. Diaphragms in pants belong in females.’ So I’m not sure what my private parts have to do with a vocal lesson but I guess it’s got something to do with breathing. It was really too weird for me, I thought, if this is part of being a vocalist, I’ll be a professional yeller.”

Mustaine told Metal Injection last year about his ties to important figures in the U.S. government. “I’ve been invited to the White House; I’ve been invited to the Pentagon,” he said. “I’ve got friends in the Secret Service and the FBI.” So you don’t mess with Dave Mustaine!

Rick Emmet

In my notebooks, I’ll have little chunks of lyrics, little music ideas. I use an old-fashioned little hand-held cassette recorder. I’ll just grab little ideas. Some start with a two or a four-bar kind of little chord progression phrase and a little melody, or sometimes it starts with a line or two of lyric. I’ll start marrying the two things together fairly early in the process – music and lyrics – and start developing it that way.

Although he’s known as the vocalist and guitar player for Triumph, Rik Emmett is actually very familiar with other guitar styles such as classical, flamenco, bluegrass, jazz, and world music. In 2005, he won the Canadian Smooth Jazz Award for Guitarist of the Year.

On July 14, 2011, Triumph had a street named after them. The band’s hometown of Mississauga, Ontario named Triumph Lane in honor of the band for their hard work and success through the late ’70s and ’80s. At the dedication ceremony, the members of the band thanked their fans for their support, especially those in Texas who helped break them into in the US market.

Richie Sambora

Sambora’s first instrument was the accordion which he began to play at the age of 6. He began playing the guitar at the age of 12 following the death of Jimi Hendrix in 1970.

Sambora also plays many other instruments, such as drums, bass, saxophone, piano etc. The first time he performed on stage was at a Catholic Youth Organization dance when he was a teenager.

Sambora’s first professional tour was as an opening act for Joe Cocker in the early 1980s. Shortly before joining Bon Jovi in 1983, Sambora unsuccessfully auditioned for Kiss, to be Ace Frehley’s replacement.

Sambora (along with Jon Bon Jovi) is part of the Ownership Group of the Philadelphia Soul, an Arena Football League football team.

Sambora had attended a live show of Bon Jovi, and after being impressed, approached Jon Bon Jovi and told him that he thought they should work together. They immediately hit it off as friends, and Sambora was invited to a rehearsal. By the time Jon arrived, the band was sounding better than ever and Sambora was hired on the spot.

Among numerous appearances with other musicians (Paul Rogers, Pink, Bo Diddley) he is featured on the track “Baby Rock Remix” from LL Cool J’s 2008 album Exit 13.

Sambora married actress Heather Locklear in Paris on December 17, 1994. Their daughter Ava Elizabeth Sambora, was born on October 4, 1997. Locklear filed for divorce in February 2006 citing irreconcilable differences. The divorce was finalized on April 11, 2007. Nine days later, on April 20, Sambora’s father, Adam, died of lung cancer. Since 2014 he has been in a relationship with fellow guitarist Orianthi.

He has done a ton of charitable projects including “You Can Go Home” in his home town of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, which unveiled a street renamed Richie Sambora Way. He also donated funds to renovate part of his alma mater Woodbridge High School, which opened a new weight room, the Adam Sambora Fitness Center, dedicated to Sambora’s father.

George Benson

Benson’s first instrument was the ukulele because his hands were not yet big enough for the guitar when he started playing music at the young age of 7.

His accolades include 10 Grammy Awards.

Benson could make more money in one day playing on street corners than his mother did in a week.

Brad Paisley

Kimberly Williams-Paisley starred in Paisley’s 2002 video for “I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’ Song),” but the singer admits he hired her because he hoped she’d agree to go out with him. It was a weird attempt to say “hi,” and, frankly, we can’t believe it worked! The two were married in a surprise ceremony in March of 2003.

Early in his recording career, Paisley founded Sea Gayle Music, a publishing company whose writers have since gone on to pen dozens of the last decade’s most popular songs by artists including Garth Brooks, Darius Rucker, Josh Turner and many more. Jerrod Niemann and Wade Bowen owe their start to this venture, in fact. In recent years, Sea Gayle artists have been funneled into Arista Records, Paisley’s label.

The man who wrote and recorded one of the best drinking songs of all time doesn’t imbibe. “Alcohol” is all about getting drunk and making a fool of yourself, but Paisley enjoys the hooch only as a spectator. One may find him with a Yoo-Hoo — one of his favorite beverages — in his hand instead.

If Paisley is in Los Angeles during football season, he calls up his old pal William Shatner to watch the big game. It’s a star-studded affair, actually: “He has great parties, and everybody’s there, from Ben Stiller to Patrick Stewart, you name it. It’s a blast,” Paisley tells ESPN. “It’s really amazing to watch the enthusiasm that this Canadian guy has for the game. Watching it with a guy like him, it’s really hilarious. I love those parties.”

An article in People reveals that Paisley hands all of his hardware off to his parents: “I don’t like reminders of the past all that much,” he says. “Nor do I have time to dust or polish the statuettes, so my parents take care and display most of them at their house.” He does have plenty of guitars at home, however; in fact, he and he wife have an agreement that they must ask each other before buying anything over $5,000.

Sammy Hagar

Sammy Hagar’s boxing roots date back to his father who was a professional fighter who fought under the name Bobby Burns in the 1930’s and 40’s. Sammy thought about following in his father’s footsteps and fought for a bit.

All four studio albums Van Halen released with Sammy Hagar as lead hit #1 on the Billboard charts.

He is also a gourmet chef having been inspired by his grandfather. He says in his cookbook: “He was an immigrant who came from Italy when he was about 11 years old, landed in New York, didn’t speak the language and went to work in restaurants” His grandfather was so good, Sammy claims, “I never went to a restaurant until I was in my 20s.”Sammy is so good, he has cooked for celebrity chefs like Emeril Lagasse and Mario Batali.

In the late 1990s, Hagar began selling Cabo Wabo tequila, a handmade tequila he’d commissioned from a family-owned distillery in the Mexican state of Jalisco. By 2006 it was the second-best selling premium tequila in the United States. The following year Hagar sold an 80% interest in his Cabo Wabo Tequila to Gruppo Campari for $80 million. In doing so, he made more money in a single day than in his entire music career.

John Mayer guitar 1:03

After watching Michael J. Fox’s guitar performance as Marty McFly in Back to the Future, Mayer became fascinated with the instrument. When he turned 13, his father rented one for him.

John Mayer considers Stevie Ray Vaughan his guitar hero, and even has “SRV” tattooed on his arm.

His singular focus on guitar concerned his parents, and they twice took him to see a psychiatrist, who determined him to be healthy.

he has authored columns for magazines such as Esquire.

Mark Knopfler

After he graduated he worked as journalist (reporter and music critic) for Yorkshire Evening Post and later when he started his musical carrier he stabilized his income as part-time English teacher.

His name also inspired a scientific name of a dinosaur. The scientist listened Dire Straits when he found the fossils, so he called it ‘Masiakasaurus Knopfleri”.

One of songs from Mark solo albums is “Boom, like that”. It’s actually about how McDonald’s franchise was born under the leadership of Ray Kroc.

Gary Moore

He first played with popular rock band Thin Lizzy in 1973 after the departure of guitarist Eric Bell, but his first stint only lasted four months.

Although he was commercially successful in Europe, Moore remained virtually unknown in America.

Jimi Hendrix

In 1966, Chas Chandler—the bassist for The Animals, who would go on to become Jimi’s manager—saw the musician playing at a club in New York City. “This guy didn’t seem anything special, then all of a sudden he started playing with his teeth,” roadie James “Tappy” Wright, who was there, told the BBC in 2016. “People were saying, ‘What the hell?’ and Chas thought, ‘I could do something with this kid.’”

Though Hendrix’s name would eventually eclipse most of those he played with in his early days, he played backup guitar for a number of big names under the name Jimmy James, including Sam Cooke, Little Richard, Wilson Pickett, Ike and Tina Turner, and The Isley Brothers.

In addition to the aforementioned musical legends, Hendrix also helped actress Jayne Mansfield in her musical career. In 1965, he played lead and bass guitar on “Suey,” the B-side to her single “As The Clouds Drift By.”

JIMI HENDRIX WAS ONCE KIDNAPPED AFTER A SHOW.

Though the details surrounding Hendrix’s kidnapping are a bit sketchy, in Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix, Charles R. Cross wrote about how the musician was kidnapped following a show at The Salvation, a club in Greenwich Village:

“He left with a stranger to score cocaine, but was instead held hostage at an apartment in Manhattan. The kidnappers demanded that [Hendrix’s manager] Michael Jeffrey turn over Jimi’s contract in exchange for his release. Rather than agree to the ransom demand, Jeffrey hired his own goons to search out the extorters. Mysteriously, Jeffrey’s thugs found Jimi two days later … unharmed.

Kurt Cobain guitar 2:04/4:03

With his suicide at age 27, Kurt Cobain joined what is known as the 27 club—a group of prominent musicians who died at age 27. Other members include Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, and Doors frontman Jim Morrison.

According to Kurt Cobain, the band settled on the name Nirvana for their band because he wanted something that sounded beautiful, nice, and pretty, and not mean, raunchy, or punk rock.

Before his marriage to Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain was involved with Tobi Vail, a founding member of riot grrl band Bikini Kill. Soon after they began dating, Kathleen Hanna, singer for Bikini Kill, began dating Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. It was during this era that Hanna scrolled the words “Kurt smells like Teen Spirit” on the wall in Cobain’s bedroom, referring to Vail’s brand of deodorant—and inspiring the title for Nirvana’s breakout hit.

Eric Clapton guitar 1:14

he was supposed to meet up with Jimi Hendrix on the night he died. Clapton even picked out a left-handed guitar for his friend who was always playing right handed guitars upside down. Clapton was overwhelmed with grief about the passing of his dear friend. Clapton was also one of the last people to see Stevie Ray Vaughan alive. The two blues virtuosos played at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre along with Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, and Jimmie Vaughan. Right after the show, Vaughan went on a helicopter back to Chicago that fatally crashed into a mountain range because the pilot couldn’t see the landscape.

In England, in sport, if the crowd is getting anxious, we have a slow handclap, which indicates boredom or frustration. In Clapton – The Autobiography (2007), Eric had this to say, “On my guitar I used light-gauge guitar strings, with a very thin first string, which made it easier to bend the notes, and it was not uncommon during the most frenetic bits of playing for me to break at least one string. During the pause while I was changing my string, the frenzied audience would often break into a slow handclap, inspiring Giorgio to dream up the nickname of ‘Slowhand’ Clapton.”

Y and T Manaketti

Before Mötley Crüe, before RATT, even before there was a Metallica, Y&T was slogging away in sweaty rock clubs around America.Many of the biggest acts of the ’80s became popular opening for headliners Y&T—and cut their teeth on the band, as evidenced by the Y&T

He’s been asked to join many top bands including Ozzy Osbourne, Sammy Hagar, Peter Frampton, Whitesnake and others

In the movie Anvil! The Story of Anvil, in the bonus feature interview Lars Ulrich of Metallica talks at length about seeing one of his favorite bands Y&T for the first time at a club in Hollywood in December 1980. Lars Ulrich credits Y&T as the reason he decided to become a musician, saying: “That was the turning point for me wanting to play music…You could tell that they loved what they were doing.”

Nancy Wilson

Nancy was inspired to pursue music after watching The Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. She revealed that after seeing the Fab Four, she and her sister Ann, her future Heart bandmate, were doing air guitar shows in the living room and putting on English accents.

While her sister was all for having Nancy join Heart, other members of the band wanted Nancy to audition. They had her learn and perform the introduction to the Yes song “The Clap.” She played it live and was officially made a member of the band.

Nancy wrote the score for the 1996 film Jerry Maguire and she contributed songs for 2000’s Almost Famous. She also composed the theme music for 2001’s Vanilla Sky and 2005’s Elizabethtown, all of which Crowe (her husband at the time) directed.

Peter Frampton

By the age of 12, Peter Frampton played in a band called The Little Ravens. Both he and David Bowie, who was three years older, were pupils at Bromley Technical School. The Little Ravens played on the same bill at school as Bowie’s band, George and the Dragons

At the age of 14, Peter Frampton was playing with a band called The Trubeats. He next played with a band called The Preachers, produced and managed by Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones

He united with old friend David Bowie, and both worked together to make albums. Frampton played on Bowie’s 1987 album Never Let Me Down and sang and played on the accompanying Glass Spider Tour. Frampton would, in 2013, credit his participation in this tour for helping revive his career

Before Frampton had written a single song, there were three million advance orders for the new album. It was the first time something spectacular had been expected of him, and the expectation intensified his fears. His hopes hinged on a cassette he had made of all the musical ideas he had had since the live album’s release. He went to Mexico for a brief vacation and lost the tape. This followed by the failed movie Sergeant peppers lonely hearts club band and an accident in the Bahamas that left him with Six broken ribs, a broken foot and a compound fracture in his hand. This culminated into anxieties that made writing impossible for him

Ray Parker jr.

Parker was one the first black artists to venture into the then-fledgling world of music videos. He actually made two different videos for his hit “The Other Woman”. The first was Halloween-themed and centered around a haunted castle with dancing corpses and vampires. The second was more performance-oriented, with Parker performing the song against a outer space background with backup singers. MTV initially refused to air either video because, at the time, no videos for black artists were shown and, in the case of the “haunted castle” video, Parker was depicted as having interracial relationships, which MTV didn’t want to promote.

Parker was accused of plagiarizing the melody from Huey Lewis & the News song “I Want a New Drug” for his 1984 #1 hit theme to Ghostbusters, released only six months after Lewis’ hit reached #6 in the Billboard Hot 100. This ended with Lewis suing Parker, and the pair settled out of court in 1995.

They returned to court once again in 2001, as Parker sued Lewis for breaching a confidentiality agreement forming part of their original out of court settlement which prohibited either side from speaking about it publicly. Lewis had revealed in a VH1 Behind The Music special that Parker had paid a financial settlement as part of the original agreement.

Prince

HIS REAL NAME WAS PRINCE.

Born to two musical parents, Prince Rogers Nelson was named after his father’s jazz combo.

In addition to penning several hundred songs for himself, Prince also composed music for other artists, including “Manic Monday” for the Bangles, “I Feel For You” for Chaka Khan, and “Nothing Compares 2 U” for Sinéad O’Connor.

In 2006, Universal hid 14 purple tickets—seven in the U.S. and seven internationally—inside Prince’s album, 3121. Fans who found a purple ticket were invited to attend a private performance at Prince’s Los Angeles home.

Brian May

May couldn’t afford the Les Paul and Stratocaster guitars that he really wanted, so he built his own guitar with the help of his father.

He said of his guitar: “I like a big neck – thick, flat and wide. I lacquered the fingerboard with Rustin’s Plastic Coating. The tremolo is interesting in that the arm’s made from an old bicycle saddle bag carrier, the knob at the end’s off a knitting needle and the springs are valve springs from an old motorbike.”

He also prefers to use coins, instead of a more traditional plastic plectrum, as it gives him more control in playing. He is known to carry coins in his pockets specifically for this purpose.

From 1970 to 1974, he also studied for a PhD degree at Imperial College, studying reflected light from interplanetary dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the Solar System. However, when Queen found success, he abandoned his studies, but co-authored two peer reviewed research papers, which were based on his observations at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife.

Christopher Cross

He set a record for five Grammys in 1981, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year for “Sailing.”

In a career spanning over five decades, Cross has sold over 10 million albums. His music has garnered five Grammys, an Oscar, a Golden Globe, an Emmy nomination and five Top 10 singles.

He once served as a drum tech for Ginger Baker, bought gear from Jimmy Page, played lead guitar for Deep Purple on a night when Ritchie Blackmore fell ill, among other unique experiences

Richie Kotzen

At five years old, he started playing music and at seven, he picked up the electric guitar.

He was the opening act in Japan for The Rolling Stones in 2006.

Playing for Poison he wrote two top-twenty singles, “Stand” and “Until You Suffer Some (Fire and Ice)”

One record he recorded with Mr Big included his song Shine, and it debuted at number one on Japanese radio charts.

Steve Lukather

He has recorded tracks on more than 1,500 albums has played on countless hit records for artists that include Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Quincy Jones, Peter Frampton, Joni Mitchell, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson

He recalled his interaction with Michael Jackson and recording the thriller album…

“Michael called me on the phone, and I didn’t believe it was really him, so I gave him a bunch of grief because he woke me up in the morning. It was kind of funny, and then I found out it was really him.

Quincy’s office called and said, “No, that was really Michael,” because I kept hanging up on him. But, you know, ,he was really a nice guy to work with, a total pro. And like I said, it was a great honor to be a part of something so huge. You know?

I played on “Beat It.” I played all the rhythm guitar parts and the base. And Eddie did the solo. And Jeff Porcaro did the drums and Michael sang.

And then I played on “Human Nature,” which Steve Porcaro wrote, played all the keyboards on. And I played guitar on that. And I did the duet with Paul McCartney ( on “The Girl is Mine.”)

We were all over that Thriller record— me, Steve Porcaro, [Toto keyboardist] David Paich, and [Toto drummer] Jeff Porcaro.