By Steve Newton
Man, was 1975 the best year for guitar-based rock or what?
That’s the year I graduated high school, and spent countless hours cramming my head with riffs from LPs like Thin Lizzy‘s Fighting, Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, Bad Company‘s Straight Shooter, Heart‘s Dreamboat Annie, and the self-titled debuts by Ian Hunter, the Outlaws, and Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow.
I didn’t spend as much time listening to instrumental music that year, except for one album: Jeff Beck‘s Blow By Blow. I’d listen to Beck’s version of Stevie Wonder‘s “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” over and over again, wondering how someone could make a guitar sound like that.
When I did my first interview with Joe Satriani back in 1990 he told me about the major effect that album had on him as well.
Have a listen:
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