Life on the Fretboard with Michael Watts

Nov 07 2024 14 ep. 58 mins 15

Life on the Fretboard with Michael Watts Podcast artwork

With each episode of Life on the Fretboard, British guitarist, filmmaker and writer Michael Watts interviews extraordinary individuals from the world of guitars. Life on the Fretboard is part of the Fretboard Journal podcast network.

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Rob Luft

Nov 07 2024 67 mins

Rob Luft is a rising star of the European jazz guitar scene whose intricate and lyrical playing melds textures from around the world into a striking musical voice. Rob is an extraordinarily creative person and a bit of a chameleon, home with everything from soulful standards and improvised fusion madness to Balkan time signatures and the joyful lines of Congolese soukous. He has ev

Claire Tole-Moir: Superstar Guitar Auctioneer

Sep 16 2024 46 mins

Claire Tole-Moir is Head of Popular Culture at Bonhams, the world-famous auction house in London. On a daily basis, she is in direct contact with some of the most iconic and culturally impactful works of modern art, sculpture, photography, film and artist memorabilia of the last century. So if you fancy a Man Ray photograph; a golden ticket from the original Charlie and The Chocol

Scott Gorham (Thin Lizzy)

Jun 17 2024 68 mins

Lord of the Les Paul and Mariscal of the Marshall Stack, Scott Gorham shot to worldwide prominence with the legendary rock band Thin Lizzy. He created what would become known subsequently as “The Twin Guitar Attack” - a harmonised lead guitar style developed alongside players such as Brian Robertson and Gary Moore, driving home the larger-than-life persona of frontman and bass

Derek Gripper

Apr 10 2024 56 mins

Derek Gripper plays Malian Kora music on a vintage Hermann Hauser classical guitar...and if that doesn’t get your attention, nothing will! John Williams himself describes feeling that this was, and, I quote, "absolutely impossible until I heard Derek Gripper do it." So that’s pretty cool. We talk about his work translating the music of this beautiful African harp to the nylon

Jocelyn Gould

Feb 26 2024 53 mins

Canadian-born Jocelyn Gould is a JUNO award-winning guitarist, vocalist, composer and professor of jazz studies who performs at the highest international levels. Jocelyn is one of those musicians that I could listen to for hours. She is a force of nature, too. She tours constantly. I was delighted to fly back from Norway in time to catch up with her in the days around her debut at

Adrian Utley (Portishead)

Jan 09 2024 65 mins

Adrian Utley is one of the most versatile and creative musicians the UK has produced. His work with artists such as Jeff Beck, Patti Smith and Glenn Branca is testament to this. Shooting to prominence in the mid 1990s with Portishead, Adrian’s beautifully judged, nuanced playing - with its unique jazz and soul sensibilities - set the band apart from their contemporaries in what

Little Barrie Cadogan

Dec 05 2023 61 mins

Barrie Cadogan (also known as "Little Barrie") is one of the world's first call electric guitarists when it comes to classic soul, rock, punk, and rhythm & blues. He has worked with some of the biggest indie artists performing today including Morrissey, Paul Weller, Edwyn Collins, Liam Gallagher, and Primal Scream. That’s a hell of a CV by anyone’s standards, but Barrie is perh

Wizz Jones

Oct 27 2023 75 mins

Bruce Springsteen and Thurston Moore adore his work and rightly so...Wizz Jones is a lynchpin of the UK folk blues guitar scene and has been since the early 1960s. When London was an epicenter for artists from the USA such as Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Jackson C. Frank, and Bob Dylan - Wizz was right there. Wizz was also there to hea

Emma Tricca

Sep 22 2023 79 mins

Emma Tricca is a massively talented singer-songwriter, a poet, and beautiful fingerstyle guitarist. Italian by birth, Emma works between Rome, London and New York making gorgeous psychedelic folk rock records - her latest is called 'Aspirin Sun' it is out now and it’s rather wonderful. You may have seen Emma on tour with such luminaries as Robyn Hitchcock, Dinosaur Jr. or Nick

Will Ackerman

Jul 25 2023 66 mins

Will Ackerman is a visionary composer, fingerstyle guitarist and producer. As the founder of Windham Hill Records, he achieved international success with his own music and that of artists such as Michael Hedges, George Winston, Alex De Grassi and others. Windham Hill’s sumptuous, detailed sound is widely acknowledged to be a milestone in the evolution of the acoustic guitar. Let