2016 Digital Issue 06 June

In our cover story this issue, we talk to Tal Wilkenfeld, the young bassist who gained worldwide attention backing Jeff Beck, about her stunning stylistic development as singer-songwriter, guitarist, and bandleader. Other artist features include chats with recent Rock Roll Hall of Fame inductees Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson, and Robin Zander of Cheap Trick, as well as jazz virtuoso Julian Lage, Asking Alexandria’s Ben Bruce and Cameron Liddell, world-music-bass-goddess-turned-vocalist/songwriter Esperanza Spalding, and former Hüsker Dü frontman Bob Mould. The latest in our Forgotten Heroes series looks at the ongoing, astonishingly prodigious career of studio ace Reggie Young—whose credits include stints with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and countless other legends. Meanwhile, DrowningInGuitars.com’s Frank Meyers—one of the world’s foremost experts on quirky vintage gear—takes us back in time to the 1960s amp-in-guitar craze. Our gear reviews include a roundup of six new dirt boxes—Mojo Hand Fx’s Sacred Cow, J Coloccia’s Id, Oddfellow’s the Bishop, the Zen Zero Red Crown, and Pettyjohn’s PettyDrive—in addition to reviews of Fender’s new Bassbreaker 45 and American Elite Precision bass, the Electro-Harmonix Super Pulsar, IK Multimedia’s iRig Acoustic, Cusack Music’s Reverb SME, Strymon’s Dig, the Dean Zelinsky LaVoce Z-Glide Custom, Blackstar’s Artist 15 combo, the Darkglass Microtubes B7K Ultra, the Pigtronix Echolution2 Ultra Pro, and 3Leaf Audio’s WonderLove envelope filter.