James Walton

The quest for the perfect guitar riff is a noble one – if not quite the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe

Ignore the touches of hyperbole and the feminist politicking, BBC4’s The Joy of the Guitar Riff rescued Friday night TV

A series of indisputable masterpieces: Nile Rodgers of Chic [Chris Jackson/Getty Images] 
issue 19 July 2014

A few weeks ago, my eight-year-old son, who’s taken up the guitar, announced that he’d learned something new. He then played a sequence of chords — approximately, Duh-duh-duuh, Duh-duh-da-duuh — that I’ve been hearing from all guitarists since I was about eight myself. ‘It’s called “Smoke on the Water”,’ he informed me, unnecessarily.

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