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Curated playlist

20th-century English guitarists

  • John LennonJohn Lennon was ordered to leave the United States in 1973. His anti-war activities had alarmed President Nixon.
  • Keith RichardsKeith Richards, guitarist of the Rolling Stones, began his musical life by stretching toward an instrument he could not reach. His maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore "Gus" Dupree, toured Britain with a jazz big band called Gus Dupree…
  • Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney traded a trumpet for a guitar and wrote his first song on it. His father had given him the trumpet.
  • Jimmy PageJimmy Page was thirteen when a television host asked what he planned to do with his life. His answer had nothing to do with music. The year was 1957, and the programme was All Your Own, a talent show on BBC1 hosted by Huw Wheldon. Page had…
  • Pete TownshendPete Townshend helped make what the Guinness Book of Records once listed as the loudest concert ever. On the 31st of May 1976, the Who played Charlton Athletic Football Club, and a reading taken 32 metres from the stage reached 126…
  • Chris MartinChris Martin, the English singer and pianist born on the 2nd of March 1977, composed a three-minute instrumental called "Electric Thunder" when he was 12 years old. In February 2020, a former fellow pupil found it on a cassette tape.…
  • George HarrisonGeorge Harrison mortgaged his home to save Monty Python's Life of Brian. EMI Films had pulled its funding in 1978.
  • Eric ClaptonEric Clapton got the nickname Slowhand from a broken guitar string. Fans clapped slowly while he replaced it.
  • Brian MayBrian May climbed onto the roof of Buckingham Palace on the 3rd of June 2002 and played a guitar solo of "God Save the Queen." It was part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations for Elizabeth II. May, born in 1947, is the lead guitarist of the…
  • Syd BarrettSyd Barrett walked into Abbey Road Studios on the 5th of June 1975, and the men inside did not know him. He had shaved off his hair and even his eyebrows, and he was overweight. He was 29. The musicians were Pink Floyd, the band he had…
  • Jeff BeckJeff Beck once rang his producer to ask for another try at a guitar solo, a couple of months after the album was finished. The producer was George Martin, and the album was Blow by Blow. Martin, bemused, answered: "I'm sorry, Jeff, but the…

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