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Curated playlist

Guitarists from California

  • Bob DylanAt a 1966 Manchester concert, Bob Dylan told his band to play loud after a heckler called him Judas.
  • Katy PerryKaty Perry grew up in a home where the word "luck" was banned. Her pastor mother said it reminded her of Lucifer.
  • Brian WilsonOn a flight to Houston in 1964, Brian Wilson broke down sobbing. He then quit touring with the Beach Boys.
  • Eddie Van HalenEddie Van Halen summed up his whole life in a few sentences at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in 2015. "We came here with approximately $50 and a piano, and we didn't speak the language. Now look where we are. If…
  • Joan BaezJoan Baez was singing at a music festival called Bratislavská lýra in Communist Czechoslovakia in May 1989 when someone cut off her microphone. From the stage, she had just greeted members of Charter 77, a dissident human-rights group.…
  • Woody GuthrieWoody Guthrie often played a guitar that carried a blunt message: "This machine kills fascists." He was an American singer, songwriter and composer who wrote hundreds of country, folk and children's songs, along with ballads and improvised…
  • Jack BlackJack Black is an American actor, comedian, singer and musician, and in 2025 he attached his name to the shortest song ever to reach the Billboard Hot 100. "Steve's Lava Chicken", from A Minecraft Movie, lasts just 34 seconds. It edged out…
  • Billie Joe ArmstrongBillie Joe Armstrong was five years old when he recorded a song called 'Look for Love' for a Bay Area label named Fiat Records. A teacher had pushed him to try it. Decades later, the band he fronts, Green Day, has sold over 60 million…
  • Lindsey BuckinghamLindsey Buckingham learned to play on a toy Mickey Mouse guitar, strumming along to his older brother Jeff's pile of 45s. He never took a lesson, and he still does not read music. Decades later, Rolling Stone ranked him 100th on its 2011…
  • Eddie VedderEddie Vedder was born Edward Louis Severson III on the 23rd of December 1964 in Evanston, Illinois. The surname the world knows him by was not the one he was born with. He grew up to become the lead vocalist, primary lyricist and one of…
  • John FogertyOn the 13th of January 2023, John Fogerty announced on Twitter that he now owned the rights to the entire global catalog of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Getting there had taken a 50-year legal fight. Fogerty, born in 1945, was the lead…
  • Jeff BuckleyJeff Buckley finished exactly one studio album before he died, and it was called Grace. It came out in 1994. Decades later, Rolling Stone placed it on three separate lists of the 500 greatest albums. In 2014, the Library of Congress added…
  • Phoebe BridgersPhoebe Bridgers ended her Saturday Night Live performance by smashing her guitar on a fake stage monitor. Moments earlier she had played "Kyoto" and "I Know the End" for a national television audience. Bridgers was born in Pasadena,…
  • Dave MustaineDave Mustaine fronts Megadeth, a thrash metal band that has released seventeen studio albums and sold over 50 million records worldwide. In 2017 the title track of its album Dystopia won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. Yet the…

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