The secret of Chic's success, revealed by Nile Rogers on BBC4 - start your song with the chorus!

Strictly speaking, most of Chic's hits start with the instruments establishing a groove for anything up to 30 seconds - but what follows is the chorus (i.e. the  rousing, chanty bit where everyone usually sings the song's title - the part listeners tend to remember), rather than the verse (usually a single voice setting the scene, telling a story etc.): it's normally the other way round. Chic's first hit, "Le Freak", goes straight into the chorus ("Ahhhhh...FREAK OUT! - Le Freak, c'est chic"):

This is to grab the listener's attention...

Farewell, Chuck Berry - the rock 'n' roll giant who never seemed to understand just how great he was

Let's get the non-musical stuff out of the way first. Several commentators have bemoaned the general lack of fuss about Charles Edward Anderson Berry's passing at the age of 90, compared to the oodles of coverage devoted to David Bowie and Lou Reed, etc. Racism has been cited as a possible cause of what they claim was a lack of recognition while he was alive, and the muted reaction to his death. That's silly. First, you'd have to be in your late '50s to have been aware of Chuck Berry in his glory days - roughly, 1955-65. Most working journalists (especially in TV or radio), and most of their audience, simply aren't old enough to have experienced anything but the faint echoes of Berry's immense influence on popular music... 

If reincarnation exists, next time round, I'd like to be able to play the guitar like Phil Baugh...or Vince Gill, or Danny Gatton, or...

If reincarnation exists, next time round, I'd like to be able to play the guitar like Phil Baugh...or Vince Gill, or Danny Gatton, or...

That's Phil Baugh in 1965, performing his hit from that year, "Country Guitar". Here he is with Glen Campbell, who, before he became a superstar ballad singer, earned his crust as a top session guitarist:

Farewell, Scotty Moore: the last member of the Elvis, Scotty and Bill trio has gone to glory - and left a great deal behind

I was so obsessed with politics last week that the news that one of my great musical heroes had died only reached me four days after it was announced. While making a cup of tea, I became aware that Radio 4 were playing Elvis records, interspersed with the dulcet tones of a gentlemanly Southerner: it could only be Scotty Moore. It took me a minute to realise he was being spoken of in the past tense. Yes, the man whose wonderfully playful, propulsive, echo-drenched guitar-playing graced dozens of Elvis's greatest recordings - from "That's Alright, Mama" to "Jailhouse Rock" - was dead, at the age of 84. A good innings. Yes, he was "only" the guitar player - but he was vital to Elvis's success, and every guitarist alive today owes at least some part of his style to the genius of Scotty Moore.

If Steve Miller isn’t inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, I will be jolly cross

Since its creation in 1983, there have been a total of 321 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Steve Miller isn’t one of them, and yet the following acts have been honoured: Hall & Oates, Heart, Joan Jett, Kiss, Laura Nyro, Rush,  Cat Stevens, U2 and The Young Rascals. Apart from a couple of Laura Nyro tracks, I’d happily go to my grave without hearing anything by any of those acts again. But there are at least a dozen Miller sides I’d be very sorry not to hear on a regular basis between now and clog-popping time, whenever that might be. I’d even go so far as to claim that Miller has made some of the most purely enjoyable records in pop music history. I’m happy to report that he’s one of the nominees this year (along with the likes of Yes (!), The Cars, Chicago, Deep Purple, The Smiths and Chic). If Chic and Steve Miller don’t get the nod, I'll be writing to my MP)  Here’s one excellent reason why Miller should be welcomed into the fold without further delay:

Diminutive Welsh guitarist, singer and producer Dave Edmunds is a giant of British rock music - I salute him

Yes, I've heard all the criticisms - he's derivative, predictable, stuck in a time-warp, hasn't written any classic songs, and, au fond, he's a heads-down-no-nonsense-mindless twelve-bar pub-rocker whose terrible twin, lanky Nick Lowe, was the truly creative force in their erstwhile partnership. Some of that's partly true, I think - but if it is, it's because Edmunds has always been a hugely obsessive music fan, in awe of the wonderful noise produced by his heroes and determined to discover how they managed it - and to recreate it using any means at hand, including his own considerable talents as a guitar-picker and a vastly under-rated singer.

A tribute to Scotty Moore, the modest genius whose guitar still echoes around the world

I had recently bought my first Elvis Presley LP – Golden Records – when our downstairs’ neighbours at our second rented Wimbledon home agreed to lend me the EP Good Rockin' Tonight, which, apart from the title track, included “Blue Moon of Kentucky”, “Milk Cow Blues” and “Just Because”. I’m ashamed to admit that I never gave it back – in fact, I still have it, although the sleeve went AWOL many decades’ ago. This must have been 1962 or ’63. It fascinated me from the off – I knew that the music was somehow different from the tracks on my Elvis album (which consisted of songs recorded after Elvis had left Sun Records for RCA in early 1956) and very different from his more recent stuff (e.g. “It’s Now or Never”, “His Latest Flame”, “Good Luck Charm” etc.). It was lighter, more febrile, more playful and, despite the absence of drums, even more insanely rhythmic.

Cecil Ingram Bastardo sprinkles some magic dust over The Fulminators' version of "Train Leaves Here This Morning"

The Fulminators cover "Stampede" - the raucous 1959 instrumental that may very well have been the first surf music single

So farewell then, J.J. Cale – thank you for being so absolutely ridiculously brilliant

The Fulminators kick back with self-penned rock 'n' roll instrumental, "Twangtastic"

The Fulminators pay homage to the great Danny Gatton with "Rockabilly Rapscallion"

The Fender Telecaster is THE electric guitar – no ifs, ands or buts: here’s the proof...

Sixty-three years old, devoid of airs and graces, solid as a rock, plain as a pikestaff, sporting two picks-ups, two “pots” (volume and treble), a three-way selector switch – and nothing else (unless you’re Country picker and get one with a B-bender, so you can use your elbow to raise the B-string a tone to C-sharp, resulting in twangtastic mayhem). The Telecaster is the manly, no frills Ur-guitar. Obviously there are many other makes which do certain things better – crunchier, sweeter, fatter, janglier, jazzier etc – but the Tele’s versatility is without parallel: it features on everything from “Suzie Q” to Tubular Bells to the “Stairway to Heaven” solo.

Grady Martin: rockabilly pioneer and doyen of Nashville guitar-pickers

A two-fingered salute to Merle Travis – the guitar-pickin’ giant who made one guitar sound like a band

The history of a famous bass riff - from "Summertime" to "Black Night"

The late great Jerry Reed" a tribute to the Alabama Wild Man

The story goes that when Elvis Presley was in Nashville in 1967 trying to record “Guitar Man”, his brilliant lead guitarist, James Burton, simply couldn’t nail the acoustic guitar part, so he suggested contacting the composer, Jerry Reed, who’d had a minor hit with the song the previous year, and asking him to come in and play the damn thing on the session. Which Reed duly did, resulting in one of Elvis’s best singles.

Me and my guitars: Telecaster, Taylor 314 and a Yamaki

I have a nephew in Cornwall who has erected a prefabricated American schoolhouse in his garden and filled it with musical equipment, including a shedload of recording equipment, two drum-kits, at least a dozen guitars, including several acoustics, a trio of Telecaster-style models, a Danelectro, a Gretsch semi-hollow electric and a bass guitar. If you feel your palms sweating with excitement at this description, you are undoubtedly a guitar player.

James Burton: the self-effacing guitar genius who changed music

"The Band": the greatest LP in Rock history from the most talented band in Rock history

The most accomplished, inventive and intriguing rock band America has ever produced is The Band.  I enjoyed their 1968 hit single, “The Weight”and 1969’s UK hit, “Rag Mama Rag”, but I had just bought my first stereo system, recorded music was expensive back then, and there was oodles of great new stuff to choose from.