Six String Theory | Sizzle Reel

Picture yourself in Henson Recording, once known as A&M Studios, the hallowed Hollywood tracking room in which Lee Ritenour is recording songs for the album you now hold in your hands. It’s mid-session, the red light is on, and British rock/fusion phenomenon Guthrie Govan is performing his odd meter tour de force, “Fives.” With the tubes in his amp scorching hot, and his fingers even hotter, the young guitar hero is melding every progressive shred guitar approach you can name—pick sweeping, string tapping, pinch harmonics, and more—into unified sheets of sound that magically seem to channel Coltrane, Paganini, and Zappa all at once. Ritenour looks pleased. Meanwhile, another person has just entered the control room, and he, too, is watching Govan’s guitar pyrotechnics: American blues/rock wunderkind Joe Bonamassa. Fresh off his most successful year yet—a year that found him headlining and selling out London’s Royal Albert Hall, no less—Bonamassa is up next to record for Ritenour. “Man,” he jokes when he meets Govan a few minutes later, “I didn’t play that many notes all last year.” “Yeah,” replies Govan, “but you played the right ones.” Few things encapsulate the spirit of 6 String Theory more succinctly than this friendly little exchange—two immensely successful but utterly disparate musicians checking their egos at the door to take part in a world-class celebration of the guitar; a celebration put on by one of the most versatile and successful performers, composers, session players, producers, and solo artists the instrument has ever known. If guitarists sometimes live up to any reputation they may have for being a competitive, high-maintenance, even back-stabbing bunch, they certainly didn’t do so on the 6 String sessions. The camaraderie throughout was genuine, and it arose in large part from one thing: the immense respect every corner of the music industry pays Lee Ritenour. One obvious measure of this respect is the album’s astonishingly high headcount of world-famous guest guitarists—a whopping ...