Shredder Extraordinaire and major Hendrix enthusiast Joe
Satriani was fortunate that the stars aligned so he could
do the full Experience Hendrix Tour. He had played the
San Francisco date of the first tour, but scheduling conflicts
always seemed to prevent him from joining the nationwide
festivities. But after finishing the last Chickenfoot tour, Satriani
finally had the time to pay homage to the man that inspired
him to make guitar his life. And, going through the whole
experience facilitated some new gear and tone discoveries.
“At the start of the Chickenfoot tour, I noticed that my
Peavey JSX rig sounded more specialized for someone playing lead guitar all night,” he said. “I had Marshall send me
some different stuff to try out in Vienna, and I ended up
using a JVM410 for the rest of the tour. It made such a profound difference, because I’m playing rhythm guitar most of
the time in that band.” After his last stint on the road with
Chickenfoot, he decided to have an amp shootout at SIR
studios in San Francisco, and there he rediscovered his love
for a certain Marshall head. “I was shocked to find that using
a Vox Saturator into a Marshall 6100 Anniversary head’s clean
channel was really the best sound. Part of it was the fact that
it was a better 6100 than the older ones I had. Plus, I didn’t
have the Saturator back when I was using those amps.”
Joe Satriani
Satriani is well known for his dual-humbucker Ibanez guitars.
But for the Experience Hendrix tour he decided to bring
some single-coils into the picture. “I have some prototype
Ibanez JS guitars with three DiMarzio single-coils, and they
sound great combined with the Marshall and Saturator.
Those three work together really, really well.”
Before the show began, Tedeschi was bolt-
ing back and forth between instruments
during soundcheck. Whether it was guitar,
guitar and vocals, or drums, if it could make
music she was playing it. She made sure
everyone—the crew and us included—had
fun and was in a great mood for the show.
Later on that night, she owned the stage
with her sweet, soulful vocals as she accom-
panied Eric Johnson on a fantastic rendition
of Hendrix’s “One Rainy Wish.” She also
joined in on “Killing Floor” with Hubert
Sumlin and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. For
her rig, she relied mainly on a D’Angelico
NYSD- 9 loaded with Kent Armstrong hum-
buckers, though she also had a blue paisley
Fender Telecaster in her arsenal.
Above Left: Tedeschi’s pedalboard housed a Boss
TU- 2 Tuner, Moollon Overdrive, and Vox wah.
Above: As far as rigs paying tribute to Hendrix,
Tedeschi’s hit the nail on the head with the loud,
clean power of a reissue Marshall Super Lead 100-
watt head driving a Marshall 1960BX cabinet loaded
with Celestion Greenback 25-watt speakers and
mic’d with a Sennheiser e906.
Right: Susan Tedeschi playing a D’Angelico NYSD- 9 on
“Spanish Castle Magic.”
Susan Tedeschi
