HeyJaredCharlie Starr
- Indexed articles, last 90 days
- 4
- Latest publication
- Sep 18, 2026
- Outlet visibility, for Guitarworld
- Top 50K sites
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 7, 2026
Latest articles
“I realized I could take that feeling, with just an acoustic guitar and my voice, and play and sing that to anybody for the rest of my life”: Charlie Starr on how the acoustic guitar can play a vital role in songwriting (opens the original)
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When I was a kid, my dad played acoustic guitar and sang around the house, and he played everything from bluegrass to old folk and gospel songs. I was fascinated watching one man do that. It was just a guy and his guitar doing a troubadour kind of thing. This really informed my initial understanding that music could be just a person and a guitar. He could hold my attention for as long as he wanted to! He could do it with just the combination of rhythm, musicality, melody and lyrics. He liked to
How to write a “song within a song” with your guitar solos (opens the original)
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Last time, I talked about how coming up with a great, catchy lick or riff can inspire an entire song. Great riffs have the power to do that, and the best ones do it instantly. From the Beatles’ I Feel Fine, to the Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Women, to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama, these are all songs that pull the listener in immediately. A great guitar solo can do the same thing, offering the listener an unexpected journey to a new place before steering the music back to familiar territor
“It all started during a soundcheck. I was playing a Telecaster, and I said to our drummer, ‘Hey man, play the train beat!’ I began playing what became the main riff in Let It Burn”: Charlie Starr on how to turn a simple, catchy riff into a killer song (opens the original)
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In this column, I’d like to talk about guitar playing as it relates to songwriting. And as every guitarist knows, it’s all about the riff! All great riffs have that instant allure that immediately captures the listener’s ear and attention. This is true in every style of guitar-based music. Songs like (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, Purple Haze and Walk This Way are all great examples of the power of the almighty riff. I wrote a song called Let It Burn for our 2017 album, Like an Arrow, that is bu
“He grabbed a guitar and strummed it. I said, ‘What the hell tuning is that?’” Charlie Starr on the joys of fingerpicking in Csus2 – the open tuning that doesn’t have a bad chord anywhere (opens the original)
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Last month, I delved into the world of fingerpicking in the Piedmont/Mississippi John Hurt/Rev. Gary Davis/Blind Blake style, with a look at the basics of this technique. As I detailed, it’s built around alternating-bass figures picked with the thumb in a steady eighth-note pattern while rhythmically syncopated melodies are fingerpicked on the higher strings. A great example of this technique is heard on the Blackberry Smoke song Ain’t Got the Blues, from The Whippoorwill. I’d now like to contin
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