The number of mainstream recording artists using the fretless guitar
is rather small. You could say the artists on this page are those who have
the fretless guitar as one of the guns in the armory.
Darby Slick - Lead Guitarist of
The Great Soceity with sister-in-law Grace Slick prior to her joining Jefferson Airplane.
Wrote the classic song, Don't You Want Somebody to Love.
Created the "Slick" a fretless guitar of his own invention, no info on this piece apart from the above pic from 2009.
The link above takes you to a catalogue listing for his 1998 CD, King of the Fretless Guitar.
Dweezil Zappa - The Dweez is known to use
the fretless from time to time, a tradition passed down from his father, Frank, see credits for
Friendly Little Finger.
Adrian Belew - Veteran King Crimson guitarist,
painter / artist. Adrian played most fretless on the album "Three of a Perfect Pair".
King Crimson band member Robert Fripp has also used fretless guitar.
Marc Ducret
- Born in Paris, France, we know Marc plays fretless from time to time.
Randy Roos
- Has been playing fretless since 1978, certainly the first time we have heard of a
stainless steel fingerboard being used. Randy also incorporated Steve Holland's electronic sustainer,
also the first instance we can find for this type of device. More info & pictures.
John Etheridge
- Renowned UK guitarist featured fretless on his album "Ash" re-released 2006,
also check out this short fretless piece:
Mumbai Dreams.
In his own words: "I started pleying fretless in '76 when I heard Pastorious and
thought; why not try that on guitar? So I took the frets out of a
solid Guild I had lying around. Since then I have usually featured
Fretless on a tune at gigs. After playing a bit of fretless going back
to frets seems so artificial!
On record have featured it on "Ash", Theo Travis' "Secret Island" (33
records) and my latest solo Album "I Didn't Know" (Dyad024)
available from my website:
www.johnetheridge.com
or Amazon.
Scott McGill
- Proclaimed as the "The Thinking Man's Yngwie Malmsteen" Scott's career
spans 25 years from the States through to his home near Brighton in the UK.
He released a disc of Fretless guitar material in late September 2006 with Ritchie DeCarlo
and bassist Chico Huff entitled "Awareness" and recently new material has been recorded
with Ritchie and legendary bassist Percy Jones (Brand X, Tunnels) scheduled for release
in early 2009. Special guests include Stick Player Dave Kloss and
Warr Guitarist Markus Reuter (Pat Mastelotto).
Scott has also finished tracking a solo disc entitled "Symptom Imperative" and
completed the second FreakZoid disc. All of these projects include Fretless Guitar.
Gary Moore used a Vigier Surfreter (fretless) on the track "Go on Home"
from the CD "A Different Beat".
Shawn Lane used one with Jonas Hellborg.
Other Vigier fretless artists include Jean Beauvoir
and more recently Spacey T Singleton from Fishbone.
Pat Metheny has used the fretless guitar from time to time,
the solo on the track Imaginary Day being a good example.
Pictures of his Manzer fretless can be seen here: http://tinyurl.com/aqtmx
Kittyhawk's guitarist Daniel Bortz
used a fretless in the '70s which featured on the CD "Kittyhawk" (1980).
Chet Atkins plays a nylon fretless on the song "Summertime"
from the DVD Chet Atkins & Jerry Reed at the Bottom Line in NYC (1992).
Short Video Clip.
Rick Turner modified a Gibson Chet Atkins CE for Jackson Browne
converting it into a 12 string nylon fretless called the Chet Oudkins.
Phillip Catherine played fretless on one of the albums with Larry Cornell.
Joe Ragusa saw him use it live at Carnegie hall in the early 80's.
Steve Vai plays a triple neck the bottom one being fretless.
Video Clip
Rick Nielsen (guitarist for Cheap Trick) has a fretless six-string as the
bottom neck on his famous five-necked Hamer guitar.
Sugizo (lead guitarist for Japanese band Luna Sea) has and uses several custom fretless guitars with ESP
John Frusciante guitarist and songwriter for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, used an
unfretted Fender Stratocaster on the solo on the song "Mellowship Slinky in B Major"
from their breakthrough album Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
Shawn Lane played a fretless improv at Namm 18/Jan/1997,
very impressive. This would have been to launch the Vigier Surfretter.
If you are thinking of providing a link to this site, why not use this banner,
we will love you forever. - Err.. OK, we know right clicks
are disabled on the site itself, but we are working on auto-download, try a left click here.
