
This photo of Yola with her replica of Sister Rosetta’s 1961 SG Custom was taken just hours before she hit the red carpet for the 64th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony on April 3, 2022. Yola was nominated for Best Americana Album (Stand for Myself) and Best American Roots Song (“Diamond Studded Shoes”).
From the Grammy-nominated Stand for Myself to her role in the upcoming Elvis biopic, powerhouse singer-songwriter Yola affirms the mother of rock ’n’ roll’s place in history while claiming her own space, guitar in hand.
“I have this love affair with the ’70s—this gray area of music where one genre talks to another,” proclaims six-time Grammy nominee Yola. “That gave rise to loads of bands we would find hard to place nowadays, like Parliament-Funkadelic, Minnie Riperton, and Rotary Connection. They show how everything has been influenced by something else in the music sphere. It gets us away from this idea of genres, you know? And so that’s something that I consciously want to do. It’s like a mission.”
If Yola’s goal on her most recent release, Stand for Myself, was to meld her musical influences and life experiences into a cohesive, singular approach that craftily defies categorization, then mission accomplished. Songs like “Starlight,” “Diamond Studded Shoes,” and the title track, draw equally on the aforementioned seminal artists that Yola discovered via her mother’s ’70s record collection, as well as the mixtapes she created from listening to the British radio of her youth, which featured everything from ’90s neo-soul to R&B to Britpop. In any given song on Stand for Myself, you can likely identify familiar sonic themes, but when channeled through the lens of Yola’s personal experience, the result is an album that assimilates decades of music with a refreshingly contemporary point of view.
“I needed to take this concept of inaccessibility and patriarchy and whitewashing that were bestowed upon the legacy of rock ’n’ roll post-Sister Rosetta and undo that process.”
Yola was born Yolanda Claire Quartey in 1983 in Bristol, England. She first cut her teeth in the U.K. as a lead vocalist and songwriter with bands like Phantom Limb, Massive Attack, and Bugz in the Attic. She subsequently worked as a top-line writer, creating lyrics and melodies for artists like Will Young, Chase & Status, and Katy Perry. Her powerhouse vocals have even been sampled by the Chemical Brothers and Iggy Azalea. Her 2019 debut, Walk Through Fire, received widespread acclaim from Rolling Stone and The New York Times, which praised her “genre-fluid” blending of sounds, from “vintage Southern soul” to the “early-1960s pop melodramas of the Righteous Brothers and Roy Orbison.” That album earned Yola four Grammy award nominations, including Best New Artist. With Stand for Myself, she earned two more Grammy nominations, for Best Americana Album and for Best American Roots Song for “Diamond Studded Shoes.”
Sonically, Yola arrived at the musical medley that is Stand for Myself through what she calls a “process of metabolizing your influences.” She describes it as bringing oneself to the artistic table. “No one’s going to be able to replicate your perception of reality,” explains Yola. “Honestly, the only new thing that really exists in that matrix of your experience is you. And what’s really important to do in music as an artist is to find how you interject yourself into the process of being artistic, so by the time you bring your influences back out into the world, they aren’t what they were when they went in. They’ve been changed by being seen, and heard, and appreciated by you.”
Yola - "Stand For Myself" [Official Music Video]
To that point, Yola’s songs on Stand for Myself lyrically explore deeply personal themes that are often informed by her own research on the paradigm of supremacy, and instances of bigotry and racism that have deeply impacted her life and career. She now finds herself poised to help fulfill part of an incomplete narrative that includes what she calls “the whitewashing of the influence of Black women in the birth of rock and roll” via her portrayal of Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming Elvis biopic. “You don’t get a whole rounded story of Elvis without telling the actual truth,” she asserts. “And the truth is way more interesting and complicated than the narrative that is thrown at us by white male rockdom.”
The soundtrack for Elvis was recorded at RCA Studio A with producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton, Slash) in Nashville. “Principally, they recognized that I had experience doing voiceover for music sample replay for about 15 years, which was exactly the skill set that was required,” Yola explains. Combined with burgeoning guitar chops, she was essentially a shoo-in for the role of Tharpe, except that she’d never soloed before. “I had to do my first solos ever on camera, which is just ridiculous to think,” she laughs. The audio production team on Elvis sent her slowed down versions of the songs so she could learn Sister Rosetta’s solos by ear. “Everything I do is by ear,” Yola says. She would sing the melody of the solo, and then the production team would let her know “where they thought it was on the neck” that Sister Rosetta was playing. For the film, Gibson sent her a replica of Sister Rosetta’s 1961 SG Custom.
Yola’s Stand for Myself was released in 2021 and recorded at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville. The album was nominated for Best Americana Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards.
Yola says the bigger challenge, however, was singing counter to the rhythm of what her fingers were doing with the guitar. “She [Sister Rosetta] was always kind of dovetailing a solo while she was singing, and then she’d stop singing and do another solo,” explains Yola. “But she’d already been noodling right across her vocals. So, I had to get good at rubbing my tummy and patting my head.” It took time, and it took “some tuition,” she says, with help from composer Elliott Wheeler, production designer Catherine Martin, and movement coach Polly Bennett—all of whom “pretty much ferried me from this rhythm player who sings and writes songs to this kind of shredder.”
“The idea is to disable my prefrontal cortex—that excessive analytical thinking that one might believe is what we write with.”
Apparently, the production team did have the option for a hand double, but Yola says it was important that she play the actual guitar solos herself. “I needed to take this concept of inaccessibility and patriarchy and whitewashing that were bestowed upon the legacy of rock ’n’ roll post-Sister Rosetta and undo that process,” she declares. “The programming is absolute—it’s very effective and it doesn’t help tell the truth at all.” Yola calls the absence of Sister Rosetta in most rock ’n’ roll history books “problematic,” and that it became important for her to present to the world the context in which they understand the legacy of rock ’n’ roll. “She was the first person to distort the guitar and to bend the strings in the way that we now recognize as the blueprint for rock and roll music,” Yola contends. “Without distorting the amp, without the shred, without the tempo and the swing with which she delivered her solos, rock ’n’ roll doesn’t exist.” She hopes her portrayal of Sister Rosetta helps to set the record straight, but perhaps more importantly she’d like her performance to help dismantle the idea of being disenfranchised from the guitar, which is something she says plagued her. “I was told all the time when I was in England that I shouldn’t be anywhere near a guitar.”
Yola’s Gear
On her current headlining tour, Yola plays a Telecaster at Birmingham, Alabama’s Saturn venue on March 20, 2022. Her other go-to electric is a fiesta red Fender Noventa Jazzmaster.
Photo by Josh Weichman
Guitars
- Fender Paramount Series PM-1 Limited Adirondack Dreadnought
- Fender Noventa Jazzmaster
- Fender Custom Shop American Classic Telecaster
- Gibson 1961 SG Custom Reissue (for Sister Rosetta role in Elvis)
- Martin (000-size body)
As for picking up the guitar for her own music, Yola describes her initial impulse, originally by way of a Martin 000-series, as a “low-lift” way of being able to bring fully formed songwriting ideas to the table. “When I was a top-line writer, I’d have an idea, and it would be relatively full and complete in my head, but then I’d try to explain that to somebody and it would become changed unrecognizably, because you don’t know how to do anything other than suggest something. And so [playing guitar] is just the freedom to be able to finish a thought process.” She says it also makes collaboration more straightforward. “You’re able to say, ‘Here’s a bit of an idea. I have a verse and a chorus, but I don’t have a bridge, can you do me one? Here’s the context.’ You’re able to bring something full to the table.” She cites “Stand for Myself” as an example. “I knew that I wanted it to have a bit more of a sus4 feeling,” she recalls. “But I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted it to be repetitive or if I wanted there to be a movement of Dsus4, so I called my friend, Hannah V, and we figured it out.”
Yola generates her own light, posing onstage with her Fender PM-1 electro-acoustic at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.
Photo by Joseph Ross Smith
Yola says playing guitar became even more essential during the pandemic, when intimate settings, requiring fewer musicians, like her NPR Tiny Desk appearances, started becoming the norm. “If it can hold together relatively stripped down, then it’s probably a good song,” she asserts. “Production is important, but the melodic hooks that are important to the song have to be able to be told on a couple of instruments.” Yola often wields a Fender Paramount Series acoustic guitar during such performances.
“I was told all the time when I was in England that I shouldn’t be anywhere near a guitar.”
As for the actual act of songwriting itself, Yola gravitates towards “motor-skill-forward” activities, like vacuuming, showering, and walking to get into a “hypnotic state.” She also stays up late, watching TV and strumming the guitar idly, going through chord changes. “The idea is to disable my prefrontal cortex—that excessive analytical thinking that one might believe is what we write with.” The “most elegant connections,” she professes, are made without using that part of the brain. “So, I’d try to distract it—the guitar being the thing that jogs the inspiration into the rest of my brain, once I’ve got the prefrontal cortex taken care of.”
Yola says playing guitar is “the freedom to be able to finish a thought process.”
Photo by Katie LaRocca
Circling back around to the Elvis biopic, she again emphasizes the importance of putting Sister Rosetta’s legacy into the context of what we know about the development of rock ’n’ roll. “It’s so people can better understand where the thing they love comes from,” she explains. “Take her discovery of Little Richard. It makes sense that a guy in drag, singing rock ’n’ roll, would be discovered by a queer Black woman, as opposed to a buttoned-up white guy from the ’50s. All of a sudden you go, ‘Well, of course. Now that makes sense [laughter]. How the hell does he survive, otherwise?’ And so, once things start making sense, it then becomes my duty, to the history of rock ’n’ roll, to the history of guitar playing, to the history of women in music, to do the homework, learn the guitar, understand Sister Rosetta’s importance, and hold the guitar aloft as this thing that gives, so much more than it takes, for every human that touches it.”
Yola - Stand For Myself (Live From Easy Eye Sound)
Yola sings her empowering anthem “Stand for Myself” with assistance from her Fender Paramount PM-1 Limited in an intimate performance at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville.
Shout, Sister, Shout! Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Here’s Gibson’s short documentary on the life of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with a power assist from Celisse Henderson and Amythyst Kiah.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe guitar solos (in motion picture)
Check out this collection of outstanding Rosetta Tharpe guitar solos on film.
IK Multimedia is pleased to announce the release of new premium content for all TONEX users, available today through the IK Product Manager.
The latest TONEX Factory Content v2 expands the creative arsenal with a brand-new collection of Tone Models captured at the highest quality and presets optimized for live performance. TONEX Tone Models are unique captures of rigs dialed into a specific sweet spot. TONEX presets are used for performance and recording, combining Tone Models with added TONEX FX, EQ, and compression.
Who Gets What:
TONEX Pedal
- 150 crafted presets matched to 150 Premium Tone Models
- A/B/C layout for instant access to clean, drive, and lead tones
- 30 Banks: Amp & cab presets from classic cleans to crushing high-gain
- 5 Banks: FX-driven presets featuring the 8 new TONEX FX
- 5 Banks: Amp-only presets for integrating external IRs, VIR™, or amps
- 5 Banks: Stompbox presets of new overdrive/distortion pedals
- 5 Banks: Bass amp & pedal presets to cover and bass style
TONEX Mac/PC
- 106 new Premium Tone Models + 9 refined classics for TONEX MAX
- 20 new Premium Tone Models for TONEX and TONEX SE
TONEX ONE
- A selection of 20 expertly crafted presets from the list above
- Easy to explore and customize with the new TONEX Editor
Gig-ready Tones
For the TONEX Pedal, the first 30 banks deliver an expansive range of amp & cab tones, covering everything from dynamic cleans to brutal high-gain distortion. Each bank features legendary amplifiers paired with cabs such as a Marshall 1960, ENGL E412V, EVH 412ST and MESA Boogie 4x12 4FB, ensuring a diverse tonal palette. For some extremely high-gain tones, these amps have been boosted with classic pedals like the Ibanez TS9, MXR Timmy, ProCo RAT, and more, pushing them into new sonic territories.
Combined with New FX
The following 5 banks of 15 presets explore the depth of TONEX's latest effects. There's everything from the rich tremolo on a tweed amp to the surf tones of the new Spring 4 reverb. Users can also enjoy warm tape slapback with dotted 8th delays or push boundaries with LCR delay configurations for immersive, stereo-spanning echoes. Further, presets include iconic flanger sweeps, dynamic modulation, expansive chorus, stereo panning, and ambient reverbs to create cinematic soundscapes.
Versatile Control
The TONEX Pedal's A, B, and C footswitches make navigating these presets easy. Slot A delivers clean, smooth tones, Slot B adds crunch and drive, and Slot C pushes into high-gain or lead territory. Five dedicated amp-only banks provide a rich foundation of tones for players looking to integrate external IRs or run directly into a power amp. These amp-only captures span clean, drive, and high-gain categories, offering flexibility to sculpt the sound further with IRs or a real cab.
Must-have Stompboxes
TONEX Pedals are ideal for adding classic effects to any pedalboard. The next 5 banks focus on stompbox captures, showcasing 15 legendary overdrive, distortion, and fuzz pedals. This collection includes iconic models based on the Fulltone Full-Drive 2, Marshall DriveMaster, Maxon OD808, Klon Centaur, ProCo RAT, and more.
For Bass Players, Too
The last 5 banks are reserved for bass players, including a selection of amp & cab Tone Models alongside a few iconic pedals. Specifically, there are Tone Models based on the Ampeg SVT-2 PRO, Gallien-Krueger 800RB, and Aguilar DB750, alongside essential bass pedals based on the Tech21 SansAmp, Darkglass B7K and EHX Big Muff. Whether it's warm vintage thump, modern punch, or extreme grit, these presets ensure that bassists have the depth, clarity and power they need for any playing style.For more information and instructions on how to get the new Factory
Content v2 for TONEX, please visit:
www.ikmultimedia.com/products/tonex
Well-designed pickups. Extremely comfortable contours. Smooth, playable neck.
Middle position could use a bit more mids. Price could scare off some.
$2,999
Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay II
A surprise 6-string collaboration with Cory Wong moves effortlessly between ’70s George Benson and Blink-182 tones.
Announced at the 2025 NAMM show, Cory Wong’s new collaboration with Ernie Ball Music Man scratched an itch—namely, the itch for a humbucker-loaded guitar that could appease Wong’s rock-and-R&B alter ego and serve as complement to his signature Fender Strat. Inspiration came from no further than a bandmate’s namesake instrument. Vulfpeck bassist Joe Dart has a line of signature model EBMM basses, one of which uses the classic StingRay bass body profile. So, when Wong went looking for something distinctive, he wondered if EBMM could create a 6-string guitar using the classic StingRay bass body and headstock profile.
Double the Fun
Wong is, by his own admission, a single-coil devotee. That’s where the core of his sound lives and it feels like home to him. However, Wong is as inspired by classic Earth, Wind & Fire tones and the pop-punk of the early ’90s as he is by Prince and the Minneapolis funk that he grew up with. The StingRay II is a guitar that can cover all those bases.
Ernie Ball has a history of designing fast-feeling, comfortable necks. And I can’t remember ever struggling to move around an EBMM fretboard. The roasted maple C-shaped neck here is slightly thicker in profile than I expected, but still very comfortable. (I must also mention that the back of the neck has a dazzling, almost holographic look to the grain that morphs in the light). By any measure, the StingRay II’s curves seemed designed for comfort and speed. Now, let’s talk about those pickups.Hot or Not?
A few years ago EBMM introduced a line of HT (heat-treated) pickups. The pickups are built with technology the company used to develop their Cobalt and M-Series strings. A fair amount of the process is shrouded in secrecy and must be taken on faith, but EBMM says treating elements of the pickup with heat increases clarity and dynamic response.
To find out for myself, I plugged the StingRay II into a Fender Vibroverb, Mesa/Boogie Mark VII, and a Neural DSP Quad Cortex (Wong’s preferred live rig). Right away, it was easy to hear the tight low end and warm highs. Often, I feel like the low end from neck humbuckers can feel too loose or lack definition. Neither was the case here. The HT pickup is beautifully balanced with a bounce that’s rich with ES-335 vibes. Clean tones are punchy and bright—especially with the Vibroverb—and dirty tones have more room for air. Individual notes were clear and articulate, too.
Any guitar associated with Wong needs a strong middle-position or combined pickup tone, and the StingRay II delivers. I never felt any significant signal loss in the blended signal from the two humbuckers, even if I could use a bit more midrange presence in the voicing. The midrange gap is nothing an EQ or Tube Screamer couldn’t fix, though. And not surprisingly, very Strat-like sounds were easy to achieve for having less midrange bump.
Knowing Wong’s love for ’90s alt-rock, I expected the bridge pickup to have real bite, and it does, demonstrating exceptional dynamic range and exceptional high-end response that never approached shrill. Nearly every type of distortion and overdrive I threw at it sounded great, but especially anything with a scooped-mid flavor and plenty of low end.
The Verdict
By any measure, the StingRay II is a top-notch, professional instrument. The fit and finish are immaculate and the feel of the neck makes me wonder if EBMM stashes some kind of secret sandpaper, because I don’t think I’ve ever felt a smoother, more playable neck. Kudos are also due to EBMM and Wong for finding an instrument that can move between ’70s George Benson tones and the hammering power chords of ’90s Blink-182. Admittedly, the nearly $3K price could give some players pause, but considering the overall quality of the instrument, it’s not out of line. Wong’s involvement and search for distinct sounds makes the StingRay II more than a tired redux of a classic model—an admirable accomplishment considering EBMM’s long and storied history.
Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay II Cory Wong Signature Electric Guitar - Charcoal Blue with Rosewood Fingerboard
StingRay II Cory Wong - Charcoal BlueThe Melvins' Buzz Osborne joins the party to talk about how he helped Kurt Cobain find the right sounds.
Growing up in the small town of Montesano, Washington, Kurt Cobain turned to his older pal Buzz Osborne for musical direction. So on this episode, we’re talking with the Melvins leader about their friendship, from taking Cobain to see Black Flag in ’84 to their shared guitar journey and how they both thought about gear. And in case you’ve heard otherwise, Kurt was never a Melvins roadie!
Osborne’s latest project is Thunderball from Melvins 1983, something of a side trajectory for the band, which harkens back to this time in Osborne’s life. We dig into that and how it all relates and much more.
Adding to the company’s line of premium guitar strapsand accessories, Fairfield Guitar Co. has introduced a new deluxe leather strapdesigned in collaboration with Angela Petrilli.
Based in Los Angeles, Petrilli is well-known to guitar enthusiasts around the world for her online videos. She is one of the video hosts at Norman’s Rare Guitars and has her own YouTube lesson series, the Riff Rundown. She also writes, records and performs with her original band, Angela Petrilli & The Players, and has worked with Gibson, Fender, Martin Guitars, Universal Audio, Guitar Center and Fishman Transducers.
Angela Petrilli's eye-grabbing signature strap is fully hand cut, four inches wide and lightly padded, so it evenly distributes the weight of the instrument on the shoulder and offers superb comfort during extended play. The front side features black "cracked" leather with turquoise triple stitching. The "cracked" treatment on the leather highlights the beautiful natural marks and grain pattern – and it only gets better with age and use.The strap’s back side is black suede for adhesion and added comfort, with the Fairfield Guitar Co. logo and Angela's name stamped in silver foil.
Features include:
- 100% made in the USA
- Hand cut 4” wide leather strap with light padding -- offering extra comfort for longgigs and rehearsals.
- Black suede back side avoids slipping, maintains guitar’s ideal playing position.
- Length is fully adjustable from 45” - 54” and the strap has two holes on thetailpiece for added versatility.
The Fairfield Guitar Co. Angela Petrilli signature strap is available for $150 online at fairfieldguitarco.com.