regal angelus

In the past decade alone, Colin Linden has played on, produced, or engineered at least 60 albums, for a diverse cast of artists ranging from Lucinda Williams to Fantastic Negrito. Here, he picks his trusty goldtop from the Gibson Custom Shop.

Photo by Laura Godwin

How an eclectic, blues-fueled guitar hero took a spark from Howlin’ Wolf and put fire in his music. Plus, the vintage guitars and amps he used to create his swampy, stomping new album, Blow.

Some guitar heroes explode across the stage or erupt from recordings. Think Hendrix or Jimmy Page. Others, like Colin Linden, have a quieter brilliance. They play to support fellow musicians and their own songs with a perfection that extends beyond service into art, dancing a characterful line between the sacred and the profane, the beguiling and the dramatic. They have a visionary approach, distilled from years of surveying their craft and shaping what they’ve learned into diamonds. And with those jewels they can refract complex emotions or simply cut like the patient, intuitive, and exacting badasses they are.

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