Django Reinhardt His Style In 25 Licks

In this special feature John Wheatcroft takes a licks based look at the unique style of Belgium born gypsy guitarist Jean Reinhardt, better known to the world simply as ‘Django’.

- John Wheatcroft

Django Reinhardt is the complete guitarist’s guitarist. George Benson, Brian May, Jeff Beck, Hank Marvin, Peter Frampton, Les Paul, Yngwie Malmsteen, Allan Holdsworth, Chet Atkins and millions of guitarists worldwide, famous and not so famous, have been captivated by the self-taught gypsy genius who knew nothing of music theory and could barely read and write. What’s more, he only had two functioning fingers on his fretting hand!

I was around 14 years of age and was being told off by my dad yet again. “Turn that racket down, and anyway; that music’s terrible. You should listen to this guitarist. He’s by far the best around!” Certain that a recommendation from my dad was bound to be rubbish and that my pointy-head stocked-wielding, spandex-wearing, uber-shredding hero could not possibly be topped (it was the 80s, after all), I begrudgingly checked him out, mainly so that I could point out how unbelievably misguided and out of touch the old man was. Such is the impetuousness of youth.