Robben Ford

HE'S A MASTER CRAFTSMAN WHO HAS PLAYED FOR LEGENDS SUCH AS MILES DAVIS AND JONI MITCHELL AND CREATED A SERIES OF BRILLIANT SOLO ALBUMS. FOR ROBBEN FORD, ONE GOLDEN RULE APPLIES: "TONE HAS ALWAYS BEEN NUMBER ONE TO ME."

- Grant Moon

Guitarist, singer, songwriter, and occasional saxophonist, Robben Ford got his break in 1969 when, aged 18, he and his band were recruited to back blues harmonica maestro Charlie Musselwhite. Ford went on to play guitar for Joni Mitchell with elite jazz fusion collective, The L.A. Express, to play sideman for Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and to grace records by legendary figures such as Michael McDonald, Bonnie Raitt, and Larry Carlton. But it's through his solo career that Ford's own legend has truly grown.

With the heart and soul of a bluesman and the brain and fingers of a jazzer, he has a back catalog packed with high-grade blues/rock records such as The Inside Story, Talk To Your Daughter and - featuring his must-hear 90s group The Blue Line - the Grammy-nominated Mystic Mile and Robben Ford And The Blue Line.

Now 69, Ford's on a hot streak through recent acclaimed releases Into The Sun, Purple House, and The Sun Room, and he continues with Pure, a masterclass in blues, funk, and - via the title track - exotic, world-tinged guitar alchemy. He shares a lifetime of musical wisdom online at robbenfordguitardojo.com and speaks to Total Guitar from his Nashville home to offer advice on how to be the best musician you can be...

With both melody and lyrics, that first line is all-important.

I'm pretty good with melodies, they come spontaneously to me. The opening line of Pure has a lot of chromatics in there, and I just sort of played it... As far as I'm concerned, it's the same way of writing melodies and lyrics - when you have your first line, basically the song is there. It's there to be written, you just have to follow that musical thread out.

Make tone your first priority.