American b* guitar player (born 1960)Musical artist

Stuart Hamm (born February 8, 1960) is an American b* guitar player, known for his session and live work with numerous artists as well as for his unconventional playing style and solo recordings.

Contents

• 1 Career
• 2 Style
• 3 Discography
  • 3.1 Solo albums
  • 3.2 With Frank Gambale
  • 3.3 With Frank Gambale and Steve Smith
  • 3.4 With Joe Satriani
  • 3.5 With Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, and Steve Vai
  • 3.6 With Steve Vai
  • 3.7 With other artists
• 4 Instructional videos
• 5 References
• 6 External links

Career

Born in New Orleans, Hamm spent his childhood and youth in Champaign, Illinois, where he studied b* and piano, played in the stage band at Champaign Central High School, and was selected to the Illinois All-State Band. Hamm graduated from Hanover High in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1978, while living in Norwich, Vermont. Following high school, he attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he met guitarist Steve Vai and, through him, met Joe Satriani. Hamm played b* on Vai's debut solo album, Flex-Able, which was released in 1984.

Hamm has performed and recorded with Steve Vai, Frank Gambale, Joe Satriani and many other well-respected guitarists. It was his playing live on tour with Satriani that brought Hamm's skills to national attention. Subsequent recordings with Satriani and other rock/fusion artists, along with the release of his own solo recordings, solidified his reputation as a b*ist and performer.

Style

Hamm's first solo album, Radio Free Albemuth, inspired by the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, was released in 1988. On it, Hamm demonstrated his abilities on a number of original compositions spanning a variety of genres including fusion, country, and cl*ical. On solo pieces like "Country Music (A Night in Hell)," he demonstrates his slapping and two-handed tapping proficiency as well as the ability to make the b* imitate the sounds of a wide range of instruments; the piece has since become a popular live piece. On the same album, he performs an arrangement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata".

Early in his career, Hamm was *ociated with Philip Kubicki's Factor b*es. Later, Fender musical instruments produced two signature model electric b*es designed and endorsed by Hamm himself, the first artist model b* ever made by Fender: the "Urge B*" and the "Urge II B*" upgrade with a D-Drop Tuner. Features include a sleek alder body, a graphite reinforced maple neck with a 2-octave rosewood fingerboard, a pair of dual-coil Ceramic Noiseless Jazz B* single-coils (neck/bridge), a custom-wound split-coil Precision B* humbucking pickup (middle) and a 3-band active EQ with 18V power supply. These b*es were discontinued in 2010. Hamm then had his own Washburn signature models since 2011, the AB40SH acoustic b* and the Hammer, featuring EMG pickups, Hipshot bridge/tuners and a 3-band active EQ - followed by a fretless version (SHBH3FLTSS) and the Stuart Hamm Electric B* series, introduced on January 20, 2012. In 2014, he moved to Warwick b*es and started work on a signature model based on his Washburn with the Warwick Streamer model shape.

Hamm's slapping, popping and two-handed tapping techniques are demonstrated on his solo recordings, as well as in his instructional videos, Slap, Pop & Tap For The B* and Deeper Inside the B*. A popular part of his live performance often includes a two-handed tapping arrangement of Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" (from the animated television special A Charlie Brown Christmas).

Since March 2011, Hamm has performed with "The Deadlies," houseband for KOFY-TV's Creepy KOFY Movie Time.

In July 2011, Hamm accepted the position of Director of B* Programs at Musician's Ins*ute in Hollywood, California. For the past two decades, Hamm has also toured as one of the world's premier b* clinicians.

Discography

Solo albums

• Radio Free Albemuth (1988)
• Kings of Sleep (1989)
• The Urge (1991)
• Outbound (2000)
• Live Stu X 2 (2007)
• Just Outside of Normal (2010)
• The Book Of Lies (2015)
• The Diary of Patrick Xavier (2018)

With Frank Gambale

• The Great Explorers (1993)

With Frank Gambale and Steve Smith

• Show Me What You Can Do (1998)
• The Light Beyond (2000)
• GHS3 (2002)

With Joe Satriani

• Dreaming #11 (1988) -- Ice 9, Memories and Hordes of Locusts
• Flying in a Blue Dream (1989) -- Strange and The Bells of Lal (Part Two)
• Time Machine (1993) -- Disc One: Time Machine, The Mighty Turtle Head and All Alone. Disc Two: Circles, Lords of Karma and Echo
• Crystal Planet (1998) -- All Tracks except Time and Z.Z.'s Song
• Live in San Francisco (2001)
• Live In Paris: I Just Wanna Rock (2010)

With Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, and Steve Vai

• G3 Live in Concert (1997) -- Tracks 1-3

With Steve Vai

• Flex-Able (1984)
• P*ion and Warfare (1990)
• Fire Garden (1996) -- Track 3

With other artists

• Richie Kotzen, Richie Kotzen (1989)
• Michael Schenker Group, Arachnophobiac (2003)
• Working Man, a Rush tribute album, tracks #7, #10, #11 (1996)
• Yngwie Malmsteen, Ronnie James Dio, for Not The Same Old Song and Dance, an Aerosmith tribute album, track #6, "Dream On" (1999)
• George Lynch, Gregg Bissonette, and Vince Neil, for Bat Head Soup, an Ozzy Osbourne tribute album, track #9, "Paranoid" (2006)
• Caifanes (band) on the El nervio del volcán (album) on track #8 Quisiera Ser Alcohol.
• Adrian Legg, Mrs. Crowe's Blue Waltz (1992)
• Bill Lonero, "Slather" (2004)
• David Stockden, "Reflections of Themes" (2009)
• Thomas Tomsen, "Sunflickers" (2010)
• Matthias Arp, "Endorphin Overdose" (2010) - Track 1+10
• Marco Iacobini, "The Sky There'll Always Be" (2013)
• Gretchen Menn, "Oleo Strut" (2011)

Instructional videos

• Slap, Pop & Tap for the B* (1987)
• "Deeper Inside the B*" (1993)
• "B* Basics" (2008)
• "Fretboard Fitness" (2010)

References

External links

• Official website
• Interview with Stu Hamm..., 10/01/2009
• Interview with Stuart Hamm at AltGuitarB*.com