Artist Spotlight
May 5, 2021

May 5th Featured Artist – Mike McCready!

Mike McCready playing the bass

What’s your favourite Pearl Jam solo? This week’s featured artist is Mike McCready!

Born April 5th 1966, he is an American musician who serves as the lead guitarist for the American rock band Pearl Jam. Along with Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, and Eddie Vedder, he is one of the founding members of the band. McCready was also a member of the side project bands Flight to Mars, Temple of the Dog, Mad Season and The Rockfords. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pearl Jam on April 7, 2017. When Pearl Jam started, Gossard and McCready were clearly designated as rhythm and lead guitarists, respectively. The dynamic began to change when Vedder started to play more rhythm guitar during the Vitalogy era.

McCready prefers to play “by ear” rather than from a technical standpoint. He has stated, “I’m so ignorant of this technical stuff… I’m not into being a tech-head.” McCready’s guitar style is usually of an aggressive bluesy nature, and was described by Greg Prato of Allmusic as “feel-oriented” and “rootsy”. McCready has cited Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Ace Frehley, David Gilmour, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie Van Halen, and Jimmy Page among his biggest musical influences.

McCready is known to use a variety of different guitars, but during Pearl Jam’s early years he used mainly Fender Stratocasters. A Fender Stratocaster has been used constantly and most often throughout his career. McCready has used many types of Stratocasters, vintage and modern, even including left-handed Stratocasters with reversed strings, so that the slanted bridge pickup would have more treble on the lower strings, as opposed to the intended higher strings. McCready’s second most used guitar is a Gibson Les Paul.

Check below for a live performance of Pearl Jam’s hit “Even Flow”, and a tab of the song!

We currently offer Video Conference lessons if you’d like to learn about the ongoing history of music with a professional!

TAB: https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/pearl-jam-even-flow-tab-s384t0

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