An accomplished musician, Guthrie plays piano, harmonica, a six and twelve-string guitar and at least a dozen other instruments.

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As a young boy, Mtukudzi joined choirs to improve his singing talent and taught himself how to play a three-string guitar.

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Humberto Flores strummed a vihuela, or five-string guitar.

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Fairly or not, Blackshaw has come to represent the "academic" side of the acoustic guitar (as opposed to the raw American Primitive sound of the late Jack Rose), so it's a surprising and somewhat ballsy move to put aside the full, resonant sound of a 12-string acoustic for the staccato feel of the electric guitar, with all the rock baggage that instrument carries.

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"She was sobbing hysterically and I just sat down with a guitar trying to make her feel better, " says Benanti, whose string of Broadway credits includes "Gypsy, " ''Nine" and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

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Veirs, who's been setting her observations to song since 1999, says she was in a writing slump going into this record, so she challenged herself with odd tunings on her nylon-string guitar.

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While listening to Electric Ladyland a few years ago, Balakrishnan says he was struck by how Hendrix's writing for guitar suited the style of string quartets.

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Though Darondo owes much of his style to Al Green, the track gives Green's best songs a run for their money: The song's every element is sublime, from the opening guitar line to Ray Dobard's sweeping string arrangement to Darondo's delicate vocals, which reveal a fragile vulnerability.

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