Photo Gallery: Guitar World Magazine Covers Through the Years — 1984 | Guitar World

By 1984, there was a new sheriff in town: heavy metal.

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Tony Iommi with his signature Gibson SG

“The deal was if I wanted it back, I could let him know and buy it back. He passed away and Hard Rock Cafe knew nothing about the deal”: Tony Iommi tried to reclaim his iconic Gibson ‘Monkey’ SG but wasn’t allowed – because the person he sold it to died

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“The tone EC achieved on that record has become one of the classic archetypes for how an electric guitar should sound”: How Eric Clapton got his tone on John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers’ ‘Beano’ album

“I started playing $150 Ibanez guitars because onstage I would take damage… Clown used to use metal bars. We were very unsafe”: Mick Thomson reflects on 25 years of Slipknot’s incendiary debut – and what it was like to see his solos erased

“A lot of players don’t bother to learn how to fix their guitars – but it’s a necessary part of technique”: Cradle of Filth’s Donny Burbage hated guitar until he got bored of playing video games – and became a tech’ing shredder

“It was the best Fender-style neck I’d seen outside of the Custom Shop. This was the neck I’d been trying to get made all these years”: How Chapman Guitars reinvented itself with a new factory, fresh ideas and the help of industry guru Trevor Wilkinson

“The Stratocaster is a clearer signal… the person who’s playing it is more recognizable on a Strat than on a Les Paul”: David Gilmour on breaking free from his past, the guitars he couldn’t face selling and why one Black Strat is as good as another

“Dickey called me: ‘Hey, Les, come by for a steak, and bring your guitar.’ He already had the verse of Jessica, but he needed a bridge…” Meet Les Dudek, the ghost guitarist on Allman Brothers classics who dated Cher and joined Journey for two hours

“Carol Kaye taught me real hard, telling me, ‘No, no, you’re playing the notes but you’re not playing the feel’”: Gene Simmons names 6 bass players who shaped his sound

“These musicians, like Blind Blake, are so amazing – we should keep their memory alive”: Meet Muireann Bradley, the 17-year-old fingerpicker on a quest to bring turn-of-the-century folk-blues to Gen Z

“The greatest advice I ever heard was from James Jamerson: ‘If you don’t feel it, don’t play it.’ I have that written on my guitar case as a reminder”: Parlor Greens’ Jimmy James on his biggest musical lessons, and why, like Hendrix, he's all about rhythm

“Over and over I would say, ‘It ain’t hitting me in the gut!’ All it took was one note... We went through 80 sets of pickups”: Eddie Van Halen details the years of onstage trials and workshop tribulations that shaped the EVH Wolfgang guitar

“l’d been listening to Jamerson for some time, but this was staggering”: Inside James Jamerson’s 10 seminal “B-Sides”