Shine a Light

ANDY TIMMONS FINDS OUT MORE ABOUT ANDY ALEDORT’S NEW DOUBLE ALBUM, LIGHT OF LOVE, FEATURING DOUBLE TROUBLE, STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN’S LEGENDARY RHYTHM SECTION

- Andy Timmons

LONGTIME GUITAR WORLD associate editor Andy Aledort is widely known for his song transcriptions, instructional columns and DVDs — and he’s also toured throughout the last two decades with Dickey Betts and the Jimi Hendrix Tribute. His brand-new release, Light of Love, features 17 originals plus a cover of Muddy Waters’ “You Shook Me.” The songs are drawn from different sessions, including a 2004 session in Austin with Double Trouble. Final recording and mixing was done in the fall of 2021 with engineer Bob Stander at Parcheesi Recording in Huntington, New York.

When instrumental master Andy Timmons (who also happens to be a current GW columnist) heard Light of Love, he was so intrigued that he volunteered to interview Aledort for this issue of GW. “Andy has his own distinct musical personality,” Timmons says. “That’s what jumps out at me when I listen to this record.”

ANDY TIMMONS: On Light of Love, you’re covering blues, rock and pop, but it’s coming out in a distinctly personal way. You have your own “voice” — not just vocally, but on the instrument. Of course, I’m expecting a “guitar record” from you, but there are a lot of vocal tunes mixed with the instrumentals.

ANDY ALEDORT: I had so many songs I planned to include, so I knew from the start this was going to be a double record with acoustic-driven tracks and more aggressive electric guitar songs. For each, the goal was to have “hooks,” either in the guitar licks or the vocal melodies or both, coming from a “pop” sensibility of trying to draw in the listener.