SONS OF ANARCHY

IN YEARS PAST, when we journalists started an interview by asking, "Who inspired you to pick up the guitar?" the answer was often some combination of Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen.

- Andrew Daly

These days, a different response - "My dad!" - is cropping up more and more. This stems from a new generation of young guns who are brandishing six-strings - sometimes owned or passed down by their dads- and setting out in the same way they watched their fathers do it 20, 30 or even 50 years ago.

Of course, we're not ignoring the many musical daughters out there who have impacted music on a deep level, just as their famous dads did before them. A survey carried out by Fender in 2023 suggests that more and more women are playing a mean guitar these days, but also that this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Successful guitar-star daughters such as Frances Bean Cobain (who also has a famous mom in guitarist Courtney Love), Electra Mustaine, Sophie Simmons, Romany Gilmour, Grace McKagan and Norah Jones still tend to be singer-songwriters rather than guitarists. Fortunately for us all, that's likely to change over the next few years.

But whether they're sons or daughters, a whole lot of people feel the need to compete with and outperform the older generation - you know how it is. Eventually, though, that impulse wears off and you settle into your own groove, which has definitely been the case with the half-dozen sons GW chatted with recently: Evan Stanley (pictured at left), Harrison Whitford, Micah Nelson, Tommy Prine, Greg Guy and Duane Betts.

This collection of offspring is especially interesting, as their dear ol' dads are a combination of recently passed, recently retiring or soon-to-be-retiring musicians, or ones that the younger guys are actually sharing the stage with, later in life. That is to say, this is a talented crop of young players who can shine a light on the deepest, darkest corners of this phenomenon of sons rising in the east - while their dads set in the west.