Presale starts on Friday, July 18, 2025, at 10:00 a.m.
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Jared James Nichols: The new blues-rock guitar god live in Germany Four shows centered around the current album “Jared James Nichols”
It may seem a little strange at first to honor a relatively young man in his mid-30s, who has released just three studio albums, with the highest accolades of being a "new guitar god." But these aren't his words, after all, but those of those who know the ropes: from major music magazines and his fellow musicians to his own great heroes like Joe Bonamassa, Peter Frampton, Billy Gibbons, Slash, and Steve Vai, all of whom he's shared the stage with: they're all deeply impressed by his playing. And it's by no means just his adept technique, which combines dizzyingly fast arpeggios with his very own artistic "pick-less" style, in which the strings are tapped with the fingertips instead of plucked. More importantly, it's about his entire presence as a charismatic performer full of groove, heart, and a lived-in blues-rock soul that only very few musicians possess. This is also why Nichols, who was born in 1989 in the small town of Waukesha, Wisconsin, and absorbed the heart and history of blues-rock as a young boy, was named one of only four "Global Ambassadors" worldwide by the legendary guitar brand Gibson. And rightly so: Since then, he has only been seen on stage with one of his two vintage Gibson Les Pauls from the 1950s, a model more associated with old blues legends than with modern rock music. Guitarworld promptly wrote: "James Jared Nichols really makes the Les Paul look cool again."
His connection to the Gibson brand is as long as his career: When Nichols moved to Los Angeles in 2010, one of his first acts was to enter the Gibson Les Paul Tribute Contest—which he won, of course, as he did every contest that followed. Within just a few months, word had spread throughout California that there was a new talent not to be missed.
There's a simple reason why Nichols has released only three studio albums in the 15 years since then (all of which are undoubtedly excellent and each produced by one of his own heroes): Studio work isn't his favorite discipline; he belongs on stage and in live jam sessions. It's only logical that he recorded his current album, "Jared James Nichols," the way he plays live: live, without overdubs or post-production tweaks, with his power trio of himself, Ryan Rice on drums, and Louis Collins on bass. Which, in turn, is ultimately just an invitation to the listener to see him live. Because if you don't, as Guitarwold writes, "you've missed something you won't see again."
