Baritone Guitar - Baritone Guitarists

Baritone Guitarists

Brian Wilson often included baritone guitars in his arrangements for The Beach Boys records, such as in "Dance, Dance, Dance" or "Caroline, No". Singer Jimmie Rodgers also favored the baritone guitar, which can be heard in the opening bars of his recording of "Woman from Liberia". Dave Gonzalez started playing a baritone with The Hacienda Brothers, consisting of a Fender Bass VI neck on a Fender Jazzmaster.

Metal bands started using baritone guitars in the 1990s, as it became increasingly popular to "down-tune" or "drop-tune". Dylan Carlson of drone metal band Earth played a baritone guitar on Hex (Or Printing in the Infernal Method). Ko Melina of The Dirtbombs plays a Fender Jaguar Baritone Custom. Teppei Teranishi of Thrice plays a baritone on the "Fire" disc of The Alchemy Index. Pete Loeffler of Chevelle uses PRS four custom guitars with baritone necks, and two custom Fender Stratocaster Baritones; he owns several baritones in addition to those, making the total close to 20. D.A. Sebasstian of Kill Switch...Klick used a standard scale DeArmond Starfire professionally set-up and restrung as a Baritone extensively on his second self-titled solo album. Ian Mackaye plays a baritone guitar when playing with his band The Evens. Daron Malakian of the band System of a Down also uses a custom Ibanez Iceman IC300 baritone with graphics done by his father, Vartan Malakian, in the studio and in some live performances to give the songs "More Kick". It is not a commercially available guitar and is Ibanez's only baritone type Iceman guitar. Although they did produce an Ibanez Iceman DMM1 Daron Malakian signature with custom graphics also painted by his father as a Limited edition run, with only 300 made available worldwide.

Benjamin Burnley, the guitarist/singer from Breaking Benjamin, uses a custom built PRS baritone guitar for their songs in Drop A# tuning.

Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny used baritone guitars made by Linda Manzer on his 2003 solo album One Quiet Night and his 2011 solo album What's It All About. Ani DiFranco often plays a baritone guitar, including those by Alvarez, frequently employing alternate tunings. Clifton Hyde has had his acoustic baritone guitar featured in the music of Sigur Rós, Gato Loco, and Pape Armond Boye. Nico Audy-Rowland of Trocadero played a Danelectro Baritone Guitar for the theme music of the machinima series Red vs. Blue. Dave Matthews plays a Baritone on certain songs such as "The Space Between" and "Some Devil". Parker Lauzon of Evans Blue uses an Ibanez. Brian 'Head' Welch of Korn uses Ibanez baritone guitars on his debut solo-album Save Me From Myself.

Numerous fingerstyle guitarists use baritone guitars, including Andy McKee, Don Ross, Martin Simpson, Sergio Altamura, Iain Micah Weigert and Dave Amato. Don Ross plays a baritone by Canadian Luthier Mark Beneteau, and Simpson has played baritones made by English luthier Ralph Bown. Andy McKee plays a baritone guitar made by another Canadian Luthier Michael Greenfield.

The Les Deux Love Orchestra often performs with two baritone guitars playing together, a Jerry Jones and a Danelectro, as can be heard on their recording of Henry Mancini's "Experiment In Terror."

The Danelectro baritone was used by million-selling guitarist Duane Eddy on some of his huge hits, such as "Bonnie Came Back," "Because They're Young," "Kommotion," (all 1960), "My Blue Heaven"(1961), "Deep in the Heart of Texas" (1962), and "The Son of Rebel Rouser" (1964). The instrument was used almost exclusively on his best-selling album "The Twang's The Thang" (Jamie Records, 1960) and pops up regularly on singles and albums throughout his career (for instance, "Twang Thang," The Duane Eddy Anthology, Rhino Records).

The "twangy" sound of his guitars (which include Duane Eddy custom-builts by Guild, Grestch and Gibson) augmented the even deeper twangy sound made by the Danelectro baritone. Duane used the familiar black model and an unusual gray "Longhorn" model.

Mike Mushok of the band Staind has a signature model baritone guitar manufactured by PRS Guitars. Prior to his PRS signature model, Mushok had a signature baritone guitar produced by Ibanez called the MMM1.

Pat O'Brien of the band Cannibal Corpse has a baritone guitar to allow him to use the tuning G# without experiencing tuning problems because of his use of a Floyd Rose Tremolo.

Machine Head also use baritone guitars and were also one of the first bands to start using dropped tunings with Drop B and C# standard tuning being their standard methods of tuning (although they tune up 40 cents sharp). Robb Flynn, singer and guitarist from the band also has a signature Epiphone Flying V called "Love Death" which is the first baritone Flying V guitar to ever be made.

Juno Award-winning blues band MonkeyJunk features a baritone guitar instead of a bass guitar, which lends greatly to their trademark sound.