Rotosound Music Strings

We’ve just signed Amy Winehouse‘s band as a new Rotosound endorsee. Amy first picked up a guitar at the tender age of 13, and began songwriting soon after. Having joined a jazz band in her teens, it was a matter of time before she was spotted by a major record label, which was when her musical career really kicked off. In the early days, Amy’s sound was likened to that of Macy Gray – her first album, Frank, shows strong parallels to Macy’s work. Amy’s musical talent was recognised in 2004 when she won the Ivor Novello award for best contemporary song  with Stronger Than Me (co-written with Salaam Remi). With that deep, distinctive voice and a passion for jazz (her Dad bought her up on a diet of Frank Sinatra), Amy’s second album Back to Black was a catalogue of deep, soulful tracks which secure her success in the UK charts, reaching number one in the album charts several times. One of the most popular tracks on the album, Rehab, won her Grammies for Record of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Song of the Year, and was ranked by Time magazine as the best song of 2007. The incredible number of awards that Amy has achieved has earnt her a plce in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most Grammy awards won by a British female act. More recently, Amy’s work with Mark Ronson (they famously covered The Zuton’s Valerie on Ronson’s album Version, achieving greater popularity than the original track) has paved the way for unconventional artists in mainstream music. Amy’s band use a range of our strings including British Steel electrics (10′s), Jumbo King acoustics (10 and 11 gauge), Nexus Coated acoustics (10′s), Rotosound electrics (10′s), Pure Nickel electrics (10′s), Swing Bass (45′s) and Jazz bass sets (45′s).

… Well, since we’re out here, it’d be rude not to have dinner with the lovely Billy and Elisabetta Sheehan!

Billy Sheehan with Jason and Kathy from Rotosound

Elisabetta & Billy Sheehan with Kathy

That’s it – NAMM is over for another year! This year NAMM recorded an incredible 90,114 registered attendees, a new record in the 109 year life of the show. So as we start to pack up (a bigger job than you might think – we have an aptly named ‘tear down’ team!) and head home, here’s what the venue looks like now:

Danny and Pete - the tear down team!

Let the demolition begin...

Not sure it's all going to fit into this crate...

...not sure it'll fit in there either

That's us!

It might be dull and dreary in the UK at the moment, but at the NAMM show it’s been wall to wall rock royalty at the Rotosound stand. Check out what we’ve been up to so far…

Duff McKagan signing at our stand

Duff McKagan & Billy Sheehan

Elisabetta Sheehan & Rotosounds' Kathy How

Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses & Kathy How

Kathy How, Simon Gauf, new Rotosound endorsee Michael Angelo and Dan Roeber of Rotosounds' USA team

Warren DiMartini & Robbie Crane of Ratt

Regular followers of the Rotosound blog will know that we’ve been busy behind the scenes, preparing for our appearance at this years’ NAMM show. The NAMM show (which stands for National Association of Music Merchants for the curious among you!) is the industry show where all of the biggest names in music retail unveil their new products for the year ahead. We’ve got some big names joining us at our stand this year – pictures to come soon!

2 days later...

Finally - our stand is up!

Weathers' terrible here!

Anyone who has seen the John Lewis Christmas advert will have heard the stunning cover of Elton John’s 1970’s classic Your Song by Ellie Goulding. Ellie’s beautiful, unique voice has made her a firm fixture in the UK charts throughout 2010, since the release of her album Lights at the beginning of the year. Having won Critics’ Choice at this years’ BRIT Awards, Ellie has enjoyed a really busy and successful year, with tons of festival performances under her belt. Ellie is a talented musician and extraordinary acoustic performer, and has inspired countless other female guitarists to get playing – which can never be a bad thing! 2011 promises to be a big year for Ellie, so keep an eye out for her! She broadcast this very lovely live performance of Your Song in December from BBC Radio One’s Live Lounge – enjoy…

Being firm supporters of all things British at Rotosound, we’re big fans of the Beatles. Die-hard Beatles fans will probably know that the Famous Four filmed the promotional video for their double A-side single, Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane at Knole Park in Sevenoaks – just a short walk from our offices. The Beatles were one of the very first bands to film music videos, which makes their video pretty revolutionary when you think about how important videos are within the music industry now (never mind the amount of money spent on making epic cinematographic pieces)! While in Sevenoaks, John Lennon visited a local antiques shop where he bought a vintage circus poster from the 1800’s. This poster famously provided him with the inspiration of Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite, one of the most musically complex tracks on their iconic Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Lennon said that everything from the poster is in the song, although there wasn’t a horse called Henry on the poster (for the record, the horse on the poster was called Zanthus). Incidentally, Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite was one of the tracks from the Sgt Pepper album which the BBC banned, as ‘Henry the Horse’ was allegedly a euphemism for heroin. Paul McCartney is a big fan of our Rotosound Black Nylon Tru Bass strings (which we launched in 1961) and used them on many of the Beatles tracks from Revolver through to Let it Be. Not seen the Strawberry Fields video before? Sit back and enjoy…

It’s with great sadness that we share the sad news that Don Van Vliet, also known as Captain Beefheart, passed away on 17^th December at the age of 69. Born in 1941 in California to impoverished parents, Van Vliet had little patience for a formal education and claimed that ‘if you want to be a different fish, you got to jump out of the school’. In his teens, he developed a ‘mutually useful, if volatile’ friendship with Frank Zappa – another rock legend. The pair collaborated on a fairly sporadic basis, and this unusual relationship helped Van Vliet to redefine the modern music scene. Van Vliet rose to fame in the 60’s with his unique style which was manifested as a blend of blues, psychedelia, jazz and rock and roll.

Van Vliet was widely regarded as one of the most original recording artists of his time; broadcaster and critic John Peel described him as ‘rock music’s only true genius’. Artists such as Nick Cave, Franz Ferdinand, Oasis, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and the White Stripes all credit him for inspiration Aside from his musical career, Van Vliet was an exceptional sculptor and artist. Having disowned his ‘Captain Beefheart’ persona, he spent his later years painting and drawing, and made a commercial success of his art. He will be greatly missed by many.

We recently welcomed Ove Bosch, Editor of Germany’s Bass Professor Magazine and Simon Gauf, Production Manager at Musik Und Technik, to Rotosound HQ for a factory tour with our Chairman, Jason How. It was only polite to take them to a good old fashioned English pub to get properly acquainted – but bad luck that the window sticker on the mini in front of us on the way to the pub wasn’t all too complementary about German exports – check out the picture! Thankfully Ove and Simon have a good sense of humour (in fact Simon uploaded it straight to his Facebook page!), which is just as well, really. Throwing himself into the spirit of the trip, Simon tried a pint of English Bitter – which, judging by the look on his face while drinking it, will probably be his last. Ove went straight for the hard stuff and a good time was had by all. The weather might have been freezing but at least the beer was warm! The following day Jason showed them round our factory, talking them through the string-making process and showing them how we make our world famous round wound strings. Simon stayed with Jason on Wednesday night where they upset the neighbours with Jason’s collection of psychedelic 60’s music, which we’re sure he found very enlightening! Thanks to Ove and Simon for coming to visit.

We’re really excited to announce some brand new accessories which will be on sale alongside our existing range from 2011. We’ve been busy testing the four new guitar tuners and we’re really pleased with the final products. There’ll be no excuse not to be in tune! As well as our spanking new tuners, you can get your hands on Rotosound guitar leads, straps, picks, capos and bottle slides through your local music store. We’re going to launch our new accessories at the NAMM show in January so look out for more information!