Dave Hole

Patience may be a virtue, but Dave Hole's apparent lack thereof may have been just what he needed. Early on in his exploration of the sounds of slide guitarists such as Muddy Waters and Elmore James, the Australian-bred axeman injured the little finger on his left hand. Rather than wait for the pinky to heal, Hole slipped the slide on his index finger and placed his hand over rather than under the fretboard; with that, one of the most ferocious slide styles was born.

Hole's approach is an ideal mix of focus and abandon. Razor-sharp lead licks start and stop on a dime, typically building to a wailing or shrieking conclusion at the high end of the board. Hole's skill and balls-out energy grabbed ears at Guitar Player when, unsolicited, he sent the mag his first disc, Short Fuse Blues, in 1990. The great press he garnered piqued the interest of Alligator Records. The label made Hole its first foreign artist, releasing Fuse here in 1992. This year's The Live One is his seventh Stateside disc, packed with the sort of slide fireworks one can expect at Hole's show.