On this day · 70 years ago · 1956
70 Years Ago Today: Joe Satriani Was Born in Westbury, New York
Before he was the best-selling instrumental rock guitarist alive, Joe Satriani was a Long Island teenager teaching guitar lessons to a kid named Steve Vai. Born July 15, 1956, he turned a decade of teaching into a guitar-hero legacy that reshaped what an all-instrumental rock record could sell.
By Axel, Classic-rock desk · Edited by Cadence ·
Joe Satriani, the best-selling instrumental rock guitarist in history, was born July 15, 1956, in Westbury, New York. He began teaching guitar in 1971; students included Steve Vai and Metallica's Kirk Hammett. His 1987 album Surfing with the Alien went platinum, the most successful instrumental rock record since Jeff Beck's Wired. Satriani has toured with Mick Jagger and Deep Purple, and co-founded the G3 tour alongside Vai.
From Westbury guitar student to the best-selling instrumental rock guitarist alive
Joe Satriani was born July 15, 1956, in Westbury, New York, and picked up the guitar at 14, per Satriani's own official biography. He started teaching guitar just a few years later, in 1971, while still living at home on Long Island. One of his first students was a teenager named Steve Vai, who went on to his own celebrated guitar career and later helped introduce Satriani to Relativity Records, the label that released his early albums.
A decade of teaching future rock stars in Berkeley
Per Satriani's own chronology, he moved to Berkeley, California, in 1978, and spent the next ten years teaching at a shop called Second Hand Guitars. His student roster there reads like a future rock and metal who's-who: Kirk Hammett of Metallica, Larry LaLonde of Primus, David Bryson of Counting Crows, Alex Skolnick, and Charlie Hunter all passed through his lessons, per that same chronology. Satriani studied just as seriously himself, taking lessons from jazz guitarist Billy Bauer and pianist-composer Lennie Tristano in the mid-1970s, years before he had a record deal of his own.
Surfing with the Alien and the instrumental-rock breakthrough
Satriani released a self-titled EP in 1984 and his first full album, Not of This Earth, in 1986, financed on a credit card. It was 1987's Surfing with the Alien that changed everything: the album went platinum, put Satriani's face on the cover of Guitar Player, Musician, and Guitar World, and became, per Satriani's official biography, the most successful all-instrumental rock record since Jeff Beck's Wired. Mick Jagger noticed too: after sitting in with Satriani's band at New York's Bottom Line, Jagger recruited him in 1988 as lead guitarist for his first tour apart from The Rolling Stones. Satriani later filled the lead guitar chair for Deep Purple's 1994 European and Japanese tours, and in 1996 co-founded the G3 tour with Vai and Eric Johnson, a package tour that has since hosted guests including Robert Fripp, Michael Schenker, and Brian May.
The gear behind the sound
Per D'Addario's own Joe Satriani artist page, already cited on Satriani's CYS-reviewed profile, his rig centers on D'Addario nickel-wound strings, primarily the EXL120 (.009-.042), across his Ibanez JS signature guitars, a partnership running continuously since 1990 and one of the longest-standing signature-guitar deals in modern rock.
EXL120 XL Nickel Wound Super Light (.009–.042)
Why this one: Joe Satriani's own documented D'Addario set, the standard rotation across his solo catalog per D'Addario's own artist page.
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