Joe Satriani - A Legendary Electric Guitarist

Joe Satriani (alternatively known by his nickname ‘Satch’, given to him by a high school friend, John Riccio, who shortened his family name) is a legendary electric guitar wizard who started to play guitar at the age of 14, being inspired by the legendary Jimi Hendrix. He has been professionally active since the late 1970s, more specifically since 1978 onwards. Four years earlier, in 1974, his guitar teacher was American jazz guitarist Billy Bauer. Joe also studied music under American jazz pianist Lennie Tristano who greatly influenced his technique. Prior to studying under these two great musicians, Joe Satriani was self-taught during the early 1970s.

Joe Satriani performing live in 2004 (photograph by Enrico Frangi). Image source: Wikimedia Commons

He initially performed in a San Francisco-based band called Squares with his brother-in-law Neil Sheehan. He was subsequently invited to join the Greg Kihn Band. This enabled Joe to pay the credit card debt he owed for recording his great debut studio album entitled Not of This Earth which was released in 1986. It was also in 1986 that Joe recorded some backing vocals on the debut self-titled studio album of the Australian band Crowded House.

While widely known for his solo career (being the best-selling instrumental rock guitarist of all time, with over 10 million copies of his records sold worldwide), Joe Satriani was also a guitar teacher for some young guitarists who eventually achieved global stardom such as Steve Vai (who performed in Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth Band, and Whitesnake during the 1980s), Andy Timmons, or Kirk Hammett of Metallica. He started teaching guitar by 1971.

In terms of critical acclaim, Joe Satriani was nominated 15 times for the Grammy Awards which is quite commending and deservingly so given his fantastic work. His solo career is a mixture of instrumental rock, hard rock, and blues rock. Back in 1988, Joe Satriani also performed live with Mick Jagger (the frontman and lead singer of The Rolling Stones) for one tour. He also briefly worked live with Deep Purple in 1993, after Ritchie Blackmore left the band for the second time. Two years later, namely in 1995, Joe Satriani founded the G3 tour which includes some of the world’s most technical virtuoso guitarists (aside from himself, naturally, also Steve Vai, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, or Robert Fripp). Since 2008 onwards, he has also been the guitarist in the rock supergroup Chickenfoot (which I really liked listening to a lot back when I was in secondary school).

In the passage of time, Joe Satriani released a total of 18 studio albums as follows:

Not of This Earth (1986)
Surfing with the Alien (1987)
Flying in a Blue Dream (1989)
The Extremist (1992)
Time Machine (1993)
Joe Satriani (1995)
Crystal Planet (1998)
Engines of Creation (2000)
Strange Beautiful Music (2002)
Is There Love in Space (2004)
Super Colossal (2006)
Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock (2008)
Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards (2010)
Unstoppable Momentum (2013)
Shockwave Supernova (2015)
What Happens Next (2018)
Shapeshifting (2020)
The Elephants of Mars (2022)

Joe Satriani’s solo discography also includes 3 EPs (i.e. extended-plays), 5 live albums, and 5 compilations. In the past, he had also collaborated with Blue Öyster Cult, Stuart Hamm, Alice Cooper, and Spinal Tap.

Below you can listen to some of my most favourite songs from Joe Satriani’s entire discography. I truly hope you will like my personal selection of favourite songs. Thank you very much for your time, attention, and readership! All the best and rock on! 🙂 🤘

This is a very beautiful and touching musical masterpiece:

Joe’s music is so otherworldly beautiful that it is not of this earth and here’s the proof:

This is yet another very beautiful and touching song:

This is a very special favourite of mine:

Joe Satriani also has a very beautiful voice (in addition to being a legendary, very gifted, and tremendously technical guitarist) and here are two songs in this regard:

I used to listen to the following songs a lot back when Black Swans and Wormwhole Wizards came out (more specifically in 2010, I was 13 at that time):