ROB JACKSON
has been teaching guitar and other instruments in the Nashville area for 40+ years and has an unparalleled track record of developing excellent guitar players, musicians, and songwriters of all levels and ages.
He teaches everyone from young, budding players to world-famous recording artists and songwriters, with literally tons of references and a nationwide reputation. Long considered to be the best guitar teacher in Nashville (and best banjo, bass guitar, and beginning mandolin teacher), Rob is always eager to work with new students of all ages. You need look no further, you have found Nashville's favorite music instructor. Rob Jackson Studio is Nashville’s best source for guitar lessons, bass lessons, and banjo lessons for beginners to more advanced players.
Attention: Rob is currently accepting some long-distance “remote” students, from all over the USA and even internationally. If you are having a hard time finding a really good guitar, banjo or bass teacher in your location, please contact Rob Jackson Studio, as he may be able to help you, as long as you have internet access…….
By going to the LESSONS tab in the menu you will find extremely detailed information about how Rob teaches, and why it works as well as it does. The TESTIMONIAL tab will give you some unedited “real world” feedback from some of Rob’s former students.
STUDENTS IN ACTION
Noah comes down a couple of times a month from central Kentucky for lessons. He is simultaneously one of my worst and one of my best students. One of my worst students because he is butt-headed and thinks he knows more than me (nobody knows more than me), but one of my best students because he is talented, he practices like a madman, and gets compliments from guys like Vince Gill when he goes to guitar shows and plays some of his hot licks on a telecaster ( this really happened). His parents are cool too because they bring me some homegrown tomatoes that have such an awesome flavor (store-bought tomatoes these days are blander than a Luke Bryan song…….ooooops did I say that??). Anyway, Noah has been working on his chicken-pickin’ chops lately and I told him to write his own solo to a Dwight Yoakum song and this is what he came up with. I hate this guy. He’s only been working with me for a year and a half and this is where he’s at already. He makes a telecaster sound the way God and Leo Fender intended for it to sound!!!
Christian has been one of my really good bass students for a couple of years now and he will soon be moving with his family to Seattle (home of Jimi Hendrix, Pearl Jam and Nirvana) so I wanted to make sure we got this video shot before he left. This is a classic Zeppelin riff from the second album. Good bass players are not easy to find and I am sure Christian will end up in a pretty good band further down the line. There’s about 100 guitar players for every bass player…………
Good luck to Christian and his family on the west coast!!
This is what I have to endure on Saturday mornings, bright and early. Hope you have had a tetanus shot before you listen to this. My young friend Conor Rork had just finished a crash course on some funky chicken pickin' and we did a little jamming after we finished discussing the best place to eat Hot Chicken. Please join us as we descend into the Rock and Roll Swamp. Conor gets some of the greasiest sounds out of a guitar that I have heard recently. He actually plays like he should be in jail or something. One of my favorite guys. We have decided to start a campaign to have the Official Tennessee State Bird changed to Alligator.
Check out one of my best young students,John Provost, who just turned 16. He plowed through my Basic Skills Books in 5 weeks, and this is what happened!!
12 year old Alex Wang can really play. He started out with my assistant teacher Willy Dyer a couple of years ago and has worked pretty hard at it. This video shows what you can do if you really apply yourself. Alex is a really good student, and I think it's safe to say that the Eagles themselves probably couldn’t play like this when they were 12 (no offense, haha). When I was 12 all I could play was “Wild Thing” and “Louie Louie”, and played them thousands of times every week!! This video of Alex is a little rough as we had basically no preparation time, but it’s obvious the kind of chops that he is developing. He and Willy really nail the double guitar leads at the end.
STUDENTS MAKING NEWS
CAROLINE KOLE ON AMERICAN IDOL
My former student Caroline Kole recently knocked it out of the park on her first audition for AMERICAN IDOL in Nashville, February 2023.
Caroline is a born star if there ever was one, she worked with me when she was in high school and had her own band, playing gigs and writing songs, and even spent a summer opening nationally for Reba McEntire when most kids were still learning to drive etc...She is also a really nice person and a super-cool girl...at this audition she had the sheer audacity to do one of Katie Perry’s songs right in front of Katy Perry, and Katy was digging it to the point that she started smiling and singing the high harmony along with Caroline.....a real compliment.......very impressive gig !!!
BOY NAMED BANJO CLIMBING TO THE TOP
Nashville-based hometown band BOY NAMED BANJO is really taking off these days. The four guys in the frontline all took lessons with me most of the way through middle school and high school (everybody but the drummer, Sam McCullough).
William Reames started with me in about the 7th grade and Will Logan started out with my legendary assistant teacher William Dyer about the same time... Ford Garrard started with me a little bit after that and played both guitar and bass. Will Logan eventually started working with me about the 8th grade and played both guitar and mandolin, and Barton Davies just had a few banjo lessons during his junior year because he is from a big family of banjo pickers and already had his unique style well on the way by the time he worked with me for just a few lessons...
So these guys started playing some gigs at their schools and around town a little bit while they were still in high school, writing and singing some really catchy original songs. They stayed together and kept playing gigs during the college years, although they were at different schools. They played the famous Bonnaroo Festival and eventually attracted the attention of the very prestigious William Morris Agency about 5 years ago. So for about the past 5 years, these guys have been touring the country and really paying their dues. These are good guys and very talented, they have worked hard to achieve something that’s almost impossible to achieve... a solid fan base.
Here is the “official” video of their debut at the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in February 2022... these guys are TIGHT !!
BRANDY CLARK HITS THE BIG-TIME !!! GRAMMY NOMINATION, CMA AWARDS, NONSTOP TOURING, HIGH CRITICAL ACCLAIM……
Brandy Clark came to Nashville back in the early 2000s to attend the songwriting program at Belmont University. She worked with me on her guitar chops on and off for several years during her early days in Nashville. She was a very serious and dedicated guitar student as well as an excellent singer and a talented songwriter. She worked very hard for many years on her writing and performing and is now considered by many music critics and fans of traditional country music to be one of the greatest living singer/songwriters currently active. Its been impossible for me to even keep up with her career because every time I turn on the TV to a music awards show or NPR or read an article about the music scene in Nashville, she is there front and center. Her first album on a major label has just been released to high praise from the critics, and she is playing gigs all over the country now. As of Spring 2017, Brandy has been nominated for Grammy Awards for 4 years in a row. Many real country music fans think she is the most important artist/songwriter to emerge in many years. At the Grammys in 2015 she performed her beautiful song "Hold my Hand" in a duet with Dwight Yoakum, just the two of them singing and playing guitars. They absolutely stole the show that night. Everybody that has known Brandy is very proud of her. Here is a link to her website, it gives a complete picture of a well-deserved skyrocketing career……
BRANDY CLARK AND DWIGHT YOAKUM STEALING THE SHOW AT THE GRAMMYS 2015
UPDATE- May 2023: Brandy Clark's new album, produced by acclaimed recording artist Brandi Carlile, has just been released......you can read a review and hear clips right here at NO DEPRESSION
WILLIAM TYLER RELEASES SECOND CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ALBUM, OPENS FOR JACK WHITE, LORETTA LYNN AND WILCO................
William is making an international career for himself as a highly regarded solo acoustic guitarist. He started out with me years ago as a 7th-grade beginner, now plays all over the world to rave reviews. In June 2014, he was featured in RollingStone.com. Some people would say he is the coolest guitar player in Nashville. In December 2014, William was voted Best Instrumentalist by the Nashville Scene.
UPDATE - May 2015: In January, William Tyler, opened for Jack White and Loretta Lynn in a blowout concert at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
UPDATE - May 2017: Word on the street has it that William has been touring all over the world for a couple of years doing gigs with Wilco, etc....it's impossible to keep up with this guy. He is doing it on his own terms. Rock and Roll will never die.
UPDATE - October 2017: William was just voted the #1 INSTRUMENTALIST in Nashville in the very prestigious Nashville Scene "The Best of Nashville" issue. Thats a pretty big deal, especially since it includes every instrument, not just guitar. Vince Gill was in second place (haha) and Jerry Douglas was tied for third place, and they are literally musical legends, so Willie T. is rockin' at a very high level........
BLOG
PHOTOS
February 1964. I was in the seventh grade at Homewood Junior High School in Birmingham, Alabama. President Kennedy had been killed just 3 months before, and the Civil Rights battles were still raging full blast in Alabama and all over the South. It was not a fun time in America. I had to take a week off from school to ride out what used to be one of the standard childhood illnesses, the "mumps" (the other ones were chicken pox and the measles). Those days for me were really a lot like that TV show "Happy Days", or "Leave It To Beaver", or one of those other old 60's shows that seem so goofy now to younger people. That's kind of the way a lot of America was then, for better or worse.