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The day Jimi Hendrix died, the guitar-playing Yngwie was born. On September 18, 1970, seven-year-old Yngwie saw a TV special on the death of guitar iconoclast Jimi Hendrix. He watched with awe as Hendrix blasted the audience with torrents of feedback and sacrificed his guitar in flames.
Yngwie immersed himself in the music of such bands as Deep Purple and spent long hours practicing to learn their songs. His admiration for Ritchie Blackmore's classically influenced playing led him back to the source: Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, and Mozart.
In his early teens, Yngwie saw a television performance of Russian violinist Gideon Kremer, who performed the highly difficult 24 Caprices of 19th century virtuoso violinist Niccolo Paganini. The effect was profound, and Yngwie understood at last how to combine his love of classical music with his burgeoning guitar skills and onstage charisma.
By age 15, Yngwie's trademark style had begun to emerge. He worked for a time as a luthier in a guitar repair shop, where he encountered a scalloped neck for the first time. Yngwie scalloped the neck of an old guitar in similar fashion. The scalloped fret board was somewhat more difficult to play than a normal neck, but his control over the strings was so improved that Yngwie immediately adopted it as a permanent alteration to his equipment.
After some time playing in groups, Yngwie would have to go solo to fully develop his talents. Yngwie's first solo album, Rising Force (now considered the bible for neoclassical rock) made it to #60 on the Billboard charts, an impressive feat for a mostly instrumental guitar album with no commercial airplay. The album also gained Yngwie a Grammy nomination for best rock instrumental performance. He was voted Best New Talent in several reader's polls, Best Rock Guitarist the year after, and Rising Force became Album of the Year. Rising Force added a new genre to the music lexicon: neoclassical rock.
In 1997, Yngwie proved that he was much more than a rock phenomenon when he produced his first completely classical work, Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in Eb minor, Op. 1. This groundbreaking album was recorded in Prague with the prestigious Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and famed symphony conductor Yoel Levi.
Yngwie produced a highly acclaimed new album titled Unleash the Fury. Featuring some of his most impressive playing and songwriting in years, the album garnered rave reviews from fans and critics alike. In the summer of 2005, the Unleash the Fury World Tour kicked off in Ireland and headed across the globe, blazing new trails of glory, and garnering legions of new fans from Paris to Vienna to Madrid.
Yngwie uses Dean Markley's Yngwie's Magic gauged .008 – .048.
Yngwie's feelings about Dean Markley Strings:
“It is great to finally have strings made to spec, especially from a company that has been a major leader in string manufacturing for a long time.”
Be sure to visit the Yngwie Malmsteen website at:
www.Yngwie.org or
www.MySpace.com/yngwiemalmsteen.
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