Richie Sambora | Bon Jovi | Guitar Lessons

Richie Sambora began playing the guitar at the age of 12. He grew up in Woodbridge, New Jersey where he attended Woodbridge High School. At age 17 Richie worked as a janitor at a hospital for six weeks to earn enough money to buy his first serious guitar, a Gibson Les Paul. One of his favorite guitars to this day is a ’59 Les Paul. From his early days Sambora was influenced by blues and 60s rock ‘n’ roll. His top influences were Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter and Jimmy Page and Joe Perry. He was also influenced by Spanish classical music which explains his love of the Spanish guitar.

Sambora played guitar for Joe Cocker and auditioned for Kiss. Bon Jovi added Sambora to replace original lead guitarist Dave Sabo. For most of the 80s and early-mid 90s, Sambora used Marshall amplifiers. He played through Marshall JCM800 models with 4×12″ speaker cabinets and a variety of rack and pedal units. During his “Stranger in This Town” tour, Sambora used 2 Marshall JCM800 2203 heads and a Fender amp head with three 4×12″ Marshall cabinets. In 1995, Sambora started using Fender ToneMasters with Fender ToneMaster 4×12″ speaker cabinets. On tour, he used up to 12 cabinets on stage.

For his second solo album, “Undiscovered Soul”, he also used a Fender Bassman 4×10″ combo and a Vox AC30. On the tour, he used Fender ToneMasters, a Marshall amp head, a Vox amp head and a VHT Pitbull in combination with Fender ToneMaster 4×12″ and 2×12″ speaker cabinets. In 2000, Sambora started using the Marshall JCM2000 DSL series (both on stage and in the studio during the “Crush” era. Sambora uses gauge .009 strings in the studio and gauge .010 strings live (usually tuned half step down), with the action set relatively high.