Uli Jon Roth (a.k.a. Ulrich Roth) is a German-born virtuoso guitarist who has been in bands such as Scorpions, Electric Sun, and Sky of Avalon. While maintaining a cult status, he has influenced and inspired the likes of other great guitarists such as Eddie Van Halen, Axel Rudi Pell, Kirk Hammett, and Yngwie Malmsteen.
He played with Scorpions in the mid-70's for 5 years, recording 4 studio albums and 1 live album. After departing from Scorpions, he went to form his own band Electric Sun and recorded three albums. Then he disappeared from the music scene for more than 10 years before coming back with a new band called Sky of Avalon, which resulted in Roth's departure from Rock N' Roll and embracing more of a classically-oriented sound. In 2000 he released the unique album Transcendental Sky Guitar, which displays his virtuosity and appreciation for both rock and classical music. He continued his classical experiments with his rendition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, titled Metamorphosis and then followed up with Symphonic Legend Volume Number I - Under A Dark Sky.
For one new to Uli Jon Roth's music, they might ask, "Where should I start?" Uli's career can be split into three eras: Scorpions, Electric Sun, and Uli Jon Roth. The Scorpions period extends from 1973 through 1978 when he was a guitarist for the German band Scorpions. Electric Sun was the band he formed after leaving Scorpions, which came out with three albums. The third era simply dubbed Uli Jon Roth represents his work after the Electric Sun albums. Below are suggested albums to start listening to, to become more familiar with Uli Jon Roth's music.
- Era I - Scorpions : Virgin Killer - This became Uli's signature album, considering he wrote over half of it with songs like "Virgin Killer", "Hell Cat", "Yellow Raven", and the immortal "Polar Nights".
- Era II - Electric Sun : Firewind - Quite possibly the most commercially accessible of the three Electric Sun albums, it comes ladened with such tasty cuts like "Cast Away Your Chains", "Firewind", "Indian Dawn", and "Hiroshima".
- Era III - Transcendental Sky Guitar - If there is any one album which wraps Uli up in a nutshell, it would be this one. It covers such a wide variety of music from his own compositions, to many classical covers (Mozart, Chopin, Bach), and even a couple Hendrix covers.
For the latest official news, please go to http://www.ulijonroth.com/sky/current/latest_news.htm or subscribe to this RSS 2.0 feed.
[17 January 2010]
The official Uli Jon Roth website has announced that Dean Guitars USA will be making the Uli Jon Roth signature Sky Guitar. Dean Guitars is also the company that made the Schenker Brothers V.
Back on 5 September 2009, Uli Jon Roth played along with Axel Rudi Pell at the "Hendrix Night" Sky Academy Jam at the Rock 'n Pop Museum in Gronau, Germany.
[1 March 2009]
The March/April issue of Guitar Edge magazine has a transcription of the Scorpions song The Sails of Charon.
[15 April 2010]
Updated several of the links on the Contacts page.
[1 February 2010]
Added a site map footer to the home page and performed general site maintenance to clean up the links and content on a couple of other pages.
[17 January 2010]
General site clean up and minor additions for new information about the new Dean Sky Guitar.
[4 June 2009]
Updated the Sky Guitar page with additional details about these guitars.
[1 March 2009]
While the new website is still in the preliminary stages, I did makes some updates to the new design. It is available here.
Site created: 28. June 1997
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