Watch Nels Cline Reveal The 5 Riffs That Changed His Life

Today is Nels Cline’s 67th birthday. While the renowned guitarist has amassed a staggering body of work in an eclectic grouping of genres from experimental and jazz to punk and alt-rock, Cline’s main gig since 2004 has been with rockers Wilco. Although proficient in just about any style, it was rock ‘n’ roll that first reached out and grabbed Nels as he related in a 2018 video for Guitar Player Magazine’s My Life In Five Riffs series.

In the video, Cline cited songs by The Byrds, Yardbirds, Jimi Hendrix, Television and The Minutemen as highly influential on his guitar playing. Cline especially noted Jimi Hendrix’s “Manic Depression” as changing the direction of his life. After delivering a pretty spot-on rendition of Jimi’s work on the song, Nels said he’d “never played [it] in public before” but that it was “in my head.” Cline called Jimi’s ascending double stop licks on “Manic Depression” “the most magic thing ever in music.”

Nels also used a different guitar for each song. For example, on The Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!” — which the guitarist calls his “first musical aha” — he naturally picked up an electric 12-string guitar and gives some music theory as to why “jingle-jangle” is so pleasing to the ear. Nels also masterfully broke down Television’s “Marquee Moon” and explained how some of the techniques he learned from that song seeped into his repertoire, especially one he calls the “wiggle” which can be heard in a number of Wilco songs but most notably in his masterful solo on “Impossible Germany.” Cline also told a humorous story about how he threw one of the “Marquee Moon” riffs into Wilco’s “Handshake Drugs” to get a rise out of fellow “Marquee Moon obsessive” Jeff Tweedy.

To celebrate Nels Cline’s birthday today, watch the guitarist’s My Life In Five Riffs video below: