There's something about the sound of the instrument, smallish in size, that adds something special to select rock songs. It's Italian. It has strings. It's part of the lute family and has a long neck and and rounded body. Most often played with a pick, it typically has four courses or sets of 2 strings, tuned in unison and making it an 8 string instrument, and when you put two strings close together like this, you get more volume because of the strings vibrating against one another.

The mandolin would be put to use in European classic music, and in American folk and bluegrass music. And then thanks to Led Zeppelin, in rock music too. Not just them, but a raft of bands in the seventies, eighties and nineties, each of which is revealed in this episode of so-called mando-music.

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