News: Shani Kimelman Reveals Cover of Mysterious Paul Gilbert Solo with Guitar Player

Israeli born and LA Based has made a name as one of the top emerging Metal guitarists, with a rapidly growing, enthusiastic base of YouTube followers and hundreds of thousands of plays. She recently revealed her cover of an obscure Paul Gilbert (Mr. Big, Racer X) solo, entitled "Gilbert Blues," in the hopes of discovering the source track.

"I stumbled upon this awesome Paul Gilbert solo a long time ago, when a former teacher of mine emailed it to me under the name, 'Gilbert Blues,'" says Kimelman. "I searched for it everywhere and couldn't find it. Enlighten me if you know anything about it."

Israeli guitarist Shani Kimelman — who now lives in Southern California — has been chalking up hundreds of thousands of YouTube views, mostly due to her shred-tastic covers of works by guitar heroes such as Paul Gilbert, Eddie Van Halen, Greg Howe, and others.

But for her latest video, the Berklee College of Music graduate, encountered a bit of a problem.

"I stumbled upon this awesome Paul Gilbert solo a long time ago, when a former teacher of mine emailed it to me under the name, 'Gilbert Blues,'" says Kimelman. "I searched for it everywhere and couldn't find it. Enlighten me if you know anything about it."

Can any Guitar Player readers help her out by identifying this solo?

Send your guesses to me at mmolenda@nbmedia.com with the subject line "Shani," and I'll gift the first correct answer with a recent pedal that I've tested and reviewed for GP. I'll also alert Kimelman that one of our fabulous readers could "name that solo."

By the way, Kimelman is a pretty awesome guitarist. Watch out for her!" - Guitar Player

Shani is a guitarist from Israel who has been playing guitar for 14 years. Growing up in a family of musicians she was exposed to Jazz music at a very young age and started playing saxophone at the age of 8. Playing and improvising on Charlie Parker tunes and many jazz standards didn’t excite her much at that age but had a great effect on her life as a musician later on.

At age 14 Shani discovered Metal and Rock music, and started spending every moment exploring and listening to these genres. She was extremely inspired by bands like Pantera, Fear Factory, Children Of Bodom, TOOLand many more, and right away she knew she found her passion and that this is the genres of music she wants to play. Her love for rock and metal led her to pick up the guitar one year later at age 15 and soon after, to discover her guitar heroes - guitarists such as Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, Greg Howe, Van Halen, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and more, who are her biggest influences to this day. Their style, uniqueness and capabilities overwhelmed her and inspired her to choose her path in life.

Shani took guitar lessons in the first 3 years of her playing and after that she was pretty much self-taught. She started basing her career as a musician in Israel at age 18 by uploading cover videos to her YouTube channel and by age 26 she taught guitar in many schools and conservatories in Israel, played with different Israeli artists, had a few TV guest appearances, performed in small and big venues and started writing music for her solo album.

At age 26 Shani received a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music. She left her life in Israel behind and moved to Boston to start from scratch, seeing it as an opportunity to enhance her a musical career and make it worldwide. It took her two years to graduate from Berklee in the degree program, as a Music Production & Engineering major. Right after that she moved to Los Angeles and is now aspiring to perform as a guitarist for famous pop artists (playing for Lady Gaga would be a dream come true), publish and perform her own music live, and get to know the local scene and the musicians in LA. Her debut EP will be released by the end of 2017 and combines electronic music with live rock guitars and drums.