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Super PickupGiveaway 2025
Win Big! 11 Sets! 11 Winners! Win a set of pickups from one of these sponsors: Deadline is March 15, 2026. Complete the survey below to enter giveaway. One entry…
Grit & Glory
Gilby Clarke and His Guitars
The drive to succeed – along with certain workaholic tendencies – revealed themselves early in rock guitarist Gilby Clarke. On…
Joe Bonamassa
Royal Tea
It’s no secret that Joe Bonamassa has a Jones for British blues-rock. Royal Tea is Exhibit A, as it was…
Gibson Style R Harp Guitar
Harp guitars with a standard six-string guitar neck and varying numbers of sub-bass harp-style strings have been made by a…
Blackbird Guitars’ Lucky 13
Nice Roll
Blackbird Guitars’ Lucky 13 Price: $1,850 (list)/$2,050 (with Fishman electronics) Info: www.blackbirdguitar.com What has a 13-fret neck, a small-but-curvaceous body…
JangleBox Acousticomp
Sweet Woodiness
Compression and sustain are the icing on most guitarist’s tonal palette. While many use such effects in service of electric…
Jeff Plankenhorn
New Innovations For Lap Steel
Jeff Plankenhorn has always made music his way, using stringed instruments he created. He picked up guitar at age 10,…
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Rickenbacker’s Electric 12-Strings
Double-bound for Glory
George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher founded Electro String in 1931 to manufacture what everyone would soon call “Rickenbacker” guitars. Success came early and their lap steels set standards of quality,…
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ARTISTS
Ted Newman Jones’ West-Texas Guitars
Melodious Coterie
Boxcars Among the vast papers, drawings, photographs, and tapes at Texas Tech’s Crossroads of Music Archive is a guitar beloved…
Tommy Allsup
1931-2017 From Buddy Holly to Bob Wills
No article on the late Tommy Allsup would be complete without the story of an unsuccessful coin flip saving his…
Traynor YGM-4 Studio Mate
Behind The Eight Ball
Vintage-amp bargain hunters often compare the quality and features of smaller Traynor combos to Fenders and those of the larger…
Kristian Borring – post-bop wizard
Danish jazzer’s transcendent style on “Persian Hills” Kristian Borring plays a fabulous version of “Persian Hills,” from Number Junky’s…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS
KayKraft Style A
Almost any guitar can be viewed in terms of a confluence of influences that produced it, from the company history…
VG Q&A: A Gilded ’63 Jazz Bass
Plus, Swappable Pickups, Bartell Guitars, and a Mystery Lap Steel
I am the third owner of a 1963 Jazz Bass with a neck stamp “7Jan63A,” pots dated that May, and…
The Les Paul Becomes The SG
Double Time
It may be difficult to imagine now, but Gibson’s original Les Paul was only a modest success. Introduced in 1952,…
Gibson’s Experimental Archtop
Orville Gibson invented the carved-top guitar in the 1890s. The Gibson company refined the design with the addition of f-holes…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight
PRS Silver Sky
Stratospheric
Paul Reed Smith has for years experimented with Leo-inspired concepts, and his newest guitar, conceived in collaboration with rocker John…
To The Limit
The Effectrode LA-1A Leveling Amplifier
In the world of guitar effects, there are consumer-grade pedals and pro-grade pedals. The former are affordable and fun, the…
Lovepedal Purple Plexi
Glory & Overtones
Fans of guitarists with superb tones routinely spot Lovepedal boxes on pedalboards in almost every music genre. From their early…
Analog Man’s King of Tone Overdrive
Holiest of Holies
Amid this golden age of music gear, the Analog Man King of Tone Overdrive, first produced in 2005 in collaboration…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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More Personal
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Rare Pioneer
The Chicago Blues Box Buddy Guy Signature Amp
Buddy’s New (Tool) Box
Whether you’re a blues guitarist, jazz guy, or a power-chord rock player, certain players draw your attention, whether for the…
Traditional, Temporary
Guild Basses in the Early 1980s
The early ’80s were a unique time in the history of American electric guitars. Fender and Gibson were both owned…
Gustavo Assis-Brasil
Chromatic Dialogues
While guitarists have more platforms than ever when it’s time to showcase their music, rising above a sea of marketing-savvy…
David Crosby & The Lighthouse Band
Live at the Capitol Theatre
Once, there was Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; decades later came Crosby, Stevens, Willis & League – better known as…
