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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…

Classics: April 2023
Kim Simmons’ 1973 Gibson Les Paul
For Gio da Silva and several million others in Generation X, the mid ’90s were an exciting time. Young adults…

Beat Portraits: Burns Volume 1
Beginnings – The Early 1960s
In early 2009, VG columnist Peter Stuart Kohman turned his focus on Burns, the pioneering British guitar builder. We’ve compiled…

Classics: January 2023
Jay Mitzner’s ’53 Gibson Les Paul.
Overhearing his 13-year-old son noodling on a beginner guitar in his bedroom one day in 1958, it occurred to Murray…

Pop ’N Hiss: King Crimson’s Red
Commendable Coda
In the late ’60s, a new style of rock emerged in Britain, influenced by classical music and fronted by bands…

KJ Audio Hanwell 50
Shake The Walls
KJ Audio Hanwell 50 Price: Head $1,900; cabinet $1,600 Contact: www.kjaudio.com No apologies: Minneapolis-based amp designer Kristopher Johnson’s Hanwell 50…

Leon Rhodes
Country-Jazz Genius, Terrific Texas Troubadour
Leon Rhodes 1932-2017 We are saddened to hear of the passing of guitar legend Leon Rhodes, one of the most-beloved…
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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,…
ARTISTS

Vernon Reid
Kind of Blue
Vernon Reid went against the grain of rock guitarists in the 1980s, conjuring Parliament-Funkadelic, Ornette Coleman, Bad Brains, Carlos Santana,…

Neal Schon
“The Guitar Is My Voice”
Long before Neal Schon helped Journey sell more than 80 million albums, he was a rock-fusion gunslinger who turned down…
Robby Krieger
New Musical Directions
For all of his decades of noteworthy guitar work, Robby Krieger isn’t resting on his laurels. In 2002, Krieger and…

Have Guitar Will Travel 082 – Drew Holcomb, Foy Vance and Christophe Paubert
In the latest episode of “Have Guitar Will Travel,” host James Patrick Regan connects with three artists – two musicans…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Neal Shelton
“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Neal Shelton Season 01 Episode 06 In Episode 6 of “Buy That Guitar”…

Gibson Custom Colors in the 1960s
Burning Embers, Chilled Whites
Unlike its rival from the West Coast, Gibson did not readily embrace the concept of offering custom-color finishes. It wasn’t…

Rickenbacker 375F
Seven Siblings
Every guitar company has had its odd ducks, its failures, its forgotten models. While some are consigned to the scrapheap…
1964 Fender Bassman
1964 Fender 6G6-B Bassman Preamp tubes: four 7025 (12AX7 types) Output tubes: two 5881 (a more-rugged 6L6 type), fixed-bias Rectifier:…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight

Collings OM1 T
Faultless Flat-Top?
To the hands, hearts, and minds of many an experienced guitarist, an OM-size body with a 25.5″ scale feels the…
Acoustic Remedy’s ClimaStand Display Case
Open and Shut
Acoustic Remedy ClimaStand Price: $899 (walnut) Info: www.acousticremedycases.com Most players have at least one guitar they would like to display…

Homestead Amps HS50
Tone On The Range
So, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and Waylon Jennings walk into a bar… No, wait, they walk into a NAMM Show. And,…

Martin GPCE Inception Maple
Bold Beginning
Almost 100 years ago, Martin reinvented the flat-top box when it began delivering X-braced, square-shouldered, and oversized dreadnoughts. Now, the…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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More Personal
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Rare Pioneer

The Highwaymen
Country’s first supergroup emerged from a 1984 Johnny Cash Christmas special taped in Switzerland. Along with Marty Stuart, the guests…

Vinnie Moore
Heavy Melodic Shred
Vinnie Moore emerged in the mid ’80s, garnering praise for his work as a solo instrumentalist and for his contributions…
Robben Ford
The One and Only
There’s never been a shortage of young guitar hotshots, but in recent years, particularly among blues players, these phenoms seem…
Mike Beigel
Resurrection of the Mu-Tron III
Mike Beigel is no guitarist. But that never held him back in crafting one of the most legendary of all…











































