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Magnatone and Slash announce the Lil’ Viper
ST. LOUIS, MO – January 22, 2026 – Magnatone is thrilled to announce the Lil’ Viper – the latest member of the Slash Collection. It’s a lightweight amp designed to…
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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…
Paul Nelson
Main Man to the Blues Man
Paul Nelson is not only Johnny Winter’s second guitarist, but the blues icon’s musical director, producer, songwriter, and – many…

Review: “Gimme All Your Lovin’: The Blues, Boogie, and Beard of ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons”
In his prologue, author Christopher McKittrick acknowledges the difficulty of condensing Gibbons’ six-decade career into one book, partially due to…

Fretprints: Mick Ralphs
Delivering in Bad Company
Unabashedly British and irresistibly swaggering, Bad Company personified ’70s arena rock. Detractors denounced them as machismo, but fans have bought…

Square Amps’ Chippy
Radio King
Matt Richards builds basic cathode-bias amps housed in the carcasses of vintage radios. They’re designed to be compatible with various…

Zemaitis’ CAG-200HS
Heart And Soul
The lutherie art of Tony Zemaitis resulted in some of the rarest, most admired, and most valuable of guitars. Among…

Pop ’N Hiss: Hawkwind’s Space Ritual
Primal Cosmic Rock
Among the evolutionary tangents of London’s pop-music scene in the late ’60s were the original stylings of progressive rock, psychedelia,…
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Rik Emmett
Ten Telecaster Tales
At the risk of starting a brawl, Rik Emmett’s guitar work was arguably too good for Triumph. As evidence, his latest project centers on a custom-built Loucin that inspired both…
ARTISTS

Top 50 Guitar Songs of the ’80s
By the Readers and Staff of Vintage Guitar Based on input from Vintage Guitar magazine staff and readers, this feature…
Ricky Byrd
Cool and Greasy
“I wanted to make the type of album I would’ve liked to have heard when I was 13 – cool and…

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…

Ray Gomez
A Time for Honor
One of the hottest guitarists to emerge from the mid-’70s fusion scene was Ray Gomez, who first became known through…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS

The Supro Thunderbolt S6420
Lightning Strikes
Despite their catalog-grade status, Supro amps have been used by several noteworthy guitarists. For many, the sturdy Thunderbolt is the…

A Hero’s Gretsch 6117
In the 1960s, the astronauts were bigger cultural icons than the Beatles. And no, that’s not the Colorado-based surf band…

The Peoples’ Guitar
Gibson’s Depression-Era Exports
Many aren’t aware that some of the archtop guitars Gibson produced during the Depression were marketed under different brand names,…

Revisiting The Jazzmaster
While volumes have been written about its more-famous sibling, the Stratocaster, surprisingly little attention is paid to the Jazzmaster –…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight

Six-String Kicks
Wood from Famed Bowling Alley Set to Sing
Few things scratch America’s cumulative itch for nostalgia like Route 66 – the famed wagon-trail-cum-highway that offered passage to those…

Strymon Sunset Dual Overdrive
Category Killer?
Taste in overdrives is so subjective. A player might luck into a stellar $50 mini pedal or feel the absolute…

Reverend’s Rick Vito Signature Soul Shaker
Built For Speed
Blues-/roots-rocker Rick Vito knows what he wants from a guitar, and the Reverend Soul Shaker is proof. An art deco-inspired…

Korg Nuvibe
Big Box
Korg Nuvibe Price: $499.99 (street) Contact: www.korg.com Korg is not known as a guitar company, but to their great credit…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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Black Light/White Noise
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All I Got and Gone

Mark Tremonti
Three-Band Man
The odds of any guitarist being in a highly successful rock band are long. Chances of being in two are…
Peavey Vypyr VIP2
Backline in a Box
Peavey Vypyr VIP2 Price: $199.99 Contact: www.peavey.com For more than 40 years Peavey’s ongoing evolution while building guitars, amps, and…

The 1966 Murph Squire II-T
So-Cal Attention Getter
Despite what many enthusiasts believe, there has been only one really significant “lawsuit” that defined a class of guitars –…
Check This Action: Where’s Eric?
Eric Clapton and London’s Royal Albert Hall are virtually synonymous. In various contexts he has played the storied venue more…














































