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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…

Rik Emmett
Canadian Custom
Rik Emmett is a master of many guitar styles and other artistic endeavors. As co-lead vocalist/guitarist in the hard-rock trio…

Jackie Venson
Emotional Intelligence
Soul-pop stylist Jackie Venson has been conquering the road-warrior touring circuit, and gained an enviable spot on Gary Clark, Jr.’s…

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,…
Movie Star, Rancher
Mid-’50s Muse of Wire and Wood
In the years immediately after World War II, Americans were settling into a new way of life, and plunging headlong…

Rickenbacker 481
It’s hard to imagine an instrument other than guitar that has undergone more innovation through its modern history. Perhaps we…
Duke Robillard
Doing Things His Way
Mix one part blues, one part jazz, one part swing, stir in some rock and soul, bring to a simmer,…
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Carr Skylark Special 1×12
Take Flight
Arriving a little more than 10 years after the original Skylark, Carr Amplifiers’ new Skylark Special adds versatility and enhanced tonal depths to squeeze a lot more into this diminutive…
ARTISTS

Fearless Guitar Heroes
Metallica’s Hammett and Hetfield Stage Legendary Solidbodies
Metallica emerged as the antithesis to corporate rock and the “hair metal” that dominated L.A.’s Sunset Strip in the ’80s.…

Seth Lee Jones
Pedal Pusher
Thanks to giants like Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, and Sonny Landreth, we’re living in a golden age of bottleneck guitar,…

Remembering Jeff Beck
This is a regular series of exclusive Vintage Guitar online articles where The Kentucky Headhunters’ Greg Martin looks back on…

Fretprints: Ty Tabor
X Marks the Spot
The turbulent 1980s ended with a tsunami of bands seeking new sounds. Trends like classic-rock redux, blues/roots revivals, nu-metal, grunge,…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS

Q&A With George Gruhn: A Strong Case
And When to Get an Appraisal
Some of my vintage guitar cases are very worn. One Martin case from the ’40s is missing a latch and…

Familiar Names Create Music as J&B Brothers
Austin-Powered
The J&B Brothers make a sound equal parts Texas country, blues, folkie, rock, jazz, and soul – the spices that…

Revisiting The Jazzmaster
While volumes have been written about its more-famous sibling, the Stratocaster, surprisingly little attention is paid to the Jazzmaster –…

Dan’s Guitar RX: A 1955 Gibson Touch-up
Team Effort.
To keep work flowing in my shop, repairs often become a group effort. Recently, Gene Imbody, T.K. Kelly, Paul Schmittauer,…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight
Providence Silky Drive and Stampede DT
Japanese Silk (and Stomp)
Providence Silky Drive and Stampede DT Price: $394 (Silky Drive); $249 (Stampede DT) Info: www.providence-ltd.com. From the Land of the…

Rupert Neve Designs’ Portico 5017/ SE Electronics’ Voodoo VR1
Studio on the Go
Despite what some folks may tell you about the merits of “going direct” for guitar, nothing sounds better than a…

EHX’s Bad Stone Phase Shifter, C9 Organ Machine, and Pitch Fork Polyphonic Pitch Shifter
Pedal Heaven
When it comes to stompboxes, there are the standard go-to effects that every guitarist, whether a gigging musician or a…

Way Huge Saffron Squeeze MkII
Fresh-squeezed
Twenty years after its launch, the Way Huge Saffron Squeeze compressor has been improved upon. Doing fierce business with an…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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And an Archtop Mystery
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Supergroup Alpha
Neil Young
Chrome Dreams
After being shelved for more than 45 years, Neil Young’s long-lost 1977 album finally sees daylight. Nestled between an impressive…

Gibson Super 400
Much of America was still recovering from the Depression in 1934 when Gibson introduced a guitar at a price that…

Jimmy Day’s 1950 Fender Super-Amp
Just Like Hank
As fascinating as we might find any vintage amplifier, at its heart, it’s often just a dusty box of archaic…

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram
Live In London
In a world where Red Bull-injected athletes have hijacked blues guitar, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram is a welcome return to feel,…








































