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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…
Corey Harris goes back to his roots
Great take on Skip James’ “Special Rider Blues” Corey Harris used his Germandt koa-body parlor guitar to do this exclusive…
Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Southwest Survivors
TexiCali marks the latest chapter in the partnership of L.A. roots-rock vet Dave Alvin and revered West Texas singer/songwriter Jimmie…
Tech 21’s SansAmp Classic
Right The First Time
Every so often, new gear arrives that reminds us all how some builders got it right the first time –…
Homegrown Tone 420
Legalized Tweed
Buzz Feiten Blues Pro Price: $1,799 (list) Contact: “Homegrown Tone Amps” on facebook.com Can’t get enough hemp in your life?…
Justin Johnsoné
The Biscuit House
His online videos are hard to cruise past. There’s his wide stylistic range, but also the guitars he built out…
Interstellar Audio Machines Octonaut Hyperdrive
Next-Level Drive
Interstellar Audio Machines advertised its original Octonaut Hyperdrive as, “The only overdrive you’ll ever need.” Well… The new version offers…
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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…
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ARTISTS
Nils Lofgren Shines Solo – Again
Star Grabs Vintage J-50 for “Ain’t the Truth Enough? An in-demand sideman for more than 50 years, guitar wizard Nils…
Pop ’N Hiss: Taste
Breakout Blues
The ’60s may have been the most musically significant decade in the history of popular music, but very few countries…
Six-Strings, 60 Years Ago
A Likely First
Had he survived to this day, Elvis Presley – cultural icon extraordinaire – would be 80 years old. The man…
Pop ’N Hiss: Prince’s 1999
Music, Sex, and The New World Order
1981, the world was enveloped in the Cold War, with its nuclear weapons, Reaganomics, and uncertainty. Prince Rogers Nelson had…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS
Epiphone Zephyr De Luxe Regent and Zephyr Amplifier
The Zephyr De Luxe Regent was Epiphone’s second-from-the-top electric guitar produced from the late 1940s through the mid ’50s. The…
1934 Gibson F-7
Prior to Gibson’s innovations, mandolins were bowl-back instruments with a lute-like back usually constructed with rosewood or maple back ribs…
Blues guitarist Charlie Apicella’s “Booze and Blues” and “Just Like a Woman”
Honoring B.B., Rainey Being V.P. of the North Jersey Blues Society isn’t the only thing that separates Charlie Apicella from…
Warwick Thumb Bass
Generational Innovation
Founded in the early 1980s by Hans-Peter Wilfer, Warwick has a familial connection to another well-known German brand from a…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight
Fender The Edge Strat, Edge Deluxe Amp
What You’re Looking For
Leo Fender once famously said, “A guitar is just a hammer.” If you haven’t yet found a hammer that fits…
Supro Super 1606 and Reverb 1605R
Little Amps That Could
In guitardom, players far too often believe there is nothing more sonically pleasing than a tall stack. Yet, plenty of…
Electro-Harmonix Mel9 Tape Replay Effect
In a Mello Tone
Producer George Martin was so fond of John Lennon’s tape-relay keyboard that he described it “as if a Neanderthal piano…
Breedlove Pursuit Exotic S Concert Amber 12-String CE
Tonal Transcendence
In 1990, Steve Henderson and Larry Breedlove quit their day jobs at Taylor Guitars and moved to Oregon, where they…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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And an Archtop Mystery
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Supergroup Alpha
Ray Cummins – Guitar Tutorial #8
Ray Cummins’ eighth exclusive lesson for VG demonstrates how to play backward rolls (arpeggios) being used in an intro or…
Have Guitar Will Travel – 029 Featuring Greg Koch
Episode 29 of James Patrick Regan’s “Have Guitar Will Travel” podcast features “The Gristlemaster,” Greg Koch, who talks about his…
John Oates
Rhythm-Minded
From 1975 through ’85, John Oates and Daryl Hall created a trove of era-defining R&B-influenced pop/rock hits on the way…
Steve Gunn
Drawing inspiration from a decade on the road, guitarist-singer-songwriter Steve Gunn’s debut for Matador Records chugs along like a handsome…
