Author Archives: Michael Wright

1981 B.C. Rich Eagle. Photo: Michael Wright. When my son was young I used to do “guitar shows” for his classes, showing off 10 or so electric guitars that started with conventional shapes – a Les Paul and a Strat – and progressed to more unusual designs. I’d often conclude with this cool 1981 B.C. [...]

Ibanez MC500 Musician. Ahhh, the late 1970s… While many vintage guitar enthusiasts disdain the guitars from the “Me Decade” in favor of undeniably cool classics from the 1950s and ’60s, the ’70s was in many ways one of the most innovative eras in guitarmaking. It produced some of the great guitar brands and many superb [...]

1974 Veleno Original, serial number 90. Photo: Michael Wright. Electric guitars have their roots in resonator guitars made with metal bodies and aluminum resonator plates – the first commercially successful electric guitars were Ro-Pat-In’s Electro “frying pan” lap steels, made out of aluminum. And Wandré Pioli, the Italian luthier had used aluminum for his necks [...]

1964 Gretsch 6126 Astro-Jet, serial number 64016. Photo: Michael Wright. “Meet George Jetson! And his boy Elroy!” The year was supposed to be 2062 AD, but it was really 1962 when the catchy theme song introducing the characters in the Hanna-Barbera television cartoon show was first heard by American kids. The white-collar sitcom equivalent of [...]

Ca. 1875 J. Howard Foote Parlor guitar, SN 654. Photo: Michael Wright. P.T. Barnum probably didn’t coin the classic modern truism “There’s a sucker born every minute,” even though it does fit well with the Barnum legacy! Most of us know Barnum because of his traveling circus, The Greatest Show on Earth, later the Barnum [...]

1986 Schecter Yngwie Malmsteen For most of the 1970s I didn’t listen to or play electric guitar music of any kind, only acoustic music. I did, on occasion, read about it. Then, in 1981, I decided I needed to ride a stationary bicycle. The only way I could do it was to listen to music [...]

1939 Doitsch Hawaiian Guitar. Photo: Michael Wright. If there’s a foundation for the enthusiasm for vintage guitars, it’s based on a somewhat arbitrary hierarchy of brand identity. That is to say, a Gibson or a Fender is by common understanding superior to, say, a Harmony guitar, and therefore more desirable. Some of this is simply [...]

Every once in awhile, a guitar comes out of left field. In the case of this solidbody electric labeled “Lee Stiles,” the throw came from West Virginia by way of Miami! It was in many ways primitive, but at the same time it was also clearly “manufactured.” As it turns out, this was one of [...]

Fiberglass. In 1961, it was a space-age material; lightweight, easy to mold, and super strong, it could be used for just about anything. Back then, neighborhood kids who liked guitars would hang out and listen to The Ventures’ Another Smash!!! while someone’s dad built a boat made of fiberglass. He’d lay the sheets of glass [...]

P.T. Barnum probably didn’t coin the classic modern truism “There’s a sucker born every minute,” even though it does fit well with the Barnum legacy! Most of us know Barnum because of his traveling circus, The Greatest Show on Earth, later the Barnum & Bailey Circus, but that was really almost an afterthought from the [...]