If you’re a fan of Cream, Zeppelin, and Rory Gallagher (who isn’t?), you’ll dig Zac Schulze Gang, a British power trio that’s carrying the torch with both hands; they’ve played Clapton’s Crossroads and the Rory Gallagher Tribute Fest. Here, Zac flies solo on “High Roller,” tearin’ it up on his ’54 Guild Aristocrat M75 through…

Cardinal Red Rarity
Looking to finally make a real dent in Fender’s solidbody bass market, in the mid ’60s Gibson launched a line of electric guitars and basses that emulate Fender’s latest designs.
As a leading-edge shop owner ca-rrying 26 high-end bass-related lines, I’m regularly approached to become an authorized dealer for many products. I’m fair but skeptical with the inquiries and always…

From the late 1920s through the early ’40s, Gibson produced instruments under a variety of brand names for retailers like Montgomery Ward and mail-order houses like Tonk Brothers. While the…
Jon Butcher tales his Olympic White ’63 Strat for a rip on “Jam,” a track from his new album, “Nuthin’ but Soul.” The disc is an homage to sounds of Motown, Stax, James Brown, and Sly Stone highlighted by Butcher’s mastery of Hendrix-style psychedelia. It was recorded using a ’63 Princeton, a Vibrolux, and a…
Flame-top guitars were fairly common during the 1970s “copy era,” but few reached the levels of figure we often see on modern high-end guitars. Then came the Electra Endorser X935CS, which set new standards for psychedelic woodgrain. “But it’s not a ’70s guitar,” you object. No, but arguably, the Endorser CS – which was only…
“Hillbilly Speedball” sample Since the mid ’80s, Webb Wilder has cranked out consistently fine roots-rock. His latest is “Hillbilly Speedball,” and here he grabs his ’61 Gibson ES-330TD plugged into a narrow-panel Fender Vibrolux to play a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Beautiful Delilah.” He’s joined by George Bradfute (on a ’50s Epiphone upright) and Bob…
Battle-Scarred
B.K. Vaught recently walked into my shop with a vintage Strat that had been modified and refinished. While its changes represented a bit of American history, the guitar deserved to…

Hard Traveled
“Hard Rock.” That’s the name used by Mississippi blues man Booker White to christen his 1933 National Duolian. And Hard Rock was a hard-traveled guitar – much like White himself.…
1966 Vox Guitar-organ and ’66 Phantom XII. The Guitar-organ was a Dick Denney creation that combined the mechanical elements of a Phantom guitar with the oscillators of a Continental electric…
The idea of making “presentation- grade” guitars – special instruments meant as much for marketing as for rich customers – probably goes back to the beginnings of guitarmaking. Certainly by…

Seven Siblings
Every guitar company has had its odd ducks, its failures, its forgotten models. While some are consigned to the scrapheap of history for good reason, there are always instruments that…

What is it about Plexiglas? It’s so cool. You can see through it onstage. It’s dense, yet resonant. You’d think it would be the perfect medium for a mean rock…
Fresh takes on revered classics Joge Garcia’s “Still Crossing” is a collection of stellar instrumental performances of familiar tunes like “Kashmir,” “Little Wing,” and a classical spin through Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” Here, though, he shows us the title track, which is the only original tune. His ’87 Fender D’Aquisto is plugged into a…
In the November issue, we started to refurbish a doubleneck mandolin/guitar I made for Jerry Schafer in 1977. It needed a new wiring harness, tuners, binding repair, new frets, and a good setup. With teammates Ceil Thompson and Gene Imbody sharing the load, we continued the work. 1) Gene – our go-to guy for tough…
When the time came for Gary Rossington’s family to decide what to do with his guitars and amps after his passing in March of 2023, daughters Mary and Annie along with his wife, Dale, looked for advice from his lifelong friend and bandmate, Rickey Medlocke. The stash was considerable – 71 guitars including his famous…
From the moment he met Rod Swenson and Wendy O. Williams, things for Wes Beech were never really “normal.” Walking into the basement of their loft for an audition, Beech didn’t know he was about to become part of a stage-storming, car-smashing, guitar-chainsawing artistic statement called the Plasmatics. The product of Swenson’s high-functioning mind (if…
Mike Semrad’s musical roots run deep in his hometown of Fremont, Nebraska – at least as far back as his great-grandmother, who sang at the city’s opera house. But his first glimpse into the true power of music happened in high school, when one night in 1962, overachieving pep-band director Bob Olson stirred things up…
1966 Heathkit TA-16 Starmaker Combo The days when a kid would break out the soldering iron and take on a serious electronics project just for fun are largely behind us. Back in the ’60s, though, that’s how many an aspiring musician acquired his own precious guitar amplifier, as was the case with this Heathkit TA-16…

Hilary Gardner returns! Ready to set the tone for your holidays, Hilary Gardner and her band return for a fantastic take on the classic Elvis hit “Blue Christmas” (written by Billy…

If you want to talk star-user ratio, the Ray Butts EchoSonic is near the top of the heap. Most accounts agree that fewer than 70 amps were ever made, yet…
History of the Guitar
A hand-colored postcard photo of a woman in a Spanish costume, ca. 1910. Well, we’re on the cusp of the new Millennium. Excited? Last month we began our look at…

Exclusive spin on “Six to Seven” Calvin Keys has worked with Jimmy Smith, Ahmad Jamal, and Ray Charles. Here, he and his ’72 Gibson Johnny Smith play “Six to Seven,”…

Roots Return
Most people know Hall & Oates as a pop-music hit machine that has sold millions of records. What you may not know is that John Oates is a lifetime student…

John Adomono was an American guitar hero of the Cold War years. JFK named him his favorite guitarist, and Adomono played a command performance at the White House. He performed…

Six Strings Document Tale of the “Blue and Gray” in World War I
Through blood, dirt, rain, and all other forms of hell in the trenches of World War I, U.S. Army Private Ben Miller witnessed the healing power of music as it emanated from…

Plus One
My friend Alex Aguilar recently asked me to do something most guitarists would consider sacrilegious – add a Master Volume pot to a Les Paul, and put it in easy…
1982 Kawai MS-700 MoonSault. Photo: Michael Wright/The Different Strummer. Most of us tend to think of guitars made in Japan as dating to the 1960s, when Japanese manufacturers began supplying…

Texas Two Step
Fascinating also-rans, C-list classics, or both, the amps manufactured by London-based Dallas Music Ltd beginning in 1959 tie directly to legendary British gear. All but unheard of stateside, they were…

Elliot Easton’s “Pedalboard” Though Elliot Easton enjoys his loaded full-size Pedaltrain board, his new band, The Empty Hearts (with Clem Burke, Wally Palmar, and Andy Babiuk), does a lot of…
Photo: Robert Parks, courtesy George Gruhn. Its official name – Les Paul model – doesn’t do it justice. After all, Gibson has made over a hundred different Les Paul models…

When a guitar maker introduces an innovative new feature at the same time an appealing, existing feature is being discontinued, the result can be a rare configuration of specifications. Although…
Fender Myth Debunked! (Part II)
Even if Rickenbacher’s 1935 Bakelite Spanish model wasn’t the first solidbody electric, it would still be important in the evolution of modern guitars as the inspiration for Fender’s 1949 entry…

Southern Gold
In the late 1960s, Gibson reintroduced the single-cutaway Les Paul based on its classic ’50s model. But, a new version called the Deluxe proved the most popular Les Paul of…

Keeley Electronics’ Katana and Flexi 4×2
Any gearhead who’s been paying attention the last seven years knows the name Robert Keeley. Since 2001, he and his staff at Keeley Electronics have produced a variety of boutique…

Gibson Barney Kessel Custom model
This is a guitar which for all practical purposes appears to be a Gibson Barney Kessel Custom model, but the label clearly indicates it was made as an experimental prototype.…
Unlocking the Mystery
It was 1983, and Gibson was in the throes of its darkest days. Norlin Industries, Gibson’s parent company at the time, had incurred excessive debt, sales had fallen 30 percent…
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…

John Dopyera left National in 1929 to begin work on a secret project – a single-cone resonator guitar he believed superior to the Triolian. His instrument became synonymous with resonator…

Southern Gold
In the late 1960s, Gibson reintroduced the single-cutaway Les Paul based on its classic ’50s model. But, a new version called the Deluxe proved the most popular Les Paul of…