• Veillette-Citron Shark

    Classic Instruments

    Veillette-Citron Shark

    It’s not often a guitar can be said to have been inspired by a TV show, but that is the case with this 1982 Veillette-Citron Shark, which came about as a result of the success of the program “Welcome Back Kotter.” Well, in a pretty roundabout way, that is! Veillette-Citron guitars were the product of…

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Lloyd Loar

An Alternative View

The Master Model instruments created at Gibson in the early 1920s are famous for their sound and build. Credit for their design is often laid at the feet of “acoustic…

Supro Resophonic FolkStar

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…

GIBSON FIREBIRDS

Gibson Firebirds

Say the words “custom color” to a collector or enthusiast and most will think of “Fender.” But Gibson had its own multicolored baby – the Firebird. Born in 1963 and…

Epiphone C-10

A nylon-string good for beginners, experts alike

The sound of a nylon-string guitar has captivated musicians and listeners for decades. However, unless you're a classical guitar "artist," chances are your main axe isn't a nylon string. My…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Larry Wexer

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Larry Wexer Season 01 Episode 07 In Episode 7 of “Buy That Guitar,” presented by Vintage Guitar mag, host Ram Tuli is joined…

Dickerson Standard Lap Steel

Though today they are viewed as little more than curious relics of a lost era, during the Great Depression, “mother of toilet seat” Hawaiian lap steels were one of the…

The Vox AC15

AMP-O-RAMA

The Vox AC30 grabbed most of the headlines for years, but many tonehounds have come to appreciate the sweet, juicy glories of the smaller AC15, particularly in the wake of…

Rocky Athas’ Texas ’Tude!

Genuine Lone Star Jams Dallas guy Rocky Athas built a career playing blues in the vain of T-Bone and SRV, but his new album, “Livin’ My Best Life,” is more…

1962 Gretsch Country Gentleman Custom

Atkins Oddity

By the early 1960s, the Fred Gretsch Company was riding high with an array of eye-catching electric guitars highlighted with models endorsed by Chet Atkins. At the top were the…

Songbirds: Museum with a Mission

Treasures in Tennessee

Ask anyone who geeks out on vintage guitars, from the well-heeled collector to the dreamer whose prized possession is a relic’d reissue, and you’ll hear the stories… First sighting of…

B.C. Rich Eagle

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…

Classics: December 2023

Cliff Antone’s 1952 Fender Precision

Texas is known for music, especially Austin, which in the mid ’70s became a hotbed thanks to clubs like Armadillo World Headquarters, Castle Creek, and Soap Creek Saloon, which mostly…

Dallas Shaftesbury 30

We mine the rich seam of obscure vintage American tube amps on a regular basis here in the pages of VG, but less often do we delve into the equally…

Standel 400S

In the early days of the American electric guitar/amplifier industry, Standel was known for building high-quality amplifiers used by the likes of Merle Travis and Joe Maphis. In fact, a…

Supro’s 600R DeLuxe

Supro’s 600R DeLuxe

“The Magic of Concert Hall Sound”

In the early days of reverb, no one was thinking about surf music; they were striving instead to replicate the warm, resonant, live sound of a concert hall. So, when…

Roger Mayer

Straight-shooting Effects Builder to the Stars

In the early 1960s, a young Research Laboratory engineer named Roger Mayer filled his “spare time” hanging out with a jaw-dropping collection of up-and-comers on the fledgling London blues-rock scene,…

Yamaha Image

Some years back, an insurance company promoted itself as “the quiet company.” While they probably wouldn’t like to hear it, in many ways that description fits Yamaha guitars. Whether you…

G.L. Stiles Solidbody

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…

Dan’s Guitar RX: A ’57 Strat Goes Under the Knife

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…

Steve Evans’ Guitars & Cars Passion Project

Pretty Pairs

Steve Evans was just 12 years old in 1968, when he began to appreciate the sleek bodies of electric guitars in the brochures he collected through the mail – gazing…

Tyler Morris Features a Martin Style 2 1/2-17

Tyler Morris Playing a Martin Style 2 1/2-17 Tyler Morris grabbed his 19th-century Martin Style 2 1/2-17 to play a medley of 20th-century licks. He also digs into the history…

ORVILLEGIBSONA-HOME-MAIN-BIG

Orville Gibson A model

All carved-top guitars and mandolins trace their ancestry back to Orville Gibson of Kalamazoo, Michigan. However, as this A model mandolin illustrates, Orville’s designs went through considerable refinement through the…

Gibson Barney Kessel Custom Prototype Vintage guitar magazine

Gibson’s Experimental Kessel Prototype

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.…

Wes Beech

Life in The Plasmatics

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…

The Schaffer-Vega Diversity System

Making Rock Roll

“ The best thing I ever did in the beginning was not use effects,” AC/DC’s Angus Young told VG in his feature interview for the December ’20 issue. And in…

Gretsch 6130 Round-up

Head ‘em out!

The romantic concept of the “Old West” – an enduring element of American pop culture – was spurred by pulp novels before John Ford introduced the world to My Darling…

Fender Headless Bass

Forgotten Prototype

Reflecting back through my years in the guitar industry, much of my time has been spent in product development, prototyping, and the making of specialty guitars. In recent years, quite…

Walter Becker’s Bogner Ecstasy 100B

In 1993, when Bogner was fast becoming the hippest name on the high-gain-amp scene, star guitarists were clamoring for that hot new tone. One who missed out recently brought “his”…

Elliot Easton

Star Board: Elliot Easton

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…

Tele-Star 5004

Superior Communications Device

In the late 1950s, the launch of the satellite Sputnik scared the pants off America and inspired a race to catch up. We pulled ahead with the TeleStar I satellite,…