As a teenager who just wanted to play music, Norm Harris lived with the reality that he and his band weren’t going to be millionaires anytime soon. So he did what musicians do – side-hustled. But when most were manning the counter at a music shop or serving tables, Harris was up at the crack

Our perception of Japanese guitars has evolved slowly. At one point, they were cheap toys, at other times imperfect copies, then startling innovations. Perspective encircles the truth. So, how should we perceive the Yamaha SA-15? Japan became interested in guitars in the early 1920s, as some musicians there began to perform what we’d today call…

Greg Koch: Gristly “Blues” Greg Koch fearlessly wrings the sort of vibrato that only a Tele will tolerate from his ’53 to play this exclusive version of Freddie King’s “The Stumble” flavored with a bit of delay and running into his Tone King Royalist. Inspired by fan requests, it’s just one of the tracks culled…

A Brief History of the Modern Guitar String
If you’ve ever bent a guitar string and given it a shake, send a silent thank you to guitarist James…

How Hank Garland Helped Gibson Develop Two Models Not Called Byrdland
There are guitars, there are great guitars, there are great historic guitars and there are great historic guitars bearing deep…
Most Bizarre Guitar Effect of All Time?
Led Zeppelin’s final studio album, 1979’s In Through The Out Door, opens with an eerie, otherworldly drone that weaves and…

From 1932 to 1964, independent builder John D’Angelico produced some of the finest jazz guitars. After apprenticing and working in…

Gibson’s Depression-Era Exports
Many aren’t aware that some of the archtop guitars Gibson produced during the Depression were marketed under different brand names, including Kalamazoo, Recording King, Cromwell, Fascinator, and Kel Kroyden, among…

Say hey, fellow guitarists! If you live in the Northeast, it’s great to have a hobby that doesn’t require going outside. Two storms in five days of each other dumped…

While volumes have been written about its more-famous sibling, the Stratocaster, surprisingly little attention is paid to the Jazzmaster – Fender’s top-of-the-line guitar when it was introduced in 1958. Then,…

When it entered the music-instrument market in 1976, Kramer Guitars made a big splash with an aggressive marketing campaign, big-name endorsers, and – most importantly – an improved approach to…

Inspirational Icon
The mere mention of a Gibson Les Paul Standard made between 1958 and 1960 commands attention. But one like this, made famous in the hands of John Sebastian in the…

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 Hayes and Jay W. Johnson) just for VG followers! Accompanied again by Justin Poindexter and Sasha Papernik, this time they’re joined by Jen Hodge on…

Having looked at the most expensive electric guitars offered in 1960s – over 50 years ago. Traditional makers – Gibson, Guild, and Gretsch – concentrated on flashy amplified archtops that retailed up into the $700 to $800 range – beautiful instruments, but not representative of where the electric guitar was going. More forward-looking makers offered…

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…

Preamp tubes: three ECC83 (12AX7), one ECC81 (12AT7, in the phase inverter) Output tubes: six EL34 Rectifier: solidstate Controls: Normal…

The Tale of Frampton’s ’54 Les Paul Custom
Gifted to Peter Frampton after a 1970 Humble Pie concert at Fillmore West in San Francisco, for years, this ’54…

A lifelong vintage-guitar nut who has had “a million guitars,” Jeremy Graf’s all-time favorite is this 1961 Stratocaster. A native…

Blooms in the Desert
When traveling the American desert southwest, one should expect the unexpected. Visit in the springtime and you might witness the elusive flowering of the torch cactus, which happens on just…

While the most commonly played and collected Martin guitars have a six-string neck, the company has also made a number of historically noteworthy four-strings. Beginning in the 1920s and carrying…

Inspirational Icon
The mere mention of a Gibson Les Paul Standard made between 1958 and 1960 commands attention. But one like this, made famous in the hands of John Sebastian in the…

Instro-rock, fully greased Get ready to have your funtime socks knocked off, ‘cuz this exclusive Nick Moss run through “Scratch N Sniff” is dangerous! A track from his latest album,…

The mid 1970s were a turbulent time in guitar history. The American guitar establishment – at least Gibson and Fender – was owned by big corporations that tended to run…

The 1970s is often called “the Copy Era” for the dominating presence and spectacular success of Japanese “copies” of popular American guitars, most notably of the Gibson Les Paul. Indeed,…
A lifelong vintage-guitar nut who has had “a million guitars,” Jeremy Graf’s all-time favorite is this 1961 Stratocaster. A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Graf was just seven when, for reasons he doesn’t remember, he asked for an Elvis Presley record. His mother obliged and brought home Elvis’ Golden Records, a compilation of ’50s hits. “That
In an era when the sub-20-watt combo is arguably the most popular guitar-amp format, it’s worth remembering that several classics of the category emanate from the ’50s. And just as interesting as the well-worn favorites, several lesser-known alternatives were also born in the decade of rock and roll. In the December ’24 issue, we examined
Marc Schoenberger was part of the early-’70s vanguard on the Southern California guitar scene – not as a gigging musician, but among the crowd that raced the 101 freeway to check out old guitars every time a new issue of the Recycler hit the streets. He’d also been repairing guitars for friends and local shops
Despite their catalog-grade status, Supro amps have been used by several noteworthy guitarists. For many, the sturdy Thunderbolt is the preferred workhorse. It’s been a long time since Supro amps were any kind of secret find or hidden gem; players have long recognized the eccentric splendors of certain mid-sized examples, with their thumping tremolo and
George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher founded Electro String in 1931 to manufacture what everyone would soon call “Rickenbacker” guitars. Success came early and their lap steels set standards of quality, performance, and tone. On the other hand, the company’s electric bass viols and violins excited segments of the industry but never sold well. Same for
The word “underrated” is belabored in music journalism, but Joey Molland was just that. As co-guitarist in Badfinger, he was part of a quartet signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records, yielding glorious AM hits like “Come and Get It,” “Day After Day,” and “No Matter What.” The foursome fell into obscurity and tragedy a few

Family Barn Jam! With his ’82 Gibson 335 running into a Headstrong Corduroy (20-watt/6V6) amp, McKinley James shares a taste of his new album, “Working Class Blues,” with this run at “Call Me Lonesome.” In the October issue, he tells us how the album was made in the family barn with the only backing…

Steve Cardenas and Jim Campilongo have been playing guitar together for a long time, though the constellations only recently aligned so they could record. Captured on three nights in September of 2022, New Year showcases harmonic personalities merging through atmosphere, reverb, and ancient acoustic guitars. It’s also a meditation on the beauty and strength of…

Brown Sound
Gibson landing Les Paul’s name on the headstock of its debut solidbody electric in 1952 was the biggest guitar-star endorsement…

The idea of Gibson providing guitar parts to another prominent guitar maker is laughable today, but in the 1940s and…

In the world of archtop guitars, the Stromberg name represents the ultimate instrument – in size, at least – in…
At the beginning of 1983, Leo Fender was just more than three years into his last guitar-manufacturing venture when he…