• Webb Wilder’s take on “Beautiful Delilah”

    Classic Instruments

    Webb Wilder’s take on “Beautiful Delilah”

    “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…

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A.J.’s 1950 Fender Broadcaster

$10 at a time

In 1950, A.J. Custer traded his triple-neck steel for a white-guard Broadcaster. Total cost was around $300, which he paid in $10 installments over three years. Fifty years later, we…

Kevin Keaton’s 1958 Esquire

Swamp Thing

June 10, 2020, was a summer night like most in the life of Kevin Keaton, a postal mail carrier and guitarist who gigs in an acoustic duo and an AC/DC…

Rex Solidbody

Italian Connection

An internet search for “Rex guitars” will turn up a fair – if confusing – amount of information about the brand used on budget guitars and banjos made by Gretsch…

One of Two of a Kind

Gibson’s L-3 Ganus Brothers Special

Making custom instruments has always been problematic for companies designed to manufacture in quantity. Though it had an unenforced policy against one-off projects, this guitar illustrates how the company did…

The (Way) Back Beat: A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody

Fretted cheesecake advertising through the years, Part One

There are many ways for an advertiser to attract attention, and in the history of 19th- and 20th-century print hucksterisim there have been few stones left unturned in the battle…

Yamaha Weddington Custom

A Better “Classic”

In 1987, classic American guitars like the Les Paul and Stratocaster were still going strong, with few changes since their first appearance in the early ’50s. Thus it was a…

Fender Princeton feature

The Fender Princeton

1962 6G2 Fender Princeton Preamp tubes: One 7025, one 12AX7 Output tubes: two 6V6GT in fixed bias Rectifier: 5Y3 Controls: Volume, Tone, Speed, Intensity Speaker: one 10” Oxford 10J4 Output:…

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…

The Birth of the Gretsch Duo Jet

Gretsch Gets With It!

In 1950, Leo Fender introduced the Broadcaster. The first solidbody electric Spanish guitar to bear his soon-to-be-famous name, its thin profile, light weight, and utilitarian dual-pickup configuration combined to make…

Gretsch Astro Jet

“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…

Coppock Guitars

Vintage Rarities from the Pacific Northwest

The obscure Coppock brand of electric guitars first surfaced in 1994, with the publication of Electric Guitars & Basses: A Photographic History, by guitar historians George Gruhn and Walter Carter.…

Weissenborn Style #4

Weissenborn Style#4

The acoustic Hawaiian guitar of Hermann Weissenborn is one of the most specialized instrument designs of the 20th century. Weissenborns were made for guitarists who played the newest craze of…

Rickenbacker’s Bakelite Spanish Vs. Fender’s Esquire

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…

Fender Stratocaster

Aiming High

In 1953, Leo Fender started planning a new standard guitar – the Stratocaster. His partner, Don Randall, who headed Fender Sales, Inc., came up with the name before the design…

GIBSON-EB-2-HOME-MAIN-BIG

Gibson EB-2

Kalamazoo’s Biggest Bass Innovation?

In the mid 1950s, Gibson president Ted McCarty was paying close attention to two new instruments impacting the musical-instruments market – the solidbody electric guitar and the electric bass. Both…

Model 2020

Like most things, the closer you look at certain phenomena, the more you find often subtle, unexpected surprises. A good example is this Ibanez Model 2020, which dates from around…

Fender Ltd & Montego

Jazz Guitars

The Ltd was introduced as CBS Fender’s entry into the archtop jazz guitar market. It was to be a prestigious example of Fender’s ability to produce a highly crafted, handmade,…

Gibson M-III Standard

Missing the Mark(et)

Gibson’s bread and butter has long been tried-and-true designs that represent remarkable innovations – even if they date back to the 1950s. This is testament to how good those innovations…

Maestro Fuzz-Tone

Fuzz. It’s the sound of fury, aggravation, indignation, and – considering the history of the most famous fuzzbox of all time, Maestro’s Fuzz-Tone – dissatisfaction. It’s also fitting as some…

Fender’s 1951-’54 Telecaster

In Detail

Fender’s first Spanish-style guitar was a lesson in functional simplicity with its solid body, single pickup, and bolt-on neck. And it didn’t receive a welcome fit for the legend it…

Ray Cummins – I’ll See You In My Dreams

Ray Cummins Plays the 1956 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 prototype “Dark Eyes” VG ace online tutor Ray Cummins uses the famed ’56 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 prototype to play “I’ll…

Holman Guitars

From Kansas… to Oz?

1966-67 Holman Classic, same body as the Wurlitzer Cougar. Whether or not you think they’re from Oz probably depends on your tastes, but one thing’s for certain – they’re not…

Electro/Rickenbacher Amps

Pre-WWII Electro/ Rickenbacher Amps

Introduction Experiments at marketing electrified musical instruments and their accompanying amplifiers may have started in the late 1920s, but it wasn’t until the early ’30s that any long term commitments…

Ask Zac: Deep Dive on the Wide Range

Plus, Joey Molland’s Stratotone

I have collected several Fender Wide Range humbucking pickups from the early ’70s, and I’m curious about how to check whether they’re set to factory specs, and then how to…

Nioma Guitars

Rarities from a West Coast Music School

NIOMA musical instruments from the 1930s and ’40s – with their vaguely Hawaiian-looking name – have mystified vintage-guitar enthusiasts over the decades when they’ve occasionally surfaced in retail shops and…

Albert King’s Flying Vs

Kings Ransom: Seagal, Gibbons, and Albert King's Flying Vs

In a quiet, wooded canyon blissfully removed from the hustle and bustle of nearby Hollywood and the roar of Pacific Coast Highway, sits the very private retreat and Shangri-La of…

Classics: April 2023

Kim Simmons’ 1973 Gibson Les Paul

For Gio da Silva and several million others in Generation X, the mid ’90s were an exciting time. Young adults when music was experiencing a blues revival spirit-guided by Stevie…

Vintage Dobros

A Guide

When John Dopyera stormed out of the National shop in January 1929, his resignation stemmed from more than a spur-of-the-moment tantrum. For months, the inventor of the resonator guitar spent…

Three Larsons

At first glance, these three guitars appear to be a straightforward collection of different sizes of the same model. A comparable set of three Martins would be a 0-40, 00-40…

Ghalia Volt’s Stompin’ slide!

Belgium Born, Delta Fostered Brussels native Ghalia Volt moved to the U.S. in 2013 to busk in music-rich cities like Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Nashville, and Clarksdale, Mississippi, where for…