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Trending Now
(Ed. Note: Duane Eddy was featured in the June ’95 issue of VG, following the release of his Twang Thang box-set anthology, which included 40 songs he helped re-master and liner notes by Dan Forte, who became a VG contributor a few years afterward. The conversation expanded to include Eddy’s life and career. Here are […]
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The fledgling Guild company scored a coup when it signed Johnny Smith to an endorsement deal in 1956. Perched atop the jazz-guitar scene at the time, Smith helped Guild join the fray of artist “signature” instruments that had become a marketing staple. Unfortunately, the effort sputtered because Smith was not pleased with the guitar bearing […]
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Marshall Crenshaw’s brief chart run remains a bright spot of 1980s rock – effectively, the final blast of New Wave before the genre was buried by Thriller, Purple Rain, and other Big ’80s production jobs. During that span, Marshall wrote and recorded a number of cassette classics, notably “Someday, Someway” and the extra-jangly “Whenever You’re […]
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The Tal Farlow is one guitar in a quartet of full-depth Gibson Artists models first cataloged in the early 1960s. Introduced in ’62, it was based on the ES-350 – the guitar Farlow used with Red Norvo and his own trio in the mid ’50s. A truly professional instrument, built in the tradition of ’50s Gibson […]
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Have Guitar Will Travel
Have Guitar Will Travel – 024 Featuring Barry Grezbik
In Ep. 24 of “Have Guitar Will Travel,” host James Patrick Regan visits with luthier Barry Grezbik, of Grez Guitars. They discuss talk Barry’s influences and how he is applying his experience as a designer of audio products and sound systems to create non-traditional guitars with an emphasis on function. They also touch on his […]
Artists
Lemmy Kilmister
Lessons in Longetivity (and Loud Music)
Motörhead bassist/vocalist and heavy metal icon Lemmy Kilmister will, in a few years, be 70. But the enthusiasm for his craft – and the decibel level at which his music is presented – remain undiminished and unimpeded. Kilmister has attempted to maintain the band’s policy of releasing an album a year, and in recent times it has […]
Artists
Edgar Winter
Tribute to “Brother Johnny”
Edgar Winter describes making Brother Johnny in tribute to his late brother, blues-rock guitar icon Johnny Winter, as “one of the most intensive and rewarding recording experiences I’ve ever had.” The Beaumont, Texas, brothers shared an “almost telepathic communication” musically, in addition to both being albino. “He could play a 12-bar blues and take 20 […]
Artists
Grant Geissman
Still Feeling Good
Admired for the iconic phase-shifter solo on Chuck Mangione’s 1978 smash “Feels So Good,” Grant Geissman can today look back on a successful career as a solo artist and sideman. His latest album, Blooz, interprets the blues idiom with a variety of styles and guests like Robben Ford, Josh Smith, Joe Bonamassa, and John Jorgenson. […]
Artists
George Cummings
Remembering Mississippi and Dr. Hook
George Cummings is best known as the original guitarist for Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. Born in Meridian, Mississippi, his father’s amateur picking set a course. As a teenager in the late ’50s, he was playing clubs along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and into Mobile, Alabama. In the early ’60s, he began attending college […]
Artists
1937 Martin 0-21
Martin is known for its orderly model-naming system, under which all guitars of a certain style from any particular year have the same materials, ornamentation, and other features, regardless of body size. A 1935 D-28, for example, would differ from a ’35 000-28 only in body size. Changes in specifications, such as the D-28’s change […]
Artists
Thom Douvan
Motown and More
Released in April, guitarist Thom Douvan’s third album, All Over Again, is a mix of self-penned instrumentals (with one notable exception) that utilizes a plethora of classic guitars to embellish the compositions. Douvan came of age in the ’60s and counted many area influences as part of his formative years in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “There […]
Have Guitar Will Travel
Have Guitar Will Travel 059 – John Smith
On the new episode of “Have Guitar Will Travel,” host James Patrick Regan speaks with singer/songwriter John Smith, whose playing is influenced by master guitarists ranging from Nick Drake and John Renbourn to Ry Cooder and Jimmy Page. They discuss John’s new album, “The Fray,” touch on the guitars in his collection, and dig into […]
Lessons
Ray Cummins – Guitar Tutorial #8
Ray Cummins’ eighth exclusive lesson for VG demonstrates how to play backward rolls (arpeggios) being used in an intro or ending and lightening fast pull offs. Ray is using his ’98 Gibson Country Gentleman plugged into an 80’s Boss DD-2 through a ’64 Fender Twin! Check out all of our Exclusive Lessons HERE!
Classic Instruments
Jim Kelley FACS Reverb
Truly a deserving name in the early era of the “boutique” amp scene, Jim Kelley is also an extremely under-recognized one. After working at Music Man amplifiers and other jobs in electronics in the 1970s, Kelley formed Active Guitar Electronics in Tustin, California, in 1978 and began building tube amps under his own name in […]
Classic Instruments
Guild S-200 Thunderbird
Back in 1958, when Gibson introduced its revolutionary Explorer, Flying V, and mysterious Moderne, the public – rather like Queen Victoria – was not amused. Although a few bold players embraced them, the public apparently wasn’t ready for such a radical look. Which makes it all that much more strange that Guild should introduce a […]
Artists
Laur Joamets
Metamodern Sounds In Country Picking
The time-worn, well-trodden path to Nashville traditionally starts from a Tennessee holler, Arkansas cabin, or Texas jook. For Laur Joamets – the Teleslinger behind Sturgill Simpson – it all began in his native Estonia. On two self-released albums, Simpson has proven himself one of the best things to hit Americana music in recent times. At […]
Artists
Dan Auerbach
Black Keys’ Road Map Back to Blues, British Rock
Forget about the classic quartet. Forget the power trio. Forget any preconceived shortcomings you may have concerning a rock-and-roll duo. There’s no denying it – the Black Keys crank out impressive noise. As one half of the band – drummer Patrick Carney – once joked, “We’re normally a 12-piece jazz big-band, but the other 10 […]
Artists
Jake Shimabukuro
Ukulele Hero
It’s one of the most unlikely success stories in music. Armed with a four-string tenor ukulele, a young Hawaiian videos himself playing solo in Central Park. His dynamic instrumental arrangement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” goes viral, viewed more than 17 million times. His command of the instrument and interpretations of material […]
Artists
Keith Richards’ 1963 Gibson SG Custom
Ready to Ramble
In 1961, Gibson introduced the double-cutaway Les Paul to replace the original version, which had been endorsed by guitarist Les Paul since being developed in 1952. Redesigned in response to falling market demand in the face of competition from Fender’s lighter, curvier, more-contoured Stratocaster, the guitar was re-named SG (for “solid guitar”) during the 1963 […]
Artists
Steve Rothery
Prog with a Purpose
Marillion has been playing thought-provoking neo-prog since its 1983 debut album, Script for a Jester’s Tear. Along the way, the group has issued classic releases of the genre including Misplaced Childhood, Seasons End, and Marbles, among others. Recently, it unveiled an 18th studio album, FEAR (F**k Everyone and Run). Guitarist Steve Rothery has been a […]
Artists
Jim Campilongo
Back to the Country
A misconception of his own making led to Jim Campilongo’s latest effort with the band Honeyfingers. “I enjoy my trio and its evolution, but it has gotten less and less country,” he said. “I erroneously thought there was an absence of the country music that I like, which is pretty specific – either the ’60s […]