
The ‘‘Blackburst’’
Among experienced (and often jaded) veteran guitar collectors, precious few things create an adrenaline rush – strange one-offs, oddball brands that never quite blossomed, guitars with non-standard parts/materials from the factory, or those once owned by an icon. Even better, those personally built by an icon. And every so often, there emerges a guitar like this – a true classic that simply […]
30 Most Valuable Guitars
To mark VG’s 30th anniversary, we dig into the 30 most-valuable production guitars.
Steve Gunn
Drawing inspiration from a decade on the road, guitarist-singer-songwriter Steve Gunn’s debut for Matador Records chugs along like a handsome old train, ending up in a spot perhaps best described as an Americana Television (Television, as in the seminal 1970s New York City band, not the medium). It’s fresh rock-folk, with guitars gloriously at the […]
Killer Guitar Components Killer Trem Bridge
In the mid 1950s, Leo Fender and his crew spent countless hours on the design and manufacture of their revolutionary new Stratocaster tremolo bridge. And in the 60-plus years since its introduction it has, in many cases, been taken for granted when it comes to a guitar’s tone and playability. With their new high-quality replacement […]
Kelly Mulhollan
Arkansas farmer Ed Stilley was plowing his fields in 1979 when he was struck down by a heart attack; lying in the dirt, he had a vision that God wanted him to build guitars and give them to children around the country to make music. Once recovered, he began crafting instruments of his own design, […]
Buddy Merrill
Buddy Merrill, guitarist, steel-guitarist, composer, arranger, recording artist, and occasional vocalist, died December 5. He was 85. A seasoned musician by age 18, Merrill became a member of Lawrence Welk’s orchestra, featured on Welk’s weekly ABC-TV program from 1955 until ’74. Welk’s program targeted older adults, yet Merrill’s playing inspired countless babyboomers to take up […]
Various Artists
Bill Frisell is a living jazz icon, famed for his ethereal tone and snaking post-bop lines. Here, he partners with Thomas Morgan for a live set – just guitar and standup bass – cut at the Village Vanguard in New York. It’s intimate and beautiful, as you’d expect from ECM. “It Should Have Happened A […]
Country Player of the Year
Albert Lee Awarded in 2018 Known primarily as a virtuoso sideman, over the past half-century, Albert Lee journeyed from British country-rocker to international fame as an innovative, explosive guitarist, working alongside country and rock legends and doing his own solo projects. Find all the details in the 2018 VG Readers’ Choice Awards. Glen Campbell Awarded […]
Greta Van Fleet’s Jake Kiszka
“Rock and roll is a young man’s game.” Once upon a time, it was the genre’s calling card. A half-century later, though, young bands playing bombastic guitar rock often trod to gain acceptance from the very crowd that so stridently preached. Witness: Greta Van Fleet. The foursome from Frankenmuth (Michigan) emerged in 2017, offering art […]
Reverend’s Reeves Gabrels Dirtbike
Signature guitars tend to be either fan-boy models, the owners of which hang them alongside a collection of signed 8×10 glossies of the artists, or they’re useful instruments that just happen to carry the name of a famous chap. The Reverend Reeves Gabrels Dirtbike is ensconced in the second camp. Gabrels is a noted solo […]
The Life and Times of Roy Buchanan
Roy Buchanan and his battered 1953 Telecaster guitar got inside your head and grabbed you in the gut. He had eclectic musical tastes, an arsenal of techniques, a devotion to craft, and something to say. And he said it with soul. Those are mere generalizations, of course, and Buchanan commanded such diverse skills it […]
Guild Bluesbird
The Guild Bluesbird has a long history that began in the 1950s with Guild’s answer to the Gibson Les Paul –the M-75 Aristocrat, later renamed the M-75 Bluesbird. The guitar appeared in the Guild catalog for years before it was discontinued in the 1970s. It remained off the radar until the mid-1990s, when Guild reissued […]
Brian Setzer
Three decades, umpteen records, and several stellar bands into his career, and Brian Setzer still makes rockabilly sound fresh and exciting. This album has much of the verve of his debut, 1981’s Stray Cats, and his so-called “’68 Comeback Special,” Ignition. For a musician this far along in his career, that’s saying something about his […]
Godin A6 Ultra Baritone
The basic premise of a baritone is that it allows guitar players to occasionally twang genuine bass notes – not enough to get in the way of the bassline, but still adding a deep, meaty girth to any phrase, riff, or chord. Godin’s A6 Ultra has a 27.7″ scale, yet a surprisingly medium weight, thanks […]
Avid Technology Eleven Rack
The proliferation of digital guitar gear grows by leaps and bounds every year as more players learn to love the world of tones and effects offered by the technology. You’ll obviously get no argument from us that tube amps and analog stompboxes are great, but for more and more musicians, digital is here to stay. […]
Hornby Skewes Zonk Machines
In 1965, fuzz was the “it” sound. Guitarists had recorded with fuzz before, of course, but after Keith Richards plugged into a Maestro Fuzz-Tone on “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” its sound was suddenly essential. In England, finding fuzz was an endeavor; the Maestro was expensive and difficult to track down. As a result, even […]
Fretprints: Jeff Beck
The proverbial chicken-or-egg conundrum has an equivalent in the spirited debate over the Jeff Beck Group versus Led Zeppelin as progenitors of heavy metal. There’s a bit of truth in either. Heralded by many as the birth cry of metal, Truth was Beck’s first album as bandleader, and the 1968 release pre-dates Zep by several […]