The Grateful Dead just may be more popular now that the band is actually dead and gone. Their musical industrial complex keeps a steady stream of live recordings coming – and with some 30 years of shows to mine, there’s no end in sight. And no deadheads are complaining. Still, the five-LP/four-CD boxed set Before …

This album is a set of songs beautifully assembled by guitarist Danny Mangold. He recruits various friends, including his former Minneapolis–St. Paul buddy Charlie Bingham on guitar. Bingham was the lead guitarist in Twin Cities stalwarts the Lamont Cranston Band and the Hoopsnakes. Mangold was the guitarist in the Metro All-Stars. Neither lives there anymore, …

Vintage Trouble has emerged as one of the hardest working bands on the music scene. Laced with an ultra-cool visual style and a soulful vision, singer Ty Taylor and guitarist Nalle Colt bring together groove, sweat, and sex. Their debut album, The Bomb Shelter Sessions , mixes ’60s rock-and-roll with the spirit of Otis Redding, …

Much like several other well-known manufacturers, Guild has, through the years, changed ownership, locations, and identities. Guild was founded in 1952 by Alfred Dronge, a teacher and music-store owner in New York, and many of his first employees were former Epiphone workers hired after that company moved production to Philadelphia. Guild’s first guitars were shipped …

For guitar lovers and roots-music fans, the place to be in July ’13 was British Columbia. The Vancouver Island MusicFest held a true summit meeting of masters of the Telecaster (with an asterisk). Britain’s Albert Lee is acclaimed for his work with Emmylou Harris, Eric Clapton, the Everly Brothers, and others. Amos Garrett played the …

Click Here to read the Alvin Lee obituary. In the summer of 1968, America was starting to hear about a new blues movement exploding in England, primarily in the hipster clubs of London. Riding the wave of the worldwide success of the Rolling Stones, groups with raw sound and power such as The Yardbirds, The …

Fingerstyle guitarist Laurence Juber is best known for his association with Paul McCartney’s Wings, but has recorded two dozen solo and collaboration albums, most recently, Fingerboard Road. He also compiled a photo-centric book, Guitar With Wings, that focuses on his efforts with the band. “I had shoeboxes full of photos from that experience that needed …

Glen Campbell Awarded in 2017 The lion’s share of great guitarists, like Glen Campbell, emerged from modest backgrounds. Born to Arkansas sharecroppers, Campbell learned to play using a Sears guitar and help from an uncle who showed him basic chords. Find all the details in the 2017 VG Readers’ Choice Awards. Vince Gill Awarded in …

ToneVille Amplifiers Broadway Price: $2,295 Contact: www.tonevilleamps.com What is it that drives boutique amp builders to expend gallons of skull sweat striving for a more-perfect union between the pluck of steel strings over wire-wound magnets and obsolete 1950s audio technology? If you have to ask (or if you can’t appreciate the differences between an overdriven …

You’ve probably seen his face, and maybe even watched his hair and beard go from black to gray. Whether it’s fiddling with Bob Dylan, supplying steel at the Americana Music Awards, playing lead for Bruce Springsteen’s MusiCares Person Of The Year honor, or sitting in with the Roots on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” …

Precision Bass has been offered in a myriad of models in its 50 years of existense, including a number of “reissues.” One of the more intriguing variants was the Elite II, which was introduced in mid-1983, and disappeared when Fender was purchased from CBS in early ’85. While subsequent variants of Precision models would have …

VG staff was busy at this weekend’s Arlington Guitar Show (a.k.a. Guitarlington) and we’ve posted more fresh photos! Check ’em out at http://www.vintageguitar.com/arlington-guitar-show-11/

Talent for mysteries, passion for guitars, best-selling Novelist Jonathan Kellerman is a lifelong lover of the guitar. A player for 46 years, to him, the guitar is not only a device for release and inspiration, but a true passion. • “After I finish writing, the first place I head is the guitar room, for an …

Blake Aaron’s fifth solo release, Soul Stories, features eight originals and a couple of covers that have at least one thing in common. Each instrumental relies heavily on the listener keeping the melody in mind. “That’s really important to me; it’s what a song is all about. It’s got to be catchy and deep, which …

Russ Pedersen and his crew at Arkansas-based Taurus Pedals build a wide variety of distortion, overdrive, chorus, fuzz, boost, and delay pedals for guitar and bass, using high-end components and offering both stock and custom graphics finishes. Taurus has expanded that already extensive line of boutique hand-made wares to include the new Devil Drive Overdrive …

G&L Fallout Price: $1,400 (retail) Info: www.glguitars.com. From automobiles to kitchen appliances to, of course, electric guitars, designers have gotten a lot of mileage out of retro style in the past decade or so. When these designs truly succeed, however, is when they combine the stylish panache of days gone by with modern functionality, thereby …

Doubleneck instruments have always been a unique niche in the guitar market, for good reason. They’ve also carried an air of superiority or the insinuation that they were intended for pro players; i.e., those who could deftly switch from one instrument to another in the middle of a song without doffing their part. And though …