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Ward Meeker
Steve Cropper
Friend, Legend
Even before he began to record seminal music using an Esquire plugged into a Harvard amp – creating one of the favorite pairings in history – Steve Cropper was the epitome of a team player. Sixty-plus years down the road, his new album, Friendlytown, celebrates collaboration and the joy of the guitar tag team. With…
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Ward Meeker
Classics: Harold “Sonny” Wright’s 1965 Gibson J-45
Growing up 10 miles from Earl Scruggs’ birthplace in North Carolina with a music-loving father and two older sisters who could impress on the piano, it makes sense that Harold Wright became a musician. And while he followed in the girls’ footsteps by starting piano lessons when he was 12, after two years, he (and…
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Ward Meeker
Jim Weider
Telecaster Master, Camp Counselor
Ever dream of hanging out with a couple handfuls of guitar legends while breathing fresh mountain air and (mostly) unplugging from the world? If so, Jim Weider has something you’ll dig – a summer camp for guitar-music fanatics to gather and bond. Dubbed Masters of the Telecaster Guitar Camp and set for September 30 through…
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Ward Meeker
Greg Kihn
Greg Kihn, songwriter/guitarist and founder of the Greg Kihn Band, died August 13. He was 75 and battled Alzheimer’s disease. Born in Baltimore, Kihn started playing guitar as a kid, strumming Harmony and Kay acoustics before he found a Guild 12-string that became his main instrument writing and performing folk music as a teen. In…
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Ward Meeker
Dudley Taft
Life At Full Speed
A songwriting blues-rocker in the purist sense, Dudley Taft is succeeding in an era when nothing comes easy for his ilk. His new album, The Speed of Life, required a departure from the norm; while his previous three were recorded at his own studio in Cincinnati, this one used down time during a European tour…
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Ward Meeker
Jedd Hughes
More Personal
After landing on American shores in 2002 to study bluegrass, then shifting into a career as a country singer/songwriter/picker, Jedd Hughes has spent 20 years on an alternate – but rewarding – path as A-list session player and touring sideman. While being busy tempered his flow of original music, in 2014 he returned to songwriting,…
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Ward Meeker
Henry Garza
Still Familia
The music created by Los Lonely Boys – brothers Henry, Jojo, and Ringo Garza – is an amalgam resulting from a deeply musical upbringing fostered by boundless influences. Combining elements of rock, Texas blues, brown-eyed soul, country, and tejano, they call it “Texican rock and roll,” its sound the product of three lifetimes spent playing…
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Ward Meeker
Jackie’s Hidden Gem
Seventy years ago, Leo Fender introduced the Stratocaster as an evolutionary step forward from his first solidbody electric guitar. Sleeker and smoother, he wanted it to create sounds more useful to any style of music and musician. Essentially unchanged today, the Strat remains one of the most-popular guitars in the world (see sidebar), and early…
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Ward Meeker
Bex Marshall’s 1965 Gibson Hummingbird
Born In Plymouth, Devon, blues singer/songwriter/guitarist Bex Marshall grew up in a merry old England-style “mixed” family – her paternal great grandfather was the Squire of Cornwall while her mother’s side is descended from Irish Romany. For the latter, music has always been a part of life, and at family gatherings, her uncles would play…
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Ward Meeker
Danelectro Red Hot Longhorn Bass
Hole-Y Twist
At first glance, Danelectro’s Red Hot Longhorn looks pleasingly familiar – its shape is tried, true, and beloved in Vintageville. But once past its eye-catching finish and top binding, you’ll notice something very different – a soundhole. Following tradition with a masonite (“Hardboard”) top and back, spruce sides, and maple neck, it checks boxes we…
