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Classic Instruments
Jon Butcher’s psychedelia mastery
Jon Butcher tales his Olympic White ’63 Strat for a rip on “Jam,” a track from his new album, “Nuthin’ but Soul.” The disc is an homage to sounds of Motown, Stax, James Brown, and Sly Stone highlighted by Butcher’s mastery of Hendrix-style psychedelia. It was recorded using a ’63 Princeton, a Vibrolux, and a…
Familiar Names Create Music as J&B Brothers
Austin-Powered
The J&B Brothers make a sound equal parts Texas country, blues, folkie, rock, jazz, and soul – the spices that make music from the region so damn tasty. They’re also…
Mark Erlewine’s 40 Years with Willie Nelson’s Trigger
Wooden Wonder
For a decade, Willie Nelson chased fame as a performer in the Nashville mold of the ’60s – hair coifed, striding to center stage at the Grand Ole Opry in…
Hanburt Electric Guitars
Rarities From the Pacific Northwest
As a brand of American electric instruments, the name “Hanburt” is about the furthest thing from being a household term. Nevertheless, the recently documented saga behind this obscure line of…
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The Electra Endorser
Flame-top guitars were fairly common during the 1970s “copy era,” but few reached the levels of figure we often see on modern high-end guitars. Then came the Electra Endorser X935CS, which set new standards for psychedelic woodgrain. “But it’s not a ’70s guitar,” you object. No, but arguably, the Endorser CS – which was only…
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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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Jorge Garcia’s FM Anthems, in Jazz
Fresh takes on revered classics Joge Garcia’s “Still Crossing” is a collection of stellar instrumental performances of familiar tunes like “Kashmir,” “Little Wing,” and a classical spin through Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” Here, though, he shows us the title track, which is the only original tune. His ’87 Fender D’Aquisto is plugged into a…
Danelectro Viscount
1961 Danelectro Viscount Preamp tubes: two 12AX7, one 6AU6 Output tubes: two 6V6GT Rectifier: 6X5 Controls: Volume, Tone, Vibrato Strength, Vibrato Speed Output: 12 watts RMS Amp nuts of yesteryear…
Valco ‘Thunder stick’
Put your gut money on a dark horse every so often, and you might find the rest of the regurgitating bandwagon world awash in your taillights. Every sublime guitar collection…
Maestro GA-45T
AMP-O-RAMA
Until just a couple years ago, Fender really was the only major name in collectible vintage American-made tube guitar amplifiers. Sure, Magnatone, Standel, Danelectro/Silvertone, Supro and the other Valco-made amps…
Pieces of a Prototype
Secrets of a Socal "Parts" Guitar
If you were a guitar – particularly one with a natural or translucent finish – your “fingerprint” would be the grain of the wood used to make your body. …
Supro Thunderbolt
Designed “…exclusively for the electric Bass guitar,” it was simplicity itself, with no “fancy extra circuits.” But much like with Fender’s Bassman, guitarists had other ideas!
Hangin’ with Kid and Lisa “Little Baby” Andersen
Smooth, Funky Blues With Soul Kid Andersen worked with Charlie Musselwhite and Elvin Bishop before scoring his current gig with Rick Estrin & the Nightcats. One of the best blues…
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Dan’s Guitar RX: Doubleneck Redux, Part 2
Full House: Transcendent Jazz Masterpiece
In the November issue, we started to refurbish a doubleneck mandolin/guitar I made for Jerry Schafer in 1977. It needed a new wiring harness, tuners, binding repair, new frets, and a good setup. With teammates Ceil Thompson and Gene Imbody sharing the load, we continued the work. 1) Gene – our go-to guy for tough…
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The Guitars of Gary Rossington
A Legend’s Legacy
When the time came for Gary Rossington’s family to decide what to do with his guitars and amps after his passing in March of 2023, daughters Mary and Annie along with his wife, Dale, looked for advice from his lifelong friend and bandmate, Rickey Medlocke. The stash was considerable – 71 guitars including his famous…
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Wes Beech
Life in The Plasmatics
From the moment he met Rod Swenson and Wendy O. Williams, things for Wes Beech were never really “normal.” Walking into the basement of their loft for an audition, Beech didn’t know he was about to become part of a stage-storming, car-smashing, guitar-chainsawing artistic statement called the Plasmatics. The product of Swenson’s high-functioning mind (if…
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Classics: Mike Semrad’s ’57 Gibson Les Paul Custom
Mike Semrad’s musical roots run deep in his hometown of Fremont, Nebraska – at least as far back as his great-grandmother, who sang at the city’s opera house. But his first glimpse into the true power of music happened in high school, when one night in 1962, overachieving pep-band director Bob Olson stirred things up…
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Heathkit TA-16 Starmaker
Basement Jams & Blown Speakers
1966 Heathkit TA-16 Starmaker Combo The days when a kid would break out the soldering iron and take on a serious electronics project just for fun are largely behind us. Back in the ’60s, though, that’s how many an aspiring musician acquired his own precious guitar amplifier, as was the case with this Heathkit TA-16…
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D.K. Harrell and His ’76 ES-335
B.B. King of the Blues Award winner plays “Liquor Stores and Legs” Winner of the B.B. King of the Blues Award, here D.K. Harrell and his ’76 Gibson ES-355, Christal, are going straight to his Lab Series L-5 for a stripped-down run through “Liquor Stores and Legs.” If you like uptown shuffles, relatable lyrics, and…
Quest for Volume
Django Reinhardt's Selmer #503
Revolutionary jazz demanded a revolutionary jazz guitar. In the summer of 1935, just as his Quintette du Hot Club de France was starting to make waves, Django first began using…
A Hero’s Gretsch 6117
In the 1960s, the astronauts were bigger cultural icons than the Beatles. And no, that’s not the Colorado-based surf band that hit with songs like “Baja.” We’re talking real astronauts,…
The Komet Constellation
Amid the general run of vintage amps we have explored in this space, the occasional “modern classic” has proved itself worthy through sheer quality of design, uniqueness of tone and/or…
Ampeg Dan Armstrong Bass
1969 Revisited and Improved
I remember the first time I saw a ‘1969 Dan Armstrong lucite bass. I was in awe of the materials and its cool shape and sound. Over the years I…
Scotty Moore’s Gibson ES-295
First Guitar of Rock and Roll
Like a hound dog hit by lightning, the first notes of rock and roll blasted out of radios across the country in July of 1954, courtesy of Elvis Presley’s supercharged-hillbilly…
Fender’s Mid-’50s Precision Bass
The "In-Between" Version
In the world of electric basses, the 1952 Fender Precision is the one that started it all. While it’s true that Gibson, Rickenbacker, and Audiovox all built electric basses some…
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…
Schecter Yngwie Malmsteen
1986 Schecter Yngwie Malmsteen For most of the 1970s I didn’t listen to or play electric guitar music of any kind, only acoustic music. I did, on occasion, read about…
1934 Gibson F-7
Prior to Gibson’s innovations, mandolins were bowl-back instruments with a lute-like back usually constructed with rosewood or maple back ribs and a bent spruce top with an oval sound hole.…
1962 Premier E-727
One of the least un-derstood aspects of American guitar history is the role of musical instrument distributors. It’s one thing to be able to manufacture guitars, but quite another to…
The Martin 3K
The continuing appeal of Hawaiian music through the past 100 years is based in part on the music itself, which evokes exotic images of life on a Pacific island, and…
Dickerson Melody King
Few who love vintage amps can resist its art-deco appeal, let alone its luscious hand-wiring and edgy, touch-sensitive 6V6 tone. A tweed Champ doesn’t stand a chance in a cage…
National Style O
Industrial Art
National. The name is patriotic! And what else but American inventiveness could have brought about a metal-bodied guitar? The answer lies in the state of the guitar as a musical…
Universal Audio’s OX Amp Top Box
The Tube Abides
Since the mid ’60s, electrical engineers have been trying to drive a stake into the heart of the vacuum tube, first with transistors, then with zeros and ones. Yet the…
Star Board: Carl Verheyen
In each issue of “Signal Chain,” we’ll take a guided tour of pro players’ pedalboards. We’re calling the feature “Star Board,” and we kick it off in this issue with…
Matching Mojo
During the “guitar boom” of the 1960s, one method of getting a band noticed was to equip it with matching instruments and maybe matching amplifiers. Better still, add matching stage…
Gibson Humbucker
Crunchy, Clean Dirt
Gibson and Fender may be the longstanding heavyweight rivals of the electric guitar game, but they have one very important thing in common: they revolutionized the guitar industry. Fender took…
Star Stomps
Famous Sounds Abound in New Book
Stompboxes inspire their own special mania. While the allure of guitars is obvious with their colorful, curvaceous looks, effects are (usually) basic boxes covered in a toad’s load of warty…
Vox AC-30
The First AC-30?
Introduction That the Vox AC-30 Twin is a great-sounding amplifier goes without saying, since it spent the past 40 years creating music for countless artists of varying stature and styles.…
The Gittler Guitar
A Talk With Builder Avraham Bar Rashi
One of the most intriguing instruments to appear on the amplified-music landscape was the starkly-minimalist Gittler. An electric guitar constructed with as few parts as needed to render it fully…
Park 45
Masked Marshall
When is a Marshall not a Marshall? When it’s a Park, of course! Though it might not scream “classic rock tone” for the guitarist masses, in the eyes and ears…
