• Tommy Castro

    Classic Instruments

    Tommy Castro

    Circling Back

    In a career spanning four decades, Tommy Castro has crafted a commendable catalog and built a devout following with his soul-infused music, informed by the blues, R&B, pop, and rock and delivered with conviction. Beloved for his guitar work and vocal style, he has carved his own niche. Born and raised in San Jose, California,…

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BBE DI-1000 and DI-100X Direct Boxes

Electronic Icing for Your Tone

Have you ever wished your guitar sound just had a little more zing? A little more kick to your electric, or shine to your acoustic tone? If so, listen up.…

GIBSON-F2-2-HOME-MAIN-BIG

1905 Gibson F-2

In the opinion of most American mandolinists, Gibson brought mandolin design to a level of perfection in 1922, with the introduction of the Master Model F-5. It wasn’t much earlier…

Fender Original Electric Bass Guitar

Fender Myth Debunked! (Part I)

Perhaps this essay should have been titled “Audiovox vs. The Piltdown Man,” due to the doubts had by myself and a number of others regarding the authenticity of this month’s…

Wolf Marshall

Jazz-Lore Generator

Wolf Marshall was absorbing music before he could walk or talk. Born to a mother who was a concert pianist, he napped beneath the instrument as she practiced pieces by…

Paul Benjaman: Tulsa twanger

Funky solo from “Undercover of Night” On his new album, “My Bad Side Wants a Good Time,” Paul Benjaman serves up funky stew with bayou bite. Here, he plays the…

G&L F-100

1981 G&L F-100-I If guitars are in your blood – really in your blood – you can’t walk away from them. That was certainly the case with Clarence Leonidas Fender,…

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…

James Ashborn

Innovative Entrepreneur

Circa 1850 James Ashborn guitar. All photos: M. E. Brune. James Ashborn was born in England circa 1816 and came to New England in the late 1830s, for reasons unknown.…

Mosrite Basses

The Golden Decade: Ventures and Beyond

Mention the Ventures to a pop-music aficionado and the conversation will likely focus on the surf-music phenomenon of the early 1960s or – if that person also happens to be…

D’Angelico Excel Plectrum Guitar

Superb Build, Sound Worthy of a Listen

John D’Angelico is widely regarded as one of the finest archtop guitar builders who ever lived. From 1932, when he started making guitars on his own, until his death in…

Roy Smeck’s Gibson L-5

One For the “Wizard”

Player endorsements are part of the tradition of guitarmaking going back to its earliest use for public performance. LeRoy G.A. Schmeck, a.k.a. Roy Smeck, may be history’s most-prolific endorser of…

The Murph 12-String

Tugging At Your Heartstrings

Here’s a story that has “Hollywood blockbuster” written all over it. It’s got so many cinematic staples, you can almost hear “Oscar” murmured in hushed tones. There’s the Holy Grail…

Martin D-1

Not Your Typical Martin

Over the years, I’ve tried to include instruments in this column that were functional and affordable. Occasionally, we’ve lucked out and found spectacular instruments that offer more than your money’s…

The Acoustic

Black Widow

In the late ’60s, when Domino guitars were fading away, tube amplifiers were out of vogue. Old technology, man! Cool bands played through solidstate amps that delivered lots of clean…

Tele of Two Legends

The Amazing Story of One Unique Fender

One day in the mid 1950s, up-and-coming thoroughbred jockey Bill Shoemaker was playing host to his friend, bandleader Hank Penny, who had come calling with a special gift in a…

Seth Lover

Seth Lover

The history of the musical instrument business is full of stories, from the drab to the miraculous. Some bean-counters will busily push their way to the forefront, grabbing for a…

Fender’s V-Front 5B4 Super-Amp

Wonder Wedge

Though all tweed Fender amps of the late ’40s and ’50s are lauded and lusted after, the V-front Super might be the most iconic – and elusive. So, when a…

The Fender Tremolux

Most amp nuts are utterly fascinated by Fender’s rapid evolution from archaic to modern through the course of the 1950s. Within that arc, the transitional moments are often among the…

Ibanez Overdrives

Versatile tones from the TS line's progenitors

Before Ibanez made the fabled Tubescreamer, the company released two overdrive pedals designed to enhance sustain and distortion at lower volume. The first was simply called Overdrive, the second was…

Epiphone Deluxe Archtop

Webster’s latest defines the word “deluxe” as “…notably luxurious, elegant, or expensive.” The Epiphone Deluxe archtop guitar was certainly luxurious. When introduced in 1931, it sported a triple-bound top with…

George Gruhn

How a Zoologist Became a Guitar animal

If you bumped into a bearded, corduroy-jacketed George Gruhn in a Nashville coffee shop, you might think you’d stumbled upon an avuncular college professor – which is fitting, considering that…

Carvin DN640K

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…

Epihone Deluxe Archtop

Head-On With the L-5

Webster’s latest defines the word “deluxe” as “…notably luxurious, elegant, or expensive.” The Epiphone Deluxe archtop guitar was certainly luxurious. When introduced in 1931, it sported a triple-bound top with…

National-Dobro 6107A

National-Dobro 6107A

Preamp tubes: 56, 57 Output tubes: two 2A3 Rectifier: 5Z3 Controls: Volume Output: 6 watts RMS +/- Speaker: one 10″ Lansing Model 112 Why doesn’t this ever happen to us?…

Benson Model 300H

Wrecking Ball

Even with all the excellent guitar amps available by the late ’60s, nothing was quite good enough for jazz and studio great Howard Roberts – so he co-designed his own.…

The Story of Silver Street Guitars

Building a 
Better…. Gibson?

In the late 1970s, trends combined to spawn several new guitar companies in the Chicago area motivated by a desire to “build a better Gibson.” The list included Dean and…

Mark Lettieri’s funky finesse

Virtuoso take on “Greenspace” Stepping out from his band, Snarky Puppy, Mark Lettieri exhibits the finesse, funk, and fury that make him such a great player. Here, he jams on…

Selmer Modele Jazz and Stimer M.10 Amp

Electricfying Early Jazz

In the 1930s, the quest for volume was the Holy Grail of guitar construction, as guitarists sought instruments to slice through the sound and fury of a jazz band. And…

Dan’s Guitar RX: Finding An Old Friend

What Goes Around…

I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I learned to play guitar during the folk boom that, for me, started with the Kingston Trio in 1959; their music led…

National Westwood and Glenwood

'60s alt-materials make short run

Westwood 75 While the mantra for 21st century “alternative material” guitars focuses on carbon fiber (i.e. Rainsong acoustics) and wood/glass/carbon fiber/epoxy composites (i.e. Ken Parker’s Fly line), electric guitars made…