• Webb Wilder’s take on “Beautiful Delilah”

    Classic Instruments

    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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Tyler Morris Features a Martin Style 2 1/2-17

Tyler Morris Playing a Martin Style 2 1/2-17 Tyler Morris grabbed his 19th-century Martin Style 2 1/2-17 to play a medley of 20th-century licks. He also digs into the history…

Fender Mustang

Truly Transitional

Despite its short scale, the Mustang has a potent sound, and as a result it was used by many notable players. Fender’s short-scale Mustang Bass, introduced in 1966, was a…

The Airline GIM 9151A

After The Fall

1970 Montgomery Ward Airline GIM 9151A Preamp tubes: three 12AX7 Output tubes: four 6L6GC Rectifier: solid-state Controls: Volume, Treble, Bass     on each of two channels Output: approximately 40…

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…

The Burke Guitar

The Axe that Time Forgot

For more than 60 years, aluminum has been used as a component in guitar construction. Exactly whose idea it was originally has never been a cut-and-dried matter of fact, but…

JOHNNYSMITH-HOME-MAIN-BIG

The Guild and Gibson Johnny Smith Models

The name “Johnny Smith” is synonymous with class, elegance, and style. Most guitar players are familiar, if not with the man or his music, certainly with the guitars that bear…

Supro Thunderbolt

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!

MIM Hosts Stephen Stills and Ushers in Dragons and Vines Exhibition

On November 5th, Phoenix, Arizona’s Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) celebrated the opening of their newest exhibition, “Dragons and Vines: Inlaid Guitar Masterpieces.” Curators teamed up with Maryland-based Pearl Works to…

Pandemic Peak?

The Guitar Market’s “Covid Surge”

In the September ’20 issue, VG surveyed guitar dealers to learn how they’d been impacted by the early weeks of the Covid 19 pandemic. Times were uncertain, and by March…

Gibson EH-150

An Odd Gibson EH-150

10 Strings, Lap-Style

Lap-steel guitars were the first commercially available electrics – ancestors of the guitars we plug in today, regardless of their shape. The popularity of Hawaiian music in the 1930s had…

Burke Guitar

Axe That Time Forgot

For more than 70 years, aluminum has been a component in guitar construction. Exactly whose idea it was originally has never been a cut-and-dried matter of fact, but it has…

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…

Gibson’s First Reissue Les Pauls

Gibson’s First Reissue Les Pauls

On the Road to ’59

Strings and Things Les Paul Many articles have been written about how guitarists and dealers in the mid/late 1970s and early ’80s were asking Gibson to build a Les Paul…

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…

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.…

'39 Gibson EH-185

’39 Gibson EH-185

Preamp tubes: three 6J7, one 6N7 Output tubes: two 6L6 Rectifier: 5U4 Controls: Instrument Volume, Microphone Volume, Bass and Treble Speakers: one 12″ field-coil speaker Output: approximately 20 watts RMS…

Fender’s 1951-’54 Telecaster

In Detail

Fender’s first Spanish-style guitar was a lesson in functional simplicity with its solid body, single pickup, and bolt-on neck. And it didn’t receive a welcome fit for the legend it…

Sovtek MIG-50

Curtain Call

Given their development in the twilight years of the U.S.S.R. and arrival at the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was a gutsy move to name an amp after a…

Paul Bigsby’s Myrtlewood Guitars

= Few things are as satisfying as a guitar with a good story to tell. Some vintage guitars might be beautiful and/or valuable, but boring as Paris Hilton – the…

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…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Alan Greenwood

Season 02 Episode 1 VG’s “Buy That Guitar” podcast opens its second season with host Ram Tuli joined by Alan Greenwood, founder and publisher of Vintage Guitar. They discuss the…

Electro/Rickenbacher Amps

Pre-WWII Electro/ Rickenbacher Amps

Introduction Experiments at marketing electrified musical instruments and their accompanying amplifiers may have started in the late 1920s, but it wasn’t until the early ’30s that any long term commitments…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Howie Statland

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Howie Statland Season 01 Episode 10 In Episode 10 of VG’s “Buy That Guitar” podcast, host Ram Tuli is joined by Howie Statland…

Gretsch Country Gent #1

The Gretsch Country Gentleman 6122 was the third of four Chet Atkins signature guitar models created for the legendary guitarist in the ’50s. The little-known truth is it was also…

Kendrick 2210

Big things come in small packages

The shipping box reads “Delicate Instrument,” but don’t let that fool you. The Kendrick 2210 is delicate in same way that a surgical scalpel or nitro glycerine are. With explosive…

The Slingerland May Bell

It’s hard to imagine a more poorly “documented” guitar brand than Slinglerland. The company has been around since before World War I and made a lot of guitars and banjos…

Two Legendary Les Paul Deluxes

Southern Gold

In the late 1960s, Gibson reintroduced the single-cutaway Les Paul based on its classic ’50s model. But, a new version called the Deluxe proved the most popular Les Paul of…

Sun Rises Again

Sun Rises Again

January, 1950: 27-year-old Sam Phillips opens Memphis Recording Service, soon to become famous as Sun Studio and launching rock and roll with the 1951 Jackie Brenston-Ike Turner ode to an…

Gibson J-185

The Gibson J-185 Revisited

One of the most-fabled flat-top guitars Gibson ever produced is the Gibson J-185. Introduced in 1951, and discontinued in ’59, only 270 natural-finish and 648 sunburst J-185s were made. Guitarists…

Eko’s “Celluloid” ’60s Basses

Cool or Gaudy?

By the early 1960s, Europe’s industrial bases had mostly recovered from World War II. Many musical-instrument manufacturers stuck to products popular in their respective countries, but some were innovating, especially…