• Classics: Norman Harris

    Classic Instruments

    Classics: Norman Harris

    Rare Pioneer

    As a teenager who just wanted to play music, Norm Harris lived with the reality that he and his band weren’t going to be millionaires anytime soon. So he did what musicians do – side-hustled. But when most were manning the counter at a music shop or serving tables, Harris was up at the crack

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  • Yamaha SA-15

    Yamaha SA-15

    Our perception of Japanese guitars has evolved slowly. At one point, they were cheap toys, at other times imperfect copies, then startling innovations. Perspective encircles the truth. So, how should we perceive the Yamaha SA-15? Japan became interested in guitars in the early 1920s, as some musicians there began to perform what we’d today call…

  • Greg Koch: Gristly “Blues”

    Greg Koch: Gristly “Blues”

    Greg Koch: Gristly “Blues” Greg Koch fearlessly wrings the sort of vibrato that only a Tele will tolerate from his ’53 to play this exclusive version of Freddie King’s “The Stumble” flavored with a bit of delay and running into his Tone King Royalist. Inspired by fan requests, it’s just one of the tracks culled…

Teisco Checkmate 30

Café Culture

December 16, 2023 · Dave Hunter

In a world where the best riffs often come when one is lounging in the family room, sipping espresso and…

Echoplex EP-2 Feature Home Page Vintage Guitar magazine

Echoplex EP-2

February 17, 2015 · Michael Dregni

Sam Phillips didn’t invent tape echo with his mid-’50s recordings of Elvis, but he just as well may have. So…

Brennen Leigh’s Heart-Tugging Honky-Tonk

September 5, 2023 · Vintage Guitar

Shades of Norman Blake and Dolly Parton A student of the “Carter Scratch” guitar technique – melody on the low…

VG Q&A: Odd Dots

Import fretboard markers, and Kay’s Model 1961

April 8, 2024 · Michael Wright

In the mid ’60s, why did some Japanese electric-guitar manufacturers put the marker on the 10th fret rather than the…


The Epiphone Excellente

When Gibson acquired Epiphone in 1957, the plan was to introduce a new line of Epis that would be made in the Gibson factory but designed to be slightly less…

Recording Acoustic Guitars

The Art of Home Recording

Recording an acoustic guitar is very different from recording an electric, employing different microphones, placement, and technique. Here are a few essential steps.

Vox AC100

Scream Machine

The history of Vox amplifiers’ evolution through the early/mid-’60s directly tracks with The Beatles’ increasing needs to be heard over the screams of fanatical audiences. Simultaneously, the arrival of the…

Marcus King

Swamp Guide

Marcus King is a guitar slingin’ powerhouse barnstormer. Unlike most contemporary pop music – heavy on production, low on everything else – King’s new album, Young Blood, propels music fans…

The Koch Studiotone

No-Sweat Double-Duty

Koch Amplifier’s 20-watt Studiotone uses an all-tube circuit powered by a matched pair of Ruby EL84 tubes producing 20 watts and three 12AX7A preamp tubes. The Studiotone’s lightweight, compact (19…

  • Hilary Gardner returns with a fresh take on a holiday classic!

    Hilary Gardner returns with a fresh take on a holiday classic!

    Hilary Gardner returns! Ready to set the tone for your holidays, Hilary Gardner and her band return for a fantastic take on the classic Elvis hit “Blue Christmas” (written by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson) just for VG followers! Accompanied again by Justin Poindexter and Sasha Papernik, this time they’re joined by Jen Hodge on…

  • The (Way) Back Beat: Top O’ The Line, For Only $150!

    The (Way) Back Beat: Top O’ The Line, For Only $150!

    The Immortal Danelectro Guitarlin

    Having looked at the most expensive electric guitars offered in 1960s – over 50 years ago. Traditional makers – Gibson, Guild, and Gretsch – concentrated on flashy amplified archtops that retailed up into the $700 to $800 range – beautiful instruments, but not representative of where the electric guitar was going. More forward-looking makers offered…

The Airline GIM 9151A

After The Fall

October 13, 2021 · Dave Hunter

1970 Montgomery Ward Airline GIM 9151A Preamp tubes: three 12AX7 Output tubes: four 6L6GC Rectifier: solid-state Controls: Volume, Treble, Bass…

GRETSCHBURST-HOME-MAIN-BIG

Horses of Another Color

March 7, 2014 · Edward Ball

1) This ’57, from batch 253xx, has the added intrigue of a gold G-cutout tailpiece in place of the Bigsby…

Gibson’s Style O Artist Guitar and K-4 Mandocello

Gibson’s Style O Artist Guitar and K-4 Mandocello

Two For the Scroll

February 9, 2016 · George Gruhn

The mandolin originated in the Middle East as a bowl-back instrument. Crusaders brought it back to Europe and early Italian…

Wes Beech

Life in The Plasmatics

October 29, 2025 · Ward Meeker

From the moment he met Rod Swenson and Wendy O. Williams, things for Wes Beech were never really “normal.” Walking…


Fender’s First Reissues

The CBS Era Concludes in Style

By the late 1970s, cumulative changes in the details of the various classic guitar models on the market – Fender’s Stratocaster and Telecaster, and Gibson’s Les Paul – were so…

Beat Portraits: Burns Volume 9

Late ’60s: Baldwin And Decline

In early 2009, VG columnist Peter Stuart Kohman turned his focus on Burns, the pioneering British guitar builder. We’ve compiled installments 9, 10, and 11 for this special edition of…

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…

Gibson EDS-1275 and EMS-1235

It’s hard not to associate doubleneck electric guitars with images of Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page or fusion guru Mahavishnu John McLaughlin in the ’70s; however, the fact is that by…

Rosewood Dobro

Rosewood Dobro

In the 1930s, the original Dobro company went through a series of ownership changes and licensing agreements. It did not regularly publish catalogs, and its model numbers were typically also…

Epiphone Riviera

The Epiphone Riviera helped reinvent Epiphone in the 1960s as a modern guitar company whose instruments sported such contemporary features as thinline, semi-hollow, double-cutaway bodies and humbucking pickups. In the…

  • McKinley James’ Blues

    McKinley James’ Blues

     Family Barn Jam! With his ’82 Gibson 335 running into a Headstrong Corduroy (20-watt/6V6) amp, McKinley James shares a taste of his new album, “Working Class Blues,” with this run at “Call Me Lonesome.” In the October issue, he tells us how the album was made in the family barn with the only backing…

  • Jim Campilongo & Steve Cardenas

    Jim Campilongo & Steve Cardenas

    Mutual Musical Idiosyncrasies

    Steve Cardenas and Jim Campilongo have been playing guitar together for a long time, though the constellations only recently aligned so they could record. Captured on three nights in September of 2022, New Year showcases harmonic personalities merging through atmosphere, reverb, and ancient acoustic guitars. It’s also a meditation on the beauty and strength of…

Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams: Funky Syncopation

July 29, 2024 · Vintage Guitar

Fine pickin’ on “The Way You Make Me Feel” Husband-and-wife team Martin D-18, while Teresa comps on an Emmylou Harris…

Martin Elegant, a.k.a. “Lula”

December 29, 2014 · George Gruhn

It’s an extraordinarily rare event to find a high-grade, historically significant mid-1800s guitar in a pawn shop, but that is…

Gibson Johnny Smith

June 29, 2015 · George Gruhn

In 1961, Gibson’s Johnny Smith model not only associated Gibson with one of the most popular guitar stylists of the…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Larry Wexer

August 20, 2024 · Vintage Guitar

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Larry Wexer Season 01 Episode 07 In Episode 7 of “Buy That Guitar,”…