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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…
Beat Portraits: Burns Volume 6
1964: Nu-Sonics and Transistor Trials
In early 2009, VG columnist Peter Stuart Kohman turned his focus on Burns, the pioneering British guitar builder. We’ve compiled installments 4, 5, and 6 for this special edition of…
1924 Francisco Simplicio
1924 Francisco Simplicio Francisco Simplicio was one of the most highly regarded Spanish (to be precise, he was Catalan) makers of the first half of the 20th century, being the…
The Fender “Wide-Panel” Twin
While Fender’s high-powered 5F8-A Twin of 1958-’60 (VG, March ’09) has been much raved about in recent years, there’s a lot to be said for a Twin that’s closer to…
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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…
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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…
Carvin Factory Tour
Carvin Does It Different
Imagine a company that builds 600 high-quality guitars and basses per month, with a normal backorder count of 700. “Well, that’s okay…” some guitar enthusiasts might observe, “but some guitar…
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…
Diamond Rio’s Jimmy Olander
Sworn Gunslinger
Grand Ole Opry member, CMA, ACM, and Grammy winner Jimmy Olander is one of the most-admired players in country music. As co-founder of Diamond Rio, his dedication has always been…
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…
The Les Paul Becomes The SG
Double Time
It may be difficult to imagine now, but Gibson’s original Les Paul was only a modest success. Introduced in 1952, the Gibson Les Paul Model (a.k.a. goldtop) reached peak production…
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…
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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…
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Blues guitarist Charlie Apicella’s “Booze and Blues” and “Just Like a Woman”
Honoring B.B., Rainey Being V.P. of the North Jersey Blues Society isn’t the only thing that separates Charlie Apicella from the typical blues player. A devotee of B.B. King (and others), he pays homage on a new album, “Iron City: Live in NYC,” by plugging two of his favorite guitars into the ’65 Guild Thunder…
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Kid Ramos’ Revelation!
West Coast legend melds blues with gospel Check out Kid Ramos using a ’56 Harmony H62 running through a vintage Fender reverb tank and a Pro Junior to play an improv jam. For the biker-curious, that’s his ’67 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide shovelhead “dresser,” which still wears its original paint and a couple of 1950 Cushman…
Instro-Meister Eric Penna
Blues Switch-Up in Trabants Eric Penna’s main gig is playing bass for the garage/surf band Insect Surfers, but he side-hustles playing guitar in the blues-instrumental band Trabants. After corralling bassist…
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…
Gibson ES-357
In June of 1984 trucks came to take most of the machines out of Gibson’s historic Kalamazoo, Michigan factory and move them down to Nashville, Tennessee. The End of an…
The D’Angelico Excel Mandolin
The 1,164 archtop guitars made by John D’Angelico have brought him great renown as the finest individual archtop guitar builder in the history of the instrument. His mandolins, however, are…
Antique Guitar Amps 1928-1934
Which came first – electric guitar or amp?
The influence and restraints of technology on amplifying the guitar Let’s pretend for a moment that former Gibson historian Julius Bellson misinterpreted stories of Lloyd Loar’s experiments with electrified instruments…
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…
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…
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…
Gibson’s Experimental Kessel Prototype
Gibson Barney Kessel Custom model
This is a guitar which for all practical purposes appears to be a Gibson Barney Kessel Custom model, but the label clearly indicates it was made as an experimental prototype.…
Classics – May 2021
This 1940 ES-250 with serial number 96385 left the Gibson factory bound for retailer New York Band on October 25, 1940 – the same day as the first ES-300, which…
The Morley Rotating Wah
Chromed Tone
There was a time in the mythic ’70s when guitarists were real men and lugged around 15-pound Morley Rotating Wah pedals to gigs and studios. And if they weren’t real…
Fender’s Ltd and Montego
Jazz Guitars
The Ltd was introduced as CBS Fender’s entry into the archtop jazz guitar market. It was to be a prestigious example of Fender’s ability to produce a highly crafted, handmade,…
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…
Coral Electric Sitar
For centuries, Indian musicians have utilized the resonant sympathetic strings of the sitar to create the unique sounds of classical Indian music. Traditional sitar design combines a body fashioned from a…
G.L. Stiles Solidbody
Every once in awhile, a guitar comes out of left field. In the case of this solidbody electric labeled “Lee Stiles,” the throw came from West Virginia by way of…
Wandré Modele Karak
We all recognize that guitars are art, but rarely has the instrument been as consciously approached from this perspective by the maker as with the ’60s creations of Wandré Pioli.
Built to Survive
Gibson and Montgomery Ward in the Great Depression
In our nation’s darkest economic times, one of its most-revered guitar manufacturers was treading headlong toward extinction before an unlikely hero started placing big orders.
Boss MA-1
Spice Up a Small Amp
Normally, when you think of an effect pedal, an image of a stompbox comes to mind; one you step on, or one that performs a dramatic effect on the sound…
Six-String Kicks
Wood from Famed Bowling Alley Set to Sing
Few things scratch America’s cumulative itch for nostalgia like Route 66 – the famed wagon-trail-cum-highway that offered passage to those migrating west from Chicago in the mid 19th century, then…
Three Small Tweeds
Fender Princeton, Deluxe, and Tremolux
From 1954 through ’59, the Fender Electric Instrument Mfg. Co. built guitar amplifiers with controls mounted atop using “chickenhead” knobs that go to 12, and covered with “the finest airplane…
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…
