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

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 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…

Tonally TransAtlantic
After giving the upstart Fender a run for its money in the amplifier department throughout the 1950s, Gibson segued into…

A Return to Glory for “Jerry”
In 1977, I was doing guitar repair in Big Rapids, Michigan, and my services included picking up and delivering repair…

Full, Fat Fuzzzy
Pete Townshend sent many a guitar and amp to an early grave. But there’s no known evidence of him doing…
Ugly, But An Oldy
Blake Burkeholder, a repair expert in my shop, has always wanted a Gretsch. So, when he found a ’56 Duo-Jet…

Scotty Moore’s Gibson ES-295
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…

Collectible value in guitars can be defined any number of ways, and not just by having a popular brand name such as Fender or Gibson. That’s certainly the case with…

Burns Oddities and Ends
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…

What do you get when you cross a helicopter with a Martin dreadnought? Easy answer – Ovation guitars, perhaps the greatest champion of alternative materials in an age when traditional…

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…

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…

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…

Mashed Fender
The owner of a ’62 Jazz Bass recently sent it to my shop for repair and renovation. He’d bought it…
Throughout most of the 1970s, Les Pauls ruled the guitar roost. But toward the end of the decade, some players became…

In Detail
Body is two-piece mahogany. Pickguard mounts to body with 13 screws. Pickups are patent-number humbuckers with chrome-plated covers. Tune-O-Matic bridge…

Sharp-Shooter Special
The iconic “singing cowboy” was created by Hollywood actors like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, and others. Many used…

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…

Classic Ballad Style Country/folk/rock singer/guitarist Dave Murphy wrangled guitarist Chris Tarrow for this take on “Josephine,’ from Dave’s new album, “A Heart So Rare.” Dave is using a U.K.-made…

The exotic figuration of Hawaiian koa wood on this Martin 0-28K from 1923 has a visual appeal that matched the exotic sound of Hawaiian music in the 1920s, and koa…

The Story of Jerry Garcia’s Last Guitars
Steve Cripe left a unique legacy in the annals of music history. He was not a guitar player, not a songwriter. In fact, you may not even know his name.…

Austin Great Goes Full Steam for “Eyes On The Prize” Jake Andrews’ video encore: “Eyes On The Prize” Jake Andrews makes a VG-social-media curtain call by playing “Eyes On The…

Two For the Scroll
The mandolin originated in the Middle East as a bowl-back instrument. Crusaders brought it back to Europe and early Italian builders evolved the design, giving it four paired strings tuned…
A lifelong vintage-guitar nut who has had “a million guitars,” Jeremy Graf’s all-time favorite is this 1961 Stratocaster. A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Graf was just seven when, for reasons he doesn’t remember, he asked for an Elvis Presley record. His mother obliged and brought home Elvis’ Golden Records, a compilation of ’50s hits. “That
In an era when the sub-20-watt combo is arguably the most popular guitar-amp format, it’s worth remembering that several classics of the category emanate from the ’50s. And just as interesting as the well-worn favorites, several lesser-known alternatives were also born in the decade of rock and roll. In the December ’24 issue, we examined
Marc Schoenberger was part of the early-’70s vanguard on the Southern California guitar scene – not as a gigging musician, but among the crowd that raced the 101 freeway to check out old guitars every time a new issue of the Recycler hit the streets. He’d also been repairing guitars for friends and local shops
Despite their catalog-grade status, Supro amps have been used by several noteworthy guitarists. For many, the sturdy Thunderbolt is the preferred workhorse. It’s been a long time since Supro amps were any kind of secret find or hidden gem; players have long recognized the eccentric splendors of certain mid-sized examples, with their thumping tremolo and
George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher founded Electro String in 1931 to manufacture what everyone would soon call “Rickenbacker” guitars. Success came early and their lap steels set standards of quality, performance, and tone. On the other hand, the company’s electric bass viols and violins excited segments of the industry but never sold well. Same for
The word “underrated” is belabored in music journalism, but Joey Molland was just that. As co-guitarist in Badfinger, he was part of a quartet signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records, yielding glorious AM hits like “Come and Get It,” “Day After Day,” and “No Matter What.” The foursome fell into obscurity and tragedy a few

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…

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…

We all recognize that guitars are art, but rarely has the instrument been as consciously approached from this perspective by…

The history of guitar manufacturing in the Bakersfield area of California includes names like Mosrite, Hallmark, and Standel. One of…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Tommie James Season 01 Episode 05 In Episode 5 of “Buy That Guitar,”…

The Epiphone Riviera helped reinvent Epiphone in the 1960s as a modern guitar company whose instruments sported such contemporary features…