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…

Billed as “the latest orchestral sensation… unparalleled for versatility,” Vega’s electric banjos – developed to compete with one being made…
The Secret's Out!
Like plants, Japanese guitars have an almost secret life of which few people outside are aware. While many Americans in…

Mail-Order Rara Avis
From 1864 through the 1940s, H.A. Weymann and Son, Inc. made, imported, and sold marching band, orchestral, percussion, and other…

This 1958 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 four-string tenor guitar is a very rare variation of the model. Gretsch built other…

Beach Party
Collectors know well the desirability of Epiphone guitars from the years after Gibson acquired the brand. Further off the radar, however, are the amplifiers that accompanied them – especially the…

In the mid 1960s, England’s Vox company was in the right place at the right time. Buoyed by frontline British Invasion endorsers such as the Beatles and American bands such…
On a Tangent In Its Time
Precision Bass has been offered in a myriad of models in its 50 years of existense, including a number of “reissues.” One of the more intriguing variants was the Elite…

Silver Serenade
Amplifier collectors swarm to models with descriptors like “first year” and “golden age,” but other types can be far more interesting; a transitional model or amp from a short-lived evolutionary…

Wooden Wonder
For a decade, Willie Nelson chased fame as a performer in the Nashville mold of the ’60s – hair coifed, striding to center stage at the Grand Ole Opry in…

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…

John Entwistle’s fretless ’78 Wal
Wal began building electric basses in the early 1970s as a collaboration between Englishmen Pete Stevens and Ian Waller. Their…

Texas Two Step
Fascinating also-rans, C-list classics, or both, the amps manufactured by London-based Dallas Music Ltd beginning in 1959 tie directly to…

Cliff Antone’s 1952 Fender Precision
Texas is known for music, especially Austin, which in the mid ’70s became a hotbed thanks to clubs like Armadillo…

Un-Unplugged
For years, one of the most common jobs I’ve been asked to do is put a pickup in an acoustic…

1962 6G2 Fender Princeton Preamp tubes: One 7025, one 12AX7 Output tubes: two 6V6GT in fixed bias Rectifier: 5Y3 Controls: Volume, Tone, Speed, Intensity Speaker: one 10” Oxford 10J4 Output:…

Anyone with a taste for real country music – in particular, Western swing – will recognize this guitar. Even though Asleep At The Wheel leader Ray Benson quit using this…

Blues and Archtops
If you grew up listening to music in the ’70s, you probably associate the name J. Geils with a five-piece band that played raucous rock and roll to hip-shaking partiers.…

Unlocking the Mystery
It was 1983, and Gibson was in the throes of its darkest days. Norlin Industries had incurred excessive debt, sales were down, and the Gibson name for sale. Amidst the…
Though today they are viewed as little more than curious relics of a lost era, during the Great Depression, “mother of toilet seat” Hawaiian lap steels were one of the…

From 1932 to 1964, independent builder John D’Angelico produced some of the finest jazz guitars. After apprenticing and working in the violin trade, D’Angelico transitioned to building archtop guitars with…
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…

It was a moment when the angels did sing. Wanting to chat with his de facto big brother, one fateful…

Molten Mojo, Head-To-Head Vintage Versus Reissue
In the good ol’ days of 1952, jazzmeister Les Paul strutted to the center of the world’s stage and proudly…

Virtuoso take on “Greenspace” Stepping out from his band, Snarky Puppy, Mark Lettieri exhibits the finesse, funk, and fury that…

In the world of vintage guitars, people tend to use the words “blond” and “natural” interchangeably to describe a finish…