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…

A Bakersfield/Brooklyn Cowboy
In the history of vintage guitars, Gretsch and Mosrite are sometimes linked, and often associated with ’50s hot-country pickers and…

Season 03 Episode 03 In Episode 3.3 of “Buy That Guitar,” host Ram Tuli is joined by Redd Volkaert, one of…

Whether Valco – the company that made National guitars in the 1950s and ’60s – was actually inspired by U.S.…

Tugging At Your Heartstrings
Here’s a story that has “Hollywood blockbuster” written all over it. It’s got so many cinematic staples, you can almost…

1) This ’57, from batch 253xx, has the added intrigue of a gold G-cutout tailpiece in place of the Bigsby vibrato. In addition to the standard Amber Red stain on…

The Martin style 5-18 is the smallest guitar in Martin catalogs; at the lower bout, it measures 11.25″, while at the upper bout it is 8.25″. And its body is…
…Revealed!
The Gretsch company rose to the upper echelon of guitar manufacturers in the 1950s with the introduction of a diverse and dynamic array of electric models. Arguably the most identifiable…

Masterful Tapestry Soak it in as Jussi Jaakonaho and his 1970 Gibson SG Standard jam on ”Beauty Box” through a late-’60s Gibson Falcon amp with tremolo and spring reverb. He…

Contrasting Chronologies
Just a handful of years after Peavey turned the world of electric guitar upside-down with its T-60 guitar and T-40 bass, the company was feeling its oats. While the T…

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…

10 Strings, Lap-Style
Lap-steel guitars were the first commercially available electrics – ancestors of the guitars we plug in today, regardless of their…

Right Ideas, Wrong Era
The antennae of many guitar collectors/enthusiasts pop up when they encounter a Gibson-made instrument bearing a six-digit serial number with…

Tribute licks Kentucky Headhunters co-founder Greg Martin was a senior in high school when he first heard the Allman Brothers…

Family Ties
Watching her baby boy become rapt whenever his grandma played country blues on her guitar, Ella May King had a…

Brief Flight from South of Bakersfield
Bob Shade exemplifies the adage “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” The guitar builder has an enviable assortment of ’60s Hallmark guitars and basses, and they’ve inspired his own…

The acoustic Hawaiian guitar of Hermann Weissenborn is one of the most specialized instrument designs of the 20th century. Weissenborns were made for guitarists who played the newest craze of…

A New Dimension in Electro-Thoracity
When Steppenwolf’s John Kay took the stage, it was easy to believe he was performing a suitably ’60s ceremony celebrating the wine god Bacchus, thanks to what looked like a…

Guitars at Heart for 30 Years
Remember the first time you strummed a D chord or fumbled your way oh-so-slowly through “Walk Don’t Run”? Chances are you wanted to be in the Beatles, or you wanted…

Italian Connection
An internet search for “Rex guitars” will turn up a fair – if confusing – amount of information about the brand used on budget guitars and banjos made by Gretsch…

Ear-to-Ear Violence
Today, the Rolling Stones continue to perform live, more than 50 years since their first gig. But few realize how an unsung side project formed and funded by Ron Wood…
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…

The 1,164 archtop guitars made by John D’Angelico have brought him great renown as the finest individual archtop guitar builder…
Throughout most of the 1970s, Les Pauls ruled the guitar roost. But toward the end of the decade, some players became…

Bill Fudge’s Micro-Frets Huntington
Several years before he became a luthier who deserves much greater recognition, Ralph Jones sold new Fender guitars and amps…

Import fretboard markers, and Kay’s Model 1961
In the mid ’60s, why did some Japanese electric-guitar manufacturers put the marker on the 10th fret rather than the…