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…
Most Bizarre Guitar Effect of All Time?
Led Zeppelin’s final studio album, 1979’s In Through The Out Door, opens with an eerie, otherworldly drone that weaves and…

1945-2006
Although by most estimates he produced fewer than 100 Trainwreck amps, Ken Fischer – tech, designer, and amp-maker – will…

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…

AMP-O-RAMA
The Vox AC30 grabbed most of the headlines for years, but many tonehounds have come to appreciate the sweet, juicy…

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…

Season 02 Episode 1 VG’s “Buy That Guitar” podcast opens its second season with host Ram Tuli joined by Alan Greenwood, founder and publisher of Vintage Guitar. They discuss the…

This is a regular series of exclusive Vintage Guitar online articles where The Kentucky Headhunters’ Greg Martin looks back on influential albums and other musical moments. As Christmas rapidly approaches,…

Bill Woodward's 1953 Gibson Les Paul
Gravitational heavyweights in our culture, beyond baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie, few things say “American” more than music and road trips. This guitar is symbolic of both. One of…
“Stack-knob” is a catch phrase that for decades has perked the ears of collectors; these relatively rare examples of the earliest Fender Jazz Bass are among the first electric basses…

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…

The Art of Home Recording
VG will equip readers with the knowledge and skill to achieve professional-sounding home recordings. We guide you through the setup…

There’s something about the 3×10 Bandmaster that drives vintage-Fender nuts gaga. Introduced in 1953, it underwent substantial design changes in…

The Axe that Time Forgot
For more than 60 years, aluminum has been used as a component in guitar construction. Exactly whose idea it was…

“Buy That Guitar” podcast with special guest Howie Statland Season 01 Episode 10 In Episode 10 of VG’s “Buy That…

1945-2006
Although by most estimates he produced fewer than 100 Trainwreck amps, Ken Fischer – tech, designer, and amp-maker – will be remembered as one of the most authoritative and intuitive…

Dream Baby
One of the most-desirable vintage amplifiers ever made goes by a name it never officially had. Possibly the first Marshall brought to America, ownership by the great Roy Orbison adds…

The hokey, amphetamine-tempo’d folk music known as “skiffle” was all the rage with Britain’s youth in 1955, and rock and roll barely yet a glimmer in the collective eye, when…

Melding garage rock with glam, punk emerged in the early ’70s, set on stirring society’s pot. From New York to London, Dallas to Detroit, youthful contempt spurred the creation of…

January, 1950: 27-year-old Sam Phillips opens Memphis Recording Service, soon to become famous as Sun Studio and launching rock and roll with the 1951 Jackie Brenston-Ike Turner ode to an…

The hokey, amphetamine-tempo’d folk music known as “skiffle” was all the rage with Britain’s youth in 1955, and rock and roll barely yet a glimmer in the collective eye, when…
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…

An Ever-Changing Landscape
Fretted instruments can be examined in much the same way as zoological taxonomist or forensic pathologist would approach them. They…

The name “Johnny Smith” is synonymous with class, elegance, and style. Most guitar players are familiar, if not with the…

Fenton Robinson’s Gibson ES-225
Kevin Ludwig first became aware of Fenton Robinson in 1975, when he heard Boz Scaggs’ version of “Somebody Loan Me…

High-/Low-Tech
In guitar history, irony is almost always the result of circumstances. The market changes overnight or someone makes a mistake…