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…

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…

The Epiphone Emperor has a long, convoluted history. It first appeared in Epiphone’s catalog in late 1935 as a response…

Silver Service
For most guitarists today, glimpsing a vintage Rickenbacker combo elicits a response like, “Wait… Rickenbacker made amps?” But remember,…

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…
Have you heard the line, “If Hendrix had a Magnatone, Strats would be worth $200 now?” A highly debatable proposition, for sure! But if Paul McCartney had not used a…

Key Collection: Nashville pro Dave Gant fosters an impressive gathering of amps
Dave Gant grew up in Ada, Oklahoma, and while the city of 17,000 will never be confused with Memphis or Nashville in terms of musical impact, it is the birthplace…

Blackberry Smoke frontman on a vintage Gibson Enjoy a bit of the supremely tasty “Azalea,” played by Charlie Starr and his ’55 Gibson J-45. It’s just one of the great…

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…
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…

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…

= Few things are as satisfying as a guitar with a good story to tell. Some vintage guitars might be…

The mid 1970s were a turbulent time in guitar history. The American guitar establishment – at least Gibson and Fender…

Dream Baby
One of the most-desirable vintage amplifiers ever made goes by a name it never officially had. Possibly the first Marshall…

Trans-Galactic Toneway
Relatively unsung among early entrants to the field of solid-state guitar amplifiers, Gibson was the first high-output, high-quality manufacturer to…

Instro-rock, fully greased Get ready to have your funtime socks knocked off, ‘cuz this exclusive Nick Moss run through “Scratch N Sniff” is dangerous! A track from his latest album,…

The Fender Precision Bass, introduced in 1951, was arguably more revolutionary and more influential on popular music than the Telecaster or Stratocaster. As the first commercially successful electric bass, it…

Stand-Up Steel
Born in Northern California in 1920, Walt Smith took piano lessons and became a child prodigy on several instruments before developing a love of big-band music and Western swing. Chasing…

By the advent of the solidbody electric guitar in the 1950s, tenor guitarists were a dying breed. Consequently, electric tenors are relatively rare, and a tenor guitar made by solidbody…

Force Commander
Any player who shows up these days with a 200-watt guitar amp will elicit a hearty, “Are you out of your mind?” But when the Marshall Major came along 50…

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 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…

When an instrument maintains the same basic design and profile for more than a half-century, it’s safe to say that…

From the origins of country-rock to Jimmy Page, Metallica, and a slew of modern country-pickin’ wizards, the string bender lends…
…Revealed!
The Gretsch company rose to the upper echelon of guitar manufacturers in the 1950s with the introduction of a diverse…

Fine pickin’ on “The Way You Make Me Feel” Husband-and-wife team Martin D-18, while Teresa comps on an Emmylou Harris…