• Classic Instruments

     Jason Isbell

    New Vistas, Old Gear

    Jason Isbell’s powerful songs, compelling vocals, and formidable guitar skills have made him one of America’s most-respected singer/songwriters. A charismatic performer, his critically-lauded albums, solo and backed by the formidable 400 Unit, have earned six Grammys and nine Americana Music Awards. With an eclectic style melding country, blues, and Southern rock, his appeal transcends genres.

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Beat Portraits: Burns Volume 3

Backbone Instruments 1962-’64

In early 2009, VG columnist Peter Stuart Kohman turned his focus on Burns, the pioneering British guitar builder. We’ve compiled the first three installments for a special edition of VG…

Dobro Model 27

Brother Oswald's Dobro – Country Music History Maker

The melodic, evocative warbling of a resonator guitar has for decades been a fixture in country music, and knowledgeable fans will tell you there’s one primary individual to thank for…

Fender Jazzmaster

Caught in the Surf

A 1965 Fender Jazzmaster in Surf Green. Photo: VG Archive. In the midst of its scramble to compete with Fender by developing the radical Flying V and Explorer guitars, Gibson likely…

Park 45

Masked Marshall

When is a Marshall not a Marshall? When it’s a Park, of course! Though it might not scream “classic rock tone” for the guitarist masses, in the eyes and ears…

Harmony H27

Fancier Than You May Think

“The H27 was fanciest semi-hollow bass ever offered by Harmony.” During the guitar boom of the 1960s, the Chicago-based Harmony company struggled to keep up with the demand for instruments…

Hilary Gardner’s jazz/country connection

Classic sounds on “Silver on the Sage” Hilary Gardner and her band are devout fans of classic cowboy (and other types of) songs that they deliver with intimate arrangements. Here,…

The Story of Nudie’s Mosrite Mandolin

In the mid 1970s, Kosmo and Kathy Cominos collected knives, jukeboxes, wristwatches, etc… But their favorite finds were celebrity-associated musical instruments like this unique Mosrite mandolin, built for Nudie Cohn,…

Kid Ramos’ Revelation!

West Coast legend melds blues with gospel Check out Kid Ramos using a ’56 Harmony H62 running through a vintage Fender reverb tank and a Pro Junior to play an…

Gibson 1938 Electric Bass

Likely The First!

Gibson 1938 Electric Bass This interesting piece of fretted Americana can be appreciated by any vintage instrument aficionado – particularly bassists – as it was probably the first instrument of…

Gibson M-III Standard

Missing the Mark(et)

Gibson’s bread and butter has long been tried-and-true designs that represent remarkable innovations – even if they date back to the 1950s. This is testament to how good those innovations…

John Oates’ Prized Guild F-30

Roots Return

Most people know Hall & Oates as a pop-music hit machine that has sold millions of records. What you may not know is that John Oates is a lifetime student…

Jeff “Skunk” Baxter

License To Thrill

To a generation of music fans, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter was one of the most recognizable guitarists of the early ’70s. On TV shows like “Midnight Special” and “American Bandstand,” he…

Gibson Post-WWII

Amps

Introduction In its first 40 years of corporate rule, Orville Gibson’s lutherie developed into a manufacturing giant, expanding to meet the needs of mandolin orchestras popular before World War I,…

Mick Taylor’s ’58 Les Paul Standard

The Ya Ya’s Out!

Hard-edged face of the British Invasion, the Rolling Stones introduced the world to the implements, trappings, and accessories of rock-and-roll superstardom. With help from radio, television, and teen ’zines, the…

Classics: November 2021

Gibson Les Paul Personal

Billy Soutar loves the vibe of his 1969 Les Paul Personal and matching LP-12 amp. While the guitar’s mahogany body, Les Paul Custom touches, three-piece quartersawn neck, and Fretless Wonder…

Fender’s 6G9 Tremolux

Fender’s 6G9 Tremolux

Preamp tubes: two 7025, two 12AX7 Output tubes: two 6BQ5/EL84 Rectifier: GZ34 Controls: Bright channel: Volume, Treble, Bass; Normal channel: Volume, Treble, Bass; tremolo Speed and Intensity for both channels…

The ViVi-Tone Aggrandizer

The ViVi-Tone Aggrandizer

• Preamp tubes: 6C5, 6F5 • Output tubes: two 6B5 • Rectifier: 80 • Controls: Volume, on/off switch • Speaker: 10″ field coil • Output: barely scraping double digits… if…

Gibson J-200 Rosewood

The Gibson company was founded on the belief that carved-top guitars were superior to flat-top designs, and consequently, Gibson was a reluctant entrant in the rising flat-top market of the…

Fender Precision Bass

The “Final” Configuration

The Fender Precision Bass was the first commercially successful solidbody electric bass. Played somewhat like a guitar and sporting a fretted neck, the “P-Bass” won over players in almost every…

Cry, Baby!

The Story of the Vox Wah

Beyond being crowned “Album of the Century” by Time magazine, Marley and the Wailers’ 1977 LP Exodus is a wah-wah masterpiece thanks to Junior Marvin and his Thomas Organ Cry…

Dean DeLeo and Tom Bukovac unite on the trip the witch

Cosmic Convergence

At a glance, there’s little reason to connect a guitarist like Dean DeLeo to one like Tom Bukovac. One is ’90s-rock royalty, the other a modern-day Nashville studio legend. Strange…

Jay Geils

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.…

The Travis Bean TB1000S Standard

A Better Idea

Guitar history is littered with “better ideas,” some of which stayed around, went nowhere, or went somewhere before landing in the boneyard to be occasionally reincarnated. A great example is…

Dan’s Guitar RX: Adding Master Volume to a Les Paul

Plus One

My friend Alex Aguilar recently asked me to do something most guitarists would consider sacrilegious – add a Master Volume pot to a Les Paul, and put it in easy…

Maestro GA-45T

AMP-O-RAMA

Until just a couple years ago, Fender really was the only major name in collectible vintage American-made tube guitar amplifiers. Sure, Magnatone, Standel, Danelectro/Silvertone, Supro and the other Valco-made amps…

Gibson Mark 53

1978 Gibson Mark 53. Photo: Michael Wright. Part of the fallout from the guitar boom of the 1960s was an increased academic interest in guitars that manifested itself in the…

Eko’s “Celluloid” ’60s Basses

Cool or Gaudy?

By the early 1960s, Europe’s industrial bases had mostly recovered from World War II. Many musical-instrument manufacturers stuck to products popular in their respective countries, but some were innovating, especially…

Fender Telecaster, Part II

Go Tele It On the Mountain, Part II

Given the simplicity of its design, it’s truly remarkable how much staying power the revolutionary Telecaster has exhibited in the half-century since its introduction. Especially for a slab of wood…

Fender AA964 Princeton

What’s (Not) in a Name

Getting the job done – five simple knobs on the Princeton’s control panel. 1966 Fender Princeton • Preamp tubes: one 7025, one 12AX7 • Output tubes: two 6V6GT • Rectifier:…

Antique Guitar Amps 1928-1934

Which came first – electric guitar or amp?

The influence and restraints of technology on amplifying the guitar Let’s pretend for a moment that former Gibson historian Julius Bellson misinterpreted stories of Lloyd Loar’s experiments with electrified instruments…