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Classic Instruments
The story of the Martin F-50
Our friend Nate Westgor from Willie’s American Guitars shares the story of Martin’s first step into the booming 1960s electric guitar market. Enjoy, and have a wonderful holiday season from all of us at Vintage Guitar!
Selmer Modele Jazz and Stimer M.10 Amp
Electricfying Early Jazz
In the 1930s, the quest for volume was the Holy Grail of guitar construction, as guitarists sought instruments to slice through the sound and fury of a jazz band. And…
Mossman Guitars
Triumph over Tragedy
The story of Mossman guitars is one of both tragedy and triumph. Often forgotten in the rejuvenated interest with acoustic guitars of the 1990s, Mossmans are best known for their…
Guitar Picks
The Fine Art of Pick Collecting
“You’re collecting guitar picks!? Is this a joke?” I can’t recall how often I’ve been accosted with this query. At this point I pull from my pocket (and how often…
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Veillette-Citron Shark
It’s not often a guitar can be said to have been inspired by a TV show, but that is the case with this 1982 Veillette-Citron Shark, which came about as a result of the success of the program “Welcome Back Kotter.” Well, in a pretty roundabout way, that is! Veillette-Citron guitars were the product of…
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Tommy Castro
Circling Back
In a career spanning four decades, Tommy Castro has crafted a commendable catalog and built a devout following with his soul-infused music, informed by the blues, R&B, pop, and rock and delivered with conviction. Beloved for his guitar work and vocal style, he has carved his own niche. Born and raised in San Jose, California,…
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Classics: Tommy Castro’s ’66 Fender Stratocaster
Tommy Castro has never been much for sitting with a guitar teacher, preferring instead to rely on good ol’ time in the saddle to hone his craft. But this 1966 Stratocaster has taught him a couple lessons. The guitar entered Castro’s universe in the hands of San Francisco music legend John Newton – known on…
Audiovox and Serenader Amps
An Interview with Bud Tutmarc
Introduction With this month’s feature story on the Audiovox bass (page 80), plus a comparison between Audiovox pickup (page 81) and early Dobro pickups, it seems appropriate to also dedicate…
1939-’42 Gibson SJ-100
$100 Cowboy Flat-Top
Through the 1910s and early ’20s, Gibson catalogs denigrated flat-top guitars as inferior, unworthy of the company name. But that tune changed in 1926, when it introduced the L-1 and…
1934 Martin 12-fret D-28
1934 Martin 12-Fret D-28. Photo courtesy Daniel Salvo. The Martin D-28 was first issued in 1931. And all dreadnought Martins made from 1931 through ’33 featured a 12-fret (a reference…
Star Board: Joe Moss
Joe Moss is the archetypical blues “road dog,” regularly rolling out of his home base of Chicago to wail for crowds in venues ranging from clubs to festivals around the…
Fender Headless Bass
Forgotten Prototype
Reflecting back through my years in the guitar industry, much of my time has been spent in product development, prototyping, and the making of specialty guitars. In recent years, quite…
Dave Amato
Collect 'Em and Smile
This year marks Boston-born Dave Amato’s 19th annum with REO Speedwagon. The guitarist moved to California in 1980 and became a working session player before gigging with Ted Nugent, Jimmy…
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Classics: Arena-Rock Alternative Amps
Mad Maxed
As rock started hitting the big time in the mid ’60s, it became clear to guitar-amplifier manufacturers that 100 watts or more was the way to go. The best approach to big power, however, would follow several paths. The stories of the high-powered amps introduced by Fender, Marshall, and Vox through the ’60s have been…
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Vivi-Tone “Skeleton
A Master’s Magnificent Misfire
The eternal question “Who invented the electric guitar?” has no single answer. By the late 1920s, many players, tinkerers, and inventors were exploring ways to get more volume from fretted instruments. Steel-string flat-tops from Martin, f-hole archtops from Gibson, and metal-bodied resonators from National were louder than their predecessors, but ran up against physical limits.…
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Zac Schulze gets straight to it!
If you’re a fan of Cream, Zeppelin, and Rory Gallagher (who isn’t?), you’ll dig Zac Schulze Gang, a British power trio that’s carrying the torch with both hands; they’ve played Clapton’s Crossroads and the Rory Gallagher Tribute Fest. Here, Zac flies solo on “High Roller,” tearin’ it up on his ’54 Guild Aristocrat M75 through…
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Jon Butcher’s psychedelia mastery
Jon Butcher tales his Olympic White ’63 Strat for a rip on “Jam,” a track from his new album, “Nuthin’ but Soul.” The disc is an homage to sounds of Motown, Stax, James Brown, and Sly Stone highlighted by Butcher’s mastery of Hendrix-style psychedelia. It was recorded using a ’63 Princeton, a Vibrolux, and a…
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The Electra Endorser
Flame-top guitars were fairly common during the 1970s “copy era,” but few reached the levels of figure we often see on modern high-end guitars. Then came the Electra Endorser X935CS, which set new standards for psychedelic woodgrain. “But it’s not a ’70s guitar,” you object. No, but arguably, the Endorser CS – which was only…
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Webb Wilder’s take on “Beautiful Delilah”
“Hillbilly Speedball” sample Since the mid ’80s, Webb Wilder has cranked out consistently fine roots-rock. His latest is “Hillbilly Speedball,” and here he grabs his ’61 Gibson ES-330TD plugged into a narrow-panel Fender Vibrolux to play a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Beautiful Delilah.” He’s joined by George Bradfute (on a ’50s Epiphone upright) and Bob…
Brennen Leigh’s Heart-Tugging Honky-Tonk
Shades of Norman Blake and Dolly Parton A student of the “Carter Scratch” guitar technique – melody on the low strings, rhythm on the high – Brennen Leigh plays and…
VG Q&A: ’71 Mahogany Precision?
Plus, a ’60s Conrad 12-String and Converting a ’65 ES-345TD-SV to Mono
I have a Fender Precision Bass with a 1971 neck date and serial number 296XXX, and I’ve always suspected the body was mahogany rather than the typical ash or alder.…
Carvin DN640K
Doubleneck instruments have always been a unique niche in the guitar market, for good reason. They’ve also carried an air of superiority or the insinuation that they were intended for…
’62 Les Paul Rarity
In its early years, the Gibson Les Paul Custom evolved through several body-style and spec changes and was the earliest Gibson solidbody to have a Tune-O-Matic bridge and stop tailpiece;…
Rosewood Dobro
In the 1930s, the original Dobro company went through a series of ownership changes and licensing agreements. It did not regularly publish catalogs, and its model numbers were typically also…
Rickenbacker Electro Bass
Photo courtesy George Gruhn. When discussing the origins of the modern electric bass, most typically think of the Gibson Style J mando-bass of the 1910s and ’20s, the Audiovox electric…
Rickenbacker A22
Frying Pan
The Rickenbacker model A22 lap steel was the first commercially available electric guitar. Although it bears the brand name “Rickenbacker,” it was actually the brainchild of George Beauchamp. In the…
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,…
The Birth of Newman Guitars
Newman Guitars was established in Austin, TX in 1977 by Ted Newman Jones. Ted was a pioneer of design and began working for Keith Richards exclusively in late 1971.…
Gibson ES-357
In June of 1984 trucks came to take most of the machines out of Gibson’s historic Kalamazoo, Michigan factory and move them down to Nashville, Tennessee. The End of an…
G&L SC-2
A Tele That's Not…
When is a Tele not a Tele? Well, when it’s a Leo Fender-made SC-2, among other things. This is a neat guitar my favorite repairman, Doug Lawrance, found here in…
The Fender Showman
The Showman
In addition to several significant shifts in style and presentation, for Fender, the transition of the late 1950s into the early ’60s represented a more concerted push into big-amp territory.…
Gibson Tal Farlow
The Tal Farlow is one guitar in a quartet of full-depth Gibson Artists models first cataloged in the early 1960s. Introduced in ’62, it was based on the ES-350 – the…
Fender Precision Bass
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…
Charlie Starr: Open-Tuning Magic on “Azalea”
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…
Fresher Guitars
Fresher Guitars
Epic poetry is great, but all these long treatises on the massive guitar pedigrees of Kay and Aria have made me feel a bit like a Milton scholar, a fate…
Silver Lining
Gibson and the Master Models
Recognized today as visionary, when introduced in 1922, Gibson’s Master Model L-5 and F-5 were expensive to produce and lacked a market. For a time, they placed a considerable burden…
Classics: August 2021
Guild F-20 Troubadour and Dan Armstong Lucite
John Wiley couldn’t have known it then, but when his parents rewarded two years of applying himself to guitar lessons by giving him a brand-new Guild F-20 Troubadour in 1960,…
Martin D-1
Not Your Typical Martin
Over the years, I’ve tried to include instruments in this column that were functional and affordable. Occasionally, we’ve lucked out and found spectacular instruments that offer more than your money’s…
J. Howard Foote Parlor guitar
P.T. Barnum probably didn’t coin the classic modern truism “There’s a sucker born every minute,” even though it does fit well with the Barnum legacy! Most of us know Barnum…
The Ovation Adamas II
What do you get when you cross a helicopter with a Martin dreadnought? Easy answer – Ovation guitars, perhaps the greatest champion of alternative materials in an age when traditional…
