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Super PickupGiveaway 2025
Win Big! 11 Sets! 11 Winners! Win a set of pickups from one of these sponsors: Deadline is March 15, 2026. Complete the survey below to enter giveaway. One entry…
1944 Martin 00-28
This Martin 00-28 is a highly unusual instrument. Made as part of a group of six created with shop-order number…
Nancy Wilson
Beautifully Unbroken
Responsible for guitar-laden classics such as “Crazy On You,” “Love Alive,” and “Devil Delight,” Nancy Wilson has been inspiring musicians…
Martin D-42 Modern Deluxe
Boom Box
Martin’s new Modern Deluxe line offers a tantalizing idea – a traditional-looking/playing premium acoustic, but with high-tech innovations under the…
Freddie King’s ’73 ES-355
Thinline Crown
Influenced by Robert Johnson, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, and others including jump-blues…
Birthright: A Black Roots Music Compendium
Various artists
This double-CD’s 40 tracks represent a wide swath of black roots music, from zydeco to gospel, from a Mississippi fife-and-drum…
Tim Lerch
Tele Jazz Master
If you watch any of Tim Lerch’s videos online, his virtuosity is immediately apparent. What may throw you is his…
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Rickenbacker’s Electric 12-Strings
Double-bound for Glory
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,…
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ARTISTS
Rodrigo Sanchez
Cuban Orchestra Helps Create Area 52
Rodrigo Sanchez is one half of the fiery acoustic duo known as Rodrigo Y Gabriela. They have evolved from a…
Richard Williams
Kansas’ Team Player
Unleashing pent-up creativity is a gratifying experience for a band, as Kansas guitarist Richard Williams can attest. The band known…
Pop ’N Hiss: UFO’s Lights Out
Shining Bright
Most critics and fans agree that the finest studio album by British hard-rockers UFO was 1977’s Lights Out. The group’s…
Jon Butcher
Beyond the Axis
One of the most-influential guitarists to emerge from Boston, Jon Butcher has just released his 14th album, 2Roads East. We…
CLASSIC INSTRUMENTS
Classics: Norman Harris
Rare Pioneer
As a teenager who just wanted to play music, Norm Harris lived with the reality that he and his band…
The Thompson Tremor Bender
Big Bend
Longtime musician and professional tool-and-die maker Don Thompson recently introduced the Tremor Bender, a retrofit stringbending device for most Fender-…
Alternative ’60s Club Classics
Amps Beyond the Everyday
The “club amp” has been a perpetual best-seller since the dawn of guitar amplification, and several big-name ’60s models are…
Three Small Tweeds
Fender Princeton, Deluxe, and Tremolux
From 1954 through ’59, the Fender Electric Instrument Mfg. Co. built guitar amplifiers with controls mounted atop using “chickenhead” knobs…
NEWSWIRE
APPROVED GEAR
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Live Wire
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Narrow(field) Win
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Take Flight
Garage Guru
The Epiphone Crestwood
The original Epiphone Crestwood was built at Gibson’s Kalamazoo factory, alongside Les Pauls and other ’50s classics. A double-cut solid-body,…
Analog Man’s King of Tone Overdrive
Holiest of Holies
Amid this golden age of music gear, the Analog Man King of Tone Overdrive, first produced in 2005 in collaboration…
Carvin Steve Vai Legacy 3 VL300
The Legend Continues
Carvin Steve Vai Legacy 3 VL300 Price: $899 Info: www.carvin.com. For more than 13 years, Steve Vai has been collaborating…
SynapticGroove Snapperhead OD/Distortion
Dirty Deeds
With their first offering, Benjamin Harrison and Chrystal Gilles of SynapticGroove set out to fill the gap between heavy effects…
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
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More Personal
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Rare Pioneer
Premier Twin 12
Sometimes it takes just the slightest aesthetic twist to get an amp nut all worked up. This 1960 Premier Twin…
Gretsch’s “Golden” Tenors
In the 1950s and early ’60s, the electric guitar was establishing itself as a key part of the new voice…
Cliff Goodwin, Solo
Joe Cocker alum plays “Leap of Faith,” Cliff Goodwin was Joe Cocker’s guitarist for a decade and has also backed…
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…
