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, Castro was drawn to music as a child, chaperoned by his like-minded brother, Ray.

“He’s six years older than me, and had a bunch of rock-and-roll 45s,” Castro said. “We shared a bedroom, so I heard them a lot. When I was 10, he got a guitar, and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. He formed a garage band in our neighborhood to play teen dances, and I would follow them around.”

The boys’ mother, a hard-working single parent who raised four kids, always supported whatever they pursued, including Tommy’s passion for music.

“Before I had a guitar of my own, every chance I got, I’d pick up Ray’s Chet Atkins Country Gentleman,” Castro recalled. “Being a Beatles guy, he later got a Rickenbacker and a Vox Super Beatle amp.”

As a teen, he caught performances by major rock and soul acts that rolled through – Ike and Tina Turner, Janis Joplin, J. Geils Band, and Tower Of Power, to name a few, and all had an impact. Then, amidst the form’s early-’80s revival, his tastes shifted to blues and the hip local joint, JJ’s Blues, where he caught sets by John Lee Hooker (whose last appearance on a recorded track was for Castro’s 2001 album Guilty of Love), Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Junior Wells.

In 1985, Castro became lead singer and guitarist for a local R&B band called NiteCry, then in ’92 formed the first iteration of the Tommy Castro Band, releasing his first album in ’95. He signed with Alligator Records in 2009 and his first album for the label, Hard Believer, won four Blues Music Awards including Entertainer of the Year (which he repeated in ’23).

In 2012, he assembled the four-piece Tommy Castro & The Painkillers, focused on a high-energy presentation; today, it consists of Mike Emerson on keyboards, longtime bassist Randy McDonald, and drummer Bowen Brown. Closer To The Bone is his seventh album for Alligator, and his first “all blues” disc. Produced by Christoffer “Kid” Andersen at his Greaseland Studios in San Jose, it has 10 covers of tunes written/performed by his heroes, mentors, and friends blending with three originals written or co-written by Castro, as well as one by McDonald.

We talked with Castro while he was enjoying holiday downtime at home, prepping for a return to the road in support of Closer To The Bone, which streets on February 7.

Which of Ray’s records do you remember being especially into?
Whatever the latest thing was. I remember playing Magical Mystery Tour when it had just come out. I was old enough to pay attention to his 45s, which were the hits of the time. I remember getting my first 45 – “The Twist” by Chubby Checker.

Did he teach you to play a few songs on guitar?
Yeah, he showed me songs by The Animals, Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Van Morrison’s band, Them. Eventually, though, I started buying my own albums and they were more blues – Michael Bloomfield, Cream, and stuff like that.

Did you learn to play songs from them?
I did, when I was 14, I heard “I’m Coming Home” by Ten Years After, on the new Woodstock album, and it blew my mind. There was something about that that I couldn’t get enough of; I kept playing it over and over, determined to learn the whole thing. Being a kid who never had lessons or any real teachers, it took a long time, but I pieced it together one hook at time. Once I could play it, I became famous in my neighborhood (laughs).

Do you remember first getting together with others to play?
Yeah, I had a friend who played bass and another who played guitar, and we’d get together at somebody’s house and listen to records and try to figure stuff out. Eventually, a couple drummers came around and we put a band together. We’d play basic stuff like “Mr. Fantasy” for a half an hour (laughs), taking solos and jamming. We’d smoke a little weed and have a beer and just jam, and eventually, we knew a batch of songs. That was a lot of fun.

Did anything come of it?
Not really. I didn’t get serious about playing music until a blues club opened in San Jose and they had jam sessions on Sundays. I’d play whatever I had up my sleeve, a shuffle or a slow song. After a while, it became a scene and I got to know the other musicians. Some of them would hand tapes to me and say, “I like what you’re doing, but you should really be listening to this.” That turned me on to a bunch of great records.

I wound up in NiteCry as a lead singer/second guitar player; René Solis (d. 2010) was the lead player.

Did that make you consider playing as a career?
Well, in the early ’80s, I figured out that there was no job that I liked or wanted other than playing music; it was what I looked forward to every week, and everything else just seemed in the way. I had a long talk with myself about life (laughs) and decided to focus my energy on it. I knew I’d have to move to San Francisco, which had a better scene, so I moved and started getting gigs as a side man. There were a lot of blues happening in San Francisco at the time; Boz Scaggs opened his club, Slim’s, in ’88, and it specialized in blues and roots music. On the radio you were hearing Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and all these blues gigs were available. I joined the Dynatones, which was a touring band and my first professional gig, but I was the guitar player and not the singer. When they were off the road, I’d hire Randy to play bass and we’d do trio gigs with one of the drummers around town. On Monday nights, I’d play with my friend Johnny Nitro and his band. I stayed with the Dynatones for a couple years before starting my own band because I wanted to be the singer and the guitar player.

What was your setup at the time?
I was playing a three-bolt ’70s Strat and a ’65 Super Reverb. I used that until one night when Nitro came to a gig with a black Strat; he kept quite a few guitars in pawn shops because he thought they were safer there than in his apartment – he’d just hold the tickets and get one out when he needed to play it or sell it. He was going to sell the black one, but I after I tried it, I said, “Please sell it to me…” I didn’t have the money, so I told him he’d have to let me buy it on credit (laughs).

What did you like about it?
It felt great in my hands, and it had the tone I was trying to get out of the cream Strat. It had a slightly darker sound from the neck pickup.

What is its neck shape?
A bit thicker, but I really didn’t notice that. I just liked the way it felt and sounded, and it was cool because it had a lot of wear.

Which you’ve added to…
Yeah, well, little did I know that I’d play that guitar (see this month’s “Classics” feature) on my first 10 albums, usually through the Super with no pedals or anything. My secret was running the Volume knob between 8 and 10, Treble in the middle up to about 8, and the Bass on 4. That was a great sound and was my sound for a long time.

What most helped you progress as a guitarist?
Playing a lot, because I’d have to learn songs for whatever kind of gig. That always teaches you a lot. I took very few formal lessons – a few here and there – but they didn’t work for me because they were too much like math. So, most of what I learned was from listening to records and friends. When I decided to take a shot at playing for a living, I practiced a lot, mostly listening to records and creating songs.

You’ve talked about your lack of confidence onstage in the beginning.
Yeah, before I joined the Dynatones, I would stand in one spot and stare at my shoes (laughs). I was focused on playing.

What changed?
Sometimes at a jam, nobody would step up to sing. So I learned a few songs so I could. Also, in the Dynatones, the leader told me, “When you take a solo, I want you to go right up to the front of the stage and play right at the people! Look out and smile.”

I’d never thought of that, but to this day, I do exactly that. I still get nervous, especially at big shows, but I’ve learned to deal with it. Back then, I just really wanted to play music and whatever I had to do, even if I was nervous, scared, uncomfortable, I knew it was part of the deal.

You also pride yourself on making each new record sound unlike one of your previous albums.
Yes, that’s a commitment I’ve made to myself and my fans, and it’s tricky. The new record is another example, even though it’s falling back to traditional blues I’ve played often over the years.

It must help that your influences vary so widely.
Growing up in the Bay Area, we heard a lot about bands like Tower of Power and Sly Stone. In the blues, my influences are a lot of the usuals – B.B. King, Freddie King, Albert King, Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Ray Charles – but I like to think my records are as original as can be. The stuff I listened to as I was trying to find my voice and create my own sound was a combination of blues, roots, rock and roll, soul, and a bit of funk.

I do feel like I have a sound, and the reason the new record is different is I’m digging into the blues without trying to be contemporary at all.

How did you choose songs?
Oh, that was fun! I wanted to find some that were not so obvious. I had a list, and I went to [Alligator Records founder] Bruce Iglauer, who is a blues encyclopedia, and another friend, Dick Shurman, who is a blues historian and produced records with Delmark. They’re two guys who know more about the deep catalog of blues music than anybody else I know personally.

They’re straight blues, urban blues, a country-blues and even one by Brownie McGhee.
Yeah, to be honest, I didn’t know “Hole In The Wall” was Brownie McGhee’s song. I got it from Magic Slim, a Chicago guy who, like a lot of Chicago guys, came from Mississippi, where he and his brothers sang in the church. He moved to Chicago and had a career as a guitar player, recorded for Blind Pig, and got to tour the world. He was the most real-deal blues guy I ever met. He’s not a big name like B.B. King or Buddy Guy, and I’m not taking anything away from them. But not everybody knows who guys like Magic Slim are, and that’s another reason I did that song. There’s a million blues songs out there that everybody knows by heart, and there are artists everybody knows. I was trying to find some that I had a personal connection to, like the song by Nitro (“One More Night”), and others by my friends Chris Cain (“Woke Up And Smelled The Coffee”), Ron Thompson (“Freight Train (Let Me Ride)”), and Mike Duke.

How did you decide on Mike’s “Keep Your Dog Inside”?
Mike and I talk a lot and he’s always playing his songs for me. I was happy to pick one of his – the blusiest one he had! As things came together, I was expecting Bruce Iglauer to say, “I don’t think that’s going to fit,” but he loved it! Again, the key is songs by guys you don’t usually hear and the connection for me, like the Chris Cain song. When Chris’ first album came out, I was like, “Man, this is a guy from my neighborhood, making records and touring Europe.” I loved his first album, Late Night City Blues, and the idea of the song; my mother used to tell me, “Wake up and smell the coffee!”

Even though I’ll never play guitar like Chris, it was inspiring that a guy from my hometown could do it for a living, which made me think, “I might have a shot.”

How did the songs come together in the studio?
Well, half of them are exactly as they happened when we tracked the whole band playing together, save for an edit or two. A lot of the solos came right off the tracking sessions – and some surprised me! Like the Johnny “Guitar” Watson song “She Moves Me,” which I played with my fingers, which is not something I do. It captures the vibe and feel of what Johnny would do.

“I Can’t Catch a Break,” has a solo that I didn’t have to re-think, re-cut, or fix. It just came out. When I hear it, again, there things I don’t normally do.

Had you rehearsed it quite a bit?
Not at all, actually. I originally wrote it with a different groove, but Kid and I were thinking it sounded too much like “Ain’t Worth the Heartache.” So when we were doing vocal overdubs, we came up with a new arrangement. Mike, Randy, and Bowen had gone home to Northern California by then, so we called drummer June Core, who plays with Charlie Musselwhite and happens to live in my neighborhood. We worked on the arrangement and played it in one day, then later had the horns come in. The guitar solo came to me in the moment. I love when that happens.

There are songs where I went back and gave more thought to the solos – “Woke Up And Smelled The Coffee” was one.

Which guitar did you use for the slide parts on the song that Randy brought, “Everywhere I Go”?
I used a Silvertone at Kid’s.

Did Randy lobby to get it on the record, or were you into it?
We weren’t sure if Bruce and the Alligator folks were going to be okay with having another member of the band sing, because that isn’t something they usually do, but they acknowledged that the song was really good and that Randy’s been with me for all these years. It’s a good song, and we got a good performance.

Being in Kid’s studio, it makes sense you took advantage to run with some of his guitars.
Yeah, I also used his ES-330 on a “She Moves Me” to get that sound. It worked great.

Which amps do we hear you play most on the album?
Cutting at Kid’s, most of the time he had me playing into a tweed Harvard or Princeton or a Champ – something like that. At home, I had a silverface Princeton that I used to cut some stuff, and my Victory V4 The Duchess pedalboard amp, which has four tubes in the preamp and is amazing. I used that to cut the solos on “Woke Up…” and couldn’t believe how good it sounds. I tweaked it until I got a tone that was realistic, which was easier than messing with a bunch of amps. I did three songs with it.

At the end of “The Way You Do,” you quote Clapton from “All Your Love” on the Bluesbreakers record.
Yeah, but that’s Otis Rush (laughs). I always loved that lick. If I play that song live, I play the whole thing in the middle of my solo. There was a time when you’d hear “All Your Love” at every blues show, but you don’t hear it much anymore.

Which guitars and amps are going on the road with you?
I’ll have the black Strat and a backup or two, and I’m using The Duchess, which weighs about four pounds. Its direct out has a speaker simulator and you can download any speakers you want. It’s amazing and sounds more consistent in every room, so it’s very convenient. I do like having a speaker onstage, so I’m using it to drive one in a 1×12 combo.

The new album is a full-circle story, given the song selection and the return of the black Strat.
A lot of fans have noticed, and everybody’s enjoying it – but mostly me (laughs)!

You’re going back on tour. Where’s your head at these days?
I’m lucky to be here and get to do this. I didn’t expect I was going to have gigs for 35 years and make a living and raise kids and buy houses and all of this stuff just by playing blues guitar. I remain in a state of gratitude about the whole thing. I work hard because I want to be worthy of this gift that’s been laid on me by the universe.

---

This article originally appeared in VG’s February 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

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 the scene as Johnny Nitro – when he walkedw in to host his Monday night jam at the Grant & Green Saloon in North Beach one day in 1991. Warming up on his cream three-bolt Strat was Castro, who’d been tolerating – not loving – the tones it was giving him. Curious about Nitro’s guitar, he grabbed it and plugged in. It was love at first note.

“It felt great in my hands, and had the tone I was trying to get out of mine,” said Castro (see interview on page 56).

Having all the discretionary cash of a local blues guitarist, he had to work a deal with Nitro; they swapped Strats and Castro paid the $600 difference in installments, and for the next 20 years, the guitar was his #1, heard on his first 10 albums and seen on countless stages the world over.

Because Nitro was the epitome of the “guitars are tools” player, little is known about the Strat’s back story.
“He bought instruments with no thought at all that they were investments, and he liked tinkering,” said Castro. “He was a mechanic by trade and actually got his nickname at the racetrack, where he fueled-up dragsters. He’d take guitars apart to switch out necks and pickups and pickguards. I imagine quite a few came and went when he needed money or whatever. He never told me much about this one except it was one of his many and that it was all-original except for the pickups.”

Given its status as a road warrior, it’s no surprise that with Castro it has seen its share of shop time. Turned out, one pickup was indeed original while another was from the ’50s and the third was a complete mystery. Castro had a set of Seymour Duncans installed, and to remedy a constantly breaking high E string, gave it graphite saddles.

For the next two decades, Castro played a few million notes on it, gracing it with dings, dents, buckle rash, and forearm wear all earned the hard way.

“Even before I took it on tour, we were play ing 300 shows every year without leaving the Bay Area, and it was the only guitar I had,” Castro recalled. “If I broke a string, I had to replace it in the middle of a song (laughs).”

So, why did he bench it? Because in 2012, somebody stole it out of the car belonging to his front-of-house guy. And while it was gone for only two days before a friend tracked it down at a pawn shop, anyone who has had a special guitar stolen knows the incredible sense of loss. For Castro, the emotion carried extra weight.

“Nitro was such a good friend – basically a mentor to me – and he had passed on the year before. To say the guitar meant a lot would be an understatement; for two days, I was super-depressed and just felt really stupid and guilty for not keeping a better eye on it.”

Nobody could blame him for putting the guitar someplace where it wouldn’t face potential damage or another disappearance. In 2021, Castro moved to the desert in Southern California, where the guitar stayed in a closet.

“Every now and then, I’d open the door and see it. It was sad. And I know it’s an inanimate object, but I felt like the guitar was as sad as I was because it wasn’t getting any love (laughs).”

But of course, time heals all wounds…

“One day, I just became overwhelmed with the thought of how silly it was to have that beautiful instrument not living its best life. I thought, ‘I’ve gottta take the chance. Yeah, I could lose it, but I’m going to play it.”

Plugging it in post-hibernation, he was reminded that its high-mileage pickups and electronics were wonky.

“I went back to Seymour Duncan, wanting to try Noiseless stacked pickups because I’d been playing my Delaney Strat copy with those and they sounded pretty good. But in this one, they just didn’t sound right, so we tried a single-coil set – I don’t recall exactly which, but I think they were copies of pickups from Strats of the Hendrix era. They didn’t quite cut it either, so I went back to the drawing board and started talking to M.J. (Maricela Juarez), and we decided that to get close to a mid-’60s Strat, Antiquities would do the trick. She was right! Now I’ve got my old guitar back and I’m having a great time playing it.”

Further rejuvenations involved removing that graphite in the bridge area.

“With the new pickups, I took it to my guitar tech, Chris Barnett, and said, ‘Can we put a regular set of saddles on this? These graphite ones… I think they’re doing something to my tone.’ He said, ‘Yeeeah! I told you that a long time ago!’ I said, ‘Yeah… you were right.’ He only had leftovers from two sets, but I had a gig the next day and needed to get it done, so we installed them and that’s how it’s been ever since.”

The Strat is the star instrument on Castro’s new album, Closer To The Bone, set for release February 7 on Alligator Records, and it’s on the road right now with him and The Painkillers. – Ward Meeker

---

Do you have a collectible/vintage guitar with an interesting personal story that might be a good fit for “Classics?” If so, send an e-mail to ward@vintageguitar.com for details on how it could be featured.

---

This article originally appeared in VG’s February 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

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 thoroughly told, but there were plenty of alternatives for attaining mega volume from 1965 to ’75 with histories that are less deeply documented. Some used tubes, while others pursued the newer solid-state technology as the way forward. Most perceived the introduction of a brave new world of amplification and hoped to set the standard for 100-watt guitar amps with their groundbreaking designs… even if the results failed to achieve lasting success.

Here, we survey a handful of interesting big-wattage vintage alternatives we’ve covered over the years. Among them lurks a largely-promotional monster that would never be bested and a behemoth built by one of the most-respected names in circuit design.

1967 Kustom K100
One of the best solid-state-only manufacturers of the mid ’60s and ’70s was Kustom, and triple-digit-output ratings were a big part of their repertoire right from the start. Founded in 1966 by inventor and entrepreneur Bud Ross in Chanute, Kansas, Kustom amps are best-known for their unique tuck-and-roll Naugahyde cabinets and robust sound.

The look of the latter on stages of the late ’60s and ’70s must have appealed to plenty of big artists, but clearly, they were happy with the sound, as Kustom earned endorsements from the Jackson 5, James Jamerson, and other major funk and soul acts of the ’70s along with Carl Perkins, Waylon Jennings, Roy Clark, Leon Russell, the Carpenters, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Johnny Cash even toured with a tuck-and-roll PA for many years.

The Kustom K100 1-15L-2 was a major workhorse with controls for Volume, Bass, and Treble on the left, Reverb, Speed and Intensity on the right (the latter two for tremolo, with footswitch connections for both), and the “Solid-State Energizer” with “resonant treble boost circuitry.” Whatever they named it, the discrete solid-state circuitry sounded surprisingly fat and rich, and its effects were delightfully hypnotic.

The 1×15″ speaker cab was sold with a JBL D130F driver (though the example shown might have a replacement, as it lacks the JBL’s silver dust cover), and had a closed back with a pair of ports. It’s an unusual cab to partner with a guitar amp, but the design projected well and presented plenty of low-end kick. So enamored of the sound were Tom Petty and Mike Campbell that they often turned to Kustom amps for their solid grind and evocative tremolo decades after the company ceased production.

• Solid State
• Controls: Volume, Bass, Treble, Reverb, Speed, Intensity.
• Speakers: single 15″ JBL D130F in a ported cab.
• Output: 100 watts RMS.

1968 Rickenbacker Transonic TS100 and TS200
The shorter (but equally star-studded) list of guitar gods playing through Rickenbacker’s Transonic TS100 and TS200 amps of the late ’60s is further testament to the notion that these solid-state powerhouses were once seen as the way forward.

Transonics populated the back lines of U.S. tours by Led Zeppelin, the Jeff Beck Group, Steppenwolf, and others at the time, and Cheap Trick cottoned on to the stacks a decade later. Early on, Jimmy Page recorded with small Supros (though the main guitar riff on “Heartbreaker” was purportedly tracked through a Transonic), then mixed in the Marshalls and Hiwatts he would later tour with; on more than one occasion, however, he mentioned being impressed with the sound of the Rickenbacker amps.

Outside of major tours, these hefty creations were rarely seen, perhaps because “…they were just so expensive, most artists couldn’t afford to buy them,” the amps’ designer, Bob Rissi, tells us. “You could buy three Twin Reverbs for the price of a Transonic TS200,” the 200-watt sibling that was many pros’ choice for the biggest stages.

The hulking trapezoidal cabs are likely the first thing to capture one’s attention today, but the circuit and features boasted plenty of originality, too. Two channels, Standard and Custom, each with Volume, Treble, and Bass controls. In addition, each carried a trio of big, white “Rick-O-Select” switches with different colored indicator lamps for each of three voicing modes – Pierce, Mellow, and Hollow. The Custom channel had Reverb and Tremolo, and another clear nod to tonal fashions of the times – a Fuzz-Tortion circuit (we advise donning ear protection before engaging the Pierce and Fuzz-Tortion features together). The TS200 also had a stereo preamp so each channel could be split to a separate power amp for stereo “Rick-O-Sound” with the use of a second powered speaker cab.

• Solid State
• Output: 100 or 200 watts RMS
• Controls: Volume, Treble, Bass controls and Hollow, Mellow, and Pierce switches on each channel; Tremolo Speed and Depth, Reverb, and Fuzz-Tortion on Custom channel.
• Speakers: two 12″ Altec 417 (in the TS100)w

1971 Dumble Special 16
Original amps made by Howard “Alexander” Dumble breathe such rarified air as to be a thing entirely unto themselves, but when the circuit guru began plying his trade, a big part of the objective for any designer was volume, and he knew how to get it. Best known for his 100-watt Overdrive Special introduced in 1972, Dumble had been doing modifications and custom-builds since ’63, and this 200-watt beast from 1971 is just such a creation.

Dubbed the Special 16 (serial number 0001, and likely “one and only”), the design cobbles the transformers from four 50-watt Bassman amps, implying it must be a multi-output-stage bass amp of some sort. But as per our premise this issue, high-powered guitar amps were all the rage at the time. The front-end circuit resembling Fender’s 5F6A – a.k.a. late-’50s tweed Bassman, by then known as a top-tier guitar amp – indicates it was a stage-worthy creation for a six-stringer. Furthermore, the Special 16 carries individual Standby switches for each power stage, plus individual speaker outs, allowing power staging with multiple speaker cabs of 50, 100, 150 and 200 watts, as required.

This Special 16 was purchased “as-is” in the mid ’80s by Michael “Miko” Malinao, Sr.

“I had no idea who Howard Alexander Dumble was or that he had a shop in Santa Cruz, when I bought this amp,” Malinao says. “I had intentions of having [it] refurbished, considering it was a unique beast. Well, life happened… married with three kids and full-time job, gigging every week. That project went on hold and the Special 16 went into my garage for storage.”

Saving its story from the cold-cases file, VG reader Chris Croudace contacted us to say, “I think the amp was built for Moby Grape guitarist Jerry Miller. He played a tweed Bassman, and in the ’70s, Jerry or a mutual friend told me Dumble built an amp for Jerry that had four Bassman amps in it. I saw Jerry play with the amp live in 1976 or ’77.”

Mystery solved!

• Preamp tubes: three 12AX7
• Output tubes: eight 6L6GC (most likely)
• Rectifier: solid-state
• Controls: Volume 1, Volume 2, Treble, Middle, Bass, Accent; Bright and Deep switches
• Output: approximately 200 watts RMS

1975 Gallien-Krueger 200GT
Gallien-Krueger is known for its powerful, compact bass amps, but chief designer and co-founder Bob Gallien was a guitarist, and that’s where his creations first focused. Gallien earned an engineering degree at U.C. Berkley in 1966, and was working on his masters at Stanford in ’67 when he designed and built a 226-watt solid-state guitar amp for one of his classes. Thinking it had potential, he consigned it for sale at Draper Music, where an up-and-coming local Latin-blues guitarist named Carlos Santana purchased it the next day. Santana used Gallien’s amp on his first couple albums, and took it to Woodstock in ’69.

In a 2007 interview with Cliff Engle of the Institute of Bass, Gallien said he made 25 more amps in his basement while finishing his masters and working at Hewlett-Packard, selling them through music stores in the Bay Area.

“Initially, I was making guitar amps because I was a guitar player, but Jim Webb, the owner of Webb’s Music, needed a powerful bass amp to power the speaker cabinets he was building. It turned out that bass players liked my bass amps more than guitarists liked the guitar amps, so I saw a market, and that is how I started Gallien-Krueger. I continued making guitar amps until the 1990s.”

Long before the cessation of his efforts in the guitar-amp realm, though, and after Gallien’s Hewlett-Packard colleague Richard Krueger added his name to the company, this impressive 200GT exemplified the innovation for which G-K would become known. Its predecessor, the 200G, was the first production guitar amp with actual channel switching (Mesa/Boogie and Dumble amps of the time didn’t switch channels, but added an extra overdrive stage to the signal path), and it’s an impressively featured amp in many other ways – not to mention it’s whopping 200 watts of power.

• Solid-state preamp and output stage
• Power: 200 watts
• Controls: ChA: Volume, Treble, Middle, Bass, Bright switch, Reverb switch. ChB: Volume, Treble, Contour, Bass, Master Vol., (tremolo) Speed and Intensity; shared Reverb and Current Lim.
• Speakers: Four 12″ Eminence ceramic
• Output: approximately 200 watts RMS

1967 Magnatone Monster
Better-known Magnatone tube amps were manufactured in California by Magna Electronics in the mid/late ’50s, but by the early ’60s, Magna’s new owner, the Estey Organ Company (later Estey Electronics), aimed to go big on solid-state designs. The availability of a large corporate-owned facility in Harmony, Pennsylvania (about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh), provided the space for a new factory and a better-located distribution hub, so Estey moved Magnatone in 1966 and got down to building amps.

Around that time, the bassist in a local teen band called The Sequins saw a story about the factory and relayed it to his bandmates, who decided it might make a good opportunity to replace their Vox amps “that were routinely blowing up.”

“We called Estey and made an appointment to introduce ourselves and check out the new equipment they were going to be manufacturing,” recalled guitarist/organist and lead singer Drew Moniot. “The head of the company was Hank Milano… he invited us to visit the plant and play for the employees. They loved us and offered an endorsement deal.”

The band’s two guitarists went away with models called M35 The Killer, while the bassist acquired a matching M32 Big Henry – all with a bruising 300 watts of solid-state power. Yet, these were not the biggest Magnatones The Sequins would encounter.

In the early summer of ’67, the band got a call from Milano asking if they’d like to appear on a Magnatone-sponsored flatbed truck in the Fourth of July parade in nearby Zelienople.

“Hank said, ‘No need to bring your amps, we’ve got you covered,’” Moniot recalls. “When we arrived, they took us back to the flatbed and we stood in awe at the sight of this enormous amplifier – a fully functioning guitar and bass amplifier with 1,000 watts of power.”

In addition to that appearance, the Magnatone Monster (a.k.a. “Tiny Tim”) was taken to that summer’s NAMM show, but the few that were manufactured were later called back to the factory and destroyed, for reasons unknown; one escapee Monster speaker cabinet was acquired by Neil Young, who used it as a stage prop for several years.

And Moniot’s recollection of the experience? “We plugged in, set the levels – which were pretty deafening – and braced ourselves for one of the highlights of our young musical lives.”

---

This article originally appeared in VG’s February 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.