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Trending Now
Win an accessory bundle with an Oxford Guitar Supply gift card, Music Nomad KEEP IT SIMPLE, SETUP (KISS)™ kit, Rocky Mountain Slides Co. Bear Claw Tri-picks, Firecracker Aluminum Slides and graphite picks, plus a Reverend back pack to put it all in valued at more than $450. Deadline is November 25, 2024. Complete the survey […]
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Inside its chicken hatchery turned amp shop in Pittsboro, North Carolina, Carr Amplifiers has hatched another beauty in the low-watt/single-channel Super Bee. With three distinct voices plus a wattage attenuator to deliver its supremely satisfying tone at volumes that won’t frighten the children, the Super Bee can also provide a good scare; just turn off […]
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Artists
Dick Taylor
From R&B Psychedelia With the Pretty Things
When the Pretty Things’ 50th anniversary was marked with Bouquets From A Cloudy Sky – a huge boxed set containing 11 CDs and other goodies – the cover of the 100-page, 12×12 hardcover book pictured lead singer Phil May and lead guitarist Dick Taylor. Of course, there were other band members, and May and Taylor […]
Artists
Al Stewart
Cat’s Meow
Year of the Cat, singer/songwriter/guitarist Al Stewart’s 1976 smash, is being celebrated with a 45th anniversary three-CD/DVD box set. The album has been remastered by producer Alan Parsons, and the DVD features his new 5.1 surround mix. Stewart’s platinum-selling opus reached #5 on Billboard and the lavish title track single peaked at #8. The Scotland […]
VG Approved Gear
The Luker Chameleon Combo
True to Its Colors
The Luker Chameleon Combo Price: $1,850 (list) Contact: www.lukeramps.com Considering the state of modern vacuum tubes, a surprising number of great tube amps are currently being built. And of those, every once in a while a truly exceptional amp that is also an astonishing value finds its way through the front door. The Luker Chameleon […]
Featured
Have Guitar Will Travel – 043 Featuring Ranger Doug
The new episode of “Have Guitar Will Travel” features host James Patrick Regan’s conversation with “Ranger Doug” Green, guitarist, front man, and creative force behind the legendary Western wing/country band Riders In the Sky. A music historian and author, Doug still has his first guitar and has performed alongside Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, and many others. […]
Classic Instruments
Bird Golden Eagle 4/25
Soaring In Birdland
Many of the oddballs, also-rans, and otherwise unusual creations we see in the amp world fall into the “B-list” category – the budget, student, and catalog amps that often display appealing ’50s and ’60s cosmetics but were never expected to lead the field. British maker Bird felt otherwise in creating the Golden Eagle 4/25. Add […]
Artists
Nick Moss
Backbone Shiver
On Get Your Back Into It!, guitarist Nick Moss and harmonica savant Dennis Gruenling combine blues, swing, and rock and roll into an infectious blend of foot-stomping groove, sweat, and passion. It’s pop music from Chicago’s 1950s, and Moss plays it clean, tasty, and with a bit of help from Freddie King. What is your […]
Artists
Fretprints: Walter Becker
Steely Dan’s Unsung Guitar Great
Steely Dan to this day occupies a unique place in music history. Laying claim to an unexplored intersection of jazz, R&B, pop, rock, blues, and world sounds, they redefined fusion – or more accurately, reimagined what fusion could be, and acted upon it. That reimagining was the brainchild of counterculture misfits Walter Becker and Donald […]
Artists
Have Guitar Will Travel 093 – Martin Simpson
Features In this episode, host James Patrick Regan speaks with Martin Simpson, discussing his new duet record with Thomm Jutz, “Nothing But Green Willow: The Songs of Mary Sands and Jane Gentry,” which includes songs gathered by the two women in Appalachia during World War I. They also discuss his time on NPR’s “Prairie Home […]
Artists
Glenn Phillips
Cult-Guitar Icon
For more than 40 years, Glenn Phillips has been an underground hero of the guitar. His solo albums, unusual choices of gear, radical effects usage, and wild live shows broke the mold of guitar heroics. Phillips’ At the Rainbow, taped live in London in 1977, has just been released, and it’s a brilliant document of […]
Artists
Zakk Wylde
Doomsayer
Best-known as Ozzy Osbourne’s longest-tenured guitarist, Zakk Wylde has also been the leader of Black Label Society since the late ’90s. With Ozzy off the road in 2021, Wylde has made the most of his time; not only has BLS issued a career-encompassing 12-LP box set, None More Black, but there’s a new studio effort, […]
Artists
Tyler Bryant’s “Bare Bones” and a vintage Duolian
Shakedown front man offers taste of “Shake The Roots” Tyler Bryant grabbed his super-cool 1934 National Duolian to play a solo version of “Bare Bones,” from “Shake The Roots,” the new album by Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown. Catch our review in the January issue. Read Now!
Music
John McLaughlin
The Montreux Years
This retrospective from the Swiss jazz festival spans 28 years, covering miles of jazz-rock territory. In 1984, McLaughlin formed a new Mahavishnu lineup, heard in “Radio Activity.” McLaughlin’s solo opens with a hammer-on lick that’s part Van Halen, part McCoy Tyner – before delivering a terrifying demonstration of picking dexterity. “Friendship,” a 1978 recording with […]
Artists
Les Sabler
Long-Distance Jazz
Like many musicians, guitarist Les Sabler’s life has been turned topsy-turvy by the worldwide pandemic. Originally from Montreal, Sabler now resides in Nashville, but work on his newest album, a smooth-jazz effort called Tranquility, began in February of 2020 at producer Paul Brown’s studio in Los Angeles. The project ultimately became remote, but not before […]
Artists
Bruce Forman Honors Barney Kessel
Reunited
From 1957 to ’60, guitarist Barney Kessel, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Shelly Manne recorded four LPs for Contemporary Records as a group called Poll Winners, a byproduct of each topping reader polls in Playboy and the jazz magazines DownBeat and Metronome. As a guitar/bass/drums group, they were a cutting-edge departure from the piano trio. […]
Classic Instruments
Vox/Thomas Organ V-14 Super Beatle
Solid Sound
After producing some of the most-iconic guitar amplifiers of the early 1960s, Vox leaned unwittingly into a failing technology – and unknowingly accelerated its own implosion. Still, some of the solid-state creations of that transitional period are classics, like this ’66 Super Beatle. As the cliché goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall […]
VG Approved Gear
Yamaha THR10
Practice Perfection?
Yamaha THR10 Price: $299 Contact: usa.yamaha.com As a rule of thumb, practice amps are a compromise. Blissfully portable, they typically lack tone and features. Yet whether in a bedroom or hotel room, a practice amp should help inspire an artist by making practice more pleasure than chore. Yamaha’s THR10 is a definite step in the […]
Classic Instruments
Vox Guitars Invade America
From Dartford to Sepulveda
The Vox brand may be quintessentially English, but it made a huge impact in the U.S. Riding in with the 1964 British invasion, Vox even displaced Fender for a time as the land’s most desired amplifier. Vox guitars lacked the same impact (the Beatles didn’t play them, after all) but were seen prominently in the […]