Greg Olwell is Acoustic Guitar's editor-at-large. He plays upright bass in several bands in the San Francisco Bay Area and also enjoys playing ukulele and guitar.
Django Reinhardt got this guitar in 1940 and used it until his death in 1953. Reinhardt's wife, Naugine, gave the guitar to the museum in 1964. Up until this time, their son Babik used #503 to learn how to play.
This stunning 12-string Galiano could be singled out for its craftsmanship and design alone, but the instrument’s importance is elevated by a direct connection to a towering 20th-century guitar maker and the community of immigrants that trained him.
Yamaha and Corgan have teamed up to release a new limited-edition signature guitar, the Yamaha LJ16BC Billy Corgan Signature Model Jumbo Acoustic Guitar.
In recent years, guitarists have shown an increasing propensity for “old wood”—instruments that, due to decades of aging, have arrived at their peak resonant state.
A typical modern version of a mariachi instrument has guitar-like additions not found on its traditional counterpart, including a truss rod and inlaid frets.
Along with his brother Duane, Gregg and Duane formed the Allman Brothers Band, a powerhouse band that pioneered a new, groove-and-guitar-based style that came to be known as Southern rock.
As the primary songwriter and founder of the Silos, Walter Salas-Humara made a name as singer/songwriter in the band that explored the dustier back roads of '80s alternative rock.
Without a doubt, Ledward Kaapana is one of the guitar's greatest fingerstyle players. For over four decades this master of Hawaii's unique slack-key guitar style has delighted audiences with his music.
by Greg Olwell Taylor launched a companion to its popular GS-Mini series, the Taylor GS-Mini-e Bass at NAMM 2017. This four-string bass mates a short-scale bass neck to a Grand Symphony body. Though almost ten-inches shorter than a standard acoustic bass guitar’s…
For fans who wanted that singing, sometimes slightly distorted sound, tracking down the original Stimer magnetic pickups that Django Reinhardt used was all but impossible.
The Seagull Merlin is not a guitar. It’s what Seagull calls the “strummable dulcimer.” But it’s so charming and user-friendly that guitar players looking to expand their sound could easily fall in love with the Merlin’s bright, twangy voice.