The 20th Anniversary issue (February 2010) of
Acoustic Guitar is now on its way to subscribers and will hit newsstands shortly. Our aim with this issue was to pay homage to all the talented players, innovative guitars and gear, and amazing songs and albums that consistently inspire acoustic guitarists across all styles.
So, among this issue's great songs to play, lessons with acoustic icons, and information about guitar and gear trends, you'll find…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on December 18, 2009 at 5:54pm —
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We're excited to hear about the upcoming realease of the Dave Rawlings Machine album,
A Friend of a Friend.
Acoustic Guitar senior editor Scott Nygaard spent a few hours with Rawlings when he and Gillian Welch were playing Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco two weeks ago, and got a lot of great insight into Rawlings singular guitar style. Look for a feature story in an upcoming issue of
Acoustic Guitar.
Unt…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on October 14, 2009 at 2:50pm —
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Michael Millard of
Froggy Bottom Guitars sent the following note about a special guitar he recently completed in commemoration of his friend, Thomas Humphrey. Often a great guitar gets built with best of intentions.
The story is best told in Michael's words:
For three years in the early ‘70’s, the two young guys actually building the guitars in the renowned New York workshop of Michael Gurian were Thomas Humphrey and Michael Millard…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on October 2, 2009 at 5:07pm —
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A giant in the world of guitar has died. I had the chance to see Les Paul at his weekly show in New York City at the Iridium about five years ago. He could still play and he certainly entertained the packed crowd with his between-song banter. Pick up an electric guitar today and make some noise in his honor.
Click here for a nice obit. Continue
Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on August 13, 2009 at 11:20am —
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Day one of Summer NAMM is just about wrapped, and the
Acoustic Guitar crew—including myself and senior editors Teja Gerken and Scott Nygaard—roamed the Nashville Convention Center hall, checking out new products and talking to our industry colleagues.
While the actual size of the show is no doubt smaller than in past years, the mood among exhibitors and attendees is upbeat and positive, and there are more new products being released than many expected. We saw traffic-stopping performance…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on July 17, 2009 at 10:00pm —
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The Montreal Guitar Show gets underway today and runs through Sunday in downtown Montreal. If you're attending, be sure to stop by the
Acoustic Guitar table to say hi. I'll be there with our advertising manager, Adrianne Serna, and associate publisher, Rich Osweiler, taking in the festivities and checking out guitars from exhibitors including…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on July 3, 2009 at 7:30am —
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Nice article and audio slide show about Fiddler's Grove, an annual old-time festival in North Carolina, today in the Travel section of New York Times. Check it out!
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/travel/escapes/03Fiddle.html?hp Continue
Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on July 3, 2009 at 6:34am —
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The August 2009 issue of
Acoustic Guitar is our 200th issue, and is now making its way to those of you who subscribe. On the cover is Elvis Costello, who I just saw perform a free concert on Monday afternoon at Amoeba Records in San Francisco. Joining Elvis were two of the amazing players from the band that appears on his new album
Secret, Profane & Sugarcane—Jim Lauderdale on guitar and harmony vocals, and Mike Compton on mandolin. The record also features the likes of Jerry D…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on June 26, 2009 at 5:26pm —
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Just heard that Guy Clark will release a new album,
Somedays the Song Writes You, on September 22, 2009. Makes my day! Looks like there's also a contest to
win a co-writing session with Clark.
Here's a little information from today's press release.
In a recent interview with the Huffington Post, Bob Dylan mentions Guy Clark as one of his favorite songwriters. That is no surprise to anyone familiar with the master son…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on June 17, 2009 at 6:00pm —
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Be sure to sign in to the Chat area here in the Community between 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM (Pacific Time) every day this week (May 26, 27, 28, 29) to meet Brian Ball from Ernie Ball Guitar Strings and Accessories.
Brian has been behind the launch of several of Ernie Ball's latest products, including their
Coated Acoustic Strings and the new
PowerPeg string wind…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on May 25, 2009 at 11:12pm —
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I opened my mailbox here in San Rafael, California today to find the latest issue of
Acoustic Guitar waiting. Yes, I've seen it about a million times already, but I do get excited when an issue shows up at my house, too. No doubt many of you have received your copy as well, and those of you who don't subscribe will be able to pick it up on the newsstands in the coming week.
Lots of great stuff in the June issue, including an in-depth lesson from blues master Ernie Hawkins on playing in t…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on May 2, 2009 at 6:00pm —
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Maybe this is a sign that the economy is going to turn around. Martin Guitar is reporting that a historic OM-45 Deluxe sold at auction today for a whopping $460,000. I'd love to hear who the "anonymous bidder" is.
The following is from the Martin press release on the sale. Great story about the guitar and how it found its way into Rogers' hands:
Nazareth, PA – April 3, 2009 – An anonymous bidder has acquired the Roy Rogers’ infamous OM-45 Deluxe Martin Guitar (serial #42125), one of the rarest…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on April 3, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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A couple months ago, Teja blogged about the afternoon he and I spent with Martin Simpson in the
Acoustic Guitar offices, and the fruit of that afternoon is on its way to subscribers now. Simpson is on the cover of the May 2009 issue of
Acoustic Guitar, and the lesson that Teja wrote is full of enough of Simpson’s intricate fingerstyle work to keep me busy for years. Then we went and transcribed his outstanding version of Dylan’s “Boots of Spanish Leather.” Our…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on March 25, 2009 at 5:30pm —
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Hi all! The April 2009 issue of
Acoustic Guitar is on its way to subscribers and newsstands, and it was a fun one to put together. We chose to be optimistic during the height of winter and think about all the guitar festivals, camps, and workshops that are available for you to attend this summer. We look at how to prepare for the sensory overload of the Montreal Guitar Show in July and the Healdsburg Guitar Festival in August. Hundreds of fine guitars and endless hours of guitar music and…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on February 25, 2009 at 10:36am —
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When Lance Armstrong’s custom Trek time trial bike was stolen out of his Astana team truck in Sacramento during the Tour of California this week, he had numbers on his side—a million people following his every move on twitter.com and the entire cycling community on the lookout for a very special bike. Those numbers must have been intimidating to the misguided thief, because the bike rolled in to the Sacramento police headquarters three days after it disappeared, guided by a resident who wished t…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on February 20, 2009 at 6:47pm —
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On a Southwest Airlines flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas last weekend, I found an article that inspired me to add my seats' copy of the airline's magazine,
Spirit, to my overloaded backpack. In this article, author and NPR commentator Tim Brookes (who wrote the book
Guitar, An American Life) describes his tour of several US airports, Voyage-Air guitar in hand. His mission was to see how the average American would react to an anonymous person playing guitar and singing in publ…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on February 11, 2009 at 7:53pm —
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Hello folks! Great to see so many new faces here in the Community in the past week or so. There are now over 2,640 of us, and the ranks are growing by the day. Welcome, thanks for joining, and please feel free to invite your guitar-picking friends.
In other happenings at
Acoustic Guitar, we've recently shipped the March 2009 issue to subscribers. You'll notice a string of articles that take a look at various custom guitars and builders—from our…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on January 29, 2009 at 5:34pm —
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I hope the holidays are treating everyone well! I'm enjoying a lot of time with family and friends, and squeezing in as much playing as I can. A good way to end the year…
The February 2009 issue of
Acoustic Guitar shipped to subscribers last week, so many of you will be seeing Jack Johnson in your mailbox soon (OK, not him, but his image on the cover).
Acoustic Guitar contributor Drew Pearce talked with Johnson at the Outside Lands festival last August before Johnson took the stag…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on December 26, 2008 at 5:00pm —
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The
51st Grammy Awards nominations were announced yesterday for recordings released between October 1, 2007 and September 30, 2008. Highlights? Five nominations for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s
Rising Sand, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year (for “Please Read the Letter”), and Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album. Krauss and Plant share nominations in the latter category with Joan Baez, Ry Cood…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on December 4, 2008 at 10:11am —
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Here's a good reason to refrain from hitting the clicker when the commercial breaks hit in the coming weeks. The "Diamonds Are Forever" advertising campaign has been updated for this year's holiday onslaught to include
Laurence Juber's stellar fingerstyle version of "Stand by Me." It's the ad that shows a couple walking down tree-lined paths in Central Park, a beautiful scene made even better with guitar music. Sorry, no word on similar updates to the…
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Added by Dan Gabel, Editor & Group Publisher on November 22, 2008 at 12:27pm —
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