It has been a long time coming.
Luthier Stories Season 2 begins on Saturday 21st January 2023 - I'll be on YouTube for the live premier and I hope you'll join me - this is going to be fun!
Thank…
Read moreJan 17 2023
It has been a long time coming.
Luthier Stories Season 2 begins on Saturday 21st January 2023 - I'll be on YouTube for the live premier and I hope you'll join me - this is going to be fun!
Thank…
Read moreJan 15 2023
George Gruhn knows what he's doing - as he showed me around his private collection of achingly rare guitars - my curiosity was piqued by a 12-fret Euphonon dreadnought. It is one of a pair made in 1940 - explains…
Read moreJan 13 2023
George Gruhn is an iconic figure in the world of guitar retail - instantly recognisable with a stack of unobtainium guitars and a live snake around his neck - George has helmed Gruhn Guitars in Nashville TN for over 50…
Read moreJan 5 2023
Molly Tuttle is one of my favourite players right now - she's an incredible musician and one of the most exciting guitarists I have seen in recent years. I interviewed Molly for Guitar.com and during our chat she revealed that…
Read moreAug 28 2022
The final guitar that was calling my name as I recorded The Blue Guitar Collection is this delicately wonderful Martin O-18 K which has offered discerning and fortunate players over 100 years of gorgeousity since its birth in 1921.
Centre…
Read moreAug 17 2022
Another extraordinary instrument that I found in the new home of The Blue Guitar Collection is this Ken Parker acoustic archtop - just gorgeous!
Just wow!
This was only the second time I had ever seen a Ken Parker acoustic…
Read moreAug 11 2022
In amongst The Blue Guitars I found a trio of exceptional brown guitars and in a relatively quiet moment in amongst the azure mayhem I managed to film them.
Just look at them!
Here is the first, a sumptuous Casimi…
Read moreJul 29 2022
It was a privilege to be asked to contribute to the SUNFLOWER GUITAR appeal for Ukraine - a humanitarian endeavour by Linda Manzer, a dear friend and one of the world's finest guitar makers.
Heartbroken at the suffering caused…
Read moreJul 11 2022
It was a real pleasure to talk to the irrepressible Bob Bakert in an interview for Jazz Guitar Today alongside jazz guitarist extraordinaire Ted Ludwig!
We spoke at length about our experiences with The Blue Guitar Collection so far…
Read moreMay 12 2022
Regular readers will be well aware of my love of Microtech Gefell Microphones - in fact over the course of the past 15 years or so I have made hundreds of acoustic guitar demos using a matched pair of their…
Read moreMay 7 2022
It was a real pleasure to work on a new video project for Elixir Strings! In this video I look at 80/20 Bronze and Phosphor Bronze NANOWEB strings from the player's point of view.
Read moreMay 5 2022
Do you have a love/hate relationship with certain tone woods? I have to admit that I do, and in particular the more vitreous members of the rosewood family can be hard work for me.
If there is one wood that…
Read moreApr 30 2022
The name Ciaran McNally may be a new one to many of you but this young luthier based in Armagh Northern Ireland already has a huge amount of experience as an acoustic guitar maker having worked for both Lowden and…
Read moreApr 24 2022
Strap yourselves in ladies and gentlemen - The Lava Guitars ME3 is here and things are going to get very weird very quickly!
Something of a cross between an acoustic guitar, a spaceship and a smart phone this iconoclastic six-string…
Read moreMar 29 2022
Rickenbacker guitars have a magnetic pull for me - I can't explain exactly why but I find them to be some of the most beautiful electric guitar designs out there.
As such it was a pleasure to visit Shapero Rare…
Read moreMar 17 2022
Mar 2 2022
While I do get regular offers to play rare and exotic guitars I am not so jaded that the thought of spending quality time with an original 1959 Gibson Sunburst Les Paul doesn't get the blood pumping!
In this video…
Read moreJan 22 2022
I am regularly asked for my thoughts on the differences between acoustic guitars from the USA and the UK and rather than get bogged down in minutiae I find that a direct comparison is often the most useful way to…
Read moreJan 14 2022
Since I played my first notes on a Casimi acoustic guitar back in 2014 I have been inspired, awestruck and not a little obsessed with the sound that Mattias Roux and Matthew Rice of Casimi Guitars manage to pull out…
Read moreJan 5 2022
Recently I've had a lot of emails asking what happened to the Clara Archtop that Luthier Thierry André and I had been working on for the 2020 Holy Grail Guitar Show in Berlin.
80 Year Old Sinker Cedar anybody?
How…
Read moreNov 17 2021
You can now watch the entire 4-episode guide to alternate tunings that I hosted for Guitar.com and Elixir Strings!
Oh yes you can!
In this final episode I explore some full-sounding textural tunings that you may have heard under the…
Read moreNov 12 2021
I have been very fortunate, over the past couple of decades I have been left unsupervised with some truly stellar instruments made with love by many of the world's most talented luthiers.
This sort of thing being a case in…
Read moreOct 10 2021
It's always a joy to spend time with my friend John Stubbings - John is the author of one of the most beautiful books on the acoustic guitar that I have ever read The Devil Is In it - if…
Read moreSep 29 2021
The Modified Dreadnought acoustic guitar was created by the luthier Ervin Somogyi (Oakland, California) in the late 1970s at the request of several artists recording for Will Ackerman's nascent Windham Hill record label - most notably Daniel Hecht who…
Read moreSep 23 2021
While trawling my archive of hours of raw footage from the first season of Luthier Stories I came across this clip where legendary guitar builder Ervin Somogyi talks about the creation of an unusual instrument made with decayed woods and…
Read more