When headless ruled the world! Eddie Van Halen at Giants Stadium in 1988 with his custom Steinberger GL2T. This guitar, built by Jeff Babicz, first appeared on “Summer Nights,” from 5150.
Stringed instruments without headstocks, from lutes to nylon-string guitars, have existed for ages. It’s even rumored that Les Paul built a headless guitar of his own. But chances are, when you think of electric guitars sans headstocks, you either picture someone from the 1980s in tight pants and big hair playing an original Steinberger, or you envision a tattooed YouTube shredder with a Strandberg in hand. The two brands share many similarities and dominate one of the most controversial electric guitar designs since Leo Fender slapped a pickup into a plank of solid wood.
Until now, headless guitars were a respected but—other than for a brief period in the ’80s—niche product played by only the most adventurous. Recently, though, they’ve enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity and are giving the legacy guitar models a run for their money. How did such outlandish-looking instruments become so popular? What would possess a guitar designer to “head” down such a radical path? Is this a fad, or is there something to these futuristic-looking instruments? To answer these questions, we’ll have to go back to 1976.
Ned Steinberger
Back in the mid 1970s, then-guitar-builder Stuart Spector wanted to create a new kind of electric bass. He made a serendipitous move and turned to a fellow member of his woodworking co-op to help: Ned Steinberger. Inspired by Ned’s ergonomic furniture designs, he wanted to imbue the new instrument with the same level of comfortable contouring. While furniture and basses might seem like an odd pairing, to Ned, the two are the same.
“I was involved in designing chairs, primarily,” Ned explains. “And a lot of the things I was working with were analogous to bass. I thought, ‘How does it feel? What are the ergonomics? What is the message of the piece?’ The bass guitar was essentially the sexiest chair I could have imagined [laughs].”
Ned Steinberger with his first TransTrem model in 1983. It was pure kismet that Stuart Spector asked Steinberger, then a furniture designer, for help with a bass design back in the mid ’70s. The rest, as they say, is headless history.
Putting their skills to work, Steinberger and Spector created the very first Spector NS bass, and it’s remained a staple of the industry ever since. But as great as it was, in Ned’s mind it still had a few shortcomings that he would address in his very own bass design.
“There’s this neck-dive issue I was working on,” he says. “All bass players are familiar with it, and that’s where I came into the whole thing, with the ergonomics. There wasn’t balance. And I was thinking, ‘This is not working!’” The culprits were the headstock and the added weight of the tuning machines. Ned’s solution was simple. “If you have a weight at the end of a stick and you put it at the other end of the stick, it’s going to change the balance,” he says. He would move the tuners to the body and remove the headstock altogether, giving birth to the modern, headless electric guitar—or bass, in this case.
“These weren’t weird for being weird. They were about trying to make an instrument perform at the highest level, and musicians could relate to that.” —Ned Steinberger
Ned was just getting started. Many more design elements most luthiers hold dear were on his chopping block, including the wood itself. Creating his first prototypes and production models was a gigantic undertaking. But it would soon be worth it.
The Rise of Steinberger
The 1980s were an exciting time for electric guitar and bass. New brands like Jackson, Charvel, and Kramer, along with Floyd Rose’s revolutionary bridge designs, created fertile ground for forward-thinking electric instruments. Trying to capitalize on this opportunity and wanting to avoid running his own manufacturing business, Steinberger tried to sell his new design to more prominent guitar manufacturers. But even in the ’80s, a bass shaped like a paddle was a challenging sell.
“People didn’t understand. These weren’t weird for being weird,” explains Ned. “They were about trying to make an instrument perform at the highest level, and musicians could relate to that. But when I first brought it to a lot of the shops, they all said, ‘No. We don’t want any of that shit. We can’t sell it.’ They weren’t being mean to me. They were just laying it out there.”
Paul Masvidal wields his signature Strandberg Boden Masvidalien NX 6 Cosmo live with technical death metal pioneers Cynic.
Photo by Stephanie Cabral
It was clear to Ned that if this bass design was going to succeed, he would have to build them himself. And that’s just what he did, creating his namesake brand and heading to the 1980 NAMM show. There, displayed alongside countless basses from Fender, Yamaha, and even Spector, would be his headless, paddle-shaped, carbon fiber Steinberger L2 bass.
“We had a little 10' x 10' booth,” Ned remembered. “Most people walked by and looked at us like we were crazy. But NAMM put on a huge concert that Saturday night, and the [Dixie] Dregs came out, with [bassist] Andy West. And unbeknownst to me, there he was with a Steinberger bass! That was the beginning of everything. We were nothing until an artist took it out there and said, ‘This is cool.’ Then, the day after, you had to stand in line to get into our booth.”
Everything had changed. Soon, Steinberger basses were shipping around the world. Headless electric guitars were no longer an experiment by a curious furniture designer. They were a legitimate take on electric guitar design, and it was only a short time before Steinbergers were in the hands of some very influential players.
Sweetwater Senior Category Manager for Guitars Jay Piccirillo remembers when he first encountered the brand. “To me, Steinberger was [Rush’s] Geddy Lee,” he says. “I wanted one so bad, just because he played one. That was probably the Power Windows era, and his bass tone was so cool.”
Allan Holdsworth played headless guitars since their early days, and he’s had several headless signature models dating back to the Steinberger GL2TA-AH all the way up to this modern-day Kiesel.
Steinberger guitars followed in 1982 and were adopted by everyone from Allan Holdsworth and Genesis’s Mike Rutherford to forward-thinking side-musicians like Reeves Gabrels (David Bowie, Tin Machine, and, now, the Cure) and David Rhodes (Peter Gabriel). Even Eddie Van Halen got into the act, composing “Summer Nights” around Steinberger’s revolutionary TransTrem system.
In 1987, the big guitar builders finally came calling, allowing Ned to sell Steinberger to Gibson. Unfortunately, as the 1990s drew closer, so did a seismic shift in popular culture. Though still going under Gibson’s leadership today, Steinberger would, in many ways, be a casualty of the decade.
The Decade That Changed Everything
By the time 1992 rolled around, bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Sonic Youth had replaced the technology-tinged tones of the 1980s. It was as much a reaction to the previous decade’s fashion and trends as it was a trend of its own. Anything related to that era’s guitar playing, including Steinberger, was gone. Even the early Steinberger stalwarts had turned their back on their beloved L2s.
“Sting [who famously used his L2 on the Police’s Synchronicity album and on the Ghost in the Machine tour] is an interesting story,” sighs Ned. “He played a Steinberger for a few years. Now, he’s done a complete 180, and he’s playing an old Fender. Geddy Lee, too. While there are still all these people out there that really appreciate Steinberger instruments, not everybody has stayed with it.”
Piccirillo thinks he knows why. “I think the timeliness—and not the timelessness—of some of that music, that’s maybe where it started to fade. I think of a Kevin Shirley interview I read while he was producing some of the later Rush albums. He told Geddy, ‘Get away from the modern stuff. Go grab your Jazz Bass, and let’s crank up that old SVT.’”
Whether it was changing fashion or preference for tone, by the 1990s, Gibson was sitting on a game-changing brand that had made next-level instruments for some of the most popular and finest musicians, and nobody wanted them. Well, nearly nobody.
Headless Goes Underground
While the rest of the world focused on Seattle, the band Death, featuring guitarist Paul Masvidal, also a member of Cynic, had emerged as a leader in the Florida death metal community. In 1991, Death released Human, which many consider the first technical death metal and progressive death metal record, and Cynic’s Focus followed in 1993. Both albums laid the groundwork for modern artists as diverse as Plini, Animals as Leaders, and Per Nilsson. And like many of them today, Masvidal made his music on headless guitars—the Steinberger GM and GR models.
Strandberg’s Paul Masvidal signature, the Boden Masvidalien NX 6 Cosmo, strikes a pose.
Photo courtesy of Strandberg Guitars
“When I played on Death’s Human, Steinbergers weren’t popular,” Masvidal remembers. “But I had no issues with [there being] no headstock. To me, it was groundbreaking. Those guitars felt alien, and I felt like an alien. It was also when my playing started to go into new places. My harmonic vocabulary and soloing style expanded. I started to feel like I was onto something, and that was somehow in tandem with this instrument. With Focus, a voice was emerging, and the headless guitar was the beginning of that for me.” Photo courtesy of Strandberg Guitars
Masvidal wasn’t alone. A small but passionate network of collectors also kept the headless-guitar design alive. Two of which were Headless USA’s Donald Greenwald and Jeff Babicz (also of Babicz Guitars). Calling themselves the “home of everything headless in the music world,” their company was ground zero for buying and selling classic, U.S.-made Steinbergers, accessing hard-to-find headless hardware and strings, restorations, and anything one might need on a headless guitar journey.
“Those guitars felt alien, and I felt like an alien.” —Paul Masvidal
Greenwald unfortunately passed away in late 2022, but he left his partnership in Headless USA to his dear friend and guitar confidant, Natalie Thayer. Still teamed with Babicz (who worked in the original Steinberger factory), Thayer’s goal is to honor her friend’s legacy by playing a major role in the current popularity of headless guitars.
Ola Strandberg
Beyond Masvidal, Greenwald, and Babicz, several online guitar builders’ groups and forums were dedicated to the headless guitars, covering every topic from vintage headless gems to creating new designs. Little did they know, hiding in their ranks was a soon-to-be electric guitar icon, Ola Strandberg.
In the 2000s, Ola was a hobbyist guitar player looking for a way to unwind from his stressful life. A tinkerer since birth, he says that he soon found himself thinking of an old Steinberger copy he had torn apart years prior. “It was a Hohner with the Steinberger-licensed tremolo system,” he recalls. “The hardware really appealed to me from a technical perspective. It was next-level stuff compared to traditional hardware. So, I ended up tearing it apart and building a different guitar around the hardware.
“Then, I got back into guitars in 2007 as a mental recovery after a pretty intense period of work, and I wanted to build another guitar. The headless concept … I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. It just made sense for so many reasons.”
Direct from the “cutting edge” of headless designs, according to Sweetwater Senior Category Manager for Guitars Jay Piccirillo. Ibanez has several forward-thinking models, including this EHB1005F Fretless 5-string bass.
Ola wasn’t out to make a Steinberger clone. Like Ned, he wanted to take what existed and make it better. The difference was that Ola says he “wanted to build a guitar that had some references to what a traditional guitar would look like and that would appeal to what I would want to play.”
From custom hardware to a new body shape, nothing was off the table. Refusing to compromise, the guitar Ola arrived at—now called the Strandberg Boden—was an instant winner and caught the attention of another of the forum’s members. As Ola explains, this part-time luthier and full-time musician was at the epicenter of a new style of highly technical, heavy new music and was about to change his life forever:
“Chris Letchford of Scale the Summit came up to me and said, ‘I hang around the forum because I’m a guitar builder, but my music is taking off, and I don’t have time to build guitars. Can you build me a 7-string guitar?’ I hardly knew 7-string guitars existed, but I said yes. So, guitar number five was for Chris.”
Letchford was hitting the road on package tours that included four or five bands, sometimes sharing members and gear, Strandberg recalls. “Chris showed it to Tosin (Abasi from Animals as Leaders) and Misha (Mansoor from Periphery), and I built number eight for Tosin and number 15, I think, for Misha.
“They were producing a new type of music, and it was perfect for them to have a guitar that looked different. They were a lower weight, had quicker response, and had better resonance. They addressed a lot of the issues they were having with traditional extended-range guitars. And, obviously, with those guys out there playing to audiences largely composed of other musicians, it was the perfect viral marketing.”
“The headless concept … I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.” —Ola Strandberg
Like Steinberger in the ’80s, the orders started flooding in. Strandberg had set off a headless-guitar tidal wave that’s still going strong. What once shocked the industry is now found next to Les Pauls, Strats, and dreadnoughts. For devotees of the design, it’s been a long time coming— especially for Ned Steinberger.
“Think about this,” Steinberger says. “It was less than 30 years from when the Fender bass and Strat were introduced to when I got started. It is now 50 years later. That blows my mind when I think about it.”
Ned Steinberger’s latest design project, the Phin, built by Patrick Sankuer of Sankuer Composites Technology using carbon fiber. The self-clamping bridge tuners are 3D printed in bronze-infused steel, and the custom EMG pickup incorporates 3 humbuckers inside a single housing.
Is the Future Headless?
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the decades of hard work have paid off. Countless guitar brands like Ibanez, Traveler Guitars, and Kiesel have now put their take on the headless thing. These companies are pushing their own boundaries in design, and the headless community is happy to have them. But is there enough demand to keep all of these builders afloat? Piccirillo says yes: “Ibanez, as far as the bigger manufacturers go, they’re the cutting edge. They spend a lot of time with artists and developing the next iteration to make things better and better. And Strandberg already broke through. They perform consistently, they have wide distribution with lots of great retail partners, and they have enough artists that legitimize the design in the eyes of others. Demand is still huge, and it’s not slowing down. There’s plenty of room for brands to join in.”
“It was less than 30 years from when the Fender bass and Strat were introduced to when I got started. It is now 50 years later. That blows my mind when I think about it.” —Ned Steinberger
“I don't think there’s any going back now,” says Masvidal. “The post-Cynic artists that are creating these sounds need them, and there are so many. It’s post-trend now. It’s still there, and it’s still holding up. There are so many companies that are making interesting things and pushing the envelope. They’re not going to turn that uncool corner again. It’s just not going to happen.”
The very soul of headless electric guitar design is the unwavering charge toward progress and evolution. From the work Ned’s doing today with his company NS Design to Strandberg’s line, to Ibanez or Kiesel’s creations, the platform, by its nature, must move forward. That takes commitment from builders, players, and retailers. Luckily, it’s in good hands.
“I’ve had a lot of heart-to-hearts with Ned and Don about the future of the headless guitar business,” says Thayer. “I want to put some fresh, grassroots effort into revitalizing it. This headless resurgence is the perfect opportunity. I think it’s going to be like the Les Paul and the Strat. I see a huge future for [headless] guitars, and I think it’s only just begun.”
Last year, Taylor Guitars capped its 50th Anniversary by introducing a new guitar collection celebrating the contributions of co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug to the guitar world. The Legacy Collection revives five of Bob Taylor’s classic acoustic models, curated by the legendary luthier and innovator himself. “To imagine that we’re doing guitars that harken to our past, our present and our future all at the same time,” Bob says, “I really like that.”
In developing the collection, Bob preserved the essence of his originals while integrating performance and playability upgrades introduced during his tenure as designer-in-chief. “It’s an up-to-date version of what those guitars would be,” Bob explains, “but with the same sound.”
Visually, these guitars feel classic—clean, understated and unmistakably Taylor. While Bob’s original aesthetic preferences are showcased in his Legacy models, the nod to the past runs deeper than trade dress.
From his earliest builds, Bob favored slim-profile necks because he found them easier to play. That preference set a design precedent that established Taylor’s reputation for smooth-playing, comfortable necks. Legacy models feature slim mahogany necks built with Taylor's patented New Technology (NT) design. “My first neck was a bolted-on neck but not an NT neck,” Bob says. “These are NT necks because it’s a better neck.” Introduced in 1999, the NT neck allowed for unprecedented micro-adjustability while offering a consistent, hand-friendly Taylor playing experience.
What makes this collection unique within the Taylor line is Bob’s use of his X-bracing architecture, favoring his time-tested internal voicing framework over more recent Taylor bracing innovations to evoke a distinctive tone profile. Since Andy Powers—Taylor’s current Chief Guitar Designer, President and CEO—debuted his patented V-Class bracing in 2018, V-Class has become a staple in Taylor’s premium-performance guitars. Still, Bob’s X-bracing pattern produces a richly textured sound with pleasing volume, balance and clarity that long defined the Taylor voice. All Legacy models feature LR Baggs VTC Element electronics, which Bob says “harkens back to those days.”
The team at Taylor thought the best way to demonstrate the sound of the Legacy guitars was to ask Andy Powers, Bob’s successor, to play them. A world-class luthier and musician, Andy has spent the past 14 years leading Taylor’s guitar innovation. In addition to V-Class bracing, his contributions include the Grand Pacific body style, the ultra-refined Builder’s Edition Collection, and most recently, the stunning Gold Label Collection.
Below you’ll find a series of videos that feature Powers playing each Legacy model along with information about the guitars.
Legacy 800 Series Models
First launched in 1975, the 800 Series was Taylor’s first official guitar series. Today, it remains home to some of the brand’s most acclaimed instruments, including the flagship 814ce, Builder’s Edition 814ce and new Gold Label 814e.
The Legacy 800 Series features the 810e Dreadnought and two Jumbos: the 6-string 815e and 12-string 855e. Each model serves up a refined version of the Dreadnought and Jumbo body shapes Bob inherited from Sam Radding—the original owner of the American Dream music shop where Bob and Kurt first met. “I was making my guitars in the molds that Sam had made at American Dream,” Bob recalls. “There was a Jumbo and a Dreadnought. That’s all we had.”
All three Legacy 800 Series guitars feature one of Bob’s favorite tonewood combos. Solid Indian rosewood back and sides are paired with a Sitka spruce top, yielding warm lows, clear trebles and a scooped midrange.
Aesthetic appointments include a three-ring abalone rosette, mother-of-pearl Large Diamond inlays, white binding around the body and fretboard, and Bob’s “straight-ear” peghead design. Both Jumbo models also showcase a mustache-style ebony bridge—a nod to Bob’s early Jumbo builds.
Legacy 810e
The 810 Dreadnought holds a special place in Bob Taylor’s heart. “My first 810, the one I made for myself, was a thrilling guitar for me to make,” he says. “It’s the one and only guitar I played. It didn’t matter how many guitars we made at Taylor, that’s the one I took out and played.” The Legacy 810e brings back that bold, room-filling Dreadnought voice along with the easy playability expected from a Taylor.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 810e | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 855e
Taylor’s first 12-strings found an audience in 1970s Los Angeles. “I was making guitars that would find their way to McCabe’s in Santa Monica and Westwood Music,” Bob says, “and these guitars were easy to play. Twelve-strings were a popular sound in that music. It was a modern country/folk/rock music genre that was accepting our guitars because they were easy to play. They also liked the sound of them because our guitars were easier to record.” The Legacy 855e, with its resonant Jumbo body, slim neck and gorgeous octave sparkle, carries that tradition forward.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 855e | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 815e
The Legacy 815e revives Taylor’s original Jumbo 6-string, delivering a big, lush sound with beautifully blooming overtones.
Legacy Grand Auditoriums
In the early 1990s, Bob Taylor heard a consistent refrain from dealers: “Not everybody wants a dreadnought guitar anymore.” Players were asking for something with comparable volume but different proportions—something more comfortable, yet still powerful. This feedback inspired Bob to design a new body style with more elegant curves, more accommodating proportions and a balanced tonal response. The result was the Grand Auditorium, which Taylor introduced in 1994 to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
Thanks to its musical versatility and easy playability, Bob’s Grand Auditorium attracted a wide variety of players. “We came into our own with our Grand Auditorium,” he says. “People were describing it as ‘all around.’ It’s a good strummer and good for fingerstyle, but it’s not totally geared toward strumming or totally geared toward fingerstyle.” Also referred to as the “Swiss-Army Knife” of guitars or the “Goldilocks” guitar, the GA quickly became a favorite among guitarists across playing styles, musical genres and different playing applications including recording and live performance. “That guitar made studio work successful,” Bob says. It gained a wider fanbase with the debut of the “ce” version, which introduced a Venetian cutaway and onboard electronics. “That became one of our hallmarks,” says Bob. “If you want to plug in your guitar, buy a Taylor.”
Today, the Grand Auditorium is Taylor’s best-selling body shape.
The Legacy Collection features two cedar-top Grand Auditoriums inspired by past favorites: the mahogany/cedar 514ce and rosewood/cedar 714ce. Both models incorporate Bob’s original X-bracing pattern for a tonal character reminiscent of their 1990s and 2000s counterparts. Shared aesthetic details include a green abalone three-ring rosette, ebony bridge pins with green abalone dots, a faux-tortoiseshell pickguard and Taylor gold tuning machines.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 815e | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 514ce
The Legacy 514ce features solid mahogany back and sides paired with a Western Red cedar top, yielding a punchy midrange and dry, woody sonic personality that pairs beautifully with cedar’s soft-touch sensitivity and warmth. It’s a standout choice for fingerstyle players and light strummers who crave nuance and depth. Distinct visual details include faux-tortoise body and fretboard binding, black-and-white top trim, and mother-of-pearl small diamond fretboard inlays.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 514ce | Playthrough Demo
Legacy 714ce
The Legacy 714ce also features a cedar top, this time matched with solid Indian rosewood back and sides. The result is a richly textured sound with deep lows, clear trebles and a warm, mellow response. Inspiring as it is, this specific wood pairing isn’t currently offered in any other standard Taylor model. Additional aesthetic details include green abalone dot fretboard inlays, black body and fretboard binding, and black-and-white “pinstripe” body purfling.
While the Legacy Collection spotlights Taylor’s past, newer models from the Gold Label, Builder’s Edition and Somos Collections show the company’s legacy is always evolving. Explore the Legacy Collection at taylorguitars.com or visit your local authorized Taylor dealer.
Taylor Guitars | Legacy 714ce | Playthrough Demo
A rig meant to inspire! That’s Jerry Garcia with his Doug Irwin-built Tiger guitar, in front of his Twin Reverb + McIntosh + JBL amp rig.
“At the bar, I didn’t even tellGarcia I was a guitar player,” Mattson explains. “I had just heard him play the new song ‘Days Between’ and I told him how excited I was by it, and he told me he was excited too. It wasn’t that long of a conversation, but I got to shake his hand and tell him how much his music meant to me. It’s a very sweet memory.”
The Grateful Dead’s final studio album was 1989’sBuilt to Last, and that title was prophetic. From 1965 to 1995, the band combined psychedelic rock with folk, blues, country, jazz, and even touches of prog rock and funk, placing a premium on improvisation and pushing into their own unique musical spaces. Along the way, they earned a reputation that placed them among the greatest American bands in rock ’n’ roll history—to many, the ultimate. Although no one member was more important than another, the heart and soul of the ensemble was Garcia. After his death in 1995, the surviving members retired the name the Grateful Dead.
“I think Jerry Garcia was the most creative guitarist of the 20th century because he had the widest ears and the sharpest instincts,” opines historian, author, and official Grateful Dead biographer Dennis McNally, over the phone. “What we see after his death are the Deadheads coming to terms with his passing but indicating that it’s the music that was most important to them. And who plays the music now becomes simply a matter of taste.”
Dark Star Orchestra guitarist Jeff Mattson, seen here with Garcia’s Alligator Stratocaster (yes, the real one).
Photo by Susana Millman
This year marks 30 years since Garcia’s passing and 60 years since the band formed in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today, the guitarist’s musical vocabulary and unique, personal tone manifests in new generations of players. Perhaps the most visible of these musicians is John Mayer, anointed as Garcia’s “replacement” in Dead and Co. But dozens of others, like Mattson, Tom Hamilton Jr., and a young new artist named Bella Rayne, strive to keep the Dead alive.
The first few Grateful Dead tribute bands began emerging in local dive bars by the late ’70s. More than mere cover bands, these groups devoted themselves entirely to playing the Dead. A few of these early groups eventually toured the country, playing in college towns, ski resorts, and small theatres across the United States. Mattson started one on Long Island, New York. He tells me, “The first band I was in that played exclusively Grateful Dead was Wild Oats. It was 1977, and we played local bars. Then, in 1979, I joined a band called the Volunteers. We also played almost exclusively the Grateful Dead, and that was a much more professional outfit—we had a good PA and lights and a truck, the whole nine yards.” The Volunteers eventually morphed into the Zen Tricksters.
Garcia’s death turbocharged the Dead tribute band landscape. Fanbases grew, and some bands reached the point where big-time agents booked them into blue-chip venues like Red Rocks and the Beacon Theatre. Summer festivals devoted to these bands evolved.
“The first band I was in that played exclusively Grateful Dead was Wild Oats. It was 1977, and we played local bars.” —Jeff Mattson
Dark Star Orchestra launched in 1997, and they do something particular, taking an individual show from somewhere out of Grateful Dead history and recreating that evening’s setlist. It’s musically and sonically challenging. They try to use era-specific gear, so on any given night, they may be playing through recreations of the Grateful Dead’s backline from 1971 or 1981, for example. It all depends on the show they choose to present. Mattson joined DSO as its lead guitar player in 2009.
Something else significant happened after Jerry died: The remaining living members of the Grateful Dead and other musicians from Garcia’s inner circle embraced the tribute scene, inviting musicians steeped in their music to step up and sit in with them. For Mattson, it’s meant playing over the years with all the core members of the band, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart, plus former members Donna Jean Godchaux, who sang in the band from 1971 to 1979, and Tom Constanten, who played keyboards with the Dead from 1968 to 1970.
Tom Hamilton’s Lotto custom built had a Doug Irwin-inspired upper horn.
In the newest post-Garcia tribute bands, many guitar players aren’t old enough to have seen Garcia perform live—or if they did, it was towards the end of his life and career. One of those guys sitting today at the top of the Garcia pyramid, along with Mattson, is Tom Hamilton Jr. Growing up in a musical family in Philadelphia, Hamilton saw Garcia play live only three times. Early on, he was influenced by Stevie Ray Vaughan, but Hamilton’s older brother, who was also a guitar player, loved the Dead and Garcia. “My brother wanted to play like Jerry,” he recalls, “so he roped me in because he needed me to play ‘Bob Weir’ and be his rhythm guitar sidekick.” Eventually, Hamilton leaned more into the Jerry role himself. “Then I spent my entire twenties trying to develop my own voice as a songwriter and as a guitar player. And I did,” Hamilton says. “And during that time, I met Joe Russo. He was not so much into the Dead then, but he knew I was.”
A drummer from Brooklyn, by about 2006, Russo found himself collaborating on projects with members of Phish and Ween. That put him on the radar of Lesh and Weir, who invited Russo to be a part of their post-Dead project Furthur in 2009. (And on guitar, they chose DSO founding member John Kadlecik, opening that role up for Mattson.)
“When Joe played in Furthur, he got under the hood of the Grateful Dead’s music and started to understand how special it was,” Hamilton points out. “After Furthur wound down, we decided to form JRAD. We weren’t trying to do something academic, not some note-for-note recreation. We were coming at it through the pure joy of the songs, and the fact that the five of us in JRAD were improvisers ourselves.”
“We were coming at it through the pure joy of the songs, and the fact that the five of us in JRAD were improvisers ourselves.” —Tom Hamilton Jr.
Today, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead (JRAD) is considered to be one of the premier Grateful Dead tribute bands. They formed in 2013, with Hamilton and Scott Metzger as the band’s guitar frontline, with Hamilton handling Garcia’s vocal roles. Eventually, Hamilton, too, found himself jamming onstage with the ever-evolving Phil Lesh and Friends. That, of course, further enmeshed him in the scene, and in 2015, he started a band with Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann calledBilly and the Kids.
Now, there’s a new kid on the block, literally. Bella Rayne recently turned 18 and grew up in Mendocino, California. Her parents were into the Dead, but even they were too young to have really followed the original band around the country. At her age, they were big into Phish. By the pandemic, Bella started embracing the guitar out of boredom, woodshedding while social distancing in quarantine. She explains, “Like any other teen, I was bored out of my mind looking for anything to do.” Rummaging through her garage, she came across her mom’s old Strat. “At the time, I was really into ’90s Seattle grunge. I put new strings on the Strat, and then I tried to teach myself Pearl Jam songs, and I learned how to play them by watching YouTube videos. Then, I started posting videos of my journey online as I became more serious about it. I hit a point where I knew it would be my thing. The next thing I knew, one of the Bay Area Dead bands [China Dolls] reached out to me and asked me to sit in. I thought, ‘no way.’“My parents are huge Deadheads,” she continues. “That’s theirthing. I grew up with the Dead being pushed on me my whole life. But I ended up going, and it’s just been this awesome spiral ever since.” Bella calls her current Dead-related project Bella Rayne and Friends, and she, too, has been recognized not only by the new generation of Garcia players in the Dead tribute bands, but also by Melvin Seals, the Hammond organist who played for years in theJerry Garcia Band. “I was hired to just sit-in for a couple of numbers withMelvin and his JGB band,” she recalls, “and we were having so much fun he said to me, ‘Why don’t you just sit in for the whole second set.’ It was an amazing night.”
Bella Rayne with her Alligator-inspired Strat, with a JGB Cats Under the Starssticker on the body.
Photo by Sean Reiter
Jerry Garcia played many different guitars. But for those guitarists wanting to emulate Garcia’s tone, the focus is on four instruments in particular. One is a1955 Fender Stratocaster known as “Alligator,” which Garcia had heavily modified and began playing in 1971. The other three guitars were hand built in Northern California by luthier Doug Irwin: Wolf, Tiger, and Rosebud. Garcia introduced them in 1973, 1979, and 1989, respectively. Sometimes, in a jam-band version of being knighted by the Excalibur sword, a chosen member of this next generation of Dead players is handed one of Garcia’s personal guitars to play onstage for a few songs or even an entire set.
Although they started their journeys at different times and in separate ways, Mattson, Hamilton, and Rayne all have “knighthood” in common. Rayne remembers, “In March of 2024, I was sitting in one night with anall-girl Dead tribute band called the China Dolls, and no one had told me that Jerry’s actual 1955 Strat, Alligator, was there that evening. My friend [roots musician] Alex Jordan handed me the guitar unannounced. It’s something I’ll never forget.”What’s it like to strap on one of Jerry Garcia’s iconic instruments? Tom Hamilton recalls, “It wasRed Rocks in 2017, and I played with Bob Weir, Melvin Seals, and JGB at a tribute show for Jerry’s 75th birthday. I got to play both Wolf and Tiger that night. I was in my head with it for about one song, but then you sort of have a job to do. But I do recall that we were playing the song ‘Deal.’ I have a [DigiTech] Whammy pedal that has a two-octave pitch raise on it, real high gain that gives me a lot of sustain, and it’s a trick I use that really peaks a jam. That night, while I am doing it, I had the thought of, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I am doing this trick of mine on Garcia’s guitar.’ Jerry would have thought what I was doing was the greatest thing in the world or the absolute worst, but either way, I’m cool with it!”
“I was sitting in one night with an all-girl Dead tribute band called the China Dolls, and no one had told me that Jerry’s actual 1955 Strat, Alligator, was there that evening. My friend [roots musician] Alex Jordan handed me the guitar unannounced. It’s something I’ll never forget.” —Bella Rayne
Jeff Mattson has played Alligator, Wolf, Garcia’s Travis Bean 500, and his Martin D-28. He sums it up this way: “I used to have posters up in my childhood bedroom of Garcia playing his Alligator guitar. I would stare at those images all the time. And sowhen I got a chance to play it and plug it in, suddenly there were those distinctive tones. Those guitars of his all have a certain mojo. It’s so great to play those guitars that you have to stop in the moment and remind yourself to take a mental picture, so it doesn’t just fly by. It’s just a tremendous pleasure and an honor. I never imagined I would get to play four of Jerry Garcia’s guitars.”
With young people like Bella Rayne dedicating herself at the tender age of 18 to keeping the Dead’s music going, it feels like what the band called their “long strange trip” will keep rolling down the tracks and far over the horizon. “People will be listening to the Grateful Dead in one hundred years the same way they will be listening to John Coltrane, too,” predicts McNally. “Improvisational music is like jumping off a cliff. Sometimes you fly, and sometimes you land on the rocks. When you take that risk, there’s an opportunity for magic to happen. And that will always appeal to a certain segment of people who don’t want predictability in the music they listen to. The Grateful Dead is for people who want complete craziness in their music—sometimes leading to disaster and oftentimes leading to something wonderful. It’s music for people who want to be surprised.”
“The distinctive pickup configurations of these five guitars deliver a versatile tonal platform, whether you’re exploring subtle textures or pushing the envelope. The deep dive into our Narrowfield technology is obvious with this launch. With both the S2 models made in our Maryland factory and the SE models made in Indonesia, our goal has been to create guitars that will inspire you and spark creativity, all at an exceptional value,” said PRS Guitars COO, Jack Higginbotham.
S2 Special Semi-Hollow
The PRS S2 Special Semi-Hollow features a pair of 58/15 LT humbuckers in the bass and treble positions and a PRS Narrowfield in the middle. A 5-way blade switch and two mini-toggles allow players to tap the humbuckers, creating twelve distinct pickup combinations for sonic exploration. The carved maple top and mahogany back encompass a semi-hollow body that adds a natural airiness and depth to the guitar’s tone while enhancing sustain.
S2 Studio
The PRS S2 Studio delivers a wide range of sonic possibilities through its distinctive single-single-hum configuration. Featuring two proprietary PRS Narrowfield pickups in the bass and middle positions and a 58/15 LT humbucker in the treble position, the S2 Studio offers a palette of sounds from single-coil clarity to vocal humbucker tones. This model also has a 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control.
SE Special Semi-Hollow
The PRS SE Special Semi-Hollow is designed with the versatility of a hum/“single”/hum setup, bringing PRS’s Narrowfield DD pickup design to the SE Series in a classic maple-top guitar. The semi-hollow construction also enhances sustain and resonance, while the f-hole adds a classic aesthetic. The coil-tap switching system unlocks a wide range of tones through a pair of 58/15 LT “S” pickups in the bass and treble positions and a PRS Narrowfield DD “S” in the middle.
SE Studio
The PRS SE Studio’s “single”/”single”/hum pickup configuration provides a wide range of tonal options. This combination of PRS Narrowfield DD “S” bass and middle pickups with a PRS 58/15 LT “S” treble humbucker offers humbucking warmth, single-coil sparkle, and everything in between. The 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control further enhance its versatility.
SE Studio Standard
The only bolt-on neck in this release group, the PRS SE Studio Standard brings the tone, playability, and versatility of the Studio model to the SE Series and into an all-mahogany design with a vintage-style pickguard aesthetic. At the heart of the SE Studio Standard is its versatile trio of pickups: an 58/15 LT “S” humbucker in the treble position with two Narrowfield DD “S” pickups in the middle and bass positions. The 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control allow for an array of pickup configurations.
PRS Guitars continues its schedule of launching new products each month in 2025. Stay tuned to see new gear and 40th Anniversary limited-edition guitars throughout the year.
