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Acoustic Guitars

Tonewoods absolutely matter when it comes to acoustic guitars, right? But how much difference does the wood actually make? If you’ve tried out different guitars made from different woods by different vendors, then are you only hearing the woods? Or are you hearing the shape? The body size? The bracing? Or maybe other differences in the design and construction?

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Making a living doing the thing you love is great—in fact, it’s something that so many players aspire to. But it changes the relationship between player and instrument when the instrument is a source of work. How do they stay excited about their work? And how do they get excited when they’re in a lull? What keeps their creativity flowing? These are big questions, but our hosts are both having their own renaissances with their guitars. And—surprise!—it’s because they’ve both come into some new key pieces of gear.

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Fishman AFX Mini Series: AcoustiVerb, Pro EQ & Broken Record Demos | First Look

Fishman's new micro pedals add scads of acoustic performance flexibility and a ton of fun.

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Jerry Garcia plays a Takamine acoustic at Lincoln Center in Manhattan in 1984, where he performed with bassist and frequent collaborator John Kahn.

Photo by Susana Millman

The Grateful Dead leader’s guitar playing traveled a long and complex road that begins in the dusty fields of American music. Here’s your guide, from the Black Mountain Boys to Workingman’s Dead to Dawg.

Twenty-eight years after his death, Jerry Garcia may be more famous than ever. There are reputed to be over 5,000 Grateful Dead cover bands in the U.S. alone. Guitarists in towns small and large mine his electric guitar solos for existential wisdom, and his bright, chiming tone and laid-back lyricism continues to enthrall successive generations. What is less talked about is his acoustic guitar playing, which is, after all, where it all began.

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As one of life’s simple pleasures, playing acoustic guitar—especially outside—can be the perfect mental-health solution.

“Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.”—John Stuart Mill

My heroes have always been musicians. After a lifetime of gigs and a decade of Rig Rundowns, I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of musicians that I have loved, emulated, followed, stalked. For the most part, they are nothing like the demigods I imagined. If you get an unguarded glimpse into who they are, often you will recognize a kinship, for we share this same fragile, nervous, socially awkward, somewhat insecure core. Distill it all down without smoke and mirrors, or smoke and beers, and you can see that like most of us, they were drawn to music from an early age because it gave them something they needed.

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