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GALLERY: Born in the Fifties: Electric Guitars

A selection of electric guitars entering their seventh decade.

1957 Gretsch Chet Atkins Hollowbody 6120
In 1954, the Fred Gretsch Company introduced its own artist signature guitar in response to the success of Gibson's Les Paul guitar. The virtuoso country artist Chet Atkins was chosen, and with his input the model 6120 Chet Atkins Hollowbody was born. The guitar included features requested by Atkins, such as a 24.75" scale length, metal nut and Bigsby vibrato tailpiece. It also initially sported "kitschy" western designs intended to appeal to country music fans. Atkins disliked the extra cosmetic decorations and had them gradually removed as he and the guitar became more popular. The 1957 6120 (serial # 25017) pictured here has all the traits typical to that year: Horseshoe headstock inlay (replacing steerƃ??s head of '54-'56), hump-top block fingerboard markers (replacing the rectangular blocks of '56), and a "Bar" bridge (replacing the aluminum Bigsby compensated bridge of '54-'56). De Armond single-coil pickups were still used in 1957, although they would be replaced in 1958 with the new Filtertron humbuckers Atkins preferred. Credit: Tim Mullally & Dave Rogers, Dave's Guitar Shop, La Crosse, WI.

Joshua Kim

Sublime, fronted by Jakob Nowell, son of late Sublime singer Bradley Nowell, are in the studio writing and recording new songs for an upcoming full-length album. This marks their first new album since 1996.

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Price unveiled her new band and her new signature model at a recent performance at the Gibson Garage in Nashville.

Photo courtesy of Gibson

The Grammy-nominated alt-country and Americana singer, songwriter, and bandleader tells the story behind the creation of her new guitar and talks about the role acoustic Gibson workhorses have played in her musical history—and why she loves red-tailed hawks.

The Gibson J-45 is a classic 6-string workhorse and a favorite accomplice of singer-songwriters from Bob Dylan to Jorma Kaukonen to James Taylor to Gillian Welch to Lucinda Williams to Bruce Springsteen to Noel Gallagher. Last week, alt-country and Americana artist Margo Price permanently emblazoned her name on that roster with the unveiling of her signature-model J-45. With an alluring heritage cherry sunburst finish and a red-tail-hawk-motif double pickguard, the instrument might look more like a show pony, but under the hard-touring and hard-playing Price’s hands, it is 100-percent working animal.

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Get premium spring reverb tones in a compact and practical format with the Carl Martin HeadRoom Mini. Featuring two independent reverb channels, mono and stereo I/O, and durable metal construction, this pedal is perfect for musicians on the go.

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Together with Nathaniel, we’re decoding our favorite eras of the Edge’s tones—from his early Memory Man days through his expanding delay rack rig, into his 1990s Achtung Baby sounds, and all the way through to his Sphere rig. How does he get those amazing delay tones? And what are those cool picks he uses?

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