
The search for the vintage world's holy grail.
In the vintage guitar world, the Gibson Moderne is the ultimate maddening mystery: the Holy Grail, El Dorado, the Unicorn, UFOs and Big Foot, if you will. It was designed along with the Flying V and Explorer as part of Gibson’s “Modernistic” series in 1957 (the era of pulp fiction and the space craze), in order to shake up Gibson’s stodgy image. The V and Explorer made it into production, but the Moderne seemingly never saw the light of day, until Gibson saw fit to finally issue a limited run in 1982. To this day, not a single Moderne has ever been verified as original by anyone, although there have been forgeries, copies, and more false sightings than one could imagine. This article is a condensed history of the guitar, the fifty-plus-year search for an original example—the myth, the mystery, the facts and the rumors.
A Controversy is Born
Ted McCarty, Gibson’s president during their golden age of the late 1950s, commissioned three “modernistic” guitars in response to disparaging comments that had gotten back to him from the Fender camp in California. McCarty realized Gibson’s solidbody guitar line was rather staid, so he decided to shake the industry up with wild guitars inspired by futuristic, space-age concepts. After settling on three designs from the one hundred or so that were submitted, prototypes were made to be shown at the 1957 NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) show in Chicago. There’s speculation that only the Flying V and Explorer, then called the Futura, made it to the show, and that the Moderne was scrapped.
Others say all three guitars were shown, and that while the Flying V and Explorer achieved their goal of “shaking things up” at the show and getting into limited production, the Moderne was so poorly received that all the prototypes may have been scrapped at the Gibson factory—but not before one was supposedly sent out to Gibson’s case supplier for fitting. Ted McCarty went to his grave claiming that at least several Modernes were built, but he didn’t know what had happened to them. Some Gibson employees say none were produced. A few say the prototypes were cut up and destroyed. A few others maintain that two Gibson employees took the parts and assembled three Modernes outside the factory, yet nobody seems to remember either of these men. Almost all the original players in this fascinating mystery tale are deceased.
If you’ve never seen the Moderne, it’s an extremely unique design that’s impossible to ignore. The left side of the body resembles a Flying V or a shark fin, while the smaller right side looks like an old-style can opener or a fish hook. It’s a radical shape even today, so one can only imagine how it must have appeared in the conservative Eisenhower era fifty-two years ago. The headstock was shaped like a widened boat paddle, with four string guides. Some think the Moderne is butt-ugly; others consider it a thing of beauty. You can make your own judgment.
Sightings: Fakes and Forgeries?
Illustrations: Michael C. Ludwig
Enter Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, who owns what he believes and claims to be an original Moderne, purchased for “a little bit of nothing” in 1971. Although this guitar has been photographed, Gibbons, who has been described to me by someone who knows him well as a master of “smoke and mirrors,” has never allowed a single vintage guitar expert to examine his instrument, not even his friend George Gruhn. He has steadfastly refused to make the guitar public to any extent other than two questionable photos. Examining these images, it appears that Billy G’s Moderne looks very similar to the Japanese Ibanez “Futura” Moderne copy that surfaced in 1975. Moderne copies have also been made with the names Greco and Antoria on the headstock, and Gibson produced offshore Moderne copies in the year 2000 with the Epiphone name.
Speaking of replicas, luthier Glen Miller (no relation to the late swing bandleader) manufactures Moderne, Explorer, and Flying V replicas at Wrona’s House of Violins in Lewiston, NY. Miller began performing repairs shortly after getting his first guitar in 1970, and learned his trade in the shop of the late vintage guitar dealer Dan Hairfield. In 2003, Miller found a source for original Gibson parts.
“I had been searching for a Moderne and came across a listing for some supposed original Moderne parts,” he says. “I contacted the seller, who had been a Gibson subcontractor and was fortunate enough to have attended the auction [when they closed up] the Kalamazoo factory in 1984. He purchased many bodies, necks and other hardware, but then put the parts in his storage area and forgot about them. I made a deal for most of the stuff he had, including original ‘82 Moderne bodies and necks, plus ten Gibson logos.”
Miller has built three Modernes from Gibson parts, plus five from his own parts, in addition to four Explorers and two Flying Vs.
The Plot Thickens
Unlike some, Glen Miller believes the original Moderne never existed.
“I don’t think one was ever made in the ‘50s,” he comments. “It is clear from photos that Gibson rushed some prototype Vs and Explorers so they could display them at the ’57 NAMM show. The Moderne never made it into a single picture taken at the show. All the supposed sightings sound just like people who claim to have seen a UFO. The prototype Vs, Futuras, and Explorers with the Futura headstocks have all shown up. If there were any real ‘50s Modernes, at least one would have surfaced by now. A ‘50s Moderne does not exist.”
Luthier Dan Erlewine claims to have owned a re-necked Moderne, but no longer has the guitar and never photographed it when it was in his possession. According to Erlewine, “A guy brought it into my shop on the outskirts of Ann Arbor and wanted to sell it. He said his dad sent it to Kalamazoo to have a Melody Maker neck put on it, because he liked the feel of his buddy’s Melody Maker and wanted his guitar to have the same. I thought it was an Explorer, which I’d never seen, and I had never heard of the Moderne or the Futura. I paid $175, which was a lot of money at the time.”
“When I removed the pickguard,” he continues, “I found some routing had been done, and I believe different pickups had been installed—maybe someone started a third pickup and never finished. I filled the unwanted rout with plaster of Paris, of all things, and painted black over the hole. I sold the guitar immediately to Ann Arbor Music to get my money back. They sold it to Doug Green, who worked for George Gruhn. I think the parties got into some pretty good arguments over it.” That guitar was supposedly sold to a Japanese businessman. George Gruhn claimed to have examined it and deemed it a fake.
“George knows more than I do about vintage guitars,” Erlewine states. “I’d say he didn’t see it. He bought it through his employee, Ranger Doug.”
Dan Erlewine has never seen Billy Gibbons’ Moderne, either: “Only recently did I see a glimpse of it in the photo of Billy in the convertible filled with guitars in the Ron Wood book. How would I know if it’s original? What does ‘original’ mean anymore, especially with a guitar that has never been proven to exist.”
“I have no idea why Billy has been so secretive about it,” he adds. “I’ve never met Billy. He’s a big star with lots of valuable guitars, and if it were me, I’d be protective about them, too. He hasn’t shown it to anyone because he doesn’t feel like it; he doesn’t have a need to. I don’t think Billy claims to be an expert on vintage guitars. He’s an expert at playing them!”
Erlewine doesn’t subscribe to the theory that an original Moderne would have surfaced by now: “If there were only three allegedly made, it’s possible the owner doesn’t even care about guitars, or have a clue what it is. It’s a big world, and lots of strange things happen all the time.”
“I never thought about the Moderne myth very much. The most I thought about it was a couple of years ago, when a man flew to Athens, OH, to show us a ‘real’ one that he had come across—he was writing a book about it and wanted verification. He and the guitar’s owner paid to have experts Phil Jones, Tom Murphy and Michael Stevens flown in for the weekend as part of the inspection team. Michael was ill and couldn’t attend, but Phil and Tom came. We had seen at least fifty photos of it before the get-together took place, and they were good enough to warrant us looking at it. Once the case was opened however, we could tell it wasn’t real. Probably some of the color photos in Ron Wood’s book are of that guitar.”
Summing it up, does Dan Erlewine think the Moderne ever existed? “I have no idea,” he answers, “but I’m starting to doubt it.”
One Man’s Quest for the Truth
As previously mentioned, Gibson relented to requests and officially introduced the Moderne in 1982. Howard Leese, formerly of Heart, was given the first prototype, which was painted Candy Apple Red. He also purchased one for his guitar tech. Both later sold the guitars for a tidy profit. Only 183 Modernes were produced in this run, and the public reaction was generally negative. Other than the Korean-made Epiphone copies, Gibson has refused to manufacture the Moderne since.
This brings us to Ronald Lynn Wood, a guitarist originally from Flint, MI, and now of Gainesville, FL, who became fascinated by the Moderne as a young man and set out to unravel the mystery of this elusive guitar. His new book, Moderne: The Holy Grail of Vintage Guitars, has just been released by Centerstream Publishing, and it is the most exhaustive and comprehensive accounting to date of the search, the history, and the rumors and facts surrounding the Moderne. Wood saw what he believes was a Moderne hanging in a Flint pawnshop in 1978, and from there began his quest for the truth behind the mystery.
“It was like no other guitar I had ever seen,” he recalls. “I distinctly remember the lower horn was shorter than the top. I never did get that Moderne, but always wondered if it was real or not. When I was thirteen, I used to subscribe to the newsletter put out by Guitar Trader from Red Bank, NJ. From my earliest days as a musician, I was fascinated with vintage guitars. There was all this talk about the Moderne in various books and magazines, but very little substance. Did they make one? Where was it?”
Wood goes on to say, “I met Cohn Rude through an article he had written [on the Moderne] in Vintage Guitar magazine. He was very helpful and shared a lot of information with me, as did a good friend of his, Wayne Johnson. I had been collecting information about the Moderne for a long time, but after talking with them, it gave me the fire to finish the book.”
Wood started saving information on the Moderne twelve years ago, and it took him five years to complete the book. He claims to have a great deal more information that didn’t make it into the book, information that he could not substantiate.
“A few days ago,” Wood relates, “someone sent me a photo of a [Gibson] factory worker with a Moderne on her work bench in the final stages of assembly, so I absolutely think the guitar existed. I think at the very least two prototypes were made, but most likely four. Ted McCarty, John Huis and Julius Bellson, all Gibson management at the time, said there were several made. I spoke to an ex-Gibson employee, who refused to be identified, who claimed to have seen Modernes at the factory in 1963. Ren Wall of Heritage Guitars claims to have played a Moderne in the Gibson morgue in Kalamazoo in 1963, and borrowed it for use in a school dramatic production. Even some former Fender reps I spoke to said they saw all three futuristic guitars at the 1957 NAMM show.”
“I would really love to see Billy Gibbons’ Moderne in person. He is strangely secretive about that guitar, which makes me wonder. He did an article in Guitar World magazine in 1982 and they photographed it. The rarest guitar in the world, and all you see is a sideways photo in the front seat of a car? He didn’t even include it in his own book! My guess is that his guitar might have vintage-correct parts, but that doesn’t make it real. Not even the most ‘guru’ of vintage guitar experts has ever had the opportunity to inspect it. Billy gets any guitar custom made for him—why not a vintage-correct Moderne?”
Wood believes a genuine Moderne would have surfaced by now, but there’s always the possibility it hasn’t: “I used to think one would have appeared by now, but I started talking to some fellows on the mylespaul.com forum a while back, and one of them told me his grandma had some ‘old guitars that say Gibson on them’ up in her attic. She had no idea what they were, but they were old, perhaps from the ‘50s. It’s highly possible that someone has a Moderne and might not have a clue as to its worth. I remember a couple years ago, some guy bought a ’79 Flying V from Goodwill for $25!”
Wood says he would like to see Gibson reissue the Moderne again: “I’ve sent many letters to them asking for another reissue. I doubt they will make it again. The guitar was ridiculed in 1957, and only sold 183 or so in the early ‘80s. One guy I interviewed for the book said he was a member of the Gibson Custom Club, meaning that if you have enough money, they’ll pretty much make you anything you want, as long as it was based on a legitimate Gibson model. He asked for a Moderne and they couldn’t make him one.”
Can We Get Some Forensics on this Thing?
Deciding to go to the experts, I contacted George Gruhn of Gruhn Guitars, Stan Jay of Mandolin Brothers, and Buzzy Levine of Lark Street Music.
George Gruhn commented, “I have never encountered any original Moderne guitar made prior to their so-called reissue in the early 1980s, nor have I ever had a conversation with anyone who claimed [to me] to have seen one. I have significant doubts that they were ever made.”
Stan Jay said, “The common wisdom is that Gibson had a patent on the Moderne. I see it as a fantasy-based instrument from the 1950s space age. It just didn’t take off. The Moderne is like the Sasquatch of the vintage guitar industry, or those fuzzy pictures you see of UFOs. You can’t really tell what they are. I think it’s a wonderful thing to have some mystery. Every industry needs a mystery, and the Moderne is our mystery, our Sasquatch. The real story of the Moderne is the myth itself.”
Buzzy Levine remarked, “The only myth I know is that Billy Gibbons supposedly has one, but why hasn’t he shown it to anyone? Who wouldn’t want to make it public that he owned the rarest electric guitar ever made? If there were Modernes out there, they should have surfaced by now. I suppose there could have been one or two made.”
I Want to Believe
As someone who has done his own Moderne research and generally enjoys the “thrill of the hunt,” I would be remiss in not expressing my own opinion. I believe Billy Gibbons’ guitar is a copy, an Asian lookalike—maybe a prototype that got into this country, a custom guitar he had built, or perhaps a mongrel that contains some original Gibson parts. The headstock is the standard Les Paul or SG-style “open book,” not the “paddlestock” of the original design. It would not be unlike Gibbons, a secretive man, to keep the guitar a mystery to perpetuate the myth, mystery and mojo of the Moderne.
Although I would like to believe there’s an original Moderne under a farmer’s bed somewhere in rural USA, I honestly think one would have surfaced by now, given the vast common knowledge about rare guitars that exists today. Even pawnshop owners regularly refer to vintage guitar price guides, and I personally know several antique dealers in my area who are savvy about old guitars.
A verified, original Moderne would easily fetch seven figures. If I found one, it would most certainly go up on the block for sale. Finally, while I believe the Moderne did exist in prototype form, it seems most likely that all original examples were destroyed in the Gibson morgue by the early ‘60s. At best, some of the parts may have been stolen out of the factory and reassembled into quasi-Modernes.
The bottom line: an original Moderne exists only in the minds of those who believe the myth, but admittedly, it’s fun to believe otherwise and continue the hunt for the vintage guitar world’s Holy Grail.
For information on Glen Miller’s Moderne, Explorer and Flying V replicas, visit: wronashouseofviolins.com.
For additional information on Ron Wood’s book, Moderne: The Holy Grail of Vintage Guitars, go to: centerstream-usa.com.
[Updated 2/24/22]
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See and hear Taylor’s Legacy Collection guitars played by his successor, Andy Powers.
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
Detail of Ted’s 1997 National resonator tricone.
What instruments should you bring to an acoustic performance? These days, with sonic innovations and the shifting definition of just what an acoustic performance is, anything goes.
I believe it was Shakespeare who wrote: “To unplug, or not to unplug, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of acoustic purists, or to take thy electric guitar in hand to navigate the sea of solo performing.”
Four-hundred-and-twenty-four years later, many of us still sometimes face the dilemma of good William when it comes to playing solo gigs. In a stripped-down setting, where it’s just us and our songs, do we opt to play an acoustic instrument, which might seem more fitting—or at least more common, in the folksinger/troubadour tradition—or do we bring a comfy electric for accompaniment?
For me, and likely many of you, it depends. If I’m playing one or two songs in a coffeehouse-like atmosphere, I’m likely to bring an acoustic. But if I’m doing a quick solo pop up, say, as a buffer between bands in a rock room, I’m bringing my electric. And when I’m doing a solo concert, where I’ll be stretching out for at least an hour, it’s a hybrid rig. I’ll bring my battered old Guild D25C, a National tricone resonator, and my faithful Zuzu electric with coil-splitting, and likely my gig pedalboard, or at least a digital delay. And each guitar is in a different tuning. Be prepared, as the Boy Scouts motto states. (For the record, I never made it past Webelos.)
My point is, the definition of the “acoustic” or “coffeehouse” performance has changed. Sure, there are still a few Alan Lomax types out there who will complain that an electric guitar or band is too loud, but they are the last vestiges of the folk police. And, well, acoustic guitar amplification is so good these days that I’ve been at shows where each strum of a flattop box has threatened to take my head off. My band Coyote Motel even plays Nashville’s hallowed songwriter room the Bluebird Café as a fully electric five-piece. What’s key, besides a smart, flexible sound engineer, is controlling volume, and with a Cali76 compressor or an MXR Duke of Tone, I can get the drive and sustain I need at a low level.
“My point is, the definition of the ‘acoustic’ or ‘coffeehouse’ performance has changed.”
So, today I think the instruments that are right for “acoustic” gigs are whatever makes you happiest. Left to my own devices, I like my Guild for songs that have a strong basis in folk or country writing, my National for blues and slide, and my electric for whenever I feel like adding a little sonic sauce or showing off a bit, since I have a fluid fingerpicking hand that can add some flash to accompaniment and solos. It’s really a matter of what instrument or instruments make you most comfortable because we should all be happy and comfortable onstage—whether that stage is in an arena or theater, a club or coffeehouse, or a church basement.
At this point, with instruments like Fender’s Acoustasonic line, or piezo-equipped models from Godin, PRS, and others, and the innovative L.R. Baggs AEG-1, it’s worth considering just what exactly makes a guitar acoustic. Is it sound? In which case there’s a wide-open playing field. Or is it a variation on the classic open-bodied instrument that uses a soundhole to move air? And if we arrive at the same end, do the means matter? There is excellent craftsmanship available today throughout the entire guitar spectrum, including foreign-built models, so maybe we can finally put the concerns of Shakespeare to rest and accept that “acoustic” has simply come to mean “low volume.”
Another reason I’m thinking out loud about this is because this is our annual acoustic issue. And so we’re featuring Jason Isbell, on the heels of his solo acoustic album, a piece on how acoustic guitars do their work authored by none other than Lloyd Baggs, and Andy Fairweather Low, whose new solo album—and illustrious career—includes exceptional acoustic performances. If you’re not familiar with his work, and you are, even if you don’t know it, he was the gent sitting next to Clapton for the historic 1992 Unplugged concert—and lots more. There are also reviews of new instruments from Taylor, Martin, and Godin that fit the classic acoustic profile, so dig in, and to heck with the slings and arrows!Ernie Ball, the world’s leading manufacturer of premium guitar strings and accessories, proudly announces the launch of the all-new Earthwood Bell Bronze acoustic guitar strings. Developed in close collaboration with Grammy Award-winning guitarist JohnMayer, Bell Bronze strings are engineered to meet Mayer’s exacting performance standards, offering players a bold new voice for their acoustic guitars.Crafted using a proprietary alloy inspired by the metals traditionally found in bells and cymbals, Earthwood Bell Bronze strings deliver a uniquely rich, full-bodied tone with enhanced clarity, harmonic content, and projection—making them the most sonically complex acoustic strings in the Ernie Ball lineup to date.
“Earthwood Bell Bronze strings are a giant leap forward in tone, playability, and durability. They’re great in any musical setting but really shine when played solo. There’s an orchestral quality to them.” -John Mayer
Product Features:
- Developed in collaboration with John Mayer
- Big, bold sound
- Inspired by alloys used for bells and cymbals
- Increased resonance with improved projection and sustain
- Patent-pending alloy unique to Ernie Ball stringsHow is Bell Bronze different?
- Richer and fuller sound than 80/20 and Phosphor Bronze without sounding dark
- Similar top end to 80/20 Bronze with richer low end than Phosphor Bronze
Brent Mason is, of course, on of the most recorded guitarists in history, who helped define the sound of most ’90s country superstars. So, whether you know it or not, you’ve likely heard Mason’s playing.
Professional transcriber Levi Clay has done the deepest of dives into Brent Mason’s hotshot licks. At one point, he undertook the massive project of transcribing and sharing one of Mason’s solos every day for 85 or so days. Mason is, of course, on of the most recorded guitarists in history, who helped define the sound of most ’90s country superstars. So, whether you know it or not, you’ve likely heard Mason’s playing. Levi shares the insight he gleaned from digging deep, and he tells us what it was like when they shared a stage last year. Plus, Levi plays us some great examples of Mason’s playing.