Down & Dirty: 10 Next-Gen Resonator Players
AG asked ten up-and-coming resonator players why they are drawn to these fascinating guitars and what aspiring reso players should do if they want to learn.
What Would Kurt Cobain Be Today: Acoustic Singer-Songwriter or Washed-Up Grunge Dude?
By Mark Kemp As you read this post, please think about the question posed in the headline. For many who admired and came to love Kurt Cobain and his band Nirvana, April 5, 1994, was a horribly dark day. [See note at bottom for clarification on the sequence of events leading…
ADVERTISEMENT
Portrait of an Artist: Guy Clark on ‘Write Your Own Story, Whatever It Is’
Like most of the albums he has made over the course of a 38-year recording career, Guy Clark’s latest, My Favorite Picture of You, is a compact collection of exquisitely crafted vignettes, portraits, and narratives, each etched with just the right amount of colorful detail and tapping a deep well…
12-String Blues from Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix didn’t play a ton of acoustic guitar, so this clip of him playing his blues song “Hear My Train A Comin’” on a Zemaitis 12-string is real treat. So, put some headphones on and listen to a master at work.
The Stray Birds: Taking Wing With Guitar Strings
The Stray Birds began in 2010 as a duo, after de Vitry returned from Spain to her hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There, she met Craven, and the two began writing and playing together at an open mic in nearby Marietta.
ADVERTISEMENT
American Primitive Guitarist Richard Osborn Marks Long-Awaited Return
In a debt to Robbie Basho, Osborn calls his approach “free-raga style” or “American raga.”
Duke Robillard Releases Acoustic Blues Album
It marks the first time he’s recorded an entire album on acoustic guitar—and it was well worth the wait.
Frampton Comes Unplugged
For his latest album, Peter Frampton decided to pull out all the plugs on a totally acoustic set of 11 reworked classics from his 1970s solo records.
ADVERTISEMENT
Don’t Fence Them In: 10 Genre-Bending Texas Troubadours
The Lone Star State has produced a size-appropriate share of bona fide singer-songwriter legends over the decades.
Trolling for Trouble: The Internet Can Be an Ugly Place for Musicians
In June, two weeks after Frank Fairfield appeared on what should have been a career-heightening NPR Tiny Desk Concert, the old-timey musician announced he was quitting the music business forever.
Luther Dickinson’s Folk Celebration of Family and Community
On the new Blues & Ballads: A Folksinger’s Songbook, Volumes I & II (New West), he’s taken songs from his catalog, re-recorded them as folk song
ADVERTISEMENT
The Story Behind Davey Graham’s 1960s-Era Fingerstyle Classic ‘Anji’
Fifty years have passed since Simon and Garfunkel released Sounds of Silence, the duo’s breakthrough album. In that time, “I Am a Rock,” “Richard Cory,” and the title cut have become folk-rock classics. But the record covered one already-beloved song: “Anji,” an instrumental by Davey Graham, was well-known among British…
Americana on the High Seas with Buddy Miller & Friends
For Buddy Miller the high seas is the perfect place to create an album of country duets.
Lucinda Williams & The Ghosts of Highway 20
Lucinda Williams has just completed another ambitious album, The Ghosts of Highway 20, which rings just as deeply and powerfully as its predecessor, but it’s moodier and more experimental.
The Circle, Unbroken: 50 Years of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
By Mark Kemp “What in the world are you listening to in there?” My mom was confused. It was the early 1970s and she was hearing acoustic guitars, banjos, and fiddles blaring from the wooden stereo console in our living room. Ordinarily, mom would have been fussing at me for…
ADVERTISEMENT
A Space Odyssey: Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner, 1941-2016
Even though he helped form one of San Francisco’s great pyschedelic bands, Paul Kantner was always a folkie at heart.
Venerable NYC Mandolin Brothers Guitar Shop Up for Sale
Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Sarah McLachlan, Don McLean, Graham Nash, Bruce Springsteen, Stephen Stills, and Dave Van Ronk all shopped there.
Martin Dreadnought Inspires a Classic Rock Song
Robbie Robertson liked the opening words, “pulled into” somewhere, but got stuck for the rest of the line...
ADVERTISEMENT
Robert Earl Keen: Confessions of a Front-Porch Picker
“The thing about bluegrass is that it’s this really happy-sounding music, but the stories are tragic. If you pick it apart, there’s a lot of dead bodies throughout the history of bluegrass. And I love that kind of thing.”
Q&A: Patty Griffin Soars on ‘Servant of Love’
"It’s not the most important job in the world, but it’s the one I have. It’s the one I know how to do."
Chris Cornell Unplugs to Discover His ‘Higher Truth’
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Chris Cornell died unexpectedly on May 17, 2017 . He was 52.] It’s 1990 and Soundgarden is on the cusp of becoming one of the biggest hard-rock acts in the world. The band had just signed to a major label, released its Billboard-charting second album, Louder Than Love, and Guns…
ADVERTISEMENT
The Gift of a Guitar: How ‘American Idol’ contestant Hollywood Anderson Found His Calling
“That guitar did more than change my life,” Hollywood Anderson says. “It saved me.” Anderson (his real name is Anderson Footman) is talking about the worn Fender Squier steel-string acoustic that lifted him this year off the streets of New York City and into the American Idol spotlight, where his high…
Doug Wamble Couples Slide Guitar & D A D G A D Tuning for a Personal Sound
The jazz guitarist has developed a personal instrumental voice that is both steeped in tradition and wholly original.
High on Bluegrass: Grateful Dead Guitarist Jerry Garcia’s Acoustic Side
We sipped hot tea and Garcia chain-smoked as he spoke affectionately of the acoustic guitar and his love of bluegrass
ADVERTISEMENT
Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Trigger, Willie Nelson’s Martin N-20 Acoustic [Video]
Nelson and his Martin N-20 acoustic, Trigger, have been inseparable for five decades.
