Letter from the Editor: Acoustic Guitar Issue 354
If there’s a thread running through this issue, it’s not reinvention for its own sake, but the idea that familiar forms still hold new meaning.
The archtop guitar, with its carved top and f-holes, tends to conjure a familiar image: a rhythm player anchoring the groove behind a horn section, keeping time with a chunking four-to-the-bar pulse on a big bandstand. Built for projection before amplification became standard, these instruments were meant to be felt in the mix. Later, as magnetic pickups took hold, soloists found new uses for the archtop, and it settled into small combos and clubs—its voice now amplified, its role more prominent.
But that picture, while enduring, hardly tells the whole story. As this issue shows, the acoustic archtop has always been more adaptable than its reputation suggests—equally at home in early rock ’n’ roll, western swing, and country blues, and continuing to regain favor among players and builders drawn to its physical elegance and tonal complexity.
Guitarist and writer Michael John Simmons takes up the subject with characteristic depth, tracing the archtop’s development and its long arc—from its place in the early days of jazz to its continued presence in rootsier forms—and the fascination it holds for modern makers. On our Great Acoustics page, we spotlight an early Gibson L-5—widely regarded as the prototypical archtop—once owned by jazz and studio legend Barney Kessel. Still in regular use, this L-5 reminds us that these guitars were built to work, not just to look at.
The cover spotlights two musicians who need no introduction, but who continue to reintroduce themselves. Blues masters Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ first teamed up for 2017’s TajMo. Their new album, Room on the Porch, digs deeper—into shared history, lived experience, and the pleasures of collaboration. In conversation with E.E. Bradman, they reflect on how songs begin, how partnerships evolve, and what it means to make music that feels connected to something larger than the moment.
Elsewhere in the issue, singer-songwriter Margo Price considers how meaning can be embedded in design. Her new Gibson J-45 signature model is adorned with red-tailed hawks—symbols of watchfulness, yes, but also reminders of strength and perseverance. That same tension between grit and grace runs through her writing, where rural narratives meet a sharpened point of view.
In a different register, Jesse Welles is forging a path through the present. With a battered Stella and an ear for lyrical edge, Welles has produced a torrent of songs—some sharply topical, others unexpectedly tender—all delivered with an immediacy that feels both old and new. There’s a trace of early Dylan in his phrasing, but the pacing and delivery belong squarely to now.
You’ll also find a range of lessons focused not on flash but on substance. Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers continues his soloing series by building lead lines from modest ingredients—open-position scales, chord tones, and rhythmic phrasing. Marlene Hutchinson offers a yoga sequence for guitarists, targeting the quiet tension that gathers in shoulders, wrists, and fingers. Luke Edwards draws on Welsh and Celtic traditions, offering fingerstyle arrangements that sing with shape and nuance. And in this issue’s Weekly Workout department, Jontavious Willis explores dropped-D tuning, showing how small shifts can unlock a different kind of blues—rooted, grounded, and very much alive.
If there’s a thread running through this issue, it’s not reinvention for its own sake, but the idea that familiar forms still hold new meaning. The guitar has always been good at that. Sometimes all it takes is the right player, the right instrument, and a little space to listen.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
—Adam Perlmutter
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