Mark Dalton, a founder of acoustic guitar maker Huss & Dalton, recently held a workshop on guitar making at one of my favorite local guitar stores, Artisan Guitars. I had never heard of Huss & Dalton before, but it appears that they are fairly well known in bluegrass circles. They are a niche guitar maker who make high-end guitars and banjos. The workshop also featured … [Read more...]
A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Lenny’ Guitar
It's been fairly well reported that Fender is going to be issuing a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar named Lenny, but I thought I'd mention it as well because I think the Tribute Series guitars by Fender have been great. Aside from "Number One," "Lenny" is the most recognizable guitar that Stevie Ray played; he played it in concert each time that he played the song … [Read more...]
Metal Helps Guitars
BusinessWeek Magazine recently featured an article about how the resurgence of heavy metal has helped some guitar makers. The article highlights several niche, unique guitar builders that make guitars typically used by heavy metal guitarists. The three guitar makers discussed are Halo Custom Guitars, Inc., Minarik Guitars, and B.C. Rich Guitars. The common thread among all … [Read more...]
Peavey Limited-Edition Orange County Chopper Guitar
Peavey has recently announced the availability of the limited-edition guitar that was created in conjunction with Orange County Choppers (of American Chopper fame). The guitar was featured, along with the motorcycle created for Peavey by OCC, on two recent episodes of American Chopper; the episodes were titled "Custom Shop Meets Custom Shop." Truth be told, I'm a big fan of the … [Read more...]
Babicz Guitars
My friend David was recently in the market for a new acoustic guitar, and Babicz guitars ended up on his radar. I'd never heard of Babicz guitars before hearing about them from David, but they have received quite a few good reviews, such as the Guitar One Mark of Excellence and the Guitar World Gold Award. Upon further looking into the history the guitars, I found out that Jeff … [Read more...]