My current guitar is a Larrivee Model L-03R, made in Canada. It's a lovely accoustic guitar. More guitar than the amount or quality of my playing warrants. No complaints, it's a lovely guitar, with an excellent sound. I'm not much of a photographer, so I borrowed the images from Folk of the Wood Acoustic Music Shoppe -- what a selection THEY have! But I bought mine from Blue Note Music in Berkeley, CA -- an excellent guitar store that still doesn't seem to have a website.
Epiphone Emperor II Joe Pass Signature. Thought I'd try my hand at Jazz. Bad choice in guitar, leaving aside the question of whether someone my age with so little time should even think about trying to play Bebop. Didn't like it at all, the way it played, the way it felt, the way it sounded. Traded it in on my Larrivee.
By the way, the Joe Pass guitar is actually a copy of Bruce Forman's custom Ibanez guitar. Ibanez made a guitar for each of them at the same time, with slight differences between them. Ephiphone actually copied Bruce's guitar and put the Joe Pass signature on it.
Bruce's guitar is a great guitar. The copy isn't.
Taylor 710. That is, I think it was a 710. I bought it in 1992 and it was stolen from me in 1995. I really loved that guitar! Got it from Matt Umanov Guitars on Bleeker Street in New York City. It was listed for $1,100 at the time and Matt Umanov sold it to me for $900.
Hula Blues Gibson Dobro [Front Picture] [Back Picture] Actually a Dobro made just before Gibson bought Dobro. I bought it at the same time I bought my Taylor, also from Matt Umanov Guitars, in the days when I was selling advertising space. Mine was an earlier model than the pic, which is a 1996 model from Elderly Guitars, Vintage and Used Instruments, Resonator and Hawaiian, but this picture is the closest I could find in a half hour or so of searching the web.
It was a great friend in public. Stunning, black with yellow palm trees and hula dancers painted on the front. Apparently Robert Lockwood, Jr. uses one of them, too, though I've never been fortunate enough to attend one of his performances, so I can't verify it.
I had a choice of selling the Dobro or the Taylor because we needed the money to leave New York and come to California. I sold the Dobro because the Taylor was more versatile and worth more (harder to replace), and increasing in value every day. I should have sold the Taylor since it was stolen from me a few days later anyway. Bad guitar karma. If it wasn't for bad luck...
Goya Flat Top . The first one that I scraped and saved to get after arriving in New York City in 1978, living on 2nd Street between C and D. At that time a very dangerous neighborhood, to put it mildly. Nice guitar, as I remember. Bought it from a friend whom I've since lost touch with, Fritz Hamilton . It was stolen, just when I started to get some chops, out of my 5th floor walkup by someone who went down from the roof on a rope. I was particularly angry because they didn't take the guitar case, which indicated to me that they had no respect for the instrument.
Yamaha. Some little cheap one, but I don't remember the model. Dead sound. Never liked it much. No resonance. Not very playable. But it was better than nothing. Stolen from me during my second week in New York.
Ventura. My first guitar. Cost me $85, which was my life savings. Must have been 1970. I was a sophomore in high school. Dad had just left. I loved it. It kept me alive. Sounded great -- big booming sound, much like a Guild. I played it for several years. But it, too was stolen from me while eating at the counter in a diner in Palm Springs on a hitch-hiking trip. Haven't the foggiest notion of the year. Possibly around 1976. Possibly earlier.
I love the guitar in all of it's forms. Though I only play bluesy-folksy stuff, for years I've listened mainly to jazz guitar, while maintaining a love for folk music and acoustic blues, especially Delta Blues . I also have a couple of friends who are really good guitar players. I consider one of them to be one of the handfull of the best living Bebop guitar players (no, I won't say who).
Caveats: There are guitarists whom I should probably like but don't. They won't appear on the list. And there are probably guitarists I shouldn't like but do. They will appear on the list. And nobody is here because they're popular. And I've definitely made omissions simply out of stupidity. And I'm certain that there are great guitarists that I've never even heard of (and whom I'm waiting to hear).
And, yes. I'm aware that many of these are thought of as song-writers/singers. But, if they play guitar while they do it, they're in.
Alpha order:
Howard Alden
Chet Atkins
Joan Baez
Rory Block
Big Bill Broonsy
Clarence Gatemouth Brown
Kenny Burrell
Charlie Byrd
Charlie Christian
Leonard Cohen
Larry Coryell
Elizabeth Cotton
Reverend Gary Davis
Bob Dylan
Kevin Eubanks
Mimi and Richard Farina
Tal Farlow
Bruce Forman
Freddie Green
Grant Green
Arlo Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Jim Hall
John Lee Hooker (1917-2001)
Lightenin' Hopkins (1912-1982)
Son House (1902-1988)
Cisco Houston
Howlin' Wolf (1910-1976)
Mississippi John Hurt
Elmore James (1918-1963)
Skip James (1902-1969)
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Lonnie Johnson
Robert Johnson (1911-1938)
Blind Willie Johnson (1902-1947)
Albert King (1923-1992)
B.B. King
Freddie King (1934-1976)
Eddie Lang
Leo Kottke
Leadbelly
Mance Lipscome
Robert Lockwood, Jr.
Russell Malone
Pat Martino
Country Joe MacDonald
John McLaughlin
Joni Mitchell
Wes Montgomery
Phil Ochs
Joe Pass
Les Paul
Jimmy Rainey
(Jimmy's son) Rainey
Madeline Peyroux
Suzi Quatro
Toni Rice
Angel Romero
Andres Segovia
Johnny Smith
Hound Dog Taylor
Ramblin' Thomas
Ralph Towner
George Van Epps
T-Bone Walker (1910-1975)
Muddy Waters (1915-1980)
Doc Watson
Bukka White (1909-1977)
John Williams
Johnny Winter
Frank Zappa
History of the Guitar
I'm not going to just duplicate information already present on the web. I hate going to multiple links that have exactly the same content, each plagerized from the last. So I'm just going to link to some interesting sites.
Classical Guitar Illustrated History
Brief History of the Guitar in Bluegrass Music
A Brief History of Slack Key Guitar
An Extremely Brief History of the Guitar
Guitar History from Learn Classical Guitar.com
A History of Some Guitar Manufacturers
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