Fretboard Journal


For episode 116, we’re joined by Spanish guitarmaker Paco Chorobo from Úbeda, Spain.

Paco shares his journey from telecommunications engineer to full-time luthier and discusses his approach to building both classical and flamenco guitars while blending traditional hand craftsmanship with modern technology. We also explore the cultural roots of flamenco guitars, the construction differences between flamenco and classical instruments, and his philosophy of building guitars around the individual player.

Link to Paco’s work: https://chorobo.com/home/

Luthier on Luthier is hosted by Michael Bashkin of Bashkin Guitars and brought to you by the Fretboard Journal. This episode is sponsored by the Looth Group, Dream Guitars and StewMac.

Want to support Luthier on Luthier? Join our Patreon to get access to exclusive photos and content from Michael and his builds.

The post Luthier on Luthier: Paco Chorobo first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

On the morning of July 29, 2026, singer-songwriter Glen Hansard tragically passed away after a motorcycle accident in Dublin.

In 2009, I interviewed the Frames and Swell Season frontman for the cover story of our magazine’s seventeenth issue. Back then, he was still touring with the original, worn-through Takamine NP15 as seen in the film Once. Before his Seattle soundcheck, we sat for over an hour at Kells – an Irish pub a short walk away from the famous Pike Place Market clock and fishmongers – with Hansard sharing stories about guitars, life, busking and songwriting. We also talked a lot about his heroes Van Morrison and Bob Dylan, who, in eerie hindsight, had his infamous motorcycle accident sixty years to the day before Hansard’s.

I nursed a beer, while Glen had tea. He was a natural storyteller, which made my job easy. Photographer Maxwell Balmain took pictures for the issue.

After our chat, all three of us walked over to the crowded Market to take some outside photos. Instantly, Hansard started performing with a local busker, who had no clue who he was. The footage launched the Fretboard Journal’s YouTube channel in 2010.

Readers and guitarist friends often ask me about my favorite interview. I’ve been a music journalist for three decades and I’ve been lucky enough to interview a few real rock stars, but I always say, “Glen Hansard.” During our chat, he was utterly present, thoughtful and charming. He spoke with ease, humor and earnestness like no one else. My experience wasn’t unique: Nearly everyone who met him felt like they just stumbled upon their new best friend.

Issue 17 sold out years ago. In light of Glen’s passing, I’m sharing that interview in its entirety below. 

Once a Busker…

Some things never change for singer-songwriter Glen Hansard

By Jason Verlinde

In 1990, with money he received from appearing in The Commitments, young Dublin-based busker Glen Hansard bought himself a guitar. It was a brand new, cedar-topped Takamine NP15 with stock electronics. It cost him around 1000 pounds at the local music store. Flash forward two decades later and the singer-songwriter is still making music—now with the Frames and the Swell Season—on that very same guitar. And, like Willie Nelson’s “Trigger” or Springsteen’s Esquire, it’s become more than an instrument for Hansard, it’s become his curriculum vitae.

On October 22, 2009, I sat down with Hansard at Seattle’s Kell’s Irish Restaurant and Pub while he was busy running around town with musical partner Marketa Irglova promoting the Swell Season album, Strict Joy. After talking shop and snapping guitar photos for nearly an hour, we went outside to take some shots of Hansard in the daylight. Before we knew it, he had befriended a busker and was revisiting his teenage roots on Grafton Street, playing for change on a corner in front of Pike Place Market.

Hansard can not only write, play, sing and act with the best of them, he’s a world-class storyteller. We thought we’d let him riff on some of his formative moments … and give us the lowdown on that tried-and-true Takamine. –Jason Verlinde

First Guitar

When I was a kid, my uncle Paul was super cool. He was the good-looking younger brother of my mother. All the girls loved him. He was working at a theater; he played music in bars. And he was kind of like my father and hero. He taught me A and D chords when I was 8-years-old. He just loved to play, and he brought me to my first concert, the Police, in 1980. U2 opened up for them. They were all we talked about all day long.

He, unfortunately, took a job where he drove a car across Europe with some dodgy guys, and it turned out the car had stuff in it that shouldn’t have been in it. Classic story. He got locked up for a couple years in prison, in Turkey.

All of his stuff basically got left in Ireland, and I discovered his guitar. His instrument was—if I remember correctly, a Hummingbird—but it wasn’t a Gibson. I think it might have been like an Ibanez, some knock-off copy. Beautiful at the time; he adored it.

I discovered it, and learned some Bob Dylan songs on it. The first song I ever picked up was “Bob Dylan’s Dream.” I remember getting a harmonica and learning—picking up the chords … it was A, D and G.

And then I did something very ambitious. I listened to “Famous Blue Raincoat,” by Leonard Cohen, over and over and over until I figured out how to play it. I was going in pretty deep, it is a fingerpicking song. Amazingly, I took on this challenge and figured it out. A year ago, I saw Leonard play in Sydney, Australia, and I watched his hands. I was only wrong by two chords, but the rest I got right! B minor, B, A minor, F sharp minor.

So that was the beginning. Pretty soon after that, I started busking.

When he got out of prison, my uncle freaked out, because I’d knocked his guitar around. I didn’t realize! I was dragging it across the floor, and doing all the things you don’t do to a guitar. It’s only now I can appreciate that, but at the time I was like, “What is getting mad at me for?” I didn’t understand.

Guitar Heroes

As a kid, I was always interested in Angus Young. I grew up Catholic, and they make you take a confirmation, which is kind of like your bar mitzvah. You take on a new name—a saint’s name or whatever. At like 9-years-old, my confirmation name was Angus … he was my God! I guess, if I had guitar heroes, it would be him; Dylan, because his guitar playing is completely underrated; Dave Gilmore, the most amazing player; and maybe Peter Green … JJ Cale. These are all the people that I really adored.

The Takamine

It’s got a few knocks. It’s been played by many different people. I’m a big believer that your instrument is a tool; it’s no more. It shouldn’t be any more. If we identify too strongly with objects, I think we can get into an area where we get very precious.

Now, having said that, I’ve had this thing for so long, and it was always my workhorse. It was never my baby, or my “number one guitar,” or whatever. I’ve got a few guitars, but there are always two I use: a Fender Thinline Telecaster and this guitar. And I just used them both because they’re like an old pair of shoes. They work, they’re the most comfortable, and they sound the best plugged in.

But it became precious when we made Once, because then I noticed people were paying attention to the guitar. People were saying, “Oh, is that guitar you play in the film?” “Is that the guitar you’re playing on the tour?” “Is that the same guitar?” I was like, “Yeah, of course it is. It’s my guitar.” And because it’s gotten so delicate now, because the top of it is really in a pretty awful state, I realize that I’ve got a year or two—maybe three—left in it, in terms of its structure. But luthiers are pretty good at fixing stuff up, so who knows? I might have it for years and years.

I’ve become a little more precious. I bought this [Calton] case for it. I used to just check it in on a flight, in whatever case it was in. Nowadays, I’ll fight to try to get it on the plane with me. Sometimes, I’ll even buy a ticket to put it next to me!

I never thought I was that guy. You meet some people who treat their guitars better than they treat themselves. I don’t believe in this stuff, I believe the guitar is a tool—it’s an object, a piece of wood—it’s a beautiful piece of wood, but when it goes out of your life, it’s gone. And you get another one and you work with that tool.

Very, Very Lucky

I remember one night in Austria, I came out after a gig with my friend, Mic Christopher. Very drunk. I put the guitars down on the street—my electric guitar and my acoustic guitar—and got straight into a taxi, went to another part of town somewhere outside Vienna to this party. When it came time to sing a few songs at the party–two or three hours later–I’m looking for my guitar, and it’s not there! I panicked; I turned white. I ran back to the venue, and amazingly this guitar was still sitting there. There were kids going to school stepping over the guitar! And it was like late at night when we left the place! It was there on the street. My electric guitar was gone; someone picked it up and took it. I had it since I was 15.

But the electric guitar showed up two weeks later, standing against the venue wall. The venue owner came in to work one morning, found it, brought it into the place, and rang me, “Your guitar just showed up, completely untouched, still in tune.” So someone had picked it up, heard that this guy had lost it, and basically felt guilty and brought it back. It’s very, very lucky.

I think for other people this [Takamine] might just be a bit of a plank. But for me, it’s exactly what I need.  For them, I don’t know. But it’s like a thousand people have played my guitar, because if we’re on a session and someone wants to sing a song, I just hand it over. I don’t think about. Maybe they’ll break it, and sometimes people do treat it more rough than I’d like them to—but that’s all a part of all my instruments; that’s what they’re for. 

Busking for Dummies

I’m not a purest, but there’s something about guys who use a microphone (or amplifier) …  not that they’re cheating, but they’re not going to learn as much doing it that way as they will by having to project raw.

That was the biggest lesson I learned: projecting raw. I remember I listened to Before the Flood, where Dylan sings “Just Like a Woman.” I remember making it my goal to be able to sing like that. On Grafton Street, like any street, learning how to project your voice to the point to where it bounces back at you was the goal. And it was all about learning how to play loud, and fast—in that way I noticed I had made more money.

The most lucrative day of the week was always Friday and Saturday night, when everyone was drunk, but that also meant you were going to face a lot of madness as well. It can be very tough, but an education. A baptism of fire.

That guy at the beginning of Once, who steals my money? There was a guy I knew that used to do that. On the street you meet everyone: you know who the pick-pockets are, you know where the whores are, you know who the drug squad are. You figure them all out. If you stand still on any street in the world for long enough, every person in that city will pass you by.

Into the Mystic 

When I was busking, one of the people that I became very friendly with was Marina Guinness. She was of the brewing family and she knew I loved Van Morrison, because she heard me singing his tune. She said to me one day, “You know, Van is having this party—his 50th birthday party—at my house. Why don’t you come along?” I said, “What?” “Come along. Take it easy. Don’t make a big deal of it. Bring your girlfriend. Bring a bottle of Port. Treat him with respect, because we’d love for you to come.”

So, I was overjoyed with the opportunity. Her place is way outside the city. I drove out on my scooter with my girlfriend; it was late, and we got there, and we got in. And I thought it was going to be a party, but it wasn’t 20 people. It was Van sitting with just a few friends. And I was introduced to everybody, sat down, we ate some food … just being quiet and sort of being in the background.

It was amazing; I’m sitting here with Van Morrison! And a couple of drinks were had, and then someone came into the room we were in and said, “Everybody, come on into the kitchen… Van is singing some songs.” Van was there with Jerry Lee Lewis. And Jerry Lee and Van are standing at the fireplace, and they’re both singing beautiful old country songs—beautiful.

At one point Van says, “Anyone want to hear a song? Any requests?” I’m a huge fan, but I didn’t know whether I should say it, or whether I shouldn’t. No one else was shouting out, so I said, “Van… ‘I’m Hungry For Your Love’?”

“I’m Hungry For Your Love,” is a great song, but a fairly lesser-known song.

He looks at me, and he says, “You don’t know me!”

I was just like, ‘Jesus Christ!’ I turned away, and I walked outside. I kind of freaked out. The first thing I’d said to him, and I just got BAM!

So I went outside, and I was thinking about taking my head off, thinking I just shouldn’t have come here. And Marina came out, and said, “Glen, come on. Don’t let that get in the way. Come back in, have a good night. Relax!”

So I went back in and stayed at the back of the room, and just enjoyed listening to him.  He said, “Anyone else want to sing a song?” And Marina said, “Glen … Glen will sing.” And I was like, “Oh, no!” Freaked out, you know?

I went up and he handed me the guitar, stood up and walked out of the room. I was like, “Oh, fuck!”

So I sang a song and there was nobody else to play, and people asked for another one, so I sang a second one. He comes back in, and sat down with his back to me. And I finished my second song, and he swung his chair around, and he said, “What did you want me to sing?” I said, “Hungry For Your Love.” And he says, “Do you know it?”  I say, “Yeah.” He said, “Well, play it,” and he put me on the spot.  And thank God I know his songs.

So I played it, and he’s listening to me, and about halfway through the song he starts going, yeah … yeah, and then sings a little harmony with me. I’m blown away. I’m flipping freaking out. I’m singing his song, and he’s singing harmony to me.

And then I finished that song, and he says, “All right. Come on.” I said, “Where?” “Just come on, follow me.” He brings me up the stairs of this beautiful old house, goes into one of the rooms, and sits me down on the couch. He was ready to sing. He sits down opposite me. He’s had a few drinks, and he should be downstairs mingling. And I start playing one of my songs.

He listens to it, he picks the guitar up. He says nothing. I say, “Well, will you play me ‘Hungry For Your Love’?”

He plays it, hands me the guitar. He plays a second song, takes the guitar. “What do you want to hear?” And we pass the guitar, and I’m not kidding you, for hours we passed the guitar. We ran out of songs after an hour-and-a-half.

The sun was coming up, and I remember his girlfriend at the time came into the room at the end, and said, “Come on, we have to go.” And he’s like, “Right.” And he stood up, comes over, pats me on the shoulder, and says, “Nice voice. Nice songs. Blah, blah, blah,” and walks out. And that was it. That was my encounter. That was all he said: “Nice voice. Nice songs. Blah, blah, blah.”

But what was amazing for me, the gift that I’d been given that night, was that I got to watch his hands. I got to watch his neck. I got to watch how he lifted his head into notes.  I got to watch how his body leaned into chords.

I got to see Van the way no one probably gets to see him, except maybe his girlfriend, or his kids, or whoever. I got to see a master up close, and to digest every inflection—to use or not use—in my own palette all this experience. Do you know what I’m saying? I went to be being a proper apprentice that night.  The education was profound because it was up close and personal with a master.

Meeting Dylan

I was busking and Dylan was in Dublin to do a gig, which, of course, I was going to because I’m a huge fan. He was number one. He was staying at this hotel, the Westbury Hotel.  I was down the street and someone comes out and goes, “Bob-Fucking-Dylan just walked out—got out of the van around the corner!”

I just grabbed my guitar and ran … left the money in my case, everything there. I ran around the corner and Dylan was getting out of a truck. He was hanging out, going into the hotel. And I did this stupid thing: I just took a harmonica out of my pocket and I handed it to him. It was a stupid thing to do, give Bob Dylan a harmonica, but he took it, and he was like, “Hey, thanks.”

And that was it; he was gone. But the weird thing was maybe a year or two later … I was rehearsing with my band, and Dylan was rehearsing next door with his band in the rehearsal place we were in, because they were beginning a European tour. We finished our rehearsals, the drum and bass player had gone home, and I was running over one last song, and we didn’t know he was rehearsing next door, because all we were told was, “There’s someone famous next door. Don’t annoy them. Stay out of the way.” We didn’t care. We thought it might have been U2.

But at one point, Colin, our violin player, just looked at me like someone had died, and we turned around, and standing in our doorway was Bob with his foot up, and he’s smoking a cigarette, and he just says, “Sounds good.” And I walked up to him, and I just said, “Bob,” and I shook his hand, and was totally freaked out.

He shook my hand, and I said, “Bob, meeting you [for me] is what it must have been like when you met Woody.” And I think I must have said the right thing, ‘cause Bob was like, “Oh, Woody! Man, Woody was amazing!” He said, “I never got to hear Woody play.” And Bob starts talking … Bob Dylan started talking to me about Woody Guthrie! And I knew just enough about Woody—through Dylan—to hold a conversation with him.

We talked for a minute-and-a-half about Woody Guthrie, and he took off. And I shook his hand, and I ran home. I told my mother I’d shook Bob Dylan’s hand. It was unbelievable.

The next morning, a phone call came in to the rehearsal space. They gave Bob Dylan’s manager my number, and he rang up, and he said, “You must have impressed Bob. Do you want to come to London and open for him?”

It was amazing; he was like, “Can you get a flight? If you can get a flight, you can do the gig.” That was basically how he put it. We went out to the airport and explained our situation, and they canceled five people off the flight for us! We walked on stage, and I said, “Yesterday, I was rehearsing with my band to Dublin, and Bob Dylan appeared in the doorway, and we chatted for a few minutes, and here we are. This is amazing.”

 Keeping It Road Worthy

A few months ago, a luthier contacted me via email about fixing my guitar for me.  I really wasn’t sure how I felt about it. We were in L.A. and doing press, and he lives an hour’s drive south, and we went down, and we visited him. He asked me to leave the guitar with him for a couple of days, because he just wanted to observe the inside of it.  He asked me how I felt about him reinforcing the part where it’s all damaged.

I took a risk, and I left it with him. I came back a couple of days later, and he had done this kind of amazing job, where he had basically put a very thin layer of wood underneath the holes, which basically means that the holes may not grow anymore.

But he didn’t change the aesthetic at all. He wanted to put lacquer—some sort of resin on the holes, which would have made the wood darker, and which would have meant I wouldn’t be able to wear the guitar down anymore.

But I didn’t let him do that, because I think there’s something very natural about the way the thing is. I didn’t want to change anything. But the reinforcement inside me was very happy with. He did an amazing job!

Marketa was amazing. I was kind of weird about [leaving my guitar with a stranger], but I wasn’t saying that. Mar just turned to him and said, “If you fuck up that guitar, I will kill you!” She really had my back.

The post Tribute: Glen Hansard (1970-2026) first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

At the 2026 Wintergrass festival in Bellevue, Washington, the Fretboard Journal teamed up with filmers I Know We Should to capture some of our favorite artists (and talk gear).

In this session, we hear from Missy Raines & Allegheny.

First, they perform, “Cold Wind” and “Cold Black Water.”

Then, we talk gear with the full band.

Register now for Wintergrass 2027. The lineup in 2027 will include Sierra Hull, Jerry Douglas Band, East Nash Grass and other bluegrass favorites.

Video by Brad Wagner, audio by Juan M Soria.

We’ll be sharing more highlights from Wintergrass 2026 on a weekly basis here and on our YouTube channel.

The post Wintergrass Sessions: Missy Raines & Allegheny first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



It’s the 167th episode of the Truth About Vintage Amps, the call-in show where amp tech Skip Simmons fields all of your tube amp and life questions.

Our sponsors: Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars; and Amplified Parts / Mod Electronics.

Some of the topics discussed this week:

:00 Special Guest: Sebastian Gruenberg of Vintage Inspired Pickups (link); molecular biology; winding pickups, making potentiometers; cryo-tuning magnets; Emerald City Guitars; Gibsonette input jack ground issues; and more!

30:57 What’s on Skip’s bench: Magnatones; a Sears 40XL Danelectro; Traynors

34:07 Jonathan Richman, charming singer-songwriter and stone mason

36:17 An early National Dobro amp for sale; where’s Larry Chung?

38:51 The Fretboard Summit, August 20-22 in Chicago (register here); this year @vintagetubeamplifiers is bringing out a bunch of old & rare amps along with various other contributors/listeners!

39:50 A kitchen cleaning tip, Dutch ovens, Skip’s typewriter repair

44:07 Optocoupler repair in a classic Fender

45:57 The BBC’s Shipping Forecast (link)

48:54 Rattlesnake Milk’s ‘Midnight Train’, quick Asian rice, and TAVA buzzwords

50:54 Output tubes for Skip’s Mega Champ amp build (Champ with Soursound transformers)

54:38 A demonic Ampeg B-18N

59:04 A new caster for my 1966 Fender Pro Reverb, ‘The Magnificent Charlie Parker’ compilation; homemade gumbo; Mike Watt

1:06:12 What should I do with this Masco A-10 project? Using a Hammond 166M12 as a Variac; do old black metal pre-amp tubes like the 6SJ7 have glass inside?

1:12:02 A tie story; how can I slow down the tremolo on my modded Silvertone 1484?

1:17:46 Gourmet dog treats

Want amp tech Skip Simmons’ advice on your DIY guitar amp projects? Want to share your top secret family recipe? Need relationship advice? Join us by sending your voice memo or written questions to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Include a photo, too.

Want to support the show? Join our Patreon page to get to the front of the advice line, see exclusive pics, the occasional video and more.

Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal.

Above: @patconnorbass‘ possibly haunted Ampeg bass rig, as discussed on this week’s episode.

The post The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 168 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

As of this writing, we are one month out from one of the most unique guitar gatherings on Earth: The Fretboard Summit.

This is where the staff from the Fretboard Journal (including yours truly), Chicago’s famed Old Town School of Folk Music, and dozens of brands and independent luthiers, collectors and players of all stripes get together for an annual hang unlike any other “guitar festival” you’ve heard of.

It’s a highly curated guitar show, equally inspired by TED Talks and some of our favorite music festivals. Mostly, it’s an ever-growing family reunion for guitar geeks who want to connect, learn and have fun.

For 2026, we have nearly 100 guitar brands and luthiers exhibiting. Hand-picked bigger brands like Taylor, Yamaha, Collings and Martin exhibit, as do dozens of solo luthiers from around the globe. We welcome select pedal and amp makers, too, including Chase Bliss, JHS, Two-Rock, Henriksen and others.

We have quiet rooms if you want to test an acoustic and loud rooms if you want to hear a guitar through a cranked-up amp. There are multiple classrooms, a bar with guitar-themed cocktails, a vintage amp library (see below) and even a pretty special wine tasting hosted by one of our readers (who happens to be an acclaimed vintner from Australia). It’s basically Disneyland if you’re into cool or rare fretted instruments.

Every Summit is different and filled with surprises – prior Summits featured unannounced cameos by Rosanne Cash, Ben Harper, luthier Jim Olson and others.

But here’s what I’m most excited about for 2026’s hang.

1. New Faces: If you look at our poster, you’ll notice we have some younger artists this year. But we’re also welcoming a fresh crop of attendees, the recipients of our first-ever Summit scholarship program. Thanks to the generous support of the Music Emporium, ten up-and-coming young luthiers and music students will be a part of the 2026 Summit experience. I’ve read their applications, and they’re all incredible people. I can’t wait to meet them all.

2. Summer School’s Pedal Class: Mark Turley is the owner of Summer School Electronics, but he’s also a public school teacher. During his summer break, he relaxes, builds a bunch of cool pedals (all school-themed) and does kooky things like teach pedal-making at the Summit. This will be his second year teaching a pop-up pedal class within the Summit. He’s a natural. This costs a bit extra and takes a couple of hours, but everyone goes home with a rad, homemade souvenir…the pedal they just built. We talked about it on the most recent FJ Podcast.

3. Bob Taylor Going Deep on tonewoods. For months, Taylor Guitars’ co-founder Bob Taylor and I have been going back and forth on this session: A brain dump from Bob on the state of guitar woods in 2026, things we should be worried about, things we should be hopeful about, regulations, treaty updates and more. Bob has been on the forefront of this stuff for decades and this seems important for all to hear (even Taylor’s peers and competition in the business), so we’re opening up our theater early on Saturday so that exhibitors and attendees can glean some knowledge before the show floor opens.

4. The Science Fair. Every year, we see some wild innovation at the Summit. On Friday, we’re bringing back our old-school Science Fair, where inventors can show off and explain their forward-thinking creations to our audience. It’s just like your old Junior High Science Fair, but with more talk of sustain and fewer volcanoes.

5. Wine Tasting with Bill Downie. Fretboard Journal reader Bill Downie just happens to be one of Australia’s most respected Pinot Noir makers. Once again, he’s bringing a couple of cases of wine to share with Summit attendees. It’s a great chance to connect with guitar fanatics from around the world.

6. Chris Martin IV. Technically, we’ve done seven Fretboard Summits. They always have a ton of Martin coverage, but this year Chris Martin IV is actually attending and speaking.

7. Josh Scott’s world premiere screening. JHS’s Josh Scott just released a monumental book on the history of Electro-Hamonix. While he was writing it, he was also secretly filming a full-length documentary about the brand and his research. He’ll be showing it on the Summit’s big screen for the first time ever.

8. The Volcano Brothers is one of those insider, only-in-Nashville bands: A traditional Hawaiian string band featuring heavy hitters session musicians Steve Dawson, Fats Kaplin, Richard Bennett, Dave Jacques, and Andy Reiss. They’ll be playing their first-ever show in Chicago at the Summit and leading workshops all weekend long. I can’t wait.

9. Hand Habits (aka Meg Duffy) has been featured in our magazine (Fretboard Journal 58) and on our podcast before. They are finally attending the Summit in 2026 and playing a co-bill with Jessica from Deep Sea Diver. As if that wasn’t enough Meg will be collaborating with our dear friend Chris Vincent (R2R Electric) during Chris’ ultra-rare pedal workshop.

10. Into bluegrass? Michael Daves and Jacob Jolliff are performing this year. Though they just released a new record of Jim & Jesse covers, Daves will also be teaching a workshop on the guitar stylings of Norman Blake.

11. Gabe Noel’s recording discography is like a who’s who of great pop records of the last two decades, including Harry Styles, Sombr, Kendrick Lamar, and Dijon. As we showcased in a recent video, this bassist/cellist has also fallen head over heels in love with tenor guitars.

Gabe actually took music lessons at Old Town School when he was a kid, so we decided to bring him back to his roots to showcase his new love for guitar. On Saturday night, he’ll close out the Summit with other instrumentalists like Jonathan Stout, Twanguero and Shane Parish. It’ll be an unforgettable night of guitar wizardry.

12. Mark Stutman’s Gibson Petting Zoo. Folkway Music’s Mark Stutman is THE guy when it comes to vintage Gibson acoustics. This year, he’s not only talking about the magic found in these quirky 90-year-old instruments, but he and a private collector are also bringing out over a dozen examples for Summit goers to try out.

13. The Pinewood Derby. Last year, we sent a bunch of Pinewood Derby car kits to famous guitarmakers to see what they’d come up with. It ended up being one of our favorite Summit memories, so we’re making it an annual tradition. Come see your favorite racers/luthiers and see what an actual wood master can do with a block of pine.

14. Teach Your Kids: Free Guitarmaking Class. A handful of exhibitors and attendees last year bonded over a shared love for guitars and giving back. They decided to throw a totally free intro-to-guitarmaking class for any kids who want to attend. The fun starts at 9 am on Saturday and should run for around 90 minutes in the Szold Theater. No Summit pass required.

15. New prototypes from Collings. Every year, Collings pulls out all the stops and unveils prototypes and not-yet-released models at the Summit, even stuff that hasn’t been showcased at NAMM. This year at the Summit, expect a few more surprises.

16. I can’t get over the guitar playing and arranging mastery of Shane Parish. He transcribed his favorite tracks by Autechre – an electronic music group that makes complex and layered music with seemingly no discernible notes – and turned them into guitar compositions that could fit nicely on any Kottke or Fahey record. I made a quick playlist A/B’ing a couple of Shane’s recordings after the originals. Check it out and then come see him play at the Summit. He’ll be hosting a workshop, too, where you can ask him directly about this project and how he does it.

17. Pedal Party Clinic with Jessica Dobson of Deep Sea Diver. Deep Sea Diver’s frontperson and Chris Benson from Benson Amps are longtime collaborators. During this workshop, Jessica will walk us through how she adds textures and tones to her songwriting using pedals and effects. While we always have a songwriting workshop or two at the Summit, this one takes it up a notch. Jessica is also playing our mainstage on Friday night.

18. A new-and-improved Truth About Vintage Amps room. Chicago’s amp tech Brian McAllister is a Truth About Vintage Amps listener and contributor. He always stocks the Summit with dozens of rare tube amps and PAs for other TAVA listeners and Summit attendees to check out. The room has become a surprise hit (and, of course, it can get loud), so we’re expanding its footprint this year to our East building. This is a great place to hear rare amps but also to try out the hundreds of luthier-built electrics that are for sale at the Summit.

19. Live Podcasts: All weekend long onstage, we’ll be interviewing some of our favorite artists and builders for our podcast network. This year, we’ll also be hosting a live Dipped in Tone episode, hosted by Rhett Shull, Zach Broyles (Mythos Pedals) and Addison Sauvan.

20. The people. Every year, I’m blown away by the handmade guitars, but also all the people I run into at the Summit. This weekend somehow draws Grammy winners, new players just starting out and some of the nicest people in the guitar community together. I hope to see you there, too.

Want to join us? Register for the 2026 Summit here.

The post 20 Things I Can’t Wait to See at the 2026 Fretboard Summit first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Today on the podcast, Summer School Electronics founder Mark Turley joins us once again. We talk about Summer School’s current pedal offerings, the 2026 Fretboard Summit, and the two pedal-making classes that Mark will be teaching at the Summit.

https://www.summerschoolelectronics.com

Sign up for Summer School’s Pedal Classes: https://www.summerschoolelectronics.com/shop/p/fretboard-summit-pedal-building-class-amnk8

Register for our 2026 Summit: https://fretboardsummit.org/tickets

This year’s Summit has over 80 luthiers and brands, performances by Hand Habits, Deep Sea Diver, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Shane Parish, Michael Daves and others!

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com
(Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com

The post Podcast 557: Summer School Electronics’ Mark Turley first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Guitarist Shane Parish performs Autechre’s “Slip” at the Fretboard Journal. For this session, Parish is using his Taylor 214E-G.

Parish’s 2026 Autechre Guitar album features groundbreaking acoustic guitar arrangements of Autechre’s early electronic music output. The original material is dense and layered with synths, but somehow Parish distills each composition to its essence and transforms it into beautiful guitar music. We talked to Parish about the project on a recent Fretboard Journal Podcast.

We are proud to announce that he’ll be both teaching and performing at our 2026 Fretboard Summit, our three-day guitar festival held at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music. This year’s Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026. Register at fretboardsummit.org. Nearly 100 brands and luthiers will be exhibiting, plus hourly workshops and performances by Parish, Hand Habits, Michael Daves & Jacob Jolliff, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Deep Sea Diver and others.

The post Shane Parish – “Slip” first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

At the 2026 Wintergrass festival in Bellevue, Washington, the Fretboard Journal teamed up with filmers I Know We Should to capture some of our favorite artists (and talk gear).

For this session, FJ favorites Grant Gordy and Joe K. Walsh perform “Verona” and “Moon River”

A companion video features Joe and Grant going over their gear. Joe is playing his cherished Stephen Gilchrist mandolin, while Grant is playing his 000-18 guitar built by Osaka Japan’s Hiroshi Suda.

Register now for Wintergrass 2027. The lineup in 2027 will include Sierra Hull, Jerry Douglas Band, East Nash Grass and other bluegrass favorites.

Video by Brad Wagner, audio by Juan M Soria.

We’ll be sharing more highlights from Wintergrass 2026 on a weekly basis here and on our YouTube channel.

The post Wintergrass Sessions: Grant Gordy & Joe K. Walsh first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Today on the podcast, we are joined by guitarist Louis Campbell, who talks to us about growing up playing traditional music, studying with Martin Simpson, his affinity for using the electric guitar like a piano, and much more.

You can check out his original music via his duo Spafford Campbell: https://www.spaffordcampbell.com

Above photo: York Tillyer

Join us at our 2026 Fretboard Summit in Chicago (August 20-22, 2026) for three days of guitar demos, concerts, workshops and live podcasts with some of our favorite artists.

This year’s Summit has over 80 luthiers and brands, performances by Hand Habits, Deep Sea Diver, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Shane Parish, Michael Daves and Antoine Boyer!

Register here: www.fretboardsummit.org.

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com
(Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com

The post Podcast 556: Louis Campbell first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



For Episode 115 of the podcast, we’re joined by classical guitarmaker Marco Bortolozzo.

In our conversation, Marco tells us about the mentorship that launched his career, and the story behind his signature Olympic ring rosette, inspired by a 19th-century Spanish guitar. We also discuss his neck joint design, his unique use of shellac records in guitar finishes and much more.

https://www.marcobortolozzo.com/

Luthier on Luthier is hosted by Michael Bashkin of Bashkin Guitars and brought to you by the Fretboard Journal. This episode is sponsored by the Looth Group, Dream Guitars and StewMac.

Want to support Luthier on Luthier? Join our Patreon to get access to exclusive photos and content from Michael and his builds.

The post Luthier on Luthier: Marco Bortolozzo first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

At the 2026 Wintergrass festival in Bellevue, Washington, the Fretboard Journal teamed up with filmers  I Know We Should to capture some of our favorite artists (and talk gear).

First up, banjo player Tray Wellington performing “Moon In Motion I” / “Moon In Motion III” and “False Idols.”

A companion video features Tray going over his banjo, a newer Gibson RB-75 with a radiused fingerboard.

Follow Tray here.

Register now for Wintergrass 2027. The lineup in 2027 will include Sierra Hull, Jerry Douglas Band, East Nash Grass and other bluegrass favorites.

Video by Brad Wagner, audio by Juan M Soria.

We’ll be sharing more highlights from Wintergrass 2026 on a weekly basis here and on our YouTube channel.

The post Wintergrass Sessions: Tray Wellington first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



It’s the 167th episode of the Truth About Vintage Amps, the call-in show where amp tech Skip Simmons fields all of your tube amp and life questions.

Our sponsors: Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars; and Amplified Parts / Mod Electronics.

Some of the topics discussed this week:

:00 Skip’s refrigerator dies (but lives!), taking the train to the Chicago Fretboard Summit, electronica band Chessie

10:09 The LA vintage guitar show

13:52 ‘The Angel’s Share’ movie

16:18 Our sponsors and a great 2026 Fretboard Summit amp giveaway (thanks, Andy!)

19:19 A non-tech tip: Silverface control panel amps with peeling film

21:59 What’s on Skip’s bench: Magnatone amps; an early Dickerson amp; using a Trace Elliot Velocette shell for a tube amp build

26:38 How long would it take Skip to build a tube amp (on a game show)?

28:31 Starting an amp repair business, redux (Ahuntsic Amplification https://amplificationahuntsic.ca/homepage-en)

32:45 Solder Smoke Absorber Remover (Amazon link: https://amzn.to/3QPSuv6)

36:16 Modding a Silvertone Powermaster PA for guitar, dogbone resistors, 6J7 tubes

45:21 Novak hybrid guitars; did I fry my transformer?; AI Skip; cooking with duck

53:51 What to do with my dad’s 1959 Gretsch 6161 Electromatic Twin amp?; Uncle Doug on TAVA?

1:00:05 Serge Gainsbourg with a bunch of smoking kids (https://youtu.be/unYu22Ign1E?si=VkCNtOaDbloJqh63)

1:01:03 Warehouse speakers for a 1976 Silverface Vibro Champ (Instagram: @cwg_guitars)

Above and below: Listener Micajah’s Silvertone Powermaster PA. 

Want amp tech Skip Simmons’ advice on your DIY guitar amp projects? Want to share your top secret family recipe? Need relationship advice? Join us by sending your voice memo or written questions to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Include a photo, too.

Want to support the show? Join our Patreon page to get to the front of the advice line, see exclusive pics, the occasional video and more.

Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal.

The post The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 167 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



LA-based singer-songwriter/composer/guitarist Micah Preite joins us this week!

https://micahpreite.bandcamp.com

Though his lo-fi/indie songs have millions of streams on Spotify, Preite’s background includes time with SoCal jazz legend Bruce Forman, a visit as a teenager to the OG 2015 Fretboard Summit in California, and studying music at CalArts. He’s now working on his first full-length movie score and more songs. It’s a great chat with a young musician who can seemingly do it all.

Be like young Micah and join us at our 2026 Fretboard Summit in Chicago (August 20-22, 2026) for three days of guitar demos, concerts, workshops and live podcasts with some of our favorite artists.

This year’s Summit has over 80 luthiers and brands, performances by Hand Habits, Deep Sea Diver, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Shane Parish, Michael Daves and Antoine Boyer!

Register here: www.fretboardsummit.org.

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com
(Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com

The post Podcast 555: Micah Preite first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

I am pleased to announce the lineup for our 2026 Fretboard Summit.

This year’s Summit is all about discovery: Hearing new artists who should be on your radar, along with the voices you’ve heard on our podcast and in our print pages. It’s also all about fun.

Included for 2026’s lineup: Jessica Dobson/Deep Sea Diver (Solo); Antoine Boyer; Hand Habits; Jake Xerxes Fussell; Michael Daves & Jacob Jolliff; The Volcano Brothers, featuring Steve Dawson, Fats Kaplin, Richard Bennett, Andy Reiss, & Dave Jacques; Shane Parish; Gabe Noel; Corey Congilio and others. 

2026 speakers and instructors include many of the artists mentioned above along with Chris Martin IV (Martin Guitars), Josh Scott (JHS), Fender historian Terry Foster,  TJ Thompson & Greig Hutton, Sofia Wolfson, Gabe Noel, Evan Gluck (New York Guitar Repair), Mark Stutman (Folkway Music), Barry Grzebik (Grez Guitars), yours truly and others. 

Bob Taylor (Taylor Guitars) will be doing a deep dive extended look into sourcing and using woods for guitars and sharing the decades of experience he’s earned navigating CITES laws, ethically sourcing tropical woods and more.

Mark Stutman (Folkway Music) will be creating the ultimate vintage Gibson acoustic petting zoo, letting you all get your hands on 1930s Kel Kroydons and Gibson L models that you rarely see in person.

Our on-site lutherie showcase (one of the biggest in the world) will spread across the two buildings of Old Town School’s campus and feature big brands like Martin, Yamaha, Taylor, Iris, Bourgeois, and Collings; pedal makers (JHS, Browne, Summer School Electronics, Chase Bliss), amp builders (from Henriksen to Two-Rock), and over 50 independent and small-batch builders of acoustics and electrics.

In years past, Collings and other brands unveiled new instruments and prototypes that weren’t even displayed at NAMM. This is your chance to see what may be next year’s coolest gear release.

The fun doesn’t stop there.

There will be a loud room based on our Truth About Vintage Amps Podcast if you want to try your next guitar purchase out on dozens of vintage amplifiers and PA heads. More into acoustics? We have quiet audition rooms just for those.

The Summit Pinewood Derby is returning, where luthiers put all their craft and heart into a tiny Boy Scout-approved block of pine and see who is the fastest.

We’ll have wine tasting thanks to FJ reader and vintner Bill Downie (coming all the way from Australia).

A 5K run just for guitar geeks.

Our annual Science Fair is happening, where all the uber-creative guitarmakers can show off their cutting-edge creations.

We’ll have pedal-making classes thanks to Mark from Summer School Electronics, where you can go home with the ultimate Summit souvenir, a pedal you just soldered and assembled.

Plus live podcast tapings from the FJ and other content creators, gear givaways just for registrants, and lots more.

Register here for our 2026 Summit and don’t forget to tell your friends. This is like a giant family reunion for anyone who loves guitars. All abilities, ages, styles are welcome.

Some FAQ re: the Summit. 

What is the Fretboard Summit?

It’s a hang, a conference, and a music festival rolled into one.

Basically, it’s our take on the ultimate guitar geek weekend, where you can meet the heroes we celebrate on our pages and podcasts (players and builders); see some ridiculously cool concert lineups; try out (and buy) some insanely unique guitars; learn a bunch; and make some new friends.

It’s also one of the only open-to-the-public conventions that features a who’s-who of legendary guitar and gear makers, large and small batch.

Why?

Because we wanted to celebrate the community around the Fretboard Journal. Acoustic and electric. We also wanted you to be able to meet all these great personalities we interview and showcase in our magazine.

You don’t need to be a serious collector, gigging musician, or virtuoso to attend. Just have an open mind and you’ll have a blast.

Should I bring a guitar?

Only if you want! Most of our workshops are guitar-optional. We do have a guitar check-in if you want to safely store your instrument or grab a bite somewhere, but there are also hundreds of instruments to try out so you may enjoy feeling unencumbered without a guitar case.

Is this just for professionals? 

No! While some of our classes are wonderfully geeky, we craft everything to be inclusive and welcoming to players of all levels. This is a festival made for musicians of all stripes. Beyond all the included guitar workshops, there are unlimited opportunities to play, jam with friends, or try out new guitar gear. We have soundproof rooms if you want to rock out (or just try guitars in private).

Space is limited because this is about as interactive as festivals get. We want you to get hands-on time with cool gear.

What is the Old Town School of Folk Music?

A Chicago institution. Founded in 1957 the Old Town School of Folk Music provides a wide range of music, dance, theater, and visual arts courses to people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. It’s a magical 501(c)(3) not-for-profit with an expansive campus featuring two buildings across the street from one another. We take over both facilities and fill them to the brim with sessions, workshops, jam rooms, and demo spaces.

When you picture Chicago, you may think of Wrigley Field or some busy downtown street or that one Wilco cover with the two buildings. The neighborhood that Old Town is in is easily walkable and there are dozens of nearby cafes, shops and restaurants. It’s like the cool neighborhood in your town, but in Chicago.

Who attends the Summit?

An eclectic mix of guitar fanatics (of all abilities), collectors, luthiers, industry members, and working musicians from around the world. Our crowd tends to be more eclectic and diverse than you’d think – young and old, all genders. But we all connect over a love for guitars.

Having said that: We limit Summit all-access passes to just a few hundred. We want everyone who attends to see the concerts, meet their heroes, and have fun without crowds. So if you want to come, it’s best to register soon before it sells out.

Who will I meet?

That’s up to you!

This year’s Summit has some of the most respected names in guitar craft: You can meet the crews behind Martin, Collings, Santa Cruz, Taylor, Lowden, Yamaha, JHS, Bourgeois, JHS, and Chase Bliss. It’s a rare opportunity to talk to lutherie legends like Bob Taylor (Taylor Guitars), Richard Hoover (SCGC) and Martin’s Chris Martin IV under one roof.

You’ll bump into dozens of world-class players and former FJ subjects. We also attract some of the biggest YouTube and podcast influencers around (Rhett Shull will be attending in 2025, along with the Acoustic Shoppe, Josh Scott, Dipped in Tone and others).

Best of all, you’ll meet a bunch of great players who probably aren’t currently on your radar…and fellow collectors.

What does a day look like?

Each day has over 12 hours of programming planned. We don’t expect you to catch it all (that would be crazy), but it’s there for you.

Get to Old Town School on Friday morning (August 20) at around 9 or 10 a.m., get your pass, browse the schedule and decide whether you want to browse guitars at the lutherie showcase or attend a workshop. Proceed however you like.

The Old Town campus has two buildings directly across the street from each other. It’s a little daunting at first, but just consider it a giant guitar funhouse. (Someone from the FJ or OTS will be at the front registration desk to help you if you have any questions.)

I encourage pass holders to take their time and not expect to attend everything. Some of the coolest music moments happen in the lobbies or just by sticking around a sponsor booth for a while.

There’s a lunch break every day, during which attendees and their new friends grab a bite to eat nearby. I like the Indian place about a block away, but there are burgers, dumplings, cafes and more within about 300 yards of the venue. You’ll see lots of Summit badges at neighboring restaurants. Don’t hesitate to introduce yourself. After lunch, there’s a whole new slate of afternoon sessions.

Concerts tend to start after dinner in the two theaters: The historic Maurer Concert Hall (capacity 420) is where our bigger names play, while Szold Hall is where you can catch some of the more adventurous programming. Your three-day pass gets you into everything. You can come and go as you please.

What are the workshops like?

After you’ve made the decision on what class to attend, you just show up. No reservation is needed with your all-access pass. Some classes are intimate affairs, some have 20-50 people. We put the bigger-name workshops in the main theater, but there’s typically room for everyone. You definitely don’t need a guitar to attend these workshops, though an acoustic instrument is nice to have at a few of them (we’ll let you know).

Every year, we have live podcast tapings, advanced master classes, songwriting workshops and more.

If you want to leave a session early, just politely get up and go. There are usually two to three sessions going every hour, so you can try something else.

What styles of music are represented?

Rock, bluegrass, roots music, blues, jazz, folk, singer-songwriters, and all points in between. Basically, the pages of the FJ coming to life.

How expensive is it?

For 2026, we’ve preserved our pricing from last year: Three-day passes are $400.

This includes everything, all-day-long.

Admission to all the evening concerts, all the instructional workshops, opportunities to win some truly cool guitars in our raffles, the ability to buy Summit exclusive gear, networking events, a great swag bag, and surprises.

You also get early and unlimited access to the lutherie showcase featuring over 80 guitarmakers.

Even without the rest of the Summit programming, this is arguably the largest handmade and boutique guitar showcase in North America.

Walkable dining options abound near the venue at every price point. You can stay wherever you like (see below).

Where should I stay?

We get asked this a lot.

Honestly, you can stay wherever you like in Chicago. Probably aim for a hotel or Airbnb that fits your price range somewhere north of downtown Chicago and south of downtown Evanston. If the reviews online look good and it fits your price range, go for it. (Checking your cab fare ahead of time using an online calculator is also a good idea.)

All Summit activities take place at Old Town School, from morning to night. So once you’re there each day, there’s no need to go anywhere else. Hotel Zachary near Wrigley is an Old Town staff favorite, but you really can’t go wrong if the Tripadvisor reviews and room rate meet your standards.

If you’re on a guitar forum or have friends into guitars, post about the Summit and see if you can go in on an Airbnb. There are many in the vicinity of Old Town, but they tend to get reserved quickly.

How do I sign up?

Register today at www.fretboardsummit.org. And holler if you have any questions.

Still trying to picture this event? Check out these totally unsolicited videos posted by some of our past attendees… 

The post Fretboard Summit 2026: Lineup and Details first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Today’s podcast episode is with songwriter and guitarist Alex Amen, who has a new album out today on ATO Records.

https://alexamen.com

In this conversation, we talk about Alex’s Texan roots, mountaineering, living on a California commune, and the musical influences found on his new album.

Above image: Jackie Domi

Join us at our 2026 Fretboard Summit in Chicago (August 20-22, 2026) for three days of guitar demos, concerts, workshops and live podcasts with some of our favorite artists: https://fretboardsummit.org

This year’s Summit has over 80 luthiers and brands showcasing their new and prototype gear! 2026 speakers include Josh Scott (JHS), Mark Stutman (Folkway Music), Chris Martin IV (Martin Guitars), Fender historian Terry Foster, and many other fretted instrument luminaries.

Join us at our 2026 Fretboard Summit in Chicago for three days of guitar demos, concerts, workshops and podcast tapings with some of our favorite artists: www.fretboardsummit.org.

This year’s Summit has over 80 luthiers and brands showcasing their new and prototype gear!

Subscribe to the Fretboard Journal’s quarterly print magazine: https://shop.fretboardjournal.com/products/fretboard-journal-annual-subscription

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com
(Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com

The post Podcast 554: Alex Amen first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Before talking amps, we talk life! Longtime friend of the show John Vanderslice (Tiny Telephone) joins us to talk about moving to the Netherlands, the life of an expat, the equipment that he moved to Europe (and didn’t), staying curious with your gear, and so much more.

Around 50 minutes in, we get the answer to last episode’s Baffler, field various questions and do the usual TAVA amp troubleshooting.

Thank our sponsors: Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars; and Amplified Parts / Mod Electronics.

Some of the topics discussed this week:

:00 Special guest: John Vanderslice!

50:28 Our sponsors!

51:47 What’s on Skip’s bench: A Supro Galaxy

1:01:19 The O.W. Appleton guitar (link)

1:02:33 The answer to episode 155’s baffler: Two types of hum

1:07:03 The high and low power switch on a Music Man HD150

1:10:34 How can I swap the speaker on my 1949 Spiegel 79-C, pre-heating cast iron

1:14:35 Ranch Style beans, Herdez guacamole salsa, Electro-Harmonix 12AY7 mic-pre, Peavey Valverb, using an iso cabinet, using both jacks in a Princeton

1:24:37 Terry Foster at the 2026 Fretboard Summit 

1:26:11 How many speakers can a Silverface Champ drive safely? Why did Fender keep changing the Princeton schematic?

1:31:13 Skip at the Fretboard Summit?

Above and below: Listener Bernie’s Spiegel amplifier. 

Want amp tech Skip Simmons’ advice on your DIY guitar amp projects? Want to share your top secret family recipe? Need relationship advice? Join us by sending your voice memo or written questions to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Include a photo, too.

Want to support the show? Join our Patreon page to get to the front of the advice line, see exclusive pics, the occasional video and more.

Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal.

The post The Truth About Vintage Amps, Ep. 166 first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Editor’s Note: Jazz, funk and blues guitar legend James “Blood” Ulmer passed away on June 3, 2026 at the age of 86. We profiled Ulmer in a lengthy Fretboard Journal 50 profile penned by contributor John Kruth (with photos by Stan Schnier). To pay tribute, we’re sharing the story here in its entirety. 

Tuning to Your Head

Free language with James “Blood” Ulmer

The eldest of nine children, James “Blood” Ulmer was born in 1942 and raised in rural St. Matthews, South Carolina. Brought up in the church, Ulmer’s father, a Baptist preacher, showed him his first guitar chords at the age of 4.

“My daddy played guitar and good harmonica and would sing to me and put my fingers on the guitar strings. When I was a kid, the only instruments around were an organ and a guitar,” Blood recalled. “We had a pump organ that was maybe a hundred years old. Somebody would be down on the floor, pushin’ the pedals while someone played the bass keys and somebody else played the high part.”

In elementary school, young James joined his father’s gospel group, the Southern Sons, and traveled the South over the next seven years, where he was inspired by vocal groups like the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and the Dixie Hummingbirds. “There were four of us,” Blood said. “And we got pretty good…playing church songs.”

While the Carolina Piedmont region is famous for its distinct brand of fingerpicked blues and rags, played and recorded by guitar masters Blind Boy Fuller, Reverend Gary Davis and Brownie McGhee, Blood claimed to be unfamiliar with their music. “I don’t know nothin’ about that music!” he groused. “We didn’t have no records and nothin’ to play ’em on. Even if I did, my mama would’ve whipped my ass if it wasn’t a record about Jesus. We came from the church. We couldn’t play no stuff like that. They were playing that music in order to survive and make an identity for themselves. So, I didn’t play like that. Copying another man’s style could get you killed,” Blood stressed. “You were messing with their livelihood.”

Ulmer’s lifelong relationship with the instrument began with his “first real guitar, a Stella.” When I mentioned that Lead Belly also played a Stella, Ulmer replied: “Lead Belly! It was a damn shame the way people treated him. Those musicians never could travel anywhere without somebody making a threat on their life…made them ride in the back of the bus. They could have done so much more. They mostly played what record companies wanted them to play, what they thought would sell. The business has crushed the real American music. They don’t want you to know where it came from. Their idea of what music is supposed to be comes from Europe! Those musicians never got the chance to express themselves and play the real American music. I couldn’t put up with that kinda shit. I woulda been dead if I had to live like that.

“After I graduated high school, I wanted to get outta South Carolina. My father told me, ‘I can’t send you to college, but you can go into the army, and they’ll put you through school. So, I went downtown, and flunked every test they gave me ’cause all those questions were made for people living on a farm. I didn’t live on no farm! All I had to do was go to school and church and sing!”

Classified 4F by the Selective Service, Ulmer headed north to Pittsburgh and lived with his aunt. “She told me to get a job. ‘I’m gonna charge you six dollars a week for rent and I don’t want you stealing!” Blood’s cousin found him work at a local hospital cleaning pots and pans. “And that’s where I met my first wife. She was a cook,” Blood said, chuckling. But after receiving a check for a lousy 15 dollars after two weeks of work, Ulmer made a solemn vow to never live as a wage slave.

“Damn! That’s the last time I looked for a job! At the time, there were all these doo wop groups singing all over the streets on each corner and they were making some money. So, I went up and asked, ‘Y’all need a guitar player?’ They said, ‘Yeah!’ I said, ‘But I ain’t got no guitar!’ They got me a Silvertone guitar and a Silvertone amp! I went to the rehearsals and right then and right there—boom! [claps his hands loudly] I had a gig with the Savoys! I stayed with them for a while and then got me a gig playing with the Del-Vikings [one of the few racially integrated doo wop groups at the time, best known for their hits “Come Go with Me” and “Whispering Bells”]. That was 1958. I was 18 years old when I started playing guitar for my living. Been doin’ it all my life!”

Around this time, Blood crossed paths with a young George Benson playing guitar in front of his house in Pittsburgh. “George Benson was a bad motherfucker! He played like any guitar player you could name when he was 13 or 14 years old. You’d say ‘Gimme Wes,’ and he’d do it. He could play like anybody, but he could only copy somebody else. He didn’t have his own song!” Ulmer emphasized. “He was giving lessons, but you only needed one to get it. Then he went on the road with [jazz organist] Jack McDuff.”

Blood recalled playing an early prototype Fender Stratocaster around the same time. “When I was 18 or 19, they were just about giving them away, just to get people to play them. But it’s the way you got the guitar tuned that makes a guitar a guitar. It’s got six strings and frets. Does it feel right in your hands? Does it play smooth? It don’t matter what name is on top. The important thing is to play music!”

In 1965, Blood got a gig playing in organist Hank Marr’s group at The 502 Club in Columbus, Ohio. By the end of the 1940s, Columbus had transformed into a red-hot boiling pot for R&B and jazz. Saxophonist Rusty Bryant, who sold a million copies of the funky, chugging “Nite Train,” and jazz diva Nancy Wilson were regarded as local royalty. The city was a regular stopover for the touring big bands of Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Lionel Hampton as well as Miles Davis, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and Dizzy Gillespie’s groups. Lights from theaters, restaurants and nightclubs illuminated the Ohio night sky like a small Las Vegas. Nightclubs like The 502, The Regal and The Cadillac Club were the hot spots where the musicians played for keeps and the crowd dressed to kill.

Hitting the road with Hank Marr’s band, Blood toured the States and Europe, while making his recording debut on the organist’s 1967 release Sounds from the Marr-Ket Place. Built on Marr’s soul grooves, the album features a slinky guitar lead from Ulmer and a robust tenor sax played by George Adams, best known for his work with Charles Mingus. While echoes of Wes Montgomery can be heard in Ulmer’s playing, the choppy, angular phrases that would soon define his style added fire to a set of otherwise cool lounge vamps.

“When I first heard Wes, I thought, wow! He’d really found something on the guitar! I wasn’t a copycat or trying to figure out how to play like him. I just liked the sound he made! It was just like somebody talking,” Blood said.

Ulmer eventually crossed paths with his inspiration one night during a week-long gig with Marr at The Hubbub Club in Montgomery’s hometown of Indianapolis. “We played two sets and Wes walked in and stood at the bar all night long.” Meanwhile on the bandstand, Ulmer grew anxious, hoping Montgomery would complement his guitar playing. When the band took their break, Blood strolled past his hero a few times and even deliberately stood beside Montgomery at the bar, but Wes never uttered a word. “He never said anything. And after that gig, I just made a left turn and stopped trying to play that way [in the typical style of jazz guitarists of the day].” Montgomery’s silent snub inspired Blood to no longer look towards others for encouragement or inspiration but to develop his own voice. “After that, I didn’t follow other men. I just followed the guitar!” he said.

In 1967, Blood headed for Detroit, spending the next five years there. “That’s a baaad town—full of great music! I got a job teaching at a guitar workshop for about two or three years.” While best known for the Motown sound of the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder, the Motor City also had a great jazz scene, providing venues for Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and John Coltrane. The Jones Brothers—Hank, Elvin and Thad, multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef, pianist Alice McLeod (Coltrane) and guitarist Kenny Burrell—all called Detroit home.

At a session for Blue Note Records in August 1969, Blood could be heard comping choppy chords and adding snaky, fiery licks to the cool groove of organist Big John Patton’s album Accent on the Blues. Around this time, Ulmer was jammed with a crew of wild musicians at The 20 Grand club who later become world-known as Funkadelic.

Following a six-month gig at the Bluebird, the club owner kindly staked Blood the bread to go to New York in hopes of meeting and playing with Miles Davis.

“When I came to New York, I was 31 years old, and never thought nobody could make no money playing free music So, I always played structured blues and R&B and dance music. But then I abandoned it. I just totally went another way and got my own group together, ‘Blood and the Blood Brothers!’ Ulmer said with a chuckle.

Jamming with a cast of improvisers from Joe Henderson, Rashied Ali and Arthur Blythe to Paul Bley, he still kept one foot in the straight-ahead jazz world, gigging with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem. But his stint with Blakey’s band didn’t last long, not with the likes of their star trumpeter Woody Shaw scowling at him every time he soloed.

At the same time Miles Davis bent the heads of hippies at The Fillmore with the electric funk of Live Evil and On the Corner, and Sun Ra transported free-thinking jazz passengers to the outer reaches of Aldebaran, organist Larry Young (aka Khalid Yasin) mixed up some musical marmalade of his own with the help of Ulmer and free-jazz saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders on his 1973 album Lawrence of Newark. This obscure disc remains an unsung gem in the jazz canon while revealing aspects of Blood’s music to come.

While Ulmer never ran into jazz’s “Prince of Darkness” (as Miles was sometimes known), he did cross paths with Ornette Coleman’s drummer Billy Higgins in 1972, who introduced him to the enigmatic free jazz saxophonist. For six months, Blood lived at Ornette’s lower Manhattan loft, studying and playing harmolodics—Coleman’s unique philosophy of making music.

“With Coleman, I had to go through a whole lotta changes and think about the way I was playing the guitar, to figure out what the harmolodic theory was—the avant-garde way of playing. Then one night I had a dream that I was tuning the guitar… How ya gonna play it if you don’t dream it?”

Blood’s fortuitous dream would liberate him from all past musical conceptions. When he awoke, he began tuning to the notes he’d heard in his head while asleep.

“I was living with Ornette and couldn’t wait to show him what happened. So, I went to his room and woke him up and said, ‘Coleman, listen to this!’ and started playing the guitar with all my strings tuned to one note. He listened for a long time and said he never heard nothin’ like that before. The music was jumping out! He said, ‘Blood, you have moved the tonal center, making the treble clef a transposing note for the guitar.’ Then he picked up his horn and said, ‘Play B flat.’ I said, ‘I ain’t got one!’ He said, ‘Play E flat.’ ‘I said, ‘I’m not tuned to E flat!’ I said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ He didn’t know, ’cause he didn’t play no damn guitar! So, I had to figure out how to fit with what he was doing.”

Ornette considered Blood “a natural harmolodic player” and produced his album Tales of Captain Black, cut in one session on December 5, 1978, at RPM Sound in New York.

When I interviewed Ornette Coleman a year before his passing in 2015, he marveled at how Blood “scientifically broke down playing [notes] in unison. He knows that shit backwards!” Ornette enthused. “When he plays the blues, he can make you think what you’re hearing disappear.”

“Coleman was amazed. He made me feel like I graduated from his harmolodic school of music. But I just play the music!” Blood shrugged. “And that’s enough. Y’know, you can spend a whole lifetime just trying to get the timing right!”

So, what’s this mysterious system of harmolodic music all about? What are the secret ingredients behind Coleman’s sonic recipe? The word “harmolodic,” I should point out, is a mash-up of one part harmony, one part motion and one part melody, of which melody, as Blood stresses, is the key component.

“The harmolodic system is based on the e-lim-in-a-tion of chords and scales, so you can just play the music,” Ulmer stressed. “In harmolodic music, the instruments are all in the same key. We play all 12 notes at the same time, while European music is mostly chords and scales. The harmolodic tuning gives you a whole ‘nother structure of how to go. Y’know, I should be charging you for this lesson,” Blood said with a laugh.

“This one is tuned regular,” he said, reaching for his black 1954 Gibson Byrdland Custom (strung with medium-gauge flat-wound strings) and began firing off a series of rapid, splintered riffs and fractured phrases.

Blood plays hard and his instruments bear the beating they’ve taken over the years. On the cover of Ulmer’s 1981 breakthrough album Free Lancing, he’s seen playing a big beautiful blonde Gibson Byrdland. But after years of wear and tear from constant gigging, he had it painted black to cover the visible signs of distress.

“About eight or nine years ago, my wife bought me this guitar,” he says picking up his “new” 1962 blonde Gibson. “They’re both the same, but tuned differently,” he stressed, brushing the strings with his thumb. “This one is tuned harmolodic [and strung with medium-gauge wound strings].”

Over the years, Ulmer has employed various tunings, with both a low E or A as the root note. The A tuning, which this guitar was in, was tuned (from high to low): E A E A A A. Blood can be seen explaining the intricacies of “The Unwritten Theory of Guitar Harmolodics” on a YouTube clip where he also tunes his guitar in E (from high to low): E B E B E E.

The blonde Byrdland also boasts a big, brassy Bigsby tailpiece. “I never use that thing! Whadda ya call it?” he asked with a husky chuckle. “A whammy, a tremolo or a twang bar,” I replied. “Never use it. I don’t even know how you do it…it’s just there.”

“So, the tunings provide a couple of languages or set of directions to start from,” I reply, trying to break down Ulmer’s rootsy yet abstract theory. Blood laughs at my attempted analysis.

“Yeah, I hear you, but I don’t think about it like that. I just wanna make it through the night!” he said. “Y’know, it’s a fight to play the real American music, ’cause most people in America are playing European music. I don’t care what you’re playing. It all comes from the keyboard, from Europe. That’s what they respect. In America, our families all came from somewhere else. But this country has its own music without going to Africa or anywhere… And it’s guitar music! Not keyboard music. The Africans got their own tribal music and their own way of playing.”

Blood’s comment suddenly triggers something a Nigerian guitarist named Idowu Awe once told me back in 1978. He strode into my February-cold Berlin pad like he owned the place and laid his guitar case on the kitchen table. Pulling up a chair, he sat down, set his guitar on his lap and began tuning his guitar, starting with the low E string, which he loosened until it was slack. Then he began tightening it back up again. I wasn’t sure if he knew what he was doing or if he was messing with me. So I just sat there watching as he tuned his strings in what seemed to be a totally random fashion. While the E string was tuned to the lowest pitch, the rest of the notes didn’t follow any logical or conventional order.

“I tune to my head!” Idowu said, smiling. “That way, every time I play the guitar, it is fresh and new.” After finally settling on his latest tuning, Idowu began to chop a syncopated rhythm that I could find neither the top nor the bottom of. Once I tossed out any rational, Western approach to music, I picked up my mandolin and just fell into the groove, intuitively playing along. We wound up jamming happily for the next couple of hours.

“Music is not an instrument!” Blood emphasized. “It’s much bigger than that. You gotta figure out what it is. But you also gotta figure out what it ain’t. Don’t look down—look up! Look forward and get all the obstacles out of the way,” Ulmer said. “People want to hear music. They need music! But they don’t really know what it is. It’s not about a flat four or a flat nine!” he said with a laugh.

As Ornette Coleman often pointed out to his fellow musicians, “That’s not just a saxophone you’re playing—that’s music! That’s not a guitar! That’s music you’re playing!”

Blood also designed (and copyrighted) a chart of the harmolodic clef, which illustrates how the theory works. “He wrote it all down. It shows how each note relates in harmolodic law. I will find it for you,” Blood’s wife, Eva, said, returning a moment later with what looked like a cryptic treasure map comprising three intersecting angles with notes written on both sides, indicating how they interrelate with each other.

“That’s just harmolodic theory,” Blood said, shrugging. “You need to hear the sound. Music is a language. It’s information. Different people make different music. I’m different from you! So, why would my music sound anything like yours? [laughs] The instrument might help to break it down, but that ain’t music. If you can find it, then you can play it!

“You’ve got to remember, the instrument did not come first,” Blood emphasized. “That tells you something right there. Music came before instruments. People made instruments, but music was here before the instruments! Y’see, that’s the problem. You can play the instrument, but that don’t mean you’ll find the music.”

Ulmer’s unique system of tuning helped him to blow open doors of new possibility, inspiring him to stretch beyond the well-worn cliches and the pitfalls of patterns employed by most blues, jazz and rock guitarists. Blood’s harmolodic approach to playing gave him an incredible range of expression and the unique ability to construct harmonies as no other guitar player has, before or since. But what about the music he first learned to sing and play: gospel?

“Now gospel is something that don’t always come into you but comes out of you. They always want to teach you something to put it in your brain, without givin’ a damn about what was in your brain before.”

Speaking of shuffling the deck of your mind, Bill Frisell recalled seeing James Blood Ulmer play for the first time in Ornette Coleman’s group at the 1978 North Sea Jazz Festival. “It was wild…psychedelic…mind altering,” he enthused. A few months later Frisell caught Blood playing the small [now defunct Manhattan jazz club] Sweet Basil with saxophonist David Murray, and again with Arthur Blythe. “Any chance I could get,” he said. “With [his band] Odyssey, or solo. I love Blood. He changed the way I think and inspires me every time I hear him. He showed me a whole ’nother world. The past and the future. Deep, deep down into the earth and way, way far out into outer space at the same time. He is for sure one of the true one and onlys.”

Experiencing James Blood Ulmer live in New York punk clubs in the early ’80s was an intense and unforgettable experience. Onstage, the natty electric griot projected an imposing presence The music was loud and aggressive. Notes chimed and jabbed, blurted and shrieked from his amp (either a Roland Jazz Chorus 120 or Fender Twin Reverb), casting a spell over the crowd. For young, adventurous punk rockers exhilarated by Captain Beefheart’s fractured grunge and John Lydon’s edgy Public Image, Ulmer’s music connected all the dots, from Delta blues to free jazz to punk.

While Ulmer respected tradition, he had no use for convention. “My music came from a different direction,” Blood explained. “I call it modulating funk. We were the first black band [drummers Shannon Jackson and Calvin Weston, bassist Amin Ali, David Murray on sax and trumpeter Olu Dara] playing that kind of music at Hurrah and Danceteria. That shit was happening! But you don’t have those kind of gigs anymore.”

For better or worse, Blood was crowned the “New Hendrix” by a pair of reputable critics—the New York Times’Robert Palmer and Robert Christgau of the Village Voice, who appreciated his “catchy themes” and deemed Ulmer’s playing “the densest guitar improvisations anyone has put on record since Hendrix.”

Along with Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew’s innovative playing on King Crimson’s Discipline (released September 22, 1981), Ulmer was one of the few guitarists to extend the vocabulary of the guitar beyond Hendrix’s lexicon of sonic inventions.

It’s difficult for most folks to grasp harmolodics. It’s chaotic and revolutionary stuff. Metaphorically speaking, it’s like standing under a waterfall, a kinetic shower of notes and rhythms. If your brain doesn’t freeze in the headlights of analysis, you’ll be transported to another realm by the sound rushing over you as it scours your ears, mind and soul.

“People like art they understand,” the great American modernist composer Charles Ives once said. After an audience booed experimental pianist Henry Cowell [whose unique tonal clusters inspired Hungarian composer Béla Bartók], Ives allegedly leapt to his feet and shouted, “Shame on you! Sissy ears! Learn how to listen to real music!”

So, how does Ulmer feel about those folks that don’t get what he’s putting down? “I don’t give a shit,” he laughs. “I’d tell ’em to shut up and get out if they don’t like it!”

While Blood performed in various New York jazz clubs, it was the burgeoning downtown experimental No Wave scene that initially embraced his sonic onslaught. “I never did one thing at a time,” he explained. “I’d play one way and then another and another. I can get a blues gig, but…” Ulmer cracks up laughing at the notion of playing for the House of Blues crowd of musical tourists wanting to boogie and chow down on hand-crafted beer and high-rent plates of ribs.

“Look at the computer and you see some young fat kid singing old-time blues and people think that’s where it’s at!” Blood cackles with laughter. “That’s blues? Talk about the rise and fall of America’s music! What is music in America?” Blood asked rhetorically. “The only thing I can call it is prayer. That’s the music you take to the stage with you and play. That’s the music people will sit and listen to and like. But that’s the same damn reason you’ve got to take the music somewhere and change it. But if you make too many changes, it can’t exist. Nobody [record companies, radio or the media] will make room for it. I don’t hear no horn players that can play like John Coltrane anymore. John Coltrane was prayin’ so hard with that saxophone…but nobody will talk about that. A whole lotta horn players trying to play like Coleman or Coltrane, trying to sound like someone else they heard, thinking maybe they’ll make some money.”

“Absolutely no one sounds like Blood Ulmer on guitar, and I think we all know how near miraculous that is, especially in these times of tutorial homogeneity,” exclaimed Nels Cline (guitarist with Wilco and Plastic Ono Band). “But I must add that no one sings like Blood Ulmer either! Listening to him sing and play is like hearing an electrifying merging of past, present and future musics; front porch story songs, spiky iconoclastic improvisation, a whole other kind of blues.”

In 2001, Ulmer embarked on a series of blues-based albums produced by Living Colour’s Vernon Reid. Memphis Blood (recorded at Sun Studios) and No Escape from the Blues (recorded at Electric Ladyland) offered Ulmer’s reworking of Son House’s classic “Death Letter Blues,” and Willie Dixon and Lightnin’ Hopkins numbers like “Spoonful,” “Little Red Rooster” and “Trouble in Mind” (which featured this author on a droning tanpura).

Was it an attempt to simplify his music by playing something people were more familiar with, and not forcing them to think or listen too hard to understand and appreciate?

“I don’t play blues to get recognized. Blues is about language. It’s not about being a guitar player or a saxophone player,” Ulmer emphasized. “It’s scripture! Now, I don’t mean that it reads like or comes from the Bible. It’s a language that was taught to man. But I ain’t got no proof!” he said with a raspy laugh. “But I don’t like to talk about [that] because it don’t make sense.”

Speaking of not making sense, after two cutting-edge albums for Columbia in the early ’80s, the powers that be suggested Blood cover a Bruce Springsteen song in hopes of reaching a larger audience. Hare-brained as this scheme sounds, Ulmer’s cover of Neil Young’s “F*!#in’ Up” which he performed at Hal Willner’s Neil Young Project for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, was smokin’ hot and heavy as a steamroller on a July afternoon. Ulmer’s ferocious version was in part enhanced by employing a Steinberger guitar.

“I don’t like it. It’s too cold,” he groused. “If you weren’t playing one of them, you didn’t have an avant-garde gig back then. The Gibson is more like a woman. But that guitar—well, it’s easy to travel with,” Ulmer allowed, referring to the Steinberger’s trademark missing headstock. Then he chuckled and recalled an odd moment in Vancouver when Lou Reed showed up with a Steinberger over his shoulder and saw Blood playing one as well. “He went and got something else!”

Back to the Columbia debacle: After Ulmer handed in his third album, Odyssey, the label unceremoniously dropped him. “They wanted a hit, but I don’t play no E, A minor, B major kind of thing. They wanted some Springsteen, and I gave ’em an album with no bass player!” Blood said, laughing. Odyssey, the album and the trio named after it, featured Ulmer’s choppy, rhythmic guitar riffs contrasted by Charlie Burnham’s languid, gooey, wah-wah-laced electric violin and propelled by Warren Benbow’s muscular polyrhythmic drums. (If you need a reference point, think a black, rootsy version of John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra—but make sure to listen to the album!) But here’s the twist—Ulmer, who has a deep, soulful, bluesy voice, delivered a funky, foot-stomping rendition of his trademark song that asked the question “Are You Glad To Be in America?” three years before Springsteen’s smash “Born in the USA” in 1986. (Ulmer had previously recorded the song and titled his 1980 Rough Trade release after it.)

As Blood pointed out, there was no bassist on the session, as his detuned low strings covered the bottom end most effectively. In keeping with the freedom principle essential to the harmolodic creed, each instrument retains an equal voice and presence. The rhythm section is no longer forced to sit in the back of the musical bus, designated to serve the “lead instruments,” and are free to play and interpret the music as they feel.

More startling collaborations followed with Ulmer’s bands, Music Revelation Ensemble and Phalanx. ButBlood’s most unusual project came in 1993 with Harmolodic Guitar with Strings, which featured Ulmer’s voice and guitar a string quartet comprising violinist John Blake, Akua Dixon on cello with violinist sister Gayle Dixon, and Ron Lawrence on viola. Ulmer’s yearning, bleating vocals on “Maya,” buoyed by the transcendental strings, sounds like a lost song from Porgy and Bess.

“That was a wonderful session,” said Akua Dixon of Quartette Indigo. “My sister Gayle and I and John [Blake] had worked together before on sessions with [saxophonist] Archie Shepp and Ornette [Coleman] when he premiered a new piece at the Harlem Philharmonic. When you work with some people it’s about rehearsal, then hit the gig, and you don’t really absorb that much about the person and their music—and sometimes you’re glad you didn’t!” Akua laughed. “But in the case of Blood’s music, that was the only way you get to play it. It’s not about just what he wrote on the paper. Blood was very specific and unique. He didn’t write tunes, he wrote compositions. That whole album was a composition. It’s not a tune here and there. There are tunes within it and things you can take and make into a tune. It was all notated music, written by him. But it was written to a certain point, like a guide. It wasn’t like European music, with exact numbers of measures. But I understand it, because to keep the music growing, as a science, the system of notation that’s allotted in European classical music is no longer enough. Even on Charlie Parker with Strings, those were union musicians who got paid well, and were hired by the record companies for the gig. But they sure didn’t swing!” she emphasized. “But Blood? He is totally unique. His music is about moving on.”

As a composer, Blood translates the music playing in his head in various ways. Although he rarely plays flute live or on recordings, he uses the instrument for composing. On an earlier visit to his Soho loft, Ulmer sat on the couch, the sound off on his television, playing breathy melodies, silvery and blue. “I can write and read music faster on the flute than I can with the guitar,” he explained. “I don’t like to read music,” he grumbled. “I play music! I’ll read for hire! It’s hard to read someone else’s music. It’s just there to help you remember.”

So how has the 82-year-old iconoclast of harmolodic music fared during the dark days of the pandemic, holed up in his downtown loft?

“I mostly play in Europe now. They sat two here, two here…” Blood said, referring to the solo gigs he recently played in Holland, despite the threat of COVID, and by the time you read this, his band, Odyssey, will have returned to play Detroit for another epic harmolodic hoedown.

This article originally appeared in the Fretboard Journal 50, now sold out. Subscribe today and never miss out on a future issue.

The post Tribute: James Blood Ulmer (1940-2026) first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



On this week’s Fretboard Journal Podcast, we’re joined by photojournalist and musician Ryan Salm.

When the 2026 World Cup descends on North America, Salm and his group of friends, The Home Team String Band, will hit the road in a converted school bus, visiting match sites to play music and bridge cultural divides.

It’s a fun tale of soccer fans using music to open doors and make friends.

Follow the Home Team String Band and their adventures here:
https://hometeamsoccerbus.com

https://www.instagram.com/hometeamstringband

Join us at our 2026 Fretboard Summit in Chicago for three days of guitar demos, concerts, workshops and podcast tapings with some of our favorite artists: www.fretboardsummit.org.

This year’s Summit has over 80 luthiers and brands showcasing their new and prototype gear!

Subscribe to the Fretboard Journal’s quarterly print magazine: https://shop.fretboardjournal.com/products/fretboard-journal-annual-subscription

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com
(Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com

The post Podcast 553: Ryan Salm and the Home Team String Band first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



This week’s podcast guest is Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Darryl Rahn.

Rahn recounts a fateful day in the 5th grade that convinced him to take up guitar, his tips for using a pickup on an acoustic, the gear he used on his new album (Darryl, out now), and more.

https://www.instagram.com/darrylrahnmusic/?hl=en

Join us at our 2026 Fretboard Summit in Chicago for three days of guitar demos, concerts, workshops and podcast tapings with some of our favorite artists: https://fretboardsummit.org

This year’s Summit has over 80 luthiers and brands showcasing their new and prototype gear!

Subscribe to the Fretboard Journal’s quarterly print magazine: https://shop.fretboardjournal.com/products/fretboard-journal-annual-subscription

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com
(Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com

The post Podcast 552: Darryl Rahn first appeared on Fretboard Journal.



Musician Brad Barr joins us this week to share the story of the Barr Brothers’ 2025 album, Let It Hiss, and talk guitar.

Brad’s guitar playing is uniquely shaped by world music sounds. For years now, Brad has been using a simple but effective trick to make drone/violin sounds on his guitar: Tie a piece of sewing thread on a guitar string near the bridge. The effect, inspired by the playing of Romanian violinist Nicolae Neascu of Taraf de Haidouks, is hauntingly beautiful.

He explains how he came about with the technique and where he wants to take it. We also chat about his 1951 Gibson J-45, the musicians from Mali who inspired him, and so much more.

https://thebarrbrothers.com
https://www.instagram.com/thebarrbrothers

Join us at our 2026 Fretboard Summit in Chicago for three days of guitar demos, concerts, workshops and podcast tapings with some of our favorite artists: https://fretboardsummit.org

This year’s Summit has over 80 luthiers and brands showcasing their new and prototype gear!

Subscribe to the Fretboard Journal’s quarterly print magazine: https://shop.fretboardjournal.com/products/fretboard-journal-annual-subscription

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com
(Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com

The post Podcast 551: Brad Barr first appeared on Fretboard Journal.