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You wouldn’t expect Dann Huff, one of the most renowned studio guitarists, to feel nervous sharing his debut solo LP with a friend. But when that friend happens to be Toto’s Steve Lukather, a permanent fixture on the Mount Rushmore of L.A. session players, it’s easy to understand the butterflies.“He said, ‘I want to hear your record,’” recalls Huff, 64, with a laugh, detailing the creation of the colorful and lovingly arranged When Words Aren’t Enough. “I said, ‘Sure, I’ll send it to you.’ Then as soon as I pressed send, I went into this almost-fetal position mentally. I thought, ‘I just sent it to one of the people I value so highly in my life.’ But it was great, the fact that I felt the fear.”That story crystalizes the skills that propelled Huff to this moment: the confidence and curiosity it took to press that button, but also the humility it took to still feel those healthy nerves. After all, you have to be great—but also a flexible team player—to rack up the credits this guy has. And he’s had a career like few others in the business, both in the styles he’s explored and the roles he’s served: Huff rose up the ranks of the fertile ’80s session scene, where he recorded with everyone from Michael Jackson to Kenny Rogers, has played in both a contemporary Christian rock band (White Heart) and an AOR outfit (Giant), journeyed back to his hometown of Nashville and immersed himself in the pop-country world (Shania Twain, Faith Hill), ventured into marquee-level production work (most famously on Taylor Swift’s 2012 blockbuster, Red), and now—finally—released a fascinating album of his own. Dann Huff’s GearGuitarsJames Tyler Dann Huff Classic1964 Fender Stratocaster1959 Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster ReissueGibson Les PaulYamaha Classical Guitar (gut string)Amps & CabinetsREVV Dynamis D40 (40-Watt Tube Amp Head)Matchless ampsLittle Walter 2×12 Open Back CabinetEffectsBoss OS-2 Mr. Black SuperMoon JAM Pedals Wahcko “As soon as I pressed send, I went into this almost-fetal position mentally. I thought, ‘I just sent it to one of the people I value so highly in my life.’ But it was great, the fact that I felt the fear.”When Words Aren’t Enough nods to so much of that range, moving from simmering dixie funk to cinematic orchestral rock to atmospheric and artful Americana. It sounds like the work of an artist stretching every single muscle yet never straining in the flex—a series of clean and jerks that sound awfully clean. But you can’t talk about this ambitious endeavor without exploring its true roots. “This project for me is basically a love letter to my emerging years, which is the late ’70s,” Huff says. “It’s everything that I built upon, everything that I love in guitar playing.”The groundwork was laid when Huff was a kid. When he was around 10, his parents moved from the Chicago area to Nashville—with three sons and a whopping $800 to their name—as Dann’s dad, Ronn, pursued a career in orchestration. (“Man, he had some big cojones to do that!” Dann says, accurately.) The elder Huff’s career took off, and he found work with the Nashville Symphony, as well as occasionally in recording studios with rhythm sections. The latter intrigued his son, whose interest in the guitar started to grow around age 12. Dann had felt a sense of culture shock in Tennessee, but music became his guiding light. The more he glimpsed of his father’s work life, the clearer his path became. “My dad had a friend who was a session guitar player in Nashville named John Darnell, and he asked if [John] would come over and spend maybe 30 minutes to an hour with his 13-year-old son,” he recalls. “He came over one night, and I’ll never forget it. He taught me some scales and a couple chords. He kind of lit the fuse, and that was it.”As an aspiring guitarist, the young Huff had the perfect entry point. His dad would offer to let him sit in the back of the room at the studio, where he’d meet “the cream of the crop” session players in Nashville—guitarists like Reggie Young, Pete Wade, and Dale Sellers. “To me, those were the rock stars,” he says. “You could go into a dark-lit studio, hear music for the first time, and make something new. I just thought that was the coolest thing. Why? I have no idea. There was no illusion that I wanted to go and be a rock star. Not even in the slightest, when I was a kid.”“This project is a love letter to my emerging years, which is the late ’70s. It’s everything that I built upon, everything that I love in guitar playing.”As a high-schooler in the mid ’70s, after years of practicing his chops in the basement, that dream started to become real. He played on friends’ demos at the local Belmont University, and he soaked in torrents of incredible instrumental music of that era: Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, Jeff Beck’s Blow by Blow, and Al Di Meola’s Elegant Gypsy, as well as Steely Dan’s Aja. “The list could go on, but it was so diverse,” he says. “I was inundated with all these different kinds of music, all the Motown stuff. Everything interested me. And all of the sudden I started seeing these West Coast session players.” After playing on an album by singer-songwriter Greg Guidry, he was directly connected to some of those musicians, including former Toto bassist David Hungate. He was eventually hired for an L.A. session with soul legend Lou Rawls, kicking off a period of frequent commuting.“At the time, Steve Lukather had all but vacated his chokehold—he was simply just the very best—because he was becoming a rock star,” Huff says. “I started booking myself on sessions. Back in the early ’80s, they still used contractors for a lot of the pop sessions. I said, ‘Just book me like I live out here.’” He would go out for stretches at a time, making a name for himself in L.A., but realized that this process wasn’t sustainable: “I didn’t realize I could charge for my hotels, my rental cars,” he says. “I did my own cartage. If I booked a session, my expenses would usually surmount that by 100 percent. But I was smart enough to realize I was investing in something, and it became apparent over the course of a year that I couldn’t keep hopping on planes, playing on big records in L.A., and coming back to play on demos in Nashville.” Around age 21, he and his new wife hopped on a plane and headed west, starting the next chapter of his life. The ’80s flew by in a stream of sessions: Michael Jackson’s Bad, Barbra Streisand’s Emotion, Chaka Khan’s I Feel for You, Bob Seger’s Like a Rock, Whitney Houston’s self-titled, Madonna’s True Blue—every situation was different, and the ever-curious Huff learned something from almost all of them. “It was one of those perfect storms,” he says of this prolific time. But after the unexpected success of Giant, his melodic rock band featuring his brother David on drums, following the release of their 1989 debut, Last of the Runaways, he decided to move his talents back to Nashville. “I felt I didn’t need to do my studio career anymore,” he recalls. “[My wife] and I had just had our first kid, a daughter, and we felt, ‘As long as I’m gonna be doing this rock thing,’ which I’d never dreamt of doing, ‘we might as well do it from the comfort of where the rest of our families are,’ so we moved back to Nashville and I left my studio career. We cut a second Giant record, and by that point, Nirvana and Pearl Jam were out, so say no more.” Rather than move back to Los Angeles, he quickly found a niche in the Nashville scene, particularly within the world of country-pop/rock, playing on a series of enormous records—including a pair of multi-platinum monsters by Shania Twain, 1995’s The Woman in Me and 1997’s Come on Over, both produced by the singer’s revered then-husband, Robert “Mutt” Lange. “I don’t have any illusions of what I can do on the guitar, so I have to dig deep into what I actually have roots in.”Huff was once again ingrained in the session world—just a very different one—but Lange noticed his potential in another field. “I didn’t get into producing records because I wanted to,” Huff admits. “I was lured into it, or encouraged into it, mainly by Mutt Lange. He sensed that the way I played studio guitar, I knew that it wasn’t about me. It’s about building something.” And that sense of songcraft, of having an eagle eye for arrangement and talent, served him well when he made that jump, working with artists like Swift, Rascal Flatts, and even Megadeth. It also wound up informing his first solo LP, When Words Aren’t Enough, which came about after some friendly prodding from fellow Nashville musicians Tom Bukovac and Mike Reid.“Both challenged and embarrassed me: ‘Why don’t you play guitar anymore?’ ‘I play guitar on the records.’ ‘No, why don’t you play guitar?’” he says. “I didn’t have a good answer after saying no for dozens of years. I decided I would give it a rip. I wasn’t in tip-top form of guitar playing at this time, so it was humbling, but it felt right.” He gradually started putting together some demos, drawing on the pivotal period of teenage inspiration that first drew him to this wild life. “Runaway Gypsy” laces jazz-funk riffs with grooving Latin percussion and grand string parts—a cinematic stew that reflects the influence of Al Di Meola. The title of “Southern Synchronicity” is an overt nod to Police guitarist Andy Summers, but the song is way wilder than you’d expect, with shifting time signatures, funky drumming, and the fiery fiddle of Stuart Duncan. Meanwhile, the greasy “Colorado Creepin’” is a tightly coiled, wah-heavy highlight. (“You can probably hear a lot of my love of Jeff Beck,” notes Huff.) Every track—featuring the core of Huff, bassist Mark Hill, and drummer Jerry Roe—is virtuosic but tasteful, placing every show-stopping solo within the context of a hooky melody and satisfying musical arc. Often utilizing large chunks of his demos, they knocked out the bulk of basic recording in a couple days—and that no-nonsense approach fits for a guy who spent decades as a quick-on-his-feet hired gun. The process made Huff “fall in love again” with his Stratocaster, which he hadn’t played for years, but the recording was intentionally bare-bones. “It wasn’t about amplifiers or all the equipment,” he says. “I used very little equipment on the record. When you’re trying to say something, just say it how you’re gonna say it.“The gift of being older and not being, shall we say, in my ‘prime form’—my chops aren’t as fluid as they were when I was playing 10 hours a day—is that I had to define what I was interested in before I did this,” he says. “And what I’ve always been drawn to in music—and I saw a connection here—is composition. When the shape, the form, the melody, the dynamics, are correct, that allows you to improvise over it in a way that isn’t gratuitous or about you trying to prove yourself. I don’t have any illusions of what I can do on the guitar, so I have to dig deep into what I actually have roots in.” He also wound up enormously proud of the record—but that’s not to say he didn’t feel anxious about it, illustrated by his exchange with the great Lukather.“I went through a period after I finished this thing where I was absolutely terrified,” he admits. “I guess anybody would. It’s hard to hear yourself from another perspective. I can listen to other guitar players or musicians, and I just want to hear who they are. I’m critical, but with my music, it’s like, I know where the warts are, and I hear the limitations. It’s hard to hear it for what it is, but I thought, ‘If I don’t let go of this thing and stop trying to impress myself or everybody else, I’m never gonna do this.’ So I said, ‘Fuck it. I’m gonna put it out.’ So I let go, and that was the best decision I could have made.” YouTube ItIn this two-and-a-half-hour video courtesy of Vertex Effects, Dann Huff does a deep dive on his most recognizable guitar parts over the decades.

You wouldn’t expect Dann Huff, one of the most renowned studio guitarists, to feel nervous sharing his debut solo LP with a friend. But when that friend happens to be Toto’s Steve Lukather, a permanent fixture on the Mount Rushmore of L.A. session players, it’s easy to understand the butterflies.“He said, ‘I want to hear your record,’” recalls Huff, 64, with a laugh, detailing the creation of the colorful and lovingly arranged When Words Aren’t Enough. “I said, ‘Sure, I’ll send it to you.’ Then as soon as I pressed send, I went into this almost-fetal position mentally. I thought, ‘I just sent it to one of the people I value so highly in my life.’ But it was great, the fact that I felt the fear.”That story crystalizes the skills that propelled Huff to this moment: the confidence and curiosity it took to press that button, but also the humility it took to still feel those healthy nerves. After all, you have to be great—but also a flexible team player—to rack up the credits this guy has. And he’s had a career like few others in the business, both in the styles he’s explored and the roles he’s served: Huff rose up the ranks of the fertile ’80s session scene, where he recorded with everyone from Michael Jackson to Kenny Rogers, has played in both a contemporary Christian rock band (White Heart) and an AOR outfit (Giant), journeyed back to his hometown of Nashville and immersed himself in the pop-country world (Shania Twain, Faith Hill), ventured into marquee-level production work (most famously on Taylor Swift’s 2012 blockbuster, Red), and now—finally—released a fascinating album of his own. Dann Huff’s GearGuitarsJames Tyler Dann Huff Classic1964 Fender Stratocaster1959 Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster ReissueGibson Les PaulYamaha Classical Guitar (gut string)Amps & CabinetsREVV Dynamis D40 (40-Watt Tube Amp Head)Matchless ampsLittle Walter 2×12 Open Back CabinetEffectsBoss OS-2 Mr. Black SuperMoon JAM Pedals Wahcko “As soon as I pressed send, I went into this almost-fetal position mentally. I thought, ‘I just sent it to one of the people I value so highly in my life.’ But it was great, the fact that I felt the fear.”When Words Aren’t Enough nods to so much of that range, moving from simmering dixie funk to cinematic orchestral rock to atmospheric and artful Americana. It sounds like the work of an artist stretching every single muscle yet never straining in the flex—a series of clean and jerks that sound awfully clean. But you can’t talk about this ambitious endeavor without exploring its true roots. “This project for me is basically a love letter to my emerging years, which is the late ’70s,” Huff says. “It’s everything that I built upon, everything that I love in guitar playing.”The groundwork was laid when Huff was a kid. When he was around 10, his parents moved from the Chicago area to Nashville—with three sons and a whopping $800 to their name—as Dann’s dad, Ronn, pursued a career in orchestration. (“Man, he had some big cojones to do that!” Dann says, accurately.) The elder Huff’s career took off, and he found work with the Nashville Symphony, as well as occasionally in recording studios with rhythm sections. The latter intrigued his son, whose interest in the guitar started to grow around age 12. Dann had felt a sense of culture shock in Tennessee, but music became his guiding light. The more he glimpsed of his father’s work life, the clearer his path became. “My dad had a friend who was a session guitar player in Nashville named John Darnell, and he asked if [John] would come over and spend maybe 30 minutes to an hour with his 13-year-old son,” he recalls. “He came over one night, and I’ll never forget it. He taught me some scales and a couple chords. He kind of lit the fuse, and that was it.”As an aspiring guitarist, the young Huff had the perfect entry point. His dad would offer to let him sit in the back of the room at the studio, where he’d meet “the cream of the crop” session players in Nashville—guitarists like Reggie Young, Pete Wade, and Dale Sellers. “To me, those were the rock stars,” he says. “You could go into a dark-lit studio, hear music for the first time, and make something new. I just thought that was the coolest thing. Why? I have no idea. There was no illusion that I wanted to go and be a rock star. Not even in the slightest, when I was a kid.”“This project is a love letter to my emerging years, which is the late ’70s. It’s everything that I built upon, everything that I love in guitar playing.”As a high-schooler in the mid ’70s, after years of practicing his chops in the basement, that dream started to become real. He played on friends’ demos at the local Belmont University, and he soaked in torrents of incredible instrumental music of that era: Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, Jeff Beck’s Blow by Blow, and Al Di Meola’s Elegant Gypsy, as well as Steely Dan’s Aja. “The list could go on, but it was so diverse,” he says. “I was inundated with all these different kinds of music, all the Motown stuff. Everything interested me. And all of the sudden I started seeing these West Coast session players.” After playing on an album by singer-songwriter Greg Guidry, he was directly connected to some of those musicians, including former Toto bassist David Hungate. He was eventually hired for an L.A. session with soul legend Lou Rawls, kicking off a period of frequent commuting.“At the time, Steve Lukather had all but vacated his chokehold—he was simply just the very best—because he was becoming a rock star,” Huff says. “I started booking myself on sessions. Back in the early ’80s, they still used contractors for a lot of the pop sessions. I said, ‘Just book me like I live out here.’” He would go out for stretches at a time, making a name for himself in L.A., but realized that this process wasn’t sustainable: “I didn’t realize I could charge for my hotels, my rental cars,” he says. “I did my own cartage. If I booked a session, my expenses would usually surmount that by 100 percent. But I was smart enough to realize I was investing in something, and it became apparent over the course of a year that I couldn’t keep hopping on planes, playing on big records in L.A., and coming back to play on demos in Nashville.” Around age 21, he and his new wife hopped on a plane and headed west, starting the next chapter of his life. The ’80s flew by in a stream of sessions: Michael Jackson’s Bad, Barbra Streisand’s Emotion, Chaka Khan’s I Feel for You, Bob Seger’s Like a Rock, Whitney Houston’s self-titled, Madonna’s True Blue—every situation was different, and the ever-curious Huff learned something from almost all of them. “It was one of those perfect storms,” he says of this prolific time. But after the unexpected success of Giant, his melodic rock band featuring his brother David on drums, following the release of their 1989 debut, Last of the Runaways, he decided to move his talents back to Nashville. “I felt I didn’t need to do my studio career anymore,” he recalls. “[My wife] and I had just had our first kid, a daughter, and we felt, ‘As long as I’m gonna be doing this rock thing,’ which I’d never dreamt of doing, ‘we might as well do it from the comfort of where the rest of our families are,’ so we moved back to Nashville and I left my studio career. We cut a second Giant record, and by that point, Nirvana and Pearl Jam were out, so say no more.” Rather than move back to Los Angeles, he quickly found a niche in the Nashville scene, particularly within the world of country-pop/rock, playing on a series of enormous records—including a pair of multi-platinum monsters by Shania Twain, 1995’s The Woman in Me and 1997’s Come on Over, both produced by the singer’s revered then-husband, Robert “Mutt” Lange. “I don’t have any illusions of what I can do on the guitar, so I have to dig deep into what I actually have roots in.”Huff was once again ingrained in the session world—just a very different one—but Lange noticed his potential in another field. “I didn’t get into producing records because I wanted to,” Huff admits. “I was lured into it, or encouraged into it, mainly by Mutt Lange. He sensed that the way I played studio guitar, I knew that it wasn’t about me. It’s about building something.” And that sense of songcraft, of having an eagle eye for arrangement and talent, served him well when he made that jump, working with artists like Swift, Rascal Flatts, and even Megadeth. It also wound up informing his first solo LP, When Words Aren’t Enough, which came about after some friendly prodding from fellow Nashville musicians Tom Bukovac and Mike Reid.“Both challenged and embarrassed me: ‘Why don’t you play guitar anymore?’ ‘I play guitar on the records.’ ‘No, why don’t you play guitar?’” he says. “I didn’t have a good answer after saying no for dozens of years. I decided I would give it a rip. I wasn’t in tip-top form of guitar playing at this time, so it was humbling, but it felt right.” He gradually started putting together some demos, drawing on the pivotal period of teenage inspiration that first drew him to this wild life. “Runaway Gypsy” laces jazz-funk riffs with grooving Latin percussion and grand string parts—a cinematic stew that reflects the influence of Al Di Meola. The title of “Southern Synchronicity” is an overt nod to Police guitarist Andy Summers, but the song is way wilder than you’d expect, with shifting time signatures, funky drumming, and the fiery fiddle of Stuart Duncan. Meanwhile, the greasy “Colorado Creepin’” is a tightly coiled, wah-heavy highlight. (“You can probably hear a lot of my love of Jeff Beck,” notes Huff.) Every track—featuring the core of Huff, bassist Mark Hill, and drummer Jerry Roe—is virtuosic but tasteful, placing every show-stopping solo within the context of a hooky melody and satisfying musical arc. Often utilizing large chunks of his demos, they knocked out the bulk of basic recording in a couple days—and that no-nonsense approach fits for a guy who spent decades as a quick-on-his-feet hired gun. The process made Huff “fall in love again” with his Stratocaster, which he hadn’t played for years, but the recording was intentionally bare-bones. “It wasn’t about amplifiers or all the equipment,” he says. “I used very little equipment on the record. When you’re trying to say something, just say it how you’re gonna say it.“The gift of being older and not being, shall we say, in my ‘prime form’—my chops aren’t as fluid as they were when I was playing 10 hours a day—is that I had to define what I was interested in before I did this,” he says. “And what I’ve always been drawn to in music—and I saw a connection here—is composition. When the shape, the form, the melody, the dynamics, are correct, that allows you to improvise over it in a way that isn’t gratuitous or about you trying to prove yourself. I don’t have any illusions of what I can do on the guitar, so I have to dig deep into what I actually have roots in.” He also wound up enormously proud of the record—but that’s not to say he didn’t feel anxious about it, illustrated by his exchange with the great Lukather.“I went through a period after I finished this thing where I was absolutely terrified,” he admits. “I guess anybody would. It’s hard to hear yourself from another perspective. I can listen to other guitar players or musicians, and I just want to hear who they are. I’m critical, but with my music, it’s like, I know where the warts are, and I hear the limitations. It’s hard to hear it for what it is, but I thought, ‘If I don’t let go of this thing and stop trying to impress myself or everybody else, I’m never gonna do this.’ So I said, ‘Fuck it. I’m gonna put it out.’ So I let go, and that was the best decision I could have made.” YouTube ItIn this two-and-a-half-hour video courtesy of Vertex Effects, Dann Huff does a deep dive on his most recognizable guitar parts over the decades.

This week’s new releases include the latest essentials from Dephospherous, Clairvoyance, Eternal Darkness and more!
The post Five For Friday: July 18, 2025 appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

If you consider all the ways that the Stratocaster represents perfection, “feel” may not be the very first thing you think of. But while the svelte and curvaceous Stratocaster may be the definitive visual representation of “electric guitar” in a dictionary, and ring like a cathedral chime, the thing that distinguishes a great or priceless Strat from a merely good one is often its ergonomic excellence. Slim, light, contoured in all the right places, it’s a marvel of form following function. I’ve played a lot of old guitars over the years, but the one that I can still feel in my bones almost two decades later was a 1964 Stratocaster. The sight of it was beautiful enough to be forever etched in my brain’s visual cortex. But it was the feel of cradling that instrument, above all other things, that remains.The Mexico-made Fender Player II Modified Stratocaster does much to underscore the tactile pleasures of Strat-ness. The rounded edges of the maple neck are as comfortable as an old baseball glove. The medium-jumbo frets lend a silky glide to finger vibrato and bends. The tremolo’s sensitivity and stability beckon a player to slow down and indulge in its bouncy precision. But the Player II Modified Strat’s delicious feel is also reinforced and enhanced by the sound of the Player II Noiseless pickups and the way the quiet performance invites deeper exploration of tone detail and dynamics. And the switching, which enables blends of the bridge and neck pickup to offer an even more expansive tone palette. The build quality is just about flawless, the locking tuners are a considerable asset, and at $1,049 it represents a solid deal at a time when new guitar prices are headed steadily northward.Small Steps Forward, Big ReturnsI’m a bit of a Fender traditionalist when it comes to necks. I like the vintage style 7.25″ fretboard radius and a profile just on the chunky side. But between owning a few 9.5″ radius Squiers that I love, and playing and reviewing enough contemporary Fenders with the same spec, I’ve come to appreciate the feel of the slightly flatter fretboard. For players that prefer the 9.5″ radius and know Fender’s modern “C” profile well, this neck might not, at first, feel like much of a revelation. Indeed, Fender’s modern “C” is so ubiquitous it can feel almost generic. But the contoured edges do much to make the neck feel a little more vintage and make the Player II Modified a more inviting instrument in general.Once you’re hooked on the feel of the Player II Modified, you’ll find the pickups even more alluring. If Fender sacrificed any classic tonalities in making the Player II Noiseless Strat pickups quieter, it’s hard to hear. I sense a little extra warmth and roundness in addition to a lack of 60-cycle hum—and the latter perception may color the former. But the output is anything but suffocated, and the relative quiet means a lot less ear fatigue when exploring overdrive and distortion tones, which are a great match for this instrument.The real treat, though, is the push-pull switching on the treble pickup knob, which enables the addition of the pretty neck pickup to the bridge pickup and combined bridge/center pickup. And though I dutifully explored every single pickup and combination here (and was smitten with the middle position Jerry Garcia tones in particular), I had a hard time leaving behind the creamy/crispy combination of the neck and bridge together. If, like me, you often go hunting for the perfect crossover of sunburnt surfy top end to brighten up your Curtis Mayfield soul ballad tones, the Player II Modified will serve up this most delicious sonic fruit in abundance.The VerdictFender’s marketplace competition for the very guitar it created has never been more intense. But the Player II Modified Stratocaster offers real, if incremental, improvements that enable Fender to stay at the top of the heap in the circa $1K solidbody segment. It allows players to experience everything that’s great about a Stratocaster without settling for an otherwise capable S-style with a weird-looking headstock. There’s room for improvement here and there: The vibrato could be a little more tuning-stable under heavy use and more softly sprung off the factory floor. And, at least to my eyes, an opportunity to make a really stunning looking Stratocaster was missed by slapping a very ’70s black pickguard on a green that evokes the playful custom colors of the ’60s. But there are plenty of more traditional color options elsewhere in the Player II Modified Stratocaster line. And if they all provide as pleasurable and inspiring a playing experience as our review instrument, Fender is well-prepared to take on all comers in this very competitive segment of the solidbody market.

Take it from the pros: There’s no wrong way to collect guitars.Let’s talk about collecting.Guitars, yes. But also … other things.I’ll admit it—I’ve been a collector for a long time. It really kicked in after I joined the family business. Suddenly, I had a little disposable income and a curiosity for auctions. The kind you actually had to show up for—no internet, no clicking a button in your pajamas. Just paddles, raised eyebrows, and the thrill of the chase. I thought the things I brought home were cool. My wife Diane wasn’t always convinced.But let’s bring this back to guitars. Yes, I absolutely collect them. Mostly Martins, old and new—as you might guess—but not exclusively. Some are personal, out of my own pocket. Others are for the Martin Guitar Museum collection, which I help curate with a team that shares the same passion. We’ve built something truly special, and I’m incredibly proud of what’s on display (and what’s waiting in the wings).Like many museums, we can only showcase a portion of our collection at any one time. We rotate pieces, we loan to other institutions, and we keep looking for the next instrument that tells a story worth preserving.A Favorite FindOne of my most memorable guitar acquisitions happened at Sotheby’s in New York. This time, I was bidding on behalf of the company. Diane and our daughter Claire came with me, though they were a bit less excited about the auction scene. (While I was scoping out guitars, they ducked over to the American Girl store around the corner.)As luck would have it, the guitar I was there for came up just as they returned to the gallery. I was mid-bid—enthusiastic, focused. Diane overheard the auctioneer call out the latest bid and gave me that look. I was committed. I stayed in. And I won.She walked over and asked, “What did you just do?”“I bought another guitar for the museum,” I told her.She half-smiled. It wasn’t cheap.The guitar was part of Kenny Wayne Sultan’s collection, built from the same batch of 000-42s as Eric Clapton’s iconic model. Today, it’s an important piece in our museum’s story.You might think I’d have enough guitars, especially with two factories full of them and a world-class museum in my backyard. But I love collecting. So I keep buying guitars. Full disclosure: I’ve used the employee discount more than a few times. Still do.George Gruhn: Collector First, Dealer SecondI’m not alone in this. My friend George Gruhn (yes, that George Gruhn) is widely known as a legendary vintage guitar dealer. But first and foremost, he’s a collector.George first caught the bug back in 1961, as a high school student in suburban Chicago. He didn’t even play yet, but he helped his brother pick out a 1929 Martin 0-28K. That was the spark.“I became addicted to collecting,” George told me. “For every guitar I found for myself, I’d come across dozens more I didn’t want personally, but they were such bargains I could flip them to fund my next find. Gruhn Guitars is essentially a hobby that morphed into a career.”When I asked George about a favorite find, he lit up.“In 1974, a pawn shop near my store called about an old Martin. It turned out to be the most elaborately ornamented early Martin I’ve ever seen—made during C.F. Martin Sr.’s era. I sold it to Steve Howe of Yes, but years later, I had the chance to buy it back. It’s still one of the crown jewels of my collection.”“You don’t choose what to collect. It finds you—one vintage archtop or parlor guitar at a time.”These days, Gruhn’s approach has evolved.“Early in my career, I traveled constantly. Now, I’m more like an angler—I dangle the lure, and people bring guitars to me.”He also offered advice to new collectors: Always buy from a reputable dealer, and ask for written guarantees or certificates of authenticity. If you’re not experienced, get the instrument appraised by someone who is. And while provenance can be important in memorabilia items, which have added appeal and higher monetary value due to prior ownership by a famous performer, George believes the core of collecting is still about the instrument: its builder, its story, and its sound.The Passion PlayGeorge isn’t the only one I’ve learned from. Norm Harris of Norm’s Rare Guitars is another kindred spirit. You may have seen the documentary about him—if not, add it to your list. Norm might have a storefront, but some guitars? They’re part of the family.Closer to home, my friend Fred Oster, who you might recognize from Antiques Roadshow, has been a generous mentor over the years. Fred once told me, “You don’t choose what to collect. It finds you—one vintage archtop or parlor guitar at a time.”All of these folks blur the line between collector and dealer. Some deal to fund their collections. Some collect to enrich their understanding of the instruments they sell. Either way, it’s about passion.For me, collecting guitars is more than a habit; it’s a love affair. And if it turns out to be a good investment down the line? Well, that’s just a bonus. You could put your money in a 4% treasury bond, but you can’t strum one of those on the porch.Keep on collecting.

The PRS Archon amplifier was released in December 2013 and quickly made its mark with modern metal guitarists. In 2021, the amp disappeared from PRS’ product line before being reintroduced as more affordable, Asia-built, 50W combos and heads, which remain in production. The new Archon Classic isn’t merely a rehash of the previous Archon, however. It’s a completely new and very different design. While the original Archon was a study in extremes—with pristine cleans and an ultra-high-gain lead sound—the Archon Classic is more balanced with slightly grittier clean tones and a more mid-rich gain profile.Designed by PRS’ Doug Sewell, who was a boutique amp designer when he met Paul Reed Smith at the Dallas Guitar Show when their respective booths were adjacent to each other, the 50W, two-channel, Archon Classic head is made in Indonesia and is priced at a very reasonable $1149.The original Archon 100 used a fairly conventional set of four 6L6GC power tubes and six 12AX7 preamp tubes, but the Archon Classic is outfitted with two JJ 6CA7 power tubes and six JJ ECC83S preamp tubes. I wasn’t too familiar with the 6CA7 power tubes so I reached out to Sewell for clarification. “Performance-wise, this tube sits nicely between an EL34 and a 6L6GC,” explains Sewell. “When voicing the Archon, this tube best fit the circuit and tone we wanted to achieve. The original U.S.-built Archons shipped with 6L6GCs. The 6CA7 Archon Classic gives a touch more British vibe and sweeter mids. Apparently Eddie Van Halen’s plexi Super Lead 100W had 6CA7s. Enough said!”Less is MoreOperationally speaking, the Archon Classic is as straightforward as you can get. The control panel has independent sets of knobs for the clean and lead channels: volume (gain), treble, middle, bass, master volume, and bright toggle switches. There’s also a set of global control knobs for presence and depth (which adds low end).The original Archon offered power scaling on the 50W and 25W models, but neither the reissue nor the Archon Classic offer the feature. This streamlining of the Archon’s controls is by design. Sewell adds, “As the Archon matured, our objective was to scale down the features, refine the tones, provide a much more cost-effective amp for a wider customer base, and break out of the metal niche many mistakenly perceived that amp to be in.”While PRS opted for a stripped-down approach with the Archon Classic, the back panel retains the useful bias adjustment jacks seen in the original. This allows you to use a multimeter to assess whether tubes are dead or have drifted out of spec relative to the other tubes in the unit. Adjustments can be made using a small, jeweler’s Phillips head screwdriver.Pure Tone MachineWhere the original Archon’s clean tones are hi-fi and pristine, the Archon Classic’s cleans are grittier, with more attitude. At its lowest clean channel setting, the output is already slightly driven, particularly when a bridge humbucker is in the mix. Using a single-coil yields a slightly cleaner tone, but with gain settings this low there’s not a ton of headroom to play with, even with master volume up pretty high. But by slightly bumping the clean channel’s volume up to 9 o’clock, the amp feels significantly louder and is much better suited for a band mix.When I push the clean channel’s volume to noon and bash away on a bridge humbucker, the Archon Classic delivers beautiful breakup that is, to my ears, just right—not too dirty but not too clean. There’s a lot of gain available in the clean channel, and if you turn up the volume between 3 o’clock and maximum, you get various shades of rhythm guitar crunch, from “Won’t Get Fooled Again” to “You Shook Me All Night Long.” There’s also enough sustain here for classic-rock lead sounds. It’s not often I can get pinch harmonics to pop on an amp’s “clean” channel, but I did here, with ease.Switching between channels is seamless and there are no pops or noise when clicking the one-button footswitch. The lead channel sounds voiced with a nod to ’70s and ’80s hard rock, rather than the more modern, scooped voice of the original Archon. With the lead channel’s volume around 10 o’clock, it’s about as dirty as the clean channel with its volume knob maxed. This is a great jumping-off point for creating an all-purpose, versatile two-channel setup, where I dialed the clean channel with the volume maxed for a hard-rock rhythm sound and bumped the lead channel’s volume to just under noon, to get a comparable but boosted sound for leads.The Verdict“Archon” is Greek for “ruler” and it’s not hyperbole to say the Archon Classic rules. Its simple design—the amp doesn’t even have a standby switch—makes dialing up killer sounds effortless, and such simplicity is huge when you want to get down to playing. The sole focus of the Archon Classic is tone, and that it delivers in spades.

My wife and I really enjoy living in the Northeast. Rolling hills, all four seasons, close to the coast, and plenty of day trip getaways to keep our summers busy and our vacations peaceful. One of our favorite haunts is Vermont and the town of Bennington. There are historical features there, such as the Bennington Battle Monument and the grave of the poet Robert Frost. Chiseled onto the face of his stone is the inscription, “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” This lovely, simple quote perfectly summarizes my relationships with guitars. When I was young, I started taking lessons in Nazareth, Pennsylvania—right under the shadow of the Martin Guitar factory! I had all the inspiration in the world, and yet I would choose laziness and not practice. My mom would cancel my sessions, and then the itch to play would bubble up, and I’d be on a huge creative bender. This is how it went for most of my life. Fire and ice, playing and not playing. I probably should be an amazing player, but, alas, I remain a caveman. Part of the reason for that is I just don’t have a good ear and can’t carry a tune. My wife, on the other hand, is a music teacher and has incredible musical ability. She can play just about every instrument, even the wooden fifes sold at the Bennington Battle Monument! Seriously, she plays historical music on these primitive instruments while I’m messing around with the pop guns.In my late teens and 20s, I really went on a creative spell and there was no stopping my insanity for guitar. This was also when I was buying old guitars and piecing them back together. I met Mike Dugan (the guy who plays guitar in all my videos) and started to join bands and go to open jams. Soon I found myself buying and selling guitars and looking for my “tone.” I guess we all go through this search at one time or another, but I just couldn’t be satisfied. For a while, I played a Univox Hi-Flier and then a nice Yamaha SG-1000. Eventually, I was running through guitars like water in a stream. Never ending.Mike Dugan would always tell me, “When you know, you know,” but I just couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t until I started hearing him play in my studio every week that I developed an ear for guitars. I mean, I still struggled tuning a guitar, but I could sense when a guitar had “it”—that zing, that bite, that crystalline quality that you could hear. Wood didn’t matter. Pickups didn’t matter. It just worked or it didn’t, and I wouldn’t be swayed. And the first guitar where I “knew” was this Kawai S160 dating to the early ’60s. The necks on these are huge, and the pickups have low output, but they all sound great. Really, I like all the Kawai electrics from the early days, but this one is my “one.”“Have you found your guitar? Your tone? It’s out there somewhere for you.”Located in Hamamatsu, Japan, Kawai was making pianos before their foray into electric guitars. A lot of the early Japanese guitar makers lacked understanding of the guitar, but what they did have was lovely wood and experienced wood craftsmen. These guitars are robust and solid; they could hammer in fence posts! The truss rods don’t work at all, but the necks are so chunky that it doesn’t matter! And these early S-series Kawai guitars have some of the most beautifully figured rosewood that I’ve ever seen. Simply gorgeous.The electronics are simple and easy to navigate with just one tone and volume pot, and one on/off switch for each pickup. The pickups handle overdrive or fuzz so well. These guitars also came in three- and four- pickup versions, and all sound fine. The tremolo pictured on mine is really the one to get, because it actually works well! Since most of the Kawai guitars were imported to Chicago, they were found in the hands of many bluesmen, including Hound Dog Taylor. So my lover’s quarrel with guitars is a real thing. But some guitars just inspire you to play, or in my case, just make some noise. So how about you? Have you found your guitar? Your tone? It’s out there somewhere for you, and here’s hoping you find “the one” … or two!

Florida’s Seven Kingdoms share the video playthrough for their track “Through These Waves,” the second single from their 2024 EP The Square, out via Reigning Phoenix Music. You can see them shredding and even try to follow along yourself below.
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