Music Books

The Guitar Amp Handbook: Understanding Tube Amplifiers and Getting Great Sounds, Updated Edition brings fresh information to the table to help guitarists understand everything about what makes their a...

Make every dollar count with the new 15th Edition Blue Book of Acoustic Guitars. This edition boasts 900 pages of content, including a color Photo Grading System and guitar reference information and v...

Tom Wheeler, author of the landmark Stratocaster Chronicles (9780634056789), a book that covered the first 50 years of the Strat, now has delivered the perfect companion book to any guitar player's bo...

The slang burst has been used to describe a specific Gibson Les Paul, manufactured from 1958 to 1960. The impact of this guitar has and continues to shake the music world. From the dozens of guitar id...

These are the guitars so famous that their names are often household words: B. B. King's Lucille, Eric Clapton's Blackie, Stevie Ray Vaughan's First Wife, Billy F Gibbons' Pearly Gates, Neil Young's O...

Certainly no name resonates across the spruce and maple boundaries of the classic American guitar like that of John D'Angelico, master guitar builder. Here in personal and cooperative histories, anecd...

Introduced in 1922, the Gibson L5 is the precursor of the modern archtop guitar. It was the first archtop to feature f-holes, which allowed it to project through the horn-dominated bands of the day. I...

Back in the good old days, all of America was infatuated with the singing cowboys of movies and radio. This huge interest led to the production of cowboy guitars. These were guitars manufactured with...

In its listing of the 20 That Mattered, Guitar Player magazine stated that Jerry Byrd is the standard by which all steel guitarists must be measured. A fixture on the country scene, Byrd was a session...

Gibson's first 'semi-acoustic' the ES-335, which was neither totally solid nor fully acoustic, is the guitar of choice used by many famous guitarists such as Andy Summers, Elvin Bishop, Lee Ritenour,...

A musical instrument or a cultural icon? Certainly, the Gibson Les Paul 'Sunburst' Standard has become the single most desirable and collectable electric guitar ever made. The late '50s middle-of-the-...

Guitar collectors rejoice! The first book to examine pickups in detail is here! Covers everything from the first experiments to classic models conceived for Rickenbacker, Gibson, Fender, Gretsch, Dane...

Debuting in 1949 and in continuous production ever since, the ES-175 is one of the most versatile and famous guitars in music history. The first Gibson electric to feature a Florentine cutaway, the ES...

The vintage guitar collecting market continues to grow. This book is the first of its kind to report on Washburn guitars, mandolins, banjos and ukuleles made before 1940. It contains detailed informat...

The Moderne is an electric guitar designed by Gibson in 1957 alongside the Flying V and Explorer as part of a stylistically advanced line. Sources claim that Gibson made a handful of prototypes, but a...

Centerstream presents this detailed look at the inner workings of the famous musical instrument manufacturer of Kalamazoo, Michigan before World War II. For the first time, Gibson fans can learn about...

From 1929 through 1961 Gibson, Inc. of Kalamazoo, MI produced over 30 brands of musical instruments that did not carry the Gibson name. Many of these brands may be familiar, with names such as Recordi...

The Martin is considered the finest acoustic guitar in the world, a distinction it has held for more that 160 years. Martin guitars have been played by performers Eric Clapton, Stephen Stills, Judy Co...

The term burst has been used to describe a specific Gibson Les Paul guitar manufactured from 1958 to 1960. The impact of this guitar has and continues to shake the music world. For dozens of guitar id...

Many guitar players, famous and not so famous, began playing on Japanese electric guitars, yet the history of the people and factories that produced these instruments has remained largely ignored. For...

In Confessions of a Vintage Guitar Dealer, Norman Harris tells how he became the world's leading seller of vintage guitars. As founder and owner of the legendary store Norman's Rare Guitars, he has so...

The seminal British amps of the late '50s onward were always distinct from their American counterparts, which were generally designed for jazz, country, and dance-hall music. The British amps were des...

Knowledge and information are vital in the dynamic world of collectible guitars and gear, and no source provides it better than The Official Vintage Guitar Price Guide. With listings for more than 2,...

Steve Pitkin has worked with the Fender Custom Shop since 1995, photographing the most incredibly crafted guitars built in America. There is something special about the Custom Shop and the people who...