Ward Meeker

Bismarck

Editor at Vintage Guitar Magazine

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Articles

Steve Cropper | Vintage Guitar® magazine

2 weeks ago | vintageguitar.com | Ward Meeker

Cropper’s fate was steered by a Silvertone when he was 14. By then, his family had moved from rural Missouri to Memphis, where local radio filled his head with gospel, R&B, and early rock and roll. After an uncle let him hold an old Gibson, the bug bit and he asked for a six-string of his own. “I remember my mother setting aside $17 and change, and when we ordered that Silvertone, they said they could deliver it for 25 cents. We told them, ‘Forget that!’ and I went to pick it up myself,” he laughs.
Classics: Harold “Sonny” Wright’s 1965 Gibson J-45

2 weeks ago | vintageguitar.com | Ward Meeker

In 1962, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” was still popular on TV, and young Harold (who family and friends called “Sonny”) was fully tuned into Ricky Nelson singing while James Burton picked behind him. Toss in Duane Eddy’s “Rebel Rouser” on the radio, along with Scotty Moore backing Elvis and tunes by the Ventures, et al. The guitar was starting to boom. Having sandbagged his way out of piano lessons, “I knew what I wanted to play,” Wright recalls.
Jim Weider | Vintage Guitar® magazine

4 weeks ago | vintageguitar.com | Ward Meeker

Dubbed Masters of the Telecaster Guitar Camp and set for September 30 through October 4 at Full Moon Resort in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, it’s an educational seminar dressed in vacation clothes. The idea came to Weider as he watched his two related events grow in popularity – the Masters of the Telecaster concerts he and G.E. Smith have been hosting for a decade, and his Camp Cripple Creek, featuring players in The Band’s orbit and attended by fans of roots rock.
Greg Kihn | Vintage Guitar® magazine

4 weeks ago | vintageguitar.com | Ward Meeker

Greg Kihn, songwriter/guitarist and founder of the Greg Kihn Band, died August 13. He was 75 and battled Alzheimer’s disease. Born in Baltimore, Kihn started playing guitar as a kid, strumming Harmony and Kay acoustics before he found a Guild 12-string that became his main instrument writing and performing folk music as a teen. In his mid 20s, Kihn moved to Berkeley, California, where he busked while painting houses and working at a record store.
Dudley Taft | Vintage Guitar® magazine

1 month ago | vintageguitar.com | Ward Meeker

A songwriting blues-rocker in the purist sense, Dudley Taft is succeeding in an era when nothing comes easy for his ilk. His new album, The Speed of Life, required a departure from the norm; while his previous three were recorded at his own studio in Cincinnati, this one used down time during a European tour to track songs with bandmates in Prague. And while its personnel varied, the songs are exactly what fans expect.
Jedd Hughes | Vintage Guitar® magazine

1 month ago | vintageguitar.com | Ward Meeker

While being busy tempered his flow of original music, in 2014 he returned to songwriting, so his latest solo album, Night Shades, is just his third. Created with help from songwriter/performer/producer Rodney Crowell, it’s more collaborative than 2019’s West, yet also more personal. We chatted with Hughes as he prepped for a session with country star Eric Church. How did the songs on Night Shades come together? The same way I started West – at home, recording and building songs while writing.
Henry Garza | Vintage Guitar® magazine

1 month ago | vintageguitar.com | Ward Meeker

“We can look at each other and not say anything, because we instinctively know where we’re going,” adds Ringo. “It’s hard to explain. Real blood is thicker than music.”Raised in San Angelo, Texas, their father, Ringo Garza, Sr., also grew up in a sibling band, the Falcones, playing conjunto music all over Texas in the ’70s and ’80s. After they split, he went solo, backed by his three sons, none of whom had yet reached their teens.
Jackie’s Hidden Gem

2 months ago | vintageguitar.com | Ward Meeker

Essentially unchanged today, the Strat remains one of the most-popular guitars in the world (see sidebar), and early models are among the most collectible. Unlikely as it seems in 2024, every so often, one emerges in near-pristine condition. This ’54 was bought used two years later at Henry’s Music and Jewelry, in Akron, Ohio, so 15-year-old Jackie Diethrich could use it while taking lessons.
Bex Marshall’s 1965 Gibson Hummingbird

2 months ago | vintageguitar.com | Ward Meeker

One of those uncles, David Kiely, tasted pop stardom as a member of The Marauders, a Merseybeat band that played The Caravan Club, had a hit in 1963 with “That’s What I Want,” and rubbed elbows with Gene Vincent, the Beatles, Stones, and Roy Orbison. Scoring a hit spurred Kiely, who used the stage name Danny Davis, to splurge on a new Gibson Hummingbird. One of four shipped to the U.K. in ’63 (David told the family Mick Jagger also got one) it became part of the band’s sound and image.
Danelectro Red Hot Longhorn Bass

2 months ago | vintageguitar.com | Ward Meeker

Following tradition with a masonite (“Hardboard”) top and back, spruce sides, and maple neck, it checks boxes we equate with “classic.” While always entertaining and appreciated for their light weight, comfortable necks, and friendly tones, stalwart semi-hollow Danos like the Silvertone 1444 (with its “dolphin-nose” headstock) were never champions of sustain. Here, though, that bass-bout soundhole teams with the chamber beneath it to create a new experience.