(Book). Most musicians are familiar with the famous Bigsby Vibrato, but not as many know about the wonderful guitars that Paul Bigsby built in the 1940s. Bigsby, who was responsible for developing and refining the pedal steel guitar, also built the first modern solid body electric guitar for Merle Travis in 1948, predating Leo Fender and Gibson's Les Paul by a number of years. The Story of Paul A. Bigsby tells how Bigsby influenced Fender and Gibson, as well as a number of other guitar manufacturers, in building techniques and design. This deluxe illustrated coffee table book contains over 300 color and black & white photos. Many of these have not previously been published, and over 50 are actual Bigsby instrument photos taken by fine arts photographer Greg Morgan. The book also comes with an audio CD of Paul Bigsby, recorded in the late 1950s, telling stories of his business.

“A hot-rod joy ride through mid-20th-century American history” (The New York Times Book Review), this one-of-a-kind narrative masterfully recreates the rivalry between the two men who innovated the electric guitar’s amplified sound—Leo Fender and Les Paul—and their intense competition to convince rock stars like the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton to play the instruments they built. In the years after World War II, music was evolving from big-band jazz into rock ’n’ roll—and these louder styles demanded revolutionary instruments. When Leo Fender’s tiny firm marketed the first solid-body electric guitar, the Esquire, musicians immediately saw its appeal. Not to be out-maneuvered, Gibson, the largest guitar manufacturer, raced to build a competitive product. The company designed an “axe” that would make Fender’s Esquire look cheap and convinced Les Paul—whose endorsement Leo Fender had sought—to put his name on it. Thus was born the guitar world’s most heated rivalry: Gibson versus Fender, Les versus Leo. While Fender was a quiet, half-blind, self-taught radio repairman, Paul was a brilliant but headstrong pop star and guitarist who spent years toying with new musical technologies. Their contest turned into an arms race as the most inventive musicians of the 1950s and 1960s—including bluesman Muddy Waters, rocker Buddy Holly, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton—adopted one maker’s guitar or another. By 1969 it was clear that these new electric instruments had launched music into a radical new age, empowering artists with a vibrancy and volume never before attainable. In “an excellent dual portrait” (The Wall Street Journal), Ian S. Port tells the full story in The Birth of Loud, offering “spot-on human characterizations, and erotic paeans to the bodies of guitars” (The Atlantic). “The story of these instruments is the story of America in the postwar era: loud, cocky, brash, aggressively new” (The Washington Post).

Chronicles the Beatles' use of instruments from 1956 through 1970, including photographs and discussion about Paul's 1963 Hofner 500/1 violin bass, John's Rickenbacker 325 12-string, and George's Gibson Les Paul.

(Book). This new bundle pack features the bestselling hardcover book and CD The Story of Paul Bigsby (HL #00332770), shrink-wrapped with a classy black XL-sized Bigsby T-shirt. A great value!

ROLLING STONES GEAR ALL THE STONES' INSTRUMENTS FROM STAGE TO STUDIO

Don’t fret! The music historian and guitar sleuth brings you more astounding stories of rare guitar finds and the legends who owned them. Do you dream of finding a 1954 Stratocaster or 1952 Gibson Les Paul online, at a garage sale, or in the local penny saver? How about virtually rubbing elbows with one of your favorite rock legends? Following up his first-of-its-kind The Strat in the Attic, musician, journalist, and “guitarchaeologist” Deke Dickerson shares the stories behind dozens of more astounding finds including: A rarer-than-hens-teeth 1966 Hallmark Swept-Wing that originally belonged to Robbie Krieger of the Doors, stashed away in an attic in Alaska for forty years! A crazy-valuable 1958 Gibson Flying V belonging to a Chicago bluesman—who, it turns out, also happens to have an equally rare 1958 Gibson Explorer! An out-of-the-blue, a “to whom it may concern” email leads the author to a trailer park in Salem, Oregon, where one of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys’ original 1940s Epiphone Emperor archtops is waiting to be purchased for a song! Luthier R.C. Allen relates the tales of buying Nat “King” Cole Trio guitarist Oscar Moore’s Stromberg Master 400 archtop and of being gifted a 1953 Standel amp from Merle Travis! Buddy Merrill, the amazingly talented guitarist from the Lawrence Welk show, gives his 1970 Micro-Frets Huntington to the author, but only if he “promises to PRACTICE.” Photos of the guitars and other exciting memorabilia round out a package that no vintage-guitar aficionado will want to be without! “The man knows how to tell a great story.” —Jonathan Kellerman, #1 New York Times–bestselling author

Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four_s Instruments From Stage to Studio is a Hal Leonard publication.