365 Guitars, Amps & Effects You Must Play: The Most Sublime, Bizarre and Outrageous Gear Ever

1866 Torres Classical

The most hallowed name in the history of classical guitar, Antonio de Torres consolidated the best work of luthiers of the mid-nineteenth century to bring the guitar forward to the twentieth century and beyond. As such, Torres is widely recognized as the father of the modern classical instrument and, essentially, the Stradivarius of the guitar. The thinner and more responsive soundboard, livelier and more structurally sound strutting, and simultaneously more ergonomic and tone-enhancing design of the best contemporary classical guitars can all be credited, to some degree, to Torres’ work. Unsurprisingly, Torres’ guitars are extremely rare and highly prized today, so getting your grubby hands on one is extremely unlikely. Nevertheless, any professional classical guitarist playing a top-shelf classical instrument will have had daily contact with Torres’ legacy in the guitars of later makers, such as Ramírez, Romanillos, Hauser, Hernández, Fleta, Simplicio, and others who owe a great debt to the master. Should you get your fingers around a genuine Torres, however, note how the understated, even rather plain appearance gives way to a sublime voice mellowed and enhanced by the sonic patina that only 150 years of beautiful music can provide.

Courtesy Retrofret Vintage Guitars/www.retrofret.com/photo by George Aslaender

1910 Bohmann Harp Guitar

Freak of nature? Medieval torture device? Au contraire, it’s the Bohmann Harp Guitar, and as finger-twistingly unplayable as it might appear, this beast can produce sublime, almost otherworldly music in the right hands. Relatively few acoustic aficionados today are likely to have heard of Chicago guitar maker Joseph Bohmann, who immigrated to the United States in 1878 from Neumarkt, Bohemia (in present-day Germany). Bohmann was considered one of the most skilled luthiers working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, winning eight major international instrument-making prizes between 1888 and 1904. Once you realize that the bass strings on this guitar’s upper neck aren’t intended to be fretted but are harp strings plucked to resonate with the chord or melody being played on the lower neck, this monster becomes somewhat more approachable. Even so, this odd instrument that looks even more archaic than its century-old lineage would suggest is a work of art in wood and wire even before you approach it as a musical instrument.

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1920s Dyer Symphony Harp Guitar Style 8

Like the Bohmann harp guitar, this elaborate instrument was designed as a somewhat conventional acoustic guitar with its own bass accompaniment. The enthusiasm with which many makers addressed the form in the early part of the twentieth century might have led guitarists to think that these were the real next step forward, and of all the various designs on the table at the time, the harp guitars sold by the Dyer company were possibly the most advanced. Rather than supporting the several heavy-gauge bass strings under tension with just a sturdy upper neck, a Dyer like this elaborately decorated Symphony Harp Guitar Style 8 had an entire body extension through which those drone strings would resonate, producing a haunting, ethereal sound. Dyer, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, didn’t actually manufacture these harp guitars. Early examples were designed by Chris J. Knutsen, a Norwegian guitar maker working in the northeastern United States, and most were manufactured by the Larson Brothers of Chicago. Dyer harp guitars are exceedingly rare today; the instrument’s most acclaimed proponents include Stephen Bennett and Michael Hedges, who died in a car accident in 1997.

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1920s Washburn Style A

Every player needs to have one of these little parlor guitars lying around, right? Preferably in that remote mountain cabin where you noodle endlessly in front of a crackling fire to renew your inspiration. (You do have a remote mountain cabin, too, right?) From the 1880s, Washburn guitars were manufactured by Chicago’s Lyon & Healy of Chicago in styles clearly much inspired by Martin. Many were perfectly good little instruments right from the start, but by the post–World War I period the company more consistently used X-bracing for their guitar tops, broadly improving their tone as a result. Aside from the great North American spruce and Brazilian rosewood that many of these petite beauties employed and the deluxe mother-of-pearl inlays that the top models carried, there’s just something magical about coaxing a sweet, mellow tune out of such a tiny, old flat-top guitar. And while few such parlor-size Washburns offer much by way of volume, their tone can often be sublime.

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Weissenborn Style 1

Born in Hanover, Germany, in 1864, Hermann C. Weissenborn immigrated to California in 1900 and by 1920 was well positioned to capitalize on the Hawaiian music boom sweeping the United States at the time. Although Weissenborn also built traditional Spanish guitars, he has become best known for the acoustic lap-style Hawaiian instruments built with hollow sound chambers extending through the entire length of the neck in an effort to increase the instruments’ volume, addressing a constant need for early guitarists. Even more volume was soon produced by resonator guitars from the National and Dobro companies, and soon after by electric guitars, but the haunting, atmospheric sound of Weissenborn’s hollow lap-style slide guitars earned them a devoted following and a place in music that remains valid to this day. Noted slide artists such as Ben Harper and David Lindley have brought the Weissenborn into the twenty-first century and present some of the best available examples of how sonically effective this unusual guitar can be.

Courtesy Chicago Music Exchange/www.chicagomusicexchange.com

1920s Gibson L-5

Orville Gibson pioneered the archtop guitar in the late 1800s, but the instrument took a major step toward embodying its full potential in the 1920s after the company’s sales manager, Lewis Williams, hired mandolin virtuoso and instrument designer Lloyd A. Loar to develop a new high-quality line in 1922. The mandolin was still more popular than the guitar at the time, and when Loar applied his thinking to the 6-string, the result was the new L-5. Upgrades came in the form of revised bracing, a height-adjustable bridge, the first adjustable truss-rod commonly used on a guitar, and various considerations intended to improve resonance and overall tone. Also, more obviously, the L-5 and other Gibson guitars adopted the mandolin-like f-holes in place of the previous round or oval sound holes. Original Loar-era L-5s can feel like real antiques, but when in good condition, they should produce a warm, sweet, rather mellow tone with some sparkle and harmonic shimmer. In its day, this was state-of-the art, and a 1920s L-5 is still an impressive work of art today.

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1931 National Tricone

Less than a decade after National introduced its first models in 1927, the resonator guitar’s original raison d’etre was made redundant when the electric guitar took amplification to new heights, but in seeking simply to make guitars louder, inventers George Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker, and John Dopyera also created a haunting tone that remains as expressive today as it was in the age of Sol Ho‘opi‘i. The single-cone National is more familiar today, but the tricone was the first to hit the scene. It was actually a rather more complex contraption, too, with three smaller cones that open toward the inside of the guitar body, all connected to the strings via a T-shaped bridge. This trio of smaller spun-aluminum cones gives early tricones a slightly more complex and articulate sound, with plenty of characteristic bell-like zing and a slightly strident honk from that body of German silver (a nickel alloy). The beautifully etched Style 4 (and the Style 3, for that matter) had an exotic exterior to match their intricate construction. Even a roundneck model, which is intended to be played in the standard upright position, still sounds its best when attacked with a bottleneck slide and, ideally, a set of steel fingerpicks. Tune to open G or D, lay into it, and it’s like your own lap-size reverb chamber and orchestra all in one.

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1935 Rickenbacker B-7

Three decades before Rickenbacker-branded 6- and 12-string guitars made a major splash in the hands of the Beatles, The Who, the Byrds, and other ’60s legends, the original team behind the name was pushing the envelope with groundbreaking electric designs. The Ro-Pat-In company, which branded its guitars Rickenbacker, married George Beauchamp and Paul Barth’s groundbreaking magnetic pickup design to Adolph Rickenbacker’s stylized guitar body of the early- to mid-’30s—first in aluminum, then in Bakelite—to produce one of the first viable amplified electric guitars, although it was more often played in the Hawaiian or lap style with a steel slide. The large magnets and relatively heavy wire gauge of Rickenbacker’s horseshoe pickup give this instrument a thick, gutsy tone, with a snarly edge that nevertheless remains fairly clear, unless you drive the amp excessively. This is the singing, muscular, electric sound of Sol Ho‘opi‘i, the Sweethearts of the Air, and later, several early Western swing artists who quickly became the envy of their Spanish-style cohorts. As industrial as this pickup might look today, it still yields a ballsy tone that can’t really be replicated by any evolution of the form in the past eighty years of guitar development.

Courtesy Retrofret Vintage Guitars/www.retrofret.com/photo by George Aslaender

1930s Dobro

Whereas National resonator guitars have always been tied to Hawaiian and blues music, the Dobro seems to have made its warm, woody way into the country and bluegrass scenes almost from the start. Dobro did make many metal-bodied guitars in the image of the classic Nationals that Dobro cofounder John Dopyera pioneered before his split with the company in 1928, but the company is far better known for its wooden-bodied instruments, which were perhaps just more befitting of the image and sound of the scene where they found their home. In order to avoid copying National too directly, Dopyera gave his Dobros (Dopyera Brothers) a single resonator cone installed in the reverse of the National style, which is to say it opened toward the top of the body rather than into it. As such, it required the very different eight-legged spider bridge that became another characteristic of the Dobro build and tone. Although well-aged Dobro and National guitars might seem to have more in common than they do apart, this vintage example exhibits a somewhat rounder, softer, more organic tone than will be heard from most Nationals, yet it still puts out plenty of zing thanks to that forward-facing spun-aluminum cone.

Courtesy Chicago Music Exchange/www.chicagomusicexchange.com

1931 National Style O

After cofounder John Dopyera split from National to launch his rival Dobro brand in 1928, the company responded with its own wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar, known as the Triolian. The model fared poorly initially, but an upgrade to a steel, then a bell-brass, body in the early ’30s signaled the arrival of a new classic. This 1930s Style O has a nickel-plated bell-brass body that gives it the visual appeal of the upper-echelon tri-cones, although these single-cone Nationals tended to appeal more to blues players, eventually at least, than to the Hawaiian players the breed was aimed at. Naturally, the single-cone resonator guitars sounded quite different than the tri-cones, and the single-cone Dobros, as well. Rather than directly copy the Dobro’s outward-firing cone, National mounted its cone firing into the body (picture an inverted speaker cone), with the strings passing over a saddle set into a round, wooden biscuit bridge mounted at the apex of the cone. The combination of this spun-aluminum cone’s resonance within the metal body and the tone projecting forward from it through the sieve-like cover produces a powerful sound that is simultaneously homey and haunting, instantly recognized as one of the most evocative sounds in music.

Courtesy Retrofret Vintage Guitars/www.retrofret.com/photo by George Aslaender

1931 Martin 000-45

The big D-45 might make a more common example, from later years at least, of Martin’s ornate showpiece guitars, but if you ask us, the beautifully rounded 000 body shape makes a more elegant aesthetic statement. For many years the Style 42 had been the Pennsylvania maker’s fanciest offering, for a time with a genuine ivory bridge, but the stately Style 45 upped the ante with a bound headstock and abalone fountain inlays in addition to its other notable adornments. The snowflake fingerboard inlays are a Martin classic, and note how the abalone inlay within the body-top binding traces the entire fingerboard extension, even cutting into the abalone sound-hole rosette. The attention to detail isn’t limited to the guitar’s front, either: flip it over, and admire the colored-wood marquetry that joins the beautifully figured two-piece Brazilian rosewood back. Strummed, fingerpicked, or flatpicked, this 00045 offers a sonic elegance to match its appearance. An X-brace allows that solid Adirondack spruce to sing sweetly, and while more compact than the larger dreadnoughts soon to come, the 000 has more than enough acoustic muscle to produce a deep, rich tone.

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1932 Martin D-28

Mention the term acoustic guitar today and most people are likely to picture a dreadnought: the big-bodied, square-shouldered style invented by Martin early in the twentieth century. Martin made its first dreadnoughts as a special-order item in 1916 for Ditson Music, which had stores in Boston and New York City, but the refined Martin dreadnoughts that are archetypal of the form didn’t hit the company’s lineup until 1931. The D-28 is the flagship of Martin’s dreadnought line, and a prewar example like this one is likely the dream guitar of countless acoustic performers. This D-28 features the subtly elegant herringbone trim that Martin dispensed with after 1947 as well as distinctive snowflake inlays in its ebony fingerboard, a top of Adirondack spruce, and Brazilian rosewood back and sides. You could just about say this guitar was born to play bluegrass: its rich, muscular voice is equally suited to banging out the rhythm behind a steam-train-paced fiddle, banjo, and mandolin arrangement as it is to singing its own flatpicked solo when its turn rolls around. Arguably a perfect marriage of form and function, a D-28 is all that many legendary artists required to make a career’s worth of great music.

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1932 Julián Gómez Rámirez Steel-String

This revolutionary—and somewhat bizarre-looking—guitar was crafted by renowned Spanish luthier Julián Gómez Ramírez. Ramírez apprenticed with the famed guitar maker José Ramírez I in Madrid, then set up shop in Paris around 1914. Here he built classical guitars before trying his hand at this novel steel-string model. This guitar was revolutionary in marrying classical guitar with mandolin and banduria features to create a steel-string model that was loud enough to cut through the sound and fury of accordion dance bands and, later, jazz ensembles. The body is made of Brazilian rosewood with a softwood soundboard featuring large open sound holes designed to project the guitar’s voice. It’s incredibly light weight with a warm, woody, and bright tone. This guitar was specially made for the Gypsy jazz maestro Pierre Baro Ferret, who often loaned it to his friend Django Reinhardt. Django used it in his early days before adopting the Selmer-Maccaferri.

Courtesy Musée de la Musique, Paris

Django Reinhardt (second from right) plays the Rámirez steel string seen here.

1936 Gibson ES-150

The humble ES-150 is notable for being both Gibson’s first production electric guitar (and therefore the first production electric from a major maker) and the guitar that carried the hallowed Charlie Christian pickup. Which means, of course, that it’s also a fast road to achieving that fat yet biting Charlie Christian tone. We think of these old archtop electrics as being dark and boomy, and they can be, but that impression possibly comes as much from the circumstances of the recordings of the day as from the instruments themselves. Plugged in today, a good ES-150 will definitely be thick and warm, but it should have a surprisingly clear, snarky edge, too. A vintage amp such as the EH-150, with which the ES-150 was originally partnered, will enhance the compressed and midrange-y nature of the guitar itself, but a good contemporary tube amp will extend the pickup’s frequency range in both directions and reveal some unexpected harmonic sparkle, too. The guitars’ necks can be rather club-like, and playability is often cumbersome—making you appreciate all the more what Christian himself achieves on a song like Air Mail Special—but there’s definitely a personality to these archaic electrics that can be hard to find elsewhere.

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1940s Gibson EH-150

Plenty of attention is paid to Charlie Christian’s use of an early Gibson ES-150 guitar, with the blade pickup dubbed colloquially in the jazz guitarist’s honor, but the EH-150 amplifier of the mid- to late 1930s also deserves credit for helping plenty of formative electric jazzers be heard. The notion of amplified electric guitar was truly in its infancy when these amplifiers were made, and both guitars and amps would evolve a long way before the match was optimized, but the EH-150 is pretty impressive for its day. We often think of vintage amps as being warm, muddy, and even rather dull—and perhaps that’s how many tired, out-of-shape old amps sound when you try them out today—but plug into a late-’30s EH-150 that has been put into good electrical condition, and you have a real surprise in store. These amps have a good amount of clarity to them and an appealingly edgy, raw bite—characteristics that helped Christian’s tone cut through beautifully on the several early recordings that exist. Back when this was one of the few options available to help you get heard above the horns on the bandstand, it did the job admirably, and the EH-150 still offers a stirring trip back to the jazz age.

Courtesy Retrofret Vintage Guitars/www.retrofret.com/photo by George Aslaender

Prewar D’Angelico New Yorker

For many archtop aficionados, the zenith of the craft can be found in a single name: D’Angelico. After taking over the instrument shop of his uncle, Signor Ciani, in which he oversaw fifteen employees at its peak, John D’Angelico decided he was more cut out for the path of the lone craftsman and opened a shop in New York City in 1932. D’Angelico had studied classical violin making and learned Italian-style flat-top guitar making under his uncle, but he largely followed in Gibson’s footsteps with his own work, although his instruments were widely considered superior to those of the larger manufacturer in terms of style and tone. The New Yorker is clearly the flagship of the line, and this early example has a gloriously rich, complex tone that takes you back to cigarette-hazed nights at Birdland. Upon close examination, many of D’Angelico’s guitars might even be considered to be rather rough-hewn, given their status, but they are glorious creations nonetheless and seem to exude some mystic, ineffable presence that virtually hums within their spruce and maple form. After thirty-two years in the business, producing a maximum of around thirty-five guitars a year at his peak, D’Angelico passed away in 1964, and his guitars passed into the pantheon of legendary instruments.

Courtesy Outline Press Limited

Neil Young, 1974. Mick Gold/Redferns/Getty Images

1935 Gibson Super 400

Ah, for the simplicity of an age when manufacturers named their guitars after the prices they charged for them. Following a war with Epiphone that began in the early 1930s, in which each maker sought to outdo the other by introducing larger and larger archtop models, Gibson finally played its trump card in 1934 in the form of the Super 400, a mammoth 18-inch-wide tone machine that quickly became the premier jazzbox on the scene. Unlike its predecessor, the rather sparsely adorned L-5, the Super 400 was given ornate dress befitting its status. Highlights included a five-piece mother-of-pearl split diamond headstock inlay; a multiply body; fingerboard, headstock, f-hole, and pickguard binding; an elaborately engraved gold-plated tailpiece; and large split-block mother-of-pearl fingerboard inlays. And while we often think of this supreme archtop as a blonde beauty today, Gibson shipping records from the era show that, of the mere 401 non-cutaway Super 400s made before production was suspended for World War II, only 7 were given a natural finish. Chop out the changes on this one and you’re rewarded with an archetypal driving big-band rhythm tone, but its X-braced top (which would be parallel-braced by 1940) also resonates sweetly beneath your speedy bop solo lines.

Courtesy Retrofret Vintage Guitars/www.retrofret.com/photo by George Aslaender

Prewar Prairie State Acoustic

It’s easy to think that Martin and Gibson dominated the flat-top game from the late 1800s right up through World War II, but a lot of other significant and respected players took the field, particularly in the years between the World Wars. Prairie State flat-tops are rarely seen today, but they have many devoted followers. Built by Maurer & Company and later by Euphonon, the Chicago companies of brothers August and Carl Larson (who also made many instruments wearing the Dyer, Stetson, W. M. Stahl, and Leland labels), Prairie States were often elaborately decorative instruments that frequently boasted equally elaborate design notions, too. Within their fancy, abalone-festooned shells lurked devices such as steel support tubes running from tail block to neck heel to help ease string tension across the tops of their mammoth 20- or 21-inch-wide bodies, as well as steel clamps to aid neck attachment. Attack this guitar with a heavy pick, and you’re rewarded with a stout, muscular voice that lives up to the maker’s efforts to take the acoustic guitar to the next level in the volume wars.