IF THERE'S A home where any true acoustic aficionado would dream to reside, it's Gary Brewer's House of Axes. Brewer is best known as the leader of the long-thriving Kentucky Ramblers, a family band whose 2020 release, 40th Anniversary Celebration, spent 16 weeks at number one on the Billboard Bluegrass Albums Chart, was the number-three best-selling project overall in 2021, and landed between releases by Ariana Grande and Rob Zombie on the Top Current Albums Sales year-end chart.
Brewer is quite a character, who prefers colorful clothes and refers to his high-octane Americana as "Brewgrass," but he's as legit as they come, with the history and testimony to prove it. Brewer's grandfather worked with the original Carter Family in the '20s, and the Brewer family is now a six-generation musical dynasty.
As Brewer explains, Father of Bluegrass Bill Monroe played his final recording session with him and was quoted saying, "This boy right here is 100 percent bluegrass! He comes from good stock." George Gruhn, acoustic guitar guru and owner of renowned Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, sings his praises as well, saying, "Gary Brewer is to the guitar what Bill Monroe was to the mandolin."
Brewer has amassed a monumental arsenal of guitars, including 100 vintage Martins that date back to 1899. His new guitar concept project, House of Axes (SGM), is a straight-shooting showcase for his rarest and most prized acoustics. It's a multimedia affair, captured at Brewgrass Entertainment, headquarters for the family business, where he sat down with nine select instruments and proceeded to play them one at a time, offering insights on each before launching into stellar song performances captured raw in the moment with one take and no overdubs. You can watch them in a revealing series of YouTube videos or listen to the audio versions, where each introduction is broken out as a separate track.
Denne historien er fra October 2023-utgaven av Guitar Player.
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Denne historien er fra October 2023-utgaven av Guitar Player.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
PRS
PREVIOUSLY PART OF PRS's Maryland-built guitar line, the SE NF3 was recently reissued in the company's offshore-produced SE series. The SE NF3 is so named for its Narrowfield Deep Dish (a.k.a. DD) \"S\" pickups. These unique PRS-design units have deeper bobbins to accommodate more windings and extra metal pieces between the magnets to yield a more powerful \"single-coil\" tone, while remaining noise-free because they are in fact humbuckers. A control set consisting of master volume, tone and a five-way blade switch allows the usual selections of bridge, middle and neck pickups by themselves and the neck-plus-middle and bridge-plus-middle combinations that allow the SE NF3 to veer into Strat-like territory in switch positions two and four.
EPIPHONE
Inspired by Gibson Custom 1963 Firebird V and 1959 ES-355
Dobro 101
A look at the iconic bluegrass slide box.
CERTIFIED GREATNESS
Fingerstyle master Tommy Emmanuel combines unique musical instincts and breathtaking technique to become an acoustic tour de force.
MASTER OF HIS OWN JOURNEY
For more than 50 years, David Lindley graced albums and concert stages with his singular talent on a vast range of stringed instruments. In this Guitar Player exclusive, his musical friends — including Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder and Bonnie Raitt - pay tribute to an original.
TRANSCENDENTAL MAN
Luther Dickinson interpreted a priceless work of art in music. In the process, the blues guitarist wrote his own next chapter.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Together with Tony Levin, Adrian Belew and Steve Vai join forces for a Robert Fripp-endorsed revival of King Crimson's groundbreaking 1980s music.
I'M 100 PERCENT HAPPY WITH THE WORK I'VE DONE WITH PINK FLOYD. BUT...'MY FOCUS IS DIFFERENT RIGHT NOW'
Leading a rock group and being a solo artist were \"not what I asked for,\" David Gilmour says. For Luck and Strange, he assembled a team that shared the weight of his creative efforts. The result? \"The best album I've made since The Dark Side of the Moon.\"
DOUG GILLARD IS INDISPENSABLE
His six-string genius has proved vital to the music of Guided by Voices, Nada Surf and other indie-rock favorites. But all he really wants is to make good music.
Sol Salvation
The genius of Sol Hoopii is preserved in 16 timeless cuts on Master of the Hawaiian Guitar.
