The Fretboard Journal Guitar Podcast

Before he devoted himself to making electric guitars, luthier Scott Walker spent years setting dovetail neck joints at the Santa Cruz Guitar Company. With Walker’s most recent creation, the Katana, h…

Vintage guitar enthusiasts are quick to point out the differences between various makers, tone woods and construction techniques. But can you identify with just your ears what you’re actually hearing…

Luthier TJ Thompson returns to our podcast to tell us a bit about his new website, proluthiertools.com. On the site, TJ is selling some of the exacting tools and guitar parts he’s developed over the …

Bridge plates, neck resets, refinishes… these are the issues that cause sleepless nights for many vintage guitar enthusiasts. On November 7, 2015 at the first Fretboard Summit, Mass Street Music’s Ji…

There is only one musician in the world who can sing the praises of bluegrass legend Don Stover, describe the merits of vintage Sunn amps and tell you that he’s working on a suite of 12-tone music fo…

For our 93rd podcast, we talk to Seattle musician Eli West, who is just about to wrap up a Kickstarter campaign to fund his first solo record. West is a prolific musician, perhaps best known for his …

The first-ever Fretboard Summit was filled with magical music performances and informative lectures but one clear highlight was this session featuring Joe Henry and David Crosby discussing the art of…

The term “living legend” gets tossed around a lot these days, but Seattle’s Michael Gurian certainly fits the bill. Gurian is currently in his 55th year of building instruments and instrument parts. …

Every time we check in with musician Julian Lage, he seems to have a cool new project brewing. For our 90th podcast, we talk to the ridiculously talented guitarist about his forthcoming electric guit…

Sam Jones is easily one of the most in-demand photographers working today: he’s well-known for his trademark shots of George Clooney, President Obama and numerous other A-List celebrities. Jones is a…

For our 87th podcast, we talk Dobro and steel guitars with famed musician Cindy Cashdollar. Cashdollar walks us through some of her favorite instruments, including the Lap King guitar she brought to …

In the late 1970s, Preston Thompson moved from Texas to Vermont to learn the art of lutherie at Charles Fox’s School of the Guitar Research & Design Center. He’d eventually spend time at Randy Wood’s…

From a tiny workshop in East LA, the small staff of Guadalupe Custom Strings create string sets not only for acoustic and electric guitarists but also for mariachi, jarocho, bajosexto and arpa player…

Over the years, Nashville's John Knowles has earned a PhD, a Grammy and even two Emmy nominations. Perhaps even more impressive, he's one of a handful of musicians given the "Certified Guitar Player"…

Call it whatever you like: torrefaction, thermo-cured, roasted or baked. Fact of the matter is that acoustic guitar companies are flocking to a process where woods are put in a specialized, oxygen-fr…

In this hour-long interview, Nels Cline (Wilco) and Julian Lage sit down to talk to us about their fateful meeting (thanks to a lunch date with the late jazz great Jim Hall), the art of the guitar du…