58 YEARS OF GUITAR PLAYER

As Guitar Player moves full-time to its online home, we look back at some of its greatest stories in print.

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RIGHT AROUND 700. That's how many issues of Guitar Player reside in our archive, from our debut publication to our last. (We tried running the numbers several times, but we'd lose count after being distracted by some fascinating nugget from an earlier age.) As we pulled together this celebration of the magazine, we noticed that, while the artists and design styles changed over the years, one thing remained consistent: From its first issue to its last, no matter who was its editor, Guitar Player has featured the greatest guitarists. For our final issue, we present a select group of excerpts from some of our favorite interviews.

Tuning Up

FROM ITS FIRST issue, Guitar Player made a point to include established guitarists in folk, classical, country and jazz as well as the new breed of rock players. It wasn't unusual to find artists like Chet Atkins, Joe Pass, Juan Serrano, Johnny Smith and Gabor Szabo sharing space with the Byrds, the Who or Cream. Even in these very early issues, Guitar Player gave readers access to top guitarists, who would write monthly columns and provide answers to readers' questions.

JIMI HENDRIX

"Jimi Hendrix"

December 1968

JIMI HENDRIX WAS the first rock guitarist to score a GP cover when he appeared on the December 1968 issue.

This excerpt from his interview by an unnamed scribe is a reminder that every story in those early days was a seminal exploration, giving us an insightful record of the techniques and thoughts of the greatest players of the time.

When Jimi Hendrix plays, the house comes down. It doesn't fall in small pieces but in chunks, and the whole place topples on the audience, but it doesn't touch them because he's got them flying up there with him somewhere. That's the way it was at Winterland in San Francisco when we interviewed Jimi Hendrix. That's the way he makes it.