
Watch Highlights from the Acoustic Guitar Team Hangout
We talked all-time favorite articles, top tips for guitar players, and a whole lot more. Check out a few highlights from the event here.

We talked all-time favorite articles, top tips for guitar players, and a whole lot more. Check out a few highlights from the event here.

Watch the replay of Ron Jackson's Facebook live event featuring Mimi Fox and Paul Mehling
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It was your typical summertime Friday night—the sun taking its time to retreat into the horizon, dreams of a fun weekend beginning to form in the mind, and the computer fired up and ready to provide a fun, safe, socially distant evening of music and guitar talk with two superb…

This year’s Artisan Guitar Show was a great success, with fantastic guitar and accessory makers, super-talented musicians, and an entertaining lineup of events that had something for everyone—even piano players.

Though the instruments on display were stunningly varied, one trend in clear evidence was the continuing resurgence of the small-bodied guitar.
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Knowledge and experience pay off. That’s what my mom always told me. She still does. And it goes doubly when you’re setting out to create a video montage from one of your favorite events of the year: Merlefest, that ever-growing piece of musical heaven in the sweet, rolling foothills of my…

After Hall & Oates came out of Philly with a blue-eyed soul sound that would top the pop charts by the late 1970s and through the early ’80s, John Oates eventually became sort of a Pip to Daryl Hall’s Gladys Knight. But today, Oates is one-on-one onstage with an acoustic…

One of the highlights of the ‘Acoustic Guitar Stage’ at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, recently was the Canadian duo Kacy & Clayton, whose electric folk-rock is reminiscent of 1960s British folk bands such as the Fairport Convention. I caught up with the duo at Merlefest, where they played…
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Some of Americana’s greatest contemporary songwriters, including Gillian Welch and Tift Merritt, began their careers by winning the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest held each year at Merlefest. Acoustic Guitar is a sponsor of the contest, and I sat down with the contest’s chairperson, Grammy-winning songwriter Jim Lauderdale, on Friday behind the Doc…

AG caught up with Woody Platt, guitarist and frontman of the Grammy-winning North Carolina bluegrass band the Steep Canyon Rangers on the band’s tour bus at Merlefest 2016. Watch Platt play and talk with me about his beloved Collings guitar and then perform “Come Dance” during the Rangers’ well-attended evening set…

Sunshine, good friends, and bluegrass music. It doesn’t any better than this. Acoustic Guitar senior editor Mark Kemp is at MerleFest 2016 on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The acts today include John Prine, Peter Rowan, the Steep Canyon Rangers, Alison Brown, and Jim Lauderdale,…
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Among the many highlights of the annual Merlefest music event held in the North Carolina mountains, April 28-May 1, is the Chris Austin Songwriting Competition, which has seen a who’s who of great contemporary songwriters take top prizes over the years, including Gillian Welch, Tift Merritt, and Michael Reno Harrell. This year’s contest —…

Continuing ‘Robbie Fulks Week’ at Acoustic Guitar, here’s another video performance from the master guitarist and songwriter captured live on the Acoustic Guitar Stage at the Brooklyn Country Cantina this past Saturday, March 19, during SXSW. Here, Fulks and fiddler Shad Cobb perform “Long I Ride,” from Fulks’ 2013 Bloodshot Records album Gone Away Backward. We’re celebrating Fulks…

It’s Robbie Fulks Week here at Acoustic Guitar. That means every day for the rest of this week, we’ll be featuring a video performance from the master guitarist and songwriter captured live on the Acoustic Guitar Stage at the Brooklyn Country Cantina this past Saturday, March 19, during SXSW. Here’s Fulks…

Acoustic Guitar had a blast at the South By Southwest Music Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas, last week, but we only caught a tiny sliver of the great music that was going on all around town.
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“What kind of acoustic are you playing today,” I asked the exquisite singer, songwriter, and guitarist Margaret Glaspy as she prepared to go onto the Acoustic Guitar stage at the Brooklyn Country Cantina Saturday during the South by Southwest Music Conference. She furrowed her brow: “Oh, I’m playing an electric today. I’m sorry!” Sorry?…

You may know Tawny Newsome for her comedy work with Second City, or you may know Newsome for her music work with the Mekons’ Jon Langford. This afternoon, at around 2 p.m. Central Time, ace songwriter and guitar wizard Robbie Fulks bought the singer and funnywoman onto Acoustic Guitar‘s stage at…

If you’re in Austin, Texas, next week for the South by Southwest Music Conference, you won’t want to miss Robbie Fulks, Margaret Glaspy, Daddy Long Legs, Kacy & Clayton, Luke Winslow-King, the Wild Reeds, and others perform on the Acoustic Guitar Stage at the Brooklyn Country Cantina on Saturday, March 19.…
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By Mark Kemp At the 28th Annual Folk Alliance International on February 17-20, Acoustic Guitar captured the legendary folksinger Judy Collins‘ keynote address on video. Caveat: The picture quality isn’t great–and Collins isn’t playing her signature Martin 12-string–but these excerpts are well worth watching for her wonderful, sometimes hilarious stories about Bob Dylan (whose early performances…

By Mark Kemp KANSAS CITY, Mo. — During a brief set of songs with funny titles like “Pictures on My Phone” and “I Almost Stole Some Weed from Todd Snider,” the Los Angeles troubadour John Craigie somehow managed to name-check not only Snider, but also Bob Dylan and John Prine on the second…

By Mark Kemp KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If the awards ceremony on the first day of the 28th Annual Folk Alliance International Conference was any indication of things to come, it’s going to be a hell of a week. For one thing, the Folk Alliance presented a lifetime achievement award to…