The "Golden Era" of Guitar Player Magazine: An Inside Account

JasO

Over the decades, I've been asked countless times what it was like working as an editor for Guitar Player during what some fans have termed the magazine's "Golden Era." To answer some common questions and offer insight into who we were, what we did, and how we did it, I've just posted an essay detailing the magazine's inner-workings during the 1970s-1990s. Here's the link:

The "Golden Era" of Guitar Player Magazine

goldtop

Cool - bookmarked that page for a quality-time read.

A few years ago, I picked up the huge "The Guitar Player Book" from the '80s. The interviews from that era are a far cry from those we get to read today. 



A belated thanks for all your hard work.

dindude

Nice article. I was a Guitar Player reader during the 90’s and it always felt like a Broadsheet compared to the tabloid competition, just a richer and more fulfilling read, with the love of music coming across at all times. 

The bit I remember as much though was those shoot outs of like 13 amps straight (in what was the boutique amp golden age too), used to have me drooling……good work. 

JasO

goldtop said:

Cool - bookmarked that page for a quality-time read.

A few years ago, I picked up the huge "The Guitar Player Book" from the '80s. The interviews from that era are a far cry from those we get to read today. 



A belated thanks for all your hard work.

Thanks, goldtop. I'm playing the Les Paul in that cover photo. That guitar had an ebony fingerboard and played great, but it was so heavy it would make my left arm go numb after a while. 

88CuzJ

Fantastic insight! You did a great job. 

richardhomer

Absolutely the ‘Golden Era’ of guitar journalism. I learned so much from reading Guitar Player.

Lodious

I absolutely loved GP. It was the perfect document of such an exciting time in guitar music. I bought nearly every issue for about 84' to '98. I also had this book, which was so inspiring, I think I loved pretty much every player it featured.  




Here is my collection of GP's. They are not the ones I originally bought, which I stupidly gave away when I was struggling for space. I put up an advert on here and managed to source most of them, including some earlier ones I didn't have. Still love reading them :-)

CaseOfAce

Artists weren't paid for their interviews? Wow! That was a bit surprising - I guess this was back when being on the front cover of Guitar Player magazine meant you'd really made it.
I've heard the golden era of the mag featured 5 or 6 page interviews with players that went really deep. How times have changed and how guitar playing has seemingly become more about the gear than the playing and music...

CoffeeAndTV

I loved Guitar Player.  It got me into players I’d never heard of before.  

The flexi-discs, Terrifying Guitar 101, and Tommy Tedesco.  Read the print off some editions.  

Thank you Jas. 

Neilybob

I picked up a large box of Guitar Player magazines from a FtB member here in the classifieds. Love reading the articles and viewing the adverts of the time.  

Will bookmark this article for a read later. 

jdgm

Great article!

The finest guitar mag ever at its absolute best IMO - I also loved looking at all the ads and dreaming.  I subscribed for about a decade, made a cassette of all the flexis and still have the Guitar Player book of interviews, a T shirt and an agate 'Min'd Pick' which I sent off to the USA for after seeing the tiny advert in the back pages. 

Tom Wheeler wrote a couple of excellent reference books.

scrumhalf

Dan Forte's column was always the first thing I turned to. He understood that guitars and music were fun.