Guitars: Sounds, Chrome, & Stars » (Special Value)

Graham Kempster was born and educated in Oxfordshire. He trained as an illustrator, but had two great passions – photography and guitars. While photography became his profession, guitars and acoustic music have remained a lifelong interest. His first serious guitar was an Epiphone Texan, but Martin guitars have always been the preferred instruments, a 000-28 being the current favorite.

Guitars is a stunning visual collection of the greatest guitars with page after page of beautiful photography, celebrating the tradition, craftsmanship and originality of these scintillating instruments.

From the classical guitar built by Antonio de Torres in Seville in the 1850s to the most recent technological advances in digital, synth and MIDI guitars, this book burns through the history of the instrument like a white hot Jimi Hendrix solo. It offers up the early twentieth century pioneers, from Orville Gibson and C.F. Martin to more recent perfectionists like Paul Reed Smith, as well as the musicians who found fame with particular instruments – John Lennon and his Rickenbacker 325, Jeff Beck and his Fender Strat and the Epiphone Casino used by Noel Gallagher – each have become as iconic as the artists who played them and inspired a generation of guitar lovers. The high variety of sound and distinctive features of each guitar are highlighted in a series of snapshot entries which cover acoustic, semiacoustic and electric instruments.

With a foreword by the sublime Steve Hackett, this amazing book distills the passion felt by so many for the guitar and offers an insight into what lies behind the appeal of this blistering icon of modern culture.