Fretboard Journal 38

Someone once described the Fretboard Journal as a guitar collector's magazine, which it is not: a collector's magazine would have price lists in it. The FJ is a top-quality, beautifully illustrated magazine about stringed (and predominantly fretted) instruments and the people who make and play them; and for a magazine not dedicated to bluegrass, it carries a lot of material to interest bluegrass instrument enthusiasts.

The current issue, no. 38, includes a twelve-page feature by Walter Carter on the restoration by Stephen Gilchrist of the earliest known Lloyd Loar Gibson F-5 mandolin (70281, dated 1 June 1922); a sixteen-page feature by Larry Howe on Mike Kemnitzer of Nugget mandolins; a Vega Tubaphone banjo with ornate neck by Doug Unger, shown in a glorious photo by Amanda Kowalski, sometime bass player with Uncle Earl; and a major interview with legendary fingerstyle guitarist Leo Kottke by Nick Forster of Hot Rize.