THE 40 GREASTEST MOMENTS IN GW HISTORY THE GUITARS! THE STARS! THE BIZARRE!
1 JULY 1980: GUITAR WORLD DEBUTS
Some men need no introduction. Larry Smuckler, Arthur J. Maher, Richard Kahl and Larry Cohen are not those men.
But while their names may be unfamiliar to you — frankly, we’ve never heard of them either — the inescapable truth is, the very magazine you hold in your hands is a direct outgrowth of their work and passion. For 40 years, Guitar World’s editorial staff has been one of the most exclusive fraternities around, and these guys are charter members. Without them, there would be no Steve Vai 30-hour guitar workouts, no Eddie Van Halen exclusives, no transcriptions of your favorite songs.
When Guitar World premiered in July 1980, shredding was something you did to financial records, hammer-ons sounded like a drinking game and plugging a guitar into your computer… well, who the hell had a computer? In his first editor’s page, Arthur Maher wrote that he envisioned GW becoming a guitarist’s “source-book” — informative, thorough and eclectic — and from the start it was exactly that.
True, the writing was formal and pedantic, and the lineup, even by 1980 standards, was far from cutting edge. In addition to cover boy and blues legend Johnny Winter, the 82-page issue included an exhaustive article on pedal steel guitar, a comprehensive list of the 50 Best Guitar Records Ever Made (No. 1 in Rock: Lonnie Mack’s 1963 single “Memphis”), a Merle Travis–penned article on his influences, and detailed analyses of jazz and country finger-style playing). Still, the template had been undeniably set.
Like music itself, Guitar World isn’t static. Over the past four decades, we’ve gone through phases and periods of reinvention. Sometimes it’s been frustrating: are we too far ahead of the curve, or a little behind? Mostly, it’s been a full-on blast. Funny thing is, we feel like we’re just getting started. For more about this, check out “Sheer Heart Attack” on page 52.
2 THE BIRTH OF GUITARWORLD.COM
Although Guitar World wouldn’t assert itself as a serious internet force until 2007, the magazine first made its online presence felt in the fall of 1994 with Guitar World Online. To access it, users needed a computer with a dial-up modem and a subscription to the CompuServe computer network. When the first announcement of it was made in the October 1994 issue, some lofty promises were made: “Guitar World will be offering a 24-hour bulletin board service (BBS) that will answer any guitar-related question you may have. But perhaps the most innovative section of the GW BBS will be our multimedia guitar lessons. Not only will you be able to download notes and tab, but our online service will also allow you to hear how the notes are played. Imagine Diamond Darrell’s Riffer Madness column coming to life on your computer — complete with sound, photographs and even video!” In reality, none of this was really possible in 1994 — but we give ourselves credit for providing a very accurate peek into the future of online guitar. Oh, and if you wished to contact editor Brad Tolinski back then, his address was 74431,3566.
GuitarWorld.com puttered along in various forms until May 2011, when it was overhauled and relaunched under the expert direction of newly acquired online managing editor Damian Fanelli, who has since become this magazine’s top editorial force. These days, our website is helmed by the very talented Michael Astley-Brown.
3 TWISTED SISTERS : A LOOK BACK AT GUITAR WORLD’S SIBLINGS
Guitar World started out small enough: when we launched the magazine in 1980, it was only 82 pages in length, had a very small staff and budget and wasn’t even on a monthly schedule for about the first 12 years of publication. By 1984, however, we began to multiply — spinoffs and offshoots became a large part of our focus as we looked to expand our reach into other markets and demographics. That year saw the publication of Guitar Heroes, a one-shot guide to more than 100 of the greatest guitar players of all time. In early 1992, the idea was revived as the semiannual Guitar World Legends, but with one major change: each issue was conceived as a tribute to an artist or genre, and packed with past Guitar World interviews, lessons, equipment guides, rare photos and more.
Our first official sister publication was Guitar School, which debuted in 1989 and foundered in 1997 shortly after its name was changed to Maximum Guitar (lesson learned: never change the name of a magazine that has a loyal readership). In the summer of 1993 we branched out with Country Guitar, which morphed into Guitar World Acoustic and lasted until 2007. Mid 2003 saw us venturing into the bass market with the premiere of Guitar World’s Bass Guitar, which enjoyed a small but fervent audience in its four years of publication and eventually ceased operation with its Pete Wentz–fronted June 2007 issue.
In the summer of 2009, the Guitar World editorial staff launched its most ambitious spin-off magazine ever: Guitar Aficionado, a high-end publication designed for players who were passionate about the finer things associated with the rock and roll lifestyle, including vintage and collectible axes, designer watches and fashion, exotic motorcycles, fine foods and spirits and more. By 2017, Guitar Aficionado had run its course.
It’s interesting to note that Revolver, one of the leading hard rock and metal publications still in existence, was actually conceived as Guitar World’s sister publication in 1999. When it hit newsstands in the spring of 2000, Revolver’s debut issue contained a unique mix of content, including an oral history of the Doors, a behind-the-scenes look at the Japanese pop scene and members of Slipknot wearing fashionable men’s suits. But perhaps the world wasn’t quite ready for such an eclectic combo: after only a few issues, Revolver was retooled and relaunched into the magazine metal fans know today.
While each of these magazines has either been killed off or — in the case of Revolver — sold to another company, Guitar World is still part of a large family. As a member of Future PLC, we are proud to call Guitar Techniques, Total Guitar, Guitarist, Guitar Player, Guitarist and Bass Player our sister publications (not to mention Metal Hammer and Classic Rock).
4 GUITAR WORLD GOES DIGITAL
After debuting in the summer of 1980, existed for an awfully long time before we realized that the future of the magazine depended on how successfully we could adapt and change with the times. By 2004, the digital age was in full effect and CD-ROMs were all the rage, and we knew that we could only be so effective in teaching our readers to play guitar with printed words andissue inside a small percentage of newsstand copies, the first step toward making the magazine a complete multimedia experience each month. Our debut disc featured video lessons with , , and , a Betcha Can’t Play This segment with , gear reviews, audio tracks by and , and an audio-only guitar play-along track of “Trampled Underfoot.” The experiment was a great success, and eventually all newsstand copies of the magazine were packaged with CD-ROMs each month until the summer of 2011, when it became no longer feasible to produce and distribute hard discs in mass quantities and we made the decision to eliminate the CD-ROM and shift all digital content to other delivery systems The mid-2000s saw us shift into another market for delivering digital content: instructional DVDs, which would ultimately prove to be one of the most successful endeavors in the magazine’s history. It began in the summer of 2006 with , which contained more than 90 minutes of instructional content, including how to riff like and , how to shred like and and strategies for drop tunings and harmonized lead lines. In the years that followed, produced countless DVD products, including such notable titles as , , , , and .
