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From the January/February 2026 Issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine
It’s always revealing to pause at year’s end and take stock of the instruments and music that have stood out—what they say about where guitar making is headed, and how players continue to expand the instrument’s expressive reach. Our annual gear roundup looks at both the tools and the sounds that defined the year—new guitars and accessories, along with 25 albums that capture where acoustic music is right now. Together, they tell a story of a field that keeps moving forward while staying true to its roots.
That same spirit of curiosity runs throughout this issue. In Guitar Talk, Rez Abbasi shows how the steel-string acoustic can flourish outside its usual boundaries. Known mostly for his work on electric guitar, he turns to the flattop to explore color, rhythm, and microtonal shading—going so far as to play a fretless instrument. His phrase “weaving the notes in between the notes,” referring to the subtle pitch bends and inflections in that approach, says a lot about where the guitar is today—still growing through players who keep finding new corners to explore.
Singer-songwriter Patty Griffin’s story is also one of renewal. On her 12th album, Crown of Roses, she writes from a place transformed by illness and recovery, finding in open tunings like DADDAD a rhythm that mirrors both fragility and strength. As she told Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, the changes in her voice have shifted the way she writes and performs—but also drawn her closer to the guitar as a partner in expression. Nearly 30 years after her debut, she’s still letting the guitar lead her someplace new.
In the classical realm, Larry Del Casale carries forward another kind of legacy. His upcoming album, Homage, and his commissioning of Leo Brouwer’s Contradanza Cubana pay tribute to the late Carlos Barbosa-Lima, Del Casale’s longtime duo partner and mentor. Their story—spanning decades of friendship, teaching, and shared artistry—reminds us that guitar music has always been built on conversations between generations.
That sense of continuity takes a different form in World Premiere: an unrecorded arrange- ment by the late John Renbourn, discovered among the notation files on his computer years after his passing. The piece appears in John Renbourn: 60 Instrumental Pieces for Solo Guitar, a newly published collection spanning his lifetime of work. Notated by Renbourn himself in his final years, the piece offers a glimpse of him still at work, refining ideas with the same warmth and curiosity that defined his playing and composing.
Of course, artistry also depends on practicality. In Here’s How, Greg Ruby distills a lifetime of gigging wisdom into clear, field-tested advice on showing up prepared—musically, technically, and mentally. The guidance should ring true whether you’re playing coffeehouses or concert halls, and Ruby told me it’s exactly the advice he wishes he could have sent to his younger self.
In our Acoustic Classic department, we revisit “Sunny Afternoon” by the Kinks, a song whose breezy surface hides a sharper edge. Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers’ guitar-and-voice version catches the band’s easy, rolling groove and translates it to solo guitar with all its rhythmic drive intact.
Across these stories and arrangements runs a common thread of renewal—whether it’s a fresh design, a rediscovered piece, or a musician learning to hear the guitar anew. Each reminds us of the instrument’s staying power and its endless capacity to surprise. The guitars may change, and the music with them, but the search remains the same: for sound, for connection, for meaning.
