10 Overlooked Guitar Brands Everyone Forgot Were Awesome

Ever wondered why a 30-year vintage guitar dealer went silent for three seconds before naming the tenth brand on his list? Or why the man who designed the Stratocaster and the Telecaster called a guitar company you've probably never walked into "the best instruments I've ever made"? In this video, we go deep into the ten guitar brands that built instruments good enough for the best players in the world — and then disappeared from the conversation anyway. From Leo Fender's final and most refined work at G&L Guitars on Fender Avenue in Fullerton, California, to the surplus lipstick tube pickups of Danelectro that ended up on Jimmy Page's Kashmir riff, Jimi Hendrix's early sessions, and Eric Clapton's touring rig — we trace the instruments that shaped the records you already know by heart. We cover Hamer's boutique Explorer and Sunburst models carried by Glenn Tipton, K.K. Downing, Lita Ford, and Steve Stevens through arena shows in the 1970s and 80s. We dig into Guild's roots in the New York jazz scene, the Starfire IV that Buddy Guy made his own, and the D-40 that Richie Havens played to open Woodstock. We revisit the Mosrite Ventures collaboration that sold Japan on surf rock while America moved on, the Kramer years when Eddie Van Halen turned a Baretta into the best-selling guitar brand in the country two years in a row, and the Chicago guitar industry — Harmony, Kay, Valco, Supro, National, and Airline — that was producing over a thousand instruments a day and powering three decades of American popular music before two California logos swallowed the whole conversation. If you've ever bought the wrong guitar because the right name wasn't on the headstock, this is the video that tells you what you missed.