https://youtu.be/cE6o7SD1Q0s

Glenn Nichols of Retrograde Guitars joins us for #FJFest, presenting this shop tour, featuring cameos from his new shop dog and his daughters. We featured Glenn in our Bench Press column last year — we’re big fans of his old school electric laminate-top builds, steeped in the lineage of, as Glenn puts it, the “early jazz boxes of the ’30s and ’40s, to the catalog guitars of the ’50s and ’60s.”

The classic lines of his guitars are emphasized by his fine detail work and exquisite finishes — he spent nine years doing finish work at the Santa Cruz Guitar Co. and he “was in charge of French Polish finish and restorations for Kenny Hill Classical Guitars.” His instruments are available as custom orders or you can occasionally find guitars he’s built on spec at The Music Emporium (where you can get a gander at a nice demo video or two), or you can find them on his website.

#FJFest is the Fretboard Journal’s way of keeping our community connected during these difficult times: Expect to see never-before-seen shop tours from guitarmakers, unique music performances and a ton of beautiful instruments on a daily basis here and on the FJ‘s social media channels.

Like what we’re doing? We could use your support: Get a digital subscription to the FJ for just $30 and, for a limited time, we’ll send you our two most recent issues immediately as PDFs, on the house. Each issue of our magazine has over 120 pages of long-form interviews and photo essays with today’s top guitarmakers, brands and music heroes.