I have to admit I was somewhat depressed in 2017—a year that should have been a wonderful landmark for all past and present GP staffers, as the...
I have to admit I was somewhat depressed in 2017—a year that should have been a wonderful landmark for all past and present GP staffers, as the magazine celebrated a half-century in the publishing industry.
However, when I sent out media alerts about the anniversary around February 2017, it was crickets. For months...
What made the silence more annoying was all the hoopla for another San Francisco Bay Area magazine that also started in 1967—a little thing called Rolling Stone.
I mean, I get it. Rolling Stone is a major-market consumer publication, and GP is a niche magazine for obsessed guitar players. Still, I hoped that someone out there in the mediasphere would care. Sigh.
Then, just before the holidays, Aidin Vaziri, the pop music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle—and a former freelancer for GP—emailed me and said his editors had finally approved the story. Whew! At least in the magazine's "hometown" newspaper, GP's big 50 would not pass unnoticed.
The staff and I are indebted to Aidin and the Chronicle for making the story happen (it appeared online via sfgate.com on December 29, 2017, and in the print Datebook edition on January 1, 2018).
That said, a couple of important GP peeps were inadvertently omitted from the Chronicle feature.
Jim Crockett—who became the magazine's editor in 1972, and then its publisher—was obviously instrumental in setting the tone, editorial format, and vibe of Guitar Player. Happily, Jim wrote a book about his experiences with his daughter, Dara—Guitar Player: The Inside Story of the First Two Decades of the Most Successful Guitar Magazine Ever—which you can find RIGHT HERE[2].