On January 20th, 2002 we held our first ever all-day guitar extravaganza. The 10-hour musical event brought together guitarists from around the world and received extensive coverage in the local and national media. Here are a few snapshots from what Jazz Times called "a veritable guitar orgy." Below is a review titled "Celebrating Six Strings -- More or Less" that ran in the Wall Street Journal.

On Thursday, January 26th 2006, steel guitar and Dobro virtuoso Cindy Cashdollar was joined by Larry Campbell, Theresa Campbell, and Amy Helm for a free lunchtime concert at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden.

A bunch of folks wrote to us, asking about the “walk in” music they heard at the Winter Garden before the show. Below is the list of those songs. The first few were offered as a gentle tribute to Chris Whitley (1960-2005)… we’d wanted him to participate, but he took his last breath a few weeks before the concert. We miss him greatly.

Thanks to the generosity of Apple Computer, The Krannert Center at the University of Illinois, and our festival artists, we’re presenting festival-related podcast episodes. These sessions will feature artist interviews, never-released tracks, live concert performances, after-hours jam sessions, and more.

The conundrum that is Tom Waits, musically and otherwise, revealed itself long before the term "singer-songwriter" became fashionable—let alone marketable. As a musician, actor and all-around entertainer, Waits cannot be defined––in fact, "definition" is a commercial concept of which he has successfully steered clear throughout his career.

Today's most familiar musical instruments have each evolved, sometimes over centuries, often changing size, shape and even the material from which they are made, leaving earlier incarnations behind to period-instrument groups or pawn shops. But each time someone tinkers with the guitar, a new and separate instrument is born that carries on a separate life.

Familiar staples of the American folk, blues, and gospel traditions such as "Samson and Delilah", "You Got to Move", "Candy Man", "Death Don’t Have No Mercy" and "Twelve Gates to the City" have all closely been associated with Reverend Gary Davis, from before his recording career began in 1935 to his timely rediscovery during the 1950s and 1960s folk and blues scene revivals.

By The Neck, an exhibition of photographs by Danny Clinch, was on view at The Milton J. Weill Art Gallery at the 92nd Street Y to run concurrently with the New York Guitar Festival. The exhibit was curated by the New York Guitar Festival's David Spelman.

The New York Guitar Festival will certainly get many people talking about the guitar. Here are some quotes from musicians who have already been affected by the dangerous curves of the instrument:

Hank O'Neal is "a wonderful photographer — his long personal and professional associations with jazz musicians imbue his work with rare perception and intimacy." – Gary Giddins,The Village Voice

What happens when an accomplished painter becomes obsessed with guitars? Looking at the work of Paul Chase answers that question...

While organizing an eclectic, daylong celebration of guitar music at the 92nd Street Y, it occurred to me that an accompanying exhibit of guitar-related photography would further engage the audience for an extraordinary array of guitarists from around the world.

Though he was quite possibly the brightest and most philosophically articulate interviewee of his era in popular music, Jerry Garcia was not the guru that the media canonized in his name. While charismatic and charming, he refused to be a leader -- not of the counterculture that flowered in his hometown neighborhood, the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco in the '60s, nor even of the band, the Grateful Dead, for whom he played lead guitar for 30 years -- "You can call me the boss, man, just don't expect me to make any decisions."

Here’s an odd thing. The New York Guitar Festival includes a Guitar Marathon in the 917-seat Kaufmann Concert Hall at the 92nd Street Y, an all-afternoon-and-after-a-short-intermission-all-evening event that throws every kind of guitarist at the audience until even the most desperate guitar addict leaves feeling as if he’s just about had enough for now, and maybe he’ll go home and lie down with a cool cloth on his face and listen to some Enya.