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And the WINNER is . . . hold on, hold on, hold up the show! This is the very first Harmony Central Golden Axe Awards. I can't just jump into the winners without telling you what this contest is all about. As you may know, the 1999 Winter NAMM show just ended. As you may also know, the Harmony Central writers were there in force gathering all the important news that was fit to print. While at the NAMM show, I (Cliff Suttle) was assigned to scout out the ten best guitars at the show and then rank them. This has become the 1999 Golden Axe Award contest.
I would like to say that this was a very difficult assignment. There were hundreds of great guitars at the show, but I had to narrow it down to just ten. Some of the guitars that didn't make the cut were incredible. I found that in order to even make this task possible, I had to focus on one of a kind or limited production pieces. Out of the top ten instruments, only one, a Taylor, had a production model in the finals. There are many extremely talented guitar makers not represented here. This contest in not designed to take anything away from the many other fine guitar designers that were at the NAMM show.
Here were some of the rules under which this contest was judged.
The guitar had to be present at the NAMM show. No pictures or late entries were allowed. This cut out some excellent guitar manufacturers because they didn't bring their best work to the show. To those companies, better luck next year.
The guitar had to meet or exceed what would be considered pro-level quality for playability and sound. Needless to say, all these guitars sound and play wonderful. The perfect guitar sound is a very personal thing. Therefore, any guitar that met the above criteria was considered without any more analysis of their sound or playability weighing into the competition.
The guitar had to encompass something that set it apart from other instruments in it's class. This could include workmanship, inlay work, painting, unusual materials, or an unusual design.
Also, each company could submit multiple instruments, only one instrument from each company could make the final ten.
So . . . without any further delay, let the winners parade begin: