Brian Setzer

Brian Setzer single-handedly rescued two guitars from obscurity. His Stray Cats videos in the early 1980s made the Gretsch 6120 — a model that had been discontinued — so desirable that Gretsch relaunched production to meet demand. His partnership with luthier Thomas V. Jones created TV Jones pickups, now considered the definitive Filter'Tron replacement for vintage Gretsch guitars worldwide. Setzer's primary guitar is his original 1959 Gretsch 6120 paired with a 1963 Fender Bassman and Roland RE-301 Space Echo — a rig that has remained essentially unchanged for forty years. Three Grammys and 13 million records sold, all built on a hollowbody that Chet Atkins helped design.