Larry LeBlanc from CelebrityAccess.com recently profiled and interviewed Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz. The interview covered how Mr. Juszkiewicz ended up taking over Gibson, how Guitar Hero has impacted the guitar industry, how the recent flooding in Nashville impacted the plant, how the foreign guitar markets are a larger portion of Gibson’s sales than the US market, and more. Read the full article and interview here.

I know that there are quite a few Eric Johnson fans that visit Guitar Lifestyle, and although there’s still no report of when his new album will be released, that doesn’t mean that Eric has been resting. Guitar Lifestyle reader Darren M. sent me some links to a few interviews that Eric has done recently to promote his upcoming acoustic tour among other things:

Eric Johnson: The Guitar Masters Interview – Interview with Guitar International about the acoustic tour. In the interview, he mentions that he has three acoustic tracks recorded and may finish up an all acoustic album next year.

Eric Johnson Talks About the Guitar Masters Tour – Another interview (this time with Music Radar) about the acoustic tour.

Eric Johnson: What Jimi Hendrix Means to Me – EJ discusses how much Jimi Hendrix has meant to him and his guitar playing.

EddieVegas.com is selling Eric Johnson’s 1962 Stratocaster, which is the Strat that Fender used as the basis for the EJ Rosewood signature series guitars.

It’s hard to believe that Eric would sell it, but Eddie has all the paperwork from Eric claiming it was his. The asking price is $90,000, so this one is most likely for collector’s only. The guitar is also listed on eBay.

You can see Eric playing the guitar in the video below.

Lichty Guitars, the shop of luthier Jay Lichty, have donated a guitar for raffle to benefit the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF) in North Carolina, where Lichty Guitars is located. The guitar is a handmade acoustic OM-style guitar built with African Bubinga and Spruce woods. It is valued at $3500 and raffle tickets are only $10. Only 350 tickets will be sold, so your chances of winning are pretty good! Best of all, your contribution will help support music in arts in communities through the LEAF organization.

A slideshow of the guitar that is up for raffle is shown below.

Randy Scott was recently crowned Guitar Center’s 2010 King of the Blues. See his winning performance below:

Guitar Center recently interviewed Joe Bonamassa. As you’d expect, the interview covers Joe’s influences, his signature Gibson Les Paul, the future of the blues, and his approach to letting people tape his shows:

I don’t understand artists who don’t let people film their concerts and hire a bunch of goons to roam the audience and harass fans. These days people want to check you out before they buy a ticket to one of your shows, and YouTube lets them do that. If they like what they see, they tell their friends or they email it to their friends and it goes viral. It’s a great way to market your band, and it doesn’t cost you that much, if anything at all.”

Read the full interview on Guitar Center’s site. They’ve also provided video coverage from the interview, which I’ve embedded below:

All About the Fans:

American and British Influence:

Learning to Feel the Music:

Snapshots in Time:

Fretboard Journal, one of my favorite guitar magazines, conducted this interview with Harry Tuft, the owner of the Denver Folklore Center. I love the footage of the Monday night jams, and I love the story about Mississippi John Hurt’s Guild guitar.

Brian Williams recently interviewed New York-based guitarist Jim Campilongo for Virtual Woodshed. In the interview, Campilongo discusses, among other things, growing up in San Francisco, discovering Roy Buchanan, playing the Telecaster, working with Norah Jones, and he also offers advice for people trying to make it in the music business:

I would simply say “learn songs”. That’s the advice I always tell everybody, whether they want to become a better guitar player or this or that or whatever. The thing you can control is learning songs. We can’t control if clubs go out of business, but if you can play “Tico Tico” or a bossa nova, even if it’s just pretty good, there’s a chance you can go to a bus station in Europe and connect with people. And that’s the thing you can control. So many guitar players seem to focus on everything but that, I mean really knowing a genre. Like for instance, what are all the country instrumentals one needs to know, or what are the two hundred jazz standards one needs to know? Learn a Chet Atkins song. It’s not impossible! Learn two, so you can play at Christmastime and entertain your family. It’s something I work on and still have trouble with.

Read the full interview here.