Here’s a nice little collectors’ item which is twenty years old this month. Well, going by its official birthday it’s twenty years old. In reality it’s slightly older. This is the free Guitar Greats audio cassette, as given away on the cover of the April 1992 edition of The Guitar Magazine. Because of the way these mags were published the month prior to their cover dates, however, the cassette would have been made available in March ’92.
This was only the twelfth monthly issue of the Guitar Magazine, and in the early days there was regularly a giveaway on the cover. Be the freebie an audio cassette, a guitar string, an allen key, or whatever, The Guitar Magazine could not be accused of neglecting the ‘something for nothing’ appeal of added inducements.
Teenage Fanclub headlined the mag’s cover on this particular month, and the likes of Gary Moore, Edwyn Collins and Allan Holdsworth were also featured. The cassette, meanwhile, featured four music tracks… Walkin’ Nerve by Nils Lofgren, Ghost Blues by Rory Gallagher, Red House by Albert King, and One of Those Nights by UFO. All of the tracks were tabbed out in the magazine should guitarists be interested in learning to play them, and there were written features on UFO and Rory Gallagher too. In the photo, I’ve shown the cassette alongside its cardboard cover, atop a feature on the spoof heavy rock band Spinal Tap, who were promoting their Break Like The Wind album in most of the guitar mags at the time.
Tape Tardis 