The strange saga of the 'Best Music Writing' series

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The guitars of famed rock ‘n’ roll stars often have as much personality as the musicians behind them. Here’s a look at guitars that defined not only the musician but the genre.

Update: We’ve added some key guitars and their owners to the gallery. Discuss your favorite guitars in the comments. (From left, Keith Richards (Jose Jordan / AFP/Getty Images), Joan Jett (Los Angeles Times), Prince ( Los Angeles Times))

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Legendary rocker Joan Jett, a founding member of the Runaways and leader of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, is known for shredding with the Gibson Melody Maker guitar. She became so identified with the guitar that Gibson released a special “Joan Jett” edition of the guitar in 2008. (Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

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Willie Nelson’s guitar Trigger, a Martin N-20, has developed a deep, whole sound after 30-plus years of use. He got the guitar in a honky-tonk in 1969 and has vowed to quit playing if it’s ever beyond repair. (Kathy Willens / Associated Press)

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Prince has been known for his mix of jazz, funk, rock and new wave and his flamboyant stage presence. But his guitars have been equally far out. In 1993, Prince changed his name to a hybrid of the male and female gender symbols and had a guitar made in the same shape. (Patrick Pagnano / Associated Press / CBS )

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Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards is known for performing with his Fender Telecaster that he named Micawber. The 1950s Telecaster is missing the sixth string and was named after a character from Charles Dickens’ 1850 novel “David Copperfield.”

Correction: The slide originally said “David Copperfield” was written in 1935. The actual date was 1850. Also, the photo has changed to show Richards with Micawber in hand. (Joerg Koch / AFP / Getty Images)

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Above: Wolfgang Van Halen playing his father’s iconic Frankenstrat guitar as they perform together at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J. in 2004.

Frakenstrat is the name classic rocker Eddie Van Halen gave his guitar after he attempted to build a guitar with a Gibson sound and a Fender Stratocaster frame. Van Halen described his lipstick red and white stripped brainchild to Guitar Player Magazine in 2004. “It is a copy of a Fender Stratocaster,” he told the magazine. “I bought the body for $50 and the neck for $80, and put in an old Gibson PAF pickup that was rewound to my specifications. I like the one-pickup sound, and I’ve experimented with it a lot...I see so many people who have these space-age guitars with a lot of switches and equalizers and treble boosters -- give me one knob, that’s it. It’s simple and it sounds cool.” (Kevin Mazur / WireImage.com)

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B.B. King explained the origin of his legendary Gibson ES-355 in the liner notes of his 1968 album “Lucille.” While playing a gig in Twist, Ark.. in 1949, a kerosene barrel was lit to keep the space warm. During the course of the night, two men began fighting and knocked over the barrel, lighting the space on fire in the process. King ran out only to notice he left his guitar in the burning building. He ran back to retrieve his guitar, almost losing his life in the process. The day after, King discovered the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille and bestowed the name on his guitar, and every Gibson he owned afterward, as reminder to never do anything stupid like that again. (Juan Carlos Equihua / Associated Press)

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Above: Queen guitarist Brian May and Jessie perform “We Will Rock You,” at the London 2012 Olympics closing ceremony at Olympic Stadium.

Queens guitarist Brian May built “Red Special” 40 years ago with his father, according to his personal website. May set out to make sure the guitar provided sound feedback by design rather than by accident. This guitar and the sound it provided May would define him as a guitarist and Queen as a band. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

By August Brown

Aug. 23, 2013 12:49 PM PT

For music journalists, the annual “Best Music Writing” series was a rare chance to be celebrated by our peers (as opposed to our usual condition of socially isolated loathesomeness).

The book’s 2012 incarnation looked like it might take an exciting turn, with veteran critic Daphne Carr striking up a new publishing house via Kickstarter to collect great pieces from across the music-journalism spectrum. The Roots’ ?uestlove was even set to guest-edit it.

That is, until nothing happened. For months.

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The fine folks at Vice wondered what on earth became of the series and its more than $17,000 worth of supporter-funded pledges. H. Drew Blackburn gives a nice roundup of how a lot of fan goodwill went fallow, the BMW social media accounts went un-updated since 2012, and how Carr got deeply involved in the Occupy movement and became essentially unreachable until Vice ran its story.

In a subsequent piece, Carr finally responded to BMW supporters to formally say the delay was because of misjudging the amount of funds needed to actually buy rights to stories and republish them independently. The whole project has been killed, and Carr said she plans to return the money out of her own pocket to fans on an installment plan over the next three years.

“It was my grave error to think I could acquire and utilize a second, enormous skill set involved with production and publishing, especially given the time constraints,” Carr wrote. “That does not necessarily explain why it has taken additional time to write to you, but I hope you understand that this was due to a sort of panic about how to save the title. It is something I love and have held dear to me for my entire adult life. It is my profound sadness to have failed with it.”

The Vice stories are a nice reminder that if there’s anyone you can trust with large sums of money and long-term project-executing acumen, it’s probably not a pop music critic (and you can trust us on that one).

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