special to The Star



Guitar-aficionado authority Premier Guitar magazine has featured Meridian native Hartley Peavey and Peavey Electronics as the cover story of its January issue.

The article traces the origins of Peavey Electronics and celebrates its history of innovation, including the launch of its new Meridian-based amplifier custom shop.

  “There probably isn’t an electric guitar player on the planet who can’t relate to a piece of Peavey equipment,” writes Premier Guitar’s Joe Coffey in the extensive cover feature. “Whether your measurement is longevity, innovation or sheer production volume, Peavey emerges as a candidate to be memorialized in rock.”

  Premier Guitar visited Peavey’s Meridian headquarters in August 2008 as the company prepared the second phase of its award-winning custom shop, which will launch worldwide at the NAMM (International Music Products Association) trade show in Anaheim, Calif., Jan. 15-18. The Peavey Custom Shop allows musicians to design one-of-a-kind musical instruments from more than 17 million color and feature options online, and even upload custom graphics to personalize their masterpieces. Peavey won Best In Show honors at the Summer 2007 NAMM show

and a nod from creative-software giant Adobe® Systems for its innovative work.

  In the feature, Peavey discusses his storied rise from a one-man operation to international juggernaut, including how new innovations like the company’s lauded ReValver™ amp-modeling software are leading the music industry in brave new directions — and how where ReValver allows players to design custom amps in the virtual world, the Peavey Custom Shop’s new 19th Street Amp Shop allows musicians to design the real amplifier of their dreams.

  “We are going to revolutionize guitar amplification,” Peavey said. “Players will be amazed at the power that I’m going to put in their hands.”

  Commented Premier Guitar publisher Trent Salter, “We celebrate the luthiers and builders in this industry as much as we do the players. Hartley built his company on a proven basic philosophy: quality gear at a fair price. Now over four decades later, technology has changed but Hartley’s basic principles have not. Many of us have a long term gear connection to Peavey, and chances are, the idea of ‘quality gear at a fair price’ has something to do with it.”

  To read the full article, please visit your local newsstand or view the online edition at http://digital.premierguitar.com/premierguitar/200901/.

  Gifted with a technical mind and a spirit for innovation, Hartley Peavey’s tenacity, ingenuity and self-determination are the roots of his success. As sole owner, visionary and catalyst of Peavey Electronics, Peavey is responsible for more than 180 patents in the way we hear and make music. Peavey also bridged the vintage and modern eras in guitars by adapting CNC computer-controlled machinery to the guitar-manufacturing process.

  Peavey is a member of the Rock Walk of Fame, Vintage Guitar Hall of Fame and Mississippi Musician’s Hall of Fame, and has received multiple Presidential “E” Star Awards, the Senatorial Medal of Freedom, the National Literacy Honors Award and the inaugural manufacturer’s Lifetime Achievement Award from Guitar Player. Peavey is also the subject of The Peavey Revolution: The Gear, the Company and the All-American Success Story, published by Backbeat Books.