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Until the 1960s, the predominant forms of music played on the flattop, steel-string guitar remained relatively stable and included acoustic blues, country, bluegrass, folk, and several genres of rock. The concept of playing solo steel-string guitar in a concert setting was introduced by such performers as Davey Graham and John Fahey in the early 1960s, who used country blues fingerpicking techniques to compose original compositions with structures somewhat like European classical music. Fahey contemporary Robbie Basho added elements of Indian classical music and Leo Kottke used a Faheyesque approach to make the first solo steel string guitar “hit” record. Afterwards came Windham Hill Records which brought in elements of Celtic music to join the mix in this now-thriving genre. Today, scores of artists are steel-string soloists, including Al Petteway, Alex de Grassi, Duck Baker, Kaki King, Steffen Basho-Junghans, and Pierre Bensusan. Steel-string guitars are also important in the world of flatpicking, as utilized by such artists as Clarence White, Tony Rice, Bryan Sutton, Doc Watson, and David Grier.

Luthiers have been experimenting with redesigning the acoustic guitar for these players. These flattop, steel-string guitars are constructed and voiced more for classical-like fingerpicking and less for chordal accompaniment (strumming). Luthiers such as Ervin Somogyi, Eric Schoenberg, Kevin Ryan, Stefan Sobell, and George Lowden have increasingly focused their attention on the needs of fingerstylists and have developed unique guitars for this style of playing.

Many other luthiers attempt to recreate the guitars of the “Golden Era” of C.F. Martin & Co. Bill Collings, Marty Lanham, Dana Bourgeois, Randy Lucas, Lynn Dudenbostel, and Wayne Henderson are but a few of the luthiers building guitars inspired by vintage Martins, the pre-World War II models in particular. As prices for vintage Martins continue to rise exponentially, upscale guitar enthusiasts have demanded faithful recreations and luthiers are working to fill that demand.

Since its creation, steel string acoustic guitars have evolved as well. Due to the metal composition of the steel strings, guitar manufacturers have created acoustic/electric guitars where pick-ups are added to the acoustic guitar, allowing the sound to be converted into an electrical signal for amplification and higher quality recording. Artists are also able distort and/or add effects to electronic audio signals.