When I pick up a guitar to plunk on these days, 99% of the time it’s to play classical guitar, something I returned to after about a 30-year hiatus.  But I’ve enjoyed playing all kinds of guitar over the years, including electric guitars.  There’s something especially exhilarating about hitting that first “power” chord, an electronic signal passing through some tubes or transistors and coming out a speaker amplified exponentially.  I’ve used pedal effects, too, but beyond that my electrical engineering skills pretty much evaporate.  Which is probably why I’ve never tried to master the Patch part of this special Hagstrom Swede!

I’m sorry, this sounds like I’m advocating for another instrument, but this is yet another story that begins with…accordions.  Yep.  Hagstrom began as an accordion-maker in Sweden.  Indeed, that’s probably what gave them a leg up because they opened up an office in the United States in the late ‘30s just before World War II with a view to exporting squeezeboxes.  

Hagstrom was one of the first European manufacturers to see interest in the guitar on the rise and thus was one of the earliest exporters of electric guitars to the U.S. in the late 1950s.  This would be those sparkle-plastic-covered “Les-Paul-style” hollow-body guitars with interchangeable pickup modules.  Or, you were supposed to be able to play these acoustically, too.  Right!  Still, it was a pretty cool idea, actually.  These early Hagstroms weren’t all that successful, but Folk Music was all the rage at the time and, well, you weren’t going to pull out a blue-sparkle guitar to accompany “Tom Dooley” or “Kumbaya.”  

Hagstroms held on throughout the 1960s, even with the Japanese challenge, making budget solidbodies.  I played one of their basses a little bit.  Serviceable, but budget, for sure.  

There was a decided drop-off in demand for guitars at the end of the 1960s and a lot of guitar companies in both Europe and Japan didn’t survive.  Hagstrom was one of the few that continued to bring in guitars to the U.S.  Like most companies—from Europe and Japan—Hagstrom had to up its game to compete.  

1978 Hagstrom Patch 2000

Part of Hagstrom better game was the Swede in the line by 1972.  Like a lot of the European makers—and unlike the Japanese—Hagstrom chose to make guitars that were similar to popular American models, but weren’t exactly copies.  The Swede was Hagstrom’s answer to the Les Paul.  It had a solid, carved, bound mahogany body with a bolt-on neck, bound ebony fingerboard, and pearl block inlays.  Hagstrom had always billed itself as having the thinnest necks in the world, which was pretty much the case. 

The Swede’s neck was super thin, reinforced with an elaborate “rail” rather than the usual truss rod.  These sported a pair of humbuckers and the usual controls.  I actually like the Swede a lot.  The mahogany is light weight, the feel great.  These pickups aren’t DiMarzio Super Distortions, if that’s what you need, but they’re clean and responsive.  

In 1974 Ampeg inked a distribution deal with Hagstrom and offered the line for the rest of the decade.  By 1978 the Swede was joined by the SuperSwede, which sported a maple cap on the body and a pair of hotter humbuckers.

But the big news was the introduction of the Patch 2000 version of the Swede seen here in 1977.  This was Hagstrom’s answer to the challenge of keyboard synthesizers that were coming on at the time, fueling Disco, and an alternative solution to the technology being developed by Roland in Japan.  The Patch 2000 Swede had the regular electronics plus a 7-pin DIN cable that plugged into a double footpedal designed to interface with and control your synthesizer modules.  

So, with Roland, you connected the guitar to a synthesizer unit and controlled things with your fingers.  With the Patch 2000 system, you had to use your feet.  Well, you may by now have figured out that we’re way beyond my pay grade.  There was a Swede Bass Patch model, as well.

I don’t think I was the only guitar player who wasn’t motivated to figure this system out.  This Patch 2000 is the only one I’ve ever seen.  Roland’s concept fare a bit better, but then Disco fell out of fashion and most guitar players decided to leave the synthesizing to their keyboards man.  

WATCH THE HAGSTROM PATCH 2000 SWEDE DEMO:

I don’t know for sure how long the Patch affair lasted.  They were introduced in 1977.  This guitar dates to 1978, so maybe a year, or less.  Hagstrom got out of the guitar game in 1983, although the brand was revived—the line very similar to the late 1970s—in 2004.  I think the Hagstrom Swede with a Patch 2000 system is cat’s pajamas, but I think the only pedal I’ll be using in the forseeable future is my little old classical guitar footstool.

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

Synthesizers with Fancy Footwork: 1978 Hagstrom Patch 2000 Swede from MyRareGuitars.com

EKO guitars were almost archetypically “’60s” guitars.  Cool colors, cool shapes.  And not expensive.  They were the stuff of garage-band dreams, at least before Japanese guitars dominated the budget guitar market.  But, if you’ve ever had much experience with EKOs, you know they were not especially durable, probably because, in the rush to meet the endless demand for guitars back then, the woods weren’t always all that well seasoned.  Thus I was really surprised when I walked into Cintioli’s Music in Northeast Philadelphia and found a batch of relatively upscale EKOs…from the 1980s!  What’s up with that?!

EKO guitars were made by Oliviero Pigini & Company of Recanati, Italy, just north of Castelfidardo.  Castelfidardo was and is pretty much the center of the accordion manufacturing trade, which arrived there—according to legend—in the 1880s.  Accordions as in “piano accordions,” with a full keyboard, not the older, little button types.  Piano accordions came to the U.S. during the early 20^th Century, mainly played by Italians.  Fast-forward to the early 1950s when there was a major fad for accordion playing, perhaps due to the popularity of the Lawrence Welk Show on television beginning in 1951.  Accordion manufacturers in Italy (and elsewhere) ramped up production and accordion distributors and music studios proliferated throughout the U.S., including the LoDuca Brothers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which became the exclusive American distributor of Pigini-made accordions.

1982 EKO CX-7 Artist-T CU

At its peak, the LoDucas operated a whole chain of music studios and had large orchestras of youngsters all playing squeezeboxes.  Alas, the fad was short-lived, as fads often are, and by the mid-1950s the bottom had dropped out of the accordion market.  What to do?  It was hard times for both manufacturers and importers.

After a number of false starts, the situation was solved by the Folk Revival of the late 1950s, when the next fad—this time for acoustic guitars—began.   Many of the Italian (and other) accordion makers began to add guitar production (or began sourcing guitars from guitar specialty houses).  This included Oliviero Pigini, who began making acoustic guitars carrying the EKO brand name.

The LoDuca Brothers, who had a relationship with Sears, Roebuck and Co. just down the road in Chicago began selling EKO acoustics to the big catalog retailer.  EKO guitars were on their way.  Electrics debuted around 1963, those nifty plastic-covered jobs.  Accordion makers, after all, were pretty skilled at wrapping plastic over their products.

EKO guitars had a pretty good run in the U.S. during the 1960s until the Japanese challenge began to triumph by around 1968 or so.  To be honest, demand for guitars in general began to fall off by that time, and rising European wages began to make their guitars more expensive, increasingly favoring Japanese products.  Plus, Pigini, who loved fast sports cars, got himself killed in an accident about this time.  EKO guitars were pretty much out of the scene by the 1970s.

I wasn’t really aware of EKO guitars during the 1960s until I met my wife, who had been conned into buying an acoustic EKO.  It was totally unplayable with a thick polyurethane finish and about ¾” action.  I did what I could to help, but there was no way, given my admittedly uneducated luthier skills at the time.  EKO guitars didn’t exactly get off on the right foot with me.

Fast-forward again and I became a guitar historian, met some of the LoDuca clan, and acquired a number of cool EKO electrics.  They were better than my wife’s acoustic, but had their share of problems.  Sixties relics.

Then I walked into Bennie Cintioli’s shop in the 1990s.  Cintioli’s was a major local music store back when such things were locally owned, not part of a national Guitar Center chain.  Cintioli’s had been there forever and I pulled many a treasure out of its unsold basement hoards.  

I don’t recall how I first encountered the EKO, but I think they had discovered it in the basement and put it out on the counter as a curiosity.  I took one look and it was a no-brainer.  But what was it?

Turns out that EKO had gotten into the “copy” scene during the 1970s, but most of their guitars were sold in Europe and elsewhere, but not the U.S.  By the end of the 1970s they had become mainly a small “custom shop,” taking small orders from small-scale importers.  Including Benny.

I don’t think the guitars Benny Cintioli imported were designed by him.  More like he picked a few models to sell at his shop.  These included this EKO CX-7 Artist/T that was made in 1982.  I love the dark-stained pine body and set-in neck.  The brass nut, 2-octave fingerboard, and DiMarzio humbuckers were typical for the time.  This was made just as locking vibratos were coming on the market, but didn’t have one yet.  This is extremely light-weight and a really hot guitar, not at all what you’d expect from and EKO.

Shortly after this guitar was imported by Cintioli’s the craze for weird-shaped metal guitars and then SuperStrats began.  These cool EKOs were obsolete, and Benny had an unsold supply in the basement.  Right after this guitar appeared, EKO went bankrupt and that was the end of the story.  To the end, EKO was the stuff of garage band dreams!

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

Mama’s Got (No) Squeezebox: 1982 EKO CX-7 Artist/T from MyRareGuitars.com

While I consider myself to be a “guitar player,” I actually had a blues-rock band back in 1967 for which I also played bass (Hagstrom) and keyboards (Farfissa).  I wasn’t particularly noteworthy on either.  To be honest, I pretty much played them both like guitars.  The good news is I never got into collecting basses or keyboards.  Unless, that is, they were exceptionally interesting, like Westone’s short-lived The Rail.  How could you not like The Rail!  

The Rail was kind of a perfect reflection of the time it was made, in the mid-1980s.  Now, electric guitars have always had an element of “style” about them.  The fact that they make sound by use of an electronic pickup instead of an acoustic sound box frees them from certain physical restrictions.  As cool as a cigar-box guitar might look, it’s never going to sound as good as that classic Spanish figure-8 shape of an acoustic guitar that’s evolved over centures.  But once you shift the responsibility for making noise to an electronic circuit, you do whatever you want with the rest—or at least with the body.  And that puts you squarely within the realm of style!  The kind of image you want to project when you play guitar determines what kind of axe you’re going to sling.

Prior to the ‘80s styles of electric guitars came and went, of course, but there was something homogenous about guitar styles.  Strats were popular this year, Les Pauls were in the next.  With notable outliers on occasion, like the 1967 LaBaye 2×4!

But as the 1980s dawned, guitar styles—just like popular music styles—began to proliferate, to fragment.  Heavy metal was on the rise and with it a taste for exotic guitar shapes, pointy guitars like Flying Vees even more non-Spanish shapes (to go with the wild hairdos).  Companies like Ibanez, Aria, St. Louis Music, even Fender all introduced pointy guitars in various outre shapes.

For players in a more conventional frame of mind, this period saw the emergence of the Super-Strat, a Strat-style guitar with hybrid electronics combining a lead humbucker with two single-coils and, eventually, a locking vibrato system.

On the opposite end of the spectrum were New Wave bands with slick, tightly arranged pop tunes.  For these groups—like The Police—their style was enhanced by the understated look of minimalist guitars.  This was the era that saw the emergence of headless guitars and basses by Ned Steinberger and others, favored by The Police’s Andy Summers.  Kramer had its Duke.  St. Louis Music had The Rail.

The Westone Rail appeared just as St. Louis Music (SLM) was transitioning to a new brand name.  During the “copy era” of the 1970s, SLM’s Japanese-made electric guitars were branded with the Electra name.  The Electra name continued into the early 1980s.  Most of those guitars were made by the legendary Matsumoku factory in Matsumoto City.  Around the beginning of the decade Matsumoku began marketing its own brand of electric guitars called Westone.  For reasons unknown, the decision was taken to consolidate the Westone brand name with St. Louis Music.  In 1984 the separate Westone line went away and SLM’s guitars became Electra-Westone, ending up just Westone in 1985.  

It was with this transition to Westone in 1985 that SLM entered headless sweepstakes with The Rail, the Super Headless Bass, and the Quantum bass.  The Super Headless Bass had a cool, slim, bi-level offset double cutaway with a headless neck.  The Quantum bass had a sculpted minimalist body looking somewhat like a space cruiser out of Star Wars.  Both these had twin humbuckers.

Of all these The Rail X800 was, to me, the most interesting.  Instead of two humbuckers, The Rail put two pieces of hard maple on either end to two specially tuned stainless steel tubes.  Then it placed a third piece of wood mounted with a single Magnaflux RB pickup onto the rails.  The idea was that instead of two fixed points (neck and bridge), you could fine-tune your tone on a spectrum by sliding the pickup back and forth between those two set points.  The knob on the top is a quick-release tension screw to hold the pickup unit in place.  The only electronic control is a master volume.  Add to that the fine-tuners at the butt-end, and everything is right there under your plucking fingers.

The scale on these was 32.5” with a two-octave fingerboard.

The first Rails were produced in a satin black finish.  In 1986 the line was expanded to include the X800RD in red and the X800SW seen here in white.  The list price on these was $565 with a gig bag.

Since I’m not really a bass player, I can’t really opine about how effective this design is.  Give the geography of the string length between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge, the moveable pickup gives you the equivalent of about 3-1/2 pickups.  I don’t know how much of that is useful from a tonal perspective.  Plus, you have to think about what position the pickup should be in before you start to play.  On a traditional instrument, you just have to throw a switch, which you can do in between beats!

I never played this bass much, but I did used to take a headless Steinberger copy with us on vacations down to the Jersey Shore; it was a great travel guitar that fit in the corner of my car trunk.  But I always found my left hand slipping off the end of the fingerboard because I couldn’t get used to playing with no headstock…

I don’t know how popular these were back in the day, but interestingly this example has a serial number of “5.”  That suggests that the catalog claim of “Limited Production” is probably accurate!  I think I’ve only seen one other of these over the years.  It didn’t help that the Matsumoku factory closed down in 1987.

The rage for headless instruments had pretty good staying power, lasting pretty much through the ‘80s.  Steinbergers and others continued to be made, and I recently noticed there’s at least one dealer who specializes in headless instruments.  But with the ‘90s came Nirvana and the “alternative” Seattle sound that more was anti-style than anything else.  Still, you gotta admire the chutzpah of The Rail bass, whether you’re a bass player or not!

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

A Bass With Style: 1986 Westone The Rail from MyRareGuitars.com

Guest blogger Michael Wright takes a look at an Eighties rarity – the O’Hagan Nightwatch. It’s more than a SG/Melody Maker lookalike, you know…

To guitar lovers, the O’Hagan name will probably always and forever be attached to the legendary O’Hagan Shark, a kind of elongated Explorer with a big tail fin (which we discussed here a few years back).  But Jerrel O’Hagan built other guitar models including the Nightwatch, which came in a roughly “Les Paul”-shaped single-cutaway model and a roughly “SG”-inspired Double Cutaway model seen here.

1981 O’Hagan Nightwatch Double cutaway

As I’ve said on previous occasions, one of the coolest things about being a guitar historian is that I get to track down people like Jerry O’Hagan, interview them, and rescue their recollections…while they’re still with us.  Alas, I’ve missed a few folks through slow reactions over the years.  But I did catch Jerry on the telephone many years ago, although I don’t recall how I connected with him.

Jerrel O’Hagan was a clarinetist who found himself working as a rep for a regional music distributor up in Minnesota during the 1970s, chiefly handling imported Japanese guitars.  Unfortunately, his employer wasn’t one of the mega-distributors, so he could never be sure of getting a steady supply of instruments—bigger orders always got filled first.

1981 O’Hagan Nightwatch Double Cutaway HS

O’Hagan briefly imported his own line of Grande acoustic guitars from Japan in around 1975-77, but the market for acoustic guitars for singer-songwriters was moving on to harder rock ‘n’ roll.  That’s when the idea came to him: why couldn’t reasonably priced electric guitars be made in the U.S. of A.?  And, anyway, this craze for foreign-made guitars was bound to pass anytime soon, right?  O’Hagan’s market analysis skills weren’t his strong suit.

In 1978 Jerrel O’Hagan set up the Jemar Corporation in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, to produce solidbody electric guitars.  The first guitar was the aforementioned O’Hagan Shark.  That was a neck-through-body beauty—neck-through guitars by the likes of Alembic and B.C. Rich were just beginning to penetrate the guitar-playing world—that looked a little goofy but was actually a swell, well-balanced guitar.  This was the time, you’ll recall, that other Midwesterners were also starting specialty guitar companies, including Hamer, Dean and others.  The Shark hit the market in 1979.  

The Shark, which was heavily promoted in Guitar Player advertising, was moderately successful, enough to encourage O’Hagan to introduce new models, including the Nightwatch single- and double-cutaway models in either late 1979 or early 1980.  While certainly not as exotic as the Shark, O’Hagan’s Nightwatch models proved to be much more acceptable to average guitar players, many of whom can be pretty conservative in their tastes.  

The Nightwatch Double Cutaway seen here is a 1981 done up in a funky blueburst finish.  The “sunburst” finish goes back at least to the 1930s when it was known as an “antique violin” finish, and it’s become one of the standard, prized finishes.  But it got a really weird twist in the late 1960s when Fender botched the finishes on some Coronados.  They managed to salvage the mistake by coming up with the opaque “Antigua” refin, a sort of dark brown to tan sunburst.  It wasn’t too successful.  Fender brought the Antigua finish back in around 1977, transposed into a grey scale.  Gibson picked up on this in 1978 and introduced a greyburst Les Paul, which was put on a number of Gibson models into the early 1980s.  This was apparently moderately popular and a number of guitar companies came up with copies and variations on this opaque, often metallic “’burst.”  The O’Hagan blueburst was one of those variations.

This is a neck-through body guitar, but otherwise pretty conventional.  It has a pair of DiMarzio pickups with two volumes and one tone control.  The brass nut was the cat’s pajamas back in the day, believed to add sustain.  The basic Nightwatch cost around $450 with a $90 upcharge for the special blueburst finish.  The Nightwatch models were by far the most popular O’Hagan models.  The Nightwatch was a straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll machine, not particularly flexible, but a pretty darned good guitar.

Legendary O’Hagan Shark

O’Hagan added several other models to its line, including a V and a bizarre Strat, but by 1983 an economic recession, some dissatisfied investors, some distribution issues, and a big bank note came calling.  Followed by the I.R.S.  The dark of night fell over the O’Hagan Nightwatch and everything else.  Jerry got out of the guitar business and into the jazz orchestra game.

About 3,000 O’Hagan guitars were made from 1979-83, not especially rare, but not especially plentiful, either.  The bluebursts were special orders, so this would be a much smaller subset.  Plus, DiMarzio pickups were only used in 1981, giving this a pretty small production window.  Still, you’d probably rather swim with an O’Hagan Shark!

By Michael Wright

The Different Strummer

Blueburst Fantasy: 1981 O’Hagan Nightwatch Double Cutaway from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1979 Ovation Magnum II Bass Guitar

So naturally I’ve always been attracted to Ovation’s solids. I mean, what’s not to like about a battle-axe-shaped guitar like the Breadwinner and Deacon?! Or those nifty Ultra Kaman UK IIs with an aluminum frame and urethane foam body (finished up in really ugly sunbursts)! As you’d expect, the workmanship was always first rate on those guitars. Unfortunately, I was one of the very few who ever liked Ovation solidbodies, because they were notoriously bad sellers. I guess Mr. Robinson liked them too because he’s got a couple of Ovation inspirations in his line offered here, the Eastwood GP and Breadwinner models.

In any case, when I found this Ovation Magnum II Bass with a built-in on-board 3-band graphic EQ, I had to have it! That it was/is exceptionally, well, homely with its lumpy potato shape certainly added to the mystique!

Actually, there’s so much going on with this bass it’s mind boggling. Not only does the neck have a regular truss rod, it’s also got three carbon graphite strips for additional stability/reinforcement. One down the middle of the back and two more under the fingerboard. It’s got that big honking neck pickup which would be cool enough, but it has 4 individually adjustable volume trim pots built in under the cover. You need a little screw driver to adjust them to your liking, picking your sweet spots. Of course the brass saddles on the cast bridge/tailpiece assembly are micro-adjustable so you can noodle your intonation to your heart’s delight, and you can even adjust the tension of the whole tailpiece using an allen wrench. This bass has only mono output, which is a shame! A similar Magnum I was also offered that gave you stereo output, but didn’t have the EQ. So many bells and whistles!

Vintage 1979 Ovation Magnum II Bass Guitar

Maybe too many bells and whistles, truth to tell. I’m always infatuated with being able to adjust the heck out of technology, but maybe Eddie got it right when all he needed was a volume knob. I mean do you really want to be fooling around with trim pots in between songs? You might get electrocuted messing with a screw driver on stage. And is that tail tension just right? Sometimes you can overthink things and that may have been what happened with Ovation’s Magnums.

As I’ve said before, I’m not really a bass player, even though I indulged in playing one briefly back in the day. Still, you just don’t pass up an opportunity to adjust volume pots for each string AND get to play around with a graphic EQ. The Magnum I (1261) and Magnum II (1262) were introduced in 1977 and lasted until around 1982. This one has a serial number B 01259 which dates it to 1979, right in the middle of the production run. I have no idea if these Magnum basses—indeed the entire Ovation solidbody oeuvre—were ever very plentiful, but I suspect there weren’t that many made, and even fewer sold.

Vintage 1979 Ovation Magnum II Bass Guitar

Ovation had actually begun making electric guitars—as distinct from its acoustic-electric guitars—way back in 1968 with its Electric Storm series of thinline semi-hollowbodies, the Thunderhead and the Tornado. They tried valiantly to plant the flag for close to 15 years, to no avail. They finally pulled that plug in 1983 and just said no to making their own solidbody electric guitars and basses. Ovation did pick up a few endorsers over the years. Jim Messina and the Strawbs briefly endorsed them. Johnny Graham of Earth, Wind & Fire was seen playing a white Breadwinner on the 1976 album Gratitude. And Eddie Hazel offers a glimpse of a Deacon or Breadwinner on the back of his album Games, Dames & Guitar Thangs. Slim pickins. As in “not so great,” not as in the country western singing star.

In 1985 Ovation imported some Korean necks and bodies and finished them up in the U.S. plant. These were the Hard Bodies series that featured the aforementioned GP model. In 1987 they imported a line of Celebrity solids completely finished in Korea. In 1988 Ovation just gave up and bought Hamer guitars and finally had a successful solidbody guitar and bass line on its hands.

Still, I love all the techy stuff with this Magnum II bass, even if it’s not always all that useful. Hmm, where’d I put that screw driver?…

Let’s Give Up A Hand for Lumpy Gravy (Vintage 1979 Ovation Magnum II Bass Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage Domino Beatle Bass Guitar

This model was an obvious take on the Hofner Beatle Bass from the same era. The Hofner brand were German made guitars and basses and had been making top quality instruments for many years without much popularity in North America. However, once Paul McCartney surfaced with his lefty Hofner bass, everybody on the planet wanted one. Hence, once again Lipsky was quick to jump on the opportunity with the Domino brand.

The California was available in 2 pickup configuration, 3-way switch, volume and tone. Main color was Sunburst, but I’ve seen them in White, Redburst and Greenburst. They all sported a wooden floating bridge and single f-hole.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Domino Beatle Bass Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage El Degas Ricky Bass Guitar

This Rickenbacker Bass replica is very good, and likely sold for 1/4 the price of the original at the time. I took this in on trade some time back, and remembered my younger brother in the mid 1970’s playing one of these in his band “Drama”. How dramatic. Good player – at the time he could peel off Chris Squire riffs blindfolded – later Barry Adamson riffs from each Magazine LP, but then switched to guitar to form Surf Cinema. Last year he was up here in Toronto from California for a visit. I showed him this El Degas bass. As you might guess, it went home with him where it belonged.

But as for the history of the brand, who knows? When it comes to El Degas, we’re all pretty much guessing. Would the real original importer please stand up? Or maybe his nephew? Somebody out there must know something about this brand…

Back Catalog Memories – El Degas Ricky Bass from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1980’s Aria Pro II ZZ Bass Deluxe

Aria Pro II did some copies of famous American guitars like the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul though it also did its own style of guitars. In the 70s and early 80s the company came into its own in the United States with a series of high end professional instruments. The company had professional endorsements from Herb Ellis, Yngwie Malmsteen, Neal Schon, John Taylor, and many more. Cliff Burton of Metallica used an Aria SB Black N Gold I as well as an SB-1000 bass but was never an official endorser.

Here is the Aria Pro II ZZ Deluxe Bass. These were manufactured between 1982-1987.

Back Catalog Memories: Vintage 1980’s Aria Pro II ZZ Bass Deluxe from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Espana Bass Guitar (Sunburst)

These Crucianelli guitars are surprisingly well made with a wonderful, slim neck. Unfortunately, many of these instruments from the 60’s were 30.5″ short scale basses, so never did measure up to the sonic boom of the full scale Fenders.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Espana Bass Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

1970’s UNIVOX Coily Bass Guitar (Sunburst)

UNIVOX guitars were imported to North America from Japan in the late 1960’s to the late 1970’s. They had many different models – most popular of which is the Hi-Flyer – but also included an array of Les Paul copies, Hagstrom, Fender and others. UNIVOX guitars were built by the Matsumoko guitar factory in Japan, who also built guitars for Aria, Westbury, Westone, and several other brands at the time. This model, the Coily Bass is based on the Epiphone Casino. They also made a 5 string version with a Bigsby style tremolo. Here are two samples, sunburst and redburst. These models featured dual pickups with a 3-way switch, two volume and two tone controls. Bolt-on maple neck with hollowbody flamed maple top and a floating bridge and string mute bar. At $125 in the early 1970’s, pretty good value and construction for the money!

Back Catalog Memories: 1970’s UNIVOX Coily Bass Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

RELATED: George Harrison’s Guitars in the Beatles

Basses

1964 Rickenbacker 4001S-LH

Paul McCartney with his 1964 Rickenbacker 4001S-LH Bass

In 1965, Paul got his hands on a Rickenbacker bass which was first used on the song “Think for yourself”. He also used it extensively on the Revolver and Sgt. Pepper albums notably on tracks such as “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields”. McCartney sometime in 1967, painted the Hofner with day glow paints to give it a psychedelic look. George Harrison and John Lennon did the same for the occasion. The newly painted Rickenbacker can be seen in the live satellite performance of “All you need is Love” in June of 1967.

1966 Fender Jazz Bass

Paul McCartney with his 1966 Fender Jazz Bass

Paul used a Fender Jazz Bass in 1968 during the Abbey Road/White Album sessions. It can be heard on songs such as “Sun King”, “While my Guitar Gently Weeps”, and “Yer Blues”. This was the last known bass (aside from the Hofner) that McCartney used with the Beatles.

Guitars

Epiphone Texan FT-79 Acoustic

Paul McCartney with his Epiphone Texan FT-79 Acoustic Guitar

The Epiphone acoustic guitar was used by Paul on the album Help, specifically for the song “Yesterday”. It can be seen in his live performances of “Yesterday” as well. McCartney, known for being a hoarder of instruments, still has this guitar today.

1962 Epiphone Casino ES-230TD

Paul McCartney with his 1962 Epiphone Casino ES-230TD Guitar

Paul got this righty Casino which he modded in order to be able to string it as a left-handed guitar. Known as one of Paul’s favorite guitars ever, he used it on famous songs such as “Taxman”, “Paperback Writer”, and “Drive my Car”. This guitar can be seen today as Paul still performs with it.

1964 Fender Esquire

Paul McCartney with his 1964 Fender Esquire Guitar

This sunburst Fender was played by McCartney in 1966 for the Revolver album. You can hear it on songs such as “Good Morning, Good Morning” and “Helter Skelter”. Very little is known about how Paul got the Esquire, or where it is now.

1967 C.F. Martin D-28 Acoustic

Paul McCartney with his 1967 CF Martin D-28 Acoustic Guitar

Another acoustic guitar Paul had was a nice, warm-sounding Martin which he acquired in 1968. It was used in the White Album Sessions and can be heard on the songs “Two of Us” and “Blackbird”.

Well, there you have it. The other guitars and basses Paul used with the Beatles. Hope this gives you more insight into some of the magic of the Beatles!

Posted by Raj from Guitar Tone

Paul McCartney’s Guitars in the Beatles from MyRareGuitars.com

1960’s Ampeg AUB Bass Guitar

Although better known for their monster SVT amps from the late 1960’s, Ampeg made a family of electric basses that were quite unusual and advanced for the time from 1966 through 1969. There were four basic models, each of which was available in fretted and fretless versions.

The model designations are:

• AEB-1
• AUB-1
• ASB-1
• AUSB-1
• AMB-1
• AMUB-1
• SSB
• SSUB

The letters seem to follow the following pattern – “AEB” means Ampeg Electric Bass. The “U” means Unfretted, the “M” probably means Magnetic pickup, and the SSB is the Short Scale Bass. In the late 2000’s, Canada’s Eastwood Guitars began to reissue two of these models, naming them EEB-1 (Eastwood Electric Bass) and EUB-1 (Eastwood Unfretted Bass). However, the re-issue simplified the headstock somewhat.

Here is a nice example of the original AUB-1. This one has had been modified with a modern bridge.

Back Catalog Memories: Ampeg AUB Bass from MyRareGuitars.com

1960's Supro Airline Pocket Bass Guitar

What makes it so special? Let’s start with the delightful design, typical of early to mid 60’s Valco. The Supros came in black, with transparent thumb and finger rests on either side of the body and the white (and sometimes, rarely, black) headstock. The Airline came in the Ice-Tea sunburst and white pickguard wings. Some of the Airline models came with a bound neck; some did not. For my hand, I dig the unbound, thinner neck, but that’s all to taste, I suppose. Either model is a ridiculously easy bass to play. Both models sport Brazilian rosewood fingerboards.

Is one better than the other? I think the AIRLINE model is better looking, but beware: The SUPRO model has a MUCH better down angle from the nut to tuning pegs. The Airline’s angle is too shallow, allowing the strings to pop out of the nut unless you add some after market string trees on at least the A and the D strings.

Other interesting features? Small (for a bass, at any rate) Kluson tuners. A monster of a fat Valco pickup in the neck position and a piezo pickup in the bridge. The knobs are for pickup blend and volume.

What’s the story behind these? They are pretty much a guitar-sized bass, which is really just too cool. Actually, the bodies ARE guitar bodies (or, at any rate, were USED for Valco-made guitars that are the cousin of these basses). The only things different are the necks and the bridges. So, it was probably an economical way for Valco to use the bodies as a duel-purpose body to get more bang for fewer production bucks (though they probably weren’t very successful, as the productions ran for fewer than 4 years).

But back to the bass at hand (if you’re lucky enough to have one at hand). None other than vintage gear collector and ex-Bob Dylan sideman and Saturday Night Live bandleader GE Smith called these the best recording basses around. I’d agree and go one further – they are the coolest bass for jam sessions and live gigs if you’re a guitar player who plays bass on the side or a bassist with small hands.

The neck pickup is a typical Valco monster. VERY full and fat and round (put some nylon strings on this and play along to “Rubber Soul” all day long) with tremendous depth and warmth. The piezo pickup (and the blend knob) result in a much lower volume, but have an incredibly woody tone that resembles a standup jazz bass. Maybe not enough volume for the stage at this setting, but a fabulous recording setting.

The 25 7/8″ neck practically begs you to play chords and/or two note combos. The bass has a ring and chime to it that jumps out of a good cab’s speakers.

How much should you pay? As I write this (always a danger to list a price for vintage instruments…a month later, this could be woefully out of date the way prices seem to go), a MINT example seems to be going in the $800 range (that’s with the original hard shell case). A beater that you could take to your garage or a bar stage? Around five hundred bucks. Which, really, when you think about it, is better than money in the bank. You have an incredibly cool bass that will have people coming up before and after the set asking “what the hell are you playing?” Which, of course, is part of the fun with oddball gear.

We have two of these in the house, and both get used with the bands. One is set up like a normal bass – one set up as a baritone electric ukulele (hey, why not?). These are fabulous made in the USA vintage basses that are still pretty affordable on the vintage market (the Reso-Glass super short scale Map Shape Bass is ALSO incredibly cool, but they’re going for well over a grand now). Get one while you can. And, hey Mike, how about a re-issue?

Editors note: We’ve considered doing a re-issue of this little beast for some time. But, the ultra short scale has some inherent design flaws; the worst of which is the extreme difficulty in keeping these in tune. The heavy strings combined with the short scale make intonation and pitch very difficult to nail down. If someone invented tuners with a much higher (or lower?) gear ratio, they would be easier to tune. Also, the short scale length does not give a full resonance as a Bass. But hey, it is a great BASS for guitar players indeed…

In the meantime, we decided to offer something that is the best of both worlds, and hence the AIRLINE Bass and the new AIRLINE MAP Bass. Both are 30″ scale (shorter than traditional 34″ scale BASS), and therefore offering 1) complete comfort for a guitar player, 2) long enough scale for accurate tuning and setup and 3) resonant enough for professional Bass players.

But, might still be cool to do the real McCoy in the coming years…

– Mike Robinson

1960’s Supro Airline Pocket Bass Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

1960's Kent Short Scale Bass Guitar

Enter exhibit A: A late 60’s KENT short scale variation on the very popular (then and now) “Beatle” violin shaped bass. As you can see from the photos, this isn’t your average violin bass. While many, from the classic Hofner that Paul McCartney turned a few kids on to, to the Teisco and Black Jack Japanese models, didn’t stray far from the violin shape, this Kent takes a few attractive and stylish liberties with the standard template.

While clearly inspired by the violin basses, notice the cool horn flares and the distinct cut aways. Also of note on this model is a stunning triple (TRIPLE!) bound side and a highly figured and eye-catching sunburst on the back (!?) side.

1960's Kent Short Scale Bass Guitar

This, like many (most?) Kents has a history that’s a little difficult to trace. This one is from 1967 or 1968 and was probably made at the Kawai factory. Some sources also credit the earlier slab bodied models to Guyatone and/or Teisco. A tangled web they weaved, these Kents.

Also of note about Kents is that both the amps and guitars vary wildly from model to model – perhaps more so than any other brand from the era. They made some truly crappy guitars (the slab body models mentioned above among them. Most I’ve seen, actually, are low-grade crude one pickup models with very little to recommend them as players or collectables). Yet, they made beauties like this and many other higher-end semi-hollowbodies. And while most of the Kent amps I’ve ever seen are the basic three and four tube crapboxes without Power Transformers (i.e., ones you don’t want to play barefoot on a cement floor with a moisture problem), there are a couple of models that are very sweet. These include a 2 EL84 output model with tremolo and a single 12″ speaker in a primitive basket-weave faux-tweed (or, paper, if you want to be exact-ha), and a REALLY cool piggyback model (with single 12″ cab). They may not be collectable, but their cool factor is very high and no one wants them, so they can be had on the cheap (which, for the frugal tone gourmet, only increases the cool factor).

1960's Kent Short Scale Bass Guitar

Back to the bass at hand, though. This model has a zero fret and plays really well up the neck. With a good setup, these are truly sweet playing basses. If you were going to use it as your main bass, you’d probably want to get some higher-grade machine heads and also probably replace the pickups (which are pretty aenemic and flat sounding). However, the pickup covers are so radically cool, you’d probably want to find something that fit so you could put this beauty back to stock. No permanent mods on something this nice looking. For just looking and the odd recording bass and quieter(er) jams, leave it as-is.

1960's Kent Short Scale Bass Guitar

One thing to look out for (especially if buying via on line auction and/or through the mail): I’ve seen a few of these over the years and nearly half had a warped neck. The truss rods are not the most reliable, so ask questions and don’t pay too much if you have any hunch there might be something hinky about it.

Other nifty features: Dig the 60’s Japanese top-hat Tone and Volume knobs (with the stylish “T” and “V”), the funky script on the headstock and chunky block mother of toilet seat inlays on the neck.

1960's Kent Short Scale Bass Guitar

What does one of these cost? These are pretty rare and, as a result, they don”t show up on eBay or in music stores a whole lot. As a result, there seems to be more variation on the price- I’ve seen them go as low as $150 (not including shipping…which of course we never do include when discussing what we paid for a neat vintage guitar, right?) and as high as $450. There is a corresponding guitar model, so be the hep cat on your block and, like they used to say about Hot Wheels, “collect ’em all.” Happy hunting, yee vintage freaks.

Rob’s Crazy eBay Finds: 1960’s Kent Short Scale Bass Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com