The Internet has changed major aspects of life for everyone, of course. And it certainly, for our purposes here, has changed the way we buy and sell guitars. This may be a trip down memory lane for some of us. But I can no longer cling to any idea that I’m young. So, while this piece is about the way some of us used to buy used guitars and I suspect that if I do my job, a lot of you…of a certain age…may nod along.

However, for those of you who had the Internet from the start of your buying and selling lives, you might want to know how it was back in the day of classified ads and getting lost (no navigators!) on the way to the stranger’s house and having to call from a pay phone (I’ll explain pay phones later) at a gas station to get directions you would often write on your hand or inner arm.

Sounds exciting, no? Well…let’s pull back the curtain with this trip into the way back machine of guitar geekdom and the risks and thrills it used to entail.

Back in the day (which is what old people said back in the day), there were pretty much two ways to buy a guitar. New or used at a shop (many were even independently owned!), or bought from a stranger you’d contacted through their classified ad for the guitar you were already thinking of as yours on the drive over.

So, here are some of the buying experience perhaps some of us remember well. Or, as I often think in life (and often ask here), is it just me?

Some scenarios were so much more common back in the day…though some of this still exists. People buy guitars in person at a stranger’s house. So…some memories, tips, observations, pointers, and a display of my many pathetic neuroses. All in one!

There’s always a guitar waiting for a new owner… somewhere

Quick thing to know. There is a difference between a Man/Woman Cave and a Cave Cave. It’s best to know the differences. In the days before there even was a name for a “man cave,” there were just rooms guys filled with their crap. And into those dank rooms did we venture because some guy had listed a Travis Bean for $250 (I’m old, ok?) and you would meet him at a door with no outside light, and he would take you into his domestic version of the sewers New York to show you the guitar if he could just god damn it, find wherever the hell I put the damn thing! It’s fun when strangers yell! When this anger rises, be aware. You may start to think there’s not even a guitar here. The guy tells you his studio is non-smoking (I’m kidding, that didn’t even EXIST in 1983…you never heard the phrase “non-smoking studio” until people…you know…actually stopped smoking in studios). Yet the “studio” is so filthy that it looks like in the time of a single guitar overdub, black mold would grow so fast all over your hands like it was time-lapse photography.

The thing is—the few of you readers out there who would have immediately left such a situation—you are the wise ones. But, as we all know, the wise among people with GAS are rare. And you might have missed out on some great guitars instead if you weren’t so much smarter than the rest of us. Wisdom sometimes has a downside.

So…that’s one kind of generic situation. There are variations on this. Some slight, some severe. I’ll only mention things entirely based on personal experience. Sadly, that means I can’t tell the story about getting ripped off in a guitar deal by Johnny Thunders…as it happened a buddy of mine. But that story kind of tells itself.

So—what are some of the possible issues when one buys (or used to) in person with the seller holding the home field advantage?

1) You’re buying from the guy you (i.e., me) liked on the phone, but now you’re growing slightly agitated…you had no idea, but he’s very rich…you have directions to his place…he gets richer and richer with every turn down a new street…houses turn to mansions, mansions turn to Citizen Cane mansions…your irrational resentment grows with every new street and avenue of opulence…damn! This guy is so rich he should GIVE YOU the damn guitar/amp…you enter…the guy is the nicest guy in the world…you remind yourself to be nice…so the guy’s rich…it doesn’t mean he clubbed baby seals in front of children to make his dough…lighten up on the guy…he has a room full of incredible equipment in mint shape. You’re not only jealous. You are now CONVINCED the price you agreed on was foolish because guys with stuff like this don’t get it by being on the bad end of a deal. Rich people don’t get rich selling under value and, besides, who likes the feeling you’re on the short end? That applies to them as well as me. I’d like to think if I were rich I’d be giving out guitars, amps, pedals, strings, and so on like they were stickers at a political rally. But…I’d probably be one of those clowns with a giant room of instruments that doubles as a humidor. Well, no. You have to keep those clean. So, that’s not really my…thing. Clean. Still, I would, I’m certain, not be the Robin Hood I just briefly imagined I’d be.

2) Buying from the guy who seems to have only lured you to his house to listen to how great he is. You find it impossible to play in front of him. You’re a sap. Insecure. It’s YOUR money, damn it. Stand up for yourself! You buy the guitar without barely even playing it, telling the guy you trust him and exiting as quickly as humanly possible. You’re a weak weak person. Hate yourself. Rinse and repeat. *

*This may have only happened to me. Your mileage may vary.

3) The creepy guy (and I’m using the male pronoun here on purpose, as I’ve never bought a guitar from anything but a normal human woman with no crazy warning signs…none of these issues…it’s surely happened…just not to me). May also be, the smelly guy. The smoky guy. The guy who really should wear more than underwear and black socks when he answers his door. The guy who offers you a hit. The guy who wants you to hang around. The (ghastly!) guy who says, “you want to take her for a test drive?” The enormously socially awkward guy who asks you if you want to stay and “jam” yet he shakes with the kinetic anxiety of one of those small dogs. You look around. Everything is a sign. A guitar neck. Part of his new project of making guitars with guitar necks and human skulls in a growing pile he keeps in the mud-room? You just know. The guy you just barely survived escaping. No one knows it, but you could have been just ended tonight and you vow to never, never, NEVER go to a stranger’s house alone ever again to look at a guitar. 

Unless it’s a really good deal and you can’t get someone else to come. We are, it should never be forgotten, fearless explorers. Or at the very least we are sick people with poor impulse control*

4) Buying from the friendly hipster guitar guy (in this case, it’s from a retailer). The curse of retail sellers—Their absolute assault of predatory capitalistic phony kindness. The kind of person who, when you find them following you for the third time, you want to scream, “Get the hell away from me! I’m freaked out. You confuse me! Why are you nice? Knock it off!”

When I was a teenager, the biggest guitar shop in CT was the oddly named “Brian Guitars” (no possessive…your guess is as good as mine). Whenever you went into the place, if you so much as picked up…well, a PICK, this guy would appear out of nowhere, wearing designer jeans, his hair permed, his face and personality remarkably like that spastic Muppet, Guy Smiley. You pick up, say, a Fender Heavy pick and from a burst of powder he would appear and say heeeyyy! That is a GREAT pick! I use those myself! Well, Brian and I seemed to have the same taste in everything, at least according to Brian. I’d pick up a pointy Ibanez just to hold it and see how those pointy 80’s metal players felt when they had to play a Chinese Star with a neck and strings on it.

“Heeeeeeyyy! That’s my baby. My number one at home!”

I’d pick up a Tele. And it would be Brian (I’m skipping all possessives with the man) favorite and he had ten at home just like it. “This is number eleven if you walk away, my friend!”

There’s no great narrative to take away from Brian Guitars except that, as we were leaving one day, I stepped in a rather enormous (I will save you any comparisons for scale, but…memorably large) pile of dog crap. So large I stepped in it with both feet after my second stride. My buddy, our drummer Steve, pointed to my shoe and put on his Brian-sales guy voice and say, “heeeey! That is some handsome shit on your shoes! That’s the exact kind of shit I have on all my shoes! You’ll love it!”

4) A little like, but somehow different answering the man cave guy’s ad. You answer the ad and it’s way more rural than you’d thought (which means, it’s outside the city…which means to City Boy you that it’s a setting for a Wes Craven film). You see farmhouses and a lot of trees—which means you see human sacrifice images in your head. You finally call for directions, and the guy’s got a hard accent and he’s difficult to understand, but you don’t want to sound like an asshat ugly white American and make him repeat himself, but you do so anyway, so you’re already pretty damn neurotic before you even see the place. You end up at his shack that looks like Darrell’s been living in it since season 7 of The Walking Dead. The line between the really frigging weird, from the I need to run for my life is a fine one. But…no risk/no reward. 

I got a good lawsuit era Les Paul at a deliverance-ish cabin once. Sure, it’s possible I could have ended up as a human skin vest. But we intrepid guitar geeks, as I can’t enforce upon you enough, are a rare and brave (and verging in and out of stupid’s borders) breed. 

5) You sit down to try an amp. The house is normal. A woman hands you a guitar to test the amp. You are, as always, nervous to play in front of a stranger. Other players probably aren’t. Maybe they are the one with the chops…go film yourself being so good it hurts other people’s feelings on YouTube, okay…this is for the rest of us. 

You grab the guitar. And. You freeze up. You, for the life of you, cannot tune the guitar. You can tune your own guitars. You have for decades. You can tune with your records, your friends, your bands by ear for 40+ years. Hell, you once tuned a piano in a studio (a, yes, chain-smoking studio…or, as they were known…a studio). But no barrier ever made holds back your walls of insecurities and you freeze. You’re awful. You’re horrified, without remembering this central fact of life: no one gives a crap. They’re too busy thinking about themselves and their life to give a crap whether you can tune the guitar they want to sell. They don’t care if they’re not selling it to Santana. But, you’re giving this person money. If it’s enough money, they will remember you fondly as “the person who bought my old Twin for a lot of money.” Maybe somehow the price favors the buyer (maybe the seller was in a rush, which always turns things to the buyer’s side). In this case, you will be remembered as, “that clown who couldn’t even tune a guitar who STOLE my Twin. Bastard.”

However, if you’re gifted with some core confidence and know how to handle yourself (i.e., if you are my polar opposite and move somehow comfortably through your days and nights), you make any situation turn to a smooth landing. You can’t tune the guitar? Big deal. You might grow slightly condescending and say, “I can’t buy an amp if I’m playing a guitar that can’t hold tune. Best of luck with it, my friend.” Or, if you’re like me… let’s hope you’re not, you’re left with the seller staring at you. Your only hope is that you intentionally and randomly tune the different strings in no relation to the others, tell the person you’re in a band that’s mostly influenced by Glen Branca, Captain Beefheart, and the sounds of jackhammers and taxi horns and just make hideous dissonant noise until finally staring ahead thoughtfully and saying…“I’m just not feeling it. Thanks, though.” 

6) The next hard life lesson in buying gear? KNOW THYSELF!!!!

For me? I always make the same mistake when I fall in love with the look of a guitar and am so blinded I forget fundamental issues of my playing. The pitfalls I always ignore that I need to remember. Be very careful with three pickup guitars. Be very careful with loving all the knobs. And not EVERY SINGLE GUITAR needs a vibrato!

I made the same mistake over and over because I fell in love with an instrument’s look. And look IS important…it’s actually crucial…none of us would be Eastwood people if that weren’t the case. Who doesn’t love a weird and beautiful guitar? But, then, I have to remind myself, I have to PLAY it if I’m going to enjoy it. Thankfully, there are a bunch of Eastwoods/Airlines/Harmonys and Danos and other funky beautiful stuff with two pickups.

Yet…I ALWAYS LOVE the look of three pickups. Then I play it (or, sadly, just bought it) and am reminded again that, in what I can laughingly call my “technique,” the middle pickup is nearly always exactly where I play solos and single lines . That pretty middle pickup is just in the way. And, of course, I feel dumber every time I do this. Maybe it won’t happen when I’m in my 60’s. Hope springs eternal. 

And, as I say, I just love the sight of a gaggle of knobs! I had what was truly, looking back, the perfect guitar for me. A solidbody with a single P90. It’s all I needed. But I’m guessing I traded it for something with more knobs than a PA. Because it was beautiful. Because it played so well. If only someone else had been playing it.

And, then…vibratos. Strat vibratos (even though I didn’t really like Strats…they didn’t have extra knobs and they had—damn them!—three pickups). For a while, I was throwing various vibrato systems on every (at the time) cheap old Chicago guitar I got. I put (along with hot humbuckers) a Bigsby on a 26” scale Kay Jazz II. To be fair, it was already hacked into, and it growled like a monster with a PAF copy. But…did it need a Bigsby? Well…it’s like Everest. It was a hard tail bridge. It was there. Of course it needed a Bigsby! 

Bring it back, Mike Robinson! Bring back the Kay Jazz II, but give it cool buckers and a totally unnecessary vibrato! Pleaaassse?

I have not healed from this. I recently bought a re-issue of the mid-70’s Telecaster Deluxe…a lovely mutation from Fullerton (or wherever Fender was at the tie…forgotten)—a Telecaster body with a Stratocaster headstock. Two Seth Lover Humbuckers, and—yes—a Strat’s vibrato system. Fewer than 100 of the original models had the custom option whammy bars. Fewer than a 100 of the re-issues have them. In total, ever, there are fewer than 200 of this model of Telecaster that have the Strat’s vibrato system. It makes them much more expensive. Of course I had to have that one. I never use it. Great guitar…but, I’d only use a Bigsby or Jazzmaster style and even then WAY less than I ever imagine when I get the guitar.

For nearly 40 years, I have toyed with the idea of adding a Bigsby to my 1969 Telecaster. Thankfully I’m both lazy, often broke, AND I do treat that guitar as sacred. It was my first truly great guitar. And I never sold it, no matter how broke or stupid I was. Really…in many ways, it’s my single triumph in 40+ years of buying and selling. It’s on its fifth set of frets. It’s a relic the way a guitar is supposed to be—the player lovingly beat the crap out of it over the course of decades!

So, my ’69 Tele escaped this vibrato craze of mine. But…over the years, I must have had 40 guitars with various vibrato systems in/on them. Though never, I’d like it noted, any dive-bombing ones. At least I had SOME restraint. But…well over 60% (I’m going light) of the guitars I’ve owned either came with or I added an “idiot stick” as a buddy of mine’s Tal Farlow-gigging father called them. He also, on hearing our first EP said to his son, “it sounds great, Rick. But who taught Rob to play with mittens?”

So…vibratos everywhere. I’m getting better. Yet there was a time I would have put a Bigsby on an acoustic guitar. A Bigsby front door knock! On a kitchen table! People would think it was a meat grinder, but I’d tell them, no…it’s the most incredible part of a guitar!…I would replace all kitchen cabinet knobs and pulls with Bigsbys. 

But, yeah. I don’t tend to use them.

It’s really best to know these things about yourself.

And now…in further offering my repeated issues with guitars, I have, as I touched on above, and with apologies to Mike: A PROBLEM WITH GUITARS WITH LOTS OF KNOBS. No, Mr. Robinson, it’s not your fault. You have made the world richer with very cool guitars with a lot of knobs. They are stunning. They play great until I try to solo (again, never the guitar’s fault). 

Buttons, I’m down with. Buttons, I actually adore. Because I love 60’s Italian guitars, so I’d better love buttons. Even volume and tone wheels I can forgive because I’m one of those really subtle players who pretty much never changes their volume or tone knob all night…I’m not one of “those” “guys/gals” with “great” “tone”…

Actually my tone’s fine…(Tweed Deluxe open full bore)…honestly, I think it’s a great tone, if neither nuanced or versatile…. But the little knobs on beautiful guitars. Good lord I love them. LOVE them. Then I knock four of them out of whack and when I go to solo I often have only a very quiet muddy bass…or whatever…I have ruined how it sounds, having fallen for my “ooohh! knobs!!!!!” fetish again and again.

But. The dictum KNOW THYSELF when it comes to buying guitars MIGHT lead to me avoiding guitars I think I can’t live without. However, if I truly know myself, I’m certain in the awareness that I will buy, for the rest of my life, cool-looking three pickup guitars with so many knobs the knobs and they have knobs next to their buttons and I’ll not only put a vibrato on everything, I’ll toss B-Benders on all the bastards too.

I will fall for all of this again. There are perhaps treatments for this condition. There is no cure. I’m not really sure there are even treatments. Enjoy the nice and reliable and clean world of buying on-line. Trust me. It’s safer, better, smoother. And non-smoking.

Buying Guitars… Old-School Style. from MyRareGuitars.com

Music lovers that are fans of rock and metals know that the killer guitar riffs are the basics of what makes the rock and metal genres of music so lovely. Any song blended with this rhythm can be a total sold out to its fan. If you want to make your killer riffs, dig in on this article and discover how you can effectively and practically learn rhythm guitar. 

How to Take Care of Your Guitar In Any Weather

Before going straight to the subject of discussion, you need to understand how to properly take care and maintain your guitar so that in any weather, you can also have it in good condition to practice with. Generally, most acoustic guitars are built to withstand temperature changes. Make sure you get an acoustic guitar with winter protection to make it still sound perfect and store it in a cool place that will not alter its humidity.

Focus on playing your notes perfectly

To start with, playing rhythm guitar is a different style than how you used to. So to master this new style quickly, you have to focus on how you play your notes than concentrating on the specific note that you will be using. One interesting fact is that you can add a note to any simple power cord to get you a fantastic sound. You don’t have to be in haste about this process. It is going to be a gradual step for you as a newbie.

You need to already know the basics of guitar playing before opting to practice the rhythm guitar; if not, you will have a bit of struggle in the process. If you are experiencing this, you would need to go back to the fundamentals and learn the rudiments of guitar playing to develop your skills. If you can master this, then you will be able to flow along in the course of your rhythm guitar practice. Here are a few tricks you can use to guide yourself in this exciting adventure. 

Blend your style with your guitar riffs

First and foremost, think of a way to merge the style of guitar you play to blend with the guitar riff. Most guitarists tend to overdo this, but the point is that you can create a fantastic guitar riff with one or two notes. Just keep it in mind that rhythm guitar is mainly about rhythm. You need to examine and cross out any excess notes. By doing this, you will find yourself centered in the main rhythm you want to play. Take a notebook and jot down four measures value of 8th notes. Then randomly remove six notes and replace them with the remaining. Now try using just one cord to play the rhythm you have just developed. After one or two trials, you would have built up yourself into creating different kinds of rhythm ideas for guitar riffs. You can move on to the advanced level (adding more difficult meters and rhythmic inspirations) when you have mastered this trick.

Make your rhythm clear and tight

Secondly, try as much as you can to make your rhythm guitar production clear and tight. If you need to be great in this niche, you have to practice this way. Every good guitarist knows that they have to play consistently to be good at rhythm guitar. But not all guitarists understand how it sounds when someone is playing tight rhythm and with a metronome. To make your rhythm guitar sound excellently well, you have to learn to play on time and do it consistently.

Discover new methods of blending chords

Learn new ways of how to blend your chords. This will help you develop different fresh ideas of how to group chords to produce good sound with your guitar riffs. This trick is much easier for those that are familiar with the concept of keys when utilizing chords. If you are a novice, the best way to grasp this is to blend several minor and major chords with power chords. Keep practicing with this idea to groom your power chord into full minor chords or major chords.

In conclusion, we all know that it will take much time to become a master in the act of rhythm guitar riff playing. But you need to take your lessons step by step to learn everything and make sure you make gradual progress from one level to another. Learn how to write your rhythm guitar riffs and see how great you will become in a short while. 

WATCH: 100 Riffs (A Brief History Of Rock’n’Roll)

Feeling inspired yet? Watch this excellent video by Chicago Music Exchange, showcasing the history of Rock’n’Roll in 100 classic guitar riffs…

Essential Tips To Playing Killer Rhythm Guitar Riffs from MyRareGuitars.com

The music industry creates more stars than any other activity. If we actually think about it then a lot of our biggest heroes, idols and influences will be musicians. That’s not even taking into account just how much the music itself can influence us too. 

Of all the different genres and instruments it’s undoubtedly guitar music that is most well known. Guitarists have dominated the music scene since the 1950s with a wide variety of genres being blended together to create something unique. Guitarists of 50 years ago, and the music they created, is still having a profound impact on musicians today and what’s being produced. 

When we think of the best guitarists then a few names clearly spring to mind. Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Eddie Van Halen all were incredible writers, players and performers with their own unique style. These household names continue to dominate the guitar world and will likely continue to do so for another few decades at least. 

But what about the less well known names? Who else is producing the music that we love to listen to and why don’t we know about them? This article is about giving recognition to some of the hardest working musicians in the world. They may not have achieved universal stardom like the guitar heroes of the past, but they have still achieved a lot. Let’s take a look at the top 10.

10. Keb’ Mo’

Considering just how much Keb’ Mo’ has achieved in his career it’s amazing he isn’t a household name. Born Kevin Roosevelt Moore in Nashville Tennessee, Keb is an American blues musician who sings, plays and writes music. 

Keb is known for his catchy and easy to listen to music. While he primarily plays acoustic, he’s also incredible on electric guitar and can produce a wide variety of sounds. That coupled with his voice makes him great to listen to. You may check some popular electric on Guitarlisty.

Keb has released 13 solo albums and won 4 grammy awards. He’s had fairly consistent success for the last 35 years and continues to grow in popularity. 

9. Mark Tremonti

Given his track record and history, Mark Tremonti should really be a well known name. Mark was the lead songwriter and guitarist for Alter Bridge and Creed, two of the most well known and highest profit bands of all time. He’s also produced a number of solo albums which have been well received. 

Outside of his impressive song writing abilities, Mark is an incredibly talented player. He’s performed some of the most complex and interesting solos we’ve heard in the last decade, absolutely shredding the strings in live performances across the country.

Mark Tremonti has won several awards and was even named guitarist of the year by Guitar World magazine for 3 years running. It’s certainly a name that everyone should know, but very few seem to. 

8. Joe Bonamassa

Joe Bonamassa is probably one of the more well known names on the list, but arguably still doesn’t have as much recognition as he deserves. When he was only 12 he performed alongside BB King, and from there he’s gone from strength to strength. 

Joe has released 15 solo albums, of which 11 went on to become number 1 hits. He has an impressive track record of writing and releasing hit songs, even taking classic songs and reinventing them for the modern era. He has a huge range of guitars and equipment, with the perfect ear to pick up exactly what’s needed and when. 

Joe is admired in the music world for his impressive range, his mix of styles and his consistency throughout the years. He’s one of the biggest blues names in the industry and definitely one that everyone should know about. 

7. Keshav Dyar

Keshav Dyar is an Indian music sensation that’s been producing heavy metal Indian guitar music for decades. The Indian music scene has remained fairly contained but is now at breaking point. It’s likely in the next decade we’ll see an outpouring of Asian talent across the globe, with Keshav’s band Skyharbor leading the way. 

Keshav isn’t just a talented player, but a brilliant songwriter. He put together the entire debut album, Blinding White Noise, for his band which has had an overwhelmingly positive reception. Keshav uses an intricate and very deliberate style which focuses on the percussive elements. This strict playing contrasts with the creative music and makes something quite unique. 

Keshav Dyar certainly deserves to be known more widely, but it’s more to do with circumstance than any question of his talent. The Indian and Asian music scene isn’t quite as close to the Western side as it could be, but hopefully this will all change in the future. Until then, Keshav is a talent you should learn more about. 

6. Tosin Abasi 

Tosin Abasi is a jazz metal guitarist who has developed a brand of music that isn’t commonly seen. While jazz and metal can combine, Tosin has taken this to a new level and created a very interesting and unique sub genre which is much heavier than most. 

Tosin has a very angry and brutal style which is underpinned by a level of musical genius. His band, Animals as Leaders, has seen great success on the back of this and received critical acclaim internationally. It’s this ability to write and perform more challenging sounds which is why we believe Tosin should be more recognised than he is.

5. Guthrie Govan

Guthrie Govan is an English songwriter and guitarist who’s played with a number of well known bands such as Asia and The Young Punks. He’s also had a successful solo venture called Erotic Cakes. Guthrie opts for a mixed style and has shown he can turn his hand to whatever he wants. This has led to many of the greats recognising and praising his ability on the strings.

What’s most impressive about Guthrie is his versatility. Alongside writing and playing he’s worked with the legend Hans Zimmer to create film soundtracks. He’s also a music tutor and is helping others to pick up the craft. Certainly he’s a guitarist who deserves more recognition that he has today.

4. Paul Oritz

Paul Oritz of Chimp Spanner is another impressive instrumentalist who is perhaps not as well known as he could be. Paul has helped create both of Chimp Spanner’s successful instrumental albums which flit between very light and heavy music, keeping the listener wondering what’s next. 

Paul opts for a futuristic vibe and style using 7 or 8 strings to make his music. With fluidity and strong post production skills, Paul is an expert who deserves the respect of the music world. 

3. Eric Johnson

For those in the guitar world, Eric Johnson is very well known, but this fame has never made it much further afield. He’s been performing since the 1970s and has performed alongside Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. His style incorporates qualities of both blues and jazz, showcasing his musical talent to adapt and create as he goes. 

Eric has helped create and play hundreds of songs with well known artists. He’s not only an impressive guitarist, but also well accomplished on the drums, bass and piano. Reliable, consistent and talented, Eric Johnson is a name to remember. 

2. Felix Martin

Felix Martin is a Venezuelan talent and if you appreciate guitar music at all then who you really should know he is. Felix is unlike most artists and is almost exclusively self taught. He decided at an early age that he needed an extra string, but eventually went on to create a 14 string instrument that he uses going forward. 

Felix uses a two handed tapping style that makes use of every inch of those 14 strings. It allows him to develop his own unique style and even play rhythm and lead guitar simultaneously. He plays almost exclusively alone, writing and performing in a very intense way. 

Felix Martin is a once in a generation musical mind and it’s a crime that he isn’t more well known than he is. 

1.Gary Boyle

Gary Boyle is a UK born guitarist who is widely regarded as one of the underrated guitarists in the world. In the 60s Gary performed with Dusty Springfield, touring Europe and playing concerts across the US. From the 70s he became more of a session musician, writing and performing with various artists, creating jingles and working on movie soundtracks. 

Gary is a jazz fusion specialist, but also has the breadth to turn his hand to a wide variety of genres. He has proven himself able to adapt and perform as needed and because of his versatility he’s one of the best known talents that artists would ask for when they needed backing. Definitely one to look out for and listen more to if you get the opportunity. 

Who else should be on this list?

There are countless other acts who are performing day in, day out who deserve to be on this list. The truth is that while the biggest names had some insane skills, they didn’t always have to grind as hard as the people on this list and we should never take that for granted. 

Once you scratch the surface of the guitar scene you can see creativity and impressive talent everywhere. So don’t be afraid to broaden your horizons, and always seek out acts you haven’t heard of. This can lead you to find some hidden gems who will help you develop your tastes across genres. 

What about you? Who are your favourite guitarists active today?

Top 10 Modern Guitar Heroes from MyRareGuitars.com

In the enormous world of music, figuring out which instrument best suits your taste can be quite a daunting task. This article will tackle the old millennial dilemma between banjo and the guitar. Both instruments, though similar, have some differences that would be crucial in determining which to learn, especially for a first time player who is also fresh to music. 

A banjo is a musical string instrument. It is believed to be African in origin. It is 4, 5, or 6 –stringed instrument and a standard banjo has five metal strings. It has a membrane that is stretched across a cavity. 

The membrane is usually made of plastic, but occasionally it may be made from animal skin. The cavity is known as a resonator or head, and it is usually circular in shape. Banjo has held an important place in African-American traditional music. Screw stretchers are used to vary the tension of the belly.

A guitar, on the other hand, on average have six strings but may have up to twelve. Guitars are made from plastic or wood, and their strings come from steel and nylon. There are quite a wide range of guitars from the well-known classic guitar to the acoustic to the electric guitar which lacks the hollow amplification belly.

Banjo or guitar?

There are a few similarities, however, between the banjo and the guitar, as they belong in the family of string instruments. Both instruments have a belly to assist in amplifying the sound. Both instruments may also be played using a small pick to pluck the strings. Thin strings, whether you want to go for the best beginner banjo or the guitar, give for easier pressing and playing of the instrument. 

Differences

The two instruments differ in size. A banjo is smaller compared to a guitar making it easier to learn how to play than the guitar. It is because of this that a banjo is better for children to learn compared to the guitar as it is easier for them to manipulate it.

Given the difference in the size of the neck, banjo has a slimmer neck than that of a guitar. It is easier to fret banjo strings than it is to do so on a guitar. This is another factor that comes into play, making the banjo slightly easier to play.

Banjos have metal strings on which the music is played while guitar strings are made from steel and some from nylon. This may cause some difficulty when plucking the banjo as the chords are rather tough, but with practice, this becomes barely noticeable. 

The tension on the strings also plays a vital role in the amount of pain incurred when playing. However essential to notice the banjo has lighter gauge strings which weigh in to make its playing comparably equal to the guitar

The two instruments also sound different even to the untrained ear. Their difference lies in the fact that a guitar provides a rich deep tone compared to a banjo’s high pitched tone.

A guitar is tuned to what is generally called standard  with notes that include E, A, D, G, B, E while a banjo, on the other hand, is tuned to an open tuning called “open G” tuning. This means that a banjo immediately makes a beautiful sound when strummed across the strings. This is because the strings are already tuned to one of the chords already. The second, third, and fourth strings in a 5-string banjo are quite similar to the guitar.

As mentioned previously, the two string instruments vary in their number of strings. Usually, a banjo has five strings while a standard guitar has six strings. The up-side to this, however, is that more pleasant and accurate sounds can be gotten from a guitar than from a banjo.

In terms of prices as well, guitars will provide better sound quality than banjos and are therefore more expensive because of this. The construction of a guitar is also slightly more complex, adding to the slightly elevated prices. Additionally all the different versions there are of guitars means that their prices will vary but will generally be higher than a banjo.

Difficulty 

A guitar has more notes and more complex fingering than a banjo and this makes it slightly harder than a banjo to play.  And if you are a beginner, both tend to be quite taxing to learn. This is especially the case if you are playing the guitar in standard tuning. This is also compounded by their difference in the number of strings. 

It is also worth noting that in a guitar the strings are further from the fretboard meaning the player requires some level of expertise to create notes and chords. Banjos are therefore beginner-friendly, especially for children.

How to Choose

However, all things considered if you decide to pick the guitar, then learning how to play the banjo would be a piece of cake. This is because the guitar is more complex compared to the banjo. But in a way, learning to play either will not be easy as this is a lifelong journey and true mastery requires more than a lifetime! 

The journey, however, is what makes the entire process worthwhile. Both instruments require your hand to learn to make moves it isn’t accustomed to, but this will get easier and will be greatly rewarding upon succeeding to master these moves. Both will require commitment and persistence because as they say, it takes ten thousand hours after all to master a skill.

Conclusion

Eventually, in the end, the choice made is determined by which instrument to you is equated to pure bliss. Whichever instrument makes your heart dance a little faster should ultimately be your choice. 

And whichever one you eventually settle on will make for an exquisite choice. Also, the basic skills acquired in learning one can easily be used in learning to play the other, which means once you master one, you could quickly move on to the other.

Banjo vs. Guitar: Know the Differences from MyRareGuitars.com

“Home Recording” used to be a term that petrified musicians. Not least because it required huge amounts of equipment to even consider. Before computers, it was virtually impossible, but as technology has changed, dabbling in recording is a realistic option for most guitarists, songwriters and even full bands. Can the results ever stand up to a studio recording?

Most home recording setups are a simplified version of a recording studio setup. Instead of going into a studio and having microphones running into preamps, a mixing desk and then to the computer, a home setup will usually be a microphone running to an audio interface and then to your computer. The audio is picked up in a DAW and then edited or ‘mixed’. Some home recordings are even done on USB microphones. 10 years ago, this would have been virtually unthinkable, but companies like Blue mics have actually done a very good job of making the switch to USB. It takes a huge amount of the hassle out of things, and means recording can take place anywhere.

Examples of Home Recording

Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago.

Perhaps a seminal moment in the world of DIY musicianship. This album was recorded in a cabin, where Justin Vernon worked on the project in solitude, tracking to an old version of ProTools LE software. Though it has a slightly lo-fi feel, no listener in the world would instantly recognise that this was not recorded in a studio, and the environment in which it was recorded shines through in an album with a definite ‘tone’ running throughout. One of the first examples of home recording breaching the mainstream.

Tame Impala – Currents

A more modern example of home recording is Tame Impala’s ‘Currents”. Lead singer Kevin Parkers home studio is described as more of a storage facility for his equipment, but was turned into the perfect recording space for this well-polished album.

Beck – Odelay

Never one to shy away from innovating, Beck was home recording in the mid 90s. He used the home (and equipment) of electronic producers the dust brothers to record and mix much of his seminal, sample-based album “Odelay”. Incredibly, the primitive computing technology available to him meant that many of the ideas for the album are said to have come to him whilst waiting hours for his projects to save on the computer.

Tips for Home Recording

The short answer to the question of “can your guitar (or vocals) sound as good in home recordings?” is surprisingly a resounding yes. That said, recording studios exist for a reason and are still preferable if you have the time and money. To record at home, some decent equipment and attention to detail are needed.

Recording at home…with the right gear, you can get great results.

Home recordings should consider acoustics. Treating your room with acoustic panels, or even buying a vocal isolation shield or shoving it full of duvets will do a decent job! Use the best microphone/s available to you, and investing in a decent home studio setup can pay off in the future. Even something as minimal as a good condenser microphone and audio interface can do wonders. Finally, brush up on your DAW or music software. There’s no use in getting good home recordings if you have no idea how to mix them, multi-track and present them into a finished song.

We live in a liberating age for guitarists and musicians, and the idea that a song recorded in your mom’s basement can reach the charts should give every DIY musician the inspiration to learn how to record and produce.

Can Your Guitar Ever Sound as Good in Home Recordings? from MyRareGuitars.com

Learning to play guitar won’t be a daunting task for you if you get proper teaching and know the ways of playing it right. It’s quite easy to grow some bad habits unknowingly and if you don’t deal with them at the early stage, it can damage your learning and will be difficult to break. Nevertheless, you should not be afraid of this as every bad habit can be changed and initially, you just need to identify them.

Basically, these damaging mistakes are commonly found with the beginners or self-taught players. Here, we have outlined 11 common damaging mistakes done by the guitar players and how they can avoid them.

1. Ignoring to tune your guitar before practicing

tuning the guitar is important!

Many newbies not only don’t know how to tune a guitar properly but also don’t notice when the guitar needs tuning. And practicing on the out-of-tune guitar won’t help them to progress. If you play a well-tuned guitar, you can keep the pitch of the notes in your mind. Likewise, if you constantly practice on an out-of-tune guitar, you can’t learn to identify the precise pitches.

Solution – Prior to playing guitar, ensure it is tuned. You can utilize an online tuner and check the tuning twice so you can play it right.

2. Not having an expert guitar setup

Your guitar setup sometimes gets impacted by the weather conditions like humidity and heat. Sometimes new guitarists try to set up their guitars by own which doesn’t make their guitar any easier to play. They can even find difficulties while practicing, and therefore improvements also become slow.

Solution – You need a professional setup for your guitar which makes the guitar easier to play and also, you won’t need extra effort for getting good sounding notes as like digital piano.

3. Not replacing strings ever or often enough

Playing on old strings not just spoils your guitar playing enjoyment but also can lead to premature wear of the fretboard and frets of your guitar. [As we wrote on a previous blog, you need to know when to change your guitar strings]

Solution – You must change your own guitar strings as it’s important on a regular basis. Even if you don’t play your guitar regularly, your strings should be replaced at least once in every 6-8 months. You should wipe the strings after practicing so you can maximize their lifespan.

4. Neglecting Barre Chords

You can experience some hurdles while advancing your guitar expertise by learning barre chords. Newbies might be intimidated by these chords as they need lots of effort in their fretting hand. And these chords are really hard to play at first. But if you avoid playing them, you won’t ever learn them.

Solution – Learn barre chords to enhance your guitar playing capacity. It will make your fretting hand stronger if you play them for a few months.

Watch this quick lesson:

5. Guitar practicing without a metronome

Practicing guitar without a metronome is not a good idea as this is the most vital practice tool that’ll give you a clear concept of your advancement while practicing: it can force you to slow down while practicing, and help you to grow a natural sense of rhythm within yourself.

Solution – Start practicing your guitar with a metronome; it will keep your music sense composed.

6. Holding your guitar improperly

Some newbies struggle a lot with playing particular chords and the main issue is that they hold their instrument improperly. Playing the chords is not difficult but they make it harder by holding the guitar incorrectly.

Solution – You can read the blogs written on proper ways of holding a guitar in different standing and sitting positions. Also, you can check out different YouTube videos.

Watch this video:

7. Irregular practice

Memory plays the main role while it comes to playing music. Consistent practice makes your memory sharper so you can make the most difficult techniques, chord shapes etc. smoother and more effortless day by day. Irregular practice will not be advantageous for your learning.

Solution – It’s better to practice guitar playing daily for at least 15 minutes. This consistency should be maintained regularly.

8. Consulting lots of sources

Some newbies take a leap from watching YouTube videos to reading blogs on the web or switching to the different online courses or reading guitar magazines. This doesn’t make things easy for them; hence they get stuck on something and cannot learn the right techniques.

Solution – You must not run towards different information sources for learning the ways of playing guitar. Rather, find a teacher to get a comprehensive lesson.

9. Going too fast

This is another mistake made by beginner guitarists. If you go straight for playing a specific song “at 100%” after learning the position of right notes, it can sometimes impair your progress – you can play the right notes, sure… but are you playing them right?  If you don’t practice perfectly, you won’t get to improve your technique.

Solution – Rather than playing a song at 100% of the speed, try to go first at 50%. You will get better results if you take it slowly…

10. Not cleaning the guitar appropriately

It’s important to know how to clean your guitar

Using furniture polish or standard household cleaners can damage your guitar. These products are unsuitable for your guitar. You don’t need to clean it every day but a good cleaning once a month can keep it durable.

Solution – Use the cleaning products which are specially made for guitars.

11. Not learning music theory

Many newbies make this mistake as they avoid learning proper music theory because they are worried about learning the more technical ways. Some often find it boring and difficult when attempting to learn these concepts – but if you persevere, it can be very rewarding.

Solutions – Undoubtedly, understanding music theory can take much time but it can sometimes quicken your music learning.

Wrapping up

So, these are a few damaging mistakes made by the newbie guitarists. The same happens with the piano artists, drummers or other artists of different instruments. If you are encountering the same issues mentioned here, try to resolve them ASAP to improvise your guitar learning – you will thank yourself later!

11 Bad Habits Beginner Guitarists Need To Avoid in 2018 from MyRareGuitars.com

It came as no surprise that the Washington Post’s The Slow Death Of The Electric Guitar article got everyone talking, a few weeks ago. After all, we all love guitars, so this couldn’t possibly be true! Or could it? The fact is, though, that even though nothing the article said was factually incorrect – hence the fact it was  a relevant read – the conclusions it came to where quite off the mark. Not quite fake news territory then, but misleading news. 

What was wrong about the Washington Post article?

The very title of the article seems to suggest that at some point, the guitar will simply die off – which is a totally ridiculous idea. 

Jimi Hendrix guitar on fire

Rock’n’roll is still alive and kicking – and while it does, so will the electric guitar. Even jazz is still alive and, while not a major chart concern, there’s still a wealth of jazz musicians making a living worldwide. So when it comes to electric guitars and rock’n’roll music – both of which penetrated popular culture far more deeply than jazz – you can amplify this for a thousand times, and realize we’re all in safe territory here, after all – any news about the demise of rock’n’roll and/or electric guitars is just nonsense.

With this in mind, we’ll discuss 5 points that show that the Washington Post article was simply… wrong!

1) The big brands are in trouble, not the electric guitar

One of the guys knows everything about guitars. The other one is Slash. Or so Henry Juszkiewicz probably thinks…

The nature of popular music and of the market have changed dramatically, that’s for sure – but that doesn’t mean the electric guitar will die anytime soon. The main problem with that article, is that it just gives too much importance to the big names such as Gibson, Fender, Guitar Center, and to mainstream music.  

We all know what happened to dinosaurs. And the same is bound to happen with people who think like dinos, in this business! Even though we all owe a lot to brands such as Gibson and Fender, who made some of the most legendary guitars ever, it doesn’t mean they are God-given gifts to mankind who should expect to have loyal customers no matter what, just because rock legends have played their instruments.

These brands are subject to the same market forces as any other, smaller brands – and if their products are not good enough or not available at the right price point, they won’t sell. What’s true to a bunch of bananas at your local market is true to a Gibson Mike McCready 1959 Les Paul Standard Vintage Gloss guitar. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise that people are not queuing around the block to pay $6699 for a Gibson Mike McCready 1959 Les Paul Standard Vintage Gloss…

It’s not that the electric guitar as an instrument is dying – it’s just that the biggest brands associated with it are, well, not in the best health:

“Gibson and Fender are in debt, and a third, PRS Guitars, had to cut staff and expand production of cheaper guitars” – The Washington Post

Is it any wonder??? For far too long, they’ve made guitars which are far too expensive and, sometimes, not even that great. Therefore, sales were bound to go down. What did anyone expect?

Many guitarists will tell you that a Squier Classic Vibe will look, feel and sound as good if not better than some more expensive Fenders, for instance.

And in fact, lots of people are still collecting guitars – but the notion that there’ll always be a vast demand for top-of-the-range expensive models is unrealistic – even though that’s exactly what Fender, Gibson and PRS expect.

There is still a (small) market for very expensive guitars, and that’s why many boutique luthiers still survive and even thrive. But the bigger brands are just counting on their name – and this is just not cutting it anymore. If a guitar is not good value-for-money, it won’t sell.

2) And YES: Guitar Heroes still matter!

Jack White is proof that modern guitar heroes DO exist

Baby Boomers became guitar collectors, but most younger people won’t  – however, this doesn’t mean they feel less inspired by guitar heroes than past generations.

Younger players have grown up in a world that’s increasingly unstable, with unstable jobs and future – not as many will have money to spare on very expensive guitar collections. 

“Now those boomers are retiring, downsizing and adjusting to fixed incomes. They’re looking to shed, not add to, their collections, and the younger generation isn’t stepping in to replace them.” – The Washington Post

Big brands need to realise that the era of the moneyed “Baby Boomers” buying lot sof guitars is coming to an end – and no amount of guitar-hero worshipping will change this. 

The Washington Post mistakenly assumes that younger people are not becoming collectors because they don’t have guitar heroes. This is not quite true.

There are still lots of people picking up a guitar and being inspired by the same idols who inspired their (grand)dads! Anyone can go to YouTube and feel inspired by the sounds and antics of all the great guitar heroes – Clapton, Hendrix, Page, Townshend and so on… even though they are not in the charts anymore, their music is actually more accessible than it has ever been!

Not to mention more recent names such as Kurt Cobain, Noel Gallagher, Jack White and Dan Auerbach, who still inspire many new guitarists. (as we know from sales of the Airline models, for instance…)

But are they going to spend mega bucks on a guitar collection just to copy their idols? Hell, no! 

Younger people can love Sixties Eric Clapton as much as anyone who grew up in the era, and still this wouldn’t make them spend thousands to buy a new The Journeyman Relic Eric Clapton Signature Strat!

3) Guitar x Amp x FX Pedals: It’s not all about guitars, you know…

Guitarists are NOT spending less on FX pedals… that’s for sure!

From a gigging guitarist perspective, it’s also important to notice that collecting expensive guitars is NOT necessarily top of the list for most people active in music, be it playing in bands or just making music at home. 

Why buy a super expensive guitar when you can spend the money on lots of cool FX pedals and valve amps? Jack White was a recent proof that you didn’t need to have an expensive guitar to create a great sound. But he had the help of a great Fender Twin Reverb, Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, Digitech Whammy etc.

There’s lots of bands playing with cheap or reasonably priced guitars – but at the same time using expensive valve amps, boutique FX pedals like the ones by Strymon… sometimes it’s not even a matter of money – but HOW you spend it. And in this day and age, expensive guitars will always lose, and quite often musicians will prefer second-hand guitars, but get brand new boutique fx pedals.  Which lead us to the next point…

4) The Booming Second-Hand Market

Buying second-hand is often a great option, from sites such as Reverb.com

The declining sale numbers for new guitars does not necessarily reflect a loss of popularity of the instrument. Well, it probably does a bit, but the point is that many guitarists prefer to buy second-hand instruments on sites such as Ebay and Reverb.com.  You can bet there are still many guitar collectors out there who buy lots of guitars – but the vast majority of them probably won’t be buying new models.

Also, is it realistic to expect that the market for brand new guitars (especially high-end Fender, Gibson, PRS…) should be an ever expanding one? Many guitar buyers are not that bothered about having a brand new instrument when they plan to buy a guitar. If you want to make your money go further, or want to get something maybe cool and more interesting, you might look at second-hand guitars, rare vintage guitars etc.

A guitar brand might even have “loyal” customers who’ve never bought more than one new guitar off them – if that! This kind of player won’t be helping the fortunes of a guitar brand like Gibson, because their commitment to the brand does not reflect on year-on-year sales.

5) Go to a gig & see it for yourself!

Is rock’n’roll dead? Is the electric guitar dying? Go tell Thee Oh Sees and their sell-out crowds…

The bottom line? It doesn’t matter if more or less people are buying brand news guitars, or how many bands in the Top 20 are inspiring kids to get guitar lessons! We don’t need Taylor Swift to save the electric guitar.

There are LOTS of people out there buying used gear, getting inspired by bands who’d never been in the Top 20, and learning instruments on their own. 

Young people still feel inspired by all the (fewer than before, sure) major acts who play guitar – but the point is, so many other bands not in the top of the charts are still out there, playing live to thousands of people at sold out gigs, festivals worldwide etc. Just go to a gig by acts such as Thee Oh Sees, Black Angels, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Courtney Barnett and so many others, and festivals such as SXSW, Austin Psych Fest etc and you’ll see that guitar music and rock’n’roll music is as alive as ever – if not more! 

It just feels that people who periodically announce the death of rock’n’roll and/or of the electric guitar actually know nothing about either. They’re both alive and well. At the end of the day, it’s up to each one of us to make sure this song remains the same…

BREAKING NEWS: The Guitar Is NOT Dead from MyRareGuitars.com

Funny thing: some of the greatest guitar heroes ever were British. Think Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Peter Green, Richie Blackmore and so many others… but most of them had another thing in common – they were inspired by American music.

So we thought – why not do something different, and make a list of the greatest American guitarists?

Why would that be interesting? This is our list of guitarists who were made by America. This is just a top 10, trying to encompass players from many different styles and generations. There will be some missing… so share YOUR list with us, too! You may not agree with our choices but there’s no question about this – those are not just players who happen to have been born in the U.S.A. by a happy geological coincidence, but guitarists whose very music could’ve only have come from America, and nowhere else in the world… 

10) Elmore James: The Blues

The Blues is perhaps the most crucial of all American musical genres. It’s the source of all popular American music made after it, but so much more. It documents American history – especially a part of history that is perhaps not as well documented elsewhere. We could’ve chosen any of the great Blues guitarists such as B. B. King or Robert Johnson, but we’ll stick with Elmore James – his primal voice and guitar playing tell a whole story in their own right, and songs such as ‘Dust My Broom’ are informed not just by the simplicity of rural Blues, but also pointed to the electrified future of the genre – and by doing so, encapsulated the journey of many Black Americans in the early part of the 20th-century, from rural South to urban North.

9) J. Mascis: Noise, Grunge & the reaction to 80’s America

J. Mascis could be described as the greatest virtuoso of the so-called “grunge” scene, so we’ll pick him. A scene that spawned many bands worldwide, but which could’ve only have originated from America. The messy, f*cked up America of the Eighties, where if you couldn’t be a winner, you were a loser. But the “slackers” and Generation X-ers who loved rock’n’roll just wouldn’t fit with this world view – and the noisy music scene represented by bands such as Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and which eventually exploded with Nirvana was a direct reaction to the mainstream 80s in the US, so this new kind of noise could’ve only have come from America!

8) Tom Verlaine: New York, New York

The proto-punk scene around CBGB’s in the mid-Seventies could’ve only have happened then, and only in New York. Bands such as Television translated the grittiness of a semi-apocalyptic New York City into rock music. To listen to Television is to be transported to that time and place. 

7) John Fahey: Rootsy Americana

John Fahey was one of the greatest acoustic guitar players ever. His best music harks back to an older, almost mythical America – a rural, simpler, pre-War America. His debut album, Blind Joe Death, was originally released as a “fake” album, supposedly containing old recordings by a forgotten bluesman. In a very American display of entrepreneurship, the album was the first ever “indie record”, self-financed by Fahey with the money he earned working at a gas station!

6) Dick Dale: Let’s go Surfing…

Well, we hear Australians are pretty good at surfing, but no one beats America when it comes to Surf Music! This is a sunny, optimistic and even naive style, that could’ve only have come from America, a child of the optimistic 50’s, and with the help of some all-American gear such as Fender amps and guitars! And no one played it better than Dick Dale! (Having said that… ‘Misirlou’ in particular is an adaptation of a traditional Middle East song! Listen here…)

5) Duane Allman: Drivin’ South

Duanne Allman was a players like few others – who could humble Clapton, who could play slide like few others, who had one of the best Les Paul tones. He could do seemingly so naturally what players such as Clapton actually laboriously studied for year – that fluid, bluesy guitar thing, you know… listening to Duane is like driving a convertible down a highway, on a sunny hot day somewhere, down South. Yep – great driving music, the likes of which only Americans could make!

4) Eddie Van Halen: California Dreamin’

Van Halen’s music couldn’t be more Californian if it tried. It’s loud, silly, colorful… it’s widescreen rock’n’roll. Silly, fun, sunny. And so is Eddie’s guitar style. What could be a bit “too much” for those who are not crazy about Eighties hard rock, is actually quite enjoyable if you’re listening to Eddie’s playing – a true innovator.

3) Jack White: Detroit Pop Art

Pop Art is one of the defining styles of American art from the past 100 years. It’s as American as apple pie. And Jack White is pure Pop Art, when you think about it: he’s all about bright primal colors, about style, and about making many people wonder what is real and what is fake, who is the true Jack White, why is he singing like Blind Willie McTell, and whether is it real blues or just a commercial copy? These questions of originality vs. imitation, commercialism vs. authenticity, are pretty much the same questions people asked when confronted with the work of Pop Art names such as Warhol. 

He’s got the same unstoppable lust for creating stuff and churning out his products that drove people as different as Henry Ford or Andy Warhol. The quality of his work speaks for itself – he’s a true post-modern blues player, deeply influenced my traditional American music – but with a shameless knack for turning it all into business, too! Could Jack White have come from anywhere but America? 

2) Stevie Ray Vaughan: Texas Flood

The great guitar duel that never happened – SRV versus Hendrix. Who was the best? Many, many people swear that Stevie was every bit as good as Hendrix, if not better. SRV was 100% the son of Texas, deeply influenced by his roots, as authentic and as Texan as it gets – and still a hugely influential player. Listen to SRV and you’ll have a taste of Texas with every note.

1) Jimi Hendrix: a melting pot, like America itself

Sure, Jimi was born and grew up in the United States, but could he be considered a truly “American” player, since his band The Jimi Hendrix Experience was formed in London, with two English musicians? Well… of course!

Jimi more than paid his dues on the road all over America, playing with people such as Little Richard, King Curtis and The Isley Brothers, and it was his rich musical influences that he took to England in 1966 – he certainly turned a few things upside down and kicked things up a few notches, but deep down, Jimi was an authentic blues man, full of soul, groove and a down-to-earth sincerity you would be hard-pressed to find in England at the time. Musically, and even racially (with his Cherokee heritage) Jimi was a true representation of that big melting pot which made America what it is.

No wonder that his legendary performance at Woodstock, playing the Star Spangled Banner, summed up America at the time better than most songs. And yes – he’s still the best! 

Did we forget anyone? Post your Top 10 in the comments below and let us know!

Top 10 Great American Guitarists from MyRareGuitars.com

‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘Love Me Tender’, and ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’ bring only one name to mind – Elvis Presley. Even though the 50s and 60s icon was not the greatest of the guitarists of his time, the instrument played a significant role during his performances.

According to the History Channel’s sources, Elvis – the King of Rock N’ Roll – was only eleven years old when he got his very first instrument on January 8, 1946 and began to practice guitar in a space at home. Throughout the years the King accumulated over seventeen guitars including the Gibson J-200 from 1956, and the famous Martin D-18 from 1942. Here we’ll tell you a bit about each of these legendary instruments. 

Elvis Presley’s Martin D-18

Elvis Presley’s Martin D-18

Historical notes indicate that Elvis’ Martin D-18 is a handcrafted masterpiece that was created in the year of 1942. The instrument was designed by Martin guitar factory in Pennsylvania on January 15. Martin produced about 326 style D-18 guitars that year alone, however, that was considered a low number due to restrictions.

Elvis’ Martin D-18 features:

• 40 1/2″ total length
• 20″ body length
• 15 5/8″ body width  and a 4 7/8″ body depth  
• Mahogany neck
• 20 fret Rosewood fingerboard with a 25.4″ scale length
• solid Spruce top
• Mahogany back and sides
• Rosewood bridge
• Black Boltaron® endpiece
• Black/White binding

Elvis’ Martin D-18 was said to be installed with Kluson sealed case tuners, which wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for guitarists in the 50s. The King’s Martin D-18 was given to the Country Music Hall of Fame in the year of 1974 where it resided till 1991 after it was purchased at an auction by a British collector. Only two years later in 1993, the instrument made its way to Michael Malone, who paid $151,700 for it. Since 1998, the guitar has been displayed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Elvis Presley’s Gibson J-200

The Gibson J-200 was purportedly Elvis’s all-time favorite acoustic guitar. Its sound was perfect for the new up-coming mix of blues and country music that was swiftly gaining mainstream popularity in the 1950s.

Elvis Presley’s Gibson J-200

Elvis’ Gibson J-200 features:

• 25 1/2″ scale length
• 17″ x 21″ x 4.5″ body with a solid Sitka Spruce top
• Solid eastern curly maple back, sides and neck
• Rosewood fretboard
• Moustache bridge featuring Mother of Pearl Crown inlays on the fretboard

The Gibson J-200 was considered one of the best of its time, as it produced maximum volume and clarity. The unique sound of Elvis’ Gibson J-200 can be heard in movies like ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘King Creole’ and ‘G.I. Blues’.

Interestingly, the King of Rock N’ Roll was drawn to the guitar out of admiration for his predecessors who dazzled the audience with their performances in hopes that he too would accomplish the same, which he certainly has.

– Article by Sally Writes

Elvis Presley’s Acoustic Guitars: Martin D-18 and Gibson J-200 from MyRareGuitars.com

Peavey T-15 guitar – sunburst

I was talking to my buddy – a professional blues player – a great player who has an impeccable ear for tone, telling him about my new (well, used…but new to me) really outstanding amp, a Peavey Delta Blues. He said to me, “you lost me when you used Peavey and Blues in the same sentence.” And while I could have gone on about some of the southern blues players that, in fact, did and still do use Peaveys (both guitars and amps), I kept my mouth shut. I could have even gone into a minor history lesson about Lynyrd Skynyrd using the very powerful and tuneful competition for the 70’s Fender Twin Reverbs – the Peavey Mace (with SIX 6L6 power tubes inspiring all those Zippos to flame up every night during “Free Bird”).

But if you think many guitar players’ reaction to Peavey amps is dismissive, just try selling them on the brilliant (Yes. Brilliant. There. I said it.) T-Series of Peavey guitars (many made from the late 70’s-mid 80’s, though most dying a quiet death in the early 80’s). At best, you may get a chuckle that suggests you know nothing. Or a comment about how ugly they are (not an uncommon thought…and actually, with some models, perhaps the most valid criticism of the series). Or even an incredulous reaction: “Are you kidding? Peavey? Peavey guitars? Please.”

But why this reaction to Peavey guitar equipment? Especially the guitars themselves. So long as we’re not talking about an abomination like the pink Adrian Vandenberg signature model of the late 80’s…ouch. Yes…Peavey deserved all mocking and humiliation for that clunker.

One of my main theories for why Peavey is taken most seriously for their PA’s and audio equipment, and at times very seriously for their amps, and almost not seriously at all for their guitars (especially, paradoxically and oddly, for what is their classic period when they were making as good or better guitars than either Fender or Gibson) is for one unfortunate reason: they had almost no recognition at the time as a guitar builder. And they committed a cardinal sin in the guitar business: they were (and still are, for many players) pretty uncool and, at best, aesthetically boring. No way to get a new line of guitars off the ground.

Peavey T-15 and some better-known models

And while we guitar players tend to think we are somewhat radical and hardly conservative, consumers in the guitar market are like consumers in most other markets – they go with brand names they know other people think highly of. And in the late 70’s, that meant—more or less—Fender and Gibson. Even if those companies were producing, it is now widely agreed, some of the worst instruments they have ever made.

Of course, this is an oversimplification—the very existence of Eastwood Guitars points to the fact that there is a market for guitar players who want to stand out from the Strat, Tele, and Les Paul crowd. But, I’d argue, that market was pretty much absent in the late 70’s. It’s only over the last 15-20 years that we have seen a steady growth of interest in some of the most interesting and wild guitars of the 60’s.

The Rare Guitars Revival

The (steadily over the last fifteen/twenty years) increasing interest in Harmonys, Danos, Valcos, some of the best Kays, and others has been caused, I’d argue, by a two-prong desire among guitar players:

1. As vintage Fenders and Gibsons—and brands Guild, Gretsch, and Epiphones and others—started to skyrocket in price, players on a limited budget still wanted to get their hands on a piece of guitar history and vintage gear. And,
2. Players discovered (or rediscovered, as many baby boomers first instruments were affordable 60’s models) that a lot of these budget/catalog guitars from the garage boom of the mid 60’s just happened to be pretty great guitars.

And they were—and this is not to be minimized—cool. In 1979, just about everyone was playing a guitar by a major company. And many of these were the traditional, yet boring designs that hadn’t changed much from the 1950’s.

Even before players such as Jack White brought his radical, funky red resolglass Airline to the masses, you’d had a quiet, yet growing groundswell of underground 80’s and 90’s bands playing inexpensive guitars that are now classics—but were, at the time—simply affordable, weird guitars that set them apart from mainstream bands. Hey, if your band wasn’t mainstream, why play a mainstream guitar? This was even true of some of the higher profile players/bands, with people like Elvis Costello and Tom Verlaine and Steve Wynn dusting off Jazzmasters—which, by the late 70’s, were considered pawn shop crud. Or, if not crud, hardly a guitar that had been by far Fender’s most expensive guitar in the 1963 catalog. By comparison, Strat was very fairly priced (by comparison…it was still pricey for the day), and Teles and Esquires (not to mention, later, Mustangs) were positively relatively cheap.

But even lower on the food chain were the Airlines, the Silvertones, the Harmonys, the Danos. In the early 80’s, Karl Precoda used a Silvertone-branded Harmony H78 (with a missing middle goldfoil) on the Dream Syndicate’s classic The Days of Wine and Roses, an album that was widely praised at the time for bringing back long and aggressive duel guitar to underground rock—with a band that owed more to, say, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Velvet Underground than to any South Bay Hardcore. All of this with Precoda’s feedback-laden killer tone out of his Harmony.  East Bay Ray, from the Dead Kennedys, was famous for using off-brand guitars, often seen with then forgotten/unknown various Valco/Airline resoglass models over a decade before Jack White hit the national stage. No one was like him in bands of the time.

And then perhaps the band who perhaps most single-handedly showed their audience a plethora of cool 1960’s rare and funky and (at the time) forgotten guitars: Anton Newcome’s hollowbody Vox Cheetah he uses this day…over the years, he’s also used a Silvertone 1454L (the Silvertone model number for the Harmony/Airline H78—one of Eastwood great Airline reissues), Vox 12 strings…while brilliant former lead guitar player Jeff Davies was seen on stage with Hagstroms and Harmonys, and sometime bassist/sometime guitarist Matt Hollywood was often seen with a two pickup Rocket.

Brian Jonestown Massacre, dusting off vintage guitars…

Peavey T-Series

But, back to the Peaveys of the early 80’s. In some ways, picking a guitar (at least in part…no one plays a piece of crap just because it looks radical and unique) because it looks cool seems like a pretty shallow reason for picking you main/stage guitar. Because it is.

Still, I can understand why players might have shied away from the T-Series at first. The flagship and top of the line, the T-60, is a pretty unattractive guitar. While some people who LOVE them tend to say things on forums like, “it’s so ugly, it’s beautiful.” And while there are some people who do actually think the T-60 is a good looking guitar, they are in the vast minority. And remember, these are on forums for people who absolutely love these guitars. The general guitar playing public, if they are at all familiar with the T-60, tend to think of them as pretty uninspired designs at best, and pretty damn ugly at worst.

Peavey T-60: ugly, or so-ugly-it’s-beautiful?

But the T-Series was built in a way that revolutionized the guitar making industry. Peavey was the first to construct necks with a computerized copy lathe. By using computers, every neck came out exactly the same for the first time in guitar making history. This is now used throughout the guitar industry. This technology also allowed Peavey to produce guitars that were at least the equal to the quality of Fender and Gibson, yet significantly lower their production costs.

In 1978 (the first year of the T-60’s production), these were the prices of Fender’s Strat, Gibson’s Les Paul, and Peavey’s T-60:

Les Paul: Nearly $1,000

Stratocaster: $790

T-60: $375

And maybe that was another problem for Peavey. Maybe guitarists had the perception that a guitar that sold for so much less couldn’t possibly be the equal of the big names. But that simply wasn’t true (even if they weren’t nearly as good looking).

But the best—or most compelling and surprising—guitar in the T Series may be the T-15. This was a guitar that Peavey marketed as a beginner’s guitar, or a professional guitar for “players with smaller hands.” It’s become known over the years as the “Mississippi Mustang”—a reference, obviously, to Fender’s much more famous short scale classic—the Mustang.

Peavey T-15 in sunburst

The Fender Mustang had/has a 24” scale and a fast, comfortable neck that not only makes single note runs easy to speed up, but also offers a comfortable reach for more complex chords than many longer scale guitars allow and, lastly, makes bending easier up and down the neck. 

If you’re a player who enjoys playing the Mustang’s 24” scale, you might well love the T-15’s 23.5” scale. This, combined with a thin, flat, very fast neck, makes for an ease of playing that’s hard to describe. I’ve never player another guitar quite like it. It not only allows all of the benefits I mention above with the Mustang, but it makes double country bends enormously easy once you get used to the effortlessness of the bends. It may be why the guitar found early popularity with country players—with its ability to lend itself to complex country pedal steel-like bends. I have fallen in love with the 23.5” scale—which happens to be very rare and the same scale as the Gibson Byrdland (a short scale that’s also a favorite of Ted Nugent, which I pray is the only thing he and I have in common with the exception that we are both carbon based life forms).

Though, while the whole T Series of Peaveys first found the majority of their players in the country field, the T-15 is becoming more and more popular in indie rock. Some of the big reasons for this could be the one of a kind Peavey Super Ferrite pickups, which sound like a powerful cross between P90’s and some of the twang of a bridge Tele. But they have a sound all their own. Peavey also has the nice feature of there being no treble loss when you roll off the volume knob—the guitar keeps its tone no matter how low you roll off the volume.

Peavey T-15 in natural

Other features of the guitar are a three way pickup switch and a single tone and volume knob that controls both pickups. There’s a metal nut much like some of the classic Danelectros, which is nice because they never seem to wear down like many of the plastic ones that need to be replaced after many years of work. And while some of the higher end models, like the T-60, are famous for their excessive weight (some are reported to weigh more than a Les Paul—though the colored and sunburst ones supposedly weigh less than the more common natural wood finish), the T-15 is a very light and comfortable instrument. It, too, came most often in a natural wood finish, with much more rare versions made in both sunburst and walnut. According to Peavey’s literature at the time, the T-15’s body is made of “southern hardwood” whatever that might exactly be. The radius is 12”. And the neck is made of hard rock maple. It all adds up to a first-rate guitar. A Mississippi Mustang, indeed.

Lastly, while most of the T-15’s came with Peavey’s custom fit plastic cases, some (hardly all, but some) came with a 10 watt solid state amplifier in/with the case—harkening back to the classic Silvertone (made by Dano) Amp-in-Case of the 60’s.  The better one, of course, being the one that came with the two pickup 1457. Complete with a deep tremolo and a great tube sound driven by a single 6V6. While the T-15’s Peavey solid state amplifier hardly comes close to the greatness of the Silvertone Amp-in-Case, it does have some beautiful cleans and serviceable overdrive. But it’s hardly the same, even if it’s a cool and nostalgic feature.

For now, the T-15’s are still pretty affordable for such a great, professional grade guitar. They play like butter, and they have pickups like you’ve never heard, but will want to her a lot more once you do. Grab one before the price starts going up. The T-60’s have already been discovered. Grab the T-15 while you can.   

– guest article by Rob Roberge.

WATCH: PEAVEY T-15 DEMO 

Peavey T-15: the “Mississippi Mustang” from MyRareGuitars.com

The origins of Rock’n’Roll  are somewhat murky, and there are many contenders for what was supposed to be “the first rock song ever”. But Chuck Berry was without a doubt the true father of rock’n’roll. He’s the one person who truly personified its spirit, the seminal influence who laid down the foundations for all that was to come. The outsider. The guitar hero. The rebel. The songwriter. The outlaw. The poet. Oh, and so much more…

Rock’n’Roll Music! 

It could be argued that some artists who followed became more famous, made better albums, and recorded more hits… but none of them would’ve been the same without Chuck Berry, whose lyricism, and genius for simple, memorable songs set the template for the best which rock music had to offer thereafter. Berry songs fuelled The Beatles’ early sets (and final albums); inspired The Beach Boys’ first hit and The Rolling Stones’ debut single. His DNA lives on in pretty much any rock band and guitarist worth anything.

In the past decades his presence had been waning from the music scene and, sadly, perhaps the majority of millennials were not particularly aware of Chuck Berry’s music or influence – but even younger generations will have been touched by his influence… after all, most of them will be probably familiar with Back To The Future’s rock’n’roll ball scene, a delightful homage to Berry and one of the most classic scenes from that film!

Chuck Berry, the father of rock’n’roll…

The fact is – most of us grew up in a world were Chuck Berry and his music existed, a world where Chuck Berry was a fact of life, and where his songs were so interwoven in the fabric of our culture, that we didn’t even have to think about it, because he’s always been there…  so it’s hard – or even impossible – to imagine how rock music would’ve been without his influence. 

Anyone who’s seen the octogenarian Chuck Berry on stage, will know how fragile he was in his later years, hardly capable of playing his guitar anymore. Though it was an upsetting sight, and some will say he was being exploited by promoters or whoever, we can’t really agree with this view. Any musician passionate about music, and who understands the power of rock’n’roll music, will immediately understand it was something Chuck simply had to do. To play and perform for as long as he was able to, however he could. That’s rock’n’roll, and Chuck Berry was rock’n’roll. How could he do anything else?

And indeed, Chuck kept working. On his 90th birthday, on 18th October last year, it was announced that there would be a new Chuck Berry album, his first in more than thirty years, to be released later in 2017.

Listen! Chuck Berry’s new single, ‘Big Boys’:

‘Big Boys’ is the first taster for Chuck Berry’s upcoming new album, now sadly a posthumous release.

Chuck tracklisting:

1. “Wonderful Woman”
2. “Big Boys”
3. “You Go to My Head”
4. “3/4 Time (Enchiladas)”
5. “Darlin’”
6. “Lady B. Goode”
7. “She Still Loves You”
8. “Jamaica Moon”
9. “Dutchman”
10. “Eyes of Man”

Jeff Senn tribute to Chuck:

Here’s a little tribute our friend Jeff Senn made in Chuck’s homage, playing his new Continental model:

Chuck lives on, in anyone who really cares about guitars and about that magical crazy thing called rock’n’roll. We’ll miss you, Chuck, goodbye!

CHUCK BERRY (Oct 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017)

Goodbye, Chuck Berry (1926 – 2017): The Father Of Rock’n’Roll from MyRareGuitars.com

A few years ago, Gibson announced their 2015 range of electric guitars, which featured several changes that didn’t please many of their core customers – and one of those changes was a wider neck. The move proved a big PR fiasco, with many players thinking that Gibson had finally lost the plot, and that the wide necks were one of the most visible signs of that.

Looking back, perhaps Gibson had the right idea, but just dealt it the wrong way, by having all their 2015 models being made with wide necks – thus depriving their customers of choice: there is indeed an increasing market for wide neck guitars, no question about that… but it’s not for everybody!

Why play a Wide Neck guitar? Is it for YOU?

The fact is, if we’re honest, that a good chunk of the population is, well… getting chunkier! To be totally blunt about it – fatter people have fatter fingers, and it can (sometimes, for some players) make it harder for  them to play a guitar which has a narrower neck. But also, anyone who’s bigger and thus got bigger hands might find it a bit troublesome to deal with a standard, narrow neck guitar…

For those players, opting for a wide neck guitar can make a huge difference! It’s in fact quite remarkable that for so many years, the industry has not focused on this problem, but now guitars with wide necks are not such a rarity anymore.

Please bear in mind that when we say “wide neck” we don’t refer to the thickness of the neck, which is something else altogether – as most players will be aware, different guitars my have different neck profiles, with different shapes and different thickness (which is a subject that’s itself worth a separate blog!)

We are, of course, talking about the actual width of the fingerboard. Visually, at a quick glance, many people might not notice any difference in some cases, but the relationship between the player’s hand and the fretboard is so crucial and subtle, that just a matter of tiny millimetres can make a huge difference – the difference in fact, between you loving a guitar or maybe even loathing it!

What’s the Nut Width of a Wide Neck Guitar?

A regular guitar may have a width at nut of 1 11/16″, while a wide neck would have a width at nut of 1 7/8″, for instance.

We’re talking about minimal differences here, but which play a crucial factor on how much playable you will think a guitar is – depending on how comfortable either of them feels on your hand!

Going back to Gibson, here’s another comparison: the maligned 2015 Les Paul had a width at nut of  1.795″, whereas “normal” Les Paul Standard has a width at nut of 1.695″. That’s right – 0.1″ of difference that’s enough to make someone simply hate an instrument!

But that’s the crux here – it’s not about the instrument, because there’s nothing wrong with a wide neck, it’s just a matter of: do YOU actually need one?

Guitar Companies Who Make Wide Neck Guitars

There are brands who’ve been adopting the wide neck design, over the years, besides Gibson.

The Zarley Wide Neck Guitars was founded by Tracy Todd, who decided to make wide neck models after years struggling with playing standard guitars, and their instruments have been welcomed by players who fancied wide necks:

Zarley Wide Neck

Many “Heavy Rock” brands such as Ibanez, Jackson, BC Rich also make guitars with necks wider than the usual Fenders, Gibsons etc you see around. 

Best Fingerpicking (“Fingerstyle”) Guitars?

Another common use for wide neck guitars is for those who play guitar “finger-picking” style… whatever the size of your hand! Though most fingerpicking guitarists use acoustic guitars, you can also use electrics for that style, and wider necks offer a distinct advantage, due to the wider width at nut and string spacing.

Wide Neck Guitars: for Beginners, too?

Perhaps another angle we could look at, is that wide neck guitars are also perfect for beginners and less experienced players, as it may be easier to try chords. Many people start on guitar playing a cheap Classical acoustic guitar (also known as Spanish or flamenco guitars) which are usually about 2″ wide (approx 49-52mm).

So we can’t see why wouldn’t beginners opting for an electric guitar not enjoy a wide neck model, in fact it could make learning even easier.

Is wide neck right for you? Well… first look at your hands, then let us know!

All You Need To Know About… Wide Neck Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com

David Bowie has had many different faces and personas over the years, but, surprisingly, one has been overlooked by most – David Bowie, the guitarist. In a way, it’s not very surprisingly, considering he was far from being a guitar hero, and, most importantly, has collaborated with some truly stellar guitarists who contributed greatly to his music, including: Mick Ronson, Carlos Alomar, Earl Slick, Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Nile Rodgers and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Quite an impressive list!

Which Guitars Did David Bowie Play?

Though not primarily a guitarist, Bowie had a consistent taste for vintage, rare guitars and his choice of instrument often changed with his ever-changing musical directions. Here’s a guide to some of his most notable guitars. We usually talk about electric guitars, but in Bowie’s case we can’t help but mention a few acoustics, too… after all, he was a huge fan of 12-string acoustic models, throughout his career! In any case – Bowie was a true connoisseur, and his choice of guitars over the years is nothing short of fascinating! 

Here’s Bowie’s career – in 20 rare, amazing guitars.

1) Framus 12-String Acoustic (1965-66)

Of course, many of you will know that Bowie started his musical career as a saxophone player, and then became the frontman of different bands (The Mannish Boys, The Lower Third) but never playing a guitar. This pic of an young David Jones with a Framus 12-string  is the earliest photograph of Bowie with a guitar.

David Bowie circa 1965-66 with Framus 12-string 

According to Bowie biographer Paul Trynka, Bowie bought a guitar in late 1965. Considering Bowie’s well-documented taste for 12-string acoustics in later years, it’s fair to assume that the Framus in the photograph was indeed his first guitar, though there has never been any specific information about it. It’s interesting to note that his guitar had pickup, volume and tone controls – perhaps it was modded and bought second-hand by the still struggling Bowie. Little trivia: the guitar was redburst. 

Playing guitar was an important step in David Bowie’s career, as he started to use the instrument to compose songs, such as “Maid Of Bond Street” and his first true classic, “Can’t Help Thinking About Me”.

2) Gibson B45 12-String (1968-69)

Bowie performing with Feathers

After the commercial failure of his 1967 debut album, Bowie tried other directions, including joining Lindsey Kemp’s mime troup, buddhism and forming folky trio Feathers with his girlfriend Hermione Farthingale and John Hutchinson. During this period, Bowie used a Gibson B-45 12-string acoustic.

Gibson B-45, as played by David Bowie

He’s never been seen or photographed with this guitar again, after the end of Feathers. We actually believe this is the first time this guitar has ever been mentioned in relation to Bowie, as we couldn’t find anything else elsewhere. Well, now you know!

3) Hagstrom 12-String Acoustic (1969-1972)

Bowie live at the Beckenham Free Festival in 1969, with his Hagstrom.

This is perhaps Bowie’s most legendary guitar. It’s believed it’s the one he used to write his first hit, ‘Space Oddity’, as well as used live and to write most ‘Ziggy Stardust’-era songs, including ‘Starman’.

Curiously enough, the guitar is now on display at the ‘Beatles Story’ museum, in Liverpool. At some point, it seems to have had pickup and tone & volume controls added to it, though it’s not shown with this configuration in any Bowie photos.

David Bowie’s Hagstrom on display in Liverpool.

4) Espana 12-String Acoustic (1969)

Bowie and his Espana 12-string

This guitar was used on a famous promo shot for the ‘Space Oddity’ single, but strangely enough, there’s not a whole lot info about it. It might have been used just as a prop for the photograph. It looks very similar to the Hagstrom 12-string, and it could indeed be the one he’s using in other pics and footage, but it’s hard to be sure!

5) Guild 12-String Acoustic (1971)

David Bowie live in 1971 with Guild 12-string

When David Bowie toured the US for the first time, to promote ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ in 1971, he could be seen playing a Guild 12-string acoustic. There’s no report or pics of him using one before or since, so he probably just borrowed it for the tour.

6) Harptone 12-string (1972-83)

Bowie and his Ziggy-era Harptone 12-string

This Harptone 12-string is “the” Ziggy-era Bowie acoustic. He used it when touring with the Spiders From Mars and this guitar can be seen on most footage from the era. 

Curiously enough, it seems Bowie decided to dust it off years later, after the release of Let’s Dance, as this live pic suggests:

Eighties Bowie meets Ziggy-era acoustic.

7) Harptone 12-String Jumbo (1972-75)

Bowie Harptone 12 Jumbo

Many people don’t realise this, but Bowie also regularly used ANOTHER Harptone 12-string, which at first sight looks similar to the previous one, but you’ll notice that it has a different scratchplate and is also bigger. He used this model on the second, Ziggy-era “Space Oddity” video; during the Ziggy tour and up until the Young Americans- era.

8) Egmond 12-String, Blue (1972)

Bowie and his blue Egmond.

This is one of Bowie’s most important guitars – if not for anything else, simply for being the guitar he used on the watershed moment of his career – playing “Starman” on Top Of The Pops, which finally launched Bowie as a bona fide popstar in the UK! He also used the Egmond on a few promo shots, and that seems to be about it.

9) Vox Teardrop Mark XII 12-String (1972)

There’s no record of Bowie using this cool Vox guitar other than in 1972, for promo pics. Years later, he used a Vox Teardrop Mark VI for the recording of one of his best songs in the Eighties, ‘Absolute Beginners’. The guitar is now on display at the Hard Rock Cafe in Warsaw. There’s no photo of him and this guitar, though.

10) Gibson 1972 Deluxe Les Paul (1972)

David Bowie and a Gibson Les Paul

David Bowie was always very conscious about his image and symbolism. That’s why he posed with a borrowed Les Paul on the cover of the “Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars” album – to show the world he was now a tougher, “rock’n’roll” act.  Maybe for this reason, he was up for using a Les Paul during his 1972 USA tour.

Presented to Bowie by Gibson, he used it live and on the ‘Jean Genie’ promo film. But given his more esoteric tastes in guitars, it’s not surprising that it soon became Mick Ronson’s back up guitar, never to be used by Bowie again. 

11) Hagstrom I Kent PB- 24-G (1974)

Now we’re talking! The red Hagstrom I Kent PB-24G guitar was Bowie’s first truly iconic electric guitar, which Eastwood Guitars are now bringing back – check it out HERE.

Though many fans will recognise and love it, this guitar was only used in promo shots for his ‘Diamond Dogs’ album, and there’s no record of him ever using it elsewhere, apart from a TV appearance:

As most hardcore Bowie fans may know, he played most guitar parts on the ‘Diamond Dogs’ album, but according to those who worked with him, his guitar choice during the sessions was a Dan Armstrong plexiglass model – which he’s never been pictured with… a shame! Unless, those recollections are slightly wrong and they really meant the next guitar…

12) Dan Armstrong 341 (1976)

Bowie’s Dan Armstrong 341

Yes, David Bowie had for sure another Dan Armstrong guitar, but it was not a plexiglass model! Auctioned in 1991, this is an important guitar. Besides featuring on a famous pic used for the Sound + Vision compilation, it was also used to write one of Bowie’s finest albums. According to Bowie, in ’91: “I’ve had this Dan Armstrong guitar since the early 70s. I wrote most of the songs for Station to Station on it.” Considering the cronology, it may have been used on ‘Diamond Dogs’, too.

13) Custom Fender Telecaster, Natural (1976)

Bowie and a customized Fender Telecaster

During the tour to promote ‘Station To Station’, Bowie played a custom Fender Telecaster, with 3 pickups with individual on/off switches. A pretty cool guitar, never seen since.

14) Fender Stratocaster, Red and Sunburst (1977)

Bowie and his Red Strat

Two  more conventional choices, during Bowie’s least conventional period! In 1977 Bowie could be seen playing a red Stratocaster for the ‘Be My Wife’ promo, one of the most commercial tracks from ‘Low’, which became a single. 

Bowie was also spotted playing a sunburst Strat that same year, for his duet with Marc Bolan, on Bolan’s TV show. This guitar belonged to Marc, who gave it to Bowie as he turned up without one on the day!

David Bowie with a Strat and Marc Bolan.

15) Gibson L4, Black (1989-90)

Bowie and his Gibson L4

Owned and used by David Bowie in the studio, on stage and while on tour with Tin Machine, accompanied by a Sound + Vision tour program showing Bowie playing this guitar, a signed letter of authenticity from Reeves Grabels and guitar picks. The guitar can be seen in videos for the Tin Machine 1 album, in Music News reports and was used heavily in the studio for the recording of Tin Machine II. 

16) Gibson Chet Atkins Country Gentleman, Wine Red (1990)

Bowie and his Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman

The guitar was used on stage by Bowie during his March – September of 1990, Sound + Vision World Tour.

Bowie also subsequently used this guitar during studio sessions for his 1995 concept album “Outside.”

17) Takamine FP 400SC (1990)

Bowie and his 12-string Takamine

Bowie used this guitar during his 1990 Sound + Vision tour. It was his main acoustic guitar then, used on classic hits such as ‘Space Odyssey’. The tour included 108 concerts over seven months in more than 80 cities around the world. Bowie promoted the tour as a “greatest hits” tour and stated it was the last time he was going to play songs from his back catalog. 

18) Steinberger GL2, Custom Silver (1991-92)

Bowie and hiscustom Steinberger

Bowie was a big fan of headless guitars, since he saw Tin Machine’s Reeves Gabrel’s: “David saw mine and decided he wanted one like it. My guitar tech, Andy Spray, called the factory in Newburgh to see if they could make another chrome L series. Apparently, they had a guitar they used as a test run for the chroming process. That one had a normal fretboard (it did not have a chromed fretboard) making Bowie’s copycat completely playable while mine was not. The non chromed fretboard is the easiest way to tell them apart.”

19) Supro Dual Tone (2003)

Bowie and his Supro Dual Tone

The Supro Dual Tone is one of his most iconic later-years guitars. He used it during his last world tour, in 2003, and it even appears on his 2010 live album of that tour, ‘A Reality Tour’:

Bowie ‘A Reality Tour’ cover

More recently, Eastwood did a great job at recreating this model (first made famous by Link Wray in the Fifties) as the Airline Twin Tone – a fitting tribute to Wray’s model, but now also a great choice for fans of Bowie who also play guitar…

The Airline Twin Tone DLX, inspired by a Supro like Bowie’s. NOW FOR SALE! Only $754 USD

20) Hohner G2, Red (2013)

Bowie and his Hohner G2

Bowie went back to a headless guitar in the video of ‘Valentine’s Day’, from his superb comeback album ‘The Next Day’. As ever, his choice of instrument was unusual but made total sense with his tastes over the years. Unique just like the man himself.

The Guitars Of David Bowie from MyRareGuitars.com

Sure, the instrument was favored by the likes of early blues artists Leadbelly and Blind Willie McTell in the 1920’s and ’30s, but at that time the instrument would have been used as an accompaniment at best, on most cases. That said, their use of the twelve string in blues music is perhaps the main reason the twelve-string began to come to prominence in the rock and roll world of the ’50s and ’60s. Their influence, along with the skyrocketing popularity of the electric guitar at the time gave musicians the idea to see what a twelve string could bring to their songs. The result? In a word… “Jangle!” We all know the sound. It is instantly recognizable as a twelve string guitar, and when you hear it, it truly makes you want to have one.

The following is my top twelve list of songs that evoke that feeling. Whether you love or hate the song, you can’t deny the infectious sound of the twelve string, nor can you help but wonder “would the song be the same without it?” To keep things interesting, I’ve only allowed myself to list one song per artist.

The Byrds – Mr. Tambourine Man

What sort of list of twelve string songs would be complete without mentioning “the Byrds”?! They’re easily one of the first groups to come to mind when you think of that twelve string jangle. Influenced by the Beatles and the film “A Hard Days Night”, Byrds guitar player Roger McGuinn picked up a Rickenbacker twelve string to incorporate into their sound. Their cover of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” was the first single to be released by the Byrds, and went on to become the first smash hit in the world of folk-rock.

The Beatles – Ticket to Ride

As George Harrison and the Beatles can be credited with bringing the twelve string guitar to mainstream pop music, they are definitely deserving of a spot on this list. They’ve got more than a couple songs that could stand here in place of “Ticket to Ride”, but that intro riff just showcases the twelve string perfectly. Not to mention, its pretty simple to play!

Rush – Closer to the Heart

Fast forward a few years, and you can hear the twelve string being used in a very similar way to those early bands who pioneered its use. The guitar introduces the song here, and really just sets the tone for the whole song. In addition to the arpeggiated melody played in the intro, this song makes great use of the “full” sound you can get by strumming on a twelve string. With the full band playing, the guitar really fills in its spot and can clearly be heard as a twelve string.

Boston – More than a Feeling

Perhaps their biggest hit, “More than a Feeling” was featured on Boston’s debut album in 1976. Again, we have the twelve string guitar introducing the song with arpeggiated chords. There’s a distinct “pretty” sort of sound you get when you hear a suspended chord resolve on its major counterpart, and there’s no denying that doing so on a twelve string just adds to that “prettiness”! The intro to this song makes good use of this, as well as a chord progression that makes it sound circular and complete.

Tom Petty – Free Fallin

Here’s another example of those suspended chord transitions! In fact, it even revolves around a D chord shape like in the previous song – but with a capo on your third fret. There really isn’t much to this song as far as guitar playing goes, but who doesn’t know this riff? The whole song is based on  those simple chords being strummed on a twelve string guitar. It simply wouldn’t have the same vibe if a six string was used in its place.

Bon Jovi – Wanted Dead or Alive

Anyone who grew up in the ’80s or ’90s will know the opening riff to this pop-rock anthem. Heck, anyone who listens to the radio should know it! For the “ballad” era of rock and roll, this song stands easily as one of the most recognizable. The descending Dm arpeggios in the beginning of the song are played on a twelve string, and the octave pairing of the G strings is what really gives the riff its mysterious, “shimmering” sound.

Led Zeppelin – Over the Hills and Far Away

Of all the great songs Zeppelin has written with a twelve string guitar, I always come back to “Over the Hills and Far Away” as my personal favourite. If you think it’s fun playing that intro riff on your six string, pick up a twelve string and give it a go. Instant satisfaction!

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

Just by reading the title of the song, you get the idea that the songwriter is yearning for someone (or something) from the past. Then you hear the subtle twelve string enter with an effect that makes it sound like it’s coming through an AM radio, and the mood is set! It’s one of the most recognizable songs in Pink Floyd’s catalog, and a fantastic example of a twelve string guitar being put to good use.

Wild Horses – Rolling Stones

Stripped back and straight to the point, “Wild Horses” is a rock ballad that gives us the raw simplicity of a twelve string being played as a rhythm instrument. Fun to strum along with, and an all around great song, it’s not a surprise that this one is often covered by rock bands around the world.

Give a Little Bit –  Roger Hodgson (Supertramp)

For whatever reason, it seems that there’s a universal acceptance that the key of D is where the 12 string “belongs”. Roger Hodgson’s “Give a Little Bit” is another one of many that are built around this key using a twelve string guitar. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… it’s another timeless classic!

And You And I – Yes

I chose to put “And You And I” on this list not only because it’s a great song, but also because the twelve string is really put through its paces here. From the opening of the song with its brilliant natural harmonics to the strumming patterns used in the verses of the song, the twelve string really shines in the forefront throughout.

The Eagles – Hotel California

Featuring one of the most well-known twelve string riffs in rock and roll history, “Hotel California” is likely one of the songs to have been on the tip of your tongue when you read the title of this article. It’s a classic that’s here to stay, and it’s hard to imagine the recording without the mysterious jangle of the twelve string.

4 x 12: Eastwood 12-String Guitars That’ll Blow Your Mind!

If you felt inspired by those twelve 12-string guitar songs, here’s a look at four amazing Eastwood 12 string guitars:

Classic 12:

Eastwood Classic 12

The Classic 12 is the perfect choice for that jingle-jangle Sixties vibe… it’s a veritable time-machine! Groovy.

Sidejack 12 and Sidejack 12 DLX

Eastwood Sidejack 12 DLX

The Eastwood Sidejack 12 is a totally rockin’ twelve-string guitar! Inspired on the legendary Mosrites as played by surf-music greats The Ventures and punk-rock icons the Ramones, the Sidejack 12 STD or the Sidejack 12 DLX (with Bigsby) go further than your jingle-jangly and can rock, too:

Surfcaster 12

Eastwood Surfcaster 12

This Eastwood Surfcaster 12 has got to be one of the most special 12-string guitars around! A tribute to the original Charvel Surfcaster, the Eastwood Surfcaster 12 is a versatile guitar that will sound great whether you play blues, country, shoegaze or anything in between!

12 Songs for 12 Strings from MyRareGuitars.com

1. Chord Changes – “Hey Joe”, by Jimi Hendrix

One of the first obstacles you’ll be faced with when learning to play is memorizing chords, and figuring out how the heck you’re supposed to contort your fingers to switch between them. The truth is, these “shapes” that your fingers need to be placed in are not built into your DNA. There’s nothing else you’ve ever had to do that requires your hand, wrist, or fingers to hold such patterns, and as such you’ve got to work them into shape. The only way to teach yourself (and your hand) these chords is through repetition and practise; it’s all about muscle memory here.

The song “Hey Joe” is a great introductory to chord changes for a few different reasons. The first is that it forces you to learn five essential major chords, C, G, D, A, and E. The second is… it’s only five chords! The entire rhythm guitar section of the song is just a loop of these five chords in a relatively simple strumming pattern, so if you can manage the switches, then you’ve got it down. The third reason deals with the chords in question. Some chords are easier to switch between than others, allowing you to leave a finger or two in the same spot. Some chords allow you to play all six strings, while others demand that you avoid a string or two. Some chords require the use of one finger to hold down multiple strings… and the list goes on. In “Hey Joe”, each chord is far enough apart from each other that you are required to make a substantial shape change, getting your hand used to arriving at and leaving each chord. It also exercises your strumming hand, as you’re required to play all six strings for a couple of the chords, and only some of the strings for the others. If you can play through this tune, then you’re well on your way to saying goodbye to your chord changing woes.

2. Fingerpicking – “Blackbird”, by The Beatles

If you’ve spent most of your practise time strumming chords, or plucking out melodies with your pick, learning to fingerpick might be a daunting task at first. This technique is, of course, all about your picking hand, and getting your fingers used to where your strings are. What I mean by that is, at first you will likely be looking down at your picking hand, making sure you use the “right” finger on the “right” string, etc. The more you practise, the more you will just get accustomed to the distance between each string, as well as various patterns that tend to appear in songs. This is part of the reason I like “Blackbird” for an introductory to this technique.

As far as the right hand is concerned, the song revolves around just two patterns. Try this: hold a G chord, and with your thumb and middle finger pluck the low E string and the open B string together at the same time. Then pluck the open G string on its own with your first finger. Repeat these over and over… and you’ve essentially got the picking hand pattern used for half of the song. Of course… your thumb will occasionally move to the A or D string, but you can worry about that later. A large portion of this song is about getting used to moving back and forth between your index finger and second finger, while maintaining a bass-line with your thumb…which is sort of the whole idea behind fingerpicking! It’s a great way to practise, while playing through a great song.

3. Counting / Rhythm – “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” by Stevie Ray Vaughan

The most important thing in playing a musical instrument is rhythm. Whether you’re playing on your own, or as part of a group, you need to be able to keep time. Some patterns are easy of course, just strumming along in 4/4 time, but if you really want to challenge yourself and start to unlock your “inner metronome”, you’ll need to try out some more complex patterns. Try to test yourself – whenever you play, keep your foot tapping along to the beat of whatever it is you’re playing. The opening riff in “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” is a good challenge for this – it combines a relatively simple melodic riff with a syncopated sort of rhythm. It contains various notes and rests that land both on and off the beat, making for an unexpected feel. With a stronger sense of rhythm and larger vocabulary of patterns, you will find it much easier both locking into a groove as well as coming up with your own ideas.

4. Power Chords – “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the Ramones

A power chord is just two notes of a chord played at the same time; the root, and the fifth. Doing so means that you don’t need to worry whether or not the chord in question is supposed to be major or minor, as both would have the same root and fifth anyways. You can incorporate the octave as well, as it doesn’t make things much more difficult, and adds a nice upper layer to the sound of the chord.
More often than not, you will find yourself playing power chords with their root note on either the low E string or the A string. Thanks to the way the guitar neck works, this means that the shape of these chords will never change.
For example, plant your first finger on the low E string of the fifth fret. Now plant your third finger on the A string of the seventh fret. You are now holding an “A5”  power chord! Want to add the octave? Just throw your pinky down on the D string of the seventh fret, below your third finger.
But what good would knowing how to play power chords be without knowing how to play some raw, straight to the point punk tunes to go with them? While they may not have invented them, the Ramones’ sound encapsulates everything that the “power” chord exists for; straight to the point, loud, and fast!
The song “Blitzkrieg Bop” will get you used to holding the power chord shape, as well as moving up and down the neck to play each chord. You’ll also have to jump between the E and A as your root note, which is important to become accustomed to.
In addition to this fretting hand technique, the strumming you’ll be doing with your other hand is just as important. You’re only playing two or three strings here, so of course you don’t want to hear the others. At first it will be easier to just limit yourself, and play only the strings you are holding in the chord. In this way, however, you’ll soon realize that you can’t quite capture the same power and energy that Johnny Ramone did. So how do you fix that?
Muting. Being able to mute strings properly with your left hand is what will bring your power chord strumming to the next level. It’s sort of hard to put it into text, but whilst you hold down that A5 power chord, try to also lightly lie your first finger down across all the strings below (like you’re playing a barre chord). Doing this means that it doesn’t matter how many strings you hit – the only ones that will ring are the ones you want to hear. THIS is how you get the “power” out of your power chords – pure aggression with the strumming hand, and precision / articulation with the fretting hand.

5. Soloing – “Californication” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

Playing a guitar solo is a culmination of things. It’s not just “playing a bunch of notes really fast”, but should be thought of moreso as the guitarists’ turn to takeover for the vocalist, and front the song. With that in mind, the way in which you approach your solo should be derived directly from the vibe of the song you are playing to. This means that you need to take everything into consideration – the chords used, the melody, the rhythm, the feel… the perfect solo is one that touches on all of these things, while throwing in bits of technique for flavour.
One way you can start to understand how to play a strong solo is to listen to guitar solos that you find to be memorable, and figure out what it is that they’ve done. Listen to the section as a whole, and try to emulate it. A good starter would be the solo in “Californication”. It isn’t blazing fast, but it is subtle and captures the essence of the song very well. You’ll pick up on a few techniques here and there throughout the solo, and start to be able to hear the difference between, for example, a bend and a slide, or a hammer-on and a picked note. It is also done in a clean tone, which means you are forced to nail the performance when you play it. Extremely over-driven amps have a tendency of “covering up” mistakes made when playing, so practising with a clean tone is a good way to truly hear what you’re putting into the guitar.

Technique 101: Five Songs You Should Learn from MyRareGuitars.com

The guitar is something that yes, has had various updates and reworks – but fundamentally, it’s really just the same as it’s always been. Six strings and a piece of wood, maybe throw in some electronics if that’s your thing… an E note is an E note and a B is a B, these are all things that haven’t changed.
Perhaps what has changed more so over the years than the guitar itself is the way in which they are played. Musicians who have experimented, looked for new ways to approach things and for ways to make sounds never before heard on a guitar are what make the instrument so versatile today. Here’s a few techniques we all know about and where they came from:

1. The Power Chord

How would punk and thrash metal have got anywhere if it weren’t for the use of these raw, stripped down, straight to the point delights of sound?
The power chord is, simply put, two notes played at the same time. They consist of a root note, and that note’s perfect fifth. While in theory, this sort of chord may have been used in music way before Pete Townsend blasted them out with his “windmill” strums, but it was the sound of over-driven guitars and rock music that really made them popular.
When you play more “full” chords with major or minor intervals, and add a bunch of gain and distortion to it, often times the resulting sound can become very messy and unclear – especially when paired with a full rock band. The frequencies within the two notes of a power chord mesh with each other in a way that allows them to remain clear, allowing you to crank the gain and really put some “power” behind your playing. A nice bonus is the fact that the shape of the chord remains constant all the way up and down the neck, allowing you to move between playing the chord and riffing much easier.
Use of the power chord on the guitar can be traced back to the early ’50s, in both Willie Johnson and Pat Hare’s playing – but perhaps the first mainstream and recognizable use would be by Link Wray in his hit song “Rumble”.

2.Controlled Feedback

When the electric guitar was first invented as an instrument, feedback was an unwanted noise that came along whenever a guitar was played at high volume levels. Over time, methods were discovered that could significantly reduce and even prevent these noises from occurring. However, at some point in time somebody said “but I want that sound… how can we use that in my song?”
Allegedly, the first known deliberate use of Feedback in a rock song appears in the intro to “I Feel Fine” by the Beatles. John Lennon created the sound by leaning his semi-acoustic guitar against a guitar amp. Since then, controlled feedback and noise has been used by guitarists everywhere,  most notably by artists like Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Pete Townsend, and Lou Reed. More recently, manipulated feedback has become a signature sound among noise rockers and shredders alike, being featured in recordings and live performances by artists including Sonic Youth, Steve Vai, Nirvana, Tool, Nine Inch Nails, and Robert Fripp. Speaking of Robert Fripp, here’s an interesting quote from Tony Visconti on Robert’s work on David Bowie’s “Heroes”:
“Fripp [stood] in the right place with his volume up at the right level and getting feedback…Fripp had a technique in those days where he measured the distance between the guitar and the speaker where each note would feed back. For instance, an ‘A’ would feed back maybe at about four feet from the speaker, whereas a ‘G’ would feed back maybe three and a half feet from it. He had a strip that they would place on the floor, and when he was playing the note ‘F’ sharp he would stand on the strip’s ‘F’ sharp point and ‘F’ sharp would feed back better. He really worked this out to a fine science, and we were playing this at a terrific level in the studio, too.”

3. Fingerpicking

This may seem so second nature that it’s hard to believe that someone, at some point in time had to come up with this as a method of playing. It’s not that playing an instrument with one’s fingers was first done on a guitar, but there have been so many evolutions and intricacies of this method particular to the guitar that I couldn’t go without mentioning it.
Fingerpicking is what you could refer to as a sub-category of the term “fingerstyle guitar”, which is a broader term used to describe the “playing of a guitar with one’s fingers”. Specifically, fingerpicking as a technique is used to play types of folk, country, blues, and rock music, and can be dated back to the days of “Ragtime” music in the early 20th century. As ragtime became popular, southern blues-guitar players sought to mimic the piano style by using their thumb as the pianist’s left hand, and their other fingers as the right. As a result, the style typically incorporates a steady rhythm pattern using the thumb on the bass strings, and a melody using the index, middle, and ring fingers on the treble strings.
Some of the earliest known recordings of this style can be heard by blues guitarists Blind Blake, Mississippi John Hurt, and Memphis Minnie. It wasn’t long before country artists such as Merle Travis and Chet Atkins picked up on the style, and added their own signature twist to it. Since then, countless guitarists have used this style across a wide spectrum of music, all contributing to the technique we know today.

4. “Sweep” Picking

Perhaps most widely associated with speed-metal and shredding these days, the origins of the “sweep” are heavily rooted in Jazz. The technique was first used by virtuoso jazz guitarists Barney Kessel, Les Paul, and Tal Farlow in the ’50s, and didn’t make its way into the mainstream rock world until Ritchie Blackmore and Steve Hackett brought it there in the ’70s and ’80s. In the early ’90s, jazz-fusion guitarist Frank Gambale brought sweep picking into the limelight with both his music, and his instructional video / book about the technique. Today, it’s rare that you’d hear a new speed metal band that doesn’t use this technique, and shred guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen love to use these all over their solos.
This technique is essentially the playing of arpeggios at a very high rate of speed. That said, the way in which you pick the strings is not how you would typically pluck individual notes. In order to achieve such a high speed, it’s almost as if you are strumming a chord. Your picking hand moves in one fluid motion, while your fretting hand takes care of the note selection. This is a tricky technique to master, but an impressive one once you wrap your head around it!

5. Guitar Tapping

Tapping is not a technique that is exclusive to the guitar. It can be done on virtually any stringed instrument – in fact there are instruments like the Chapman Stick that require the use of this method in order to play it. The technique can be done with either one or two hands, and involves the repetitive use of hammer-ons and pull-offs (“tapping” the fingerboard) to create notes.
Similar techniques have been around for centuries, both having been used on instruments like the violin or the Turkish baglama, but the first known usage of tapping on a guitar didn’t happen until sometime in the mid-20th century. This is where things get a little foggy – ask ten guitarists who invented tapping and you’ll get ten different answers!
There is footage of Roy Smeck using the technique on a ukulele in 1932, and Harry DeArmond is alleged to have used a sort of two-hand-technique to test his pickups. Jazz guitarists like Barney Kessell are said to have used the technique in the ’50s and ’60s, and Chet Atkins did it in the ’70s – around the same time that tapping started to be seen in rock and roll. Steve Hackett, Leslie West, Frank Zappa, and Billy Gibbons are all known to have utilized the technique at this time, but the one who really launched it into the mainstream was Eddie van Halen. When his guitar solo “Eruption” was released to the world, it was like nothing ever heard before.
Regardless of who “invented” the technique, what’s important is that all of these musicians helped make it what it is today. Tapping is just another technique that’s hard to imagine the guitar being without.

Five Guitar Techniques and the Players Who Made Them Famous from MyRareGuitars.com

1. It’s bad for your guitar to remove all the strings at the same time when re-stringing your guitar.

When you take your guitar to a tech or a luthier for any sort of fret work, they’re most likely going to be taking all the strings off to grant themselves proper access to the frets. As long as the string tension is reduced gradually, then there’s nothing wrong with taking all the strings off at the same time. What you want to avoid is cutting the strings while they are still tuned to pitch – the drastic drop in tension could potentially cause harm. Also, if your guitar has a floating bridge, you will actually save yourself time by re-stringing it one string at a time. Maintaining as much tension as you can during the re-string process will make it easier to balance the spring tension afterwards, if you even need to.

2. “My guitar has a bad hum, and when I touch the strings / bridge / metal knobs it goes away. It must not be grounded properly!”

I hear this one all the time. Naturally, one would assume that your body is acting as a ground, soaking up that hum when touching these components. The thing that seems to be forgotten is that your body naturally creates electricity. If you had an improper or reversed ground, touching anything metal on the guitar would actually just cause your body’s electrical noise to be amplified, thus increasing that nauseating buzz sound. If the hum gets quieter when touching metal guitar components, it’s actually a sign that your guitar is grounded properly.
Pretty much every guitar has some sort of 60 cycle hum that is more evident at higher volumes. If you find a guitar that seems to have a worse buzz than another one, it is likely due to a problem with shielding rather than grounding. It is actually amplifying electrical noises from outside the guitar’s circuit. There are things you can do to help with shielding problems such as using higher quality cabling, better pots and wiring, or even rimming the electronics compartment with tin foil – but at the end of the day, you will most likely never quite get rid of that noise entirely. It just comes with the territory!

3. Playing an un-grounded guitar is extremely dangerous!

Well, maybe for your ears it is. The amount of amperage an electric guitar produces simply isn’t enough to be lethal, or even cause any harm. What you need to be wary of is your amplifier, and the source you are plugging it into. People have literally died in the past from amplifiers that were not properly grounded. So if you notice a shock when you touch your strings, or when your lips touch the microphone while playing, it might be a good idea to get your amp and wall outlet checked out!

4. “Your tune-o-matic bridge is on backwards.”

This is a common issue you’ll find players debating. When you look at a tune-o-matic bridge, the intonation adjustment screws are on one side only. The argument is always over which side these should be facing for the bridge to be on “properly”. Quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. There is no universal right or wrong direction for the bridge to be on; it should be placed in the direction that makes the most sense for the particular guitar it is on. For example, if your bridge happens to be located really close to your bridge pickup, and you like your bridge pickup to sit rather close to the strings, it might be in your best interest to have the intonation adjustment screws facing the tail of the guitar. That way it’s not impossible to intonate.
Many tune-o-matic bridges feature 3 saddles facing one direction, while the other three face the opposite way. Others feature saddles all angled the same direction. Here’s a quick doodle I did to help picture a saddle from the side:

Consider this: depending on the break-angle of the string, it may be best to have the intonation screws facing the pickups as shown here. In rare occasions the break is so great that the string makes contact with the screw, which is of course not something you want.
Also in the diagram, you can see that the string rests on the saddle at its leftmost side. This means you have more room to shorten the string than you do to lengthen it. If your E string’s saddle is facing this way, for example, and it consistently intonates too sharp (even with the saddle pushed all the way to the right), consider flipping the bridge or saddles. With the saddles  facing the opposite direction, this will give you almost an entire saddle’s length extra to lengthen the string!

5. A Nitro-finished electric guitar sounds better than a poly-finished one.

To me, this is just a similar argument to “a les paul sounds better than a strat”. It’s entirely subjective. Is there even a difference? I don’t know, I’ve never A-B’d two identical guitars that had the same weight, wood, shape, and electronics, but one had a nitro finish and the other had poly. Some would argue that poly “chokes” the resonance of the guitar more than nitro does, therefore making for an inferior sounding instrument. I can see such an argument holding more water for an acoustic guitar – these are entirely dependent upon their wood and the way it vibrates. That said, I’m not really convinced that a slightly thicker compound would ruin the tone of an electric guitar. Sure, the finish might look, feel, and age differently, but I’m not going to squander the opportunity to try out a potentially great sounding guitar just because of its finish. If I play a guitar and like how it sounds, then it sounds good. That’s my criteria, anyway…

6. You need to have natural talent to become a “guitar god”.

I find that this would be almost insulting to every “guitar god” out there. It’s as if to say they inherited their talent rather than worked for it, when in fact these musicians worked very hard to be able to do what they do. It’s true that if you’re brought up on music, then maybe you’ll have a bit of a knack for it when you decide to start playing an instrument – but it still requires a lot of dedication and practise. If anything, it could be argued that you need good people/business skills coupled with skill and ability to become a “guitar god”. There are and have been TONS of incredible guitar players out there that we’ve probably never heard of because in the music business, there’s more to it than just being “really really good”.

7. You need to practise for several hours each day to become a good player.

To this I say: quality over quantity. You could practise for 8 hours a day and go nowhere if you aren’t being productive about it. Without proper instruction, research, and practise, you can easily end up developing bad habits that hinder your overall playing, or just spend too much time on something that isn’t helping you. Thirty minutes to an hour of focused, co-ordinated practise is more than enough to keep you on track and on your way to becoming a good guitarist. Private lessons are also a great way to help you establish a good practise routine.

8.  You need a 100 watt stack amp if you want to play in a loud rock band.

Unless you plan on playing in a sold out arena or stadium some time soon, then you really don’t need that much power. Keep this in mind: twice as much wattage is not synonymous with twice as much volume. It actually takes ten times the output power to effectively double the human ear’s perception of volume. In other words, if you were thinking of getting an amp that could be twice as loud as a 50 watt, you would need a 500 watt – not a 100.
If the typical venue you’ll be playing in is a bar, or a small theater, you probably won’t be able to set your 100 watt amp’s level too high before your bandmates (and the sound technician) are screaming at you to turn down. The problem is, in order to get the best tone out of your amp, normally you need to run it pretty hot. Using a 30 – 50 watt amp is more than enough to allow you to play at a good level and achieve the tone you want for a decent sized venue. Not to mention you can easily get mic’d up and run through the sound board for a better control over the mix!

9. The fatter the string, the better the tone.

Once again, we have a subjective statement. To me, this phrase should be “the fatter the string, the different the tone”. Artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Zak Wylde have been known for creating unbelievable tones using their super thick gauge strings. That’s a fact; these are two incredible, individual guitar tones that are “owned” by these two artists. That said, there are other guitarists who have created super heavy sounds using thin strings. James Hetfield? .009. Eddie Van Halen? Also .009. Jimmy Page? He prefers .008! My advice: use what feels and sounds good to you.

10. If it’s not “brand name”, it’s crap.

I think this is society’s fault. We feel this way about everything… Going for a run? Get a pair of Nike’s! Want to go for a coffee? Only if it’s Starbucks! Name two good guitar brands… I bet you just thought of two words that rhyme with “blender” and “bibson”.
That’s not to say that these brands aren’t good – many of the guitars they make are! They’re the big guys who have stood the test of time, and they’ve done so for a reason. Partially because they started off with a great product, and partially because of advertising and word of mouth. What you need to remember though is that just because it has the name on the headstock, that doesn’t make it good. These brands make various quality levels of instruments, and while their higher-end stuff might be fantastic, their lower end guitars really aren’t any different from others at the same price-point. You could take two of the exact same model guitar priced at, say, $700 and one could be incredible, and the other a dud – especially when coming from such large, mass production facilities.
The best coffee I’ve ever had is from a small, family-run restaurant near my hometown. Not a Starbucks. In my opinion, the best guitar you’ll ever play could be one built by a local luthier specifically for you. That doesn’t sound like crap to me!

Debunking Ten Common Guitar Myths from MyRareGuitars.com

     Forgive me if I’ve told this autobiographical story before (age isn’t kind to short-term memory), but it’s pertinent to this guitar. I didn’t really become interested in electric guitars until the mid-1980s, even though I’d been playing for 30 years by then.
My first electric was a used Gibson ES-225T in the late 1950s that I used to learn Chet
Atkins licks. I switched over to acoustics when folk music was big, playing electrics
again in the late ‘60s in a blues/r’n’b band. Our best number was a spirited version of
the Box Top’s “The Letter.” Still like that song. Then I became a classical guitarist.
And a writer. These are not, fyi, aerobic activities. And I don’t descend from a line of
skinny people.

By the early 1980s I felt I needed some physical activity. I went to Sears and
bought a primitive exercycle. I got a good set of Koss headphones to hook up to my
KLH. But I needed some juice. Despite playing Bach, Sor and Giuliani for nearly a
decade, I’d kept up with my Guitar Player magazine subscription. In its pages I’d been
reading about Ozzie Osbourne (whoever the hell he was) and his rave new guitarist
Randy Rhoads. So I went out and bought a copy of his record (when a record was a
record, an actual vinyl artifact with 12” cover artwork), Blizzard of Oz.

Indelibly imprinted on my brain is that first bike ride. I set the needle at the very
outside of the lead-in groove and hopped on the bike.
DuddleyDuddelyDAHdadaDuddleyDuddelyDAHdada. To quote a current Hyundai
commercial, “Holy [bleep].” As a guitarist, I hate song lyrics on principle, but when the
singer croons “What’s the future of mankind, don’t ask me ‘cause I got left behind; Don’t
ask me, I don’t know,” well, I’m hooked. Better than “The Letter.” Randy Rhoads? I’d
never heard guitar playing like that. Bach for rock n’ roll.

What followed was a descent into Heavy Metal. I’d missed all popular music
after 1972 or ‘73. Three Dog Night and Jethro Tull were the last things I’d listened to
before switching to Julian Bream and John Williams. By total coincidence I found
myself at the beginning of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, affectionately dubbed
by critics at the time NWOBHM. Hmm…

I bought magazines. I devoured records. I began to notice the guitars. The
tastes of the NWOBHM and the nascent American correlatives, which would eventually
become known as neo-classical metal, liked Flying Vees and Explorers and other
non-Spanish-shaped guitars, often with custom graphic finishes.

It would be a few years before I started collecting electric guitars, by which time
the guitars of the NWOBHM were becoming passé. But my interest had been piqued
and I began picking up some of the more noble examples. Like this 1983 Aria Pro II XX
Deluxe, part of their XX Series.

Basically, it’s a mini-Vee with graphics. I’m not sure
what the body is, but it’s lightweight, maybe poplar or alder. I don’t know who made it.
Aria was/is a trading company. Trading companies did the marketing and distribution,
working with a family of factories to provide whatever product they needed. Many of
Aria’s better models were produced by the legendary Matsumoku in Japan, but these
XXs do not have that vibe. Instead, these remind me more of the Ibanez Axstars of
1986 which were made not at FujiGen but at Chushin, also in Japan. To quote Randy
Newman’s theme for Monk, I could be wrong now, but I don’t think so.

If you’re going to hop around on-stage in Spandex—which I, needing an
exercycle, sure as hell would never do—you could do a lot worse than this Aria. The
neck is lacquered black, which increases speed. The two Protomatic V humbuckers
(probably Gotohs) are decently hot. In 1983, when this was made, locking vibratos had
yet to conquer the world, so we still have a traditional style. This particular guitar was
found as new old stock, never having been previously sold or played. Pretty neat.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since these heavy metal guitars were
popular. Not least of which is being able to buy inexpensive Japanese guitars for sale
in the U.S. Nevermind whatever is the latest iteration of Heavy Metal, which is eons
away from NWOBHM. And my exercycle rides hooked up to my KLH. (Not to mention
even KLH.) For the record (history, not vinyl), I try to walk 3 miles every day, plugged
into an iPod with SkullCandy earbuds listening to…sorry, the latest Solomon Silber or
Ana Vidovic classical guitar CD. But, I confess, every once in a while on my walks I dial
down to Ozzie and Randy wailing on “Don’t ask me, I don’t know (know, know, know).”

Don’t Ask Me, I Don’t Know! from MyRareGuitars.com

Have you ever listened to or overheard a conversation between seasoned
musicians? The phrases, terminology and body language are very different from
non musicians. Depending on what type of musician you are talking to, the words,
lingo and animations vary. For example a conversation between two jazz
performers might sound like this:

That cat can really play in the pocket on Birds up-tempo swing tunes, and I
was digging the groove on the walking bass line.

Rock musicians might sound like this:

The drummer crushed it with those 32nd note fills on the hi hat, and I was down
with the syncopation of the double bass drums on his second solo.

Finally the well trained classical musician who wrote the book on terminology
might sound like this:

Did you notice the strings in perfect unison with the reeds while building a
perfect crescendo at the start of the 2nd ending in the 3rd movement.

There are thousands of musical terms that make communicating easier for musicians.
Today I will show you a few of the basic terms that are built into almost
all styles of music. I will break them down into 5 categories with 3 sub categories.

#1 Parts of a Song

a. Verse – In typical popular music the first set of lyrics would be considered
the 1st verse, and would almost always change going from verse to verse telling the
story.

b. Chorus – Unlike the verse the chorus usually retains the same lyrics and is
often the most memorable part of the song.

c. Bridge – In pop and rock songs, the bridge is a section where the lyrics or
music connect or bridge the verse to the chorus. This is usually done with a
different melody line and with different lyrics.

#2 Style of a Tune

a. Swing – A form of American music developed in the 1930’s which has a
strong rhythmic groove or drive. The emphasis in swing is on the offbeat of the
music.

b. Waltz – In a Jazz context Waltz would be any piece of music written in ¾
time or 3 beats per measure. In classical music it is also played in ¾ time but
traditionally used for ballroom dancing or folk dance.

c. Bossa – Short for Bossa Nova is a genre of Brazilian music made popular
in the 1950’s and 60’s. Bossa has a swaying feel rather than a swinging feel. Bossa
like most Latin based styles of music incorporates a lot of syncopation.

#3 Navigating a Tune

a. Coda – Primarily a term that designates a passage of music to the end of
the tune. The symbol looks like a circle with two lines going through it.

b. D.C al fine – D.C. or (Da Capo) means repeat to beginning of the song, then
to the word fine which means end.

c. Treble Clef – Or G Clef is a sign indicating the pitch of written notes. The
Treble Clef as its name implies, is reserved for instruments that can produce notes
with a higher pitch as opposed to the bass clef designated for lower pitched
instruments.

#4 Dynamics

a. Forte – Is a musical term which means to play loudly at that section of the
music.

b. Decrescendo – Is a sign that looks like this ( >) letting you know that the
music will have a gradual decrease in force or loudness.

c. Fermata – Is a prolonged tone, chord, or rest beyond its indicated time. A
good example would be in the tune Happy Birthday, when you come to the
person’s name it is held for a longer time than the music allows for. Or in the Star
Spangled Banner when you get to the word free.

#5 Tempo

a. Andante – Means in a moderately slow and even tempo. It can also mean
gently or flowing.

b. B.P.M. – Refers to beats per minute which is attached to a number. For
example a song that has 80 bpm is exactly twice as slow than a tune that has 160
bpm in it. Marching band and Disco music usually play songs that uses 120 beats
per minute probably because it is easy to march to and also to dance to.

c. Up – Short for upbeat, is a jazz term indicating that the music should be
played quickly.

Just like most professions there are ways to communicate that are outside of
(normal) conversation. A good example might be the Lingo between Lawyers,
Doctors, and Law Enforcement. Another good example would be wildlife. We
clearly don’t understand the language but they are communicating quite well with
each other.

Source:  https://skypealesson.com offer private
online Music, Art and Technology lessons. They use top of the line equipment and
have incredibly fast internet to guarantee that your lessons are in HD video and
audio. All of their teachers are accredited in their fields and have years of practical
experience in teaching and performing. All lessons are taught from their central
offices, they offer affordable prices, and are extremely competitive with other
tutors.

Musical Communication from MyRareGuitars.com

Whatever the reason, if you’re interested in learning to play and improve, consider the following ten tips to help smooth out the process!

1. Guitar Maintenance

This should, in my opinion, be the top priority when it comes to playing or learning to play. If you’re just starting to learn, having a guitar that gets fret buzz all over the neck, plays out of tune, and just isn’t functioning the way it should won’t exactly encourage you to play. You’ll constantly be thinking “what am I doing wrong?”, when you may in fact be playing just fine. Besides that, the sooner you understand the importance of taking care of your instrument the better.

For someone who has been playing longer, having a guitar setup to your liking will make a huge difference in your playing. The thickness of your strings, your action, intonation, pickup height… even the cleanliness of your guitar all affect how it feels when you play. If you’re looking to improve, it only makes sense for your guitar to feel comfortable. After all, you play because it’s enjoyable, right? Keep it that way!

2. Use a Metronome

Timing is everything. It’s natural to want to speed up when you get excited, or slow down too much to compensate. While sometimes this can make for a cool sounding effect, at the end of the day you want to be able to play along with a steady beat. Using a metronome prepares you for this – it isn’t human; the speed you set it to is what it’s going to stay at. You can experiment with a metronome in different ways. As a beginner, try using it to simply keep the beat for you while you strum. Later on, try using it to play around with trickier rhythms and phrasing. Whichever way you use it, try tapping your foot along with the metronome while you play. Doing so will help teach you to “lock in” to a beat despite how complicated a rhythm or strumming pattern may be.

3. Start Slow

You have to learn to walk before you can learn to run! Always approach a new song or riff slowly at first. In many cases you need to train yourself to make the proper movements necessary to play it before you can attack it at full speed. It’s all about muscle memory – if your hands and fingers know what to do and in what order they should do them, everything will happen more naturally. A good way to keep track of your progress is by using a metronome. Set it to a slow pace and try playing the riff you’re working on. Once you can play it smoothly, increase the pace a bit. Rinse and repeat.

4. Record Yourself

When you’re focused on playing, sometimes it’s hard to hear what you actually sound like. One example is “rushing the beat” – it’s easy to play ahead of the beat and not even realize it until you hear a recording. Other times, you might not like your guitar tone if you heard it without playing it. When I listen to some of my older recordings, the guitar tone I had makes me gag! Think of it this way: to not go back and listen to what you’ve played would be like a painter not looking at a painting they’ve just finished. For them, it’s impossible. They can immediately see what they’ve created and decide if they like it, and what they can improve upon. We can get the same benefit, we just need to hit record!

5. Read

Countless books and articles have been written for guitar players by guitar players. If you’re looking for something specific, it’s most likely just a google search away. Simply knowing a variety of different chord shapes, for example is a great foundation for playing later on. If you love the way a certain artist plays and sounds, learn about them! Reading a biography of your favourite artist will help you understand where they’re coming from, and could give you a closer look into how they approach playing. You’ll also pick up on their influences and what they like to hear in a player, leading you to check out other players. Knowledge is power, after all!

6. Sing Melodies

If you can hear a tune in your head, then you can recreate it on the guitar. Try to sing or hum what you want to hear before you play it, and then keep singing it as you play it. Ultimately, you want the guitar to be your voice. Using this method can help you learn intervals, and where they appear on the guitar neck without having to delve too deep into musical theory to know them.

7. Learn the Fret board

To go along with tip #6, learning your fret board is the most important “theory” you can know as a guitar player. Knowing scales and their extensions, knowing where shapes and patterns occur / re-occur, and knowing how to get from one note to the other efficiently are all fantastic tools to have when structuring riffs and songs. Knowing what you want to play is a great start, but having a strong knowledge of how to make it happen is just as important.

8. Train your Ears

Being able to hear a chord or riff and play it back is a great skill to have when it comes to learning songs and jamming with other musicians. The more songs you learn, and the more you play, you will by default pick up on similar patterns and ideas that re-appear all over the place. Instead of just reading and playing back a strumming pattern, try to really listen to a chord and associate it with a different song. For example, take the “C” and “G” chords and start strumming along with the verse to “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” by CCR. Stop the song, and play the two chords one after the other on your own. Now throw on “Hey Joe” by Jimi Hendrix. The first two chords here are also C and G, just set to a different tempo and pattern. Soon enough you’ll start to know what a “C” chord sounds like, then later on you’ll be able to tell if it’s a C in the open position or if it’s a barre chord.

Image courtesy of www.easyeartraining.com

9. Experiment

It’s very easy to become comfortable with a guitar, playing style, or genre of music. Of course being comfortable is a good thing, but there’s a downside: you might lose some of the desire to progress as you begin to feel like you’ve already “conquered” it. If you want to truly learn something new, you have to try and put yourself in the same shoes you were in when you first picked up the guitar. Try learning a song that you would never see yourself listening to. Try listening to some music you’ve never heard before. Your musical mind subconsciously absorbs anything you put into it, and it will come out in your playing and song writing whether you want it to or not!

Aside from that, you can try playing another similar instrument. Twelve string guitars, bass guitars, baritone guitars, tenor guitars, and mandolins are all examples of stringed instruments that bear a lot of resemblance to the 6-string you’re used to. That said, there’s enough that’s different about them that you will be forced to play differently, consequently teaching you something new.

10. Emulate

Before you ever picked up the guitar, something or someone inspired you to play music. There are hundreds of thousands of artists out there now, each of whom could be inspiring someone else to play the guitar. The reason is because there’s something about the way they play or the music they make that makes people just want to do what they’re doing. By “emulating” these players; learning their riffs, note choices, play style etc. you can pick up on things that separate different guitarists from each other. Everyone has a certain “something” about the way they play, and through identifying what that thing is in other players, you’ll figure out what it is about your playing that makes you unique.

Happy playing!

Ten Tips to Improve your Playing from MyRareGuitars.com

For guitar players, there’s a ton of little annoyances that we all sort of “put up with”, or don’t bother trying to fix because we aren’t aware of an easy solution. Maybe they aren’t all stopping you in your tracks, but there are ways around them to help make your life much easier. Here’s my list of eight things to consider:

1. Cut Picks from Old Credit Cards / Plastic Containers

We’re all victim to losing ridiculous quantities of guitar picks. By now I’m sure we’ve all accepted this as a norm, and while this first tip won’t exactly stop this from happening – it could save you if you find yourself without a pick in a pinch. Old credit cards or margarine containers that you’re going to cut up and throw out anyways can be cut into pick shapes and used, and if you lose them then it’s not the end of the world. Another thing to consider is keeping your favourite picks in your wallet. Get into a habit of putting them away in it whenever you finish playing – your wallet is something you’ve hopefully already trained yourself not to lose, so in this way you won’t lose your picks by default.

2. Use Noise to Tune

If you don’t have a tuner but do have a loud amp, you can actually use the 60 cycle frequenecy it hums to tune. Try this: plug your patch cable in but not your guitar. You should hear a loud “humming” noise, and within it you can actually pick out a particular tone. When plugged directly into a tuner, it looks like this frequency kind of bounces back and forth between a B and Bb note. Tune your B string to this note, and then the rest of the strings to the B string. You won’t be perfectly in standard, but you’ll be close enough to play by yourself and have things sound good.

3. Use a Pencil to help Stay in Tune

One of the leading causes of your guitar slipping out of tune is the condition of the nut slots. Strings can catch and be pulled, and not return to proper pitch especially after string bending. The nut slot shouldn’t be clutching the string with an iron grasp, but rather cup it and allow it to move freely. If your guitar goes out of tune a lot during play, try taking a pencil and “drawing” into the nut slots with some force. The idea is to get some graphite in there to act as a string lubricant, and hopefully help your strings stay in tune much better.

4. Toohpicks for Loose Screws

Screws and components that are loose can cause rattling sounds when you play, or can just be plain dangerous. You don’t want to have a strap button fall out on you while you play! An easy fix for this is to take out the loose screw, and use a toothpick (or pieces of toothpick, dependent on the screwhole size) to fill it. Put the screw back in, and voila! The screw is biting firmly into wood again.

5. Use a Shop Towel / Cloth when Stretching Strings

Here’s one for tuning again. The most frequent time your guitar is going to fall out of tune is after a fresh restring; especially if the strings weren’t stretched properly. The best way to ensure they’re nice and stretched is to apply a little heat to them while you’re pulling on them. Put a cloth or shop towel in your hand, and glide your hand up and down the length of each string while pulling it to stretch. This will add friction, which consequently heats up the string while you stretch it. It’s a more efficient way to get your strings used to their new tension faster.

6. Velcro for Pedals

If you’ve ever gone to band practice (or worse, hit the stage) and noticed one of your pedals is out of juice, it can spell trouble if you didn’t think to bring a screwdriver to open up the battery casing. To avoid this scenario altogether, remove all the screws when you get the pedal and line the sides of the casing with Velcro instead. This way you can easily open and shut the box much faster, whether or not you have immediate access to the tools it would normally require.

7. Shoelace for Knobs

Whether it be to fix or clean your electronics, or just to replace your guitar’s volume and tone knobs, there may be a point that you need to take off the existing knobs. Sometimes this is easy, and other times it’s near impossible. Top hat knobs are notorious for this, especially when placed so close to the guitar body. An easy way around this is to use a flat shoelace. Simply slide the shoelace under the knob, wrap it around, and pull up!

8. String for Hollowbody Volume and Tone pot Repairs

Here’s another to go along with electronics repairs. Some guitars are not built to be easily accessible. For example, many hollow or semi hollow guitar electronics can only be accessed through their pickup cavity or F-holes. This makes it tricky to get to the parts you need to work on, and even trickier to get them back to where they belong. The fix? Loosen off the knob, then tie a piece of string or fishing line to the top of the pot. Then you can let the pot fall and pull it out wherever you need to so you can work on it, and simply pull the string to bring the pot back through when you’re done.

So there’s my eight cheap and easy tricks for all you guitar players out there! Have you got any “life hacks for guitar players” you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Eight Life-Hacks for the Every Day Guitar Player from MyRareGuitars.com

We’ve seen it all; from the “Cringe”:

to the “my mouth is my wah-pedal”:

 …and everything in between:

So why do they do that… is it all for show? Are they in physical pain from obscene string bending? Have they lost control of their face? Are they disgusted because they’ve imagined that their guitar has transformed into a giant slug?

All are valid reasons, and while science can point to a few things that may be the root of the cause, it’s still pretty indecisive. To come up with some of the obvious reasons, you have to first examine the environment and state of mind that the player is in when performing a solo.

1. Concentration.

You’ve seen it in kids, and sometimes in grown adults. They’re deep in thought, focusing all of their attention into one thing, and simply don’t notice that their tongue is hanging out of their mouths. This could be due to what’s known as motor overflow, “a condition whereby a stimulus is correctly interpreted and the appropriate response is made, however a secondary response by a muscle is also triggered”.

It’s an involuntary thing that happens to people when they’re concentrating, and for guitar players, the solo is the part of a song that requires the utmost attention. In many cases, they’re not simply rehearsing something they’ve practiced time and time again; they’re improvising on the spot. Perhaps having to think of so many things at the same time causes a similar type of overflow?

2. “Feeling” the Music.

Many would argue that the expressions come from deep down, and are facial representations of the frequencies they are trying to hit. Vocalists get the same kind of thing when belting their heart out:

When you sing, you’re thinking about a number of different things. The notes you want to hit, the phrasing, how much power you put behind each word, and the message you’re trying to convey with the lyrics. All of these things have an affect on how you feel, and consequently how you and your face reacts.

For example, just try to put on an Elvis voice, sing like Axl Rose, or scream like you hear from a death metal band. It’s almost like trying to sneeze without closing your eyes – your face just changes shape because it needs to.

Sometimes it works the same way for guitar players. Jazz players, or those who make extensive use of a wah pedal come to mind. Often you’ll see a jazz player mouthing each note they play during a solo, like they’re telling the guitar what they want it to do… and that’s exactly what they’re doing. They know what they want to hear, and their face expresses it.

In a study conducted by University professors from Australia and Canada, musicians were actually able to judge the distance of intervals sung by vocalists by only seeing recordings of the singer’s face. There was no audio in the recording, just expressions and head movements!

3. Conveying Emotion.

Let’s not get too carried away with the scientific stuff. At the end of the day, why do we play and listen to music in the first place? It’s to evoke a certain emotion in ourselves, and our listeners. Whether it be anger, melancholy, or happiness, it is a human condition to pick up on and display emotion very easily – even if its from just a facial expression. A guitar player playing a solo is just as much of an extension of themselves as it is for the lead vocalist to sing the chorus. In fact, the guitar player becomes the lead singer during a solo. I’m sure that sometimes the musician is just putting on a show; not much different than an actor would on stage. In both cases, however, the performer needs to tap into whatever emotion they’re trying to convey in order to do it properly. If they’ve done their job right, the emotion translates to the audience, and we’re all impacted much heavier than if the guitarist were just standing there.

Whatever the cause of the guitar face, it’s a thing that’s here to stay. It has always been and will always be something that we see in guitarists around the world. Whether you like seeing a guitarist truly feeling what they’re playing, or just like to look at photos of slugs photoshopped into their hands, I think we can all agree it adds to the experience of seeing and hearing a good guitar solo.

What’s the Deal with the “Guitar Face”? from MyRareGuitars.com

It’s a no brainer; much of the initial aspiration to play any instrument comes from the desire to have what your musical heroes have, or to at least produce the kind of material they produce. In many cases, you’ll end up having to find a few like-minded musicians to help make that aspiration a reality. It’s a huge commitment if you’re in it to win it, and you will have to make sacrifices, but in my opinion the good far outweighs the bad. Here’s my list of the top ten reasons to play in a band:

10. The Attraction

Everyone’s thinking it, so I figured I’d get it out of the way before anything else. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll! There’s a reason it’s in that order. Chances are when you start playing gigs, your early performances will be at bars around town. As a hotspot for socializing and meeting people, playing at a bar is an immediate ice-breaker for you. By just doing something you love, you establish that you 1) Like music, 2) Are talented, and 3) Look cool rocking out. That’s all before you’ve made a name for yourself! Once you do that…well…

Heck, there’s even been research done on this philosophy! A study done by Université de Bretagne-Sud in France claims that women are 31% more likely to go out on a date with a man holding a guitar case versus holding nothing at all. Incentive, or what?!

9. The Creative Outlet

When you start to write music, you will find that there are certain limitations when you’re working alone. For some, this is ideal and they learn to embrace it. Whether or not you absolutely love the feeling of writing and playing music by yourself, you should still try out the band atmosphere. Receiving input from other musicians, jamming, and simply coming up with ideas as a collective is (in my opinion) far more rewarding than doing these things alone. People have different influences, and sometimes the best way to write original music is to have a group of players who throw all their differences into a mixing pot. You never know where a song might end up when you have a few different people working on it, and a fresh set of ears is a great way to solve writer’s cramp.

8. The Fun

Simply put, it’s way more fun to play and make music when you’re doing it with other people. Have a new idea for a riff? Show the band, and jam it out. All of a sudden you can hear everything together, not just you and your metronome. The experiences of playing shows, recording music, getting new fans and friends, and travelling distances to play are really like none other. Especially when you get to do all these things with a few folks who start to feel less like “band members” and more like they’re a part of…

7. The Family

Aside from the music, the longer you remain a band with the same people, the closer your bond gets. These people you got together with just to make music quickly become your best friends. Band practise starts to feel more like hanging out, and you find ways to entertain yourselves when on the road or before a show. You understand each other, and writing music becomes easier as you become more acquainted with how everyone works. If one member suffers, everyone suffers – quite literally. A member who is too sick, injured, or even upset to perform, practice or record hinders the rest of the band. For this reason and many others, everyone kind of “has each others backs.”

6. The Teamwork

Everyone puts in equally, everyone takes out equally. That’s the ideal band setup (though not always the case). You want everyone to be happy, and to feel like an important member of the team. Nobody likes to feel that their contribution is less important. Being in a band builds teamwork for this reason, similarly to the way being on a sports team does – you’re all working towards the same common goal.

5. The Income

Eventually, you can start making some money by playing in a band. You can do this in a variety of different ways like from selling your music, being paid to play, and by selling merchandise.  If you’re not in an established band are just looking to make some supplementary income, it’s a good idea to consider starting a cover band. Venues love having a good sounding cover band play famous hits to get people in the door and keep them there, so you’ll generally make more money doing this than trying to start a new original project.

4. The Free Beer / Food

Every band has been there! The venues that aren’t able to pay you money to play, but will give you free beer and / or a meal to play at their location. There comes a time where this isn’t such a great deal, but when you’re just starting out then what’s wrong with that? You just want to play and have your friends come see you – invite them out, play your music for fun, and have a free brew while you’re at it. It almost makes you feel like you’re VIP!

3. The Management Skills

Unless you’ve already hit it big and are able to have someone do all the legwork for you, being in a productive a band is a LOT of work. You need to book your own shows and practices, which are daunting tasks by themselves. The more people in your band, the harder it is to get everyone in the same room together once or twice a week, and the harder it is to make sure everyone’s schedule is free for performance dates. Without meaning to, you gain quite a bit of management skills by being in and running a band. By keeping track of your band’s successes and accomplishments, you can add some good material to your resume for future endeavors.

2. The Connection

Like I mentioned in “The Family” point, there’s a special connection shared between band members when you play. It doesn’t end there, though! You learn to connect with your fans and your audience. Your job is to ensure that they want to listen to your music, and want to come see you play, so you need to find what it is that makes people like your band and really connect with whatever that is. On top of that, once you’ve started playing shows with other bands, you start to connect with them too. You become part of a community, and a scene that feels like home.

1. The Experience

All things rolled into one, there’s really no other thing that will feel quite the same as playing in a band. Whether it becomes a life long career for you, or something you can look back at later on in life, you might just associate “that time you were in a band” with some of the best moments of your life. It’s one of those things that, as a musician, you can look back on and say “at least we tried, and had fun doing it.”

Top 10 Reasons to Play in a Band from MyRareGuitars.com

Issue 19: Guidance from the Greats

If you could sit down in a room with some of the best musicians and guitar players in the world, what do you think you’d want to talk to them about? For the majority of us musicians, we would want to pick their brains as much as possible to find out what makes them tick and how they got to where they are. We all want to improve our playing, or aspire to write our next “opus”, and what better way to do those things than to use advice from our greatest inspirations?

Even though it’s a tad unlikely that we’ll ever get such a chance, it is still possible to pick up on a few inspirational thoughts and ideas that our idols have without ever meeting them face to face. Apart from simply listening to what and how they play, the way they think contributes massively to their success. Many have written books, spoken in interviews, and even written in their lyrics little tidbits about the way they approach playing guitar and songwriting. Today, I’m going to list and analyze a few of my favourite quotes from who I consider to be some of the greatest players and musicians out there.

“I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around.” – Jimi Hendrix

Yes, when we hear the name Jimi Hendrix, we all think “incredible guitar player” before anything else. At the time, (and even still today) most of the world was referring to Hendrix as the greatest guitar player in the world – and that’s what makes this quote so interesting. He had what so many guitar players wished they could have, and yet he says he doesn’t want that. At least, not just that. The fact is that today, there are easily hundreds of thousands of guitar players out there who have the playing ability to rank up there with some of the famous guitarists of the past, but they’re unknown outside of their local community. There’s more to it than just being really really good at guitar, and I think that’s what Jimi is tapping into here. Obviously it’s important to be good – but in my opinion you’re only as good as your song and performance. Jimi did all of those things well, and it’s worth considering working on the whole package to get your listeners to be fully engaged.

“I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.” – Jimmy Page

No matter how much you practice the solo to “Stairway to Heaven”, or how much money you spend getting the same equipment Page had when he tracked the riff in “Black Dog”, you will never sound exactly the same as he does. Even if you had his guitar in your hands, the answer is still no! That’s because that tone and playing style belongs to him, just like your tone and playing style belongs to you. Yes, you can alter your tone with various different pieces of equipment, but there is something inherently there that is yours and no one else’s. Sure, you can use your hero’s sounds for inspiration, but the longer you keep trying to sound like someone else, the further away you move from what makes you unique. As a tip, try practicing your playing on an inexpensive acoustic guitar, or an electric with a dry clean setting. Do whatever you can to make the thing sound good to your ears. When you can do that, you’ve found your playing tone. From there, you can “edit” by using a better acoustic, or dialing in a better electric tone.

“I’m not a good guitar player.” – Adam Jones

If you’re familiar with the rock band Tool, you’re probably aware of the fact that their fame comes more from innovation than anything else. That’s not to say they’re not all fantastic musicians, but when you listen to their songs and Adam’s playing, you’ll notice that there are never any long, “show-offy” guitar solos. Their music is heavy rock, with a lot of progressive elements (in their later works, anyway), so it’s kind of an odd thing to not feature the guitar in such a limelight. However, it works. It works really well. While he doesn’t typically shred your face off, Adam’s soundscapes and riffs add an atmosphere to their songs that just wouldn’t be there if it was your typical rock guitar god. If there’s something you feel you are less than adequate at doing on the guitar, sometimes it’s a good idea to just forget about it and really perfect what you’re already good at. For me, I went through a phase where I thought I HAD to be able to “sweep-pick” to be good. I practiced for a while, but I could never quite get it to sound how I wanted it to. I’m just not good at it – so I don’t do it! The lesson here I think is to play to your strengths.

“There’s only one thing worse than becoming successful with something you don’t believe in, and that’s failing with something you don’t believe in.” – Steven Wilson

I love this quote. Steven says this when asked if he had ever attempted a musical project with the end goal being essentially “fame.” Playing music that everyone else wanted hear, and not necessarily what he wanted to play. His answer was yes, but he regrets ever having done it. Basically, the idea here is there’s no point in playing music if it isn’t music you don’t love or appreciate. If you succeed with it, then you’re stuck doing this thing you hate to do just to keep everyone happy. If you fail with it, then it was all a huge waste of time. The best thing to do is stay true to yourself, and play what you enjoy and what makes you happy. Chances are there’s people out there who will like what you’re doing, and they’ll catch on. That’s what happened with Steven – he went and worked on musical projects he does believe in – and now he’s one of the busiest working musicians and producers today. At least if things don’t become “commercially successful”, you still spent time creating something you could stand behind.

Lots can be learned from your idols! Listen to them play, and listen to them speak. You never know what a different approach might do for you.

Happy Playing!

Tips on Tones – Issue 19 from MyRareGuitars.com

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

I bought this guitar on eBay in 2000. How could I not? I think the seller was in Houston, and was Asian with not too great English language skills. I asked them what it was and learned it was a Parrot Tirryche made in China. OK. Upon further inquiry I learned that it was also being sold as a Scorpion QueensRyche. Well, a connection with the Scorpions and QueensRyche established an obvious Heavy Metal relationship that made more sense than tropical birds. Indeed, I was told it was made by “Scorpion” in TianJing, China. This is most likely Tianjin, a city immediately to the east of Beijing, essentially a “suburb.”

Now, assuming this is true information, which I have no reason to doubt, it really doesn’t tell us much of anything. Actually, I’ve done some research on the modern Chinese guitar industry and the area east of Beijing is, in fact, one of the regions where guitar-making thrives. (Another is on the mainland across from Hong Kong.) So, assuming this guitar was made in Tianjin, it was made near a modern center of Chinese lutherie. And, in 2000 it was a pretty early example of Chinese product. As we all know, Chinese industrial progress has been extraordinarily swift, and today some decent guitars are being made there.

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

I know that most modern guitars are basically rough-hewn on CNC carving machines. They began to be used in around 1976 pretty much simultaneously by Peavey for its remarkable T-60/T-40 guitars and basses and by FujiGen Gakki in Nagoya, Japan, for Ibanez, Greco and other guitars. And I know CNC machines can do amazing things. But I have no idea what the story is on this Tirryche or whatever it is. I suspect that, coming from back in Ought Zero, it actually may have been carved by hand, not a fancy CNC machine. First of all, the Chinese guitar industry was in its infancy at that time. People were only just beginning to look there for sources. Korea was still the go-to place. With no large-scale production, it’s highly unlikely that “Scorpion” had a CNC machine, or the expertise to program it to make something this complex. Some little old wood-carver supplying someone who assembled the parts and sold them to a trading company is a more likely scenario. If I’m right, this actually becomes a pretty interesting guitar, which it already is intrinsically, if you, like me, like really weird guitars!

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

Indeed, it’s pretty hard to decipher what kind of imagination created this guitar. The Heavy Metallers were partial to odd-shaped guitars, but this? Kiss and the Axe guitar I get. This is like a caricature of a Heavy Metal guitar. Or maybe it’s a guitar modelled after a Chinese orthographical character that represents mental illness. Or the sign of the Year of the Boar. Or some dead Emperor.

You can actually play this guitar, though I’m not sure why you would. I mean, the embarrassment factor alone would argue against breaking this out on stage. Then again, no one else would have one… This is well enough made that you can set it up adequately. Think Korean-made Hondo and you have the guitar space it occupies.

2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar

Needless to say, neither Parrot Tirryches nor Scorpion QueensRyches hit a home-run. This is the only one I’ve ever seen. Even on eBay at the time (or since, not that I’ve been looking)! This likely was a trial balloon, limited-run guitar designed to test a market that didn’t and doesn’t exist. It can’t hold a candle to a Peavey T-60. Or to most modern Chinese-made guitars. But, if I’m right in my assumptions and conclusions, this is a rare example of product from the early Chinese guitar-making industry, possibly largely hand-made, and, if you’re jealous, go ahead and find another one!

Let me know if you’ve seen anything similar. Like I said, this Parrot Tirryche is one of the rare incidences when I have to cry “Mayday!” I need a storm window.

Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! (2000 Parrot Tirryche Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

How, you ask, could anything be odder than a beer conglomerate (Norlin) buying Gibson? (I guess, the more you think of suds and guitars, it’s not so hard to understand!) Well, that’s because Heads & Threads wasn’t about skin tensioners on percussion instruments or banjos. Heads & Threads was originally a pioneer in the importation of nuts and bolts made in Japan founded by Norman Sackheim. Please note his first name, the source of the “Norma” brand name. Like others before him (Jack Westheimer and sporting goods), it wasn’t such a giant step from hardware to guitars, given the times.

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

Sackheim set up a subsidiary called, following a theme here, Strum & Drum in 1964 to import guitars and drums and related instruments. Like everyone else, Strum & Drum purchased instruments most likely from a trading company. They were the power brokers in Japan and every trading company had a stable of related manufacturers to draw upon, based on what the customer wanted. It’s darned near impossible to identify the makers of Japanese guitars with any precision. Sometimes outstanding workmanship—as in the cases of Matsumoku or FujiGen—are pretty compelling evidence, but there were so many specialty providers (eg, hardware, pickups, etc.), it’s hard to identify conclusive features. This is further complicated by the fact that imitation of successful ideas between companies was an accepted part of the culture, so just because something looked good on one brand’s product doesn’t mean it wouldn’t show up on another’s. Welcome to reality!

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

That said, the majority of Strum & Drum’s electric guitars seem to have been sourced from the Tombo factory. A few have features that suggest Teisco, with the caveat above. There’s no way to know where the acoustics came from. The older I get, the less important that seems to get, but I also know we collectors have issues…

Norma was Strum & Drum’s major brand. Many were pretty pedestrian solidbody and hollowbody electrics that are interesting as period artifacts, and little else. Of special interest were their sparkle-finished guitars, which are about as cool as it gets with ‘60s Japanese guitars.

In 1966, Norm Sackheim’s son Ron bought the rights to Don Noble’s instrument line. Noble was a prominent Chicago-area accordionist who sold imported accordions and guitars. Some Noble guitars made by Wandré Pioli in Italy appeared, but in ’67 the line was cancelled and the Noble name was added to the Strum & Drum stable.

Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar

While all this was transpiring, the Ventures were becoming guitar gods in Japan, and Japanese makers began to build Mosrite “copies.” Long story short, the Noble brand re-appeared on some Mosrite copies sold by Strum & Drum, including this 1968 copy of a Mosrite Combo hollowbody, The Noble Model No. EG 686-2HT.

I’m no Mosrite expert but I own a Combo and this copy isn’t too far off in terms of quality. Mosrites weren’t that great. And, it’s pretty historically interesting. Note the nifty “N” fingerboard inlays and real German-carve top. This guitar was the only Noble model, the only Strum & Drum Mosrite copy, and was only available until late 1969, maybe into 1970. Ironically, The Noble Mosrite Combo copy is probably as rare if not rarer than a genuine Mosrite. Such a world; go figure.

In 1969 Strum & Drum bought the rights to the National brand name—notice the N theme—and brought out the National Big Daddy, one of the earliest bolt-neck Gibson Les Paul Custom copies, in 1970, but that’s another story. Strum & Drum stumbled on into 1975 when it was sold to C. Bruno, who promptly deep-6ed the whole shebang. Seeing promise in the nuts and bolts market, the Sackheims returned to importing those essentials, which they were still doing the last time I spoke to them quite a few years ago. So, that’s what nuts and bolts—or Heads & Threads—have to do with our favorite obsession, and some venerable brand names in guitar history.

The Nuts (& Bolts) of the Guitar Biz – Vintage 1968 Noble EG 686-2HT Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar

Ok, it was the early 1970s so Ampeg can be forgiven for being well behind the curve in the politically correct category (I’m not even sure that political correctness had been fully invented yet at that time). Still, you gotta admire the chutzpah and it’s hard not to like any line of guitars called Stud. Sounds like it should be a Paul Newman movie.

Anyhow, all the yuks aside, the use of the Stud name was kind of eerily appropriate. These guitars were loosely speaking what we’d today call “copy guitars” in that they are based on American guitar designs popular at the time. They appeared just as the whole copy strategy was unfolding. Importers/distributors were producing copies mainly of Gibson guitars, since they yielded the most profit, but also of Fender and occasionally Guild guitars and basses. Even American guitar companies themselves hopped on the copy bandwagon. Gibson itself imported Japanese “copies” of some of its Epiphone models, and both Martin and Guild marketed lines of copy guitars until they wised up to the potential threats to their business.

Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar

The Ampeg Studs were part of this whole copy scene, but they were aptly named because, unlike many of their competitors—the Ibanezes and Arias of the world—these were really over the top. They really were Studs!

Ampeg has always been better known as an amplifier company, although the very name refers to an amplifying “peg” or leg for a doghouse bass fiddle. Indeed, Ampeg’s first stringed instruments were electric Baby Basses in the 1960s. In 1969 Ampeg struck a deal with then hot guitar designer Dan Armstrong, who came up with the idea for those wonderful Plexiglas “See-through” guitars and basses. These were made into 1971 when Armstrong left the arrangement over a financial disagreement.

While rough copies of Rickenbackers and Mosrites appeared in Japan as early as 1968, followed by some somewhat crude Les Pauls, it was really the Plexiglas Ampegs that the Japanese manufacturers pounced on, producing near and pretty exact copies by 1970. That kick-started the whole copy movement.

Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar

Around the time that the Plexiglas guitars and basses disappeared, Ampeg was sold to Selmer Band Instruments in Elkhart, IN. It was the Selmer incarnation of Ampeg that decided in 1973 to bring in the Studs.

The Ampeg Studs included 5 guitars and 2 basses. Three guitars, including this model, were based off of the twin humbucker Gibson SG: the Stud GE-100 with a stoptail, the Stud GET-100 with a vibrato, and this Super Stud GE-500. Two guitars were based off of the Fender Telecaster, the Heavy Stud GE-150 with two single-coil pickups and the GEH-150 with ‘buckers. Two Fender-style basses included the Little Stud GEB-101 with one single-coil pickup and the Big Stud GEB-750 with a single and mini-humbucker. Except for the Super Stud seen here, most of these had laminated bodies with either grained cedar, grained cherry, or a black finish.

This Super Stud has a one-piece maple body. It might have been better named as Heavy Stud because this is one hefty axe. The neck is bolted on rather than set in like a real SG, but, as much as I love set-neck guitars, you have to admit that it sure is easy to get a great set-up on a bolt-neck guitar, especially if it’s not premium grade. That said, this is a pretty darned good guitar. The abalonoid inlays look great on stage but are kind of cheesy up close, unless you’re like me and love any kind of bling. These ain’t DiMarzio pickups, but they’re quite adequate, especially if you’re going to pump this through a nifty Maestro effect pedal or two, and why wouldn’t you? And a little (or big) Ampeg amp.

There’s an illusion that 1970s Japanese copy guitars were legion. Twasn’t so. Most came in in relatively small batches and are nowhere as plentiful as some think. The Ampeg Studs don’t come around all that often, so they’re probably pretty rare. There’s no way to date these precisely because before 1975-76 most Japanese guitars did not have serial numbers, related to my previous point. They weren’t numerous enough to worry about returns and warranties. The Ampeg Stud line was only available from 1973-75, so you have a less than 2-year window to date with.

Linda Ronstadt’s “cowboys” certainly didn’t play Ampeg Studs, however apropos they might have been on that tour bus. Nevertheless, all of us who play guitar have a little bit of stud in our DNA and deserve to play a Super Stud! Plus, you getcher money fer nothing and yer chicks for free!

1973 Ampeg Guitars Ad (Stud Series)

1973 Ampeg Guitars Ad (Stud Series)

Getcher Money Fer Nothing & Yer Chicks For Free! (Vintage Ampeg Super Stud GE-500 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar

One of Dan’s favorite subjects was a truly weird kind of heart-shaped Murph hollowbody 12-string electric guitar, a model called the Satellite, which was truly funky and bizarre. He featured it in a Vintage Guitar Magazine article a few years back. These “heart” 12s are exceptionally rare, but, really, so is any Murph guitar, including this Squire 11-T.

Believe it or not, there actually is a sort of Murph fan club with a Murph history web site run by an Aussie fan named Dan McGonigal and located at www.murphguitars.com. This is the kind of madness and devotion that deserves recognition!

Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar

As you’ll learn on this site, Murph guitars were part of the Los Angeles-area guitar scene of the wild and wooly 1960s. Or 1965, to be exact. Actually, Murph guitars were the brainchild of a former Midwesterner named Patrick Murphy and were actually originally intended to help promote his children who had formed a family song-and-dance band called the Murphys. Or to have his children promote the guitars, which is a slightly different spin on the tale. The Murphys apparently did a mix of live gigs and recording local television commercials.

In any case, in early 1965 Murphy leased a small factory space and commenced an ambitious manufacturing program. Initially Murphy planned to call his guitars York, but since there were band instruments made carrying that brand, he settled on an abbreviation of his family name, which made sense given the tie-in with his children’s band. Murphy’s scheme was ambitious because he probably had too many designs. These included the aforementioned Satellites, heart-shape semi-hollobodies, plus his most popular model, the Squire, seen here and offered in a variety of other configurations, such as bass and 12-string. There was also a hollowbody Gemini, which looked very similar to contemporary Standel gutars. Oh, did I mention the single cutaway Continental IV solidbody? Or the Westerner, which was a Squire by another name. Or the Tempo I and II guitar kits? Or the acoustic model? Or the Califone model, some 25 or so were made for the record manufacturer Rheem Califone.

Murphy’s plans were so ambitious he even targeted the mighty Sears, Roebuck & Co. and sold them another batch of 25 Murph/Silvertones. At its peak, the Murph factory employed as many as 22 workers. Murph guitars sourced its primary timbers locally but bought a lot of its hardware from the German collective C.A. Gotz Jr., which is still around as a violin maker.

Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar

The exhaustive Murph lineup was unveiled at the 1966 Summer NAMM show and Murphy lined up a stable of dealers. As with many other small ‘60s guitar companies, these Murphs are decent little guitars with that nice, bouncy single-coil sound that’s perfect for riffing on a surf melody.

As mentioned, by far the most common Murphs were the Squires, which look suspiciously like a Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster. There’s also more than a little of a Rickenbacker vibe. Indeed, after the ’66 NAMM appearance, according to the Murph site account, “someone” complained about patent infringement and threatened to sue. The “someone” isn’t identified, but you can probably draw your own conclusions as to who was also in the neighborhood and might object. The Murph site implies that pressure was exerted on the dealers, too, who began returning guitars. Sustaining a prolonged legal battle wasn’t in the cards for Murph guitars and the doors were closed in the Spring of 1967.

I have no idea how common Murph guitars are, but an educated guess is not very. As I write this there’s a Murph Squire on eBay, well road-worn, the seller is asking $3,500 for. Good luck with that. They were never pitched as anything but budget guitars and by the time they appeared, there would have been plenty of competition from both European and Japanese manufacturers, not to mention Harmony, Kay and Valco. Probably like so many inexpensive ‘60s guitars, no one thought to hold on to them. Estimates are that only around 1,200 Murphs were ever produced, and of those around 950 were Squires.

Anyhow, muchas gracias to Teisco for bringing Murphs to our attention and even more thanks to Dan the Murph-man for keeping them alive on his tribute site. Now we’ll just have to see how much that eBay Murph guitar fetches, if anything!

Surf’s – uh, Murph’s Up! (Vintage 1965 Murphy Squire Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

I guess if you have a job working for Peavey in Mississippi you care about CNC-carved guitars because they help feed your family. In any case, I don’t think there are any production guitars made today that don’t come out of a CNC machine, so Peavey was a real pioneer who rarely gets the credit that’s deserved.

According to Hartley Peavey, the original idea for using CNC machines to help build guitars came from the manufacturing of gun stocks, as in rifles and shotguns. Peavey’s chief designer Chip Todd started working on the idea as early as around 1975. Along the way Chip and his crew worked with Hollywood steel guitarist and amp repairman Orville “Red” Rhoads to come up with that nifty circuitry where the guitar is wired so that the tone pot works as a coil tap when it’s turned down below 7 or 8. Peavey also developed and patented a new “bilaminated” neck, which basically fused two pieces of maple with the grain going in opposite directions to combat warping. The result was the T-60 (two humbuckers) and T-30 (three single-coils) guitars and T-40 bass, which were introduced in early 1978. The “T” prefix was shorthand for Todd, though it later got reinterpreted to stand for “Technology.” I’ve always thought the T-60 was a really handsome axe, although I’ve never warmed to frets hammered right into the neck. Obviously, not everyone feels the way I do.

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

Originally the T-60 was made of natural-finished ash, but later sunburst finish and I think maple body options were added, as well as a rosewood fingerboard for curmudgeons like me. Peavey’s T-60, T-30, and T-40 were a little, how shall we say, 1970s in their look. They must have been moderately successful because Peavey decided to stick with guitars.

In 1982 Peavey had Chip Todd revamp its T (now “Technology”) line, just before Todd got hired away to Fender. To the casual eye the new T guitars—T-15, T-25, T-26, and T-27—looked a lot like the previous T-60, but there were subtle changes. Todd had lightened the guitars with less dense timbers, added new high-output Super Ferrite “blade-style” pickups, and a variety of pickup configurations. The cutaways were also deepened a bit to improve access up the neck. These new Ts also came with some new finishes, including the jet black seen here and a few metallic paints, including a turquoise and a brown. To my taste, these still look a little too retro ‘70s, but it wouldn’t be long before Peavey got into the weird shapes (like the Razer) that were becoming popular with the heavy metallists of the times.

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

The T-15 was a shortscale guitar with a pair of single coils and a bridge/tailpiece assembly. The T-25 seen here has twin humbuckers and the cast bridge. The T-26 had three single-coil pickups in a Strat-style configuration. The T-27 had a humbucker and two single-coils, one of the early guitars to feature this. The T-30 went back to the three single-coils. The T-25 pictured is called the T-25 Special, which presumably refers to the fact that it has a phenolic fingerboard instead of the usual maple.

I don’t think these Peaveys are especially rare, due in part to the fact that CNC machines can pretty much work as long as you want. On the other hand, these later T Series were only promoted in 1982 and by ’83 Peavey was on to the Razer et al. By mid-decade Peavey had move on into much more exotic territory with guitars with fancy figured tops and all sorts of new developments.

Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar

Still, all these T Series guitars are fun to play and are relics of that seminal era when new manufacturing technology was revolutionizing how modern guitars are made. Part of Hartley Peavey’s rationale was that by using machines, he could keep guitar manufacturing here in the U.S. It’s awfully ironic that the adoption of CNC technology would make it even easier to send guitar production to developing countries where you could make them even cheaper. So, I’m not exactly sure what the reward is for being “first!”

T for Two (Vintage 1980’s Peavey T-25 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

White used a truly unique collection of instruments to propel his no-frills style into the limelight. As you will see, his equipment choices evolved slightly through the years depending on which of his many projects he was working on. Here is a breakdown of the guitars he has used through the many phases of his career.

The White Stripes:

1964 JB Hutto Montgomery Ward Airline
This is the most iconic guitar in Jack White’s arsenal of rare axes. This model was made for Montgomery Ward department stores in the early 60s.  This guitar was White’s workhorse throughout his time with the White Stripes.

Jack White with his 1964 JB Hutto Montgomery Ward Airline Guitar

White’s vintage JB Hutto Airline became so popular that Eastwood began producing a replica around 2000, however the replica features a chambered mahogany body instead of the original fiberglass model:

The new Airline 59 2P by Eastwood.

The one-pickup version from Eastwood, the Airline 59 1P, is also a good choice for players who aim to emulate Jack White’s tones:

It’s interesting to notice that during the Get Behind Me Satan tour, Jack started playing a modded Airline, with only one pickup – he removed the neck pickup and the control knobs:

24 Jun 2005, Somerset, United Kingdom — Jack White of “The White Stripes” performs on the first day of the Glastonbury music festival in Somerset.  — Image by © Eddie Keogh/Reuters/Corbis

1950s Kay Hollowbody
This vintage hollowbody was one of the three guitars White used with the White Stripes. The Airline was his primary axe, but White frequently used the Kay Hollowbody as his slide guitar. Kay Instruments was one of the first companies to make an electric guitar. Blues legend Howlin’ Wolf–a major influence on White’s style–was among the most visible artists to use the Kay Hollowbody. This is the guitar White uses for “Seven Nation Army,” arguably the greatest guitar riff of the past decade.

Jack White with his 1950s Kay Hollowbody Guitar

1915 Gibson L-1 Acoustic
This guitar is commonly referred to as the Robert Johnson model. White began playing this guitar on the White Stripes’ Icky Thump album. For live performances, White uses a tape-on pickup. In an interview for Gibson’s website, White reveals that this guitar is his personal favorite.

Jack White with his 1915 Gibson L-1 Acoustic Guitar

The Raconteurs:

“Triple Green Machine”
This custom-made guitar started with a Gretsch Anniversary Junior. White enlisted Randy Parsons to modify the body and add a slew of bells and whistles, creating a truly unique instrument. He installed the same electronics from his Gretsch Triple Jet, a bigsby tailpiece, a lever-activated mute system, light-activated Theremin and a retractable bullet microphone. This guitar is also featured in the film, It Might Get Loud.

Jack White’s Triple Green Machine (Gretsch Anniversary Junior Guitar)

Gretsch Triple Jet
White is just as particular with the aesthetics of his equipment as he is with their performance. With the Raconteurs, White plated all of his equipment–pedals, amps, guitars–in bronze. This customized axe is based on a Gretsch G5445T Electromatic Double Jet. White added a third pickup (hence, “Triple Jet”) and an onboard MXR Micro Amp. The result gave White a a bronze-plated axe with built-in overdrive.

Jack White’s Gretsch Triple Jet Guitar

Dead Weather:

Gretsch G6199 Billy-Bo Jupiter Thunderbird
This guitar was intended for White’s tour with Alicia Keys in support of their James Bond theme, “Another Way To Die.” Keys had the box-shaped Bo Diddley model, and the idea was for White and Keys to re-create the image of Bo Diddley and the Duchess. When White’s neck injury sidelined that tour, he took up the same idea with Alison Mosshart in the Dead Weather.

Jack White and his 1957 Gretsch G6199 Billy-Bo Jupiter Thunderbird Guitar

1957 Gretsch G6134 White Penguin
Another one of the rarities in Jack White’s collection. Gretsch only produced 12 of this specific model. White found the guitar while touring through Texas in 2007. The white guitar was a natural fit in White’s Dead Weather color scheme. This guitar was also used on the later White Stripes albums.

Solo/Misc.:

Fender Telecaster
This may be the tamest piece in Jack White’s guitar arsenal, but this American classic was White’s main workhorse on his solo album, Blunderbuss. In typical Jack White fashion, the guitar has been outfitted with a Bigsby and painted blue to fit with the project’s color scheme.

Jack White’s Fender Telecaster with Bigsby

Gretsch G6022CWFF Rancher Falcon Cutaway Acoustic
This guitar has been a mainstay throughout White’s career. He has said that this model is favorite acoustic to play live, because of the bass tones. Given his flair for customization, White has three Rancher Falcons, each with a portrait of a different women on the back.

White explains that the women featured on his guitars are Claudette Colbert, Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake, which gives him a brunette, a redhead and a blonde.

Jack White with his Gretsch G6022CWFF Rancher Falcon Cutaway Acoustic Guitar

Posted by: Jason Schellhardt, writer for the cheap ticket search engine, Rukkus.

A Brief History Of Jack White’s Guitar Collection from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar

You can probably justifiably consider certain lap steel guitar designs to be the forerunners of the headless guitar. Oh, like all guitars they need some basic structural components and they need some sort of tuning mechanism, but they kind of reduce the guitar to a plank with strings. You even orient to them in a different way that kind of negates the idea of a head.

Whether or not you buy that argument, probably the first headless guitar I’m aware of was Dave Bunker’s appropriately named Astral Series Sunstar, which debuted in around 1966. Dave rather brilliantly stripped the guitar down to its essence, then appended all these removable pods and appendages (including detachable head), making it truly a Starship Enterprise! I don’t know exactly when New York guitarist Alan Gittler began his experiments on minimalist guitars, but I think it was after Bunker.

It was, of course, Ned Steinberger (and his principal disciple, as it were, Andy Summers of The Police) who codified the headless guitar concept right around the end of the 1970s. Cort in Korea licensed the design and produced a number of brands popular in the early 1980s. I have one that I used to be able to cram on top of the family’s shore supplies when we vacationed. It’s in the context of those New Wavey guitars of the early 1980s that this rather fetching Riverhead belongs.

Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar

The Riverhead story is a little hard to piece together coherently. They were primarily made in Japan by the Headway company and briefly in the mid-1980s were imported into the U.S. and actively marketed. Headway, it appears, began as a high end acoustic guitar maker in around 1977 in Matsumoto City, basically the epicenter of Japanese guitarmaking. In 1981 Headway made the transition to electric solidbody guitars. Information is sketchy, but it seems they began with Fender-style copy guitars, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. They seemed to have used the Headway name, as well as the brands Bacchus and Momose, named for the luthier and Headway founder Yasuo Momose, who’d learned his art at Fujigen Gakki, builder of Ibanez and Greco electrics. There have been other brand variations, including, obviously, Riverhead.

Online sources (which seem credible) suggest that Headway experienced two factory fires in 1983, which ended in the construction of the Asuka electric guitar factory in Matsumoto in 1983, coincidental with the launch of the Riverhead brand. Unlike the Bacchus copies, Riverheads seem to have been Headway’s “high tech” line. Another source suggests that Headway made all (or most) of its own components. Certainly its guitars had many unique and innovative features, like vibratos designed to pivot two ways.

Riverhead’s Unicorn Series was distributed in the U.S. by a company called Prime, Inc., of Marlboro, MA, the same outfit that imported those curious Quest guitars. Designed somewhat after the fashion of the Burns Flyte guitars, Unicorns came with either two single-coil or, as here, two humbuckers. These were probably a unibody construction, with a mahogany core, though the wings might have been added on. Their advertising in late 1984 touted the fact that the pickups were mounted directly on top of the body for maximum tone. The heavy duty cast adjustable bridge/tuner assembly is very similar to a Steinberger, though I’m sure it was Headway’s own innovation. For such a high tech looking axe, it’s actually pretty basic, with a simple threeway select, one volume and two tone controls. Still, you’d look pretty darned cool in your orange and black Starship Trooper jumpsuit, eh?!

The Riverhead Unicorns were promoted in 1984 and ’85, so they were around at least in that time frame, probably 1983-85 or ’86 at the latest. They’re not exactly plentiful. Prime seems to have had a presence in the Northeastern U.S. I don’t know if they achieved much national distribution. The online sources suggest that Riverhead brand guitars were produced until 1997, after which Japanese production stopped. Japanese guitar production recommenced in 1999 and continued at least into 2009, although the company operates factories elsewhere in Asia. At this writing, Headway’s web site was not active.

I’ve always thought the headless technology was cool, but I was never a New Agey kind of guy, and I wouldn’t look good in an orange and black jump suit. I always found I liked a head to help me know where I should stop. Guess I occupy more of that boring normal part of the guitar universe than I care to admit!

Riverhead Unicorn Series Guitar Ad

1985 Riverhead Unicorn Series Driving Force

Searching for Spock (Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Something I’ve always found curious was the discrepancy between “correct” and “incorrect” technique on the guitar. If you ever study classical guitar, you’ll get schooled on proper positioning of the left (and right, for that matter) hand, with the thumb in the middle of the back of the neck and the fingers coming down perpendicular to the strings. This helps maximize your reach and make it easier to fret the often complex harmonic line movements. It works. But then along comes Jimi who plays left-handed upside down and backwards with his darned thumb looped over the edge of the fingerboard and creates genius. Go figure.

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

In any case, periodically guitar designers turn their attention to the ergonomics of the guitar fingerboard and implement improvements to the traditional parallel fret layout. In modern times Oregon luthier Ralph Novak employs his patented “fanned fret” concept—with lower frets angled toward the bass side of the head, gradually migrating in a fan-like shape so that higher frets are angled toward the bass side of the body—on his Novax guitars.

Of course, somebody has always done something before, and in this case, conceptually if not actually, at least, it was Rickenbacker who came up with the slanted frets idea in 1973 with its Model 481. Or actually they reportedly did the slanted frets as a custom option as early as 1969. Rickenbacker had a tradition of trying to improve the ergonomics of guitar necks. Back in 1961 Rickenbacker designer Peter Sceusa filed a patent for a parabolic neck profile that was narrower at the top of the back to make it easier for ladies and people with smaller hands to fret the guitar (granted 1963). Who came up with the idea of slanting the frets I don’t know, but the idea was that if you’re resting the neck in the crook of your thumb, the fingers naturally curve forward. Thus, if you angle the frets slightly forward on the bass side, it’s more comfortable to fret, more natural.

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

The notion must have been at least somewhat popular because the concept got its own guitar model with the 481 introduced in 1973. Basically this is a solidbody with what’s called the “cresting wave” shape derived from Rickenbacker’s distinctive 4001 bass guitars. Rickenbacker even came up with a pair of high-output humbuckers with 12—count ‘em—adjustable pole pieces each for the 481 which only ever appeared on this guitar. One of the toggles is a threeway select and the other is a nifty phase reversal switch.

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

Hard information on the 481 is difficult to come by. The slant-fretted Model 481 was offered for 10 years from 1973-1983, but online references suggest that these are relatively scarce. There was a sort of companion Model 480 which had a similar shape, but different electronics and no slanted frets. Apparently, the Model 481 is favored by a guitarist named Serge Pizzorno of the contemporary band Kasabian, but I confess I don’t know their music (reflective of someone like me advancing on in age).

I love the idea of this guitar, even if for me the slanted frets don’t work all that well. They’re not a real obstacle to playing—they’re not that slanted—but if you favor classical technique, like I do, they’re no real advantage, and they don’t work all that well if you play a lot of barred chords. Unless maybe you’re Jimi, but who is?

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

Certainly the Model 481 is one of the more desirable of Rickenbacker’s 1970s output, probably because it’s so unlike the usual Rickenbacker. I love phase reversal switches and I love crushed pearloid shark’s teeth inlays and even the varnished fingerboard surface. That it’s so unusual is probably why I was so attracted to the Model 481 in the first place. Well, come on. You gotta love any guitar with slanted frets. Whether or not the guitar really fits in with your personality.

The Right Slant on a Rickenbacker (Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1960’s Domino Californian Electric Guitar (Redburst)

This model was an obvious take on the VOX Phantom from the same era. VOX initially made guitars in England then transferred production to Italy. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones popularized the Phantom and the Teardrop models, so Lipsky was quick to jump on the opportunity with the Domino brand.

The California was available in 2 or 3 pickup configuration. Main colors were White or Redburst as shown below, but have also been spotted in canary yellow and sonic blue. They all sported the rather unique woodgrain pickguard which looked like a 1950’s kitchen table top. It was also available in a Bass version.

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s Domino Californian Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Teisco guitars have run a curious course in the opinion of vintage guitar fans. There was a time when any unidentified Japanese guitar from the 1960s—and that was just about all of them, even with brand names—was said to have been “made by Teisco,” and was generally held in disdain. Then, what used to be just cheap old guitars became collectible “vintage” guitars and before you knew it, Teisco and other el-cheapos were all of a sudden desirable and treated more or less seriously.

Vintage 1963 Teisco SD-4L Electric Guitar

Teisco guitars were somewhat unusual back in the 1960s because many—though certainly not all—were imported into the U.S. by Westheimer Sales carrying their own company’s brand name. There actually was a Teisco company! In fact, it was the late Jack Westheimer who appended the “del Rey” suffix to give the brand a little more “Spanish” veneer. By around 1964 or so another company called W.M.I., which stood for Weiss Musical Instruments, started importing Teisco del Reys, as well. Westheimer’s interest was more engaged in other brands he was selling, so he didn’t complain about W.M.I.’s usurping his brand name.

The object of my desire seen here is a c. 1963 Teisco SD-4L, which could have been brought in by Westheimer or someone else. For a guitar that was once regarded as something close to junk, laughed at by Les Paul and Strat aficionados, this is actually a pretty remarkable piece of lutherie for its time, the formica facing notwithstanding. The body is laminated, which the more snobbish call “plywood.” The neck is one-piece maple with a bound rosewood fingerboard. I don’t know if this has a reinforced neck; if it does, it’s certainly not adjustable. It’s pretty straight, however.

Vintage 1963 Teisco SD-4L Electric Guitar

The ultimate inspiration for this guitar was the Fender Jazzmaster, which was, at the time this was introduced, still Fender’s top-of-the-line. However, it’s probably more by way of European translation. Very early in the history of Japanese exports to the U.S. they determined that their chief competition was Italian and, to a lesser extent, German guitars. And they were often loosely based on the Jazzmaster. The presence of four pickups, rocker switches, and thumbwheels clearly takes its inspiration from the Europeans. However, the nifty, top-mounted chrome housings that hold the controls are more of a nod to Supro.

A faux walnut top, the groovy shape, and four pickups are enough to recommend this guitar. But the neatest part is under the hood. The thumbwheels are master volume and tone. I’ve always thought that each pickup having both was overkill and impossible to use outside of a studio. Notice this has six rocker switches. Four of the rockers are simple on-off swtiches for each pickup. The other two, marked “Rhythm/Solo,” are actually phase reversal switches. Using these required that each pair of pickups (front and back) be on. The Solo position gives you both pickups in series or flat out. The Rhythm position reverses the phasing, giving you that funky in-between sound so cherished on Strats. Pretty cool.

Vintage 1963 Teisco SD-4L Electric Guitar

The vibrato is also interesting. It sits on a little elevated platform above the guitar top and operates with three springs, one of the earliest 3-spring vibratos on a Japanese guitar I know of. All in all this is a great little guitar for getting down with “Walk, Don’t Run.” Once you get everything all set up, it plays very nicely indeed.

I’ve called this a 1963. In ’62 when these were introduced, the pickups were large chunky chrome affairs with a black bobbin center. By ’63 they had changed to these quasi-DeArmond gold foil single-coils (which are not bad, by the way). The Teisco SD-4L (and a companion 2-pickup SD-2L) only lasted into 1964. There’s a perception that Japanese guitars such as Teisco were imported by the millions, but, in fact, quantities were not really that large. The biggest year was 1966, when 618,000 guitars were imported, including all electrics and acoustics. It’s probably fair to conclude that this particular model is relatively scarce. In any case, when it was made nobody thought that inexpensive Japanese guitars were worth saving or would become collectibles! I’m sure glad this one made it. I love it! Mother-of-dinette and all.

Vintage 1963 Teisco SD-4L Electric Guitar

Over Easy & Coffee Black, Please (Vintage 1963 Teisco SD-4L Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar

You know the evolution of popular music in the late 1970s and early 1980s as well as I, so there’s no need to venture a reading here. But somewhere along the way, the non-stop “heavy metal” of the early years morphed into a poppier hard rock, still full of biting guitar riffs. Then one day, it became a requisite to incorporate a “power ballad” into your repertoire. This was usually a slower love song—still played loud—that featured some generally elementary fingerstyle guitar playing on an acoustic-electric guitar. All well and good. But you had your hard rock image to keep up, and, well, let’s face it, an Ovation with wooden epaulets wasn’t exactly going to cut it. What to do?

Leave it to Kramer Guitars to come up with the perfect solution in around 1986: Kramer Ferrington acoustic-electric guitars. Make the acoustic-electric look like a way-cool solidbody electric and you could be both tough and gentle at the same time!

Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar

Ferrington was not a made up marketing name. Rather, it was the last name of Danny Ferrington, somewhat of a celebrity luthier living in Nashville at the time who’d built guitars for a number of stars. Ferrington’s main thing was to design guitars with asymmetrical or unusual shapes. I’m not sure whether Ferrington made the Strat- and Tele-shaped designs before hooking up with Kramer or not, but he designed these, the KFS-1 and KFT-1, for Kramer and they debuted in 1986, made in Korea. I interviewed Mr. Ferrington when reviewing a book on his guitars that came out in 1992. That book, by the way, was asymmetrically shaped and beautiful. It didn’t sell well, so you’re likely to find copies still available and should pick one up for your library.

Kramer Ferringtons had very lightweight bodies and came in black, white, red, and sunburst. They had a transducer pickup under the saddle with volume and tone controls. The necks were bolted on and featured a variety of headstock shapes and fingerboard inlays that evolved over the life of the line. By 1987 some plainer KFS-2 and KFT-2 models were introduced, mainly without neck binding and with dot inlays. The KFT-1 seen here was built in 1987.

Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar

In 1988 Kramer introduced Ferrington Signature models which were supposed to be made by Danny Ferrington himself in the U.S., or at least under his supervision. Marketing and reality are often at odds when it comes to classic Kramer guitars, so who knows! But they probably were American made and not Korean. These were upscale guitars with solid spruce tops, set-in necks, and asymmetrical Ferrington shapes. I think these are pretty rare birds. I only ever saw a couple of them in stores and they were pricey and hung around for quite awhile.

The Kramer Ferrington line lasted until the end in 1990, when Kramer imploded. Danny Ferrington relocated to Los Angeles and marketed the KFS-1 and KFT-2 with the Ferrington brand name for a bit, but the guitars trailed off fairly quickly. I don’t know if the Korean-made Kramer Ferringtons were plentiful or not, but it’s fairly easy to find them for sale. Kramer was pretty good at selling guitars.

Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar

Likewise, I don’t really know if these guitars made it into too many hard rock acts. They certainly had a rock ‘n’ roll vibe and would look cool on stage. They’re fully functional, but, frankly, if you’re into real acoustic-electric guitar, they’re more of a novelty. They might make you look good jumping off your amp, but if you want a really good acoustic-electric sound, you’re going to go for one of the solidbody guitars like a Gibson Chet Atkins or, for that matter, an Ovation (with wooden epaulets).

Not long after Kramer Ferringtons bit the dust, the power-ballad-infused hard rock that was their reason for existing also fell from grace, replaced by the “alternative” sound typified by Nirvana et al. History was off on another dialectical tangent.

Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar

The Softer Side of Hard Rock (Vintage 1986 Kramer Ferrington KFT-1 Acoustic-Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage Domino Spartan Electric Guitar

Who actually built these guitars in Japan is unknown, but these pickups appear to be associated with Kawai guitars, and that’s probably a good guess.

Vintage Domino Spartan Electric Guitar (Ad)

Here is an example of a dual pickup Domino Spartan in Sunburst. It was available in 2 or 3 pickup configuration, and in many different colors. Over the years I have seen olympic white, sunburst, seafoam green, orange and red. This 2P model has volume and tone controls, a 3-way selector switch and a rhythm/solo switch. The quality was pretty solid across the entire Domino line, compared to some of the stuff that was coming out of Japan at the time.

Back Catalog Memories: Vintage Domino Spartan Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar

The first time I laid eyes on this guitar was in the showroom of LoDuca Brothers warehouse in Milwaukee, which was another of those “Temples of Doom” you hear me talk about periodically. LoDuca Brothers were (or was if you consider it a company, not siblings) the American importers and distributors of EKO guitars (actually Rickenbacker handled the West Coast). LoDuca Brothers had its roots in a late 1930s, early ‘40s accordion duo Vaudeville act featuring Thomas and Gaetano (Guy) LoDuca. According to their son, Mickey, as good Italian sons, the brothers handed their earnings over to their father, who paid them an allowance and put some in savings. When they’d amassed a couple grand, they opened the first of what would become a chain of music studios around Milwaukee. As they thrived, they began to import and sell LoDuca brand accordions sourced from Oliviero Pigini of Recanati, Italy, just north of Castelfidardo, a town that is still the hub of accordion manufacturing in Italy.

As we’ve talked about before, accordions were a big fad among young Baby Boomers in the early to mid-1950s. This was good for the LoDucas business. But when the wind was squeezed out of the demand for accordions, it kind of left the LoDucas with empty hands. They played around with importing keyboards—including the actual black and white key assemblies—until, fortuitously, folk music happened and demand for guitars began to pick up toward the end of the 1950s.

Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar

Pigini knew only too well about the drop in sales of accordions in the US, of course. So the company decided to expand into guitar manufacturing. LoDuca Brothers had an accordion distribution network with around 600 outlets and was doing business with Pigini, so they were a natural partner to handle the expansion into guitars.

As far as I know, EKO was the brand name chosen for Pigini’s guitars and didn’t come off another existing line of instruments. I don’t think it was ever used on accordions (though it eventually did get put on some electronic keyboards and drums). Just as with accordions, Pigini would gladly put the brand name of your choice on a batch of guitars, but EKO was their main string moniker. EKO guitars debuted in 1961.

The first EKO guitars were acoustics and among the first customers was Sears. LoDuca had imported a little chord organ for Sears beginning in 1959, so they had an established relationship. The first EKO electric guitars were a pair of plastic-covered solidbodies, the Models 500 and 700, covered in sparkle plastic, plus a range of archtops, introduced in 1962.

From the get-go Pigini relied on input from LoDuca Brothers to develop guitars that would sell in the American market. In this regard LoDuca enlisted a number of professional guitarists from the Milwaukee area, who endorsed EKOs.

Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar

LoDuca and EKO hit the market at a good time. EKO’s biggest year was probably 1967, when this Condor was made. It’s the huge ’67 catalog that most frequently circulates in the paper trade. I fell in love with this the moment I laid eyes on it. I mean, it’s so T-Bird (as in Ford with a porthole) or Edsel (yeah, I loved those, too). That pale pink with the black neck. And four—count ‘em—four pickups. It pretty much screams out for a matching tuxedo. Besides being a looker, this guitar actually plays pretty well, too. It’s light-weight and comfortable. The single-coil pickups aren’t screamers, but they’re beefy enough. You get a nice variety of tones, though not those swell glassy out-of-phase sounds like on a jimmied Strat. Having four on-off switches is darned awkward, but otherwise this is a sweetheart.

So, why was the warehouse this came out of another Temple of Doom? Mainly because of a confluence of events. Demand for guitars in the US began to drop in 1968. Tastes changed. Hendrix, Clapton and Bloomfield were whetting appetites for axes capable of chopping, not matching tuxedos. Then, at some time probably around 1968 or ’69, Oliviero Pigini, who loved fast sports cars, died in a car crash. Anecdotal evidence suggests that EKO’s seasoned wood supply burned up in 1970, but I can’t confirm that. In any case, quality supposedly declined.

In any case, business waned and LoDuca Brothers found itself sitting on a warehouse full of unsold EKO guitars. And there they sat for years. Fast forward and in the 1980s vintage guitar collecting became all the rage. Collectors and dealers got the word and began to mine the trove at bargain prices. Temple of Doom indeed! When I strode in, the pickings were comparatively slim, but there was still plenty of guitar eye candy left, including this two-tone beauty, as fine a sight as any gleaming T-Bird, or maybe a pink Cadillac!

Peachy Keen (Vintage 1967 EKO Condor Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Stars Guitars – Brian May signature guitar

There was a period in time about 12 months before the official birth of Eastwood Guitars, where www.myrareguitars.com was selling more NEW guitars than Vintage Guitars. From 1999-2002, MRG was a dealer for Dipinto Guitars, Burns UK, EKO, Italia, Tokai and many others. One of the brands at that time was STARS. STARS? I know, never heard of it. Maybe it lasted for only 18 months at best, but they put out a Brian May copy that was WAY better than most people expected, at a price that was unbeatable, around $599.

Here are a bunch of photos of one model – perfect finish, excellent quality bridge, saddles and tremolo, beautiful fretboard – they had everything. Everything except licensing rights, so after some nicely worded lawyers letters, it seems the STARS brand disappeared into the night….

Back Catalog Memories: Brian May Guitar from Stars Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com

So what guitars did John use as a Beatle? Lets take a closer look…

1958 Rickenbacker 325 Capri

John Lennon with his 1958 Rickenbacker 325 Capri guitar (The Beatles)

It was in 1960 that John acquired the 325 capri, which accompanied him in the Hamburg days. This guitar can famously be seen in the Beatles’ first Ed Sullivan Show performance. Rumor has it that this guitar was a natural color and was painted black in 1962. It is believed that he stopped using it sometime in 1964. The 325 Capri has been left in the hand of John’s son, Sean Lennon.

1962 Gibson J-160E

John Lennon with his 1962 Gibson J-160E guitar (The Beatles)

One of John’s most famous acoustic guitars is easy to recognize with the sunburst finish and knobs on the soundboard to control the built-in pickup. The Gibson can be heard on the song “Love Me Do” and was used extensively on the Please Please Me sessions. Lennon picked up another J-160E, which he took on tour in 1964 and 1965.

1963 Rickenbacker 325

John Lennon with his 1963 Rickenbacker 325 guitar (The Beatles)

This Rickenbacker came in to replace John’s “Hamburg” Capri, which had taken quite the beating. It was used on the album A Hard Day’s Night. As well, it was used on the second performance the Beatles did on the Ed Sullivan Show. Lennon also received a 12-string version of this guitar.

1961 Fender Stratocaster

John Lennon with his 1961 Fender Stratocaster Guitar (The Beatles)

In 1964, John Lennon and George Harrison made a request for some strats, and each received one. In a cool light blue color with a rosewood fretboard, the stratocasters were used on the song “Nowhere Man”. George Harrison later gave his a psychedelic paint job for the All You Need is Love satellite broadcast.

1965 Epiphone E230TD Casino

John Lennon with his 1965 Epiphone E230TD Casino guitar sanded (The Beatles)

John Lennon with his 1965 Epiphone E230TD Casino guitar unsanded (The Beatles)

This hollow body guitar is quite famous as John used it for the impromptu rooftop concert. He also toured with it extensively in 1966 and it can be seen at the Beatles’ Shea Stadium performance. Sometime in 1968, John has his Casino sanded down to its natural finish, which can be seen in the rooftop concert.

Other guitars John had during the Beatles

• Ramirez A-1 classical guitar
• Framus 12-string acoustic guitar
• 1963 Gretsch 6120, Guild Starfire XII
• 1966 Vox Kensington
• 1965 Martin D-28 acoustic

– Posted by Raj who writes a blog on Guitar Tone

Check out these cool ‘best of’ articles from GuitarToneTalk:

• Best Reverb Pedals
• Best Chorus Pedals

John Lennon’s Guitars in the Beatles 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

Chuck Berry

What makes a great guitar riff? Does it come down to the technical brilliance that goes into playing it, or the ease by which a simple but effective riff can be played by beginners? Similarly, what riffs act as useful indicators of changing periods in music, and how have they transcended their status within songs to almost stand in for a whole band’s career? The following list represents an effort to put together some of the best guitar riffs, which are presented in rough order of influence through to some personal favourites at the top of the list.

10. Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry

Included on this list almost solely due to its iconic appearance in Back to the Future, ‘Johnny B. Goode’s’ electric riff arguably stands in for early rock and roll as much as Elvis Presley’s hip jigging on the Ed Sullivan Show. Simple, but invested with considerable power, Berry helped inspire a new generation of performers.

9. Start Me Up, Keith Richards

Reflecting The Rolling Stone’s powerful, pop-edged take on the blues, the open G tuning and percussive opening to Start Me Up by Keith Richards says all you need to know about the band’s swaggering sound. Originally Recorded in the mid 1970s, ‘Start Me Up’ appeared on the 1981 album Tattoo You.

8. Paperback Writer, George Harrison/John Lennon

Signalling the rock power that underpinned The Beatles’ melodies and harmonies, George Harrison’s overdriven mono riff on Paperback Writer demonstrated a band making a crucial turn towards more complex albums in the mid 1960s.

7. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Kurt Cobain

Perhaps the first riff that everyone tries when they get their first distortion pedal, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’s stripped down appeal and instinctive use of a few chords still sounds as powerful today as in 1991.

6. Sweet Child O’Mine, Slash

If ‘Teen Spirit’ marked the breakaway of Seattle grunge from the excesses of West Coast hair metal, ‘Sweet Child O’Mine’ remains the key example of how the pomp and swagger of the LA scene could be boiled down to Slash’s virtuoso opening riff.

5. Smoke On The Water, Ritchie Blackmore

Perhaps the most imitated riff for beginners, Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke On The Water’ is simple but highly effective, and represents a rare riff that can be picked up by a new player on the first day of owning a guitar.

4. Enter Sandman, Kirk Hammett

For heavier riffs, look no further than Kirk Hammett’s building intro and main riff for Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’. Pure, pulse pounding guitar playing at its best.

3. Sweet Home Alabama/Free Bird. Ed King/Lynyrd Skynyrd

A tie for third place, Lynyrd Skynyrd can be criticised for turning every rock encore into a crowd chant for ‘Free Bird’, the band’s oftentimes 14 minute closure to their shows. ‘Sweet Home Alabama’s’ infectious riff, however, remains one of the most memorable, and oft imitated examples of its kind.

2. Stairway to Heaven, Jimmy Page

The perfect embodiment of Jimmy Page’s technical mastery during Led Zeppelin’s peak, ‘Stairway to Heaven’ gradually builds around an opening riff that most just about manage to learn before taking on the rest of the song.

1. Walk This Way, Joe Perry

Just edging out ‘Stairway’ is Aerosmith’s ‘Walk This Way,’ if only for the fact that it fused rock and rap music around a central riff that has been much imitated, but rarely bettered.

Rob James, guitar enthusiast, rocker, and fan of the Lick Library

Top 10 Greatest Guitar Riffs from MyRareGuitars.com

(L to R) Bob2 with Gibson L6-S Custom, Bob1 with LaBaye 2×4 Six, Jerry Casale with modified Gibson Ripper, August 1979

While many think of them as a synthpop band with the occasional guitar thrown in, in their early years they were precisely the opposite – at times featuring three guitarists in their line up (guitarist Bob1 [Mothersbaugh], guitarist/keyboardist Bob2 [Casale], and singer/keyboardist/guitarist Mark Mothersbaugh). By the early 80s, however, Bob1 was the only member with strings on his instrument with Bob2 and bassist Jerry Casale having mostly switched over to playing their parts on synths. They seemed to have not only enjoyed unusual choices in guitars (shying away from the all too common Strats and Les Pauls) but rotating through many different models as well.

• Bob Mothersbaugh
  Bob Mothersbaugh’s early guitar of choice was the (never particularly popular) Gibson L6-S Custom. A bit of an ugly duckling looking like a misguided copy of a standard Les Paul, it was designed by Bill Lawrence and was originally intended to be “a multi-sound system for the SG Standard” before morphing into an entirely new model. Initially embraced by players with jazz fusion leanings including Al Di Meola, Pat Martino, and Carlos Santana it was equipped with a six way chicken-head rotary knob to select any combination of the two pickups in series/parallel or in/out of phase. It’s likely that Mothersbaugh utilized many of these settings to get some of the distinctive Devo guitar sounds. He can be seen playing it in during “Secret Agent Man” in the short film In The Beginning Was The End: The Truth About De-Evolution from 1976 as well as numerous other videos and live performances. Also, Devo’s appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1978 saw both Bob Mothersbaugh and Bob Casale playing L6-Ss.Bob Mothersbaugh also used the striking (and extremely rare) LaBaye 2×4 “Six”only 45 of which were produced in 1967 in Neodesha, Kansas. An obvious forerunner of the Steinberger in design if not playability and sound (the original pickups were notoriously weak). He can be seen playing it in the “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” video from 1978 and some of their earliest live shows outside of their native Akron, Ohio in New York. He still plays the guitar during live versions of “Mr. DNA” and, in a bit of showmanship, breaks all the strings at the end of the solo by violently pulling up on the vibrato arm.Perhaps his most famous guitar is the custom made Ibanez that was originally supposed to look like a potato but came out looking more like a cloud and can be seen in the Devo – Live 1980 DVD (and on the cover) as well as the “Girl U Want” video from 1980. He sold the guitar in the mid-80s while not in the best state of mind and set out to find it again years later. After over a decade of fruitlessly searching, it was finally found in the possession of pro skateboarder Jason Jessee who reunited Bob with the guitar.Over the years he’s been spotted with a variety of other guitars including a blue Ibanez Iceman (played on “Gates of Steel” on the late night TV show Fridays in 1980), an Olympic White Fender Musicmaster (as seen in “The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize” video from 1979 and “It Takes A Worried Man” in Neil Young’s Human Highway film), a Wine Red Les Paul – only acquired to be compatible with the 360 Systems Spectre Guitar Synthesizer which he described as “horrible” – with a “reverse horn” (done by Bob himself) as seen in the “Whip It” video from 1980 and even a Kay K1962 (played in the “Time Out for Fun” and “That’s Good” videos from 1982).He’s currently playing a Gibson Custom Shop’59 Les Paul reissue (modeled after Mike Bloomfield’s guitar), a 1964 Gibson SG Standard with P-90s and a Gibson Vibrola, and several entry-level G&L SC-2s which he has described as “probably my favorite guitar.”
  

  (L to R) Jerry Casale with custom-made bass with Gibson EB-3 neck, Bob1 with Ibanez “cloud” guitar, 1980

• Bob Casale
  Bob Casale’s main guitar seems to have been a red Hagstrom PB-24-G which he played at Devo’s first performance (as Sextet Devo) at Kent State University in 1973 as well as the “Satisfaction” and “Come Back Jonee” videos in 1978. Occasionally played by Mark Mothersbaugh as well as on Saturday Night Live in 1978 (with his trademark pedals duct taped to it). He can also be seen playing a Gibson Marauder at early shows in New York. During recent shows he has been playing a green Ibanez Talman TC420 with a red pickguard.
• Mark Mothersbaugh
  Mark almost exclusively used Fender Telecasters which he liked to duct tape his pedals to. This choice was not only aesthetic but practical as well as he can often be seen twiddling the knobs on the pedals while playing. He played what seemed to be a stock Telecaster in the “Satisfaction” video with what appears to be an Electro-Harmonix Frequency Analyzer mounted on the body though it looks like at times he had up to three pedals. Live footage of Devo in Japan in 1979 also shows Mark playing what appears to be a different Telecaster modified with a humbucker in the neck position. During current live shows he plays a left-handed Fender Stratocaster with a pedal duct taped to it, of course.
  

  Mark Mothersbaugh with Hagstrom PB-24-G & duct taped pedals

• Jerry Casale
  Left-handed bassist Jerry Casale has always played right-handed basses strung for a right-handed player (with the E string closest to the ground). At early live shows in Akron and New York he played a Gibson EB-3 before switching to a Gibson Ripper with the horns sawed off (and thick black arm padding added to the top side) supposedly to look more like a potato. This “Spudbass” can be seen in the “Satisfaction” video and on their Saturday Night Live appearance in 1978. He later had a plywood custom-made red rounded cross-shaped body fitted with two DiMarzio Model J’s and the neck from his EB-3 (as seen in Urgh! A Music War filmed in 1980). He then became an early adopter of the Steinberger L2 which he used since its release in 1981 (as seen in the videos for “That’s Good” and “Peek-A-Boo!” from 1982) and he continues to use in concert.

(L to R) Jerry Casale with Steinberger L2, Mark Mothersbaugh with left-handed Fender Stratocaster & duct taped pedals, Bob1 with G&L SC-2, Bob2 with Ibanez Talman TC420

As Bob Mothersbaugh has recently said, “Twenty years ago, someone in the band decided that guitars were obsolete and nobody would be using guitars 20 years from then, and they tried to make that a reality, which really didn’t work for us.” It’s good to see the guitars back.

Devo Signature Guitars for sale

In case you were not aware, Eastwood Guitars have release a full range of DEVO signature guitars and basses over the past few years! Some models are still available, and some have been discontinued. If you’re a DEVO fan and own one of these, consider yourself lucky!

Devo Signature Cloud Guitar

DEVO Cloud Guitar by Eastwood Guitars. VIEW INFO

Devo Peek-a-Boo Guitar

DEVO Peek-a-Boo Guitar by Eastwood Guitars. VIEW INFO

Devo La Baye 2×4 Guitar

Devo Signature La Baye guitar. VIEW INFO

Devo Signature ‘Whip It’ Guitar

Devo Signature Whip It.

Devo ‘Be Stiff’ Bass

Devo ‘Be Stiff’ Bass.

Devo La Baye 2×4 Bass

Devo La Baye 2×4 Bass. 

For more info about DEVO Signature Models available, click image below:

VIEW ALL DEVO SIGNATURE MODELS AVAILABLE NOW

The Devo Guitar Guide from MyRareGuitars.com

These guitars were imported into the United States during the 1960’s by Milwaukee import company, Deluca Brothers Music. This particular model – The Cobra Series – was a “student” entry level guitar. They were available in single and double pickup 6 string version, mainly in Black, Sunburst or Red. Also in a 12 string version in Sunburst or Red and a 30″ scale Bass in Sunburst. Surprisingly nice necks on these guitars even 50 years later, the body material is extremely lightweight and the guitars are fun to play.

EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 6-String Electric Guitar (Red)

EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Vintage 1960's EKO Cobra 12-String Electric Guitar (Sunburst)

Back Catalog Memories: 1960’s EKO Cobra Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com

Charvel Surfcaster Guitar & Bass Ad (1991)

The Charvel Surfcaster surfaced in the early 1990s, and it was manufactured from 1991 to 2005 by the Charvel/Jackson guitar company. It was never very popular in terms of sales, but was considered a boutique style guitar and those who like them, like them a lot, like me! It is reminiscent of the Fender Jazzmaster but with a Rickenbacker style f-hole. These design aspects make it significantly different than other models from Charvel/Jackson that focused mainly on the hard rock guitarist. The Surfcaster was picked as a “Pawn Shop Prize” by Guitar Player magazine in July 2003.

Originally available only in the two lipstick pickup configuration, later models would include a humbucking pickup in the bridge position. Later solid body 3 lipstick pickup variations were also produced. A twelve string and four string bass version were also created and are highly collectible. Quality & cosmetics suffered. When Charvel/Jackson was purchased by Fender in 2002 they dropped the Surfcaster because of its similarity to guitars sold under the Fender brand.

Here are a some detailed photos of a beautiful matching pair. Enjoy!

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Electric Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Charvel Surfcaster Bass Guitar

Back Catalog Memories: 1991 Charvel Surfcaster Guitar & Bass from MyRareGuitars.com

Now don’t be too impressed yet – this wasn’t a “moment of discovery” where record producers and agents saw me and made me an overnight sensation. Tommy was in Toronto doing one of his pre-concert workshops and I was in the audience. He usually ends by asking volunteers to come up and play a song with him. I sat there sweating while friends got up and played, wondering if I would actually have the nerve to do it. Then I impulsively threw up my hand and before I could chicken out I was sitting on stage with one of my greatest guitar heroes.

Dr. Dave Walker on stage with Tommy Emmanuel

This was a moment I had dreamed about for years, and I wasn’t really unprepared. I had been practising one of my favourite Chet Atkins tunes ‘All Thumbs‘ and thought that it would be perfect since Tommy was such a huge Chet fan and knew every one of his songs (or so I thought). So when he asked me what song I wanted to play and I said All Thumbs, imagine my shock when he said: “Oh, I don’t know that one! I’ll have to fake it. You can start.”

Gulp! I took a few deep breaths to calm down before starting, but as I did Tommy addressed the audience. “This one is really hard,” he said to the crowd, “REALLY, REALLY hard!” Just what I didn’t need to hear. Then he turned to me and said: “Go!” One more deep breath and to my amazement my fingers began playing the song, and Tommy joined right in.

It all went well right up to the last few bars. That’s the trickiest part in the song, because Chet plays one of his patented cascades of sixteenth-notes all across the strings, and it had been hit-and-miss almost up to that very day. I was dreading the spot, and sure enough when I got to it, my fingers failed and I stopped. Ouch!

There was a sort of gasp from the audience and Tommy whispered to me: “Keep going! Don’t stop!” But it was too late – I HAD stopped. So I looked up at him with a grin and said: “Wait for it” and to my own (and everyone else’s) amazement I ripped off the cascade perfectly and ended the song. Tommy let out a whoop, jumped up and gave me a huge hug. With his arm still around me he turned to the audience and said: “THAT is how you play All Thumbs!”

I have never been so nervous playing in my life, nor have I been so proud on stage as that day. So do I still dream of doing it again? No way! That one performance was a pinnacle that I doubt I could reach again. And besides, it turns out that it did give me my little niche in posterity after all.

A couple of months later I was at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society convention in Nashville talking with a group of the guys from Toronto. Tommy recognized us and came over to chat and reminisce about his recent visit. I was to his side and slightly behind him, and was shocked but very pleased to hear him say: “Hey, remember that crazy doctor who got up on stage with me and played All Thumbs? How amazing was that?!”

by “Dr. Dave” Walker
blog.davewalkermusic.com

Dr. Dave Walker is a writer for blog.davewalkermusic.com and for Just Jazz Guitar. A former computer science professor, he has since come to his senses and now teaches music.

Be Careful What You Wish For – You May End Up On Stage With Tommy Emmanuel! from MyRareGuitars.com

Hey everyone! Ben Fargen here from Fargen Custom Amps & Mods. I was asked to write a post for MyRareGuitars.com, so I thought I’d write about some famous songs and amplifiers. I’m really looking forward to your comments, so let me know which songs and amps you would include in this list. Thanks!

10. Fender Showman (Blonde Brownface)

Song: Miserlou
Artist: Dick Dale
The unmistakable sound of surf guitar was created by Dick Dale’s Fender stratocaster and a Fender Showman amp. One of the most important pieces of his signature sound was a custom Fender reverb unit (built by Leo Fender and given to Dick Dale as a prototype) driving a cranked up dual showman into 2 X 15-inch JBL D1 30 speakers. On the opening low E run from Dick Dale’s version of Miserlou you knew surf guitar was born, and that super cool reverb-laden sound would change the history of instrumental guitar music.

Dick Dale’s 1965 Fender Showman Amp at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ

9. Marshall JTM 45 Combo (Series 2, Model #1962)

Song: Hideaway
Artist: Eric Clapton (John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers)
In the mid 60’s – after Eric Clapton left the Yardbirds – he joined with the John Mayall Bluesbreakers. Within one year earned a huge reputation and the nickname “Slowhand”. The Bluesbreakers recorded the Beano album in April 1966 and Clapton used a Marshall Series 2 1962 JTM 45 combo with KT 66 tubes. This amp coupled with the Les Paul guitar created a new kind of sound no one had ever heard before in blues. Some dubbed this the “woman” tone, and players have been chasing it for decades.

The Marshall Bluesbreaker: The Story of Marshall’s First Combo

8. Fender Deluxe Reverb

Song: Sweet Dreams
Artist: Roy Buchanan
Roy Buchanan and his trusty, well-weathered 50’s telecaster never abused a finer vintage amp than the Fender Deluxe Reverb. Roy was known for cranking his Fender Deluxe Reverb full blast and facing it toward the back of the stage to cut the stage volume. Roy gave his fans one screaming note after another and some of the sweetest tear-jerking blues you’ve ever heard. If there was ever a player that could wring blood, sweat and tears from a guitar, it was the late, great Roy Buchanan.

1960’s Blackface Fender Deluxe Reverb Amp

7. Fender Bassman (Blonde Brownface)

Song: Rock This Town
Artist: Brian Setzer

Brian setzer is the king of cool when it come to rockabilly guitar style. He brought 50’s style blues/jazz guitar back in a time when AOR rock and new wave ruled the airwaves. One of the secret weapons in his tone is a Roland RE-201 Space Echo between his Gretsch guitar and two blonde Fender Bassman amps. That setup creates a great rowdy slap back echo which has become part of his signature tone.

Brian Setzer’s Blonde Brownface Fender Bassman 6G6-B Amps setup with Roland Space Echo

6. Fender Tweed Deluxe

Song: Like A Hurricane
Artist: Neil Young
Neil Young is the godfather of grunge. bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana pay tribute to Neil’s wild, unleashed crunchy chords and ruckus feedback swirls in many of their songs. Neil sports his worn black beauty Les Paul, feeding his 1959 Tweed Deluxe on many of his classic tunes live and in the studio. One amazing part of Neil’s rig is the Whizzer. In order to access the Deluxe’s varying degrees of overdrive and gain, Young uses a custom-made amp-control switching device known simply as “the Whizzer,” which consists of 2 parts: the foot pedal and the mechanical switching device that physically turns the amp’s knobs. The Whizzer allows Young to stomp a footswitch on the floor to command the unit to twist the Deluxe’s volume and tone controls to any of a number of determined preset positions. This allows Neil to run a pure tone set up: guitar-cord-amp. No booster, overdrive, or distortion pedals are needed to achieve his classic agro-tone…just the little 50’s Fender Tweed Deluxe and the Whizzer.

Neil Young’s 1959 Fender Tweed Deluxe Amp

5. VOX AC30

Song: Bad
Arist: The Edge (U2)

The Edge is one of my all time favorite guitarists. He created a signature sound early on in his career with a Fender Stratocaster, Electro Harmonix Memory Man delay pedal and a VOX AC30 on albums such as WAR and The Unforgettable Fire. This winning combination has served him well from the early days all the way through recent records and live work. The Edge creates complex echo manipulations coupled with the airy chime of the Vox AC30. The Edge has used a massive catalog of guitars and multi FX units over the years, but the AC30 has remained a staple regardless of the other changes. These gear details coupled with his brilliant parts make U2’s catalog of songs distinguishable with just one note of the Edge’s guitar. Very few guitar players in history have created such a powerful and recognizable signature sound like The Edge.

The Edge’s 1964 Vox AC30TB (Top Boost) Amp [’64 chassis in a 70’s cabinet

4. Supro Thunderbolt

Song: Communication Breakdown
Artist: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin)
There has been a lot of speculation over the years regarding the amps that Jimmy Page used in the studio during the groundbreaking debut release Led Zeppelin. Jimmy will neither confirm nor deny which amp(s) were used in the studio, and there are no known photos in the archives to corroborate my story. But…based on the tones heard on the record, it is entirely possible that the Supro Thunderbolt was used. So in keeping with the mythical ethos of Led Zeppelin, I added it in to the mix.

Supro Thunderbolt Amp (front)

Supro Thunderbolt Amp (back)

Now, just to add to the mystery, here’s the Supro amp that Jimmy page gave to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s actually a Supro 1690T Coronado, but the features of the amp do not match up with details Jimmy previously provided when questioned about the Supro amp he used on Led Zeppelin. And the mystery continues…

The Supro 1690T Coronado that Jimmy Page gave to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Supro 1690T Coronado Amp (catalog ad)

3. Marshall Bass 50w #1986 (Head)

Song: Statesboro Blues
Artist: Duane Allman (Allman Brothers Band)
Anyone that loves electric guitar cannot deny the impact Duanne Allman had on the legacy of blues slide guitar. His liquid lines and fluid tone seem to jump from the neck of his Gibson Les Paul without effort. He used a simple rig of two 50 Watt Marshall heads into two 4 x 12-inch cabs. His tone on the legendary Allman Brothers recording Live at the Filmore East is a destination for anyone wanting to capture the ultimate blues tone. Nobody plays it the way Duane did. If you don’t own a copy of this record, I recommend you head to the record store and pick it up immediately because you are missing out on a legendary sound and performance.

Marshall Bass 50w Head Model #1986

Duane Allman’s Last Show (Oct. 1971, Los Angeles)

2. Dumble Overdrive Special

Song: Josie
Artist: Larry Carlton (Steely Dan)
During the 1970’s and 80’s Mr. 335 laid down over 500 tracks a year as a session player and on his own records. He is definitely one of LA’s guitar royalty. Armed with his trusty ’68 Gibson ES-335 and two Dumble Overdrive Special amps, his monster jazz fusion guitar line are unmistakable and can be heard all over popular music. Steely Dan’s 6th release, Aja, employed a huge jazz influence and was their most guitar heavy record to date. This was mostly in part to the amazingly tasty tones and licks from Larry Carlton. Aja is one of Steely Dan’s best and most popular records for sure. Mr. 335 obviously helped push that record to the top.

Larry Carlton’s Dumble Overdrive Special Amps (2005)

1. Marshall Super Lead #1959 (12,000 Series Metal Panel Plexi 100-Watt)

Song: Running With The Devil
Artist: Eddie Van Halen
With the release of Van Halen I in 1978, the world of rock was changed forever. Edward Van Halen hit the scene with a new guitar sound that was so fast and furious no one had ever heard anything like it before. Eddie was a do-it-yourself kind of guy, always tweaking around with modded guitar pickups, different fx pedals on the floor and different ways to drive his Marshall amplifier into saturated overdrive. In the legend of EVH, many myths about how he created his early guitar tone have run rampant for decades. Speculation about DIY mods like power resistors across the power tubes plates, AC variacs to raise or lower the input voltage of the amp, and large resistant power loads over the speaker out have spawned endless articles and arguments on forums about how the legendary early EVH sound was created. Sketchy details from the era and no solid proof of what was used from EVH or his camp during those days continue to feed the tone chasers fuel tanks. And to this day the holy grail tone from Van Halen 1 has players frothing at the mouth. But you and I know the only real truth: The tone is 95% in the hands, and Eddie’s legendary sound has more to do with the notes he played rather than the tone in which he played it with.

Eddie Van Halen’s Marshall Super Lead #1959 100-watt Plexi

Eddie Van Halen’s Marshall Super Lead #1959 100-watt Plexi

Eddie Van Halen’s Marshall Super Lead #1959 100-watt Plexi

10 Classic Guitar Amps & The Songs That Made Them Famous from MyRareGuitars.com

Imagine what you would do if you were a member of a seminal electronic music band that influenced musicians in a myriad of genres over multiple generations and whose stature still remains unparalleled to this day? And then imagine what would you do if your chosen instrument was not a synthesizer but instead a guitar? If you were Michael Rother you would leave Kraftwerk taking drummer Klaus Dinger with you and form the equally acclaimed, if not as well-known, Neu!

A rare television appearance of Kraftwerk with Florian Schneider, Rother and Dinger can be seen here:

Check out the video for Part 2/2 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU0Ls80ZhsY

Michael Rother in studio

Neu!

In 1971 Rother and Dinger formed Neu! after six months of filling in for Kraftwerk’s founding member (and half of the band at the time) synthesizer player Ralf Hütter while he pursued his studies in architecture. The duo quit Kraftwerk reportedly for – what would eventually become a supreme irony – their lack of vision and the following year released their self-titled debut album. Neu! consists (when there is a beat) almost entirely of Dinger’s relentless 4/4 pulse with minimal fills and Rother’s predilection for sticking to one chord throughout an entire song as well as playing a propulsive (often two note) bass line. If this sounds like a cure for your insomnia on paper, on record nothing could be further from the truth. While many of their peers in America and England at the time were exploring the kind of drones that would be suited to zoning out in pharmacologically induced states, Neu!’s music evoked a sense of forward motion particularly the kind found on driving open roads (Dinger’s signature beat was later dubbed Motorik by the music press). Almost always instrumental, Rother took Dinger’s unwavering beat as his starting point which he would then embellish with his layered, loping guitar vamps which ranged from fluid and shimmering (no doubt influenced by his time spent absorbing native music in Pakistan as in his early adolescence) to squalls of feedback to slashing, explosive crescendos at times within the same song. Completely abandoning any sense of traditional song structure including verses, choruses, and bridges, they instead opted for open ended, largely improvisatory workouts with the shortest song on their debut clocking in just under five minutes. While obviously not pop music their songs were also devoid of the virtuosic riffing so abundant at the time. Rother understood the importance of negative space and what he didn’t play was just as important as what he did play. One of the most focused and fully realized albums of all the so-called “Krautrock” bands, Neu! would also become central in redefining Kraftwerk’s previously unfocused sound and its influence looms large over their breakthrough 1974 album Autobahn (even employing the Motorik beat for a time on the title track).

Harmonia (with Michael Rother)

After a second Neu! album the following year (side two of which consisted of various primitive manipulations of two recordings from the first side after the band ran out of money to record any additional songs), Rother collaborated with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster under the name Harmonia even being joined for a time by Brian Eno. Regrouping for Neu!’s final album, Neu! ’75, drummer Klaus Dinger emerged as a competent guitarist (and singer) in his own right though only on the second side of the album in which Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe played drums simultaneously. While Rother’s contributions to Neu!, as well as his string of fine solo albums, tended more to the ambient and reflective end of the spectrum (especially as he incorporated more keyboards), Dinger was more interested in straightforward, aggressive rock in particular his song “Hero” (from Neu! ’75) which seems to have eerily presaged John Lydon’s vocal style as well as Public Image Ltd’s music. (Here’s Dinger playing a beautiful Hagstrom Goya on “Hero”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPuBCfvMrBA) This line up of Klaus Dinger, his brother Thomas and Lampe would continue after Neu!’s split in 1975 as La Düsseldorf while Rother would go on to become a solo artist.

Harmonia's Gear & Set Up

In the midst of beginning his solo career in 1977, Rother was tapped by David Bowie to be his new guitarist as Bowie was relocating to Germany to record what was to become his Berlin Trilogy of Low, “Heroes”, and Lodger. Bowie, as always, was tuned in to what was happening in music and had been taking inspiration from the then current Krautrock bands. Kraftwerk’s 1977 song “Trans-Europe Express” contains the lyrics “From station to station / back to Düsseldorf City / Meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie” while Bowie returned the favor later in the year by naming “V-2 Schneider” after both a German ballistic missile and Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider. Due to an apparent miscommunication (depending on who you ask), however, Rother never worked with Bowie but it’s probably not a coincidence that Bowie’s ‘”Heroes”’ was released two years after Neu!’s “Hero.”

Michael Rother (2005)

Although their records sold modestly at the time and they rarely played live (due to difficulties of translating their multi-tracked guitar and drums set up to the stage), Neu!’s influence has only grown in the intervening years exerting a strong influence on the genres of post-punk, new wave, post-rock, and electronica overtly influencing everyone from Stereolab (frequent employers of the Motorik beat), Mogwai (check out “Mexican Grand Prix” for a straight up Krautrock homage), Negativland (who named both their band and their label Seeland after Neu! songs), Julian Cope (who titled a song “Michael Rother”), Sonic Youth (whose drummer Steve Shelley played Neu!’s ’music with Rother in a band called Hallogallo in 2010), and even the Red Hot Chili Peppers who Rother joined onstage in Hamburg in 2007 for a nearly 25 minute improv set.

by Kevin C. Smith

Michael Rother of Neu! & Harmonia from MyRareGuitars.com

In all my years of scowering ebay and the inetner I can only remember seeing 3 or 4 of these. This one in a pearl white is quite rare. It is in near mint condition, and all original parts, great neck, a fine player. Check out these photos:

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

Vintage 1967 TOKIA Hummingbird Electric Guitar (White)

The Tokai Hummingbird was abviously inspired by the 60’s Mosrite guitars – exagerated double cutaway and angled P-90’s with a tremolo – but it had a “normal” strat style neck profile, not the super skinny Mosrite neck. Back in 2005 we made an Eastwood re-issue of this guitar and like the original, it did not sell too well. Yes, it was a cool guitar, got a little traction in the surf guitar crowd, but in the end we decided to discontinue it in 2009. So I was pleased to get my hands on this original last month.

New Vintage Guitar Arrivals: 1967 TOKAI Hummingbird Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

George Harrison and his Gretsch G6128T Duo Jet guitar

If you somehow missed this story at Winter NAMM 2011…well…it’s time you heard about the George Harrison Tribute Duo Jet from Gretsch Guitars. If you’re a fan of the Beatles and George Harrison, then I probably don’t need to give you a background on his black Gretsch Duo Jet G6128T. It was the guitar he played in the early Cavern Club days, and there is a very interesting history behind Harrison’s Duo Jet. For more on that, check out this video:

You gotta admit: that is a pretty awesome story. And the builders at the Gretsch Custom Shop have gone all out in creating a replica of Harrison’s G6128T Duo Jet. I’ve never even heard of x-raying a guitar!

It turns out that the Gretsch Custom Shop George Harrison G6128T-GH Tribute Duo Jet will be a limited to a run of 60. It’s due out in May 2011, and if you want one, you better have your checkbook handy – the MSRP is $20,000. But if you’re a collector, this guitar is a must have, right?

For more on the George Harrison Tribute Duo Jet:

• GretschGuitars.com: Official page of the G6128T-GH Tribute guitar [link]
• USAtoday.com: George Harrison’s beloved guitar is reborn as a replica [link]

And just for fun, here is a gallery of George Harrison pictures, many of which show him with his beloved Gretsch Duo Jet:

George Harrison Gretsch Duo Jet G6128T-GH Tribute Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

First Look: Eastwood Warren Ellis Signature Tenor Guitar with Cherry Finish

First Look: Eastwood Warren Ellis Signature Tenor Guitar with Cherry Finish

Model	Buy Now!
Warren Ellis Signature Tenor Guitar (Cherry) It is only available in a limited run of 24 pieces this production, more coming in September. If you want one NOW order here only $499 (first come first served)

Notes:

1. If you want a hardshell case, send us an email after you complete your order and we can bill you for the case when we are ready to ship.
2. If you already have a Vintage Cream one on order and would like to switch to Cherry, email question@myrareguitars.com

Warren Ellis with his signature Eastwood Tenor Guitar (Cherry Finish)

Warren Ellis with his signature Eastwood Tenor Guitar (Cherry Finish)

Even Warren's Dad thinks it's cool!!!

Limited Edition Warren Ellis Signature Tenor – CHERRY from MyRareGuitars.com

Legendary Guitarist: Melvin Sparks

For more information about Melvin and his awesome guitar playing:

• Jambands.com – Melvin Sparks: 1946-2011
• JazzWax – [story]
• Jazz901 – [story]
• Melvin Sparks on Wikipedia
• Melvin Sparks on MySpace
• MelvinSparks.com

Melvin Sparks’ funeral (Janaza) service will be this Thursday, 10:00 am at Lee Woods Funeral Home 23E 2nd St Mt Vernon, NY (914) 699-1199 between 2nd and 3rd Avenues

RIP Melvin Sparks from MyRareGuitars.com

Premier Guitar Reviews the Eastwood Warren Ellis Signature Tenor Guitar

Warren Ellis Signature Tenor Guitar Review from MyRareGuitars.com

• ALEXISONFIRE / City & Colours’ Dallas Green with his AIRLINE 2P Sunburst
• Mexican Wrestling legend VAMPIRO with his Eastwood MACH TWO (formerly known as J.R. Elite)
• DEFTONES Chino Moreno with his Joey Leone Signature
• Randy Bachman with his AIRLINE TUXEDO.
• BLACK LIPS Cole Alexander with his AIRLINE Twin Tone
• MYSTERY WHITE BAND Alex White with her CLASSIC 6
• The LEGENDARY Melvin Sparks with his EASTWOOD Doral
• EPIC RUINS Sam Anderson with his white Eastwood Stormbird Guitar

And now for some pics:

1. ALEXISONFIRE / City & Colours’ Dallas Green with his Airline 2P Sunburst
   

   ALEXISONFIRE / City & Colours: Dallas Green with this Airline 2P Sunburst

2. Mexican Wrestling legend Vampiro with his Eastwood Mach Two (formerly known as J.R. Elite)
   

   Vampiro with his Eastwood Mach Two Guitar

3. Deftones Chino Moreno with his Joey Leone Signature
   

   Deftones: Chino Moreno with his Eastwood Joey Leone Signature Guitar

4. Randy Bachman with his Airline Tuxedo. Randy is working with Eastwood on developing a new Tuxedo model called the Tux Deluxe. Coming this Spring 2011.
   

   Randy Bachman with his Airline Tuxedo Guitar

5. Black Lips Cole Alexander with his Airline Twin Tone
   

   Black Lips: Cole Alexander with his Airline Twin Tone Guitar

6. Mystery White Band: Alex White with her Classic 6
   
   

   Mystery White Band: Alex White with her Eastwood Classic 6 Guitar

7. The LEGENDARY Melvin Sparks with his Eastwood Doral
   

   Legendary Guitarist: Melvin Sparks with his Eastwood Doral Guitar

8. EPIC RUINS Sam Anderson with his white Eastwood Stormbird
   

   EPIC RUINS Sam Anderson with his white Eastwood Stormbird Guitar

Eastwood & Airline Celebrity Sightings (December 2010) from MyRareGuitars.com

1989 Kramer Gorky Park Electric Guitar

Let’s start with Kramer. Kramer began back in 1975-76 with the cool idea to make guitars with aluminum necks inspired by Travis Beans, in itself a neat story. The main people were New York music store owner Dennis Berardi, and Gary Kramer, who subsequently hooked up with former Gibson marketer Peter LaPlaca of Chicago. Kramer quickly left and Kramer (the company) went on to create some truly great guitars. In the early ‘80s, as Strat-style guitars began to take the world by storm, Kramer began a transition to wooden necks. Guitars like the Strat-style Kramer Pacer became extremely popular. Big endorsements by top players like Eddie Van Halen, Richie Samboro, and Elliott Easton didn’t hurt either!

By the mid-‘80s Kramer’s pointy droopy headstock, while an anathema to snooty vintage guitar fans, was in the hands many top and aspiring guitar slingers. In 1984 Kramer made the fortuitous decision to start selling budget versions of its own guitars, Focus from Japan and Striker from Korea, to further cultivate fands for the brand. By the beginning if 1987 Kramer was making and selling more guitars than another other guitar company! What could go wrong?

1989 Kramer Gorky Park Electric Guitar

Many of the guitar players who favored Kramers were in the hard rock and pop metal bands that had become popular in the mid-‘80s as interest in punk and New Wave began to wane. Centered in L.A., this rock movement mostly featured guys in tight glam Spandex outfits with long, ratted and teased poofy hair. “Hair bands!” Catchy melodies, a hard backbeat, and lots of rifferama.

Enter Mother Russia. About the same time Kramer began importing guitars, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev took control of the Communist Soviet Union and began a process of liberal reforms. Among those were a toleration of underground music such as rock and a relaxation of travel restrictions.

In 1987 singer Nikolai Noskov, Sasha Minkov on bass, Sasha Lvov on drums, and Jan Ianenkov on guitar formed a rock band called Gorky Park, named after the big public Moscow park in honor of Maxim Gorky. The band was able to travel to the US and soon acquired champions including Frank Zappa and Kramer advocates Jon Bon Jovi and his axeman Sambora. In 1989 the band’s self-titled album debuted and they scored three successive hits and MTV rotation, the first popular Russian hair band.

1989 Kramer Gorky Park Electric Guitar

Probably through the Sambora connection Kramer’s Dennis Berardi became interested in the band and formed a management company to handle them. The Kramer Gorky Park was intended to be a promotional item in support of that effort.

Built for Kramer in Korea and introduced in 1989 or early 1990, the Gorky Park had a cool balalaika shape and graphics and signature of the band. Ballalaika. Russia. Geddit? The guitar really wasn’t all that bad, actually. It has one hot Seymour Duncan humbucker and a licensed Floyd Rose.

Unfortunately, the Gorky Park arrived just in time to see everything crumble. In 1989, the Iron Curtain came down, as Berliners attacked the Berlin Wall and dismantled it. I still have a piece in a box my parents gave me as a present! Gorky Park returned to the exuberance of liberation in Russia. Alas, the enthusiasm for hair bands in the US was also beginning to crumble as alternative rock represented by the Seattle Sound was coming on. Lastly, Kramer guitars itself had become a house of cards and was beginning to crumble. Bad management and other bad things began to undermine it—it probably didn’t help that Berardi was off focusing on Gorky Park. By the end of 1990 Kramer guitars also collapsed.

Whether the Gorky Parks were ever even distributed is unknown. How many exist is also unknown. Many of them were bought up (or turned over) to some large dealers, as I recall, and were liquidated for like $149 apiece. Gorky Park, the band, continued to be popular in the former Soviet Union, but became mostly a footnote to ‘80s rock and guitar history. Today these guitars show up every so often and can actually trade for quite a bit more than the clearance price! In the early 2000s the Kramer name was sold to Gibson by its owner, Henry Vaccaro, a former principal in Kramer, in order to finance the now-defunct Vaccaro Guitars venture. Like the Gorky, modern Kramers are budget imports, but with no connection to the former Soviet Union!

Hair Bands, Soviet Russia & the 1989 Kramer Gorky Park Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Yes, I admit, I am a fan of Heart – and have many high school memories of their songs, including their mega-hit, ‘Barracuda’. But I never expected to see the opening riff cranked out by Heart frontman Craig Bartock on an Airline ’59 Custom Town & Country guitar:

But very cool. Indeed.

Airline '59 Custom Town & Country Electric Guitar

Airline Sighting On Dancing With The Stars? from MyRareGuitars.com

1) Vince Lee playing the FOLKSTAR unplugged to you can get an idea of the natural tone. Nice!

2) Vince Lee fingerpicking on the AIRLINE FOLKSTAR part #1

3) Vince Lee fingerpicking on the AIRLINE FOLKSTAR part #2

Thanks Vince!

Check out Vince Lee here: http://www.myspace.com/vinceleemusic

Vince Lee Test Drives the New Airline Folkstar Resonator from MyRareGuitars.com

• Deerhoof’s Edward Rodriguez (Airline Tuxedo guitar)
• Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen (Airline Map Guitar)
• Nick Cave (Airline Tuxedo guitar)
• Luke Doucet (Airline Map guitar at the Lilith Fair)
• Super Satellites’ Christian Olguin (Airline Tuxedo Guitar)
• 1980 Ovation Breadwinner & Eastwood Breadwinner guitars
• Hot Chelle Rae’s Nash Overstreet (Airline Map Guitar)
• Amanda Zelina (Custom Airline 2P Guitar in Sahara Blue)
• Design Star’s Antonio Ballatore &Timothy Gruse (Airline Map Guitar & Bass)

Deerhoof's Edward Rodriguez (Airline Tuxedo guitar)

1. Here is Edward Rodriguez from DEERHOOF with his AIRLINE Tuxedo.
   

   Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen (Airline Map Guitar)

2. Lou Vito, one of Eastwood Gutiars Artist Relations people, snapped this one of Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick with his AIRLINE MAP guitar.
   

   Nick Cave (Airline Tuxedo guitar)

3. This one is a number of months back, but a nice shot of Nick Cave with his AIRLINE TUXEDO. Nick’s band, GRINDERMAN will be touring this fall. Grinderman’s main instrumentalist – Warren Ellis – has been working with us on releasing the Warren Ellis Signature TENOR guitar, coming next month! Here is a sneak peak photo of the Tenor.
   

   Luke Doucet (Airline Map guitar at the Lilith Fair)



Warren Ellis Signature Tenor guitar from Eastwood Guitars

4. Here is Luke Doucet using his AIRLINE MAP guitar on tour last month with Lilith Fair.
   

   Super Satellites' Christian Olguin (Airline Tuxedo Guitar)

5. Another great photo from Lou Vito featuring Christian Olguin from NYC group, Super Satellites with his AIRLINE TUXEDO guitar.
   

   1980 Ovation Breadwinner & Eastwood Breadwinner guitars

6. Not really a “celebrity” citing, but here is an original Ovation Breadwinner from 1980 pictured next to a new Eastwood Breadwinner. Cool!
   

   Hot Chelle Rae's Nash Overstreet (Airline Map Guitar)

7. Another summer Warped Tour with Nash Overstreet from Hot Chelle Rae featuring his AIRLINE MAP in Seafoam Green.
   

   Amanda Zelina (Custom Airline 2P Guitar in Sahara Blue)

8. Amanda Zelina dropped by Eastwood HQ to pickup her custom AIRLINE 2P Sahara Blue.
   

   Design Star's Antonio Ballatore &Timothy Gruse (Airline Map Guitar & Bass)

9. And who would have guessed? Antonio Ballatore and Timothy Gruse from H+G TV’s popular show, Design Star with their AIRLINE MAP Bass and Guitar. Really? Is there no end to the “I Get It” craze!!?! I guess not…

Eastwood & Airline Celebrity Sightings from MyRareGuitars.com

This doesn’t mean you NEED two guitars to make a great band—I’d be leaving off a lot of great guitar music if I scratched Hendrix, Cream-era Clapton, The Who, early Uncle Tupelo and a ton of other great bands. Nor do you need to have the kind of two-guitar interplay I’m talking about to have a great band—there are fabulous bands with two guitars playing standard rhythm-lead arrangements that don’t fall into the category I’m talking about here. Bands like CCR, the Beatles, the Byrds, Big Star, the Replacements and the Kinks are filled with great guitar work. But great guitar work done (usually) in the traditional rhythm/lead style.

No, I’m talking here about bands where the two guitars are so intertwined, so filled with communication that the players seem to be operating on a telepathic level when playing. There’s nothing quite like it (for the player or audience) when two guitars really have that going on.

Here’s a list of some great twin-guitar bands. I’m not claiming these are the GREATEST twin-guitar bands, as music is largely an issue of taste. And my greatest is not your greatest. For instance, while I greatly admire the dual-guitar work on King Crimson’s DISCIPLINE record, I don’t really love the record, so it’s not on the list. But that’s no dig on the talent and ability and chops of Belew and Fripp—you’ll find a bunch of players on this list who are, technically, nowhere near as good as the guys in Crimson. But here are some bands who, if you love dual-guitar, you just might love. Some of them are big and you’ll have heard of them, some of them should be bigger and you might want to check them out. In no particular order:

• The Rolling Stones: While there may not be a “particular order” you kind of have to put them first because, well, they’re the Stones…not named “The World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band” for nothing. While early Stones is incredible, and Brian Jones had a wonderful genius for playing, well, for playing things that weren’t guitars (sitar, dulcimer, and so on), the band really starts becoming a major two-guitar band in the Mick Taylor years (1969-74). Listen to the interplay that drives through EXILE ON MAIN ST and you’ll hear Richards and Taylor at their best. Ron Wood, the “new guy” (all 34+ years of being the new guy) is no slouch, either.
  

  Richard Hell & the Voidoids on stage at CBGB in 1976

• Richard Hell and the Voidoids (first album, especially): Ivan Julian and the late, great Robert Quine offer up a killer dose of dueling guitars on the first album. Great tones, great playing and great intertwining parts—while showing each player’s distinct style in their solos. Check out the traded leads on “The Kid with the Replaceable Head” and tell me you don’t love guitar.
• The Dream Syndicate: For their whole career, but especially on the still fresh and incredible sounding DAY OF WINE AND ROSES. The original lineup of the band (with Karl Precoda and Steve Wynn on guitars) brought back long guitar songs—reclaiming them from boring patchouli drenched jam bands and given them back to rock and roll. Examples? The title track, with Precoda torturing a Harmony-made Silvertone awash in feedback, or “Halloween” with Wynn showing us why those plinky Jazzmasters are such great guitars when used right. And they are used right here.
• Luna: Again, most of their recorded work. But the live version of “23 Minutes in Brussels” from the fine movie of their final tour TELL ME DO YOU MISS ME is a good place to start. They were always a great night out for lovers of guitar (or of great songs) and this has some great live footage of underrated guitarists Dean Wareham and Sean Eden (along with a fabulous rhythm section…actually every band on this list has a great rhythm section, which should tell you something about what guitar players need to soar) making some great guitar rock. Also, anyone who doesn’t own PENTHOUSE has missed out on some of the best music of the last 15 years. I wouldn’t stop there, but it’s not a bad start.
• Neil Young & Crazy Horse (especially in the Danny Whitten era): Later versions of the band have Young handling (quite capably, btw) all the lead guitar. But to listen to the interplay between Young and Whitten on EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE is a true joy.
  

  Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers

• Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers: Maybe a surprise pick, but damn if LIVE AT THE SPEAKEASY doesn’t show the 2nd-Generation Heartbreakers (after Richard Hell left) as one of the great two-guitar bands of all time. Walter Lure and Johnny Thunders learned all (or at least most) of what was great about Chuck Berry, Keith Richards and R&B and tossed it into this great mix. If there had been less heroin and better lyrics in this band, they might have conquered the world.
• Television: Wow, three bands that Richard Hell was a part of at one point (though he isn’t on any of the classic Heartbreaks or Television material). But Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd set the bar for punk-era dual guitar bands. Listen to the majesty of the building guitars of the title track on MARQUEE MOON, or the incredible intertwining guitars on “See No Evil” or “Prove It.” One of the all-time great bands for guitar-heads. These two guys play together, as Richard Lloyd once said, “like the gears of a watch.” No doubt.
• Wilco: Another, perhaps, surprise pick. And while, if I had to choose (and I’m glad I don’t), I’d take the Jay Bennett era Wilco over any other lineup, the current lineup is a better live band and able to show off a range than would stun most rock bands. Nels Cline has been showing the world what had been one of LA’s biggest secrets prior to his joining Wilco—that he’s one of the best guitar players alive. A man able to play a three hour show and not play a cliché. Not easy. And for anyone who doubts Jeff Tweedy is a great guitar player, listen to “Kidsmoke” (off A GHOST IS BORN) and tell me differently. One of the great guitar songs of the last ten years. Also, check out any live footage of the current band doing “Impossible Germany” which blends not two, but three guitars (thanks to multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone) in about a beautiful a fashion as possible.
  

  The Velvet Underground and Nico in 1966

• The Velvet Underground: Really, any of the records, but check out how Reed’s “ostrich” guitar (the strings all tuned to one note) and Sterling Morrison’s standard-tuned guitar go together on the classic “Run, Run, Run” or the gothic drone of “All Tomorrow’s Parties.” Or, to jump to the third album, the classic rhythm/lead combo of “What Goes On.”

So, there you go. A short starter-list of great two-guitar bands. Buy some CDs, or download the MP3s or add it to your phone or the chip in your head or whatever it is you kids do to get music these days. But, remember, PAY the artist for it!

Two Guitar Bands from MyRareGuitars.com

There’s been buzz on the Web and an actual broo-ha-ha this week in anticipation of the announcement of Gibson’s “Jimi Hendrix Guitar” package. As even the most casual Hendrix fans know, his main axe was a Fender Stratocaster. Especially devoted followers are likely aware that Jimi occasionally played a Gibson Flying V. Gibson’s Custom Shop already offered a high-end tribute model Flying V of just 300 copies with a list of $12,300 in 2007, so this new model would surely be some variation on that, right?

Signature Jimi Hendrix Strat Guitar from Gibson Guitars

What was instead unveiled is something that is baffling many: it’s a Strat copy.

Gibson is clearly excited about the project. At Gibson.com a Hendrix image is on the main page, top of the fold, and when one clicks through it, a long tribute to Hendrix with pictures of the iconic guitarist are posted, including one with his Fender Strat.

According to the press release, this new product will be an entry-level guitar package that includes the guitar, a Hendrix signature Voodoo Child amplifier, and a Foxey Fuzz pedal. Hendrix’s face is on the pick guard. The pack also includes an instructional DVD and a USB drive containing exclusive Hendrix media content and a “Hendrix inspired tie-dyed tee-shirt and bandana.” It is reported to retail at $199.

When asked for a comment, Fender’s media department replied: “I understand you’re interested in a comment regarding the recent product announcement from Gibson. As it is not an FMIC product, it would be inappropriate for us to comment on it.”

Gibson Guitars Presents the Jimi Hendrix Package of Goodies

Gibson’s media department did not respond to several requests for a comment of any kind, including how they thought the product would do, or whether or not they are concerned with possible patent infringement. President/CEO Henry Juszkiewicz’s office was contacted directly but calls and e-mails were not returned at press time

Reaction
Out in the blogosphere, virtual tongues were wagging. Musicradar.com, one of the first to break the news, commented on the irony: “Gibson sued Paul Reed Smith in the early 1990s over the latter’s Singlecut design, claiming it breached design copyright. In that drawn-out case, Gibson finally conceded in 2006 that only ‘an idiot’ could confuse PRS Singlecut with a Gibson.”

Guitarist.co.uk featured an interview with Hendrix’s daughter, Janie, his sister and head of Authentic Hendrix, the estate. In it she points out that it’s not “Gibson branded” but “Jimi Hendrix branded.” Also she says: “It was Gibson who saw a vision from the beginning and was willing to work with us. We don’t have anything against Fender, we have no bad blood, but it’s just that we built a better relationship with Gibson over the years.” She stressed that with Gibson they hope to bring music making to a new generation, something her brother would certainly approve of.

When asked if this might be seen as exploiting her brother’s name, she states: “Jimi was our family member and we’ll just make sure that we take care of him the best way we can. We are committed to keeping Jimi’s legacy alive and intact and bring it to you in the most authentic form.”

In reporting this, the U.K. music trade magazine, MI Pro, writes: “The bewildering move by Gibson to create, essentially, a copy of a guitar it has been in direct competition with for over 50 years seems at best ill-advised, at worst arrogant bravado, particularly when considering Gibson’s continual recourse to the law courts, suing those that encroach upon what it sees as trademark design.”

Some retailers, upon hearing the news, were surprised. “Is this for real?” responded Bob Moggio of Mojo’s Music, Edwardsville, Ill.

“I guess April Fool’s Day is early this year,” sighed Gary Gand, of Gand Music and Sound, Chicago. “One more low-cost toy to try to tap into the babies of the baby boomer market. Dad will buy it for himself but give it to the kids…what was that old saw about one born every minute?”

“If it does as well as the Wayne’s World Strat, none of us are gonna get rich,” Gand cracked.

“As an independent retailer nothing seems to amaze me more than stunts like this,” says Gordy Wilcher of Owensboro Music, Owensboro, Ky. “The lines from the major guitar players are more blurred than ever. There is no loyalty. Even more surprising, these manufacturers have completely lost site of working to maintain the integrity and value of their products. This newest “Jimipaulcaster” is just the latest in any attempt to ‘move’ some wood. Guess what? Most new consumers don’t have the emotional investment and love for the logo. Our customers want something unique and of value. Sorry guys, I just ain’t buying it!”

REPRINTED from MMR: Musical Merchandise Review E-newsletter (9/26/2009)

Gibson Creates Signature Jimi Hendrix Strat from MyRareGuitars.com

While I spend most of the time in this column writing about very cool pieces that came as they are from budget factories in the 60’s, sometimes a piece begs for modification. Sometimes (adding a Bigsby on anything I can, for instance), the mod is minimal and reversible. Sometimes, a beat up guitar or amp shows up begging for more than a simple mod and they become a kind of Frankenstein’s Monster. Case in point: this Silvertone (Danelectro-made) 1448 (i.e., the one pickup “Amp in Case” guitar).

Danelectro 1448 Electric Guitar Project (Before)

As you can see in the “before” pictures, this one came with no electronics, a smashed in Masonite top and years of major neglect. I grabbed it off Craig’s list for $50, figuring I could at least use the neck. But then, other than the smashed top and no electronics, it seemed like it could be an interesting project on its own—not just a parts donor. What was there to work with/keep? A short but good list:

• One good neck—with Brazilian rosewood we can’t get anymore. Odd to see on such a low rent “cheap” guitar. But Danelectro necks were incredibly study and stayed very straight—which is good, since they didn’t have truss rods, after all. And, it may seem minor, but Dano’s aluminum nut contributes to the tone and is a very cool part.
• One set of tuners. The Dano/Silvertone open back key tuners are not the best ever made but they actually hold tune of the guitar is set up well.
• Original Dano bridge, with the “semi” (emphasis on semi) adjustable rosewood slab for intonation. Or something kinda close to intonation.
• The back of the original guitar and the pieces of wood that all hardware would/could anchor in to. I’m no expert on Danelectros, but the wood used in the Amp-in-Case models (the hollow ones, at any rate, before the solid wood versions of 67 and 68, after the MCA takeover) is usually quoted as pine or poplar. In any case, there’s not much wood in there—enough to anchor a bridge and to hold down the Masonite top.

So what did I need? Electronics and a new top. I had the cracked and beaten old Masonite top, so I used it as a template to cut a new top.

My options were to restore it and find some old Danelectro pickup, if I wanted to keep it original. OR, I could add two lipsticks and make it a custom job, while retaining the materials of the originals.

Or, the option I went with, I could make it a total one-off custom job. A buddy of mine owns a custom car shop and he was headed to a junkyard and then a metal yard and asked if I wanted to come along. Figuring a day at a junkyard and a sheet metal shop were more fun than a day of working on a book, I jumped at the chance.

Along with a bunch of crap I probably didn’t need, I left the yard that day with a nice sheet of brushed aluminum. I used the old, broken top as a template and cut the meal the shape of the top of the guitar. Then I ground down the sides, so no metal would come sharp off the edges.

Danelectro 1448 Electric Guitar Project (After)

On the old Danelectro body, there was about a ¼ inch of wood—perfect for mounting the new metal top with some sheet metal screws, which gave it a cool (to me, at least) industrial look.

Danelectro 1448 Electric Guitar Project (After)

Now for electronics. The first version had some top-mounted old DeArmond Silverfoils off an old Harmony that was broken beyond repair. These sounded ok, but the look wasn’t quite right. So, next, I took off the metal top and cut out its center and mounted a modified after-market loaded Stratocaster pick guard. This took some trimming of the pick guard so it would fit the top properly but, once it did, it looked pretty snazzy. The meal also offered some of the best shielding I’ve EVER heard on a Strat-style guitar. The single coils sounded great with almost no single coil hum or buzz—not even when standing under neon sage lights. Go figure.

And the best thing? Something odd happened when I put the Strat electronics onto the Dano body and neck: the tone became a strange hybrid of both guitars. It sounded sort of like a Strat, but the short scale neck, along with the odd bridge and aluminum nut and (probably the biggest factor) the hollowed-out body made it sound different than any Strat I’d ever heard. It had the twangy jangle and snap of a Dano, but higher output on the pickups. A very cool combo—all for under $100 in parts and a little fun work.

If you’ve got a busted up old Danlelectro, it’s a modification/custom job I’d highly recommend. You’ll have the only one on your block, and it’ll sound pretty darn good, too. Happy hod-rodding!

Odd’s & Mod’s from MyRareGuitars.com

This will explain to some why I had never listened to Roy Buchanan till recently.

Roy Buchanan: Blues Guitar Legend

When you read as much about music, guitars, guitarists and guitar playing as I do there are certain names that continue to pop up as major players in the guitar world. People like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Billy Gibbons, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Peter Greene etc. Most of these people I had heard of and typically I’ve listened to their music for years as have many people. Probably everyone familiar with rock and roll has heard of Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix and people who know classic rock can easily recognize Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin. One name though, Roy Buchanan, kept popping up, and I could never pinpoint his music, or why some of the people I consider guitar legends, referred to him as one of their influences.

That is until recently…

While I was reading about rock and roll and preparing for the launch of The Soul of Rock ‘n’ Roll, I happened across a video of none other than Roy Buchanan playing “Hey Joe,” a song that was more well known because of the Jimi Hendrix version. I knew and loved the Hendrix version and having remembered hearing about Roy Buchanan so much I was intrigued. I watched the video and suddenly I had a new guitar idol.

This blues guitarist so expertly wrenched notes from his guitar that it sent shivers up my spine. Using a volume knob technique to create an almost violin like effect along with typical blues guitar techniques, and a whole lot of emotion, Mr. Roy Buchanan took the song I had only known because of Hendrix and created a slow blues, absolutely heart wrenching version unlike anything I had ever heard. It was raw, real and authentic that I was immediately blown away. I watched every video of Roy Buchanan I could find that night.

Roy’s playing seemed to come primarily out of emotion like blues, but with a noticeable technical expertise that was exciting but not showy. Plus, when he would work the volume knob on his guitar, he could actually make it sound like the guitar was crying. Well this works as an exciting technique, but it also allowed him to create very vocal sounding solos that had swells, dynamics and emphasis, just like a vocal soloist would use and that added so much soul to the solo.

When it comes to music, I’m impressed not so much by technical expertise on an instrument (although that can impress me too), but more so how well that musician can convey the emotions of the song, add to them and enhance the overall mood. Anyone can learn to play blindingly fast with a million notes, but when someone can make their soul speak through the instrument, thats what it is really all about. With his crying guitar and tonal range from smooth, round and transparent to bitingly sharp and gritty, Roy took these songs from slow and sad to hard edged an soulful at will. Truly a master of expression on guitar.

As I read more about Roy Buchanan I discovered that except amongst guitarists, specifically blues guitarists, his music is generally overlooked. That seems like such a shame. For me, music is about emotion, what it makes me feel and how well I can related to those feelings. This is why I gravitated towards blues as I grew older. Blues is probably the most emotion based genre of music there is as it’s primary focus is often heartbreak, a very emotional subject. The best musicians in any genre can convey their feelings and their soul through their music. Roy Buchanan was definitely one of the best at this in my book. His playing has had such an impact on how I play guitar that I only wish I could have found his music sooner. It has really inspired me to try and put every ounce of myself and my soul into my playing.

Maybe the music of Roy Buchanan is not for everyone as not everyone is into blues or guitar playing but for those of you who are into both and haven’t yet checked out the work of Roy Buchanan, you should. His blues is more earthy, and rustic that some of the famous Chicago blues players (B.B. King, Buddy Guy) and has a hint of jazz, but his passion is just as evident and the guitar playing is magical.

Some artists never received the recognition they truly deserve but if an artist can inspire others, than they are successful and because of how he has inspired other musicians, myself included, I think Roy Buchanan deserves a little more recognition. I hope more people are as inspired by Roy Buchanan’s music as I am.

Post by: Dave Nuzzo
D.A.N (Dave Nuzzo), is the Owner/Editor of The Soul of Rock ‘n’ Roll a music and rock ‘n’ roll oriented blog. The Soul of Rock ‘n’ Roll was design to promote the music that he likes, listens to and is passionate about. He discusses everything from Folk to Heavy Metal with the emphasis on Classic Rock, but also talks about the impact rock ‘n’ roll has on society, unknown bands, and playing music. If you’re interested in reading more rock ‘n’ roll articles from D.A.N., check out The Soul of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Rediscovering Roy Buchanan: Blues Guitar Legend from MyRareGuitars.com

Elliot Easton of the New Cars

Elliot Easton of the New Cars

Mike Robinson, Troy Robinson & Todd Rundgren

The New Cars in Detroit, MI (September 2007) from MyRareGuitars.com

Johnny Winter: Guitar God, Rock & Roll Legend

When you talk about great authentic white blues guitar players, you are surely talking about some rarified company. The key word being authentic, and in my estimation authentic white blues guitar player means that when you listen to this person playing you think it’s a black man playing. Stevie Ray Vaughn a great blues guitar player always tried to get that real blues sound. When I saw Stevie Ray for the last time a few months before his death we spoke backstage at one of his shows and I told him “man you sounded like Albert King”, Stevie smiled and said that was the biggest compliment I could have ever given him. That is what we who strum the strings in the blues strive for, to sound like our idols, the great bluesmen. Johnny Winter did this as well as anyone, and proof of this is that he was accepted amongst the great bluesman as an equal, and shared the stage with many of them with great dignity and restraint.

Johnny was born John Dawson Winter in Beaumont Texas on February 23rd 1944. Johnny (as well as his brother Edgar) were born with albinism, and being an albino made Johnny stand out, but that did not stop him from playing music with his brother Edgar. His first record was recorded when Johnny was only 15 with his band Johnny and the Jammers, but it was Johnny’s self-titled first album on Columbia that established Johnny Winter as an A-List 60’s rock icon. His second album titled Second Winter was a three sided album (a double album with a blank forth side) that further marked Johnny as a guitar hero right up there with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Mike Bloomfield.

Johnny Winter: Guitar God, Rock & Roll Legend

Johnny’s next few albums were also fantastic albums, Johnny Winter And (1970), and Johnny Winter And Live (1971) were big sellers and were just ass-kickin’ rock and roll records. Those two albums contained great tunes such as “Rock and Roll HootchieKoo” (penned by Johnny Winter And guitarist Rick Derringer) and “Mean Town Blues”.

Johnny Winter: Guitar God, Rock & Roll Legend

Johnny Winter’s years of drug addiction caught up to him in 1972 and after a hospital stay (no ‘rehab in the pre Betty Ford era) he released “Still Alive and Well” in 1973, this was to be Johnny’s last decent selling release.

Even though Johnny’s days of gold records were behind him his name alone could sell out any club, or 3000 seat venue. Johnny always delivered at a live show; his fiery approach to guitar playing was eaten up by audiences all over the world.

Johnny Winter: Guitar God, Rock & Roll Legend

As a slide guitar player (playing guitar using a glass bottle-neck or copper tube) Johnny was unparalleled in his day, just check his slide work on Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” from Johnny’s album “Second Winter”. And when you talk about sheer rock and roll guitar, Johnny Winter can stand up with any rock guitarist. His vibrato (the bending of notes on the guitar) which is the signature of any rock and blues guitarist is unmistakable.

Johnny Winter: Guitar God, Rock & Roll Legend

Johnny kept it real for the blues crowd as well, and in 1983 he produced a great record for blues legend Muddy Waters called “Hard Again”. Reticent of Muddy’s age Johnny laid back on his playing on the record and let Muddy control the dynamic range of the record, a great tribute to Muddy and Johnny as well.

To this day Johnny still can bring it live, even though he sometimes has to be led to the bandstand, which is no surprise when you understand that his lifestyle over the past 40 years makes Keith Richards look like Bruce Jenner.

Johnny Winter Guitar God, Rock and Roll Survivor, and most importantly, Legend of Rock and Roll.

Legends of Rock & Roll: Guitarist Johnny Winter from MyRareGuitars.com

Remember my friends knowing what guitars your favorite players play is part of getting a sound similar to them, but it is only a small part of it.

Gibson SG Electric Guitar

Gibson SG: Tony Iommi, Angus Young, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Frank Zappa, Eric Clapton

Fender Telecaster Electric Guitar

Fender Telecaster (stock): Roy Buchanan, James Burton, Steve Cropper, Muddy Waters, Joe Messina

Telecaster (modified): Mike Stern, Keith Richards, Danny Gatton, Clarence White

Gibson ES-335 Electric Guitar

Gibson ES-335: Larry Carlton, Dave Edmunds, Johnny “Guitar” Watson

Gibson ES-345: Freddie King, Alvin Lee, Elvin Bishop

Gibson ES-355: Chuck Berry, B.B. Kink, Keith Richards

Fender Stratocaster Electric Guitar

Fender Stratocaster (stock): Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Mark Knophler, David Gilmour

Fender Stratocaster (modified): Hiram Bullock, Robbie Robertson, Adrian Belew, Stevie Ray Vaughn

Gretsch 6120 Archtop Electric Guitar

Gretsch 6120: Brian Setzer, Chet Atkins, Eddie Cochran

Gibson Les Paul Electric Guitar

Gibson Les Paul: Mike Bloomfield, Slash, Joe Perry, Duane Allman, Jimmy Page

Gibson Firebird Electric Guitar

Gibson Firebird: Johnny Winter, Eric Clapton, Howlin’ Wolf, Stevie Winwood, Pat Hare, Clarence Gatemouth Brown

Gibson Flying V: Albert King: Jimi Hendrix

Gibson Melody Maker: Joan Jett

Gibson Byrdland: Ted Nugent, Roy Clark, Eric Clapton

Gibson Les Paul Junior Electric Guitar

Gibson Les Paul Junior: Lesley West, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Johnny Thunders, Mick Jones

Fender Jazzmaster Electric Guitar

Fender Jazzmaster: Elvis Costello, Thurston Moore & Lee Ranaldo, Kevin Shields, J Mascis

Rickenbacker 12-string Electric Guitar

Rickenbacker 12-string: George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roger McGuinn

Airline H44 Electric Guitar

Airline Resoglas Electric Guitar

Airline/Supro Resoglas: J.B. Hutto, Jack White, PJ Harvey

Epiphone Sheraton Electric Guitar

Epiphone Riviera/Sheraton: John Lennon, Otis Rush, George Harrison, John Lee Hooker

Gibson L5-CES Archtop Electric Guitar

Gibson L5-CES: Wes Montgomery, Scotty Moore, Paul Simon (L5S)

Other Notables:

• Gretsch Country Gentleman: George Harrison, Steven Stills, David Crosby
• Mosrite (several models): The Ventures, Joe Maphis, Rick Wilson (B-52’s), Johnny Ramone
• Silvertone/Danelectro: Jimmy Page, Link Wray, Hubert Sumlin, Elmore James, R.L. Burnside
• Kay Electrics: Jimmy Reed, Howlin Wolf, Lonnie Johnson

So if you are interested in getting a sound similar to any of these artists, a good place to start is with their guitar choices. I would say that may be 20% of it, the amplifier would be another 20% and the rest is technique, approach, and attitude.

There are some other aspects that would affect your sound, the type of picks you use, the gauge of your strings, and any effects you might use.

In my world I would say use as few effects as you can, I know they are part of the song, blah,blah blah. If you need a harmonic effect like a chorus but feel you need to flange at some point in the show get one of those multi units like the Line 6. And remember the more pedals you use the farther away are you from the sound of your guitar.

Now as far as the amps go, those of you who are familiar with my column know I am a traditionalist. As far as I can see there are three categories of amplifiers.

Clean Amps:
These amps are clean sounding, with plenty of headroom and eq to pick from. Twin Reverbs, Ampeg, and Lab Series amps are a few. Also some of the older Peavey solid state amps are real clean amps. You can always get a dirty sound with your favorite pedal if you need it.

Dirty Amps:
Marshall JCM 800 and 900 Series amps, many tweed Fenders, the 100 watt army of amps like Crate, Krank, Soldano, and Randall. These amps will give you the sound you are looking for, if that sound is a crunchy compressed full sound.

Channel switching amps:
These amps are for cats that need both clean and dirty and like the idea of the two sounds coming from the same amp. These amps are personified by Mesa Boogies, Rivera era Fenders, and combos like the Marshall TCM Series.

And remember folks – “got and questions?”..”go lean on Shell’s Answer Man”.

Famous Guitarists & Their Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com

Frank Zappa

One of the greatest musicians of the 20th century was also a damn good guitar player, he stands alone as a composer, instrumentalist and satirist beyond compare. His name was Frank Zappa. Frank is still IMHO the most underrated musician in the rock and roll era.

Frank was a master at the use of wahwah (check out his early wah solo on Orange County Lumber Truck from the album Weasels Ripped My Flesh), one of his techniques was using the wah as an EQ boost. His feel for the wah was so good he could feel the notch in the pedals throw that would give him (for most part) that growling round sound that Frank was known for during the 70’s. Try it yourself plug in your SG (or any humbucking solidbody guitar) and get your favorite distortion sound. Now go to the neck pickup crank it up but do not roll off the treble as you would if you were trying to cop the Clapton ‘Woman tone’, leave it up full and roll off the highs using the wah. This will give the wah a full spectrum signal for it to work with.

Another Zappa secret was his uncanny ability to combine exotic scales with the pentatonic blues scale. If you watch any videos of Frank playing you will notice he is not in the “normal guitar boxes”. Viva la Frank!!!

Speaking of Frank Zappa, it is well documented that growing up two of his favorite guitarists were Guitar Slim and Johnny Guitar Watson. Frank in a Guitar Player magazine interview said that his favorite guitar solo of all time was Guitar Slims Story of my life. This solo has a tone and approach that is very Zappaesque.

Guitar Slim

One of the secrets of Guitar Slims sound was the fact that he preferred to plug his guitar into a PA amp as opposed to a guitar amp. This was probably a Bogen or Premier. What Slim liked about these amps I am sure was the loudness (I have seen p.a. amps from the early 40’s using 2 6L6’s way before Fender used these tubes for his amps) their high end, and most important their reaction to the signal of his guitar (Slim was reported to be using a Strat and a 52 Les Paul) which gave out more signal than the microphones of that era. End result? Distortion mmmm yummy yummy!!!

Jimmy Page with his Fender Telecaster

How come I don’t sound like Jimmy Page when I play the intro to Heartbreaker when I use my Les Paul? Is it because I don’t own a 59 Burst? What can I do to make my Les Paul sound like Jimmy’s? Well first of all you would have to transform it into a Telecaster. That’s right a Telecaster. Now let me explain how this happened.

A young Jimmy Page was the protégé of British studio legend Big Jim Sullivan. Jim was a member of an elite group of cats who like their American counterparts the “Wrecking Crew” played on most of the hit records of the 60’s recorded in England. The fact is that 95% of the records we grew up listening to in the 60’s were made by the same two dozen or so musicians. The truth is no producer (the music industries version of a movies director) would put his reputation on the line using some prettyboys who were signed because of the haircuts or their trousers. (Rutles 101). This fact by itself is what separates the Beatles, the Stones from everyone else, they were the first truly self contained band.

Now back to Sully, Page and the Tele. Sullivan could be seen weekly in the UK and US as a featured player on the Tom Jones Show. Sullivan was known for his swarthy good looks and his White Telecaster. Being a studio player Jim knew the merits of the Tele, how it cut through the mix and was a safe bet at sessions as far as its versatility. (A side note; there was a guitarist across the pond making ground breaking records with his Telecaster, his name was Joe Messina one of the house guitarists of Motown’s Funk brothers).

When Jimmy took his formidable talent and studio experience to the studio to produce the first Led Zeppelin record Jimmy had an early 60’s rosewood board white Tele in tow just like Big Jims.

Jimmy had already toured with the Yardbirds using the Tele as well as the first go round with Zeppelin in the UK (check out Zep on the DVD Supershow). But Page felt that the Tele was not fat enough sounding for a power trio setup, Jimmy soon switched to the Les Paul for good.

Jimi Hendrix in Studio

Jimi’s tone using the Fuzz boxes of the 60’s. We all know how thin sounding the fuzz boxes of the 60’s were. Whether it’s a Big Muff, an Octavia,or a Tonebender, they were all pretty thin sounding. Jimi Hendrix used all of these at one time or another, yet his tone was mostly pretty fat and round sounding (unless he was looking for a special effect) This leads us to Jimi’s secret tone maneuver.

It’s a really simple one. We all know now that Jimi used Marshall’s most of his career and we also know that Jimi made use of the channel jumper cable (as seen in many of Jimi’s live video’s) Jimi’s trick was to boost the bass sounding channel to even out the thin sound of the fuzz box. This gave Jimi the desired fat tone he was accustomed to when he came up using Fenders and Ampegs. The other benefit was that when Jimi would simply turn down his volume for his rhythm sound it was still quite big sounding. Rarely in the videos I have seen (many) did Jimi ever step on a fuzztone for a lead, when you have seen him go to a pedal for a lead it was to a wah for the tone boost.

Surf guys outboard reverb unit trick. Boy did the surf records of the early to mid 60’s blow my mind. Imagine guitar records with no singing, simple melodies that almost everyone could cop, and tons of self important guitar slinger attitude. I ran into a surf guitar legend years ago and I asked him how he ran his reverb, because I could see that he had something funky going on there as I saw that his guitar was plugged directly into the amp.

He smiled and told me that he and some of the other cats of that era were using a primitive effects loop so to speak. Here’s how they did it.

He ran the guitar into input one of his Showman and then ran a cable from input two to the input of his Fender reverb unit and ran the output of the reverb to the input of channel two (or normal channel). This way he could not only tailor the sound of the unit with the onboard controls he could also utilize the second channels volume and tone controls.

One benefit he did not realize too, was that the guitar running direct into the first channel did not have its dry input signal colored by the reverb unit! This setup is also called the poor mans effects loop.

Adrian Belew - The Twang Bar King

What the hell is all that duct tape doing on the stage? Did you ever notice that when you have a single coil guitar plugged in that the amount of noise changes as you turn or move around? Yeah me too! Did you also ever notice that there were certain spots on the stage that you could get really good feedback if you turned a certain way? Yeah me too!

Over the years I have heard stories about how Hendrix would spend over an hour at his sound check finding those hot spots on the stage. Legend has it that Twang Bar King Adrian Belew took it to a new level by incorporating this feedback and sustain into his tunes as part of the melody and arrangement. This made it necessary to make these markings on the stage part of his setup. No room for spontaneity for Mr. Belew, he needed what he needed when he needed it.

So here’s the trick after the band sound checks bring out the tape and find your hot spots, even if you don’t utilize feedback you will still benefit from knowing where on the stage your guitar will be most responsive.

Joey Leone with his amps

That’s it for now my friends so, “keep those cards and letters coming in.”

Secrets of the Great Guitar Players from MyRareGuitars.com

Gang of Four: Entertainment album cover

With the magic of You Tube, this month in Notable we direct you to Andy Gill’s guitar playing on “He’d Send in the Army”, circa 1980. He turned my thinking upside-down when I saw The Gang of Four that year. Watch the video. Unbelievable. Recently Andy sent a “quote” to add to EastwoodGuitars.com, to which we are greatful.

The thing we all love about guitars from the 50’s and 60’s is the sense that they were inventing new instruments – not yet shackled by electric guitar conventions. Take that idea – put it with something that is made and finished very well – you have an Eastwood guitar – a guitar for non conformists. [Andy Gill – The Gang of Four]

Gang of Four Guitarist Andy Gill from MyRareGuitars.com

Lloyd Cole with his son, William

Album opener The Young Idealists sets the pace for this record, yawning keyboard riffs and easy acoustic strumming chiming in comfortably alongside needling lines like “… make believe the world was really ours / Still supposing we could make a difference…” Woman In A Bar is a Billy-Joel-meets-Ben-Folds in an Uptown dive kinda ditty, Cole expertly capturing both the undeniable thrill of the mating ritual and the inevitable let-downs inherent in its logical conclusion: “… a few moving parts need to be replaced / My engine starts, but only on Tuesdays”

NYC Sunshine is a pretty, languid slice of afternoon delight nestled amongst these otherwise mostly dim, smoky vignettes, the aural equivalent of finding a bright spot of solar energy splattered all over a shadowy hardwood floor, while I Didn’t See It Coming tumbles in like a lazy lover late to bed, a syrupy, narcotic half-dream that simultaneously recalls the finer solo work of Lou Reed “… you stopped singing along with that rock ‘n roll song on your New York station / I didn’t see it coming “. and the airy, breathable later efforts of his erstwhile bandmate John Cale.

Lloyd Cole: Antidepressant CD

Other standouts here include the bouncy, countrified lope of Everysong, which does a fine job showcasing Cole’s wonderful knack for tossing off easy double-entendres and snappy pop hooks, as evidenced in this line from a character who knows he’s in the song:”So don’t get so excited / He’s not that kind of writer / Chances are we’ll wind up in some Godforsaken cul-de-sac / Not mine / No use to get sad about it, you can’t love everysong ..”. and a drop-dead gorgeous cover of Moby Grape’s I Am Not Willing.

The tone and final message of Antidepressant is best presented in the title cut and album centerpiece, as Lloyd shrugs and lays bare his chemical-laden, scarred ol’ heart with a sloppy, sideways grin: “With my medication I will be fine … I said I’m tryin’ to write my novel / She said, neither am I / By the way, I saw you reading No Depression / You’re doing nothin’, I’ll come over we’ll watch Six Feet Under / And then we’ll maybe get around to your condition …” A smartly understated, delightfully teasing nugget that really does get better with every spin. Highly (sorry) recommended. Check it out at onelittleindian-us.com and note that the record will be out October 10, so mark your calendars.

Post by Brian
PulseTC.com

New CD: ‘Antidepressant’ from Lloyd Cole from MyRareGuitars.com

Eddie Cochran: Early Rock Star, Guitarist, Rockabilly Pioneer

Along with Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran was the prototype for the guitar playing, lead singer, an iconic image that we all came to recognize later with players like Eric Clapton, and, Jimi Hendrix. But unlike Holly, Eddie possessed Hollywood good looks, those good looks got Eddie a role in the movie “The Girl Can’t Help it”. Due to his untimely death that was to be Eddies only movie role. The few live performances that I have seen over the years show Eddie to be a consummate performer who was comfortable onstage and in front of a crowd. Eddies voice was also a real treat, versatile and very dynamic as he could transition between uptempo rockers and ballads.

Eddie Cochran was born in Albert Lea, Minnesota on October 3rd 1938, Eddie studied music in school (drums and piano) but Eddie gravitated toward the guitar his family had lying around the house, playing mostly country music. In 1955 Eddie’s family moved to Bell Gardens, California, where he hooked up with a few buddies from his junior high school. It was with that band that Eddie (at an American Legion gig) met Hank Cochran, although they were not related they formed a duo called the Cochran Brothers in an attempt to cash in on the popularity of family acts. Eddie amazingly at the age of only 18 got work as a session musician and also began writing songs. Soon thereafter Eddie went solo and scored his first hit record called Sittin’ in the Balcony one of the few songs Eddie recorded that he did not write.

Eddie Cochran: Early Rock Star, Guitarist, Rockabilly Pioneer

Eddie toured and recorded for almost the entire two years he was famous, it was on one of these tours he met Buddy Holly; they became friends and developed a healthy rivalry. Eddie was heartbroken upon hearing the news of the plane crash on February 2nd, 1959 in which Holly along with Richie Valens and the Big Bopper were killed. Eddie reacted as many songwriters would; he wrote a song called Three Stars dedicated to the fallen rockers, you can hear Cochran’s voice crack during the verse he wrote about Buddy Holly.

Eddie’s influence on guitar players is enormous, just check out guitar genius Brian Setzer (Stray Cats) strutting around the stage playing Eddie’s signature Gretsch 6120 model guitar. Eddie was also the first rock guitar player to modify his guitar when he added a Gibson Dog Ear P90 pickup to his Gretsch 6120 axe.

Eddies life ended on that fateful night in April of 1960 while a passenger in a London taxi cab that hit a lamppost on Rowden Hill in Chippenham, Wiltshire. Eddie was the only fatality of the crash; the other passengers were Eddie’s fiancée songwriter Sharon Sheeley and fellow rocker Gene Vincent. The cab driver George Martin was convicted of dangerous driving, fined 50 pounds, sentenced to 6 months in jail and had his driving privileges suspended for 15 years.

Eddie Cochran, meteoric figure, promising multi media mega-star, and without question, Legend of Rock and Roll.

Peace to all in Rock and Roll Heaven……you know they got a helluva band!

Eddie Cochran: Early Rock Star, Rockabilly Pioneer from MyRareGuitars.com

This is one of those articles.

Hold on, though. There’s more to it than that. This is the story of a personal journey through the world of music that begins humbly and ends just as humbly as it started. The fact that your reporter (should I say “moi”?) has experienced it at all is amazing enough, for under any other circumstances I might not have found myself in circumstances that presented so ripe an opportunity to learn and understand that most sensuous, invigorating, physically challenging and just plain righteous of musical instruments: the guitar.

Would you rather watch TV or play guitar?

Guitarists: Defining the Breeds

The world of the guitar, from what I’ve seen of the various “shows” held here and there, is populated with individuals whom one could classify into three types: There are collectors who couldn’t give a damn about playing but are attracted by aesthetic or monetary value; there are players who’d probably be better off collecting; and there are those who appreciate how truly awful it is to play poorly and therefore practice like hell out of fear that one day they’ll awaken to find they’re a better fit for category two. (For a hint, reread this paragraph.)

I am one of the individuals from the third category. I live to play the guitar, and if it weren’t for the fact that I’m a responsible adult I’d play the guitar night and day. Actually, it’s as much the music as the instrument – maybe more. Put it this way: To play really well, and play like you mean it, you have to dig in to that fretboard. You have to drive the sludge of misguided assumption and fear out of your hands and out of your brain. To do that takes commitment. It isn’t for babies.

Think about it. To play your best means sacrificing those precious hours in front of the flat-screen, where you might otherwise be perfectly happy growing a big TV butt and shrinking your brain while undertalented, overpaid inflata-babes drive up the advertising revenues and your reserves of testosterone. However, to get to the point where you know that what you’re playing is meaningful and clear of hype. To do that, you’ll have to take your treasured six-stringer through neighborhoods you don’t want to live in . . . at least, not permanently.

If you want to play well, practice hard. That’s what I learned early on in my adventure. On the path I’ve taken, there were players with minds to match their hands; people who saved the partying for after the gig, not before it; people who worked and worked and worked and worked at being better musicians, better thinkers and better teachers. I’ve been fortunate to know these people, and I’ve applied those lessons throughout my career as a journalist and musician.

The Twin Horizons

I soon learned that the many possibilities within the timber of the guitar would establish a certain mark upon which I could focus my own musical efforts. That mark became a line that separated what I was capable of from what I wasn’t yet capable of doing, so in that sense the mark was like the horizon itself. For instance, I knew from the first moment I touched a guitar that it was what I wanted, but it was when I found myself in a circle of very expressive players that I knew the instrument would always hold more than my efforts could reveal. That’s what the guitar is, though. It’s a mystery, or a kind of kaleidoscope. The more you turn it and twist it, the more it displays its infinite randomness and potential. And that’s what makes it so damn fun to play. But the more you play, the more the guitar becomes a philosophy. It’s an approach to listening—a way of sensing and feeling—that lets you know it’s okay to strive and fail before you try and succeed. In that way the guitar is one of the world’s great gifts, which is why so many talented artists have told me that their songs and solos seem to appear from out of nowhere. A good friend recently said there’s no such thing as musical genius. Instead, he said, there’s only the act of channeling from a sphere of creativity that’s far too big for one mind to perceive or identify. It made sense to me. Certainly it’d be more fun to pull some incredible theme out of thin air, or maybe out of a dream, than to feel it was some godlike and wholly intentional act: “That’s it, I’ve done it. I’ve just produced another masterpiece, the likes of which the world shall not see a-gain.” There’s way too much pressure in that. It’ll give you acne.

Well, on with the story. You’ll be impressed, I think, because it’s entirely true and free of exaggeration. It might be a bit more intense than what you’ve experienced on your trip, but then it might not be. After all, the story is really more about the experiences than about—well, moi—so the commonalities will reveal themselves as I relate the events. But hopefully those events will help us define a new philosophy, based partly on the old ones but enriched with something newer and less moi-centric. Here goes:

George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" was all over the radio

It was a long time ago that I began to play the guitar. I was in the eighth grade, and George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” was all over the radio. I’d already learned to play the drums, but since there was little chance that my parents would allow a second set of tubs in the house (the drums belonged to an older brother), I figured my chances would be better with the more compact and more “affordable” guitar. There was one of those in the house too, and it belonged to another brother. I’d been watching him for quite a while, experimenting with his little Orpheus tiger-striped acoustic in the rare dogpoop sunburst. Actually, what I really wanted most was just to pluck those six strings from low to high and follow with a single strum, which was a symbol of the old “Peter Gunn” TV show. Anyway, Guitar Brother eventually relinquished the Orpheus, but rather than deciding I should keep and treasure it the aforementioned two jerks joined with still another brother in destroying it. (Perhaps my oldest brother would have stopped them if he were there. No, he’s classically educated and hates rock ‘n’ roll, so he would’ve helped ‘em.) Hey, but at least it was fun to watch. It also showed me, right at the start of my life as a guitar addict, that there’s always another deal to be had somewhere. So, having owned the Orpheus only a matter of hours and suddenly finding myself without it, I became immersed in the culture of hunter-gatherers. Guitar Bro’ moved up to a Japanese-built Orlando classical, and I got a neighbor’s cast-off Mexican gut-string with the “Missing Tuner Button” feature.

Gibson Hummingbird Acoustic Guitar

One day Guitar Bro’ came home with a replacement for his Orlando, but this one wasn’t about to find itself skewered over a piece of rebar like the Orpheus had. It was a ’63 Gibson Hummingbird in mint–and I mean mint–condition, which had been closeted for eight years by a guy who couldn’t stand the thought of scratching it. (His everyday guitar was a Martin.) From the moment I heard that H-bird, with its thunderous and metallic bass end, woody lower mids and ringing trebles, I knew it would become the sonic standard by which I’d judge every other acoustic guitar. Put it this way: My brother still has it, and I still want it. I want that bitchin’ cherry-sunburst finish, the frets that are wide as skateboard wheels, the fully intact pickguard, the dual-trapezoid inlays, and everything else. Oh, and I’ll take the beat-up Victoria case, with key.

I suffered through a long succession of cheapo guitars, all of them quality-challenged except for the Orlando classical I’d inherited when my brother bought the Gibson. (The Orlando had some truly outrageous Brazilian rosewood. Today, something like that would be a thousand dollars.) But it really didn’t matter to me how bad the instruments were, because I’d practice at least two hours every day, beginning immediately after school. The guitar gave me the power to create chord progressions that reflected the influences of my musical upbringing: the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Stones, Dylan, and the theme from “Bonanza.”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced?

Hendrix, Live at Leeds & The Threshold of a Dream

Interestingly, I wasn’t yet hip to the electric guitar when I first heard Are You Experienced blasting out of the hi-fi in a neighbor’s garage down the street. I wasn’t really aware that Jimi was doing all that with a Strat, but sonically it struck me as some of the most powerful and poetic sound I’d ever heard. Over the years I thought about it—becoming a Hendrix freak in the process—and eventually I realized that the instrument and technique are tools that serve the music, not the other way around. In some schools of thought it’s called transparency.

Music was going all the time in my family’s house. And that, I suspect, is where this particular upbringing differed from others. Oh, there was the occasional silence—after all, it wasn’t an insane asylum or a supermarket—but listening to music was a pretty serious pursuit. As much as we gave our time to it, we gave our imagination to it. So, listening wasn’t just a matter of hearing, it was a matter of believing . . . and the music had to be great before we would believe in it. The fundamental distinction is that music wasn’t entertainment in that house, nor was it something we were “allowed” to have “once we’d reached a certain age.” Admittedly we were Anglophiles or even Europhiles, but that’s because there was so much orchestral music to be heard. It was a sensibility that encouraged a real affection for groups like the Moody Blues, as well as later bands like Hatfield and the North. They had everything: melody, harmonic sophistication, musicianship, great production. The haunting improvisations of the Norwegian guitarist Terje Rypdal, and the sonorous melodies of German bassist Eberhard Weber were a revelation too. Listening to their music teaches you that jazz was never strictly an American art form; there’s a classical-based contingent that’s every bit as important.

The Sparkling Storefront

Unshakeable faith can make for a lonely devotion, particularly when you follow something as nebulous and mystifying as music. But as luck would one day have it, a little shop was opening on a commercial street not far away, just down the street from the liquor store. And on the plain stucco edifice over the storefront a guy was spray-painting the image of a cherry-sunburst Les Paul. Wow. I was in high school by this time, and I was totally ready for a place like that. Not that I’d ever held a real Les Paul, but I’d ogled them in the display cases up at the music store in the mall. But I knew this was going to be different. It had to be, because I could clearly sense it. Shoot, I could smell those old guitars and musty little amps from out on the street. And there were two or three guys in the shop, just casually talking and playing. I scooted past the scaffolding and stepped inside.

Man, the sound was awesome. I can still see this quiet little gentleman sitting cross-kneed on a stool, cranking big, beautiful blues out of a ’68 Les Paul Custom and a blackface Fender Deluxe. He’d slur, squawk and bend those riffs in a way that was so filthy-dirty and lowdown, I knew I just had to get some of that. The sound was huge and authoritative, but at the same time the man’s approach was perfectly languid. It was one of those moments when you simply have to assume the music comes to you. You prepare, you perfect your tools, and then you lay back and play it. Awesome!

Thankfully, the owners of the vintage shop recognized me as one of their own: a happily addicted adolescent guitar nut who’d do anything to taste that magical concoction of six strings and twenty-odd frets. Maybe they thought I might even buy one of the seven or so ’55 Goldtops that adorned the walls there. Think of that: I was this nice Catholic kid whose every move betrayed a lack of experience in the world, and I was hangin’ out with guys who owned and sold some of the most righteous guitars ever made! I went there nearly every day, and tried not to be an ignorant little punk. That was the hard part.

Other people started hanging out at the shop too, and quickly it became a haven for players from throughout the South Bay. (That’s basically the part of Southern California occupied by Long Beach, which I also learned had an inordinately high number of monster guitarists.) If you were deemed by the owner to be good enough, and careful enough, then you could take the guitars off the hangers and play them. The deal with the shop was this: It wasn’t so much the guitar or the amp as an example of collectible history or an indicator of market value. Instead this was a place in search of the perfect recipe. To that end, everything was considered in excruciatingly precise detail. Fretboards were cleaned and conditioned (with linseed oil, now considered a possible carcinogen), pickups and wiring were inspected, and the amps were taken through a comprehensive auditioning process in two key environments–the carpeted, rough-pine paneled shop, and a crude cinder-block storage room at the back. There were catalogs of tubes and transformers, and there was a constant procession of speakers. These guys would put just about anything in a tube amp: Altec, JBL, Gauss, Jensen, Celestion, Eminence, and eventually some cheap no-name jobs with paper domes and extra-large voice coils. If an amp or guitar had the potential to sound great, the people at the shop could get it there.

Fender was the amp of choice at the shop.

What to Play?

Fender was the amp of choice at the shop. But these were no longer standard-issue Fenders. A local technician who’d developed a relationship with the shop owners had come up with a way to install a “clipper circuit” in place of the tremolo control. A friend told me it effectively electrified the front panel, but I hardly cared. Once I got up the nerve to say, “Mom, I need a blackface Fender Twin Reverb with master volume for my new gig”–and finding that she’d go for it–I was ready for my new moniker: “The Mayor of Solotown.” Sure, I tried the Marshall route eventually, courtesy of a road-weary hundred-watter that had been stripped of its vinyl, together with a similarly raped slant cab whose basket-weave grille was decorated with the residue of beer and barf. I just hated the thing. It sounded so dead – so devoid of ambience. I just couldn’t seem to play the room with it like I could with the open-back stuff. Another member of the inner circle urged me to keep the Marshall, saying it just needed fresh tubes. (Actually, he was right.) Well, a little reverb could’ve helped too! So, I took it back to the shop and got two amps: a silverface Twin circa ’70-’71, and an Ampeg VT-22 of roughly the same vintage. Man, that was nuts. I had way too much power, feedback that was totally controllable per distance and proximity, and the juicy Ampeg “cone-cry” that Marshall designs, good as they might have been, didn’t have. Those two amps worked together almost intuitively, and they made my little ’76 rock-maple Osborne solid-body sing like Pavarotti with his meatballs in a vice. I still think it was one of the most amazing sounds I’ve ever heard.

A benefit of being a familiar face was that I could hang around at the shop and play all these incredible guitars, but honestly the owners didn’t expect me to pony up for something truly vintage. I’d just walk in, and within a few minutes I’d be playing a ’57 three-pickup Custom – a guitar that was so good it could almost play itself. I could pick up a Goldtop with those delicious off-white soapbars and a stoptail, or even the co-owner’s customized Olympic white “studio Strat” with Mighty Mite brass hardware, EMG active pickups and a shimmed Jazzmaster neck, and blow out the licks till my fingernails bled. Over time I bought this guitar and that, like a scarred-up Guild Aristocrat and a fabulous mid-’60s Kazuo Yairi replica of a Martin 0018. And of course they knew I’d buy the ’63 ES-345 that someone had stripped bare with a steak knife and spray-lacquered. But no one ever said, “Hey, why don’t you buy something.” We of the inner circle even helped sell guitars, because we could make them sound like they should. I’d demo guitars for buyers all the time, and if I played it they’d probably buy it.

Once, though, I demoed a guitar for a kid just about my age, and I almost wished I hadn’t. I’d been at home practicing like crazy, and after a while I decided I’d visit the shop. There was this kid there, and he was interested in a particular Les Paul (a white Custom, I think). The manager said to me, “Hey, play something to show what this guitar can do.” So, I sat down and . . . and . . . found that I just couldn’t seem to play for beans. It was as if I was just too tired. Maybe I just felt like a trained monkey. In any case, all the whiplash-inducing improvisational skill I’d developed was singularly absent from my cells, and I just plain stunk on that guitar.

The kid still wanted the Les Paul

The kid still wanted the Les Paul. But once he’d left the shop, I told the manager I felt lousy about having played so poorly. His response was one of the profound surprises of my life up to that point: “So, you’ve been playing too much,” he said. “Now it’s time to just listen for a while.” It was far more wisdom than I deserved, but that’s the kind of friend this guy was capable of being. He was honest, and in his business he was equally so. It was another lesson: Be a listener. Listen to others, listen to your intuition, and listen to the silence that coincides with the noise. There’s a musical comparison too, I think. So much of what passes for kick-ass product these days is exactly that, a product that’s out to prove it can kick your ass. Time was, when there was a give-and-take in even the gnarliest music. There was an ebb and flow, and the tension and release that has characterized so much of the best music.

Our favorite albums

The Immersion Diversion

Clearly I was learning more about playing the guitar than I could have at any music school. It was everything in one package: musical, philosophical, technical, aesthetic, nostalgic and futuristic. There was a massive influx of ideas and tastes running from Delta blues and Africana to British progressive rock, on to German and Dutch hard rock, and tongue-in-cheek quasi-classical stuff from the studios and piazzas of Milan. We believed we should be able to grasp it all, and that we should be able to play it all. But that was part of the era. Perhaps none of us had a master’s degree in music, but there was a constant and intensive exchange of ideas and information. We’d bring in our favorite records by King Crimson, Automatic Man, Soft Machine, Caravan, Golden Earring, Be-Bop Deluxe, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Frank Zappa, and even the maniacally virtuoso French ensemble Magma. We’d listen to Taj Mahal, Leon Redbone, Tom Waits, Neil Young, and of course Jeff Beck. The power, the greatness and the grittiness of all that would get mixed together, and there at the confluence of it all we felt that absolutely anything was possible.

The guitars at the shop were generally a cut above, but the one that really had it all was a Flying V dating from about September 1957. It had a honey-colored Korina body so gorgeous, and a neck profile so perfect, that simply holding it was enough to make you forsake any other electric instrument. More than any Les Paul, Strat or Tele, it was the guitar. The tone was monumentally hot—bright, sassy and almost too sensuous for words–and the action over those polished frets and board edges was like something you dream of. And guess what? We used to play that sucker all the time, usually through the shop’s number-one Deluxe with that juicy master-volume setup. Man, it was so effing beautiful! But wait, you’d better steel your nerves for this, because it’ll either make you laugh like an idiot or cry like a baby. Ready? I’ll continue.

Birth of an Angel, and Others

Word had it that our beautiful “V” had been sold to a buyer somewhere down in Texas. But since it was obviously too special to be shipped, his plan was to drive out to the coast and pick it up. We never saw it leave the shop, nor could we have handled seeing it go. But a week or so later the shop manager told us the news. He made the report with an “ouch” of a smile that said all too clearly, “Easy come, easy go.” It turned out that the man who’d purchased the “V” only made it about halfway home with the guitar. He’d been running hard across the Arizona desert in his ’50s Ford pickup when suddenly he caught a whiff of smoke. Something smelled funny, like maybe rubber or wiring. Then he saw the flames licking the edges of the hood up front. Soon there was billowing smoke, fire was everywhere, and just one thing to do: pull over and get the hell out of that truck. He released the door, kicked it open, headed across the blacktop for the opposite shoulder and Kablooey!!! A gigantic pressure wave knocked him on his butt, from which position he could see a mushroom of molten iron and oil roiling toward the blue.

Damn. The Flying V was in the Ford.

It was then that he remembered: The Flying V was in the Ford. He had set it up front with him, leaning it against the bench seat so that he could admire it as he drove along. But as the truck flamed itself to a crisp on that Southwestern highway, the soul of one almighty and godlike guitar silently winged its way to Heaven.

Other axes came and went, and we enjoyed them all. There were baby-blue Strats, Mustangs with racing stripes, Teles and Esquires, a Firebird V that a customer bought and had edge-radiused and refinished wine red, a particularly fine Les Paul Standard with the top refinished in translucent clover honey (like orange juice), and a ’58 blond dotneck 335 that I sincerely wish I’d put on layaway. And if your pickups weren’t up to snuff, good ol’ Bill the shop manager would fix that. He pulled the stock Hi-A units out of my Osborne and replaced them with DiMarzio PAFs that he’d hotrodded with longer magnets. He also installed some pre-amped EMGs and a five-way switch in my Ibanez Challenger II “Buddy Holly” Strat replica. Damn, what a great guitar that was. Wait, there’s something in my eye. Just a minute, the tears will pass.

Excuse me. Once in a while I remember letting that one go.

Robin Trower, Guitarist (Procol Harum)

Fame However Fleeting

Big-time guitarists would come to the shop, too, usually after hours. For example, it was said that Robin Trower came in one night to audition three ’57 Strats that had been brought in for his consideration. And once I was invited to “drop by” with my guitar when Larry Carlton was scheduled to come in and try a caramel-sunburst ES. I was there for it, just waiting. Eventually he showed up, and after a few minutes he took a seat adjacent to me, on one of those funky squash-colored naugahyde ottomans that every guitar shop ought to have. He just started doing his thing, so I immediately jumped in with mine. It sounded good to me, and I could tell he was diggin’ it, so we played that way for at least half an hour. Eventually I packed up my guitar, but I loitered long enough to listen in as Carlton finished his business with the management of the shop. (He said he liked the ES but that the neck would need some work, which I took to mean reshaping.) Then, when I got home, Bill called from the shop and said, “So, after you left, Carlton goes, ‘Jeez, who was that kid!? He’s great!'” It was nothing, really. When you’ve been living and breathing Wishbone Ash for months, and practicing every waking hour, you aren’t going to feel intimidated by a few Steely Dan riffs.

Larry Carlton, Guitarist & Composer

Life goes on, and eventually I was too busy to visit the vintage shop very often. There was a change in management anyway, so the vibe was noticeably absent. In time I became a full-time writer, covering my favorite subject as an editor and contributor with various magazines. But in all the years since those days, when music focused our minds and fueled our fingers, I have yet to hear more than a handful of guitarists who can touch some of the players I knew from that little vintage guitar shop in Long Beach. I’ve lived in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Tokyo, and I’ve met, interviewed and studied with brilliant players. Latin, world music, rock, metal, the studio scene, fusion, and etcetera: all have their names and signatures. But when you find a place where you can immerse yourself in the art of the guitar—where you’re totally free of inhibitions and ready to learn from players of every genre—then there’s no question about it. That’s where you’ll find musicians who are quicker, faster, more fluid, funnier, more powerful, more dedicated, better equipped to improvise and easily equipped to out-rock any of the supposed masters from this or any crop in recent memory. Simply put, it’s the place.

Jeff Beck, Guitarist (The Yardbirds)

The Philosophy Part

What did I learn, and what sort of philosophy emerged from my experiences there? Well, to review them and sum up I’d say it’s as important to attempt as to succeed; that the process is nothing without the quest for the process; that it’s all for nothing but never simply for entertainment; that it’s always worthwhile to want to be the best, even though there is never one “best”; that one should listen to the lessons of accident and random occurrence; that the person that makes the music, though the music fulfills the person; and that if you don’t play as if it were your very last time on this little blue planet, then you’re just wasting your time.

I also learned that you can play almost any kind of guitar you want and sound as good as you want. For instance, I don’t think any of the best players from this particular circle had the money it took to own one of the best guitars in the shop. In fact, I know they didn’t. Those guitars are intentionally priced to remain beyond the reach of the player, so that they’ll neither suffer from player wear nor embarrass the collector who can afford them but can’t actually play. But if you think we ever discussed it or worried about it, you’d be wrong. As I said earlier, we could play the vintage gear nearly anytime we wanted, and it was great. But then we’d head for our own guitars. I had my Osborne, which, if you can imagine, looks like a Rickenbacker 325 with a Mosrite headstock and Gibson-style hardware. Jeff had his lucite Dan Armstrong. Ronnie had a Strat with a fat little Tele neck on it, and Martin had an early issue of the Ibanez Artist in that nice violin finish. With the exception of my Osborne, nearly everything we owned was pre-owned, and certainly everything we played needed some serious tweaking due to overuse.

It’s still a challenge to defend an older guitar against a newer, better-built one. And since I nearly played the Osborne to death—to the point that I’d often fall asleep with it on my chest—I’ve placed it in the deep freeze until I can resurrect it. Instead, I play any of several guitars. For example, I had a superstrat built at ESP Craft House Tokyo in ’85. I hand-picked all the components myself, right down to the slab of northern ash, birds-eye neck and Bill Lawrence pickups. I even had the luthier assemble a Kahler Pro trem with a combination of brass and stainless parts. It has an oiled neck with a lacquered fingerboard, and the body is translucent cranberry. (Don’t ask how I put a belt-buckle dent in the top of the guitar.) Then I have a Yamaha SBG1300TS double-cutaway in gothic black. It weighs more than a Toyota and has a baseball-bat neck, but what resonance! There’s also an early ‘60s Eko model 200 “Mascot” archtop in showroom shape, aged to a delicate apricot blond. It’s small, but like many Eko acoustics it’s loud and very responsive, with tremendous sustain. And I have a four-pickup Eko Cobra that, despite the uprooted frets and shrunken pickguard, still manages to produce a sound that Stevie would’ve swapped his axe for. My current favorite, though, is a beautiful Eastwood Sidejack Deluxe in caramel sunburst. The fretboard is so slick and fast, I just can’t stay away from it. If I were to characterize its sound, I’d say it conjures the tonal balance of a Firebird, or maybe a super-hot Tele. There’s a “long scale” quality about the sound, which I really like.

See? There’s nothing outlandishly expensive. Sure, the Osborne is rare, with a serial number of “0003.” The ESP is tailor-made, and the Eko 200 is a sweetheart Django machine – a total rocket. But I treat each of them as a tool to help reach an artistic goal. It doesn’t take a fabulously expensive guitar to succeed in this respect. Instead you’ll want a guitar that doesn’t hold you back. You can play a guitar that challenges you, but a challenge is distinct from a hindrance. If the pickups are too hot or tend to feed back, you can pull back from “11.” When the intonation is off in the octave register, you can adjust it or deal with it. When there’s a tendency to play one guitar a bit more staccato than you’d like, you can simply relax and play more legato. You can even pick harder, or play fingerstyle, and achieve a similar result. Just make the instrument your own. Teach that guitar how to play and how to sound its best. Then it can teach you in return.

So, if you’re out there, Martin, Ronnie, Rob, Mark, Bill, and especially my old friend Jeffrey, I want to thank you for making me a part of the group. You’ve taught me more than I could ever say, and you’ll always be among my true guitar heroes.

Life in Guitarland from MyRareGuitars.com

This past month or so I found myself having the same conversation several different times with several different people. That conversation centered around the question, “what were the greatest guitar solos on record”? I tend to go for the usual ones, but there are some great guitar sounds, not necessarily just solos, that are also worth mentioning. So folks here are my thoughts on the ten “Greatest guitar songs”. My list is a list not in any particular order, so here we go.

Mike Bloomfield (Super Session): Albert's Shuffle

#1. Mike Bloomfield [Super Session]: Albert’s Shuffle

This is the most flawless 5 minutes of solo guitar I have ever heard. Mike’s tone and note selection here are perfect. Period. I marveled over this song at 13 years old and still do. A 59 “Burst” through a blackface Twin Reverb, if not for this record you could probably still buy a ‘Burst” for $500 (not really).

Frank Zappa (One Size Fits All): Po-Jama People

#2. Frank Zappa [One Size Fits All]: Po-Jama People

Frank’s tone on this cut is similar to his tone on many of his 70’s era tunes like Inca Roads, Punky’s Whips and cuts from the Apostrophe album, but this solo in particular is so chock full of nuts I can’t say enough about it.

The SG sound here sounds like he’s choking the guitar to death. What a solo! There was magic in the studio that day, for sure.

Jimi Hendrix (Band of Gypsies): Machine Gun

#3. Jimi Hendrix [Band of Gypsies]: Machine Gun

Not much to say here aside from the fact that this is the greatest guitar solo every printed on tape! Unlike the Bloomfield cut I referred to earlier, this is not a seamless, flawless solo; it’s just the most riveting, gut wrenching piece of guitar work I have ever heard. I turn people onto it who are not fans of Jimi, rock, or guitar in general and they are stunned. Jimi, Jimi, Jimi.

Link Wray: Rumble

#4. Link Wray: Rumble

This song actually made me shiver when I was a kid hearing it for the first time. It’s what rock and roll guitar should be, raw, slightly out of tune and showing very little dexterity (off handed compliment if I ever heard one). The guitar Link is using on this cut is a Danelectro Guitarlin set in the middle position, with the pickups in series.

There are several versions of this song available. I like two of the earlier ones, one of which is the version where Link switches on the tremolo in the fade. Cool! The other version, which is my favorite, appears on a Link Wray compilation, on the Edsel label.

Eric Clapton (Fresh Cream): Sweet Wine

#5. Eric Clapton [Fresh Cream]: Sweet Wine

EC at his best. His entrance on this cut is what a solo should start like. Bang! Here I am. Eric’s tone is big yet cuts through. To my ear, it sounds like Eric is playing an SG. Clapton’s work on this whole album is unparalleled (see NSU and Dreaming) but this is “the” one. His enharmonic approach is refreshing and different. Most of his work in the future was mostly root or relative minor based. You’ll know what I mean when you listen to his solos on “While my guitar gently weeps” and “Something”. I have always felt that Clapton’s best work was when he was around musicians he did not tower over like Bruce, Baker, The Beatles and Duane Allman.

Johnny Marr (The Smiths): How Soon is Now?

#6. Johnny Marr [The Smiths]: How Soon is Now?

Rarely do you find a song with a great guitar hook in it, a song in which the guitar sound defines any sound you hear afterwards that, even remotely sounds the same. This song has two of them. I don’t know much about Mr. Mars or the Smiths, all I know is that when I heard this song I stood with my mouth open thinking “my God that is a sound I will remember for the rest of my life.”

The first one is a rhythmic heavily tremoloed effect while he’s playing a chord. His strumming is in sync with the trem, where as, you don’t hear his attack, only the chord. A very powerful sound indeed. The second is when he slides back a half step using a fragmented voiced chord up an octave or so from the first hook, also breathtaking. BTW Morrisey’s vocal on this tune is also spectacular.

Roy Buchanan: The Messiah Will Come Again.

#7. Roy Buchanan: The Messiah Will Come Again.

Even without knowing Roy’s story and subsequent fate, if this tune does not bring you to tears or at least give you a case of “chicken skin” you are dead already!!!

Hearing this song on Roy’s 1972 PBS TV special was a defining moment in this mans life. I could not believe anyone could put so much emotion into a song. To this day for me the actual playing of this tune has to be done at the right time in the right place among the right people. The Telecaster at its greatest moment is when it’s in Roy’s hands. The simple act of switching pickups in this song is earth shattering. This is more a spiritual experience than a musical one on my opinion.

Mark Knophler: Sultans of Swing

#8. Mark Knophler: Sultans of Swing

I knew that this song would be a hit based solely on the guitar playing. When was the last time you heard that statement? It was the 70’s for Chrissakes, and here comes this upstart Brit playing a Strat so clean you could actually hear his technique. And it was good, very very good!

I love this song for the sheer reason that it gives every guitar player the hope that if you play good enough you can play yourself into a hit record. His tasty playing during the song is so restrained and tempered that when in the last part of the song he goes into that famous triplet riff it sounds like the world is coming to an end.

Jerry Reed: The Claw

#9. Jerry Reed: The Claw

That’s his name and that’s his nickname. If I could play like any guitar player in the world it would be Jerry Reed. This guy is a monster picker, for sure, as well as, a talented songwriter and a not half bad screen personality (the Snowman in “Smokey and the Bandit”). Check out Jerry’s chops on this particular tune, he’s finger picking a gut string and it sounds like a multitracked guitar part being played by several great guitarists, but its not. It’s just Jerry being Jerry.

Freddy King: Going Down

#10. Freddy King: Going Down

The first time I heard this song as I am sure I am not alone was by Jeff Beck on the second Jeff Beck Group album. Upon hearing Freddy’s version, a few years later, I initially still had Beck’s version in my mind as the reference. As time went on and I listened to King’s version more, eventually I fell in love with the simplicity in his approach. The stunning fact is, that like many of Freddy’s solos, he never moves from the one position he starts in. This was to me. to become a very important lesson on how to play the blues authentically. We sometimes get caught up in moving around and that movement becomes the idea, not the bending and squeezing of the few notes. Larry Londin’s simplified drumming also lends a hand to the tasty feel set up in the recording as well as Leon Russell’s signature piano sound, all simple and all tasty. Yummy!!!

Well boys and girls that’s it for now. Please contact me with your comments criticisms and suggestions I love ‘em!

10 Greatest Guitar Songs from MyRareGuitars.com

Eric Clapton Live… with his trustworthy Strat!

Hi everyone I hope you have been enjoying my column, here’s more stuff to ponder. It seems every time you turn around there’s another list, 100 best this, 10 worst that’s. Well here’s another list for ya! But at least this one does not involve Paris Hilton. I now that some of my listings may be a bit controversial (one in particular) as I said before these are my opinions based on my experiences. Like all things in music they are not right or wrong, just some good-natured opinions that will hopefully stimulate your own thoughts on this subject.

Fender Stratocaster Electric Guitar

#1 Fender Stratocaster: The guitar that defined rock and roll music.
This guitar is as crucial a design and tool as can be expressed. It is unparalleled in it’s uniqueness and sound. Nothing sounds like a Strat, the bridge pickup sounds similar but not the same as a Tele bridge pickup. The same can be said for the neck pickup, and the middle pickup is so unique I cannot think of another guitar sound that can be mistaken for it. And the “between the pickups” sound is what it is truly Strat-esque. Leo was a god among men.

Fender Telecaster Electric Guitar

#2 Fender Telecaster: The most versatile guitar ever made.
The Telecaster, Leo Fender’s maiden voyage into the uncharted world of guitardom. The only guitar that can be credibly used as a rock, blues, country and yes, jazz guitar (even with the stock single coil in the neck position). The best way I describe the Tele when asked why it is my favorite guitar is that my ideas on the Tele are mostly musical ideas not sonic ideas (like the Strat). The Telecaster don’t play itself brother, it’s all there for the taking, but you must be man enough to take it. It’s low maintenance and very consistent from Tele to Tele.

Martin D-28 Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar

#3 Martin D-28: The standard of what an acoustic guitar should sound like.
I dunno I guess I must have been a real jerk when I was young, because I thought Martins were overrated and inconsistent. I was so brainwashed that one day I went into a guitar shop in New York with the sole intention of buying a J-200. While I was there the proprietor said I must check out this Martin D-28, and I did. Let me tell you this guitar was a dream come true, it came alive when you strummed a chord. The top vibrated so strongly I checked to see if it was cracked. It sounded even and true, it sounded so good that I thought to myself “I ain’t good enough to play this guitar.” So I bought the J-200 with the fancy clouds on the fretboard that sounded like a surfboard. BTW I recently contacted the guy who bought that J-200 and it still sounds like a surfboard 20 years later. The D-28 works for all kinds of music, bluegrass, rock and even blues as it is a very underestimated slide guitar ( not many of us have the scratch to play a 28 for slide only though).

Gibson ES-175 Electric Guitar

#4 Gibson ES 175: The best amplified arch top.
I am sure Joe Pass could have played an L5 if he wanted to, and after playing the ES 175 live I understood why many jazz guitar players chose the mid line maple top box. I have found them to be consistent and manageable at higher volumes or when you are set up close to your amp. I also own a Gibson Tal Farlow and have found it to be an ornate version of the 175. I also like the Lawsuit Ibanez 175 copies very much if you don,t mind the narrow neck profile.

Gibson SG Electric Guitar

#5 Gibson SG: The ultimate rock and roll guitar.
Short and sweet here. It’s easy to play, it’s light, it looks amazing, it cuts through like no other humbucking guitar on the planet, and it sounds good with virtually any decent amplifier. Here we go, Young, Iommi, Zappa, Clapton, Harrison, Santana (early w/ P90’s), Townsend (also P90’s). Great lead guitar, awesome rhythm guitar. SG Suggestion: Try a hi-output Humbucker in the bridge position like a DiMarzio Super Distortion it will amaze you; it will still cut like a knife.

Gibson L5 Archtop Guitar

#6 Gibson L5: The standard for what an acoustic arch top is.
I am speaking strictly about the acoustic L5 model only. This is the model that greats like Freddie Green played so well in the big band setting. A little background on the non amplified arch top, I always felt that the guitar player in early big bands served as a chord voice in the rhythm section just as the banjo player did in the New Orleans jazz bands in the early 20th century. They kept the rhythm for the musicians and were barely heard by the audience. Just say it, Gibson L5. Ahhh!

Gretsch 6120 Electric Guitar

#7 Gretsch 6120: Eddie Cochran and Chet Atkins, what else needs sayin?
The match of a visionary guitar player and a Gretsch 6120 seems to very common in guitar lore. This guitar has an arch top design, that combined with the Bigsby tremolo and the Filtron pickups give this guitar a sound that is rockabilly yet with a tweak of the tone controls can be tamed into a great accompaniment guitar as well. I always felt that the sound from this Gretsch was somewhere between an ES series Gibson and a Telecaster (not a bad neighborhood). My experience also tells me that the 6120 sounds damn good plugged into almost any amp I ever heard it with. One of my faves was my 6120 plugged into a Lab Series L5 amp housing a 15 inch JBL E130 speaker. This guitar is great for rockabilly, country, surf, chordal rock rhythm guitar, and any ensemble music.

Martin 000-28 Acoustic Guitar

#8 Martin 000-28: The ultimate blues and finger style acoustic guitar.
Also the OM-35 the long scale version of the 000 body size. I know this might be a somewhat controversial choice but, this comes from my own playing experience as well. I always marveled how the great bluesman would manhandle the guitars they played, in lieu of the fact that many of them had these enormous hands. I always felt that the mass of these hands in comparison to the at most times low budget guitars they played led to the sound they produced. This particular mortal (me!) who did not sharecrop or toil as many of these great men had to do just can’t seem to be able to get that sound from a dreadnought, but when I play a 000 size guitar I feel like Big Bill (Broonzy) himself. I can fingerpick with ease and muffle and mute just like Lightning Hopkins. The even sound of the 000 also lends itself to the unaccompanied nature of solo blues guitar. You may ask “why have I not seen some of these great bluesman play a 00-28?” My answer to that question is two-fold I believe economics is one, and the fact that many of our legendary bles pickers preferred more ornate guitars, and stayed away from the “country guitars.” The Martin 000-28 is a true classic!

Danelectro Solid Body Guitar

#9 Danelectro solid body: The best cheap guitar ever made.
As far a the Danny is concerned, I ask you will it compete with the Les Paul or Strat as your primary guitar? Obviously not, but I ask you is there a more versatile/ quality “off the wall” guitar. It’s an unreal slide guitar (see Lindley in your guitar dictionary). A great rootsy rhythm or lead guitar, and how many of the great Chicago bluesman have you seen playing these guitars? They cut through very well when played alongside other guitars. And the shielding and pickups were very ahead of their times. They look god awful cool, they stay in tune when set up decently. And again I will say that I have never heard a Danny not sound like a Danny through any amp, actually the cheaper the amp the better they sound. I actually prefer the two pickup model for slide and the three pickup for regular application. The twelve strings and odd ball models like the sitar and bellzouki and Guitarlin also sound awesome. The reissues are as good as the originals, and actually play better, although I like the sound of the old pickups better. Go out and buy a half dozen of them right now!!!

Gibson Les Paul Jr Electric Guitar

#10 Gibson Les Paul Junior: Turn it up and bang away a no frills no brainer.
The name “Junior” almost demeans the stature of this guitar. When I say perfect I mean that perfect for the application it is used for. Ask anyone who has ever owned one they all say the same thing – “I should have never got rid of that Jr.”; I am also including all the Les Paul Junior variants as well as the early SG Jr.s as they all serve the same purpose to me. I have always felt that when guitar god Leslie West played his Junior his technique was so strong that it compressed the sound like he was squeezing a golf ball through a garden hose. The guitar reacted so well to his hands, there had to be a reason Leslie played the Junior for so long. First of all has anybody ever heard a bad sounding ones? The only difference I have heard was that I prefer the fatter neck Jr.s as they seen more stable and have a bit mote chunk and sustain. These guitars sound great coming through any amp, although they obviously do not sound as good through a solid state amp. I sometimes wish that I could play my Jr.s more often, but my particular style demands a bit of a more versatile guitar. Yes, the Jr. is not a very versatile guitar, but its still perfect as far as what it does, and what it does is kicks ass!

The Best Of The Rest…

These guitars are great, but not perfect. Let’s say… they are a respectable 9 out of 10!

Les Paul model
Too inconsistent, too many variables great ones are great, bad ones suck. Some are way too heavy, I have seen Les Pauls that weighed in excess if 12 lbs, that’s too much and way too inconsistent. I have always believed from the over 30 years of guitar worship that the Les Paul was the red headed stepchild at Gibson and did not get the attention it deserved. Here’s a hint or two on picking a good Paul – from me to you: #1 if the neck pickup has a high endy squawky “cut” you are well on your way. #2 if it could replace a Tele in a pinch it’s a winner in my book. Muddy, low mid laden Pauls give the model a bad name.

Mosrite Ventures
Great look and design, great sound but, Too thin neck and too small frets, bad tremolo (arm too short and too close to the body and gets “mushy” fast, Not great woods that many times don’t match in weight and density. For a more modern take on the design, make sure to check the Eastwood Sidejack series, which is getting even more popular than the originals!

Gibson ES-335
Some with necks that are unplayably thin. Bridge pickups are not trebly enough (not pickups themselves I believe it’s a design flaw). Great blues guitar in the right hands. A one trick pony.

Gibson ES-345 and 355
The Varitone need I say more? I own several of them but they cannot be my only guitar at a gig.

Gibson L5 CES
Too much pickup for a spruce top arch top. The guitar explodes out of your hand when played proximate to an amp, Useless treble pickup. Yeah I know Wes Montgomery played one (his was a one pickup model), well lets not compare ourselves to Wes okay? I also heard from a reliable source that Wes altered his guitars so they wouldn’t feedback, and that his left hand technique restricted this problem also.

Gibson acoustics: J-200/ J45/J160
Inconsistent, too long to break in, by the time you know whether you have a good one or not you are ready to retire. Buy a used one that sounds good and be happy you got a good one.

Rickenbacker V64 12-string
Aside from the string spacing being too close this is a perfect 12 string electric, but not perfect. Check out the Carl Wilson model if you can find one. George, how did you do it?

10 Perfect Guitars & Their Applications from MyRareGuitars.com

The bottom line is, that Leo made a less than great bass amp that is a great guitar amplifier. Great mistake #1.

Leo Fender does it again!
I list some more of Mr. F’s miscalculations here.

The Stratocaster, arguably the most important guitar in rock and roll history, was originally thought of by Leo as the perfect guitar for his favorite guitar player in his favorite band. The guitar player was Eldon Shamblin and the band was Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Those of you not familiar with the aforementioned band and guitar player they were a western swing phenomenon of the 30’s and 40’s with a very big following in California. Leo wanted to create a guitar that would fit into the sound of the band whose music at the time was fertile ground for arch top jazz boxes. So Leo’s Stratocaster was supposed to be a jazz and swing guitar. I ask again when was the last time you saw a jazz or swing guitar player strumming four to the bar on a Strat?

One more from Leo:
Ah yes the Jazzmaster, I guess when the Strat didn’t make the grade with jazz guitar players Leo figured if I put the word jazz in the name that might make jazz guys wanna play them. Again Leo failed at creating a jazz guitar. History tells us that the Jazzmaster as was the Jaguar were copied incessantly by overseas guitar makers. They being so impressed with the upper end, Fender decided to copy them instead of the more popular Stratocaster, another mistake that has went under the radar.

Gibson gets into the mistake game too.
When Fender came out with the Telecaster and it became popular, Gibson said we must get into the solid body guitar world. We all know that Les Paul was consulted and in 1952 Gibson’s first Les Paul showed up. Legend has it that Gibson, a builder of top end arch tops and flat tops could not see themselves putting the Gibson name of a no frills slab of wood with a screwed on neck. So they insisted that their loyal Gibson customers would want the solid body guitar to have an arched top like their “box” guitars.

So they made a two pickup solid body with an arched top and a fancy gold top.

The guitar was not well received by players, as a matter of fact the Gibson players they were after, and thought the guitar was a non responsive, heavy guitar, especially with the 1952 trapeze tailpiece that made it impossible to mute with your right hand. The players who were the new solid body rebels saw the Les Paul as an overpriced, ornamental, non cool guitar.

One aspect of the Les Paul design that has been debated over the years was did the arch top on a solid body guitar actually make a difference in the sound and was the difference a better sound? That question I will leave to you to answer yourself, my opinion is that all design features affect the sound somewhat.

Interesting subtext to the Les Paul legacy is that when Gibson introduced the SG style guitar, players started cramming to get old design Les Paul’s. Gibson seeing this, eventually reintroduced the Les Paul in 1968 after a seven year hiatus.

Another cool mistake was that when Gibson came out with the circa 68 Paul’s they had leftover stock of Les Paul bodies from the 50’s that were already routed for the P90 pickup. The dilemma was that the new humbuckers did not fit the hole in the body. Gibson thought, what do we have in stock that would fit into this P90 hole? Well after acquiring Epiphone (1963ish) they had a stockpile of Epi’s venerable New York mini hum buckers. They made a plastic ring around the pickup to retrofit it into the P90 rout, and figured we might as well call it something different hence the Les Paul Deluxe!! (Didn’t you ever wonder why the Deluxes were initially all gold tops?)

So I think that great ideas sometimes are not necessarily what they were intended to be, but are still great ideas!

Here are some of my own off the wall ideas…

1. Baritone guitars set up for slide: I did this by chance at a gig when I mistakenly brought along my baritone instead of my slide guitar. I took some 11 gauge strings strung up the old baritone and played the gig. The guitar sounded unbelievable! Sustain and tone was awesome. The sound was more like lap steel than a regular guitar strung for slide. BTW the guitar I used was a cheapo Kingston Baritone, later on I used a better guitar and that one sounded great too.
2. Flatwounds on a solid body guitar: I love flat wounds on hollow body guitars, but I have really come to enjoy them on Tele’s and Mosrites (and all their clones). You get that old school Glen Campbell/Joe Maphis sound, great for surf stuff too. Another benefit from this set up is using a fuzz box with the flat wounds on a solid body. You can replicate that hard to capture 60’s studio sound exactly, remembering that many of the studio guitar players in the 60’s were still comfortable with their flat wounds and that many of them were using the same guitar for every session. Check it out! Oh and BTW single coil Fenders, Mosrites work best for this application I find Gibson solid bodies are too muddy with flat wounds.
3. After seeing Johnny Winter playing a Fender XII 12 string strung up for slide, and seeing Blues great Earl Hooker playing a Gibson double neck with the 12 string neck with 6 strings on it I figured “maybe there’s something to this”, and guess what there is! The added mass to the headstock adds an X factor to the sound in the form of added sustain and a magical high mid cut that really sounds very unique. Suggested guitars to try this on a Fender XII, Epiphone Riviera 12 string (great combo w/ the mini humbuckers), and any decent Japanese cheapo guitar if you string it for slide you will not be sorry.

That’s it for now! Keep on strumming and remember Joey Says Experiment!!!

Joey Leone with his Fender Telecaster

Peace and Joy.

Great Mistakes in the World of Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Not everyone is so easily fooled by the argument that one form or style of music is better or more valid than another. There really are guitarists who can walk either street, reflecting the mood with appropriate ease and authority. But since they realize it’s no use distancing one path from the other, they just allow the two routes to mingle and intersect, creating a style that’s more relevant to the music and the moment.

The truth is, playing it all requires a measure of self-assuredness. Call it arrogance, or call it balls. But if you can rip off those three-octave runs, play the big chords and take it to Chicago in one go, then you’re too cool for school. You’re ready to get out there and do it.

Jazz Guitarist Mike Stern

The Man with the Axe

Mike Stern is one of those lucky few: a guitarist who can do it all. Though he’s known for the depth and precision of his jazzy ballads and rip-snortin’ fusion instrumentals, he’s equally respected for the woozy bends and woody tone of his paeans to the greats of blues and rock. Listen to any of his many excellent releases (all of which remain active in the Atlantic catalog), and you’ll caught by the power of his deceivingly subtle blend. He’ll start off a solo slowly, with notes that rise and fall like the undulations of a woman in the throes of romance. Those few moaning notes soon take on the tone of spoken utterances, urging the action. The speed builds, the intervals become more dramatic. The whole thing rises to a crescendo of volcanic proportions, climbing to the very pinnacles of stately, guitaristic glory. (Sounds like sex, doesn’t it?)

It’s really remarkable that Stern can sustain those levels of excitement over the course of solos that are much longer than is typical of either the jazz genre or rock. After all, these aren’t cheap little power ballads, they’re full-blown hotrods of composition and jazz improvisation. That’s right, they’re long and they’re loud. It’s convenient to compare Stern’s manner of opening to the sound of the late blues master Roy Buchanan (whose ancient Telecaster he would one day own), and rock archetype Jeff Beck. But those guitarists, despite their brilliance, didn’t leap the song format and compose for entire groups of musicians. Mike Stern has.

Early exposure to many kinds of music gave Stern a head start in his ability perceive the melody, or the long line, at the heart of a piece. His mother was a big influence there, being a fan of the great composers and jazz artists alike. Their home in D.C. was always alight with sound. As he says, “My mom used to play a lot of classical records around the house. I got into that, along with a lot of jazz. But I still listened to the Beatles, the Stones, Jeff Beck and Hendrix.” Which makes complete sense, since the Beatles, Hendrix and the best of their day couldn’t have done what they did without considerable background as listeners.

Early Explorations

Mike was born in January 1953, into a family based in the Boston area. Later on they moved to Washington, D.C., where, at his mom’s insistence, he took up the piano. By the age of 12, however, he’d made a decision about what he should play. And it wasn’t going to be the piano. Soon came the fateful six-string, an unassuming plywood job with nylon strings. “I took a few lessons,” he says, “but after a while I started playing by ear. I did that for a long time, and it just felt right. So, now it’s whatever gets to my heart. It could be simple, or whatever. In those days it was simple by necessity, because I didn’t have very much knowledge. Later I began studying more, because I wanted to grow and improve my understanding. I dug jazz, but I’d learned to play rock and blues by listening to records. Still, when I took my mom’s jazz records into my room and tried to play along with that stuff, I’d get lost right away. To be honest, I felt like I was in a rut playing only rock and blues.”

Mike Stern with Band Mike enrolled at the Berklee College of Music in 1971, just a few blocks from Fenway Park and the legendary Red Sox, and began a more in-depth exploration of jazz. That was where he finally got serious about it, thanks to the encouragement of guitar instructors such as Mick Goodrick and a very young Pat Methany, who had also been a student of Goodrick. Along the way he developed a deep respect for jazz guitar, notably the innovation of Wes Montgomery and the delicate touch of Jim Hall. Goodrick, however, was known to use an approach that was esoteric, in that he’d focus not on the instrument but on the individual.

Goodrick’s way of saying it was, “You are who you are first, and your music is secondary. Your playing reflects that relationship, so in turn you have to represent what your vibe is.” It was his way of saying the player comes first. Really, though, the music itself tends to do that. When the music is real, it comes through in a positive way, and that’s really powerful. People put their energy into something that at the very worst is harmless and at the very best is incredibly great. I think we need a lot more of that kind of thing.”

Goin’ Home

Stern eventually began to feel he should leave the academic environment of Berklee and return to D.C. So, home he went, and before long he was playing rock and blues gigs throughout the region. “I’d studied with Pat Methany for about a year, before I went home. Eventually I went back to Berklee, and Pat told me then: ‘School is great, but you gotta get out and play.’”

It was the message Mike needed to hear. He decided that he’d have to work harder than ever to make something happen, and by 1976 he was ready for the next step up the ladder. Word got out that the long-established band Blood Sweat & Tears was looking for a guitarist, and Stern was among the many who took the test. “There were all kinds of cats auditioning for that band, but [drummer] Bobby Colomby gave me the call. I auditioned just for the sake of doing it, and I got the gig. Man, if you can get that kind of experience, it will do so much!”

The spot in BS&T proved to be a lucky one, even though the band was well past its days as a hit machine. Still, BS&T was never a band that suffered fools lightly, and Mike knew he was working in the company of some seriously talented players. Among them was Jaco Pastorius, a former drummer who had quickly made a name for himself as the self-proclaimed king of the electric bass. The two quickly struck up a friendship, and since then Jaco’s unmistakable mastery of the fretless Precision bass has remained an inspiration for Stern.

New York: The Core Issue

Things change within and without, so Mike knew that Boston couldn’t be his home base forever. Besides, now that he was gigging with career performers and studio veterans, he wasn’t going to be sitting around the house much. So, once his career was off the ground he made the move to New York. He got used to the pace of it easily enough, and soon he and his girlfriend Leni (whom he eventually married) were offered a loft above his favorite jazz haunt, 55 Grand St. They just couldn’t say no to that. Imagine you’re actually living at the hippest little spot in town, and that you can actually gig right there. You’d be tempted to think there was actually a choice between brushing your teeth and plugging in your guitar. It made for an interesting lifestyle, and Mike became known as the guy who lived where he worked . . . in a manner of speaking.

Typically, Stern is humble about the way he’d become so much a part of that elite circle. It’s not about him, it’s about his friends and the memories and experiences they provided. “Jaco used to hang out a lot,” Mike says. “He’d always nudge me along. He and Pat seemed to have a lot more faith in my playing than I did. So, that was an interesting period. As time passed I was able to play a lot better, and I used to jam with Jaco all the time. He’d come up to New York, and we’d just play and play. So, it turned out that I frequently got to jam with people who were way better than I was, which helped me get my shit together.”

The guitar is always a big part of Stern’s life, but his discipline with the instrument has resulted from the combined influence of a busy circuit, a cadre of talented musicians, and the drive to acquire knowledge. “No matter what I’m doing,” says Mike, “I try to get a little place lined up where I can play. For example, I was playing with Bill Evans, the saxophonist, at a place called “Michael’s,” which is closed now. And Bill told me he’d be hitting the road with Miles. But I was also playing with Billy Cobham at the Bottom Line, there in Manhattan, so Evans brought Miles down. Eventually I got the call to do that gig. In fact, the title for “Fat Time” [from Davis’ classic The Man with the Horn] was taken from the nickname they gave me.”

Stern made his stage debut with Miles at the Kix club in Boston in June of ’81. That performance would see release as We Want Miles, the second of his three records with the band. This leg of the gig lasted for two years, producing a series of recordings that would get the jazz and rock communities buzzing with news of a guy with fret-melting prowess on the guitar. Three of the era’s most powerful sets—The Man with the Horn, We Want Miles, Miles! Miles! Miles! (Live in Japan) and Star People—showcased the journeyman guitarist. His sound blended the primal energy and sensual textures of his long-time hero Jimi Hendrix with the harmonic breadth of Wes Montgomery. “Fat Time” remains an awe-inspiring example of the monumental structures that Stern can create with a solid-body axe and a touch of chorus.

Jazz Guitarist Mike Stern

A Sense of Self

Jaco’s influence up to this point had been positive in many ways, but of course there was also a negative aspect to it. Despite the benefits of being able to play together whenever they liked, the pair had taken the party route a bit too often. Excessive alcohol consumption had begun to wear on the guitarist, depleting his energies and stressing his home life. So, after a while it was clear that he needed to chill out. Fortunately the job with Miles was still open to him, so Mike returned for another year’s work with the maestro. Then, around the next corner he found work with Steps Ahead, the progress and highly respected ensemble featuring vibraphone virtuoso Mike Mainieri. That led to a spot in a Brecker Brothers’ quintet, which would again mean a lot more experience.

The years following were busy ones for Mike, and right through 1986 he worked with one headlining act after another. Still, there was a need to see what he could do on his own terms. It was an insistent (some might say innocent or even dangerous) curiosity about life outside the bubble. It was 1986, and with his second stay in the Miles Davis unit drawing to a close he’d managed to put together a band with saxophonist Bob Berg (now deceased) for the recording of his first solo LP, Upside Downside. The record made its debut on Atlantic Records, marking the start of a ten-disc tenure that would create a spot for Stern among the leaders of modern jazz guitar. Upside was the record that made it possible for him to make music under his own name, entirely on his own terms. That was pivotal in Stern’s career not just because it followed on the heels of the Miles Davis records, but because it was the guitarist’s signature as a writer and musician. Cuts like “After You,” “Little Shoes” and the title tune were proof of his ability to create music that could stand on the basis of its solid, song-like structure and cohesive melodies. To put it in other words, Mike Stern made music that was intriguingly elaborate but totally memorable. The icing on the cake was a set of solos that just totally f***ing burned. (The writer remembers asking a friend and session guitarist in L.A. if he’d heard Upside, and his immediate response was, “Jeez, could ya get any more intense!?” That’s the effect this record had on even the most astute players.)

The critical success and very respectable sales of Upside Downside were encouraging for Stern and the powers-that-be at Atlantic. And because he knew from the start that doing a solo record was the right move from a personal standpoint, he’d also earned the freedom to compose music that suited his own rules (or lack of them) as a modern electric guitarist. What followed Upside Downside was the ’88 disc Time in Place, which offered a similar blend of bop-inspired rockers and emotive ballads, but with a slightly more “mature” sound thanks to the contributions of players like drummer Peter Erskine, keyboardist Jim Beard and organist Don Grolnick. The next year, though, Stern lit it up again on Jigsaw, with the New York-based guitarist Steve Khan as producer.

What Stern succeeded in doing, over the next several albums as the leader and soloist in various formats, was to make an otherwise technocentric genre work on his terms. And those terms would include a range of music and themes from an increasingly colorful palette, covering everything from standards to hard bop to music of a more global perspective. There was simply no way to lock him in or tie him down. If you liked what Mike Stern did, you’d go wherever the trip took you.

Labels Are for Cans

Stern’s previous works emphasize the textures that multiple instruments create when they collide and intertwine—like the two parallel roads that in some miraculous way intersect. But the recent CD Voices again resists the temptation to stick with the tried and true. Instead it combines Mike’s guitar with the ensemble voices of singer/bassist Richard Bona, Philip Hamilton, Elizabeth Kontomanou and the singer/percussionist Arto Tuncboyaciyan (whose talents have helped make Al Di Meola’s World Sinfonia projects so provocative). This is occasionally called “vocalese,” which is an attractive way of saying “singing without words.” But if you’re tempted to assume it’s more of that generic “marina music” for happy times and empty heads, forget it. One listen to the somber “Still There” or the gut-wrenchingly real “What Might Have Been,” and you’ll understand why some people wear sunglasses around the clock.

Major-label music is very strictly packaged today, of course, and the industry’s lawyers and dealmakers have a disproportionate say in the process of planning and marketing a project. It’s a circumstance that has polarized the industry, on one hand feeding the wealth of puppet entertainers while cutting off the opportunities for musicians who should be just as deserving. One can’t deny that in a world where real music can be seen as odd, and where very few people would bother to invent music if it didn’t already exist—the general population needs to be told what kind of music is preferable or valid. Like the guitarist who feels the need to “be” a bluesman or a jazzer, the casual listener can feel put off or even insulted by music that’s beyond his experience. The industry simply attempts to eliminate the problem. Quality has nothing to do with it.

So, in a way it’s amazing that we can still buy music that’s made by people like Mike Stern. He simply does what he does, when he wants and with the musicians he wants. For those of us who bust our butts to play our best, it’s an important message: The idea isn’t to be different but to be true to oneself, and in so doing be different.

“I never have anybody to answer to,” he says. “So far, I’ve been very free to do just what I’ve wanted. That’s one thing: I feel as if there’s been plenty of effort to make sure I have that creative flexibility. At some point I’d even love to write for more instruments, and for different kinds of instruments. I have a pretty good idea of what I want from people in the group context.”

Mike Stern’s career as a guitarist mirrors the quest that so many of us face as dedicated players. For many it’s a quandary, given the options and the indefinable nature of the art. Here’s the guy who loved blues and rock so much that he nearly played the life out of the stuff, but who ultimately found himself at a critical intersection. He didn’t turn back or come to a screeching halt. He just kept going.

Mike Stern: Figuring It All Out from MyRareGuitars.com

Rickenbacker 360/12 Old Style 12-String Electric Guitar

For me, it all started with the two Godfathers of the electric 12 string: George Harrison of the Beatles and Roger McGuinn of The Byrds. Obviously, the first ingredient is a great 12 string. The Granddaddy of them all is the Rickenbacker 12 string.

Ricks have been handmade in the same factory in Santa Ana, California for many years and if you can find a dealer that sells and stocks Rickenbacker, you will pay thousands of dollars and you may end up waiting many months for the model of your dreams. I waited 8 months for my 360/12 Old Style when I bought it in 1990.

If you play in a weekend band or jam with your friends, you may find that the electric 12 string, once you have done all of the mandatory Beatles, Byrds, Animals, Who, Tom Petty, R.E.M., and Smiths tunes, has a rather limited use for the rest of your repertoire. Or, maybe not. If you’re like me, you’d happily play the electric 12 all night!

12-String Guitarist: David Love & His Rickenbacker 12-string

Crank up the input gain, compress the bejeezuz out of your 12 string and jangle away!

Tone Secret Number One: Compression!

George Harrison’s great 12 string tone came from a combination of three things: his matchless technique, the venerable Vox AC 30, and the Altec limiter that was in the Abbey Road studios. The Vox, with its all-tube EL 84 platform and its GZ34 rectifier gives any guitar that creamy, brown, compression sustain and chime but it really sparkles when you play an electric12 through it.

The Altec limiter is an old tube-type studio compressor/limiter that squishes the sound at the mixing console and simply enhanced the sound of those old AC 30’s.

Roger McGuinn of The Byrds has said that his tone came from recording his Rickenbacker directly into the console and running it through not one, but two Pultec Limiters at the same time! Listen to the opening figure of “Mr.Tambourine Man” and you’ll hear those compressors squeezing away!

Now I know many of you don’t have George’s or Roger’s technique (neither do I), or access to old AC 30’s (that can cost upwards of $5,000 for collectible examples) or old pieces of studio gear like Altec or Pultec limiters, but you can achieve the same effect with a good quality stomp box compressor. My personal favourite is the Diamond Compressor made here in Canada but any good compressor will do: Keely, Ross, Analog Man, Barber, MXR DynaComp, and the old standby BOSS CS-2 or 3.

Tone Secret Number Two: Flatwounds!

I discovered this Tone Secret the day I got my Rickenbacker 12. I had played other makes of electric 12’s before but they had never produced “that sound” that my Rick had. What was different about it? The single coil pickups that come standard on a Rick? The way Rickenbacker arranged the strings with the root string on top and the octave string underneath?

Both of these things had an influence on the way it sounded but the most important difference to me was the strings. They were not round wound like 99% of the strings that are on the market these days: they were flat wound!

Back when George and Roger were young men (1964), and before the late Ernie Ball started making round wound light gauge guitar strings in California, almost everybody played flat wound strings – that’s what was widely popular and available at the time. Round wounds were available but it wasn’t until The Shadows made them popular that there was a demand for them in Europe. The best flat wound strings in the world came from Germany (and still do) and were sold under the brand names of Pyramid and Thomastik.

Rickenbacker in California was buying Pyramids from Germany at the time (presumably because of the relationship they enjoyed with West German music retailers who were selling Rickenbacker guitars) so that was the string that was being installed on Rickenbackers from the California factory in early ’63 and ’64. So, the sound you hear on Beatles, Byrds, and The Who recordings – those are flat wound strings! The great Pete Townsend refers to them as “tape wound”. He won’t play his 12 string with anything else but!
Pyramid strings are still available to this day (you can find them on the Internet) and Rickenbacker still sells their Number 95404 Compressed Medium Round Wound.

(ground wound) set for about $20.00 a set. I buy them by the box of 12 from a store in New York. I prefer the Rick strings: just a tad brighter than Pyramids.

Round wound strings on an electric 12 string sound like doo-doo. Too crashy and too clangy. Flat wounds or ground round wounds are the way to go if you want “that sound”. If you can’t find Rickenbacker strings where you live, your local music store probably sells or can order D’Addario Chrome singles in a flat wound with which you can assemble your own 12 string set.

The string gauge shipped on every new Rickenbacker is as follows from low to high:

• .042/.026
• .034/.020W
• .026/.013plain
• .020wound/.010
• .013/.013
• .010/.010.

12-String Guitarist: David Love & His Rickenbacker 12-string

Tone Secret Number Three: Use a light gauge pick!

Try it! It works! A medium is too stiff and , in my opinion, “sends” too much signal to the pickup. I have found that with a light gauge pick, you can strum harder but still have a sound that doesn’t break up from string distortion (over strumming).

That kind of vibe (string distortion) works great for, say, a PRS through a Dual Rectifier but not for the sweet chimey strings on your 12 string. I keep a medium and a thin pick in my back pocket whenever I’m on stage depending on whether it’s a 12 string song or a 6 string song.

The great Colin Cripps of Hamilton, Ontario, revealed this Tone Secret to me many years ago. Colin is the guitar player/composer/producer of bands like Crash Vegas, Junkhouse, The Jim Cuddy Band, and Kathleen Edwards.

Tone Secret Number Four: Get your 12-string set up!

Find yourself a good guitar technician and get him or her to set up your 12 string.

The #1 complaint I hear from new 12 string players is that they put the guitar down because it’s too difficult to play.

The 12 string, by its design, is a different and difficult instrument to play because basically you are stuffing 12 strings into the same real estate as 6 strings. Players with small hands (like me) don’t find a problem especially with Rickenbackers, which have notoriously narrow necks.

A good guitar tech will straighten the neck as well as it can possibly can be – this is really important. He/she may also suggest that the frets be “dressed”, polished and leveled. This will benefit your 12 string and make it very playable. Ask him/her to set the action as low as possible – this is really important!

Another innovation that Rickenbacker has developed is the 12 saddle tuneomatic bridge, which ensures near-perfect intonation. If your 12 string doesn’t have one, don’t despair. Any good guitar tech worth his or her salt will get your 12 string intonated as close as it can possibly be even if you have a 6 saddle bridge – very important if you want those big jangly chords to be as sweetly in tune as they should be.

A well-set electric 12 string should play like a brand new PRS or (insert your favourite guitar brand here). If it doesn’t, find yourself a new guitar tech!

The best affordable 12-String Guitars

As a professional musician – yes, I’ve got the Vintage AC-30 and the Ricky 12 – hard to see it any other way. However, there is a price to pay for perfection, and therefor II recommend to my guitar-playing friends who jam for fun, to buy an electric 12 that’s a little more affordable than a Rick. There aren’t many electric 12 strings on the market these days but a few models by Eastwood fit the bill very nicely, such as the Eastwood Nashville 12 (discontinued) or the Classic 12.

The Eastwood Classic 12, setting a new standard in price vs. affordability

Mike Robinson from Eastwood consulted with me prior to the development of the Nashville 12. We discussed a variety of options and settled on this style as is was possible to achieve the tone (mini-humbukers) and setup (flat neck, low action) that would make it a “professional” grade instrument at an affordable price. Last month I visited Eastwood Guitars and took the prototype for a test drive. Two big thumbs up…… jangle away!

Currently, though, the hugely popular Eastwood Classic 12 is the model setting the standard for affordable, high-quality 12-strings, and is the best bet if you want to discover the joys of playing a 12-string guitar:

Still want more? Visit the Eastwood Guitars website for a look at their full range of 12-string guitars:

Suggested Listening:

• Mr.Tambourine Man by The Byrds
• I Should Have Known Better by The Beatles
• A Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles
• The Waiting by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
• Kicks by Paul Revere and The Raiders
• You Were On My Mind by We Five
• Turn!Turn!Turn! by The Byrds
• Can’t Explain by The Who
• The Kids Are Alright by The Who
• It’s My Life by The Animals

Tone Secrets of the Electric 12-String Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

A friend of mine was selling a cheap old 1970’s P-Bass knockoff called a Pan and another friend was selling a 1976 Peavey TNT 100 bass amp. Picked them both up for a whopping $85! I still have the amp to this day and I am proud to say that it sounds as bad today as it did the day that I got it! After a few years of playing in what ended up being a pretty good high school band and upgrading to a wonderful Fender P-Bass Special a few years later (that I still own), I turned out to be a bassist that people wanted to actually jam with! Did that for a few years and then did what many of us musicians do, get married, go to college, have kids and get a real job. The bass was retired to occasion playing at the house for the next 10 years.

I found myself on day missing playing with other musicians, kind of out of the blue. I started playing again with some folks and found that it was now kind boring playing bass. I wanted the real action (not to mention the spotlight) of playing guitar! And after all, I had the means to afford real gear this time around and guitar players have tons more gear than bassist! Well, the guitar came to me quickly, but the stuff I was writing used a lot of bass licks, my leads were like runs on a bass, and I wanted the deepest, darkest tone imaginable. On a business trip to Kansas City, I stopped a music store and was introduced to the dark side – a Schecter Celloblaster. A five-string guitar tuned in 5ths. It was a guitar/bass hybrid! I was instantly hooked. I was going to learn this strange instrument and change the world of heavy music!

There was one problem, by the time I decided to buy one a year later, Schecter had stopped selling them. I hunted around online and found a place that had two new old stock ones for retail price. Bought it and proceeded to learn this strange thing very quickly. I wrote a few songs and took it to band practice one day, all proud of my new instrument and the stuff I had written! I quickly found out that when in tuned in fifths and the rest of the guys aren’t, it’s almost impossible for them to translate what I had written to a regular guitar without a ton of tricky finger work. Turning the musical world upside down was not going to happen with this interesting instrument unfortunately. She was retired to the guitar rack in my home studio and now rarely feels the spark of my Marshall.

Gretsch Electromatic G5566 Jet Double Neck 6-string Lead & Baritone Guitar Combo

I was determined to find something that would allow for my inner bass player to come out – and then I discovered the wonderful world of baritone guitars. You know, those extended scale things with strings as thick as a bass that are an octave lower than a regular guitar. Yes, Nirvana was at hand! I only thought that groups from the 1960s used them and they only had limited use. After reading some reviews, I looked for a cheapo just in my experiment into ultimate heaviness failed again. The Schecter was not cheap and I couldn’t have the wife giving me another, “I told you so,” type of lecture! I picked up a Squier Sub-Sonic Showmaster on eBay for under $200. After receiving and discover the pickups sounded like, well cheap Squier pickups, I was now officially in love with a type of instrument. Not the actual instrument itself, but I found my calling! Don’t get me wrong, when played clean, the Squier is gorgeous. When played with gain, it sounds like nothing but muddy noise being played through my TNT 100. New pups would fix the issue, but I am now becoming a purist and not wanting to replace anything on my guitars. I’ve done enough Dr. Frankenstein type of work my other guitars to be able to rival the best of the soldering gun champs!

So I am an official baritone junkie. I still only have the Squier, but an Eastwood SideJack Baritone guitar is next on the list. Why you might ask? P-90s, cool vintage looks and Eastwood quality! Throw in those great reviews and what else can you ask for! Baritones have become pretty popular these days, but still most chain music stores don’t carry them. Almost all major manufactures are offering a model or two. I’ll let you look them up, but everybody from Gibson to Fender to Jerry Jones are offering a model up. You can spend a fortune on one or go cheap and get an OLP Music Man knockoff. Depends on your curiosity factor and wallet – just don’t be fooled by brand names and reputations established 30 years ago. Even the really poor Danelectro models from a few years ago are fetching double their original price on eBay. I tried them and was not impressed at all.

So for those of you with a serious guitar collection and are just looking for something different, guitarist seeking different tones or you bass players looking to expand your range, try out a baritone guitar. You won’t be disappointed. They are fun as hell to play, are one of the most expressive instruments around, and are good for everything from country to pop to heavy metal. Almost everybody I know that plays one gets the fever, they can be that addictive. And quality doesn’t have to be expensive either! Now back to grooving on those low tones that I’ve grown to love!

The Wonderful World of Baritone Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com

Slinky: Link Wray & the Wraymen

Link learned the guitar at the age of nine from a carnie named Hambone, in town with the Barnum and Bailey Circus. They began their friendship when Hambone noticed Link strumming an old acoustic on his parents’ front porch. As an army brat, Link was used to a nomadic lifestyle. By the age of fifteen he was paying twenty dollars a night to sit in with country-great Tex Ritter, so he could continue to learn his craft.

Lacking the technical know-how of the jazz luminaries of the day, TalFarlow and Django Reinhardt being his favorites, and unable to sing due to the loss of a lung to childhood tuberculosis, Link began to experiment with his sound. He tried such original ideas as poking holes in his amplifier speakers to get a new kind of distortion. Teaming with his brother Doug and first cousin Shorty, The Wraymenwere born. Prestigious venues and Top 20 success followed in 1958, when Rumble (actually titled Oddball by Link) made the Charts.

Link Wray

This ushered in the era of the guitar instrumental, and Link stayed ahead of the pack by using unique guitars and the electronics of the day, creating probably one of the first home studios. He called it the Three Track Shack because it was housed in a shed and had only one three-track tape recorder, ;state of the art for the time. By merging chugging blues, surf twang, and psychedelia into a sound that was soulful, irreverent, and individual, Link Wray created a new music. Some people call it Rock and Roll.

A friend of mine had every Link Wray album. My education began by playing each of these albums over and over. So when Link came to town, it was the show I had been waiting. We plotted and planned, bought tickets and then lost them, bought them again. Two nights later we were ready to go. I slicked up my shoes and slimed up my hair in true Rockabilly fashion, donning a western shirt embossed with tigers. My friend was dressed to dazzle in a late 50s ruby red velvet dress and a pair of knee-high stiletto boots.

Link Wray with a Supro Dual Tone Guitar

We arrived as Link roared into Rumble. The thrust and the volume of the song was even more powerful live. Link stood firm and anchored the band with ultra-fuzz arpeggio riffs, keeping the trio in tow. With his lanky lumbering frame, a fierce ponytail, and motorcycle jacket, he hunched into his guitar. It was incredible that the man producing this wall of brute sonic strength was in his seventies. As he roared along, I realized that this timeless music has never been more alive. After Jack the Ripper, Rawhide, and Ace of Spades (some were played twice during the evening), he launched into one of his more way-out songs. He cranked it all the way up and I realized this was probably the last song of the night.

Link Wray concert ticket (October 2000)

My friend and I rushed forward to witness the rollicking rave-up. We slid in next to the stage, and with a wail of his guitar he seemed to play off of us alone, looking our way with an expression of childlike wonder. I figured he had his eye on my lady friend. Then something remarkable occurred. He walked over to face me, continuing to play. As the eyes of a shaman stared into mine, he strummed with his right hand and motioned for me to play the neck. And there I was, dear reader, simultaneously reaping the riffage with the legend himself. As tom toms rolled and cymbals crashed and the electric bass pounded to a climax, Link looked directly at me and nodded as though we had shared an intimate secret. In the next moment he was center stage again, commanding the final surge of power and sound to ecstatic applause. My friend also reveled in the moment, a firsthand witness to a dream come true.

Link Wray on stage

All the greats have come across Link at one point in their musical development. He didn’t live to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but was inducted into its Rockabilly counterpart. Bob Dylan, hearing of Link’s death, covered Rumble last week. Neil Young once said, if he could see any band in the world, he would chose Link Wray and The Wraymen. Simply put, the king is gone, but he is not forgotten.

Post by: Devin Patrick

The Night I Played Link Wray’s Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com

Music, though, can fool even the most eager listener. Why? Because to appreciate music–really, to understand it–we first try to define what it is. That’s a benefit, but it’s also a bias. But when you find something you can identify with, it becomes something you crave. You’ll want to know more about it. That’s the case with jazz guitar great John Abercrombie. It’s amazing to think that in his playing one can discern the influences of so many great players yet immediately tell, from the very first note, that none other than he could be playing.

John Abercrombie on the cover of DownBeat Magazine

“Probably the first important guitarist I listened to was Barney Kessel,” he says. “He was the first ‘jazz’ guitarist I ever heard. At that time I was trying to make the transition from blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and R&B players like Chuck Berry. Still, Kessel had a really twangy sound. It was a funky, bluesy, even country kind of sound.”

It was a constant drive . . . a hunger. There was so much to hear, and so much to learn. As a young man, Abercrombie listened to everything he could get by artists such as Jimmy Rainey and Tal Farlow, the latter of whom was considered something of a phenomenon in his day. “Eventually I was fortunate to hear George Benson, and he was just terrifying. And then I heard Pat Martino, and Kenny Burrell.

“But then I heard Wes,” says the guitarist after a short pause. “There was something so natural about the way he played. I used to see him play all the time, back in Boston. I could sit and watch him all night.”

The drive to play–to understand, explore and perfect–hasn’t diminished. The quiet, working-class guy with the moustache continues doing what he does best, as a composer of singularly moving music and a player of the first order.

John Abercrombie was born in December 16, 1944 in Port Chester, New York. Port Chester is sandwiched between the town of Rye (think Barbara Bush) and Greenwich, Connecticut (try not to think of Martha Stewart), two of the ritziest enclaves on the Eastern seaboard. It was the latter place that John called home, though his wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where caviar was standard fare. As he puts it, “I came from the slums of Greenwich. Believe me, there are working-class neighborhoods in all the upscale towns around that area.”

Neither was it a particularly musical household, he says. “In fact, there was no music in the family. My parents liked music, and they bought me a record player, but they didn’t listen to jazz or classical records. Just the radio, maybe, but it wasn’t an important part of their lives.

“The music was just in me,” he adds. “I was into R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, and all that. But as I got a bit older, I decided I wanted to really study the guitar. My parents supported me in it, since they knew I had a good time playing. But then I got really serious, which sort of scared them. I mean, coming from a small town in the late 1950s and ‘60s, and deciding I wanted to go to school and study jazz? Nobody even knew what it was, much less anyone coming from a small town. It was a strange time.”

The avenues were limited in terms of formal jazz studies in the early ‘60s, but they were even more limited for anyone wanting to become a jazz guitarist. After all, the pop phenomenon was relatively new, and the six-string had to overcome a considerable credibility problem. So, John had just a couple of choices, one of which was the Berklee College of Music. Luckily, he was young enough to indulge his dream and give it all the energy it required. If it didn’t pan out, it didn’t pan out. So, once he graduated from high school in June of ’62, he headed up the coast to Boston.

He breathed deep the atmosphere of this earthly jazz heaven, and after a few years he received a diploma certifying him as a musician of professional standing. But he had little interest in making a hobby of the guitar. He wanted to gig, and he’d trained like an athlete in order to do so. Eventually the opportunity came, in the form of an audition for one of those jazzy, funky R&B units that populated the club circuits in cities of the period.

“It was around ’67,” he says. “During my last year of school I hooked up with an organist named Johnny ‘Hammond’ Smith. I was all set to audition for him, and I was really excited, because this was going to be a real jazz gig playing a selection of stuff every night. You had to be able to comp and solo, and do the R&B stuff. It was a great experience. I had to learn lots of songs and get up onstage and play, night after night. Of course, my schoolwork had started to suffer as a result, because I’d realized that this was the real school.”

The guitarist made his first professional recording–an LP called “Nasty”–with Smith in ’68. The band consisted of Smith at the B3, Houston Person on sax, and Grady Tate on drums. Abercrombie toured with the band for a year-and-a-half, playing a gritty, crowd-pleasing mix of tunes. But this was a time of significant cultural change, during which the youth of America, inflamed by their forced involvement in a war overseas and by the exposure of political corruption and corporate collusion, took to the streets and campuses in protest. This could be heard in music, too, most notably in the ferocious guitar playing and poetical psychedelic blues of Jimi Hendrix, who had gone to London in the mid-‘60s and come back as a bearer of the Freak Flag for millions.

“The fusion thing had started to happen,” Abercrombie says, “and all the musicians were listening to Hendrix. Around that time I joined a fusion band called Dreams, which was fronted by the Brecker brothers with Randy on horn, Michael on sax and Barry Rogers on trombone. Billy Cobham was on the drums. The band was holding try-outs, hoping to find a guy who could play rock guitar. So, I went down and auditioned. I’d grown up playing rock and R&B, I’d studied jazz at school, and I’d played all sorts of stuff with Johnny ‘Hammond’ Smith, so I felt pretty much at home with what they were trying to do. They gave me the spot, which was great. I was even going to switch guitars. With Johnny I’d been playing a Gibson L5, but with the fusion stuff it had to be a Les Paul.”

It seemed the guitarist wouldn’t be leaving Boston anytime soon, at least not with all the contacts he was making. But even though Boston is a bona fide metropolis, it’s still a New England city, small by world standards. That meant only one thing: Eventually he’d have to take that first bite out of the Big Apple. The ticket to Gotham arrived in the form of a gig with Chico Hamilton. John moved into an apartment there with his girlfriend, and he quickly found that the spot in Hamilton’s band meant he’d be writing too.

“That was my first professional experience writing music,” Abercrombie explains, “because Chico didn’t write anything. But he’d played with Larry Coryell and Gabor Szabo, and he really liked guitar players. I was still young and full of testosterone, and I wanted to get in there and really do it. I played lots of notes, and I used lots of distortion.”

Abercrombie was by that time identified as a part of the Brecker Brothers scene. But a new group was being put together by heavyweight drummer Billy Cobham, again featuring Mike and Randy on sax and horn. “It was interesting that Billy would give us all a call. That was going to be the Billy Cobham Band, because the Mahavishnu Orchestra was breaking up and his plan was definitely to continue playing. Now, when this guy played, you knew it. And when we played, the decibel level was so intense you could see it. It was frighteningly loud.”

Abercrombie, though, hadn’t forgotten what he’d set out to be in the first place: a jazz guitarist. To him, the Billy Cobham Band wasn’t a jazz group but a variation on the fusion motif. “There was no emphasis on harmony,” he says, “and there was basically no jazz rhythm. Looking back at that time, I think of the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report as the two most listenable groups of the genre. Of course, all those guys had played with Miles, and with Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter in there, Weather Report had a great deal of harmony. I think that was probably the most memorable music of the whole fusion period. The rest of it, even though it involved some amazing musicians, didn’t interest me. It was way over the top, like a circus.”

Fate stepped in again. Abercrombie’s reverberant tone, so somber yet brimming with emotion, had caught the attention of another gifted young guitarist: Ralph Towner. “I got together with Ralph in New York,” he says. “In fact, he’s the one who got me together with ECM Records. He’d done stuff with [Norwegian saxophonist/composer] Jan Garbarek, and also with [German bassist/composer] Eberhard Weber. I started meeting all these people, and one day Manfred Eicher [founder/executive producer of ECM] asked me to make a record. Manfred had heard me play on a record I’d done with an Italian trumpeter named Enrico Rava, and apparently there was something in my playing that he liked. First he recommended that I do a couple of things with [soprano saxophonist] Dave Liebman, and then he said, ‘I think you’re ready to do your own record.’ I certainly didn’t feel that way, but one day I just sat down and started writing some tunes.”

A sound was beginning to take shape in Abercrombie’s head, and part of the concept involved the polyrhythmic approach of his good friend Jack DeJohnette, the brilliant jazz drummer. The two got in touch, whereupon Abercrombie also called up a former roommate, the Czech keyboardist and Mahavishnu alumnus Jan Hammer. “I told Jack and Jan, ‘This is how I want my record to be, with an organ sound . . . . ‘” The result was Timeless, a set highlighted by intense improvisations and slow, moody tone poems. But Timeless was more than simply the newest rung on the ladder for a fast-rising guitarist. It was an artistic success that brought enthusiastic response from lovers of jazz, fusion and new music. Here was an electric guitarist who could play in a trio with the likes of Hammer and DeJohnette, who could contribute significantly as a composer, and who was enough of an individual to resist sounding like yet another John McLaughlin imitator. The feeling was of someone very new, yet of someone who had been around. From the first groove of the record, Abercrombie had stepped into the upper echelon of modern guitardom.

“Timeless was the first recording under my own name. I wrote about four of the tunes on it, so at that point I realized I had a knack for writing. Actually, I hadn’t done much of it until that record. This got me into writing more, and eventually having my own band.”

It was a time when the guitar was the measure of musicianship. Perhaps it was unfair even to him, but with Timeless Abercrombie had set the bar almost too high. How could he hope to follow it? The answer was simple: Do something different the next time around. So, he recorded Works, a solo collection resplendent in layers of John’s now-classic sound. Like its predecessor, it offered a trademark blend of harmonic sophistication and remarkable single-string technique. Indeed, Abercrombie’s style and approach proved a perfect match for the “ECM sound,” which conveyed a heavy sense of solitude through the use reverberation and other ambient techniques. This isn’t to say ECM ever pandered to the music-as-wallpaper crowd. The ECM label welcomed diversity and change, but it’s safe to say it wouldn’t put out the welcome mat for weeny players. Being the creation of a musician who was equally skilled as an engineer, and populated with a stable of gifted European and American artists, it stood out as a venue for those who sought more from music than what the usual, market-driven categories could offer. So, Abercrombie–having started at ECM with a trio before going solo–returned for his third outing with a quartet featuring Ritchie Beirach on keyboards, Czech bassist George Mraz and Peter Donald on drums.

“I had become a leader at that point,” Abercrombie says. “It was the mid ‘70s, and soon we were touring Europe and the States. The band continued until the early ‘80s, but by that time I’d hooked up with [drummer] Peter Erskine. He was moving back to New York from L.A., and he said we should get together. On a free night we went down to hear the Bill Evans Trio, which had Marc Johnson on bass. Hearing Marc just blew my mind. I was floored by his playing, and he said the feelings were mutual, which I felt was a great compliment. So, Erskine, Johnson and I put together a trio, and at that point we got into more of an electric style. I started using a guitar synthesizer, which a lot of people seemed to think I should never have done. The band lasted four or five years. My quartet had made four records for ECM, but ultimately this trio made five.”

The Hammond B3 organ is arguably the most imitated electric keyboard on the planet. Not surprisingly, Abercrombie, who had come up in Johnny “Hammond” Smith’s band and then featured the organ on Timeless would want to keep the vibe going. However, it would mean another change in personnel, and an end to the trio with Peter Erskine and Marc Johnson.

“I really wanted to do something with the organ, ‘cause I’d always loved that sound. I had an old friend named Dan Wall, who said he’d like to do something with me, and I had another friend named Adam Nussbaum, who’s a great drummer. (I know a lot of great drummers.) So, the new trio became an organ trio.” Two studio records were produced, followed by a live set.

Jazzers seem so accustomed to their lot. Apparently they think nothing of grouping, disbanding, regrouping, recording and renaming. And while others might think of it as a liability or a barrier to the achievement of a good old-fashioned reputation, for these guys it can mean a degree of freedom they wouldn’t have otherwise. Hell, if you’re good enough to go from standards to meterless improvisation, who’d try to stop you? Thus Abercrombie, by welcoming prodigal string players and percussionists alike, has achieved longevity in his career and diversity in his musical output.

Now It Gets Personal

Abercrombie is known as much for understated melodic embellishments and soft yet persistent vibrato as he is for the sound he gets with his guitar. Where one artist would favor a very dry, very present sound–or where another might employ a touch of slapback to give it some projection–Abercrombie seems to play the room rather than the amp. His sound, which originates at the soundboard soft and muted, reaches the listener’s ear through a complex series of reflections, so that there is as much “air” in the notes as there is attack or decay. Well-known players from contemporary jazz and the studio world have made big money with the help of chorus, shelving and other time-delay techniques, but Abercrombie’s sonic palette stands apart for its purity and sincerity. Even when he rocks, it still manages to sound beautiful. So, where did he get such a rich, echoing sound? It’d be easy to assume he picked it up in church, or amid the hallways and high ceilings of some cavernous old house. But that’d be wrong.

“I could never have found that kind of sound in our house,” Abercrombie says. “My bedroom was tiny, and the room I used for practice was little more than a closet. But when I was young I had a teacher named Bill Frienz. He’d come over for a half-hour, and he could play some jazzy things. One day he came by with this little reverb unit. We tried it out, and it was such an attractive sound. From that point on I was really taken with the spaciousness of the way things could sound. That’s what I like about some of the old Miles records. You could tell they were getting a bit of reverb, even though it wasn’t a lot. This little Fender thing was amazingly cool. Still, in those days there wasn’t much of a choice in terms of amps. There was tremolo, but nobody really used it except to play like Duane Eddy. You had nothing to compare to, so you just relied on your amp. Most of my amps had spring reverb, which I always used. So, I guess you can blame it all on that.

“Years later I got an Echoplex, but I never really figured out how to use those things. I remember the first digital reverb I came across. I was working a gig in Munich, and everybody knew how much I loved reverb. Somebody suggested I try a unit by Dynacord. I went down to the local music store and plugged it in, and immediately I had to have it. It cost everything I was going to make that week. I still have it, in fact.”

Abercrombie credits his love of echo to the fabled Fender design, with its tube-driven signal path and integral springs. According to Keith Gregory at Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, that would be a “Fender Reverb Unit.” Introduced in 1961, the Reverb featured a brown Tolex covering with a flat logo and a leather handle. The face panel was also brown, as were the knobs and a plastic domed switch. It incorporated a two-spring pan and a footswitch with a ¼” jack.

The amplifier is somewhat less critical in the equation. For lives dates Abercrombie will usually request a Mesa-Boogie or a Roland Jazz Chorus. At home he routes his signal through a Mesa-Boogie preamp and then into a Walter Woods stereo power amplifier, and then augments it with a Boss SE-50 reverb and a multi-effects unit.

“For a while I was so involved with synthesizers that it became an obsession. But eventually I had to get away from that, because the sound started to feel very synthetic. Basically, I gave all the stuff away, but I still have that Roland GR-300.”

A Unique Choice of Instrument

The soft yet persistent tone so readily associated with John Abercrombie is more often obtained through use of a solid-body guitar than a semi-acoustic or full-bodied archtop. That shouldn’t be so surprising, though, since the modern solid-body has undergone a considerable degree of scientific analysis and artistic endeavor, resulting in a number of instruments that are more playable and more accommodating than their predecessors. Abercrombie’s choice, then, is a Brian Moore DC1. “Basically, it’s a Les Paul style of guitar,” he says. “I tend toward a solid-body, Les Paul sort of sound, anyway. I have an Ibanez solid-body, too, and a Tele-style guitar by Roger Sadowsky.”

He still loves a good archtop, though, as is clear from his descriptions of two key instruments: “I have an old Gibson ES-175 from the late ’50s. It needs serious work, but it’s definitely the guitar I’ll never sell. I also have one made by Jim Mapson, out in California. It’s a little, shallow archtop, and that guitar is probably one of the most amazing ones I own. I can’t play it real loud—there’s a limit to how far it will go–but it has one of the fattest sounds I’ve ever heard.”

About the Music

If Abercrombie’s sound and touch succeed in evoking a sense of place, then the music he plays is equally a part of that success. With Abercrombie there is no discussion of a particular piece being assembled simply for the purpose of giving the players “a chance to show off their chops.” Despite his easy affability, there exists in Abercrombie a fierce drive to explore the inner environs of his imagination. After all, this isn’t kid stuff. This isn’t guitar for the sake of itself, in which the instrument’s make and model matter as much as anything else.

Asked whether he’d describe himself as primarily a guitarist or composer, Abercrombie says, “I’m a little bit of both, really. Jim Hall once said he was ‘a musician who happened to play the guitar.’ I feel that way, too. But he’d agree that we’re all still guitarists. I think you have to work at it, to a certain extent.”

The pull of jazz and its harmonic vocabulary is such that it leads Abercrombie to say, “I’d love to do an album of standards and play them kind of straight.” But he could easily go that route, having demonstrated his facility with chord melodies in the trio format. Still, his personal mode of expression isn’t so traditional. “When I compose, I don’t create music that’s straight. I have to follow my train of thought. Ultimately, I look at it as a positive thing, ‘cause I can go in any direction I want. Other guitarists might say, “Oh, that’s Abercrombie. He’s crazy, so he can just go with what he feels like doing.” That doesn’t mean there’s any less work involved, since I have to try and follow my own creative impulse rather than rely on what has come before.”

A Personal Ethic

Given the very personal nature of Abercrombie’s music, one might expect him to shy away from requests to share his knowledge. Actually, though, he teaches guitar at the college level. To Abercrombie it’s really more about the mind of the musician. And in the long run it’s more practical than what you’d get from a school of hot licks.

“I don’t have any specific goal when I teach, really,” he confesses. “You know, I try to give my students things that are helpful, encouraging or even disillusioning. I try to get them to play a little more like what they really hear, which means they have to play less. They have to think about the chords, not the scales. That lets them hear the music regardless of the changes in key.

“Playing less is actually very hard for the students to do, because they’re often too busy thinking about scales. That kind of habit can get you into big trouble. I find that rock players can use the scales more than jazz players, ‘cause they’re not playing through different keys. They’re thinking in terms of modes. But in jazz, if you start playing the notes of the scale, it sounds kind of funny. You have to go back and start thinking about the chords.”

All in the Wrist

An understanding of chords and their implied movements is certainly apparent in Abercrombie’s playing. Few other guitarists can delineate the structure of a piece with such admirable economy, and fewer still can give it such a beautiful sense of nuance. In his playing nothing is wasted, nor is there any allegiance to lounge riffs and pentatonic fluff. Instead you’ll find a sense of melody that enhances the perception of harmony and dynamics. His vibrato is certainly part of that. As much a classical rubato as the thumb-hinged grasp of blues origin, it’s remarkably fluid and personal. Added to that is a technique of relaxing the note from a whole-step bend or even a minor third. All this serves as a form of sonic signature, expressing his reverence for emotion.

So, what makes Abercrombie’s playing so approachable despite its depth and sonority? How is it possible to make a single note linger in memory for years? Perhaps it’s the patience that is so evident in his approach. Here the listener can readily sense the infinitesimal offset between the right and left hands, which, following on the slight muting of notes as they’re fretted, makes every sound one that’s eagerly anticipated.

“I think many musicians are aware that they have to be entertainers. So, with fusion stuff and the music that came later, there was an element of athleticism involved. There’s less of that in jazz music, or at least certain forms of it. Jazz playing in general requires a level of interaction, but a good fusion player wouldn’t necessarily have to do that. You could have blazing technique but not have to interact with the drummer. But with jazz, it becomes really obvious if you can’t relate to the rest of the band.”

The Point of Arrival

He may downplay his own technique, but there is a wealth of wisdom in Abercrombie’s playing. What’s apparent is that the knowledge of chords, the ability to compose and other skills acquired during his years in school have been refined over the course of a career as one of the finest guitarists in modern jazz. Abercrombie has managed to transcend the traditional approach to his idiom and reached a point where the physicality of playing the guitar becomes transparent.

“I’ve always gravitated toward horizontal playing,” he explains. “That’s how you can get places and play more melodically. I think of the guitar as a voice from bottom note to top. I was always taught based on positions, but I realized early on that alternate picking wasn’t the way I should go. I practice scales a lot, and I have a way of sliding between positions in the same scale without a lot of effort. So, you can learn where all the notes are on all the strings, but when you improvise on a chord progression using only one or two strings you can play more melodically without having to move across all the strings.”

The concept says a lot about the Abercrombie began his musical life as a guitarist rather than moving from another instrument, as so many others have done. Listening to those lines, which can burn in the mind yet just as readily elude the hands, it’s clear that the notes are meaningful as individual events and as components in a chord structure. It’s a quality that sets his guitar apart from other instruments.

“The only time I think more like a piano player is when I play chordally, as when I comp by using my fingers to pluck all the notes at once. Actually, I think of counterpoint more in terms of question-and-answer. I’ll play a phrase and then answer it with another phrase or line. They’re contrapuntal, but they’re not happening at the same time.”

It’s abundantly clear to John Abercrombie that to play well the guitarist should listen to the conversation going on between the other instruments in the group. Don’t play too much, he says. Stay off the soapbox until the time is right. Still, you have to be ready to do it. Remember, you’re playing for people who might be casual listeners at best, and at any rate many of them won’t be musicians.

Abercrombie needn’t preach his talents, nor should he play with any less of the economy for which he’s known. Like a Japanese fan once told me, “Basically . . . his music is best.” One need only interpret this to mean that Abercrombie has the brains and good sense to play from the heart. It means he always plays what’s right for the moment. There’s no better testament than that.

Author’s Note: Larry Payne is a professional writer whose work has been featured in Guitar Player, Guitar for the Practicing Musician, Guitar Extra, Virgin Records’ Dogma, Music Connection and many others. He’s also a fluent guitarist and occasional collector of vintage instruments. Among his current favorites are an early ’60s Eko Model 200 small-bodied archtop, a 1984 Yamaha SBG1300TS through-body unit, his custom-made ESP Craft House Superstrat, and his new Eastwood Sidejack.

John Abercrombie: Straight Talk on a Crooked Road from MyRareGuitars.com

JD’s was kind of an upscale country sort of place, and countr was not really my bag in those days. But, because of knowing Richard, I could get in free, and they did occasionally have a few decent acts, such as the Everly Bros, or Johnny Rivers -so I had been there a few times. At about this point in time, however, JD’s had a “house band” known as Waylon Jennings and the Waylors. Waylon was a young ex-disc jockey, who had just come up to Phoenix from Texas. His only claim to fame up to that point was a brief stint with Buddy Holly’s band, before that fateful “day the music died.” I’d seen Waylon’s act a couple times, and thought he was actually pretty decent for a local guy. He did a lot of country- folk, or folk-rock kind of stuff then, including several Dylan songs, and a cool version of House of the Rising Sun. He was actually a very good guitarist, a fact which kind of got lost in his later stardom.

Waylon Jennings

Anyway, getting back to my story, my friend Richard one day called me up and said that he was looking for a guitar for Waylon – a Telecaster (he had to spell it out, as he had never heard the word before). Knowing that I occasionally wheeled & dealed with guitars, he thought maybe I could help him get a line on one -cheap, he added, as Waylon was poor.

I said, “that’s what he already has, Richard, that thing he’s got all gaudied up with carved leather and his name all over it”. He said, “yeah, all that leather & inlays & stuff, cost him a lot. He wants to save it for important shows, and get a backup for practice & stuff”.

It just so happens that I had an old Tele, at the time. I had taken it in on a trade for a Japanese Teisco. Some guy at school wanted it, because he thought it looked liked George Harrsion’s Country Gentleman. Anyway, the Tele was just sitting in the closet, as I was into Strats & Gibson SG’s, more proper rock ‘n roll guitars. Teles were for the country dudes, in my book. Besides this one was really OLD (that was not really thought of as a good thing in those days – we wanted new stuff!) I’d say it was at least 10 years old, and it was really plain looking, what with it’s clear finish and matching maple fretboard.

So, Richard picked me up that night, and off we headed to JD’s, guitar in tow. We sat through Waylon’s first set, then we went backstage to show him the Tele. I kept apologizing for it being so old, but Waylon didn’t seem to mind. He was noodling around on it and seemed to like it. He asked, “How much?” I said I would take a hundred bucks.

He said, “how ’bout seventy five?” I said OK (I think I had paid about $25.00 for the Teisco.) He said something about coming back next week for my money. I said , “fine, but I’m not leaving the guitar.” He ignored me for a while, as if we were finished, but he didn’t seem to want to put down the old Tele. Finally Richard piped in and said, “Come on Waylon, pay the dude.” Waylon said he was broke, but the guys in the band managed to come up with the $75.00, and I left, just thankful that I had actually gotten paid, and a bit ticked off that I hadn’t held out for the full hundred.

I never saw Waylon again. Richard told me later that he had done the leather and inlay thing on my guitar too, and that it had become his favorite. I didn’t care. By then I had sold most of my stuff to accumulate the exorbitant total of $398.00, plus tax, to buy a brand new Mosrite.

Like most 60’s guitar dudes, I watched the values of those old guitars climb over the next 30 years or so. “Old” eventually became “Vintage”, and so on. I probably gave away a few hundred thousand dollars worth of guitars, when all is said and done. But that one old Tele, somehow sticks in my mind.

As you well know, Waylon didn’t stay too much longer at JD’s. Just before his recent premature death from diabetes complications, there was an ad in Vintage guitar magazine, selling off a bunch of his old equipment, as they knew he wouldn’t be touring any more.

There were a couple old 50’s Teles, decked out with the leather, etc., going for somewhere between $25,000.00 and $30,000.00. But a guy I know in Nashville, said there was a really special one, that Waylon wouldn’t sell -his favorite. I meant to try and get in touch with Waylon before he died, to ask him where he got that one special 50’s Tele, but unfortunately I waited too long. Maybe I’m better off not to know, anyway.

Post by: Tim Robinette

Ol’ Waylon Jennings from MyRareGuitars.com

Sears Catalog: Silvertone Guitars from Sears

Sears began selling a selection of electric guitars and amps in the fifties, but it is the 1960s that the company sold most of its more popular models. Silvertone was the house name used by Sears for their instruments but these were actually made for Sears by several manufactures including Danelectro, Harmony and Kay. Of course, Sears had their low end and their high end instruments but for the most part they sold some really great guitars and amps at comparatively budget prices. A Fender Strat in 1964 cost $275 compared to the most expensive Silvertone guitar of that time at $199 including case. Putting things in perspective with inflation though, even a guitar costing $100 in the mid 60s would run you a bit over $600 today.

We were all very happy to have our first guitar but play in a band with a Silvertone wasn’t always considered “cool” and most of us got rid of our Sears gear in favor of something else has soon has we had enough money. And, most of us now really regret doing so. In the last several years Silvertones have enjoyed a boom in popularity among both collectors and performers. There are whole web communities devoted to Silvertone instruments. And, as it goes, availability for these instruments is declining while prices for them are escalating.

Sears Silvertone Guitars 1963 Catalog

Opening the pages that feature guitars and amps from a Sears 1963 Fall & Winter catalog reveal a virtual vintage wonderland. The top of the page shows the two infamous Danelectro made guitars with “Amp-In-Case” models 1448 (single pickup) and 1449 (double pickup). These Mosrite shaped guitars had the chambered bodies, lipstick pickups, stacked tone & volume controls and were constructed of masonite. The tube powered amps built into the case were 3 and 5 watts with 5 inch and 8 inch speakers respectively. The larger amp even had tremolo and both shipped with a “How To Play” 45 rpm record. These sold for $67.95 and $99.95 in 1963. Today, a single pickup model in rough but working condition can run around $300. The double pickup model if near mint can cost well over a grand.

Several other guitars are below the Danelectro models including the popular Harmony made “Jupiter” model #1423 at $79.95 and the two Harmony “Rocket” like semi hollowbody models. The double pickup model # 1446 with black finish sold for $149.95 and the Silvertone flagship model # 1454 in red sunburst sold for $189.95 including case and featured 3 DeArmond pickups with separate on/off toggles for each. Both of these models were also equipped with a genuine Bigsby vibrato. One of the 1454 models in good condition recently sold on EBAY for over $800, still a good buy!

In addition to the Danelectro U1 bass guitar model #1444 at $79.95 with case, the page opposite the guitars features the wonderful tube powered Danelectro amps. These run from the little 3 watt “Meteor” amp #1430 at $22.95 to the monster 120 watt half stack with 6 -10 inch Jensen speakers, tremolo and an unusable reverb selling for $239.95. This model #1485 is the one made popular by Jack White of the White Stripes. Also on this page is the 15 watt combo with a 12 inch speaker # 1482 at $68.95 and the bass amp #1483 with 23 watts and a 15 inch Jensen. And then there is the most popular model, the piggy-back 1484 at $149.95 with 60 watts, two channels and two 12 inch Jensens. One of these in good condition can be had today for between $450 and $700.

We all know that regardless of how much you spend on a new guitar, it is not going to sound quite like a 40 year old instrument. If you want a good vintage guitar and don’t want to take out a second mortgage to get one, Silvertones are a good choice. Collectors looking for s Silvertone in near mint condition should be ready to get deep into their pockets. However, if you are actually looking for a guitar to play and/or record with and you are not to concerned with cosmetic issues, about $200 will land you any number of nice Silvertone models. Just keep an eye on the late night auctions and frequently check out the pawn shops and garage sales. If you are a serious musician you should plan on possible replacing the tuning gears and maybe the bridge as these usually were sub-standard on even the most expensive models. If you going to gig with your vintage Silvertone, at least buy a descent case. The stock cases for Silvertone were made of chipboard. If you are one of us that owned a Silvertone and sold or gave it away just remember the words of Joni Mitchell, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till its gone”.

Post by: Tom Bergey

In Praise of Sears Silvertone Guitars from MyRareGuitars.com