By the advent of the solidbody electric guitar in the 1950s, tenor guitarists were a dying breed. Consequently, electric tenors are relatively rare, and a tenor guitar made by solidbody pioneer Paul Bigsby is one of the rarest of all electric guitars. And if that’s not rare enough, consider the setting of this story – this Bigsby tenor was used exclusively in a Christian music group, which is the last place one would expect to find an electric guitar of any sort in the 1950s.

Paul Adelbert Bigsby – “P.A.” to his friends – was a late bloomer as a guitar maker. Born in 1899, he started his professional career as a motorcycle racer. Hired by the Los Angeles-based Crocker Motorcycle Company, which produced the most powerful racing and road motorcycles from 1932 to ’42, when production ceased for World War II. Bigsby was a factory foreman and the designer of many Crocker components.

Bigsby was a fan of the Western music that began to flourish in southern California after the Depression and the Dust Bowl of the mid ’30s forced many families to move westward from Oklahoma and surrounding states. Sometime in the 1940s, he met fingerpicking legend Merle Travis, who was also a motorcycle enthusiast. Travis was having trouble with his guitar’s vibrato unit, which was the side-pull type designed by Doc Kauffman (Leo Fender’s early partner). Rather than fixing the Kauffman unit, Bigsby designed a completely new “vibrola” with a simpler, more effective, up-and-down motion.

That vibrola alone would qualify Bigsby for a prominent place in the history of the electric guitar. Through the 1950s it was the vibrola of choice for those who played Gibson and Gretsch guitars.

At the same time, Bigsby began making his mark in the history of the pedal steel guitar. Earl “Joaquin” Murphy, a.k.a. the Charlie Parker of the steel guitar, had Bigsby build him a lap steel in 1947. Another legendary player, Wesley “Speedy” West (who replaced Murphy in Tex Williams’ band that year), was right behind Murphy at Bigsby’s door, commissioning a triple-neck with pedals in ’48. The pedal steel came into its own in ’54, when Bud Isaacs featured its pitch-changing/note-bending capability in mid-solo on Webb Pierce’s hit “Slowly.” (Previously, pedal steel players had used the pedals to change tunings, but not as an “effect.”) Isaacs’ instrument was a Bigsby.

In the meantime, Bigsby’s friend, Merle Travis, had come to him in 1948 with an idea for a guitar he drew on a menu while the two were having lunch. The guitar would have the appearance of a solid body, with a thin body depth, flat top and back, and no soundholes. Ironically, despite Bigsby’s influence on the development of the solidbody electric, to our knowledge he never built one; his were all semi-hollow. Perhaps the most innovative element of Travis’ design was the headstock. It was an angular shape with the hint of a scroll and – most important – all six tuners on the bass side. Travis has said he’d seen the design on some traditional European stringed instruments, and it was used on guitars built by Johann Stauffer in Vienna in the early 1800s and on the early guitars of C.F. Martin in the 1830s. Regardless of where the Bigsby headstock design originated, its influence on Leo Fender’s headstocks, which would appear in 1950, was unmistakable.

Had Bigsby chosen to build electric guitars at a production level, he might be known today as the most important guitar maker of the 1950s, rather than as a pioneer. Instead, it was Leo Fender who ran with the concept of a true solidbody guitar, while Bigsby continued to work out of a shop next to his home in Downey, California, building instruments and replacement necks to order for individual musicians. Between 1946 and ’63, when he quit building instruments, his output probably totaled less than 100, at least two-thirds of which were steels. In addition to steels and standard guitars, he made a doubleneck for Nashville session man Grady Martin and a mandolin for Tiny Moore of Bob Wills’ band.

Shortly after Merle Travis received his Bigsby guitar, he gave a public performance in Los Angeles that was attended by Eschol Cosby, a student at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Cosby had grown up in the southwest singing and playing at church revivals. After World War II, he enrolled at BIOLA and formed a band called the Christian Cowboys, which he fronted with his Gibson ES-150 and a Gibson mandolin. Cosby’s son, Bobby, recalled the effect of Eschol’s first Bigsby sighting. “One day he went to a concert and saw Merle Travis and said ‘I’ve got to have that!’”

With a standard guitar and a mandolin already in his arsenal, Cosby ordered a Bigsby tenor, which he received in 1949. The price was $350, which was expensive and on a par with Gibson’s top electrics, the ES-350 Premier in natural finish at $340 (plus case) and the natural-finish ES-5 at $390. The Bigsby’s price would be extravagant compared to the solidbodies on the horizon. Fender’s Esquire of 1950 was priced at $140, and Gibson’s first solidbody, The Les Paul model, debuted in ’52 at $210.

Cosby liked his tenor Bigsby so much that in 1951 he went back to Bigsby for an electric mandolin, for which he paid $400. The serial number of the tenor was lost when the rim area around the jack was replaced, but it would have been lower than the mandolin, which was serial number 51. Cosby later added a third Bigsby to his collection when he purchased a standard Bigsby guitar from a third party.

The top and back of this guitar are flat pieces of birdseye maple, 1/4″ thick, and glued to a sturdy grid of horizontal and vertical “braces” that extend from the front of the guitar to the back. The pickup, hand-made by Bigsby, is anchored by six screws that go into the support grid – not into the top – so functionally, this is a solidbody instrument. As a solidbody, the design pre-dates Fender’s Esquire by two years. If considered a semi-hollowbody, which is a more technically accurate description, the design was even further ahead of its time, pre-dating the Gibson ES-335 by a full 10 years.

This instrument also pushed Eschol Cosby and the Christian Cowboys far ahead of their time in gospel music. “Their music was quite radical in Christian circles,” Eschol’s son, Bobby, said. “And he had to overcome a lot of prejudice to use the instruments he had. He was one of the very first people to use anything other than a piano or organ in Christian music.” For Eschol, however, the Bigsby proved a double-edged sword. Any satisfaction he might have enjoyed by being a pioneer of the electric guitar in Christian music would be offset by the rock-influenced music and attitudes the electric guitar eventually brought with it. As Bobby notes, “In his lifetime, he was the trailblazer for a lot of people who took it far beyond what he thought was right.”

This article originally appeared in VG‘s January 2009 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

(LEFT) Robin Freedom Bass. Photo: Bill Ingalls, Jr. Instrument courtesy of Charles Farley. (RIGHT) Robin Ranger Bass. Photo: Tom Callins. Instrument courtesy of Ken Jones.

While the Robin guitar brand’s reverse “imported then domestic” chronology has been documented in this space, the basses shown here are the first import models marketed by the company (and one of them is from the very first shipment).

Robin guitars were marketed beginning in 1982, and basses (all manufactured by ESP in Japan) followed the next year. The company’s ’83 catalog announced two 34″ scale basses – the single-pickup Freedom and the two-pickup Freedom II – as well as the 32″-scale Ranger as the company’s first entries in the bass market. The Ranger was matched with a guitar, but the Freedoms had no six-string counterpart. All three had maple necks, and fretboards were maple (part of the actual neck) or a rosewood cap. In spite of the differences in scale length, both had 21 frets.

The headstock vaguely resembled an upside-down Fender headstock, and had a two-plus-two tuner configuration. It also had an unusual/centered “tree” to guide the A and D strings.

The contoured body was usually made of ash or alder, and the oversized pickguard gave a retro nod to the Fender Precision Bass of the early/mid ’50s.

The Freedom was given humbucking pickups and initially had active circuitry, while passive versions were later available. They also had a “high-mass” bridge/tailpiece combination. Controls were a master Volume, Bass, and Treble, and the Freedom II had a three-way toggle for pickup selection.

Curiously, the Ranger Bass’ debut catalog photo shows a single straight-bar pickup, but according to David Wintz, president of Robin’s parent company, Alamo Music Products, that instrument photographed was a one-off prototype; production Rangers had a split P-Bass-style pickup as well as a standard bridge/tailpiece, and simple Volume and Tone controls.

The first color options for the Freedom and Freedom II were White, Black, three-tone Sunburst, Natural, Metallic Red, and Old Blonde. The Ranger Bass was available in Black, two-tone Sunburst, Metallic Red, and Old Blonde.

The Freedom shown here in Old Blonde is from the first shipment of basses ESP sent to Houston; its neck width at the nut is 13/4″ (a la the P-Bass), and its neck has a walnut “skunk stripe” running down its back.

“The very first Freedoms had wide necks,” Wintz recounted. “Too wide, in fact – wider than we requested. As soon as we got them, we changed (the specifications) for future production.”

Wintz estimated that 25 to 50 of the wide-neck Freedoms were made in ’83. The Ranger’s neck was 15/8″ wide at the nut.

Later-model Freedoms were 11/2″ wide at the nut, their necks didn’t have a skunk stripe, and their headstocks had a bar-type string retainer that was installed in Texas. “Once we realized that three strings could use some help, we installed the bars here in Houston, using the hole from the round two-string tree, and drilling another hole for the bar,” said Wintz.

The Freedom and Freedom II later were given black hardware. The Ranger, on the other hand, kept its retro-vibe aesthetic, though alternate colors were offered, such as Light Blue and Pink Pearl.

The Japanese-made basses last appeared in the company’s 1988 catalog, by which time Robin was in the initial stages of domestic production. And while the Freedom Bass was discontinued in ’89, the Ranger was held over in name only, as the domestic version was a full-scale instrument with an upside-down headstock, tuners all in a row (a longtime configuration of Ranger guitars), and two pickups in a “P/J” configuration (VG, February ’07).

Robin exited the bass market in 1997, but not before crafting 20 domestic Freedom II models, using imported necks discovered in storage. The first example was profiled in VG‘s June ’05 issue.

Along the way, notable players were spotted plunking imported Robin basses, including Tommy Shannon (Double Trouble) and Brad Houser.

This article originally appeared in VG December 2010 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

A major artist’s endorsement of a piece of gear is often seen as a springboard to that product’s success, or at least serves as a footnote that has helped to keep it in the history books. Having graced the U.S. tours of Led Zeppelin, the Jeff Beck Group, and Steppenwolf in the late ’60s, and Cheap Trick after, the Rickenbacker Transonic series should have had its shrine in the annals of geardom secured, yet this wild line of hulking solidstate amplifiers has all but vanished from memory. Examples exist as prized pieces in the collections of a handful of amp-o-philes, certainly, and are still gigged out by a few dedicated enthusiasts, but the name has little to show for itself against the Fenders, Marshalls, Voxes and Boogies of the world, and even the solidstate Roland Jazz Choruses and Polytone Brutes. What went wrong?

According to their designer, Bob Rissi, “They were just so expensive, most artists couldn’t afford to buy them. You could buy three Fender Twin Reverbs for the price of a Transonic TS200.”

The fact that Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones left most of their Transonics in the U.S. after returning to England in ’69 at the end of the tour also leads some to assume they weren’t thrilled with the Rickenbackers. No doubt the Marshall head and cab ultimately suited him better live, and a little Supro and others did the trick in the studio, but Page had already recorded the main guitar part to “Heartbreaker” on one of his Transonics, and did purportedly retain another in his home collection for many years. In fact, most players who have come close enough to a rare Transonic to get their jack into one will tell you that they sound strikingly good (occasionally with the caveat “for a transistor amp”). Truth is, the occasional dissing of these rigs is probably symbolic of the acceptance of the rock world at large of the solidstate amps that abounded in the late ’60s, which is to say, the near-wholehearted rejection of those amps once they’d given them a whirl. Time and time again the manufacturers stumped up a fleet of impressive-looking solidstate amps for a big tour, only to have said artists declare that they “don’t break up” like the tube amps they already knew and loved. In the grand scheme of things, though, Rickenbacker’s Transonics were a cut above the flawed first-generation Fender and Vox efforts and others that forged the dismal early reputation for the breed, and deserve some love here to acknowledge this.

(LEFT) Bob Rissi (left) and Al Perkins with two Transonics in the late '60s. (RIGHT) Bob Rissi with two Transonic prototypes, holding the preamp circuit from one, at the 1967 NAMM show.

Happy to seek his fortunes elsewhere, Rissi was hired for a second time by Rickenbacker’s Francis Hall, but this time to work on a new type of solidstate amplifier aimed at the professional guitarist. “I wanted to make these solidstate amps sound more like tube amps. I put the transistor circuitry in similar to the way a tube amp is made. They were not direct-coupled, like most solidstate amps of the time, but were capacitively and non-direct coupled, so the circuit worked the way a tube amp circuit works. That’s where the warmth and the tone came from, and that’s why so many big groups liked them. They were well-made, too. Every so often I have to work on one, and there usually isn’t much wrong with them other than needing a filter cap or something. The parts we used in those amps were real high-quality, usually Motorola or RCA, and we used Schumacher transformers.”

Our TS100 has two channels – Standard and Custom – each with its own Volume, Treble, and Bass controls. In addition, each carries a trio of big, white “Rick-O-Select” switches with different-colored indicator lamps for each of three voicing modes – Pierce, Mellow, and Hollow. Just be sure to pop in those earplugs before you flip on that “Pierce” setting, will you? The Custom channel also included Reverb and Tremolo, and another clear nod to tonal fashions of the times, a Fuzz-Tortion circuit. According to Rissi the fuzz circuit wasn’t something he was fond of (“I prefer natural overdrive…”) but fuzz was the sexy ticket of the late ’60s, and Rickenbacker head Frances Hall wanted it in there. As it turned out, a lot of players found it an effective fuzz tone, and several even tracked down Rissi in later years to have him put the circuit in a pedal configuration. The TS200 also included a stereo preamp, so that each channel could be split to a separate power amp, producing a stereo signal for Rick’s “Rick-O-Sound” guitars with the use of a second powered speaker cab. The piece de resistance topside, however, has to be the big power meter with “overload” light.

More than anything going on inside the chassis, though, the Transonics cut their dashing figures thanks to the large, top-heavy-looking trapezoidal cabinets. Made from solid pine and carrying either a pair of 12″ Altec 417s or white-frame British-made Rolas in the TS100, or four 12″ speakers or two 15s and a horn in the TS200, these made for a heavy package, and contributed to the hefty price tag; a whopping $1,345 for the flagship TS200 in 1973 shortly before the demise of the series.

Eager to build an amp working guitarists could actually afford, Rissi left to start his own company, Risson Amps, where he sold mostly tube amps, but a few solidstate models too, to several major-name players – Joe Walsh, Nikki Sixx, Rick Vito, and Lita Ford among them – before sidestepping into the computer industry in the early ’80s. Now in retirement, Rissi still builds the occasional tube amp in his home just a few blocks from the location of the old Fender factory in Fullerton, California, and currently offers the compact Marvell model, hand-made from mostly new-old-stock components that have lain in storage since his first go-round as a designer. As for the Transonics themselves, plenty of the relatively few made are still out there, and still rockin’ when called upon.

This article originally appeared in VG December 2010 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

1967, the Summer of Love. Everything still seemed possible, and anything went. No more war, racial and gender equality, Fresh Cream, the Beatles best record ever, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Phew! What a difference the next year would bring! And that applied to guitars. None more than this classic minimalist La Baye 2×4 “Six.” This is just one of the many great American guitar stories!

The legendary La Baye guitars were the brainchild of Dan Helland, at the time a guitarist and guitar teacher in Green Bay, Wisconsin. La Baye is the hoity toity Frenchified name of “the bay,” the local name for that sprawling, shallow body of water at the top of Lake Michigan just before you pass into Lake Superior. There’s more than a little humor in this because north of “the bay” is Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, home to many people of French descent.

Now, guitar players fall into two camps. The true aficionados, like wine fanatics, will swear by their combination of carved maple and lush mahogany, or maybe their basswood, or swamp ash, or whatever. The cynics say an electric solidbody is a slab of wood with a neck and pickups, and their sound is all in the electronics pushed through an amp. Helland fell into the latter camp. To him, an electric guitar was just a 2×4 with a neck. The idea of the La Bay 2×4 line became a real possibility.

The idea dawned on Helland around 1964 or ’65. He was working at Henri’s Music, an area music store chain owned by Henri Czachor. Czachor gave Helland space to work on his ideas. Helland doesn’t recall how he ended up there, but someone probably knew someone who knew someone and he hooked up with the Holman-Woodell factory in Neodesha, Kansas.

Holman-Woodell, Inc., was founded in Neodesha in May of ’65 by Howard E. Holman and Victor A. Woodell. Holman had worked for the Wurlitzer Music Company – the famous piano and organ manufacturer and instrument distributor from Elkhart, Indiana – before moving to the little town of Independence, Kansas, located a few miles to the west, where he opened the Holman Music Company store in Neodesha. Woodell was the money man described as a “former industrialist” with experience in electronics manufacturing who had already retired to Sarasota, Florida. A local guitarist and former woodshop teacher named Doyle Reading served as the company’s guitar designer. By the time Holman guitars first appeared in November of ’65, the company had inked a distribution deal with Wurlitzer to sell “The Wild Ones: Stereo Electric Guitars.”

Trouble followed quickly. Not long after the Wurlitzer line was introduced, dealers began to find the finishes flaking off and started returning them to Wurlitzer. They were not happy campers. Nor patient campers; Holman-Woodell Wurlitzer guitars and basses lasted only through 1966, maybe into early ’67, when Wurlitzer dumped the Holman contract. To this day it’s rare to find a Holman Wurlitzer with its paint intact.

The loss of such a potentially lucrative contract – not to mention the cost of doing refins – spelled trouble for Holman-Woodell. They promptly re-branded their guitars as Holmans. Right around the time of the Wurlitzer debacle, Dave Helland and his La Baye 2×4 idea entered the picture.

As you can see, the LaBaye 2×4 was pretty close to being a 2×4 board bolted to a Holman guitar neck. The Holman neck is pretty comfortable – thin, but not as thin as contemporary lines such as Kapa. The light fingerboard wood is actually an inexpensive grade of rosewood, and the inlays are real pearl. The serial number (#155540) doesn’t signify anything unless this is #40, which it very well could be… The Sensi-Tone pickups look and sound a lot like cheaper DeArmonds, but they’re genuine Holmans. The height is controlled by the number of thin plastic shims or plates placed between the top and the bottom. The vibrato was another Holman invention, a common variation on the Bigsby that appeared on the Wurlitzers. These may say “Channel 1″ and “Channel 2″ left over from the Wurlitzer stereo days, but this has mono output, like most Holman-brand guitars. Controls are two volumes and two tone thumbwheel knobs, like on some Fenders.

One definite design flaw is the placement of the three-way pickup select on the bottom of the guitar. It may look cool, like a rifle trigger, but there’s almost no way to play this guitar without hitting the toggle! And forget about playing it while sitting down!

So, aside from the toggle, how does it play? The neck and fingerboard are fine. The vibrato is swell. Like virtually all other Holmans we’ve seen, the pickups are just never going to win the hearts and minds of guitar players. There have been worse, but these have relatively weak output with little tonal range. But hey, the appeal of the La Baye 2×4 lies in its cool factor!

And their rarity. Helland had Holman-Woodell build him around 45 “Six,” “Twelve” (12-string), and “Four” (bass) guitars. He took them to the summer NAMM show in Chicago in ’67, where they were quite the rage… and produced zero orders. He did get some novelty pickup among a few pros; Tommy James and the Shondells played them for about 15 minutes, and a Milwaukee-area band called the Robbs donned them briefly. That was it before the La Baye 2×4 entered the annals of guitar legend. And Holman-Woodell, too. Helland became a professional photographer, and in late ’67/early ’68, the factory was sold to two folks named Al and Ray, who made Alray guitars for a limited time. But by ’68, the guitar market had gone soft and that was it for the guitarmaker from Neodesha. Leaving us with this ’67 La Baye 2×4 “Six,” one of about 45 instruments produced on the plains of Kansas during the Summer of Love, a dream unfulfilled, despite the possibilities.

This article originally appeared in VG‘s September 2008 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

So much for the furor, because ultimately it doesn’t matter anyway. Even if no name artist ever played through a sweet little mid-’60s Supro Model 24 like this one (even though he did), it’s still one of the hippest looking and coolest sounding 45-year-old tube combos on the planet. Right through the years of Fender’s seeming dominance of amp design in the U.S., Valco designed and manufactured a broad range of amps for re-branders such as Supro, Oahu, Gretsch, and Airline that totally disregarded the Fender standard. They all did their own thing, and did it very well. Components were largely of a slightly lesser standard, and cabinetry (which varied from brand to brand) was occasionally thinner and lighter-weight than that used by Fender and Gibson, but the circuit designs themselves are difficult to fault, and often took clever, original twists that today yield several truly stunning vintage-vibed voices that are quite different from the norm.

A look inside the chassis of the Model 24 reveals what, at first glance, looks like a rat’s nest of wiring strung out along a series of terminal strips. Look a little closer, though, and you’ll see fairly tidy workmanship, and a neat logic to the design. Valco managed to fit a simple yet extremely effective circuit into a confined space, and string together a series of stages out of the tube-design handbooks of the day that work together to pump out exemplary guitar tones.

1965 Supro Model 24. Photo: Michael Wright.
Preamp tubes: three GE 12AX7.
Output tubes: two GE 6973, cathode-bias, no negative feedback.
Rectifier: 5Y3
Controls: Volume and Tone on each of two channels, tremolo Speed and Intensity.
Speaker: Jensen Special Design C12Q.
Output: approximately 18 watts RMS.

One of the surprises in here is the extensive use of ceramic disk coupling caps where you’d normally see larger, more robust axial (tubular) coupling caps in amps wearing more prominent brand names. The relatively low voltages found in several stages of the amp, however, allow such caps to thrive, while also giving the amp’s tone a thick, chocolatey, slightly gritty character you don’t hear elsewhere. At lower volumes this adds some body to the stew, and cranked up to crunch gives the Supro’s voice a meaty bite.

Another of what today’s marketing men might call the “unique selling points” of this amp is its pair of 6973 output tubes. We addressed these briefly while featuring a Valco-made 1963 Gretsch 6156 Playboy combo (February ’09 issue), but they’re worth revisiting here. This tube’s nine-pin layout and tall, narrow bottle leads plenty of people to make the assumption it “sounds like an EL84,” but that’s a long way from accurate. Even on paper – physical appearances aside – the 6973 is a very different tube, with maximum plate voltage ratings of around 440 volts DC compared to the EL84’s 350 volts, a different pin-out, and different bias requirements. The robustness of this tube implies you can get a little more juice out of it if you try, and that’s certainly the case. These tubes were favored by jukebox manufacturers of the ’50s and ’60s for their firm, bold response, although few (if any) guitar amps tapped them for all they were worth. In our Supro, they put out about 18 watts from well under 350 volts at the plates, and sound round, chunky, and, if slightly dark – crisply and pleasantly so. And how’s this for a 6973 vs. EL84 A/B test?

Curious about this tube after digging that little Gretsch 6156 a while back, we decided to try something funky; having just completed a home-brewed amp designed along the lines of a modified/slightly hot-rodded AC15 – a project that was sounding stellar just as it stood with its pair of EL84s – we decided to take a leap of faith and rewire and re-bias the output stage for 6973s. The result? The amp was instantly louder, chunkier, and just bigger-sounding, with firmer lows and a meaty, if not overcooked, midrange. Different tubes, different sound.

The Supro Model 24 is likewise capable of pumping out a surprising amount of volume for its size; anyone with a recently acquired original example that seems wimpy or anemic in that department should look to the tubes, filter caps, and/or speaker, and expect the amp, in good condition, to have a bolder voice than the average tweed Deluxe, for example, and its thin 5/8″ pine cab makes it extremely lively and resonant along with it.

Where some smaller Valcos carrying similar circuitry have scaled-back tremolos, governed by a “speed” knob only, and an extremely deep, choppy effect as a result, the Model 24 has both speed and intensity, and can be made to sound superb at a wide range of settings, from gentle pulse to swampy throb. Each of two similar channels carries an independent tone knob (the usual simple treble-bleed circuit, but effective), along with inputs marked “Treble” and “Bass.” Counterintuitive though it might seem, the Bass input sounds better for most guitar applications, tapping the full voice of the amp, while the Treble option is a bit thin and anemic.

And lest we ignore one superficial but significant factor… man, what a looker! Our featured example, courtesy of Elderly Instruments’ repair tech Steve Olson, is resplendent in Calypso Blue vinyl (which matched the finish on many Supro Super Seven guitars and other models). It was also available in red and, at other times, the more familiar gray. The single Jensen C12Q sounds just right with this amp, or you can Brit it up some and add a little volume and low end in the process with something like a Celestion G12H-30 or an Austin Speaker Works KTS-70 (be sure to box up the original for safe-keeping). Come to think of it, we wish Jimmy Page hadn’t played this amp. Then there would probably be more of them around, for less money, for the rest of us to snatch up.

Dave Hunter is an American musician and journalist who has worked in both Britain and the U.S. He’s a former editor of The Guitar Magazine (UK).

This article originally appeared in VG July 2010 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

What makes these two Martins remarkable is not necessarily their rarity or historical importance, though both would be welcome additions to any serious collection.

Martin has offered sunburst finishes as an option since the 1930s.The earliest Martin catalog reference is a 1932 C-1 archtop with a “top shaded golden brown;” sunburst R-series archtops and dreadnoughts followed in 1933 and ’34, respectively. It was also a popular finish on Martin’s O-18H and 00-40H Hawaiian guitars during this period.

Over the years, however, most Martins have been finished in clear nitrocellulose lacquer, which ages to a mellow golden color. So the occasional sunburst has always been something of a rarity and a special treat.

Sunbursting is truly an individual art, the most spectacular examples have a subtlety – a delicate blending of colors – that only comes from years of practice. To my knowledge, Martin sunbursts have always been two-tone, either tobacco (natural to brown or black) or, more recently, cherry (natural to red). But in the hands of a master airbrush artist, you’d swear the finishes are three- or even four-tone. Martin sunburst finishes exist in just about every imaginable shade and hue – yellow, amber, brown, black, gold, red, light, dark, medium, and on and on.

In the ’60s, even Martin’s F-series acoustic, electrics featured a unique “shaded honey maple” top, with a natural center and caramel color feathering.

Surprisingly, many feel sunburst finishes are used primarily to hide poor materials or sloppy workmanship. That may be the case with other companies, but not Martin. Their sunburst finishes re, for the most part, translucent so there’s not much top area to “hide” anything. Certainly, a top that is less than perfect, cosmetically, would benefit from sunbursting, but Martin grades its top wood by model, with the most expensive receiving higher-grade wood.

This article originally appeared in Vintage Guitar Classics No. 2 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Ca. 1905 Gibson F-2. Photos: Eric C. Newell.

In the opinion of most American mandolinists, Gibson brought mandolin design to a level of perfection in 1922, with the introduction of the Master Model F-5. It wasn’t much earlier – 25 years or so – that Orville Gibson created the F model as one of two mandolin body styles (the other being the symmetrical A) to carry his new concept of stringed instruments with a carved, arched top. However, Orville’s instruments differ considerably from the ’22 Master Model, and even from the Gibson company’s F-style models of 1910.

The Gibson F-2 you see here, circa 1905, illustrates many of the evolutionary changes.

Body Shape
The most obvious difference between this mandolin and today’s F models is the point on the upper bass bout. Orville’s mandolins had three points, like this one, but the bass point was purely ornamental, and Gibson did away with it in 1910. The point on the upper treble bout points downward, whereas on the two-point models, it points upward.

Pickguard
Another obvious difference is the inlaid pickguard. Orville’s instruments had a pickguard of real tortoiseshell, trimmed with mother of pearl, inlaid into the top of the mandolin. On an Orville-made instrument, the guard might extend completely under the strings. This F-2 retains the inlaid pickguard – smaller than the typical Orville guard, but placed to better protect the top from pick wear. In 1908, the inlaid guard gave way to Gibson’s elevated type, which is used to this day on archtop instruments.

Body Size
The differences in body size are not so noticeable, but with a ruler in hand, they are significant. This mandolin measures approximately 15″ from the end to lower bouts the top of the scroll, and 101/2″ across the widest part of the body. With the move to the two-point body, Gibson reduced those dimensions to about 14″ long (to the scroll) and 10″ wide.

Body Depth
Orville’s mandolins were quite deep, with a rim dimension of at least 2″. The 1905 F-2 appears at first to have a streamlined body, with a rim depth of only 11/2″ deep. It seems as if the company went too far, because with the two-point models, the depth increased to 15/8″, and with the f-hole models of 1922 the depth increased again, to 13/4″. However, the thin rim of the ’05 F-2 is deceptive. The arch of its top and back are more pronounced than on later models, so the actual depth of the body is greater than those with wider rims.

Bridge
One of the more subtle, but most important, differences is the bridge. Orville’s bridges were very low, and the angle of the string “break” over the bridge was slight. While most of Orville’s design features made for an instrument that could be played harder and louder than the traditional bowlbacks of the day, the low bridge negated some of that advantage. The neck of this Gibson is set at a greater angle, which requires a higher bridge and a greater “break” angle, which in turn increases the string tension on the top of the instrument, resulting in greater volume. Gibson would continue improving bridge designs, with a higher bridge, patented saddle inserts (in 1909) to provide better intonation, and a patented height-adjustable design (still the industry standard) in 1920.

Top Finish
Neapolitan bowlback mandolins of the 1890s typically had a natural top finish, as did the guitars of Martin, Washburn, and other makers of the day. A dark finish was unusual, but almost all of Orville’s surviving instruments have a black or dark-brown top. Gibson changed the standard top finish on F models to “golden orange” (a.k.a. “pumpkin”) in 1908, but most F-4s and virtually all F-2s retained the black top until the introduction of red mahogany stain in 1914.

Back and Sides
Turning the mandolin over reveals a major difference between Orville’s mandolins and the Gibsons of the 1910s and 1920s. The back of this instrument is walnut, which was Orville’s preferred wood. Gibson catalogs, from the founding of the company in 1902, described the back wood as maple, but it would take a number of years for the company to catch up with its own advertising. By ’08, Gibson was making F-4s with maple back and sides, but the great majority of mandolins and guitars were made of the cheaper maple look-a-like – birch. Not until the ’20s, did “maple” in the catalog truly indicate maple.

Back Carve
The walnut back of the 1905 F-2 has a rounded shape, much like a modern maple-back mandolin, but far different from the back of an Orville-made mandolin. An Orville-made instrument would have a carved back, but it would be flat across the middle with a “lip” around the edge.

Back Extension
A modern mandolin has a definite neck joint where a small neck heel is typically defined by a celluloid heel cap (or else covered by a small extension of the back). Orville’s instruments didn’t have a conventional neck joint; instead, the rims continued into the neck, and neck was slightly hollowed out. The neck joint of the ’05 F-2 falls somewhere between, with a massive, but not well-defined, heel. Though there is a line of binding material at the 12th fret, marking the point where the neck meets the body, the body continues up the neck, leaving only about eight frets clear.

Tuners
The first Gibson catalog describes the tuners on F mandolins as “friction pegs,” but they were typically banjo-style tuners, not violin-style pegs. At the time, right-angle tuners were relegated to the A-style models, but by 1905, fancy Handel units with inlaid tuner buttons and engraved plates were standard equipment on higher Gibsons.

Label
Orville’s label used an image of him framed by the arms of a lyre mandolin, and that image continued on labels such as the one on this F-2, after the Gibson company was formed. Orville’s image disappeared from Gibson labels in 1908.

Gibson finished its first round of improvements on Orville’s designs by 1910, and the F mandolins went through the 1910s – the height of the mandolin’s popularity in America – with no major changes. As the ’20s began, with the mandolin’s popularity waning, Gibson brought another round of design changes to the F-style, starting with the height-adjustable bridge and the adjustable truss rod (the latter was incorporated in 1921, and both were across-the-line upgrades). In ’22, Lloyd Loar brought the F-style mandolin to what many consider the pinnacle of design, adding f holes and parallel tone bars, lengthening the neck, and elevating the fingerboard off the top.

The full evolution of the Gibson mandolin took only about 20 years, but instruments like this F-2 show there were many steps between Orville and Loar.

Photos by: Mike Tamborrino/VG Archives.

So what is it? Its original black-finished spruce top is simply ladder-braced from within, but its back and sides feature Brazilian rosewood with dramatic bookmatched figure. Its unbound 18-fret fingerboard –also of rosewood – sports only a few small, round dots for position makers, yet intricate multicolored wood purfling graces much of the rest of the instrument, including the top body edge, rosette, and back centerseam. Its configuration of flimsy, stamped-steel trapeze tailpiece and simple movable bridge (usually the hallmark of a budget flat-top) stands in stark contrast to the high quality and craftsmanship demonstrated throughout the guitar. It is curiously both deluxe and plain.

But what is it? It’s wide, flat fingerboard straddles the body at the 12th fret, its relatively thick V-shaped neck is topped with a squared-off slotted headstock, and its antiquated nickel-plated tuners, with pinion gears above the worm gears – are all indicative of a small, turn-of-the-century parlor guitar. Its gigantic body, measuring 19 ¼” across, puts it in a class with the largest guitars ever built. Bear in mind that Elmer Stromberg’s massive Master 400 archtop, designed to project through the increasing din of the big-band era, measured a mere 19”. Perhaps this guitar was intended for the world’s largest parlor?

Among the few makers who constructed such behemoths during this period were the Lyon and Healy Company and the Larson brothers, both of Chicago. At least one Larson brothers’ flat-top has surfaced that was bigger still by several inches. Our guitar in question is quite unlike that one and bears none of the telltale Larson construction details. Their laminated X-bracing, their characteristic binding and trim, and their quirky fingerboard inlay patterns are all notably absent.

It’s a Lyon and Healy, then? Yes and no. Circa 1900, the firm was so large it manufactured under a host of sub-brands; Washburn is perhaps the most recognized, though Leland, Lakeside, and American Conservatory are still seen. American Conservatory was responsible for a line of “over-sized” instruments, but the neck and the tailpiece of this one are more akin to those of a Lakeside. This is so much hair-splitting, however. When an instrument of this caliber survives almost a century and in such fine condition, when it continues to play cleanly and easily, when it exhibits a tone that its present owner describes as “quite deep and dark,” it is already more than we ask of most vintage instruments. No further explanation should be required. It just is.

This article originally appeared in VG Classics #02 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Early-’40s D’Angelico Excel Mandolin.

Early-’40s D’Angelico Excel Mandolin.

The 1,164 archtop guitars made by John D’Angelico have brought him great renown as the finest individual archtop guitar builder in the history of the instrument. His mandolins, however, are seldom talked about, even though – if this particular example from the early 1940s is any indication – they are worthy of the same attention.

Mandolins played a part in D’Angelico’s career as an instrument maker from the very beginning – before he ever made an archtop guitar. Born in New York in 1905, he was only nine years old when he began an apprenticeship with great-uncle Ciani, who made violins, mandolins, and flat-top guitars. He took over the shop when his great uncle died, and then opened his own shop in 1932.

By the time D’Angelico hung out his shingle, he had become known for his archtop guitars, modeled on the f-hole L-5 Gibson introduced in 1922. And as his designs evolved and his fame grew, he continued to be known primarily as a guitar maker for the rest of his life.

One can only speculate about D’Angelico’s involvement with mandolin making in his early years, but circumstances were such that he could hardly have avoided the mandolin. His family came from Naples – birthplace of the modern mandolin. He grew up in New York, where the mandolin movement in America had begun in the late 1800s, thanks in a large part to Italian-American musicians. And the mandolin was at the height of its popularity at the time he began his apprenticeship as an instrument maker. It is known that he took violin lessons – to play and to make violins – and it is likely that interest would carry over to the mandolin, which is tuned the same as the violin, more readily than to the guitar.

D’Angelico’s ledger books offer only a few clues to his mandolin activity. While he made the first entry for a guitar in 1932, he didn’t enter his first mandolin in the books until 1940 – it was number 125. Earlier three-digit numbers have turned up, so he may have started numbering mandolins with 101 (he started guitars with 1002), and it’s unknown how many unnumbered ones he might have made. This month’s featured instrument is one without a serial number.

To make matters more difficult, D’Angelico did not record any mandolin model names. Sixteen are called “Scroll” (including one “Scroll O”). Twenty-two are called “Plain” (including one “Plain (good)”). Two are parenthetically called “(good).” One is “G.D.” And three are entered with a date but with no notation as to style.

We’re not aware of any D’Angelicos with the scrolled upper body bout of a Gibson F-style mandolin (except for a few with the “lump” scroll with the scroll simulated by curlicue binding), but some of them do have a violin-style scrolled peghead, like that of a Lyon & Healy Style A, so D’Angelico’s “Scroll” model almost surely refers to the scrolled peghead. (D’Angelico’s “Plain” model, by default, is a standard oval-hole A-style mandolin.) The scrolled-peghead D’Angelicos have an asymmetrical body with two points, similar to the body of the Lyon & Healy A, although the body of the D’Angelico is significantly deeper. The low position of the point on the treble side effectively provides some degree of a cutaway, and with only 10 frets clear of the body, the cutaway feature is a practical necessity on this instrument.

This mandolin obviously does not have the Lyon & Healy-style scrolled headstock. Instead, it has the distinctive cutout framing an ornamental button that D’Angelico began using on guitars by 1937. To the average musician that design would have no connection to the scroll of a violin peghead or a mandolin body; however, the architectural term for a pediment (the ornament at the top of a column) with that cutout shape is “broken scroll,” so in a technical sense, the term “scroll” could still be applied to this peghead shape.

This mandolin’s model name is not in doubt. The pearl inlay on the peghead is boldly engraved “Excel,” and the ornamentation is, in fact, up to the level of D’Angelico’s Excel guitars, with seven-ply binding around the top, back, soundhole, and pickguard (the pickguard is a replica of the original), and three-ply binding on the peghead. The bound ebony fingerboard is inlaid with mother-of-pearl blocks. A small pearl inlay on the peghead identifies the owner of the instrument as “Mac.”

D’Angelico succeeded in designing a mandolin that is visually unique and easily identifiable as one of his creations, and that unique quality also applies to the sound. This carved-top instrument has more volume than the similar Lyon & Healy models, and it has a stronger low-end response than the traditional Italian-style bowlbacks D’Angelico grew up with. In the process of creating this more robust tone, some of the delicacy of a bowlback’s tone, particularly on the high end, had to be sacrificed.

To today’s ears, the sound of this mandolin suggests D’Angelico was aiming for a middle ground between classical and bluegrass. However, bluegrass mandolin as we know it today didn’t yet exist when this instrument was made. If D’Angelico had even heard a Bill Monroe recording, he would not have heard the “chop” and the “woof” Monroe worked into his style in the late ’40s, after he acquired his Gibson F-5. Instead, D’Angelico would have heard an earlier Monroe style, with clear, fast-paced lead lines and a busier, unchoked rhythm style. This mandolin would have been well-suited for that style.

Interest in classical mandolin had been steadily declining since World War I (though the instrument may have remained more popular in the Italian community in New York than in the rest of the country), and bluegrass had not yet emerged.

So, what sort of player was this mandolin made for? The most visible mandolinist of the era was Russian-born Dave Apollon, a virtuoso and master showman who often fronted a full band (with an F-5). If Apollon was the standard setter, then this D’Angelico – with its combination of power and clarity of tone – was perfectly designed for the music of the day.

This article originally appeared in VG September 2011 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

1958 Magnatone Custom 280 Preamp tubes: three 12AX7, three 6CG7, one 12AH7 Output tubes: four 6973, fixed bias Rectifier: 5U4GB Controls: Loudness, Bass and Treble for each of two channels; Vibrato Speed and Intensity plus switches for Stereo/Normal and Remote (Instrument/Footswitch) Speaker: two Jensen P12P plus two 5" tweeters Output: approximately 25 watts RMS per channel.

1958 Magnatone Custom 280 Preamp tubes: three 12AX7, three 6CG7, one 12AH7 Output tubes: four 6973, fixed bias Rectifier: 5U4GB Controls: Loudness, Bass and Treble for each of two channels; Vibrato Speed and Intensity plus switches for Stereo/Normal and Remote (Instrument/Footswitch) Speaker: two Jensen P12P plus two 5" tweeters Output: approximately 25 watts RMS per channel.

Buddy Holly's Signature

When guitarists talk tremolo or vibrato, you can bet the magnificent Magnatone amps will find their way into the conversation. The watery, warbling “true vibrato” that the larger Magnatones are capable of producing is never forgotten by players fortunate enough to have experienced it.

In searching to expand the Magnatone legend, the subject is likely to come around to artists who used these amps, and the pool is surprisingly small. Some might mention Lonnie Mack’s formative work, which deserves credit even if a relatively small percentage of the listening public has heard his playing. And we have to stop in on Bo Diddley, who certainly moved through countless amps over the years but undoubtedly used some Magnatones early on. But inevitably, we turn to the more populist Buddy Holly, who, following a range of Fender tweed amps, became a notable fan of Magnatone. So how cool is it to have the opportunity to check out Buddy Holly’s very own ’58 Magnatone Custom 280? Unfathomably cool, one might propose!

And how do we know this was Buddy Holly’s own amp? Well, because Buddy told us so – by sticking his name and the date of acquisition right there on the front in gold Dymo lettering tape, and by signing and dating the inside of the cabinet! That, and because Gruhn Guitars, which recently sold this amp, has Holly’s ownership thoroughly documented. Oh, and of course it was displayed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for a time and has been authenticated by the curator of that museum.

Readers will likely note the surprisingly good condition of this amp, and be interested to learn that it was Holly’s “home amp,” kept in the apartment that he and wife, Maria Elena Holly, shared in New York City after being purchased from Manny’s there in the city in September, 1958, just half a year before his death in February of ’59. It was used to record several vibrato-heavy demos (notably “Peggy Sue Got Married”), and even the scratch tracks for many of his final studio cuts, while another amp was taken out on the road. No studio recordings of this amp were released before his death, but original takes featuring the Magnatone were uncovered for the mixes of posthumous releases such as “Love Is Strange,” “Smokey Joe’s Café,” and “Slippin’ And Slidin’” from MCA’s The Complete Buddy Holly.

A letter written by Holly’s sister, Patricia Holley Kaiter (“Buddy’s” birth name was Charles Hardin Holley, with the extra “e”), and provided with the recent sale of the amp, indicates that she “sold the Magnatone Custom 280 ‘Stereo Vibrato’ amplifier to Emmylou Harris on November 8, 1988…” to be given as a birthday gift to Paul Kennerly, Harris’ husband at the time. Rather oddly, the letter goes on to say that the amp “is one that Buddy used in his earlier years” and had been in the Holley family until that time. Holly used Fender amps earlier in his career, and the Magnatone clearly dates from ’58, so this might merely be some confusion on her part, or a trick played on the memory by the haze of 30 years. Either way, this is one incomparable slice of rock-and-roll history, though even your bog-standard, no-name-ownership Magnatone Custom 280 is a pretty rare amp, and an acquisition worth cooing over.

Capable not only of producing true vibrato, the Custom 280, as the late rocker’s sister informs us, is a stereo amp, too. With the effect running on full, the vibrato’s pulses and warbles alternate between each of the amp’s two 12″ speakers (each of which is paired with a 5″ tweeter) to create an eerie, spatial soundscape that is truly hypnotic. The Magnatone company dubbed this girthsome sound “Vibrato Vastness,” as signaled by the two gold “V” letters in the lower right corner of the speaker grille. In addition to this tidbit, a ’57 catalog also boasts “The ultimate in modern amplifiers – the Custom 280 has a sound Big As All Outdoors – the Vastness of the sky combined with Magnatone’s Big “V” Electronic True Vibrato…” and so on. To achieve said vastness, the 280 routes its preamp to a stereo vibrato circuit that feeds two independent output stages, consisting of two pairs of 6973 output tubes hitched to two output transformers. We see these 6973s mainly in Valco-made amplifiers – the Supro Model 24 and Gretsch 6156 Playboy among them – and they can be great-sounding tubes. Partnered with rather small OTs for the task, however, they figure as part of what many players object to in the Magnatone design; for their size, weight, and swirly potential, these amps come off as a little under-powered. Which is to say, they sound phenomenal, but would be mindblowing with a little more punch, headroom, and fidelity. The P12P speakers used, for this example at least, are also among Jensen’s less-efficient designs, and even a P12N would throw it all at you with a little more gusto.

That said, it doesn’t seem Magnatone was trying to cut corners, as these are extremely well-made amps in other regards, crafted with apparent pride by Magna Electronics Inc. in Inglewood, California. They required a full 12 tubes to achieve their vibrato-in-stereo sound, along with a complex web of circuitry. Put it all together, and it was going to cost you $395, according to a late-’57 Magnatone catalog – a pretty penny considering Fender’s top models at the time, the narrow-panel tweed Bassman and Twin, sold for $339.

With Holly’s recorded examples of Custom 280 goodness being so thin on the ground, it behooves us to turn back to our “other Magnatone artists.” Lonnie Mack’s first hit, the instrumental rendition of “Memphis,” gets its vibrato more from the Bigsby on his ’58 Flying V, but the followup, “Wham,” swims in this amp’s swift swirl, sounding much like a Leslie rotating speaker cab. You can also hear it clearly on cuts like “The Bounce” and his cover of “Suzie Q,” and plenty of others. And while Bo Diddley’s amps aren’t always clearly documented, you can hear what you’d swear was that Magnatone warble (from one of the larger models or another) all over much of his work from the late ’50s and into the mid ’60s. As dramatic as the Custom 280’s stereo vibe undoubtedly is, however, it is, ultimately, perhaps a little too fussy for many players to use consistently. Impressive in small doses, it can become entirely sea-sickening if overused, and, ultimately, that is probably why this “innovation in the world of music” didn’t take over the planet.

This article originally appeared in VG September 2011 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Stratocasters from ’65 in Burgundy Mist, ’57 in Blond (Mary Kaye), and ’65 in Inca Silver.

The Stratocaster was born in 1954. A solidbody with three pickups, contoured back and top, vibrato, and bolt-on neck, it was different. And it changed the way people looked at, thought of, heard, and played guitar. With the exception of opera and classical music, it has played a considerable role in modern music.

Over the last 39 years, the instrument has evolved. Early on, Fender changed materials for the pickguard, pickups, and control knobs, and wood for the body – from ash to alder. In 1959, the company moved from a single-piece maple neck to a capped fingerboard of rosewood. Today, Fender produces more historically-accurate reissues than it does new models, and an interesting feature of the reissues is the array of available finishes. The original Strat was available only in a two-tone sunburst and a transparent blond. From its introduction, customers expressed a desire for something different. “The only custom color would have been special order, it would have been done for a customer. There wasn’t any stock custom color before the late ’50s,” explained George Fullerton, ex-Fender production foreman and the “G” in G&L Music Sales.

This ’63 Strat in Olive Drab may be a one-of-a-kind, while this ’66 in Ice Blue Metallic is merely rare.

Some early custom-color customers included Howard Reed (of Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps), who played a black Strat, Eldon Shamblin (with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys) and his gold Strat, and Bill Carson’s Cimmaron Red Strat.

For the average Joe, the wait was over in 1958, when the Fender catalog allowed ordering color as an option. “I kept trying to push this color thing and I couldn’t get anybody interested,” added Fullerton. “I had an idea about a color I thought would be neat, and I went to a paint store and had [it] mixed. I worked with the man in the paint store, we added different things to it until I got the color I wanted. I had this guitar sprayed with it and I thought it turned out really neat. All the people at the sales office laughed at it and said, “Who would want a red guitar?” We did make a few of them and put them out into the field and, boy, they caught on like wildfire. Matter of fact, the people in England liked them so well, that’s about the only thing they would order for a long time. Around the factory, they dubbed it ‘Fullerton Red’ for quite a while, because there wasn’t any name for it. When they finally manufactured the color, they called it Fiesta Red, but, if I had known how popular it was going to be, they could have used my name.”

(LEFT TO RIGHT) A 1965 Strat Olympic White with tortoiseshell pickguard, a ’63 in Lake Placid Blue, and a ’64 in Dakota Red.

The paint of choice became DuPont Duco automotive paints – the standard in automotive paint, which meant anyone, with a stop at a local auto-body shop, could touch up or even refinish an instrument if necessary.

An interesting example of a custom-color ’57 Strat with a blue base that appears to be a Duco color, not an undercoat.

Custom colors were available in the late ‘50s but they really didn’t catch on until the ‘60s, all listed in Fender catalogs. Some, though, including Olive Drab and Coral Pink, did not appear in catalogs and have spurred debate over the authenticity of certain colors.
So, while Leo Fender apparently adapted the Henry Ford axiom to read “Any color as long as it’s sunburst,” many would rather have a Strat in Olympic White, Ice Blue Metallic, Candy Apple Red, or Inca Silver. – Robert W. Watkins

1960s Strats in (from left) Candy Apple Red, Dakota Red, and Candy Apple Red.

This article originally appeared in VG Classics No. 1. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

When the Gretsch Company introduced its Chet Atkins Hollowbody model 6120 guitar for the 1955 model year, it was not making a subtle statement. In addition to the impossible to ignore G-brand affixed to the body, the steers-head motif on the headstock, and the cowboy-styled engravings in the fretboard markers, the Western panache of this guitar was only amplified further through its ostentatious Amber Red (a.k.a. Western Orange) translucent stain finish.

Although a flagship model for the company, these guitars experienced a multitude of feature evolutions from its 1955 debut in full-blown Western flavor, until the last batch of the more streamlined single-cutaway format in ’61. About the only feature that escaped modification over these years was the signature finish. Even when the 6120 was subjected to a complete redesign for the ’62 model year, and the double-cut sealed-top Electrotone body design was incorporated, the Western Orange finish was retained and provided one of the primary indicators to the buying public that these were still Chet Atkins 6120 guitars.

As a result, for most Gretsch enthusiasts, the Western Orange finish on the 6120 has become iconic, and synonymous with the model, and shared only with the companion 6121 Solidbody. Typically, most Gretsch models were produced from the Brooklyn factory in batches of 50 or 100. But in the case of the 6120, many batches included a quantity of 6121 Solidbody models. This was a curious practice, duplicated to a lesser extent with batches of White Falcon (model 6136) and White Penguin (model 6134).

Gretsch has been recognized for pioneering, and subsequently popularizing, the use of colored finishes on its electric archtop line of the ’50s. Many of these hues, and their use in combination, were inspired by the automotive stylings of the period. As a result, most of the company’s models were available in multiple finish options, while the 6120 remained steadfast in its commitment to the Western Orange aesthetic.

This didn’t necessarily mean it was impossible to acquire a 6120 in something other than orange. It simply meant that for most it was unthinkable. However, there are always those who prefer the road less traveled. Perhaps some musicians were attracted to the sonic qualities the 6120 package, but just weren’t interested in presenting the kind of visual impact the standard finish delivered. For these few, the Brooklyn factory would create – on a one-off/custom-order basis – a Chet Atkins 6120 in something other than Amber Red.

In the seven years the Chet Atkins 6120 was manufactured in the single-cutaway format, there were approximately 50 batches of the model produced, translating to no more than 4,000 guitars. Today, these are among the most popular Gretsches, and appear regularly on the secondary market. Only on rare occasion however, does a custom-color single-cut 6120 surface. Ironically, when they do, they tend (with a few exceptions) to not be finished in one of the company’s automotive-inspired options, but instead in the more pedestrian brown-sunburst the company applied to most of its base model electric archtops. On the face of it, and considering the model in question, this might seem counterintuitive. But if the objective was to not stand out in the crowd, what better way to understate the visual of the 6120 than to mute its flamboyance through a more-traditional archtop finish.

The small fraternity of original Gretsch owners who opted out of the flashy Western Orange 6120 have, 50 years later, created a challenge for current owners of these rarely encountered anomalies. First, it’s not unreasonable to assume that if a collector or musician were seeking to acquire a vintage Gretsch 6120, he/she would probably desire it to be finished in the celebrated Amber Red stain. Second, there seems to be a natural skepticism about these brown-sunburst specimens, and questions regarding their legitimacy often result. Recent serial number and batch analysis has been helpful in these cases, as well as for determining the authenticity of any guitar being represented as a Chet Atkins 6120. The fact that periodic attempts have been made to pass off “6120 conversions” (from lower-end Gretsch donor guitars) as legitimate Chet Atkins 6120s have made prospective buyers wary of even certain Western Orange examples. So, when an uncommon specimen, not to mention one with a brown-sunburst finish, surfaces, it tends to raise even more eyebrows. The following specimens are authenticated examples of the ultra-rare Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120, in the custom factory brown-sunburst finish.

As the ’60s progressed, custom-color/double-cutaway 6120s became more numerous, most sporting interesting hues (not the brown sunburst!). By then, however, the Western aura of the original had all but faded, and the signature finish was losing its impact. In the spring of ’72, the sun set on the Western Orange finish as the Baldwin Piano Company, which had taken over the brand in ’67, discontinued the finish as it revamped the model, giving it a red finish and reassigning it as the 7660 Nashville.

The banjo and American music cross paths in a remarkably entangled web of complexity. The banjo was brought to the New World – conceptually, at least – by African slaves who used it to create music subsequently appropriated by 19th-century white entertainers, who created blackface minstrelsy, which became the basis of Vaudeville and a great source of opportunity for waves of new, more-willing immigrants. Among these were many Europeans, including an Italian family by the name of Iosco, which figures both in the rise of ragtime and in the existence of the Yosco No. 2 Tenor Banjo.

The Iosco family – Americanized to Yosco upon their arrival – hailed from Castemezzano, Potenza, Basilicatena, in south-central Italy, an area historically associated with harpists and harp making, thus explaining, in part, the musical routes to success taken by some members. Family records indicate that the parents, Domenico and Maria Antonia, emigrated to the U.S. in 1877. Their youngest known son, Rocco Giuseppe (1874-1942), changed his name to Robert Joseph Yosco. Robert, who played mandolin, teamed with harpist George Lyons (probably originally Giorgio Leoni) and joined the national Vaudeville circuit as Yosco & Lyons, singing and doing comedy routines. Like minstrelsy before it, early Vaudeville depended heavily on self-deprecating ethnic humor. Yosco & Lyons are considered early ragtime performers whose songs frequently reference their Italian heritage. Their biggest hit was the song “Spaghetti Rag,” which they recorded in 1910.

The Iosco’s oldest known son was Rocco Lorenzo (b. 1869), who changed his name to Lawrence and apparently inherited an aptitude for building instruments. Whether trained by his father or with a New York manufacturer (or both) is unknown, but by 1900 (at the latest) he had established the Yosco Manufacturing Company, promoting mandolins and banjos.

Yosco seems to have been a fairly prolific manufacturer, since a fair number of his instruments have survived. Yosco is perhaps best known for his Colossus, a guitar banjo, a large banjo with a six-string guitar neck.

In 1918 Lawrence Yosco was granted a patent for a “double internal resonator” called the “Yosco Double Rim,” as seen on this banjo. Basically this consisted of a regular outside rim doubled by a second internal rim about 6″ smaller in diameter. The banjo’s head rests on both rims, making it an “archtop” instrument; the resonator is formed by a rounded piece of wood attached to the bottom of the two rims, forming a hollow sound chamber. This particular example is made of curly maple and sports 16 brackets and what appears to be an original skin head. The example you see here has a nickel tone ring. Its planetary tuners are typical of the ’20s, the fingerboard is rosewood, and the pearl inlays are also fairly standard. The bridge is a modern replacement. The instrument’s condition is in part due to its having spent a good deal of its life in the attic of a central New Jersey firehouse.

Yosco Double Rim banjos hit the market just in time for prohibition and the “jazz age.” Except for the guitar-necked Colossus, virtually all Yosco banjos are either tenor or plectrum; no five-strings have, to our knowledge, surfaced, though one or more certainly could have been made. There has been a fair amount of conversion on them, with later five-string necks being added.

Like many banjo manufacturers, Yosco graded his banjos based on how fancy they were; No. 1 would presumably be plainer, probably with dot inlays, No. 2 was likely in the middle, and No. 3 was the fanciest, though the few seen look quite similar. Some were made of figured walnut.

A number of sources suggest Yosco did not make its own banjos, but that they were made by Rettberg & Lange or William L. Lange. Others suggest only the necks were made by Rettberg & Lange. However, since Yosco had been building its own mandolins since at least 1900, they could have made their own banjos. The body and neck on the banjo seen here certainly look like they were made by the same maker. Lange had entered the banjo business about the same time as Yosco, doing business as Rettberg & Lange from circa 1897 to 1922. Rettberg & Lange also took over the manufacturing operations of J.H. Buckbee, a major 19th-century maker who supplied instruments to many retailers under many different names. So there certainly was a tradition of building for other companies (19th-century banjos of uncertain origin are often labeled “Buckbee,” kind of like all mystery guitars are called Regals!). In 1922, William L. Lange took sole control of the company and was responsible for the Orpheum and Paramount brands. So if, indeed, there was participation in Yosco banjos, this example would reflect that. Since this banjo references the patent, it’s clearly from later than 1918.

Yosco banjos were distributed by the New York wholesaler Perlberg and Halpin, and were available into the ’30s. Just when Lawrence Yosco passed away is unknown, but by the ’30s he would have been in his 60s, so it’s reasonable to assume the company ended when Yosco died or retired. By the ’30s, guitars were clearly the ascendant in terms of popularity, while banjos were receding. Yosco declined to make the transition.

There’s no evidence concerning how many Yosco banjos were produced. The one shown has serial number #441, which presumably is consecutive. Despite years of neglect, it has survived pretty well. The head shows its age, but it plays well and sounds quite nice.

The Yosco Double Rim is a sturdy, decent-sounding banjo, even if it’s not perceptibly superior to banjos equipped with a full-sized resonator covering the entire back – especially if you consider the better models. But one sure to sound great on it would be Robert Yosco’s “Spaghetti Rag!”

This article originally appeared in VG August 2011 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

(LEFT) Epcor bass. (RIGHT) Gruggett Stradette. Photos: Michael Stewart. Instruments courtesy of Bob Shade.

The history of guitar manufacturing in the Bakersfield area of California includes names like Mosrite, Hallmark, and Standel. One of the most unusual (and rare) was the Gruggett Stradette.

Guitar builder and company founder Bill Gruggett had affiliations with Mosrite and Hallmark before setting out on his own in 1967. He designed the Stradette to look like nothing else, and though he set out to make basses only (he was a bassist), the line ultimately consisted of one- and two-pickup basses, a six-string guitar, a 12-string guitar, and a doubleneck.

Stradette bodies, described in company literature as “semi-acoustic,” measured 121/4″ wide and 31/2″ deep, were made from alder with a laminated arched top and back, and had three-ply binding front and rear. Necks were maple, with a bound rosewood fretboard and dot markers. Scale length on the bass was 301/2″, tuning keys were Klusons, and some of the hardware, such as strap buttons and the handrest, was the same used on instruments produced by other companies in the neighborhood. The Hi-Fi pickups were hand-wound and covered with a tortoiseshell-colored plastic. The neck pickup was mounted at a trendy angle favored by local builders.

Advertised finishes were Goldenburst and Cherryburst, but this rare Cardinal Red example may have been dressed up for the 1967 NAMM show in Chicago. As for its odd shape, Gruggett says he was trying to combine a classic violin with a modern double-cutaway guitar. The hybrid look is arguably the line’s most endearing feature.

The Stradette never really got off the ground, and in ’68, Gruggett closed his company’s doors. Only a few basses were made. The one featured here spent decades in the possession of a restaurateur in Bakersfield who passed it on to his son, who in turn sold it to the present owner.

Today, Bill Gruggett is a builder and consultant to the present-day Hallmark, which offers (among other models) retro versions of Stradette guitars.

An even-more-shortlived (and rarer) brand from Bakersfield was Epcor, a line built by Hallmark when the company was run by Joe Hall. It was conceived by Ed Preager, a manufacturer’s rep who lived in Beverly Hills, drove a Cadillac, sported a Rolex, and wanted to sell a guitar that would not conflict with any of the lines that made him successful.

Preager approached Hall in September of ’67, wanting to create a budget-priced hollowbody, which was something of a contradiction since hollowbody guitars and basses are inherently more expensive to produce than solidbodies. Nevertheless, Hall and Preager agreed to create the Epcor line (the name being a combination of Preager’s initials with the first three letters of “corporation”) and set a goal of producing 200 instruments per month – six-string guitars, 12-strings, and basses. They used laminated bodies made in Italy with either red or three-tone sunburst finish, five-ply binding on top, three-ply on the rear edge, and single-ply on their f-shaped sound holes. Necks and pickups were made by Hallmark.

The Epcor headstock silhouette alluded to the letter E… a concept essentially plagiarized from the M-topped headstock of nearby Mosrite. The bolt-on maple neck was two-piece, with an unbound Brazilian or Indian rosewood fretboard. Its scale was 301/2″.

Hardware and other parts included bridges made by Bigsby, Kluson tuners and tailpieces, and Hallmark strap buttons and knobs. Pickups were Hallmark’s own design.

An estimated 30 Epcor instruments were made before the deal fell apart for financial reasons, though Hall reportedly assembled a few more, perhaps using other brand names, from leftover parts.

“My guess is that about 35 instruments exist today,” said Bob Shade, who today owns the Hallmark company (and this instrument). “There are no shipping records, so it’s really hard to know how many were made. But the necks were very fast, and the pickups were powerful. This is the only Epcor bass I have encountered, and it plays and sounds excellent.”

These are just two more examples of American instruments that started with a solid concept and good marketing, but didn’t last long. One wonders how many others would fit the category.

Americans by the millions “know” Randy Jackson. But not many realize that his gig as one of three judges on TV’s “American Idol” is just the tip of the iceberg in his long musical career.

The veteran bassist has played alongside, recorded with, and/or produced musicians ranging from Jean Luc-Ponty to Bob Dylan to Jerry Garcia to Mariah Carey to Bruce Springsteen to Charlie Daniels (at the Grand Ole Opry, no less). He also played on Journey’s 1986 album Raised on Radio, and toured with the band. In fact, most Americans’ first Randy Jackson sighting was in a performance video for Journey’s hit single from that album, “Girl Can’t Help It,” where he played a green Jackson bass decorated with gambling-table graphics.

A few years later, Jackson (the man) collaborated with Peavey to design and build the RJ-IV, one of several artist endorsement models marketed by Peavey in the late 1980s and early ’90s. It debuted in 1990, a year after the TL-5 (designed with the input of Tim Landers), and the Rudy Sarzo Signature Bass and a year before the Palaedium (inspired by Jeff Berlin’s “parts” bass).

The RJ-IV has its share of interesting elements. For instance, Peavey spec sheets of the day referred to the model as the “RJ4,” while the headstock and owner’s manual actually say “RJ-IV.” And while company literature noted its neck-through configuration, touted its “select maple body” and “eastern maple bilaminated neck construction with graphite reinforcement,” its finish made it impossible to see and/or appreciate these qualities!

The headstock profile was similar to other up-market Peaveys of the time, with a carved portion below the trendy black tuners.

The RJ-IV was equipped with a Hipshot D-tuner on its E string and its 1.6″-wide nut is made of Peavey’s trademark Graphlon material. The scale is standard 34″ and the neck profile was described in literature as having a “…thin oval back profile.”

Its fingerboard is macassar ebony, and has a 10″ radius and 21 frets. Its funky “icicle” mother-of-pearl fretboard inlays are unique among Peavey instruments. Company literature also hyped the “…reduced body size with four-way radial contour.” The body is 18″ long and 13″ wide.

As for its electronics and controls, the RJ-IV came off as practical and simple-to-operate… on the surface. Its pickups are active, powered by a 9-volt battery that installs on the back of the body, in a small compartment separate from the rear control cavity. The control knobs are labeled “V” (volume), “B” (bass), “M” (midrange) and “T” (treble), and each of the three tone knobs has a center detent. Pickup selection is accomplished by a three-position mini-toggle. So far, so good…

The Bass control is centered at 50 Hz and has a +8 dB boost and a -8 dB cut. The Treble control is centered at 2 kHz and has a +/-12 dB boost/cut. The Midrange knob is on the upper row, behind the Volume knob. The midrange tonal sweep of the RJ-IV can be pre-set for several frequency ranges with variable-notch centers. And for real fine-tuning of the tone, the rear cavity houses an eight-position dual in-line package (DIP) switch that the owner’s manual says adjusts thusly: “1 on – 6 dB pad on preamp input; 2 on – shift high from 2 kHz to 1 kHz; 3 and 6 on – shift mid from 1 kHz to 500 Hz; 3,4,6, and 7 on – shift mid to 250 Hz; 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 on – shift mid to 125 Hz.” Given its relative complexity, one wonders how many RJ-IV owners actually went to the trouble of changing the DIP switches.

The Red Pearl Burst finish on the RJ-IV shown here might evoke comparison to Rickenbacker’s Fire-Glo finish, which is also pink-to-red, and its fret markers have a Ric vibe, as well, resembling the wedge shapes found on up-market Rics. The RJ-IV, however was available in three other Pearl Burst finishes (Black, Blue, and Purple) as well as solid Pearl Black, Pearl White, Pearl Blue, and Sunfire Red. There may even have been one in natural-finish koa. In 1992, Jackson filmed an instructional video called Mastering the Groove, where he appeared on the cover brandishing an RJ-IV in Red Pearl Burst.

The RJ-IV lasted four years in Peavey’s lineup. While it’s debatable to what extent Jackson’s high profile today might bolster collector interest in this model, it, like most Peavey basses, is well-built and remains a practical value in the market.

This article originally appeared in VG‘s October 2008 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.