Month: February 2012

The PRS Collection Series guitars consist of one electric and one acoustic. For the second installment, the company designed instruments with David Grissom, Tony McManus, and Martin Simpson .

The Collection Series II DGT has a one-piece maple top with mahogany back, 22 fret 25” scale length pernambuco neck with Honduran rosewood fingerboard and mammoth ivory Collection Celtic inlays. Other features include Honduran rosewood headstock veneer with mammoth ivory signature and “Collection” inlay, mammoth-ivory purfling on the fingerboard, headstock veneer, and truss rod cover, DGT tuners with faux bone buttons, PRS vibrato, DGT pickups with scuffed gold covers and nickel screws, two Volume controls (one for each pickup) with push/pull Tone control and three-way toggle pickup switch, and a custom Orange Glow finish with micro-bursts.

The Collection Series II McManus/Simpson Angelus has a 15.5” Angelus cutaway body, proprietary hybrid X bracing, Sitka spruce top with paua heart/black purfling, curly maple binding, and an ebony, paua heart, green select abalone, an gold rosette. It has African blackwood back and sides with black/maple/black purfling, custom-carved pernambuco neck with African blackwood fingerboard and paua heart, green abalone, and gold Collection Celtic inlays, ebony headstock veneer with mammoth ivory signature and “Collection” inlay, paua-heart purfling on the fingerboard and veneer, ebony bridge and bridge pins with mammoth ivory inlays, bone nut and saddle, Robson tuning pegs with ivoroid buttons, and PRS acoustic system.

PRS’ DGT (David Grissom Trem) Standard is an all-mahogany version of Grissom’s signature model and maintains many of the features unique to the DGT, including Grissom’s signature neck shape, slightly larger frets and heavier strings, vibrato capability, and specially designed DGT pickups with individual Volume controls.

For more, visit prsguitars.com.

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will host an exhibit titled “The Bakersfield Sound: Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and California Country” beginning March 23.

Narrated by Dwight Yoakam, the exhibit will explore the roots, heyday, and impact of the Bakersfield Sound, the loud, stripped-down and radio-ready music most closely identified with the careers of Country Music Hall of Fame members Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. Co-curated by the institution’s Curatorial Director, Mick Buck, Photo Collection Manager Tim Davis, and Museum Editor Michael Gray, the exhibit includes more than 100 artifacts and an overlay of audio-visual presentations.

Grand opening weekend will be highlighted by a panel discussion with Dallas Frazier, Don Maddox, Rose Lee Maphis, Buddy Mize, Jean Shepard, and Red Simpson. The panelists will participate in a concert, headlined by Simpson, backed by guitarist Deke Dickerson and other musicians from Tennessee and California. Other opening-weekend programs include a film screening and an instrument demonstration.

The exhibit will run through the end of 2013, and is accompanied by a companion book, The Bakersfield Sound: Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and California Country, published by the Museum’s Country Music Foundation Press. Learn more at countrymusichalloffame.org.

Washington, D.C. PBS member station WETA-TV will broadcast “In Performance at the White House: Red, White and Blues” February 27 at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. The blues-themed special will honor the musical form that sprang from the Mississippi Delta and flourished in the Westside of Chicago, with roots in Africa and slavery.  Its performances will explore those roots and pay homage to important figures of the blues and the songs they made famous by tracing the influence of the blues on modern American music from soul to rock and roll.

Hosted by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, it will include performances by Jeff Beck, Gary Clark, Jr., Buddy Guy, Warren Haynes, Mick Jagger, B.B. King, Keb Mo, Susan Tedeschi with Derek Trucks, and others. Booker T. Jones will serve as band leader and music director. Check listings to determine if your local PBS station will broadcast the event.

The concert will be the 48th in the Emmy-nominated “In Performance at the White House” series, which began in 1978. The program will be broadcast at a later date via the American Forces Network to American service men and women and civilians at U.S. Department of Defense locations around the world.

A line cut of the concert will stream live tonight (February 21) at 7:20 p.m. Eastern at pbs.org/whitehouse.

Joe Naylor has launched Railhammer pickups, which use both rail and pole magnet extensions to sense string vibration. The rails under the wound strings are designed to sense a narrow section of string, which Naylor says increases the clarity of tone from the strings. The poles under the unwound strings create a fatter sound. The balance, he adds, allows the player to adjust their amp for a tight, percussive tone on the wound strings without making the plain strings sound thin, harsh, or sterile. Visit railhammer.com

Michael Davis, bassist for punk-rock pioneers the MC5, died February 17 after being hospitalized for a month with liver disease. He was 68. Davis helped form the MC5 in 1964 and was a member during the band’s ’60s/early-’70s heyday, when it recorded the classic album Kick Out the Jams. He left the group in ’72, then in the mid ’00s joined guitarist Wayne Kramer and drummer Dennis Thompson in an MC5 reunion. Davis’ passing leaves Kramer and Thompson as the surviving members. He is survived by his wife, Angela, three sons, and a daughter.

The Wisconsin Historical Society Press announced the release of  Les Paul: Guitar Wizard, the 20th book in the Badger Biographies series for young readers. The book tells the story of the man who pioneered the solidbody electric guitar, multi-track recording, and many other musical inventions. Along the way, he overcame numerous physical challenges, including recovery from electric shock and rehabilitation after a horrific car accident – both of which threatened his musical career. And yet, Les Paul pushed musical technology forward more than any other musician of the 20th century.

This Grammy Hall of Fame inductee died in 2009, making Les Paul: Guitar Wizard a timely addition to the series. The story is rounded out with sidebars on radio call letters and how an electric guitar works, a full discography, and more than 60 historic photographs.

For more, visit wisconsinhistory.org.

Filmmaker Greg Olliver will be shadowing Johnny Winter throughout 2012 while producing a documentary on the blues guitarist. Johnny revived the careers of Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker by producing their Grammy-winning comeback albums. His friend John Lennon wrote “Rock and Roll People” in his honor, and he has performed at Woodstock and in bands with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

The Johnny Winter documentary will be filmed throughout 2012 with a completion goal and theatrical release planned for 2013.

Shout Factory is set to release Todd Rundgren’s Utopia Live At Hammersmith Odeon ’75 concert CD on April 10. Recorded on October 9, 1975, at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia Live At Hammersmith Odeon ’75 captures the band performing their first UK concert. The recording has never been commercially available until now.

The recording features the lineup of Todd Rundgren, John Siegler, Roger Powell and Willie Wilcox, which would later become Utopia, with backing vocals by Luther Vandross and Anthony Hinton.