Month: February 2013

Seymour Duncan is set to offer its Whole Lotta Humbucker to players worldwide. The pickup is based on Duncan’s personal experience in the ’70s, when he worked at the Fender Soundhouse with artists like Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and many others.

“I liked to rewind pickups with 42-gauge plain-enamel wire,” he said. “I’d also insert sand-cast Alnico magnets with a better-balanced magnetic field, which made the B and high E sound as powerful as the other strings. This modified pickup had more output and a higher frequency response.”

The Whole Lotta Humbucker set is a replica of those pickups, with 8.78k DC resistance for the bridge, 8.20k for the neck, custom winding pitch, and a calibrated sand-cast Alnico magnet. For more, visit www.seymourduncan.com.

PRS Guitars will open its Los Angeles showroom on a full-time basis  beginning March 1. Located at the CenterStaging facility in Burbank, the showroom will extend its artist relations’ efforts by offering musicians the opportunity to try various instruments in its intimate studio environment.

“We value the relationships we have with our artist endorsers and are excited to provide an additional outlet for artists to check out what PRS has to offer,” said Bev Fowler, Director of Artist Relations.

The showroom is staffed by Winn Krozack, Artist Relations Manager.

Surreal Amps is offering two new models; the Surreal LC 100 is a single-channel amp with a stripped down circuit and aesthetic, while the Classic² 18 Watt is a 6V6/18-watt version of the company’s Classic amp. Both are hand-wired at Surreal’s headquarters in California, using premium components. Custom tolex colors are offered at no extra charge. Learn more at www.surrealamplification.com.

Reverend Guitars and Naked Body Guitars have collaborated on a custom-finished instrument that will be raffled for charity April 28. The Reverend Warhawk II is painted to match a 1967 Mustang being sold to raise money for The American Cancer Society during this year’s Shelbyfest in Herman, Missouri. The program was begun by Mary Jean Wesche, editor of The Mustang Club of America’s Mustang Times, whose daughters have been fighting breast cancer. The car was rebuilt by R&A Motorsports, and Naked Body Guitars repainted the Warhawk II with the same PPG paint used on the car. For more, visit www.mysticalbuild.org/see-the-car.html.

Dan Toler, former guitarist for the Allman Brothers Band, Gregg Allman Band, and Dickey Betts’ Great Southern, died February 25. He was 65 and had been battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Toler started playing guitar at age 12, influenced by Johnny Smith, Chet Atkins, Lonnie Mack, and others. His first band, Bill Lakes and the Playboys, focused on R&B and blues, and in 1969 he joined The Melting Pot Band, which recorded for Capricorn. After members of that band left to join Betts’ group, Toler was also recruited. In ’79, he joined the re-formed Allman Brothers Band and recorded three albums with it. After it disbanded in ’82, Toler joined Gregg Allman’s band, which in ’86 recorded the hit single “I’m No Angel.”

In 2002, Toler re-joined Great Southern, then focused on various solo projects. In 2011, he announced that he had been diagnosed with ALS.

GFS Pickups’ REDactives are low-impedance noiseless pickups with internal preamplifiers. Each is voiced for each position and each position has a custom-voiced preamp. The system is available with a solderless installation kit. Learn more at www.guitarfetish.com.

Morris Holt, the blues singer and guitarist known onstage as Magic Slim, died February 21 at a hospital in Philadelphia. He was 75 and had been battling various health issues including bleeding ulcers.

A contemporary of fellow post-war electric-blues legends including Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, he tried to gain foothold in the Chicago music scene after moving there from his native Mississippi in 1955 as a bassist backing his mentor, Magic Sam. Finding the scene too competitive, in 1960, he moved back home, where he picked up small gigs and honed his guitar chops. He returned to Chicago in 1965, this time with brothers Nick and Douglas as his new rhythm section and going by the name Magic Slim and the Teardrops. The group quickly gained notoriety for Slim’s playing style and vibrato-laden tone, as well as his aggressive vocals. He recorded a few 45-rpm records for the Alligator label in the mid ’60s, then his first album, Born Under a Bad Sign, in 1977, after which he released nearly 40 albums for several labels over the course of his career. His final album, a group of covers called Bad Boy, was released in late 2012 on Blind Pig. Holt is survived by his wife, Ann, four sons, and one daughter.

Framus and Warwick have been determined to be carbon-neutral in production of their instruments. The term is based on the “CO2 footprint” concept, which allows companies to compensate for their CO2 output (and make adjustments to minimize it) by supporting environmental-protection projects ranging from construction of wind energy plants to water treatment and reforestation projects. Warwick-Framus supports an afforestation project in Gorongosa National Park, in East Mozambique.