Tag: features

  • Gibson’s 1958-’62 ES-335TD

    Gibson’s 1958-’62 ES-335TD

    The Redoubtable “Dot-Neck”

    Early every guitar conceived or designed by Ted McCarty during his tenure as president of Gibson (1948-’66) is
    today seen as exemplary of the company’s best work.

    McCarty, who launched the Les Paul model in 1952, followed with many more ideas that kept Gibson at the forefront of the industry, especially among jazz, big-band, and blues players. One of the more remarkable spurts of creativity occurred in 1958, when McCarty brought the world the Flying V and the Explorer. But along with these futuristic “failures,” that year also saw the introduction of the McCarty-conceived ES-335T – the guitar that would ultimately serve as one of the company’s most enduring models, with steady sales through the company’s well-publicized ups and downs. And it is still strong today.

    A true benchmark, the 335T (the T denoting “thinline”) was the result of inspiration derived from the willingness to listen to player complaints about acoustic-electric guitars like the Gibson ES-150, ES-135T, 225T, Byrdland, and others being difficult to amplify at stage-volume levels. McCarty, knowing that certain hollowbody elements did work well, wanted to offer a guitar that resonated like a hollowbody while sustaining like a solidbody and producing high-frequency response somewhere between the jazzer favorite L-5 and the pop-rock-preferred Les Paul. In developing the answer to these evolutionary steps, McCarty and his team invented a new style of guitar – the semi-hollowbody.

    The concept was to put hollow “wings” on a solidbody instrument. More precisely, it was based around the use of  a block of maple  glued to the guitar’s top and back. The block also served to anchor several key components that made solidbodies superior in terms of sustain and overall tone, including Gibson’s stud (a.k.a. stop) tailpiece combination from the Les Paul, along with the company’s Tune-O-Matic bridge and spiffy humbucking pickups, which had been introduced in ’57. Additionally, it served as the base for Gibson’s “solid-fitting” neck joint, which could not be used on true hollowbodies.

    Combine all those factors with Gibson’s first-ever double-cutaway body shape, and the company had an amalgam that proved immediately and hugely popular priced at $267.50 in standard sunburst finish. In fact, it proved popular enough that by the following year, Gibson was offering upmarket versions called the ES-345 and 355, with fancier hardware and options like stereo wiring, Varitone circuitry, parallelogram or block fretboard inlays, split-diamond peghead inlays, and multi-bound bodies, necks, and headstocks.

    Eventually, the 335/semi-hollow double-cutaway shape became Scotch-tape ubiquitous, as today semi-hollow guitars, regardless of their make or detail, are called “335-type” guitars.

    Further Facts

    • In late 1959, the ES-335T’s official designation was changed to ES-335TD to reflect its dual-humbucker layout.
    • In late 1960, Gibson shortened the 335’s pickguard, perhaps to bring it in line with the company’s hollowbody guitars (except the Byrdland).
    • By the early ’60s, custom-order 335s were being shipped with Bigsby or Vibrola tailpieces, Varitone circuitry, and other features, though none were “official” options.
    • In 1962, the dot fretboard markers were replaced with pearoloid blocks.
    • In late 64, the 335’s stud tailpiece was changed to a trapeze-style, effectively marking the end of what is today regarded as the “classic” 335 era.
    • Unbound f-holes play into the utilitarian ethos of the 335.
    • The stud tailpiece was borrowed from the Les Paul and made possible on the ES-335 by its internal maple block. Other carryover parts include humbucking pickups and the Tune-O-Matic bridge. All hardware is nickel-plated.
    • The rounded-double-cutaway shape was new to Gibson starting with the 335.
    • One-piece mahogany neck joins the body at the 19th fret.
    • Dot fretboard markers were used from the model’s inception until ’62.
    • Fretboard is rosewood with 22 frets. Scale length is standard Gibson 24¾”.
    • Tuners were standard Klusons with plastic buttons. These are prone to deterioration over time, so if you find a 335 with the original tuners, the buttons are likely very fragile.
    • Headstock dressing is basic, with no binding and pearloid logo and crown/“flower pot” inlay.
    • Input jack is top-mounted.
    • Pickguard is five-ply plastic with beveled edge.
    • Pickup selection is handled with the ubiquitous Gibson three-way, which activates the neck pickup or bridge pickup independently, or both of them in the middle position.
    • Controls are standard Gibson two-pickup arrangement; one Volume and one Tone for each.

    As Played By:

    • Larry Carlton
    • Eric Clapton
    • Freddie King
    • B.B. King
    • Chuck Berry
    • Eric Johnson
    • Alvin Lee
    • Lee Ritenour
    • Buddy Guy
    • Keith Richards
    • Warren Haynes
    • Robbie Krieger
    • Alex Lifeson
    • John McLaughlin
    • Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown
    • And many more…

     

    Special thanks to Walter Carter. For more info, check out Gibson Electrics: The Classic Years, by Andre Duchossoir, and Gibson Guitars: 100 Years of an American Icon, by Walter Carter.

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

  • Dano Redux

    Dano Redux

    A Danelectro Pro in tweed covering.

    In his book, Neptune Bound: The Ultimate Danelectro Guide, author Doug Tulloch charts the adventures of Nat Daniel as he rode the electric guitar boom of the 1950s and ’60s to fame and fortune – though neither was important to him.

    With Neptune Bound, Tulloch in part aims to correct Guitars From Neptune, a 1996 book on Danelectro which he co-authored but considers somewhat incomplete and not well-produced. Here, he adds content for collectors in the form of a section on identification and serial numbers, as well as catalog reproductions, recollections of those involved with the company first-hand (including musicians who used the instruments), a complete history of the company’s growth and rather sudden death, and dozens of period photos from the original factory.

    Daniel was a gifted inventor, innovative production engineer, and savvy marketer. His design principles and production methods were geared toward low cost, but not at the expense of playability. They may not have led to instruments which would stand up to the rigors of touring or any sort of “industrial” use, but they were perfect for the beginner, and priced so skittish parents could invest in their child’s musical future with no significant loss if things didn’t go as planned.

    Daniel’s arrangement with catalog retailers Sears and Montgomery Ward provided a huge boost for his approach to producing musical equipment. Where Fender and Gibson needed to mount annual (and expensive) exhibits at trade shows to secure orders, Daniel would receive orders from the two retailers who sold items via catalog and retail outlets in metropolitan areas. Much like today’s internet, those catalogs provided goods no matter a customer’s location or circumstance; whether you were in the snowy upper Midwest, New York, or Los Angeles, you simply filled out the form, wrote a check, and dropped it in the mail. A few weeks later, the postal service delivered a guitar to your door. Couple efficient production with low price, efficient distribution, and a product of reasonable quality, and you have the recipe for success.

    Howard Daniel in a photo shot for a family Christmas card in 1948.

    In the mid 1960s, Danelectro sold tens of thousands of guitars, amps, and associated instruments. One of the best-selling and historically noteworthy was the model 1448 (one-pickup) and 1449 (two-pickup) guitar with an amplifier built into its case. While not a completely original concept (it had been used by some lap steel manufacturers since the 1940s), its application to a Spanish guitar was new and different.

    One of the more amazing outcomes is that for all their low-cost, efficient design, early Danelectro instruments have held up. Not only are they collectible (and still inexpensive, on a relative basis), but many respond well to adjustment and are quite playable, in contrast to many import guitars from the ’60s.

    As Daniel’s son, Howard, points out in the first-person introduction to the book, Daniel’s primary interest was to produce instruments that were affordable and playable. In this excerpt, Howard outlines some of the approaches his father took in creating the guitars and production techniques that would eventually make the Danelectro just about everyone’s first guitar.

    Mollie, Nat, and Howard Daniel.

    • • • • • •

    The Danelectro years were marked by a series of innovations. Between 1949 and 1969, my dad secured a total of eight patents – on vibrato (tremolo, or, as he dubbed it, “Vibravox”) and reverberation (“reverb”) systems; a loudspeaker cabinet with inclined baffles (the “Acoustic Case,” designed to boost bass response by lengthening the sound wave path from the back to the front of the speaker); a combined bridge, tailpiece and manual vibrato for guitars; and the electric sitar, which faithfully reproduced the unique sound of the classic Indian instrument but could easily be played by any guitarist. My father also patented – way back in 1953 – an electric organ that foreshadowed a basic principle of some of today’s synthesizers, but reproduced true tones of many instruments in analog rather than digital fashion. He never put it into production, however.

    However, Nat Daniel did not patent most of his innovations, which also included:
    • the first six-string electric bass (1956).
    • the first 12-string electric guitar (1961 – the “Bellzouki,” developed in collaboration with Vinnie Bell and inspired by Greek bouzouki music from the film classic Never on Sunday).
    • a 31-fret “Guitarlin” (1958) with a deeply cutaway “longhorn” body that enabled a guitarist to play an extra 10 frets into the mandolin range.
    • an amplifier and speaker built into a guitar carrying case (this was done for Sears, which sold the Silvertone “amp-in-case” and guitar for under $50 as a set for novice players).
    • a “convertible” guitar that could be bought, inexpensively, for beginning students, as an acoustic, and later, with the purchase of a pickup kit, turned into a semi-hollow-body electric.
    • total shielding of guitar and amplifier circuits to protect against hum from neon signs, motors or other sources of electrical interference (he introduced this at a National Association of Music Merchants show, with Vinnie Bell demonstrating Danelectro guitars and amps while sitting right next to a glowing neon sign; the Danelectro products sounded crystal clear, while a specially assembled “Brand X” guitar, lacking the shielding, hummed noisily every time Vinnie plugged it in).
    • guitar necks that never warped because they were reinforced with twin steel I-beams.
    • the use of inexpensive, yet strong and stable composite materials in both amplifier cabinets (Homasote, particle board) and guitar bodies (Masonite, Formica).
    • a guitar neck-tilt adjustment system “nearly identical” to the one Fender used – except that Danelectro did it a decade earlier and didn’t bother to patent it.
    • a “master-slave” amp system with 300-plus watts of distortion-free power (back in 1956).
    • a hybrid vacuum tube/solid-state amplifier (1968).

    A Danelectro Baby Sitar.

    By beginning the design process by first seeking to understand the qualities that were most important to musicians, my dad was able to figure out how to incorporate these characteristics in his products at low cost without compromising quality. That, to take just one example, is why he employed inexpensive materials like Masonite and Homasote, which some people derided at the time. But these materials did the job for which they were intended perfectly well, and they held costs down.

    In his autobiography, Joseph N. “Joe” Fisher, Sears’ principal musical instrument buyer from 1959 to 1968, wrote that “Nat was an innovator who understood the principle of ‘rigid control of expense,’ an example of which was his innovative and inexpensive… magnetic pickups used in electric guitars. He made them from surplus (actually, they were not “surplus” at all) lipstick tubes, bought from a cosmetics manufacturer. He inserted the electronics in the tubes and produced the lowest cost guitar pickup in the industry.” Low-cost they may have been, but their innovative design makes them still highly sought-after by many guitarists today, who love their distinctive sound as well as their “cool” appearance. (Fisher admired my father for more than his innovativeness and ability to keep costs down. He also wrote, “I think the reason I respected people like Nat Daniel was because he disagreed when he thought my ideas were off base, even though I, representing Sears, was his economic lifeline.”)

    Nat Daniel waterskiing in 1960.

    Perhaps the best example of marrying high quality, low cost and innovative production methods was the Danelectro guitar neck. First, my father wanted a neck that would not warp or bow. He thought the traditional approach to this problem – an adjustable rod to counter the bowing effect of the strings – was a poor, “Band-Aid” solution. He wanted a neck that would simply never bow. So first he aged the poplar wood used for the necks in a climate-controlled drying room. Then, in building the necks, he reinforced them with twin steel I-beams. These necks just would not bow – Danelectro hardly ever received an instrument back for repair or replacement because of a complaint about the neck. (And guitars that came back for other repairs, even after many years, never exhibited bowing problems. )

    In addition to designing all of Danelectro’s products, my father also came up with manufacturing equipment and processes that saved time and money. In the case of guitar necks, for example, he kept costs low and quality high by designing and building a unique, proprietary machine to finish the surface of the fingerboards (Brazilian rosewood, a handsome, durable material) to the exacting standards required. Like so many other elements of the manufacturing processes he designed and developed, this device made it possible for employees who were not craftsmen to produce craftsmanlike results. The fingerboard-finishing machine was a horizontal, cylindrical frame, the length of a standard neck, with two large, circular wooden hoops forming either end. The outside rim of each hoop was fitted with clamps that allowed necks with unfinished, unfretted fingerboards to be laid lengthwise along the cylinder, fingerboards facing out, and secured at each end. The finishing was done automatically by a table saw. When the saw was turned on, a link to the cylinder started it slowly rotating along its axis while simultaneously drawing the saw almost imperceptibly along a finely threaded, revolving bolt running underneath the cylinder from one end to the other. After some time, the saw blade had passed along the entire length of each fingerboard, shaving it to precisely the right height and leaving a perfectly finished surface. The only manual work required was for an employee to clamp the unfinished necks in place, turn on the machine, and come back a couple of hours later to remove the necks and start another batch.

    The paint booth at the Dano factory, late 1965.

    As ingenious as my dad’s many amplifier and guitar innovations were, the manufacturing processes he developed were an essential element in producing high-quality products at low cost.

    MCA closed Danelectro in 1969, but my father never looked back. When, over a decade later, he learned, almost by chance, of the continuing interest in the major portion of his life’s work, he expressed surprise, gratification… and, characteristically, bemusement.

    Neptune Bound: The Ultimate Danelectro Guide is set for release in early 2008. Learn more at neptunebound.com. This article originally appeared in VG‘s Jan. ’08 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

  • Have Guitar Will Travel – 051 Featuring Greg V.

    Have Guitar Will Travel – 051 Featuring Greg V.

    Guitarist Greg V. has backed songwriter Bonnie Hayes, Randy Jackson, Ronnie Montrose, drummer Buddy Miles, and stepped into a certain legend’s shoes with Double Trouble. Now he’s talking to “Have Guitar Will Travel” host James Patrick Regan, discussing his first guitars – including a Les Paul Custom stolen from him in 1983 – and early influences. His career has taken him from Florida to San Francisco and now Nashville, where he recorded “Tailgate Troubadour” with help from session ace Tom Bukovac.


    Each episode is available on Stitcher, iheartradio, Tune In, Apple Podcast, and Spotify!

    Have Guitar Will Travel, hosted by James Patrick Regan, otherwise known as Jimmy from the Deadlies, is presented by Vintage Guitar magazine, the destination for guitar enthusiasts. Podcast episodes feature guitar players, builders, dealers and more – all with great experiences to share! Find all podcasts at www.vintageguitar.com/category/podcasts.

  • Selmer Truvoice

    Selmer Truvoice

    Selmer Truvoice Selectortone Automatic, ca. 1961

    Preamp tubes: one ECC83, two EF86
    Output tubes: two EL34, cathode-bias
    Rectifier: GZ34
    Controls: Channel I: Volume, Tone. Channel 2: Volume, Tone, six pushbutton tone selections, tremolo Speed and Depth
    Speakers: one 15″ Goodmans speaker
    Output: 30 watts RMS

    The more one digs into British amps from the formative years of tone – the late 1950s and early ’60s – the more one comes to realize that those English engineers really had it going on.

    Sure, major U.S. companies like Fender and Gibson laid a lot of the groundwork, and Chicago ampmaker Valco deserves a nod for its many funky models that were rebadged for other brands. But for originality of design and outright sonic virtue, it’s hard to beat what the seminal Brits were cranking out, pre-Plexi (and definitely pre-Hiwatt and Orange), in slightly shadowy corners behind the well-lit story of the early years of Vox or how Jim Marshall copied the 5F6A Fender Bassman circuit. Contemplate briefly, if you will, the exotic wonders of Watkins, WEM, Elpico, Fenton-Weill, and – this month’s featured artist, the glorious Selmer.

    In recent years, the Selmer brand has started to get some of the attention it deserves, partly because of skyrocketing Vox and Marshall prices and collectibility, partly in the wake of Jack White’s use of a Selmer Zodiac 30 to record the White Stripes’ Elephant album, and partly because people have finally realized just how cool these amps are. Although sometimes ghettoized as a B-list brand, Selmer is far from the Vox wannabe it is too often labeled as being. Many Selmers pack a degree of Vox jangle, crunch, and chime, certainly, while others come close to some Marshall chunk and roar, but they are an entity unto themselves. In fact, Selmer preceded original Vox manufacturer JMI in the instrument amplification business by nearly 20 years, having manufactured PA amplifiers at a premises on Charing Cross Road, London, since the mid 1930s (the RSA and Truvoice names were also used from the mid 1940s into the ’50s). By the mid ’50s – just as Vox was being founded, and well before Marshall amps were a glimmer in a young drummer’s eye – Selmer had moved firmly into guitar amplifiers and was one of the leading amplifier brands in the UK and Europe. Deservedly so, given the many rugged, efficient and great-sounding units that survive in working order today. Before they were lured on to endorse the sexier and better-promoted Vox range, The Beatles, The Animals and The Shadows all made much of their early noise through Selmer combos.

    While models like the Thunderbird Twin 30, Zodiac 30, and Treble’n’Bass 50 are more common on the vintage market today, the ’61 Truvoice Selectortone Automatic, here in its blue and gray rexine covering, is a prime example of what Selmer’s amplifier facility was achieving at the peak of the guitar boom in Great Britain. It’s a quality piece of workmanship by any standards, a clever and versatile design, and sounds fantastic for a wide range of playing styles. Rather than the four EL84s that Vox elected to use in the AC30, Selmer employed a pair of EL34s, perhaps a more obvious choice, which produced about 30 watts in this model. The output tubes are cathode-biased with no negative feedback, so they produce that classically rich, harmonically resplendent tone commonly referred to as “class A,” but do it a little differently than the archetypal AC30 template, given the EL34’s low-end raunch and high-end sizzle, and the wide, full bark of the big ceramic 15″ Goodmans speaker. All in all, it’s its own puppy, looks, tone, and design-wise, and a sweet-and-funky little growler for anything from blues to classic Brit-rock to cranked roots-rock in a small-/mid-sized club. It carries a great, sweeping, broad tremolo effect and screams alternative mojo from every angle.

    A glance at the control panel tells you right off the bat that this is something different, the six pushbuttons in Channel 2 that inspired the Selectortone name being the most alien feature. A look inside the back of the amp further emphasizes its unusualness. If anything, it’s reminiscent of some late-’40s/early-’50s American-made amps that had separate preamp and power amp sections (positioned at the top and bottom of the cab respectively), but the similarity ends there. The preamp section carries an ECC83 (a.k.a. 12AX7) and two EF86 pentodes in a circuit that uses one of the ECC83’s two triodes as the first gain stage for each of its two channels, with an EF86 for gain make-up after the tone stage in each channel. Channel 1 has a fairly traditional treble-bleed tone pot, which is also an option in Channel 2’s unusual EQ stage (the pushbutton labeled “Rotary Control”), but alongside it are pushbuttons for High Treble, Treble, Medium, Bass, and Contra Bass, which tap a range of capacitors in series with a small choke to provide preset Vari-Tone-like voicing options.

    In addition to the duet of EL34s, the power amp section carries another ECC83 (half of which is employed as phase inverter, the other half as tremolo oscillator) and a GZ34 rectifier tube. Although it’s a cathode-biased output stage, it’s worth noting that the rectifier is feeding a robust 445 volts DC to the grids of the EL34s, give or take a few volts, which makes for a punchy, firm sound, and more potential volume than many contemporary cathode-biased two-EL34 designs, which often tend to run the tubes at a softer and slightly browner 350 to 400 volts. Also, the rugged Partridge output transformer, a make most famous for its use in the classic Hiwatt designs, helps make the most of this potential wattage, being a “firmer” and somewhat more high-fidelity OT than those used in the majority of guitar amps. Be aware that early Selmers weren’t wired for U.S. voltages.

    Blistering volume, class A chime and dimension, great touch sensitivity and thoroughly original features and styling: the Selmer Truvoice Selectortone Automatic – a real dark horse of a scream machine.

    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‘s Jan. ’08 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

  • Mark Knoll

    Mark Knoll

    Despite spending three-quarters of his life as a professional musician, singing and playing blistering lead guitar in various groups, until very recently Mark Knoll hadn’t done a record full of original recordings. The reason, he says, is pretty simple. “I’m a procrastinator! I’ve wanted to do an all-original record for years. I’ve had the opportunity to play so many different gigs and love so many different styles that it took me awhile to figure out that I really needed to focus on what I love the most – guitar-driven rock and blues.”

    The new release from Knoll, High Time, serves up a good sampling of just that. The guitar is big and bold and right-in-your-face. The sound might bring to mind a mix of Robben Ford, Larry Carlton, and Eric Clapton when they’re really thinking guitar.

    While there’s tons of guitar on the record, Knoll was looking for more. “I listen to a lot of records where I love the guitar playing and grooves, but it’s the same old ‘Came home this morning, my baby left me’ kind of throwaway lyric. So I was going for depth in songcraft, and feel very good about the result.”

    A good example of how much went into the songwriting is “Fall Blues,” a poetic expression of the singer’s distaste for autumn with music based on Miles Davis’ “All Blues” with a I-VI-II-V at the end. “You just let the music kind of take you places,” Knoll said.

    Knoll, who has been writing songs for 15 years, has only been performing them for a few. “A lot of the earlier stuff was too personal or not universal enough,” he said. “It’s a learning process. I think it was Lennon and McCartney who said you’ve got to write a hundred or 200 songs and throw them away.”

    Knoll’s band includes Michael Pilhofer on drums and Charles Fletcher on bass, and he isn’t shy about expressing his luck getting Hammond veteran Ricky Peterson to play. “I was incredibly fortunate. He happened to have a week open between doing a John Mayer tour and a Stevie Nicks tour. His playing is amazing!”

    High Time was made at Makoche Recording Studios in Bismarck, North Dakota, where Mark says the room and engineer David Swenson really helped capture the sound he was after. The trip to Bismarck took Knoll back to growing up and playing guitar in bands in neighboring Mandan. Like many, he was in front of the T.V. the night the Beatles played on Ed Sullivan.

    “That was it for me,” he said. “I was hooked, and my ear has been glued to those fabulous records ever since – the sound of the electric guitar on ‘Day Tripper’ and ‘Nowhere Man’… It seemed almost magical to me.”

    Eventually, the Beatles led Knoll back to the music of Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, and Little Richard. Those influences coupled with having an older brother showing him the blues pentatonic scale got him off and running. He spent his teens discovering the blues through bands like the Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers, Johnny Winter, and ZZ Top, and points to a couple of pieces of music as really pointing the way. “I learned the Allman Brothers “You Don’t Love Me” note-for-note. Both Duane Allman and Dickey Betts’ parts. “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’” by the Stones, too. Those really helped me start digging into where all that old stuff came from.”

    Knoll moved to Los Angeles in 1977 and attended the Guitar Institute of Technology (now Musicians Institute) during its first year of operation. “That’s where I discovered Larry Carlton. I used to watch his quartet at Dante’s. He was absolutely blistering – the first guy I ever heard combine bebop lines with that blues passion.”
    After finishing at GIT, he moved to Minneapolis where he landed a gig with local blues legend, the late Doug Maynard.

    “That was a high-profile gig that opened up opportunities for me with local and regional bands like Lamont Cranston and T.C. Jammers. I also had the chance to back lots of oldies acts from Chuck Berry and Little Richard to the Drifters, Platters, and Coasters. So I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and making friends with lots of interesting music people.”

    Mark’s instruments of choice include a ’59 Gibson ES-345 and a ’69 Gibson Les Paul goldtop that’s been with him for quite awhile. “I bought it new when I was 12, and I put in Schechter mini-humbuckers awhile back.” He also has a custom-made Valley Arts offset-double-cutaway he obtained in 1988, and an Eric Clapton signature Fender Strat he really likes because of the versatility offered by its TBX mid-boost pot. His list of amps is sure to please any vintage-sound hound. He uses a late-’50s Fender Champ, a ’55 tweed Twin, a ’65 Gibson Invader he says is especially nice-sounding with its combination of 12″ and 8″ original Jensen speakers. He also has an early-’70s Ampeg V2 head (“think Stones’ Exile On Main Street sound”) and a Mesa Boogie Mark IV combo. He has recently started using a Vox Valvetronix AD-60VT modeling amp. “It’s the older model with the open back, and it’s really handy for gigs that require a lot of tonal versatility and effects. It does a nice model of the tweed Deluxe. So, what I use depends a lot on the gig, and it’ll vary.” His effects include a Luxury Drive from TC Jauernig that he says, “sounds great with the vintage amps. You can slam the front end of them really hard if you want a little more breakup.”

    As for the future, Knoll just plans to just keep playing. “I just want to go out and play my guitar.” With a laugh, he adds, “I’m gettin’ old, you know? There’s still plenty of time, but you don’t wanna waste any of it.”

    This article originally appeared in VG‘s Jan. ’08 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

  • From Badass to Bonamassa

    From Badass to Bonamassa

    cry baby joe bonamassa
    $169.99 (Cry Baby Bonamassa)
    Info: jimdunlop.com

    The latest from Dunlop includes a pair of overdrives and a fresh addition to the venerable Cry Baby wah family.

    The Custom Badass Modified O.D., latest addition to the MXR family of overdrives, offers multiple options for users to tweak their overdrive sound without overwhelming them with a mess of knobs and switches. The pedal has a tidy layout that’s aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. The Badass is equipped with four knobs – Tone, Output, Gain, and 100hz (the latter allows for a scoop or boost of mid-frequency tones). Its Bump button activates an alternate EQ that boosts low and middle frequencies.

    MXR Custom Badass Modified O.D Prices: $99.99 Info: jimdunlop.com

    The Way Huge Red Llama MKII is an update on the famed Red Llama from the ’90s, an overdrive notable for its tube-amp-like sound and responsiveness to picking dynamics. Don’t let the seeming simplicity of the pedal’s exterior fool you – most of the magic happens under the hood. The pedal’s circuitry is designed to model the tweed amps of yore and replicate its ferocity and volume. The Red Llama has controls for Volume and Drive, in/out, and power supply jacks, and an easy-access battery compartment on its bottom.
    The Cry Baby Joe Bonamassa Signature wah takes many of the desirable features of vintage wah pedals and incorporates modern improvements such as an output buffer and a true-bypass/non true-bypass switch (accessed via the bottom plate).

    We tested the pedals using a Fender Jeff Beck Stratocaster and a tube combo set to predominantly clean tones. The Badass Modified O.D. performed admirably. Its overdrive is highly nuanced, but still packs punch. The 100hz knob gives the pedal real versatility, and we particularly enjoyed the Bump function, which adds girth and makes the box great for power-chord riffing and stoner-metal tones. The pedal really comes to life when the Gain knob is dimed. Overall, the Custom Badass Modified O.D. is a fine buy for guitarists looking for an easy-to-use, flexible pedal.

    Way Huge Red Llama MKII
    $119.99 Info: jimdunlop.com

    The Way Huge Red Llama is surprisingly dynamic. Even at its highest gain settings, it remains fairly clean with a light pick attack. Highly responsive, the pedal’s overdriven sounds are excellent and harken to the straight-up era of rock music. It packs a lot of volume, which is great for driving even the cleanest amps into distortion. Overall, the pedal provides a range of tones that lean toward tweed – gritty, loud, and even a little rude. It’s not designed to get super heavy, but it’s a hip plug-and-play unit.

    The Bonamassa Cry Baby is also highly versatile, with a surprisingly wide sweep that can be useful for everything from funk to lead, to slow sweeps that add texture to arpeggiated passages. It also sounds great in mid-cocked position, which boosts the middle frequencies for leads.

    The folks at Dunlop continue to offer pedals that are quite good, and useful for guitarists of all stripes.

    This article originally appeared in VG‘s April 2012 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

  • Kim Simmonds

    Kim Simmonds

    Now in its 46th year, the Savoy Brown band, fronted by founder/lead guitarist Kim Simmonds, has returned to its blues-and-boogie roots following a foray as a power trio in which Simmonds served as lead vocalist. The band’s latest album, Voodoo Moon, includes new lead vocalist/violinist Joe Whiting, along with two other new members, bassist Pat DeSalvo and drummer Garnett Grimm.

    “It was physically exhausting for me, touring as a three-piece all the time,” Simmonds recently told VG. “So I asked Joe to sing to allow myself to concentrate on guitar, lessen my load, and have a world-class vocalist onboard. Once he was in the band, it gave me a different focus, and I started writing songs for Voodoo Moon.”

    The new album has nine songs, all composed by Simmonds, who also wrote lyrics for six of them; Whiting wrote lyrics for two. “I feel that helped the album tremendously,” said Simmonds. There’s one instrumental. Dealing with new members can affect arrangements, but Simmonds said the task went smoothly.

    “I usually arrange the songs in rehearsals with the band, and with their input,” he said. “Garnet Grimm and Pat DeSalvo had worked with me on my solo recordings, so we knew each other, and it was easy to work with them through the whole process.”

    Guitars used by Simmonds on Voodoo Moon included an ’80s Gibson Les Paul, an early-’70s Gibson ES-335, an ’80s Ibanez Destroyer II, and a “newish” Gibson Flying V.

    The album harkens to the band’s blues/rock roots, but one track, “Natural Man,” actually takes a sardonic look at blues songs – “I ain’t runnin’ with the devil, I ain’t bad to the bone…” as well as mojo blues items like “(High) John the Conqueroo.”
    “There are so many blues songs where the singer takes a macho pose, I thought it would be nice to take the opposite approach,” he explained. “I don’t think it’s been done before… very little, if at all.”

    “Too Much Money” interpolates a down-in-the-mix (but still noticeable) acoustic guitar covering the rhythm part, and he said the song almost didn’t make the cut. “With a lot of the songs on Voodoo Moon, it took hard work to find the correct approach,” Simmonds recalled. “‘Too Much Money’ was a little on the fence in terms of being a winner or not, and the acoustic guitar was just an underlay, until we took everything else off and realized that the acoustic bed track was all the song needed to make it work.”

    For decades, the guitarist has been noted for his slide work, and “She’s Got the Heat” lets him demonstrate his prowess on the new album.

    “I played the Ibanez Destroyer II in open E tuning,” he detailed. “I have ’50s Gibson Patent-Applied-For pickups in the guitar, and that makes all the difference!”

    Simmonds took lead vocals on two songs, “Look At The Sun” and “Round And Round.”

    “I wasn’t really intending to sing,” he explained. “But people liked my singing on the demos – I make demos of all the songs first, with a drum machine – so it seemed natural to put a couple of my vocals on to round off the album.”

    While he generally writes lyrics for his self-penned songs, followed by the music, Simmonds said the instrumental “24/7” was, “Music I had, but couldn’t find a lyric to suit. Voila, an instrumental!”

    The Savoy Brown founder is pleased with the release from the latest incarnation of the band, particularly since it involved a shift in musical direction, albeit to music that has worked best for Simmonds and associates.

    “It was hard work, making the album. And it’s very gratifying to see such great response,” he said. “If it is a success, I have to put it down to the people I am working with… They give me a wonderful foundation to realize my ideas.”

    In addition to helming Savoy Brown, Simmonds still has his acclaimed solo career to contend with, as well.

    “I’m working on the next solo album,” he said. “My producer, Greg Spencer, wants it to be an electric instrumental release. I’ve made some nice demos, but who knows? I’ve made my solo career all acoustic in the past, and I think I want to continue in that vein so as to have a completely different approach than with the band.”
    For the time being, however, there’s an ambitious schedule of touring lined up for Savoy Brown to promote Voodoo Moon.

    “We’ll tour the U.S. throughout 2012,” Simmonds noted. “We’ll do a tour of the U.K., Germany, and Switzerland in the spring, then tour Italy in late spring. We have a Polish blues festival and are looking at gigs in Czechoslovakia. Back in the U.S., I then play solo electric with Hippiefest in the summer with Johnny Winter, Edgar Winter, Leslie West, and Rick Derringer. I then take the band back to tour West Coast in the fall. In December, we’ll be back on the East Coast – Long Island, New York, Pennsylvania, etc. We need to do a DVD – fans keep asking for that – and we have two options to record one this year.”

    This article originally appeared in VG‘s April 2012 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

  • Roy Treviño

    Roy Treviño

    With his new self-titled album, South-Texas-based guitarist Roy Treviño accomplished his goals by simply being himself and letting the music flow.

    “I’d made a couple records before, but I’d put limitations on myself,” he said. “For instance, it had to be electric blues or whatever. As a result, I didn’t feel like those albums were really me, but were more like me studying all the great guitar players and wanting to show how I can play their style.

    “With this one, I just thought, ‘Whatever comes out, let it come out. I want to join this discussion.’ It seems like whenever you read about scientists, artists, philosophers, the up-and-comers want to join the conversation with their heroes. I admire all the great guitar players and wanted to join in it with my own voice. I decided I want to bring something to the party, too.”

    When he was very young, Treviño caught the guitar bug thanks to an uncle. “He played guitar and loved the blues,” he recalled. “He’d play these riffs and I’d thought he was the coolest guy on the planet – and that the guitar was the coolest thing. That’s when I first thought I had to play.” After picking it up, he started listening to the usual list of suspects, from Elvis and Chuck Berry to ’60s icons like the Beatles and Beach Boys. While learning on his own, he also spent time with teachers and eventually spent time at the National Guitar Summer Workshop.

    “Ronnie Earl was teaching, and I studied with him for three summers; just hanging out with Ronnie was very cool. The way he projects soul from the guitar, that’s the main thing I learned. The whole experience was cool. I remember one time this 12-year-old kid came into my room. We started playing and I thought to myself how talented he was. Well, it was Sean Costello. It was so unfortunate what happened to him.”

    Treviño has long had an eye for cool guitars, and the instruments he played on the album reflect that. He does own a lot and says they all get used. “It’s a different tool for a different application. When you have instruments that play well and have a great tone, it’s almost like they disappear and the music is just pure expression. The better the gear works, the better everything is. If I don’t have to think about the gear, then it’s working right and I’m just thinking music.” The instrumentals were played on a Tele through a ’69 Marshall PA 20 head “cranked to 10.” Scratch tracks were worked up on a ’34 Gibson L-4. For acoustic parts, he called on his ’63 J-50 and a Guild Jumbo. Other guitars were a ’50s Strat with a maple neck and a Gibson SG he tunes to open D for slide.

    An important part of his sound, live and in the studio, is the Klon Centaur. “That one is all over the record. It’s easily my favorite overdrive of all time. I absolutely love it”

    While he’s happy to have a lot of instruments, he has discovered that just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s great. “When I first started, I would blindly look for an old Strat and think it was going to sound great just because of its age. Then I started learning about what I like in an instrument and realizing there are special ones. I started to figure out what made them special to me – not just things like tone and sound, but how they played and how much they weighed, because I like lighter guitars.”

    Having a strong collection of guitars is one thing, but Treviño’s live gear is also pretty set. “I take a maple Strat, a 335-style guitar made by Collings called the I-35 that is just amazing for my humbucking sounds, and for slide I take along an SG tuned to open D. I have my pedalboard and a Fender Super Reverb – you can’t beat a good Reverb. That’s what’s on pretty much all the stuff on the record, too.”

    His album contains a lot of slide playing, both for solos and as integral parts of the songs. That discipline took some time. “Slide is so intimidating when you first try it. I always loved it, but it took me awhile. The big epiphany was the first time I had a guy shimmy the nut of the guitar, put some heavy strings on it, and tune it to an open chord. The first time after that I tried it I said to myself ‘Maybe this isn’t so hard when it’s set up right.’ After that, I just had to learn about the damping and stuff and I started studying all the players I love, like Duane Allman, Ry Cooder, Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Lowell George, and Derek Trucks, who is just brilliant.”

    Unlike plenty of other young guitarists in his home state, Treviño doesn’t live in the bigger areas like Austin, but is based where he spent most of his time growing up, a little town called San Juan, in the southern tip. “I live in comfortable way down here and when I have to, I just travel north. Right now, in fact, I’m gearing up for a tour and I’m very excited about that, because artistically, I feel like I’ve found my voice.”

    This article originally appeared in VG‘s April 2012 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

  • Buddy Whittington

    Buddy Whittington

    Though his status as a member of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers has changed since VG last talked to him, guitarist Buddy Whittington has forged ahead with a solo career.

    In ’07, he was lead guitarist for Mayall, but the entire band was “kicked out of the nest” the following year. “I’d been there for 15 years – longer than any other guitar player,” Whittington said. “It was a profitable, fruitful experience, and in his younger years, John became known for changing his band at the drop of a hat. We lasted a lot longer than any of us figured we would, and I guess he figured it was time for new blood. Fair enough. I was always proud to be a Bluesbreaker and tried to give it my best.”

    For his part, Mayall is on record as pronouncing Whittington, “…probably the greatest Bluesbreaker of them all.”

    “I remember reading it in an interview with Mr. Mayall, and I really kind of cringed,” the guitarist recounted. “But yes, he was complimentary of me several times in print.”
    He recently debuted his second solo album, Six String Svengali, and it’s replete with intriguing guitar tones and wry, insightful lyrics. The first track, “Back When The Beano Was Boss,” underlines the album’s orientation toward lovers of great guitar sounds. Vintage-guitar enthusiasts may identify with the second song, “Deadwood And Wire,” which alludes to an encounter with a guitar salesman who acted like a rock star.

    “I have a couple of old guitars I’ve owned for years,” Whittington noted. “They were just used guitars when I got ’em – working instruments – and the whole vintage sensibility has always seemed a little obtuse to me: ‘How many pickguard screws does yours have?’”
    Sardonic attitude aside, the song has a huge, twangy guitar sound thanks to a Scott Lentz guitar.

    “The Lentz HSL is an example of a new guitar where Scott has refined all the things we like about the old models with a fresh-while-familiar approach to the classics,” he detailed. “It has Scott’s proprietary L-90 pickup in the neck position, which is his take on the Gibson P-90, and his B’Kastr lead pickup, which is familiar to all of us bolt-neck biscuitboard bangers, but custom-wound to the weight and density of the neck and body wood. It has a Volume control for each pickup and a master Tone.”

    Whittington used his mongrel ’63 Fender Stratocaster and a ’69 Gibson Les Paul Custom for most of the solos, and also wielded a ’67 Gibson ES-335.
    “I call that the Cigar Box Full of Cement, because of the dry, middy kind of sound it gets,” he said of the 335. “I’d take the trapeze (tailpiece) off and put a stop bar on it for a little better sustain and stability, but B.B. King autographed it for me years ago and I don’t want to obscure his famous signature. I also have a really nice Lentz with a maple fretboard that sees a lot of use; it’s the one I played on the John Mayall 70th Birthday Concert DVD.”
    Amplifiers used on the album include several Dr. Z models – KT45, EZG50, and MAZ18, as well as a Marshall JYM45 head.

    The lead break on “My World Revolves Around You” has a tuned-down guitar sound in one channel and a slide guitar in the other.

    “That’s a Jerry Jones baritone,” he said. “I love it, but a little goes a long way, so you have to use it judiciously. The slide part is the black Les Paul through the KT45. I wrote that years ago for my lovely spouse. It always reminded me of ’70s AM radio I listened to a lot when I was growing up.”

    “Ain’t Got The Scratch” is an obvious ZZ Top tribute, and “Texas Trios” is about exactly what the title says, as Whittington cites legendary Lone Star State players and bands.
    “I Had To Go See Alice” (with its bizarre subject of male performance products) has Whittington channeling Bill Kirchen on “Hot Rod Lincoln,” but he says the lick was actually inspired by a Cordell Jackson tune, and Whittington played it a ’70s Fender Telecaster with Amalfitano pickups.

    The album’s only instrumental, “For Crystal Beach,” might be described as a Shadows-like samba, and is a paean to a favorite family vacation spot devastated by Hurricane Ike.
    “That tune is in A flat because of the way the open strings work on it,” Whittington said. “The groove just reminds me of spending a carefree week at the beach, with our kids and their cousins playing in the sand and the sun, when I got a rare summer week off the road. The working title was ‘A-Flat Tire,’ but I just felt I should dedicate to all of the tough-as-nails Texans down there on the Bolivar Peninsula that lost everything in the hurricane.”
    Today, Whittington plays Europe more than the U.S., and has a cadre of musicians in England who tour with him. And he plans on staying active, noting how he wants to “…keep paying the bills doing it. Non-smoking venues with running water in a dressing room not marked ‘Men’ on the door would be a plus!”

    This article originally appeared in VG‘s April 2012 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

  • Dave Jenkins

    Dave Jenkins

    Anyone who listened to Top 40 radio in the late ’70s and early ’80s is familiar with Pablo Cruise. The band recorded two Top 10 hits and five that broke the Top 40, mixing breezy rock, pop, soul, and even a bit of jazz. Three original members, including guitarist David Jenkins, recently re-formed and released a CD/DVD titled It’s Good To Be Live, which shows a band playing as well as ever.

    A reunion of sorts proved to Jenkins it was time to start playing again.
    “Stephen Price (the band’s drummer) was getting married, and told his wife-to-be how he’d like her to see the band one time. So we put together a gig, and Cory (Lerios, keyboardist), Steve, and I had such a great time we wanted to do more. And I saw why it worked in the first place; the songs hold up, and when you put the original guys behind them, you feel the chemistry that made it happen.”

    Jenkins’ journey to the guitar came about after flirtations with piano. The lessons stopped because he didn’t, in his own words, “Do the hard work.” He also experimented with several band instruments in school. Like so many of his generation, the Beatles’ appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” played a defining role. “That’s when I got a guitar,” he said. “I just knew it was what I wanted to do. My father hated that! He was worried my life was going to go down the tubes instead of getting a real job.”
    While attending high school, Jenkins spent time in local bands, and attended one term in college before a friend one day asked him to ride to California. Jenkins’ parents were opposed, but, “I had an Epiphone guitar and amp, a suitcase full of clothes, and four dollars.”

    On their second day in Cali, Jenkins went to a guitar store in San Carlos. “The owner asked if I could teach. I’d only been playing a couple of years, but I told him I could. He ran me through a 30-second audition and told me I could move in with his son and start the next day. Well, the owner was Leonard Hart and the son was Mickey Hart, who would become the drummer for the Grateful Dead. He was just back from the Air Force and taught drums at the store.” The store manager, Gil Draper, eventually opened a store in Palo Alto, and asked Jenkins to come along. “He offered me what Leonard was paying me and 30 percent off anything in the store. So I went to work for Gil.”

    During this time, the seeds were planted for what would become Pablo Cruise. “Cory, Steve, and I started playing together in 1970. They took off to play with Sal Valentino, in Stoneground. In ’72, Cory told me they needed a bass player. So we started playing, and it worked for awhile, but we decided to put together our own band. We started writing and playing, and we got lucky. We had a good manager, were signed to A&M Records, and we had the right songs and production.”

    Jenkins’ solos highlighted most of the band’s songs – often, as hook-laden as the choruses.
    “I think in melodies. I appreciate hot-licks guys, but you can’t improve on what George Harrison did because the melodies are there. In my solos, I try to capture part of the song rather than just ripping through licks.”

    For much of the new set, Jenkins played a Strat. “Put a Tele in my hands and I’m lost, but a Strat makes sense to me.” His main guitar is a white Custom Shop model and he has an older one at home. In Pablo Cruise, he also used a Gibson ES-335. “In the late ’70s, we were on tour with the Doobies, and Pat Simmons and I went out to a store in the suburbs of Chicago. I bought two guitars, he bought three.”

    He plugs them into an old Mesa Boogie Mark IV. “I’ve had it about 25 years, and recently took it to Mesa for some work. They told me, ‘Never get rid of this amp!’”
    The band hopes the new release catches on. “It was just something we wanted to do – chronicle the band and see if we can generate a little more excitement.”

    This article originally appeared in VG‘s April 2012 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.