DGN Guitars’ Dan Neafsey is known mostly for his guitar craftsmanship, notably the Kalos and Terrapin models inspired by Jerry Garcia’s one-off axes, as well his Paragon series (VG, August ’11).
Ever the tone-tinkerer, Neafsey also makes pedals, pickups, amps, and intra-guitar circuits. His latest is the Blaster, a pedal based on the booster Garcia built into the guitars known as Alligator and Wolf.
Designed to evoke the tone of early Jerry Garcia exemplified on cuts like “Dark Star,” “Franklin’s Tower,” and “The Music Never Stopped,” the Blaster is stone-simple – just a knob for Gain designed to react with your amp and playing attack. Naturally, a tube amp will give you a more-organic experience, but the Blaster also improves the sonics of solid-state and modeling amps (DGN also offers the Blaster as internal circuit for those who don’t mind modding their guitars).
Running on a 9-volt battery or standard power supply (not included), the Blaster can be used as a “set it and forget it” preamp to liven overall tone, or specifically as a booster for solos. There’s no wrong way to use it, but in our tests with both a tube Vox clone and a modeling amp, it simply made a flabby tone sound better.
While inspired by Jerry Garcia’s beefy-but-none-too-overdriven sound, the Blaster can be used for any guitar (or bass) style and music.
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Just when you think you’ve seen everything, along comes Walrus’ The Melee: Wall of Noise, a pedal with a built-in joystick, perfect for guitarists raised on video games. Billed as a combination distortion/reverb unit, the joystick tweaks a variety of ’verb flavors including ambient, octave, and reverse, plus otherworldly effects hitherto unknown to humankind.
Plugged in, the Melee offers a Volume knob that simultaneously increases gain, plus switches for Tone, Decay, and one that feeds distortion into reverb or flips the signal path for reverb into distortion. The joystick determines distortion depth (up and down) vs. reverb mix (left and right). There’s a Bypass button, and you step on it and the Sustain button to jump between reverb types.
Sonically, buckle up and prepare for swishy, haunting, and reversed sounds. For a drier crunch, push the joystick closer to 10 or 11 o’clock, while 1 or 2 o’clock bring on a drenching of wetness. The reverse reverbs are especially intriguing, offering volume-swell sounds from under the sea. The Melee is powerful, so you’ll need to be judicious in dialing up effects, lest your guitar get swallowed by a tidal wave of tone.
While the Melee is a specialty pedal and not for everyone, if you’re a daring sound explorer looking to push the limits, it could become critical to your unique tone.
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Paying homage to low-powered tube amps from yesteryear, the Supro Amulet was designed to re-create classic Supro sounds with a few added features.
The Amulet is a 15-watt/Class A 1×10 with tube-driven reverb, tremolo and three-position attenuator for 15-, 5-, or 1-watt operation. Bass, Treble and Mids round out the EQ section, and there’s a single Volume control.
Plugging in a Telecaster on the 15-watt setting with the Volume at noon, it’s easy to dial in open, edge-of-breakup tones with the help of a 10″ Celestion Creamback. Rolling back the guitar’s Volume yielded warm, bouncy clean tones that maintained just enough girth and feel to play leads. Past 12 o’clock, you won’t get much more volume, but a bit more breakup and compression. Switching through lower wattage settings, the tone stayed consistent with more compression at each step. Playing on the 5-watt setting at bedroom volume had a very satisfying feel while not being too loud. The Amulet has surprising headroom and doesn’t break up with single-coil pickups until its Volume control nears 4 o’clock; when dimed, you get medium-gain breakup with the textured crunch that made Supros so desirable. Breakup came much sooner with a PAF Les Paul, accompanied by a thicker overall tone with more gain. For higher gain or singing leads, you’ll want to add your favorite dirt pedal.
The stars of the Amulet’s show are the tube-driven Reverb and Tremolo. With Reverb and Depth at 1 o’clock and Speed at 9 o’clock, it drips with lush, dreamy tones ranging from country and rockabilly to psychedelia and old-school soul. With Reverb dimed and Speed nudged up a bit, you might fall into a hypnotic trance. Reverb and tremolo sound great at any setting with a thickness that you can feel thanks to the tubes.
The Amulet is a fantastic vintage-voiced amp that re-creates retro guitar tones with authenticity. Whether your playing small clubs, recording, or just in the bedroom, you’ll have no problem capturing classic Supro tone at any volume. It’s one of those amps you don’t dial-in forever to find a sweet spot because they’re all sweet.
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Price: $159 (Mariner), $149 (Orbit), and $159 (Agena) www.maestroelectronics.com
Everyone loves modulation and filter pedals – those swishy, soupy sound makers that doll up a guitar’s signal. Maestro is now offering a new trio with the Agena Envelope Filter, Orbit Phaser, and Mariner Tremolo.
The Agena differs from an auto-wah, which specifically replicates a wah pedal; a more-subtle beast, an envelope filter reacts to the strength and speed of your pick attack and knob settings. The Agena’s controls are minimal – Sense, Attack, Decay, and a Hi/Lo switch – but effective. With the knobs set at 12 o’clock, expect more wah flavors, perfect for replicating Eric Clapton’s chunky power chords in “White Room.” Turn it up higher and head into the hip tone Jerry Garcia used on “Shakedown Street” and other Grateful Dead jams. The Hi/Lo switch lets you decide which frequency range to accent.
The Orbit Phaser harkens to the Maestro PS-1 of 1971, with a smaller footprint. Again, it’s stone-simple to use via Width (intensity), Feedback, and Rate (speed) knobs, plus a 6-Stage/4-Stage switch. Plug in and start twiddling; put the knobs around noon for classic soft/smooth phasing (think Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Runnin’”), or crank up the Rate knob for otherworldly, Leslie speaker-type sounds. The Stage switch shifts tone center to your preference.
The Mariner Tremolo contains the classic volume-pulsing effect of the ’60s surf and garage-rock scene. The box has Depth, Shape, and Speed knobs, but the Harmonic/Classic switch effectively gives you two effects in one; Classic is surf city with all the soft, undulating waves you’d want for California tones, while Harmonic provides a tasty Jimi Hendrix-style UniVibe sounds for when you want to get all groovy and psychedelic.
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
In the solar system of amplifier badassery, the name Mesa/Boogie needs no introduction. From the mellifluous guitar sounds of Carlos Santana to the hard-charging intensity of Metallica, Mesa continues to leave its mark on the world, having achieved iconic status.
The company’s Badlander amplifiers, inspired by its famous Dual Rectifier, are known for their aggressive midrange, rich harmonics, and tight low-end. The latest addition is the Badlander 25 1×12. Designed to appeal to fans of British flavor and American-voiced gain, it’s small, produces a loud 25-watts, and uses a silicon-based rectifier. Best of all, it’s a straightforward combo appealing to rockers with visions of sonic domination.
Its two-channel layout includes Clean, Crunch, and Crush modes using toggle switches or a footswitch. Tone sculpting knobs include Master Volume, Presence, Bass, Midrange, Treble, and Gain. Five 12AX7s and two EL84 power tubes complement an effects loop and a toggle switch that alternates between Mesa’s Dyna-Watt 25-watt Class A/B Pentode for “Maximum power, punch, and clarity” and a 10-watt Class A/B Triode for what Mesa calls “A more liquid feel at lower volumes.” A CabClone IR interface allows recording with or without the cab, using any of eight rectifier closed-back and open-back cab IRs from the CabClone catalog. Other touches include an XLR output, cab selector for each channel, Level control, and outputs for USB and headphones. For creating physical sound live into a room, there’s a 12″ Celestion Creamback 65. The complete package weighs in at 40 pounds.
Using a Les Paul, Strat, and a tricked-out Tele, the Badlander 25 proved to be a rock-and-roll machine. While the timbral menu can go from a facsimile of chicken pickin’ country cleans to saturated head-butting metal, the sounds it makes in-between are the most useful for the genre-switching recording guitarist. The footswitch is super-effective, especially because each channel has EQ and Master Volume.
Gritty Rolling Stones rhythms morph into shred with scandalous sustain. Unfortunately, the Badlander 25 lacks reverb, but its handy effects loop accomodates. It’s a tiny, loud, power-switching behemoth stuffed with modern features and muscle. A demon of a practice amp, it’d also make an exciting addition for the small stage or recording guitarist.
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
When Bad Cat Amplifiers trimmed its line to just four models with modern circuits, some wondered if they’d capture the magic of the hand-wired wonders that built the company’s reputation.
Their new flaghip is the Black Cat, a 20-watt/two-channel 1×12 combo with a pair of EL84s and a custom 12″ Celestion Vintage 30. While its name is familiar, this is a complete redesign, not just an update. Aesthetically, it’s classic Bad Cat, with smooth black tolex, chickenhead knobs, and an illuminated logo. Front-mounted controls are Treble, Bass, and Cut along with Volume and Master for each channel, Reverb, and Speed and Intensity for the tremolo function. The back panel has inputs for a buffered effects loop, line out, and footswitch.
Plugging a Telecaster into Channel 1 (clean), with Volume at 9 o’clock, Master at 1 o’clock and all EQ at noon yielded beautiful, chimey, clean tones with punch, clarity, and outstanding string-to-string definition. With Volume and Master beyond noon, tone got crunchy, with more punch and compression.
Backing down the guitar’s Volume brought back clear, chimey tones, even with the Master dimed. No need to worry about headroom because the Black Cat cleans up beautifully. Channel 2, with its higher gain and sustain, yields smooth tones at lower gain settings. With the Volume cranked up and Master to 3 o’clock, a Les Paul Junior sang with tons of juicy sustain and harmonics. Regardless of how much gain is thrown at this amp, it stays clear and musical with a percussiveness that makes it fun to play.
Switching back to Channel 1 and engaging the Reverb and Tremolo creates a different world of tones. Set Speed to slow, Intensity around noon, and Reverb at 2 o’clock and tones emerge thick, rich, and addictive. The digital reverb rivals many spring and tube-driven circuits – it’s that good.
The new Black Cat brings the vintage-meets-modern features, tone, and feel that have brought so many players to the Bad Cat name.
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Kim Simmonds and his ES-345 with Savoy Brown, 1974.
Leader and guiding spirit of Savoy Brown, Kim Simmonds was an architect of the ’60s British Blues movement. A powerful influence on countless guitarists, he epitomized the form and set its evolution to blues-rock, progressive, hard rock, and heavy metal.
Born December 5, 1947, in Wales, Kim Maiden Simmonds (see our remembrance in the March ’23 issue) took up guitar at 13. Inspired by ’50s rock and roll, particularly Bill Haley’s “Dim Dim the Lights,” and brother Harry’s record collection, he taught himself Elmore James and Chuck Berry riffs. Opting for Lightnin’ Hopkins over the Shadows and the blues’ harder edge, he absorbed the sounds of Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters, the Kings (B.B., Albert, and Freddie), and Buddy Guy as well as jazz guitarists Billy Butler and Grant Green, and developed his own amalgam. He left school at 16 and in ’65 formed Savoy Brown Blues Band, named from splicing America’s Savoy Records to the word Brown connoting an earthy grounded quality. Blues-rock guitar came of age at this time and attained primacy in clubs like the Marquee, Nag’s Head, and Klook’s Kleek, exemplified by Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck – and Simmonds.
Savoy Brown was signed to Decca in ’67 and recorded Shake Down with a biracial lineup reflecting Simmonds’ view of transcending color barriers. As befit the genre, he relied heavily on reinterpreted blues classics including “Ain’t Superstitious,” “Let Me Love You Baby” (Willie Dixon) and “Rock Me Baby” (B.B. King) covered within a year by Beck on Truth, plus a Beano-approved spin on Freddie King’s instrumental “High Rise” and two slow blues that rivaled Bluesbreakers outings for intensity and feel. Getting to the Point (’68) boasted a heavier sound with greater attention to dynamics and textures, different personnel including guitarist Dave Peverett and vocalist Chris Youlden, originals by Simmonds, Peverett, and Youlden, and only two blues covers. Dixon’s “You Need Love” was given a dramatic guitar-driven treatment with bass and drum solos presaging progressive hard rock, while the Simmonds-penned title track expounded on Freddie King’s catchy instrumentals and “Give Me a Penny” and “Taste and Try, Before You Buy” portended the transition of Brit blues into hard rock and metal. The trend continued into ’69 with Blue Matter and accelerated with the U.S. hit single “I’m Tired.” The all-original A Step Further delivered more diversity in funk, R&B, and light jazz allusions, sporting the live 22-minute “Savoy Brown Boogie.” A concert favorite acknowledging Hooker, it embodied their inherent boogie bent that was not lost on Peverett, Tony Stevens (bass) and Roger Earl (drums), who would depart in ’71 to form Foghat. 1970 saw all-original albums Raw Sienna and Looking In, the latter bearing even greater diversity and expanded through psychedelic rock undertones, acoustic/electric timbres, Hendrix-inspired wah colors, funk grooves, jazz influences, and extreme stereo panning effects in “Money Can’t Save Your Soul” and “Leavin’ Again.” “Gypsy” is an atmospheric ethnic-tinged folk-guitar instrumental. The album spent 19 weeks on U.S. charts and reached #39.
British blues built on guitar innovations of the Kings and prominent Chicago, Texas, and West Coast players. “Rock Me Baby” (from Shake Down) is a case in point. There, the B.B. King standard was reimagined through Savoy’s blues-rock prism. This excerpt (1:28-1:56) depicts Simmonds’ lead-guitar approach in soloing over classic 12-bar blues in A and reveals he had his own way with reinterpreting familiar blues elements. Note the abundant triplet lines, variety of string bends and vibrato, pentatonic melodies and arpeggio shapes reshaped throughout. He adds more-colorful swing-blues gestures with 6th and 9th tones in measures 5, 9, and 10, applies B.B.-inspired chromaticism in 5, and consistently uses Am pentatonic sounds over D7. The cadence line in 12-13 is his reworking and expansion of a Chicago-blues cliché.
A lineup largely recruited from Chicken Shack, including Paul Raymond and Dave Walker, lent a different sound and attitude to Street Corner Talking, cited by Simmonds as his best early work. The album sported originals (the hit single “Tell Mama” foreshadowed Foghat’s boogies) and two covers of Temptations and Howlin’ Wolf tunes. Now an institution, Savoy Brown served as portal for numerous artists in blues-rock, prog and metal including King Crimson, Yes, Fleetwood Mac, Genesis, Black Sabbath, Humble Pie, UFO, and Foghat. Hellbound Train reached #32 in America and represented a circle closing in Savoy’s “classic” period – and the beginning of a more-commercial phase. Simmonds shared vocal duties with Walker and Raymond, the repertoire grew more divergent and rock-oriented, influences were less obvious, and traditional blues references were minimal. They toured extensively, supported by Rod Stewart and the Faces in America in ’72, and headlined over Kiss and AC/DC. Henceforth, Simmonds routinely handled more lead vocals with a succession of singers like Jackie Lynton, Miller Anderson, Stan Webb, Ralph Morman, Speedo Jones, Pete McMahon, Phil McCormack, Nathaniel Peterson, and Joe Whiting for Savoy albums from 1973 through 2013. The music remained high-quality but stardom eluded the band due to personnel changes and inconsistent output, though Witchy Feelin’ (2017) made #1 on the Billboard blues chart. Simmonds recorded five acoustic and electric solo albums, starting with Solitaire in ’97, and pared Savoy down to a trio; its most stable lineup was with bassist Pat DeSalvo and drummer Garnet Grimm. Savoy Brown’s 41st and final album, Ain’t Done Yet, was released in ’20.
STYLE
Simmonds emerged from the musical landscape that yielded the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, Beano triumvirate of Clapton-Green-Taylor, Jeff Beck Group, and Led Zeppelin, and was among the earliest U.K. guitarists to embrace the instrumental vitality and soulfulness of electric blues. He delineated its two principal factors as blues music – a style and feeling, as well as a mindset. In Savoy, he expanded both. A diverse player, composer and bandleader, he applied variants of traditional blues song forms, timbres, and approaches in the repertoire and adhered to its essence with call-and-response phraseology, riff themes, reliance on I-IV-V melody, blues-scale melodic language, and idiomatic rhythmic settings of shuffles, 12/8 slow blues, boogies, boogaloo and 4/4 R&B, and rock grooves. Traditional elements are evident in Savoy’s Chicago-based instrumentation, the Delta-inspired slide work and chording in “Honey Bee,” references to lead-guitar techniques of the Kings, Otis Rush, Hubert Sumlin, and Albert Collins in improvised solos, and Hopkins-style country-blues comping (that similarly inspired Scotty Moore’s and James Burton’s rockabilly) in “Doin’ Fine.” Simmonds’ moments in slow blues like “It’s All My Fault” and “Flood in Houston” evoke the same Buddy Guy-informed soulfulness purveyed by Slowhand in the “E.C. is God” era. Moreover, the overdriven tone, early use of deliberate feedback (“Doormouse Rides the Rails,” “Shake ’Em on Down”) and aggressive attack emphasized the Brit-rock factor in his updated blues hybrid. Boogie surfaced notably in “Savoy Brown Boogie.” There, traditional Hooker influences were blended with rock and roll in the medley that included “Feels So Good” (Chuck Willis), “Whole Lotta Shakin’” (Jerry Lee Lewis), “Little Queenie” (Berry), “Purple Haze” (Hendrix) and a quirky insertion of the novelty tango number “Hernando’s Hideaway.”
Boogie remained a constant in Savoy’s playlist, personified in Boogie Brothers, Kings of Boogie, and “Jaguar Car.” More than an affectation, it reflected lessons from legendary blues pianist Champion Jack Dupree, who counseled Simmonds at 19 to “play boogie-woogie well” as job security for a professional bluesman. Funk also informed Simmonds’ style. James Brown and Al Green, early influences, inspired the ubiquitous R&B side of Savoy, while a modern Hendrix funk-rock approach distinguished “Waiting in the Bamboo Grove” and “Looking In.”
“Taste and Try, Before You Buy” (1967) was, Ronnie Wood said, “way ahead of its time” – a powerful endorsement from one who experienced the scene firsthand. This example (1:05) from the solo argues the case dramatically. Simmonds adopts a harder driving feel and sound characterized by strong rhythmic intentions, greater use of the high register and a heavier sustaining tone over the funk-rock vamp. His licks played on a single E7 chord are firmly pentatonic and make use of string bends and riff-based patterns. Check out the rhythmically displaced figures in the ostinato of measures 4-6 as well as the 16th note flurries in 10. These are contrasted by a slow bend-and-release passage in 7-8 and unison bends in 9. His lines embody the mutated and transplanted blues elements that defined hard rock in its earliest incarnation.
Diversity marked Savoy’s evolving blues-rock style. “Lost and Lonely Child” wouldn’t be out of place on a Pink Floyd record, “Poor Girl” anticipated ’70s hard rock, and gospel was freely merged with Brit pop in “Troubled by These Days.” Simmonds’ jazz influences are apparent in the Wes-styles octaves of “Leavin’ Again” and swing feel and modal note choices in “Sunday Night.” He was drawn to instrumentals as a child after hearing “Take Five,” “Green Onions” and “Memphis,” and Savoy records consistently featured instrumentals beginning with “High Rise,” “Getting to the Point” and “Sunday Night.” His aspirations reached a pinnacle 50 years later with Jazzin’ on the Blues, an instrumental solo album that displayed his painting talents in a self-portrait on the cover and presented his acoustic and clean-toned electric playing in blues, light jazz, Latin, and new-age settings. “Crying Guitar” was the closer of his final album, an aptly-titled instrumental showcasing his post-Peter Green/Gary Moore delivery of a modern blues ballad, and a fitting musical epitaph.
ESSENTIAL LISTENING Street Corner Talking, A Step Further, Looking In, Getting to the Point, Shake Down, and Hellbound Train are important documents of Savoy’s Brit blues ascent. Serious listeners are directed to sample their post-’72 studio albums, live recordings, Simmonds’ solo releases, and Ain’t Done Yet.
ESSENTIAL VIEWING
Savoy’s live performances from the Rainbow, Rockin’ Blues Festival, “Hellbound Train,” “Tell Mama,” “Goin’ to the Delta,” and sets from Sellersville, Pennsylvania, and at the Iridium provide an illuminating online journey.
Unlike his Beano/Yardbirds colleagues, Simmonds included elements of jazz in his repertoire, lending a sophisticated flair to Savoy’s blues-rock proceedings. “Sunday Night” is exemplary – a melange of cool jazz and West Coast blues over a swinging minor-mode groove that evokes Van Morrison’s “Moondance” or Kenny Burrell’s “Midnight Blue.” His solo features a number of borrowed jazz ideas from broader influences, as heard in this passage at 1:19. The chord punches in 1, 4, and 9 are common to Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell while the minor-blues melodies, bop-oriented phrasing and syncopation throughout recall Grant Green. The opening line incorporates a bebop enclosure (F-D#-E) that has bseen found in Joe Pass’ improvisations. Note the winding triplet line in 5-6 that makes use of freely combined E minor modes with C and C# tones. These ingredients, plus Simmonds’ cleaner tone and lighter touch, create a genuine jazz impression in the instrumental track.
SOUND
Simmonds’ first professional guitars were a blond ’65 Telecaster, red early-’60s Gibson SG and sunburst ES-345, but he began to favor Les Pauls, using various sunburst and goldtop Standards and Customs, on which he regularly changed pickups. For slide, he used a sunburst ’50s Junior (“Tell Mama”). He’s closely identified with a mahogany late-’60s Flying V, and in the ’70s used a sunburst ’64/65 Strat with maple board and transition logo, and an early-’60s cherry ES-355 with Bigsby. He later played an ’80s Porter custom neck-through with a Bigsby and P-90s. His main Les Paul from ’88-’95 was a cherryburst ’73 Custom (see this month’s “Classics” feature) heard on tours and albums including Kings of Boogie, Live and Kickin’, Let it Ride, and Bring It Home. It was sold after he acquired a ’94 Standard.
Occasional guitars included a blond Gibson Byrdland (Jazzin’ on the Blues), figured-maple blond ’99 Roger Bacorn, white Zion with tortoiseshell guard (Goin’ to the Delta), sunburst J-185 EC (Solitaire, Blues Like Midnight) and sunburst early-2000s J-190 EC Super Fusion. He later favored a sunburst ’70s ES-335 with coil-tap and trapeze tailpiece, ’80s Ibanez Destroyer II with ’50s PAFs, Dean Tagliare with two humbuckers and middle single-coil, and newer white Flying V.
In early Savoy, Simmonds used a Vox AC30, Marshall stacks, and Fender combos. By the mid ’70s, he relied on four linked Twin Reverbs with JBL speakers. He briefly switched to a Dan Dailey amp, then later a modern Marshall half-stack, ’70s Marshall combo, and ultimately, a 60-watt Fender 4×10 Deville. He often recorded with linked amps, blending or stereo-separating the DeVille on slight overdrive with a new cleaner Fender combo on Ain’t Done Yet. Simmonds preferred an unprocessed sound resorting only occasionally on a Tube Screamer for slight edge/boost and a wah pedal.
Wolf Marshall is the founder and original editor-in-chief of GuitarOne magazine and a respected author and columnist who has been influential in contemporary music education since the early 1980s. His latest releases include 101 Must-Know Rock Licks, B.B. King: the Definitive Collection, and Best of Jazz Guitar. Wolf’s list of credits can be found at wolfmarshall.com.
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Richard Williams onstage with his Gibson L-6S on the band’s 1977 tour.
Progressive rock emerged from the British psychedelic scene in the late ’60s with bands like the Nice, Procol Harum, Moody Blues, King Crimson, Yes, and Gentle Giant. The genre blossomed in the first half of the ’70s, still dominated by Brit bands, with one exception – Kansas.
After forming in Topeka in 1970, Steve Walsh (vocals, keyboards), Phil Ehart (drums), Richard Williams (guitar), Kerry Livgren (keyboards, guitar), Dave Hope (bass), and Robby Steinhart (violin, vocals) quickly came to love playing complex musical arrangements. But they could also rock out.
“King Crimson, Yes, or Genesis couldn’t – or wouldn’t – play a straight-up rock song,” Hope points out. “We could do either equally as well.”
Protégés of music mogul Don Kirshner, Kansas’ acclaim and album sales grew steadily beginning with their first, in March of ’74. By late ’75, they already had three albums under their belt as they journeyed to Studio in the Country, in Bogalusa, Louisiana, to begin recording what would become Leftoverture.
Williams recalls they were upbeat and determined going in, and their attitudes only got better once the sessions were underway, thanks in large part to Livgren’s songwriting.
“What no one could have predicted was Kerry’s creative explosion,” he said. “Songs were pouring out of him – great songs that were complicated, musically, and lyrically moving. The anticipation of ‘What’s Kerry bringing to the table today?’ was palpable.”
Williams also credited producer and engineer Jeff Glixman with boosting attitudes.
“Jeff was really coming into his own as a producer, and Bill ‘Bleu’ Evans, the owner of Studio in the Country, was an unsung hero as the engineer. He built the studio from the ground up and had total command of its technical capabilities.”
“Jeff was my best asset in the studio,” Hope added. “He not only got good drum and bass tones, he mixed our rhythm section like a rock band, not like the classic prog groups like the Moody Blues and Genesis, which were more laid-back in the mix and had a lighter, jazzier feel.”
Williams’ guitar of choice was a new L6-S, which he later endorsed on a Gibson poster. His amp was a Marshall 100-watt Super Lead running into a Univox 6×12 cab; his only effects pedal was a Maestro phase shifter. The acoustic guitar on songs like “Miracles Out of Nowhere” was his first – a Martin D-28 purchased a few years earlier, after the band began touring nationally. In a February ’01 interview with VG, Livgren recalled that his primary guitars in that era were an ES-335 and a Hagstrom Swede. Hope counted on a Precision Bass.
Leftoverture kicks off with the a cappella intro to “Carry On Wayward Son,” which set the tone for the album while also serving as a microcosm of the things that set Kansas apart from other bands, including Walsh’s soaring vocals, abrupt time-signature changes, plaintive lyrics, and note-for-note riffing with guitars, bass, and violin anchored by a rock-and-roll sensibility.
Following “Wayward Son,” “The Wall” opens with another unique element – opening harmony passages played by Steinhart and Williams.
“You cannot underestimate the influence that the Allman Brothers’ harmony guitar work had on guitar players of that time, including us,” Williams said. “But ‘The Wall’ intro is my solo with Robby harmonizing on violin. To this day, I love how beautifully a guitar and violin work together as a section in ensemble.”
The album’s final track, “Magnum Opus,” lives up to its name, its six movements careening through arrangements ethereal to frenetic; at the 1:00 mark, Hope and the Precision step out front to play a lead melody with tone that foreshadows the 1983 Metallica/Cliff Burton solo “(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth.”
“It’s my bass cranked through Rich’s Marshall for distortion,” said Hope. “Bass players in the mid ’70s had to come up with their own sounds because the few effects that were available sounded like horrible toys.”
Leftoverture was released October 21, 1976. Its assortment of rock riffs and complex arrangements had a broad appeal, and the album climbed to #5 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. Its sales eventually hit quintuple platinum. Released as a single in early ’77, “Carry On Wayward Son” reached #11 on the Top 40 and became the band’s signature song.
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Dickie Harris’ (likely) home-made lap steel (left) and Paul Gertsen’s ’63 Jazz Bass with its all-original gold hardware.
I am the third owner of a 1963 Jazz Bass with a neck stamp “7Jan63A,” pots dated that May, and serial number from that spring. It also has original gold hardware – even the screws and springs. I know gold hardware was a custom option in the era, but can find no other information regarding what it cost at the time or how prevalent it was. The original finish was sunburst, which the previous owner stripped to natural circa 1980 then applied Olympic White. What do catalogs or ledgers say about the cost of gold hardware? – Paul Gertsen
It’s hard to say exactly, but Fender would’ve added at least $50 to $60. Price lists in the early ’60s offered gold plating as an option on the Jaguar, Jazzmaster, and Stratocaster as part of a package with a custom finish; the September ’62 list has the Jag at $379.50 in sunburst, $398.49 in a custom color, and $456.88 with gold plating, while the Strat was $303.97 in a custom color, $349.50 gilded.
While the Jazz Bass was not offered with gold trim, it’s not a leap to imagine a customer might request it, perhaps as part of a matched set of instruments, which bands sometimes ordered in the early/mid ’60s. A dealer would certainly want to fill that order, especially if it included two gold-plated Jags! The Jazz Bass was $293.47 in custom finish, and gold-plating would have been particularly expensive because that bridge cover alone would use a lot of gold.
The option disappeared from price lists in ’68, and gold-plated Strats, Jazzmasters, and Jags are rare. In 45 years, this is only the second Jazz Bass I’ve seen with gold hardware; the other was black and also very striking. – Peter Stuart Kohman
Reading the January ’23 “Approved Gear” reviews in VG, I see there’s been another revival of the pickup-swapping concept. Did it originate with Dan Armstrong’s Ampeg Lucite guitar in ’69, or was it around before that? – Nathan Scott
I can’t think of an appearance earlier than Armstrong’s guitar, which used pickups made by Bill Lawrence. Danelectro offered the Convertible – a thinbody acoustic with a mountable lipstick-tube pickup – some years earlier, and in the mid ’50s, DeArmond offered a pickup mounted on a pickguard; to make an archtop electric, the player just swapped pickguards.
While those are different concepts, in theory you could easily change pickups with them, as opposed to guitars with built-in pickups. We also shouldn’t forget the well-made Player guitars from 1984, which took the Armstrong concept further by using a plug-in module installed through the back. They offered a range of humbuckers and single-coils, and blank modules that could mount a player’s favorite pickup. – Michael Wright
I bought a triple-neck lap steel from the estate of Richard “Dickie” Harris’ widow, who lived in Watertown, Tennessee. Dickie was a pedal-steel player for Ernest Tubb and played with Marty Robbins, Cowboy Copas, and other Opry stars, and that he was 86 when he died in 2016. I’m trying to identify the maker. The pickup is primitive and the guitar is heavy. – Robert Hawkins
Your lap steel looks to be from the ’40s, and the pickup construction is Regal-like, but not Regal. My best guess is it’s an interesting home brew. Aside from the Audio-Vox, it’s the only multi-neck I remember seeing that has two necks with different scale lengths. – Lynn Wheelwright
I’m trying to decide whether to buy a ’60s 12-string Bartell (of California) St. George, and wondering about their quality. Was it comparable to Fenders of the day? – Todd Brekke
Bartell guitars won’t compare favorably to their Strat contemporaries. Bartells were made by Paul Barth, who built the very similar Magnatone Artist line in the early ’60s. As a builder, Barth cut his teeth at Rickenbacker and his instruments bring that vibe much more than a Fender feel/sound. The earliest Magnatones, made by Bigsby, compare favorably to Gibsons as fully professional guitars, but later bolt-necks, while well-made, were not professional-grade. Like the Bartells, they have cheap slider switches for on-off function, and their single-coils are more like DeArmonds than Fenders; through a preamp or effects, they’ll be okay. – Michael Wright
I was hired by Don Johnson to work as a rep for Fender in 1997, and I recall one of the old-timers – neither Don nor I remember exactly who – talking about bassist Monk Montgomery (pictured in the February “VG Q&A”), visiting the factory in the late ’50s and suggesting enhancements like two pickups, a slimmer neck, offset body, etc. It sounds like the inspiration behind the Jazz Bass. Is there any record of Monk playing a role in its development? – Dan Gold
No published accounts credit Montgomery with inspiring the Jazz Bass, but it would make sense given he was the most-prominent jazz musician playing a Fender bass in the ’50s, so Leo and the team likely would have been keen to get his feedback. He appeared in Fender catalogs with his mid-’50s Precision into 1960, vanished for a while (probably as he reverted to upright), then reappeared with a CBS-era Jazz. In a 1977 interview, he says his Precision was stolen while he was playing with Cal Tjader in Los Angeles, and that Fender had given him a Jazz he’d been using steadily. The timing suggests he was never given an earlier one.
Fender sales head Don Randall once said, “The Jazz Bass wasn’t Leo’s idea… [it was] more of a market-oriented move.” So, even if Monk’s input did help shape the instrument, he never got credit. – Peter Stuart Kohman
This column addresses questions about guitar-related subjects, ranging from songs, albums, and musicians to the minutiae of instrument builds, manufacturers, and the collectible market. Questions can be sent to ward@vintageguitar.com with “VG Q&A” in the subject line.
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
Hailing from Italy and likely made in the 1930s, this ERoma guitar displays elements Ernst Roth copied from Karl August, such as capricious details like the sculpted fretboard end and elaborate marquetry. The playing wear on the upper bass bout could be from an excitable flamenco player.
Now just a sleepy town in Germany, over the last 200 years, Markneukirchen has been home to countless luthiers ranging from brilliant to brutish, and has exported millions of instruments all over the world.
The city’s most-accomplished makers were Christian Frederick Martin and Ernst Heinrich Roth, and while Martin’s instruments are ubiquitous, it’s a well-hidden fact that the master violin maker Roth also built guitars – a lot of them.
Evocative of images from the Martin factory in the early 20th century, Roth builders worked at benches bathed in sunlight. The company never moved away from bowl-back mandolins (top) even as Gibson popularized style A and F models.
Following in the footsteps of his father, Johann Georg, Martin was a member of the Cabinetmakers Guild in Neukirchen, but had aspirations to further the craft of guitar-making. Johann sent C.F. to Vienna to study with luthier Georg Stauffer, and while sociopolitical events at the time may have kept Martin’s name from being completely documented, a circa 1832 note from instrument wholesaler Christian Schuster (and included in Greig Hutton’s 2022 book Hutton’s Guide to Martin Guitars: 1833-1969), notes, “Christian Frederich Martin who ‘for a number of years has been foreman in the factory of the noted violin and guitar maker, Johann Georg Stauffer of Vienna’, had produced guitars, ‘which in point of quality and appearance left nothing to be desired and which marked him as a distinguished crafts-man.”
With echoes of Gibson’s ultra-fancy “Century of Progress” model, this ERoma sports elaborate marquetry, pearloid headstock overlay and fretboard markers, contrasting pickguard, and fancy bridge inlay.
The Martin company today says that claim is reinforced by C.F.’s early labels, which state he was “a pupil of the Celebrated Stauffer.” The lack of firm documentation by Stauffer could indicate that C.F. only built cases, but either way, he returned to Neukirchen in 1825 (it wasn’t called Markneukirchen until 1858) and was promptly sued by the Violin Guild for trying to make guitars in the city. He continued the fight until 1833, when his father – the last living member of his immediate family – died. He then decided to leave the court battles behind and set sail for America, where he mastered the construction of Stauffer-styled guitars.
Meanwhile, guitar makers in the four southern German states known as Vogtland continued to be influenced by schools in Italy, Thuringia, France, and later, the United States, with the most-significant and lasting impulses coming from Vienna.
“From this mixture, an independent style developed from around 1840,” said Christof Hanusch, author of Weissgerber: Guitars by Richard Jacob. “After 1900, further development of this mixed local Markneukirchen style took place, strongly influenced by growing demand.”
Reflecting the international influences at work, elements of this decorative style included diverse bridge and headstock shapes in various styles – French, Spanish, Viennese, and Southern German. Other traits include ladder bracing, slim body shapes, and Spanish models (after Torres) from about 1925. These details show how Roth was reacting to wandervogel – an early-20th-century movement in which German youth embraced nature – by manufacturing small, decorative guitars meant to be carried on hikes.
The soundhole sports fancy marquetry, the label written with “Ernst Heinrich Roth.” Other Roth instruments were simply branded “Roma” without his name; the bottom reads, “Saiten-Instrumentenbau,” which translates to “String instrument making.” The bridge has a bone saddle and tie-on nylon strings with refined marquetry.
“There were more and more cheap guitars – a consequence of mass-produced goods from workshops and factories – and relatively few high-quality instruments,” added Hanusch. “And while even the simple, cheap guitars are skilled in craftsmanship and often very well-built, prefabricated parts and decorative inlays were used all over the place. The general local style was also influenced by the imitation of the personal style of local masters like Richard Jacob, who labeled his guitars ‘Weissgerber.’”
Roth, who learned the craft of violin making from his father, Gustav Robert Roth, was 25 when he went into business building violins in 1902 with his cousin, Gustav August Ficker. According to a ’20s ad for instrument retailer Sherman, Clay and Co., Roth “carefully studied hundreds of the old masterpieces and used them as models,” and it makes sense he looked to Markneukirchen builders when he added guitars and mandolins to his roster. One characteristic he frequently copied from Richard Jacob’s father, Karl August (also a guitar maker), was capricious details like a distinctive, swooping fretboard-end shape and elaborate marquetry.
The guitar has native pearwood back and sides and prominent position markers along the top edge of the fretboard. Inlaid on the slotted headstock, the ERoma name is a variation on Ernst Heinrich Roth.
“The export of guitars from Markneukirchen and of components and decorative inlays available through catalogs after 1890 led to the imitation of such design elements in other countries,” said Hanusch. “Thus, the same mother-of-pearl inlays can be found in Italian or even Spanish guitars. Markneukirchen star-shaped rosettes, for example, were copied in Argentina at least until the middle of the 20th century, and became an epitome of the guitar of Argentine tango.”
Markneukirchen luthiers commonly made instruments that didn’t carry their name.
“They often used labels with the names of non-existent makers,” Hanusch noted. “Vogtland guitars usually do not have a signature or were given regional, national, or international dealer’s marks, usually with a label. This also applies to workshops that produce instruments, but also buy instruments to re-sell under their brand.”
Martin ledger books from the early days until the early 20th century (above). Ernst Heinrich Roth’s ledger from 1924 (left) details the style and quantity of violins. Like Martin, Roth’s adaptation of standard styles eased record keeping and increased efficiency.
Roth opened his shop in 1902 and primarily made violins for the upper-class market in America. Much less-known was his ERoma line of guitars and mandolins made for the greater European market until the end of World War II.
In the ’40s, as American big-band music was sweeping the world and many builders (most notably Martin) were limiting production of fancy instruments, Roth (along with Framus, Höhner, and others) went the other direction by making fancy archtop guitars (“Schlaggitarren”). He hired a slew of workers to keep up with demand.
“Before World War II, we had, in the Roth factory, 50 people – 30 for guitars and 20 for violins. At the end of the war, five people,” recalled his grandson, Ernst Roth, in a 1983 interview for Frets magazine.
That all came to a crashing halt when the Soviets occupied what was then called East Germany.
“In 1952, the company was expropriated by the Communists and we came to Bubenreuth,” Roth added. The Soviets took the Roth’s building (and tools) and formed the Musima company to continue making guitars in this style. Though the family today continues to make violins, production of guitars ceased when they moved to West Germany.
Though finding an ERoma in the United States is difficult these days, they are readily found in original markets like Italy and Czechoslovakia. Solidly constructed with a mids-focused tone, they hold up well and are perfectly fit for a walk through the woods or a strum by a lake.
Special thanks to Walter Carter. Clifford Hall is a journalist and bluegrass/folk musician. A fan of vintage Martins, he has a 1929 0-21, an Adirondack-top ’53 D-18, and other instruments that have helped him learn the history of American music. He’s also a violin teacher at the Owen J. Roberts School District in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.
This article originally appeared in VG’s April 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
