Murph 12 string Squire Guitar and Amplifier

The 1960’s were boom years for the guitar. Guitar manufacturers, music stores and even pawn shops all enjoyed a time of plenty all because of  “Baby Boomers” who, after seeing British Invasion bands, wanted to become rock stars or at the very least impress the ladies, as well as their friends.

Aside from the large manufacturers such as Fender, Gibson, Gretsch and Rickenbacker, many medium and smaller manufacturers, such as Mosrite, Carvin, Harvey Thomas and Hollman-Woodell of Wisconsin saw there was profit to be made and went into the guitar business in hopes of getting a slice of that financial pie.

One such small guitar manufacturer was Pat Murphy who created and manufactured Murph Guitars of San Fernando California starting in 1965.

Pat Murphy Pulsebeat Guitars

Pat was a Detroit Michigan native and had served as a Naval Air Force mechanic and pilot. He had been stationed in the Philippines during WWII. After leaving the service he started seeking employment with several companies trying to find the best paying jobs to take care of his growing family. Like many others of that era he traveled to California for the prospect of work.



By the early 1960’s Pat and his wife had five children and all the kids were quite talented.

The kids acted in television shows, commercials, and plays in the Los Angeles area. The eldest sons learned to play guitar.  The boys teacher knew of Pat’s skill as a craftsman and suggested that he try his hand at building electric guitars.

Murphy Family Band

Around this time his sons had put together a band with their two sisters and a collection of friends. Now this was the era when The Osmonds, The Cowsills and The Jackson Five were very popular.  Well known guitar companies were providing instruments for gratis to these acts just so their guitars and amplifiers would get exposure.

From www.murphguitars.com

Pat took up the suggestion of the boy's teacher to begin manufacturing gutiars and in 1965 he leased a 1200 square foot building. He named the company Murphy Music Industries. 



The leased building was modified to include an office, a woodworking shop, a sanding area and paint booth and an assembly and shipping room.

An engineer named Rick Geiger was hired to run the facility.

Pat and Rick set off to purchase equipment.  Much of the machinery was acquired at auctions, while some of the other necessary machinery, such as a pickup coil winder was purchased outright.

All the wood materials for the bodies came from a nearby lumber company, while the more specialized lumber and parts such as bridges, fret boards, tailpieces and vibratos came from a German distributor. The guitar cases were manufactured by the Victoria Luggage Company, which was located nearby in Los Angeles.

Unfortunately before production began there was a rift that developed between Pat Murphy and Rick Geiger causing Geiger to resign.

From www.murphguitars.com

Pat Murphy had wanted his guitar brand to be called York Guitars, but another instrument maker was already using that name, so Pat decided to call his guitars Murph guitars.

By the end of 1965 the company had begun making not just guitars, but had contracted with another company to build amplifiers under the Murph logo.

In the spring of 1966 the company went to the Chicago NAMM convention to seek out distributors and music stores to sell their products.

By then Murph guitars had come up with an acoustic guitar, a semi-hollow-body guitar, a heart-shaped guitar and a build-your-own- guitar kit. They even had a portable 6 volt guitar amplifier.

Murph built Silvertone

An agreement emerged from this show with the Sears Company to have Murph guitars market their instruments under the Silvertone brand name. The first order was small, only 25 guitars, but there were hopes that larger orders would follow.

Can you tell the difference?

Like many small companies Murphy Musical Instruments biggest problem was its tight budget. Other problems were to follow. Soon after the NAMM convention the company received a legal notice from Fender Guitars alleging possible patent infringement. Apparently the guitar giant thought that Murph guitar's Squire model looked too much like the Jazzmaster/Jaguar body.

Murph Squire

Both guitars had an offset body style and an accentuated upper bout horn. However the Murph guitar featured a slimmer body shape. The Murph Squire guitar came with either one or two single coil pickups that looked more like P-90's than the larger Fender's Jazzmaster pickups. And while the Murph instrument did feature a long vibrato arm, the unit was not as nearly elaborately engineered as the one on that came on either the Jaguar or the Jazzmaster. The Murph Squire guitar, like the Fender guitars did come with a bridge cover.

Finally, the Murph guitar headstock featured three-on-a-side Kluson tuners. Unfortunately when it comes to lawsuits, the company with the deepest pockets usually wins. Pat Murphy was in no financial shape to contest this notice.

Ironically in 1982, long after the demise of Murph Guitars, the Fender Corporation began offering "Squier" guitars as an Asian-built alternative to the much higher priced USA made products.

Murph Squire MK-2

The Murph Squire was an exceptional guitar for its day. It was a much superior instrument to many of the student grade guitars coming from some of the well known manufacturers and a much better guitar than the Asian products that flooded the market in the 1960's.

Squire Bass

The solid body Murph Squire guitars were available as six or 12 string and bass models.

Murph 12 String Squire

The 12 string Squire came with a Rickenbacker-style tuning key arrangement; that is three-on-a-side Kluson tuners facing outward and three-on-a-side tuners facing downward. The pickups used on this model were excellent. The maple neck is said to be thin and quite playable.

The Murph Squire guitar came with either one or two single coil pickups. The pickup switch was a slider model. It was available as a hard tail model or with a vibrato tailpiece.

Aside from the standard Squire model, Murph Guitars made some other very unique guitars, which included a semi-solid Squire model that came with two F-holes.

Murph Gemini

This was the Murph Gemini, a double cutaway semi-hollow body guitar, that more or less resembled a Gibson ES-335, however the cutaway horns were shapped slightly different. The Gemini was available as a six string, a 12 string or a bass.

Murph Westerner

The Murph Westerner resembled the Squire and was unique since its body was upholstered in Naugahyde. What happened was when a Murph Squires paint job was found to have flaws or defects, instead of trashing the body, it was covered with a glittery Naugahyde fabric and then dubbed a "Westerner". Pat Murphy grew up during the Depression era when nothing was wasted.

Murph Satellite

The Murph Satellite guitar is said to be created a result of the legal notice from Fender. Pat Murphy's wife is credited with the design of this heart-shaped semi-hollow body guitar. The Satellite was sold as a six or 12 string model as well as a bass guitar.

From www.murphguitars.com

Aside from the extremely unique body shape, the joint between the neck and the headstock features a triangular section on the instruments front and back side that pairs the wood. Due to the unique body shape, this instrument would not fit in the Hamilton guitar stands of the day, so it came with its own unusual stand that notified the world, this was a Murph. This is the rarest Murph guitar and very few were made.

Murph Baby Satellite

Murph guitars also built the Baby Satellite guitar. The Baby Satellite was a 3/4 sized version of the Satellite, and was intended to sell as a toy. However it was a functioning small single pickup guitar. It came with its own case and the plan was to sell it with a battery powered amplifier for $99.00 USD.

Capitol Records asked Murphy Musical Instruments to build 10,000 of these guitars, however Pat Murphy could not put together enough capital to fulfill this order or even continue to build this guitar. Interestingly that same year Vox introduced a similar instrument called The Vox Mando Guitar that sold for over twice as much.

Murph Tempo I & II

The Tempo I or Tempo II was Murph's do-it-yourself electric guitar kit. This kit included an unfinished body, neck with headstock and parts were supplied with all the necessary instructions. The Tempo I was the one pickup model and the Tempo II, you guessed already, was the twin pickup version. The headstock was not branded so the builder could put their own brand name on it or leave it blank.

Continental IV

Very few Murph Continental IV guitars were ever made. This was a Les Paul shaped guitar with a single pickup. The guitar included an archtop guitar-type bridge saddle that sat unsecured on the guitars body. The string were attached to a trapeze tailpiece. This guitar was only available in white.

Murph Califone 12 string

In 1965, the Rheem corporation, which primarily is known for heating, air conditioning and water heating products, saw the potential of money to be made in the musical instrument business. The company had inquired of a Japanese firm if they could build tape recorders and record players.


When they discovered this to be a viable plan Rheem purchased a company which manufactured record players and audio-visual equipment for use in schools including small public address systems. This company was called Califone. Rheem noted that these public address equipment could potentially useful, if modified to be used as guitar amplifiers. After production of guitar amplifiers began the company struck a deal with the Japanese firm to build combo organs under the Rheem brand name.

All this is leading up to a deal that Rheem struck with Murphy Musical Instruments to build guitars using the Califone brand name. This line was to include six string, twelve string and bass guitars. All of them used the Squire body design, but the headstocks were slightly different and the pickups were usually slanted. Unfortunately after about 25 prototypes were made, Rheem/Califone called the deal off.

Murph Silvertone 12 string

Sears negotiated with Murph to build guitars. However after 25 or so guitars were produced Sears called this deal off.

Murph bass amplifier

As stated Murph Guitars also produced a line of amplifiers. The amps were all combo units that were manufactured by an electronics company in Phoenix, Arizona. The chasis had the Murph name embossed on it’s front. Murph offered 10 different versions of their amplifiers. The first models were tube amplifiers, but they were shortly updated to solid-state amplifiers. This was in the early days of transistors and unfortunately the company building the amps used inexpensive transistors that were prone to fail.

Murph Guitars 1965-1967

By 1967 the pressures of running a musical instrument business became too much and Murphy filed bankruptcy in the spring of that year. However for two wonderful years he was a building of quality American made guitars. Mr. Pat Murphy passed away in 2009 but left behind a legacy of few great guitars and a lot of wonderful memories.

For further reading on Murphy Musical Industries check out Dan from Sydney Austrailia's wonderful tribute webpage -  www.murphguitars.com

"Rooster hits the washboard and people just got to smile,Blinky, thumps the gut bass and solos for a while .Poorboy twangs the rhythm out on his Kalamazoo. Willy goes into a dance and doubles on kazoo."~ Down on the Corner by John Fogerty

1929 Brooklyn newspaper

The Great Depression hit the United States in 1929. Businesses failed, people were out of work and very few people had disposable income to spend on expensive musical instruments. It was sort of like today. (But I digress)

1918 Gibson Advertisement

The Gibson Mandolin - Guitar Manufacturing Company realized that if they were to sell musical instruments they needed to drop their pricing. But the dilemma was to do so without cutting their standards. The solution was to create a new budget brand and align it with Gibson.

1939 Kalamazoo Brochure

So in 1933 Gibson introduced the Kalamazoo brand of musical instruments which included guitars, Hawaiian guitars, banjos and mandolins. These instruments sold for less than half the price of similar Gibson branded instruments. To accomplish this, Gibson saved costs by eliminating the instruments adjustable truss rod and using less expensive hardware and materials. For instance, some of the Kalamazoo archtop guitars featured real carved tops and backs, but others featured what Gibson called the arco-arch, which was their term for a pressed top similar to the ones found on Kay and Harmony arched top guitars.

KG-22 and KG-12

From 1933 to 1940 the guitars, both arched and flat top, were made of solid wood for the tops, backs and sides. However Kalamazoo guitars made from 1940 through 1943 featured plywood bodies. All of the flat top guitars featured ladder bracing the instead of X-bracing found on more expensive Gibson models.

1938 Kalamazoo Sport Model

Despite this lack of features Kalamazoo guitars were a bargain with a starting price of only $12.50 USD for the Kalamazoo Sport Model aka the KG 3/4.

KG Sport and Gibson L-00

The KG 3/4 was a 3/4 sized guitar that was similar in shape to the Gibson L-00. It came with a solid spruce top that was bound, mahogany back, sides and neck. This guitar was finished in two tone sunburst. The fretboard on this and other KG models was rosewood with dot inlays.

The headstock which had a flat shape had a Kalamazoo decal on its top and open gear tuners were on a metal strip of 3 per side and featured black plastic buttons on the back side. The case sold for $4.50 extra.

Late 1930's KG-11

The most popular Kalamazoo model was the KG-11. This guitar featured all the accouterments of its 3/4 size KG version, but came with a standard 24.75” scale. This guitars shape was different than a Gibson L-00 in that the lower bout was wider. The original 1933 price for this guitar was $12.75 USD and the case would set you back $5.00. The Hawaiian version came with the same features except the body joined the neck at the 12th fret. It was known as the KHG-11.

KTG-11

During this era, many tenor banjo players were doubling on the guitar, so 4 string tenor guitars were popular. Kalamazoo offered the KTG-11. This instruments body and accouterments were similar to the LG-11, but the neck was narrower and the headstock only had 4 tuning pegs.

1940 KG-12

By 1939 Kalamazoo came out with the KG-12 Flat top guitar. It’s body shape was narrower and its proportions were similar to a Gibson L-00. It had a solid spruce top, solid mahogany back, sides and neck and the neck had a rosewood fretboard with dot inlays. This gutars headstock had a slight point on its top that is known by collectors as a pointed dome peghead. It came with a mist-brown finish and sold for $12.75 in 1939.

KG-12 Advertisement

This style was available as the KHG-12 Hawaiian guitar with a wider neck that joined the body at the 12th fret.

1938 KGN-12 Oriole

A similar guitar was the KGN-12 “Oriole.” What made this guitar different was the natural finish on its solid spruce top and the back and sides were made of flamed maple veneer.

KGN-12 Oriole headstock

There was an Oriole logo on the headstock below the Kalamazoo logo. Both were decals. The headstock on this guitar was different as it was more like Gibson’s open-book headstock.

1938 KGN-12 Oriole

For those that preferred a neck that joined at the 12th fret Kalamazoo offered the KHGN-12. This guitar was available as the Hawaiian option with a raised nut and called the KHG-12.

1936 KG-14

In 1936 Kalamazoo  offered  the KG-14. This guitar looked spot-on like a Gibson L-00 and had a sunburst spruce top and dark brown mahogany back and sides. The bridge saddle and fretboard were made of rosewood and the neck had dot inlays. The headstock on this guitar was done in Gibson's "roof peak" shape and topped with a Kalamazoo decal. Once again the tuners were open gear models on strips of three tuners per side.

1936 KG-14

The Hawaiian version of this guitar was the KHG-14 which came with a raised nut. The neck on this instrument was slightly wider and joined at the 12 fret.

KTG-14 Cromwell G2

The KTG-14 was the tenor version of this Kalamazoo flat top guitar. The appointments were similar, but for the 23" scale.

By 1935 Gibson was offering the first Kalamazoo archtop guitar. This wa the KG-21 and was very similar to a Gibson model L-30. This guitar had a solid spruce top that was pressed instead of carved. Gibson called the pressing process “arco-arch.” The back and sides were made of mahogany as was the neck. The rosewood fretboard had white position markers. The upper part of the headstock had the roof peak shape. The bridge was made of rosewood and the strings attached to a budget model trapeze tailpiece.

A tenor version of this guitar was also marketed and called the KTG-21. The body was the same, but the neck was narrower and only had four strings.

KG-21

Only 15 Hawaiian style KHG-21’s were made. The necks on these guitars attached at the 12 fret instead of the 14th fret.

KG-22

An upscale version of this same guitar was called the KG-22. It came with a bound neck that featured a non adjustable steel rod and a nicer trapeze tailpiece and in 1935 sold for $21.50 for the guitar and $5.50 for the case.

1936 KG-31

In 1935 Kalamazoo also offered a nicer archtop model called the KG-31. This guitar looked similar to a Gibson L-50. Once again the solid spruce top was pressed or arco-arched instead of carved. The back, sides and neck were made of mahogany. The fretboard and bridge were made of rosewood. The neck was bound with white position markers and the headstock had the roof peak on its top end.

Gibson also produced some models of the KG-31 that had maple back and sides.

The KG-31 was available with a tenor neck and called the KTG-31.

1940 KG-16

By 1939 Gibson set out to make a more affordable archtop and called it the KG-16. This came with the arco-arched solid spruce top and mahogany back and sides. The body shape was similar to the KG-21. It too had the roof peak headstock and sold for only $18.25.

1940 KG-32

That same year, 1939, Gibson offered the KG-32 archtop guitar. The body shape was similar to the KG-31. The key differences between this guitar an the KG-31 were the checkered binding on the top of the body instead of white binding and a non-adjustable steel rod in the neck.

KG-32 Oriole

In 1940 Gibson launched the KG-32 Kalamazoo Oriole Archtop guitar. This guitar came with flamed maple sides and flamed maple veneer on the back. The pressed top was laminated spruce and had a natural finish instead of the usual sunburst finish found on all the previous models.


Some KG-32 Oriole guitars were sold with the roof peak headstock design and others had the Gibson open book headstock design. The headstock was topped with the Kalamazoo logo decal and below it was an orange Oriole bird decal.

1941 KES

In 1939 Gibson modified their Kalamazoo KG-21 archtop with the addition of a single coil pickup above the bridge saddle, It was known as the model KES (Kalamazoo Electric Spanish.) A single volume control was added below the pickguard and a jack was put on the guitars lower side. This guitar sold for $100.

KES-R

By 1940 Gibson modified their Kalamazoo KG-12 model with the addition of a single coil pickup that was mounted over the sound hole. A single volume control was added to the guitar and a jack on the lower side for the cord. This model was called the KES-R.

KEA Amplifier

The amplifiers for these instruments were the KEA and the KEA-R. The KEA had 8" speakers and 5 tubes with an output of aproximately 10 watts. The KEA-R was similar, but had a 10" Rola speaker.


Gibson made Kalamazoo guitars through 1943 when WWII interrupted production.

1953 KG-1

By 1949 Gibson resumed prodution and offered one more Kalamazoo flat top guitar. This was the KG-1. It was a very similar instrument to the Gibson LG-0. but the Kalamazoo model had no truss rod in the neck. This was an all mahogany instrument and had a black finish. The interior bracing was ladder style. The tuners were Kluson budget models that were three on a strip. It had a tortoise shell celluloid pickguard. The headstock had the roof peak design. It was made until 1953.

1949 KES

During that same year Gibson made one more Kalamazoo electric archtop guitar. This was the model KES (Kalamazoo Electric Spanish) guitar. It was the same body style as the KG-22, but sported a single P-90 style pickup in the neck position, which had no exposed pole-pieces,  as well as a volume and tone control on the lower bout. This was a slightly different version of the KES from 1939. The neck was unbound.

KEA 10 amplifier

Gibson offered a 10 watt Kalamazoo amplifer with a 10 inch speaker to go along with the guitar. Sometime in 1953 Gibson shut down production of Kalamazoo instruments.



It would not be until 1965 that Gibson would revive the Kalamazoo brand name. This time it would be on budget instruments that would include one acoustic guitar, four models of electric guitars and an electric bass guitar.

The bodies of the electric guitars and bass started out to be somewhat similar in appearance to a Gibson model SG, however the headstocks were Fender-like and had six budget tuners all in a row.

1966 Kalamazoo Ad

To reduce cost and perhaps to conserve on materials Gibson made the instruments bodies out of particle board; essentially sawdust, wood shavings and glue. Even more interesting is that the bodies supposedly were made by a toilet seat manufacturer in Wisconsin.

KG-1

The Kalamazoo guitar line-up included the KG-1; one covered single coil pickup in the bridge position, the KG-1A; one single coil pickup and a Maestro vibrato.

1967 KG-2

The KG-2; two single coil pickups with a slider switch on the upper bout by the neck pickup, and the KG-2A, which came with two pickups and a Maestro vibrato.

All models came with a bolt-on neck topped with a rosewood fret board and dot position markers.

1966 KB Bass

The Kalamazoo bass was known as the KB. The original body shape was similar. It came with one large single coil pickup in the neck position and a palm rest. The strings attached to a compensated metal bridge/saddle.

1967 KG-2A and KB

Around 1967 the body shape changed on Kalamazoo guitars and basse changed and now looked more like a Fender Mustang. All the other parts remained the same.

Despite the particle board construction, it was a pretty nice instrument that was much better than the Asian budget models that were flooding the market during that era.

1966 Kalamazoo Amplifier Advertisement

To go along with the guitars, Gibson produced seven models of amplifiers. These were all 7-markedted to be student models.

1966 Model 1

The model #1 came with an Alnico 10" speaker. It was a single-ended circuit with 6X4 rectifier, 6BQ5 output tube, 12AX7 input tube. It featured a single volume and tone control.

1966 Model 2

The Model #2 came with 2 12AX7 tubes, one was for the preamp and the other was used as a tremolo oscillator. The rectifier was a 6X4 and the power tube was a 6BQ5. It came with a 10” CTS alnico speaker and the output was 5-8 watts. The controls featured volume, tone and tremolo.

1966 Kalamazoo Bass amp

The Kalamazoo bass amp came in either 30 or 50 watt versions. The 30 watt version featured two 10” Jensen C10P speakers. The controls were for “loudness”, treble and bass and these were housed in a drawer at the rear of the amplifier that dropped down.

1966 Kalamazoo bass amp (rear)

The player pushed the control panel back when the amp was not in use. The rectifier for the Bass 30 was solid state. Two 7591 tubes were utilized for the power section and the preamp sported 2 6EU7’s.

Although Kalamazoo made a 50 watt bass amp, I cannot find any information.

Kalamazoo Model 3

The Kalamazoo models 3 and 4 are both solid state amplifiers with 10” speakers. The model 3 controls featured tone/off/on and a volume control. The model 4 came with tremolo.

Kalamazoo Model 4

The look of these amps was interesting since the electronics were housed in the top section which was slightly smaller than the bottom section that housed the speaker, so it resembled a piggy-back amp and speaker cabinet, however it was a one piece unit.

1965 Kalamazoo KG-10

Gibson offered one final acoustic Kalamazoo model starting in 1965. This was the KG-10. It resembled the Gibson B-15 The KG-10 was an all mahogany instrument, but the headstock was very narrow and the Kalamazoo logo was embossed into the wood. It featured three-on-a-side budget tuners and this model did come with an adjustable truss rod.

I thought I might change things up and start writing The Unique Banjo Blog. So I present you with installment Number 1.

I ran across a very interesting information from Phillip Steinmetz, who has befriended the likes of me on Facebook. I have to tell you that Phillip is an exceptional performer, banjo player and knows all these great old timey songs. I was directed to Phillip's story by from my other Facebook friend, Eddie Pennington. who is an extraordinary thumb-picking guitarist from Princeton Kentucky.

This story regards Phillip's Grandpa. (actually his great uncle, but Phillip and just about everyone called him Grandpa). If you think Phillip's grandpa looks familiar, it is because he was known to all of us Country Music aficionados as Grandpa Jones.

Phillip goes on to tell this story: "I think this (picture) is probably the first time that I had ever held a banjo and as you can see Grandpa didn't look too happy about it! Well, the next few pictures tell why he wasn't so enthused about a little whipper-Snapper holding that particular banjo.

Here's the reason why......that banjo once belonged to Uncle Dave Macon and was one of two banjos that Gibson custom made for "The Dixie Dewdrop".

The story behind us acquiring it began when my Dad wanted to learn how to play the banjo and had asked Grandpa to find him a good banjo for him, somehow the subject of what ever happened to Uncle Dave's banjos came up and Dad said to Grandpa, "wouldn't it be nice to have one if Uncle Dave's ".

Well, Grandpa called Dad some months later and said that Uncle Dave's son Doris, was at the Opry one night and was wanting to sell one if his Paps banjos, so Grandpa bought it and brought it to Dad on his next visit.

Doris and Uncle Dave Macon

Shortly afterwords, Doris told Grandpa that he should get the banjo back for him, as I think he realized the mistake that he made in selling it in the first place. Sad to say, but Doris had a problem with liquor and that lead to poor decisions I'm sure. Anyway, getting back to the history of this "little banjer", as Uncle Dave called it, this was one of two that were made special for him by Gibson and the only way to tell them apart is by looking at the last set if pearl dots on the fretboard.


On ours, the three dots are spaced close together, on the other banjo, they are spaced further apart.

Also instead of metal truss rods, both banjos were made with dowel sticks, so that Uncle Dave could twirl them around for his trick banjo playing.

Young Phillip Steinmetz and Grandpa

The other picture of me and Grandpa was taken at the same time, but probably before I grabbed up Uncle Dave's banjo!! Hah, see the difference in Paw's expression!!



Again, my Dad's love for the Old-Time Music and especially Grandpa's, is the reason we have so many treasures like this banjo. My Dad will never get enuf credit for what he has done for me! Love You Paw!"

By the way, I don’t think I mentioned this is April Fools Day!

Betcha' never thought you would see Robert Johnson  playing  Eddie Van Halen's guitar.

We will resume the Unique Guitar Blog tomorrow. 

Enjoy the videos!

Merle Haggard started his life in California. His father died at a young age which had a bad affect on young Merle. His mother had to find work and became a bookkeeper to support her family. Merle’s older brother gave him a guitar when he was 12 years old and Merle was able to pickup up songs by Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams by listening to phonograph records.

As Merle grew older he became rebellious, perhaps because his mother had to work, perhaps because life was hard. His mother eventually decided she could not handle him and had Merle placed in a juvenile detention center. This really only made matters worse, and Merle got into more trouble after being released. He committed a series of minor crimes which landed him back in a juvenile center.

His first “gig” was at a bar where he played guitar for $5 and free beer.

Younger Haggard with a Gibson

Somewhere along the way Merle Haggard was introduced to Lefty Frizzell and got to sing a few songs for him. Frizzell attempted to help him start a career in music, however Haggard, now married and deeply in debt, was arrested in 1957 and sentenced to San Quentin Prison.

After a series of run-ins with some bad company in prison, Merle Haggard straightened out his life, and earned a high school diploma.

While in prison he was able to play in the prison country music band. He stated that he took inspiration from a 1958 performance by Johnny Cash at San Quentin.

Haggard was released in 1960. Within a year he began recording music for a small label called Tally Records. He had a few minor hits. His fear was that his history of being a prisoner would ruin his career. But what happened was just the opposite.

In 1966 his album Branded Man, which contained his autobiographical song, was a commercial success. He had a new band, began touring and continued to record hit songs throughout his career.

In 1968 Haggard did a tribute album called Same Train, Different Time: A Tribute to one of his heroes, Jimmie Rodgers. This LP brought Merle many accolades.

By the end of the 1970’s Haggard had composed a number of hit songs, based on his past; such as Mama Tried, The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde, Sing Me Back Home, Okie From Muskogee and The Fightin’ Side of Me.

In 1972, after Haggard had become an established country music star, then-California governor Ronald Reagan granted Haggard a full and unconditional pardon for his past crimes.

Young Merle with a Martin 00-18

Merle Haggard's choice of guitars have been Martin acoustics or Fender Telecasters. The first decent guitar that I can determine Merle played was a 1940's Martin 00-18 as we can see in this picture of a very young Haggard with guitar on a farm.

Merle Haggard with a Martin 000-18

One of Haggard's heroes was Jimmie Rodgers. Throughout his early career Merle seemed to have an affinity for small bodied 12 fret Martin 00-18 guitar that Rodgers played early in his career and we see Haggard on the cover of the Mama Tried album holding a Martin 00-18.

As Jimmie Rodgers prospered he purchased a top of the line Martin 00-45 with his name inlaid on the fretboard.

Young Merle Haggard's most photographed guitar with his Martin 00-45. It is on his album covers and in publicity photos.

It is a beautiful instrument.



Haggard played other Martin guitars throughout his career. These appear to be Martin D-28 models. In the mid 1960's

Country musician Billy Grammer and two partners put together a company to build Grammer guitars. For a few brief years these were played by many Country artists and Merle Travis was one of them. In 1968 the Grammer Company was purchased by the Ampeg Music company and around this time a Merle Travis model was offered.

Washburn Parlor guitar

Haggard's album Strangers shows him with a beautiful Washburn parlor guitar. Jimmie Rodgers played one of these guitars too.

Merle Haggard is also seen in publicity photos play an unidentified nylon string guitar, This was during the 1970's when other Country players were picking up nylon string guitars, possibly due to Jerry Reed, Willie Nelson and Chet Atkins gravitating to this instrument.

Ovation Classical

We also see a photo of Merle Haggard playing an Ovation Classical Electric.

Merle with Martin 000-28MH

In 2001 the Martin Guitar Company honored him with the Martin 000-28MH edition.This guitar was built with a mahogany body and a modified v-shape satin-finished neck which had the traditional Martin volute. The spruce top was highly polished with a nitrocellulose gloss finish.

0000-28MH

There was no pickguard on this guitar. The body had a single cutaway. The neck on this guitar joined the body at the 12 fret.

It featured a slotted head stock that features an elaborate logo that read Blue Yodel No. 13 (a tribute to Jimmie Rodgers) was inlaid on the Indian rosewood peghead. The C.F. Martin logo was displayed on the back of the headstock

The neck was topped with African ebony fretboard that had Martin elongated diamond inlays. The belly bridge was also constructed of African ebony with pearl inlaid bridge and end pins.

The guitar came with factory installed electronics. There was only a limited number of the Martin 000-28MH editions issued.

Martin Guitars made a donation for each one sold to charities that Merle Haggard chose.


Perhaps the guitar that Merle Haggard is most identified with was his butterscotch Fender Telecaster. In 1961 Haggard was at a show in Las Vegas to watch his friend Roy Nichols do his act. Nichols had walked off stage and handed Merle his Telecaster and told him to "go use this thing". Haggard walked out on stage and sang a few songs. He played a Telecaster ever since that day.

He once remarked,"A Telecaster is not for the timid; you had to be a bulldog to play a Telecaster because it is hard to play. It doesn't respond like a lot of guitars, so you have to play it with a different attitude, and that makes the results different." 

Merle's Original Fender Telecaster at the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame

Merle with Fender Tuff Dog Telecaster

I have to wonder if that remark was taken to heart when Fender Musical Instruments created the Merle Haggard Tuff Dog Telecaster.

This guitar is a modified Telecaster Thinline model with a laminated top of highly figured maple. The neck is set-in with a deep carved heel and topped with a birdseye maple fretboard with 22 frets.


The pickguard is ivoroid and modified from a normal Telecaster plckguard design.

Fender Custom Shop photo

The body is bound on top. The body if quite interesting as it is made from a center maple block and has two ash "wings" laminated to the block. The ash sections are chambered. With the neck-heel and maple block it appears to be a neck through body guitar, however that is not the case.

The headstock comes with an inlaid dogs head underneath announcing it to be a Tuff Dog Tele. Merle's signature is on the headstock. The gold-plated machine heads are Fender Deluxe models with pearl buttons.

The instruments gold-plated bridge plate contains six saddles and the strings go through the body. The neck has black dot inlay markers.

The electronics are unique. The guitar has twin Texas Special single coil pickups, one with a gold-plated cover and a 4-way blade switch that is has a Strat-style cap. The first position is the bridge pickup, the second position is the bridge and neck in parallel, the third position is the neck pickup and the fourth position is the neck and bridge pickups in series.

In an interview Haggard stated this was the best guitar he ever owned and was the guitar that he dreamed about.



Merle Haggard owned a few other guitars. He can be seen playing a Taylor 814ce.



He also owned a Framus 12 string guitar that he gave away to be auctioned off for a charity. The body was autographed by some of Haggard's friends.

Though he did not own this guitar, here is a rare photo of him playing his friend Lefty Frizzell's customized Gibson SJ-200 with a Bigbsy neck.

The last guitar he owned was a gift from his friend Randy Travis. He called it the Rose guitar. I cannot find any information on the luthier that made this fine instrument. I do not know it was named after Merle's song I Threw Away the Rose or if the makers name was Rose.

This was a small guitar that appears to have a spruce top and mahogany back and sides. The neck was topped with an ebony fretboard with no position markers. The word "Hag" is inlaid between the 9th and 11th fret. The neck joined the body at the 12th fret.

The guitars body is bound in white trim and is a dreadnaught shape. The headstock has a rosewood cap with "Rose"inlaid on it. Merle played this guitar later in his life and it is very well worn. From the looks of it, he must have taken it everywhere.

Merle Haggard with Rose guitar

Merle Haggard even played it at the hospital before his death. Merle passed away April 6th, 2016 on his 79th birthday.

Prince Rogers Nelson known to all as Prince died today at his Paisley Park recording studio and home in Chanhassen, Minnesota after experiencing flu-like symptoms. Prince was an incredibly talented multi-instrumentalist, guitarist, vocalist and record producer. In short Prince was a prodigy.

At 18 years of age he was given not just a recording contract with Warner Brothers Records, but free reign to the production of his first album. He was known for his flamboyant stage work, wide vocal range and his variety of styles that range from [pop to funk to rock to soul to hip hop and disco. His latest venture was to tour with a big jazz band.

Prince was briefly hospitalized Friday after his plane had to make an emergency landing at Illinois' Quad City International Airport. Authorities confirmed today that they were dispatched to the Paisley Park studios this morning, where they found the singer unresponsive in an elevator. Their attempts to revive him failed and he was pronounced dead at the scene. He was only 57 years old. Throughout his career Prince used several different guitars in his stage act.

One of the guitars was a distinctive Telecaster style instrument that had an ash body surrounded by a dark tortoise-shell binding on its top and bottom.

The plastic pickguard appeared to be tortoise-shell. There was also a thin strip of binding material down the center of the body, from the end of the bridge to the rear of the guitar. The headstock was very similar to that of a Fender Telecaster, except for the brand, which said Hohner.


The other feature distinguishing this instrument from a genuine Fender was its bridge. Instead of the typical Telecaster bridge, this guitar had a bridge similar to that found on a hard-tail Stratocaster. Surrounding the bridge was an oval of plastic that matched the pickguard. It was a very distinctive look.

Most of us know that Hohner is a German company well known for their excellent harmonicas, accordions, and reed based instruments.




During the 1960’s Hohner branched out into manufacturing the Pianet electric piano and the Clavinet, which was an electric version of the 17th century instrument called the clavichord, which simply described is a smaller version of a harpsichord. In the 1970’s, I was unaware they were manufacturing guitars.

Hohner, founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner, became the world’s largest producer of harmonicas. The company continued under his family heirs through the 1965. By the 1970’s the company branched out into electric instruments.

It was in the early 1980’s when Hohner joined forces with the Sabian Cymbal Company and Sonor. Due to declining sales, the company underwent massive lay-offs in 1986 and the Kunz-Holding GmbH & Co acquired most of its assets.

By 1997, the assets became the property of K.H.S. Musical Instruments Co. Ltd., based in Taiwan. Most of the manufacturing moved to Asia, although some high-end products are manufactured in Europe.

This guitar was made by a Japanese factory called Moridaira that was founded in 1967 by Toshio "Mori" Moridaira. This company produced some high quality reproduction guitars to by "badged" by other companies. In this case it was Hohner. This Tele copy was originally known as a H.S. Anderson Mad Cat.

There were only about 500 of these guitars produced in the early 1970's.

Later on these would be made in Korea by the Cort Company as The Prinz guitar. Prince used his original Japanese model early in his career on records and in the movie Purple Rain.



When I first saw the film, I was astonished that someone who could afford to play an expensive, big-name instrument would be playing this knock-off by Hohner.

However, I have friends and know of pros that continue to stick with the instruments they started out playing.



I later learned Hohner designated this instrument the Hohner TE.

Through the years, Hohner continued to offer the guitar.. Changes occurred to make its appearance more like a Telecaster. The bridge changed to a metal plate with a six adjustable bridge saddles. The colours changed and the binding on the rim disappeared.

Hohner continues to offer a well-made version of this instrument, now known as the Prince guitar. The headstock has changed to include the German-cut, popularized by Roger Rosmeisl.





Prince had changes made to his Hohner that included the installation of Kinman Broadcaster pickups, accomplished by changing the routing of the pickguard and bridge plate.

The Kinman units come with a pre-wired harness, which replaced the original controls. You can see the neck pickup has exposed pole pieces, much like the bridge pickup.

As his fame grew, Prince commissioned some custom guitars. The first being built in 1983.

The builder, David Husain, was employed at the Knute Koupee music store in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He created The Cloud Guitar.

This is the guitar with the extreme upper horn. The original seems to have a white finish. The wood for the entire instrument was maple. It has a 24.75” scale with 22 frets and a 12” radius. The two pickups are EMG’s. The bridge pickup is an active humbucker and the neck has a single coil pickup. Schaller made all the hardware.



This includes a tune-o-matic style bridge and tailpiece and machine heads. All hardware is gold plated. The controls are simple; one volume, one tone and a 3-way pickup switch. The nut on the headstock is brass. The entire instrument, including the neck, is painted one colour.

The original instrument came in a white finish and featured spade symbol fret markers. It was seen at the end of Purple Rain. Unfortunately, it became a casualty during a concert.

Prince had thee other Clouds made, although some of these underwent multiple paint changes. The next version has a black paint job; however, the fretboard is natural maple. Another Cloud Guitar has a peach finish with small black dot markers.

Prince gave this away as a price. Prince later commissioned a blue Cloud guitar that he called Blue Angel. Like the peach version, this also has black dot markers. Another black Cloud produced, that had an entirely black finish with “bat” fret markers.


The next Cloud had a yellow paint job. Finally, another blue Cloud guitar was produced. This time the knobs were gold plated and the body’s profile was rounded. The Yellow Cloud sold for $18,750 in Minneapolis.


There is a White Cloud on exhibit at the Smithsonian. Others are at various Hard Rock Cafes. Prince named the four Cloud guitars, North, South, East, and West.

Schecter guitars offered copies of the Cloud guitars for sale on Prince’s website. However, the website recently shut down. Some of the Schecter guitars have bolt-on necks, and some have through-the-body necks. The bolt-on instruments have a 25.5” scale. None of the Schecter instruments has the “Love” symbol.

The other guitar identified with Prince is the Symbol Guitar. This instrument was custom built by German luthier, Jerry Auerswald. This guitar made from antique maple and has neck-through-body construction.

The neck scale is 24.75” and the fretboard has 24 medium jumbo frets.

Mr. Auerswald installed EMG pickups on this guitar similar to those on the Cloud guitar. The luthier custom built the bridge and installed Schaller machine heads, with custom-made buttons. The original guitar came with a gold finish.

Prince had his guitar technician built two more of the Symbol instruments. The tech accomplished this by taking measurements of the original instrument and sending them to Schecter. One guitar was white and the other was painted black over the mahogany bodies.

Due to Prince’s guitar acrobatics, the guitars did not last too long. He would throw the instruments in the air and let the guitars drop to the ground. Thus, the horns snapped off and the techs would patch them up.

Much like the Cloud guitars, the tech-made Symbol guitars underwent repainting. At times, the guitar were not only black and white, but also yellow, gold, orange and of course, purple.


Auerswald designed another guitar for Prince. This one is known as the Model C. It is a very unique instrument with two distinct features. The obvious is the stabilizer bar that runs from the body to the headstock. This is very reminiscent of the first Roland Synth guitar. If you look carefully you will notice no tuners on the headstock. The tuners are at the end of the bridge.

Prince has used several other guitars, which include a Fender Stratocaster that has an entirely gold finish. This instrument recently fetched $100,000 at a charity auction held this past April.



Prince and Hamilton

The buyer was race car driver Lewis Hamilton. The proceeds are benefiting the Harlem Children’s Zone, a non-profit organization that serves over 8,000 children and 6,000 adults.

Lonnie Mack

Lonnie McIntosh known to all as Lonnie Mack died yesterday at the age of 74 of natural causes. He was one of the first “guitar heroes” and an influence on countless players including me.

The Wham of that Memphis Man

As a kid I’d put his LP, The Wham of that Memphis Man, on the record player and turn the speed down to 16 2/3’s to slow down his licks so I could copy them on the guitar.

Lonnie remained active in the music business, mostly playing clubs and touring with band members that had remained with him for year until 2004 when he retired.

In 1963 he went into a recording studio in Cincinnati, Ohio called Fraternity Records. After a session had finished, Lonnie and some other players stuck around and laid down a few tracks which included his own instrumental version of Chuck Berry’s Memphis and another instrumental song called he called Wham. What emerged was one of the greatest instrumental guitar albums of all time.

Lonnie with his unmodified Vee

Lonnie's biting guitar style, use of a Bigsby vibrato and trademark sound became legend and were copied by musicians worldwide including Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jeff Beck, Duane Allman, Mike Bloomfield, Ted Nugent and so many others.

In the mid 1950’s Lonnie started playing in clubs all over the Midwestern United States; mostly in Ohio, Kentucky and his home state of Indiana. That first LP that I have mentioned went on to be rated one of the 100 Best Rock n’ Roll records of all time.

Mack released his final LP in 1990; Lonnie Mack Live - The Attack of the Killer V.

Throughout his career Lonnie played his 1958 Gibson Flying Vee. The serial number on it was 007 as it was one of the first made by the company.

1957 Flying V prototype

Gibson had  manufactured prototypes of the Flying V in 1957, under the direction of Gibson president Ted McCarty. This was during an era when America was entering the race for outer space. Cars had fins. There were TV shows about rocket ships and even Walt Disney had hired scientist Wernher von Braun to pique America's interest in space exploration. Gibson decided to get in on this action with some modernistic guitar designs that had an almost aerodynamic look by offering 3 futuristic guitar designs. Lonnie Mack played the Flying Vee.

1958 Flying Vee

The original 1957 prototype had a rounded bottom. It was made of mahogany and was a very heavy instrument. McCarty ordered that a large wedge be cut be made in the bottom end of the guitar’s body to alleviate some of the weight. This cut gave the guitar it’s Flying V appearance and it’s name.

Because blond colored furniture (and blond women) were all the rage during this era, light colored Korina wood was used instead of mahogany.

The guitar was introduced in 1958 along with the Moderne and the Futura (aka The Explorer). It was a dismal failure. The design was too much for the guitarists that wanted their guitars to look…well,like guitars. Due to slow sales, only 98 guitars, production only continued until 1959. Some left over units were sold up through 1963.

Lonnie with his unmodified V

Lonnie McIntosh was a country boy who grew up in Harrison, Indiana which was only 20 miles west of Cincinnati. At 13 years of age he had a quarrel with a teacher and was promptly dismissed from school. All Lonnie wanted to do was play guitar. He hung out at a store in Norwood, Ohio, called Hughes Music. Norwood is mid-sized blue-collar town just outside of Cincinnati and used to be home to a GM plant.

Lonnie Mack in the mid 1960's

The owner Glen Hughes would talk to Lonnie and discovered that Lonnie was interested bow and arrow hunting. Mr. Hughes pulled out the latest Gibson catalog that he had received and showed Lonnie the arrow shaped guitar. Lonnie was in awe. He had to have that guitar.


Hughes put in an order to Gibson and he drove from Cincinnati to Kalamazoo, Michican to pick it up. Lonnie got one with the serial numbers 007.


The story goes on that Lonnie wanted a vibrato put on his V, but due to the guitars design there was no place to mount the unit. The best vibrato unit in those days were the ones made by Bigsby.


Glen Hughes had a stainless steel bar cut and bent so part of the unit was mounted on the guitars body and the end of the unit was attached to the crossbar that ran between the sides of the V.

Most everyone named McIntosh is knick-named Mack and Lonnie McIntosh soon became Lonnie Mack.

On March 12, 1963, Mack had played guitar on a recording session for a girls group called The Charmaines at Fraternity’s recording studio. The allotted studio rental time had twenty minutes remaining, the group invited Mack to take advantage.

Lonnie and the other session players put down two songs on tape that evening and one was a rocking, uptempo guitar version of the Chuck Berry song called Memphis Tennessee.

At that time Mack's job was performing behind another Fraternity artist named Troy Seals. Seal went on to become a well known Nashville song writer.

Mack had forgotten about the session, however someone at Fraternity did not. They liked it well enough to issue it as a single. Seals had just heard from a friend that Lonnie’s song was climbing the charts. By the summer of 1963 Memphis charted in at number 4.

Lonnie Mack

Mack released a follow up called Wham, that became one of his signature tunes. Wham reached number 24 on the Billboard charts. In an interview Mack states he put it together from two songs he had been writing. Lonnie followed up with an LP called The Wham of that Memphis Man.

The album cover shows Lonnie leaning on the bottom of his upside down Flying V. This was before the Bigsby unit was installed.

Magnatone 260

Mack also was fond of his Magnatone amplifier. Just about everyone else was using Fender amplifiers, but Mack loved the True Vibrato effect of the Magnatone. This was engineered using circuitry similar to what was found on electronic organs that caused the pitch to continuously alter. Fender’s vibrato was actually tremolo since it caused the sound to be turned off and on.

Mack said that he was going after the Hammond organ sound that was prevalent in Gospel and Blues.

When Lonnie Mack was playing at clubs in the mid 1960's. He originally used a Magnatone 260 to get his signature sound. This amp had the true FM vibrato, but no reverb.

Gene Lawson

Lonnie later ran his Flying V into an old blonde Fender Reverb Unit then into the Magnatone amplifier. For the road this was a Magnatone M-9 that was modified by a fellow named Gene Lawson.

Lawson removed the amplifiers speaker and put in a step down preamp. The signal from the Magnatone was then sent to a blonde Fender Bandmaster head which powered two blonde Fender Bandmaster 2 x 12” cabinets. I am told that all of the Fender equipment had the “wheat grill cloth on them.”

And that is how Lonnie got his unique sound back in the day.

Later on as Lonnie began to play larger venues he used a Boss chorus pedal through a large amplifier,

Eventually Lonnie settled on a using a Roland JC 120 amplifier that he placed on top of two matching speaker enclosures.

2003 Concert

Lonnie Mack attempted to paint his Flying Vee red, which wound up with a pink hue after it dried out. He eventually got the red colour on the guitar.

Lonnie playing #007

Lonnie loved that guitar and once said he dropped it out of the rear end of his van while driving and the guitar remained in tune.

One time after a bad show, Lonnie told the story the he got mad and threw the Vee in a trash can. A fan fished it out and returned it to him five minutes later.

That guitar is now worth at least six figures, not just due to the fact it is an original 1958 Gibson Flying Vee, but the fact it is Lonnie Mack's Flying Vee.

Mack said that he has played the heck out his Flying V; the back of the neck is scarred up. The guitar has been re-fretted and new pickups were installed back in the late 1960’s.

The back side of the Wham LP

There are couple of interesting facts that have resulted from Mack’s career in the mid 1960’s.

First of all Memphis was the highest rated guitar song. Much of its popularity is due to the popularity of the electric guitar at that time.



Throughout his career Lonnie had recorded with The Doors, as a bass player and played on concert bills with them.


He also recorded with James Brown (who also record most of his hit records in Cincinnati, Ohio at another company), Ronnie Hawkins and Doby Gray.

Lonnie with Keith and Ron

He played concerts with Roy Buchanan, Albert Collins, Ron Wood, Keith Richards and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

The Evolution of the Fender Princeton Amplifier

The Fender Princeton was introduced in 1947 and discontinued in 1979. It was one of the first amplifiers Fender offered, and in the line-up even before Fender’s smallest amplifier, the Champ, which was introduced in the 1948.

Fender Princetons and Princeton Reverbs are highly valued particularly as great recording amplifiers. Jazz artists liked them two, since they were small, yet loud enough to be heard in a combo and had great headroom. Blues and rock guitarists like the early breakup of the 6V6 tubes.

It is funny since Leo Fender considered this to be a student amp, hence the name Princeton. In his original line-up he also offered the bigger and slightly louder Harvard amplifier.

1947 Princeton "Woody"

The original 1946 Woody Princeton had no covering, just a wooden housing with a choice of natural finish or stained mahogany or walnut. This 4 watt cathode based amplifier came with an 8” field coil speaker. By 1947 this was changed to an 8” magnetic Jensen model. The amplifier used a 5Y3 rectifier tube, while the preamp section was made up of a single metal envelope 6SL7 or a 6SJ7.

The power tube was a single 6V6. It had an instrument volume control, a mic volume control and a tone control, along with 3 inputs. This amp was produced through 1948 when it was replaced in by the TV front Princeton. Fender usually put their badge on the lower corner of the Woody amplifier.

1949 Fender TV Front

The TV front Princeton was covered with tweed fabric made of lacquered linen cloth. and It came with a brown mohair grill covering. It pumped 4 watts of power into an 8” Jensen P8R speaker. This amp came with a 5Y3 rectifier tube, a metal envelope 6SJ7 preamp tube and a single 6V6 power tube. The amps controls were on the top of the chasis instead of the back panel.

Again the came with an instrument volume control, a mic volume control and a tone control along with 3 input jacks. This amp continued through production from 1948 through 1953 when the Wide Panel Princeton replaced it.


The badge was placed on the top front side of this amp, and would remain in this position on subsequent amps until Fender came along with their front panel line.

1953 Wide Panel Princeton

The Wide Panel Princeton came with some changes. The covering was still tweed, but the chasis’ shape was different. The grill cover was made of brown linen. Inside the amp housed an 8” Jensen P8T speaker. However some came with Oxford EV8’s and some came with 8” Cleveland speakers.

The tube configuration was a little different as well. Fender used either the 6SL7, or a 5B2/5C2/5D2 or a 12AX7; whatever was available. The Power tube could be a 5B2, 5C2, 5D2, a 6V6 or a 6V6GT.


Once again the rectifier tube was a 5Y3, but it could also be a 5B2, 5C2, 5D2 or a 5Y3GT. The changes caused a slight increase in wattage to 4.5 watts. The amp controls and fuse were now on the amps top control panel. This amp had an instrument volume control, a mic volume control and as on/off throw switch. This amp was in production until 1955 when Fender redesigned it to the become the Narrow Panel Princeton.

1955 Narrow Panel Princeton

On the narrow panel Princeton the chasis was redesigned. The covering was still tweed suitcase material with a dark brown grill cloth cover with a diagonal pattern. The control panel and two input jacks were on the top, with similar controls and fuse placement. The speaker was usually a Jensen P8T, but it could be an Oxford EV8 or an 8” Cleveland speaker.

By this time Fender had settled on a 5Y3 rectifier, 6V6GT power tube and a 12AX7 preamp tube. It is interesting that the initial models utilized a “choke”, which was a small transformer attached to the speaker to act as a filter usually to minimize bass response so the speaker wouldn’t rattle.

Speaker with a choke transformer

Later Fender removed the choke from the circuit. These amps were in production from 1955 through 1960. They were replaced by the Brown Princeton amp.

The Brown Princeton amp was the first step Fender took in modernizing its design. The control panel was on the front of the amp. The wooden chasis was covered in brown tolex. The speaker grill material was a color usually described as wheat.

The Brown Princeton amplifers power rating was dramatically increased to 12 watts, which powered a 10” Jensen C10R or an Oxford 10J4 speaker. The front facing control panel was painted brown and the knobs were also brown. The amp feature hi and low gain input jacks, a volume control, a tone control as well as speed and intensity controls for the built-in tremolo circuit.

This amp was no longer cathode based, but non-adjustable fixed bias. The rectifier tube was a 5Y3, two 6V6 power tubes worked as class AB, two 12AX7 tubes acted in differing ways. Half of the first tube acted as a phase inverter, while the other half was for preamplification. Half of the second tube worked the tremolo, while the other half was utilized for preamplification. These amps were only manufactured from 1961 to 1963.

1963 Princeton amp

In 1963 Fender once again modified its design to the blackface model Princeton amplifier, which in my opinion one of the finest amps ever made. Originally the black tolex cover chasis had grey grill cloth.

In late 1964 this was switch to silver sparkle grill cloth. Once again this was a class AB fixed, non-adjustable bias amplifier. It was powered by two 6V6GT tubes operating in push-pull mode. The rectifier was a 5Y3 tube.

The main preamp tube was a 7025. And two 12AX7 tubes split the load between phase inversion, preamplification and the tremolo circuit. The first model had the same control panel as the Brown version, although the control plate on this amp was black with white lettering. The knobs on it were white.

1964 Princeton amp

By 1964 the controls were modified to Volume, Treble, Bass, Speed and Intensity. This amp came with the familiar Fender black skirted knobs with chrome insert. Neither of these amps had a Fender badge.



Perhaps it was the lack of a reverb driver, that provided this amp with exceptional headroom. The Blackface Princeton amp could be cranked up to 7 or 8 on the volume and still produce a clean sound.

1964 Princeton Reverb

Later in 1964 Fender designed the Princeton Reverb amplifier. This was in my opinion a spectacular amplifier and great for recording. The chasis design was similar to the previous model, with the addition of a reverb potentiometer. The circuit was obviously different.

The rectifier was usually a 5Y3 tube, but substitutions were used, so it could be a GZ34 or a AA763 or a AA964. The twin power tubes were once again 6V6GT’s. The phase inverter was half of a 12AX7 and the other half was used for preamplification.

1964 Fender Princeton Reverb

The main preamp tube was a 7025. Another half of a 12AX7 was used for the tremolo, while a 12AT7 was used as the reverb driver. The amps 10” speakers ould vary in brand. It was generally a Jensen C10R or C10N. However Oxford 10L5’s and 10J4’s were also utilized.

Hammond Reverb tank

The wattage on these amps varies from 12 to 15 watts. The Hammond reverb unit was tucked in a leatherette pouch on the bottom of the chasis. The send and receive wires came out of this pouch. This amp featured the Fender badge with the long tail.

Note the Ground Switch on the left

I might point out that as far back as on the Fender brownface model a ground switch was included on the amps back mainly to reduce noise.





Back in the days where buildings only had two prong receptacles and amps had two prong plugs, if you got a shock from touching a microphone or another anything else the way to solve it was pulling the electrical cord from the wall receptacle, reversing the plug a half turn and placing it back in the receptacle.

BF Princeton with AC plug

When the blackface Fender amps came along the included a “courtesy” plug on the amps backside. You could plug in your buddy’s amp or if you had an electronic effect, say an Ecco-plex you could plug its power cord in the back of your amp. Perhaps the biggest courtesy was, since the polarity was the same, so you wouldn't get shocked.

The back panel of these amps had a 1/4” plug for the speaker and another input for an external speaker. They were also equipped with inputs for the reverb/tremolo pedal and the reverb out/send.


The Black face Princeton Reverb was produced from 1964 through 1967.

1966 Princeton Reverb

CBS purchased Fender in 1965. By the opinion of most the quality of Fender amplifiers did not diminish for a few years. The chassis were still made of pine and finger jointed and the electronics were still superb. There did come a point it seems that CBS/Fender designers were under the gun from accountants with cost analysis and things changed.

CBS/Fender’s first major change was to change the control panel from black with white script to silver with blue (or in some cases red) lettering.

1968 Princeton amp

In 1968 Fender introduced the silverface Princeton amp. This was a staple in their line-up through 1979. This is the Princeton amp sans reverb. The circuitry changed somewhat. The tube complement included a GZ34 for the first couple years, but by 1970 this was changed to a 5U4GB. I am betting this had to do with cost.

The power tubes remained dual 6V6GT’s, always a Fender favorite. A 7025 was used for the preamp and half of a 12AY7 served double duty for the preamp circuit, with the other half used as a phase inverter for the power tubes. Another half of a 12AY7 was used for the tremolo circuit. This amp pumped 12 watts into a 10” Oxford 10J4.

Initially in 1968 this amp had a blue sparkle grill cloth with an aluminum frame. The grill cloth remained, but the aluminum frame was gone on 1970 models. From 1976 to the end of the run the grill cloth was orange and silver.



The Fender badge with the “tail” was mounted on the side of the amp from 1968 through 1974. Mid 1974 and after the badge was changed so the the tail was removed.

The control panel featured hi and low gain inputs, volume, treble, bass, speed and intensity potentiometers topped with Fender skirted knobs. The initial rear panel featured the courtesy plug, the fuse, a “ground” switch, an on/off switch, the speaker input, an external speaker input, and the vibrato jack for a footswitch.

Later in the run the ground switch was replaced with a 3 position throw switch.

1968 PR with aluminum frame

The Silver face Princeton Reverb was much more popular than the Princeton amp, so it remained in Fendera lineup from 1968 through 1981.

The tube complement was similar to the reverb(less) model. The GZ34 was the rectifier until 1970 when it was replaced with the 5U4GB. Once again the power tubes were twin 6V6GT’s. A 7025 acted as the preamp tube. One half of a 12AY7 was used as the other part of the preamp circuit, while the remaining half served as the amp’s phase inverter.

Another half of a 12AY7 was used for the tremolo, and one 12AY7 was used as a reverb driver, with a half of a 12AY7 being used for reverb recovery.

This amp pumped 12 to 15 watts into either a 10” Oxford 10J4 or a CTS (Chicago Telephone Supply) 10” speaker. The grill cloth material used on the Princeton Reverb was the same as used on the Princeton amp and was changed in the same time frames listed above. The control panel was comprised of a hi and low gain input jack, volume, treble, bass, reverb, speed and intensity potentiometers and a pilot light.

The rear panel included the courtesy plug, a “ground” switch, a fuse, the on/off switch, the speaker jack, an external speaker jack, inputs for the vibrato and reverb footswitch, the reverb send and reverb receive jack. The reverb unit was also in a pouch on the floor of the chassis. This amp was available through 1981.

Princeton Reverb II

By the next year Fender was looking to the future and dramatically redesigned this little amplifier. The last tube amp in the Fender Princeton collection is the Fender Princeton Reverb II. This was Fender’s entry into modern amplification.

This amplifier and the circuitry were designed by the legendary Paul Rivera. And it was a much different amp than all of the previous models. In fact Rivera created a whole new line-up of Fender tube amplifiers.

For one thing the rectifier was solid-state. Two 6V6GTA tubes provided power for this amplifier. The preamp tube section included a 7025 as a phase inverter, with half of it used for the preamp. One12AX7 tubes completed the preamp section and one more 12AX7 was used to drive the reverb and for lead distortion.

Another 12AX7 was used as a reverb pickup and the final preamp section. However these tubes could be 12AY7’s or ECC83’s or ECC81’s The speaker was beefed up to a Fender Special Design 8 ohm 12” model to accomodate this amps 20 watt output.


The chasis was still black tolex, but the silver control panel section was once again black with white script.

The potentiomer knobs were the Fender skirted style with chrome centers. One thing that made this amp so special was the channel switching capability. The front facing control panel included a single input for guitar, a volume control that you could pull forward for lead. Next in line was the treble control. When pulled forward it acted as a bright control.

Then the Mid control, which was also a push-pull knob that when pulled forward added midrange boost. Then the bass control, which was followed by the reverb control. Next was a potentiometer for lead level, followed by a master volume controll and finally a presence potentiometer. The on/off switch was front mounted as was the pilot light.

The rear panel included a fuse, a grounded electrical cord, a 3 way ground switch (A/Off/B), the 1/4” speaker input jack, a 1/4” line recording jack, two pedal jacks, two RCA jacks for reverb output and input and a hum balance control. The Princeton Reverb II was offered from 1982 through 1986.

In 2006, Fender revived the Princeton name for a tube amplifier creating a rather unusual amplifier called the Princeton Recording-Amp in their Pro-tube series. This was essentially a blackface Princeton Reverb with an additional section of chassis which housed a built-in overdrive, compressor and a power attenator.

That same year they issued the Princeton 650 in the Dyna-touch III series. This was a solid-state amp with lots of bells and whistles.

In 2008 Fender reissued an updated version of the '65 blackface Princeton Reverb.

Fender has also offered an updated version of the '68 silverface Princeton Reverb. These amps are still offered in the Fender line-up

It is interesting that the Princeton amp was the basis for Randall Smith’s creation, the Mesa Boogie Mark 1.

Smith's original modified Princeton

Smith was running a small amplifier repair business when he borrowed a Princeton amp and modified the preamp section, then added a Bassman transformer, installed a 12” speaker that allowed this little amp to pump out 60 watts. That was the start of his business and a story for another day.

1946 Fender Model 26

In 1946 Leo Fender offered the Model 26 as his “Deluxe” amplifier for sale. This was a very basic amp. It produced around 10 to 14 watts of power, which was loud enough to let the guitar be heard in most of the bands and orchestras of the day.

Though Leo Fender and other amp designers of the day had a perception of their amplifiers remaining clean at high volumes, many musicians had other ideas.

The tube driven saturation of a cranked Deluxe amp was favored during the 50’s and in subsequent decades as it is still favored today.

1947 Model 26

The original Deluxe amp or Model 26 was what we today consider to be a “Woody”. The amplifier was housed in a wooden chassis made of maple, walnut or mahogany, whatever wood was available at the time. The handle was also fashioned of wood.

1946 Model 26 Rear

The grill covering was made of fabric that could be gold, red or  blue and there were two to three vertical chrome stripes on the face of the grill cloth. This amp housed a 10” Jensen speaker. For the first year this was a field coil type speaker, with the output transformer mounted on the chassis.

Then beginning in 1947 Fender switched to a fixed magnetic speaker which had the output transformer mounted on the speaker basket.

The Model 26 controls were mounted on the back panel and very straight forward; an instrument volume control and a mic volume control, both of which went from 1 to 12, one mic input and two instrument inputs and a single tone potentiometer.

Metal envelope tubes

The tube complement consisted of two metal envelope 6V6 power tubes, one 6SN7 metal envelope tube used as a preamp and a metal envelope 6N7 used as the phase inverter and 5Y3 glass envelope tube as the rectifier.  Metal envelope tubes were a popular style in those days.

This was a cathode biased amplifier. Cathode biasing provides a steady negative DC bias voltage on the control grid of the vacuum tubes.

I think some of the charm of the Deluxe line of Fender amps stems from the fact that they are cathode biased.

1946 Fender Deluxe 5A3

The second version of this amp and the first Fender amp that Leo named The Deluxe was the model 5A3. This is sometimes referred to as the TV Front amp since it resembled a TV set from the 1950’s. The Deluxe amplifier went into production in 1948 and remained in the line-up for the next five years.

Like the Model 26, the 5A3 pumped out 10 to 14 watts. However the speaker size was increased to 12” with an 8 ohm load. It was also made by the Jensen Company.

The chassis on the TV front Deluxe was made of pine and covered with tweed material made out of varnished cotton cloth. The brown colored grill was originally made of mohair in 1948, but linen cloth was used in subsequent years. Instead of wood, the handle on this model was made of leather secured with two glides.

The amplifiers control panel was moved to the top of the amplifier. Instead of a black panel which was on the Model 26,. the control panel on this amplifier came with a classy chrome cover and it included controls for Volume, Mic Volume, Tone (which was also an on/off switch) and two instrument inputs and a mic input.

The front of the amp had a rectangular badge proclaiming it to be Fender - Fullerton California.

1951 Deluxe 5A3

The tube compliment included 2 metal envelope 6V6 power tubes, a 6NS7 preamp tube, part of a another 6SC7 tube was used as a phase inverter, while a metal envelope 5Y3 was used as the rectifier. Like the Model 26, this amp was cathode biased. It remained in the Fender line-up through 1953.

1953 Deluxe 5B3

It was in that same year, 1953, when the design was once again changed. Depending on the year this could be the model 5B3, 5C3, or 5D3. All are commonly identified as the Wide Panel Deluxe amp.







Like its predecessor, this amp was covered in varnished tweed material and had a leather handle. On its front was the familiar rectangular Fender badge.

 The Wide Panel Deluxe amp came with a 12” Jensen 8 ohm speaker which pumped out 10 to 14 watts.

The controls were in fact similar to the TV front version; Volume, Mic Volume, and a Tone knob that doubled as an on/off switch. This amplifier possessed two inputs labeled Instruments and one labeled Mic.

Like the model 5A3 and the model 26 the knobs were numbered 1 through 12.  The grill covering on this series was dark brown linen.

The tube compliment had changed somewhat. The metal envelope tubes were now gone and instead the more modern glass tubes or GT models were utilized. Two 6V6GT’s handled the power duties. The preamp tube of choice for models 5B3 amd 5C3 were 6SC7’s and a 12AX7 for the model 5D3.

A 6SC7 was used as a phase inverter on the 5B3 and 5C3 designs, while a 12AX7 was utilized for this purpose in the model 5D3. The rectifier tube for all models was the 5Y3GT.

The model 5B3 was essentially the same amplifier as the 5A3, but for cabinet. which no longer had the "TV" front. In later years it came to be known as the Wide Panel Deluxe.

The model 5C3 included an additional on/off toggle switch, a negative feedback loop and there was a now a jack for the speaker wires which was positioned on the bottom of the amps chassis.

'55 5D3 note the badge

The 5D3 was similar to the 5C3, but there was no negative feedback loop.

As a brief explanation, a negative feedback loop flattens and extends the frequency response. This makes the sound cleaner with less distortion giving the sound a more “hi-fi” feel. The downside is that it effects the tone.

And when the amp is overdriven there is more clipping. There are advantages and disadvantages to the negative feedback loop. Something happened during the end of the run of this amplifier. For whatever reason the negative feedback loop was eliminated in the last model, the 5D3 version.

1958 Fender Deluxe 5E3

The next version of the Deluxe Amp is the Narrow Panel model also known as the 5E3 model. The 12” Jensen 8 ohm speaker remained as a standard for this amplifier. However the RMS output was upped to 15 watts in this model.

1959 Fender Deluxe 5E3

Once again this amplifier was covered in varnished tweed cloth. It came with a leather handle that had glides on either side. The speaker covering or grill cloth was usually dark brown linen.

1960 Fender 5E3

The amplifiers control panel was mounted towards the rear of the amps top and once again had a chromed covering.






The controls included a ground switch and a power switch, a volume potentiometer, a mic volume pontentiometer, a single tone potentiometer and two instrument inputs and two mic inputs.
 
A speaker and an external speaker jack were mounted on the bottom of the chassis that held the electronics.

Once again twin 6V6GT’s (glass tubes) were the choice for power tubes. The rectifier was a 5Y3GT. A 12AY7 and 1/2 of a 12AX7 were used for the preamp circuit, while the other 1/2 of the 12AX7 was utilized for phase inversion.

The rectangular badge on the amp proclaimed it to be a Fender in block letters.

Later runs of the amp came with badges that said Fender Deluxe in the same font that Fender would bein to use for years to come. The words Fullerton California were written in block lettering below.

The 53E model remained in the line-up from 1955 to 1960 and today is still a very popular and imitated model.

1961 Fender Deluxe 6G3

In 1961, the year you could read right-side up or upside down, The Fender Deluxe Amp was radically redesigned. This was the Brownface Deluxe also known as model 6G3. The amplifiers control panel was no longer on the top and it now faced front and came with a dark brown face-plate. In some cases this was almost black.

The amplifiers cabinet was now covered in a sandy coloured brown vinyl material called Tolex.

Tolex is a material created by the General Tire Company and was originally designed for use in upholstering the Henny-Packard (Packard was an old brand of automobiles) hearses and ambulances and in Chris Craft boats.

1961 Fender 6G3

This amplifiers speaker baffle was covered in a woven material we commonly call grill cloth. In this case it was of a wheat coloured design. The handle was made of leather with metal glides. The amp unit was secured to the top of the amp with two chrome metal “straps”.






This was the first Deluxe amp to have two distinct channels.  One was labeled normal and the second labeled bright. On the earliest models the bright channel was on the left, but this was soon reversed. Each channel had two inputs and a single volume and a single tone knob.

1962 Fender 6G3

This was also the first amp in the Deluxe series to have a built-in special effect, which was labeled vibrato, However it was actually a tremolo circuit and it was powered by one half of a 12AX7 tube which worked as an oscillator. The vibrato circuit was controlled by the familiar speed and intensity potentiometers.

The circuitry in this model was completely redesigned so the output was bumped up to 22 watts.

The amps speaker was 12” with an 8 ohm load, but was now made by Oxford instead of Jensen. On the earliest models the speaker screwed into the baffle from the front of the baffle board. This soon changed and the speaker screwed in from the backside.

Once again the power tubes were twin 6V6GT models. The rectifier tube was changed to a GZ34. A single 12AX7 was used as a phase inverter. The preamp section included half of a 7025 for the normal channel and the other half used for the bright channel. And as mentioned before 1/2 of a 12AX7 was used for the tremolo.

This version of the Deluxe Amp remained in the line up through 1963.

Fender Deluxe AA763

By 1963 the Fender Deluxe amp underwent another redesign. This was the model AA763. The tolex covering was now black, which matched the face-plate on the control panel. The grill covering was either grey or grey with silver sparkles. The handle was no longer made of leather, but of a black vinyl material with chromed glides.

1965 Fender AA763

 The AA763 circuit was modified. This amp also included two separate channels. Each had controls for Volume, Treble and Bass. Each channel had two instrument inputs. The first input has a bit more gain on it and is useful for single coil pickups.


 I have read the second input has about a 6 db drop and can be used for humbuckers or effects pedals. I have noticed on my Fender amps the #1 input provides a bit more power.

Deluxe AA763

Channel one was labeled Normal, while channel two is labeled as Vibrato. Channel two, which was a little brighter and it included two controls for tremolo; speed and intensity.

This version of the Deluxe amp pumped 22 watts into a 12” 8 ohm Oxford speaker. The power tubes were 6V6GT models.

The rectifier was a GZ34 and the preamp section was powered by two 7025 tubes. One was for the Normal channel and the other for the Vibrato/Bright channel. A 12AT7 tube was used as a phase inverter for the power tubes and a 12AX7 powered the tremolo effects. The Deluxe amp was one of the first Fender amps to include an adjustable bias potentiometer although the amp did have a fixed bias.

The controls on the back of the amp included a 2 prong “courtesy outlet”, a “ground” switch, a power switch, a standby switch, a speaker input jack, an external speaker jack and an input for the vibrato/tremolo foot pedal.

Briefly, here are a few words regarding the electric outlet found on the back of 1960’s Fender amps; This feature appeared prior to the age of 3 prong electric plugs and “snake” electric cables that are used these days by most bands.

Back in the day we used to just plug one or two amps into the electric service outlets at a club and plug our buddies amp into the back of ours. We hoped the polarity was correct so we didn’t get shocked if we touched each other. So the "courtesy" outlet was a great feature in the 1960's.

Which brings me to the “ground” switch. In days of old most electric services in homes and clubs had 2 prong outlets. Believe it or not, the blades on electric plugs were both the same size.



So if you had a lot of buzzing in you amp, or if you touched the mic and got shocked because the PA was running on a different polarity you had two choices; pull the electric plug out and flip it one half turn and plug it back in or flip the ground switch on your Fender amp.

Later on when 3 prong outlets became the norm, some newer amps came with ground switches, but this was just a feature to reduce the 60 cycle hum.. If you have an older Fender amp with a 2 prong electric plug I suggest that you get it converted to a three prong plug.

The Fender Deluxe amp remained in the line up through 1966 when it was officially retired.

Deluxe Reverb model AB763

In 1963, during this same time period as the Fender Deluxe amp, Fender produced one of their most popular amplifiers and in my opinion best amps ever. This was the Blackface Deluxe Reverb also known as the model AB763.

1965 Deluxe Reverb

This amplifiers wooden cabinet was covered with black tolex and the grill covering in front of the speaker baffle was grey or silver sparkle woven material. The 12" 8 ohm speaker was a Fender Special design model made by Oxford.


The handle on this amplifier was made of black reinforced vinyl with chrome glides.

This was the first year the amp came with the well known Fender badge and this one had a tail from the last “r” that went underneath the word “Fender.” The badge was mounted on the side of the grill.

Like the previous model, this was a two channel amplifier. The first or Normal channel came with two inputs, one volume control, one treble control and one bass control. Once again the first input provided a little more gain than the second. The second channel, labeled Vibrato also had two instrument input jacks, one volume, one treble and one bass control. Next came the vibrato controls; speed and intensity, and finally a single potentiometer to adjust the reverb level. The knobs were all mounted on a black metal panel with the familiar Fender script.

The back panel, from left to right, consisted of the courtesy electrical two-prong outlet, the ground switch, the fuse, a power switch, a standby switch, the speaker jack, an external speaker jack, followed by two plug-in jacks for the vibrato and reverb pedal and finally two more plugs for the reverb output and reverb input for the wires coming out of the reverb tank which was mounted in a bag on the floor of the amps cabinet.

1963 Fender Deluxe Reverb

The amps power section was run by twin 6V6GT tubes, while the preamp normal channel ran off of a 7025 tube. The vibrato channel ran off of two 7025's, however only 1/2 of the second was utilized. The other half of this tube was used for reverb recovery.

A 12AT7 tube was used as a phase inverter. The rectifier was a GZ34 tube. The tremolo section was run by a 12AX7 and a 12AT7 was used as a reverb driver. This amp also had an adjustable bias potentiometer.

Original '65 Deluxe Reverb

This amp pumped 22 watts into an 8 ohm speaker load. While it was not an overly loud amp, it can give wonderful clean sounds with lots of headroom especially when mic’d. And when overdriven at cranked levels, it breaks up nicely.

The Blackface Deluxe Reverb remained in the Fender line-up through 1967.

As you might recall, CBS purchased the Fender company in 1965, and part of the sale included a lot of left over stock so chances are if you have a Blackface Deluxe Reverb from that vintage it was more than likely a pre-CBS amplifier.

1968 Fender Deluxe Reverb

It was in 1968 that the Fender Deluxe Reverb underwent some more changes. This was the era of the Fender Silverface amps and the Deluxe Reverb was in the line up. This was also known as the model AB868.



Once again the cabinet was covered in black tolex. The front control panel had the same controls as the Blackface model and the twin channels remained. Although in 1977 the volume control on the Vibrato channel was changed from a standard potentiometer to one that had a dual function. You could pull it forward to activate a volume boost.

The facade for the control panel was now finished in translucent silver. Instead of the familiar Fender font stating “Deluxe Reverb”, the font used now was light blue block lettering.

The only change on the back panel was that the AC outlet was switched to a 3 prong version. The other controls remained the same as the Blackface model, except in 1979 a line out jack was added. The speaker was generally made by Oxford, however Fender also used Utah speakers.

'69 model with aluminum frame

The baffle on the amps grill changed through the years. From 1968-69 the grill covering was a woven silvery-blue material with sparkles in it. These years there was an aluminum frame that bordered the grill section.

Starting in 1970 and lasting until 1975 the aluminum frame was no longer on the amp. Then in 1976 through the end of the run, in 1982, the grill cloth was made of a silver and orange woven material.

The amp retained the familiar Fender badge on the grill cloth and from 1968 through 1974 it had the “tail’. Sometime in 1974 the Fender badge was changed to a tailless version and this was the logo used until 1993 when Fender decided to recreate the “1965 Deluxe Reverb” and used the older badge with the tail.

The tubes in the Silverface Deluxe Reverb were virtually the same tubes used in the Blackface model with the exception of the rectifier, which was now a 5U4GB. The output on this model was still rated at 22 watts RMS.

1980 Deluxe Reverb

The Silverface control panel remained a mainstay on the Deluxe Reverb until 1980 when Fender reverted back to a black front cover. The font used on the 1980 model for the words Deluxe Reverb was not quite as fancy as in 1963.


But the the grill cloth on the 1980 Deluxe Reverb changed back to the silver sparkle woven pattern. The Silverface Deluxe Reverb and its newer Blackface predecessor ended  their run in 1982.

Deluxe Reverb II

In 1982 the Fender Deluxe Reverb underwent a very dramatic change thanks to amplifier designer Paul Rivera, who at the time was Fenders marketing director. This amp was known as the Fender Deluxe Reverb II. Approximately 3,500 units were built.


The production history of this amp is interesting, but first here is a little about the amp.

The circuit was completely redesigned. This amp had the ability to get the normal Fender-style clean sound, but it also came with a switchable mid-range voiced gain channel. This feature was designed to compete with competitive amps built during this era, such as Mesa Boogie (which interestingly started out as a Fender Princeton Reverb).

On the Deluxe Reverb II, no longer were there two different individual and separate channels. This model came with two totally different channels that incorporated the possibility of switching sounds.



Guitar players in the late 1970's had experimented with ways to utilize the both channels on their Fender amps to get different and overdriven sounds. The Rivera/Fender amps were what they were dreaming about.

Paul Rivera

The Deluxe Reverb II is a highly sought after amp since it features eyelet board construction and is pretty much hand-wired; and besides the fact that it was made by Paul Rivera.

From outward appearance this amplifier looked pretty much like a Blackface Deluxe Reverb. The cabinet was covered in black tolex and the speaker baffle was covered in blue/grey sparkle grill cloth. The front panel was black with two instrument inputs.


The words Deluxe Reverb II, in the stylized Fender font were on the face-plate.

From left to right the controls included a volume knob that could be pulled for a bright sound, followed by treble and bass knobs. Next came the gain channel with a volume control which could be pulled for channel selection, then a gain knob, a treble knob, a mid knob with a pull feature for a mid-range boost. Next came a bass knob, a reverb knob and finally a presence knob, which I am told worked great with distortion, followed by the power switch.

On the rear of the amp was a 3 prong electrical outlet, a 3-way “ground” switch which could be switched to the left, middle/off or right position, a speaker input, an external speaker input, two inputs for the amps pedals (channel switching and reverb), an input for reverb out and reverb in and a hum balance potentiometer, which was turned with a screwdriver. Tremolo was gone on this model.

Deluxe Reverb II replaced speaker

The 12” 8 ohm speaker was a Fender Special design, probably made by Oxford and it pumped out 20 watts. Once again the power tubes were twin 6V6GT’s, the phase inverter was a 12AT7, the preamp tubes were three 7025’s, another 7025 was split and 1/2 was used for the preamp.

The other 1/2 of the 7025 was used for reverb recovery and one other 7025 was used as the reverb driver. The rectifier was solid-state for this model. The bias was fixed and was not adjustable.

The Deluxe Reverb II and others in the Rivera series were special amps because these were the last of the amps made at the Fullerton California facility.

William Schults

In 1985 William Schultz led a group of employees and investors in the purchase of the Fender Company from CBS. I cannot say enough wonderful things about Bill Schultz. He can be credited with saving and rebuilding the Fender name. Mr. Schultz spent much of his career in the musical instrument industry and was working for Yamaha before going out on his own.

Bill Schultz and Bill Mendello

Many employees, including William Mendello, the company president stayed on and continued their work at Fender after the sale because of Schultz..

Fender Fullerton Factory

The Fullerton facility was not included in the sale, so from 1985 to 1987 Fender or the Fender Musical Instrument Corporation as it was and is now known did not have a United States based facility. During this two year period amplifiers were assembled from pre-existing wired-up chassis in a rented facility in Brea California. As orders came in speaker and cabinets were made to conserve on space.

The Deluxe Reverb II and the other Paul Rivera designed amps ended their run in 1986. This would be the last of the Deluxe amplifiers until 1993 when Fender recreated the ‘65 Deluxe Reverb amplifier.

'65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue

The '65 Deluxe Reverb was a very similar amplifier, especially in appearance, but the circuit board was modernized to a printed board and the speaker was now made by Eminence.

'68  Custom Deluxe Reverb reissue

In 2014 Fender reissued the Silverface Custom Deluxe Reverb. The tone circuit in this model was modified.

The two channels are marked Custom and Vintage.

The Vintage channel or what we think of as the reverb side has more of a Bassman style tone circuit, while the first channel, now marked Vintage has more of a vintage tone stack on the normal side. But both sides now share reverb and tremolo. The negative feedback loop was removed from the circuit so the amp has more bite and grit. The speaker in this model is a Celestion.

Aristides model 070

There are some very interesting and innovative guitars coming out of Northern Europe. Last year I wrote about Aristides Guitars that are built in the Netherlands.

Versoul Raya 6

I also did an article on Versoul guitars that are manufactured in Finland.

Relish Guitars

Now I have encountered some exquisite and unique guitars being built in Lucerne, Switzerland with the unusual name of Relish Guitars.

Relish Guitars - Jane and Mary

There are two versions of these unique instruments; Jane and Mary. Both are manufactured with a similar body shape, but out of different materials.

Relish Guitar Founders

Relish Guitars are a venture that was started by partners Pirmin Giger and Silvan Kung who are living their dream of designing and building an exceptional and unusual guitar, by taking a similar approach that artisans took with historical Swiss watchmaking technology.

The Jane Model

Jane’s body (the guitar) is based on a milled aluminum frame which serves several functions. The strings attach directly to this frame which enhances their sustain.


The maple neck is bolted directly to the aluminum frame and center bar. The bridge is also attached to the bar. This further adds to the guitars sustain. So although the guitar body is essentially hollow the way the frame and neck are engineered, it provides the resonating factor of a solid body instrument.

The frame also acts has a stable housing for the components, which allows easy access to the guitars inner-workings including swapping out the pickups and changing the battery.

The pickups are connect to a circuit board by means of gold plated connectors that simply unscrew in the event you want to change pickups. Relish Guitars will add the connectors and cables to any aftermarket pickup you send to them.

Magnetic LED touch switch

The circuit board operates the unique LED switching system, which is powered by the battery. Instead of the usual Switchcraft style toggle switch, this guitar comes with two LED’s on the front of the body. By merely touching one or both the pickups go off or on.

The guitars interior work is pristine.

The Jane guitar comes with standard and passive volume and tone potentiometers and twin passive Relish Bucker XV pickups, which are designed and made in-house.

Jane's aluminum frame

Sandwiched above and below the frame are two sheets of 7 layer wood veneer, that are available in walnut, ash, or cherry. The front and sides attach directly to the aluminum frame.

Back cover with guitar pick wedged in

The veneer cover on the back is routed out and has a second “door” that has a parallel shape to the body.

Magnets

This door is held in place by magnets and is easily removed with a guitar pick.


The neck is made of solid maple and the headstock comes with Schaller machine heads.

Woven Bamboo fretboard

The fretboard is constructed of woven dark bamboo. This material is harder than most fretboard woods and is a sustainable product. It is topped with stainless steel fretwire and has 24 frets. There are no fret markers.

Schaller tuners - resin nut

This guitar is slightly over the 25 1/2” for its scale (650mm) and has a 10” radius. The nut is made of resin. The neck has a two-way adjustable truss rod.



A Hipshot adjustable bridge/saddle assembly that allows the strings to attach directly to the guitars frame.

I have to hand it to Relish Guitars for coming up with such a unique body shape. This double cutaway guitar is not a copy of anything else on the market. The Jane model comes in walnut, ash, cherry, blond flamed, white, gray/black and Bordeaux.

Mary

Mary is much different from Jane, as Mary comes with a solid alder frame that is milled on a CNC machine.

The top and back are made of milled plywood that attaches to the alder frame by use of bolts that utilize large o-rings to prevent any vibration.

Mary's frame

Unlike the Jane model, the entire back side of the Mary guitar is removable to access the pickup connectors if there is a need to change them out and also to attach the strings to the tone block on the underside of the Hipshot bridge/saddle.


The maple neck is bolted to the alder or ash frame by means of 4 bolts and a metal plate and is hidden away beneath the instruments back veneer.



This guitars neck is topped with a fretboard made of dark woven bamboo  with stainless steel frets. There are no position markers on the fretboard.

The Relish Mary guitar

Mary comes with twin Relish Bucker XV pickups that are made by the company. The pickups are controlled with a 3-way blade switch.  There is a single volume and a single tone potentiomers with chromed and knurled knobs. The headstock has a veneer that matches the colour of the body.

2016 Vox Starstream Type-1

Vox Musical Instruments are famous for their amplifiers. Back during the Jennings/Thomas period the company attempted to put together a line up of guitars, that were made in Italy, but were overshadowed by their wonderful amplifiers. Some of their guitars from that period were very interesting and futuristic and still quite collectible.

2012 Vox Apache Travel Guitar

Vox tried unsuccessfully to resurrect their guitars a few years ago. Now the Vox company has come up with a new instrument with an old name. The Vox Starstream.

2016 Vox

The Vox Starstream Type-1is a unique modeling guitar that incorporates a new system called AREOS-D. This highly developed DSP processor that powers the on-board electronics to produce classic electric and acoustic guitar sounds from the guitars magnetic and piezo pickups. This includes traditional volume, tone and pickup selectors and a control module to alter the instruments 27 different sounds, including electric and acoustic guitar six, twelve string and banjo sounds as well as synth and sitar sounds. The DSP was developed by the same designer that worked for Line 6.

Vox Starstream Type 1

The guitars shape is very unique since it has an electric guitar shape that is housed within a very unique frame. Vox states “the shape of the body and frame are based on advanced ergonomic design practices that conform the instrument to your body in a way no wooden guitar can.”

The guitars body is sculpted from mango wood, while the neck is made of maple. The neck is topped with a 22 fret rosewood fretboard. The six-in-a-line headstock included sealed die cast machine heads.This guitar is topped with twin Vox XLM humbucking pickups and six piezo in the bridge saddle.

The bridge and saddle are a vibrato unit. Below them are the tone, volume and pickup switch.

Behind the bridge/saddle assembly is the control module that provides access to the tone shaping parameters which include Drive and Reverb. The control module is powered by four Alkaline AA batteries or four Rechargeable Ni-MH AA batteries. The control module has 3 banks of nine sounds which include two user banks to store your favorite sounds.

Although the Starstream Type 1 was set to sell in the spring of 2016 starting at $699 USD, I have not found this guitar for sale in the USA at this time. In Britain the suggested retail is £790. Anderton's has it for sale for £590. 

'68 Vox V269

In 1968, the guitar fad was declining, but the Vox company, JMI, was still producing their incredible amplifiers and guitars, which included the six string Vox V269 Starstream and the twelve string Vox V270 Starstream XII. Both were amazing instruments that were loaded with all the bells and whistles a guitarist of that era would need.

These guitars had the Vox teardrop body with one unique F-hole on the upper bout. The bodies were hollow inside. The V269 six string model had binding around the top and bottom of the guitars body, while the V270 was unbound.

'68 Vox V270

Both instruments had bound maple necks with rosewood fretboards and block inlays. The logo VOX was embossed in gold letters on the black headstock veneer along with vine design.

Both guitars came with what are described as twin Fero-sonic pickups. The truly unique factor that set these guitars apart were the built-in effects.

Vox V270 - E-tuner

A slider switch on the upper side of the guitar turned on a transistorized oscillating circuit called an E-tuner. This seems simplistic today, but in the mid 1960’s there were no digital tuners. All that was available was an expensive strobe tuner, a pitch pipe or a tuning fork.

The guitars had a single potentiometer that functioned as a volume control for both pickups and two potentiometers that served as individual tone controls.

Controls for V269 & V270

A chrome plate on the lower bout housed the controls for the instruments effects, which included Treble/Bass booster control, which included a slider switch and a volume control.

The next control was a distortion module that had a similar set up; an on/off slider switch and a knob to control intensity. And finally there was a repeater switch and a control for the speed of the repeats. This control was a holdover from the days that the company sold organs. Perhaps the best way to describe this effect is to consider the banjo sound in the Hollie’s song, Stop, Stop, Stop All the Dancing.

V270 Palm Wah-Wah and switch

The last effect was a palm operated Wah-Wah. This was turned on by a switch on the upper side of the bridge pickup. This effect gave off the crystal clear tone of the famous Vox Clyde McCoy Wah-Wah.

Vox V269 Vibrato

The model V269 came with a Bigsby-style vibrato unit, while the V270 had a simple bar bolted to the body to secure the strings. There was a chrome cover that went over this bar.

A large circular black pad was on the backside of these guitars. This snapped on similar to the pads found on some Gretsch guitars. This pad was actually the access cover to the guitars interior and needed to be removed to change the 9 volt battery that operated the instruments effects.

A friend of mine owned a V270 twelve string and it was a pleasure to play. The strings were set up properly; not too far off the fretboard. The effects worked beautifully. Especially the palm operated wah-wah. Both instruments have not been made since 1970 when the Whirlpool corporation purchased the assets of Vox USA. They are still available through online auction and sellers.

From acousticguitar.com and the National Resophonic website

Don Young - May 8, 1953 - June 15, 2016

“The world lost a kind and generous man last night with the passing of National’s co-founder, Don Young. As a musician and resonator guitar aficionado, Don enjoyed sharing his knowledge of resonator history with friends and co-workers.  He will be greatly missed by all those lucky enough to have known him.  His trademark engineer’s cap symbolized his love of trains. Don Young is survived by his wife and three daughters."

Don Young with Engineer cap

The company National Resophonic was formed in 1989 by Young and McGregor Gaines, in a Californian garage.

Don Young and McGregor Gaines

These men measured old resonator instruments of all makes and designs, and produced reproductions under the “National” brand name and trade mark, as was originally used by the National String Instrument Corporation for the first resonator instruments.

National Resophonic Style O

In 1990 a factory was purchased in San Luis Obispo, California and is still located at this site.

Since its inception, National Reso-Phonic Guitars is a manufacturer of resonator guitars and other resonator instruments including mandolins, ukuleles and 12 string guitars.

Their current production is over 1,000 instruments per year, representing more than 50 different models.

In addition to manufacturing new instruments, they offer a repair service capable of restoring almost any vintage National guitar to original condition.

In 2008, Young and Eric Smith, an employee of the company since 1991, purchased McGregor Gaines’ interest in the company.

Young reportedly sold his interest in 2014 and retired.

Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley’s guitarist, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and one of the most admired guitarists in the world passed away on June 28th, 2016 at the age of 84. Those close to him confirmed he had recently been in poor health. He was beloved in the world of music,especially by those in Nashville, Tennessee, where he resided and recorded. Countless guitar players learned to play Rock and Roll guitar by copying his licks.

The Starlite Wranglers

Scotty Moore began playing guitar at the age of eight. In 1954 he formed a group with bass player Bill Black called the Starlite Wranglers. They recorded at Nashville’s Sun Records after meeting Sam Phillips, the studios owner.

Around that time Phillips got word that a kid in Nashville was looking to record a single and Phillips asked Moore to listen to him sing. Scotty Moore was blown away and suggested that Phillips book a session, which was meant to be an audition for Elvis.

Scotty, Elvis and Bill Black

So in 1954, Scotty Moore playing guitar and Bill Black playing bass backed up Elvis on the Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup blues song, That’s Alright Mama.” There were no drums on the track.

Because Elvis sounded Black, and these were the days before civil rights, Bill Black commented,"Damn. Get that on the radio and they'll run us out of town."

Original Record

Phillips gave copies of the record to local disc jockeys. Interest in this record was so intense that it was repeatedly requested to be played on the air. And that was what started it all for Elvis, Scotty and Bill Black.

Elvis and the group followed up with a rockin’ version of the Bill Monroe song, Blue Moon of Kentucky. For a brief time Scotty Moore was Elvis’ manager.

Elvis and the original band

For shows they needed a drummer and D.J. Fontana was recruited. Elvis, Scotty, Black and Fontana made history by touring the country and performing on television, most notably the Ed Sullivan Show.

Elvis is drafted

In 1958 Elvis was drafted into the U.S. Army. During Elvis’ Army years Scotty Moore kept busy at another studio called Fernwood Records. In 1960 Moore backed up Elvis in sessions at RCA studios in Nashville and Moore also served as production manager for Sam Phillips Recording Service.

Elvis, Bill, Scotty, Sam Phillips

Moore played on Elvis’ recordings of Good Rockin’ Tonight, Milk Cow Blues, Baby, Heartbreak Hotel, Mystery Train, Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock, Hard Headed Woman, Surrender, Rock-a-Hula Baby, Kiss Me Quick, Good Luck Charm and many others.

The Guitar That Changed The World

In 1964, Moore released a solo album on Epic Records called The Guitar That Changed the World, played using his Gibson Super 400. Moore, D.J. Fontana and Presley reunited in 1968 for a television special called The ‘68 Comeback Special. Moore played guitar, like Chet Atkins with a thumb pick, but played in a Rockabilly style with all the necessary fills.

Scotty with Gibson ES-295

Though Scotty Moore is best known for using his 1952 Gibson ES-295, he has owned and made use of at least seventeen guitar throughout his career.

Scotty Moore Signature Model

This would include his own signature ES-295 that the Gibson Guitar company offered as special orders in 1999. Only fifteen instruments were made by the Gibson custom shop. Twelve of these guitars were sold through Scotty’s friend Jacque Vroom. These twelve instruments were autographed by Scotty Moore before Gibson applied the clear coat finish.

Scotty Moore's 1952 Esquire

Moore’s first professional electric guitar was a 1952 Fender Esquire. He purchased this guitar and a Fender Deluxe amp upon leaving the Navy in 1952. At some point a Stratocaster pickup was added to it. Moore stated that he did not like the small body and traded it for his first Gibson ES-295.

Scotty with ES-295

In 1953 he purchased the ES-295 through the OK Houck Piano Company of Memphis Tennessee and played it during his first years in Presley’s band.

Scotty Moore's 1954 L-5

In 1955 Moore went back to this same music store and traded the ES-295 for a Gibson L-5 CESN. The L-5 was a very expensive guitar even in those days. The music store charged Scotty $629.28 for the L-5 and $52.56 for the case but gave him a credit of $225.00 for his Telecaster. Scotty Moore used this guitar through 1957 on many Elvis recordings, including Mystery Train. He also used it on stage for Presley concerts.

Moore's Super 400

In 1957 the Gibson Guitar Company/Chicago Musical Instruments saw the value of Scotty Moore’s use of their instruments and sent him a blonde 1956 Super 400 CESN on consignment. Moore used this guitar through the remainder of his career with Elvis; up through 1968.

He wound up giving it to recording engineer and record producer Chips Moman. In April of 2000 Moman put it up for auction at Christie’s and it fetched £58,000.

1963 Super 400

By 1963 Moore ordered another Gibson Super 400 CES directly from Gibson/Chicago Musical Instruments. This time the guitar cost $472.00, with the case included. He traded in a Gibson EB-6 bass and was given $235.50 for the bass with its original case. This version had a Florentine cut-a-way instead of the Venetian (rounded) cutaway that was on his 1955 model.

Elvis with Scotty's Super 400

The ‘63 version was done up with a sunburst finish. It also included a George Van Eps string damper. This contraption fit right behind the guitars nut and included an felt pad mounted on an arm that could be lowered onto the strings between the nut and first fret. It served as a way to eliminate feedback from vibrating strings. Moore used this guitar on the ‘68 Elvis Comeback Special.

Here is a famous picture of Elvis playing Moore’s Super 400.

1938 Epiphone Masterbuilt Spartan

The oldest guitar that Scotty owned was a 1938 Masterbuilt Epiphone Spartan. This was a beautiful guitar with a handcarved solid spruce top and solid walnut back and sides. The body featured single binding. The bound neck was made of mahogany topped with a Brazilian rosewood fretboard.

The fret markers were notched mother-of-pearl blocks. The headstock was also bound and had a Doric column inlay below the inlaid Epiphone logo. A vintage DeArmond pickup was added. The guitar had a single volume control was mounted on the pickguard. Moore purchased this at a guitar show.

Scotty with 1976 L-5 CES

Scotty also acquired another Gibson L-5 CES. This time it was a 1976 model. He had visited the Guitar Network music store in Frederick Maryland with a friend. The store's owner, Buck Sulcer, noticed that Scotty kept picking up and playing this guitar. Later that year Buck was displaying guitars for sale at a Nashville guitar show when Scotty showed up. Buck handed it to him and said, “Here, it’s on the house.” Moore said he couldn’t do that, but Sulcer insisted.

The next day Moore came back with an old Gibson and Magnatone amp as payment for the guitar. It seems Scotty’s favorite Gibson guitar is the L-5 and he frequently played this one at his home.

1981 '59 ES-335 reissue

During the 1990’s Scotty made another visit to Guitar Network and while there purchased a blonde 1981 Gibson ES-335. He gifted this guitar to a friend in 1994.

1983 Super 400 CESN

In 1987 Scotty purchased another Super 400 CESN from Cartee Music.. This one was a 1983 model that cost him $1500. Scotty used this guitar on a 1992 recording with Carl Perkins and on tours. Moore had this guitar modified by having a Nashville luthier install a sound post. This guitar resides in the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville.

Gibson Country Gentleman

In 1989 Chet Atkins was visiting Scotty Moore at his home and spotted an old RCA 77DX microphone that Moore had been using as a paper weight. Scotty gave it to Chet, who had it rebuilt and used it in his studio. In return Chet gave Scotty a prototype of his new Gibson Chet Atkins Country Gentleman model guitar. This guitar was custom made by Gibson for Chet. It did not have a Bigsby vibrato, but instead had a “finger-style” trapeze bridge. It also had a ABR tune-o-matic bridge.

The body was finished in “Country Gentleman Brown”. The pickups were specially designed and built by Ray Butts. When Moore went back to touring and playing in 1993 he used this guitar.

Scotty with 2nd Country Gentleman

After an airlines nearly lost Scotty’s Chet Atkin’s Country Gentleman prototype, Moore purchased another one. This one had the same modifications done to it as the original.

Yamaha AEX 1500

Scotty met guitarist Martin Taylor while Taylor was in Nashville. One of Scotty’s other friends was Mike Eldred, who worked for Yamaha Musical Instruments at the time. Eldred gave Scotty a 1994 Yamaha AEX 1500 guitar. This guitar was designed in collaboration with Martin Taylor. It was a jazz style guitar that featured a bound body with a solid sycamore top, and solid maple back and sides. The bound neck was also made of maple and topped with an ebony fretboard with dot inlays. It featured a gold-plated Johnny Smith floating humbucker pickup and a piezo pickup in the ebony bridge.

The saddle and nut were made of bone. The strings were attached to a trapeze tailpiece. Moore had put a mute behind the bridge.

Custom Shop '52 Esquire

Mike Elred went on to become the manager of the Fender Custom Shop. In 1997 Elred presented Scotty Moore with a custom made Fender Esquire guitar. Scotty did not like the feel of the neck since it was too wide. Eldred had it redone and sent it back to him with the neck plate engraved with the phrase, “Custom buit for Scotino.”

Scotty with Tal Farlow

In February of 2002 Gibson Guitars presented Scotty Moore with the Orville H. Gibson Award that recognizes guitarists for the artistic accomplishments. The winner is chosen by members of the music industry during the Grammy nomination season. Winners are presented with a special instrument and Scotty received a Tal Farlow model Gibson with a special tag that can be seen from inside the f-hole. This guitar had been modifled with reverse J-200 inlaid fret markers and Ray Butts pickups. It is a beautiful guitar.

'02 L-5 CES

During the winter of 2002 and 2003 Scotty was ill. As a get well gift Gibson president Henry Juszkiewicz sent Moore a 2002 Gibson L-5 CES. In 2004 Moore donated this instrument to the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville.

Gibson L-5 CT

In 2003 Moore was once again presented with the gift from Gibson president Henry Juszkiewicz of a specially designed guitar to celebrate 50 years of Moore playing Gibson guitars. This was a Gibson L-5 CT. In 1958 Gibson had designed a special acoustic version of the L-5 for comedian George Gobel. He wanted a thinner version with a cutaway. This explains the designation CT. The guitar that Moore received was beautiful. The body and neck were triple bound.

The fret position markers were made of spectacular abalone as was the truss rod cover. The inlaid flower pot emblem was specially made with a g-clef coming out of it. The trapeze tailpiece was custom etched.

Fender Deluxe 5B3

I’ve already mentioned Scotty Moore’s first amp which was a 1952 Fender Deluxe that he purchased from the O.K. Houck Piano Company in Memphis. (Elvis bought his Martin D-18 at this same shop.) This was a Fender 5B3 wide panel Fender Deluxe amp, which was the most modern at the time. Moore paid $65 for this amplifier.

He used the Fender Deluxe until 1955 when he purchased an EchoSonic custom built amp, built by Ray Butts.

Scotty with EchoSonic amp

The EchoSonic was purchased and financed through the same music store. This was the same amplifier that Chet Atkins was using. This amplifier put out 25 watts of power. The unique thing about the EchoSonic amp is the tape delay unit that was housed in the bottom of the amplifier.



Much like the Echoplex delay, the Echo-sonic utilized a tape recorder that featured an adjustable sound-on-sound feature that recorded the players track and immediately replayed it milliseconds later. The length of delay was adjustable by moving one of the tape heads. Ray Butts played accordion in a band in Illinois, but tinkered with electronics. He had only built two amplifiers before Scotty ordered his. Ray Butts amplifiers are extremely rare finds since they were custom made. Scotty used this amp through 1968.

Gibson GA-77RVT Vanguard Amp

In 1965 Scotty purchased a Gibson GA-77RVT Vanguard amplifier on consignment through the Chicago Musical Instrument Company which owned Gibson Guitars. The Gibson GA-77RVT was a 50 watt amplifier that featured  a Hammond long tank reverb unit, and tube based tremolo. The speaker was a 15” model.

Gibson Super 400 Amplifier

Scotty also purchased a Gibson Super 400 amplifier. This was an unusual amp. Not only did it have a pre-amp section and a power amp section, it also had a built in compressor. This amplifier had twin 12” speakers and an output of 60 watts and was heavy enough to have built in coasters.

Magnatone Victory Amplifier

In 1972 Moore purchased a Magnatone Victory amplifier. This amp featured twin Oxford 12” speakers, it put out 35 watts of power and had the Magnatone True-Vibrato sound. Moore used this through 1995 when he traded this amp for a Gibson L-5. He then purchased a Fender Dual Professional amplifier.

Fender Dual Professional Amp

The Fender Dual Professional amplifier was designed by Bruce Zinky, who worked at Fender at the time. It featured twin Celestion 12” speakers and had an output of 100 watts into it’s two channels. The reverb on this amp was similar to the self-contained Fender reverb units.

The reverb control included dwell, mix and tone controls. The amp also featured a vintage style tremolo section. The Dual Professional weighed 70 pounds. Moore used this amplifier through 2001 when he purchased a much lighter Peavey Classic 30.

Peavey Classic 30

The Peavey Classic 30 contained a single 12” speaker. Scotty placed a Boss DD-3 digital delay unit and a Boss CH-1 Super Chorus pedal on top of this amp to replicate the EchoSonic sound. He used this amp through the remainder of his career up to his final performance in 2007.

Yamaha T-100

If more power was needed, Scotty used the Peavey 30 in conjunction with a Yamaha T-100 C amplifier. This amp was designed by Mike Soldano for Yamaha and is a tube based amp that provided 100 watts of power.

Though he did not take it on the road, Scotty owned a Gibson Super Goldtone GA-30RV amplifier. It had an output of 30 watts through a 10” and 12” Celestion speaker.

Magnatone 213 Troubadour

In 1995 Scotty bought another Magnatone amplifier called a Magnatone Troubadour. This was a smaller version of his previous amp. This was an 18 watt version that utilized twin 6V6 power tubes.

In early photos of Elvis performances one thing that stood out for this observer was an old tweed Fender Bassman amplifier, which I thought was Scotty Moore's amp. It was purchased by the group for use as a P.A. System. Elvis had one microphone and the other was placed in front of Bill Blacks Kay string bass.

Links to the sources for all the pictures can be found by clicking on the caption or clicking on the links in the text.

Prince in one of his last concerts with Gus Guitars Purple Special

Simon Farmer - Gus Guitars creator

Simon Farmer stumbled into guitar building by way of being a student and studying design in art school. He eventually received a masters degree in product design at Walter Hampton University.

He had already built his first electric guitars and basses during in his early teen years and went to art school with the intent of designing guitars.

Furniture maker bending metal frame

Farmer states he took his inspiration from a variety of artisans; jewelry makers, furniture makers and other artists. In fact the tubular design of his guitars was influenced from furniture makers that saw using bent chromed steel and aluminum to construct chairs.

While in University he made a series of instruments that he called Git-tubes which were tubes shaped into frames for the guitar/bass bodies. The artist Seal, a bass player and singer, used one of his basses in a video.

Steve Klein Gutiar

While in school Farmer took a break and for a holiday he traveled to California to visit such luthiers as Steve Klein, John Page of Fender and others to get their insights on the guitar building process.


These interactions lead him away from the Git-tube design as he realized these instruments were more sculptural pieces than stringed electric instruments. He faced the reality that the git-tubes did not have the sound he was looking for in a guitar or bass.

He then that he turned his attention to carbon fiber as a basis of a body. To do this Simon Farmer made use of a spectrum analyzer which allowed him to view the frequencies of differing materials.

Farmer building the frame

Farmer realized that carbon fiber was a great choice. After experimenting with this material he concluded that a combination of wood with a carbon fiber veneer produced a superior sound. To this he added his original tubular steel frame to come up with a most unique and abstract series of guitars.

Gus Guitar mold

The core of Simon’s guitars is made of Western red cedar wood or Brazilian cedula wood. The wood is shaped and placed in a mold and acts as a core for the carbon fiber veneer to be poured over.

Gus Guitars G1

His most popular mode, the G1, uses tubular shaped pickups that he creates in his shop using alnico magnets and piezo transducers in the bridge/saddle..

In fact all the parts on his Gus guitars are hand made on his lathe, including the knobs, bridge and vibrato. He does not like “switches” so he utilizes a rotary selector instead of the usual Switchcraft style toggle or lever.

Simon Farmer at Sussex workshop

Simon Farmer also hand polishes all of his instruments. His small workshop is located in East Sussex, U.K.

Gus Guitars G1

The G1 is far from being a basic guitar, but it is the basis for all his guitars. The G1 is fitted with a GUS hard-tail bridge that Mr. Farmer makes in his shop. Possibly the only thing that is not made onsite are the Gotoh 510 tuners and the Schaller strap locks.. The knobs are even milled in-house.

The twin GUS humbucking alnico pickups are wound at the shop and fitted with tubular pickup covers which are built there as well.

Gus Guitars G1 Gold Special

One unique feature on this guitar is the switching system that can turn these twin humbuckers into three single coil pickups. We've discussed the body already. The neck is topped with a Cocobolo fretboard which has 22 frets. The position markers are of Farmer's own unique design and made of white resin. The fretboard includes LED's embedded in the position markers..


The guitar has a unique switching system that uses a rotary switch instead of the usual toggle. And this guitar sounds excellent. The connection input is found on the guitars backside and is molded into the body.

Gus Guitars G1V

The G1 V (vibrato) has the same unique body design, but comes with three GUS single coil pickups encased in metal tubes. The vibrato unit is made by Farmer in his shop and is his own design.

Gus Guitars G1 7

The G7 is similar to the G1, but it is a 7 string guitar.

Gus Guitars G1 Baritone

The G1 Baritone guitar combines the features found on the G1 with a 28.5" scale neck.

Gus Guitars G1 MIDI

The G1 MIDI ( musical instrument digital interface) guitar combines all the features of the G1 along with RMC piezo pickups that connect to the 13-pin MIDI connector on the guitar's backside next to the input jack. This enables the player to run through a Roland GR-33 or other guitar synthesizer module.

Gus Guitars G1 Piezo

The G1 piezo combines the features found on the G1-V with piezo elements in the guitars bridge that run on a built-in preamp. This guitar enables the player to use a Y-cable to send the piezo feed to one amplifier and the magnetic feed to another.

Gus Guitars Purple Special with matching hardshell case

Perhaps the pinnacle Simon Farmers work is The Purple Special guitar. This is a one-off guitar that Simon Farmer designed especially for Prince. All of the hardware is gold-plated.

Close-up of Purple Special

The guitars body is purple and the fretboard is constructed of purple composite fiber.

Purple Special holographic fret inlays

The inlaid position markers are made of holographic gold carbon fiber. This guitar has one single coil pickup in the neck position and one humbucking pickup in the bridge position. There is a piezo pickup in the bridge, but no preamp.

The controls feature a single volume and tone control and a three-way toggle switch. The tuners are gold-plated Gotoh non-locking machines. Prince only got to use this guitar once in concert. He had planned on having a second guitar built. It is a gorgeous instrument.

The Purple Special guitar comes with a GUS guitar designed custom made molded purple case with a gold-plated aluminum handle and a plush interior.

Simon Farmer with a Gus G3 Five Bass

The GUS bass guitar series is made in a similar fashion, but with a different body shape. The aluminum tubular structures the make up the horns do not encircle the body, but jut out from the upper portion of the instrument.

Gus G3 Four Bass

The G3 Four is the GUS 4 string bass guitar. This instrument includes two passive single coil pickups that are linked to a four way rotary switch.

This system allows the pickups to function has humbuckers (in tandem) or in as single coil pickups. The guitar has an in-shop designed hard tail bridge/saddle that has piezo elements to give an even fuller sound.. It comes with single volume and tone controls. The fretboard is made of cocobola with white resin position markers that contain LED's. The machine heads are Gotoh model 510's.

Gus G3 Five Bass

The G3 Five not only adds another string, but comes with twin GUS humbucking pickups. This model can be purchased with the standard 34" scale neck or special ordered with a 35" scale.

Five aircraft grade aluminum bridge pieces clamp to a 1/4" bridge plate to anchor the strings and increase this basses sustain. The bridge saddles also contain piezo elements for a bigger sound.

Both the G3 Four and Five can be ordered with an active three-band EQ system to achieve even more bass sounds. Instead of just a tone control these bass guitars come with stacked switches to enable the user can get active treble, mid-range and bass sounds along with the volume and four-way rotary control.

Gus G3 Baritone

Simon Farmer also offers a baritone version of the GUS G3 bass. This is a six string instrument that is tuned A to A.


It comes with all the accouterments of the standard G3, including two single coil alnico tube pickups. piezo bridge pickups and the four-way rotary control.

Gus G3 MIDI

The G3 MIDI bass combines all the aspects of the G3 bass with the added feature of piezo pickups that are connected to a 13-pin MIDI output. This enables the bass to  be hooked up to a MIDI synth unit to achieve a myriad of bass sounds, or any other sort of sound that the synth unit can produce .

Gus Guitars

GUS guitars are extraordinary functioning works of art. I've looked for prices and believe they start in the £3500 to £5000 range.

Click on the links under the pictures or in the text for sources

Ed Sullivan and the Beatles 1964

In 1964 the Beatles made their first United States appearance on the Ed Sullivan television show. At that time I was 13 years old and like kids of that era I had to have a guitar.

Harmony Patrician

My Dad relented and bought me a late 1940’s era Harmony Patrician archtop acoustic guitar from a local pawn shop for $20.00. The salesman that sold it to Dad said, “Well you need a couple of things to go along with that guitar. You need a pitch pipe to tune it and you need an extra set of string, ‘cause that kid is going to break ‘em.” For an extra two bucks I got a pitch pipe and a new set of Black Diamond guitar strings.

Larry Cordel "Black Diamond Strings"

I had not thought much about those strings until last week when I turned on a local radio station that plays a variety of diverse music. That day they were playing Country music by some unfamiliar artists.

Black Diamond Strings Set

One song caught my ear since it was called Black Diamond Strings. It was all about how much joy they brought to guitar players back in the day.

Which is odd, because I recall how difficult it was to play guitar with those thick heavy guage old Black Diamond strings.

The strings on the neck on that old Harmony were probably a good half and inch above the neck at the 12th fret.

And when I put them on my first electric guitar, a late 1950’s Fender Stratocaster, the bridge saddle and block raised off the neck, which was great because the vibrato pulled up and down. But bending notes was another thing with those heavy strings. And talk about sore fingers and calluses!

Black Diamond Set

However Black Diamond Strings were available everywhere. You could get them at a drug store or a five and dime store. If you broke a number one E string you could get another for 20 cents. A pack of six new Black Diamond strings cost around three bucks.

1960's Gibson Guitar Strings

I was not aware that both Gibson and Fender sold their own brand of strings until a few years later. And it would be another ten years or so before Ernie Ball started putting string sets together with light and ultra light guage strings.


As were kids and had no idea that the professional players were discarding the sixth string and replacing the first string with a .009 banjo string  and then using the remaining five strings.

Bell Brand Strings

I was very curious about Black Diamond Strings and learned that they got their start in 1897 when a merger occurred between three different companies; the Rice Musical String Company of New York, which was owned by Thomas Nelson Jr which made Bell Brand strings and the Standard Musical String Company of Connecticut.

Interestingly enough the Standard Musical String company owned by Alexander Paul, who was already making Black Diamond strings. The last partner was a Mr. George Dow Emerson, who owned yet another a string factory in New Jersey. These men got together to form the National Musical String Company

National Musical String Co. 1898

The first step was the purchase of a factory building in Brunswick, New Jersey on Georges Road and the cities boundary. This structure was designed by a Mr. Ben C. DeKamp in 1897 specifically for this company. In fact it still stands in that same place to this day. The following year, 1898, the business started up.

NMSCO office

Interestingly enough advertisements for employment went out looking for mostly women employees. By 1899 the partners purchased another manufacturer called the American String Company.

Black Diamond stamping plates

It was in 1917 the last remaining partner, George Dow Emerson sold his shares to a Mr. William R. McClelland. Fifteen years later McClelland died unexpectedly of a heart attack.

This was in 1932 and the National Musical String Company was then bought by C. Bruno and Son Incorporated and James and Frank Gibson, who owned the Gibson String Company (which was not associated with Gibson Guitars).

From C. Bruno catalog - U of I library

Let me pause here because the history of C. Bruno or Charles Bruno is very interesting. Way back in 1837 Bruno was a bookseller. The following year he entered into a partnership with Christian Martin (yes THAT Christian Martin). Martin would manufacture guitars and Bruno would sell them.

Christian Martin

The partnership only lasted a year and both men went their separate ways, with Martin building guitars and Bruno selling musical instrument as a wholesaler.

C.Bruno and Son catalog

In 1851 Charles Bruno established another partnership with a man named Cargill that lasted for two years after which Burno brought his son, Charles Junior into the business. The company sold not just guitars and banjos, but all sorts of band and orchestral instruments, accordions, drums, harmonicas, music boxes and children's toy musical instruments. They became one of the largest music wholesalers and importers in the United States.

Bruno and Son was eventually purchased in 1970 by the Kaman Music Corporation (Ovation Guitars) and renamed the Kaman Musical String Company. The business was moved from New Jersey to Kaman’s headquarters and factory in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

National Musical String Co - today

However in 1982 the original National Musical String Company building in Brunswick, New Jersey was declared a historic landmark, as it was one of the oldest standing buildings in the state and it was placed on the list of national landmarks. Since then it was renovated for commercial space on the first floor. The upper floors house 38 residential apartments.

Black Diamond Strings - circa 1965

As I recall Black Diamond strings were sold in a black cardboard container with six individual reddish packs, each containing a string. The gauge of the string was not listed on the box or the pack, but instead it said B or 2nd Steel or E or 1st Steel. All I can say is they were heavy strings.

Individual strings

The container and each pack bore a quadrangular logo in the upper left corner with the company’s trademark stating NMSCO (National Musical String Company).  Some of the guitar strings would say silver plated steel while others would say silver plated copper wire. By far the most popular Black Diamond Strings were the silver plated stainless steel versions.

The National Musical String company made strings for guitars, Hawaiian guitars, banjos, mandolins and other instruments. I have also come across Black Diamond electric guitar strings that were made in later years.

Display Case for individual strings.

Back in the mid 1960’s most players that I knew did not purchase a new complete set of strings. More often than not if a string broke or sounded dead, we went to the music store and bought an individual string and those stores all stocked individual Black Diamond strings.


I was not certain if Black Diamond strings were still available and being curious I learned that in 1930 Ed Wackerle of Chicago, started a company to manufacture strings for bowed instruments. He was upset with the quality of strings being offered at the time. To achieve quality he put together an endorser panel; a group of players that would test the strings and suggest improvements. He came up with stainless steel strings and marketed them under the Red Label brand.

Then in 1967 John and Vincent Cavanaugh purchased the company and continued to manufacture Red Label strings. They moved the business to Sarasota, Florida

By 1972 a research and development department was set up to further enhance the strings quality. Out of this came the Old Fiddler Line of strings for Country, Western and Bluegrass players.

Improvements were made on cello and bass strings with the Supreme Line. The business was renamed the Super-Sensitive Musical String Company. In 1997 the grandson of the company’s founder took over the reigns and introduced computerized manufacturing.

John and Jim Cavanaugh

And in 2001 the Cavanaugh family purchased the name and trademark of the National Musical String Company/Black Diamond Strings. Once again, Black Diamond Strings are available, although under a new manufacturer with a high quality than ever before.

Current version Black Diamond strings

Black Diamond currently offers three different sets of electric guitar strings, including flat-wound strings and four sets of acoustic guitar strings, which include the original silver plated steel strings (.013 to .056) as well as 12 string guitar sets. These are available directly from the manufacturer www.blackdiamondstrings.com.

A special thanks to Chris of the Mudcat Cafe for some very interesting information on the history of the National Musical String Company.

Tuesday is trash collection day in my neighborhood. Whenever I drive past homes before the collection and recycling trucks arrive, I marvel at the furniture that is left out as rubbish. It leaves me wondering if this wood can be re-purposed? I’ve seen old wooden chairs and tables that are destined for the trash heap that could be turned into guitars.

If I had the wood working talent and tools necessary to create guitars, I would be up early hauling that wood back to my house.

Alas, I am only a guitar player; not a builder, however there are a few luthiers that have taken up this challenge and ran with it.

Nick Pourfard - Prisma Guitars

In my opinion one of the most unique builders that I have heard about is 24 year old Nick Pourfard. Nick is an industrial design student and a self-taught woodworker who lives in San Francisco.


His garage and basement have been turned into a woodworking shop where he builds his unique brand that he calls Prisma Guitars.

Old Skateboards await to become guitars

Each of these instrument are built out of broken and used skateboards. Nick was a skater and knew that skateboards are not made of plywood, but rather are made of hard-rock maple, usually with seven layers of dyed solid wood.

Skate board deck

In fact the good boards or decks are generally made of maple that has been peeled into veneers and then cured in a climate controlled environment to adjust the moisture content of the wood.

Each veneer is then glued by hand with a water based wood glue. The maple veneer are then stacked according to their grain with some grains running from front to back and other running in the opposite direction. Grip tape is applied over the top of the deck. This "tape" is a sheet of paper or fabric with an adhesive on the backside and a surface similar to sandpaper on the other side. This aids the user in staying on the board, especially while doing tricks.

Nick removing Grip Tape from a board.

When Nick find old skateboards the initial step is to remove the grip tape, either by hand or with a knife. He then shapes the boards and glues them together in a press.

Prisma Guitar body template

Once the wood is sanded flat  he shapes the finished product by use of a template to outline the guitars body shape. This is then cut out using a band saw.

Routing out a Prisma Guitar

Another template is applied to outline the area needed to be routed out for the neck pocket, pickups, hardware, and electronics. Necks are done in a similar fashion. The wood is glued, pressed and shaped into a basic square neck shape.

Shaping a neck

Various files are used to hand shape the neck and the headstock. The results are stunning.

Prisma Guitar Bodies

The various colours of the diverse skateboards show through, creating a beautiful design that would be hard to capture in any other way. No painting is necessary; just a spray of clear coat. Although Nick does paint some of his guitars.

Prisma Guitar logo

One on the more unique features of Prisma guitars is the triangular, multi-colour, striped logo which is reminiscent of a pyramid point guitar pick.


This is inlaid in the guitars headstock and at the guitar bodies base, where the end-pin fits. Nick has also applied his guitars features to a line of guitar pickups.

Rick Kelly

There is only one other existing builder that I am aware of who uses re-purposed wood in his builds. This is Rick Kelly of New York City. All of his guitars are made from reclaimed lumber from wood procured in the 1970’s at farm auctions.

Kelly Bowery Guitars

He also has a line of what he refers to as Bowery Guitars that are made from wood that was barged down the Hudson River more than 200 years ago; wood that was harvested from the forests of the Adirondacks.

This was lumber used to frame buildings that were erected in the 1800’s. As these buildings were demolished, Rick Kelly was able to obtain some of what he refers to as “Kings Wood” to build a unique line of instruments. Most of this wood is pine.

Kelly gluing boards together

Instead of using one large billet for the body, Kelly must glue two sides of book-matched lumber together to form the body. The  grain in the pine wood is quite prevalent and the result is beautiful. He even leaves the knot is the wood in the instruments body, which gives it character.

Bill Kircher with Kelly Bowery Pine

Rick Kelly has some lovely creations that are favored by such players as Bill Kircher, Bill Frizzell and G.E. Smith. Kelly stresses that most solid guitars are made from green wood that is kiln dried, which cuts down on vibration.

Rick Kelly guitars

His instruments are made from air dried timber that has aged through the years. The natural resin in the wood has crystallized which leaves the pores open to vibration. Kelly makes some fantastic instruments. Most are based on Fender body shapes, however Kelly has modified them in his own unique way.

Charles Stromberg

The last builders that I am aware of that utilized re-purposed lumber were Charles Stromberg and his son Elmer. Both died in 1955. During their lifetime, the Strombergs came out with a series of guitars that were built to rival Gibson’s popular Super 400 model.

Stromberg Master 400

The Stromberg series Master 300 and Master 400 models built from the 1930 through the 1950’s are sought after and now command prices in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Elmer Stromberg

Charles and Elmer had a shop in Boston Massachusetts and it is written that they frequently went to buildings that were either being demolished or being reconstructed. The men purchased lumber from these sites for use in their builds. Perhaps it is because of this old wood that their guitars are known for being louder than Gibsons or D'Angelicos of that same era.




Click on the links in the pictures or the text for my sources.

The Summer Olympics are here and what better time to review some unique guitars bearing the name “Olympic.”

From 1931 through 1950 Epiphone offered an archtop guitar called The Olympic model. This was originally produced by the Staphopoli brothers in their New York facility.




For the first few years this model was fairly small as it was a mere 13” wide, with segmented f holes. By 1933 the width increased 5/8’ths of an inch.

1934 Olympic

In this same year the peak headstock was replaced with a non-peak version. 1934 saw the addition of an Epiphone decal logo with the words Masterbuilt underneath the company’s name.

1938 Epiphone Olympic

Three years later, in 1937, the body was widened to 15.25” and the f holes were no longer segmented.

1937 Olympic tenor

This same year saw the release of the Epiphone Olympic in tenor and plectrum versions. In 1939 a center dip was added to the end of the headstock.










No more changes took place until 1942 when the logo was updated to have a tail underneath “Epiphone.” The guitar was a page in history by 1950, when the company discontinued the model.





Restored Olympic

A different version of this same guitar was marketed in England from the mid 1930’s through 1937. Though produced or just marketed by Epiphone is somewhat of a mystery.





The guitar bore the logo, Apollo, but had an Epiphone Masterbuilt decal on the headstock. It’s body was wider than the Epiphone Olympic, 16” and it came with a standard black pickguard.



The body was made of either mahogany or birch. It may have been built by the Regal Musical Instrument Company for Epiphone distribution.

It was not until 1962 that Epiphone revived the Olympic name. This time it was on a series of electric guitars created during the Gibson CMI period.

The first version of the Epiphone Olympic electric was a thin solid body guitar with an asymmetrical double cutaway. It was Epiphone version of the Gibson Melody Maker. The instrument weighed in at under 6 pounds.

In 1965 the company made a radical change in design of the Olympic that became the basis for many Epiphone thin line solid body guitars.


The body bore a large white pickguard with a large Epiphone upper-case Ѱ, the Greek letter Psi, in the middle of the pickguard. In Greek, Psi translates to "spirit or soul."

The tailpiece was a Gibson Maestro vibrola with a white plastic handle, sometimes called the Walrus tooth arm.


Many of the Olympic models came with one Melody Maker style single coil pickup placed in front of the bridge. There were separate volume and tone controls. The input was mounted on top of the pickguard.

1965 Epiphone Olympic

The 24.75” neck was topped with a rosewood fretboard that was topped with 22 frets. The headstock was the Epiphone Bat wing style with six-in-a-row Kluson Deluxe tuners. All hardware was chrome plated.

The Olympic was also produced in a twin pickup model. This had the same type of pickups with an output of 7.16k and separate tone and volume controls for each pickup. All were mounted directly on the pickguard along with a 3-way Gibson style switch and the input.

This guitar came in a variety of colors. The 1965 Inverness Green model pictured here is very rare.

A soft shell lined case was standard issue with this model. In 1965 this guitar sold for $189.50.

Although Fender never did have an Olympic model guitar, one of Fender’s more popular shades of paint is Olympic White. The finish did not hold up on older models.

As you can see from the pictures, the paint takes on a yellow hue due to the lacquer used and aging. Personally, I like it.

Henley is a relatively unknown guitar distributor. Their products are made Korea. They offered a bass guitar with the name Olympic.

This bass has two pickups that are very different. In the rear the pickup is a Musicman style, while the front pickup is similar to what you would find on a Fender Jazz bass. This instrument has active controls mounted on its body. These include a pickup selector, volume control and a control for low EQ as well as one for high EQ. All hardware is made of die-cast nickel. The neck has a satin finish and the rosewood fretboard is topped with with offset pearloid position markers.

Henley Guitars are run by the husband and wife team from the UK Andy and Denise Henley. They import our own ranges of guitars and sell direct. Due to low overheads and they can offer excellent prices. Denise has a background in importing, shipping and freight. She runs all the administration side of the business and packing and shipping.

Tacoma Papoose

Tacoma Guitars were an acquisition of the Fender Musical Instrument Company. I do not know if Fender has completely closed out the brand or just placed Tacoma on hiatus. Historically, Tacoma was a small Washington state based guitar manufacturer that came out with a very fine and interesting line of guitars. One of their most popular models was an acoustic travel guitar known as the Tacoma Papoose.

Olympia Guitars

After becoming well known, Tacoma launched a budget Korean import model and put the logo Olympia on these models. Though the price point factor was their goal, since Olympia models sold at a considerably lower price than Tacoma guitars. Non-the-less, Olympics were fine instruments.

Olympia guitar

For instance, Olympia guitars model OD-18S came with a solid spruce top with a glossy finish, a 25.5” scale set neck made of mahogany, a rosewood fingerboard with 20 jumbo frets that had abalone position markers. The bridge was mad of rosewood and had a rather unique shape. The neck and body were bound. The rosette was made of abalone. The sides were made of solid rosewood, but the back was made of laminated rosewood.



Olympia guitars came in various models made of differing woods. They also offered mandolins and acoustic bass guitars. All Olympia instruments are designed and set up in the USA .



Finally, there is a manufacturer from Columbia, South Carolina called The Carolina Guitar Company. They offer a distortion pedal known as the Olympia Fuzz. The manufacturer stated they were inspired by the Bender fuzztone and the Big Muff Pi fuzz and named after the Hammer of the Gods. This little pedal has received great reviews.

Anthony Ervin

As a side note, the one Olympian who also is also guitarist, in a band and writes his own music. This is gold medal winner Anthony Ervin, who has claimed two Gold Medals in this years Olympics for swimming in the 50 meter freestyle and the four by 100 meter freestyle relay.







David Rawlings with his 1935 Epiphone Olympic

We are still watching the world competition in the 2016 Summer Olympics. All contestants are vying for a Gold Medal. Personally, I would rather have a Gold Guitar. I thought we would take a look at some unique golden models.

1952 Les Paul Goldtop

Taking 1st place is the Gibson Les Paul Goldtop.

Popular guitarist Les Paul had a lot of input with the design of his signature instrument.


He had been experimenting at the Epiphone factory, when it was in New York, by taking apart and putting together guitars and adding pickups to them.

Fender had introduced the first mass produced electric guitar in 1950, the Telecaster. In 1951, Ted McCarty consulted with Mr. Paul to design a classier version of a solid body electric guitar.

Les’ first choice for colour was gold. It looked uptown and showed up nicely on his television show and according to Les, reflected his showmanship. His next choice was black, since it went well with the uniform for jazz players, a tuxedo. The original Goldtop was in production from 1952 to 1958. The original models were scaled down versions of Gibson’s archtop line.

The Les Paul was sleek and slim. It had a maple cap over its mahogany body, purportedly to increase sustain. Les Paul’s signature was inscribed on the headstock. The original version came with a set in neck, a one-piece trapeze bridge/tailpiece and twin P-90 pickups. The earliest models were unbound. Later in 1952 binding was added, as were serial numbers. Some of the early models were fitted with black pickup covers, rather than the usual cream coloured covers.

In 2nd place is the Gibson ES-295. This instrument also first appeared in 1952. As with most all Gibson guitars of that era, the model number indicated the retail price. We can see where Les Paul got some idea of what he wanted his signature model to look like.



In fact, Les Paul’s wife and vocalist, Mary Ford, played an ES-295.

Scotty Moore with ES-295

Scotty Moore favored the ES-295.

The drawback on the original models was the combination trapeze bridge/tailpiece. It did not allow for individual string intonation.

Later models came with a Bigsby tailpiece and a tune-o-matic adjustable bridge that was mounted on a rosewood saddle. The knobs for volume and tone had a gold hue. The neck finished matched the body. The pickguard was embossed with a floral design. The rosewood fretboard had parallelogram inlays for fret markers. The headstock veneer was topped with Gibsons Crown inlay. Like the Les Paul Goldtop, his guitar survived until 1958. In 1957 the pickups were changed to gold-plated humbuckers. Gibson resurrected the model from 1993 to 2000. Some consider it a fancy version of the Gibson ES-175.

Finishing 3rd is Fender Guitars with their Mary Kaye Stratocaster. For the unfamiliar, Mary Kaye aka Mary Ka’aihue, was a popular Las Vegas Lounge player.

She was actually descended from Hawaiian royalty.

In a 1956 Fender promotional advertisement, The Mary Kaye Trio was shown with Miss Kaye holding her new custom Fender Stratocaster. The body was ash blonde and featured a maple neck. The pick guard was made of gold plated anodized aluminum. All of the metallic parts, bridge and bridge cover, tremolo bar and tuners were also gold plated.

This was the first custom guitar that Fender ever produced. Fender has reintroduced it on several occasions. An original Mary Kaye is a highly sought after collectors item.

4th place goes to Prince’s Custom Shop Gold Stratocaster. The man formerly known as Prince and now currently known as Prince had this guitar created to kick off his Welcome2 America Live Tour. It was later auctioned off by Prince.

The winning bidder was U.K. Formula 1 race car driver, Lewis Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton plunked down a cool $100K to purchase the instrument. All proceeds went to children’s charities.

The 5th place winner is Fender Shoreline Gold. This is not actually a guitar, but a custom paint that was offered by the Fender Company as early as 1959. I have seen this finish on Stratocasters,Jazzmasters, and even on Fender’s electric mandolin.

One of the prettiest guitars is a Shoreline gold Jazzmaster with a gold anodized pickguard, and gold hardware.

Coming in as the 6th place Gold guitar goes to Gibson. Around 1970, during the Norlin era, an unusual Les Paul guitar was introduced. It had a similar colour scheme as the Les Paul Goldtop, but that is where the comparison ends.

This was the Les Paul Signature guitar and it looked somewhat like an ES-335 with a gold top. The upper bout was rounded like on a 335, however the lower bout was…similar to a Les Paul's cutaway.
Anyone who has studied Les Paul knows he preferred LowZ pickups for recording so he could plug directly into the console. The Les Paul Signature came with two  LowZ pickups.

It also had a built-in transformer that permitted plugging straight into the console, like Les did or played straight into an amp. It was an interesting, but not popular instrument. Jack Casady plays the bass version of this guitar.

This brings us to 7th place with the Epiphone Jack Casady signature bass guitar. Casady was bass player for a number of popular bands, such as Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna.

In 1985 he found a short scale bass at music store and began using this Gibson bass version of the Les Paul Signature model, then known as the Les Paul Bass. In the earlier part of this decade Casady worked with Epiphone to produce his signature model, The JC Bass.

Epiphone JC Bass

This is a hollow body instrument with a maple body and a single active bridge pickup, a single volume and tone control and a Vari-Tone control.

The Vari-Tone control lets you dial in the impedance of its active humbucking pickup from around 50 ohms to around 500 ohms, seriously affecting your sound.

As you turn the Jack Casady Signature Bass's Vari-Tone control, you shift its tone from even dynamics and full tone to a punchier response.

I would like to give a shout out to New Zealand for the nation's Gold Guitar Awards. This takes place at the end of May and has been going on for the past 42 years.

It showcases the country's up and coming talent.

Helen Vanderlin 2009 Winner New Zealand Gold Guitar

Leo Fender

I find it quite interesting that many of the iconic guitars that we have come to love were not designed by guitar players or even musicians. Leo Fender was a radio repairman who just happened to be living in a time when a lot of folks that liked Country and Western music had migrated from the northern and southern United States to California in search of employment. They brought their love of music with them and Mr. Fender was happy to oblige the musically inclined by creating amplifiers and steel guitars and eventually the Fender Telecaster.

Ted McCarty

Ted McCarty, the man who guided Gibson Guitars through its “Golden Era” and increased their sales from 5,000 units a year to over 100,000, studied engineering at the University of Cincinnati and worked for the Wurlitzer Piano and Organ Company before joining Gibson Guitars.

Flying Vee, Explorer, Moderne patents dated January 7, 1958

McCarty is responsible for the Gibson Flying Vee, the Explorer and the elusive Moderne as well as the Gibson thinline series, in which he put a block of wood inside of the Gibson ES-335 and subsequent models to increase sustain and eliminate feedback.

Ray Dietrich - Auto Designer

In fact it was Ted McCarty who saw a connection between classic automobiles of the day and guitars. He hired Ray Dietrich, an American coach builder, that had designed the bodies of American luxury cars.

Ray Dietrich 1975

Dietrich has a very interesting story you can read here. Suffice to say he designed the bodies of Packard, Studebaker, Ford and Lincoln automobiles. He was even responsible for the design of Checker Cabs, which were based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. This is the town where Dietrich lived after his retirement.

1963 Gibson Reverse Firebird V

Dietrich was challenged by Ted McCarty to design a solidbody electric guitar that would not be limited to the traditional ways of designing and engineering a guitar. The result was the Gibson ‘reverse’ Firebird that was released in 1963. They were so called "reverse" as the features were the opposite of the norm of that day compared to the Fender Jazzmaster.

Dietrich took the tail fin design that was popular with mid-1950’s cars and modified the design of the 1958 Gibson Explorer to create the body shape.

Because the lower horn extended father out than the upper one, this was a very unorthodox look for that era, when compared to Fender’s Jazzmaster guitar. Therefore it has come to be known as the “reverse” Firebird.

From 1965 Gibson Catalog

The other unique feature was the Gibson Firebird was the first solidbody guitar produced with neck-through body construction. Perhaps Dietrich took a hint from Les Paul’s “Log”.

Unfinished Firebird

The body of the Firebird is essentially a neck with an extended plank of wood at its distal end, with attachments at both ends for the strings. Pickups and a bridge/saddle were attached to this plank.

Mini humbuckers with chrome covers

The original Firebird neck was made of five sections of mahogany and interspersed with strips of walnut for strength. The other sections to the body, commonly known as wings, where attached to the center section and the lower “wing” housed the pickups controls.

Reverse Firebird headstock

A couple of other unique features that Dietrich added were the ‘reverse six-on-a-side headstock’, which was the opposite of a Fender headstock. So the player would not have to reach around to tune the guitar, Dietrich utilized six banjo-style planetary geared tuning keys.

The pickups on this instrument were also unusual for 1963. These were Gibson mini-humbucking pickups that were enclosed in a solid chromed case.

The Firebird came with different pickup configurations and styles which were noted by Roman numerals.

1964 Firebird I

The Firebird I indicated a plain design with a single pickup (in the bridge position) and no binding on the neck and dot markers. It may or may not have a Maestro tremolo.

1964 Firebird III

Model III was indicative of a twin pickup guitar, with or without a Maestro tremolo, a bound neck with dot markers.

1964 Firebird V

The Firebird V came with twin, chrome-covered mini-humbuckers, a bound neck with trapezoidal markers, a Maestro vibrato with an elongated plated. Some of these were made with P-90 pickups. The headstock on the Firebird V was fancier than the I or III models. The upper and lower sides of the headstock on this guitar had a slight bevel and were stained to match the body, while the center portion of the headstock was painted with a glossy black finish and topped with the Gibson decal.

1964 Firebird VII

The top-of-the-line Firebird VII was similar in accouterments as the V model, but it had three chrome-covered mini-humbucking pickups. I might note that Ray Dietrich was 66 years old when he designed the Reverse Firebird. Perhaps one of the first notable users of this guitar was a 22 year-old Brian Jones on the Rolling Stones first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on October 25th of 1964.

George Barris

Another automotive designer, did not work for a major automotive company. Rather he became very famous for customizing cars; at first for himself and other and later in his career for vehicles used by celebrities and in movies and on TV shows.

George Barris and his brother was sent from Greece to live in Chicago with relatives. At age 7 he was building model cars out of balsa wood.

George and Sam Barris

George and his brother Sam worked in the family’s Greek restaurant. At a young age the brothers were given a 1925 Buick in lieu of a paycheck. They restored it and this turned into their life’s work.

The Barris Kustom Shop

They sold that car and even before the boys had graduated from high school they started Barris Brothers Kustom Shop in Los Angeles.



Their work came to the attention of the motion picture industry and they were asked to create customized cars for studio executives, movie stars and vehicles to be used as movie props. This lead to a meeting with the owner/founder of Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines.

In 1950 Sam left the business and George Barris ran the company with the help of his wife. Model car building was popular in those days and Barris’ designs were licensed by the major model kit companies. By the 1960’s Barris, along with other automobile customizers did their magic on production cars for Ford and Lincoln/Mercury’s traveling exhibits, designed to attract young buyers. This caught the eye of author Tom Wolfe and inspired his first best selling book; The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.

George Barris movie cars

Some of the Hollywood projects that employed Barris involved building soft aluminum fenders for a Ford police car that crashes into a Mercedes Benz convertible driven by Cary Grant in North by Northwest. He built futuristic cars for a 1960 version of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine and modified a Dodge Charger for Thunder Alley.

The TV Batmobile

Barris reworked a Plymouth Barracuda for Fireball 500 as well as a minivan in that same movie. Perhaps Barris’ most well-known vehicle was a rebuilt Lincoln Futura that he turned into the original Batmobile for the 1960’s Batman television series.


He leased the car to that show and sold it in 2013 for over four million dollars.

KiTT from Knightrider TV Show

Barris built The Munster’s car, and he also worked on an Oldsmobile Toronado that he rebuilt as a roadster for the TV show Mannix and an updated version of “KiTT” used in the Knight Rider series.

Family Vacation Wagon

Barris was also responsible for the "Wagon Queen Family Truckster", based on a 1979 Ford Country Squire station wagon, for the 1983 movie "National Lampoon's Vacation".

The Vox Mobile

For lovers of vintage guitar, many may remember the Vox Mobile, a dragster-like vehicle that was complete with Vox amps, guitars, basses and a Vox Continental Organ.

Back to the Future - Barris modded Delorean

It was Barris who designed this for the Jennings Company. Barris also rebuilt the Back to the Future DeLorean for the movie of the same name.

Hallmark Barris Guitars.

Bob Shade of Hallmark Guitars called upon Barris’ design firm to create limited runs of several Hallmark instruments.

Barris Krest Guitar

Most notable is the Barris Krest Guitar. The body of this Mosrite inspired instrument appears to be a family crest with Grypons and other medieval artwork and the guitar bares a crown at the top of its rectangular body. It comes with a single pickup, and a Mosrite style vibrato and both are gold-plated.

Barris Dragula

The Barris Drag-u-la Guitar was inspired by the Munster’s car of the same name. The rectangular golden body of this instrument is trimmed with decorative trim and looks like a coffin. It comes with three single coil pickups. The neck pickup has metallic bat wings. This guitar includes a Mosrite style vibrato.

Wingbat

The Wing-Bat guitar took its inspiration from Barris’ Batmobile, but was actually built by present Hallmark owner Bob Shade. This single pickup guitar has the appearance of the winged tail fins on the car used in the 1966 TV version of Batman. It comes in custom black glossy paint with fluorescent red trim. This guitar even comes with a working tail light at the end of the instrument for playing at night and a turbine “boost” switch for...I guess playing really loud and fast.

Wayne Burgess

Wayne Burgess designs Jaguars; the car brand, not the guitar. He also is a guitar collector and owns one of the Fender XK-50 Jaguar stratocasters.

This Fender model was a 1999 limited run of 25 Fender Custom Shop designers made exclusively for the automotive company. Twenty of these guitars were given to fortunate Jaguar dealers as an incentive to customers purchasing the luxury car and it was a beautiful guitar.

Fender XK-50 Strat

These guitars were built in 2000, to coincide with  an ad campaign using the theme, Everyone dreams of becoming a rock star. What do rock stars dream of?

And though, Burgess, the Jaguar designer never built a guitar, the XK-50 Jaguar Stratocaster is a thing of beauty. The finish is custom colour Jaguar green. The pickguard is made of burled walnut, as is the headstock. The pickups are enclosed in gold-plated covers.

In fact all of the hardware, the knobs, the switch cap, the bridge/saddle unit, the tremolo bar, the input and the tuning machines are all gold-plated. It even came with a gold-plated bridge cover. Inlaid in the headstock is the face of a jaguar, and image of the Jaguar hood ornament and the Fender logo in gold trim.

Recently, Ford’s global designers were given the task of putting the 2017 Ford GT design into everyday objects. Design teams created a racing sailboat, a foosball table and a guitar.

Ford GT Guitar

The guitar design team was lead by senior designer Tyler Blake. The guitar they came up with utilized a conventional fretboard, but everything else was meant to reflect the GT modern design.

Ford GT Guitar

The prototype’s body had an aluminum core and frame work, but the finished instrument was to have a solid wood body with a neck-through design. It features twin cutaways with access to all 24 frets. The body is thin and tapers toward an edge. One can view the three pickups; a neck humbucker, a middle single coil and a bridge humbucker and all three are situated on the distal end of the necks extension. This extension also houses the bridge/saddle/tailpiece, which bears and engraving that says Ford Design.

Ford GT Guitar

The headstock is a very unique design as it tapers on the edges and sides so that the tops of the posts are revealed in the five divots where the string attach. The most distal divot has two posts sticking through it.

The guitar’s tuning machines are mounted to the bottom of the headstock, reducing visual clutter and creating a clean, precise order to the strings.

Ford GT Guitar

The lower bottom end of the body reveals and input jack that is molded into the design. Above it are two potentiometers. On the upper bout is a switch to control the pickups. It is an incredibly unique instrument. It is not schedule for production, but if so, it would be a success.

Leo Fender with '50's P Bass

Leo Fender gets credit for inventing the first bass guitar, but did you know that another musician and inventor named Paul Tutmarc actually developed and marketed the first electric string bass guitar almost 15 years earlier in 1935?

Paul Tutmarc with NO. 736 bass

Tutmarc was designing and selling lap steel guitars through his company, Audiovox.

Audiovox Bass No. 736

That same year he offered the Model 736 Bass Fiddle. This was a four string, solid-body, fretted, electric instrument.

' 35 Audiovox Bass

It had a short scale neck, only 30 1/2” length. He only made about 100 of these instruments. A horseshoe magnetic pick-up lies inside the body under the bridge. The cable runs through the body and out of the instruments upper bout. It had only a volume potentiometer.

Bud Tutmarc Serenader Bass

By 1947, his son, Bud Tutmarc was running the business and offered a similarly designed bass, which sold under the Serenader name. A year later these basses were offered through a wholesaler the following year.

Regal Bassoguitar

In the 1930’s the same company that made Dobros was offering the Regal Bassoguitar. This monster was a cross between an acoustic guitar and an upright bass.

Regal Electric Double Bass

The Regal Company also offered an electric double bass.

Rickenbacker Bass Viol

Rickenbacker built the Electro Bass Viol around 1936. Both the Regal and the Rickenbacker instruments were electric, but looked more like viols than guitars. The Regal bass came with a separate amplifier, but the Electro model mounted on top of the amp unit via a peg/pickup.

1938 Gibson Mandobass

In 1938 Gibson had developed a huge bass-mandolin during the era of mandolin orchestras. This instrument was so large it required a peg to hold it upright. One of the first actual electric basses that resembled a guitar was made by Gibson in 1938.

It had a oval shaped body, and a peg at the instruments end, so it could be played in an upright position. Remember, this was long before they introduced their model EB-0. The bass player for the Les Paul Trio utilized one of these Gibson instruments.

'52 Fender Precision Bass

It was not until 1951 that Leo Fender offered the Precision Bass for sale. He had developed this with the assistance of George Fullerton. Although the body looks quite different, the basis of the design was the Fender Telecaster. The original body was more slab-like. It came with one single coil pickup that was placed in the center of the instruments body. A chromed hand rest stood above this pickup and this had several purposes.

This was a rest for the performer’s palm and it also  aided in reducing 60 cycle hum. But perhaps the biggest reason for the bridge cover was to protect the pickup, since the pickup on the earliest models did have not a pickup cover.

The difference between Fender success and Tutmarc effort, was marketing. Leo knew musicians and was able to get his bass into the hands of many of the big names. Plus, Leo had created a large, professional amplifier to go along with his bass.

Monk Montgomery

One of the first users of the Precision Bass was double bass player Monk Montgomery, the brother of famed Jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery. Monk played string bass in Lionel Hampton’s band. Hampton was looking for ways to enhance the bands sound and told Monk that he needed to start using a “Fender Bass”, (this was the generic name given at the time to electric bass guitars) to give the band a bigger bass sound. Monk hedged about getting one, but finally relented.

He practiced every night since the feel of the strings and fretboard of the Precision Bass were so much different than an upright bass. Eventually he became very proficient playing the electric bass.

Shifte Henri

Another Precision Bass player that was featured in early Fender advertisements was Shifte Henri. He is immortalized in the Elvis song Jailhouse Rock;“Shifte Henri said to Bugs for heaven’s sake...”

James Jamerson

Another player that was famous for use of the Precision Bass was James Jamerson. His unique style influenced so many players. Jamerson was part of The Funk Brothers that laid down the backing tracks for Motown artists.

Carol Kaye

Carol Kaye, of the Wrecking Crew fame, talks about Jamerson's sound and influence. She also used a 1960's era Fender Precision Bass on most of her sessions.

'52 Gibson EB-1

In late 1952 Gibson offered its first electric bass guitar to the public; the Gibson EB-1 electric bass. This was a short scale, 30.5” model which had a violin-shaped body and a guitar style neck. The body, which was stained tobacco-brown, to look like a bass viol, looked solid, but was actually hollow. It was topped with one pickup in the neck position and a faux F-hole. The strings attached to a non-adjustable compensated bridge, which bolted to the body.

'57 Gibson EB-1

The head-stock was topped with a black veneer and bore a Gibson decal. The tuners were banjo style with the heads facing backwards. The original model housed a retractable rod in the end-pin, which allowed the bass to be played standing up, or the player could strap in over their shoulder. The bass was renamed in 1958 to the Gibson Electric Bass, with no model designation. The latter version omitted the retractable end-pin.

'59 EB-0

I know a guy that  owns an original 1959 Gibson EB-0 bass. He has owned it since he was a teenager when he purchased it second hand. The first incarnation of this electric bass resembled a Les Paul Special. It had a single pickup in the neck position and a non-adjustable compensated bridge.

1959-60 Gibson EB-0

By 1960 the design of the EB-0 was changed to look more like a Gibson SG.

1961 Gibson EB-3

The Gibson EB-3 electric bass was introduced in 1961. It was similar to the SG style EB-0 but came with a "mini-humbucker" in the bridge position. This instrument inclsuded a Varitone control. All of the Gibson basses so far were all short scale instruments.

1964 Gibson Thunderbird

Gibson did not produce a 34-inch scale bass until 1963 when they came up with the Thunderbird bass, as a companion to the Firebird guitar.

This bass was created by automotive designer Ray Dietrich. The Thunderbird also has the distinction of being the first Gibson bass to use dual-humbucking pickups.

1960 Jazz Bass

The Fender Jazz Bass was first offered in March of 1960. The Precision Bass had been very successful. By 1954 Fender had offered the Stratocaster, with its contoured body  and Leo wanted to apply this design to a new version of a deluxe bass guitar and began this process in 1959.  This was meant to be a companion instrument for the Fender Jazzmaster guitar, which was first offered in 1958. This bass would not only incorporated the contoured waist of the Stratocaster and Jazzmaster, but also the offset body of the Jazzmaster. It was originally called the Deluxe Bass, but renamed the Jazz Bass. Unfortunately, neither the Jazzmaster or the Jazz Bass found favor with any Jazz players when first offered.

1960 Jazz Bass - original finish

Instead of the split single-coil pickup found on the Precision Bass, the Jazz Bass featured two single coil pickups, in the middle and bridge position. This gave the instrument added sound dimensions. The first models offered in 1960 had twin stacked volume and passive tone controls for each pickup.

The basses neck was slightly thinner at 1 7/16th”, versus the 1 1/2” width of the Precision Bass at the nut. Both instruments had neck scales of 34 inches.

The neck on the Jazz bass came with a rosewood fretboard and clay dot position markers, just like the original Jazzmaster guitar. The offset body of the Jazz Bass made it almost and inch longer the the Precision Bass.

The original model was offered only in a sunburst finish with a tortoise shell pickguard and a chromed metal plate for the volume and tone controls. It also came with a bridge cover, which was stamped with Fender’s stylized “F” initial and a chromed cover/hand-rest for the middle pickup. Both pickups were hidden by the covers, which service the dual purpose of shielding the pickups and a palm rest.

'62 Jazz Bass

By late 1961 the stacked volume/tone potentiometers were replaced with three knob;.volume-volume-master tone.

1961 J-bass string mutes

The original 1960 version had individual string mutes mounted on the adjustable bridge.

These were replaced in 1963 with mutes that were glued to the inside of the bridge cover.

1964 Fender Jazz Bass

In 1964 the pickguard material was changed from 3-ply white and tortoise shell nitrocellulose material to vinyl material. This same year the clay position markers were changed to faux pearl inlays.

'66 Jazz Bass

By 1966 white binding was added to the neck and the tuners were changed from the paddle style to clover shaped machine heads. This same year the small fret wire was upgraded to medium fret wire.

In 1969 the logo decal was changed to a larger style decal and the neck was offered with a maple veneer option that had black binding and black block inlays.

By 1972 the bridge pickup was moved slightly closer to the bridge. This went unnoticed by most players.

'74 Fender Jazz Bass

1973-74 was the time that Fender changed to the 3-bolt neck. That same year you could purchase Jazz Bass with a maple veneer neck that had white binding and white block inlays.

'76 Jazz Bass with serial number

In 1976 the serial number was added to the neck instead of being embossed on the neck plate.

John Paul Jones

Well known Jazz Bass players include John Paul Jones of Led Zepplin, John Entwhistle played one for a while, Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane used a Jazz Bass too.

Larry Graham

Larry Graham had a customized Jazz Bass.  Bootsy Collins played a Jazz Bass during his days in James Brown’s band.

Jaco Pastoriius

But the most famous player by far is Jaco Patorius. Jaco was in a class of his own. He claimed to have ripped out the frets in his bass and put in marine epoxy. Later sources say he purchased a fret-less neck. He named his instrument The Bass of Doom.

1966 Fender Mustang Bass

In 1966 the Fender Mustang bass was issued as a companion to Fender's shorter-scaled, two-pickup Fender Mustang guitars. This would be the last original bass designed by Leo Fender before his departure from the company in 1965.


The Mustang Bass has a short 30" scale and a single split pickup, which although similar to the Precision Bass was backwards. It had one volume and one tone control, with strings-through-body routing.

Like the early Precision and Jazz basses, the Mustang Bass was fitted with string mutes

1966 Fender Bass V

The following year, 1967, Fender came up with the first five string bass; The Fender V. Although it was a far cry from modern five string bass guitars. The body on this was an elongated version of the Mustang bass. The lower four strings maintained traditional tuning, but the first string was tuned to “C”. This bass only had 15 frets. The idea behind this short scale model was to allow the player to be able to have the same range as a traditional 34” scale bass, by the addition of the high first string.

This would eliminate those “woof” tones that bass player get when the play high up on the neck. It was a failure. The bodies were later used on other Fender guitars.

'55 Hofner Bass

Taking a step back to 1955, and going the other side of the world, Walter Höfner of Höfner Musical Instruments made a decision to construct an electric bass that would appeal to upright bass players; the ones that performed in club venues and did not want to lug around a bulky double bass. His company had been building violins and instruments in the viol family for decades, so his plan was to construct an electric bass guitar that would be similar in appearance to a double bass.

Hofner Factory in the 1960's

His employees were already versed in violin construction, so this instrument was designed to have a similar arched and carved hollow body, aand a set in neck. The guitar components would include an ebony bridge/saddle, a neck with a guitar-like fretboard, a headstock with guitar style machine heads, a trapeze tailpiece and bar pickups like the ones already in use on the Höfner Club guitars.

1955 Prototype

The prototype Violin Bass in 1955. It differs slightly from production models as it has a black scrachplate and control panel. The logo on the body is on the upper bass bout, not under the tailpiece. The headstock shape also appears to be slightly different than the production model. The ovular control panel had two tone and two volume potentiometers.

This version was first presented to the public at the Frankfurt Musikmesse in the spring of 1956 and offered to dealers for sale to the public.

'55 Hofner

The 1956 model was quite different than what we have come to know as the Höfner Violin Bass. Many changes have occurred through the years.

The first batch of basses had the pickups "wide spaced", that is one by the neck and one by the bridge. In 1957 the bridge pickup was moved to a place slightly above the instruments center, possibly to improve tone.

'59 Hofner

Two years later the oval control panel, which had twin volume and tone controls was eliminated and replaced with the more familiar rectangular control panel.

The fascia on this was made of black plastic and had a volume control for each pickup, an on/off slider switch for each pickup and a switch for a capicitor that was labeled “Rhythm/Solo”.

'60 Hofner

In 1960 the “black bar” pickups were changed to “toaster” style pickups. This same year a truss rod was added to the neck. By 1961 the toaster pickups were replaced by what are called “Cavern” type pickups.

'61 Hofner bass

By 1961 other changes occurred to the Hofner Violin bass. Gone was the tortoise shell pickguard and it was replaced with a cream coloured pearloid guard. The instruments top was changed from being solid to laminate.  The brown violin stain, was replaced by a brown to yellow sunburst finish.

The pickup covers were no longer toaster models, but now came with solid chrome covers surrounded by a black pickup ring.

This is the same original bass used by Paul McCartney during the Beatles days in Germany and Liverpool at the Cavern Club.

'62 Hofner bass

In 1962 the Cavern pickups were gone and replaced with Höfner diamond logo pickups. The center pickup was moved back to a position in front of the bridge. The Höfner logo decal was moved from the body to the instruments headstock.

The following year, the diamond logo pickups were changed to Höfner staple pickups. These basses were now being made with two piece necks. The tuners were updated from two-on-a-strip models to individual machines. This is the same bass guitar that Paul McCartney had used since his days with the Beatles. His original 1961 bass was stolen.

'64 Hofner

In 1964 white binding was added to the neck and the decal logo was upgraded to a 3 dimensional white and gold version. Between the years of 1965 to 1966 the control panel was enlarged. The pickup mounts were changed to make height adjustments easier, however due to this change the top needed to be routed, whereas before the pickups were mounted on top of the body. The tailpiece was also shortened.

'67 Hofner

In 1967 the pickups were changed to “blade” type pickups. A year later the tuners were changed to enclosed versions with metal buttons.

The headstock logo was changed back to a gold decal.

'72 Hofner

By 1972 the control panel was changed back to a smaller version. The script on the logo was now in silver.

Meanwhile around 1953 in Czechoslavakia, the factories were under Communist control and private enterprise was forbidden. A cooperative known as the Rezonel factory called Drevokov was building furniture. An order was given to create electric guitars.

Arco Bass

The first electric bass instrument to come out of this was called the The Arco and it was created around 1954. It was a small bodied upright instrument meant to be played upright. This bass caught on in Western Europe when the Selmer Musical Instrument Company of France picked this up and relabeled it The Futurama Bass.

Jolana Basso IV

Around 1960, the company was selling electric instruments under the Jolana brand name. Their bass offering was the Basso IV, which was very much based on Fender instruments.

Pampero bass

By 1963 Jolana offered the Pampero bass, which had a body style similar to a Gibson EB-2.

Jolana Basso IX

Their other models from the 1960’s included the Studio Bass and the oddly shaped Jolana Basso IX.

EKO 1150

During 1962-1964, the Italian accordion manufacture, Eko, produced a version of a violin bass called the the Eko 1150. Less than 300 of these solid body violin shaped electric bass guitars were manufactured. Though the body looked like wood, it was a plastic veneer.

1962 EKO 1100

Also offered was the more (or less) conventional shaped Eko 1100.

Crucianelli Espana & Lear Basses

Around this same time frame, rival Italian manufacturer Crucianelli, began making violin style basses. Their models included the España bass and the Lear model. Both were hollow body instruments with decorative F-holes and bolt-on necks.

1961 Hagstrom bass

In 1960 Albin Hagtrom, an accordion manufacturer of Sweden began producing electric guitars and electric bass guitars.

The first versions were offered in a sparkle finish sold under the Hagstrom brand name. These usually had a single cutaway, one or two pickups and roller knobs with switches for controls.

1962 Kent bass

The Kent bass, was made by Hagstrom came with a plastic pickguard that housed the pickups and electronics. The back of the body was made of vinyl. It had an insert in the center that was made of gold coloured diamond shaped plastic. This was supposed to give it an acoustic sound. It did not work and many players removed it, since it was just glued on to the face plate. This bass was sold in the UK under the Futurama brand name, imported by the Selmer company.

Hagstrom Coronado IV and HII basses

Hagstrom basses and guitars were imported to the US, by the Hershman Musical Instrument Company. . Hagstrom then offered basses under their own name which included the Fender shaped H models.


In 1967 Hagstrom offered the first electric 8 string bass guitar. All of these guitars and basses featured extremely thin necks and were advertised as The World’s Fastest Necks.

Framus Star bass

The Franconian Musical Instruments Manufacturer used their initials for the company name and were better known a Framus. This German company was started by Fred Wilfer in 1945. One of their most popular instruments was the Star Bass. This bass was favored by Rolling Stone bassist, Bill Wyman, who liked it due to its unusually slim neck profile. This short scale bass was only 1 1/4” at the nut and 1 3/4” at the 12th fret. It was a hollow body instrument that only weighed in at five pounds. Framus introduced this model around 1961.

In 1957 Francis Hall, the owner of Rickenbacker guitars and his design team created the model 4000 electric bass guitar. The prototype was built in April and quickly offered for sale by June of 1957.

1957 Rickenbacker

The model 4000 bass was a rather unique instrument with a neck-through-body design, a cresting wave body, which had been used on some other Rickenbacker guitars, and  a cresting wave headstock. The bass came with an unusual 33 1/2” scale,  Schaller machine heads and a combination tailpiece/bridge unit were featured on the original models.

The fretboard was made of unbound rosewood wood and topped with 20 frets on its original mahogany neck. The neck was changed a few years later to a laminate of maple and mahogany.

The original model came only in Mapleglo, but by 1960 Fireglo was the most popular colour.

The original model had a single pickup with a volume and tone control. It was offered through the mid 1980’s when it was replaced by the model 4001.

Danelectro UB-2

lt was in 1956 that  Danelectro  offered the first six string electric bass. The model UB-2 was a 29-1/2-inch scale instrument tuned an octave lower than a guitar. It was used on countless recordings to double the bass part as a “tic-tac” bass.

'58 Shorthorn bass

In 1958 Nate Daniel finally decided to create a that the four-string model. Thousands of these were sold as Silvetone basses.

'60's Longhorn

That same year, 1958, Danelectro issued one of the more unusual looking bass guitars ever made.

It was called the Longhorn. The body was design to look like an Aeolian lyre paired with a long neck. Daniel drew the design while doodling one day and found that it was well balanced and made all the frets accessible.  Three models were offered, a six-string bass, a four-string and the Guitarlin, a 31-fret guitar.  All models came with a cream-to-bronze finish on the instruments Formica top.

Leo Fender left the company named after him after the CBS Corporation acquired Fender Guitars. Mr. Fender, Forrest White and Tom Walker, who was a Fender salesman, were interested in starting up a new enterprise. So in 1971 they founded The MusicMan Company to build guitars and amplifiers.

1977 MusicMan Stringray bass

In the world of the electric bass guitar this is significant because MusicMan was the first to offer a bass guitar with built in active electronics. This was the Music Man Stingray bass.


This bass featured a built in 3 band buffering pre-amplifier which increased the basses low-end as well as the mid-range and high-range output. This started a move and other manufacturers followed suit.

Casady's Alembic

It was in 1972 the Alembic Company made the first bass with active electronics for Jack Casady. This company’s forte was high-end boutique bass guitars which featured not just pre-amplification, but on-board equalization, compression and many other features. Additionally their products featured high quality wood and construction.

Steinberger

During the 1980’s Ned Steinberger, a designer came up with the headless Steinberger Bass guitar.

The body was made of graphite instead of wood. New strings were required for this instrument since it was tuned at the base of the instruments body instead of at the headstock.

Due to its unique design and use of materials this bass rarely went out of tune. It also featured the patented Trans Trem tremolo bar that kept the string in tune while in use.

1982 Warwick "Nobby"

The Warwick Bass company was found by Hans Peter Wilfer. He is the son of the founder of Framus guitars, Fred Wilfer.

With Warwick, Wilfer set out to build a European bass worthy of competing with Asian and America models. His basses are excellent. The current Star Bass used by Bootsy Collins was manufactured by Warwick and marketed for a few years.

The electric bass has evolved to the point that most manufacturers now offer five and six string models of their bass guitars, while twenty years ago this was unheard of.

The same can be said of fretless basses.

Ashbory Bass from Guild Guitars

One of the more unique bass instruments was the Ashbory Bass. This unique instrument  was designed by Alun Ashworth-Jones and Nigel Thombory. Hence the combination of names Ash-Bory.

Ashbory Bass

The Ashbory was a 18” fretless instrument looked like a travel guitar. It utilized four silicone rubber strings and a piezo pickup. The sound it achieved was similar to that of a double bass.

Alhough the neck was fretless, painted on fret markers guided the player to the correct position.

Guild guitars initially manufactured these basses. After Guild was acquired by Fender Musical Instruments, they were manufactured in Asia under the DeArmond brand-name. I do not think these instruments are currently being manufactured, however there are electric bass ukuleles that use these same strings available.

Ernie Ball Earthwood bass

Acoustic electric bass guitars have recently gained a lot of popularity. Aside from the Regal Bassoguitar, which was not electric, the first real acoustic electric bass in modern times was the Ernie Ball Earthwood bass.

This was a huge instrument, that was played like a conventional electric bass guitar. It was loosely based on the Mexican guitarron.

Martin Acoustic bass

Guitar manufacturers did not pursue acoustic electric bass guitars until around the time that MTV began their “Unplugged” series of concerts many years ago. Now there is a plethora of instruments available. Most acoustic bass guitars do not use magnetic pickups, instead the opt for piezo crystal pickups that sense the vibration of the strings and transfer it into energy.

Lightwave Optucak pickup

A newer type of non-magnetic pickup is offered by LightWave Systems. It is called an Optical pickup. This uses an infared LED to optically track the movement of the strings. This allows the player to crank up without the hum or noise associated with magnetic pickups. The down-side is that these pickups do not pickup high frequencies or percussive sounds very well.

Links to the pictures used can be found by clicking the text below them. Links in the text of this article will provide further information.