Here’s a short clip of the great David Grissom ripping it up at the Saxon Pub in Austin TX this past week. Great tone, impeccable playing. When we posted this to our FB page it blew up and continues to spread all over the planet! Enjoy!
Check out the link below to see the performance.
Kevin Butts from Killer B Guitars joins us to discuss guitar building form Memphis TN. and the beauty of Pine!
Got to http://killerbguitars.com/ for more!!!!
Adam P Hunt is a freelance writer who has previously written for The Library Journal and Premier Guitar Magazine. We are so happy to have him join us here at Guitar Radio Show.com.
Adam P Hunt 500 Words on Alternative Woods
“Alternative” material guitars aren’t anything new. George Beauchamp’s 1927 Dopyera Brothers made resonator guitars were made out of plywood, aluminum, brass and steel, and Beauchamp’s 1931 “Frying Pan” guitar was made from cast aluminum plus who can forget the 1959 fiberglass bodied National Glenwood “Map” or the 1969 Ampeg /Dan Armstrong “Plexi”?
More recently there has been a lot of anger and confusion concerning both the Lacey Act of 1900, European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) legislation and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) regulations and what that means to guitar builders, traveling musicians, and collectors. While I don’t seek to delve into either of those issues rightly or wrongly they do have an affect what you may or may not build or may or may not buy.
Increasingly guitar makers, large and small have been searching for ways to make high quality, tuneful guitars that will appeal to players. While it has been an uphill battle some of the majors have stepped up to the plate.
In the late Seventies Gibson launched walnut bodied version of the Les Paul simply known as “The Paul” and in 1990 CF Martin has made a line of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified guitars.
In 2013 article on the greenbuild.org site called “Making Music the Sustainable Way” the author listed a wide range of materials that contemporary builders are experimenting with, “Species such as: cherry, claro walnut, redwood, bay laurel, cedar, blackwood, sycamore, myrtle, koa, and maple” and stated, “These species come from a wide variety of sources including: wood reclaimed from building demolition, trees damaged from forest fire, driftwood, trees that have already fallen, and stands that are to be cleared for agricultural use”.
A 2014 article in Musical Merchandise Review titled “Perfecting the Sustainable Guitar” site, Taylor the small Walden Guitars “hempstone” “Madera”, and the Finish Flaxwood as companies as being on the cutting edge of sustainable materials practices.
Petros has made some highly collectable “Tunnel 13” guitars made from reclaimed railroad tunnel material and Rick Kelly of Carmine Street Guitars has made a name for himself by making pine bodied Telecaster variations out of timber salvaged from a loft owned by film maker Jim Jarmusch.
If you are a working musician chances are you probably don’t want to perform without your favorite instrument, even a vintage one. In the post 9/11 world traveling internationally has become a huge pain in the rear, so much so that even seasoned road dogs like Eric Clapton are deciding throw in the towel.
But if you do travel internationally it’s probably best to leave your prized vintage favorite at home and buy a modern CITES compliant second best version (read; leave your ’59 Les Paul at home, take your Korean made Epiphone Les Paul with you).
With a little digging around I did find a 2014 article in the Official Journal of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada called, “Urgent Call to Action: Register Your Instrument to Help Avoid Interrupted International Travel”. The author, Alfonso Pollard suggests you immediately “obtain a US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) traveling permit for your musical instrument. You should apply as far ahead of your trip as possible because government processing time may be unpredictable”.
Adam P Hunt is a freelance writer who has previously written for The Library Journal and Premier Guitar Magazine. We are so happy to have him join us here at Guitar Radio Show.com.
Adam P Hunt 500 Words on Ted Newman-Jones III
Ted Newman-Jones III is somewhat of a shadowy figure. The Nashville based guitar builder was the man who was responsible for putting together Eric Clapton’s famous “Blackie” Stratocaster in 1970. Soon there after Ted Newman-Jones made his way to France when The Stones were recording “Exile on Main Street” and talked his way into working on Keith Richards’ guitars. Ted Newman-Jones would serve as Richards’ guitar tech from ’72 to ’79.
There are builders to the stars and there guitars of the stars. Just as some companies become so associated with a particular recording artist it’s hard to separate the two. Even though Jimi Hendrix is best known for playing a Stratocaster he played guitars from Danelectro, Epiphone, Gibson, Gretsch, Supro, Martin, Mosrite, and Zemaitis.
Other builders become inextricably linked to a single artist. Doug Irwin made a handful of guitars (Eagle, Wolf, Tiger, Rosebud, and Wolf Jr.) for Jerry Garcia and as a result he had written himself into music history.
Some builders like Tom Anderson, John Bolin, Kris Derrig, Roger Fritz, Roger Giffin, Dennis Merrill, Danny Ransom, and Paul Reed Smith have made guitars for major artists made to look like models from big name companies.
Ted Newman-Jones built a handful of guitars for Keith partly to replace some recently stolen ones and partly to allow Keith to take advantage of his newfound love for open G (G-D-G-B-D) tuned five stringed guitars.
A sharp eye will spot that Keith using an unusual guitar on The Stones’ ’73 tour. The ‘73 guitar looked like mixture between a Les Paul Recoding model and an hourglass designed by Salvador Dali.
Keith can also be seen in a fairly recent Mesa Boogie catalog standing in a field holding what looks like mixture between a Les Paul Standard and an SG. The guitar is quite possibly an earlier Newman-Jones than the one used on the ’79 New Barbarians tour.
The exact number of guitars that Newman-Jones made is a not clear from what I can tell the numbers range from three to five.
At a certain point Newman-Jones set up shop in Austin Texas and made guitars for Joe Ely, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan James Honeyman Scott (The Pretenders) and possibly for Lucinda Williams.
In the late eighties/ early nineties there were a variety of Newman-Jones design “Austin Special” guitars built by California based Chandler guitars including a baritone model, some basses and a handful of five string guitars.
Like all things Newman-Jones things get a little murky and there seems to have been a falling out between him and Chandler. While the company no longer makes the “Austin Special” their website clearly shows John Entwistle playing one.
Even more mysterious is Newman-Jones stint in jail during the late nineties. Not much information on the subject other than he seems to have been cleared of all charges.
Newman-Jones’ guitars continue to have a polarizing affect amongst guitar aficionados. Some people love them, others don’t. But for those who can’t wait to own a true piece of rock ‘n’ history Ted Newman-Jones can be reached at:
Ted Newman-Jones Guitars
975 Burgies Chapel Road
Dyersburg TN 38027
cjp@cableone.net
Please include the word “guitar” in the subject line of the email
Adam P Hunt is a freelance writer who has previously written for The Library Journal and Premier Guitar Magazine. We are so happy to have him join us here at Guitar Radio Show.com.
Adam P Hunt 500 Words on Standel Amplifiers
No doubt you’ve walked into a guitar shop and have seen an array of amplifiers kicking around, Fender, Marshall, Vox, Randall, Egnater, Orange, Peavy, you know, the usual suspects.
If you’re lucky you’ll run across something either exotic or obscure such as a Fuchs, Red Bear or even a Diaz. A while ago I was taken aback when I walked into one of my favorite consignment shops and I ran into a Standel.
Of course I had heard the name before because Standel amps due to their link to Chet Atkins but this was the first time I had seen one in the flesh.
Standel may be less familiar to some contemporary players but at one point they boasted an enviable roster of players who played them including Merle Travis, Joe Maphis, Speedy West, Grady Martin, Hank Thompson, Wes Montgomery and Cliff Gallup.
According to guitar wiz Deke Dickerson Standel began when in 1952 electric guitar pioneer, Paul Bigsby approached electronics engineer, Bob Cooks, about developing a Bigsby amplifier. With a fifty-dollar advance Cooks made a working prototype. Initially Cooks was pleased his results but when Bigsby brought over one of his steel guitars the outcome was less than stellar.
Cooks and Bigsby went back and forth a couple more times until Bigsby eventually abandoned the project. After many hundreds of hours more work Cooks eventually came up with a design he was happy with and name the company San (for standard) el (for electronics).
Bob Cooks then hit the local music circuit to drum up some business. Cooks eventually convinced Speedy West to try his amp in a live setting. West was so impressed with the amp’s performance he became Cooks’ first paying customer.
The first Standels were all custom but by working with performers Cooks developed what would eventually become the 25L15 model.
Standel eventually ventured into making guitars and basses. Initially the designs were developed by Simei Mossely but were manufactured from 1961 to 1967 under the Harptone name by Billy Lynch in Alabama.
Like a lot of amp companies Standel switched from vacuum tubes to a solidstate format in the sixties and due to reliability and performance issues they turned out their lights in 1972.
That’s where the story could have ended but like Paul Bigsby’s Crocker Motorcycles Standel has risen from the ashes. In 1991 a Standel enthusiast named Dan McKinney had purchase the remaining back stock of an extinct electronics firm called Quad-Eight and launched a high-end point to point wired recording consul company named Requisite.
As a child McKinney’s stepfather had been a Standel dealer and gave the young Dan McKinney a Standel. Years later McKinney was dropping his daughter off at school and remembered that the old Standel factory was just around the corner. McKinney decided to visit the now closed facility and after a quick visit became fascinated by the idea of relaunching the Standel brand.
McKinney tracked down both Bob Cooks and the company’s former head of PR, Frank Gralock, and expressed his interest in bringing the company back from the dead. Both Cooks and Gralock had said they had tried several times to resurrect Standel but no one was adept at point-to-point wiring as McKinney.
By 1998 a new Standel 25L15 had emerged and debuted at that year’s NAMM show.
Today Standel once again stands proud and is still made in southern California and produces not only a modern version of the 25L15 the EL84 based two channel Switchmaster series and a variety of speaker cabinets.
As promised here is our first installment of 500 words from Adam Hunt.
Adam P Hunt is a freelance writer who has previously written for The Library Journal and Premier Guitar Magazine. We are so happy to have him join us here at Guitar Radio Show.com.
500 Words From Adam P Hunt
History of Fuzz
Whether it’s a snarling mass of bee-dogs or a subtle hair around the edges of a decaying note fuzz has been an integral part of rock ‘n’ roll from the very start. Depending whom you believe fuzz was first appeared on record with the Jackie Brenston/Ike Turner tune “Rocket 88” in 1951.
Legend has it that Willie Kizart’s ratty guitar tone was due to a damaged amplifier that was either soaked with rain after being strapped roof of a car or as a result of being dropped on the ground. Whatever the cause the fat, honky, rough around the edges sound blended perfectly with the in-your-face sax and Jackie Brenston’s husky vocals.
While “Rocket 88” may not be the first rock ‘n’ roll song in recorded history (some sources site Goree Carter’s 1949 “Rock Awhile”) it is still as hot as an Oldsmobile with a bum thermostat and bad oil pressure.
Another early example of early distortion/fuzz sounds can also be heard on the 1950 recording “Boogie in the Park” by Joe Hill, Howlin’ Wolf’s 1951 “How Many More Years” (with Willie Johnson on guitar) and of course 1958’s “Rumble” by Link Wray & his Ray Men.
Early fuzz tones were due in part to either damaged equipment, low watt amplifiers being ran wide open with a big box guitar, or, as in the case with Link Wray, razor sliced speaker cones but after this point the history of fuzz gets a little… uh… fuzzy.
Del Halterman’s book “Walk-Don’t-Run-The Story of the Ventures” talks hints quite broadly at some innovative pedals created by guitarist Orville “Red” Rhodes but it seems that “Red’s” pedals were not commercially available.
Credit for the first fuzz pedal goes to a radio technician, Revis Hobbs. Working on the behest of The Ventures producer Lee Hazlewood Hobbs and recording engineer Glenn Snoddy would reverse engineered a faulty transformer on the a defective mixing consul that caused session guitarist Grady Martin’s “tic tack bass” to distort on the end of Marty Robbins 1961 hit “Don’t Worry”.
The result of Hobbs and Snoddy’s efforts would result in the first commercially available fuzz pedal, the FZ-1 and the FZ-1A Maestro Fuzz-Tone, by Gibson.
Like many of Gibson’s avant garde designs the Maestro Fuzz-Tone was not an immediate success. The pedal was initially geared towards country players and even Les Paul’s name was attached to some of the Fuzz-Tone’s early literature.
It seems that the Fuzz-Tone was destined for obscurity that is until Keith Richards got hold of one. When it came time to record the song “Satisfaction” Richards said, “I was imagining horns, trying to imitate their sound to put on the track later when we recorded. I’d already heard the riff in my head, the way Otis Redding did it later, thinking this is gonna be the horn line. But we didn’t have any horns… The fuzz tone came in handy so I could give a shape to what the horns were supposed to do”.
