Hey, folks -
This'll be different! I do not play, but regularly hit the pawn shops while doing my Piedmont field work in the SE states - 1969-1980. BUT it was a good idea to carry some DEPENDABLE guitars for recording purposes, for not everybody had one available. To whit:
1. a 1939 National - very mellow, non-plangent sounding: Dated by Bob Brozman on one of his trips to Oz. Back when I was teaching Biology at a state college/university, I had a student who got #4 in the draft/conscription lottery and did the only sane thing, sold all his personal belongings and went to Canada. I bought the National from him for US$400.00. It's missing the pick guard, whose plastic out-gassing ate away the chrome finish underneath it! As the Broz explained it to me. A small crack in the resonator plate, too. See Tarheel Slim LP/CD cover.
2. a Gibson SJ - purchased in a pawn shop in Charlotte, NC in 1970... seemed new then. Back then i really didn't know s**t about guitars, but the guy in the pawn shop knew even less than I did! A friend told me to loosen the strings, feel around inside, and mumble something about loose bracing... it worked! Records like a dream, is in tune all the way down the neck, and has lovely, low action for finger-picking. An absolutely beautiful instrument - see Homesick James LP cover, or Honeyboy Edwards liner notes. EVERYone I recorded wanted it!!
3. a Gibson 335 purchased from my youngest sister's first ex-husband - I also carried a herringbone Fender Princeton amp along as well. Be prepared. And I was!
4. a Gibson LG that I picked up in poor shape - cracked on one side. Had it repaired and it was my "truck guitar" (I travelled in a van w. two dogs and instruments of destruction, plus recording machines, et al), the one I handed to someone who said, "Oh, I play a little". Henry "Rufe" Johnson was one of the first to benefit: no worries if it got damaged or anything like that. It WAS a Gibson, though, and that impressed folks a bit!
Have a bunch more, Nationals, a.o., with my stuff in storage, but these were used no many a TRIX session and appear on many a TRIX album cover! I have the National and the Gibson here with me right now. Eddie Kirkland played the National on two radio shows in Melbourne, and Eugene "Hideaway" Bridges played the Gibson at an in-store in Sydney! They still "work"!! May the farce be with you all.
yrs,
Peter B.
This'll be different! I do not play, but regularly hit the pawn shops while doing my Piedmont field work in the SE states - 1969-1980. BUT it was a good idea to carry some DEPENDABLE guitars for recording purposes, for not everybody had one available. To whit:
1. a 1939 National - very mellow, non-plangent sounding: Dated by Bob Brozman on one of his trips to Oz. Back when I was teaching Biology at a state college/university, I had a student who got #4 in the draft/conscription lottery and did the only sane thing, sold all his personal belongings and went to Canada. I bought the National from him for US$400.00. It's missing the pick guard, whose plastic out-gassing ate away the chrome finish underneath it! As the Broz explained it to me. A small crack in the resonator plate, too. See Tarheel Slim LP/CD cover.
2. a Gibson SJ - purchased in a pawn shop in Charlotte, NC in 1970... seemed new then. Back then i really didn't know s**t about guitars, but the guy in the pawn shop knew even less than I did! A friend told me to loosen the strings, feel around inside, and mumble something about loose bracing... it worked! Records like a dream, is in tune all the way down the neck, and has lovely, low action for finger-picking. An absolutely beautiful instrument - see Homesick James LP cover, or Honeyboy Edwards liner notes. EVERYone I recorded wanted it!!
3. a Gibson 335 purchased from my youngest sister's first ex-husband - I also carried a herringbone Fender Princeton amp along as well. Be prepared. And I was!
4. a Gibson LG that I picked up in poor shape - cracked on one side. Had it repaired and it was my "truck guitar" (I travelled in a van w. two dogs and instruments of destruction, plus recording machines, et al), the one I handed to someone who said, "Oh, I play a little". Henry "Rufe" Johnson was one of the first to benefit: no worries if it got damaged or anything like that. It WAS a Gibson, though, and that impressed folks a bit!
Have a bunch more, Nationals, a.o., with my stuff in storage, but these were used no many a TRIX session and appear on many a TRIX album cover! I have the National and the Gibson here with me right now. Eddie Kirkland played the National on two radio shows in Melbourne, and Eugene "Hideaway" Bridges played the Gibson at an in-store in Sydney! They still "work"!! May the farce be with you all.
yrs,
Peter B.