Parlor Guitars
I was discussing music and guitars with my friend Taylor the other day, and he reminded me of blues musician Mississippi John Hurt (a fantastic guitarist, by the way). Listening to Hurt reminded me of a guitar I had about 8-9 years ago, a Seagull Coastline Grand. The Coastline Grand is a parlor-sized guitar. If you’re not familiar with parlor guitars, they have a much smaller body than standard acoustic guitars.
Parlor guitars were most popular around the turn of the 20th Century and were used by many blues musicians around that time. Parlor guitars are still somewhat popular among blues and fold musicians. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Keb Mo’ was probably one of the more famous parlor guitar users, although Michael Hedges also used a parlor guitar.
Because of their smaller body, parlor guitars definitely have a different sound than larger-bodied guitars, but it’s a very pleasing sound. I started looking around, and unfortunately there aren’t a lot of options available if you’re in the market for a parlor guitar today. The Seagull Grand is still available, and it’s quite affordable at a street price of less than $400. However, there are a few other options, such the 125th Anniversary Washburn, the Epiphone EL-00 (which is slightly larger than a traditional parlor-size guitar), and the Fender GDP100.
The local Guitar Center had the Fender in stock, and I tried it out. Surprisingly, it sounds quite good, even though it has a laminated top and laminated sides. It’s also quite inexpensive at a street price of about $200. I personally like a smaller-bodied guitar, because I play mostly sitting down and larger guitars can become very uncomfortable. If you’re the same way, you may want to check out a parlor-sized guitar.
New Addition to the Family
A couple of weeks ago, I welcomed a new addition to my guitar family. Meet Lucille:
As you can see, Lucille is the Epiphone version of B.B. King’s signature Gibson guitar called Lucille. I’ve always loved the tone that B.B. gets live and on record, and when I was looking for a new guitar, I wanted something a little different than a Strat or a Les Paul. A hollow-body seemed to fit the bill.
One interesting feature of the Lucille guitars is a Vari-tone control. This feature provides 6 different tone settings that allow you to choose from different tones, even simulating single-coil tones. Another difference between the Lucille guitar and other hollow-bodies is that the Lucille guitar does not have f-holes, which helps reduce feedback.
I’ve only had the guitar for a few weeks, but so far I’ve been very pleased. I love the tone that the guitar produces, and it plays very smoothly. This guitar is pure blues!
Huss & Dalton
Mark Dalton, a founder of acoustic guitar maker Huss & Dalton, recently held a workshop on guitar making at one of my favorite local guitar stores, Artisan Guitars. I had never heard of Huss & Dalton before, but it appears that they are fairly well known in bluegrass circles. They are a niche guitar maker who make high-end guitars and banjos. The workshop also featured a concert by Richard Bennett.
Mark was very interesting and discussed quite a bit about wood, bracing and finishes. I liked the fact that he said that they respect tradition, but aren’t shackled by it. They’ll innovate where they can, but adhere to traditional guitar making standards when it is appropriate to do so. The guitars they build appear to be of a very high quality, with my favorite being their 12-fret 00 series of guitars, but they also make dreadnought and jumbo-sized guitars.
During a discussion of Brazilian Rosewood, Mark mentioned that the availability of Brazilian Rosewood may become even harder to get than it already is. Apparently, the Brazilian government, in an attempt to crack down on poachers, is going to prevent any Brazilian Rosewood from being cut and exported, even from stumps that have been left from previous clearing. It’s sad that poachers will prevent this wonderful tonewood from being used in the future, but it highlights the need for preservation and prevention efforts of the wood that is remaining.
While searching for more information about Huss & Dalton, I found an article published on Guitar Noise featuring an interview with the other founder, Jeff Huss, and a tour of the shop. You can view more photos of their shop on their Web site.
After seeing the workshop and discussing guitar building with my friend Taylor, I’m inspired to build a guitar. Now I just need to find the time to do so.
* Photo from Huss & Dalton’s Web site
A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Lenny’ Guitar
It’s been fairly well reported that Fender is going to be issuing a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar named Lenny, but I thought I’d mention it as well because I think the Tribute Series guitars by Fender have been great.
Aside from “Number One,” “Lenny” is the most recognizable guitar that Stevie Ray played; he played it in concert each time that he played the song “Lenny.” The guitar was bought for Stevie Ray as a 26th birthday gift by his wife, Lenny. It’s a ‘65 Stratocaster with a maple neck that was given to Vaughan by Billy Gibbons (originally the guitar has a rosewood fingerboard).
Like other guitars in the Tribute Series, the Lenny guitar is an exact replica of the guitar played by Stevie Ray, down to the Mickey Mantle autograph and the burn marks on the headstock.
The guitar will be available at Guitar Centers across the United States. However, only 235 of the tribute guitars will be available for sale, with only 185 of those available in the US. The guitar will be available for viewing at several Guitar Centers, beginning November 30th and will be available for purchase on December 12th.
Metal Helps Guitars
BusinessWeek Magazine recently featured an article about how the resurgence of heavy metal has helped some guitar makers. The article highlights several niche, unique guitar builders that make guitars typically used by heavy metal guitarists. The three guitar makers discussed are Halo Custom Guitars, Inc., Minarik Guitars, and B.C. Rich Guitars.
The common thread among all three guitar builders are that they create uniquely-shaped instruments, the type of guitars often used by heavy metal guitarists. They also name the guitars with names such as D-Spawn, Hellfire, Diablo, and Warlock. In addition to wild designs and names, the companies have added seven- and eight-string guitars to their product lines.
Even though these companies seem to be targeting heavy metal players, they realize that diversification is necessary. Marc Minarik of Minarik Guitars states in the article that:
“It’s a pendulum. It’ll swing back the other direction and hopefully we’ll have our line well padded with instruments that the other styles of music will find equally pleasing,”
Nowadays, I tend to play the more standard guitar models, primarily Strats, but in my younger days, I had an Ibanez Flying V-style guitar and played heavy metal music. In fact, B.C. Rich was big back then, and it appears as though they’ve made somewhat of a comeback over the past 5-10 years. I think there’s room for all of these guitar makers, and I’m glad to see that there are people finding and filling niches in guitar making.
Although not mentioned in the BusinessWeek article, Dean is another guitar maker that has been helped by the resurgence of heavy metal over the past decade. Specifically, Dean has been helped by the popularity of Dimebag Darrel, who famously played the Dean ML and turned a whole generation of metal-heads onto Dean Guitars.
What’s the wildest guitar you’ve owned/played?
Peavey Limited-Edition Orange County Chopper Guitar
Peavey has recently announced the availability of the limited-edition guitar that was created in conjunction with Orange County Choppers (of American Chopper fame). The guitar was featured, along with the motorcycle created for Peavey by OCC, on two recent episodes of American Chopper; the episodes were titled “Custom Shop Meets Custom Shop.” Truth be told, I’m a big fan of the American Chopper show and really enjoyed these two episodes where they built the motorcycle for Peavey and helped design the guitar.
Purchasers of the guitar receive a DVD of the episodes, as well as a display case, travel case, serialized commemorative plaque, accessories, and autographed memorabilia. Peavey have also been taking the guitar and motorcycle on tour, although no future dates have currently been announced.
(via ModernGuitars.com)
Babicz Guitars
My friend David was recently in the market for a new acoustic guitar, and Babicz guitars ended up on his radar. I’d never heard of Babicz guitars before hearing about them from David, but they have received quite a few good reviews, such as the Guitar One Mark of Excellence and the Guitar World Gold Award. Upon further looking into the history the guitars, I found out that Jeff Babicz used to work for Steinberger guitars in the 1980s.
One of the more interesting features of acoustic Babicz guitars are that the neck height is adjustable, pretty much on-the-fly. For example, you can go from a low-action configuration to a high-action configuration within seconds. Another interesting feature is the torque reducing split bridge, which is also adjustable. As a result of this bridge, the strings are stretched out across the base of the top, which reduces the tension on the neck and allows for a thinner soundboard.
I had a chance to play the guitar, and it felt and played very comfortably. One interesting aspect of the top configuration is that you can feel much more of the vibration from the strings than a typical acoustic guitar. Physically adjusting the neck is very simple and the results are instantaneous. It’s very easy to adjust the intonation so that you can get an optimal configuration in a matter of minutes. Additionally, the guitar contained very good components and looked to be very well made.
Several well-known guitarists use Babicz guitars, including Robert Randolph, Adrian Belew, Pat Travers and Todd Rundgren. You can view some videos of the guitars on the Babicz Web site.
Ovation VXT
Ovation Guitars has recently introduced the Ovation VXT hybrid acoustic/electric guitar. I saw a few of these intruments this weekend at a local guitar store, and they look fantastic. The VXT contains two Seymour Duncan ‘59 humbuckers for a range of electric sounds, and an acoustic preamp for the acoustic tones. The top is made of spruce, and the body is made of mahogony. Two colors are available: black and sunburst. Ovation has set up a MySpace page for the VXT, as well as a YouTube channel where you can view videos of the VXT. After watching a few of the videos, the VXT appears to be very versatile.
JemStock
On May 19, 2007, Ibanez is celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Ibanez Jem guitar with an event they are calling JemStock. Steve Vai will be making an appearance, as will Bill Reim, the president of Ibanez. The event will be held at Zone Music in Cotati, CA. Live music will be provided by Doug Doppler, Tommy Merry, and the Ibanez All Stars.
Fender Custom Shop
The Fender Custom Shop is celebrating their 20th anniversary this year. The Fender Custom Shop is responsible for Fender’s Custom Artist, Custom Classic, Custom Shop Limited Edition and Time Machine guitars and basses, which are some of Fender’s highest quality instruments. Additionally, the Custom Shop is responsible for the Tribute series guitars, such as the Eric Clapton Blackie Tribute, the Stevie Ray Vaughan Number One Tribute, and the Jeff Beck Esquire Tribute.
The Fender Custom Shop has also recently created a Shelby GT Strat as part of the Play Loud - Go Fast contest where you can win the guitar and a Ford Shelby GT, which is an awesome car.
Congratulations to the Fender Custom Shop on 20 years of great guitars!
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About
Welcome to my guitar blog! My name is Josh, and this site is my attempt to celebrate the guitar, its history, and its players. Read more...
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