On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
realbtl
I know there are quite a few guitarists out there (Hi Amir) so here are what I think will be keepers. We’ll leave out the Jazz bass, square neck dobro and lap steel as they are not currently in use.
I started playing in 1961 and have had quite a few instruments pass through my hands. I can now afford more upscale guitars so here are my current 4.
I’ll be around at 10am if anyone has any questions.
Anderson Little Archie archtop. Steve Anderson is a solo luthier in Seattle who builds some incredible archtops. He personally picks out the wood, ME and WA maple and WA spruce in this case. He also casts the tail pieces etc. I use this for the older jazz/blues I play with my 85 yo fiddler friend.
Back of Little Archie.
Walker Custom Ruby Elite. John Walker was the head of Gibson’s Bozeman Custom Shop. He does some of the best sunbursts I’ve seen. This is my second Walker and it’s interesting touring his shop about 3 hours from me.
This is another Maple- I prefer Maple to Rosewood- with custom inlays and tuners. Big but nuanced sound.
Back of Ruby Elite
Heritage H 530 (new). This is a true hollow body and I love the combination of that and the P 90s. It can go from Jazz to rock to country.
The telebeast. The others are scapals, this is truly an axe, probably stone. Parts tele with tapped Lindy Fralin PAF type in neck, Joe Barden Neck. For when I want to get loud and distorted.
Hope you enjoyed this little tour, I always like looking at different instruments.
Raven
Axes in the morning!
Paul in St. Augustine
10 am Eastern?
MomSense
Just shared with my kids ??
JeanneT
Oh, nice! Guitars are such beautiful objects, even when not being played. That Walker is stunning!
My latest prize is a hobbyist-made parlor size acoustic. I wanted a north American woods guitar, so the top is Alaskan yellow cedar, sides and back Michigan black walnut, bridge and fretboard of southern hickory. She has a pleasant sweet voice, good for my living room and my voice; I think the sound will develop depth as I play it more. It was made by a 80-some year old pastor from Virginia – Don Pizzeck.
For camping I have a Go travel guitar (solid spruce and walnut) and a Gretsch Jim Dandy (not quite cardboard). I’ve heard both in the hands of better players – surprisingly good sounds can be made by these little instruments. The Go fits really nice in my hands even though it looks like a small canoe paddle.
When I want a big rich sound I revert back to my first guitar, a solid spruce topped Alvarez dreadnought, which is still the best sounding guitar I have – maybe because it’s had 30 years to mellow?
Someday I hope to play well enough to justify having so many instruments.
MazeDancer
Wonderful pics!
Minstrel Michael
Lovely, all of ’em! (Even the Telebeast. I’m not at all a fan of real Telecasters, I think they’re the guitar equivalent of “Karen”! But I do own a mutant Korean knockoff, Tele shaped but with a Bigsby whammy bar and totally inappropriate pickups. I use it where I would like to play a vintage SG.)
BretH
One of my greatest joys is when my son visits and brings his (my old) guitar, a cedar-topped Seagull I got at a Frederick, MD pawn shop years and years ago, and plays for me. I love the sound, and even though playing far up the neck isn’t where it’s at due to the top caving in a little where he plays it the sound is simply lovely. Then I pull out my oddball all solid wood Cort and we play together and I can die a happy man.
Amir Khalid
Hi. Those acoustics are absolutely gorgeous. Is that Tele in candy apple red?
Citizen_X
Lovely!
TheQuietOne
Yet another reason I start my day with juicers. A beautiful display, thanks for sharing.
Snow in KC area….ugh
mvr
Pretty nice! I especially like the archtop & the Walker.
I’ve made 3 guitars in my life, all 30+ years ago. My favorite is a minaturized strat copy (20 inch-ish scale length) that I made for my then 6 year old nephew. It was stolen in Washington state and lost for 20 years or so but I managed to buy it back from a guy in Colorado several years back. I had to remake the pickups which I had originally wound along with active electronics inside each one. One of these had been lost and I did not remember exactly what I had done. So I simplified them without an op amp in the pickups themselves and just used a separate preamp and tone control that I redesigned. Then my nephew gave the guitar to his 20+ year younger sister, my niece. There’s a photo in my dropbox at https://www.dropbox.com/s/orqshmyeje7p4o0/LitGit1.jpg?dl=0
The body is ebonized ash with a white grain filler, the neck mahogany, fittings are brass. I believe I made everything but the tuners myself. I’ve been hoarding wood for some acoustic guitars and plan to make a uke next. I wish I could play.
JPopeC
@BretH: I just got a Cedartop S6 cutaway. (Circa 1982). Sounds gorgeous and has such great articulation for such a reasonably priced instrument.
realbtl
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, Tele body, Schecter neck, various other parts.
realbtl
@JeanneT:
Parlor guitars are underrated I believe. Not much punch but can be very sweet sounding played delicately.
frosty
Very cool and unexpected OTR! I’ve got 5 axes which include a National O-14 and a baritone tricone. I echo the commenters who wish they could play. I’m not letting it stop me even though I think the Nationals deserve better hands on them.
My travel axe is a Republic Highway 61 – parlor sized but a big sound with the cone.
BretH
@mvr: I love the subtle white filler with the black!
Have a saga mandolin kit waiting to be built. I think I am letting the idea of perfection get in the way of the good because I haven’t started it yet.
mvr
@BretH:
Thanks! Get started on the project! If you screw something up you can always make a new part. Once sawed a neck/headstock angle the wrong way round on neckstock I had meticulously laminated. Had to start over but the guitar turned out OK.
Betty
Wow, works of art. Fun to hear all the guitar lovers here.
e julius drivingstorm
Good thing you guys had me drag out my ’92 Gibson Blues King acoustic electric which I hadn’t looked at in over ten years. I’ve had it for almost 30 years and never changed the battery in the control panel. No leakage from the original battery – whew.
I seem to remember that no matter what gauge strings I used it had the richest touch harmonic on the fifth fret, comparable to 12th fret on a lot of pretty good guitars. Yep. Still there. And the dang thing is still in tune.
Delk
The shop at the end of my street just got a ‘53 gold top. $25,000! Ugh.
JeanneT
@BretH: I bet that duo sounds great
The Moar You Know
Do you know Dan Roberts? Pretty sure he was John Walker’s predecessor at that Gibson plant. He’s in Montana and building in Bozeman as well.
realbtl
@The Moar You Know:
Haven’t heard of Dan but Kevin Kopp also of the Bozeman factory is buileding in Bozeman too. I had a J 200 sized 12 fret that was incredible in open C or even B tuning.
stinger
I can strum C, F, G, and E7 and that’s about it, but I always enjoy the guitar discussions (usually started by Amir) and love these photos!
Benw
Really nice! I still bust out my old Strat
Ruff the dog
I don’t play, but that didn’t stop me from making a OOO-size acoustic guitar for my college-age daughter. I’ve listened to her learning to play (her teacher is over the back fence, or in these modern times by Zoom), and I’ve got to say both the guitar and the player sound really good! Time to start on guitar #2. The process of building a guitar has given me a lot more sensitivity to actually SEEING the guitars I’m looking at, like the pictures with the OP.
Haroldo
@Minstrel Michael:
I cannot let this Tele libel stand.
I give you Ed Bickert, ‘Who Helped Turn the Fender Telecaster into an Expressive Jazz Voice’.
He was, as is said, a real motherf***er.
Haroldo
And thank you, realbtl, for these gorgeous pictures. I particularly love the Anderson.
The Moar You Know
The story of Heritage Guitars is worth reading for those of you unfamiliar with it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_Guitars
Three guys who didn’t want to move and had to keep food on the table. The store I worked at the time was one of the first dealers. Great instruments.
realbtl
@Haroldo:
You got me curious. I note he replaced the neck pickup with a Gibson Humbucker. Getting jazz out of a stock Tele is difficult.
The Moar You Know
@realbtl:
http://www.danielrobertsstringworks.com/
If you ever get to meet him tell him Bill R from SCGC says hi!
Miss Bianca
My ex is a luthier and one of the legacies of our relationship is a lingering appreciation for a fine guitar. (or violin, or bass, or mandolin, etc etc). Lovely!
Miss Bianca
@JeanneT: Reminds me, I need to find a parlor guitar for an upcoming production…
realbtl
@The Moar You Know: Will do. Montana is rich in luthiers.
Haroldo
@realbtl:
This was my introduction to Bickert (a wonderful record with stunning playing all around):
“Live” by Paul Desmond
Fender released a model in ’72 with a humbucker in the neck position; It seems as though it’s still available. The Telecaster Custom
J R in WV
I sent a link to this thread to my neighbor Paul who rebuilds old guitars who need help to recover.
He will be interested to see these. Thanks for sharing this very different photo set, I hope other guitarists will share their instruments with us too. Very pretty wood~!!~
BigJimSlade
P90s are under-rated!
realbtl
@BigJimSlade: Definitely! Before I got ther Heritage I had a very nice Strat and an 80 Les Paul. Nothing honks like a P 90.
BigJimSlade
@realbtl: The closest I have is the Hi-Gain pickups on (a kinda beat-up version of) this:
https://www.12fret.com/instruments/1973-rickenbacker-model-480-solidbody-electric-burgundy/
Speaking of which, I should play it sometime! (I’m not much of a guitar player – I’m a bass player, or I sort of was years ago, who decided to mess around on guitar a bit, too.)
BruceFromOhio
That telecaster gives me shivers, nice shivers! Woo hoo! Sweet line up, would love to hear them played.
worn
“What a great thread to have my morning coffee with,” says a minor guitar player sitting at home in a room full of (underplayed) instruments.
And lord, oh lord, those are some beautiful guitars. I’ve been fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on the judge) to have kept almost every stringed instrument I’ve ever owned, so at 53 the most generous thing you can say is I have quite the surfeit. Partial list: 1958 Harmony H-62 archtop w/ the Gibson P13s; 1959 Harmony Stratotone Mercury w/ the DeArmond gold foils (really unique, swampy sound); 196~? embossed vinyl paisley wrapped Hofner Galaxie (very groovy strat, man); 1971 Hofner 496 (just a beautiful, unique & ornate acoustic); 198~? Koa Alvarez dreadnaught; Godin multiac nylon acoustic; a La Patrie classical (bought a the urging of Buster B Jones, at the one one lesson I took from him a few months before he drank himself to death); a couple of Kala plywood ukes; a couple of recent Squier instruments (tele & J-bass, which played far, far better than their price tags would suggest); a couple of A-body mandolins (a older plywood Kay & a new solid wood Kentucky); and finally, a poorly-made charango.
This is far too many instruments for one dude, but what the hey!
worn
@Haroldo:
Preach it! Because I also feel compelled to respond to the comment above regarding telecasters and jazz. I was enlightened about the exceptional versatility of these axes by watching videos of the legendary Ted Greene, who favored teles for decades and got the sweetest, shimmering sound from them (as I side note, I bought Greene’s “Chord Chemistry” back in 1988. There is enough material in that book to last a student a lifetime – and it is only one of several dense tomes he put together). Ted, like Joe Pass, is one of the only people I’ve seen who broke through on the guitar in such a way that he could play it as fluently as a piano – completely free, near as I can tell, from the tyranny of patterns and boxes that can easily dominate one’s guitar technique. Here is a sample of Ted playing ‘Autumn Leaves’, with an improvised a multi-voice baroque-style bit within: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDuee6blvj8.
(And for the guitar players, here is a guitar lesson where he talks about baroque improv on the instrument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkuo2384ZN4)
Tim Lerch, who lives in plays in the Puget Sound area, studied under Ted and as a result, also favors teles and also has that same wonderful touch on the instrument. Here he is playing ‘As Time Goes By’ (the tele he is using has a Charlie Christian style blade pickups in lieu of the typical single coils): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C51sUtZMPEI
Late to the party as always, but the calumny above cannot be allowed to stand.
realbtl
Thanks for all the nice comments, I’m off for a picnic, sunny and 55 here in Montana.
Haroldo
@worn:
It was on a mid-60s Harmony Stratotone Mercury (dunno if that’s also the name for the two pick-up variety) earned from hours in the Kansan hayfields that I figured out I can’t count to six. It’s been electric basses every since (and because I can’t count to six I also can’t tell you how many I own).
Thanks for the info on Ted Greene. Today I learned…..
BretH
I would be remiss in letting a Telecaster-mentioning thread go by without putting in a link to the Humbler, Danny Gatton. I had the privilege to see him live on several occasions and needed a spatula to scrape my jaw off the floor later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyCocJ5KLf4
Haroldo
@BretH:
Vis a vis Danny Gatton: A-f**king-men.
worn
@BretH: Yeah, Danny was a monster player. The world is a lesser place for his passing…