Tag: features

In the hierarchy of guitars, the bottom of the pyramid’s capstone is made up of guitars that are “merely” highly collectible, the best example being the 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, of which there are hundreds. Next up the pyramid are stage-played instruments belonging to well-known artists, often accompanied by pictures to ensure there is no doubt, such as one of Jimi Hendrix’s Stratocasters. At the pyramid’s apex are the rarest of rare – the unique instrument that is not only a visual and sonic signature in itself, but is readily identified with an artist of the very first rank, over a period of time, in many songs – a guitar that made anthemic songs played every day and has attained status as a cultural icon – in other words, a guitar that actually made history.

Clapton’s 1964 Gibson SG, commonly known as “the Fool,” is iconic in many ways:

• Visually: The first picture-painted guitar in rock and roll, it radically changed the concept of guitar from instrument to art object – the first “art guitar” created by artists.

• Culturally: It’s one of the leading cultural icons of an age, one of the first embodiments of psychedelia, and one of its most striking realizations ever. It evokes the most magical years of the mid/late ’60s, with its innocent love-and-drugs culture and the first supergroup, Cream.

• Sonically: It’s ground zero for a sound that did not previously exist, epicenter of one of the most soughtafter guitar sounds ever – its signature “woman tone.”

What Is It?
Clapton’s Fool started life as an SG. For many years, some speculated it was a ’61 SG/Les Paul, but the proper view came to be that it is a ’64. A primary bit of evidence is the pickguard, which has six screws as the later years’ pickguards do, rather than the earlier five screws, as was standard on the ’61 SG/Les Paul. In addition, it has patent-number pickups, not the earlier “Patent Applied For” pickups Gibson ceased using circa 1962. The guitar was purportedly originally owned by Beatle George Harrison, who gave it to Clapton circa ’65, after Clapton’s ’59 Standard that he had been using in Cream was stolen. Clapton had just left John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers to form Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, having so stunned his audiences with his performances that the graffiti “Clapton is God” became visible throughout London. The band’s first album, Fresh Cream (1966), lived up to its name – it was a three-man group composed of players already individually recognized as members of other bands, and it played a repertoire that bore more in common with blues roots figures such as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Albert and Freddie King than with the then-typical “British Invasion” music. During its brief existence, Cream stood for continued innovation – one only had to observe Clapton’s hair evolve from his early “Brutus cut” on the cover of Fresh Cream to “Afro-man” perm to “college hippie” over a two-year period, with wardrobe changes to boot!

In ’66, Cream was making plans to go to the United States the following year – 1967 – the year of “the Summer of Love.” Murray the K, the WOR-FM disk jockey in New York, was organizing a week-long, never-to-be-seen-again, all-stars/all-hits revue. Cream knew its debut had to have maximum impact on their new American audiences, so they enlisted the help of a pair of then-obscure Dutch designers who later became an art group known as The Fool, who were to play an important role, in rock and roll, and more broadly, in the psychedelic culture of the late ’60s.

Who Was The Fool?
The Fool began with two members, but eventually grew into a collective; its core members were Simon (a.k.a. Seemon) Posthuma, Marijke Koger, and eventually, Josje Leeger, Koger’s art-school friend. Others, particularly photographer Karl Ferris and Barry Finch, were also associated with the group. Posthuma and Koger, who met circa 1961 and a few years later began participating an “alternative” Amsterdam boutique called Trend, were living on the island of Ibiza (off the coast of Spain) before relocating to London in early ’66 with a grant from the Von Pallandt Foundation. There, they sold posters to the galleries and boutiques around London. They also began to design clothing and other things for leading rock bands such as The Beatles, The Hollies, Procol Harum, The Incredible String Band, The Move, and others. One weekend, they painted the three-story mural on the side of The Beatles’ Apple store in London that delighted their fans – and so outraged local merchants that only three months later, the Westminster city council issued an edict that it must be painted over. They designed many other famous items, including George Harrison’s fireplace, the original album liner for Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album, and others. It’s often thought that The Fool painted John Lennon’s famous Rolls-Royce, though in fact it was painted by the same gypsy painters who painted a gypsy wagon Lennon kept in his garden, after Koger spied it and gave Lennon the idea.

The origin of The Fool’s name was from the Tarot card Arcana Zero, which shares a name with a wild trump card. The Fool card, Posthuma said, “represents Truth, spiritual meaning, and the circle which expresses the universal circumference in which gravitate all things.” The Fool were not merely artists – they designed their own costumes, and made quite an entrance wherever they went, with their splashy, hippie-gypsy style. Eventually, The Fool even formed a band and released a few singles, along with at least one eponymously titled ’68 album on Mercury Records (produced by Graham Nash). Ginger Baker once remarked that Koger was the best tambourine player he had ever heard. They also were the driving force behind the ’60s psychedelic classic movie Wonderwall, in which they act and which was named after a Fool-painted armoire and bust in their apartment that served as Lennon’s inspiration to hire them in the first place.

Before ever meeting the Beatles, however, Koger and Posthuma were commissioned by Robert Stigwood, Cream’s manager, to work their artistic magic on Cream’s instruments and costumes. Simon Hayes, then-owner of Mayfair Public Relations agency, was a friend of Koger and Posthuma. Mayfair (where Finch also worked) represented the Saville Theatre, owned by Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager. It was Koger’s commission to create a poster for the Saville Theatre’s Sunday night rock concerts that indirectly led to the Cream commission. Stigwood, often broke but never poor, needed to promote the band’s upcoming American tour in a bold and different way. Having seen the poster for the Saville Theatre, Stigwood was very intrigued, and through Finch set a meeting with Koger. He gave her a commission to create costumes, graphic promotional material, and when she suggested that she paint the instruments, those, as well. The Fool disbanded as a group in about 1970, leaving Posthuma and Koger, who were married for a time, to continue as a duo.

After leaving London, Posthuma and Koger relocated to Hollywood, where they painted the exterior of the Aquarius Theater on Sunset Boulevard for the 1968 production of Hair. Today, Posthuma is based in Amsterdam and Koger is based near Los Angeles. Finch and Leeger married on the day Americans landed on the moon, had six children (each named for a color) and remained together until her death by stroke in 1991.

Clapton’s Fool is Born
Koger was the lead designer of Clapton’s Fool, in close collaboration with Posthuma. According to Posthuma, “Usually, Marijke created the figures and the landscape, and I did the colors and the color strips. People often refer to Eric’s guitar as The Fool SG. This is not correct. The Fool was not formed by that time. This job was done by Simon and Marijke. The Fool started when we were setting up the Apple Shop.”

Koger and Posthuma took Clapton’s SG, and after having it sanded and primed, applied their design by hand, using oil-based, brush-applied enamel paints. The theme of the guitar’s design is, broadly, good versus evil, heaven versus hell, and the power of music in the universe to rise above it all as a force of good. A clue to this is found in a quote from Koger’s web page (maryke.com/fine.html) explaining her fascination with themes she has used throughout her artistic career.
“The single thread running through all of my paintings is nostalgia for paradise (the Illud Tempus). In more or less complex forms, the paradisiac myth occurs all over the world, in all religions. It always includes a certain number of characteristic features: Immortality, Beauty, Freedom, the possibility of ascension into Heaven and meeting God (the Gods, Goddesses), friendship with the animals and knowledge of their languages. It expresses the urge to restore communication between Earth and Heaven; to abolish the changes made by the primordial disruption of ‘the fall.’ It embodies Hope for a better world with more Joy, Beauty and Peace, whether it be in the mundane or on the Other Side.”

On the face of Clapton’s Fool, a cherubic angel holds a triangle in one hand and the triangle beater in the other, sitting high in a celestial sphere. Yellow hexagonal stars (signifying the cosmic spirit, according to Posthuma) against a blue celestial sky (a Fool hallmark, still in evidence on Koger’s website) form part of the background. Below, flames lick upward from the lower treble bout toward the Volume and Tone controls and beyond. The angel looks back toward the lower bass bout and a rainbow-painted set of arcs – the Fool’s trademark, according to Posthuma. The inspiration for the angel was in no small way influenced by Clapton’s permed hair at the time, according to both Koger and Posthuma.

The back of the guitar is a set of concentric, rainbow-gradated circles that start in the center with yellow, and end with deep red on the outside. Outside the circles are waves of brightly-hued, contrasting colors. According to Koger, Posthuma was responsible for this part, as well as the corresponding “circle of light” on the back and front of Jack Bruce’s Fender Bass VI painted at the same time by The Fool.

“The pickguard was painted by me,” said Koger. “I principally painted the body, as well. Simon painted the circle of light on the back, and the circle on the front of Bruce’s bass.”
The neck and headstock are painted in psychedelic rows of bright-colored, wavy stripes. The truss-rod cover is a white plastic laminate.

Though many have speculated otherwise, the entire fretboard was never painted – a fact confirmed by Koger – and pictures of the guitar in this state have not been found. Clapton may have removed some of the paint on the back of the neck, which was flaking due to the fact it wasn’t clear-coated or sealed, and the high wear he was giving it. When, and by whom, the back of the neck might have been repainted are still a mystery.

The pickguard has an entirely separate scene – a picture within a picture, almost a Dutch miniature. Though it, too, was painted by Koger, it has a different style – a pastoral landscape with a path in the foreground leading into the distant hills, with a red sun overhead and plants and scenery all around. According to Koger and Posthuma, it represents Paradise. “The pickguard was painted by me. I was, and still am, intrigued by the idea of paradise which the landscape on the pickguard represents,” said Koger.

The guitar – along with Bruce’s bass and Ginger Baker’s bass-drum head, both of which were also largely designed by Koger – was painted over a span of two weeks. The Fool also produced costumes, graphic designs, a booklet illustrated with Koger’s art, photographs of Cream, and poems by Finch.

The Debut
Murray the K served as promoter on revues with some of the leading acts of the day, with shows lasting about 90 minutes, and repeated (in principle) five times a day. Each act initially was allowed to play two to three songs. At the spring, 1967 “Music in the Fifth Dimension” revue, two new acts – The Who and Cream – were to be introduced to the American public. It was slated for Saturday, March 25, through Sunday, April 2, at the RKO 58th Street theatre in Manhattan. Due to the lack of familiarity of American audiences, neither Cream nor The Who were headliners. Rather, Mitch Ryder headlined, with Wilson Pickett and Smokey Robinson (who never actually appeared) seconding. Cream (billed as The Cream) and The Who came next in the billing, “Direct from England.” Cream was initially scheduled to perform two songs in each show, “I Feel Free” and either “I’m So Glad” or “Spoonful.” However, the logistics of cramming 10 acts into each 90-minute show soon took over, and they were “encouraged” to perform only one song, “I Feel Free,” and even then were told to cut its length so the next act could take the stage on time.

Cream’s U.S. debut was also the debut of Clapton’s Fool and the rest of the Fool-painted gear, and it’s said the paint was not fully cured by the time of the concert! Several commentators have written about how the audience was taken aback by the band’s appearance, including their instruments and costumes, as well as their stunning new music.

Hearing The Fool
Clapton’s Fool was his principal guitar for most of the work that followed Fresh Cream. The ensuing albums, including Cream’s Disraeli Gears, the world’s-first platinum double album, Wheels of Fire, and Goodbye, are infused with the sounds of The Fool. Disraeli Gears was largely recorded at Atlantic Records studio in New York City in early May of ’67, produced by Felix Pappalardi and engineered by Tom Dowd. It includes the defining Cream song, “Sunshine of Your Love,” and other signature songs such as “Tales of Brave Ulysses,” and “Strange Brew.” Wheels of Fire contained a broader, more adventurous set of songs, but included “White Room,” “Politician,” and perhaps the most-copied song in any blues band’s repertoire, “Crossroads.” He used The Fool regularly, though less exclusively, until the end of Cream in November ’68.

These albums and recordings are remarkable for many reasons, but one of the most notable is Clapton’s introduction of “woman tone” – one of the most soughtafter sounds ever made by an electric guitar. Clapton began developing and refining this sound initially on his Les Paul, but it did not reach full flower until he switched to The Fool.

What is “woman tone?” Though subjective, it could well be defined as a guitarist’s version of “vox humana,” a tone that sounds like a woman singing “ooooh” softly and with a healthy dose of vibrato. In an interview in the August ’67 issue of Beat Instrumental, Clapton described his style and tone, saying “I am playing more smoothly now. I’m developing what I call my ‘woman tone.’ It’s a sweet sound, something like the solo on ‘I Feel Free.’ It is more like the human voice than the guitar. You wouldn’t think it was a guitar for the first few passages. It calls for the correct use of distortion.” Clapton illustrates the technique using The Fool in a 1968 interview that can be seen at vintageguitar.com/special-features.

In the interview, he illustrates the various tonal possibilities, and demonstrates the wah, all the while using his customary Marshall stack while Jack Bruce looks on approvingly.

“The woman tone is produced by using either the bass pickup, or the lead pickup, but with all the bass off.” Clapton says in the interview. “In fact, if you use both pickups, you should take all the bass off on the Tone control. That is, turn it down to 1 or 0 on the Tone control, and then turn the Volume full up.”

The opening riff and solo of “Sunshine of Your Love” are arguably the best illustrations of full-blown woman tone.

(LEFT) The handbill for Murray the K’s “Music in the Fifth Dimension” revue. (RIGHT) Murray the K ran this ad for his “Music in the Fifth Dimension” revue in the March 24, 1967, edition The New York Daily News.

The Fool’s Fate
There are several stories about what happened to the Fool after he stopped using it in Cream. All we know for certain is that the guitar left Clapton’s hands, passed through the hands of Jackie Lomax into the hands of Todd Rundgren for nearly 30 years, who then sold it at auction in 2000.

In one version, in early 1968, Clapton left the guitar with George Harrison, and never returned for it. Then, around the middle of ’68, Harrison “loaned” the guitar to his friend, Jackie Lomax, a “Merseybeat British Invasion” guitarist and singer/songwriter who bounced around in early-’60s bands in the U.K.

In ’71, Lomax moved to Woodstock, New York, to try to crack the American market yet again, this time under a Warner Brothers contract. He met Rundgren at a recording session, and let it be known that he possessed Clapton’s Fool (see sidebar on Rundgren).

When Rundgren received the guitar from Lomax, the wood of the upper neck and headstock had deteriorated because of playing wear, sweat, or through simple neglect. Wanting a playable instrument, Rundgren had a portion of the neck and headstock replaced. Today, the exact spot of the repair is only slightly visible, and it was repainted to a near-exact copy of the original. In addition, Rundgren had the body coated with a sealant that better protected the oil-based enamel paints, and retouched some of the missing paint.

Today, The Fool is in the same condition as when Rundgren last had it. Its tuners are Grovers, replacing the original double-ring/single-line Klusons. The nut is brass, not the original white celluloid. The neck, from the nut down to about the third fret, and the headstock, are new, having been repainted to look like the original. No serial number is evident. The instrument appears to have a clear coat except on the headstock, which has a noticeably duller sheen. The bridge is a Gibson Nashville-style Tune-O-Matic, with a stopbar tailpiece. There are many pictures of Clapton playing the guitar with a trapeze tailpiece, and with a Gibson Maestro vibrola tailpiece that was the standard for the time. The pickup switch and pots appear to be original, while the control knobs have likely been replaced.

Playing The Fool engages all the senses. It’s difficult to approach playing the guitar objectively, given its iconic status. First, it is so clearly different in appearance from any other guitar that one must be prepared for a new level of physical instrumentality. It smells old – not bad – just old. To the touch, the rippled effect of the hand-applied paint gives it a more-organic, less-manufactured feel. The neck has extremely low action and the frets are low and wide. On the spectrum of Gibson necks, from 1961 wide-flat to 1965 “baseball bat,” The Fool is somewhere in-between, but closer to wide-flat. This may have been original, but could also have resulted from repeated neck sandings or treatments over the years. The knobs turn with ease – not surprising, given the usage.

Plugged in, the guitar plays like any other, at least at low volume with its controls turned fully up. Naturally, the temptation to crank the amp and dial back the Tone controls takes over, and one begins to hear the difference. When one turns up the amp to at least 7, things begin to happen that take it out of the realm of the ordinary; the tone begins to thicken, compress, and sustain.

It’s often said that a guitarist’s tone is in their fingers, not the equipment. But here, it’s clear the equipment helps, to put it mildly. A few riffs are in order, starting of course with “Sunshine,” the classic tone of the axe is obvious. The temptation to finish with “Crossroads” is irresistible.

Today, The Fool is in good condition and in a very safe place in the possession of its online buyer.

Text and photographs all rights reserved, 2011.

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This article originally appeared in VG December 2011 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

The J-185 is regarded by many players and collectors as the finest-sounding Gibson flat-top made after World War II. The only flat-top of its size and shape made by Gibson in the 1950s, the company offered nothing comparable even in its pre-war catalogs, and though it is in many ways similar to the J-200, it’s a very different instrument.

The J-185 was introduced in 1951 with a Sitka spruce top, curly maple back and sides, mahogany neck, and a Brazilian rosewood fingerboard with double-parallelogram inlays. By comparison, the J-200 had a two-piece maple neck with a dark center lamination and crown-shaped fingerboard inlays. Both had a Brazilian rosewood bridge, but with a moustache shape on the J-200 and a reverse-belly shape on the J-185. The pickguard shape is also the same, but the J-200’s guard is thicker, with decorative floral engraving. Initially, the 185’s body was 51/4″ deep, but by ’55, it was reduced to 415/16″, and at 16″ wide, it was smaller than the 200’s 17″ body. The 185’s lighter-weight construction utilized thinner wood than the 200, which makes the 185 very responsive. In addition, its 243/4″ scale (versus the 251/2″ of the 200) alters the sound and feel of the instrument compared to the 200.

The size and shape of the Gibson Jumbo body harks back to Orville Gibson, though the archtop instruments he famously designed were very different in construction. With the exception of the cutaway, the shape is the the same as that of the ES-175. Another interesting feature was its cross-shaped bridge inlays, their likely origin appeared on the GS-85, a rare classical (27 were shipped) made from 1939 to ’42.

It’s interesting that this body size was virtually unavailable on flat-top guitars prior to World War II, and was all but ignored even into the ’50s. Today, though, the shape and size are widely employed among big-name guitar builders including Taylor, Collings, Santa Cruz, and Guild. And while the Martin J model has a different shape, it is essentially the same size, and is functionally similar. Even Gibson currently makes several models of this size and shape, including a J-185 reissue that has sold well. Going back, Gibson’s Everly Brothers model of the ’60s differs radically in ornamentation, but is the same size and shape, and the late-run Guild F-40 was very close in size.

Any vintage instrument that is truly rare today was not a great commercial success when new. Many prized vintage models struggled, sales-wise, because their design was ahead of its time or because they appeared at the end of a wave of popularity for a particular musical style. Loar-era Gibson F-5 mandolins of the 1920s and five-string flathead Mastertone banjos of the ’30s were made after a surge in the popularity of mandolin music and prior to the advent of bluegrass music. These instruments were not highly prized until they were later popularized by Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, and other players of such stature who reintroduced them to the world as bluegrass instruments. When introduced in the late ’50s, Gibson’s Flying V and Explorer models were commercially unsuccessful and generally considered a joke. In time, they became hugely influential, and even popular among rock-and-roll players.

Conversely, other rare vintage instrument models are virtually unknown today because customers of the time quickly recognized an inferior or impractical product when the model was introduced. Though the rarity caused by small production numbers may be good if you are a coin, stamp, or fine-instrument collector, it is not the goal a manufacturer seeks when introducing and trying to sell a new model.

This article originally appeared in VG‘s November 2014 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Behold, this specimen that checks off all the right boxes for fans of vintage amps; beautifully clean, it has a watertight provenance and emerges from a heart-warming backstory. If we love anything more than a musty old tube amp in outstanding condition, it’s a musty old tube amp with a stirring history – a tale that takes us rapid-rewind style from the present day back to a time in the mid ’50s, when this Gibson GA-20 was first bought, played, and loved.

Add the fact the 1954 Gibson ES-175 that was purchased right along with it by this amp’s original owner is featured in Dan Erlewine’s “Dan’s Guitar Rx” column this issue and, well, this is something to get excited about.

Warren Hein, 77, of Joppa, Maryland, purchased this GA-20 and the accompanying ES-175 at a store in Baltimore in 1954, and made good use of the pair until he was drafted into the Army in ’57, when he stored them in his bedroom closet and set off to serve his country. After his discharge in 1960, life “got real,” as they say, and his earlier adventures in music remained on the back burner. Work and family kept Hein busy, and the years rolled by until one day recently when he took a notion to drag his old pals out of storage. What he found were two vintage Gibson pieces in impressive condition, but in need of a little repair and freshening up after their long hibernation. Hein then had a fortuitous encounter with vintage amp enthusiast and repairman Dave Ellis of nearby Bel Air, Maryland.

“I stopped in at [a consignment shop owned by Warren and his daughter] to see if they might have any old amps, radios, or stereos I could buy to work on,” Ellis said. “Conversation led to music equipment, and Warren mentioned that he had a Gibson guitar and amp that were in disrepair. He was beginning to experience problems with arthritis in his hands, and I asked if I could get the guitar and amp repaired [so he could] use them to keep his fingers flexible.”

Ellis picked up the set, got a willing Dan Erlewine in on the guitar repair, and set about servicing the 59-year-old GA-20.

Gibson made the GA-20 in various configurations between 1950 and ’61, with this two-tone rendition in buffalo-grain with woven Saran grille appearing from ’54 to ’59 (the only real visual alterations in that span being the loss of the “20” from the front logo and changes in the input legends in the final two years). Generating approximately 16 watts from a pair of 6V6s in cathode bias sparked up by a 5Y3 rectifier with a 12AY7 in each of the two channels and a 12AX7 in the phase-inverter slot, this 1×12″ combo sat either at the lower end of Gibson’s professional-grade lineup or (depending on how you look at it) the upper end of its student range. Either way, it was a head-to-head rival for Fender’s similarly powered and proportioned Deluxe, and did pretty well at the effort, with 949 sold the year Hein bought his. If you keep a weather-eye on vintage amp listings, you get the impression that a fair number of them are still doing service in the field, too – no major surprise once you check out the quality workmanship and components found inside.

Being sympathetic to non-invasive amp restoration, Ellis took great care in bringing the GA-20 back to life. Had it been played regularly throughout the intervening five and a half decades, there’s a chance it would have kept chugging along pretty well, but the repairman knew he’d need to be careful with the long-untested electrolytics, in particular. After trying (and failing) to bring them up to voltage with a Variac (because they were dried out), Ellis found it necessary to replace the filter caps – no surprise in an amp of this age. He did, however, manage to retain all the delectable Cornell-Dubilier “Grey Tiger” tone and coupling caps, which Gibson used in guitars and amps before switching to yellow Astrons in amps in ’56, and Bumblebees and Sprague Black Beauties later in the decade (the photos here were taken by Ellis prior to the restoration, and show the amp in its original state). Ellis also replaced a few resistors where necessary with new carbon-comp types, replaced the crumbling 200-ohm “dog bone” cathode-bias resistor with a new five-watt ceramic 220-ohm resistor (which would actually keep the amp operating more to spec with today’s higher-mains AC voltages), fabricated a new spacer for the pilot light, cleaned and re-tensioned the tube sockets and inputs, added a properly grounded three-prong cord, reconfigured the input grounding to take the guitarist out of any potential electrocution loop(!), replaced the deteriorating leather handle, and performed a few other items of routine old-amp upkeep. It all sounds like a lot, perhaps, but the work introduced nothing out of spec to alter the sonic character or original appearance of the amp, while keeping it playable – just as it should be.

All fired-up and running again, this little GA-20 has a rich, round tone when played clean, and one that’s perhaps a little warmer than its familiar Fender counterpart. Cranked into mild overdrive (a condition Gibson would have considered out of spec back in the day), it becomes reedy and meatily twangy with single-coils, creamy and thick with humbuckers. The original Jensen P12R speaker sounds great, Ellis reports (though the amp would gain headroom and girth with a replacement P12Q or P12N or any of a range of Celestion options, while also saving the vintage P12R from the grave).

Top to bottom, then, this a sweet and satisfying restoration, and a happy tale of the kindness and generosity of strangers… or, strangers who easily become friends. And we can’t wait to hear how the GA-20 greets the ES-175 when that connection is re-established.

This article originally appeared in VG July 2014 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

Park 75
Preamp tubes: three ECC83 (12AX7 equivalents)
Output tubes: two KT88
Rectifier: solidstate
Controls: Volume II, Volume I, Treble, Middle, Bass, Brightness
Output: approximately 75 watts RMS

We might not expect anyone to give much of a hoot for an amplifier with “Park” on its badge – a brand that has also graced budget-grade solidstate amps from Asia for the past couple of decades – except for the fact that any player or amp collector in the know is hip to the fact that a Park from around 1965 to around 1980 really is just a Marshall by another name, and often one with a nifty twist.

This situation has set up the unusual circumstance that the sub-brand Park amps from the golden years, the point-to-point amps made from the mid ’60s until around 1974, often fetch a little more on the vintage market than their Marshall counterparts. That probably fewer than 800 or so such Parks were ever built doesn’t hurt their desirability, and the pervasive rumor that Jim Marshall made many Park models “a little hotter” than similar Marshalls coming out of the factory alongside them adds further cache to the name.

The original Park amplifier line represents a clever and rather devious piece of marketing brinksmanship on the part of Jim Marshall. In the early years of Marshall, the Jones and Crossland music store in Birmingham served as a distributor of sorts for the north of England, but was cut out of directly handling Marshall business when the company penned a bigger and broader distribution deal with U.K. music-industry biggie Rose-Morris in 1965. Store owner Johnny Jones had long been a pal of Jim Marshall’s, however, and the amp maker seemed keen to accommodate his friend one way or the other. Meanwhile, Jones and Crossland was already handling a “house brand” line of guitars and other musical instruments, apparently dubbed in honor of Jones’ wife’s maiden name, Park. Marshall and Jones devised the ploy of giving a few minor twists to Marshall-built circuits to sidestep any exclusivity issues, along with some visual alterations and the rectangular Park logo… and Bob’s your uncle; Marshall keeps on supplying its sought-after tube amps to Jones and Crossland for Birmingham and Northern England.

For the first several years of production, most Park amps followed Marshall designs very closely, and the larger heads are therefore comparable to the evolution in Marshall JTM45, plexi, and metal-panel heads from the mid ’60s to the early ’70s. Often they had black or silver control panels rather than the Marshalls’ gold, some came in taller or differently shaped head boxes, and earlier examples displayed other cosmetic tweaks such as chickenhead knobs and different control layouts and labeling. By the mid/late ’70s, Park amps had even more of their own thing going on, such as the more “basic” looking front-mounted metal control panel of the Lead 50 combo, which was also quite different internally from any other amp wearing the Marshall name at the time. Like their more populous siblings, these Parks were built with printed circuit boards post-’74, but are still great amps with loads of sonic character.

This 1972 Park 75 is of an era when the northern alternative was looking rather more Marshallesque, though it is distinctive for its silver metal control panel. It also retains the split channel volumes different from the Marshall setup with the two channel input pairs side by side, and the Volume controls following. It’s purely an alteration of layout, which doesn’t change the way the channels function, but must have provided Jim Marshall yet another way of saying, “Why, no, Mr. Rose, Mr. Morris, this is not a Marshall amp at all – it’s a Park 75!”

One of the biggest technical differences between this Park 75 and a 50-watt Marshall Model 1987 of the same era was its use of KT88 output tubes rather than EL34s (note that this example, however, has been modded by a later owner to use EL34s). Marshall used four mammoth KT88s in the Major to pump out a whopping 200 watts, and a pair of them keeps the Park 75 pretty clean and bold up to a higher point on the dial; most owners report these amps don’t start to break up until the Volume control hits 7 or 8, by which time they are moving a lot of air through a 4×12. At the same time, there’s talk of Park amps having slightly lower-value resistors feeding the preamp tubes in the first gain stage than those used by Marshall in similar circuits, resulting in higher plate voltages and, in turn, more sizzle from the amp’s front end; this might be another distinction of sorts, but in truth, some Marshall amps of the era display similar variations. One further interesting difference here is the “lie down” power transformer configuration, something seen in earlier Marshall plexis, but changed to the stand-up transformer configuration in 50-watt Marshall heads of the early ’70s.

Beyond the input stage, the Park 75 is pretty much classic Marshall all the way out – which is to say, perhaps, that it still follows the basic circuit template laid out by Leo Fender in the 5F6-A Bassman of the late ’50s. A cathode-follower tone stack offers Treble, Middle, and Bass controls, and a long-tailed-pair phase inverter delivers its load to two KT88s in fixed bias, with a negative feedback loop that is tapped to yield a Presence control (called “Brightness” here) just to further differentiate things (and again, not by much). Otherwise, from the fat “mustard caps” to the British carbon-comp and carbon-film resistors and several other distinctive components, it really is solid Marshall stock through and through – and a great alternative means of getting your Brit-rock on.

This article originally appeared in VG July 2013 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.

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Anyone who’s ever caught Ted Nugent on tour has seen this instrument, and during the Summer of 2003 it was intended to be the only guitar used by the Motor City Madman during his one-hour slot.

“That was pretty much due to time restraints,” said Dean Mitchell, who has been Nugent’s guitar tech for a number of years. “He wanted to just keep going, and didn’t want to have to stop to change guitars.”

In addition to being unique as a rock guitarist’s main instrument, the Byrdland is unique among Gibson electric guitars. Designed with the input of guitarists Billy Byrd and Hank Garland (the name is derived from their surnames), it was introduced in the mid 1950s as one of the company’s first “thinline” hollowbody models. Its 23 1/2″ scale is also unusual, being more typical of a student guitar than a professional instrument.

Standard Byrdlands were originally available with P-90 pickups, and acquired humbuckers in the late ’50s. Stock finishes were sunburst and natural, and Gibson made the model with Venetian (rounded) and Florentine (pointed) cutaways, as well as spruce or maple tops.

Da Nuge’s preferred Byrdland configuration is a spruce-top model with a Florentine cutaway, and Mitchell said that the guitarist has had the instrument since his days with the Amboy Dukes. It’s known as “Number 4” – Nugent numbers his Byrdlands sequentially, and the first three were lost in a fire that destroyed an Amboy Dukes trailer. Number 4 has been broken on more than one occasion, but has always been restored to Nugent’s sonic satisfaction.

The guitarist’s no-holds-barred playing style has necessitated the removal of the pickguard on all of his Byrdlands. Note the wear – down to the bare wood of the top – not only where a pickguard would have protected it, but also around the volume knobs.

According to Mitchell, the wear is due to a combination of Nugent’s sweat and his constant manipulation of the controls.

“He’s the only guitar player I know who constantly works his volume knobs and pickups,” Mitchell said. “He’s always turning up, turning down, turning up halfway, back and forth between each pickup.”

Modifications include an old Gretsch threaded strap button knob that serves as the cap for the toggle switch, and Mitchell avers that “…it’s easier for him to get at, and it looks cooler! We put those on all of his guitars.”

In 2003, the original Patent Applied For (P.A.F.) pickups, which had begun to “squeal,” according to Mitchell, were replaced by Gibson Burstbucker 2 models.

Battered, worn, and reinforced, Nugent’s ’62 Byrdland is as outspoken and unique as its owner, and Nugent has relied on its sound for many years. Perhaps Nugent’s affection and reliance on this instrument are best summed up by an anecdote recounted by his guitar tech.

“I was looking at the wear on it…” Mitchell recalled with a chuckle. “And I asked Ted if he wanted me to sand it down and put a little lacquer on there. He told me if I touched it, he’d shoot me. He wants it to be like Willie Nelson’s acoustic!”

This article originally appeared in VG‘s April 2004 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.