Tag: features

This Martin 00-28 is a highly unusual instrument. Made as part of a group of six created with shop-order number 366 (dated 12/14/1944) and bearing serial numbers 90002 through 90007, they were entered on the Martin shop order slip as 00-28G, indicating they were classical guitars designed strictly for gut strings.

There is no indication in the ledger that any had custom features; a ’44 00-28G was a 12-fret slot head classical style neck, 2″ wide at the nut, with a flat/non-radiused fingerboard with no dot position markers (but side dots), Spanish-style fan bracing, no pickguard, and a classical-style bridge with strings that tie on rather than use bridge pins. The model had Martin’s “Orchestra Model” body shape, which was typically used on steel-string guitars with 14-fret necks.

As is typical of a ’44 00-28G, this guitar has an Adirondack spruce top with herringbone edge trim, Brazilian rosewood back, sides, and peghead veneer, mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard and bridge, zigzag back-stripe, white ivoroid bindings on the top and back edges of the body, and Martin decal logo on the back of the peghead rather than the front. This guitar, however, deviates from the typical specifications for the G model in having X bracing, an original steel-string style belly bridge, and an original pickguard. It was clearly intended to be played with steel strings.

As is typical of Martin’s work in late ’44, the top braces are non-scalloped; most ’44 Martins have scalloped X bracing, but this practice was discontinued late that year, starting with serial number 89926. Though a few very early 00-28G guitars had X-pattern bracing, by ’44, fan bracing was standard for the G models. There is no evidence this guitar was converted later for steel strings. The neck block on the one you see here is stamped with the serial number and the model number – 00-28 – rather than 00-28G, further indicating it was not made for gut strings. At the time this guitar was made, most custom-order Martin instruments had a model number with an S suffix, indicating “special,” but this guitar does not have any such designation on the neck block. Interestingly enough, it’s remarkably similar in appearance to the limited-edition Norman Blake 000-size guitar on which Blake specified a 000-size body with a 12-fret slothead neck, X bracing, belly bridge, and a pickguard. Though Martin kept extremely good records compared to other guitar manufacturers, research today is revealing numerous Martins that deviate from (or are not included in) the records, though these comprise a very small percentage of total production.

From the time C.F. Martin, Sr. started making guitars in New York City in the 1830s until the early 1920s, with the exception of a very small number of special-order instruments, virtually all Martin guitars were designed for use with gut strings. The company targeted its marketing and endorsement efforts to classical players rather than folk or traditional players. There was a very active classical guitar scene in America, with numerous performers, teachers, clubs, and publications devoted to classical guitars and the associated music. By the early ’30s, after Andres Segovia toured the U.S. and introduced his approach to classical guitar, demand for Martin and other American-made early-design gut-string guitars plunged. Segovia played Spanish-made guitars and a Hermann Hauser, Sr. guitar made for him and modeled closely after Spanish/Torres designs. While Segovia played classical guitar, his technique was quite different from the earlier school of American classical. After Segovia took the American scene by storm, demand for classical guitars in the U.S. did not disappear, but his followers gravitated toward the Torres design and rejected Martin’s gut-string guitars, which were weren’t as well-suited for Segovia’s technique. Fortunately for Martin, its basic guitar design with a few modifications proved well-adapted for use with steel strings and a variety of music styles ranging from Hawaiian, country, ragtime, blues, bluegrass, folk, and virtually any application utilizing a flat-top steel-string.

Martin did not abandon the classical market, but by the late ’20s had focused its effort on steel-string instruments. The G series, introduced in 1936, was an attempt to recapture some of that market. The first Martins made with Torres-style fan bracing, they had a 2″ wide nut and a modern classical bridge. However, Martin’s choice of their Orchestra Model body shape, introduced for steel-string 14-fret guitars, looked incongruous to most classical players. The G series were crafted to the same standards as Martin steel-strings of the age, but their design specs simply did not appeal to many players following in Segovia’s footsteps. As a result, these instruments were a commercial failure.

This 00-28 may be one of a kind, but, in view of the fact the work-order number does not indicate it was custom-made as a steel-string, it’s possible one or more others may have been made. Regardless, it’s a fine instrument with excellent power and tone. While a typical Martin 00-28G does not have the sound or feel that appeals to a significant number of classical players, this steel-string variation holds its own compared any similar-sized steel-string, and its wide neck would appeal to many fingerpickers.

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

The 1,164 archtop guitars made by John D’Angelico have brought him great renown as the finest individual archtop guitar builder in the history of the instrument. His mandolins, however, are seldom talked about, even though – if this particular example from the early 1940s is any indication – they are worthy of the same attention.

Mandolins played a part in D’Angelico’s career as an instrument maker from the very beginning – before he ever made an archtop guitar. Born in New York in 1905, he was only nine years old when he began an apprenticeship with great-uncle Ciani, who made violins, mandolins, and flat-top guitars. He took over the shop when his great uncle died, and then opened his own shop in 1932.

By the time D’Angelico hung out his shingle, he had become known for his archtop guitars, modeled on the f-hole L-5 Gibson introduced in 1922. And as his designs evolved and his fame grew, he continued to be known primarily as a guitar maker for the rest of his life.

One can only speculate about D’Angelico’s involvement with mandolin making in his early years, but circumstances were such that he could hardly have avoided the mandolin. His family came from Naples – birthplace of the modern mandolin. He grew up in New York, where the mandolin movement in America had begun in the late 1800s, thanks in a large part to Italian-American musicians. And the mandolin was at the height of its popularity at the time he began his apprenticeship as an instrument maker. It is known that he took violin lessons – to play and to make violins – and it is likely that interest would carry over to the mandolin, which is tuned the same as the violin, more readily than to the guitar.

D’Angelico’s ledger books offer only a few clues to his mandolin activity. While he made the first entry for a guitar in 1932, he didn’t enter his first mandolin in the books until 1940 – it was number 125. Earlier three-digit numbers have turned up, so he may have started numbering mandolins with 101 (he started guitars with 1002), and it’s unknown how many unnumbered ones he might have made. This month’s featured instrument is one without a serial number.

To make matters more difficult, D’Angelico did not record any mandolin model names. Sixteen are called “Scroll” (including one “Scroll O”). Twenty-two are called “Plain” (including one “Plain (good)”). Two are parenthetically called “(good).” One is “G.D.” And three are entered with a date but with no notation as to style.

We’re not aware of any D’Angelicos with the scrolled upper body bout of a Gibson F-style mandolin (except for a few with the “lump” scroll with the scroll simulated by curlicue binding), but some of them do have a violin-style scrolled peghead, like that of a Lyon & Healy Style A, so D’Angelico’s “Scroll” model almost surely refers to the scrolled peghead. (D’Angelico’s “Plain” model, by default, is a standard oval-hole A-style mandolin.) The scrolled-peghead D’Angelicos have an asymmetrical body with two points, similar to the body of the Lyon & Healy A, although the body of the D’Angelico is significantly deeper. The low position of the point on the treble side effectively provides some degree of a cutaway, and with only 10 frets clear of the body, the cutaway feature is a practical necessity on this instrument.

This mandolin obviously does not have the Lyon & Healy-style scrolled headstock. Instead, it has the distinctive cutout framing an ornamental button that D’Angelico began using on guitars by 1937. To the average musician that design would have no connection to the scroll of a violin peghead or a mandolin body; however, the architectural term for a pediment (the ornament at the top of a column) with that cutout shape is “broken scroll,” so in a technical sense, the term “scroll” could still be applied to this peghead shape.

This mandolin’s model name is not in doubt. The pearl inlay on the peghead is boldly engraved “Excel,” and the ornamentation is, in fact, up to the level of D’Angelico’s Excel guitars, with seven-ply binding around the top, back, soundhole, and pickguard (the pickguard is a replica of the original), and three-ply binding on the peghead. The bound ebony fingerboard is inlaid with mother-of-pearl blocks. A small pearl inlay on the peghead identifies the owner of the instrument as “Mac.”

D’Angelico succeeded in designing a mandolin that is visually unique and easily identifiable as one of his creations, and that unique quality also applies to the sound. This carved-top instrument has more volume than the similar Lyon & Healy models, and it has a stronger low-end response than the traditional Italian-style bowlbacks D’Angelico grew up with. In the process of creating this more robust tone, some of the delicacy of a bowlback’s tone, particularly on the high end, had to be sacrificed.

To today’s ears, the sound of this mandolin suggests D’Angelico was aiming for a middle ground between classical and bluegrass. However, bluegrass mandolin as we know it today didn’t yet exist when this instrument was made. If D’Angelico had even heard a Bill Monroe recording, he would not have heard the “chop” and the “woof” Monroe worked into his style in the late ’40s, after he acquired his Gibson F-5. Instead, D’Angelico would have heard an earlier Monroe style, with clear, fast-paced lead lines and a busier, unchoked rhythm style. This mandolin would have been well-suited for that style.

Interest in classical mandolin had been steadily declining since World War I (though the instrument may have remained more popular in the Italian community in New York than in the rest of the country), and bluegrass had not yet emerged.

So, what sort of player was this mandolin made for? The most visible mandolinist of the era was Russian-born Dave Apollon, a virtuoso and master showman who often fronted a full band (with an F-5). If Apollon was the standard setter, then this D’Angelico – with its combination of power and clarity of tone – was perfectly designed for the music of the day.

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

This may well be the most desirable Fender Stratocaster on the face of the planet. And it happens to be a beat-up mongrel assembled from parts taken from three 1950s guitars.

Nevertheless, Eric Clapton’s “Blackie” is one of the most recognized celebrity-associated instruments in the history of the electric guitar, and it served Slowhand’s needs for a decade and a half until its “retirement” in the mid 1980s. Clapton was long ago quoted as saying this instrument “… has become part of me,” so VG elicited some input from two individuals who also got to know the guitar in an intimate manner when it was wielded on a regular basis by the guitar legend.

Lee Dickson has been E.C.’s guitar tech since 1979, and confirmed the chronology that led to the construction of “Blackie.”

“He bought a bunch of Strats in 1970, when they were going for nearly nothing,” Dickson said of Clapton. “He brought them back to England, gave a few to his buddies like Pete Townshend and Steve Winwood, and out of the bunch that was left, he took a ’56 body, a ’57 neck, and the pickups from a third guitar, and made Blackie. He liked the look of the black body, the feel of the neck from one of the other guitars, and the sound of the pickup assembly from another guitar.”

The Strat has been seen and heard on a myriad of albums and tours/performances, and was Clapton’s instrument of choice for his band’s three-song performance at Live Aid. Umpteen memorable riffs and licks, such as the two-chord anchor to Clapton’s cover of J.J. Cale’s “Cocaine” were evoked from this guitar.

Tulsa resident Willie Spears tech’ed for Clapton from 1975 to ’79. Spears can be seen in The Last Waltz, a documentary of the Band’s final performance, as Clapton hands Blackie to him following “Further On Up the Road.”

Spears noted that the Strat was also Clapton’s favorite studio guitar, recalling how he was dispatched by Slowhand to acquire the words to a J.J. Cale song while the Slowhand album was being recorded.

“We saw Cale perform in London,” Spears recounted. “And Eric sent me to get the lyrics to ‘Cocaine.’ We were doing ‘Lay Down Sally’ that night, which sounds like a Cale song. He always had several guitars in the studio, but he always went back to Blackie.”

Note the missing vibrato arm – Clapton doesn’t use a whammy bar, but according to Dickson, “He likes vibrato guitars, but we block the vibrato behind the bridge, and tighten up the (vibrato) springs, so it stays pretty solid.”

The guitar has had an expected history of maintenance and minor repairs. It’s had more than one fret job, pickup adjustments, and at one point Spears removed the three-position pickup toggle switch, then notched it to create a five-position switch. Dickson also replaced a volume pot.

As for the cosmetics, video and photos from the ’70s aver that some of the gouges were already on the body back in that era. Of course, the cigarette burns on the headstock simply add to the instrument’s panache, as would possibly also be the case for a non-celebrity owned pre-CBS Fender.

And soon, Blackie will go up for auction, along with other instruments from Clapton’s collection in a benefit for the Crossroads Centre. The event is a sequel to the June ’99 auction of Clapton memorabila at which another historic Stratocaster, a ’56 sunburst model named “Brownie” fetched $450,000. One can only imagine what the winning bid for Blackie will ultimately be.

And one might also wonder about the thoughts of a guitar tech who was associated with such an important instrument, and perhaps Dickson nailed it.

“My thought when we did the last auction was that at the end of the day, I’m just a caretaker, ya’know? They’re Eric’s guitars; they always have been, and they always will be until he gets rid of them. I take care of them; I may have a few emotional attachments to some of ’em – I love Blackie, I love Brownie… And the Cherry Red ’64 [Gibson] 335 from Cream is a particular favorite of mine. I may have a tear in my eye when I see ’em going. But it’s Eric’s decision, and I totally respect that.”

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

In the 1930s, the quest for volume was the Holy Grail of guitar construction, as guitarists sought instruments to slice through the sound and fury of a jazz band. And when Django Reinhardt began playing his revolutionary jazz, he played it on a revolutionary new jazz guitar.

Django’s novel Henri Selmer & Compagnie Modèle Jazz guitar was France’s answer. Designed by Italian luthier Mario Maccaferri, it featured techniques borrowed from violin and mandolin construction; the steel strings of a mandolin, a bowed soundboard affixed under pressure, and a unique resonating soundbox hidden within the body to boost volume while retaining tonal purity. Soon, following Django’s lead, the Selmer became the jazz guitar of Europe, launching a style as predominant – and widely copied – as Lloyd Loar’s Gibson L-5 archtop or Martin’s dreadnought.

Mario Maccaferri learned his craft as an apprentice to famed Italian luthier Luigi Mozzani, building violins, mandolins, and Mozzani’s own prize creation – an early harp guitar. In 1928, Maccaferri moved to London and set up a lutherie in the back of a furniture shop. Here, he crafted a prototype gut-string guitar. He brought his creation to Ben Davis, manager of the largest instrument shop in Britain, Selmer’s London branch. Impressed, Davis introduced Maccaferri to Selmer, who charged ahead to begin production of a range of guitars initially destined just for England.

In ’31, Maccaferri established an atelier in a wing of the immense Selmer factory in Mantes-la-Ville, north of Paris, where Selmer also made its clarinets, saxophones, and other wind instruments. Maccaferri designed and fabricated all of the tooling, set up an assembly line, and instructed a team of carpenters in guitar construction. Metal-working machines in the main factory stamped out special brass tailpieces and Maccaferri’s novel covered tuners to the luthier’s design.

The first Selmer guitars were made in France in 1932 and shipped back to the London branch. By mid ’35, the French guitars were finally available in France, and Django played his first riffs on a Selmer. He began using a Selmer-Maccaferri gut-string guitar, but soon Maccaferri launched his louder steel-string version that proved perfect for jazz. With large soundholes (better for projecting sound), these instruments became known as grande bouche guitars – literally, “large mouths.” Or better yet, “loud mouths.”

Maccaferri’s solution to the quest for volume was old-fashioned, yet ingenious. His guitar’s soundboard was arched at the bridge with the tailpiece attached to the back, aiding his patented interior soundbox in amplifying volume. This volume was pronounced in the treble registers, giving Django a tone that cut through the powerful voices of accordions and horns – and made it ideal for the era’s recording sessions; Django’s guitar stood out from the rest of a jazz band’s sonority, yet was also sweetened and smoothed by the recording process, sounding clear and warm when reproduced through a phonograph’s speaker. In addition, the guitar featured a cutaway on the upper bout, allowing Django easy access to the high frets. And a fretboard extension ran partially over the soundhole, offering a full two-octave range on the high E string alone. Django now had a broader palette of notes under his fingers.

Later in 1936, Django began playing an updated Selmer with a small soundhole and a longer neck with 14 frets to the body, offering him an even greater array of notes. With their elegant oval soundhole, these became known as petite bouche guitars – “small mouths.” And it was around this time Django and Henri Selmer joined in a promotional arrangement, likely a handshake agreement whereby Selmer provided Django all the guitars he required in exchange for his endorsement. Django reportedly visited the Selmer shop and tried every guitar as soon as they arrived, choosing the best-sounding ones for himself.

When Django traveled to New York City in 1946 to tour with Duke Ellington, he left his Selmer behind; he believed American luthiers would present him with their guitars like keys to the city. There was no welcome committee, however; Django was forced instead to buy his own Gibson L-5. When Django’s manager, Charles Delaunay, arrived a little later carrying Django’s guitar, Django swooned over his Selmer while cursing the American guitars: “Mon frère, all the Americans will wish they could play on this guitar!” he told Delaunay. “At least it’s got tone, you can hear the chords like you can on the piano. Don’t talk to me any more about their casseroles – their ‘tinpot’ guitars! Listen to this, it speaks like a cathedral!” Artist endorsements have rarely been so vehement and heartfelt.

By the late ’40s, there was a new route to volume – electric pickups and amplifiers, both of which arrived in France later than in the United States. French radio engineer Yves Guen and his brother, Jean, unveiled their first guitar pickups in 1946, baptized the Stimer P46 and R46. The 46 Series Stimers may have been prototypes, but they were followed by the real deal – the 1948 S.T.48 pickup and six-watt Stimer M.6 amplifier. These were followed by the S.51 pickup and 10-watt M.10 and 12-watt M.12 amps.

To promote Stimer, the Guens naturally turned to Django. In a 1952 photo session, Django was shown in his Samois-sur-Seine cottage, beaming with joy as he played his new electrified Selmer. He used a similar setup performing with American beboppers – saxmen James Moody and Don Byas and drummer Kenny Clarke – at Paris’ Club Saint-Germain. After years pounding out his acoustic jazz with a muscular right wrist, Django must have rejoiced at the glorious ease of this sudden volume, playing his new bebop with a loud, overdriven sound reverberating off the club’s stone walls.

This profile is an adapted excerpt from Michael Dregni’s new book, Gypsy Jazz: In Search of Django Reinhardt and the Soul of Gypsy Swing (Oxford Univerity Press).

This article originally appeared in VG‘s July 2008 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.