Rod's Guitar Gallery

Regal Dobro

(Japan 1995)

The resonator guitar was invented in 1920s California by the Czech immigrant Dopyera brothers, who came up with the brand name Dobro - a contraction of Dopyera and brothers, which had the added bonus of meaning “good” in their native Slovak (one of their early advertising slogans was “Dobro – good in any language!”). The name, however, like Hoover or Sellotape, has since transcended its original brand-specific use and can now refer to any resonator guitar (no matter how hard Gibson, the present owners of the Dobro brand, try to discourage it). The object of the brothers’ efforts was to create a guitar which, in the pre-electric age, would be loud enough to hold its own acoustically in the bigger bands which were becoming fashionable. They achieved this by placing a metal resonating cone – in effect, a non-electric loudspeaker – inside the body of the guitar. The Dobro’s loud, distinctive sound soon caught on with slide guitarists playing in the blues, country and Hawaiian styles popular at the time. The company changed hands several times and the guitars were sold under a variety of names, including Regal. Production was suspended during World War II, and throughout the rock’n’roll era the Dobro was all but forgotten – a time when examples could be picked up in junk-shops for a few pounds or dollars. Manufacturing recommenced in 1959 in response to the reawakening awareness of folk, blues & acoustic music, since when interest in resonator guitars and the music they represent has gone from strength to strength.

This guitar is a Japanese replica of a 1930s Regal. I bought it from Brian Younger of The Guitar Shop, Newcastle, in spring 1996, as I was looking for something to use for slide in the Untapped & Acoustic Lindisfarne lineup - something that would sound a bit different from all the other guitars. I also thought that, being a slide player, it was about time I had a Dobro, and it has since become one of my main working instruments. I’ve had several different pickups on it over the years. My current choice, for both sound quality and user-friendliness, is a Dave King magnetic pickup supplied by the (now sadly defunct) London Resonator Centre. I’ve also replaced the original metal cone with a US-made Beard version.

Current set-up: Martin Bronze Medium strings (.013 - .056) in Open D tuning (D.A.D.F#.A.D)

As heard on: Everything from Blues From The Bothy (Lindisfarne 1997) to date – all acoustic slide work is done on this Dobro. Check out:

Uncle Henry, One Day (Here Comes The Neighbourhood, Lindisfarne 1998)
Stamping Ground, Hattie McDaniel, Old Blue Goose (Stamping Ground, RC 2000)
Existentially Yours, Taking The Back Road Home (Odd Man Out, RC 2006)

Harmony Sovereign De Luxe

(USA c. 1968)

Harmony of Chicago were, in their day, one of the world’s biggest musical instrument manufacturers, accounting for more than half the guitars sold in the USA each year. Their success peaked around 1964-65, when they were reckoned to be selling an average of around a thousand guitars a day, but their pre-eminence was soon to be swept away by a tidal wave of cheaper imports from the Far East – which, ironically, is where the Harmony brand name ended up. Harmony’s success was built on a deservedly popular compromise between quality and affordability. Their better guitars, both acoustic and electric, were robustly built from good quality materials, and while never particularly elegant, had a reassuringly substantial style that was all their own. During the 1960s, the standard Harmony Sovereign was a ubiquitous feature of the folk circuit on both sides of the Atlantic. For many players it was a stepping-stone between the cheap starter guitar and the coveted Gibson or Martin. Such was the Harmony’s quality that some players never made that next step, and its strength of construction ensured that many examples survive today. The much rarer De Luxe model seen here has the added attraction of a sunburst finish and fancier trim.

I bought my Harmony from Rose Morris on Shaftesbury Avenue in 1971 – it was my first decent acoustic, bought when I was feeling flush from the first success of Lindisfarne. I paid £60 for it, second hand, and my only regret is that I didn’t fork out another £60 for the identical one hanging next to it as well. I’ve had this longer than any of my other guitars and I’ve never felt the need to look any further for a regular six-string acoustic. It sounds great acoustically, it records well, and works well live plugged into a PA. It plays well, stays in tune and is strong enough to cope with life on the road. The neck would be too thick for some people, but it’s comfortable to me. Just about every song I’ve written since the early seventies has been made on this guitar. I changed the rather bog-standard machine heads for Schallers very early on, and I had a Headway under-saddle pickup fitted by Roger Bucknell at Fylde Guitars, which necessitated adding the knobs and replacing the original adjustable saddle with a conventional one, but it works even better than before.

      

Current set-up: Martin Bronze Light strings (.012 - .054) in standard tuning (E.A.D.G.B.E)

As heard on: O No Not Again (Dingly Dell, Lindisfarne 1972) (slide)
Rosalee (It’s Jack The Lad, Jack The Lad, 1974)
All acoustic guitar on One Track Mind (RC, 1994)
Whisky Highway, One More Night With You (Stamping Ground, RC, 2000)
All Grown Up, Karaoke, Touch-Me-Not, New Best Friend, Morocco Bound (Odd Man Out, RC, 2006)

Teisco SS-2L

(Japan c. 1962)

Founded in 1946, Teisco were one of the first Japanese companies to manufacture electric guitars. Their early products were rudimentary and derivative, but by the mid-60s they were producing original, sometimes bizarre designs with a high level of specification – some might say an over-emphasis on knobs, switches and chrome trim. In this they resemble the Japanese cars of the same period and bring to mind the widely-held belief that 'the Japanese have a great sense of beauty, but no sense of ugliness'. However, ugliness and beauty alike reside in the eye of the beholder, and there is no denying that the Japanese guitars (and cars) of the sixties have their own quirky and inimitable appeal.

Teiscos were exported in tens of thousands, the majority of them sold in the USA under a bewildering variety of brand names including Teisco del Rey, Kent, Kingston and Silvertone. The few imported to the UK were sold under such names as Arbiter, Orbit and Starway and marketed through that staple reading matter of the aspiring baby-boom rocker, the Bells catalogue.

In the late 60s, British customers saw the arrival (in Woolworths and various mail-order catalogues) of the first budget-brand electric guitars with names like Audition and Top Twenty, which were largely Teisco-built. These, and their rarer upmarket predecessors, are becoming increasingly collectable, prized for their powerful electrics and vintage sounds as well as their bold retro looks.

Teisco survived until around 1970 when it was subsumed into the Kawai corporation. For more information on these unusual guitars, see fellow UK Teisco-fancier Mark Cole's invaluable research at http://www.mark-cole.co.uk/teisco/index.htm.

This Teisco SS-2L (SS is the model designation; 2 = 2 pickups; L = Luxury, i.e. it had a tremolo arm, which I took off to stabilise tuning) was bought on eBay and came direct from Japan. It's an early model, as shown by the T headstock badge and the absence of a truss-rod (the neck is strengthened by its pronounced v-shape cross-section). Best of all, it has the highly sought-after Gold Foil pickups, whose power and tone make them especially suited to slide guitar. I have several other Teisco and related vintage Japanese guitars, including another of these and its big brother the SS-4L (both currently in rehab), which may appear in the Gallery one day.

      

Current set-up: D'Addario Nickel Wound Electric strings (.013 - .056) in Open D tuning (D.A.D.F#.A.D)

As heard on: September Sunrise (Odd Man Out, RC 2006)

Danelectro Baritone

(Korea 2001)

When Nathan Daniel started the Danelectro company in 1947, making amplifiers for catalogue companies, he couldn't have guessed that the cheap mail-order guitars he would later turn out from his New Jersey factory would become an American design icon. But these simple instruments are a rare example of a product built to a budget working out far better than anybody expected, and their appeal to generations of players lasts to this day. Danelectro guitars are little more than two sheets of hardboard (known as Masonite in the US) on a light wooden frame, pickups in lipstick tubes from the cosmetics industry, a neck and some strings – all put together with a genuine 50s aesthetic & a great paint job. Something about the hollow body, the guitar's proportions and the no-frills electrics add up to an authentic, player-friendly, twangy rock'n'roll classic. Danelectro are also widely credited with inventing the electric baritone guitar – basically a longer version of their standard model, tuned to a deeper register. Its most famous exponent was probably Duane Eddy, who recorded several of his early 60s hits on one, including classics like Because They're Young and Deep In The Heart Of Texas. It has also secured a permanent niche as an essential element of surf music, spaghetti western soundtracks and Rod Clements albums.

The original Danelectro company did not long survive its 1967 takeover by the MCA corporation (but in the last minutes of injury time produced another winner in the Coral Electric Sitar). Apart from some high-quality replicas made by Jerry Jones of Nashville, the Danelectro concept remained on hold until a range of faithfully accurate and surprisingly affordable reissues arrived from Korea, along with a heavy promotion campaign, around the turn of the millennium. However, the next batch featured several 'improvements' and were nowhere near as good, instantly conferring collectors' item status on the 'original' Korean imports.

I've always liked low-register twang and Duane Eddy was my first guitar hero, so the Danelectro Baritone is an obvious choice. Before I had it, I would try to emulate the sound either with a regular bass guitar (as in the middle section of No Turning Back, on One Track Mind), or with a standard guitar fitted with bass strings (like the Telecaster I used for some tracks on Nigel Stonier's Brimstone & Blue album). It was after recording the latter that I decided to get the Danelectro, which had just been reissued, and this one – one of the first batch of Korean imports - was sourced for me by Brian Martin of the Music Gallery in Berwick, and arrived in time to make its debut on the Lindisfarne Promenade sessions.

      

Current set-up: D'Addario Nickel Electric Baritone strings (.014 - .068) tuned a fourth lower than standard guitar (B.E.A.D.F#.B, bottom to top)

As heard on: Unfinished Business (Promenade, Lindisfarne 2002)
All Grown Up & Nowhere To Go, Taking The Back Road Home (Odd Man Out, RC 2006)

Maccaferri G-40 'Plastic Mac'

(U.S.A. 1953)

Mario Maccaferri (1900-1993) was a globetrotting Italian guitarist, instrument-maker and inventor who designed the revolutionary Selmer guitar as played by Django Reinhardt. Following his move to the United States just before the Second World War, he invented the plastic saxophone reed, the success of which led him to explore further the possibilities of this new material. The Maccaferri G-40 plastic guitar was introduced as a legitimate professional instrument in 1953, but to Mario's great chagrin it was never taken seriously and thousands of examples spent the next three decades languishing forgotten in warehouses. Django Reinhardt

Mario's next venture, however, was a different story. His plastic ukulele – available with push-button fingering for the musically challenged – sold in vast quantities. Even more successful was another invention for which this restless genius remains widely uncredited – the plastic clothespeg. A Plastic Clothespeg

Now You're Talking: Mario gives them what they want

In 1983 an instrument dealer bought up the original stock of guitars – still boxed in their original cartons – and put them on the market for around £400 apiece. The reaction was curious but cautious, and ultimately not much more enthusiastic than it had been first time round. But the G-40 is both a unique collectors' item and a usable instrument with a distinctive tone (not unlike a Dobro), incorprorating several advanced design features.

This is only a thumbnail sketch of Mario Maccaferri's life & work. To find out more, go to http://www.lutherie.net/bckgrnd.html.

I bought this for a very reasonable price from Mark Lewis, guitarist with The Outlaws, singer Mike Berry's backing group, which has previously included Chas Hodges (of Chas & Dave) and Ritchie Blackmore. I haven’t found a particular use for it yet but it's nice to play, and it's an interesting piece to have around with its unique combination of modernist plastic, art deco and traditional European lutherie. Current set-up: Martin Bronze Extra Light strings (.010 - .047) in standard tuning As heard on: Nothing, yet

Teisco TG-64 'Monkey Grip'

(Japan 1965)

As is very often the case, this guitar has lost its nameplate, but there's no mistaking what it is – it's a Teisco TG-64 from around 1965, which would have been sold in the U.S.A. as a Teisco del Rey. In the mid-sixties Teisco's designs became increasingly Fender-influenced, and this one is clearly inspired by Fender's Jaguar and Jazzmaster. However, many distinctive Teisco features are in evidence, notably the side-block fingerboard position markers, striped metal scratchplates, the hole cut out of the body (the 'monkey grip' that gives these guitars their nickname), and the four-plus-two tuner arrangement on the headstock (these last two features since taken up by other manufacturers like Music Man and Ibanez). The pickups, though not the classic Teisco 'Gold Foil' variety, are nevertheless loud, bright and twangy. Open wide! Clean-cut 60s twangers line up for their pre-gig dental examination. (The TG-64 was also designated ET-320 and, even more confusingly, the caption to this pic has got it and the bass the wrong way round.)

For more info on Teisco guitars and their history, go back to the third item in the Gallery.

Catalogue pic for previous year's model (note different headstock & controls)

This was an eBay purchase from the U.S.A., which arrived here in kit form. Apart from reassembly, it required very little work to bring it back to usable playing condition.

Current set-up: D'Addario Nickel Wound Electric strings (.013 - .056) in Open D tuning (D.A.D.F#.A.D) As heard on: Blues For A Dying Season (One Track Mind 2008, RC 2008)

Rod recording Blues For A Dying Season on the TG-64 at Ron Angus's Studio One, 15 02 08

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