gearbasher Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 I was watching "A Soldier's Story" and Larry Riley was playing this: Can anyone ID it? I told my nephew someone here would know. Don't make a liar out of me! Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWG4927 Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 A guitar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matonanjin Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 A guitar You smart ***! He want's to know more specifically than that! It's an ebony acoustic guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 Zombywoof will probably know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gearbasher Posted December 22, 2017 Author Share Posted December 22, 2017 Well, one hour and 33 minutes of surfing the web and you-tubing scenes from the movie and I answered my own question. It's a Paramount Model B from the 30's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NIvdzi2FL8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWG4927 Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 Good job. I tried Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassetman Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 Good job. I tried A valiant effort to be sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffytune Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 A guitar That was not very helpful. Obviously, he is playing a Black Acoustic archtop guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E-minor7 Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Not into archtop guitars, but this one (like many others) looks terrific. A 1930's Paramount B - aha. Now we need to know what he's singing. Guess : Heard it Through The Grapevine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gearbasher Posted December 23, 2017 Author Share Posted December 23, 2017 Not into archtop guitars, but this one (like many others) looks terrific. A 1930's Paramount B - aha. Now we need to know what he's singing. Guess : Heard it Through The Grapevine You made me curious. So, I did a bit more surfing. He's singing a song that he also wrote. It's titled: "Bright Red Zoot Suit". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffytune Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Not into archtop guitars, but this one (like many others) looks terrific. A 1930's Paramount B - aha. Now we need to know what he's singing. Guess : Heard it Through The Grapevine No, I disagree, you can see it has a rounded top. I would bet the props department bought one of these here and painted the top and reshaped the headstock. The rest fits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassetman Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Headstock on the epi looks wider but the resemblance is strong. Pickguard is different as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 No, I disagree, you can see it has a rounded top. I would bet the props department bought one of these here and painted the top and reshaped the headstock. The rest fits. Why on earth would they do that, when they could just out and buy a 1930's Paramount for not that much money? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirNed Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Why on earth would they do that, when they could just out and buy a 1930's Paramount for not that much money? Yeah...they would have had to do a bunch of inlay work too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gearbasher Posted December 23, 2017 Author Share Posted December 23, 2017 Riley was an actor/musician. I'll bet it was his guitar. Also, the props dept. wouldn't go so far as to replace the G tuner with a keystone type. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffytune Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 If you understand just how much it cost to film a movie you would understand why they would not want to use a 80 year old antique on a set. It costs thousands of dollars a minute to film, can you imagine what would happen if while filming this seen, the actor slipped and fell on the guitar? Now what do you do, try to search the country for a exact replacement? Throw out all the seens shot with the broken guitar and reshoot with a new one? My point is, from all the paramount guitar I could find on line, not one had a headstock that looked like this one, it looks like a current Epiphone. The production company could have ordered like 5 if not 10 of these from epiphone as a custom order. This way if they first one got damaged they have spares to run to. As to the inlays, well a little white and black paint or order it on the custom order to whatever they wanted. It doesn't have to look good in person, just look good on film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j45nick Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 My point is, from all the paramount guitar I could find on line, not one had a headstock that looked like this one, it looks like a current Epiphone. It doesn't have to look good in person, just look good on film. Actually, the headstock looks exactly like the one on the Paramount B in the video that gearbasher linked to. The one in the movie appears to be a carved top, like most quality archtops. You can tell that because the top is flat around the edges near the rim, and domed in the middle. The Epi has a domed top according to the ad, but I suspect it is domed from a flat piece, rather than carved to shape from a thick piece of spruce, as is done in quality archtops. Yours is an interesting theory, but seems unlikely to me. I'm going with Paramount B. It would have been dead simple to use a 1930's or 1940's Gibson archtop in the film, as there are a lot of them around, and they aren't that expensive. The Paramount is a conscious choice, which leads me to believe it is Riley's own guitar. Unfortunately, he isn't around to tell us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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