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Who made you want to play an f-hole guitar?


brundaddy

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  • 1 month later...
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I grew up on BBKing, Grant Green, and Wes Montgomery, plus a slew of blues players including Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Otis Rush. I listened to Geo. Benson, T-Bone Walker, and Chuck Berry.

 

So I own a ES-347, a superb example of what Gibson can do to upgrade the ES-335. Great sound and playability.

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Guest EastEnder

The store manager who had the good taste to display Wenzel Rossmeisl's "Roger" guitars in the Francis, Day and Hunter* music shop in London's West End during the mid-fifties.

 

Then Scotty Moore, the true King of rock'n'roll.

 

EE

 

* Might have been Boosey and Hawkes.

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I would have to say Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton, and George Benson. My first electric guitar was a 60's Fender Coronodo. Used to play it in the high school jazz band. Sure wish I had it now. I too lived near Eugene and used to see Robert Cray and Curtis play at Murfy and Me Tavern on a regular basis.

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Roy Clark and his Byrdland.

 

And, of course Chet.

 

When I was a kid out riding bicycles, playing ball whatever I'd run home every Saturday night at 6:00 pm to catch Hee Haw to see Roy and hopefully a tune by Chet. Times have changed. Kids now can just log onto youtube and see all those clips - and more - Chet clips even back to the 50s. Man, if I had those kind of resources when I was 10...

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For years I was a Les Paul guy after seeing the Allman Bros at the Boston Tea party in '70. Duane's LP was awesome and I was about 6 feet from him while he played it. Loved that LP sound, but I was a kid then;-) But one day, I started getting interested in 335 out of the blue, maybe because I love jazz and blues and that "f" hole consumed my mind. I was all set to buy a VOS figured, but Eric Clapton's cherry caught my eye and it grew on me. Now I have my own. It is taking a while to get used to it's larger size from my LP, but it grows on me more every day.

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Boy, I really don't think that there was really someone that made me want one. It seems like I don't really play the same stuff as my guitar heroes, like I just don't dig a les paul (sorry everyone), it just never felt right to me, but I LOVE Jimmy Page, also the band that got me into playing, and that are still probably my favorite band of all time, Smashing Pumpkins, has Billy Corgan with a strat, which I did have for a long time and was the guitar I learned on, but at a certain point I just wanted something else. That said I think everyone needs either a strat or a tele. I guess Steve Howe was a big influence on at least my playing, and I did love his sound, but while I wouldn't mind a 175, for my purposes, it's just too big of a guitar. Of course he often used a 345 and various other gibsons and fenders, most notably an ES-5 and a modified Tele, but when I think about it, none of my big heroes play 335's as their main guitar. I guess loving all those guys really helped me to realize the perfect storm of a guitar for my needs.

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  • 2 years later...

Chuck Berry and then as I got older and got a Fender copy and then a Les Paul copy I kept drooling over all of the shots of Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Alvin Lee, Dave Edmonds and all of the rest with their 335s so guess what I got? Yep, a red 335!

 

There's just something really special about the hollow body and semi-hollow body guitars so I'll always have one.

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
[thumbup] My guitar teacher when I was a kid, Mr. King. I didn't understand the differences in guitars back then as I was only about eight. I had a cheapo chinese made classical which I still have. He'd take that sunburst L5 CES out of the case and I'd think "now THAT'S a guitar"! [biggrin]
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Then Izzy Stradlin. I bought my 1988 ES-175 the week I saw Guns-n-Roses way back in 1988. He played a couple of them the night I saw the band in Anaheim, CA.

 

I was 4 years old in 1988, but got into G N' R around 1991 when I turned 7 and Izzy's white ES-175 was probably the first f-hole guitar I can remember seeing. At around that time I was given a book on Guns N' Roses with lots of live pictures and I used to always stare at Izzy's 175 thinking one day I must get one of those!

 

Izzy had/ has some brilliant guitars like his 3 pickup Black Beauty, Byrdland, ES 135 and the Gretsch he used on the album '117 Degrees'. He still makes some cool music too which seems to go under the radar sadly. His albums Ride On, Miami, On Down The Road and Like A Dog are great examples of his post G N' R work, as well as the 1992 classic Izzy Stradlin & Ju Ju Hounds which remains my favourite.

 

All that said, my favourite ES 175 players were all the jazz guys - Pass, Ellis, Raney etc, but I got into them much later on in my late teens.

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