Jinder
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Posts posted by Jinder
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Sitric, you'll love it! It's a brilliant, classic film.
Rusty, I had read that piece on Len Coop's page about Townes' guitars...I contributed some of the guitar info, in fact...I had always presumed the info about the J45 was wide of the mark, but I couldn't say for sure. It does look like a B25 to
me though, and I recently played a '64 B25 that looked and sounded almost identical to the guitar in the Uncle Seymour scene...I played Waitin' Around on it and was a wee bit spooked by the similarity in tone.
I love the fact there are quite a few Townes fans here. We are few and far between elsewhere!
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Oh man, I love that film.
The Cherry sunburst J45 that Townes plays on 'Waitin' Around To Die', in that deeply touching scene when he brings Uncle Seymour (the big elderly black man in the tan hat) to tears with his performance, is actually a B25, I think.
The size of the guitar is deceptive, due to Townes being very, very slightly built. If you see the pics of him playing his SJ200, he looks, in terms of comparitive size, like a toddler with a Golden Retriever sitting on its lap...hence the diddy B25 looking deceptively J45-sized.
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I love 'em all and have one of each. Unfortunately they're all Epiphones' date=' not Gibsons. I need electric guitars for my band and can' t justify the cost for expensive acoustics right now -- maybe when I win the lottery.
Hey, did you guys notice that this forum is censoring words like ridiculous and miraculous? Apparently you can't say "culo"! Culo, Culo, Culo![/quote']
What do you think of the Epi acoustics? I have been toying with getting my mitts on an Epi Dove as a knockabout guitar and one to use for outdoor/festival gigs in case of inclement weather etc. What is your favourite of the Epi acoustics you own?
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I remember-yours was a Koa '200 that went back for a warranty repair and was damaged in the repair shop, am I right?
Looks like the replacement is "the goods" though...that pickguard is jaw-droppingly pretty.
I'm glad that the tale ended happily!
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I VERY nearly bought a Tobacco Burst J185EC a couple of years ago...it looked incredible, and had great tone, but there was something seriously wrong with the intonation...I would tune it up, and an E, A or D chord would sound lovely, then a G, C, Am or Bm would sound like a piano falling out of a window. Very strange. I passed it up in the end.
I'm sure it was just one bad apple, though.
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Oh my good god, those are some beautiful SJ200s! Jchabalk, was that pickguard a special order?
Matt, you can't go wrong with a Dove. Are you going Gibson or Epi? I owned one alongside my Hummingbird and SJ200 for a while, and it was a sweeeeeet combo. Each guitar filled in the gaps that the others left. I love how different Doves are. Such an alternative looking instrument. I love my Hummingbird, but they are a very popular guitar, whereas the Dove is that wee bit more cliquey and cool.
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The criteria are, for me, like it says on the old Gibson cases, "tone, feel and appearance"!
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My Hummer (well, the Hummer I have on loan after I sold it) and SJ200 are fantastic, but I have played some splendid Doves recently, there's just something so usable about that big ol' tone and long scale, plus they look so delicious. I had one, which my band got as part of our endorsement deal, but in the band context it suited my bandmate's parts more, so I now use the Hummingbird and SJ200.
I miss the Dove though, and would love to have another one for my solo work. Such a fun guitar to play, too. Perhaps not as subtle and gentle as the Hummingbird, but bigger and more goodtime-y. If they were ladies (or men, depending on your preference), you'd have a poster of the Hummingbird on your bedroom wall, but you'd marry the Dove.
I should mention at this point that I really haven't had enough sleep!
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Just for fun...what's your desert-island bling machine?
Gibsons in "Heartworn Highways"
in Gibson Acoustic
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Rusty, you may well be right-Townes did go through various phases of being guitarless. The Martin D35 that he recorded everything up to 'Flyin' Shoes' on (he barely played guitar on 'Flyin' Shoes', as he'd broken his arm in a drunken truck crash in the run-up to the recording) was stolen from him in a brawl when he and a buddy accidentally walked into a gay bar whilst out on the lash, at some point in the mid-late '70s.
He eventually replaced the D35 with an Epiphone copy of an SJ200, which, according to Steve Earle, Townes hated so much he shot it to hell in his back yard. The Epi (or what's left of it) is apparently now owned by Michael Ewah, an Indian friend and drinking buddy of Townes'.
He then owned a few different guitars, including an Ovation (which he insisted on reassuring people was made of "fiberglass" not plastic!), and a nameless Dreadnought that appears in a couple of photographs around the time that 'Rear View Mirror' was recorded. It's widely believed that these guitars were traded away or hocked in the tight financial times for Townes and then-wife Jeanene preceeding Willie and Merle having a hit with 'Pancho & Lefty'.
It was around that time, circa '84-'85, that Townes picked up 'The Tin Man', an early Lawsuit-era Takamine F340S, a copy of a D28, nicknamed for its scalp-eviscerating treble if the then-primitive preamp EQ controls were set in a less-than-ideal way.
Townes, by all accounts, was very fond of The Tin Man, and the guitar remains in the family, now belonging to Katie Belle, his daughter.
In 1991, Gibson and Townes struck an endorsement deal, and Townes began playing the SJ200 that he was probably most widely photographed with. It is thought the guitar was made for Townes by Gibson luthier Chip Phillips, and was the instrument that Townes used exclusively, live, until his death. Steve Earle described it as "The worst J200 I'd ever heard", but Townes was very fond of the guitar and mentioned it several times in interviews, describing how it "played itself" and "was big enough to hide behind!".
I've rambled on a bit, but my point was that you are probably right-it is likely that Townes was guitarless at the time that HH was filmed, as he borrowed that cherry B25 for the movie from Richard Dobson.
Have you heard Richard Dobson's album of Townes' songs? I've only heard bits of it, but what I've heard is excellent.