Mojorule

There's one on ebay uk at the moment. Personally I wouldn't pay £850 for anything that had had a broken headstock. Not with J35s going new for £1100. There was a J100Xtra that went for less than that a few months back. It was battered and had capo grooves in the neck, but no breakages or cracks. But as this ad points out they didn't make many Starbursts - perhaps that's why you don't hear much about them. Starbust/Neck bust

Well that just goes to show! Unless the Klusons are a later addition (any reason to think so? - when I first saw the picture they seemed original to me - are the metal bits gold or chrome?), then Gibson was doing its usual thing of doing unusual things, and putting Klusons on some and Grovers on others. Mine is from March 1991, a good year and a half earlier. Mine also comes up as built in Nashville. Acutally I think that the move of semis production to Memphis either came a bit later in the decade, or was sort of in progress in the early '90s, so chances are ours really were made in Nashville. I even think mine says Nashville on the label, but I'm away from home now, so can't check. Nice you have a family connection to the origin of the instrument. I'm so far from Tennessee, the nearest I'd get would be sharing a bottle of Jack Daniels with my old man (also highly unlikely to happen).

The HR usually comes up on the Custom sub-forum, where all the other semis are covered. I've had mine since 2007 when a cousin in the States made me a very generous gift of his. It's a red one, like RDL's (no photos, I'm afraid), from 1991. Like Tex I find it exceptional through a clean amp (late '70s Fender Pro Reverb, currently in need of TLC, so that sound isn't getting produced at present), or through a clean-to-breaking amp (VHT Special 6, sadly also in need of warranty repairs, so only used a few times). When my Fender amp was functioning better the HR actually seemed able to drive its preamp side even when channel and master volumes were set low (to 3), if I dug in. Very bluesy. I also fell in love with the '59 LP profile neck. I've never had a guitar which so facilitated fast playing, even though the much-touted access to upper frets does require jazz skills (thumb in front of the neck, not anchored behind), so it's not exactly got 335-style access. The quality of the instrument was a real epiphany after my Korean Epiphone Casino. Fiddling with the fingers tailpiece doesn't make as much difference to string break and intonation as I'd like to imagine, but it is a much more solid anchoring device than the standard Gibson trapeze, and it does allow for more or less floaty feel. As for the meaning of the III, it's a generational thing. The original Howard Roberts Fusion came out in 1979, had a maple centre block (all-maple construction bar the ebony fingerboard and headstock fascia, in fact), the old TP6 fine-tuning tailpiece (as on the BB King Lucille), set back further than it usually is on other models, an unbound ebony fretboard, 14-degree headstock pitch, and tulip/crown-headed Grover-like tuners with unusual built-in fold-out speed winders. Hardware was all chrome. Pick-up switch was up top as on a LP. The tone and volume pots were in the usual position for Gibsons. At some point they moved the TP6 nearer to the tune-o-matic bridge, much as on 335s, LPs, etc., and at another point they put tulip Klusons on. I've seen pictures of 1982 models with the Grover-type tuners and the forward-shifted tailpiece. I've seen pictures of 1988 models with Klusons and the TP6. Whether either of these changes marks the official introduction of the Howard Roberts Fusion II is unclear to me. I'm also not sure whether the centre block on the 1988 version is still maple or not. General wisdom appears to be that the Howard Roberts Fusion III designation relates to the switch to a 'chromyte' balsa centre block, the fingers tailpiece, bound ebony fretboard, and the weird control configuration with pick-up switch set between the volume and tone controls for the neck pup. That is all supposed to have happened during 1989. Not sure whether it all happened at once, though. Hardware also changed to gold with the introduction of the fingers. At some point they also went back to tulip/crown Grovers, but without the string winders. That said, I've seen guitars with fingers and Klusons which the owners/sellers designate HRIIs. So I'm really not sure what the HRII actually is - whether it is all-maple or maple/balsa, whether it always has Klusons or sometimes Grovers, and whether it has fingers or a TP6. Perhaps it can be any combination. An HRIII will almost certainly have bound neck, gold 'ware, fingers, chromyte and Grovers, though. My guess is that RDL's is a year or two older than mine, unless the Klusons are a mod. It may be a II or a III, but it's not a I. FWIW, mine has no writing on the truss-rod cover at all, but it's definitely a III. I would really like to try one with a maple block and stop-bar (preferably the forward-shifted one) - just to know. Looking at the fretwear developing on mine, I also kind of wish they'd stuck with the unbound fretboards in the 1990s.

Krassi, I salute you and the new Nelligan. Fantastic.

Thanks TS. I misspent my youth learning to do all kinds of interesting things with my fingers.

Merci. It's all down to Big Blind Bill.

Yeah, he taught Jeff Healey everything he knew. A man of many talents, Bill. Apparently his seminal work with two guitars - the first fingerpicked, the second toe-picked - had Dave Van Ronk confused and believing that he could hear four flatpicked instruments playing simultaneously. His talents extended beyond the guitar and songwriting. When he first came to England, his stint working on the Earl of Grantham's shooting range left him with the alias Big Loader Bill Owney. Rumours abound, but it is not sure whether the name came about because of his stature and unusual gift for inspiring poor shots to hit more pheasants, or whether the ladies were impressed with prowess of another sort. I have heard similar questions surrounding his further nickname, Big Beater, which he picked up while working on the Wragby Hall shooting range in Nottinghamshire.

Learned at the feet of the old master Big Blind Bill Owney. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3AbAla6HG0&feature=plcp

So not George Orwell's guitar, then.

New York Telephone Conversation - Lou Reed

I don't know why it took a non-American to do that, but it is notable that it is your countrymen (including Gibson's own marketing department) who repeatedly allude to 'pre-war' J45s. Given that said model first shipped in 1942, and given the date of Pearl Harbor, such a beast can only be mythical. Why does it take a European to get your historical dates right? Pre-war roundshoulder I don't believe that Willi Henkes would be determined specifically to prove that the rosewood on (truly) pre-war AJs had Indian provenance. Rather, I think that he would be determined to uncover the provenance whatever it may be. His work in conjunction with John Thomas strikes me as meticulous in its scientific attention to detail and forensic in its methodology. I do agree that science can be skewed by preconception and by financial interests, but I don't perceive any multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates funding Willi's efforts.

'Jambalaya' - Hank Williams Snr.

'A Fistful of Dollars', Ennio Morricone.

'The Drifter' - Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown.

He bought them from the lad at his local chip shop. Which begs the question. If you cover Paolo Nutini's 'Brand New Shoes', do you have to change the title?

Well I like the simplicity of the dot 335, but there is no doubting the beauty of the 355 or 345. When I first noticed and had GAS for big red Gibson thinlines, they either had block inlays or double parallelograms and a Bigsby. And while I did have a Clapton phase aged 15 and liked the block inlays on his 335, even then I preferred Chuck Berry and BB King, and to be honest I listened to them more. It took a while longer to get round to Freddie King, because I was and am a slow record collector, but I definitely prefer his original licks to Clapton's variations on them. Putting aside the fact that Chuck Berry's famous recordings are either done on his 350 or (apparently) on a Les Paul gold top, and that Freddie King's early stuff is done on his LP GT, I still love the live stuff from the 70s that Berry and both Kings put out on Gibson semis. So pretty well all the playing that I associate with the best in Gibson thinline tone is played on a 355 or 345. Worse, on supposedly crap Norlin variants at that. I also like Johnny Marr. And George Harrison who had a 345 rather than a 335. I suppose that Harrison fans go gooey over Rickebacker 12s, Gretsches and Casinos rather than over strats, SGs, LPs and rosewood teles (though the opening of Hard Day's Night aside, I think most of his best playing was done on th latter instruments). I suppose also that there are more Clapton fans than Chuck Berry/BB King/Freddie King/Johnny Marr fans. But then, how many of the people who prefer Clapton to his influences or are unaware of them are really interested in buying a Gibson semi? In any case, Claptonites would surely go for a black strat or a sunburst LP before looking at a 335. By the time they get round to the Clapton 335, they know who Chuck Berry, BB King and Freddie King are. I somehow doubt that Clapton is really the reason that people are buying dot 335s rather than 355s. I think Jim's second post is nearer the point, as is Jayyj's first. If you buy new in Europe, you still pay a premium for a 355 (mono or stereo), and for the same sort of money you can get a Historic 59 335. I'd rather have the latter, because it comes closest to the legendary originals in build and fixtures. Plain, simple, but versatile. But it's less to do with hero worship than appreciation for Ted McCarty's original design. I'd like it even more if there were no fretboard binding, like the first 58s. But I think I'd be deluding myself if I thought such a guitar would get me a full tonal palette ranging from Freddie King to Johnny Marr through BB, Clapton and Chuck. Versatile it may be, but in the end the 335 still only has two PAFs, a 3-way switch and a stop-bar tailpiece to work with. I might prefer the stability of the latter, but it won't let me do rockabilly whammy moves like a 355 with Bigsby will. And for all the players who denounce the varitone, it is worth noting that Freddie King reportedly used his a lot (just listen to his live stuff in the 70s - no 335 gets that trebly without help), and that Johnny Marr's chiming sound is unlikely to come out of a Gibson semi without some sort of filter. Of course here we hit the mysterious ideology that surrounds 335 worship though. People see Marr in a video with a 355 and assume he used it on the record. They then assume that they can get the same tone out of a 335 with no varitone. They don't want the faff and buy into the bluesy, roadworthy simplicity myth of the 335. At the same time they buy into the related legend of its versatility - if you buy one quality guitar buy one that does everything, like a poor blues player. Get a 335. And then it turns out that the Johnny Marr recording was done with a Rickenbacker 12. I remember a thread a while back in which somebody sought moral support for swapping out the neck pickup on his 335 dot in a drive to get closer to the Johnny Marr sound. His guitar, his choice. But beyond acknowledging that fact, it is hard to give moral support to an attempt to make the neck pickup of a 335 sound more like the bridge pickup of a Rickenbacker (or marginally more reasonably the bridge pickup of a 355 with muchachos varitone). Especially when the original pickup sounded fantastic and perfect for jazz and blues. I sympathized at some level with the aim, because I've also bought into the myth that a 335 can sound like everything from an ES 175 on the front pickup to a tele on the back pickup, taking in the Les Paul and a good dose of Rickenbacker in between. But in truth it can't do all that. At its best it can surely do a reasonable job of covering all the styles of music that those instruments are famous for - it can be a good stand-in for lots of guitars. But it can't actually imitate all of them. It's not a variax. No doubt the 335 is one of the most versatile, dynamic instruments available. But for those who can overcome the hassle of extra weight and stereo wiring (not I, I hasten to add), the 355 with varitone offers more versatility, even if not every setting on the vt is useful. I still wonder at my own capacity to want a 335 over a 355 - after all every single one of the people whose ES tone I most crave played a 355 rather than a 335. And I'm actually struggling to think of a major name associated with the 335 who played a simple stop-bar, two PAFs and dot model - Alvin Lee's original Woodstock guitar was a dot, but it had a Bigsby and that extra pickup. Ritchie Blackmore's dot had a Bigsby too. But then trying to pass Blackmore off as a significant 335 player is like arguing that Jimi Hendrix's most famous guitar was his flying V. The 'Dot' man in the Yardbirds was Chris Dreja. I don't see many people queuing up to get his sound... If the price of the 355 is the same as that of a standard 335, I'd go for it. Unless you really, really hate Bigsbys, really, really want a stop-bar, find that the neck has a less appealing profile, or hate ebony fretboards and have to have rosewood.

And since I was swimming in the beautiful blue Danube this afternoon to cool off, something river related. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2PNQbJE77k&feature=plcp

Jamming on Autumn Leaves. Because it's raging 40 degrees centigrade here, and is patently summer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZnsw19NmjU&feature=plcp

Actually, to my shame, I'm not - or at least not consciously. Must ask Mrs Mojo, unless you can post some. We do get to folk performances, as there is not much else going on here half the time, and there are some seriously good magyar musicians round here. Nearest to throat whistling I've come is female dancers screaming at random moments during their performance. Encountered some last night, as we have French guests staying and the town is laying on all manner of entertainment. All very ethnographically interesting!

You are very kind PM. Lost control of the voice at one point. All went a bit Tibetan throat singing.

My link I got the Woody out again, despite the heat here.

Fantastic news! This is totally one of the right places to post, as many of the folks here also appear on the Hollowbodies forum too, and are among the more knowledgeable individuals to be found there. Just copy the post there too, as some of the good people there don't check in here so often. I've forgotten when they introduced the TDC variant, but have a feeling it was around in 1954. Do I take it yours is non-cutaway and one P-90, though? Or have you got 2 P-90s and a cut? Whichever, it's worth it for the original P-90(s), as well as the neck, I'd say. Savage! No wonder you're getting that Tom Waits sound. They've been scientifically found to be hotter than PAFs, and if I remember rightly hotter than modern 490s.

I also like to fingerpick electric, and Chet Atkins was doing it rather nicely before Fogerty got off the Bayou, so it definitely can be done. My Howard Roberts Fusion probably has a 59 Les Paul neck profile. It is very close to the profile on my Woody Guthrie. Probably a bit slim compared to your LG3, but perhaps the year is actually telling here, and maybe the electrics weren't that far from the acoustics by then in terms of neck profile. Worth trying a 59 LP profile in any case. Lots of current Lesters with it, though the advantage of something like a Howard is that it has a bit more body on which to rest your picking arm. Smaller than a Jumbo, obviously, and across the bout also smaller than a 335, but with more depth than the latter - enough body in all dimensions to feel like a real guitar. Maybe close in width to your LG too (14.75 inches or so). Also, I like to have a bit of air in the guitar to make dynamics more noticeable, especially for fingerpicking. Also worth trying a 335 with a 1950s neck profile (not sure if this is the same as the 59 LP, or closer to the fatter 58 LP). So a Historic 1959 reissue from Nashville (ask J45 Nick for advice) or a 1950s Fat Neck from Memphis for starters. Howards are now out of production, but cheaper if you can get one, so worth hunting down to try. Nice guitars. The Norlin-era and early Henry J ones also have a nice unbound fingerboard, which given the fretwear on mine would be an advantage at present. Also Maple centreblock instead of the chromyte that mine has. Probably one of the few Norlin-era designs which really was good. Of course all Gibson electrics will have a narrower nut than 1.75, but I find 1 11/16 quite manageable.

This is my umpteenth attempt at recording an improvisation in Bentonia tuning, just to give an idea of how resonant the Woody Guthrie SJ can sound when tuned down a bit. I did a much less rushed, 'less is more' take, with fewer bum notes, and then muffed up with soundcloud and ended up with this version. Still an idiot with technology, sadly, and nervous when re-recording. Turn up loud with good speakers or with earphones. My microphone is poor, but at the right volume you can make out the guitar's tone through the lo-fi/retro 1930s-style hiss. The Woody has sounded drier and more, well, woody on previous attempts which also got lost. Humidity here currently running at mid 70s and the guitar hadn't been out of its case for about a week before the recording session, so it does sound a bit glossy and wet. Also our house has extraordinary reverb. Bentonia I

Plus the wide, wide nut makes it a real fingerpicker's guitar (though JB is known to strum his Smecks too, so certainly has lots of rhythm potential). I'd love one sig or no sig (and Trance Amulet or no Trance Amulet) - perhaps even more than PM's new J50! Of course I've never had even a glance at one in person, so a lot would depend on how that English walnut really sounds. But if I had such a beast, I suspect I'd hold onto it for that wide nut. Old classical guitar habits die hard.