rustystrings

I'm fresh from reading Jeff Noonan's book The Guitar in America, which is centered on the BMG (banjo-mandolin-guitar) movement c.1880-1930. One of the points that emerges is that the early guitar heros like Eddie Lang and Nick Lucas, who were both of Italian extraction, started out as mandolinists who adapted mandolin technique (using hard plectrums) on archtop guitars were essentially large mandolin-construction bodies fitted with guitar necks. (We DO note that Nick Lucas would go to flattops later, but still used the same playing techniques) And we recall that in 1902 it was the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co., which would have been in line with the BMG world, which never really got past guitar-as-backing-instrument mindset. The book is interesting - the whole mandolin orchestra thing that Gibson was focused on was very much about creating an upper-middle-class music world, more refined than the common man or woman playing what would later become blues or country, but borrowing styling cues and even attire and organization from "foreign" classical musical groups while being somewhat distrustful of it. Even the mandolin-mandola-mandocello-mandobass thing copied the violin-viola-cello-string bass format, but as "plectral" instruments of a distinctly American type.

Uhhh ... wait. We're talking 1960s, right? Bozeman and CNC machinery were a couple of decades away. In the '60s Gibsons were all built in Kalamazoo, Michigan - Gibson shut that plant down in the '80s when they moved everything to Nashville. Bozeman doesn't crank up until c.1989, with a stated mission to build guitars much more like pre-1965 instruments. As far as skinny necks go, they were fashionable. I am sure the bean counters and marketing guys WERE involved in that, as to a less-experienced player, skinny neck = fast neck. I think much of the industry was right in there with them - '60s Fender necks feel skinnier to me than earlier ones, think of all those Hagstroms and Voxes with skinny necks, etc. Gibson for a while there built guitars that at first touch "felt" like they'd be easier and faster to play (if you didn't know better), and they were less likely to require expensive warranty work, and besides, people will pay more for the name on the headstock no matter what we charge or how badly we build it. The bottom-line guys were in charge industry wide, we've got a production quota to meet, let's keep these things flying off the shelves, blah, blah, blah. The skinny necks were regarded as what the market wanted, what was hip and cool, until they weren't any more. And after the combination of cost-cutting moves that led to clunky square-shoulder J-45s with binding that rotted in a decade or so combined with bridge plates you could sit on and double X-braced tops, combined with the desperate chase for the latest, greatest, newest - Mark Series and Marauder guitars, anyone? - Gibson followed Fender in the realization that their best marketing choice would be to reproduce their past - which has been VERY lucrative. And some of it is driven by the realization that the earlier instruments had features that were better and should be emulated, and some of it was because old guitars are cool. Skinny necks and high-gloss finishes and overly-braced tops were part of fashion meets warranty claims decisions, for the same reasons people pay MORE money for a new guitar that has been made to look old and beat up, or a guitar built with red spruce that would have possibly been rejected 80 years ago, or even "torrefaction" - which as far as I can tell is a refined form of the kiln-drying that 40 years ago we were told was BAD for guitar wood. Fashion. Bah, humbug.

It's a lot like someone took an LG-0 and built it with X-bracing and no binding and the rosette of an LG-1 or LG-2. It's a nice guitar, but the $3,399 price makes me wince - the current $2,599 for a standard LG-2 is bad enough. If Gibson decided to build this guitar in Sapele or similar wood without a soundport at a price-point comparable to their Generation series, I would be very interested. The GLG-0, priced comparably to Martin's 00-15, would be a cool addition to their lineup.

I have a soft spot in my heart for the ladder-braced LG-1. When I first started playing, my best friend in high school had an early '50s example his mother had purchased new when she started college. Back then, I was taking my cues for what a guitar should sound like from the Martin world and the classical guitar world. Now I kinda want one for low budget fingerstyle jazz - the bark and rapid decay sounds like it could really be fun. To this day, my head comes up whenever I hear one of these guitars - friend used his to play acoustic leads over my chords for a few years, and that tone always throws me back to the late 70s.

That is a LOVELY sounding J-45, and a reminder that they really are like snowflakes - no two sound exactly alike! Great performance, too!

I'll share some things in case they are of any use to the original poster - My string journey went from Guild PBs to Gibson PBs to John Pearse PB light gauge. Eight years ago I switched to John Pearse Acoustic Pure Nickels, .012-.054. The nickel strings have a dramatically longer life - but for you, they also have less tension than bronze, as nickel is less dense. That was an unexpected benefit, and I recommend them very highly. Regarding hand and/or forearm pain - I once had my left arm flake out during a performance with my old band. I was still in my Keef-clone period, wearing my Telecaster just a little too low. Later, I had milder doses of that discomfort playing a Taylor with a very shallow v-shaped neck with no shoulders. The rounder Gibson neck shape works ever so much better. The real trick for me was when I started watching YouTube videos of Baden Powell and other '60s Brazilian players, as well as Bert Jansch and other British folk-baroque players. I had never thought about how they held guitars when I saw still photos, thinking it was an affectation. No. Their preferred position was seated, neck roughly horizontal, with the guitar body canted so that the bass side is rolled outward and further from the body than the treble side. Lots of cool things happen with this position - it gets the right forearm off the soundboard, as it is resting more on the rim than the top itself; if you're playing someplace with a hard floor, it smacks the sound off that surface, kinda like talking over a lake or pond; best of all, it puts left forearm, wrist and palm in one plane, reducing the number of muscles under tension. I was kinda shocked when I realized how much looser and more flowing my playing became when I went to this position. Whenever the ghost of my classical guitar teacher tries to scold me inside my own skull, I tell him to shut up, this WORKS.

1946 L-50, based on the headstock logo (script decal, no "Only A Gibson Is Good Enough" banner - possibly early '47, as the logos apparently ran over into the next year before Gibson switched to the modern blockier logo. It's a pressed arch top, rather than a carved archtop, but still a very fine old guitar. I'll chime in on the chorus to just replace the buttons and keep the tuners. The tuners look like open-back Klusons to me.

This one is dedicated to fathers and those who have or had one or more.

The original poster's guitar is a 2001. That narrows it down somewhat, because the explosion of different variants doesn't seem to take off until c.2007 or so. The majority of the models listed above are 2008 or later. I can believe that there indeed used to be guitars that were just J45s, period. There were some in the '90s marked "Early J-45," but if yours is a J45 it's a J45. Be grateful. The J45 Modern Classic and its direct descendant the J45 Standard deviate cosmetically in ways that don't appeal to me, though there is no question they're also fine guitars. I can note that the J45 Historical Collection appears to be essentially the plain-Jane J45 of its time, with Ren Ferguson modified x-brace angle (around 98 degrees vs. 103) that pushes the soundhole up enough that the fingerboard covers part of the rosette - and since the stock pickguard position covers the treble quadrant of the rosette, it's usually good to remove it and put it where it belongs with the 3M adhesive sheets Stew-Mac sells. These had East Indian rosewood fingerboard and bridge, Honduras mahogany back, sides and neck, and Sitka spruce top, with a Fishman Matrix Natural ust pickup and Gotoh Kluson-clone tuners. Mine has a 1.704-in nut width, according to my Harbor Freight digital calipers. I've gone all trainspotting over the last couple of years on this model, and whenever I see one for sale online that shows its serial number, I've recorded it. I've got serial numbers indicating builds between January 2005 and November 2006, which fits what I've read about them. There were allegedly 670 of them built for either Guitar Center or for Five-Star dealers, depending on where you read it. I'm still waiting to hear if they are any different from the usual J45 built during those years. The Modern Classic and the True Vintage (which is neither, but that's another rant for another day) came out c.2008, and the minor cosmetics and other changes flowed from there, along with the plethora of signature models. I kinda miss when J45s were J45s, period. The constant shuffling to meet some arbitrary collector desire, the limited editions, blah, blah, freakin' blah - too much guitar as collectable artifact for my taste.

A simple headstock break is No Big Deal - IF you don't monkey with it. Since it's in pro's hands, you're halfway home. If repaired properly with hot hide glue, who cares? It will be stronger than before. The 3/4 designation is not quite accurate. For decades we have been subjected to this whole "The LG guitars were student instruments" blah blah blah. The truth is, the LG guitars are GRAND CONCERT guitars, the G in LG comes from the GS series guitars before WWII, which were Gibson's attempt to build a classical guitar. Forty years ago I bought a cheap used hardshell classical guitar case from my very poor best friend so that he could carry his early '50s LG-1 in safety, and it was a perfect fit. And FWIW, one of the Martin patriarchs used to contend that for him, the PERFECT guitar size for comfort and tone was the 00, which is a grand concert. Somehow we've wound up with a general culture that has taken on this idea that if it's not a dreadnaught (or a TRUE Gibson Jumbo) or a Super Jumbo (which people tend to shorten to jumbo) it is less than a full-sized guitar. Kinda like people calling a J-185 or the comparable 16-in wide Guilds "Mini-Jumbos" - they're not, they're Grand Auditoriums. But hey, I'm a nomenclature freak, so what I say is meaningless anyway. LG-2 3/4 was a distinct model as mentioned before. Shorter scale, smaller body, and above all ladder braced. I disagree with the assessment that the LG-2 is less versatile. I played LOTS of solo gigs with one and truly regret parting with that one. My great mistake was that I only ever heard that guitar while I was playing it. I never really had someone ELSE play it while I listened to it. When you get out in front of it, you realize it produces a similar sound to the J-45, but with the emphasis shifting to higher in the midrange than the classical Jumbo roundshouldered sound. The J-45/50/Southern Jumbo have a sound with lots of presence that feels like it envelopes and enfolds, and that most definitely includes you, the player. The LG guitars have greater projection and penetration, or so it seems to me. It's more focused - and that focus is AWAY from you while you play it.

I don't think so. I base this on my understanding that the ladder-braced LG-1 typically has a thicker soundboard than the x-braced LG-2. If I were considering having an LG-1 rebraced to LG-2 pattern, I would try to get as many digital caliper measurements of top thicknesses as I could get before beginning work. The number that keeps popping up in my head is something like a 20% thicker top on the ladder-braced guitars, but my as my wife tells me, I don't remember s&*%. I don't recall where I read/saw it, but it seems to me that some of the better, more successful x-brace conversions of ladder-braced Gibsons have involved thinning the top from the inside. This is apparently also helpful in rebracing mahogany-topped LG-0s as well. I had pondered having such a conversion done - until the pandemic and the associated craziness and their effect on guitar prices in general. What once would have involved hot-rodding/updating a budget guitar is now a potentially value-reducing procedure on what is apparently a collectable. Unless you are given a basket case and free rein to do what thou wilt, I would say go watch for a deal on a 2013-2018 LG-2 American Eagle. I am genuinely stunned by how expensive LG-0s and LG-1s have gotten - for that matter, LG-2s as well.

I always thought Gibsons have a more CHORDAL sound, as in, the notes sound/feel more blended/blurred together, while Martins on the average have more clarity and string-to-string separation. The blend/chordal thing is more pronounced some eras than others - I think 1955-1964 LG-2s have a little more clarity and note separation and I think it has to do with the wider, lower braces used during that period, but I could just be telling myself that. I DO believe the compression of Gibsons is greater because of the parabolic arch thing in the top and back, which makes sense. The original designers of Gibson's flat top guitars worked for a company that specialized in ARCHTOPS, and I still hear the archtop DNA in my J-45. EDIT: Going along with that, I think compression/blurring/chordal thing is part of why singers like J-45s so much. They complement the human voice very well.

This is a clip from the unreleased pilot of "The Square On Air," a local cable show that focused on regional music and musicians in the upstate and lakelands of South Carolina. And if you have the time, there's also the episode that actually ran - there are four performances in it.

And there is a lot of truth in the above statement. If you want more of a jazz or blues or old-time string band sound, the LG-1 might be the ticket - but it will NOT sound anything like the J-45. I know that when I started playing all the books steered everyone towards not just x-brace, but MARTIN DREADNOUGHT X-braced guitars. Same with the music stores. There was a certain bluegrass bias that I saw a lot of when I started playing, and I would have been a lot happier had I discovered LG-2s earlier in life, or listened to more styles of music that would have prepared me to enjoy LG-1s and other ladder-braced guitars as bringing something different, but not inferior, to the party.

If this is about buying a vintage guitar, with the focus on vintage, the J-45 will cost more; the LG-2 will cost a little less, but accent on the little, because over the last 10-15 years their value has gone up. It is fair to consider those two guitars as essentially siblings - the J-45 has the jumbo body while the LG-2 is a grand concert guitar in width and depth. They use essentially the same neck and similar bracing patterns, depending on the year. They do not SOUND the same however, especially when you are playing them. The J-45 has a lot more presence and a lot more focus on the low mid-range, while the LG-2 projects really well in a focused kinda way with more focus on the upper mid-range, at least when you are in front of them and listening. When you're behind them and playing them, the sound difference is noticeable. The LG-1 from 1947-on (and its all mahogany variant the LG-0) share the neck, but are radically different, and sound that way. The tops are thicker and ladder braced with spruce bridge plates. The usual phrase bandied about is "they're good for blues," which is kinda true - and to my ears they have a certain Gibson arch top DNA in their sound, but maybe that's just me. The LG-1 would NOT be my go to if I couldn't afford a vintage J-45. If I wanted a J-45 and I couldn't afford one from before 1965 - my arbitrary cutoff date because changes to neck width and headstock angle - I would go looking for a good deal on a Bozeman-built J-45. In fact, that is exactly what I did, and I couldn't be happier - and in that case I would say go play a bunch of J-45s built between 1989 and the present until you find one that grabs you.

If you widen the net to go back to c.2000, you get a couple more LG-2 variants, and I'll get to them as I go along ... Between my schedule and my location I haven't been able to go out and try any of them, but I have read everything I can find online about them and have pored over many, many YouTube videos, Soundcloud recordings, etc. The Americana and the new 1942 Banner both feature Adirondack red spruce - and I am a heretic and still wonder if Gibson really used Adirondack red back then, or if they used the readily available Michigan white spruce that was right at their doorstep. I'm still waiting for someone who really, really knows for sure what they used to answer that one. The 1942 Banner goes the further step of thermal aging of the top. Second heretical observation - the OVERWHELMING majority of the Gibsons we have grown up listening to that have shaped our ears were built with Sitka. To my ears, Sitka is a less cutting topwood, a little warmer, and in the very projecting grand concert LG body that can be an advantage. And Sitka came in when, exactly - was it already in use during the war years? The LG-2 American Eagle always bothered me in terms of historical accuracy - it has a straight-sided headstock shape, there's just a wee bit too much space between the end of the fingerboard and the soundhole, it has the top-belly bridge that NEVER appeared on any vintage LG-2, etc., etc. And it's natural finish, so it oughta be an LG-3, right? No matter. They sound really nice to my ear, the expected Gibson sound but with the emphasis a little higher in the midrange than the J-45 and its brethren. I really want a 2013-15, as every one of those I have seen has had STUNNING spruce for the tops and I just prefer the simpler look with Klusons, but honestly, I think the later ones with the mini-Grovers, the pickguard and the extra soundhole rosette ring sound just as good as the 2013-2015 variety. From the little I have been able to find online, the current 50s version is essentially an LG-2 American Eagle with all the cosmetic issues brought into line - the correct headstock shape and logo, Klusons, choice of burst or natural (though they really ought to call the natural an LG-3, but Gibson never listens to me!), and I would suspect it is an awesome guitar. There were also some limited runs done for sale in Japan, some of which were marked LG-1, and it seems to me there were some made as specials for Guitar Center. For that matter, I firmly remember they offered a 60s B-25 variant as a Guitar Center exclusive, and who knows which other retailers got something similar? Fuller's, maybe? I do know this - if I ever buy a second Gibson acoustic to go with my J-45, it will be an LG-2. The only guitar I still miss from the hundreds that passed through my hands was a 1960 LG-2 with a batwing 'guard and the later tapered, non-scalloped, wider and lower braces. There is just something about that size that makes it an ideal songwriting instrument.

Not live, but intimate studio recordings that are the top of the heap for me - Baden Powell, Baden Plays Vinicius - https://music.apple.com/ca/album/baden-plays-vinícius/977399394 - this is either the last or next to last recording he did, an instrumental last run through music he composed for Vinicius de Moraes lyrics c.1966. Baden's voice, which had been getting frailer, is absent here. It's just him and a very close-miked Anibal Crespo classical guitar, and he'll rip your heart right out with the emotional twists he gets out of it. Listen to this through headphones. "Valsa Sem Nome" still nails me to my seat when I listen to it. Hiss Golden Messenger, Bad Debt - https://music.apple.com/us/album/bad-debt-remastered/1441041932 - Recorded on a cassette deck late at night while his infant child slept in the next room during a time when M.C. Taylor was a folklorist doing field recordings, taking a break from being a professional musician, and pondering what is music, really? Many of these songs he has since gone back and re-recorded with a full band, but this collection is simply too good to be surpassed. There are interesting little sonic artifacts throughout, and yes, it's not so different from what any of us do, as Jinder noted. So, what the hell. I'll plug my contribution to the genre, because even if no one else likes it, I have an abiding fondness for Russ Fitzgerald, Midnight Sunroom - https://music.apple.com/us/album/midnight-sunroom/id1518429993 - also available on all the other streaming platforms. I've really turned away from "studio" albums, vastly preferring "un-studio" stuff and live recordings. The field recording aesthetic better captures music in the real world, at least for me. And I am so bored of the radio-friendly aesthetic, maybe because so much of it becomes dishonest. Or maybe I'm just wearing my hair shirt today. In his book White Bicycles, Joe Boyd has a passage about his preference for "performance" music rather than layered studio stuff, and I am in complete agreement with that. I vastly prefer the bare essential takes on songs, the classical "kitchen table test" versions.

Really lovely, heartfelt rendition! Thank you, and thank you for playing the LG-1 - my introduction to Gibson acoustics was my best friend's early '50s LG-1 that his mother had bought while a student at Mercer University. Whenever I hear one, I flash back to Macon in the late 70s - thank you for that, too!

I had one of the round hole variants that was full of additional holes when it arrived - someone had chopped out a hole for a pickup and fitted volume and tone pots, and then had a big chunk broken out of the side where an output jack was fitted. I had it patched and repaired and refretted. It's one of exactly TWO guitars out of the hundreds I have owned that I still regret letting go of. It had the most incredible percussive WHOMP, straddling a line between a conventional archtop and a J-45. I remember using it to accompany a singer, without amplification, in an old cinema converted to a theatre, and later learning it did indeed carry all the way to the back. Awesome guitars!

It DID go well and was fun! The actual musical performances start about 14 minutes or so in - be advised that for some reason the volume seems very low to my ears! Anyway, here's the link to the actual show!

I switched over to John Pearse Pure Nickels in 2014 and never looked back. The best recording of these strings I have would either be this livestream I did back in April using a Tascam iM2X mic through my iPhone, or the actual guitar playing parts on the Square on Air episode I did in July - for that, skip ahead about 17 minutes or so, or just scroll past the interview bits for the other songs. The guitar is an '05 J-45 Historic Collection, played in my usual brutalist bareknuckle fashion ...

There's always Ray Wylie Hubbard as an example of the great second act in life - though I keep reminding myself that one of my very favorite albums ever is Vinicius de Moraes and Baden Powell's 1966 Os Afro Sambas. Vinicius was in his 50s when they cut that one. Breaking away from the pop music world's adoration of adolescence and the youth culture is incredibly liberating, at least for me. I played a 6 songwriter guitar pull last night that was done as a livestream, and my stuff was ... different. There was a rocker, a pop songwriter girl, an indie rocker and two country singer/songwriters who produce very commercially viable material - and me, at 59 a Man Without A Genre. The truth is, the only way to keep ANY song fresh is to view it as in process. I've been much happier, musically, since I started acting as if each time I play or sing a song I'm feeling it out all over again. The results can be surprising - sometimes that leads to little lyrical tweaks, sometimes to radically different tempos or approaches. Last year I released my first album, Midnight Sunroom, and sent it out via all the usual streaming services. It is not setting the world on fire, but then again it's in that little realm of late-night-solo-singer-songwriter-guitarist records, somewhere in the world bounded by Nick Drake's Pink Moon and early Bert Jansch and Hiss Golden Messenger's Bad Debt and early Tallest Man On Earth stuff. I mention it because it took me a while to realize that recordings I had made while rehearsing for another project were better than the project. Initially I rejected them because they didn't match the "perfect" template I had in my head for how the songs should sound. Then I had the radical thought - "if this was someone else's music, and I had no pre-conceived notions of how it should sound, what would I think of it then?" And then I realized I loved it and had achieved something perhaps better than what I was looking for.

I am honored to get to share the stage of the historic Abbeville Opera House with five of South Carolina's best rising songwriters this Wednesday (1/27/21) at 7:30 p.m. EST in a livestream hosted by Hometown Hodges. Here's the link, and I hope you can make it and enjoy the show!

I had a rattle for a while with my '05 J-45. It turned out to be a loose white plastic button on the stock Kluson style tuners, which drove me nuts until I tugged on it and it popped loose. A little Krazy Glue and 10 seconds of pressure and it's been perfect ever since.

I'm a sucker for John Pearse Pure Nickel .012-.054s and would recommend those highly. Slightly less tension than the comparable Phosphor Bronze, and they don't hype or color the sound the way some other strings do. They work wonders on my J-45 and I wouldn't hesitate to run them on a smaller guitar in good condition.