tpbiii

Well my late wife and I had a 50+ year extensive musical hobby that not only included playing first folk revival and then bluegrass music, (retirement) investing in (and playing) vintage instruments, studying (and playing) North American traditional music history, and socializing with like minded people all over the country (and some times abroad) at jams, bluegrass clubs and festivals. It was our primary social life and stress relief. When you jam music with people, all our petty differences fade away and you acquire and love friends of every political, religious, and cultural persuasion. I was slightly known in the bluegrass world from an article I published in BLUEGRASS UNLIMITED in 1999 called AN INTRODUCTION TO BLUEGRASS JAMMING https://barnwell.ece.gatech.edu/rolesx.htm. It was pretty popular and it was picked up and republished over the years (that I know of) about 400 times (on every continent but Antarctica) and translated into 10 different languages -- mostly for bluegrass clubs. When I traveled for work -- mostly presenting papers at research conferences -- I would use the internet to find a club or jam and meet and play music with the locals. I did the same thing in 2002 on a trip to Japan, and I met the woman who had translated my article into Japanese -- I was hosted by the Japanese bluegrass community for a full week and was taken to a festival on one weekend and a show on the next. I also visited the home of the woman and her linguistic professor (and banjo playing) husband -- his PhD was from the University on MA, and his advisor was a Professor I had known at MIT in the late 60s -- small world. She had also translated Neal Rosenberg's classic book on the history of bluegrass, and she gifted me a copy. The last weekend, I stayed with a bluegrass family (the whole family played, and the 16 year old daughter was learning English.) They included me in their monthly show in Okayama. There audio equipment was far better than what you find in bluegrass in the US. Here is a picture of the wife singing harmony with me. She did not speak English and when she sang the rote memorized words, her ascent was very strong -- but her pitch was right on! You could not make this stuff up -- no one would believe you.😎 Best, -Tom

Yea, the Fabulous Flattops Book was a straight reprint as far as I can tell and the original had -- and still has - some serious errors. Some of these mistakes actually led us to some badly informed buying in the 1990s. At the time it came out, it also provided a lot of actually good information too. The authors seemed to have assumed that Gibson was far, far more consistent than they actually were -- a reasonable mistake I would say. But it is still a flawed reference, so take care. A much more complete picture emerged when the VINTAGE CORNER of the UNOFFICIAL MARTIN GUITAR FORUM started in 2001 (vintage Gibsons were a major topic ever since) and the data piled up. The remarkable scholarship of Joe Spann followed, and the rest is history. I actually bought a actually guitar feature in the book a couple of years ago -- a 1940 RW J-55 Gibson. The book says it might be the only one ever built. The work you see in this picture is visible in the picture in the book, so it is clearly the same guitar. The book says it is likely the only one. Now -- with the internet -- I easily found credible reports of three more and TR Crandall has one for sale originally priced at 80K. I personally collect sounds, so I am not impressed by rare models per se -- but this one is also a rare sound: in the same class as other golden era RW Js (AJ, SJ RW, etc.) Let's pick, -Tom

In my 50 years of making music with my late wife Aina Jo, we probably knew about 1000 songs -- we sort of kept 400 "ready for action." We were jammers -- a lot of bluegrass but other stuff too. Not surprisingly, we had our favorites. One I really liked was our version of BILLY GREY, the Norman Blake song. It is a long ballet and thus not very useful for either jamming or performance. In the last 15 years, we made a lot of videos (2000 or so)-- many for practice to see what we sounded like. Since Aina Jo passed, I am so glad I have that stuff -- they say jammed music is the only art form that is gone as soon as it is created. Well I thought I had no practice versions of BILLY GREY. But then oddly one popped up. And it involves an old iconic Gibson -- 1935 Roy Smeck Radio Grande. Here it is. Best, -Tom

Here is a weird LG comparison -- 57 LG-1, 46 LG-2, 42 LG-3 Here is a less odd presentation Here are the ones I own that are sort of in the family 26 L-1 l, 31 L-2 x, 34 HG-Century x, 34 L-00 x, 36 L-00 3/4 x, 35 KG-14 l, 37 KG-Century x, 39 HG-00 x, 43 KG-Sport l Model, 46 LG-2 x, 49 CF-100, 55 LG-1, 57 LG-1 , and 65 F-25. The 26 L-1 is basically the same body shape as the earlier L-1 archtop model with poplar B&S -- think Robert Johnson. The body footprint from the late 20s to about 1941 was shared by many models, and the new (but similar) shaped LG body shape started in the early 1940s. Early 30s models had 12 frets, as did the Hawaiian models and the 60s F-25. Most were spruce over mahogany, but the HG-Century and L-Century had maple B&S. The rest had 14 frets. The 1942 LG-1 had a mahogany top. The CF-100 had a cutaway. Most were x-braced except KG-14, KG-Sport Model, and LG-1 (after the early 40s) were ladder braced. The L-00 3/4 and Kalamazoo Sport Model were 3/4 size. There are many demos on my vimeo sight -- www.vimeo.com/tpbiii/videos. Just search for the model you are interested in. EG LG-1 search results in https://vimeo.com/tpbiii/videos/search:LG-1/sort:date. There are over 1200 videos of many other things there. Best, -Tom

It looks like a 44-45 guitar. You can date them roughly by the relation of the headstock label to the location of the tuners. Here is picture of my banner headstocks roughly by year -- 1942--1945.

I guess people will buy anything. I have a lot of old guitars with bar frets. Also have three old guitars that actually belonged to Norman Blake -- I traded with him in 2005. First some generalities. Bar fret necks are compression freted -- and when neck work is done, each fret may need to be of a different size. When correctly maintained and set up, I have not found them to be a problem, but when they need neck work there are only a few people who can do it right, and it can be very expensive. Here are my "Norman Blake" guitars -- 1930 Larson Brothers, 1934 Martin 00-40H, and c. 1900 Almcrantz. I would put that 00-40H -- as Normans favorite for about a full decade -- as the "other" famous Norman Blake guitar. Of course people have actual old guitars mostly because they can't be sonically copied by new guitars. When Norman Blake bought the 00-40H Martin in the 1990s and set it up to be his main guitar for around a decade, HE HAD JOHN ARNOLD REWORK THE NECK AND REPLACE THE BAR FRETS WITH TANG FRETS. I guess that tells you what Norman thought of bar frets😎 Let's pick, -Tom

No. It is not. I am pretty sure that is not what I said. The x-braced L-00 3/4 was only made in the late 30s, and is very rare -- about 30 has been estimated (not by me). AFAIK Everything after c 1940 is ladder braced -- except that Arlo prototype, and I have no idea what happened to that. Best, -Tom

Cool! That body shape dates to the mid 30s with the L-00 3/4 which was x-braced. A bit later, Gibson introduced the Kalamazoo SPORT MODEL, which was ladder braced. About 1947 (?) they introduced the the LG 3/4 with ladder bracing. That is what Woody Guthrie famously bought Arlo, who threw it away, but later went back and got. When Gibson release the ARLO GUTHRIE model, the prototype was x-braced, but Arlo made then change it to ladder braced. Here is my 37 L-00 /34 and Kalamazoo SPORT MODEL Here is a tiny guitar comparison. I actually find the Martin terz 5-18 most useful -- Let's pick, -Tom

The J-35 after c.1936, the AJ, and all the other Js (J-45, J=50, SJ, J-55, ...) have the same body shape. Just the shape -- there are many differences of course. The 1936 J-35 had the deeper body. Best, -Tom

That is correct. 36 J-35, 43 SJ, 36 AJ Best, -Tom

I don't know if you are talking modern copies, but I have demos of the actual vintage stuff you mention. BTW, most of what people call 42 J-45 are actually (based on modern research) actuall early 1943 J-45s. J-35 J-45 The J-35s are notably more powerful than the J-45s. Looking at the bracing, you might not guess that. John Arnold -- the iconic luthier -- say that is because of the taper on the J-45 braces. I would not guess that, but John is a tre expert. Lets pick, -Tom

Being geeky, the 1936 J-35 had the same body shape as the 34-36 Jumbo. It switched to the AJ shape in 1937. Also, the J-45 and the AJ have the same body shape. I am talking about vintage guitars here. Best, -Tom

Yea, that is my life. If is such a pervasive effect that I don't even know the nut width and string spacing on my guitars. I just know I always fumble around until -- as you say -- the muscle memory kicks in. Doesn't take long, but I do need some warm up to stop the flood of bad notes. Well when I met my late wife, she has a Mward dread sized huge neck monster that could take "steel or nylon" -- probably a Kay. For the first decade of our relationship she gloried in the observation that her guitar sounded better than mine -- a point on which I agree. Best, -Tom

These have no problems, but they seem to have had a very different history. The 1955 has almost no ware and no sign of top distortion at all. It must have lived in a climate controlled closet.🙃 The 1957 is entirely different deal. I bought it from a vintage guitar store in Berkley -- it had that huge then open crack you can see, and the top had sunk a bit. The owner had decided he did not want to fool with it, so he found a price where I would bite. I did not know what I had, but many old unfixed guitars in found condition have such issues because of loose braces. It is bad if someone tries to fix it, but I could see no sign of work on this one, so I took a chance. My luthier is the legendary Rand Wood, so I knew he would know what could be done and he would tell me if it was not worth it. He knows I am into sound and stability. As it turns out, the repairs were minor and cheap -- I don't remember the number right now, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Basically it only needed its braces glued and the crack addressed. Nothing has moved since. Note: both of these guitars don't go out to iffy places, and live in climate controlled guitar heaven. It is not that me and my guitars don't go to such places playing bluegrass, but these are not bluegrass guitars. BTW, I spotted (and fixed) a typo in my previous post. I said the 1955 cost less than the one from Reverb, but it was suppose to say less than HALF .. a whole different point. See story above. All the best guys, -Tom

Hmm. That story is amazingly similar -- should I say disturbingly -- similar to mine. I got mine -- first Gibson -- in 1962 and played it for more than a dozen years until it was stolen from my office. It was the guitar of my folk revival years, and that simple approachable music is still dear to my heart. I have a couple of LG-1s -- a 1957 rescue and a near mint 1955 which I bought last Christmas, Paid $300 for the first maybe 10 years ago and well less than half the asking price for the Retro six months ago. c 1962 1957 rescue 1955 (Final picture not taken yet) Probably because of my history with this model, I generally prefer them to my LG-2 (1946), although until the recent pandemic I seldom played them -- in or out. But when your only musical social outlets are ZOOM circles and Jamulus (all using mics), these guys were a better fit than things like my 36 AJ and 35 D-28, which overpowered the environment. Let's pick, -Tom

That label is the same as my 62. Measure the angle of the headstock. 13 degrees -- pre mid 1965 17 degrees -- post mid 1965

1946

Just epoxy it in in a usable position. I have several so treated, and generally I don't even notice when I pick one up.

I did have double surgery on my left arm to correct numbness in two different sets of fingers on the left hand -- carpel tunnel and moved a nerve in the elbow. I had to play a festival a week later, and I just played harmonica -- that was fun too, but not a real replacement in any sense. Best, -Tom

Well I am old -- my picking style has been in transition for 60+ years -- it still is, and it still seems to be improving. I am always trying to find tricks where I can use old styles in new ways. I am a sound nut, and I love songs to sound different. I have a lot different guitars and a lot of necks -- also banjos. My favorite style is bluegrass when I can find it -- the loss of my singing, bass playing wife and covid has mostly stopped the band. I seem to have an odd skill. I seem to be able to play almost any guitar equally well (badly). Because for 50 years we seldom perfected a particular song/guitar/rhythm/key/harmony, but loved variety. As most of you know, I have 200+ vintage instruments and that tonal palette is beyond ethereal. Whenever I pick one up and start to play, I am immediately frustrated -- I make mistakes. But after a couple of songs, my right brain click in and I never think about it until I change instruments. It is both an impediment and a skill -- I never planned it that way. The other odd thing is all my guitar styles have suddenly merged. I tried this unsuccessfully for 40 years, but now it works. The separate styles that provided existing skills were bare finger picking, alternating thumb ragtime, Scruggs style banjo, and clawhammer. The fingerboards are related so the melody, scales, and chord positions in ways that are close enough. I use a heavy bumble bee thumb pick and Pearse metal finger picks. Same exact set up fr guitar and bluegrass banjo. The breakthrough came when I allowed my palm to lightly touch the bridge as a reference. Then I could grip the thumb pick exactly like a flat pick and curl the finger picks out of the way, and all that flat picking rhythm and lead just came along, I can cross pick with the thumb pick or use triplets like the banjo, which actually is faster. Now what I can;t do is grab a guitar and stars showing off -- I guess you would say I have to warm up to hit the notes cleanly. Best, -Tom

Very familiar with the first -- not the second. We did hundreds of such songs, but were essentially not interested in making recordings in the usual commercial sense -- music is something we did with others, basically on the fly. The ON THE FLY part of the process it what drove us -- different every time. Different instruments, different voices, different keys,different rhythm, etc. During the great pandemic, I did some online multitracking -- beats nothing. Here is an example. Cellphone audio. Here is an early JAMULUS live jam- I have 120+ from last year. A true jam -- the fiddle player does not know the song. Lots of small flaws -- internet distortion, internet timing, usual real jamming issues, ... -- but a real jam for people in two States (TX, GA) and another country (NS, Canada) -- three time zones. Beats the hell out of nothing. And it does have the fascinating no rehearsal spontaneous leads that makes this stuff so compelling. At least for us. A jam can be so much more compelling than highly rehearsed because of the extra dimension of the musical interactions. Let's pick -- maybe on line -Tom

Nice mandolin😉

Yea, I remember that CD -- I think I have that CD somewhere. Seems like they did a bunch of folk songs in Jerry's basement -- just the two of them on guitar and mandolin. Not too up tempo. I don't have any presentable recordings of my late wife and me doing either version. Odd, because we did it a bit for 50 years, but there was no plan. I have an unpublished version I found in an obscure collection I did after my wife died -- trying to see if there was anything left of the solo me. I don't worry about presentable anymore. Here is any even worst recording. Some n the umgf wanted to here the two versions open finger style on a particular 1934 0-17 Martin. I should have been wiser, but like I said I don't worry about such things anymore. Best, -Tom

I got this 34. I wonder what the differences are. For the banjos, it was really only the adjustable truss rod. For guitars, the bracing. too I found this one at a local SAM ASH -- someone had sold it to them. Go figure. Here is my daughter playing in a show in 2012

I really like this kind of discussion! I am in my Texas home right now, and I actually did some kind of jam or band practice (side man for my daughter's DEAD GIRL SONG band -- mostly finger style guitar, harmonica and flat picked guitar) every day. A nice week after a long lockup in Georgia. One called itself old time, one Cajun, and the rest bluegrass -- all were organized as a song circle -- the bluegrass sessions had more breaks. Lots of breaks. None of these would pass for bluegrass in North GA. I really like bluegrass jamming rules even if it is not bluegrass. This is my article on bluegrass jamming. https://barnwell.ece.gatech.edu/rolesx.htm Soo What model is the 33 mandolin? Since it belonged to Scotty, maybe F5 or similar? Which version of Shady Grove -- Doc Watson with the minor, or the straight bang and go almost one chord older version. The first is a fine finger style version which is oddly not well known in bluegrass circles but very well known to folkies. Did you get harmony -- on the whole song? On the chorus? I actually did blue ridge mountain blues once this week, forgetting that the chorus changes -- that makes it a bit of a jam buster for bluegrass harmony singers who like an unchanging chorus. Did you sing harmony? In the Cajun session, I mostly played rhythm guitar and harmonica and hung on. Not too good a fit. In the old time, rhythm guitar and clawhammer banjo and a bit s singing -- only an approximate fit for bluegrass style harmony. I often go out with my dear friend Dr. Kelly Moore - an excellent singer and clawhammer banjo player. This week all of those songs showed up somewhere except KING OF THE ROAD. I often sang harmony if appropriate, and I did lead on DARK HOLLOW once. I do that in D -- high lonesome. What about you? Alone and retired, for me this is as good as it gets.🙂 Here is Kelly doing A ROVING ON A WINTER'S NIGHT -- from an online JAMULUS sessions a few weeks ago. JAMULUS is good, but live s better. As they say, she can sing tenor to a dog whistle. Like I often say Let's pick, -Tom