If you could spend 24 hours with any Epi guitarist in History,

[bluesstringer]

That SRV pic would make a great Avatar Muletrane !

[jamescropley1281734044]

Noel Gallagher - without a doubt

[metalhed717]

would Tony Iommi count?

[MelodyMaker1]

Wat's Up,

Mine would be Les Paul, and maybe Albert King. Two totally different styles, and two awesome guitar players. Les Paul for what he could do on a guitar before it was fashionable to do so, and Albert King because he was Albert King, the true king of the modern blues.

[Dr. Killmore]

would Tony Iommi count?

 

I don't think Tony Iommi or Zakk Wylde would count. I would say they are more endorsers of Epiphone than players. I have seen Sabbath and BLS/Ozzy a bunch of times, and never saw either one of them actually play an Epiphone on stage.

[bluesstringer]

 

I don't think Tony Iommi or Zakk Wylde would count. I would say they are more endorsers of Epiphone than players. I have seen Sabbath and BLS/Ozzy a bunch of times' date=' and never saw either one of them actually play an Epiphone on stage.[/quote']

 

I would completely agree with you Doc. Endorsers that don't actually play the instruments they endorse shouldn't count ! One of the current things wrong with that end of the industry IMHO.

[Ricochet]

 

I don't think Tony Iommi or Zakk Wylde would count. I would say they are more endorsers of Epiphone than players. I have seen Sabbath and BLS/Ozzy a bunch of times' date=' and never saw either one of them actually play an Epiphone on stage.[/quote']

 

I think I read about Zakk playing Epiphones at an Australian show.

[Johno]

Very surprised that no one has mentioned Keith Richards. I know Epis were not his usual brand of choice' date=' but didn't someone on the old site put up some pix with him playing one model or another (Casino?)?[/quote']

 

Epiphone's UK distributor used a picture of Keith playing an Epiphone Casino in their advertising before the Beatles became associated with Casinos.

 

By the way, I once spent about five minutes with Keith Richards and another 23 hours and 55 minutes would have been a bit too much.

[carverman]

Who would you choose and why ? What would you do with your time with them ?

 

Mine would be Les Paul.......I'll explain later.

 

I presume you meant "real" Epiphone players" ? Les Paul did play an Epiphone for a while.

 

My choice would be Howard Roberts.

A tremendous west coast session jazz session player and he had some pretty good

albums back in the late '60s. He influenced the design of the Epiphone Howard Roberts

model which is basically a Gibson ES-175 with a round soundhole instead of f-holes.

 

Although it would be hard to spend 24hrs with any famous guitar player, you

could still learn a lot just observing them, and perhaps (if you're lucky), jamming with them.

 

Somebody mentioned Albert King ("King of the Blues"), but from the videos I've

seen of him, (so far that is, ) he played a Gibson Flying V in a left handed fashion without

restringing it...now that is hard to do..you have to play inversions of chords that way.

 

Django Reinhardt, didn't really play Epiphones, it was a Selmer acoustic jazz guitar and he

also played some other European make as well. I'm sure that if Django had played an Epiphone

(made by the NY Epiphone factory), he would have had some Epiphone recognition to this day.

He was mostly melodic, because two fingers on his fret hand were damaged in a fire, but that

didn't stop him on those fabulous runs that he is known for. Apparently Les Paul played him

a visit back then.

 

I read somewhere that Django never formally learned to read music

or understand keys, he was self taught and played by ear. When he visited the U.S.

in the late 40s before his death, he was invited to play with Duke Ellington's orchestra.

When Duke asked him about what key he preferred for the next song. Django said

something to the effect.."key? Just start playing, I'll follow along".

 

From Wikipedia sources:

The Selmer Guitar (often incorrectly called a "Selmer-Maccaferri" or just "Maccaferri" by anglophones, as its inventor's rather than manufacturer's name was stressed in the early British advertising) is an unusual acoustic guitar best known as the favored instrument of Django Reinhardt. It was produced by Selmer from 1932 to about 1950.

[NikOlas]

I'd split my time with John Lennon and John Lee Hooker.

[bluesstringer]

 

I presume you meant "real" Epiphone players" ? Les Paul did play an Epiphone for a while.

 

 

I saw Les at the Blues Alley in D.C. a few years ago and he still played an Epi on a couple of numbers.

[charlie brown]

You know, I would have liked to have spent some time with Jazz guitarist Johnny Smith, back in the day.

That guy was awesome! And, an Epi player, too, at one time. My cousin, took one of his album cover

photos, and I used to visit with him, a bit, when visiting Colorado Springs, where he has lived, since the

'60's, I believe. Nice man! He had a little music store, on South Eighth Street, there in the "Springs!"

I took my Gretsch Country Gent, into him, to have it "adjusted" (set up),

and when I came back, he plugged it in, to let me test it out, and...not wanting to make a complete fool,

out of myself, I (humbly) asked him to play me something.

He was kind enough, to play some of the various things, he'd done...and I almost quit playing, that day.

He just blew me away, with things that I thought impossible to play, that were just commonplace

exercises, to him. LOL!! He later did the first set-up, on my Casino, too.

 

CB

[bluesstringer]

You know' date=' I would have liked to have spent some time with Jazz guitarist Johnny Smith, back in the day.

That guy was awesome! And, an Epi player, too, at one time. My cousin, took one of his album cover

photos, and I used to visit with him, a bit, when visiting Colorado Springs, where he has lived, since the

'60's, I believe. Nice man! He had a little music store, on South Eighth Street, there in the "Springs!"

I took my Gretsch Country Gent, into him, to have it "adjusted" (set up),

and when I came back, he plugged it in, to let me test it out, and...not wanting to make a complete fool,

out of myself, I (humbly) asked him to play me something.

He was kind enough, to play some of the various things, he'd done...and I almost quit playing, that day.

He just blew me away, with things that I thought impossible to play, that were just commonplace

exercises, to him. LOL!! He later did the first set-up, on my Casino, too.

 

CB[/quote']

 

Great story CB. (one of several)

 

On one of these threads I talked about seeing Les Paul play in Md. in Keeter Bett's basment with Herb Ellis. I met Herb when he was a patient of mine in a treatment center I ran, and would see him on occasion in following years. When I was living in Silver Spring, Md. in the 70's, I sat up night after night trying to catch the guy that was periodiacally topping the buds on several non-tobacco type plants I was growing between some rows of corn. Finally after several nights sitting on my back porch with a shotgun loaded with raw barley and rock salt, i heard some rustling in the plants and yelled, cocked the shotgun and caught Keeter Betts in my plants. He was still touring with Ella Fitzgerald then and had just started the Keeter Betts trio in D.C. Well, I gave him some "plant" and we went to his house where he introduced me to Les Paul and Herb Ellis. they asked me to jam if I wanted to sit in. Right ! I couldn't even move I was so overwhelmed. Between the men themselves and the equipment, i mean i have never seen dso many vintage gibson and epiphone guitar AND amps in my life, then or to date. Talk about almost quitting guitar - keeter could do things on a bass that made me want to quit. I partied with Keeter now and again until the plant and all it's relatives and I had to part ways. I was proud that Heb Ellis remembered me when I had him in treatment many, many years later. He needed help giving up the plant's liquid cousin, and did and never went back.

[charlie brown]

Awesome! LOL! Great, and hilarious, story!

 

CB