Interesting to see which guitars the old blues players used!!!

[onewilyfool]

http://www.earlyblues.com/blues_singers.htm

[j45nick]

I'm guessing the large number of what we would call lower-end guitars like Stellas were indicative of the fact that most of these people made little or no money from either performing or recording. It was a hand-to-mouth existence for a lot of them. We're all pretty spoiled today, with our arsenals of expensive guitars.

 

Even a "cheap" Gibson like a J-45 cost.....well, $45 when it came out on 1942. You could by a lot of groceries with $45 in those days.

[onewilyfool]

I'm thinking that one of the reasons they used Stella's is because a lot of the old ones (not the '60"s ones) sounded soooo good for the blues. My friend's '20's Stella has a type of resonator type of sound that is just perfect for the blues.......the '60's ones are easy to find...the old ones...not so easy....lol....I've tried.....

[zombywoof]

I'm guessing the large number of what we would call lower-end guitars like Stellas were indicative of the fact that most of these people made little or no money from either performing or recording. It was a hand-to-mouth existence for a lot of them. We're all pretty spoiled today, with our arsenals of expensive guitars.

 

Even a "cheap" Gibson like a J-45 cost.....well, $45 when it came out on 1942. You could by a lot of groceries with $45 in those days.

 

Not necessarily. Son House once recalled that he made $40 a session (about what he could make in a year working the fields) and could walk out of a recording studio with several hundred dollars in his pocket. Really popular artists like Charlie Patton made $40 per side. On top of that record execs would pay travel expenses for the musicians. Patton was given $100 to travel from Mississippi up to Grafton for the now legendary 1930 Paramount sessions. The Kay Kraft played by guys like Curley Weaver ran around what a J-45 would cost. Memphis Minnie made enough money to not only buy a brand new convertible car but a National Tricone and in the later 1930s an electric National New Yorker.

 

H.C. Spier who ran a recording studio and music store in Jackson, MS recalled that the blues guys purchased Stellas because they were well built and so would hold up well and sounded good. The Schmidt-made instruments were different from anything put out by the other jobbers. Schmidt Stellas were a far cry from the later versions made by Harmony (Harmony axquired both the Stella and Sovereign names inn 1940) which are what most folks are familiar with. The arch-typical Stella concert (most had a lower bout just a shade under 13 1/2") had an arched back, angled neck heel, square top kerfing, and nicely shaped braces. They were loud, had a thumping bass and great midrange honk, and could have an upper end that was brighter than you might expect. Admittedly though, the higher up the neck you go you do not get a whole lot of clarity or good note seperation. But theya re great for strumming and playing around the nut.

[zombywoof]

My favorite Oscar Schmidt guitar - a 1929-1931 First Hawaiin Conservatory of Music concert which was essentially a re-badged Stella. It got no cheaper than this one. All birch and you got it free when you purchased lessons from Schmidt's subsidiary mail order music school. They were originally set up for lap playing with an instructional paper applied to the board right over the frets(you can see the remanants of it on mine).

 

 

[ParlourMan]

Not necessarily. Son House once recalled that he made $40 a session (about what he could make in a year working the fields) and could walk out of a recording studio with several hundred dollars in his pocket. Really popular artists like Charlie Patton made $40 per side. On top of that record execs would pay travel expenses for the musicians. Patton was given $100 to travel from Mississippi up to Grafton for the now legendary 1930 Paramount sessions. The Kay Kraft played by guys like Curley Weaver ran around what a J-45 would cost. Memphis Minnie made enough money to not only buy a brand new convertible car but a National Tricone and in the later 1930s an electric National New Yorker.

 

H.C. Spier who ran a recording studio and music store in Jackson, MS recalled that the blues guys purchased Stellas because they were well built and so would hold up well and sounded good. The Schmidt-made instruments were different from anything put out by the other jobbers. Schmidt Stellas were a far cry from the later versions made by Harmony (Harmony axquired both the Stella and Sovereign names inn 1940) which are what most folks are familiar with. The arch-typical Stella concert (most had a lower bout just a shade under 13 1/2") had an arched back, angled neck heel, square top kerfing, and nicely shaped braces. They were loud, had a thumping bass and great midrange honk, and could have an upper end that was brighter than you might expect. Admittedly though, the higher up the neck you go you do not get a whole lot of clarity or good note seperation. But theya re great for strumming and playing around the nut.

 

Interesting post, I was actually just going to say 'seemed to be an awful lot of nice guitars among that list for poor struggling musicians', in fact some models could even be described as fairly high-rollers.

[BigKahune]

Interesting post, I was actually just going to say 'seemed to be an awful lot of nice guitars among that list for poor struggling musicians', in fact some models could even be described as fairly high-rollers.

 

+1

 

 

Nice find Wily. . B)

[TommyK]

Stella's and Harmony's were not selected for that 'Bluesy' tone. That Bluesy tone came from Stella's and Harmony's. They played Stellas and Harmony's because they were cheap. They had little sustain (That 'Bluesy' tone) because they were built like a brick **** house to take on the vagaries of life on the road in Juke Joints and rowdy brothels with nothing between them and the outside world but a 'tater sack.. if that.

 

The old saying gos, "You can't play the Blues if you've never owned a pawn shop guitar."

[ParlourMan]

I dunno, if the karate kid can do it, so can anyone.... ;)

[Rambler]

I'm thinking that one of the reasons they used Stella's is because [they] sounded soooo good for the blues.

Hmm. Judging from the choices that blues singers made in the 60s folk revival, they went for good guitars: Gary Davis favored J200s, Skip James a D28, Brownie McGee a D18, and Lightnin' Hopkins a J50 and a J160e. John Hurt happily recorded with Stefan Grossman's OM42. All that might indicate that the line between what was for them a "good" sound and a "blues" sound may have been somewhat blurred.

[zombywoof]

Hmm. Judging from the choices that blues singers made in the 60s folk revival, they went for good guitars: Gary Davis favored J200s, Skip James a D28, Brownie McGee a D18, and Lightnin' Hopkins a J50 and a J160e. John Hurt happily recorded with Stefan Grossman's OM42. All that might indicate that the line between what was for them a "good" sound and a "blues" sound may have been somewhat blurred.

 

I am guessing they knew you could play da bluz on any old guitar. They just did not suffer from headstock envy the way we do today.

 

In 1928 the guy recording Mississippi John Hurt would not let him use his "Black Annie" for the session and gave him some other guitar to use.

 

In the early and mid-1960s the Harmony Sovereigns were also a popular choice. Howlin' Wolf, Sleepy John Estes, Lil' Son Jackson, John Hurt and others all played them. At the time the Sovereigns were probably the best guitars out there for the money.

[ParlourMan]

That's the thing, (I'll go out on a limb here) a lot of the recordings sound good because time and history has romanticised them, if most of us were to try to play one of these guitars these days we'd be pretty appalled at the 'quirky' sound from them and very questionable intonation.

 

I'll happily stick with my modern hoard against the vintage budget-guitar market offerings.

[milod]

I have a '50s harmony single pickup archtop. Although the neck is a lot thicker than I prefer, the sound was fine and the guitar played a lotta country/rock gigs.

 

Harmonies in the 50s and early '60s were a bit overbuilt, but I think part of that was perhaps concern that they'd take a bit more of a beating than some more expensive brands. I had several classicals too and a girlfriend had a sovereign that sounded nice enough. I electrified and converted one to a 7-string with a doubled "G" and played rock with it in the '60s too. None had as much bling, but for somebody who played guitar instead of a headstock, yeah.

 

Leadbelly played a Stella 12 that looked a lot different from the one I had in the '60s; but by then Harmony had owned the marque for ages. It was solidly built, a trapeze that both helped keep costs down and sound up, and if you refinished it at all, it didn't look all that bad. Again, the neck was a bit thick, but the playability was surprisingly decent.

 

Something about Kays I never cared for. Don't ask me why. But I don't care much for Fenders either, mostly I think because of the neck and neck radius.

 

All kidding aside, I think a lotta the old time pickers got what they could afford and what they felt was playable as the two major criteria for a guitar. That's whether they played for half decent money or not.

 

You've gotta remember too that we didn't have the choices in the 50s and 60s that are out there nowadays. And again, except for more rounded necks or V shape necks on some, with a decent setup a lot of less expensive guitars weren't all that bad.

 

m

[ParlourMan]

I don't disagree some were good, their popularity among musicians of the time points to simply more than cost, especially where those who were making good money is concerned. I just mean that we often see "I'm looking for that blues sound" or "this one has a real blues sound" in posts on any forum, but realistically if the players tried a 'real' blues guitar, as in those of the time and not just the few good ones, they'd be pretty horrified by the compromise they'd have to make on playability and overall quality (in many cases) compared to todays guitars.

 

Lets not forget these guitars were new at the time, so the vintage argument is hard to push, many many blues recordings are obviously suffering from tuning and intonation problems, but in a genre defining way we have come to appreciate down the years.

 

As stated earlier, many of the players we've mentioned shifted pretty quickly to the brands we're most familiar with on guitar forums.

[milod]

Given that I've seem "blues" guitar players using such a wide range of instruments and styles, really I think it's the picker that does whatever, and his style will have some shift depending on the instrument.

 

But "blues" is such a huge batch of stuff. Gary Davis and current strat speed kings are doing something totally different. I think personally that the person looking for "the blues sound" is chasing the wind. Get more specific, perhaps, and you're still looking at a huge range of instrument types and concepts.

 

m

[zombywoof]

That's the thing, (I'll go out on a limb here) a lot of the recordings sound good because time and history has romanticised them, if most of us were to try to play one of these guitars these days we'd be pretty appalled at the 'quirky' sound from them and very questionable intonation.

 

I'll happily stick with my modern hoard against the vintage budget-guitar market offerings.

 

 

I think you are speaking for plenty of players. The Schmidts are the source of the mystique of the ladder braced "blues" guitar. But I think many folks today are more intrigued by the idea of owning one than the guitar itself. The result has been a cottage industry in building "reproduction" Schmidts. The bizarre thing though is you end up paying thousands for a guitar that cost about $6.00.

 

I have a bunch of Depression-era el cheapos in the house and I am rather fond of them and do gig with them. But I have been playing old Stellas and Kay Krafts for decades so am used to them. And they do have a sound all their own.

[6stringTom]

 

All kidding aside, I think a lotta the old time pickers got what they could afford and what they felt was playable as the two major criteria for a guitar. That's whether they played for half decent money or not.

 

You've gotta remember too that we didn't have the choices in the 50s and 60s that are out there nowadays. And again, except for more rounded necks or V shape necks on some, with a decent setup a lot of less expensive guitars weren't all that bad.

 

m

 

Very true, and even more so when the early bluesmen were starting out. you were limited pretty much to what your local music store carried or to the big catalog stores, which is to say Sears and Monkey Wards. Distribution of high end brands was much more regional pre WW II than it is today.

[The G]

Very true, and even more so when the early bluesmen were starting out. you were limited pretty much to what your local music store carried or to the big catalog stores, which is to say Sears and Monkey Wards. Distribution of high end brands was much more regional pre WW II than it is today.

 

This one threw me for some reason ...

 

14. Ted Bogan – Martin D-35.

[Clayfingers]

Wouldn't they all have different reasons for playing the guitars they did? Money, availability, sound and robustness, are the more practical ones, but what about wanting to look cool and also emulate their heroes? From what I've read some of these early blues guys were pretty keen on looking sharp, and also looked back to early players with reverence, much like we do know. I think generalising about this stuff, and ignoring some of the base motivating factors for guitar purchases around today, is probably doing a bit of a disservice to the variety and uniqueness of these people. But hey, I could wrong, it's 80 years down the track I never met any of them.

[milod]

I got to watch a couple of the old timers: Gary Davis and Big Joe Williams.

 

Davis had, of course, that big Gibbie super jumbo and Williams... I don't remember but it was so modified as a nine-string that I'm not sure how one might define it.

 

These guys weren't so much trying to get a tone like somebody else as much as to do their own thing. In ways it's part of why I suggest that "blues" is far more broad a term than we'd care to thing nowadays. Heck, the one piece I really remember Davis doing back in early '64 was Stars and Stripes Forever.

 

The first piece I remember hearing of John Lee Hooker was about the flood in Tupelo back in the '50s playing acoustic. Later on there's a recording of him playing an Epi electric. Still later a thin body hollow.

 

Nowadays I read on the electric side and in the Lounge how "you gotta use a Strat for Blues" and wanna laugh out loud.

 

m

[j45nick]

Nowadays I read on the electric side and in the Lounge how "you gotta use a Strat for Blues" and wanna laugh out loud.

 

m

 

 

Some of us think the ES 335 is a pretty good electric blues guitar. What's a Strat? I always thought a fender was one of those things on the side of your car.

[milod]

BTW, in terms of looking sharp, look at BB. Nothing every looking shabby - while he watches generations of well-to-do white kids pretending like they're field hands and wearing worn jeans and such.

 

I get a kick outa that, too.

 

The old guys did want better equipment. Some like Hooker shifted from acoustic to electric. Some went back to farming or doing whatever in order to eat when the market for their music left. But the same might be said, too, of the radio musician generation that might have done Texas Swing form 9 to 9:30, then a comedy band from 10 to 10:30 followed by old time music led by a fiddler, then at 1 they'd maybe drop in for some polkas or a variation of pop music and...

 

All those guys were not living in a bubble. They heard and often played other music besides blues. They lived in the real world, however different it may seem from today's. "We" tend not to think about how they went to school or not, worked as children, grew up in a work hard and play hard environment, and saw music at least for a time as a way to make a better living than as a laborer. If you want the dignity, you wear a suit and hat - at least then.

 

The northern plains farm boys who ended up as the beginning of Lawrence Welk's band, and their competitors, were in roughly the same situation. Welk never caught on to English all that well as a "German from Russia" whose family immigrated to the northern plains where there were others from that area. I have friends today who were third or fourth generation of those folks who learned English as a second language...

 

Music was a miracle way out if, but only if, they could make it. So they worked hard, traveled roads you can't imagine in most places today to play gigs in joints most of us can't imagine today.

 

Southern black, northern immigrant... different musical and ethnic background, similar motivation.

 

BTW, I've played into the same live radio studio mike, in the same studio that Welk did. <grin>

 

m

[BluesKing777]

For those who have not heard one, here is a link to video of Ari Eisenger playing an Oscar Schmidt made Stella 6 string:

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

[BluesKing777]

And another link to Ari Eisenger playing a 12 string Stella:

 

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

[zombywoof]

About the only acoustic player I can think of who was still able to make a good living immediately after the War was Blind Willie McTell. When the folk music revival of the 1960s brought the old players to a new audience many of them had not played in decades. I have heard that Blind Owl Wilson (of Canned Heat) had to help Son House re-learn his own songs it had been so long since he had picked up a guitar.

 

The others who managed to hold on like Memphis Minnie and Tampa Red had already moved north before WWII and had gone electric. Langston Hughes wrote a review of one of Minnie's NYC shows in the early 1940s. She had her National New Yorker, some kind of a GE amp, and a drummer backing her up. He wrote that the sound was so distorted you could not hear the individual notes. But what came through was the rhyhm, Hughes likening Minnie's steady pounding chords to Megro heartbeats mixed with iron and steel.

 

Now that my friends be the blues.