Woody Guthrie SJ

[Joe M]

Played one of these at my local Gibson pusher shop yesterday and was really blown away by it's sound. The Gibson rep happened to be in the shop at the time so I asked him about the differences between it and a J45 Standard. He told me that, except for a neck inlays and the tuners, they were pretty identical. The finish on the SJ was VOS so it was dulled up compared to a J45. Except for a couple other minor cosmetic things, like the rosette and binding, they seemed pretty identical. I played a J45 Custom that was there also and, to me, the SJ was head and shoulders above the Custom. Even though I really like the J45 I just bought, I'm sure if the SJ had been there when I got the 45, I would have chosen the SJ first.

 

 

I am way tempted to go back and get the guitar even though I bought way, way too many guitars last year....hmmm, it is a new year, isn't it???

 

 

Anybody else had any experience with the Guthrie SJ? Oh, forgot to mention, it comes with a cool "This machine kills fascists" sticker.... :)

[EuroAussie]

ParlourMan, Mojorule ..... step on down..

[j45nick]

I am way tempted to go back and get the guitar even though I bought way, way too many guitars last year....hmmm, it is a new year, isn't it???

 

 

The calendar re-sets on January 1 of each year. Your guitar-buying sins of last year are forgiven. Go, my son, and feel free to start sinning again.

 

-Father J-45 Nick

[ParlourMan]

Yeah, I have one....

 

In my opinion it's the best Gibson out there when you take price & quality into consideration, mines was actually cheaper than J-45 Std which is mental as I've played some 45's I didn't like anywhere near as much. I should add that I got mine last year and it was one of the most affordable Gibson's there was at the time. It's a fabulous guitar and is my gigging guitar.

 

No need for a big long story about mates who've loved it the minute they've tried it, I'll just say that you can see from my sig a list of some of my other guitars, if I lost the lot in a fire tomorrow the woody is the one I would replace without even having to think about it. If you see one at a good price and are remotely in the market, nab it, these are class and classic instruments.

[Joe M]

The calendar re-sets on January 1 of each year. Your guitar-buying sins of last year are forgiven. Go, my son, and feel free to start sinning again.

 

-Father J-45 Nick

 

Thank you, Father, I feel redeemed.....

[Mojorule]

I've had mine since March, it's almost a year old, and I love it. It is my only Gibson acoustic and given finances is likely to remain that way. I hope it will grow old with me. From the player's position it does everything that I would hope for from a Gibson slopeshoulder with a mahogany back and sides. Growls when strummed hard, mellow and balanced when fingerpicked, even sounds a bit like a classical guitar if handled in a certain way (well, a classical guitar on speed and gargling whiskey maybe). It has the percussive bass thump, the emphatic middles, enough treble to cut through when needed. I let somebody else play it a tiny bit on New Year's Eve and wasn't disappointed in the fingerpicking tone from the other side either. He didn't strum it hard - I was relieved, but also sort of disappointed not to hear the growl from the audience too. Not especially loud, as generally befits this style of guitar, but it definitely held its own when I played it unamplified for a pre-Christmas concert alongside a dread, a keyboard, a flute and some recorders. I was probably furthest from the audience, but my wife said the guitar sounded good, and from where I was I could definitely hear the SJ's unique tone in the mix as it echoed back to me (the thumping bass certainly added something positive without overpowering the low end, and the mids just glued everything together).

 

Literally no other Gibsons around here to compare it with, and while I was back in the UK in the summer I was always on a tight schedule and only had time to glance at the J45s on the wall of PMT in Norwich, not to play them. So I can't really say a great deal about how contemporary J45 Standards sound other than on the basis of samples encountered on the internet. But when I was shopping for my Woody, Gibson also told me that aside from externals, the current 45 is the same thing. This being so, I am pretty confident that there must be 45s out there which are every bit as good as my Woody. And there are videos out there which would appear to corroborate this theory - notably one of Robi Johns playing a 45 at Sweetwater Sound on Youtube, where he gets the growl and the rough classical sound out of it.

 

There is something slightly reassuring about having a marginally dulled finish on the Woody, though. It feels like a player's instrument and not a collector's. Perhaps you can justify the purchase on the grounds that you need a real workhorse to take to gigs while your 45 stays at home. I baby mine, because I can't afford another, but the finish encourages me to play it and to take it out. I have always wanted a Gibson headstock with plain gold lettering rather than MOP, and I really rather like the banner logo too. I like dots and parallelograms equally, and feel similarly about Gibson mock-tortoise and firestripe guards, but there is something really special about the combination of banner and script, parallelograms, firestripe guard and unbound fingerboard. It's somehow classy and tricked out, but relaxed and down-home as well. In that respect it captures the visual style of the original banners very nicely.

 

It's apparently not really very true to the SJ that Guthrie was photographed with at all, though, as that is reckoned to have a rosewood back and sides, and contemporary necks are nowhere near as thick as the 1940s ones. As they say, just a Standard J45 done up differently. But what is remarkable is that all of the Woody Guthrie owners on this forum are very satisfied, and most non-owners who have played a Woody are extremely positive about the experience. The model seems to have a very good hit rate for some reason. Reports on the 45 seem to be a touch less consistent.

 

And as PM pointed out, it tends to be priced cheaper than a Standard 45 in Europe.

 

In Europe you don't seem to get the Machine Kills Fascists sign, though. I'd rather hoped for one, but didn't get one, and I don't think PM got one either. I had inferred that said item was only included with a limited early run of Woodies from about 10 years ago which were marketed as Custom Shop instruments or some such. I will make my own at some point...

 

BTW, I'm not surprised that the Woody blew the 45 Custom away when you compared them, as they are very different guitars. The Custom has a rosewood back like Guthrie's SJ, so necessarily sounds different, and doesn't do the classic mahogany 45/SJ thing. There are members here who swear by the rosewood 45 thing, and I am sure that the Custom delivers it in spades. But if the mahogany growl is your cup of tea, then you are bound to love the Woody over the Custom. Is your 45 a Standard?

[retrorod]

Thank you, Father, I feel redeemed.....

Not so quick.... Young Man......You must say 10 Our Fathers and 10 Hail Mary's in rapid succession and ask the sweet Lord for forgiveness 40 times....before....you.....are ....completely....absolv..... from......si/

 

Oh yeah, you get the idea!

 

Brings Back Mammaries....

[Joe M]

Is your 45 a Standard?

 

My J45 is a standard and that's my biggest problem. I'm not sure there would be that much difference in sound between the Guthrie and my J45 to justify having them both.

 

 

Decisions, decisions.....

[ParlourMan]

There was no "This machine kills fascists" label with mine either and like you, I was told these were only included in the earliest run of these, to be fair I wouldn't have put it on the guitar anyway.

 

Interesting you note the favourable comparison with the J-45, perhaps it's just the fact that J-45 is fairly ubiquitous in Gibson acoustic terms, but still a true point, of all the players I've let have a go on the Woody model, the response has been resoundingly positive, from the verbose to the gutted, I've seen a couple of people who thought their own guitar was ace admit it was a fabulous piece and even a Gibson nay-sayer admit it was the 'best acoustic he had played'.

 

As I said before, it's the one I would replace in a heartbeat, but as my main gigging guitar it has picked up some scars in the last year.

[Mojorule]

There was no "This machine kills fascists" label with mine either and like you, I was told these were only included in the earliest run of these, to be fair I wouldn't have put it on the guitar anyway.

 

Interesting you note the favourable comparison with the J-45, perhaps it's just the fact that J-45 is fairly ubiquitous in Gibson acoustic terms, but still a true point, of all the players I've let have a go on the Woody model, the response has been resoundingly positive, from the verbose to the gutted, I've seen a couple of people who thought their own guitar was ace admit it was a fabulous piece and even a Gibson nay-sayer admit it was the 'best acoustic he had played'.

 

As I said before, it's the one I would replace in a heartbeat, but as my main gigging guitar it has picked up some scars in the last year.

 

Nah, I wouldn't have put the sticker on either, but it would make a nice prop-up for gigs. Can't argue with positive response from fellow players. My friend who tried it out didn't really get the point - but it would be the first quality acoustic he's played, and I don't think he's really that keen on guitars tonally, more on learning songs. Not many expensive guitars around here (one Furch in town that I know of, a few Strats and SGs, all of which appear occasionally in the hands of gigging musicians), so ears are not really attuned.

[Mojorule]

My J45 is a standard and that's my biggest problem. I'm not sure there would be that much difference in sound between the Guthrie and my J45 to justify having them both.

 

 

Decisions, decisions.....

 

Maybe you need to give the 45 more playing time before you jump. It might need more attention to open up.

[ParlourMan]

Dressed up, dressed down, dressed up.... dressed down... it's always nice to have options..... ;)

[Yggdrasil]

The Custom has a rosewood back like Guthrie's SJ, so necessarily sounds different, and doesn't do the classic mahogany 45/SJ thing.

 

Did you mean to write:

 

"The Custom has a rosewood back unlike Guthrie's SJ" ?

[ParlourMan]

Did you mean to write:

 

"The Custom has a rosewood back unlike Guthrie's SJ" ?

 

No I think he meant that the Custom has RW back & sides like Woody Guthrie's actual SJ from all those years ago, but unlike the Woody Guthrie sig model as sold by Gibson currently.

[Mojorule]

No I think he meant that the Custom has RW back & sides like Woody Guthrie's actual SJ from all those years ago, but unlike the Woody Guthrie sig model as sold by Gibson currently.

 

Bingo! (Ask JT...)

[Yggdrasil]

Bingo! (Ask JT...)

 

Interesting, I didn't know that, but then I haven't paid a lot of attention to this particular SJ reissue model.

 

I know there's lots of debate over whether Gibson true vintages are replicas or amalgams or whether there is even one consistent set of characteristics that would define a reissue of a vintage model, but it seems to me that Gibson strikes a new low in this regard vis a vis this line from the Gibson Woody Guthrie Reissue page :

 

"Gibson proudly presents the Woody Guthrie SJ acoustic guitar—a painstaking and faithful recreation of Woody’s beloved 1945 Southern Jumbo. The idea was conceived in 2002 when his son Arlo—a folk legend in his own right—visited the builders at Gibson Acoustic in Montana. That visit resulted in the eventual replication of his favorite guitar right down to an aged-like vintage replica finish."

 

(Doubtless this has been discussed on this forum prior to this!)

[ataylor]

I've never played one of these -- in fact, I don't think I've ever even seen one out in the wild. And they're pretty hard to come by online too.

 

I really like the appointments on these -- kind of everything I like about all the Gibson slope shoulders all in one guitar. If I didn't already have a spruce/mahogany slope shoulder on the way, I'd give this one some serious consideration... if I knew where to find one! :)

[Red 333]

No I think he meant that the Custom has RW back & sides like Woody Guthrie's actual SJ from all those years ago, but unlike the Woody Guthrie sig model as sold by Gibson currently.

 

The AJ Pro looks like a rosewood Woody SJ, but it's long-scale. It's an interesting option.

 

Red 333

[Mojorule]

Interesting, I didn't know that, but then I haven't paid a lot of attention to this particular SJ reissue model.

 

I know there's lots of debate over whether Gibson true vintages are replicas or amalgams or whether there is even one consistent set of characteristics that would define a reissue of a vintage model, but it seems to me that Gibson strikes a new low in this regard vis a vis this line from the Gibson Woody Guthrie Reissue page :

 

"Gibson proudly presents the Woody Guthrie SJ acoustic guitar—a painstaking and faithful recreation of Woody’s beloved 1945 Southern Jumbo. The idea was conceived in 2002 when his son Arlo—a folk legend in his own right—visited the builders at Gibson Acoustic in Montana. That visit resulted in the eventual replication of his favorite guitar right down to an aged-like vintage replica finish."

 

(Doubtless this has been discussed on this forum prior to this!)

 

It hasn't really been discussed, it's just something that JT pointed out to me a while back. I got the impression that the subject will be touched on in his book when it comes out. For all I know, it may be that the guitar that Arlo Guthrie took in to Gibson was indeed his dad's beloved 1945 SJ, but that said guitar was not the one that Woody is usually pictured with. Or it may well be that the old marketing hokum is at play here just as you say. I personally find it hard to believe that any 1945 SJ would have the current vintage V neck profile which I happen to love, since baseball bats were the norm then, and even the necks with trussrods are supposed to be much thicker than the contemporary ones. I also find it hard to believe that a 1945 SJ would have exactly the same build specs as a 2011 Standard J45. But then no Woody owners really seem bothered - myself included.

 

I haven't met anybody who bought the model primarily because of the artist association, despite a healthy respect for the man among most of us. Nor have I encountered anybody who really expected to get a J45 Legend on the cheap. Most Woody owners seem to have picked one up in a shop and loved the feel and sound, or like me done a lot of research including reading the reviews of other owners who had such an encounter. Most of us agree that it sounds great and true to the SJ/45 tonal heritage, feels great even if nothing like a real banner-era SJ, and looks the business if not 100% period correct. Everybody is impressed at the value for money. In that respect I find it truer to the Guthrie ethos than a perfect copy of his own guitar would be. But yes, the marketing blurb doesn't exactly add up.

[Mojorule]

The AJ Pro looks like a rosewood Woody SJ, but it's long-scale. It's an interesting option.

 

Red 333

 

Yes it is. Short-scale would be even more interesting... Cheaper than the 45 Custom I guess.

[ParlourMan]

It hasn't really been discussed, it's just something that JT pointed out to me a while back. I got the impression that the subject will be touched on in his book when it comes out. For all I know, it may be that the guitar that Arlo Guthrie took in to Gibson was indeed his dad's beloved 1945 SJ, but that said guitar was not the one that Woody is usually pictured with. Or it may well be that the old marketing hokum is at play here just as you say. I personally find it hard to believe that any 1945 SJ would have the current vintage V neck profile which I happen to love, since baseball bats were the norm then, and even the necks with trussrods are supposed to be much thicker than the contemporary ones. I also find it hard to believe that a 1945 SJ would have exactly the same build specs as a 2011 Standard J45. But then no Woody owners really seem bothered - myself included.

 

I haven't met anybody who bought the model primarily because of the artist association, despite a healthy respect for the man among most of us. Nor have I encountered anybody who really expected to get a J45 Legend on the cheap. Most Woody owners seem to have picked one up in a shop and loved the feel and sound, or like me done a lot of research including reading the reviews of other owners who had such an encounter. Most of us agree that it sounds great and true to the SJ/45 tonal heritage, feels great even if nothing like a real banner-era SJ, and looks the business if not 100% period correct. Everybody is impressed at the value for money. In that respect I find it truer to the Guthrie ethos than a perfect copy of his own guitar would be. But yes, the marketing blurb doesn't exactly add up.

 

I bought mine because....

 

They had no J-45's in stock and weren't expecting any for about 10 weeks...

I wanted to have the guitar before that, as I needed a giggable dread... previous gigging guitar was sold.

I like the inlays better than the dots, to my taste it's the most elegant looking inlays Gibson do.

The stuff I could find online was all very positive.

The dealer I use has a great 'no quibble' policy for returns should I have disliked it.

I also liked the VOS finishes I'd seen and I liked the muted hue of the guitar over some 'yellowish' J-45's I'd seen...

It was even cheaper than a J-45.

It had all the expensive appointments in a wallet friendly collection, banner, tuners, burst...

 

So I took the leap... Despite it being an artist model (not normally a fan) Thrilled to bits.

 

* On a side note, my Keb Mo model, I had no idea who Keb Mo was, or if it was a place or some famous delta name. I just wanted a 12-fretter BluesKing with a bit more beef on the neck.

[jt]

Interesting, I didn't know that, but then I haven't paid a lot of attention to this particular SJ reissue model.

 

I know there's lots of debate over whether Gibson true vintages are replicas or amalgams or whether there is even one consistent set of characteristics that would define a reissue of a vintage model, but it seems to me that Gibson strikes a new low in this regard vis a vis this line from the Gibson Woody Guthrie Reissue page :

 

"Gibson proudly presents the Woody Guthrie SJ acoustic guitar—a painstaking and faithful recreation of Woody’s beloved 1945 Southern Jumbo. The idea was conceived in 2002 when his son Arlo—a folk legend in his own right—visited the builders at Gibson Acoustic in Montana. That visit resulted in the eventual replication of his favorite guitar right down to an aged-like vintage replica finish."

 

(Doubtless this has been discussed on this forum prior to this!)

 

That text is amusing. Though Woody's guitar has been lost to history, the existing photos reveal it to be a rosewood model ( well, at least the sides; I don't know of a good photo of the back. There is at least 1 vintage SJ with rosewood sides and a mahogany back). The guitar was a 1943 SJ, not a 1945 model. It always amazes me that Gibson can be so wrong about the details of its own guitars.

 

On the subject at hand, I'd love to play one of the reissues.

 

As for the difference in sound between vintage mahogany and rosewood SJs, I offer this:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb-mGfC-vfI&sns=em

[Hogeye]

That text is amusing. Though Woody's guitar has been lost to history, the existing photos reveal it to be a rosewood model ( well, at least the sides; I don't know of a good photo of the back. There is at least 1 vintage SJ with rosewood sides and a mahogany back). The guitar was a 1943 SJ, not a 1945 model. It always amazes me that Gibson can be so wrong about the details of its own guitars.

 

On the subject at hand, I'd love to play one of the reissues.

 

As for the difference in sound between vintage mahogany and rosewood SJs, I offer this:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb-mGfC-vfI&sns=em

I don't know very much about what Woody played but I will tell you this. Arlo came to Bozeman to play a concert. He contacted the plant and they gave him a tour. He told the story of his small 'Arlo" guitar and how he still had the thing and would Gibson fix it? Ren said he would. The guitar came out great. Arlo came to Bozeman and played a concert for the folks at Gibson and he brought a guitar that he said was his dad's. Ren did some work on it and they talked and Gibson got to do a reissue of what Arlo said was his father's guitar and they did a recreation of his 3/4 guitar as well. They were marketed as a set. I was at the plant when both guitars were there and I asked and was allowed to play them both. The guitar Arlo brought was copied exactly. And yes he did say it was his fathers. Who knows?

 

I knew Arlo back in the day when he went to college at Rocky Mountain College in Billings Montana. This was in the early 60's. We chatted when he did his private concert for the Gibson employees. He played a wonderful room in an old railroad station just south of Bozeman. Gallatin Gateway Inn. It was a wonderful night and Arlo was kind enough to say he remembered me from the Billings days. He didn't. He was just being generous. I doubt he remembered much of that time period at all. Ren presented Arlo with a great J-200 and Arlo played "Alice's Resturant" for the Gibson folks. It was a very special moment.

[pinkphiloyd]

Chiming in for no reason. The Woody Guthrie SJ is the Gibson model I own. I had played J45's and they seemed good but somewhat inconsistent. Also, I preferred the visual enhancements of a Southern Jumbo, and had lusted after one for years, largely just because of the vibe. It was all to easy to picture Ryan Adams, my favorite artist, strumming "in my time of need on an SJ. Anyway, I found a guy on an acoustic guitar forum with a Woody for sale at a price I couldn't say no to. I got a HELL of a deal. It arrived in immaculate condition. The case and guitar smelled like Carmex. And it was love at first strum. Rapidly rose to position as my favorite guitar and remains there still. I've had it about, I don't know, 8 months or so.

[ParlourMan]

My woody model is actually away back to the retailer, bit of a creaking top issue at the minute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaC07RCesyE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

Love this guitar, my most played guitar since I've owned it. Hoping to have it back creak free soon ;)