What The Huh? JJ Switches To Gretsch?

[sonofa_lembic]

When did Jimmy Johnson switch over to playing a Gretsch?http://club.alembic.com/Smileys/default/grin.gif

Just kidding!  Don't be mad Jimmy.

[JimmyJ]

Hey, I dig his style!  Ha! 

I remember playing a Gretch once which (I think) had a long peg which pulled straight out of the bottom of the body so you could play it in a vertical "stand-up" position?  Or did I dream that?  All I remember is it felt HUGE.  More like an upright than an electric bass.  Which of course was what those early manufacturers were trying to do in the first place.  Wouldn't they be surprised to see how their inventions have evolved?

Jimmy J

[peoplechipper]

WHITE FALCON BASS?! when did they start making those? I want...Tony.

[gearhed289]

Also available as a 12 string!

[ed_zeppelin]

Hey, I dig his style!  Ha! 


I remember playing a Gretch once which (I think) had a long peg which pulled straight out of the bottom of the body so you could play it in a vertical "stand-up" position?  Or did I dream that?  All I remember is it felt HUGE.  More like an upright than an electric bass.  Which of course was what those early manufacturers were trying to do in the first place.  Wouldn't they be surprised to see how their inventions have evolved?


Jimmy J

You played a Gretsch 6070 (one pickup) or 6072 (two) "Country Gentleman" hollowbody bass, which Gretsch made between 1962 and 1972. Only the earliest ones ('62-'63) had the extendable endpin.







From [size=78%]http://www.vintageguitarandbass.com/gretsch/bass/6070.php[/size]


"...The 6070 was a high-quality bass, with a single Filter’Tron bass pickup placed near the bridge, 2” body depth, upper-bout three-position tone switch, lower-bout mute switch, bound f holes, dual finger rests, four-string Space Control bridge and “G” cutout tailpiece, built-in string mute, gold hardware, padded back and a massive maple neck with a rather large headstock with two tuners per side. It was available in an amber red finish and had an extendable endpin that allowed the instrument to be played like an upright bass. 1964 revisions included a Super’Tron bass pickup, sunburst finish and removal of the endpin. ..."


Here's John Entwistle playing his Gretsch 6070 with the Who in 1965, on the TV show "Ready, Steady, Go!" (Named for the Scottish version of foreplay, I think)


http://youtu.be/mXU0GvtOTH0


From the same show, Entwistle using an insanely rare Danelectro "Basslin" (not to be confused with the "Longhorn bass") to make sounds like someone jumping up and down on a flatulent wallaby. (He used a Fender P-bass for the "Live At Leeds" version we all know so well.)


http://youtu.be/TSJ6gt0dgWM









Peter Tork of the Monkees used the short-scale (29") Gretsch 6073 bass, above right. He only appeared with it - unplugged - in the pilot episode, filmed in 1965. (The f-holes were painted on, by the way). In fact, he never played bass on any releases, though he was a monster guitarist who played regularly with Jimi Hendrix and Stephen Stills (who also auditioned for the role Tork landed).







As for the Gretsch White Falcon bass, they are a recent development from Gretsch's "Professional" line, which debuted in 2003.


From: [/size][size=78%]http://www.guitarhq.com/gretsch.html[/size]


"... [/size]The original Gretsch company based in Brooklyn, New York went out of business in 1981. Fred Gretsch III re-acquired the Gretsch name in the mid-1980's from Baldwin (which ran the brand into the ground and went out of business and stopped production by 1981). Then around 1990 Gretsch restarted production of Gretsch guitars in contract with Terada in Japan for the manufacturing for the Professional Series guitars. But Terada is just a factory-for-hire, and has no equity in Gretsch. Other guitar plants in Korea were contracted to build entry-level Gretsch lines (Historic, Electromatic, Synchromatic). In 2003, Mr. Gretsch contracted with Fender Musical Instrument Corporation (FMIC) to oversee manufacturing and marketing. FMIC has continued the relationship with Terada, and began a Gretsch Custom Shop in the US.[size=78%][/color][/size] ..."[/color]
[/size][/color]
[/size]I don't know if Terada still makes the White Falcon bass, but Terada is one of the finest instrument makers in the world. In fact, they manufactured the only Martin guitar ever made outside of the United States.

[JimmyJ]

Forest, you are an encyclopedia!  Good stuff.  I do believe it was a "Country Gentleman" that I played (I didn't dream it after all) but I wasn't enough of a cowboy to operate the thing as it was a beast.  Found the pic below with endpin extended. 


I love all the ad-man speak: Filter'Tron, SpaceControl, Super'Tron.  Hilarious.

And early last year DW - the drum company - bought several companies from Fender including Gretch drums (the reason for their acquisition) and Ovation guitars.  I don't know if they also own the guitar side of Gretch, but the DW guys are good guys so I kinda hope so.

Thanks for the info.
Jimmy J

[cozmik_cowboy]

Well I'll be dadgumed (not to be confused with DADGADed).  I was always under the impression the Nesmith was the only one who could play when they started.

Peter

[wfmandmusic]

The evolution continues. I have one of these and actually really like it. I'll be using it on a gig this week. I love this guys playing.

[wfmandmusic]

A Day In the Life

Sorry for the hijack....

[ed_zeppelin]

Forest, you are an encyclopedia!  Good stuff.  I do believe it was a "Country Gentleman" that I played (I didn't dream it after all) but I wasn't enough of a cowboy to operate the thing as it was a beast.  Found the pic below with endpin extended. 


Thanks for the info.
Jimmy J

Besides the endpin, there are a couple of clues that it was intended as a reasonably close approximation of an upright bass sound in a smaller package. The button near the tailpiece (with a red felt "washer") was the end of a pivoting armature that engaged the mute, visible between the bridge and pickup.

The location of the neck heel indicates a massive neck block extending from the body up the neck, similar to upright bass construction, unlike "semi-hollow" basses of the era which had a central neck block running through the body. Compare the heel position on that Gretsch bass with the 1966 Guild Starfire semi-hollow bass:




That and the fugly National-esque headstock prove they were "ghost-built" for Gretsch by Valco, like the majority of Gretsch archtops from 1957-68.

[keith_h]

Jimmy,
Like the pic you found with the snap on back pad. I have one on my old Vox Mk IV. While it does provide some padding I always thought it was kind of ironic that part of the pads idea was to protect the back yet you needed to screw the snaps on and damage it anyway.

[JimmyJ]

Yeah Keith, kind of like the slip cover on the nice couch which you never remove?  it was certainly early days in electric bass development.  I would think the snap on pad would also do away with any body resonance.  But that may have been the idea, along with the felt mute, as they were still trying to emulate an upright.

[gtrguy]

One of The Monkees (Tork?) lent David Crosby the $$$ to buy his sailboat, the Mayan. It's an interesting boat with an interesting past.

http://schoonermayan.blogspot.com/2014/05/mayans-history-crosby-years.html

[cozmik_cowboy]

"I would think the snap on pad would also do away with any body resonance.  But that may have been the idea, along with the felt mute, as they were still trying to emulate an upright."

Except they put the pads, and (IIRC) the mutes on guitars, too.

Peter (who's been trying to understand this one for decades now - to no avail)

[ed_zeppelin]

Okay. I've got a bit of a dilemma and I just realized this is the perfect place for it. I want to talk about pickups and I barely know what the hell I'm talking about, and I know there are wizards here who do.


Just to get directly at the issue in a purely aural manner, please listen to this, in particular to the sound of the pickup itself. Your careful consideration is is appreciated.


Then listen to this.


Same pickup: the original Gretsch Filtertron.


But I didn't know it until about an hour ago, when I happened upon the story of Pete Townsend's Gretsch 6120, which he used on every track of "Who's Next" and every album thereafter. "Tommy." "Quadrophenia." Etc.


Part of the confusion is that he used it to record the songs but seldom used it live - especially after he smashed it to smithereens on live TV ("I accidentally trod on it," he says, with photographic proof that his definition of "trod" is; "smacked that baby into the stage like a railroad spike") and then had it painstakingly restored. Must be nice, huh?



This has me baffled. One minute minute I'm listening to Chet's pristine dulcet tones and the next I'm confronted with the fact that I've been listening to the exact same pickups for a half-century and didn't even know it, and that version sounded like somebody whippin' the strings with a straight-razor or stomping on a box of cornflakes.


What little I do know about Filtertrons comes mostly from Chet's final book; "Me and My Guitars," and the problem there is that I bought the limited edition "CGP" version and it's still sealed in its numbered presentation box, etc., (for the day Pappy needs new shoes, if you follow my drift). I finally read the book when the paperback version came out a few years later, then cheerfully gave it to a friend. Now the paperback version goes for over $350 and I'm ska-rood as far as finding out what Chet had to say about 'em, because like I said from the get-go: I don't know squat about pickups, other than "Sonicus' Dictum: 'Know your flux density.'" (And I don't even know what that means. Know'm sayin'?)


So all this preamble was just to say that I knew that George Harrison, John Lennon, Eddie Cochran and Brian Setzer all used Gretsch guitars because Chet did, period. (They said so.) Townsend did so because Joe Walsh gave him a '58 with the original Filtertrons in it. He plugged it in and the rest is windmilling history.


so what is it about Filtertrons?