Gerry Garcia's Alembic Guitar No:1

[jazzyvee]

[dela217]

That's John Dawson's guitar!  If I'm not mistaken, that one has no serial number and was made in 1974.

[edwardofhuncote]

Yeah, that's a pretty cool old guitar. I started a Showcase thread for it last year in hopes more info might surface and have a landing site.


https://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=26299.0


I don't think he's quite right about about the details this one... I'm not surprised that Jerry played it sometime along the way, but that was Marmaduke Dawson's guitar. Chronologically... I don't know where it was on the timeline... a lot of it looks '74-ish. Maybe it's one of those things where it was begun in '71 or '72, and completed in '74. (?)  It's early work, and for all I ever heard not many hard and fast rules apply, just clues.


Sure is great to see it's still out there making music.

[rv_bass]

Appears to be owned by “madscientistofsound” on Instagram, who lets a lot of people play it and keeps the music flowing through it, which is great!  Photos on that site show some modifications overtime.  Cool guitar! 

[lbpesq]

The claim that this is “Alembic No. 1” in inaccurate.  No. 1 was Jack Cassidy’s bass.   I’ve always loved Marmaduke’s axe.  I agree it looks ‘74ish.  It’s too far along the evolution of Alembic design to be a ‘72.

Bill, tgo

[lembic76450]

There is an NRPS from 12.15.73 of Glendale Train with Marmaduke and what appears to be
this guitar on youtube.  The video is rather poor quality and in B&W, but, at 3.22 is a good look at it.
After the 5 min. mark are a couple more full frontal shots.
Oh, and a nice Jerry Tele solo to boot.

[rv_bass]

Here’s a couple photos by photographer Mark Friedman I found online with John Dawson playing it

[rv_bass]

…

[edwardofhuncote]

Nice pictures Rob! Drop these on the Showcase thread sometime?

[rv_bass]

Nice pictures Rob! Drop these on the Showcase thread sometime?

All set.


https://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=26299.0

[edwardofhuncote]

There is an NRPS from 12.15.73 of Glendale Train with Marmaduke and what appears to be
this guitar on youtube...

That's it for sure. I loved that Glendale Train too!


So that puts his guitar at least sometime in '73.


Also supporting that; in the older pictures Rob posted, you can clearly see there is a brass plate between the pickups; this would have been where the batteries went in an early instrument, and the humcanceller was glued inside. That feature went away at some point in '74, and battery boxes were located in the center of the back, like were used to. In later pictures, we can see the humcanceller has been epoxied (?) in place between the pickups. Dawson must have used the batteries often... note how he has a 1/4" cable connected in almost every shot? Wonder if it was wired mono so both pickups were heard?


Look at that cool handcut logo on brass, screwed right to the front of the headstock! How'd they do that?