The '70s
1972 Fender Coronado
In the three and a half years since the Alvarez a lot had happened. I was studying guitar with a Jazz guitarist named Dale Bruning and wanted a proper jazz guitar of my own. The Coronado was a thin archtop with a single pickup and that was close enough. A wiring problem that I now recognize as minor interfered with my enjoyment of this little blue beauty and the dealer swapped me out of it. Big mistake! The Fender had a great neck and sounded good. I should have given this one another chance.
1972 Gretsch Streamliner Model
The Fender was swapped for this Streamliner, 6102, apparently a leftover ’71 model. I thought things would be rosy, after all Chet played a Gretsch, they must be great guitars. I don’t know that this Streamliner was a bad guitar, just a bad choice for me. It did fairly well at a Chet Atkins sound but I wanted the sound of a jazz archtop and this didn’t have that sort of character. Guitar playing soon become a second-best activity. There’s a good lesson here, brand name means nothing if you don’t like the guitar. I should have lost this guitar in a hurry but instead I kept it for three years and my playing suffered as a result.
1975 Gibson ES 340
This little-known cousin of the ES-335 had a phase switch and used a knob to blend the mix between the bridge and neck pickups. This guitar was probably built in the late ‘60s or perhaps the early ‘70s. The original owner had sent it off for a high quality refinish replacing the walnut finish with solid black. A Bigsby vibrato tailpiece completed the ensemble. It was an improvement on the Gretsch but still not a real jazz guitar.
1977 Gibson Johnny Smith Model
In late 1976 I discovered LaVonne’s music, then located in Burnsville, MN. They allowed me to browse through a closet filled with new Gibson archtops, still in their boxes and I unpacked a wine red Johnny Smith. I had always wanted an archtop with a suspended pickup and this was it. In April of ’77 I took it home. A beautiful instrument with ornate trim it was the most expensive guitar I ever had owned.
Unfortunately, the J.S. had some problems from an early age. At about eight months a crack showed up centered upon the screw on the upper-end of the pickguard. A repair under warranty left me with a somewhat sonically challenged guitar. Eventually, on a visit to Colorado I showed it to Johnny Smith who did a setup on the spot. When he finished the sound was indiscernible from that of his own J.S. I was pleased.
Some time later the Johnny Smith developed another crack in the same place. A friend who was a Denver Gibson dealer helped me to get Gibson to accept responsibility for the repair, given the history of this crack. In a few months I had my J.S. back with a new improved top and a new un-improved sound. It had lost its resonance and my heart left soon thereafter. This guitar had many good qualities but I didn’t have the heart to live through another health crisis. Someone else would have to take over in sickness and in health. I sold it quickly and without remorse.
1978 Les Paul Special 55/77
This adaptation of the Les Paul special was my first solid-body. I was teaching as a part of my living and playing for the rest and this was a great jobbing guitar. The first night I played it on a job I was amazed at the freedom afforded by not needing to fight feedback all of the time. My playing was better than it had ever been that night. I bought a used miniature humbucking pickup from a Les Paul deluxe and installed it in the neck position. By itself it sounded sweeter than my J.S. and when combined with the P-90 pickup in the bridge position a funky out-of-phase sound resulted. It was a great little powerhouse, resplendent in its black-on-black color scheme. I sold it a year later and used the money to pay for flying lessons. My loss, it was a great sounding little axe that I should have kept.
