WOW... time flies! Life got busy around the store and I haven't been keeping up on the blog very well. Hopefully will have some new entries coming shortly. Till then... CHEERS!

SWEDISH INNOVATION: The Hagstrom Guitar

While many vintage guitar appreciators clamor for big dollar Gibsons and Fenders, there remains a good number of folks interested in the lesser brand names which can be every bit as interesting sounding and easily as much fun to collect. Amongst smaller brands, few have achieved the cult status of Hagstrom, the Swedish guitar innovators who have become famous for the stylish looks and super fast playing necks of their guitars. The Hagstrom company began in the 1920’s as an accordion manufacturer and it wasn’t until 1958 that they began to produce electric and acoustic guitars. Hagstrom guitars put their marketing emphasis on the “H expander rod” which was designed in conjunction with the SAAB aerospace company.

At various times in its history, Hagstrom produced guitars for Kent, Selmer, Hofner, and a number of other distribution and production companies. Hagstrom developed the first ever guitar synthesizer, the Patch 2000 which was sold in the US by Ampeg. Famous luthier James D’Aquisto worked for Hagstrom before moving to the states to work for Martin. D’Aquisto legendarily brought the “best neck in the world” to the states with him and influenced Fender production while working in conjunction with them. The Hagstrom “Jimmy” guitar is named for D’Aquisto.

In addition to their stunning looks, and interesting history, Hagstrom’s are desirable for the simple fact that they play and sound great without costing a mint. While the parts for these guitars can be a little hard to track down, in recent times the increased interest in Hagstrom and the advent of the internet has made finding parts much easier than it once was. Here at Empire we have a Hagstrom Bass I in excellent shape with a charming hippy flower sticker on the vinyl covered body. While the sticker should be easy to remove, we have left that decision up to the future owner of this bass. John Haskin of Haskin's Hagstroms dates it 1966 and adds that it is #20 out of a run of 1000. Price is $495. For more info on Hagstrom’s visit : The Hagstrom UK page

THE FENDER BASS VI AND THE FENDER SURF LEGACY

In the early 1960’s, Leo Fender released a flurry of new products that presented variations on the Jazzmaster guitar. The Jazzmaster was designed to have a mellower tone than the Stratocaster but jazz musicians never took to the guitar. Instead, surf bands such as The Ventures and The Fireballs brought attention to the Jazzmaster which was higher priced and had more tone shaping options than the Telecaster line.

The Fender Jaguar family, to which the Bass VI most rightfully belongs, was designed to update the Jazzmaster design with increased RF shielding and smaller single coil pickups. The scale was shortened to 24 inches and the Jaguar become the first Fender guitar to have 22 frets. The electronics where upgraded with a more complex lead circuit containing three switches on the lower bout: two on/off switches for the neck and bridge pickups and the third a high pass filter which gives the guitar a unique treble sound that fit perfectly in the tonal palette of surf music.

The same lower bout electronics scheme was used in the Bass VI which was released in 1961, one year before the Jaguar guitar. The Bass VI was a six string variation of a baritone guitar tuned to E-A-D-G-B-E and was designed to compete with the Danelectro six string bass that had found popularity amongst musicians following the “Nashville Sound” legacy. With a smaller string gauge than the Precision Bass and a string spacing more similar to a guitar, the Bass VI functioned well as a lead instrument. Sadly, few bass players took leads at the time or the Bass VI may well have gained the fame of some of its renowned Fender cousins. Along with the Jaguar and Jazzmaster, the Bass VI was discontinued in 1975.

The Bass VI is not completely with out rock glory though. Most famously, Jack Bruce of Cream and John Entwistle of The Who were wielders of this strange baritone instrument. A Bass VI can also be seen on the Beatles' videos for “Hey Jude” and “Let it Be” played by George and John respectively. In the now legendary rock spoof “Spinal Tap,” Nigel‘s “extremely special” guitar which he implores Rob Reiner not to touch is a foam green Bass VI. Fender Japan reissued the Bass VI in limited quantities from 1996 to 1999 and an American custom shop reissue was done as a limited run in 2006. Even the reissues are difficult to come by and we are very happy to have one of the MIJ Reissues in the store. Price is $1900. For more info on the Jazzmaster/Jaguar/Bass VI line visit The Jaguar and Jazzmaster Page.

HOLLERIN' AND MOANIN':
Equipment for the Overdriven Blues



Chicago by way of Mississippi blues artist Howlin Wolf was known for the ferocious power of his voice combined with a harmonica and guitar sound every bit as raw and assertive. At an imposing 6’3 and wearing size 16 shoes, Howlin Wolf (born Chester Arthur Burnett) had a now legendary stage presence as he wailed and moaned above the relatively new sound of amplified guitars. Wolf’s first commercial success came in 1952 with two tunes recorded by Sam Philips of Sun Studio who legendarily introduced Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis to the world. “Moaning at Midnight” and “How Many More Years” made it into the top 10 on the Billboard R&B charts and led Wolf to an extended career as a recording artist for Chess Records. Howlin Wolf is credited as one of a handful of musicians who helped to develop the urban blues sound Chicago has become famous for. Sound samples are available in .ogg format at the Howlin Wolf Wikipedia page. For those unable to play .ogg files, a much shorter sample loads automatically when you visit www.howlinwolf.com.

So how exactly is that raw musical guitar tone achieved? In modern times, people spend big bucks buying tube pedals and modern high gain amplifiers in an attempt to emulate a sound garnered from pushing simple inexpensive tube amplifiers far past the level the amp engineers of the day ever imagined. This was a sound born out of necessity as much as creativity. Most early electric guitarists needed gear that was easily portable (e.g. small suitcase sized tube amps) but still had to get over a full band that often contained a drummer and a horn section. Turning the amp to ten resulted in a saturated sustaining sound that shared some sonic similarities with a saxophone. Working with this tone on a nightly basis, musicians were quick to adapt the sound as a part of their style and to expand their technique repertoire to more fully utilize the distorted tone.

One of our favorite “old timey distortion” gear combinations amongst the Empire stock is a Harmony Stratotone with flat wound strings played through a late 60’s Gretsch 6151. At ten, the tone is near identical to many a Howlin Wolf record and is unlike any sound modern technology has managed to create. The Stratotone was Harmony’s response to the development of Leo Fender’s Stratocaster which was taking the guitar market by storm. Of course, the Stratotone is nothing like a Fender Strat. The Harmony model has a gigantic baseball bat neck with reinforced steel, hollow body, concentric colored volume knobs and a groovy atomic eighth note logo on the headstock. The original 1962 catalog description reads:

“Stratotone "Mars" cutaway model double pickup
Provides outstanding value in its price class. Hollow "tone chamber" construction. Ebonized maple fingerboard. Straight-line hardwood neck with built-in steel reinforcing rod. Finely finished in warm sunburst effect showing the grain of the wood. White celluloid bindings. Adjustable bridge. Hinged tailpiece.
Twin built-in pickups, each with tone and volume control. 3 position selector switch permits playing forward pickup for rhythm - bridge pickup for take-off or solo - or both pickups at once, for maximum tone variation. $85.00. Carrying case, $10.00.”

The Gretsch 6151 features a 10” Jensen Special Design brown speaker, an RCA 6v6GT tube, an RCA 5Y3CT and two RCA 12AX7 tubes in the preamp section. The amp has two inputs labeled standard and treble and a foot switch controlled tremolo (sadly we do not have the footswitch but the trem can be engaged manually without it). Controls are Tone, Volume and Tremolo Speed.

The Dual pickup Stratotone is priced at $695 and the Gretsch amp at $495. I should mention we have a good number of other Stratotone guitars with the Harmony, Airline, Holiday and Silvertone brand markings. For more info on Harmony guitars visit The Harmony Database. For more on Gretsch amps try the Gretsch Pages Amp Section. Happy playing!

TRANSITION PERIOD AMPS... ALL THE TONE WITHOUT THE PRICE TAG

The Fender Amp Field guide marks January of 1965 as the month Leo Fender sold his company Fender Electric Instruments Co to CBS who renamed the company Fender Musical Instruments. The changes made to Fender products are decidedly for the worse and pre-CBS construction methods have become a prime factor in the desirability of vintage Fender amps. The good news for the player lies in the fact that CBS was slow to modify the production of most of the Fender line and so a transition period occurs where amps with the new "silver face" cosmetics still retained the old "black face circuits" (black vs. silver face refers to the color of the control face plate, pre-CBS amps had black face plates, CBS used silver face plates until returning to black plates in the 1980's). Then end result is the ability, with a little knowledge, to find an original black face circuit without paying the collectors price for black face cosmetics. While many amp techs can convert 70's silver face amps back to black face specs, there is some argument over the desirability of a rebuilt circuit versus an all original circuit.

For the Super Reverb, 1967-1969 marks the transition period in manufacture and can be identified by an aluminum frame forming a border around the grill cloth. Some of these amps contain the old black face circuit while others do not. Opening up the amp makes it relatively simple to tell which circuit is present. The most immediate change CBS made was the addition of large ceramic resistors on the capacitors. If there are no large resistors, the tube chart is marked AB763 and the amp was produced in 1967-1968 then you more than likely have a black face circuit.

This is the case with the 1968 Super Reverb we have for sale here at Empire Guitars. Clean and loud all the way up, this amp pushes plenty of air from 4x10" speakers. Great sounding reverb and tremolo are engaged by the original footswitch. Comes with gliding wheels and 19" tilt back legs. $1500