The Collection: Charlie Starr of Blackberry Smoke

[Music] hey everybody Mark agnesi here for Gibson TV today I'm off the beaten path in way down south in Atlanta Georgia on my way to see my buddy guitarist Charlie star now Charlie first burst onto the scene with his band Blackberry Smoke way back in 2000 and ever since they've been making hit records and touring the world in those travels Charlie's managed to amass one incredible collection of vintage guitars all with one rule in mind every guitar is meant to be played on stage what you're about to see may shock you this is the collection of Charlie star we're here brother Charlie yeah what's up dude good to see you man thanks for having us in the uh House of Blackberry Smoke today yeah thanks for coming you guys made it look a lot better in here I mean it's it's like full on museum mode right now this is great it is don't you want to talk about us here's a bunch of us I know you don't get many days off so I appreciate you spending this one with us to talk about some guitars I mean it's either hang with you and talk about guitars or or do things around the house for my wife think about guitars well let's start at the beginning here because when do you remember as a kid first noticing guitars yeah my dad was a still is a bluegrass guitar player and uh he loved uh d28s and d18s and all and all manner of acoustic guitars he's an acoustic guy and he would come home from work no matter how tired he was he would pick up the guitar and sing songs to me not a lead player either he's just a rhythm guy strumming chords and singing songs it's all about the song with him and uh he would sing Rec of the Old 97 and Blue Moon of Kentucky and all these songs that he loved and I loved just that whole thing like a he's like a oneman band to me and so I was constantly banging around his D28 and he'd be like whoa who who let me get you your own guitar so at six years old he bought me a little a little nylon string cheap guitar yeah I think it was just to see if it was going to stick like we were talking about and it stuck what was the first like real guitar that you had grow up I bought I saved up it's was a few $100 and bought a 1978 SG with the harmonica bridge and yeah yeah horrible now I'm not I'm not poo pooing on all of 1978 but but this one in particular was I wanted it to be great yeah because it was Within Reach and I was able to save up 300 bucks and get it but it just never was great and and I didn't know anything about setups or fret work and I did all the tinkering myself at the time and it just it Fred out at every friend and like I think I had friends that were like what's wrong with your guitar that was my entry to Gibson yeah there how old were you when you got that uh 15 the the SG I actually started playing in in cover bands that would play in bars and then at 17 I found a 1985 pearl white Les Paul Custom with the flip out tuning Keys the total Randy Roads guitar yeah which is funny cuz I'm an Eddie guy when we were kids you had to be an Eddie guy or a Randy guy I was an Eddie guy much better guitar didn't fret out well you bring up Eddie who who were the guys growing up that that you were going after who who who were the big influences when you were young well Eddie was a big one CU I think I was right around 11 years old when 1984 came out and it and it it made such an impression and that quickly turned into the first record for me back to one yeah yeah and uh such an impression that Edie vanen made on all of us kids were just it was a just it like Michael Jordan playing the guitar it was such a hero with that big grin on his face and that great just a great songs but then after that I really got into I think because of my dad I I got into Roots here music and and the blues and my mom loved the stones still does and I would wear out her Hot Rocks cassette so then all of a sudden I wanted Honky Tonk Women I wanted to be able to make that sound and then later m much much later you learn about open G and things like that all the Keith stuff all the Keith stuff there was a band from Atlanta called The Georgia Satellites who keep your hands to yourself obviously it was a obviously the big hit yeah but he made me want a Les Paul Jr and it was not really as much Leslie West as it was Rick Richards Croc case might as well if we're going to get started I have a feeling we're going to see a few of these today protected by alligators but that's cardboard cardboard alligators that's my favorite my spirit animal idea this was but yeah got the form right yeah does the lid stay on probably not no I mean oh but look at that guitar yeah oh baby well I have a feeling this is the first of many what do we got here 55 um this is uh this is the oldest Junior I have U had a 54 for a minute and and um discovered I don't prefer the 54 neck angle this is a really good one it's not terribly light it's a really good sound doesn't bug me but you know what's unique about this guitar for me is stainless steel Frets when we were talking about Frets I've always said no to that question when given the option would you like stainless steel I say hell no why would I want why would I want that and I got this with the stainless steel Frets unbeknownst to me I can't tell the difference really but I didn't I've never played this guitar with nickel fret so I don't know the difference but it sounds damn good and it doesn't bother me and these will last forever so what are what's your beef with the 54s and why why do you like the 55s better you're talking about neck angle and Bridge angle for those who don't know explain that a little bit as far as my opinion um which is worth a penny the 54 neck angle was I guess what you would say as a shallower neck angle not as far not as much tilt yeah back um it just makes a difference in the playability of the guitar to me the the BR it also puts the strings closer to the top of the pickup which my palm will always on that start hearing the chunk chunk on magnets yeah yep some 55s I've seen too this bridge post would almost be touching touches that trouble cover which that gives you a brighter tone across the board because it's the fulcrum there is so close to the pickup yeah that's just me I I've only had one 154 maybe there are others that are fantastic but it was a first year guitar and same thing with first year GL ball gold tops yeah shallow neck angle and and you know by the second year yeah boy they had it got it now dial in by the second year is this a Music City or is this a uh this is Mojo ax Mojo exp I think um most of the Juniors that I take on the road which are all of them have been converted to those the compensated g string as you know um all these guitars were the bridges were designed to have a wound ging w g yeah really a great design from a foot away you would never even tell that there's compensation on there but it really for all the screw counters though all of my bridges and Tuners are in either in the case or in my underwear drawer usually I uh MCH is uh he complains about uh vintage tuners because they're so stiff and there and sometimes there's some slippage yeah which is why on so many player grade Juniors they got grows on them you know where this one came from do you remember uh I think it came from Pennsylvania there's a um a whole population of these guitars in the Heartland yeah that were bought as student model guitars like you said and put under beds and people at that time going to war everything we're looking at today has seen the road right yeah every nothing is too precious to to keep it home no not of mine not original hard case but a proper hard case I'm assuming this one is seen its fair share of road it's yeah and and Freight lers and all sorts of stuff oh there it is 56 at least at least the wood is 56 what else from this is 56 um well nothing even pickup's been changed that pickup I thought that was the original pickup for a lot of the years that I own this guitar fella that was Fring it pulled it out and was cleaning it up and said that's an old Duncan P90 really but this is the one that started at all right this is the first Junior I got it in 1993 uh late 93 early 94 I forget right around that time and um when I got it a Bigby had just come off it yeah um it made its way around tons of players in Atlanta but it was initially Rick Richard's guitar and uh there's a few videos on YouTube that you can see of him playing it at clubs around Atlanta and what did it look like when when Rick had it it was shiny but I'm obviously refin this looks like maybe a couple of times I'm told was refin the guy's name who refinished it here in Atlanta in the late 70s early 80s and it was a it was a tobacco guitar headstock break twice over during your time or before your time before my time you look in the certain light you can see the two graphite studs going yeah going all up the back um but um I put those letters on it was a sort of a tribute to Ernest tub because he would put thanks on the back of his guitar and I spelled y'all wrong and I remember it was before I was sober and I I did it in a dressing room somewhere at a club but I remember I vaguely remember trying to remember where the apostrophe would go and somebody walked into the dressing room right after I did it and was like that ain't right it goes there and I was like oh yeah but it's all too late so that's how you judge your southernness ladies and gentlemen is whether or not you know how to spell y'all correct correctly let me see this thing now not a light guitar either what did it look like when you got it how much of this is you 80% or maybe 85% of that is me so this was this was a black just a fully black guitar when you bought it yeah this is all me it was already starting to come off in spots um a buddy of mine put a sticker of a pinup girl on it at one point without even asking if that was cool and I pulled it off and then took some of that but it was just years of smoky bars and late nights and now has Rick ever contacted you on this guitar trying to get it back from you no he's uh we've spent time talking about it just a couple times been like man I sure would like to have that guitar back but he told me once cuz I asked him did he use it on any of their records and he said I used it on the early recording things that wound up as keep the faith the satellites first EP but he couldn't remember which songs he wound up with TV Juniors that was his favorite thing but he said he never could keep his guitar in tune I've never had a problem but the badass was on there when not this one another one was this is a Repro oh okay um the original one I still got it it's a it's covered in Rust and Barnacles man stories it could tell that's your whole career on this thing well uh in the late 90s Britt Richard and myself were in another band and we made a record with Danny kmer and I had this guitar and I took it to New York to the studio and I pulled it out of the case and it was the only guitar I owned at the time and he laughed and said what is that and I said it's my guitar you know and uh we started to track and he was letting me play through a little Tweed Harvard which I was blown away I'm like this is what this is unheard of and before I could even plug this guitar in he handed me his r really clean TV Junior and said play the play a real guitar you know a real Junior and I played it and it was okay and and I could kind of see him kind of wondering and then he said uh get your guitar and I plugged it in and strum to Gord and he goes you stay on your guitar nice it's got a thing they sometimes they have a thing but this is the this is the desert island it's the best sounding one I have and um it's just something about that piece of wood yeah that's killer dude that's killer when did collecting start becoming a thing for you at what point in your career did the guitar start to a mass not until much later um the first uh well I bought that That Old Black Les Paul Jr at the behest of a good friend who worked at a great music store in downtown Atlanta called Clark music and he decided and that was Rick Richards gu guitar right yeah so our friend Ted leang he he decided I needed that guitar he was right um cuz I bonded with it instantly and I played that as my as really the only vintage guitar that I owned for a lot of years because I was you know scraping up money to make ends meat and then as as we started to as Blackberry Smoke became a thing and and it became our living you know and then that affords you the the ability to go looking after guitars speak you going to buying and trading and is it still like that do you let them go still are you willing to trade off a couple of things to get something else or do you do are are you at that point now in your career where you're trying to hang on to everything and just add new stuff I have way more sellers remorse than buyers remorse I mean but there are some like we were talking I was talking to our mutual friend Keith Nelson he's like I had this really clean guitar that brought me no joy CU cuz we play you know like they don't rarely do they sit in a in a case at home you know under a bed or in a locker I like to take them out you'll see that all these guitars have got you know the original strap buttons are pulled off and they have strap locks use them using take the tuner the tuners off and they're packed up because I need because they need to be able to tune well and uh now one of the things that we have in common is our love of single pickup guitars you probably love them a little more than I do but tell me about why single What Les Paul Junior's Esquires Firebird ones what is it about single pickup guitars that's different I think it's that that black guitar that I bonded with just kind of set up the whole so completely it set up the whole thing Y and and I started to seek out more of that and because they're so they're all so different of all the Juniors I have that it's they're like snowflakes I don't I think there are two that I go oh this sounds just like that one uh but enough of the same Foundation to where the idea is there the feel is there I I caught myself you know then playing two pickup guitars and then I'd be like I don't ever flip to the neck pickup it it forces you to play um to try different things with the volume and tone knob actually engage yeah with the guitar a little more where you strum where you rake the strings how close you are how far you are from the bridge like that every night when we play and I don't know why it makes me smile I'll reach back and like oh now it's and it's just me like entertaining myself like now it sounds like a Telecaster oh look at oh now it doesn't oh what you know it's a it I love it I just can't get enough you know another one of these cardboard cases little little Dusty little dry rot 57 oh yeah that's clean too also kind of heavy kind of heavy yeah maybe there's something to that heavy Junior thing What attracted you to this one um this one uh I got two at the same time Joe Joe B said uh two pairs and a spare no I I got a good deal on on two that were funny the weight on them is completely different the burst completely different this one's a little little pretty little little short with a little more overspray yeah really just a perimeter and the other one that I I didn't bring today but it comes in a lot more it's a lot darker almost black out yeah this is what I think of 57 this is kind of that more of that perimeter burst and look how far away from the pickup that bridge is yeah that's 57 is when it really settled in I feel like they perfected it yeah uh it did not have an original wiring harness in it and it was a Repro a newer Repro that you can buy already soled and wired with new caps and when I would get to the top of the volume knob it did something that I didn't like it did a a really bright like between eight and 10 so I would play it on eight just because I didn't like it 10 yeah and it started to bother me and my OCD took over and I was like why they I can't have this this sucks called a friend and said can you find me a junior Paris and I need a I need a real one and he's like they've gotten expensive now you know they're like $400 and $500 I'm like uh I don't want to pay that and he called me a couple months later and said I just got a wiring harness from a lap steel which is the same damn thing oh the same pod and it's from a 57 it's 57 pots yeah with a Bumblebee and I put it in and it was instantly right it's fun everybody talks about this pickup that pickup like the difference that capacitor and the pots mhm can make to the pickup that's already in there yeah is mindblowing when you hear it it doesn't get talked about I figured that it's because these guitars have so few components everyone is so damn important yeah and you C you have to do 500 250 it can't you know it's with all of these Juniors what makes you pick one over the other in the set are there certain just tones that that lend themselves to different songs or is it the guitar you wrote it on or sometimes it's a guitar Attract it with yeah oh and this is funny um I had just gotten this guitar it's pretty clean yeah I know it's great pretty clean example and we were playing St Louis at the the pageant our friend Richard foris came and he got up and played used to lover with us and the next day I was like what is that and I've never spoken about this to Richard before but Richard I'm proud to know that that you left your left your mark way to go dude yeah good stories killer guitar yeah newer hard case MH but I have a feeling it might be more of this same close oh yeah TV model would have thought a yellow guitar I mean why is so cool why is it so great limed mahogany that's a nice one this one is all original yeah and it's 58 so it's 58 single cut that's laid in that game it doesn't weigh much definitely the lightest one we felt so far and that neck is just awesome refret obviously now these recently have just gone yeah absolutely berserk when did you get this probably about five years ago before pandemic pricing pre pandemic pricing before it went completely nuts um and already then they were more than their tobacco yeah they're alwayss going be more than the the Sunburst ones but I had a a 57 special that I let go and put this one in its place yeah great guitar fantastic guitar yeah where did this come from Keith nson oh this was one Keith's yeah well another guy that knows Juniors yeah and he um and this one it being such the Deep sort of yeah it's it's yellow yeah he called it Mean Mr Mustard yeah sometimes they kind of a very weedy mhm colored sometimes once you get into the 59s and the double Cuts they really good to they're kind of pale this is like that perfect shade of mustard yellow yeah it's just perfect so when do you reach for the TV um I used this on our last album you hear Georgia I played it on a few solos and on our new record played it on a couple songs um I've only had it in the amount of time that we've made those two records but the first time I plugged it in and I I was using in a marshall a 50 wat JMP and it sounded like out to get me that's snarly yeah I didn't even say it I think it was Benji he was like damn that sounds like guns and roses that sounds like out to get me I said that's not a bad thing to sound like yeah doesn't for me is this the only original TV in the collection or are there more yeah this is the only original this one and two refin two refin ones it's just the coolest guitars ever if you don't have a Les Paul Jr I don't like you you you're not our friend you need to go get one then it's not that everyone don't like you we don't trust you yeah if you can't get it done with one pickup you're not going to get it done anyway that's just that's the business right there that's a really great guitar this is SE Road obviously yeah got nice scuffed up case mhm all right what are we oh and we're into the double Cuts 59 keeping it chronological I like that yeah still got some cherry on it yep um Mojo ax again yeah in between light and heavy it seems pretty normal for people who don't understand say still got some cherry on it look at the back yeah and then you look at the front this is where all that UV M has kind of started to make that red start to dissipate to a more brown color obviously the back of the guitar doesn't get it as bad you can still see a much more vibrant cherry color here and right when you get to the side yeah you see the transition flip-flop it's like it's like it's like uh yeah it's like like one of those cool cars with the flip-flop new Cadillac got a good neck that yeah that's a 59 neck right there what makes you go double cut over single cut uh when I want it to hang weird on my body because that just get all when I really want to fight it when I really want it to feel awkward no um I mean I guess there are just so many uh reasons why a guitar would be different uh as far as the tonality but I really think there's something to be said about this this neck joint about where it where it joins the body and it doesn't make it floppy it feels long as a canoe paddle but but if you want to get up there to that note a little easier on the double cut there you go I love this one this is a really really good pickup it's really close to that favorite black one where did this one come from Pennsylvania as well really mhm same same spot same same spot same guy crazy how speaking of neck angle I don't know if you can see how high off the body that that bridge is sitting yeah and it's not leaning forward which is a great ballist thing too because that's another aspect of these guitars they all do that yeah but not this one it's a healthy one and that neck is just awesome yeah yeah personally prefer single cuts to double Cuts but when it's right it's right yeah that just everything about that is right and the round Edge yeah it's a little Sleek I had a good uh a good hard Edge 58 Let It Go need it back yeah in TV that's right in TV this time that's killer talk to me about your buying process is is there a Hit List Charlie star hit list of what you're looking for are you just out on the road and stuff presents itself to you and you fall in love how how are you going about buying guitars these days I think there's usually a Hit List um but that changes and um I don't know about you but I'll get excited about something and then get obsessed with it and call all the people we know yeah and uh and then if if it doesn't if there's not one available or not a good deal that'll cool off and it'll change but unfortunately for me all of our friends always find a way it's an expensive group of friends it is that we hang with sometimes it people know people I should know better than try to keep up but I I love it and I I I don't ever I'm not a burst owner yeah um that's a hard that's a hard thing to to even try to understand to me I even talk to people friends of ours who have them like that's tough that's tough to wrap your brain around to me but but I mean are you out on the road chasing it down in every city you go to your pawn shops guitar stores anything off limits or everywhere you're going every day it's and Benji is he's such an enabler Benji Shanks he's like got his phone out and Craigslist and pawn shops and guitar store come on let's go should we may it's Valentine's Day should we maybe look for some chocolates for our wives nah well but look at this junior us we just talked about burst I know you've played a lot of bursts would there ever be a day where Charlie star has a burst in his collection I hope so I mean as much as I scoff you know yeah and if so is that burst going on the road with you it's tough to say um a show that we played with skinnard and um Keith came out Keith Nelson came out and he brought he had a Godzilla at that time that was a killer guitar yeah and uh he said I'm Bringing Godzilla you play you want to play Godzilla in the show it was like okay and that guitar was so clean and I I thought I can't I I I I have buttons on my shirt not fun yeah yeah it's it was so stressful and he was like who gives a damn play it you know it was like holding it out like this like so um I guess that would be part of the thought process would be like well how clean is it and yeah I think that's the reason why you got I think he did I stress is like I can't enjoy it because it's so clean Cesar brought his burst to the Ryman and then also the blessing burst was there we had two bursts in one night Marcus King came he played one I played one and I mean that was stressful too I was like let's not let's what are we doing you know and uh but it at the end of the day it's our front of house guy with with with Cesar's guitar um he was like wow okay um that guitar just changed the sound of the entire band Gemini a good guitar yeah that's a really really killer burst it's amazing what they what happens with those instruments is it it's why they are what they are it's not just hype it is is a real thing it is a real tangible thing speaking of the Ryman I just have to tell you and my wife could not come and she recommended I bring my eight-year-old son Nico and that was his first rock show and I just have to say you completely ruined my kid now forever because he shows up and he gets his VIP badge and he's walking around thinking he's hot and everybody's like oh and then the text comes and it's like hey come out to the bus and the thing so now we're we're on the bus and Elliot's there we're passing guitars around and stuff chicken wings and Topo Chico yeah because yeah he says to me hey you know Guns and Roses is coming yeah this like you think we're gonna hang out on on Uncle Slash's bus it's like okay first off Uncle slash but second like I don't think that's going to happen every night but he had a great time that was his first rock show you guys killed it another Croc case different shape yep I like these two good eye oh yeah Les Paul SG Jr that's cool so this would make this what 62 is one 62 62 not a blade neck some of those 62s still have those yeah paper thin 61 necks man that one's the wide daddy though yeah that looks great okay more P90 talk yep now tell me about 60s P90s over 50s P90s I believe 60s P90s are brighter uh and hotter definitely got more wines they got some uh they got some more bark to them which is when you're getting up in there wanting to play some Sabbath they give you that ability I don't know if that's for a reason with you know they had a body with less Mass they figured they needed to put more wraps on the pickup or what but they definitely have more juice in the 50s P90s I was talking to a guy that we know that said he made a trip to cazo in 1970 and he said I watched some ladies wind and pickups and they were sitting and it looked like sewing machine operation and he said still kind of does said winding machine there was a foot break yeah and he said as the machine counted to 1800 or whatever the number magic number might have been the foot break got hit but if they were busy talking to their neighbor smoking cigarettes and doing the whole thing there was a cigarette being smoked or some somebody getting chewed up with some good gossip they might have got in 1925 or something it barks so somebody was really getting talked about the neck has lost all of the Cherry it's almost TV a TV yellow neck yeah that's great but makes you pick these up when you just got to get nasty this is going to get nastier than that yeah we've got a couple of songs that are weighed down um for us anyway and this one I recorded a song that we have called like an arrow on it and it's tuned to open open C very Sav I don't know why I chose this little thin guitar for that tuning because when you play these guitars also the the neck joint here if you move your hand quickly You Hear It Go I mean it's like a a crazy VI um but this guitar loves to be in that tuning and and uh and it sounds pretty ominous and I love the knob change then the reflectors man yeah there was some good good stuff going on yeah pick guards that want a lift at every Edge a little bit no cracks yet though it's still staying down it's all intact lightning bolt yeah first year lightning bolt um speaking of the list again I need a 61 it's at y any of you Blackberry Smoke fans out there with 61 let Paul SG Juniors yeah give me a call hit me up on the on the internet soon enough they'll be in town by you they never stop touring you find them so I'm guessing this is like 64 65 is 64 64 you're a man who knows his stuff Mark no my cardboard mhm oh that's my favorite color for these yeah H Polaris white SG Jr and this one is minus yeah we'll call it th this one's uh it's been there holy yeah it's been there and back what the hell does I don't know um I don't know if it was a guy was playing at the Renaissance Festival and he had like a gauntlet on or it was like one of those some kind of old Capo that had something and he just moved it up and down the neck but there was like Albert Collins there's literal tire tracks yeah down the entirety of this neck I would say that was a label maker at some point there was some kind of label on there somebody's address maybe yank that on hasn't yellowed out that much though it's still still staying pretty white oh and that's float out of your hands other than the obvious coolest guitar ever What attracted you to this well it was a good deal love that yeah we love that uh first and foremost um and then just seeing that you know it always makes my brain go to that's going to be a great sounding guitar because somebody has played the out of it yeah and I was right yeah um and it sounds angrier than the 602 really again it's different you know than that other one too it's just got a different got a different rainbow well you said there's so few things that everything makes a difference and if somebody sweat a bunch on this pickup and the magnets started doing whatever they're doing or you know that cap has leaked out whatever it's leaked out and now it's putting out at a different range than it's supposed to and it makes that pickup do another it's it's all Alchemy the day after I got this guitar I played it at a show was very excited because it's the first White Guitar I own since I was a teenager white custom talking to my friends I'm like you know the white ones sound different I'm like that's great czy idea but anyway I put a picture of it up online was like oh I'm uh really excited check it out this 1964 SG Jr and a guy on Instagram was like hey Charlie when and where did you get that guitar because I had one that was stolen about 10 years ago and I've never seen another white one they didn't make them it's a oneof so I I was like uh well so I answered him and was like well they made more than one but you made may want to go talk to Jakey Lee cuz the first time I ever saw one was the shot in the dark video aie I wasborn and he probably stole your damn guitar and I mean if that pickup's hot enough for Jake Lee to play that's right Aion it's hot enough for you too yeah my son taught me how to play Bark at the Moon correctly on this guitar so that right there was a reason to purchase it was to have worth the price of admission to have my progyny play Bark at the Moon on it that's how you want to find him right there that's his cool as it gets Brown case yeah of the non-c cardboard variety pink oh yes I remember this guitar so this one has a story I don't know it to be fact they say that this guitar started Life as a a 53 gold top Le Paul model mhm and that it was sent back maybe to Gibson to kamazo to be refinished in Black given this Bigsby given a bumblebee in here with a great tiger given a serial number the seven serial number I guess that's the story now this as if that's not a cool enough story talk to some people who were like Gibson didn't do that and then other people say yeah they did they they did repairs and they did still do refinish work yeah um I've always thought by looking in this this case that that that bigsby's been rubbing right there for a long time it's been oh yeah been doing its thing this has been on for a minute yeah so when I first got it it had a shave down abr1 that was pretty it was pretty wrecked so this is a Repro cuz this would have been just a rap tail yeah on a fifth so when they put the Bigsby on they had to put some sort of tunematic on it yeah but but whoever did it and I don't know if they did it in 1957 maybe at Gibson that AB one that was sort of shaved out who knows between that time and if you look closely in the light there's a hole that was filled in the middle of the head it's a headstock repair also oh yeah there's been some rep work but somebody decided it should be a seven string guitar so there's a little oh there's an extra notch on the Bigsby little nodule right there to hook a string on and then it came up and had an extra tuner in there that would be to add like a another B string those aren't even the octave strings I don't even know unless they were like okay well we're going to go to add to make this an extra low be We'll add it'll be you know e b g so who knows crazy but then somebody thought better of it and we're like this is stupid then they put it back so when we were hanging at the Rhyman that night yeah this was the guitar we were passing around on the bus you mean Elliott yeah did this come through Elliott or did this no no it came from Ricky Skaggs this is thank you Ricky and it was somebody that he had known it was a lady I think that he said that he goes to church with it belonged to her brother no I mean that's a very old refin cuz it is checked and it looks exactly like it should yeah the Finish looks like Gibson did it that and with the white cream Plastics on there I had these out and there there's gold in the cavities just judging by the top and and those big old knobs yeah big old early 50s knobs and great dish too really pronounced belly so this has got to be one of the newer Acquisitions well I've had it about seven eight years oh wow okay so this has been around tell me about Bigsby onless Pauls um this one I never touch it because um that neck a shallow neck angle so I stay far far away from it or else it just is going to go out of tune oh not to mention somebody played pin the tail on the donkey on the output Jack with that three different placements I don't know if you can see that but it's been all over the place back there stories good stories be boring if it was brand new looking wouldn't it gold yeah that's great another roadworthy yeah aftermarket case this one might be the most interesting story and it is a love story um it is a 1958 Les Paul Custom when two pafs are not enough that's right when you need that extra push over the cliff add the third paf this was back around the time of our whipper whe album which was our third album and so we we got to do a lot of cool things on the tour and the and the uh subsequent promotion for that record and one of those things was playing Jay Leno I got an email which I still have uh from a guy after we were on Leno that said um hey I really enjoyed that performance I like that song I like your band I'm putting you in my will I'm I'm going to be leaving you my 58 Les Paul Custom to which I replied that's crazy why would you do that very nice to meet you but why would you do that so I didn't hear anything for four or five years he said I want you to have the guitar now wow so he sent it to me and it was sort of disassembled at the time he had dressed it up to look like Frampton's guitar covers off yeah um white plastic I'm going to send you all the parts that I have left and by that he meant that he had gotten rid of the pafs these are these are actually Tyson tone um he had Duncans in there but they had the covers off in it Bobby Tyson made me some pickups to go in it but um but he had the the pickup Rings the Stop Bar the bridge the knobs pit guard the trust Rod cover and these are these are Repro Grovers um but all this other stuff it's a really clean guitar well it's a refin oh it is it's a really good refin it is he but it's a refin uh from the 70s he said I bought the guitar in 1967 when he was 18 years old and he said uh saw an ad in the paper said Gibson Les Paul $350 checked it out an old man had it and he said I bought it and he said I came down to Florida moved to Florida started playing in bars and he said we opened for the Almond Brothers in 1971 and he said Dwayne almond played it really he said wanted to buy it because he wanted a triple pickup guitar at that point he had the gold top yeah yeah I don't think he had traded for the burst yet so maybe it was 70 when the show was anyway he said I told him no I've had it it's my I love it it's my guitar I can't sell it so he said I thought it was a 59 and he said Dwayne flipped it around and said no it's a 58 see the first digit is an eight now that's been reamped now but he said he's the one who told me it was a 58 not a 59 a little bit after that I saw MCR David Bowie so I stripped all the paint off the top of it as a lot of people did yeah and he said uh years later in the late 70s I decided I wanted it black again so he had it professionally restored to Black if you're going to get a 50s less Paul Custom being given one is a really good way about well he has since passed on and uh so did you ever get a chance to meet him in person never in person just on the phone wow but um but he was a great great sweet man his name was Mick and I don't name guitars but I call this guitar Mick cuz that was and this one comes out too right yep sure does is there one that got away you have yeah remorse on on anything in particular I've let a few things go that I wish I hadn't uh I've been buming lately about if and it's not that hard to come by but a really good hard Edge 58 double cut that was really dark cherry red and hadn't Brown at all and I let that go it was at a time where I thought these are everywhere and then now they're not were yeah everywhere when I was still 19 20 years old I had a I had a blonde 72 Telecaster with a Bigsby but it was a really good one it was really light and the pickup was completely a canoe it was sway back you know I was playing a 50 watt JMP then and would have to turn my cabinet to the wall in every bar that we played but there was something magical that happened with that teler with that cabinet to the wall it just filled up that those little Corner stages with magic and maybe I'm just maybe it's Nostalgia but it was my favorite Telecaster I think I've ever owned and I sold it to make a car payment as you do sometimes this is ridiculous but I had a a really good d35 uh it was a gift from my dad bad marriage bad divorce thing I don't know where that guitar is it was kind of so that was kind of a bummer too but sorry to bum you out folks it happens black case oh yeah oh that's my favorite spec of es335 was is a 63 64 64 64 that is my here grab that that is that is my favorite feature set for an es335 right there tell me about this where did it come from this one came from Louisville Kentucky a one owner guitar Grandpa guys Grandpa sat down and played it a lot and there there's a nice little wear on his leg and uh he just wore GC and D out yeah and so when I got it it was just just thrag see it on the board yeah and it looked like it had been outside in a barn when I got it it was really dirty and look down in there at the sticker and the oh yeah guy who cleaned it up said how'd you get how was he able to get that bird to in the F hole like that well that's where the tone comes from though the tones in the bird shed you know so uh this one is just sounds exactly like you think it would yeah cleaned up nice too still nice and yeah Cher now these are not Factory Brads for the customade plaque but it seems like it's holding it down all right yeah it started to roll you can see probably from being outside in the barn in the bar I'm taking it off also not in the case either somebody oh let me show you in here oh the neck dude it's gone I love that in here we have oh curly cable the cable but this is my favorite part is the bill of sale oh original receipts where' you get it DOD Music Center in Covington Kentucky 300 bucks even 55 is that for the case I think so 330 extra for the Bigsby for the that was the markup for the Bigsby yeah $330 for the guitar in the case man we're from the wrong era you know 12 payments at $28 a month take that Sweet Water yeah 28 bucks a month yeah oh beat that when do the 335s or the es guitars replace the Juniors when do these come out for you because I see you play them a lot yeah um my friend Ray um he gave me a custom shop 345 for as a birthday gift which is that's number two extravagant gift yeah I started playing that guitar on a few different songs and even wrote a couple of songs with that sort of feel yeah and then so it was a when this one became available or came into my life I thought well got to have more of those too they do they do a thing they definitely do a thing um when do you go for humbuckers I mean you got so many between the Juniors and The Esquires and everything it's a lot of single coil pickups what makes you reach for humbucker guitar it'll just be the song There's a song we have called waiting for the Thunder that is a hollow body song yeah and I um it just doesn't feel right on a junior so with humbuckers as opposed to Pete idies is there is there a reason to go either way for that too well that particular song Waiting for the Thunder has a humbucker lead and it just has a little more a little brighter snarl to it and yeah I really had a good time on our summer tour last year we were out with a the Almond Betts band and Dwayne Betts he was playing 64 335 that is that Dicky Betts owned and I was playing this and it felt pretty pretty pimp to be playing too original 64s especially since he was playing Dicky bets's yeah killer God I love those one of those is in my future at some point I don't know if I'll get the the bird in the f-hole or or not I if I'm so lucky I'm hoping you do yeah I am too that's that's where the tone is another one one of these black cases yeah oh yeah one of the most overlooked and underrated guitars of the 60s the Gibson ES 330 65 early 65 still wide nut good wide nut we had made the an album with Brenan O'Brien our fourth album called holding all the rzes we went out to LA to do guitar over dubs with him and he has a pelum blue one yes he does a 64 and I played that guitar through his Blues breaker his original Blues breaker and I thought that's the best sounding I've ever heard in my life and even in the control room or even in sitting in there with the amp holding it and this completely Hollow thing is just going crazy it's an animal just moving in your hands and I thought I have to have one and he said well good luck you're not going to be able to play it on stage not unless you fill it full of t-shirts so but he said no no you have to have one and it has to be if you want what you're talking about it has to be midle pickup cover era so yeah 64 65 65 you got mix missmatched Parts you got nickel ab1 with chrome covers and a chrome tail piece but you still got the wide nut which is important still one in 1116 at the nut and it weighs 2 lbs you everybody talks about epone casinos a this is like the only guitar that the epone version seems to be more popular than the Gibson version but they're identical guitars 16 fret neck joint it's the ideal rock and roll rhythm guitar every 60s band seemed like one of the guys in the band was was playing one of these Glenn Fry Keith Richards playing one in open G live at Hy Park in 1969 through high watts how the hell was he doing that like the talking about stuffing it the whole idea of stuffing it is you don't want to do that because you don't want to stop the top from that's the magic part yeah but but I I've tried to play this on stage with our band who are not nearly as loud as as far as stage volume as the stones would have been in 1969 at Park how did he do that but I did buy at one point some of those F hole rub yeah f-hole Stoppers and it it killed it I just couldn't M yeah so I only use this guitar to record but I have used it it's on uh a song that I wrote with Keith Nelson run away from at all is one of our favorites yeah things that sound like a junior that are not a junior are all that guitar this guitar and it's like the best couch guitar cuz it's just loud enough that you can fantastic you don't have to plug it into an amp Y and yeah and Gary Gary Clark junor swears by them too don't sleep on the es 330s out there and their well they were totally undervalue I don't know about that anymore I haven't completely Hollow and lots of room to stash yeah it's this is this is the mule here going across the border that's great yeah love an ES330 rectangle case huh that's something fresh not a custom shop case but not a custom shop Guitar not a custom shop Guitar way way better at protecting than the original case which is in pieces but and of course just one pickup it what else do you need well this one you need a tone knob to be able to turn the T get that ice pick out of it a little bit 64 Firebird one same year as Clapton's if I'm not mistaken the bird is intact and the pit guard is not cracked is the headstock intact yes it is now this is a rare guitar right here and a lot of it as you already pointed out is the damn case that these came in you got all these banjo tuners hanging off the back that takes a bump it you know go that one is sort of an exception to the rule about touring because it won't fit comfortably in a guitar boat yeah yeah and so I I don't tour with with that guitar just because of the fear of it's too nice noing yeah where did this come from from Texas nice and somebody who owned it decided to put their social security number there over the over the serial the serial number it's more important than the serial number great weight man it's a good one and I had that guitar Fred also because it was there was nothing left and hey no binding who cares Frets on it yeah and then now it plays like nobody's business and and then it's just your choice do you want it to hang awkwardly here or awkwardly there yeah but man that can peel the paint off the walls yeah those pickups it it'll take it there especially the ones with just the one pickup they for whatever reason just are bright bright guitars I will uh the guy I bought it from he said you're going to want to run that always at two on the town knob just as a baseline yeah yeah that's where it starts and uh it just breathes fire right there but I've got the air clapped in Crossroads yeah one of these in my collection currently and and we nailed it you got to you got to roll that toone knob down a little bit that's where it lives yeah eat the stitching out of your Levis man and never let go of the neck man it's the coolest look guitar from the 60s I mean it is so cool another Brown case but this looks a little older this looks like 40s brown kids lifting with Gaff tape as you do no charge on the house see ooh ES300 ES300 I found this in it we were on the an acoustic tour was a couple of months uh handful of years ago and uh was out on Safari as you do and went into a pawn shop I believe it was Val pariso Indiana and I saw this hanging on the wall and thought well I don't know a whole lot about this era of the es guitars clear knobs clear knobs 1 P90 and so I got my little handheld computer out and did a bunch of cramming on these guitars and determined that that it was an ES300 because of the logo the Crown the P90 and the parallelogram inl 17in lower bout the resource that I read said that or the source that I read said that once the Florentine cutaway made its appearance these guitars were all but forgotten people said oh I don't need that anymore I can't get up there to the fancy notes but uh I love this guitar and I put flat wounds on it did a podcast with Joe bamasa and uh as he sat in his house there were two two hanging behind him and I said oh look at there I got one behind me too he goes yeah I file those under the easy to buy hard to sell category yeah it's a lost art but but historically cool fun with flat wounds you need something to put flat wounds on yeah this is the perfect guitar for that PA guy said he believes this is a real mahogany top with the the thickness of it I don't know what what's your take that's definitely I feel like I can see some laminates okay if you look in there you can kind of see yeah some PES which most of the time if it says es on it it's a Ply Top guitar but yeah it is a mahogany top which most all the ply guitars we do are maple yeah popular Maple so how's that P90 on the archt top treat you it's great um it is just that neck position it's fantastic lends itself well to if you were going to play move it on Over by Hank Williams Senior yeah that was something that Kenny Bon said on a in an interview VI that I saw not long ago talking about country music in that era and he's like there were no country guitar players all those dudes were jazz players all of them well they weren't Rock were no rock guitar players yeah what the hell else were they Hillbillies and Jazz cats hillbilly singers and jazz guitar players that's an album title right there Hill lies and Jaz cats that's that's our new our new reality show side project what would you say the percentage of your collection is electric to acoustic probably 6040 electric to acoustic so I mean good a good portion of what you have is AC let's talk about acoustic guitars for a little bit obviously acoustic guitars have songs yeah in them what what are you looking for when you pick up a flat top just resonance and warmth um and it's a funny thing about old guitars and new guitars they're so different as far as acoustic guitars go it's just it's really a more tangible idea that time is such a factor I'm a dead string guy too really um so is Dave Cobb he's like only time you put a string on that acoustic guitar is when you break one yeah it's the only and I I agree um my ears just don't prefer that the new bright thing with an acoustic guitar I think that's a reason I love j45 so much is they have that thuddy dark it's just beautiful I don't even know how to describe it but the thud is just what it is you know but and even with with a that's such a thing with Gibson guitars and even with sj2 200s that big thing and then like the little which we'll see you'll remember the little L love L O's it's a little guitar that sounds like a big guitar how did they do that how did you do that it was the cheapest guitar right in the catalog yeah and Gibsons have such a fingerprint with that tonality with all the different models I have a really great 62 country in western wants to be a hummingbird but it's just not quite as pretty doesn't have a guard but it's just got that connection to the human voice that's a real thing that's different from from a Martin and with Martins I just love the big that big robust not too much low end not too much highend just right there just the rainbow and I'm a little more picky I think with acoustic guitar which you have to be I guess there's so less there's no pedals there's no amps there wood and strings and it is what it is yeah if if your question is coming up about the acoustic search always on the hunt for the for the for the next greatest acoustic guitar do you do the vast majority of your writing on Acoustics or electrics Acoustics that's where the songs come from that's the guitar that sits in the house in a stand and if you know inspiration strikes so grab that and then later it's like well let's see if this translates to the electric guitar you got to go do a van tour again you can only bring two guitars with you one electric and one acoustic what are you bringing that little black junor and the 1955 j45 those two will pretty much take care of it all they can do it all and they neither one of them is pretty they do it right time for some Acoustics yeah let's take a look did I miss one you miss oh yeah you should know this one I sold you this guitar you certainly did 40 or 41 41 1941 L these are fun guitars so good loud and good I don't know what tuning it's in it's an open tuning um crystal clear here and guess what these are the strings that you that were on to me they're still shiny I mean what why put new strings on it dead string Club do you remember [Music] that I texted you and said that's just the sound man that's just what's supposed to be playing on it I texted you and said Mark what are these strings that are on this guitar probably four years ago and you said I'm not sure and I don't know why you would know that that was a whatever our Tech put on them 12 12 gauge something but I don't know if they're the if they're the coded jobbies or what but I've played this guitar tons and they just won't they won't not sound good yeah oh it's just it makes you play a certain way [Music] so here we are you know 80 years later it still sounds like a million bucks that cool checking and kind of flamess on the top I just love these fire stripe yeah fire stripe hit cards the best yeah all about the Celluloid this not a Strummer for you right this is a no this is a picker I don't think I've ever used a pick on it yeah all about fingers look how pronounced that script is yeah and how not pronounced all these angles on the headstock are just beautifully worn you I remember you there you played one in a video that had piece of a weird Pickard above it but it sounded really good I sent you a message and said man what about that guitar and you were like no that ain't the one you want this is the one you want yeah and you were correct it is so great I had a I had a 39 a black one that I like go a few years ago then I'm starting to question why I did that it like $25 when they were new yeah right the best $25 you could have spent in 1941 right there yeah Mark you didn't charge me $25 it was a little more than 25 but you know black Gibson logo case M more Acoustics Somebody Loved this one they put rivets all down the sides and back of the broken it's a punk rock case it is rivets rivets oh yeah country and western both kinds both kinds now let me ask you is this a different type of Celluloid from that other guitar or same this is probably well by the 60s it was probably a little bit different although I don't know to be perfectly honest but that color and that striping is we can't find new non-toxic non-flammable equivalents of that now that's a 6 to3 1963 country and what turn New Bridge New Bridge cuz this would have been an adjustable saddle originally I didn't I didn't mind that at all it sounded good I couldn't couldn't put a pickup in it that I like yeah it's tough It's a little bit easier with the fixed saddle for those of you at home that don't know this is basically a hummingbird it's all it is with a different pit guard it's Square shoulder multiply binding on the top multiply binding on the backbird with the different pick guard everything else about this is look how thin that p Guard I know it is super thin crazy but yeah I mean this is great mhm I love to actually be able to feel the grain of the wood yeah that's cool this is uh you can see it's innards in there that's like this is a a live one Studio One it's a live one now um it was just a cool sounding one it's got a lot of got a lot of low end there roll um and I'm going to take it on the road now that it has a now it has amplification capability just love the bind in the parallelograms just just the greatest black Pebble grain hard showcase early to mid 60s acoustic it's another 63 actually there's a lot of there's a lot of 63 going on today but I think I know what this is and I'm really excited to see it this might be the coolest acoustic guitar ever made yeah oh yeah the j180 Everly Brothers black star inlays double pick guards that's a lot of Celluloid that is a lot of Highly flammable material there highly flammable double the amount of Highly flammable material as a regular guitar now this particular guitar belonged to Don Everly wow and then it belonged to Graham Nash double wow how did you get your hands on it um Texas always Texas odd place for the strap button I'm sure it worked at some point is that still the only spot for the strap button well it's the only one that's on it I'm afraid to do drill anything into it just use it like that um oh man come on it's just the coolest guitar ever I the bridge I don't know who's like you know what screw Bridge plate let's do a top mounted bridge on an acoustic guitar but it works I don't know how it works it shouldn't on paper work I forget who had one available but it was pit guardless what's the fun of and I was like not interested yeah no it's all about the double guard and no the double guard doesn't choke the tone I mean not that one it's just the the double guard makes it awesome it just makes it look fast if I could put a third pick guard on there yeah I would cuz it's so cool there are pictures of the Everly Brothers playing those J2 200s yeah that was kind of what you guys just redid with the big white big white guards on the black ones yeah is that what those are that you've done now the J2 big those are full on 17inch when the 180s came out it's basically based off the 185 body so 16inch lower bout but uh then this bridge design the double pick guards which just look like a cool hillbilly chicks you know red pigtails mhm it's just amazing and star inlays yeah and star on the headstock and it's black and it's black there's no cooler color for a Gibson acoustic guitar than black it's like a little tuxedo it's just it's just awesome this one's out right it's got a pickup in it I'm assuming this one's coming out uh I don't know sometimes local in towns maybe in town within 100 miles now I remember you asking me about these you probably were looking for one of these for a long time long time and you just happen to get thought Everly long time I I have a blond blond one um beautiful cherry back in sides blonde top uh not as cool as it's a black one of course this this was you know owned by the dudes who dude whose name is on it so also yeah very very cooler I don't know how many of these the Everly Brothers owned I'm sure they probably had a few sets but this has got to be one of two or three total that they probably mhm ever own so I mean mean and you just can't get that piit card material anymore they never look the same cuz this is toxic and flammable and not fun for production sort of a puffier piit guard than even the country in western yeah is a little little puffier mhm but man does it look insane pretty much the coolest acoustic guitar of the 1960s right there definitely I love it man canot live on Gibson's alone no it'd be cool if he could much as tried yeah yeah but occasionally we got to buy some other stuff CU it does other things yeah this is one of those this is also your fault oh yeah I know what this is oh yeah Martin o21 what year is this 60 still Brazilian rosewood still Brazilian slote headstock you if I remember I was sitting on the couch at Norman's rare guitars you and Keith Nelson walked in and I was noodling you were noodling and you were I was like on this you did and you uh you just knew it and then I left and I closed the store down and about 30 minutes after I left the store I my phone dings and there was a text message from you going I don't know what I was thinking why didn't I buy that guitar how could I leave and and shortly thereafter we got it to you yeah what what's the difference between the Martins and the Gibsons for you and why do you need to have both well just a different voice yeah they're completely different he this one has such the V and wide slote heads are going to give you that inch and 3/4 nut withth just makes you play the guitar differently the spacing is all different this one almost sounds like a nylon guitar just inherently yeah and uh really tight and not thuddy like a like we love the j45 and even the country and western will have a little bit of the thud these don't have that they had that different voice very very direct into the note you know yeah the fundamental and that nice straight grain Brazilian right there this one's filthy by the way it needs a good bath but um but I use this in the studio [Music] for Dave Cobb miked it from the front and the back m from the back mik the the lower the lower bout down there never seen that what is that I think it just made it sound larger this one's so clean it really is I mean that's kind of how I remember it looking when I sold it to you yeah just a really nice condition guitar and I remember you just sitting down playing Ragtime stuff on it and it just sounded exactly how it was supposed to sound Celluloid binding tortoise binding love that so cool dou o 21 and a 21 I guess lies somewhere between 18 and 28 you got The Binding package from an 18 and then you got the the Rosewood from the 28 and Rosewood Rosewood fingerboard and Bridge instead of ebue which would be on the 28s but just a killer example man yeah really thank really happy that you got that one yeah it was supposed to go to you mhm one Martin's not going to get it done no got to have its big brother got to have the Big Brother Martin this is a 19 50 D28 well loved now this is a long progression of d28s you said yeah I I was working my way back yeah 53 51 50 but this is a really a really good one it's it really projects it's in the Canon variety yeah um as you want them it's got a nice really straight green Brazilian on the back yeah great I got this one I was like yeah now we're talking this isn't a cannon and uh the what my dad has wound up with is an 83 I sat down and was like Dad check this out and he's like cool and he grabs his 83 and goes and it was like uh Back to the Future when knocked me back and I'm like well you still win so I guess I'm going to have to go back into the 30s to beat his 83 but a friend of mine said uh well it makes sense that was an anniversary guitar for them 1883 to 1984 so that's probably scalibur and forward shifted and all the all the stuff that yeah yeah this one I'm told um belonged to uh one of the sweetart of the sweethearts of the Rodeo Girls band yeah I guess she must have been friendly with Emy L Harris because this yes this case from Emy L it's a gild case or at least it's got a badge on it great guitar looks like it might have had a much larger pick guard on it at one time too it's like somebody might have done a little put a little clear on it there or something but love when you can actually feel mhm can feel the growth rings of the tree yeah cuz it's so well worn it's like comparing strats to Les Paul's comparing Martin's to Gibson and they're just completely so different completely different animals that you just if you're going to do it professionally or for real you kind of you kind of just got to have both you know yeah these won't do what they don't compete with each other they're totally different animals you know absolutely apples and oranges I mean does is this a Strummer big Strummer for you this is when you need that Canon flat picker guitar yeah it doesn't have a pickup um no need for one I I probably won't it's just I literally take this to Bluegrass pickings that me and my friends have in Georgia yeah from time to time all are usually around Christmas and good friend of mine in Carolton Georgia that he has some friends that have a couple of pre- war d28s and I take this and see how it's not as good as those it gives you somewhere to go you know it's amazing I mean there's always that window of time where where people just got it so right that it's so right it's hard to compete with but uh 50 is good I'm told that Lester flat had a 50 that he preferred well hey so it's good enough for Lester good enough for Lester Lester who invented the the gibron yeah the flat gon you're welcome yeah you're welcome blue grassers yeah you're welcome killer guitar yeah great Brazilian let me see the Brazilian on the back again yeah just perfect straight lines yeah that's uh it's a good stuff killer is condition a factor I mean there's some people that's like oh wait it's got to change pot no no no no can't have it oh wait it's got to wear on the do is it what are you looking for when you pick something up something that I like stuff that's lived in and I think it's because it's going to get lived in real quick such a it's such a a proven theory that there are so many really clean guitars and really clean amps that might not sound as good or play as good as their player grade counterparts or not even if you're if you're using the term player grade as a sort of a negative something that's been loved I guess it really does turn out to be the case that a lot of these things have the wear and tear because they are they they do they do the the thing I was talking to Charlie doy yeah and uh they're talking about a couple different Juniors and a couple different Firebirds and I was like I can't play this guitar this one doesn't bring me joy because I can't play it because it's impossible to play because the Frets are gone you know yeah and he was like fret it man fret it Frets on it do it yeah and I know a couple people who Fred black guards and was like do it I mean enjoyment is a big part of it they need Frets guys put Frets on them yeah it needs Frets put Frets Fred it and you can bend those strings there are far worst things you can do to a vintage guitar then put new Frets on it and and and I'm lucky enough to know a guy here in Georgia who is just the greatest shout out to Stan Williams favorite mom and pop guitar store to stop into when you're on the road oh there are a few hit me with hit me with where are you going you're in what city where are you going well Rumble rumble seat and Carter yeah always in Nashville and grin guitars um Mike's Music in Cincinnati Emerald City gotta go see Trevor Norms no vintage guitar in Oslo Norway they're always great uh Denmark Street good grief our buddy Matt Matt there mat Lucas yeah man cannot live on Gibson Acoustics alone he can't live on Gibson electrics alone too yeah it's just a gig bag who knows what's in here it's a original Sunburst Telly a 1958 Sunburst tell Caster now that might not seem it might seem kind of pedestrian to see a Sunburst guitar but this was only available what 1955 and 1958 were the only two years that you could potentially get Sunburst Telecaster they're all blonde and it kind of makes you wonder why does it look odd it's a it's a strange like the synapses in your brain fire in a weird way when you see it that way the standard finish on stratocasters with sunburst but the standard finish on telecasters was blonde but then there's just a few of these Ash body Sunburst and this is a 58 mhm very Spanky that's stupid tell me about this well this is uh Texas guitar yeah um He Who Shall Not Be Named in Texas uhhuh um it's actually a repair um I don't know if I don't I think it was a crack repair I don't think it was a complete headstock Break um Joe Glazer Glazer does good work Fender headstocks can break too kids yeah this is not a Gibson exclusive issue and also refret Glazer fantastic you can just by looking at the neck you could just assume that you've had to put threats on it it is extremely Spanky and it just does the thing and I I have looked at that pit guard for hours and thought is that the original pit guard and it is it just five screw there's just something about it that makes little bit yellow underneath the thing the yellowing that's a pretty rare and cool yeah guitar right there we made made a new record with Dave Cobb uh just a few months ago and he played it and said you know there are times where you might think I only need one guitar and this might be it that might be one of those one guitars until you plug another one in but at that very moment he wouldn't stop playing it and he was like this guitar is the only one you need yeah plus it's Sunburst how many colors are going on there that's a three-c color burst three color yeah you got a little bit of red in there too yeah but great Ash body look at thatting grain go find another one of those kids there's not many of them out there but they do exist blond case yeah 62 3ish 63 another 63 guitar another 63 see a pattern oh yeah one pickup man this one um came from Rock and Robin in houon Bart um and we were playing this this horse race track in Houston years ago do you have any Esquires and he said boy do we have with 63 that it's a refin but it is the greatest neck you've ever felt I concur that's not too big but big enough it's just round enough and everything it's just like nahide there's just something that's like great weight too really thin somebody sanded the hell out of it yeah it's kind of radiused all around the edges it's so light it weighs like six pounds and um but I plugged it in the day I played it at the show it's just it spoke to me instantly and I've used it on tons of songs I see you with this guitar all the time on the last three or four records it's and I think you know people in like comments online are like you're an idiot it has nothing to do with physics but the single Bridge pickup with no pickup here it's a real thing it just it's angrier less pool bigger yeah um science kids yeah and I guess it may do less and no one on earth has ever wanted to use that position right there cuz it's just mud and I always stay there and just like that use a neck pick a Bally anyway I just want I just want to hear it twang so you might as well just cut to the Chase and just have the one pickup I don't know what amp anybody would have plugged it into where they decided that the base position was good idea except for Norman Green Bal if you're playing spirit in the sky and then you that's then that's perfect but fuz bedle this is a this is definitely my favorite Fender guitar yeah love the clay dots H just clay dots make everything look better they do are you Strat guy or just Tellies I have never own a strat yeah I I have one but I definitely prefer the telecasters to the stratocasters who needs the second pickup yeah what we going to do play bass right black case this is not the original case to this guitar I think this is a 67 case with the logo on there this guitar the next says 65 the neck date Mike's Music Cincinnati love Mike reader yeah great friend oh it's black went into his shop one day with my buddy Benji Shanks and I said Mike do you have any Esquires he said boy do I funny that sounds just like the last St The Last Story yeah man he pulls this out of a pile of guitars love a guitar pile by the way he says stack them up he says also this is a factory black 1965 Esquire now I don't know much about Fender finish but I said are you sure he said I and this is just I will quote Mike as saying I believe that this is a factory black which people take that for granted by the way because Fender does everything in Black Fender did not do a lot of black guitars black was not a popular color for Fender guitars replaced piit guard the pots are actually older than 65 the one I think there's 61 pots which can happen that's not could have been hanging around the yeah grabbed in the box and that's what they pulled out the thing about this guitar uh Great Neck different than the 63 even though more shoulder on it two years younger as we stood there that day and I played it I think I played it through a Princeton and liked it he said take it to the show with you play it tonight see you down there later yeah for payment I took it to soundcheck and I plugged it in through my rig live rig and Benji went oh my God before I could even react he was like man that's a very harmonically pleasing guitar and uh so I was like well I called him and he said I can't make it tonight just take that guitar with you I took it made a record with it and uh at that point it said probably well now I got to have it because I played it on hey Delila which is love that song one of my favorite bike very smoked songs thank you very much that that's that song and uh so it was like well there you go Factory black or not and by the way if you work in the vintage guitar business the easiest clothes in the world is just you know just take it with you plug it into your rig and and you know if you don't like it bring it back they never come back it's the oldest trick they never come back that never once did somebody never want I let take a guitar home not buy it it's like shooting fish in a br trapment yeah but man that's that's the vibe right there mhm yep I mean we talked about burst is there anything else on the immediate hit list that you haven't had that you're like if I find one of these this is coming home you know another um One That Got Away the day I think the day I met you I played a really great is it the Silver Fox or gray fox yeah silverette at norms and it was a real I remember Norm was going to make me a real good deal on it and I let it go and I wish I hadn't funny little batwing headstock no but anything else I mean Flying V yeah Karina guitar um for sure those are magical magical epon Frontier love those yeah a really great white Falcon DeArmond or filtertron Falcon de arond yeah yeah CU I don't I don't have that you were just mentioning to me earlier about a 30s sj2 200 right Rosewood 200s oh boy I mean yeah the list is just never ending this guitar has never had a case as long as I've owned it so it's always been in some kind of gig bag or it's always lived in a guitar Vault yeah well this is the last one for the day I said you told you to bring some stuff with good stor this good stories um when people ask what it is it's a little hard to explain because it's not a Gibson it's not off Fender it's not a Gretch it's not anything just slides out um I'm told look at that so there was a great rock and roll band in the late 80s early 90s called The Four Horsemen one of my favorite bands and uh the rhythm guitar player main songwriter haggus who he was he was in the he was in zodiac mind warp and the love reaction and then he was in the cult and then he formed the four horsemen and they were just this great four on the floor rock and roll band and he said that he went to Performance guitars Cooney yeah and he said I bought two blank bodies and necks and had two guitars built and they were both single pickup guitars and he said one had a filtertron and one a soap bar P90 and uh he took those on on the road this was number two that's his that makes sense his numbering system he was in Los Angeles making a record with Rick Rubin their uh debut album and he said I was driving through a neighborhood and I drove past this man's house that he had a little wood carving shop and he said I had this guitar in the back seat of my car and he said I pulled over and he said he had all these examples of like no trespassing beware of dog so he said I got out went up and knocked on the door and said can can you do a guitar and the man said yeah I'm sure I can so he said I went and grabbed this guitar out of the back and he said it was number two he wished it had been number one but he took it in and he said the man said what do you want on it and he said just whatever you want so that guy freehand threw this on I think he said he did it for 200 bucks and uh it's heavy yeah and well you know well it is you know what this is this wood I don't cuz it's yeah man it's is it Alder it might be it's heavy yeah looks yeah it kind of looks like Alder um the neck has been shaved it's very thin skinny my friend who sold me that black Junior that I love so much he owned this guitar he was in a band in Atlanta called Voodoo piston he wound up getting this guitar from haggus in the early 90s and he put the Dan Electro pickup in it so we got one P90 and one lipstick Dan Electro every time he played that guitar I just coveted it yeah and lusted after it and I would say Ted you got to sell me that guitar the haggus guitar no way dude no way i' buy my time a little wait till he got in a really good mood come on Ted sell me that haggus guitar shut up dude no way never and then finally one day it was sort of like a he he's like I need to talk to you and I'm like here it comes oh my God here it comes and he said with the understanding that it goes nowhere else ever I'll say you that guitar when was that how long have you had it uh 2004 maybe almost 20 years now you've had this thing in the age of Myspace haggus contacted me and uh he's long since quit the music business and yeah what a what a character what a great story and a super intelligent dude very funny very clever he's a doctor and uh he said uh thanks for playing that guitar man that's a thanks for keeping it doing what it needs to to be doing which is playing rock and roll music yeah so when does this come out every record we've ever made this is on the black guitar and this guitar are on every record do you ever use it in the Middle with the lipstick how is what's that tone like that it's very special it's very say I've never heard those two together very bellik you don't really get as much of this this kind of takes over this gives it a little bit of bite where that this doesn't have it's not a bright guitar at all even that P90 is fairly dark that's a lot of wood man yeah you can really dig into it and it ain't going to be it ain't going to be harsh to your ears but logic would tell you this guitar shouldn't sound good because it weighs so much and there's not much neck left but I mean Jimmy pige would shave his burst neck and it still sounded great what a great way to end man that is a great story the number two number two haggus haggus oh Charlie Mark epic day of looking at guitars man thank you for uh having us out you guys are always welcome at our clubhouse compound or Flash Museum yeah we got this whole Blackberry Smoke display we like to hang out and just and just Ponder our history Mark that's what we do what's the history of this there's there's a samurai sword you talking about this uh yes this deadly weapon right here it was my birthday um we were on the road that's a an authentic flea market samurai sword this this pretty Reg recognizable smudge on that as well uh you know why that's recognizable is because that is Travis trits autograph you're not going to not get Travis trits autograph on your Martial Arts on your flea market Shinzo blade dude thank you again for having us always a pleasure to see you always a pleasure to hang I'm mares for Gibson TV see you guys next time on another episode of The Collection [Music] peace

Channel: Gibson TV

Views: 183,540

Keywords: Gibson, Gibson 2023, Gibson TV, gibson guitars, Blackberry Smoke 2023, Charlie Starr interview, Charlie Starr Rig Rundown, Blackberry Smoke Live, Rig Rundown, Guitar of the Day, Normans Rare Guitars, Rick Beato, Marty Music, Music is win, Anderton’s, Agufish, Trogly, Kdh, Phillip McKnight, Charlie Starr, Blackberry Smoke, Charlie Starr interview 2023, guitar collection, vintage guitar collection

Id: LP4DrvmdhSk

Length: 88min 23sec (5303 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 23 2023