The Gretsch Duo Jet: A Short History

[Music] hi sis Keith Williams welcome to five watt world Bernstein haven't get the most music from the least gear my first week in college included a lot of guitar revelations my new roommate Alex of the full Macintosh stereo rig was playing al Demi ollas elegant gypsy on continuous repeat at the end of the hall was a guy with a more meager yet impressive to me Yamaha system playing Ralph towner and Gary Burton's match Brooke on ECM records and then about Thursday I followed the sound of an electric guitars bouncing bass lines chords and melody to a door but when I knocked on the doors to ask what was playing the music stopped I'd assumed it was a record but when the engineering student from Tennessee that lived in that room opened the door he was wearing a late 60s Gretsch country gentleman over his shoulder I'd never seen a guitar like it anywhere and though over the next year he failed in his attempts to teach me to play that multi line style of his idol Chet Atkins I spent many hours sitting and wonder at his ability to do so that was my first experience with a Gretsch guitar and it would stick in my mind for all the years to come since then I've worshipped Gretsch guitars from afar and I think of it as being two stories solid bodies story and the hollow body story this is the first to those the 5-watt world short history of the duo jet if you enjoy our videos take a minute to subscribe and hit the bell icon to be notified when we put out new videos and if you've already subscribed swing by the store to grab a t-shirt a mug to support what we're doing here there's a link in the description by 1900 Gretsch had added mandolins to its young drum and banjo building company in 1902 they bought out our H venery a New York guitar manufacturer and no.3 the Gretsch company was incorporated by 1916 they built a 10 story Factory at 60 Broadway in Brooklyn by the 30s guitar started to become more popular than banjos after World War two Fred Gretsch jr. the company treasurer took over as president and it was he who would steer the company through its golden era in the 50s and 60s by all accounts Gretsch guitars were caught off guard when its main rival Gibson announced that they would produce a solid body electric guitar in 1952 Kretsch was certainly aware of the newfangled solid-body electric guitar idea because they had politely but firmly defender that they owned the named broadcaster back in 1951 company president Fred Gretsch jr. was good friends with then Gibson president Ted McCarty and he told Ted that he was surprised that a company like Gibson would be bothered by this modern nonsense Ted McCarty remembered in 1992 Fred Gretsch who was a personal friend of mine said how could you do this why and how could you do this for Gibson well we were good friends and I said to Fred somebody's got to stop this fender guy he's just about to take over to witch Fred replied but Ted anybody with a bandsaw on a router can make a solid body guitar I just can't believe that Gibson should do it but Fred soon realized the fender and Gibson were starting to sell quite a few of these modern guitars and in 1953 he launched his own solid body style guitar the $230 duo jet model 6128 it was a name duo for the two pickups and jet for the advanced new planes of that era the new guitar certainly borrowed much from the styles of the $225 Les Paul but under the surface it was made quite differently borrowing much from the Gretch hollow body guitars that came before it instead of the mahogany and maple sandwich body employed by the Les Paul Gretch rotted out a mahogany body creating a section box to hold the wiring and electrical components to this they affixed a lid of laminated maple the lid was joined to the base where the body was not routed along the sides and around and under the bridge the pickups were then mounted to the top so the new solid body was technically semi solid something that is often overlooked in these discussions of these smaller Gretch models the routing yielded a lighter guitar and it gave it a unique sound qualities appreciated by many players as the years went on unlike the painted Les Paul and Telecaster in their early years the top of the duo jet had a hard plastic covering the same material that Gretchen on some of its drums the company was very comfortable adding a plastic skin to the laminated drums and it wasn't a stretch to apply this method to the laminated top of the guitars the control layout of the duo jet marked the start of positioning a master volume pot on the cutaway instead of back with the other controls below the bridge the early duo jets had to dearmond dino sonic pickups one pickup selector switch and four knobs total the master volume on the cutaway and then three knobs below the bridge a volume knob for the neck pick up a volume for the bridge pick up and below those a master tone knob the bridge on the duo jet was the Malita synchro sonic that was first released on some Gretch electrics in 1952 predating the Gibson to nematic bridge which we'd see on the super 453 and the Les Paul customs in 54 the Malita was the first bridge that offered independent intonation adjustment for each string allowing the guitar to be more in tune with itself from string to string wretch touted the new bridge in advertising saying for the first time offering perfect tuning and clearer high notes the first year of the duo jet had the old-style script logo but during 54 it was transitioned to the new T roof logo it's called this because the horizontal stroke on the T is stretched like the kind of roof over the other letters this is the logo that has been used on virtually every Gretsch since until some of the recent batches are reissues the Gretsch was known to build guitars in batches 100 there were 150 duo jets built in 53 still this is a very small number of guitars and understandably those first year guitars are very collectible in the following years Gretsch would add new models many of which were shaped and constructed very much like the duo jet 1954 saw two new solid body models the silver jet and the round up the silver jet was a duo jet with a silver finish on the top clearly another benefit of being a drum company as well as a guitar company they were making drums in solid pearl and Sparkle finishes the second guitar released that year was Gretchen's answer to the growing popularity of Country and Western in 1953 Hank Williams had even seen Hits creep onto the pop charts so Gretchen took aim at this market and adorned the roundup with full on western ornamentation a GE was branded into the front of the guitar the body was often made of pine with real knots in the wood showing there was a steers head logo on the headstock and a steers head on the pickguard it had a strip of metal studded leather all the way around the outside and was shipped with a matching strap replete with rhinestones and cactuses the company described it as having a quote masculine beauty end quote and who can argue with that by 1954 Gretsch is priceless showed three duo jet type guitars the black duo jet 2 and $30 the new silver jet also at $230 and the orange round up at $300 Gretchen's ad agency in New York Mitchell Morrison launched a series of ads dubbed the Gretsch spotlights featuring jazz and studio guitarists including Hank Garland playing a duo jet but the players featured were not in the same league with Gibson's Les Paul and Mary Ford the answer to this challenge was Chet Atkins in time it would turn Gretchen's fortunes around Atkins had been in the forefront of electric guitar technology since its beginning in the 40s by the late forties RCA had put him in charge of their new studio in Nashville where he helped create the so-called Nashville sound a run of instrumental hits under his own name Main Street breakdown in yakety acts among them cemented his public image so he knew his worth when Gretsch came offering signature guitar this led to an evolution of the Chet Atkins model over which Chet had an increasing influence on the features and stylings over the years the model that came out was dubbed the Chet Atkins Country Gentlemen alongside the hollow body Chet Atkins 6120 Country Gentlemen they released a 6121 solid body basically a round up with the Bigsby that Chet favored the Chet Atkins model sold very well and the Atkins 1955 hit mr. sandman further the positive impact of the alliance phil grant Gretchen's vice president at the time said I think the following that Chet had in country music surpassed even Les Paul's general following you can't undervalue Chet's importance he was the greatest thing that ever happened to us the Gretsch Chet Atkins model put us on the map in 1954 Gretsch came along with its new flagship model the white falcon based heavily on the 6120 styling of the guitar developed with Chet they pulled out all the stops and created the white and gold fantasy that we all know today and like the Chet Atkins country solid body model they issued a companion model to the white Falcon in the solid style guitars the white penguin it shared most of its features with the white Falcon and it was released in 1956 it also borrowed from Gretchen's banjo production with a banjo style armrest add gold hardware gold Sparkle binding and the hump block inlays of the era it even had a penguin walking across its pickguard the slightly silly naming may have had an impact on the sales as very few were sold the model was produced in very limited numbers and didn't even appear in any Gretsch catalogues and was only on a couple of price lists in 1955 Gretch again beat fender and Gibson to the punch putting a full-color cover on their catalog you might remember that it wouldn't be until 58 59 the fender would do a color catalog but of course Gretch had a lot of color to show off by this point two-tone streamliners and Corvettes the white falcon Cadillac Green Country Club's and the orange Chet Atkins model and the recently added oriental red jet Firebird was on the inside back cover the striking red top is offset by black sides back and neck looking around the 55 Gretsch catalog you don't see much targeted at the growing rock-and-roll genre in the late 50s Chuck Berry Bill Haley in the comments Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley we're all putting out hits in this new genre but as we see with fenders jazz master that was released in 58 guitar companies weren't sure that this newfangled music was going to go the distance in the summer of 56 Jean Vincent and his Blue Caps hit the charts with be-bop-a-lula featuring cliff gallops mix of jazz and rockabilly guitar playing influenced by Les Paul and Chet Atkins his hooks and Phil's are all over the blue caps raced with the devil and jump back honey jump back gallop influenced many players not the least of which Jeff Beck Beck eventually bought a 56 duo jet in the 90s according to BAC he realized that the specific model was critical to getting gallops unique tone another early guitar hero a wielding a Gretsch guitar was Bo Diddley of course he was known for his unusual rectangular guitars likely the first one which had venom homemade project but he quickly turned to Gretch who made him for the custom instruments over time Diddley admitted of the rectangular guitar it didn't record well so I used other guitars mostly on the records but it was great for the stage the guitar he often used in the studio was a jet Firebird as pictured on his 1959 album go Bo Diddley Chet Atkins had continued to play his signature guitars but he was increasingly frustrated with the noise from the single coil pickups he met an electronic expert named Ray Butz and after buying one arrays amps with a built-in tape echo he continued to talk to Butz about other frustration with the electronic issues including the problem with the pick after listening to chats concerns about the balance across the pickup's he set out to make a new style of pickup altogether let's remembered my idea from the beginning was to build a humbucking pickup I knew about the concept from working with Transformers butts built a prototype and showed it to Atkins who then pitched it to Gretch this happened to coincide with the desire at Gretch to drop the Armand what was once a more exclusive arrangement at first had eroded and the Armand had begun selling pickups too many cheaper guitar brands Gretch wanted to build butts pickup themselves to control the supply chain and since BOTS had no experience with manufacturing he readily agreed he worked closely with the guys in Brooklyn on the new control layout and switching to go with the new pickups Gretsch debuted the pickup with the summer NAMM show in 57 the same year that Gibson was displaying their own new humbucking pickup though butts contended that he had been the first to develop the idea having pictures of Chet playing a guitar with the prototype pickups from much earlier Gibson complained as noted earlier Fred Gretsch and Ted McCarty were good friends and so they agreed to each let the matter slide without incident with the usual flair for the dramatic Gretch named the new humbucking pickup the quote filter Tron electric guitar head end quote by 58 the filter Tron was used throughout the line they'd also moved to using the new knobs with a GN dent on the top along with an arrow through the letter G replacing the earlier error only knobs that used in 1955 now that they could make their own pickups they look to design their own bridges to move away from using Malita designed in-house by Gretch by Jimmy Webster the new space control bridge was much simpler than the Malita with six wheel like groove saddles that could be positioned along a threaded bar intonation adjustment was impossible but Gretch believed the benefits outweighed this drawback and so the space control bridges began to replace the Malita bridges in 1958 they also introduced what they called the neo classic fingerboard or as they are more commonly called the thumbnail or Halfmoon fret markers they first appeared in 1957 and at the same time many of the finger boards were switched from rosewood to ebony by 1959 there were four semi solids in the line the duo jet at 310 dollars the jet Firebird at $325 silver jet at 30 and the Chet Atkins solid-body at $475 Halla body guitars went to double cutaway in 1960 the semi solid line followed in 1961 the very few of the Chet Atkins solid body guitars were ever built in that style and a double cut white penguin was even more rare shortly after going to double cut the Bigsby vibrato is were replaced by units designed by burns in the UK this is probably because of supply problems with Bigsby by 61 Gretsch felt that they needed a cheaper solid body guitar to compete with the Les Paul jr. and they came up with the Corvette at $139 and 50 cents it was actually their first true solid body guitar loaded with a high-low tron single coil pickup the body was initially a slab body but later gained the beveled edges influence clearly by the new Gibson SG s in August of 1960 the Beatles accepted a gig that would run 48 nights at the Indra club in Hamburg Germany seventeen-year-old George Harrison had a Futurama guitar an inexpensive check made solid body that was vaguely shaped like a Stratocaster he knew he needed a better guitar and as John Lennon had recently purchased a new Rickenbacker 325 George was looking at American guitar brands as well Harrison wrote to a friend in October of that year I might manage a red Fender Stratocaster with gold plating but the one I want is the Gretsch the following summer he'd get his wish there'd been a ban in place for 10 years prior on him importing American instruments and it only been lifted the year before so prior to that the only way to get an American instrument was to find something used that had been purchased over in the States privately and then brought back Harrison heard from someone that a duo jet was for sale by a merchant seaman over in Liverpool and he hurried over to see it for himself the guy wanted 90 pounds but Harrison only had 70 and he signed an IOU for the difference which in the end he actually never paid it was a 57 with dearmond single coil Dino sonic pickups and the humpback inlays G indebt knobs and a Bigsby he used the guitar for the first few years as the band's popularity grew he later of course bought the double-cut Country Gentlemen guitar that we all likely see in our minds when we think of George Harrison on The Ed Sullivan Show the exposure of Harrison playing his Gretsch guitars cannot be overstated and the appearance in the States in 1965 left musicians clamoring for Gretsch guitars in their wake the explosion in sales led to Gretch moving their drum division out of the main factory to increase their capacity to meet demand for the guitars dan duffy the Quality Control Manager notes that in 57 they were trying to put out 12 guitars a day but in 66 they were aiming to put out 75 guitars a day the guitar industry was rocked by the sale of Fender in 1965 for thirteen million dollars Baldwin organ company in Ohio had unsuccessfully bid for Fender and now it turned its attention to purchasing Gretch Baldwin paid approximately four million dollars and ten thousand shares of Baldwin common stock it was announced that Gretch would become a subsidiary of Baldwin and all existing management would stay in place the first catalogue under Baldwin saw the return of Big B's of rotted tail pieces which is a little perplexing as Baldwin had acquired Byrne instrument company two years earlier in the late 60s folks were pushing Gibson to reissue Burst Les Paul's which they finally did in 1968 in response Gretch brought back their single cuts solid body guitars something that had been out of their line since the double cuts were introduced in 61 in 69 they launched the rock jet the introduction of the two rock jet guitars and Porsche pumpkin orange and Mercedes black coincided with that quiet disappearance of the original duo jet silver jet and Jeff Firebird from the product line the ownership of Gretch by Baldwin had a number of predictable growing pains with overall sales dropping by 12% in 1969 in response Baldwin decided to move crutch manufacturing from their lawn staining home in Brooklyn to Booneville Arkansas they were looking to cut costs and find a more amenable workforce of course almost none of the original workforce moved from New York to Arkansas so by the early 70s Gretsch had lost all connection with its roots in the long-standing headquarters at sixty Broadway Brooklyn despite the cost-cutting Gretsch wasn't making money for Baldwin Baldwin Gretsch launched a country rock in 73 with question appointments reminiscent of the roundup model from the 50s was in this climate that vintage guitars began to rise in popularity with players touting the quality the older instruments many artists had been using the older hollow-body guitars but the big push for the models came when Malcolm young of ac/dc began using a 1963 double-cut jet Firebird the guitar had been given to Malcolm by his brother George who'd been in the band the easy beats Malcolm's driving rhythms pushed the band to the top of the charts in the mid in late 70s nicknamed the Beast young stripped the red finish off the top he pulled two of the three pickups out of the guitar creating openings to the chambers underneath Chet Atkins left crach and signed an endorsement deal with Gibson in 1980 Baldwin was in a dark time and this led to Baldwin's parent company eventually declaring bankruptcy in the early 1980s and they began selling off their instrument divisions in the break up this all led to Fred W Gretch the nephew of Fred Gretsch jr. buying a company back in January of 1985 they didn't have a manufacturing facility any longer so they made an agreement with Terada musical instruments in Japan to build the guitars it took a few years to put it all on its feet and by 1989 the price list offered nine electric guitars including four jet style guitars the duo jet at $1300 silver jet at $1,400 jeff Firebird at $1400 and the roundup at 1550 dollars reissues would soon come after four white penguins and signature models for Bo Diddley Elliot Easton and Malcolm young they began building various color Sparkle jets and a double-neck jet guitar as well in the late 90s Gretsch began selling Korean made guitars reviving their electrum attic name and in this line there are both duo jet and double jack cut models gretchen fender joined forces in 2002 in an agreement where fender does the marketing manufacturing and distribution but Gretsch still owns and controls the brand fender reworked every model and they bought up some vintage Gretsch guitars to serve as models for this process just that they had done when starting their own Custom Shop reissue program in the 80s the guitars purchased included a 59 style duo jet the folks offender then reverse engineered them in other words they copied them as accurately as they could in 2005 the alliance with fender came to fruition and there were 11 solid body guitars released the models offered that year were a Malcolm young signature a duo jet jet double neck Firebird silver jet Sparkle jet bo diddley roundup LED stone nashville solid body and white penguin in addition there was a line of Electra Matic models in 2002 david gilmour pulled out a duo jet to play the solo to comfortably numb' during his performance at the Royal Festival Hall and then in 2011 the Custom Shop built a model based on George Harrison's original 57 duo jet the guitar was brought from London to Los Angeles in its own first-class airline seat Steven Stern in the Custom Shop was in charge of capturing the details of the guitar he complained that everyone wanted to come down and see it to the point of impeding his progress on the project altogether the guitar had been used on famous gigs at the cavern club and was used on the first album along with other endless gigs Stern said the thing was beat to crap the Custom Shop made a limited run of just 60 guitars and they listed for $20,000 when Jason Isbell had a chance to buy a particularly magical fire jet from producer Dave Cobb he jumped at it he's here showing it off during a premier rig rundown from a few years ago in 2018 Jay as an Americana instrumental star Julian Lodge was recording at wilcos loft in Chicago and picked up one of jeff Tweety's early 50s duo jets to try he ended up recording the entire album with it over the next day and a half the album titled Love Hurts features a trio playing covers but in an edgy and re harmonized jazz in form style he was so taken with the sound that he found his own 53 duo jet had been sent back to the factory in 58 for a new neck which explains the thumbnail inlays he outlines why he loves his duo jet in this premier guitar jams video with editor Jason Shadrach he's gone on to design his ultimate jet style guitar with the talented people at Collings releasing a new julien lodge signature guitar at the Winter NAMM 2020 show proving the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery we see the legacy of the duo jet still influencing the cutting edge of guitar playing today in 2003 the original grudge factory in Brooklyn was converted to 120 luxury condominiums the six bedroom penthouse was for sale in 2014 for 6.5 million dollars guitar history and Tony bacon called it quote perhaps the ultimate Gretsch collectible leave it to Tony if I miss something or if you have your own dual jet story to share please put it in the comments for everyone to enjoy I need to thank the guys in premier guitar magazine for permission to use the clips from the interviews with Jason Isbell and Jillian Lodge I'd also like to thank Wildwood guitars for sharing the pics of their current batch of sweet duo jet type guitars used in the thumbnail this video would not have been possible without tony Bacon's excellent the Gretsch electric guitar book and the Gretsch book by paul de and tony bacon there's a link to the books in the description if you enjoyed the short history of the de Gretch duo jet hit the like button and if you haven't subscribed yet go ahead and hit that too and if you want to support us even more stop by the store and grab a t-shirt or mug the links at the top of the description thanks for watching until next time thanks for being a part of the 5 watt work [Music] [Music]

Channel: five watt world

Views: 256,836

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Id: Cb4R0LwqpI8

Length: 23min 26sec (1406 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 09 2020