Paul Bigsby’s Myrtlewood Guitars | Classic Guitar® journal Guitar Contact
Few issues are as satisfying as a guitar with a very good story to inform. Some classic guitars is likely to be lovely and/or invaluable, however boring as Paris Hilton – the guitar equal to a vacuous mannequin with zero persona. Others, both by advantage of the lives they’ve led or the story of their origin, are far more fascinating. And if some have a very good story to inform, the story of two particular Paul Bigsby devices is the Warfare And Peace of classic guitar tales!
In the previous couple of years, there was renewed curiosity within the guitars constructed by Paul “P.A.” Bigsby, inventor of the famed Bigsby vibrato. It’s lengthy been recognized that Paul Bigsby made the primary “fashionable” solidbody electrical guitar for Merle Travis in 1947. It’s solely been just lately, nevertheless, that historians have begun to understand simply how few of those solidbody electrics Bigsby really made.
Because the story goes, Bigsby ran a one-man operation and resisted mass manufacturing, turning out one instrument a month (the vast majority of which have been metal guitars and pedal metal guitars, however there have been additionally small numbers of solidbody electrics, re-necked acoustics, mandolins and tenor guitars) for patrons who have been keen to pay high greenback for his devices and who didn’t thoughts ready anyplace as much as two years for supply after making their down fee. It solely is sensible that inside this historical past of Paul Bigsby’s guitars, there could be one odd case that defied all the things that now we have beforehand recognized about Paul Bigsby and the way he operated.
Dale and Harry Granstrom grew up alongside the Oregon shoreline within the logging city of North Bend. They have been each wild about music, largely Western swing and nation, and performed in native combos after World Warfare II. Dale was largely a metal guitarist, however performed guitar and upright bass; older brother Harry performed accordion, together with drums and somewhat guitar. In early 1949, when the brothers noticed Tex Williams’ Western swing band at The Dutch Mill, in Roseburg, Dale was blown away by Tex’s virtuoso metal guitarist, the legendary Joaquin Murphy – and the sound of his custom-made Bigsby metal guitar. Virtually instantly, Dale positioned an order for his very personal triple-neck Bigsby metal guitar, and obtained it shortly after, in September of ’49. This started a cellphone friendship between Dale and Paul Bigsby that might final greater than a decade.
Bigsby has been described as a type of guarded outdated males – both actually pleasant or actually cranky relying on how he seen the intentions of the individual he was coping with. Apparently, he took to Dale Granstrom instantly, they usually remained involved after Dale ordered his metal guitar.
Dale and Harry have been woodworkers, working in a manufacturing unit making souvenirs out of a neighborhood unique wooden from the Myrtle tree. Myrtlewood, because the legend has it, is present in solely two locations on earth – the Holy Land and on the coast between southern Oregon and northern California.
Dale had the thought to assemble a few electrical guitars from myrtlewood – one for himself and one for Harry. Dale known as Paul Bigsby and requested for assist constructing them. Surprisingly – and this appears to be the one time that Bigsby ever agreed to such an concept – Bigsby agreed.
Via 1950, Dale and Harry started stashing away the nicest and most extremely figured items of myrtlewood that went by means of their manufacturing unit, all of the whereas getting concepts from Bigsby about their devices. Bigsby suggested them on such points because the neck-through development, headstock angle, scale size, and the like. The brothers already had put collectively two units of Epiphone E-stamped tuners they wished to make use of, so Bigsby despatched a headstock template that was barely elongated to accommodate the bigger tuners. Per Bigsby’s instruction, a non-adjustable truss rod made from 1/4″ x 1/2″ metal was inlaid within the neck. Bigsby despatched a pair of 25″-scale Bigsby fingerboards, fretted and sure, able to be put in.
The brothers selected a physique form unmistakably influenced by the Fender Broadcaster, however barely bigger and with extra curves. All through ’51 they labored on the our bodies and necks. Many specialists have checked out this instrument and might’t imagine it was anyone’s first guitar. The actual fact is Dale and Harry Granstrom have been already skilled woodworkers, and took their time choosing woods and punctiliously setting up the guitars.
The Granstrom brothers (Harry died in a development accident in ’69) seem to have been forward of their time – whereas myrtlewood was an unprecedented timber for guitar manufacture 57 years in the past, immediately, the problem acquiring good tone woods has meant wider acceptance of myrtle as a tonewood for acoustic-guitar sides and backs. Corporations comparable to Taylor and Breedlove provide myrtlewood acoustics, and a dozen smaller luthiers are utilizing the wooden extensively.
When the Granstrom devices have been prepared for ending, the brothers despatched the guitars to Bigsby’s workshop in Downey, California, the place Bigsby put in pickups, {hardware}, strap hooks, wiring harnesses, and pickguards. He additionally completed the devices by making use of Bigsby decals to the headstocks (although not often seen, Bigsby used water decals on the entrance of his single-neck lap steels and early instrument circumstances; he later modified to gold-foil stickers). There have been additionally small decals that learn “Accredited By Bigsby” on the headstock. The devices have been completed in late 1951, and featured in a neighborhood newspaper article titled “And Now It’s Myrtlewood For Guitars!” within the January 7, 1952, version of The Coos Bay Instances.
The brothers used the devices of their band, letting numerous others play them at any time when the brothers have been enjoying metal guitar, accordion, or drums. When the Fender electrical bass (and to a lesser extent, the Audiovox bass – made in Seattle, a brief hop from the Granstrom brothers stomping floor) started making the rounds of the Western swing and Hillbilly bands of the area, Dale knew instinctively that he ought to take into consideration making a electrical bass from myrtlewood.
Once more, they enlisted Bigsby’s assist, although to a lesser extent than on the guitars. Bigsby provided a completed 25″-scale fingerboard, as he had on the guitars, however Dale used a blade pickup from a Kay electrical bass (mannequin K5965), and numerous different elements obtained by means of mail order, to make a five-string(!) electrical bass in the summertime of ’54. Dale remembers the tuners needed to have {custom} elongated key shafts to accommodate the bizarre design. When the instrument was executed, Dale despatched Bigsby an image of the instrument, and Bigsby despatched up one other water decal to placed on the headstock of the bass. So far as now we have been in a position to confirm, that is the one electrical bass that Paul Bigsby ever had any direct involvement in – to not be confused with the 2 Bigsby tenor guitars which might be recognized to exist (although there was a minimum of one pretend Bigsby electrical bass to floor lately).
The group’s bass participant, Chuck Skog, used the myrtlewood Bigsby electrical five-string bass. As Dale remembers, like all short-scale electrical bass, the intonation was removed from excellent, and in consequence the group solely used the bass for just a few years. Skog is deceased, and his son says the bass was not in his possession when he died. Granstrom thinks the bass could also be floating round Oregon.
Along with constructing the electrical bass, Dale and Harry have been persistently refining the 2 guitars they’d made in 1951. The most important modification concerned putting in two of the model new Bigsby vibratos on the guitars, which they did circa 1954. A typical drawback with Bigsby devices made earlier than the invention of the Bigsby vibrato in ’52 is the neck angle – Bigsby devices earlier to 1952 are just about flat devices, with no neck pitch. To unravel that problem, all of Bigsby’s post-’52 devices should have a steeper neck-body angle to accommodate the downward angle of the strings from the bridge to the tailpiece. For the devices made earlier than ’52, together with the myrtlewood guitars – and earlier than the arrival of the double-bar B-7 Bigsby – this necessitated digging a channel, or submerging the Bigsby vibrato into the face of the guitar, to present the correct downward angle to make the vibrato work correctly. Once more, Dale did elegant work, rigorously making a form-fitting cavity within the face of the guitar to make the Bigsby vibrato work completely. Initially, the vibratos had the mounted arm Merle-Travis-style handles, however finally they have been changed with the swivel-arm deal with, which debuted in ’56.
A small however attention-grabbing function of those early Bigsby vibratos entails the rocker bridges that Paul Bigsby gave to Dale and Harry with new vibrato items. The rocker bridge items seem like an early evolutionary model, and surprisingly work higher than the later bridge that’s nonetheless included with Bigsby vibratos to at the present time.
Anybody who has tried utilizing a typical Bigsby rocker bridge has seen the bridge piece has a V fulcrum beneath every finish, which is supported by a flat curler disc beneath it. Ideally, when the participant works the vibrato bar, the bridge is meant to rock forwards and backwards on the fulcrum of the V. Sadly, in actual use (particularly when enjoying rock and roll), hand and palm strain from the participant will make the rocking bridge fall ahead or backwards, resting on one fringe of the V, making the guitar intonate improperly.
The attention-grabbing concept behind these early prototype rocking bridges entails threading upside-down oval head straight-slot machine bolts into the underside of the bridge piece (which is flat on the perimeters, no V fulcrum) and having the bridge rock on the underside of the upside-down oval head in a scooped out gap (replete with a slot for the straight-slot of the bolt head to maintain it aligned, and from turning within the channel) of the bridge base. A easy concept, however one which works completely, not like the later and extra widespread model of the Bigsby rocking bridge – the truth is, it’s one of many unanswered questions of the Bigsby legacy; why Bigsby went with a later concept for the rocker bridge that didn’t work in addition to this earlier prototype model.
One other wonderful chapter within the story of those guitars got here a pair years later, when Gibson and Gretsch started making guitars with humbucking pickups in 1957. Dale known as up Paul Bigsby and requested if he was making any of the “new” (humbucking) pickups. Bigsby replied that he was not; as he had mainly stop making commonplace guitars (the final recognized electrical solidbody Bigsby was made in late 1956), however he talked about {that a} man named Ray Butts was making substitute humbucking pickups for Bigsby devices.
Dale wrote to Ray Butts, who ran a workshop in Cairo, Illinois, and inquired about his pickups. Ray Butts, after all, is well-known in guitar-geek circles for inventing the Echo-Sonic amplifier in 1955, which was the primary amplifier to have a built-in tape echo (and was utilized by Chet Atkins and Scotty Moore). He was additionally the person who developed the primary humbucking pickup for Gretsch, the Filter’Tron. Ray Butts and Paul Bigsby grew to become acquainted by means of their involvement with Gretsch and Chet Atkins, and Bigsby visited Butts’ Illinois store when he drove considered one of his new Cadillacs dwelling from Chicago to Los Angeles. Bigsby revered Butts sufficient to advocate Butts’ pickups as replacements for his personal – one thing Bigsby wasn’t recognized to do.
When Dale heard again from Butts, he was shocked that Butts was asking $100 every for the humbucking substitute pickups (roughly $700 in immediately’s cash!). Dale may solely afford one, so he offered considered one of his authentic single-coil Bigsby pickups to a buddy (who mounted it in a Telecaster) and put in the Butts humbucker within the neck place of his principal myrtlewood guitar. The Butts pickup mounted straight into the Bigsby pickup ring; its cowl was forged and polished aluminum, identical to the Bigsby’s. When it comes to look and development, it’s similar to an early Gretsch Filter’Tron, however is a {custom} made creation with a low output to match that of the usual Bigsby pickup.
What makes this story fascinating is the truth that though Bigsby was apparently recommending Butts’ pickups, as of this date, the pickup on the myrtlewood Bigsby is the one Butts humbucking Bigsby substitute pickup recognized to exist! Greater than probably, the associated fee saved away potential prospects, and doubtless solely a handful have been ever made.
How does the Butts pickup sound? Spectacular. It has the chime and sparkle of the early Filter’Trons, with no high-end loss, and it matches the tone, timbre, and quantity of the single-coil Bigsby completely.
The myrtlewood story continued to evolve for Dale and Harry Granstrom because the years went on. There was a myrtlewood amplifier cupboard, which housed a Bogen P.A. amplifier head (with a JBL D-130 15″ speaker and an 8″ Diffusicone tweeter) that the brothers used for guitar. Extra ambitiously, Dale started constructing a myrtlewood double-10-string pedal metal guitar, based mostly on the Bigsby metal guitar design, however up to date to the pedal necessities of the early Nineteen Sixties. Initially, Dale regarded into getting two 10-pole Ray Butts humbuckers put in within the metal (and saved the hand-signed letter from Ray Butts detailing the prices), however finally selected Bigsby-style pickups as a substitute. He studied the development of the pickups on his different devices, and phoned Paul Bigsby to learn the way his pickups have been constructed, and made the pickups himself. This lovely instrument took a number of years to complete, and only some years after finishing it, Dale wound up buying and selling it in on a brand new MSA pedal metal. Dale’s makes an attempt lately to trace down his authentic 1949 Bigsby metal and his ’60s myrtlewood pedal-steel guitar haven’t yielded any outcomes. As well as, the second 1951 myrtlewood Bigsby commonplace guitar obtained offered off within the late Fifties, and Dale believes it might have wound up in Michigan.
Actually, out of all of the myrtlewood guitars, basses, metal guitars and amplifiers that Dale and Harry Granstrom made, the one one that’s nonetheless recognized to exist is the guitar pictured on this article. Dale saved all of it by means of the years, largely tucked beneath the mattress, since he was a working pedal metal guitarist, and didn’t play a lot commonplace guitar. Just a few years in the past, Dale determined to refinish the guitar, and made just a few modifications within the course of, as seen within the present photographs of the instrument. The 2 controls mounted on the decide guard at all times obtained in Dale’s means, so he drilled two new holes within the physique and organized the 4 controls in a extra commonplace configuration. The outdated Epiphone E-stamped tuners lastly gave up the ship (anyone with an outdated Epiphone archtop can relate), so Dale very rigorously reworked the headstock by putting in a brand new headstock cap (the Bigsby decal you see here’s a duplicate of the unique one), and neatly putting in a strong wooden plug on the again of the headstock to begin over with a brand new set of tuners (most just lately, a classic set of 1951 Kluson tuners just like those used on early Bigsby guitars have been put in). Whereas us classic guitar guys wince at his fearlessness in drilling holes in such a historic guitar, to Dale it was merely one other enchancment, one other evolution within the instrument he created almost 60 years in the past.
Dale Granstrom will not be the type of man who goes round waving his personal flag, so it wasn’t till I discovered Dale because of analysis for the upcoming Bigsby ebook that the story of those wonderful myrtlewood Bigsby devices got here to mild. In some ways, with Paul Bigsby and so most of the main gamers within the evolution of the electrical guitar gone from this earth, discovering Dale Granstrom was a revelation. Together with his extremely attention-grabbing sidebar contributions to the electrical guitar evolutionary tree, his detailed photographs, and his nice reminiscence, attending to know Dale (and his fantastic spouse, Betty) has been an actual honor and privilege. The myrtlewood Bigsby guitar is in itself fairly wonderful, however the tales this guitar has to inform are much more wonderful certainly.
In case you have any leads as to the place the opposite myrtlewood guitar, bass, pedal metal, amplifier cupboard, or his authentic Bigsby metal guitar could also be hiding, drop a line to Deke Dickerson at [email protected].
This text initially appeared in VG’s March 2009 problem. All copyrights are by the creator and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.