LETTERS
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360º WITH A RICK 360
I had such a terrible morning. I was
stuck in traffic for over two hours. This
[“Rickenbacker Guitars Factory Tour”
video on premierguitar.com] completely
made my day. Thank you. I think I’ll
spend the night with my 360.
—epoch
via premierguitar.com
Thanks, epoch. Glad we could tame your road rage! You’ll be happy to see that we’ve got
even more Rickenbacker radness in our new feature on p. 74.
giving players more bang for their buck, instead of the usual approach of “That’s your
budget? Well then, you can have one of our
shoddily built, budget-level instruments
with NO features.” Every Vintage guitar
I’ve tried plays, sounds, and looks far better
than its price would indicate. Thank you
for the fascinating interview, PG Although,
one important question was overlooked:
Why is it that no one in the US or Canada
seems to carry Fret-King guitars? I’ve been
gassing for an Esprit III for years, and I
can’t find a dealer anywhere!
—Joe
via premierguitar.com
Merry Christmas to Blues
This [“Beyond Blues: Liberating Blues
Changes,” January 2012] is a great
Christmas present. Cool changes and
voicings—my favorite is the Em11 to
A7#5. It’s gonna be playing in my head
for a while. Thanks!
—John
via premierguitar.com
Teuffel Talk
Oddly strange, but intriguing designs
[“Builder Profile: Teuffel Guitars,”
January 2012]. The Birdfish is out of this
world, but would love to own one and see
the looks on people’s faces while “
rawk-ing” it onstage.
—Tim Dunn
via Facebook
Don’t Forget the Doubleneck
Besides being one of the original designers
of the solidbody modern guitar, Bigsby
[“Forgotten Heroes: Paul Bigsby,” December 2011] was the doubleneck guitar guy,
too. Davie Allan [leader of the 1960s band
Davie Allan & the Arrows] played a Mos-rite Joe Maphis model doubleneck that
Semie Moseley gave to him, and Semie
was a right-hand man to Bigsby. There
should be doublenecked guitars featured
in this write-up!
—Whammy
via premierguitar.com
Thanks for noting this, Whammy. We asked
vintage guitar expert George Gruhn about
Paul Bigsby’s development of doublenecks,
and this is what he had to say. “Certainly
Bigsby did doubleneck guitars very early
on. Gibson had also done doublenecks, even
pre-WWII—and I‘ve even seen a Gibson
doubleneck acoustic. But Bigsby was defi-
nitely a prominent doubleneck guy, and his
doubleneck designs are featured in the book
your author references in the article.”
Missing Chet
This article [“Chet Atkins Exhibit: Country Gentleman,” December 2011] is a fine
summary of Chet’s great guitars and his
long career as displayed in Nashville. There
are a lot of guys who play flashy and fast
and play a lot of notes, but nobody will ever
come again with the creativity, style, grace,
and tone of Chet Atkins. Chet invented
or developed a lot of the licks we all play
today and have copied from him. He played
every style of music. [And that’s] without
even getting into his skill as a producer of
records. The only sad note in the article is
the fact that instrumental guitar is nearly
unknown on the popular scene today.
—Tom Conner
via premierguitar.com
Bang for Your Buck
Trev Wilkinson [“Builder Profile: Trev
Wilkinson,” December 2011] makes some
really fine instruments at a price point that
can’t be beat, and his technological and
mechanical innovations put the big guitar
companies to shame. He also seems like a
genuinely friendly and down-to-earth guy
who nevertheless is passionate about making the best instruments he can at a given
price point. I love his philosophy of truly
Dennis Drumm from JHS, Fret-King’s
London distributor, replies: “We’ll be
announcing at Winter NAMM that our
Vintage distributor, MDG in New Jersey, will
be handling Fret-King for the US. This will
get Esprits in the market in the second quarter of 2012. In the meantime, contact Ivor
Mairants Musicentre ( ivormairants.co.uk) in
London. They ship worldwide and will cut
you an amazing deal.”
I played a Vintage LP guitar in-store and
ABC’d it against an Epiphone and Gibson.
The Vintage was better than the Epi but not
as good sounding as the Gibson. Great mid-price guitars, in my humble opinion.
—Ibashred
via premierguitar.com
Tastes Like Chickenfoot
What a great interview [“For the Birds,” December 2011]. I, for one, am glad [Joe Satri-ani, Michael Anthony, and co.] are already
rich and have nothing to prove. It shows in
their music in a most positive way.
—Jeff S.
via premierguitar.com
Thanks, Jeff. We like the idea of being rich
and having nothing to prove, too, but we’re
afraid we may need a rabbit’s foot or two for
that. Har-har ….
keep those comments coming!
Please send your suggestions, gripes,
comments, and good words directly to
info@premierguitar.com.
28 PREMIER GUITAR FEBRUARY 2012
premierguitar.com
