The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964. Although I was just a kid, I’d been listening to rock music for several years before on the local AM radio stations. Most of the artists I liked played guitar. When The Beatles showed up, and when I watched that show, that just did it for me. I just had to have a guitar.
And every Christmas the Wish Book aka THE CATALOG showed up in our mail. We received three or four of these from different stores. I would turn right to the guitar section and carefully read each description with fascination. Those were those "olden days", long before Amazon, Musicians Friend, or the myriad other web sites which much later came into being. During this time I would beg my parents for a guitar or amplifier.
Straight out of the Sears catalog were all of these "Silvertone" instruments. The two hollow bodies on the left and the two solidbody guitars on the lower right were made by the Harmony Guitar Company. The two teal solidbody guitars on the upper right were made by the Kay Guitar Company. Silvertone was the brand name that Sears had put on their radios, and televisions.
The company applied that name to their musical instruments. In fact Sears contracted with several different manufacturers to produce guitars, and amplifiers, and then badged them with that brand name. All of these guitars pictured here were made by Kay, with the exception of the second one on the top row, which is a Danelectro guitar.
About six month later my friend had saved up enough money to purchase the matching Danelectro-made Silvertone model 1483 bass amp. This amp pumped 23 watts into a single 12" Jensen speaker.
Silvertones were less expensive than a comparable Fender amplifier. The Danelectro speaker cabinets were made with a compartment in the bottom to store the amplifier unit or head for transportation.
While Fender and Gibson made their amplifier cabinets out of solid pine wood, Danelectro used much cheaper particle board for construction.
For those on a budget, Silvertone offered the model 1472, also made by Danelectro. This pumped 10 watts into a 12" Jensen speaker. All for less than $70.00 USD.
The Montgomery Ward Company used the brand name Airline for its electronic and music products. They used a number of "jobbers" or companies to procure their guitars and amplifiers, such as National, Valco, Supro, Harmony, Kay, All of these guitars were sold by Wards under the Airline brand name.
The Kay Thin Twin was the model played by guitarist Jimmy Reed. You can see it in this 1954 company catalog. Most of the other guitars and amps on this page were made by National.
A company that has probably been long forgotten was Western Auto. They were very popular in the 1950's and 1960's, and sold guitars and amplifiers under the Truetone brand. The guitars and amplifiers were made by the Kay Company of Chicago.
One of my favorite Kay-made guitars sold by Western Auto was the three pickup Jazz King aka the Speed Demon. It came with distinctive Kay single coil pickups. Each pickup had its own volume and tone control. Some models came with the Truetone decal, while others came with the Western Auto "W" logo.
This guitar came with one or two pickups, and a fixed bridge with an aluminum bridge cover. The price for the one pickup model was only $44.95, which was a big factor in the instruments popularity. These were sold by Western Auto, Sears, and under the Old Kraftsman brand for Spiegel, another catalog company.
One more popular model made by Kay was called The Value Leader. It was sold through several different catalog companies under different brand names, as well as under the Kay brand.
This hollow body Les Paul shaped guitar came with a fixed wooden bridge, a rectangular aluminum pickguard, a trapeze bridge, and one, two, or three pickups. The single pickup model sold for $69.95, the two pickup model sold for $87.95, while the three pickup version was $99.95. The pickups were low output to decrease feed back.
Although Fender guitars were only sold through authorized dealers, you could obtain a Fender catalog from a dealer or directly from the company. For a guitar obsessed kid, these were like finding gold. We could look at these guitars and dream.
The new kid on the scene in 1966 was Baldwin guitars and amplifiers. Baldwin had recently acquired Burns of London guitars, and the rights to Kustom amplifiers. Some of the original Baldwin guitars were still labeled as "Burns", so Baldwin put their logo on top of the Burns logo. The Baldwin amplifiers were based on Kustom amplifier circuitry.
The Joseph Speigel Company was a Chicago based business specializing in direct mail order sales. They sold guitars that were made by Kay Guitars of Chicago under the Old Kraftman brand.
One of the most interesting companies that origisnally sold guitars and instruments made by other companies, but within a few years manufactured their own guitars in the mid 1960's was The Carvin Company of California. I recall sending for this catalog. It may have cost me 50 cents. It contained very interesting guitars and amplifiers, and it came with a separate price list written on a typewriter.
The Carvin Company was a family business, and remains so today under the Keisel name.
Years later I learned that the bodies of those early Carvin guitars were made by the California based company, but the necks, pickups, and electronics were made by Hofner of Germany., though some of the pickups were wound in house. Later on Carvin manufactured their own brand of pickups
In addition to the wish books there were a few television commercials in the mid-1960's from a toy company called Emenee. This New York based toy manufacture created several guitars that were made out of plastic.
They also produced the "polychord electric-piano organ" aka The Audition Organ, and the "Big Bash Drum" snare drum. Well a kid could start their own band with all those seemingly marvelous instruments.
The Emenee Tiger guitar was a hollow body archtop instrument made entirely of plastic. It had a cutaway, an archtop bridge and came with a detachable contact microphone which was probably made by the DeArmond Company.
The Swinging Cat guitar has been described in internet posts as perhaps the worst toy ever made. It was a solid body style all plastic guitar with a faux pickup section molded on top of the body. It came with a contact microphone that was permanently attached to the amplifier. The child could place the microphone contraption under the strings.
Both instruments featured low watt battery powered amps housed in a plastic cabinet.
So sit back and check out these old catalogs. Dog-ear the pages for your selections, and make a wish. I wish you a very Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!
A good friend just pointed out to me this unique guitar that J.J. Cale had played, and essentially rebuilt himself.
For those of you unfamiliar with J.J. Cale (John Weldon "J. J." Cale) was born December 5, 1938 and passed away on July 26, 2013.
Cale was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Throughout his life he avoided the limelight, which may account for why he was not well known. However his influence as a musical artist has been widely acknowledged by figures such as Mark Knopfler, Neil Young and Eric Clapton, who described him as "one of the most important artists in the history of rock.".
Cale is considered to be one of the originators of the Tulsa Sound, which is based on blues, rockabilly, country, and jazz.
Perhaps the most publicity Cale received was in 2008, when Cale, along with Clapton, received a Grammy Award for their album "The Road to Escondido."
John Cale was born was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He graduated from high school in 1956. During his teen years be learned to play the guitar and began studying the principles of sound engineering while still living at his childhood home. He ever built himself a recording studio.
After high school he was drafted into military service and studied at the Air Force Air Training Command. Cale said he joined the Air Force because he didn't really want to carry a gun. During the “Draft” years most 18 year old men joined the Army and then were assigned to fight in the Korean War, and later the Vietnam War.
During his military service Cale took technical training and was assigned to an electronics unit. This helped in later life. His knowledge of sound recording and mixing played an important part in his life.
In 1964, after the mandatory two years of military service he moved to Los Angeles and found work as a studio engineer. At nights Cale landed a regular gig at the Whisky a Go Go in March the following years.
In 1966 he cut a 45 rpm demo with Liberty Records. The song was “After Midnight”. He distributed this recording to friends and session players. Sadly nothing happened and Cale was so broke that he sold his guitar and moved back to Tulsa.
In 1970 Cale learned that Eric Clapton had recorded his song, After Midnight. Friends suggested that due to the fame and publicity Cale record his on cover of his song. He released it in the USA in 1971. The song gained greater fame when Michelob Beer used it for a TV commercial.
Los Angeles Times writer Richard Cromelin as a "unique hybrid of blues, folk and jazz, marked by relaxed grooves and Cale's fluid guitar and iconic vocals. His early use of drum machines and his unconventional mixes lend a distinctive and timeless quality to his work and set him apart from the pack of Americana roots music purists."
Neil Young described J.J Cale in these words, "Of all the players I ever heard, it's gotta' be Hendrix and J. J. Cale who are the best electric guitar players."
Cale had a hit single in the U.S. called "Crazy Mama", which peaked at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1972. However Cale declined to promote it because some of the TV shows at the time required him to lip-sync which he was totally opposed to. He chose the name J.J. Cale because at the time John Cale was well-known multi-instrumentalist that played in the Velvet Underground.
Cale moved to California in 1980 and became a recluse, living in a trailer without a telephone. He recorded another album in 1983 which had poor reception. After this Cale asked to be released from his contract.
He purchased an RV to live in. He recorded his own songs at his home and spent his days mowing his lawn and listening to Van Halen and rap.
In and interview he said. “ "Because of all the technology now you can make music yourself and a lot of people are doing that now. I started out doing that a long time ago and I found when I did that I came up with a unique sound."
This guitar had seven control knobs, countless wires, buttons and switches, four outputs, and a big red light. He never bothered to put the back of the guitar on again. That way so he would have easy access for repairs and adjusting the action by means of a couple coins he had wedged into the thing. This was Cale’s number one guitar.
Unfortunately that guitar had so many holes in it, and without a back it began to fall apart. He took it to luthier Danny Ferrington, who was a friend to see if he could repair it. Ferrington strengthened the sides and put a back on it, but it was never the same Cale quit playing it.
His widow and bandmate, Christine Lakeland estimates that J.J. had around 50 guitars, some of which are still in storage. Most of these instruments cost $100 or less. He would modify each of them. He played with a light touch and preferred light strings and a low action. He preferred guitars with a "C" shaped neck. At one time he also had a Gibson 490T, a 490R, and a Classic ‘57.
Although he had small hands, he did own Ramirez and Ovation classical guitars with wide necks.
It has an Engelmann spruce top, mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard and bridge, Brazilian rosewood back and sides, peghead veneer, white binding, lots of abalone trim and inlays. John replaced the original saddle pickup with an LR Baggs. He loved the fact that this was a smaller instrument. It is pictured on the cover his his album: Guitar Man.
He purchased a 1991 Casio PG-380 MIDI guitar made in Japan. The bolt-on maple neck had a rosewood fingerboard. Cale added a humbucker and a Floyd Rose. He liked the fact he could trigger so many different sounds from the MIDI hook-up, which was quite new then. It is probably worth only $150 as of today.
In the mid 1980's his friend Steve Ripley gave him a Kramer guitar that he had designed known as The Kramer Ripley. This was a stereo guitar. J.J. Cale took it on the road and played it through a Marshall stack, which was out of the normal for him.
Cale loved to experiment with cheaper guitars. From around 2002, he played the newer Danelectro Convertibles which cost around $350 back then. He liked the thin necks and the fact that they didn’t weigh a lot. The Formica bodies didn’t seem as affected by climate changes on the road. Cale would modify them by putting pickups under the saddles and sometime in the sound hole. (The original Danelectro Convertible was so named as it had a removable lipstick pickup on the guitars round sound hole.
Cale owned several Gibsons: an L-4, a Les Paul, the ES-175, ES-335, ES-330, ES-336, CS-356, J-165 EC. But he wasn’t as big a fan of the Gibson necks as Fenders.
For a few years in the early 80s, he played a late-70s Strat and a highly modified Stratocaster where he started with the body and neck, then added two humbucking pickups with a Seymour Duncan single coil in the center. After that he added a Canadian made replacement neck and an Alembic Strat-O-Blaster which he added to the input plate.
He also owned a 1991 Gibson Byrdland that he purchased on the road. He installed a Bigsby tailpiece, Mike Christian bridge with a pickup, and Fishman Prefix Pro Blend Preamp electronics on the side. He added a Sta-Tuned string lock on the front of the headstock and cut an access opening in the back. He played it for a while, but had trouble keeping it in tune.
He wrote most of his songs on acoustic guitars and he owned several Gibson instruments. These include a J-45 and an L-5 he liked. And then there’s the Heritage L-00 Standard, the smaller, dark chocolate sunburst model.
Click on the images under the pictures for sources. Click on the links in the text for further information.
