Did 60s/70s Guitarists Upgrade Their Guitars?

[Supersonic]

as far as fretboard darkening goes.... the best thing I've used is butcher block conditioning oil... orange/lemon whatever.

https://howardproducts.com/product/butcher-block-conditioner/

That stuff will Darken the hell out of any rosewood or similar and it'll stay dark forever.
and it will not gum or gunk up.

Lemon oil or straight up mineral oil is ok... but nowhere as good as this stuff.

This is interesting. I have the Music Nomad F-One oil and also the Dunlop 01 Cleaner & Prep and Dunlop 02 Deep Conditioner. I'm really impressed with those but I might have to give this butcher block stuff a try and see if it gets the wood any darker. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Antigua]

In the rig rundown with John Oates he talks about a '58 Strat he bought from a drug dealer in about '73 with all sorts of mods, and he says he hasn't changed a single thing about it since. Among the most, almost all brass replacement hardware, he comments "brass was a big deal in the 70's", an extra string tree, Gibson knobs and it was rewired at some point. Mighty Mite opened in '74 and I know they produced a lot of the replacement hardware that went into "super Strat" conversions.

And of course you hear about people crying that all these priceless vintage guitars were chopped up in the 70's 80's, mostly routing the body for vibrato systems. Eventually companies like Jackson and Charvelle offered hot rodded guitars stock, so there was not much need to chop up guitars anymore.

 

[Steven Westberg]

Hey All, I'm an older guitarist who's played in several 'informal bands' over the years, but have really played seriously since the early 70s. Gigging was never my thing, mainly just jamming with others and home fun. I've played lots of different guitars and until the last 3-4 years was mainly a Strat guy. Now my main guitar is an Epiphone Limited Edition ES-335 Pro, and I love it. I don't really see the need to upgrade anything, but am frequently reading about the importance of at least upgrading the nut. I'm of the mindset that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". My question is take John Lennon, for instance.. did he (or other 60s/70s guitarists) upgrade the nut(s), or did they keep their guitars pretty much stock?

Also, I found a photo of Seymore Duncan with Jimi Hendrix as Jimi tries some new pickups Seymore has designed. The story with the photo was that Hendrix wanted to perform with those pickups so he traded strats with Seymore.
Seymore is the guy with the really long Beatles hair cut.

 

[Cozmik Cowboy]

John Cipollina's SG

Phil Lesh's Starfire

J.J. Cale's Harmony

Does that answer your question?

 

[Supersonic]

Alvin Lee's 335 wasn't exactly stock either.

 

[60CycleHum]

John Cipollina's SG
View attachment 13098
Phil Lesh's Starfire
View attachment 13099
J.J. Cale's Harmony
View attachment 13100
Does that answer your question?

Great photos. Phil’s bass was loosely templated on a Starfire but was actually an Alembic, I believe amongst the very first Alembic basses. Cipollina’s SG = a work of art.

 

[guitarlover]

Well the old legends played a lot of stock guitars before they ever got around to modding anything, when they were learning how to play, before becoming pro.

Early on Paul McCartney put a matchstick on the nut of his bass when he flipped it upside down, to make the string fit! Was watching a bio of Lennon recently and I’m pretty sure he didn’t tinker much. They ran stock guitars through stock amps and didn’t stay together long enough to see all the advancements in guitar technology. (This may not be entirely correct, but their recorded sound was down to the genius of their engineer.)

Then guys like Page, Beck and Hendrix and Iommi pushing the envelope with guitar and amp tech and effects. But swapping a nut? Makes more difference to acoustic guitar tone imo.

Nowadays we have access to everything under the sun, from pickups to amp modeling and whatever else.

I’m of the same opinion as you- don’t fix what ain’t broke.

I think you’re better off learning to play first, then learning to be a guitar tech or tinkerer...but that option is always there if you chose to, and with so much stuff available you can dial in any particular guitar sound that’s ever been done, according to what style of music you want to play, or make entirely new ones.

And that’s part of the fun of electric guitar is all the changes to the sound with effects, pickups, etc.

But to me the fundamental things are more important- the musical side (notes, chords, scales, songs, improv.) All the rest of it doesn’t matter much in comparison.

 

[Cozmik Cowboy]

Great photos. Phil’s bass was loosely templated on a Starfire but was actually an Alembic, I believe amongst the very first Alembic basses. Cipollina’s SG = a work of art.

You are mistaken. It was a Starfire that Alembic thoroughly transformed; they did like wise with a Starfire for Jack Casady.
This is Phil's Alembic:

This Jack's Alembicized Starfire:

And just for fun, Jack's 72-01 - Alembic's first ground-up instrument build (done several years after both of the Starfires were Alembicized).

 

[60CycleHum]

You are mistaken. It was a Starfire that Alembic thoroughly transformed; they did like wise with a Starfire for Jack Casady.
This is Phil's Alembic:
View attachment 13107
This Jack's Alembicized Starfire:
View attachment 13108
And just for fun, Jack's 72-01 - Alembic's first ground-up instrument build (done several years after both of the Starfires were Alembicized).
View attachment 13109

CC: I stand corrected. Phil’s “Mission Control” solid body pictured above was at Gruhn’s Guitars here in Nashville last time I checked. Pretty amazing to see that thing in person. There’s a Dead cover band called the Stolen Faces whose bassist on occasion has gotten to play Mission Control. Unfortunately I missed the last time they played....and then there were no shows for six+ months.



My photo of my old UCLA roommate at Gruhn’s last fall.

 

[Cozmik Cowboy]

CC: I stand corrected. Phil’s “Mission Control” solid body pictured above was at Gruhn’s Guitars here in Nashville last time I checked. Pretty amazing to see that thing in person. There’s a Dead cover band called the Stolen Faces whose bassist on occasion has gotten to play Mission Control. Unfortunately I missed the last time they played....and then there were no shows for six+ months.



View attachment 13122 My photo of my old UCLA roommate at Gruhn’s last fall.

View attachment 13121

Mission Control now has a new owner, who took her back to Rick Turner to fix a bunch of the stuff Gruhn's did during their "restoration".
Yoou can learn more here: http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=25600.0

 

[Cozmik Cowboy]

But swapping a nut? Makes more difference to acoustic guitar tone imo.

Nut swapping will have the same effect on either - and on either, only on open-string notes.

To tie that with the OP, in the late '70s-early '80s, there was a mania for putting brass nuts on just about everything. Maybe 10 years ago, I read a comment by a luthier who said something like "I'm seeing these older guitars advertised as 'bone stock', and I'm wondering where all those brass nuts I put on in the '70s went?"

 

[Al from Durham]

The earliest publicly conspicuous mod that I am aware of is Eddie Cochran's Gretch or Guild or whatever it was with a P-90 in the bridge position. Back then absolutely nobody was thinking about doing stuff like that, but he had a problem and he fixed it.

 

[60CycleHum]

Mission Control now has a new owner, who took her back to Rick Turner to fix a bunch of the stuff Gruhn's did during their "restoration".
Yoou can learn more here: http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=25600.0

Thanks CC! Cool seeing all the stats and glad it got into the right hands and had the proper finishing touches by Mr. Turner. How awesome is it that the original pickups were somehow found?!?

When it was at Gruhn Guitars, I almost asked to play it but because a) it was inside the acrylic case and b) I didn’t have a lot of time to spare, I opted not to. Such a gorgeous instrument.

Cheers, all.