Hank Marvin Type guitars

[chris mcbain]

Hello Shads Friends,
I have just been browsing on a well known site and there are around 13 fiesta red maple necked strats for sale from entry levels up to high quality ones
and also several Burns Marvins, I have never seen so many for sale at once possibly due to the people that had them have passed away now, the younger
generation don't know who the Shadows were so the Fiesta Red Stratocaster / Burns guitars don't have the same appeal as us older lot with Shadows memories.

What's your views on it.

Thanks Chris.

[scouserjoe2]

Hi Chris,

I certainly take your point that a large number of us Shadows fans here in the UK and Europe are now getting on in years. Many have passed away, some are now unable to play whilst others are simply 'refining or down-sizing' their collection. However looking through the list of Fiesta Red Stratocasters on our 'well known site' I see that a very large proportion of them (indeed I would go as far as to say a disproportionate number of them) seem to be originating from Japan or the USA. In my opinion, I don't think any loss of appeal with Hank Marvin and The Shadows is the principal reason for this. Over the years since the Stratocaster first appeared back in 1954 Fiesta Red has probably been the most popular and most sold colour. There have also been other well-known artists who have been identified with a Fiesta Red Stratocaster - Mark Knopfler and Gary Moore to name but two. I also have no doubt that the difficult times people are facing financially at the moment will encourage many to search their lofts and garages to see what is buried there that might raise a few quid.

Cheers

Ian

[Teflon]

Hi Chris,

............. There have also been other well-known artists who have been identified with a Fiesta Red Stratocaster - Mark Knopfler and Gary Moore to name but two.........

A while ago I was browsing a UK guitar forum and there was a thread specifically all about Fiesta Red Strats. The gist of the comments was that the guitar would forever be associated with a particular player, who I had never heard of. I had to look him up, and he was a young "twenty something" musician playing with a band I had also never heard of! No good asking me who he was, as I soon forgot both his name, and the bands. I doubt many of the posters had even heard of Hank or The Shadows . On the plus side, I'll bet in 60 years time there won't be any forums around celebrating their music, let alone a string of clubs dotted around the country celebrating their recordings. Or am I just getting old? (best not answer that!)

Cliff

[dave robinson]

As a professional guitarist since 1966, I have collected many guitars over he past twenty years and have owned some very desirable and expensive instruments that when I was a lot younger and working every night, I could never afford due to responsibilities and commitments, but things changed as the mortgage finished, kids grew up etc etc and I'm now able to buy whatever my mood takes me.
When I really needed some of this kit I couldn't afford it, which is ironic because now I have it I don't need it.
I remember the days when Mum & Dad scraped together money to buy my first electric guitar & amp then when we moved up to the Fender / Vox set up with the band and our manager signed HP agreements for three Vox AC30 amplifiers, a Meazzi Factotum PA system and Bedford Dormobile to carry the gear, not forgetting a Watkins Copicat for me on lead guitar. I swapped my Vox Duotone guitar for a sonic blue Fender Strat and took over the payments from the mate who owned it. Those days we only dreamed about owning a Binson Echoec (we thought that's what Hank used on the records) but we learned differently much later.
Anybody we saw with a Klemt Echolette or Gibson 345 Stereo or Gretsch White Falcon, or any Gretsch for that matter, we thought must be very rich. Something like a Gibson J200 was light years away, but in the past twenty years I have bought and owned and sold all of that stuff and more, only to move it on as some of it I didn't enjoy playing. My favourite guitar at the moment is my Chinese Gretsch Duo Jet that I have equipped with two DeArmond Dynasonic pickups like Cliff Gallup & Duane Eddy used, with a Duesenberg 'LesTrem' which is similar to the Bigsby but a lot better for my needs, I have Bigsbys' on other guitars and the Duesenberg is superior in every way. I also bought a Peavey Rockingham with a P90 and Dynasonic and a USA Bigsby and that is delightful at £400 and plays, looks and sounds every bit as good as a £3500 Grestsch White Falcon a had for a few years. The expensive guitars are nice to have, but I took my own advice and told myself that it's the player, not the value of instrument that makes it sound good. Food for thought ?

[abstamaria]

I agree with your observations, Chris. They are correct, sadly. You can sense the trend even here, in this dedicated forum, and even in Dave's reply above. Dave has moved on to other guitars.

That is true not only for the guitars, but also the early Vox amps, the echoes (EFTP and TVS3 are history now), and so on. Even the posts here have in general drifted from That Sound and such, quite different from the enthusiastic, animated discussions of even just ten years ago (which is why I find myself re-reading the old threads).

That is true of old cars also, which interest me. The market for 1950s cars has dwindled, because the enthusiasts that knew them have died, gotten ill, or retired, concerned with things other than old cars. That is happening with 1960s cars, analysts say, and will continue with each following generation.

A friend of mine, a surgeon incidentally, has been trying to organize sessions for Ventures, Shadows, etc., players. He says, when he invites people, they are either on the way to hospital, in hospital, leaving hospital, or will lever leave the hospital. He says that to remind everyone there's not as much time as we used to think and therefore we should get together to play as often as we can.

I still have my early Shadows guitars (no Burns) and amps from the shows we did before. (I just found out one of the guys has a Marvin Burns, the only one in the country.) I'm traveling now, but will organize as many sessions as I can at home when I get back. There's not much time!

Andy

[George Geddes]

Several years ago, I was looking for an inexpensive FR Strat with a rosewood 'board. I opted for a Squier Simon Neil Signature model. (Simon Neil is the guitarist with the Scottish band Biffy Clyro). Great guitar! Looks the part and plays great

George

[Teflon]

'.............the guitar would forever be associated with a particular player, who I had never heard of. I had to look him up, and he was a young "twenty something" musician playing with a band I had also never heard of! ............

Several years ago, I was looking for an inexpensive FR Strat with a rosewood 'board. I opted for a Squier Simon Neil Signature model. (Simon Neil is the guitarist with the Scottish band Biffy Clyro). Great guitar! Looks the part and plays great

George

"Biffy Clyro"! That was the band they were on about. Would never have remembered without your post . Is it just me that's unfamiliar with them - are they particularly famous?

Cliff (showing his age!)

[dave robinson]

Just to make something very clear, in no way have I deserted my Straocasters' or indeed my love of them, I still use my Squier Classic vibe and my G&L S500 on a regular basis and on big gigs us my USA DeLuxe Strat and these are perfect for much of what we play, but I was curious about certain sounds on records that I have and upon investigating and doing more research I discovered that the Gene Vincent album with he and the Bluecaps kitted out with white Strats was quite misleading, as the sound of those classic guitar tones on tracks like Be Bop A Lula and Race With The Devil were played on a Gretsch Duo Jet, which led me to George Harrison's great sound on the Please Please Me album, also played on a Duo Jet. As I mentioned in another post, I assumed he had used his Country Gentleman guitar and I was mistaken. I love the sound of early Duane Eddy also, which made me do more research and upon playing my newly acquired, modestly priced Electromatkc Duo jet with the Dynasonic pickups modification, I heard those same sounds that had eluded me in my ignorance and I am chuffed to bits. The very fact that you no longer have to spend a king's ransom to get a guitar to do this with any of these guitars is amazing.
I have seriously done comparisons between my expensive USA guitars, Fender, Gretsch and Gibson, side by side with my Squier, Gretsch Electromatic and Vintage models of the same guitars and the end result has been negligable differences in sound, playability and appearance. I used to believe that it had to be a genuine USA Fender to get THAT SOUND, but witnessing first hand people such as Mark Griffiths (bass & guitar) and Alan Jones play along side me on stage playing Squiers', as well as seeing ELO in concert at Sheffield Arena where the lead guitarist was playing a couple of Squier Classic Vibe Strats', but that myth was exploded and I'm now certain that it's the player of the instrument and the way it's set up. The special ingredients of THAT SOUND were most certainly from Malcolm Addey at Abbey Road, using the Hi and Low Pass Filters along with the magical Reverb and Compression available to him in that studio. I reached i conclusion years ago after long discussions with Dick Plant (engineer on many Shadows tracks) and playing around with my Logic Studio, changing the guitar sound by turning the controls on the EQ, Reverb tone, compressor and anything else in the chain. Once you understand what was going on, it's easy to accept and learn more about it. Paul Rossiter at TVS nailed a lot of it and incorporated it in the TVS3, for which he is highly commended.
I used to have difficulty in the early days getting near THAT SOUND as we understand it, today it just comes without any effort and that's without all the expensive gadgets we were told we needed. I get it automatically every time I plug into any of my Vox amps through the TVS3 or the Meazzi Echomatic and get very close using my Strymon Volante or the Zoom G5n / G3. I put it all down to learning from experience and I get pleasure from helping others get the sound on their gear.

[abstamaria]

For sone of us. particularly non-musicians like me, having a fiesta-red, gold-hardware, figured-maple-neck Stratocaster isn’t so much for the sound (although that is hoped for) as it is for having a guitar as Hank did. A friend has a Burns because he likes that period. Others may acquire a car, or a camera, or a mid-century chair, and such, for reasons beyond the sheer utility of the object. They just like having it. People are like that.

Are there fewer people interested in FR guitars for the Shadows connection? As Chris noted, the answer is probably yes.

[artyman]

Fender seem to bring out a continuous stream of "Artist" signature models, I guess to keep the factory income stream going. When you consider the number of instruments that must have been produced over the years their must be getting close to a guitar for every person on the planet, just some folk are greedy and have more than their share