Mike,
Thank you for all of your hard work. The setup is super!! I appreciate you givng kudos to Jeff and Bud's for their part in this renovation....truly a wonderful collaboration. I need to give their due to a couple of other folks (not to mention Linda, the wife, who din't squeal once when I told her I needed to get both guitars rebuilt this summer).
I got the Marrs in about 1984/5. I was looking for a double neck and contacted Scotty's Music to see what was available in my price range....I was struggling to get by at the time with a wife, couple of kids, new mortgage, etc. Although he had nothing in stock, Scotty offered to call around and see what he could come up with. He called back to say that Duane had this guitar on consignment which was about 10 years old or so but was sound and played well. I think a road player had been using it and was getting a new Marrs built. The only "flaw" was that the stain on the top had started to take on a purplish hue over time. The guitar had 9 pedals, 6 levers - a couple of which worked both necks, and Bill Lawrence pickups - it both sounded and played great and also looked pretty good.
Well, I jumped at it....I am thinking I paid around $1200 max, maybe less. I don't believe that Scotty, Duane or the original owner made a cent on this deal. Needless to say, I was and am grateful to all of them for helping me out when I was pretty well strapped.
I always figured that I would get this guitar renovated and refinished but I blinked and it was 25 years later!!! So this summer I decided it was time to give both my ShoBud and the Marrs a makeover. I am so pleased with the results on both guitars and even more pleased that these classics have been brought to their optimal state.
The ShoBud - originally a 6140...rack and barrel with 6 footpedals, no levers. I got it from Manny's Music in NYC, where they knew even less about steel guitars than I did. I added 2 temporary knee levers I made for the E and F changes since I couldn't afford knee lever kits at the time. They stayed on until this year. I talked to Bobbe this summer about an overdue upgrade and sent it to SGN to have 3 pedals taken off and 4 knee levers installed. It was polished, tweaked, set up and a George L pickup installed this summer. It has the old rack and collar feel and sounds superb with the new pickup. Cosmetically it was in decent shape but all the aluminum was polished and everything cleaned up. Once the 'Bud was back, I then sent the Marrs off to Bobbe.
So many thanks to everyone involved in both projects. The steel guitar world is awesome!!! Here are a few pics of the ShoBud today.
