new bigsby book

[Bobbe Seymour]

You are welcome Paul, you are appreciated also.

Bobbe

[Per Berner]

I got my copy last week, and read it cover-to-cover on Saturday morning. It is a beautiful layout, with very nicely reproduced photographs - way above average, I'd say. As for factual accuracy, I don't know enough to have an opinion, but the text seems to cry for a good editor. The chronology is jumping all over the place, and it does'nt feel very coherent. A couple of days spent getting the words to flow would have made this a great book. As it is, it's just a pretty book with interesting pictures. IMHO. And why aren't there any soundclips of the Bigbsy instruments on the CD? That would have been a valuable addition. All in all, well worth the price – but still...

[Casey Lowmiller]

Errors and omissions aside, the book is pretty darn good. It certainly could have been organized better & more guitar histories could've been explained more in-depth.

With all that said, I'm just glad that PAB and his work are finally getting the recognition that is deserved. It is still one of the most visually stunning books ever created. There's just something about great looking Maple and polished Aluminum that makes my pulse race.

After waiting for a Bigsby book for sooooo darn long, I'm just happy that we actually got one.

Casey

P.s. It would be cool if they would set-up a companion website or offer a photo cd with photos in bigger formats and photos that didn't make the cut.

[Jeremy Wakefield]

Deke, I know I'm addressing a fairly old post here, but I thought I'd jump in and add my recollections about that steel at the Vintage Guitar Show in the 90's...
As I remember it, the only parts on that guitar that could have been made by Bigsby were the 2 fingerboard/pickup surround pieces, which matched the ones on the D8 lap steel owned by Chas Smith. They'd been completely painted, and even had extra fret markings blobbed on with nail polish or some such thing. The horseshoe pickups were indeed Rickenbacker, but definitely the postwar 8-string variety, with the shorter 6-string bobbin. EVERYTHING else about that guitar was strictly homemade, from the crudely hand-carved wooden keyheads to the duct tape-wrapped knee levers. A truly unsettling home for a pair of Bigsby fingerboard castings. When I asked the seller, he said the price was $800, and the "Rickenbacker Museum" wanted to buy it. That was definitely outside my price range at the moment, even for the pair of pickups...When I found him a few weeks later at his regular spot at a Glendale flea-market, he said he had let it go for 100 bucks at the end of the day.
Oops. I guess I'm not much of a bargainer..
So I can only guess that either Murphey's lap steel was stripped of its fingerboards at some point, or that Bigsby built others like it. Or perhaps P.A. had supplied some lucky "luthier" with the parts only....Let's hope it was the latter!

[chas smith]

Back in the early '90s, I was talking to someone who had just come off a tour and they were telling about playing with a band, in Tenn., where the guitar player had a Jackson guitar with a Bigsby guitar neck bolted on.

[Deke Dickerson]

I'm glad that Jeremy's recollection is better than mine. Sounds like it was NOT Joaquin's original 1945 Bigsby steel. So--maybe, just maybe, it's still out there.

It'll be easy to spot, with the two extra tuners on the end of the pegheads.

Chas, the Jackson story is disturbing.

The worst Bisgby story I've heard is the 1949 spanish guitar that Dave Westerbeke currently owns--it was found in a barn in Virginia, painted with black housepaint and sitting in a pool of standing water! They did a nice restoration, you'd never know, but I'd hate to be the guy who first found THAT....

Deke

[Jussi Huhtakangas]

Yikes, much like the quad Wright Custom I had; inside neck was hacksawed off, painted red with a brush and housepaint etc. It did come out nice after a serious restoration: