The Steel Guitar Forum

Check out this Spade Cooley video - Joaquin gets a short chorus right near the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfzSH3ygeTM

<marquee>Wow!</marquee>

those are some hot grandmothers

What's he playing?

My GUESS..........an early double neck BIGSBY

Four fiddles sound great! Who was the accordianst?

He's playing this ....

http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum2/HTML/002562.html

GREAT VIDEO,
Thanks for the link, really made my morning.

Spade Cooley and Johnny Damon- never seen together at the same time..hmm....

That was fun...the best at the last of course...That hepcat Spade though...really got that left leg rock'in there on one song...almost out of control!
I enjoyed the whole thing, Thanks for posting that Ambrose.

You're welcome Ron. Thanks go to Norman Plankey for pointing me to the clip. Norman is a great western swing and Django-style guitar player living in Connecticut. He's the guy that recently uploaded those great Ernie Ford videos with Jimmy and Speedy that a lot of us have seen.

I've had a copy of this and other stuff for years - much of which Murphey had never seen. Once when Murph was living at my home near the end of his life,I played it for him. He sat there on my sofa with tears in his eyes and said "I wish I could just climb into the TV set and go back to those days and play with those guys one more time." At that point Pedro and Catus had recently passed I believe and Murph was actually the last surviving member of the band.

I don't think that is the exact same guitar that is shown in the old post that Andy linked to. The switch is missing and the pick-ups and bridge are different. Not to say that these things couldn't have been changed latter. But it makes me curious - as the old link talked about 2 lap steels make by Bigsby. I also wonder about the lap steel that is on the cover of the John McGann transcription book. Does anyone know what guitar that is.

Could it possible be an early Rick? The thing I noticed were the horseshoe pickups rather than the closed loop on the Bigsby's...Not sure though.
RonB

Don't those look like horseshoe magnets?

I have heard a bit of contraversy on weather or not Murphs first Bigsby had Ricky pickups....or a Rickenbacher "like" pickup. It looks like the pickup has a simmilar ( but different) raise and lower thumbscrews on either side of the pickup as Rickenbachers do. Anyways it's a beautiful guitar.
Todd

That guitar doesn't look like either of these guitars:


The bridge looks like a strings thru body design, the pickup is a horseshoe, the shape of the body, where it becomes the front neck, is different. The fretboard casting appears to be the same. Hmmmmm, I wonder what happened to that one.

is there any way to capture that video? the usual "right click save target as" method doesn't work.

mylos

Hi Mylos, Larkspur heh? I lived in Marin for eons, now in Sac, soon to be back...
Anyway, those aren't really videos anymore, they were converted to Flash movies. I don't think there is a way to grab them, but I'll ask my programmer son. There is a recording software that is used for writing tutorials and showing whats happening on screen but I think it has to plug into the program it's recording...not sure though, I'll check it out...stay tuned.

Cheers, Ron

Mylos, here is a way to capture te video.
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum12/HTML/002910.html

It works for me!<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Peter on 27 February 2006 at 02:52 AM.]</p></FONT>

Guess I should have looked closer, Chas. Too bad Bigsby kept no formal records.

Chas, I do believe the guitar in the clip is the one in that Plainsmen photo, in other words the earlier of the two D8 laps Murph had. In the beginning of the clip you can see it briefly from another angle and it looks the same.
Speaking of Bigsby's records ( or ledger ), myself with few other Bigsby geeks have been compiling a list of his instruments, there are over a hundred now "documented" ( that's probably a too fancy word ). Most of them lack serial #'s however and few of them ( but only a few ) are just "hearsay", but we're slowly getting additional info when these guitars pop up.

Jussi, I think you're right, that top neck is a 6-string. Guess I should have looked closer, too.

<SMALL>Too bad Bigsby kept no formal records.</SMALL>

Ted McCarty thought so too.

As to Michael's thot that Murph was the last of the Caravan to go, that distinction may actually belong to guitarist, Benny Garcia, who just left us quite recently.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p al</p></FONT><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Ron Whitfield on 02 March 2006 at 03:55 PM.]</p></FONT>

We on the Forum are lucky to have Chas and Michael Johnstone and Andy thanks guys.
There will never ever be a steel player like Joaquin. Those were the days.

Thanks to all of you for this thread Its Great.