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Topic: Has Anyone Seen "Smilin Jack" Lately |
Nick Reed
From:
Russellville, KY USA
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Posted 30 Sep 2008 10:40 pm |
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What ever happened to "Smilin Jack Hamlett", the shy young kid who played a non-pedal D-8 Bigsby. We saw him play in St. Louis back in '97. I think he was from the Baltimore/Wash DC area and his Daddy always accompanyed him on electric lead guitar. The kid could flat play that thang!
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 1 Oct 2008 8:48 am
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| "Smiling Jack" is the Dad, and he's been a fixture in the Baltimore area for decades. Jack Jr. is the young steeler, and they both hail from just outside of Baltimore. Jack and his Dad play most of the shows in the region, but there haven't been too many big shows around here lately. |
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Jim Cohen
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Eric Stumpf
From:
Newbury, NH 03255
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Posted 2 Oct 2008 3:29 am
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| Jack senior owned and played that guitar for years and then young Jack took over. It's the original Bud Isaccs Bigsby, in case you didn't know. My understanding is that the guitar recently traded hands. |
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Jussi Huhtakangas
From:
Helsinki, Finland
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Posted 2 Oct 2008 3:53 am
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Yup, that's the "Slowly"-guitar, the holy grail of E9!!  |
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Lee Baucum
From:
McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier
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Posted 2 Oct 2008 4:21 am
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| So, were the pedals and changer mechanism removed from the guitar? |
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Jussi Huhtakangas
From:
Helsinki, Finland
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Posted 2 Oct 2008 4:45 am
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Nope, Jack Jr just plays it without pedals. Jack Sr was selling this guitar here on the forum some time ago and posted photos of the guitar with pedals and mechanism, which is quite interesting; instead of the usual Bigsby cable pulling system, it has rods to "plungers" at the key head that push the strings up. This is how the earliest pedal Bigsbys worked, including Speedy West's which was the first with pedals.
Edit: here's the topic about it:
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=115643&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=bigsby&start=0 |
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