The Steel Guitar Forum

Has any steel players ever used a Fender showman...How does it compare with modern steel amps ?..I think that a fender strat with a showman was probably one of the best sound ever...any comments

Dual Showman Reverb!

I think that a fender strat with a showman was probably one of the best sound ever

I agree! Opened for Dick Dale the other night and it's an awesome sound. A strat through two tweed (or were they blonde?) Showmans w/ JBLs! They suspended the Reverb unit from the ceiling!

Of course the idiot soundman told me to turn down my little Deluxe Reverb because I was so loud he couldn't put me in the mix!

Never played steel through one but my guess it sounds pretty darn good!

I have a black face dual showman and a NV400. Both of them have been worked over by Ken Fox. Of the two I prefer the Dual Showman by a mile whether I play through a BW15 or 2 12" Webers.

Same innards basically as a Twin Reverb, so everything you hear from a Twin you can do with the Showman head paired up with different cabs. Nice amp. I played through the Showman TFL5000D for many years on guitar, bass and keyboards. Wish I had it back sometimes.

Back in the early '60s I had a Showman amp with a JBL 15" in a single large cabinate; pretty big to haul around but I was only 21 so I didn't care.

I was years away from playing steel at that point so I couldn't say - my Gibson Super 400 sounded unbelievable through it, though! That guitar's output was amazing, and the Fender was the perfect amp for it.

It had creamy tolex with a pale beige speaker-cloth. Very handsome, too!

I had the same amp. Wish I still had it. The only problem was no reverb, but I used an Echoplex, so it worked. It was a huge cabinet with a piggy back head. What a TONE MONSTER!

Still considered today to be a "holy grail " competitor just like a nice Twin, basically the same amp. Very nice clean examples of Showman heads are bringing good bucks. Listed as 85W ( no master volume) from 61-69. The Dual Showman and the Single Showman heads are the same, the cabs are different. Oh, one say's DUAL...I guess that's different !

I recently acquired a Bandmaster and a Tremolux , I would grab a Showman in NY minute if the deal was good and the amp was at least average, the only problem is these amps are too loud for Telecaster on a average gig but great for Steel.

great amps...

t

Darrell:

Back in the UK in 1961 or so, there was no such thing as a 'PA system' in any of the venues we'd play - theatres, concert halls and even Wembley Arena (then known as Wembley Pool, and it seated 10,000!) on a few occasions. Well, they'd have some ancient mics with a tiny amp hidden in a closet somewhere, but barely enough, and certainly insufficient to allow individual musicians to have a mic of their own.

In those circumstances I was lucky to have such headroom with my old Showman, and I reinforced my sound with a Binson Echorec, the then-state-of-the-art delay unit. I think my Showman was new in '62 - notb sure. I lost it when a Ford Transit van full of gear was stolen from outside my house in the late-'70s...

I'd forgotten that stuff, Tony - thanks! 85 watts rings a bell and, of course, there was no reverb. I wonder why not, now I come to think about it.

I really deserved to lose it (or the cabinet, anyway) years earlier than I did! I was unloading equipment from my car late after a gig one night and ferrying stuff inside my house. Figuring I was 'all done', I bolted the front door and went to bed....

Next morning I woke up and went to retrieve the milk from our front step and was somewhat surprised to see my beloved Showman speaker-cabinet waiting patiently on the sidewalk just by our garden-gate. We lived a nice neighbourhood, but still....

Don't feel too bad Roger, not all that long ago, I came in late from a gig, and as usual only take my Guitar(s) into the from the car.

The next morning when I got up and went to retrieve the gear from the van , the side door of the van was still open, Amps, Power Amps, mics, tons of mic and speaker cables, mixer board..blah blah blah, all that stuff in the Van, and..uhmm.still there..

I haven't told anyone this, too embarrassed, probably because I may do it again! This age thing is pretty fascinating !

Good thing I live in a small quiet neighborhood.

t

Roger Rettig wrote: I'd forgotten that stuff, Tony - thanks! 85 watts rings a bell and, of course, there was no reverb. I wonder why not, now I come to think about it.

Roger, the reason why your Showman did not have reverb is because Fender did not start installing reverbs until the Blackface era in 1963, with the BF Vibroverb being the first. Reverb did not show up in heads at all until the Silverface era, starting with the SF Dual Showman Reverb in 1968.

I can't imagine the tone you had going in your old '62. Must have been a wall of goodness for sure.

I thought a Showman Reverb w/JBL would be the s--t, but I didn't like the sound of the closed-back cabinet. The Vibrosonic Reverb is made for steel at 135 tube watts.

Al Kentfield
Jonestown, Texas

Tony Prior wrote: The Dual Showman and the Single Showman heads are the same, the cabs are different. Oh, one say's DUAL...I guess that's different !

t

Dual showmans ouput is 4 ohms. Showmans output is 8 ohm. great amps.

yes that would be correct, I am referring to output power, that's it...

output transformer # 125A29 for the Dual Showman

125A30 for the Single Showman ( later models up to 69)

It is generally stated that you can run an 8 ohm TAP to a lower impedance cabinet but not recommended to go the other way.

Or get one of them new Output Trans with multiple taps, should you need one at all ! 4/8/16

Actually there are three versions of single Showman chassis as well so perhaps they are not exactly the same , the power out is rated the same but there are at least three different chassis numbers.

I guess as long as we are getting into finite detail...

t

Sometime in 1963, Selmer's of London persuaded us (Eden Kane & The Downbeats) to accept a back-line of their new amps, the Selmer 'Zodiac' and the 'Treble & Bass'. We were flattered to be given something for nothing, even though this meant leaving our good amps (like my Showman) at home...

The Selmer amps were tacky-looking (fake alligator-skin coverings, and gimmicky push-button controls) and had performance to match! It wasn't long before Ben Steed (the other guitar-player) and myself had renamed them the 'Trouble & Bass' model.

However, our picture appeared Selmer ads in the music press constantly, so we got a little something out of it.

Here we are in the room above Selmer's Charing Cross Road showroom posing for the ads. Nice guitars - my '58 Gibson Super 400 and Ben's '59 Switchmaster.

I saw a pic of McCartney next to one those Selmer amps during the recording of Sgt. Pepper. Did they have a unique sort of tone when they were working? Some of those Pepper guitar sounds are different from the Fender and Vox sound. Was this the sound, I wonder?

Roger, that Super 400 must have been something to have in your hands at that age.

Chris:

Yes, it was a dream come true for me! That Eden Kane job was very well-paid and I was lucky to be earning so much as a 19 year-old. The Gibson cost me £475 in 1962 - almost a King's ransome, and enough to buy a new car at the time. All I knew then was that I had the same guitar as Scotty Moore!!!

The Selmer amps were pretty generic-sounding; I thought them similar to Vox in range and quality - not particularly good. Selmer (or Truvoice) amps never managed to tie in the same calibre of srtists as Vox did. Vox really made their mark with Cliff Richard & The Shadows who used them from the late-1950s on. The Beatles using them must have been the icing-on-the cake.

Here's a better pic of the Gibson.....(sorry about the advanced case of 'topic drift'!!!)

I love that old photo.. you can even see the crease where its been folded probably in a book or wallet, Best wishes Roger
DH

This may take you back Roger!!
Denmark Street and Charing Cross Road!

Eye Candy for the Boys!!!

(albeit it that was taken the other night!) but it ain't changed that much!
Pic quality isn't great as I was trying to get these without flash and no tripod!

As for topic drift I know Ivor won't mind, I was just talking to him last night!

Thanks for the background on the Super 400, Roger!

Look at all those guitars.....what a store. That 12-String Gibson in the second photo is a stunner for sure.

the 12s Gibson I seem to recall was 2.6K and that's GBP

Is Topic Drift acceptable if the Moderator is really enjoying the posts and pix?

To quote Sarah: "You Bet'cha!"

Merry Christmas Boys!

Thanks, David - best wishes for Christmas to you and yours.

Bob:

Great pictures! I know it's all fifty years ago when the real action took place (and everything was a new hitherto-unseen American-made beauty!), but I still gravitate to this area on the rare occasions I get back to London. I can't help it - I may play for a living, but that doesn't stop me being an inveterate tyre-kicker in those music stores!

Chris:

My pleasure. You know, although these days I find the Gibson L-5 more aesthetically pleasing, I can't help having feelings of regret for parting with this guitar in 2000. It made good money ($14-15K at Bonham's Rock and Pop Auction) but I've long since forgotten what I did with the readies! Now I wish it was just sitting here in its brown case with the pink lining....

I sold it to Albert Lee in the mid-'60s but, when his then-wife found out that he hadn't 'borrowed it from Roger Rettig', but that we had a kind-of payment plan in place, I had to rush over to Blackheath and retrieve it! I was very glad to have it back - I can't think what possessed me to let Albert have it in the first place!

JOEY!!!:

You're the boss - what you say goes! (Okay, boys - keep 'em coming; Joey says it's fine... )

Roger,

Seeing that Joey has given us the OK to topic drift as much as we like...the most recent issue of Guitar Aficionado magazine shows a pic of Albert Lee's Super 400 which is currently on display at the Hard Rock Cafe in Nashville. According to the pic info, it's a 1958 CES and that he used with the Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds in the late '60s. Do you know this guitar? It looks a lot like yours.

**On second look, it is actually identical to yours. I am here going back and forth from the magazine to the colour pic of you above playing yours, and I am astounded at the similarities.

Then it IS mine!!!!!

It's a '58 (A28256), and Albert wrote me a note-of-provenance for the auction. I had no idae who bought it and where it went! This is big news to me.

Can we see it on line somehow?

(Yes - he was with Farlowe at the time.)