The Steel Guitar Forum

What do these letters stand for? Also, some have dropped the first letter, E, leaving MCI. Is this the same company and someone left, or the other way;, someone came in? Emmons?

Jim, I think you will find that it was MCI first and then Emmons came into the picture and he along with Bud Carter made the EMCI. MCI was owned by John Birkhead, Intertek International, Inc. in Arlington, Texas. I have for a long time been trying to locate him. Visited him there in mid eighty's. Bud Carter was working there for MCI. Hope this helps, J.R. Rose

J.R. I suspected it was initials of the principals, but If the E is Emmons and the C is Bud Carter, who is the M? Thanks for your reply.

MCI= MusiConics International, I believe. I'm not sure but I think the Intertek sub came later.

Here's the story on the "E" from the man himself:

Buddy Emmons wrote:In the interest of truth versus second hand smoke, I�ll supply the real reason for the E in front of MCI, which had nothing to do with my last name.
I received a call from John Birkhead saying he had to change the name of the guitar. I told him I was sorry to hear it because the MCI name was starting to gain recognition and a change at this stage might be confusing to potential customers. He asked if I had any suggestions and I said, �Yes, put an E in front of the MCI, separate the EM from the C, and place dots after C and I. Then the logo will read EM C.I. and still be pronounced MCI. John said he liked the idea, but designed the logo as EMCI with no separations, which gave the guitar a new name and left the reasoning behind it to the imagination.
<FONT><p>[This message was edited by Buddy Emmons on 29 April 2004 at 07:28 AM.]</p></FONT>

Very good info Jerry, Been looking to know all that for some years and had just missed earlier. Do you know if John Birkhead is still alive? Thanks, J.R.

J.R., I don't know about John Birkhead, but I'm sure someone around here does.

There's a lot of history on these guitars floating around the pages of the forum and otherwise online. I think Jim Smith and Jim Flynn can supply some information as well.

F.I., I read a comment somewhere from John Fabian that the first MCI labels had a "by Carter" printed on them.

I saw a comment from Chris Lucker that the original MCI was MusiConIcs Incorporated.

Interesting history. It does raise the question of why Birkhead had to change the MCI name? Why did he have to call Emmons about making the change. Did Buddy have a stake in the company then?

They probably had to change because of the long distance phone company. Remember them? They became Worldcom, and I think they're gone now.(actually bought by Verizon, because we no longer enforce the Sherman Act)

That makes sense, and, yes, I remember the long distance company, MCI. Thanks, guys, for the history lesson. Very interesting.

Their sure are a lot of WHY'S, Hopefully someone in the know will chime in here, really would like to know this story. J.R.

The bigger question might be: "What happened to all the guitars from Ben Jack's steel guitar museum that John Birkhead bought, and where is John Birkhead?"

I think Fred Gretsch ended up with EMCI. Seymour told me back in the mid 90s the name and the tooling for emci could be purchased for about 60k.

Unfortunate really. It was a great guitar. I've owned two emci and one mci and about to buy one back. And seriously looking at another one.

I don't know about John Birkhead.

Gene Fields and Red Rhodes were both involved in some capacity. The mechanics were of course Bud Carter. I think Gene Fields talked mci into the welded frame idea.

One story was the motor coach company MCI was instrumental in forcing the name change. They added the E. it was still "em cee eye" in pronounciation. Seymour told me that. Which is confirmed by Buddy in the post above.

Steve Lamb was the primary luthier I think. Jim Smith worked there part time I think.

The first emci d10 I heard was the one Gary Carpenter built.

I had heard that Jim Flynn had a supply of emci and mci parts but I never asked him.

And I believe Frank Carter essentially reverse engineered and improved upon the mechanics and the result was the Infinity. Palenscar had, at one time, an EMCI d10 that frank had worked on

Arguably the best stuff that Bud Carter ever built. IMHO

I bought a brand new MCI Rangexpander D10 in 1986, which was among the first of the welded frame guitars, I still have the guitar, which I am currently refurbishing back to as new condition - I still have the catalogue as well somewhere which has a picture of Buddy on the front sitting at a Red and Black D10 ... so he was involved in some capacity from at least the welded frame iteration. Absolutely wonderful guitars by the way

Paddy, that range expander was the Cadillac mci. If you ever want to sell it, remember me. good stuff.

I was working at the music store owned by my friend Danny Hawk, now a popular steel player in Austin, when my old pal Red Rhodes walked in the store, about 1986. He had relocated temporarily to Waco TX and was working on a new steel guitar, the MCI. This was before the welded frame model Bud Carter had a hand in, and this iteration of the brand was an "advanced" student design, not having the full features of the later MCI and much later EMCI.

Identifying that first round of MCI guitars would be the logo on both the front and rear aprons of the guitar.

In addition, you need to hear Jim Smiths story about it. The short version, is that Buddy was so very happy with the MCIs, he favored them for years. Jim set up the MCIs that went out to Buddy. Buddy said openly that the MCI was perfect when he got it. Speaks volumes about Jim Smiths knowledge and skill. Bud Carter originally told me that, when I got my first MCI from Steve Lamb. Jim Smith later confirmed that story in a post on this forum. Pretty cool.

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Herb, Been trying to locate John Birkhead for several years along with the Ben Jack Guitar Collection. In that he had the Green ZB that was Tom's. He just disappeared!! For someone so involved with the Steel World someone must know something. J.R. Rose

This is what I got when I visited the company. Around 1985 or 1986. He told me he had Ben Jack's stuff in storage. J.R.

I remember ordering a new EMCI D-10 for the Chanute Air Force Base band in Rantoul, IL in the late 80s early 90's? I ordered it from Fred Gretsch JR seems to me it had a EMCI logo with a little derby on it.

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I see they offered lacquer as an up cost option back in the day.. Never saw one of those,and I would bet the total number of lacquer MCI/EMCI steel guitars can be counted on one hand.. I would buy one in a second if I could find it... bob

Bill, I believe that modded MCI is still there at Jim's. It has blueish green wood veneer rather than mica. Eight pedals and eight knees, I think. I believe it was not a welded frame model but Jim and Frank converted it. The changers are MCI but the undercarriage is essentially the same as an Infinity. It's a really great instrument, even if it isn't black.

That gtr at Pali's has 9 pedals with a Franklin at 0.
Cool gtr...

Peter, Skip..that is the one!

I suppose that could be THE guitar that served as the prototype for infinity.

The last time I looked at Jims inventory list I think he was asking 3500 for it.

My problem is I want every mci and emci I see. Jim Flynn just listed and s10 with 4x4
That would be a sweet deal for somebody. I don't do S10 so well, or it would be on my list.

I actually thought all of the Arlington made guitars were welded frame, but I could be mistaken.

Either way, I still believe mci/emci is a near perfectly engineered guitar.

When I bought my first MCI (1995) from Steve Lamb it had day pedals. But I was so excited about the guitar I took it that night and played it on a job and suffered through it being setup as a day. But it just blew me away at how much better it sounded and played than anything else previously.

I switched it to emmons the next morning and used it for about two years and then like a dumb dumb let someone talk me out of it.

I've had three of them. About to get the EMCI d10 back that I sold to skeeter last year.

And got my sights on two more possibles. One emci and one mci.

I would like to find two 10 string mci changers and some chrome 705s as well.

As you can tell, I really dig MCI

I believe there was something magic about that combination of material and the bill Lawrence chrome 705 pick ups. Bud Carter and me talked for hours about it several times at the carter factory in mesquite tx.

I'm fairly sure that Bud Carter had the apex of all pull design at that point.