Early British Electrics

[RayL]

Paul Day's years of research into early British electric guitars have finally reached the printed page, in the shape of the August edition of Guitar & Bass. Solid guitars and basses by Supersound and Burns-Weill (both with design by Jim Burns) along with Grimshaw and Dallas. Not guitars you'd use if you had today's choice, but at the time they represented the best that the UK makers could produce when the world of rock'n'roll was young.

It looks as if there will be a lot more about Burns in the following installment.

In the meantime, if Paul reads this, perhaps he can answer this question:-
Almost certainly the first solid bass guitar seen by anyone in Europe was the Precision in the hands of Frankie Brent of the Bellboys in 1956 (in the film RATC). With that template available to them, why did designers persist with more traditional designs?

[Iain Purdon]

I'd love to know more about this, Ray, but I don't understand the template reference. Can you explain the question for those who didn't see RATC?

[RayL]

Iain,
In 1956, while all the bass players that you saw live, or in photos, or at the cinema, were using the orchestral stand-up bass, there was Frankie playing fast boogie bass lines on a streamlined instrument that had a one-sided headstock, strap suspension opposite the 12th fret for better balance, and of course enabled him to be part of the front line and do the synchronised dance steps.

Frankie Brent.BMP (301.54 KiB) Viewed 14545 times

The camera angle showed off all the details, so hence my question - why did no designer (until Jim Burns with the double-cutaway Artist bass four years later)) make anything even similar?

[Iain Purdon]

Thanks, Ray. My father always thought solid body cutaway guitars looked ugly. I'd never given that a second thought but, now you ask, maybe he was not alone in his view?

[mgeek]

Brilliant! This will be the first time I've bought a guitar magazine since I was about fifteen!

Hope there are lots of pics!

[RayL]

20 pictures - is that enough?

As I am a subscriber, they sent a comp copy of Vintage Rock in the same package (that's the one that includes the article about Licorice written by Vince Eager).

Talking of early solid-body guitars, even those British electrics were beyond the means of someone like myself who just had paper-round money, so I tried to make my own. I got hold of a rectangular slab of wood of about the right depth and attempted to carve it into shape. Looking back, I realise that the wood was wrong, too hard and dense, but at the time I hacked and hacked, got nowhere, and finally gave up.

Forty years later, after my Dad had died, I was clearing out his workshop and came across it, full of small holes. He had been using it as the base for his drill-stand.

[mgeek]

20 pictures - is that enough?

Not bad! As all the current snaps came from guy mackenzie's collection, None of the guitars were new to me though... The thing that made it worth getting was the Burns Weill and Dallas ads... Wonderful!

I'd previously pondered the existence of that particular shape (the one in the ad) as a Burns Weill, as the only two I've seen have been badged 'weill london'...however, in the last month or so, Burns Weill detective, Pat aka burnsbonkers has dug up two photos, including this one!!!


https://instagram.com/p/4wv4SKvtTG/

My theory re this, is that The Burns Weill crew saw a chance to get their guitars in front of a prime time audience and gave this to Marty Wilde, and the matching bass to Jet Harris. (They were both the most heavily featured performers on 'oh boy') Wonder if they still exist now?! This has leapt to number one on my guitar wantslist.

Also recently seen a fenton weill amp dated to mid 1959 inside...I'd always thought fenton weill was an entirely post Burns Weill venture, but maybe not? Is there any advert based evidence to back this up? There is als a schematic that turned up a weill back (sorry) dated '59

[mgeek]

https://reverb.com/item/799838-fenton-w ... k-amp-1959



Here's that amp btw... Dated third of june 1959, well within the date range of Burns Weill, surely?

[dusty fretz]

To answer Ray's question first: when Supersound designed the first British-made solidbody four-string, it was at the request of Teddy Wadmore, bass player with The Ted Taylor Four. In 1958 he managed to borrow a Fender Precision from a US serviceman and rushed it round to Alan Wootton and Jim Burns at Supersound. However, rather than a slavish copy, Wadmore wanted a shorter scale, plus a more traditional look, i.e. single-cutaway, two-a-side headstock and sunburst finish, as this would fit in better with the band's image. It should be remembered that at this time the solid bass guitar was still very much an alien instrument in the UK, a fact ably illustrated by the story concerning The Treniers, a US group who apparently inspired The Shadows' stage footwork. After their 1958 British tour finished, The Treniers decided that, rather than take their instruments back to America, they would sell them here and raise some extra money. At this time the import embargo on US products was still in force, so the plan proved very successful, except for their Fender bass, which failed to attract any interest or offers, simply because nobody here knew what it was!

Concerning the question of Burns-Weill/Fenton-Weill chronology, Henry Weill was making instrument amplifiers before he first offered to supply the electrics for Jim Burns' guitars. Apparently these amps were a mite prone to noise problems, a characteristic that earned them the nickname "Henry's Hummers"! Presumably Henry was already using the Fenton-Weill logo for this side of his electronics business, although he didn't actually say so when I interviewed him during research for The Burns Book. However, it was probably where the Fenton name came from for the first Burns-Weill model, as this particular six-string was a direct descendant of Jim Burns' previous, post-Supersound design (the missing link between both being the decrepit solid seen in the late Rory Gallagher's collection). Henry did tell me that, following Jim's unexpected and unwelcome departure for pastures new, he decided to continue making instruments and quickly opted to adopt the same brandname for these too, as the Fenton-Weill name hinted at Fender associations, which made it seem more commercial for electric guitar use.

The Fenton-Weill 'amp' shown on that website is what Henry & Co called their 'Stereo Reverberator'. This was indeed introduced during 1959, as confirmed by this example's early livery. The company proudly boasted about being the first in the UK to recognise the possibility of using the Hammond spring reverb device with guitar amplification. It was also claimed to be the first ECHO unit not to employ motors or tapes, but of course this sort of hype conveniently confused the two effects. The addition of an internal amp and speaker gave it 'Stereo' status, at least according to more Fenton-Weill marketing spiel, but in reality the little elliptical driver distorted like crazy and the amp's meagre wattage made it a poor match with any halfway decent combo of the time. The guy on that website seems to think it sounds wonderful, but I really must disagree. I used one of these horrors when it was brand-new and it proved to be absolute rubbish! Of course, these days any device that distorts is held in high regard, but back then this was the very thing we were all trying to eradicate!

[mgeek]

Love when pieces of the puzzle fall into place like this...and LOVE the Henry's Hummers story.

Re the Burns Weill timeline, when in '59 does that advert date from, if you don't mind me asking? I've seen a Fenton Weill one with almost exactly the same wording, and the same guitar (or same model) pictured, so I'm guessing it's relatively late in the year?

Also looks quite a lot more 'evolved' shapewise than the Marty 'Weilld' (shown briefly in this pathe news clip)

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/pop-s ... arty+wilde


And what can be seen of this one

http://www.lankybeat.com/Dominators.html


But totally identical to the 'weill london' badged one in Per's book.

Could it have been that the earliest instruments were built entirely from scratch by Jim, but later models were assembled from a batch or two of outsourced bodies? having seen a quite few of the basses over the years (Guy M bought his second one from me), I feel like there are a few really hand made looking ones out there, like the one pictured in your article, but then 4 or 5 that are a more consistent shape, with a noticable straightening to the upper bout just as it joins the body. This also might make sense of why Henry was left with unfinished bodies that ended up shipping as 'weill london' ?

absolutely not presenting this as anything other than overexcited speculation by the way very curious to see if there's an evolution with BW gear other than the Fentons...certainly with Fenton Weill stuff it's possible to spot changes as time went on...