12 String Stringing!

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Re: 12 String Stringing!

Postby JimN » Sun Feb 27, 2011 12:37 pm

Great videos, chaps. And thanks for clearing up the mystery of the Rooftop Singers' TV appearance. I wasn't sure that Australia even had a television service quite that early.

One essential addition to the UK history of the 12-string guitar is to mention the cottage-industry that was guitar-builder Stan Francis, in Liverpool. Stan isn't tremendously well-known today and neither are the jumbo-type guitars he used to build, but his 12-string models were literally renowned among world-famous among folkies. Pete Seeger, Tom Springfield, Mick Groves (of The Spinners) and most relevant on a Shadows fan board: Lonnie Donegan, used his 12-string models and many other famous folk-scene alumni used his services for set-ups and repairs. I played in a country band whose lead vocalist played a Stan Francis six-string model, though these never achieved the adulation that the twelves did. The design was very distinctive, with a D-shaped soundhole and a round aluminium headstock anchor for the truss rod.

Stan may not have been world-famous, but he was very respected among the cognoscenti. Almost unbelievably, CF Martin and Co have recently announced a Peter Seeger tribute model based clearly on the Stan Francis design:

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/namm-2011-martin-guitar-announces-pete-seeger-custom-editions-359014

Also:

http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=144580
http://www.thebumnoteclub.com/reports/8-general-reports/103-martin-carthy.html
http://www.triumphpc.com/mersey-beat/archives/scousers-chorus.shtml
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=60884
http://www.folkmusic.com/gear/12-string-guitar

From the late 1950s onward - and for a long time- Stan was probably the only person in Europe building professional quality 12-string guitars.

JN
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Re: 12 String Stringing!

Postby cockroach » Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:25 am

Jim N,

TV started in Australia in 1956 (Melbourne Olympic Games) although not in all states. We saw a lot of US music shows here in the early-mid '60's, but less from the UK until later.

Thanks for the info about Stan Francis- I've wondered for years what those guitars were- suspected Gretsch (as Pete Seeger had one in the USA) but later wondered about Grimshaw (when I saw Tom Springfield using one- I still love the Springfields!)

The statement that Stan was probably the only maker of 12 strings in Europe back then seems to omit Tony Zemaitis (people like Cyril Davies and Long John Baldry had 12 strings built by Tony- they were Leadbelly fans in London from way back, as well as Lonnie and others!), and also possibly Emil Grimshaw junior, plus other luthiers of which we know nothing and we possibly have also omitted? By favouring Stan, are you a proud scouse by any chance?!!
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Re: 12 String Stringing!

Postby Bill Bowley » Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:35 pm

'Roach,

Just for you mate! ;)

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Re: 12 String Stringing!

Postby JimN » Mon Feb 28, 2011 6:49 pm

That's a fantastic clip - from Australian TV?

Tom's Stan Francis 12 is well to the fore in that live performance and it's interesting to see Mike Hurst playing the then-all-new square-shouldered Gibson SJ-N Southerner model.

I was staying in a pub in Stratford on Avon (the Red Lion) in 1979 (I had tickets for the plays over several nights) and I noticed a Gibson Southerner just like that one propped in a corner on a stair landing. I asked a barman whose it was and it turned out to be his. On the last day I was there, he offered to sell it to me for £100. I'd have paid that no trouble, but could only lay my hands on £80 (this was the day of the £30 limit on cash withdrawals and the two of us who were there each drew out £30 and pooled the cash in our pockets). He took £80 and the Gibson was mine.

I had it for a few months, then a friend in Liverpool gave me £200 for it and I bought an electric with the money. Should have kept it. Never mind... I now have a J-200... ;-)

JN
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Re: 12 String Stringing!

Postby Bill Bowley » Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:45 pm

JimN,

May well be from Oz TV, there is a lot of 'old footage' that is becoming available since YouTube came on the scene, the clips of the Shads with the BALDWIN prototypes for instance, which I had been trying to get a copy of from TCN 9 in Sydney for decades. ;)

'Roach,

Noting your affection for 'The Seekers', the reformed version of them will be touring Australia with Andre Rieu this year,just announced on the 'Morning Show'. Haven't been able to see the lineup as yet though. ;)
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Re: 12 String Stringing!

Postby Bill Bowley » Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:18 pm

'Roach,

Here's a 1965 clip in HQ (voice is out of sync!)-you can see the guitars better though. ;)
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Re: 12 String Stringing!

Postby JimN » Tue Mar 01, 2011 12:38 am

:-)

The reason why that audio is out of sync is that someone has dubbed the Seekers' record over the original TV audio track (which itself may have been the 45rpm record). You can tell that has been done because the sound is in stereo (and there was no chance of that for television in 1965!).

JN

PS: I've only JUST deciphered that lyric after 46 years:

For the joys of love are fleeting
For Pierrot and Columbine


That's clever literary writing and probably would have passed straight over the heads of most listeners at the time - even if they could make it out! ;-)
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Re: 12 String Stringing!

Postby JimN » Tue Mar 01, 2011 12:56 am

cockroach wrote:Thanks for the info about Stan Francis- I've wondered for years what those guitars were- suspected Gretsch (as Pete Seeger had one in the USA) but later wondered about Grimshaw (when I saw Tom Springfield using one- I still love the Springfields!)


Yes - I always liked the Springfields as well. Well, some of their stuff at any rate. Island of Dreams, Breakaway, etc.

I was never quite so fond of the stuff where Tim Feild or Mike Hurst played the conga drum.

cockroach wrote:The statement that Stan was probably the only maker of 12 strings in Europe back then seems to omit Tony Zemaitis (people like Cyril Davies and Long John Baldry had 12 strings built by Tony- they were Leadbelly fans in London from way back, as well as Lonnie and others!), and also possibly Emil Grimshaw junior, plus other luthiers of which we know nothing and we possibly have also omitted? By favouring Stan, are you a proud scouse by any chance?!!


Oh, Stan wasn't the only European maker of 12-strings in the second half of the 1960s, but in the late 50s, he may well have been. The important point is that no other European maker managed to establish a reputation for pro-quality instruments.

Tony Zemaitis - did he make 12-string guitars in the 1960s? I know he made some acoustics for various people in the early 1970s, but his main claim to fame was the metal-fronted solids used by Ron Wood and others. He used to live a mile or so away from me, by the way. Despite that, I never met him, though I did meet Stan Francis a few times around Liverpool.

I think the zemaitisclub website embellishes the Zemaitis history a bit - and telescopes the seventies into the sixties. I mean... Spencer Davies playing a Zemaitis guitar? When would that have been, I wonder. Certainly not during the 1960s, when he was famous for playing a Harmony Stratotone and a Grimshaw GS30 ("Les Paul").

JN
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Re: 12 String Stringing!

Postby cockroach » Tue Mar 01, 2011 11:16 am

Jim,

Apparently blues harmonica player Cyril Davies had an acoustic 12 string built by Tony Zemaitis in the late '50's, as did a couple of other blues/skiffle players 'on the scene'...although they would have been early ones built by TZ.

(There never seem to be any absolutes in such matters- a firm in America called Audiovox (I think) built solidbody electric guitars and bass guitars in the late 30's-early '40's long before Fender and others...there is a rock'n'roll museum in Seattle with a solid body bass similar to the Framus Bill Wyman in shape, along with some acoustic basses with pickups built by Gibson in the '30's...there's a book in my local library about the museum collection, with some interesting photos..)

Bill,

thanks for the Springfields and Seekers videos! My musical tastes are wide- although these two groups may be considered a bit square these days, they could still play and sing well, and much of their material was also great- great melodies and of course great harmonies- and Tom Springfield was the common musical inspiration in both cases.
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Re: 12 String Stringing!

Postby geoff1711 » Tue Mar 01, 2011 11:36 pm

Of course these days "square" just means a rectangle with 4 equal sides, "hip" became "cool", "wicked" and lots of other such words and then went back to being "cool" but is now "swagger" where as "square" probably is now "no taste init" - the init (isn't it) suggest a question but is actually a statement of fact

Odd where a question about swapping round a few strings can go - err - init!

Modern translation courtesy of my 16 year old daughter, one of the advantages of being a bus pass generation dad with a young family, it keeps you in touch.

Now back to 12 strings anybody got one with a trem? Burns, Vox, something else?

Geoff
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