'Drifters' - 1960-61.

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'Drifters' - 1960-61.

Postby drakula63 » Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:40 pm

This is bizarre.

Someone drew this web page to my attention and if you scroll down to almost the bottom, there is a photo of a band, circa 1960-61, called 'Drifters'. They look as if they may have modelled themselves on The Shadows and I have to wonder if they were unaware of the American Drifters and the reasons for the Shads dropping that name and therefore they, er, simply picked it up!

https://sites.google.com/site/musiclinc ... ups-page-4


Needless to say, the page was brought to my attention due to the group that is profiled beneath them!
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Re: 'Drifters' - 1960-61.

Postby JimN » Tue Aug 28, 2018 2:28 am

Interesting collection of guitars.

The archtop on the left looks similar to a Hofner, but isn't one. It has a Dearmond Rhythm Chief pickup and control-box clamp fitted. The bass is obviously styled like a Precision, but clearly looks as though the body shape was carved from memory - and it has a little of the late 1980s about it.

The solid guitar is the most intriguing. I am sure that it too is hand-built and I have spun that part of the image around to show it as a right-hander. The resemblance to the late 1990s Vista Series Squier Jagmaster is uncanny, right down to what looks a bit like a Stratocaster tremolo-bridge. The pickup switch is located as on a Jagmaster and the main difference is that there are three controls rather than the Jagmaster's two. It looks as though the body and headstock are finished in black.

https://ibb.co/kRU6Np
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Re: 'Drifters' - 1960-61.

Postby cockroach » Tue Aug 28, 2018 3:05 am

JimN wrote:Interesting collection of guitars.

The archtop on the left looks similar to a Hofner, but isn't one. It has a Dearmond Rhythm Chief pickup and control-box clamp fitted. The bass is obviously styled like a Precision, but clearly looks as though the body shape was carved from memory - and it has a little of the late 1980s about it.

The solid guitar is the most intriguing. I am sure that it too is hand-built and I have spun that part of the image around to show it as a right-hander. The resemblance to the late 1990s Vista Series Squier Jagmaster is uncanny, right down to what looks a bit like a Stratocaster tremolo-bridge. The pickup switch is located as on a Jagmaster and the main difference is that there are three controls rather than the Jagmaster's two. It looks as though the body and headstock are finished in black.

https://ibb.co/kRU6Np


The archtop is an Australian Maton- it's one of the top of the line acoustic f hole models from the late '50's- goodness knows how it got to Grimsby back then though, although there were a few imported into the UK in the '60's.

The bass is likely to be a hand made job, but the left handed Jazzmaster style solid is a mystery...it looks very similar to a New Zealand made Jansen Jazzman, but some details differ..I'd guess possibly German made, if not hand made by someone locally or the player himself..after all, left handed guitars were often rare in those days...the drummer in my first band hand built a pretty fair copy of a Rickenbacker bass for our bass player as he too was left handed and left handed basses were even harder to find than left handed guitars back then.
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Re: 'Drifters' - 1960-61.

Postby drakula63 » Tue Aug 28, 2018 8:50 am

I'll hazard a guess that Hull, Grimsby and Immingham were probably likely arrival points back then for overseas goods. I'm sure that there must have been several 'curiosities' to be found in the shops and houses in these locations (as there would have been in London, Liverpool, etc...). Of course, with Grimsby being somewhat off the beaten track and probably closer to Norway than London, maybe news hadn't reached them about the US Drifters even by 1960! I still find it intriguing that we more or less have the equivalent here of someone in 1980 forming a band and calling it Slade.

Having now had a good look through all 4 pages of the Grimsby bands, I see that Graham Jarvis gets a good mention and, inevitably, at least one of the other local bands is described as playing 'Shadows tunes'. Interesting too, for those who didn't know already, that Steve Curry (T-Rex) and Rod Temperton (writer of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller') also hail from the area. It was quite a vibrant and decent music scene to be involved in, back in the 1980s and '90s, and I was pleased to have been a very small part of it.
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Re: 'Drifters' - 1960-61.

Postby JimN » Tue Aug 28, 2018 12:05 pm

cockroach wrote:The archtop is an Australian Maton - it's one of the top of the line acoustic f hole models from the late '50's


Actually,the Maton brand did occur to me, mainly because of the headstock inlay (not all of which is visible), but I dismissed it as unlikely precisely because of the other reasons you mentioned.

Although Frank Ifield was playing a sunburst version of that sme guitar here in 1962 (with a both-sides scratchplate shaped like the outline of Australia) and although The Seekers were playing at least one Maton here from 1964, the brand was virtually unknown and I can't personally remember any retail mention of them before 1966, when Dallas-Arbiter were the distributors. On the other hand, they must have been on sale here from around 1962/63, because famously, George Harrison was given one (a solid) temporarily as a "loaner" while one of his own guitars was being serviced or repaired. I would guess that Arbiter (before the Dallas connection) was involved in that, since they were also the distributors for Gretsch guitars and would soon be the sole distributor for Fender too.
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Re: 'Drifters' - 1960-61.

Postby davec » Tue Aug 28, 2018 2:53 pm

That George Harrison "loaner" is due to be auctioned at Corsham on 12th September 2018.

https://guitar-auctions.co.uk/catalogue ... mber-2017/ Lot 189.

Also, check Lots 181 and 182.

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Last edited by davec on Tue Aug 28, 2018 2:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 'Drifters' - 1960-61.

Postby cockroach » Tue Aug 28, 2018 2:54 pm

JimN wrote:
cockroach wrote:The archtop is an Australian Maton - it's one of the top of the line acoustic f hole models from the late '50's


Actually,the Maton brand did occur to me, mainly because of the headstock inlay (not all of which is visible), but I dismissed it as unlikely precisely because of the other reasons you mentioned.

Although Frank Ifield was playing a sunburst version of that sme guitar here in 1962 (with a both-sides scratchplate shaped like the outline of Australia) and although The Seekers were playing at least one Maton here from 1964, the brand was virtually unknown and I can't personallyremember any retail mention of them before 1966, when Dallas-Arbiter were the distributors. On the other hand, they must have been on sale here from around 1962/63, because famously, George Harrison was given one (a solid) temporarily as a "loaner" while one of his own guitars was being serviced or repaired. I would guess that Arbiter (before the Dallas connection) was involved in that, since they were also the distributors for Gretsch guitars and would soon be the sole distributor for Fender too.


Ray Davies of the Kinks and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones also owned archtop Maton Starline electric guitars- Ray had his in the Dave Hunt Blues band and the early days of the Kinks (late 62/63) IIRC..plus of course George Harrison's borrowed Maton Mastersound solidbody which he used for a short period in mid 1963- obtained from Barratts in Manchester who were repairing his Gretsch, I think.
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