Guitar
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Johnny's 1957 Stratocaster has been around. It certainly has "wear" spots on the neck which all old maple finger board Strats show after some years. Indeed, Leo Fender was so appalled by the marks that he changed the fingerboard to Rosewood around 1960. The guitar has a lovely mellow tone and sounds great through a Marshall or Fender amp. The switch has been changed to a 5-way sometime in the past and Johnny had to change the worn out machine heads though he keeps these at home "just in case." Made of Alder from a time when wood could be left drying for years before use, the guitar is light and comfortable. This guitar is Johnny's for life.
The semi-acoustic Gibson 175 is a big bodied jazz guitar. It has 2 humbucker pickups and can sound anywhere from Tal Farlowe to Ted Nugent. The upper range access is poor and is prone to feedback at high volume but Johnny loves this guitar. Steve Howe is the best known rock player of the 175 but other artists like Pat Metheny use it too. Johnny picked it up new though it had been in the shop for a few years.
Although only 6 years younger than the 57 Strat this is a completely different beast. It has a rosewood fingerboard, a thicker "C" shaped neck and the original 3-way pick up selector switch. This guitar was actually acquired by swapping a 1961 re-finished Strat which had some uncertain parts on it so Johnny felt better taking on this all original axe. It has a slightly more powerful sound than it's older brother.
One of Johnny's main instruments in The Self Righteous Brothers is this Ricky 330. It works better as a rhythm instrument although it is flexible enough for lead work. The pickups seem to fall between the single coils of Strats and the humbuckers on a Gibson and the tone controls offer a wide range of sounds from hard, biting treble to cool, mellow jazz. It lacks the binding, stereo output and the block markers of the 360 model but Johnny prefers this simpler guitar.
Johnny's Goldtop Les Paul is a 1969 Deluxe model which has 2 humbucking pickups originally designed for Epiphone guitars and were used up by Gibson on various models when they took over the Epiphone Company. As the pickups didn't fit the holes already routed for larger Gibson pickups they simply filled in the excess with cream plastic surrounds. Hmmm! Also, the body is layered not solid and not much attempt made to hide this except for the wonderful gold coloured covering. Actually, this guitar was bought because it was gold - no other reason. Apparently used on a Sam Fox record, it is not something to brag about.
The Gibson company re-designed the Les Paul in 1960, discontinuing the original shape in favour of this. Les himself later commented that he wanted his name removed from it as he didn't like the new shape but photographs from the time clearly show him advertising it. The real reason was that he was being divorced from singer Mary Ford and didn't want her to get her half of his royalties! Therefore, the model was re-named the SG (solid guitar). Johnny's lacks the original vibrato arm and truss rod cover but is all original. It is a fairly versatile guitar with a little more top than it's predecessor but still retains the balls.
Johnny's Telecaster is a 90's model bought 2nd hand and has no particular story to tell. It is a workmanlike guitar with no extras. It has the cutting Fender sound you would expect and makes a particular good rhythm guitar. The Lead or bridge pickup is very powerful but the neck pickup is fairly mundane. A combination is Johnny's favourite. (Footnote - This axe was sold in 2007)
The Ovation. with it's unique round, bowl shaped back was the first choice for playing acoustic guitars onstage back in the 70's because of it's built in pick up and tone controls. This was the first serious alternative to simply standing near a microphone to pick up the sound and with other instruments nearby and ever increasing volumes often led to feedback problems. Played acoustically, it is fine although it lacks the tone of some of high end guitars but it is a very playable 12-string. Johnny uses this guitar with Wingspan and for recording.
Made by Takamine but using the Hirade label, this is a nylon string guitar which Johnny uses for classical finger picking. Several pieces of music have been written on this guitar though it has never been used on stage. It has a built in pre-amp and pick up but it was purchased for it's acoustic tone only.
The only time Johnny was ahead of the game was when a friend offered his early 90's Les Paul Standard for a quick sale at £500. Johnny saw that the Les Paul was about to get very popular again as Hi-profile Slash of Guns & Roses was playing them. The guitar was clearly worth much more and within a year would have been closer to £1000! Ha! However, as J. has no intention of selling it, the value is meaningless. Designed by Gibson, despite what Les Paul claimed, it featured his name as a popular guitarist of the era, although he had approached the company years before to sell them the idea of a solid bodied guitar. They had turned him down until they saw the sales that Leo Fender was enjoying with his Telecaster in 1949. It is a beautiful instrument. It is not for wimps because it is very heavy and sounds big and ballsy. With a carved top which Gibson boasted made their guitars unique and humbucking pick ups, the Les Paul, alongside the Stratocaster became the industry standard and still is, over 50 years later.
This instrument is used with Wingspan in a George Harrison tribute as George was a member of the George Formby fan club and played one regularly. This particular instrument is a pile of cheap crap, so much so that the local music shop actually didn't charge Johnny for it! It's tuning is approximate and has nylon strings tuned G-C-E-A. There are no low strings - the G and the A strings are one tone apart.
This instrument screams "prog rock" and rightly so as Johnny loves Yes, Genesis and Rush, all of whom used this type of hybrid instrument at one time. Made in London in the 90's from old 60's Eko parts, it is quite a nice instrument. Both necks run through the body and the fingerboard looks like ebony. The pickups are of unknown origin and merely bolted to the body with no recessing but are very powerful. The hardware is ok and there is some nifty engraving on the body. This guitar has two output sockets so that separate amps can be used for the bass and the guitar. Sadly, the whole monster suffers from being extremely neck heavy and is virtually impossible to play standing up. Johnny has a set of 1960's Eko bass pedals which he has used on stage, allowing him to switch from bass to guitar in the same song. How prog is that?
The Gibson 160e was the model bought by George Harrison and John Lennon in 1963 as their main acoustic guitars for recording with The Beatles. You can hear them on If I Fell, And I Love Her and others. It has a single coil pick up attached to the body at the end of the neck which are connected to separate volume and tone controls. This does not give it the sound of a modern electro acoustic like the Takamine (see below) but, instead, gives the sound of a wooly cheap electric guitar. Not all that practical. However, it has the lowest action of any guitar Johnny has which makes it easy to play thanks to some great work by Ray Cooper. The bridge was being pulled off the top (the table) and he cleverly bolted it all down and saved the guitar. Great action but very quiet - it's half the acoustic volume of any other of J's acoustics.
Johnny's Jumbo Acoustic weapon of choice is the Takamine EN-20C which he has played for about 15 years. It came to his local shop, Langley Guitars as part of a batch of slightly damaged guitars and this was clearly the top model at the time. It had a slight dent at the rear of the neck which reduced it's value but did not affect it's sound which is big and full with plenty of bass end. It has a 2 band E.Q. built into it's pre-amp for amplifying and is Johnny's main stage acoustic, being used in Wingspan and The Self Righteous Brothers or singing sensitive love songs as a means of pulling chicks.
