TK Smith Design

We just returned from the 10th and final Deke’s Guitar Geek Festival where as usual, there were an outstanding number of pickers on the bill.  Here’s a clip of the amazing Joel Paterson, one of my favorite players of today, in the green room on Jan. 26 2013. Joel’s using a telecaster equipped with my blade pickup at the neck position going through a stock ’54 Gibson GA-30. The strings are Thomastik-Infeld JS113 flat wounds. If you ever get the chance to see Joel play live don’t miss it. Warning: You might feel like burning your guitar after watching. I know I do.

Joe Puma is another guitar player that I have a hard time not picking up my guitar after listening to one of his recordings. A friend gave me a copy of “The Jazz Guitar of Joe Puma” about 10 years ago and it’s been one of my favorites since. This song  in particular is great motivation to practice.

Indian Summer

If you read The Strange B16 post a few weeks back you’ll know we were wondering who the picker was with the neat modified Telecaster. Thanks to Jeff Baker of Des Moines, Iowa the mystery is solved. Turns out his name was John Fields. Unfortunately, he has passed and the guitar is long gone. Jeff printed out the picture and took it to Smokey himself (also known as Iowa’s “Mr. Country Music”) who identified all the players. Smokey is still going strong at 95! Awesome.

There’s also a book by Terry Manley about the bands Smokey booked at the KRNT Theatre in De Moines over the years. I’m ordering mine now, and you can get a copy here.

I finished up this pickup over the weekend and am pleased with the way it turned out. To avoid any hassle I’m going to say it’s a replica but I won’t say of what.

I will say it features a cast aluminum housing, 40AWG wire, alnico magnets with the same great sound as my blade pickup.

I’m thinking of making a batch of these to sell if there is enough interest.  The price will probably be close to my blade pickup (sans walnut spacer). So if you or anyone you know may be interested in one or a pair, shoot me an email.

I have another small batch of my C.C. type pickups ready to ship (the first batch went fast). They run $245 plus shipping. You can get yours here.

A friend of mine turned me on to Cuban guitarist Jaunito Márquez a few years ago and lately I’ve been listening to him daily. I really love the sound he gets without using a pick. I’m finding myself not using a pick a lot these days since it seems all of my thousands of picks have apparently grown legs and wondered off.

Here’s one of my favorite tracks from the CD “arrímante pa’ cá” .

03 Guita Nova

Below is an unfortunately out of sync video showing Jaunito’s unique style.

My friend Deke Dickerson sent me this photo a few months back and I thought that a couple of you might like it. It’s of the Fender powered Smokey Smith band and I thought the lead guitarist might be Morrie Jones. But, after looking other photos I’m not sure. The interesting thing though is the Bigsby B-16. It’s reversible for both left and right handers. Maybe it’s a one of Bigsby’s prototypes? The tele also looks to have a bridge pickup in the neck position, and a selector switch and another knob up front. I love modified teles.

I just finished the custom pickguard/pickup on this old Hofner. When the client, Benny, brought it to me, I had only seen a handful of Hofner guitars in person and never this model.  This guitar was beautifully constructed and had a great sound for chunking out rhythm chords.

Benny wanted to add a pickguard mounted pickup without adding any new holes into the guitar.  I only had to drill two small mounting holes, one on the side of the body, for the rear mounting bracket and one on the side of the neck. The remainder of the mounting screws went into existing holes.  I had to open up the endpin hole to ½” for the jack.  I went with a Charlie Christian looking pickup but constructed more like a P-90 to fit in the limited space.

I hadn’t paid much attention to Hofner guitars in the past but this one really opened my eyes.  I’ll be looking for them in the future.

I was recently asked why I played so many songs with my guitar pickups wired out of phase on Big Sandy’s “On The Go” LP.  The answer to that is… shortly before we recorded the album Robert played me a recording by Louie Innis,  ‘’Ain’t Got A Pot To Peel Potatoes In’’. The song features a great takeoff guitar solo with out of phase pickups. It was the first time I can remember hearing that sound. Immediately I put a push/pull tone pot in my Gretsch to have the option of the out of phase sound. I’ve always thought that the guitar player on this Louie Innis recording might be Roy Lanham but I’m only guessing. If anyone knows the session details of this recording please leave a comment.

You can hear the great Louie Innis recording here…

I love everything about this clip, the performance, the guitar tone, the camera angles… I can’t stop watching it. I hope it’s new to some of you.