Members catdaddy Posted March 28, 2006 Members Posted March 28, 2006 Just back from a fantastic Suwannee Springfest and thought I'd share a few guitar/performer combos that I spotted. Flat Pickers: Gabe Valla playing a brand new (his words) Bourgeois dread. It was definitely mahogany and spruce but I don't know if it was adirondak or sitka. Nice. Dan Bletz (Biscuit Burners) playing a brand new (again his words) custom Rockbridge dread with spruce top and brazilian rosewood back and sides. The back of that guitar was the most spectacularly patterned wood I have ever seen. At the flatpicking workshop Larry Keel called it "almost pornographic"! Amazing!!! Larry Keel playing a 1930 L model (maybe 000?) black Gibson with a white pickguard. Who says ya need a dread for bluegrass!! Best sounding acoustic of the festival IMHO. Plus it matched his beard perfectly. Jim Lauderdale playing a sunburst Collings D2H with the finish scraped off where his arm rests on the lower bout. Made the comment on stage that he'd "have to get a case for it some day". Honest!! Peter Rowan playing an older vintage looking Martin dread. Could have been a D-28 or D-18. Guitar players for The Mammals and Dread Clampitt were strumming what looked to be recent vintage J-45s. Didn't get close enough to see what Tony Rice was playing this year, but last year it was a Santa Cruz Tony Rice model dread (of course). Fingerstyle: Sam Pacetti playing a very nice Larrivee OM10 with a custom palm tree inlay on the headstock. Clyde Walker playing a rainsong cutaway (don't know which model). Man that graphite looks good under stage lights!! Tone wise it held its own with all of the other guitars too. Jack Williams playing what looked to be a very beat up old Martin D-35 (3 piece back); complete with cracked pickguard and a headstock that had the Martin logo obscured. Next to Larry Keel's Gibson this is the guitar that I would love to own. Jack was also hands down the best guitarist I have ever seen. Roy Bookbinder playing a 1930 12 fret pre-Kay Kay. He said it was made by the company that later produced Kay guitars. It was a beautiful light sunburst mahogany and spruce guitar that was in unbelievably good condition. It looked like it had sat in a case in a climate controlled environment for about seventy years. It looked new!!! The headstock was extremely funky with a plastic overlay that was to my eye an almost comical attempt at 1930's bling. But it added to the Mojo for sure. The neck was incredibly wide (Roy mentioned that it was way beyond the 1 & 3/4 inch nut width so common today and that certain fingerings were almost impossible to manage on it). By the way at the fingerstyle workshop Sam, Clyde and Jack all said they were using Elixir strings. Y'all shoulda been there!!!!!!!!!
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