“Butterball” Paige and his Bigsby guitar, at left, with Ernest Tubb to Paige’s left.
Over the past couple of months I’ve been working with my friends at Retrofret Vintage Guitars, helping out with its newsletter and website. Lots of exciting things happen at that place, particularly if you’re a guitar geek; what I’ve been doing with them is some writing designed to draw folks with a moderate to strong interest in the subject over to the Geek Side, so to speak. One project I’ve been delighted to chronicle is Retrofret’s restoration of a vintage Paul Bigsby guitar, and if you don’t know who Paul Bigsby is…he’s worth finding out about. I got a lot of input from musician and instrument maven Deke Dickerson (who’s got his own Bigsby-centric website himself) on the project…here’s Part One, and here’s Part Two.
And here’s a pretty awesome video:
Good on you, GG! Man, I believe homicide could possibly be too small a price to pay for that 1951 Bigsby 10-string solid body electric mandolin, particularly if the causality in question wasn’t holding five figures.
Don’t know if your headline for this post was partly inspired by reading the new George Clinton autobio. Just finished it, liked it a lot, and have been re-immersing in his stuff for the first time in too long a time. A lot of it is ringing my chimes, but what’s grabbing me more than ever before is how amazing the 70s Funkadelic stuff truly is.