Silvertone Jimmy Reed

Kevin Post · From: Nashville, TN, USA

Have you ever seen/heard this for slide guitar? A Silvertone Jimmy Reed Thin Twin?

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http://kpobluesband.com/cd.htm

Russ Young · From: Seattle, Washington, USA

I thought that the Jimmy Reed guitars were Kays, not Silvertones -- but the lineage of house-brand guitars is always hard to keep straight.

I'm away from my guitar books right now, but as I recall they have two lipstick pickups, which would probably make them a pretty good slide guitar.

Brad Bechtel · From: San Francisco, CA

Yet somehow a regular guitar played with a slide is not a lap steel guitar, so I'm moving this to Music from No Peddlers.

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Brad's Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

Russ Young · From: Seattle, Washington, USA

Kevin -- The Kay "Thin Twin" is a single-cutaway solidbody with two lipstick-type pickups. It has a trapeze taillpiece, four knobs and a pickup selector, and a tortoiseshell (almost like tiger-stripe) pickguard that covers the knobs, selector and upper treble bout. They were very popular with Chicago blues players in the 1950s, so I'll bet it would make a good slide guitar.

Kay also made these for Sears -- whose house brand for guitars was Silvertone.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I've owned a couple of these. One was labeled "Kay", the other "Old Kraftsman". They were definitely made by Kay, and I think Sears did market a "Silvertone" version. They're tremendous for blues, but the pickup is not really like a Danelectro lipstick pickup, IMO. The pickups themselves were thinner sounding - frankly, more like a Gibson "Charlie Christian" pickup. The little protrusion of the pickup you can see is just a small part of the pickup. The bobbin with the windings is below the top, at least on mine. I love to play jump/swing blues on these. They also sound great for slide, but mine were quite different than the usual 'overwound pickup' slide tone. Also, on mine, the default setup was with a treble-rolloff capacitor on the neck pickup only, like an early Tele. Gave a real cool but muddy sound, certain West Coast jump blues players had that sound. Sometimes, I would go in and disconnect one end of the cap to go for a more T-Bone Walker sound, other times, I'd solder it back in place. I never could bring myself to drill a hole for a switch or add a push-pull pot with a switch.

My friend Pete Sheridan self-published a book on this type of stuff: Affordable Axes and Cool Amps for the Slide Guitarist/Harp Player, copyright 2001. If you're into this type of guitar, I think the book is a must-have. I don't know if it's easily available these days, it was never distributed by a regular publisher, but if anyone is interested, I could find out. There's a picture of my Old Kraftsman Thin Twin in there, I lent some stuff to him for the photo shoot.

Russ Young · From: Seattle, Washington, USA

Thanks, Dave -- if I recall correctly, "Old Kraftsman" was the guitar house brand for the old Spiegel catalog.

Kevin Post · From: Nashville, TN, USA

Great stuff, thanks. Can I get the book on Amazon? or online somewhere?

[This message was edited by Kevin Post on 23 February 2005 at 04:29 PM.]

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I've emailed Pete a link to this thread. I'll probably see him this weekend (he still comes up to play in the blues band I played in with him for many years). We'll find out soon if he's still got copies. I don't know of any other source for this book. There's some info on his books here:

http://www.harpamps.com/servlet/Archives/200299275.html

Angela Instruments in Maryland still sells the Quest For Tone In Amplified Blues Harp book. You might want to read Steve M.'s review of that book at www.angela.com. Look under Books/New Books of Special Merit.

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