The Chetboard

Here's some Gretsch ads for you guys...

Ever noticed that Johnny Smith's Man With The Blue Guitar LP cover actually has Chet's silhouette from that "Gifted Hands"-ad:
http://guitarinternational.com/2009/08/ ... ecordings/

That middle ad is interesting because of the guitar he's holding. Actually both photos seem to be from the same shoot.

It has no zero fret and has his name on the pickguard and also has a peaked peghead.

This places it as probably a late '57 or 58 example. Later on in 1958 they changed to a plain pickguard as seen on the 'In Hollywood' album cover.

Next change would be a redesigned ("Vee cut") Bigsby and adding the zero fret. They rounded the peghead peak a little which gave us the '59. Chet would make no further personal changes in the 6100 series of guitars. The double cuts, padded backs and mutes are all Jimmy Webster.
...evolution

Jussi,
That's interesting that you noticed that, but it seems identical to the picture of Chet. I guess Johnny wasn't available for a cover shot.

Bill B.

Jussi Huhtakangas wrote:Ever noticed that Johnny Smith's Man With The Blue Guitar LP cover actually has Chet's silhouette from that "Gifted Hands"-ad:
http://guitarinternational.com/2009/08/ ... ecordings/

True story: Vancouver Canada, back in the mid-late 70's. Backstage after Chet's concert with the Symphony. My mentor, John Gould, and I seeking autographs. (John could figure out most things Chet did, showed me some stuff along the way, and he used to hang out with Lenny Breau back in the Toronto days and even introduced me to Lenny,but that's another story). We got to meet Chet and I got his autograph on the evening's program sheet. John was next and whips out his copy of The Man With the Blue Guitar by Johnny Smith and asks for Chet's autograph. Chet looked a bit puzzled until John mentioned that the silhouette on the cover appeared to be Chet and his Gretsch. I can remember Chet grinning and saying something to the effect of "you might be right about that and I'm gonna have to talk to Johnny about that next time I see him".

Aaaahhhh... I dunno, guys.

It's a silhouette of a guitarist on a barstool doctored by a graphic artist of the day and I think any guitarist silhouetted on a barstool looks pretty much like any other guitarist silhouetted on a barstool (except maybe Eddie Pennington in silhouette)

The only "maybe" I can give it is the left hand thumb sticking up. Not sure Johny would be doing that. I'm sure a Johnny Smith fan would be able to pull up pix of Johnny sitting on the same kind of stool

Was going to post a joke about the name of that album but NEVERMIND!!!!

The third ad says "Made by gifted hands". Well, two of them belonged to Mr. Dan Duffy, quality controller from 1957-70 when the Gretsch factory was sold to Baldwin Piano and Organ Factory. He wrote a book telling about that important part of his life, as well as his work both with Gretsch and other companies and his time as a musician. This book is well worth reading, and gives an unparallelled insight in how Gretsch worked in the good, old days. It also gives a heartwarming insight into the personality of this hard working, honest and sincere man.

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Gretsch-Gu ... ewpoints=1

Norm, it's Chet's silhouette allright. It wasn't unusual for record labels to pull out stuff like that. Heck, Capitol used a photo of Billy Strange playing a Gretsch on Jimmy Bryant's Country Cabin Jazz-album. Jimmy wasn't too happy about that And I've seen a Herb Remington's steel guitar LP with a photo of Gary Stewart's hands playing a Bigsby steel ( Herb never had a Bigsby and I happen to have a copy of that particular full photo of Gary in my files ).

I would love to find a good copy of this picture. It was from a photo shoot that Gretsch did.