Grateful Dead Music Forum

This is the classic example that should get people less focused on gear and more on ability. Sure they are all playing vastly different instruments, amps and cabs and yet they still basically sound like Garcia, Weir and Lesh.

I once heard a recording of Carlos Santana on a Squier Strat through a pig nose amp. And he still sounded like Carlos. Not to say that I am not obsessed on recreating Garcia's rig and sound, but the fundamental truth is that the sound is not in the gear but in the fingers...

Careful, Mosfed - they'se fightin' words here. P.S. His Abraxas tone was best.

I dunno, I guess there's a difference between sound and tone. Jerry playing a Sears guitar would still sound like Jerry, but with different tone. I mean, genius fingers ain't gonna turn maple to mahogany or single coils to humbuckers, or what have you. I'm chasing tone more than sound.

Last night, I went out with some friends to hear another of our many local Dead bands, Tumbledown Shack. Two interesting observations. The first is that their lead guitarist, who was playing a Strat into a Boogie I, played like Jerry but his tone was nothing like Jerry's to my ear (it was fairly bassy, among other things). The second is that when I mentioned this to the rest of our group, everyone else thought I was nuts for even noticing it and certainly for mentioning it. Just an observation from last night's bacchanalia (now I'll be setting up my own rig for this afternoon's practice).

You are lucky to have many local Dead bands to choose from!!

I was in Charlotte in I think '93 or so, and listening to a really great "Corrina" at the Charlotte Coliseum. Sure it's not the greatest tune, and the Charlotte Coliseum isn't the greatest venue, but Jerry's sheer tone on these long slow slides was just amazing. Rich and harmonically multilayered and soulful, like an old tube amp crossed with a great scotch. I'm a pretty mediocre player, but it's cool to have something like that tone potentially available to the average slob with a soldering iron and a bit of loose scratch.

PSA - here's a fine example on CL -
http://newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/msg/3276375575.html

That's the same guitar as the ebay auction. Text is the same and so are the photos.

That is a nice guitar. I had a Yamaha similar to it back in the 80's and liked it.

that picture is not of the Yamaha ssc-500

Yamaha has a slanted bridge pickup.
also, they had round dots on the fretboard , Jerry's picture does not..

I think it's kinda funny that there are 3 Yamaha SSC-500 guitars on Reverb right now that reference Jerry, since he never played one. Admittedly, two of the are from the same seller. They've been there for maybe a month or two.

Isn't it because he played one at their 1981 Amsterdam gig?

nopunin10dead wrote: ↑Thu Aug 26, 2021 6:27 pm Isn't it because he played one at their 1981 Amsterdam gig?

That was a different model, SC1000. Very similar, but the SSC-500 has sharper horns, different pickup mounting, a different headstock, different output jack location, and dot inlays.





SC1000


SSC-500

This always amazed me. Jerry played that model guitar once and it gets added to the description of the listing or auction. From what I know he just borrowed it for the night, Bob played a cheap tele that night too, where can I get one of those?

broesau wrote: ↑Fri Aug 27, 2021 6:15 am This always amazed me. Jerry played that model guitar once and it gets added to the description of the listing or auction. From what I know he just borrowed it for the night, Bob played a cheap tele that night too, where can I get one of those?

Meanwhile, Sotheby's plans to auction ... Dan Healey's t-shirts?!?

nopunin10dead wrote: ↑Fri Aug 27, 2021 9:53 amMeanwhile, Sotheby's plans to auction ... Dan Healey's t-shirts?!?

And if you hold one of the T-shirts next to your ear and listen really closely in a quiet room, you still can’t hear Bob Weir!

hehehehe

Bill, tgo