Grateful Dead Music Forum

Saw this on the Ratdog site. Anyone know what Ibanez this is?

http://www.ratdog.org/photos/photo.php? ... C_9720.jpg

Kind of hard to tell but it does look pretty similar to my Ibanez GB 10. Actually, looks just like it.

Crazy 9.5 Fingers wrote:Kind of hard to tell but it does look pretty similar to my Ibanez GB 10. Actually, looks just like it.

I thought it might be a Benson as well. Has a relatively contemporary Ibanez logo so I don't think it's from the 70's.

The more I look at it, definitely a Benson. You can see the "GB" logo underneath the Ibanez logo on the headstock. I have a blond '77 and the logo looks just like that one, hard to make out the detail though as it's blurred in the photo.

The pickup on Bob's in the photo is really gold looking so it might be new. The gold plating on mine is pretty oxidized, so you're probably right about his being a new model.

Crazy 9.5 Fingers wrote:The more I look at it, definitely a Benson. You can see the "GB" logo underneath the Ibanez logo on the headstock. I have a blond '77 and the logo looks just like that one, hard to make out the detail though as it's blurred in the photo.

The pickup on Bob's in the photo is really gold looking so it might be new. The gold plating on mine is pretty oxidized, so you're probably right about his being a new model.

Pretty cool to see him trying some different guitars whenever the mood strikes.

When has he ever stopped trying out new guitars whenever the mood strikes? Bobby's awesome. I wonder how many there have been in total?

I hope the warm, jazzy tone comes off better than the icepick to the eardrum torture that whatever he played in DC gave us!

I LOVE Bobby's playing... but over the years he has gone from warm bucker sounds to cool out of phase accents to harsh trebly slashings to damned near personal assault.

Taken from page 67 of Ibanez The Untold Story....

Appelton: You still play a George Benson model from time to time. How did you get a hold of that?
Weir: Okay, now THAT's a story. When we were coming in to Philly, Jeff (Hasselberger) took me out to the wharehouse for a tour, and we went all the way around and ended up on the loading dock. That's when they told me, " We've got six guitars made for George Benson, brand new off the boat."
Hasselberger: It was the first slug of those guitars, the first small run.
Weir: Someone said " Check this out" and took one out of the case. I started playing it for a little covey of Japenese guys and I could see everyone was getting alittle edgy. Then I announced, "Well, I'm taking this. You can call the police, you can do what you want, but I'm taking this." I could see there were five other guitars and old George wasn't going to miss one of them. After I said that the little Japanese guys sort of huddled together, a lot of heads nodding up and down. Anyway, it was the only guitar I ever stole.
Appelton: Now that we've got your confession...
Weir: My apologies to George if he was counting on the blonde one. He knows where it is, but I play it all the time. I've pkayed that guitar for 25 years now.
Appelton: You've written alot of songs on that.
Weir: Yeah, but I can't tell you which ones.

Scott Bardolf wrote: Weir: My apologies to George if he was counting on the blonde one. He knows where it is, but I play it all the time. I've pkayed that guitar for 25 years now.

Oooo, I could hear that conversation now...

Wier: Good morning Mr. Benson. I see you're doing well. If I had me a shotgun, I'd blow you straight to hell.
Benson: That's cool. Hey Man, can I have my guitar back?

funny funny

Pete B, that is the kind of stuff legends are made of. Take a thread, tie it in to a lyric or song and whammo.

Kudos.

That's funny Pete, or the conversation could have gone like this...

Weir: Hand me my old guitar and pass the whiskey 'round!

Benson: Here's the whiskey, but that's my guitar son.....

I'd seen him play that with Wasserman years and years ago. He also played it in the video "Hellhounds on my Trail: the Afterlife of Robert Johnson".

That's a great story about the Benson guitar. I'd love to see Weir at home looking at his guitar stash saying, "Hmmm, I'll use this one tonight.".

Some of those George Benson guitars are nice looking but way outta my price range. Cool story too, where's it from?