The Electra Forums

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The 1-2-1 combination was one of my favorite performance guitars. I likely did more Strat mods like this than any other. Most people didn't get it until they started using one. There's nothing quite like the single coil bridge PU. You could get close with a tapped dual coil but not quite the same. The 5 way switch was easy to modify to allow the 1-3 position and that was a great sound. When I wanted a Paul sound, I could never get the rich mids when the Humbucker was next to the bridge on a "Strat" scale. So, I moved the dual coil to the center, 11mm off the harmonic and got the location I wanted. I ended up with a true single coil neck and bridge to emulate an in phase and out of phase Strat and with the dual coil positioned a little off harmonic, had a very rich single coil without getting mudd.

There was no specific engineering reasoning on the block to dot transition on many models. Frankly, I simply got tired of the blocks and thought that they were a bit "over used" in the "copy" market. I wanted to run away from the notion that these were copies. Another factor was that Mexican Abalone shell was getting quite difficult to find in decent colors and rather than use another source, I looked at doing something simple. There's even about 12 Vulcans out there with the diagonal stripe found on some later Westone models. Lot's of confusion over the makers, construction etc. By the time that the "1 1/2" cutaway Vulcans surfaced at retail, they were REALLY nice guitars. The transition from cost containment to product enrichment was well under way. We just didn't have the money to either buy the adds or the people.

We refused to "pay" endorsers and I can say under oath that SLM Fretted instruments never paid a single dollar for someone to play or sign an endoresement contract. We gave them product, ran ads for them and designed the product and many times made the guitar in the SLM shop.

Don't have any Betts stories directly but I did lose one of my guys for 3 days - (Jimmy Wooten where are you?) I sent Woot to deliver a couple of protos to Betts and maybe Warren while they were playing in St. Louis. The next day, he didn't show for work... his lady called and asked if we'd seen him. I was a little worried till one of our other guys at the venue saw him get on the Bus with the group. I don't know what happened in the meantime but 3 days later, I had to send him money to get home from Denver. He ended up in some hotel, the room trashed and the group boarding the
bus for the next show. Ah the old R&R days! By the way, his lady kicked his butt out of the house. Woot was never quite the same. He'd start grinning once in awhile then start laughing for no real reason. Never did find out about the "lost days" - didn't want to know either.

Only other story about the Allman Bros, is really about the Hour Glass - which was Gregg, Duane and several other studio/road guys. We ended up touring with them for 3 or 4 shows in '68. I had a couple of JBL Twins with a JBL Bassman and a JBL Showman bottom. Duane was playing through a couple of Vox Super Beatles running a Fuzz Face. He ended up playing through my rig for most of the shows through the Fuzz Face. Beatles were blown to junk and the horns were squawking. Once we parted, as we were loading, I saw my road cased Twins being loaded on their truck. One of our road techs was kind of a monster and I had him go get'm. After a yelling pushing war, my Twins ended up back home and I ended up with a really nice Fuzz Face owned by Duanne - which was stuffed in the back of one of the Twins. The Twins are long gone but I still have the Fuzz Face.... memories ya know?

By the way, it's Tom . . . not Mr. Presley ... For GOD's Sake, we're just talk'n about guitars here!

Thanks for the nice comments, glad you're enjoying the Electras.

The amount of starstruck posters in this thread is amazinggg. Hahha. Thanks for having a great humor about it all, Tom.


I love reading these stories, as I am a huge rock-history guy. Keep 'em coming!

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Tom -

Again thanks for all your time and invaluable information that you have shared with all of us - just in the last few days.

RCSBlues

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RCSBlues

Emphatically seconded.

What a cool guy.

I do know that Morris replaced the Moridira name, perhaps to aid in American recognition?

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Addicted to Matsumoku.

More questions:

Dates & Serial Numbers: it appears that after a certain point (~1980) a serial number system was adopted for Electra guitars in which the first digit is the last digit of the year. We've also noticed that the second and third digits are in the range 01-12 and appear to indicate month. Remaining digits seem to be sequential with most months going to three digits and a few going to four additional digits.

Is this true? Or with the caveat that the number is set at some point in production and may or may not mean the actual date the guitar was finished, imported, or sold, can we take this as an indicator of date? (mighty big coincidence if not

Famous Electras: are there any songs on the radio where for sure it's an Electra you're hearing?


And I have to ask... do you recognize this guitar? Maple body, mahogany top. Unidentified model otherwise, serial 012xxx



many thanks-
P

Your date analysis is correct with the Year, Month and production lot number. The date indicates the year that a component was cut and punched. More often than not, it would pre-date the actual production date of the instrument by 60 to 90 days. Then, there would be an additional 30 to 60 days till the instrument came thru the SLM shop. As a result, we'd often see an instrument that was 180 days post cycle before it would reach U.S. sales channels.

I do remember a number of the instruments that you posted. These were mostly prototypical with production lots less than 12. We actually posted a few at a NAMM show but for the life of me, I can't remember the dates of the shows nor the model designations. We made them with a maple or alder body and a variety of tops - Paduak, Tama Moku (from Yairi supplied wood), Mahogany and American Black Walnut from Arkansas. I actually picked out the Walnut after hunting for a month or more. I found it in a small wood shop in Corning, Arkansas where they were making bowls! I bought about $300.00 worth of slabs that looked REALLY nice and we sent them over to Matsumoku and Kasuga. Later, I found that I could have gotten the wood in St. Louis for about 1/2 the price! It would have been a little cheaper but I wouldn't have the memory nor the 12 or 15 bowls and belt buckles that the shop owner sold me.

Tom

Wow! Mystery solved! And thanks for the confirmation on the serial dates!

Wow!

You know, Mr. Presley...er, Tom, the serial on my Phoenix dates back to the first month of production, November of 1980 (right?), number 363. Is there any truth in what I've heard that the frist year Phoenixes were made with extra care and somewhat elevated quality (not to say they weren't exceptional as is, but I'm taling phenomenal)?

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Addicted to Matsumoku.