LETRITIA KANDLE--FEMALE ELECTRIC GUITAR PIONEER from Vintage Guitar Magazine

THE STORY OF LETRITIA KANDLE—FEMALE ELECTRIC GUITAR PIONEER—AND THE MAGNIFICENT ‘GRAND LETAR’

When you run down the list of early electric guitar innovators, an all-male group comes to mind.  Les Paul, Alvino Rey, Charlie Christian, Merle Travis, and the like—there isn’t a female on the list.  This is the story of a woman named Letritia Kandle who, although virtually unknown until now, deserves to be on that short list of those who pioneered the electrified instrument back in the 1930’s.

The list of innovations contained within Letritia’s 1937 ‘Grand Letar’ console steel guitar is impressive—the first guitar amplifier with two speakers, the first console steel guitar (first steel guitar that was not a “lap” steel), the first steel guitar with more than two necks, a series of tuning advancements that predated the modern pedal steel guitar, and perhaps most incredibly, a built-in moving light show with lighted front, sides and fretboards.  You read it right, a built-in light show—in 1937!

This story is really about two people.  Firstly, Letritia Kandle, the musician and steel guitar pioneer who is the subject of this article, and secondly, Paul Warnik, the tireless researcher and steel guitar historian who recently uncovered Letritia’s amazing story.

Paul Warnik is a Chicago-area steel guitar collector who has seen just about everything over the years.  However, one image always haunted him—a photo from the National guitar chapter in Tom Wheeler’s book ‘American Guitars.’  The photo caption in Wheeler’s book merely said “Teacher Letritia Kandle poses with National’s Grand Letar Console Steel.”  A photo shows a pretty young woman from decades past posing in front of a large multi-neck steel guitar.  The steel guitar was highly unusual, certainly no standard National instrument, and with no other information given, Paul filed the image away in his mind. 

Information on Letritia Kandle was nonexistent, and years went by with no clues.  When Paul purchased a National lap steel at a vintage guitar show in the early 1990’s, it had a signed receipt from Letritia Kandle’s guitar studio with a Chicago address, which told him that she was from the Chicago area, but Paul assumed that she must have passed away.  More years went by, and finally in 2007 Paul met one of Letritia’s former students at a steel guitar convention in Illinois, who informed Paul that Mrs. Kandle was still alive and living in the Chicago suburbs!  This person was able to put Paul in touch with Letritia, who had been quietly living her life under her married name since she gave up music in the 1950’s.

When Paul finally got in touch with Letritia at her home, the real story began to unfold.  Letritia’s story had been unfairly relegated to the dustbins of history.  However, thanks to her incredible memory, and the amazing photos and press clippings of the era that survive, her story can now be told.

 Letritia Kandle was born in Chicago in November 7, 1915, the only child of Charles and Alma Kandle.  In her early years, Letritia was a very typical young lady of the era.  She took piano lessons, but when she was thirteen years old, she saw Warner Baxter play the Spanish guitar in the film ‘The Cisco Kid.’  This film made such an impression that immediately Letritia wanted to play the guitar instead of the piano.  Her instructor advised her that the Hawaiian (also known as “steel”) guitar was becoming popular, and helped Letritia get started on the acoustic Hawaiian guitar.

Letritia’s father was always supportive of his daughter’s efforts, and after demonstrating she was serious about the Hawaiian guitar, she had top-of-the-line instruments for her musical endeavors.  Her early acoustic instruments included a Weissenborn Koa guitar, and a National Style 2 (and later, a top of the line Style 4) Resophonic Hawaiian guitar.  When Letritia saw an old turn-of-the-century double-neck harp guitar (possibly made the by Chicago maker Almcrantz) hanging in a second-hand shop, she asked her father to buy it for her and help her convert it from a harp guitar to a Hawaiian raised-nut instrument with a standard neck and a 12-string neck capable of different tunings.

At the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933, Hawaiian music and culture was all the rage.  There, Letritia met George Kealoha Gilman, who mentored her in Hawaiian lore—speaking the Hawaiian language, Hula dancing, and making leis and grass skirts.  The following year, in 1934, Letritia formed an all-girl ensemble known as ‘The Kohala Girls.’  The Kohala Girls specialized in Hawaiian music, and had matching National Resophonic guitars.

Unlike many young musicians, Letritia was continually thinking of ways to not only improve her own musicianship, but ways to improve the steel guitar itself.  After a few years of playing with the Kohala Girls, during which time electric lap steels and double-neck lap steels began to come on the scene, Letritia had a vision for a brand new revolutionary instrument.

Letritia wrote the story herself of how the National ‘Grand Letar’ console steel guitar came to be, for a series of articles in ‘Music Studio News.’  Here, directly from the source, is how this incredible instrument came into being:

“Have you ever indulged in dreaming?  If you have, you know that there are primarily two different kinds—one where the dreamer tries to escape from the reality of living, and one where the dreamer sets a mental goal for himself, and then tries by hard, honest endeavor to reach it in reality.  The second type of dreamer is responsible for many of the advancements of our Modern way of life.

“And so while waiting for an appointment on one of the upper floors of a tall office building in Chicago, the idea for a 26 string guitar was born.  It was summer and through the large window facing the West from where I was sitting, the sun, like a huge ball of fire, surrounded by a myriad of colors, sky blue, pink, yellow, purple, and green was dropping by the horizon, there appeared an instrument seemingly blown of glass.  I kept looking at the sky, when the crisp friendly voice of the receptionist called my mind back to this world.  In those few moments of daydreaming, I knew what I wanted.

“A guitar that would enable me to stand while playing it, one that would sound full, like an organ, and yet produce tones like a vibraharp—one with not less than 26 strings, for complete harmony, and one that would change colors as the different tones were produced.  When I arrived home, later that evening, I told my father of the dream.  Although my dad is an engineer and not a musician, he offered to help build the ‘dream instrument’ for me, if I would help.

“The problems we encountered were many, each one had to be dealt with separately—a metal had to be chosen for the casting, that would not expand or contract when in contact with heat—sizes of strings, electronics, etc. until finally after many days, weeks, and months of labor, emerged a finished instrument.

“Now that the instrument was finished a name for it had to be selected, so, from my first name, Letritia, we took the first three letters, and from the word guitar we chose the last two letters.  With this combination, the ‘dream instrument’ became the ‘GRAND LETAR!!!’”

During the first part of 1937, after Letritia had this vision of her dream instrument, her father worked on constructing the Grand Letar to his daughter’s specifications.  The instrument was a large console, with the top part of the steel guitar made of a poured aluminum casting.  The sides and “console” were made of wood and covered with a chrome-plated steel wrap.  This was the first time that a steel guitar was not held in the lap, so it was a radical construction for the time.  Additionally, no steel guitar had ever had more than two necks on it before this one.  Letritia’s Grand Letar appeared to have four necks on it, three six-string necks and one eight string neck, but in reality it had three six-string necks and two four-string necks on it (more on that later).

Letritia’s father built the console of the steel guitar, then went to see Louis Dopyera at National Guitars.  Letritia had been playing National Resophonics with The Kohala Girls, and already knew the Dopyera family at National.  Mr. Kandle brought the basic body of the Grand Letar to National, where they installed pickups and an internal 20-watt National amplifier with two 12-inch Lansing (JBL) field coil speakers.  This built-in amplifier happens to hold the distinction of being the first guitar amplifier to use two speakers—a full ten years before Leo Fender made the Dual Professional, and twenty-odd years before Leo began offering the Twin with JBL speakers as an option!  Letritia’s Grand Letar with the dual speaker setup was a veritable Marshall stack in its day.

The coup de grace of the Grand Letar was the built in light show, which is so complex that it’s difficult to describe.  Letritia and her father worked on an idea that utilized Mr. Kandle’s engineering know-how to realize Letritia’s vision.  The fretboards, sides, and front of the steel guitar were etched glass that displayed lights that shone from within the guitar.  The front panel of the Grand Letar was originally a rising sun motif, which came from Letritia’s initial vision of the instrument.  Unfortunately, due to World War Two and the Japanese Invasion of Pearl Harbor, Letritia was eventually forced to change the rising sun motif to an art deco motif with musical notes.

Inside the steel guitar was a 1930’s vision of the future—an extensive network of 120 bulbs in four colors that flashed and changed colors as a large motor in the base of the Grand Letar engaged electrical contacts on a large flywheel.  On the rear panel of the Grand Letar, a control panel with four rheostats and twelve toggle switches was used to control the brightness and other aspects of the internal “light show.”

When the Grand Letar was finished, National built a road case to transport the instrument.  Because of all the etched glass, the instrument could not be transported unless it was secured in the custom-built road case.  Unbelievably, the Grand Letar was 265 pounds by itself, and 400 pounds in the road case! 

Below: The Grand Letar's 1930's road case--built like a tank!

Letritia was playing with the well-known Big Band leader Paul Whiteman during this time, and it was actually Paul Whiteman who came up with the name “Grand Letar.”  Letritia played the Grand Letar with Whiteman during a residency at the Drake Hotel in Chicago during 1937.

After the instrument was completed, National was eager to have Letritia demonstrate the Grand Letar at the 1937 National Music Trade Convention in New York City, the NAMM show of that era.  All the major musical instrument manufacturers displayed their products at the convention, and many of the great names in music performed as demonstrators for the various companies.  National signed an endorsement deal with Letritia in July, and agreed to transport the instrument to New York and provide her room and board in exchange for Letritia demonstrating the instrument at the National booth.

While demonstrating the Grand Letar at the New York trade convention, a very interesting thing happened. Letritia looked up while performing at the trade show to see none other than her idol, Alvino Rey, watching her demonstrate the remarkable new instrument.  Letritia idolized Alvino Rey, who was one of the country’s greatest steel guitar players and bandleaders.  Before the song was over, Alvino had quickly left the room, and Letritia never did meet him in person.  Letritia was crushed, but more than likely the reality was that Alvino’s mind was blown at what he saw.

Whatever Alvino thought when he saw Letritia performing on the Grand Letar, the fact was she had predated him on a major evolutionary step of the steel guitar.  While Gibson guitars had built many experimental steel guitars based on Alvino’s ideas, the Grand Letar was a huge step beyond anything that Gibson had ever conceived of up to then.

What is interesting about this happenstance is that within two years, Alvino Rey and Gibson guitars came out with the Console Grande steel guitar, which was Gibson’s first multi-neck console steel guitar.  Alvino’s exquisite Console Grande steel influenced many later players and instrument makers, but the evidence points to Alvino getting the idea after seeing Letritia demonstrating the Grand Letar at this 1937 trade convention.

The dates of Letritia’s innovations can be verified through national press articles about her new instrument.  ‘The Music Trades’ ran an article about Letritia and the Grand Letar in their September 1937 issue.  ‘Down Beat,’ the highly regarded jazz magazine, also ran an article in October 1937.   The dates are important because during the mad rush of stringed instrument innovation during the 1930’s, it is often difficult to prove who “got there first.”  The articles written in 1937 prove that Letritia was indeed there first with her impressive list of innovations.

One of the ideas that Letritia had for the multi-neck arrangement of the Grand Letar was the tuning of the necks.  Until the Grand Letar, lap steels and double-neck lap steels were usually tuned with one or two standard tunings, such as the low bass A tuning for Hawaiian playing or the C6 tuning for jazz.  Letritia envisioned being able to cover all harmonic and chordal bases using a playing style that necessitated switching back and forth between the necks many times during each song.  The basic ideas that Letritia came up for chord inversions were later utilized by pedal steel players, with their pedals achieving the same result as Letritia’s idea of switching between necks.

The first neck on the Grand Letar was tuned to an A-major (high bass) tuning, A-C#-E-A-C#-E.  The second neck was tuned to an E7 with the standard old-school E7 tuning, B-E-D-G#-B-E.  The third neck was an A minor tuning which could also make C6th inversions.  Lastly, the fourth neck, which was an 8-string, was arranged in two small clusters, with four strings for each.  One was tuned to an augmented chord, F-A-C#-F, and one was tuned to a diminished chord, F#-A-C-E.

The Grand Letar proved to be very unwieldy to transport, so it was mostly used for big engagements and residencies.  In 1939 Letritia and her father came up with a more portable instrument, which was essentially like the Grand Letar without the built in amplifier and light show.  This new instrument was called the “Small Letar.”  Most notably, Letritia added a 7^th string to each of the standard necks, with one interesting variation on the E7 neck—she added a high F# string on the top of the E7 neck, which when played turned it into an E9 chord, predating the now-standard Nashville E9 tuning by twenty years!

Below: Letritia and the "Small Letar."

There were several inquiries to National in regards to manufacturing and selling Grand Letar consoles, but the excessive cost and weight prevented another from being made.  National promoted Letritia’s involvement with the company by picturing her in the 1940 catalog holding a National Princess lap steel.

In 1941, Letritia became the featured soloist of the 50-piece ‘Chicago Plectrophonic Orchestra,’ which featured Letritia playing classical numbers such as “Blue Danube Waltz” as well as other pop and Hawaiian numbers.  When her mentor, conductor Jack Lundin, passed away in 1943, Letritia took over as conductor of the Orchestra.

The decade of the 1940’s found Letritia teaching hundreds of students at her guitar studio in downtown Chicago.  She was featured in the ‘Who’s Who Of Music,’ and also acted as a judge in many talent competitions (shades of ‘American Idol’).  Letritia made the cover of the prestigious ‘B.M.G.’ magazine, and wrote articles for ‘Music Studio News’ and others.

Letritia continued her interest in advancing the steel guitar.  In the late 1940’s, she endorsed the new Harlin Brothers Kalina Multi-Kord steel guitar, one of the early attempts at a pedal steel guitar.

In 1955 Letritia married Walter Lay, the former string bassist for the Chicago Plectrophonic Orchestra.  After that, both Walter and Letritia went to work for Letritia’s father, who had begun a business that manufactured earth-boring equipment.  Letritia essentially retired from music at this point, choosing to concentrate on raising a family.

Letritia’s story and her early innovations could easily have been forgotten and relegated to obscurity.  Since she never made any recordings (beyond a few radio transcriptions which just recently surfaced), or pursued fame beyond her own musical endeavors, she never entered the public consciousness the way that Les Paul or Alvino Rey did.

Luckily, Letritia and her husband Walter retained all of their old magazines and publicity photos documenting Letritia’s music career.  Best of all, the magnificent Grand Letar lay in its road case, completely untouched, underneath the basement stairwell, for nearly 55 years.

When collector Paul Warnik finally tracked down Letritia in 2007, he was not only blown away by the fact that Letritia was still alive and well (with great memory for detail), but that Letritia and her husband Walter had kept all her instruments and documentation of her music career.

After forging a friendship with Letritia and Walter, and making inquiries about the Grand Letar under the stairwell, Letritia surprised Paul by making arrangements for him to become the caretaker for all of her instruments (sadly, Walter, Letritia’s husband of over 53 years, passed away on December 15, 2008).

The Grand Letar had to be brought up the stairs in its road case, with a crew of piano movers hired to remove it from its half-century cold storage.  When Paul began to restore the Grand Letar, it was essentially in good shape, but needed restoration of the amplifier and the light show.  Jeff Mikols, Southside Chicago’s amp wizard, rebuilt the amplifier section.  The electrical wiring for the light show and field coil speakers was restored by Sue Haslam, a technician at Peterson Strobe Tuners in the Chicago suburb of Alsip, Illinois.

Below: The interior of the Grand Letar showing the controls for the light show at the top, and the tube amplifier chassis on the bottom of the cabinet.  The sealed box on the left side of the bottom cabinet contained the motorized relays that controlled the "light show."

When the Grand Letar’s restoration was finished in September 2008, the instrument was transported to St. Louis.  There it was featured at the Peterson Strobe Tuner booth at the International Steel Guitar Convention, where the Grand Letar was demonstrated in public for the first time in 55 years.

Below: Paul Warnik playing the Grand Letar.

Now that Letritia Kandle’s story is coming out, and the Grand Letar is back in action, the 94-year old electric guitar innovator remains nonplussed.  In her words, “All I ever tried to do was elevate the steel guitar into a more versatile instrument that was capable of playing other styles of music, like modern and classical…not just Hawaiian music.”

Below: Letritia Kandle at her Chicago home, September 2009.

Letritia’s modest statement belies the fact that her accomplishments deserve a great deal of recognition.  This article serves to set the record straight—70 years too late, but better late than never.  We all owe a debt of thanks to the early electric guitar innovators—people like Les Paul, Alvino Rey, Charlie Christian—and Letritia Kandle.

Deke Dickerson

POSTSCRIPT:  Letritia Kandle became ill during the writing of this story and was hospitalized.  When the issue of Vintage Guitar magazine finally came off the presses, T.C. Furlong rushed a copy to her hospital room so she could see it.  Letritia saw the article, and died three days later, on June 9th, 2010.  She was 94 years old.  All who were involved with the story feel like she hung on just long enough to see her life story in print.  Rest in Peace, Letritia.

Special thanks to Letritia Kandle, Paul Warnik, T.C. Furlong, Sue Haslam, John Norris, Jeff Mikols, and Kay Koster.

FROM GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE

THE FIRST GUITAR “PEDAL!”

Imagine, if you will, all the millions of stomp boxes, effects and guitar “pedals” in the world.  Now imagine a family tree with all those pedals leading back to one device that started the whole shebang.  If you can believe it, at the top of that family tree would be this lovely art deco-styled volume and tone pedal, the 1937 Rocco Tonexpressor—the very first guitar “pedal.”

         The idea of the pedal came from the automobile’s accelerator, and the first known use of a volume pedal for musical use came with the early electric theater organs.  However, it would take the ingenuity of an obscure steel guitarist named Anthony Rocco to take those ideas and apply them to the world of the electric guitar.

         Rocco (whose Italian name was Rocco Aiala, nee Antonio Rocco) was one of the earliest electric steel guitar players, and he carved out a career for himself in the New York City area, playing Hawaiian-style steel guitar with big bands and orchestras around the city.  In addition, Rocco befriended Epi Stathopoulo, who manufactured Epiphone guitars, and Rocco came on board as advisor to the company.

         Based on Rocco’s designs and inventions, Epiphone began manufacturing a whole line of Rocco devices in 1937, including a Rocco double-neck steel guitar, a Rocco signature steel bar, and the innovative Rocco Tonexpressor, a combination volume and tone pedal.

         Rocco held a patent on the Tonexpressor, which was a complicated device utilizing gears, transformers, and a series of relay switches—the damn thing looks like some kind of antique telephone switchboard when you open it up.  The volume control (up and down) worked in a fairly normal way, with a potentiometer and a string, but the tone (side to side) produced three distinct tonal characteristics that can only be described as bass, treble, and super-treble, to make the familiar “doo-ahh” crashing sound effect that was popular among steel guitar players for several decades.  Many years later the same basic concept was applied in a much different type of musical context to become the wah-wah pedal, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

         Rocco’s inventions were ahead of their time, and as such sold poorly on initial release.  Steel guitarist Jody Carver remembers Rocco playing around New York City for decades (where Carver got him to autograph this promo photo shown above), but then Rocco slipped into obscurity, a forgotten innovator in the world of electric guitar.

         It’s a humorous thought to imagine Anthony Rocco, Hawaiian steel guitarist extraordinaire, in the middle of a modern-day music store, listening as dozens of kids blare guitars through flangers, choruses, distortions and wah-wah pedals, yelling “Turn that goddamn noise down!”  For that noise, and the invention of the first guitar pedal, we thank you, Mr. Rocco.

--Deke Dickerson

Below: The three different types of Rocco ToneExpressors.  All have that same guts, but different types of housings.  The one on the left is the oldest version.

Thanks to Jody Carver, Mike Black, Jeremy Wakefield, and Marty Smith.  Anyone with more information on Anthony Rocco, please email the author here.

GUITAR MUSEUM AT THE GEEKFEST, 2010

NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

Okay, now that I'm getting ready for Guitar Geek Festival 2011, I'm looking at the Museum from last year and wondering--how can we ever top that?  This makes my knees weak.  We had heavyweights like Lynn Wheelwright bringing incredible instruments like Alvino Rey's Frying Pan-in-A-Gibson-Body steel guitar and Speedy West's homemade steel guitar, Elaine Frizzell brought Joe Maphis' original Mosrite Octave Neck from his doubleneck, Adam Tober had the world's largest G.L. Stiles collection as well as Dolly Parton's pink Mosrite acoustic....a frighteningly real Bigsby electric guitar--it was pretty intense!


Geeks, be sure to wear shades when you look at this.  I won't be responsible for your medical bills.  Photos by the Geekfest Staff Photographer Spencer Hunt.

FUN WITH PATENTS, Installment Number 1

BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS

If you're a guitar geek, undoubtedly you have a lot of time alone, by yourself, "between girlfriends," whatever you want to call it.  The good news is that there is literally a whole new world waiting for you to discover, and it's all free and online.  I'm talking about the wild world of U.S Patents, which can be found online at www.google.com/patents.

America's love affair with inventing things goes back to the beginning of this country. The Constitution states in Article 1, Section 8 to guarantee "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".

Hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of your "valuable" time can be spent researching decades of musical related inventions, from the early 1800's until the present day.  Guitarists might be interested to know that the vibrato arm originated on the banjo in the late 1800's.  The early era of the electric guitar showcases a whole host of interesting patents, including an early system by Arnold Lesti (Pat. #Re20,070, produced as 'Volu-Tone' instruments) that didn't use permanent magnets for their pickups.  Their solution?  Before each gig, you ran a "charge" of super high-voltage through the strings from a "charge" plug in the amp to magnetize the strings themselves.  Oops, don't touch the strings while you're running hundreds of volts through the guitar!  I'm still waiting to find the newspaper from the 1930's with the headline "Man killed by electric guitar."

One of the things that I love while scrolling through these old patents, listed immediately after the name of the invention or design being patented, are the names and addresses of the inventors.   When I see evocative names and locales such as "Ronald E. Dearth, Lima, Ohio" or "Carl Temple Schrickel, St. Louis, Missouri," I picture these people, these beautiful dreamers, hunched over workbenches, tinkering with their inventions, working out their ideas.  Some of them were nuts, some of them were geniuses, but the main thing that comes to mind while scrolling through these thousands of patents is realizing how few of these inventions ever made it to production, and even fewer that were successes.  Back in the day, and even today, it was a time-consuming and expensive process to apply for and receive a patent, so when I realize that "Bert Irie Gibbons, Fort Worth, Texas" likely invested his life's savings on a "One Man Band Apparatus" that never caught on, or was commercially produced, it has a double meaning for me. 

On one hand, it's sad to think that these people put so much of themselves into patenting a device that never made them rich or famous.  Bert Irie Gibbons, of the One Man Band Apparatus, suffered the ignoble fate of registering not one hit on google decades later beyond his patent and one vital record (a difficult feat).  On the other, a sense of pride swells inside knowing that no matter how gridlocked this country might be, no matter how deep a morass we find ourselves in, dammit, you don't see anybody in Norway or Japan or Brazil inventing things as simultaneously genius and stupid as Bert Irie Gibbons' "One Man Band Apparatus."

America, for all it's faults, is a land of beautiful dreamers.  The one thing the world still relies on America for are our ideas.  The collective brain power that invented things like the Internet and Air Conditioning came from a culture that also bred Perpetual Motion Machines, the Toilet Snorkel and Bert Irie Gibbons' One Man Band Apparatus.  Knowing that, perusing these thousands of American Patents reassures me that somewhere, in a garage workshop in Kansas or a computer hacker's bedroom in Florida, somewhere somebody is trying to invent something.  The cure for cancer, or at least a Sealed Crustless Sandwich, is undoubtedly right around the corner.

Gibbons' One Man Band Apparatus?  It appears to be two guitar necks mounted vertically that one plays by bicycling with the right foot to keep the strumming going, and changing the position on the necks with levers operated by your left foot and your chin.  I sure wish that googling Gibbons' name had turned up a youtube video.

More Fun With Patents to come--there's an endless supply of great material to write about.

Deke Dickerson

From GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE,

Duane Eddy’s 1960 Howard Doubleneck guitar

This futuristic Jetsons rocket ship of a guitar looks ready to go into orbit at any time.  It was made in 1960 for instrumental hit-maker Duane Eddy by a Phoenix amplifier guru named Tom “Howard” McCormick.  McCormick is known for his unique amplifiers, but little is known about his guitars. 

Duane Eddy was and still is the ‘King of Twang,’ and he is most remembered for his Gretsch and Guild signature model guitars.  In the late 50’s, however, he used to switch back and forth on stage between his Gretsch 6120 and his Danelectro 6-string bass.  McCormick reckoned Duane needed a doubleneck that would do the same thing.  Duane recalls that this instrument sounded and looked great, but he rarely used it due to its prohibitive weight.

McCormick made unorthodox guitar amps, and this guitar is no exception.  The necks are made of fiberglass with rosewood fretboards, and the backwards-Explorer headstocks predated Robin guitars by two decades.  The pickups are super high fidelity, and the dense guitar sustains forever.  Other features, such as the inside-out Strat jack mounted on the side, the six oven knobs and five switches, and hand-milled vibrato are great reminders of an era where the future was so bright, you had to wear shades.  Where are the jet packs they promised us?

I never knew that Howard made any other guitars than Duane's doubleneck, but there is a flyer for Howard guitars and amps inside the case of Duane's doubleneck.

Howard Guitar Flyer, collection of the author.

After viewing the flyer, this author recalled seeing some student model Howard guitars long ago at the fabled Chicago Store in Tucson, Arizona (long since plundered).  How many of these guitars or amps were made?  Not many, just judging by the fact that only a couple Howard amps and zero guitars have turned up on eBay in the last ten years.

Photo from the good old days of the Chicago Store in Tucson, taken around 1998.  Note blue Howard student model in foreground.  Don't worry, all this stuff is gone--the fabled burial ground of vintage gear is no more.

Duane played the doubleneck on 'American Bandstand' with Dick Clark in 1960, and a few live shows around the same time.  

Duane uses the Howard on Bandstand.  Photo is Copyrighted.

Duane found the guitar to be too heavy to use on stage, and the pickups sustained too much in a live setting.  Duane put the guitar into storage, pulling it out at least one more time for a Guitar Player article written by Teisco Del Rey in June 1993.

This guitar is imbued with unexplainable, mystical luck.  When Duane agreed to sell the Howard doubleneck to this author, the guitar was taken out of Duane's storage locker at Sound Check in Nashville and shipped on the last day of April, 2010.  Two days later the Cumberland River flooded downtown Nashville, and the Sound Check facility (a massive rehearsal and equipment storage location) flooded.  Thousands of instruments, many of them vintage and historic, were underwater. 

Read about the flood at Sound Check here.

Most of Duane's prized instruments he had collected through the years were ruined.  50 years after it was created, somehow the Howard doubleneck escaped a tragic end through a narrow crack in the door.  

Duane (ever the gentleman) has played down his losses and has asked those who are close to him to not publicize his story, because so many other musicians lost everything they owned.  However, the story, as it relates to this crazy Jetsons doubleneck guitar, makes it the luckiest guitar I know of.  Just having it around makes me feel like everything is going to be alright.

Read about Duane's contributions to the flood relief efforts here.

Little may be known of Tom “Howard” McCormick, but this author hereby declares this guitar as the coolest guitar ever made.  May the Twang be with you.

Deke Dickerson

Note: The author would really like to find Tom "Howard" McCormick's family to get the full story, see more photos, and do a proper article on the history of "Howard" guitars and amps.  Please email the author here.

With special thanks to Duane and Deed Eddy, Teisco Del Rey, and Glen Harrison.

From "HAG--The Capitol Recordings, 1968-1976"

MERLE HAGGARD ON "OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE"


Here's a piece I wrote a few years ago for a Merle Haggard box set.  I think it's a good piece for this Election day--does any of this sound familiar?

Merle Haggard, for all his successes and hit records up to the fall of 1969, was just another country music star. A very successful country star, but just another star nonetheless. One song was to change all that and turn Merle Haggard into a household name--a simple little ditty called "Okie from Muskogee."

Merle: "'Okie from Muskogee' is the song that changed my life." 

We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don't take our trips on LSD
We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street
We like livin' right, and bein' free

We don't make a party out of lovin'
We like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo
We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy
Like the hippies out in San Francisco do

I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
And white lightnin' is still the biggest thrill of all

Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear
Beads and Roman sandals won't be seen
Football's still the roughest thing on campus
And the kids here still respect the college dean

I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
And white lightnin' is still the biggest thrill of all

We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA

--Merle Haggard (and Eddie Burris), "Okie from Muskogee" 


See Merle Haggard & the Strangers perform "Okie From Muskogee" in this live youtube clip here.

Merle had written the song in the summer of 1969 and began playing it live shortly thereafter. Everyone who heard it knew that it was a monster hit waiting to happen. According to steel guitarist Norm Hamlet, "The first time we played it, the audience just went crazy. We knew it was going to be huge." 

There couldn't have been a better time to launch a song like "Okie from Muskogee" on the American public. The country was embroiled in divisive politics and was going through difficult cultural changes like no other time in its history. 

The United States was, at the time, mired in a war in Vietnam and Southeast Asia that polarized the country. There were those who felt that America's presence in Vietnam was an important battle of right versus wrong--that preventing the spread of Communism in far-flung locales was tantamount to preserving democracy at home. There were just as many others who felt that the Vietnam War was an exercise in futility, a confusing jungle conflict where enemy and ally were often one and the same. The people who opposed the war felt that the real reason the nation was in Vietnam was to fill the coffers of the defense industry, and that the hundreds of boys coming home in body bags every month was too high a price to pay. 

For a nation that, at the time, thought of itself as invincible, the Vietnam War pitted a generation of veterans against young idealists, and most significantly for our discussion here, it seemed to pit rural people who considered themselves diehard patriots against city people who felt that the war was wrong, no matter what the government was saying. No one was happy with what was going on in Vietnam. 

Merle: "It was like this. I'd just got out of prison, and I say that like 'so what.' Well, it was a big deal, I'd just got out of the joint, and I had my whole life before me, and I was scared, and I was on parole, and I walked into this condition in America that was like no time in history." 

In the midst of all this social and political change, three assassinations rocked the nation, coinciding with the ascent of Merle Haggard's career from his earliest records to the release of "Okie from Muskogee." President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in November 1963. His brother, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, was assassinated in June 1968, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968, making the decade one of the bloodiest in the nation's history. 

Merle: "If you look back on it now, it was a sad time for America. People were misinformed . . . and the government was lying to us. It was a time of deception. And yet I felt sure that those long haired hippies did not know any more about freedom than I did. Now if they'd been over to Vietnam, and come back, and had on a Vietnam jacket, and they had something to say, I'd listen to 'em. But they hadn't. None of 'em had been anywhere. They hadn't been to prison . . . they hadn't been to Vietnam . . . and I found it really disturbing that they were against the American war. 




"Whatever America was doing, for me at that time, I felt confident that it was the right thing. Well, the hippies didn't believe in the war. I didn't know why they didn't believe in it, and I didn't understand it, and it irritated me that somebody who'd walk around pissing their pants and looking up in the air with their mouth open . . . at the time, I thought it was caused by marijuana. Well, we know that isn't the case. So I went on to have a different philosophy." 

As an ex-convict, Merle felt that hippies and left-wing radicals were demeaning the fabric of the country, a country that had given him a second chance and forgiven him for his crimes. Merle insisted in an interview with this author that he was dead serious when he wrote "Okie from Muskogee" and other politically charged numbers like "Fightin' Side of Me." But as time went on, Merle began to take an educated and unbiased look at his political views and personal beliefs. 

Merle: "I was dumb as a rock, you know, I thought that the government told us the truth, and I thought that marijuana made you walk around with your mouth open. So when you write a song from that limited understanding, and have it become a hit, I was really in a whirlwind of change in America, and in my own way of thinking. 

"'Okie from Muskogee' came off the wall, written in about ten minutes, and it came off the back side of my brain, and my heart. Because I was disturbed about young America. See, I was easing into my thirties, at that time, so I was pretty much out of here as far as the young people were concerned, and they were young kids that I was irritated with, and they were doing things that I thought were un-American. Well, it wasn't un-American, they were smarter than me! Kids are always smarter than the old folks . . . they see through our bigotry and our hypocrisy. And I had a great lesson in life to learn, that they were already aware of. 

"I believe history has proven them right. The Vietnam War was a hoax, the reason we went to war was a lie. . . . Maybe Communism was a threat, but that wasn't why we were there." 

In the music world, massive changes had taken place during the 1960s. The decade had begun innocently enough, with all genres of music, from pop to country, essentially carrying on the innocent themes of the 1950s. When the Beatles came over from England in 1964, it was as if everything changed overnight. Suddenly music wasn't about escape, release, and endless good times--it was now expected to be a harbinger of social change. With the turbulent times affecting everybody in the nation, it wasn't long before the previously staid world of country music was affected by the same sort of social awareness that the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and others had brought into the world of rock. 

It was a much different scenario in the country music world than it was in the rock and roll world, however. For the country western market, right-wing Republican was the norm, and few were willing to speak up for the liberal side of things, even if they felt differently. President Richard Nixon appeared on stage at the Grand Ol' Opry, playing the piano and laughing with Roy Acuff. Records like "Ballad of Two Brothers" by Autry Inman and "Hello Vietnam" by Johnny Wright pulled on patriotic heartstrings and rallied support for the Vietnam War. In the deep South, "under the counter" records on the Reb-Rebel label were huge underground sellers, with records like "Nigger Hatin' Me" by "Johnny Rebel," "Cowboys and Niggers" by "James Crow," and "A Victim of the Big Mess (Called the Great Society)" by the "Son of Mississippi." These were essentially Southern country music "protest" records, the racist redneck equivalent of Country Joe McDonald strumming an acoustic guitar at Woodstock and talking about peace and love. The country music establishment had its own political views, and they weren't about the peace and love bit one iota. 

Johnny Cash was virtually the only country singer to speak for left-wing issues during this period, which didn't exactly go over well with the country record-buying public. Cash tackled the treatment of American Indians, spoke up for prisoners, and recorded with Bob Dylan, all of which endeared him to hippies and left-wing liberals but hurt him for years with conservatives. 

When Merle performs "Okie from Muskogee" now, he plays it off like a joke, and he has said in interviews over the years that it was a parody, or written from the perspective of his father, or only half-serious. It wasn't. "Okie from Muskogee" was a statement, and, at least in fall 1969, Merle meant every word of it. 

Merle: "I felt the opposite side of the knife. . . . I knew that I was standing up for something that was probably gonna cost me half my audience. It's strange, all those people that were fans, people in the business, I didn't even realize it at the time [but] we were really accepted in the rock and roll field. . . . We had songs in the pop charts. You know, Dean Martin was cuttin' my records, and things like that. "Okie from Muskogee" took a big bite out of that because these people thought I was really down on marijuana, and that I was really as square as that song, and man . . . they dropped me like a hot potato." 

When "Okie from Muskogee" was released on August 15, 1969, it shot straight to the top of the country charts and to number forty-one on the pop charts. The song was a blockbuster in every sense of the word, and the best-known song Merle would ever release. People went wild when he performed it. There was little doubt that he would be performing "Okie from Muskogee" for the rest of his career. 

The song was so popular that Merle included it on all three of his live albums, including the phenomenally successful Live in Muskogee album. In 1969 the Academy of Country Music (ACM) named it single of the year and song of the year.Live in Muskogee was album of the year, and Merle was voted top male vocalist. The following year, the CMA awards gave "Okie from Muskogee" their own song of the year award and Live in Muskogee album of the year, and Merle was voted both entertainer of the year and male vocalist of the year. "Okie from Muskogee" was so popular that Capitol re-released the single in 1972, using a live version taken from the live Philadelphia album. It was, quite simply, a phenomenon. 

Incensed liberals immediately began pigeonholing Merle Haggard as a puppet of the right-wing conservative movement, feelings which were intensified by follow-up songs like "Fightin' Side of Me," the Vietnam POW anthem "I Wonder if They'll Ever Think of Me," and Merle's performance for President Richard Nixon in 1973. Nearly a decade later Merle performed at a Ronald Reagan fundraiser, further fueling the fire. Parodies of "Okie from Muskogee" from the liberal point of view were written and recorded, such as "Asshole from El Paso" by Kinky Friedman and "Hippie from Olema #5" by the Youngbloods. 

What many of the unhappy hippies didn't realize was that Merle Haggard was nobody's puppet. Merle may not have cared for the far left wing, but he also didn't like neoconservatives. Alabama governor and independent right wing presidential candidate George Wallace asked Merle to endorse his 1972 bid for the White House, but Merle refused. Ex-Klansman-turned-politico David Duke asked Merle to do a private party, and Merle told him, in a colorful way, what he could do with his offer. Merle also discovered his own love of marijuana, stating in a 1974 Michigan newspaper interview "Muskogee is the only place I don't smoke it." 


Merle's latest interview in High Times magazine here.

No one got to hear the song "Somewhere in Between," either. Merle wrote the song in 1970 and recorded it twice, once in 1970 and again in 1971, but it has never seen the light of day until now. A song guaranteed to make neither side happy, it speaks Merle Haggard's state of mind better than any press release ever did. While both the left-leaning hippies and the far-right rednecks wanted Merle to be something they had defined based on their own prejudices, Merle wasn't about to be defined by anyone but himself. "Somewhere in Between" would have probably made the hippies madder and angered Merle's core audience if it had been released at the time of its recording, but it would have shed a little light on the complex personality of Merle Haggard. 

There's a certain class of people who might venture out too far
There's the common man who's satisfied with things the way they are
There's the acid-taking dopies with their minds eat up inside
But it takes all kinds to make the world so wide

I stand looking at the left wing, and I turn towards the right
And either side don't look too good, examined under light
That's just freedom of opinion, and their legal right to choose
That's one right I hope we never lose

I stand somewhere in between divided wings
The liberal left, the narrow right, and the young of 17
And I'm not too old to understand the young who disagree
And it leaves me standing somewhere in between

We analyze the trouble that reflect the current times
While we're searching with a question weighing heavy on our minds
And I haven't heard an answer that'll change things overnight
And that's one thing I know for sure is right

And I stand somewhere in between divided wings
The liberal left, the narrow right, and the young of 17
And I'm not too old to understand the young who disagree
And it leaves me standing somewhere in between
It leaves me standing somewhere in between

--Merle Haggard, "Somewhere in Between" (revised lyrics, 1971) 

Hear Merle sing "Somewhere In Between" here.

In 1990 Merle released "Me and Crippled Soldiers," an anti-flag-burning song, on his Blue Jungle album. More recently Merle has released a song called "America First," which has the line "Let's get out of Iraq, and get back on track," and he has spoken up for blacklisted liberal pariahs the Dixie Chicks. Merle also has infuriated his conservative fan base with "Hillary," a song that endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2008.  In January 2009 Haggard released a pro-Obama song entitled "Hopes Are High."  Haggard is a man who clearly doesn't have a problem speaking his mind. 

 
Liberals and conservatives alike should take another look at Merle Haggard. Merle may be a country boy without much formal education, but unlike many of his supporters and detractors who have doctorates or are in positions of power, Merle has listened to both sides, formed an opinion, spoken his mind, listened and learned more over the years, and (unafraid to contradict his own earlier positions) spoken his mind again--with fairness, regardless of whether anyone wanted to listen. In anyone's book, this is the definition of an intelligent man. 


Here's a perfect example of Merle refusing to be anybody's political tool here.

Merle: "What went on in the evolution of America and the evolution of Merle Haggard is not what people would have expected." 



--Deke Dickerson

Below: Merle Haggard and the author, at Hag's place outside Redding, CA. 7/17/08