9 String Gibson Guitar

Subject: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: GUEST,Mark / Rod Garfield
Date: 22 May 01 - 04:24 AM

I have a blues musician friend in from the UK now residing in Australia who has a 50 year old nine string Gibson acoustic - anyone have any info? Seems an unusual number of strings...

hear Rods music at: http://www.rodgarfield.f9.co.uk

The Blowin' his stack medley has this instrument on it.

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: Bugsy
Date: 22 May 01 - 04:48 AM

It's like a 12 string with the octave strings removed from the 3 bass strings (Bottom E, A, & D).

Makes the bass runs more pronounced and enhances the treble strings.

CHeers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: GUEST,marshman
Date: 22 May 01 - 12:59 PM

I saw Spider John Kerner playing a 9 string guitar in a small club in Boston, circa early 1970's. Funny thing looked home brewed. The "odd' (9th)tuner was at the top of the headstock. It sounded loud and sharp; good for his style of hoots, rags, and hobo waltzes. mm

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: GUEST,CraigS
Date: 22 May 01 - 09:24 PM

Big Joe Williams always used to adapt his guitars from 6 to 9 strings - claimed to have originated the idea in the 30s to give a bigger sound for street playing, then found it had the added advantage of scaring off amateurs who might want to play his guitar. I've seen old Gibsons with sympathetic and harp strings, but if this looks like a factory job it is possible it was custom made for a Big Joe Williams fan - it might even have been made for the man himself!

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 22 May 01 - 11:24 PM

G'day Mark/Rod Garfield,

I have seen 19th century illustraions of 9-stringers, so they certainly were made in factories. The ones that come to mind were woodcuts or (more likely) steel engravings of the type that I have seen illustrating music (and other) items in old Scientific Americans. I have some in a Dover illustrators' source book on Music.

I also remember reading that Mudcat's Art Thieme made a modified 9-stringer of one of his guitars (a Martin, if I remember correctly) when what turned out to be incipient MS, started to affect his playing. It caused a bit of angst at Martin ... but it helped him in just the way that others describe above.

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: ddw
Date: 22 May 01 - 11:53 PM

There was a thread on 9-strings about a year ago. click here

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: ddw
Date: 22 May 01 - 11:56 PM

As usual, my in-house blue clicky didn't work. One of these days I'll figure it out.

In the meantime, go to the forum home, forum search and type in "9-string". Set the dates to go back two years and it'll get you into the thread.

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: Art Thieme
Date: 22 May 01 - 11:59 PM

Rich,

Your link didn't work for me.

Art

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: Art Thieme
Date: 23 May 01 - 12:30 AM

There were a few old blues guys who used 9-string guitars in the 1930s---maybe Lonnie Johnson.

I followed Big Joe around Chicago for a few years when he was recording for Bob Koester's Delmar Records (later Delmark). Big Joe took a 3-tuner metal strip of tuners (like you would find on one side of the tuning stock on a cheap six string guitar) and stuck it on the end of his tuning stock wood. (Hope that makes sense.) One of the 3 extra tuners didn't fit on the wood so it just hung out there in space. Somehow, it still worked for him though.

The 9-string guitar I made when my hands started getting numb was accomplished by putting 3 straight-through-the-wood banjo tuners down the middle of the head stock of my Martin D-76 guitar. I doubled up on the trble strings---like a mandolin. As was said here already, the 3 bass strings were single. To my ear that made for more clarity than a 12-string guitar could achieve. (12-strings always sounded muddy to my ear.) I wanted to really "hear" the picking clearly---at least as clearly as I could achieve. I thought the fuller sound when strumming I would get might make up for some of the problems I was having picking from the MS. Then I had to go back to 6 strings anyhow as my abilities deterriorated further.

You would play a 9-string guitar the same way a 6-string guitar would be played. It's just that 3 of them were doubled. The paired strings (2 at a time) are played as if they were one string.

Alvarez-Yairi guitar company made a commercially available 9-string guitar for some years not too long ago---but come to think of it, that was 20 years ago.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: Art Thieme
Date: 23 May 01 - 12:36 AM

Forgot to mention that the banjo tuners I used were the PLANETARY GEARED VARIETY that could be installed in the center of the 6 tuners along the left and right edges.

Art

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: Bugsy
Date: 23 May 01 - 03:20 AM

Morris also had a factory made 9 string some 15 or so years ago.

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: Bugsy
Date: 23 May 01 - 03:36 AM

Morris also had a factory made 9 string some 15 or so years ago.

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: GUEST,Mark
Date: 23 May 01 - 04:16 AM

Thanks to everyone who replied to my original posting. Since then I have found out what Rod's 9 string guitar is, this is from his profile:

As well as fronting his band, Rod also has a big following as a solo artist, playing a nine string bottleneck guitar and making his 1950 Gibson J45 really "talk" - with material ranging from traditional, contemporary and self-penned, blues, jazz and rock. A featured artist at the Tablelands Folk and Rock for the Rainforest festivals, Rod toured Tasmania in 1999 where he headlined the Rosebery, Forth Valley Blues and the Penguin festivals and appeared as a special guest at the Westbury St. Patrick's Day and AGFEST events. He also performed seven live unplugged sessions/interviews on radio throughout Australia and TV performances/interviews. With more time to dedicate to his music, Rod is now giving it his all to spread the magic of blues to a wide reaching audience.

For more info and music go to: http://www.rodgarfield.f9.co.uk This information was added yesterday. Thanks again everyone.

Mark

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 23 May 01 - 10:11 PM

G'day Mark,

I just had a look at the 9-stringer reproduced in Music - A Pictorial Archive of Woodcuts & Engravings, Selected by Jim Harter, Dover Publications Inc, New York, 1980. This is an engraving, fairly typical of the sort of thing in catalogues and advertisements in the late 19th/early 20th century.

I notice that many of the Dover Pictorial Archive Series say "…19th Century …" but the Music book does not - probably because so much is available in early 20th century catalogues. The same book has illustrations of banjos nearby, which include tenor and plectrum models, as well as banjo mandolins, so this would suggest that the illustrations could be as late as 1930.

The guitar is described as "Nine-stringed Hawaiian guitar". This instrument has a metal tailpiece, slightly angled bridge and an asymmetrical headstock with a strip of 3 tuning pegs on the bass side and a strip of 6 tuning pegs on the treble. There is no brand shown, so it may be a generic "cheap cut" for music advertisers.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 24 May 01 - 06:33 PM

Art, I remember once listening to a radio show from the Old Town School (I think) on which you were billed as the "King of the Nine-String Guitar." And I always thought that was a joke...

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: 9 String Gibson Guitar
From: Art Thieme
Date: 24 May 01 - 07:24 PM

Mark,

It was a joke !! I'm the one who made it up; put it on one version of my business card as a spoof and it caught on---like Utah Phillips being The Golden Voice Of The Great Southwest". But I really was pickin' a 9-string back then--as I said. I thought it might make picking easier. Recently the midwest branch of the Folk Alliance F.A.R.M.---(Folk Allianc Region Midwest) gave me an award, and one of the things mentioned on it was that I was "King Of The 9-String Guitar". Truth be known, I always was the ONLY one playing a 9-string guitar around these and most other parts then---so I figured I must be the KING of that insrtrument. ;-)

Alas, thanks for remembering. I've always said, 90% of life is just showing up. The rest is promo and hype and put-on !!!!! Rubber chickens were fun to pull out of my banjo too. (A chicken in every pot !!)

Art