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Location: Zion, Illinois | I first became interested in Ovations after hearing and seeing performers like Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, Bread, & Glen Campbell playing them. I bought my first Ovation in 1974, the second around 1976 (had to sell that one - sigh).
I, like someone else on this board, gave up playing for a long while and have just recently started again. Of course the guitars I've been picking up are Ovations.
One of the things I delight in is when I find other performers, ones that I didn't know played Ovation, playing Ovations. I just love yelling to my wife to come here so that I can show her Paul Simon playing his Custom Legend on TV or to show her Paul McCartney with his Ovations. It also helps me convice her to let be buy another one - hehe.
Someone on this board pointed us to a link where there was a picture of John Lennon playing his Ovation.
Today I was in a book store, looking over magazines when I spotted a magazine with an article about one of my favorite accoustic fingerpicking artist - Donovan. When I've seen him in person or in photos he always was playing a Guild guitar, the one with the crestant moon-shaped sound hole. Well I turned to the artical and they had a somewhat blurring picture of him, but the guitar was easy to make out, it was a cut-away Ovation!
Just had to share that, it was such a surprise to me.
Bradley |
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Location: Minneapolis, MN | Donovan huh? Writing.....that.....one....down....too.... there, got it! :D
-Rich |
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Location: Pennsylvania | So Paul Simon plays ovations? Paul Simon is the man--one of my all time favorite guys. I just never knew he had an ovation. Cool! |
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Location: NJ | Check out the HBO "Live In Central Park" concert. |
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Location: SoCal | I hate to tell you guys this, but Simon and Garfarkel's Live in Central Park concert was 20-25 years ago.
Simon's playing was looks like a big black Gibson SJ200 now. |
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Location: NJ | Thanks Paul for again reminding me of how f@#$*^g OLD I'm getting!!
Maybe we can start a new game:
"Name the Guitar that the Old Ovation Endorsee is Playing NOW". |
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Location: Zion, Illinois | I hate to tell you guys this, but Simon and Garfarkel's Live in Central Park concert was 20-25 years ago.
Simon's playing was looks like a big black Gibson SJ200 now
I have a J-200 as well as a Custom Legend. Tell Paul he's better off with the Ovation!!!!!
Bradley |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | I think I hear close to 500 voices shouting "I"LL SECOND THAT" |
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Location: SoCal | Bailey, I've played a J200 and heard others play them. I have no idea why anybody would buy one, but people are more than will to part with 3 large for one. Mystic? |
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Location: Scotland | I think that big black guitar of Paul Simon's may actually be a Yamaha. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Mr Simon undoubtedly feels the need to always be seen with whatever is hot at that time. You're not a real guitar player if you don't, right? He played the Big O, he's played Yamahas alot. Don't know what he's on now, could be a G. On most of these guitars they all have pickups of some sort and are played through the big go to hell sound systems and in the mix they all sound about the same. It's for the looks of it! There's always been a thing about having a J200, or an Everly bros, or the John Denver Yam, or the Custom Legend or whatever. Three G's to him ain't the same as it is to us.
[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: cwk2 ] |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | When I moved to CA in 1962, I took a good condition Gibson SJ that I had bought from my brother for $175. I never liked that guitar and busted the neck in an angry fit. I gave it to a pot smoking hippy school teacher who was into folk music and he patched up the neck and was dreamily happy with it. I never missed it, although it might be worth something today. The G J200, Hummingbirds, etc. are Nashville status symbols and as dubyatwo says are OK if plugged in, acoustically, forget it. Most country stars who are seen with them are noteworthy in that they don't play them. Remember you old timers, Johnny Rodrigues was told to quit playing his guitar and just sing if he wanted to be a country star, that's been the formula ever since. I would bet a lot of money that the new elite T will outplay any of the G showpieces.
Bailey (no G's in my humble collection) |
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Location: NJ | bailey
since those Givsung acoustics have no resonance they are the darling of the nashville producers. they do not have booming acoustic sound so they are easily recorded they are very "flat" and don;t require any brains for mic technique to make them sound good. Come to think of it maybe that is why they like taylors now???????? |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | There is an exception here and that is Vince Gill. He plays a J200 and he can sure play. He gets a good sound out of it acoustically and plugged in as well.
God, did I just say something nice about G? Oh, no it's OK it was something nice about Vince. |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | dubyatoo
Vince, Chet, Roy Clark, G Campbell, could play anything with strings and make it sound like an Ovation. Django played the primitive steel string prewar european guitars and did the same. The rest of us plunkers depend too much on our guitars to sound good, so we have to have that super sounding guitar to cover our shortcomings and G's won't do that for us.
Bailey |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | 10-4 |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | alpep
Your remarks jogged my memory, the teacher I gave my SJ to had the first reel to reel I had seen. It was stereo with built in reverb, and he was writing and RECORDING his own songs on it. That guitar did sound good on tape, and all in all he had pretty good songs, and that reel to reel sounded excellent. I still didn't miss the guitar, but I wanted a reel to reel real bad.
Bailey |
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Location: Scotland | Bailey, If Mario Maccaferri were alive he would take exception the his guitars being called primitive. They were highly advanced for their day, with many inovations, including a secondary internal soundboard on some models. Their tone is unusual,with a short sustain but massive amounts of midrange, which allowed django's unamplified solos to be heard above the rest of the Hot Club musicians.
[ August 24, 2002: Message edited by: Paul Templeman ] |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | Paul
The Maccaferi's were excellent jazz guitars from what I have heard. But I read a biography somewhere that said when he came to the US on a tour or some visit that he either lost or didn't bring his european guitar and had to play American guitars which he did not like, but his sound was as good as we know it to be. My memory is not too specific on this and it may have been before he could afford Maccaferi's, I think he was extremely poor at times and guitar players didn't make the money that the rock stars do. Anybody who is a Django fan is welcome to jump in here and correct me, I've been wrong before, and love to hear stories about the guitar pioneers.
Also it would be interesting to hear from anyone who has seen or played a Maccaferi as they were the technological equivalent of the Ovation in the 1930's, in that they were designed for volume for a specific new type of music versus the classical history of the guitar. If you have, Paul, give us a review.
Bailey |
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Location: Scotland | I've played a couple of original Selmer Maccaferris belonging to Brit Jazz guitarist Diz Disley (who played with Grappelli for many years)
I was surprised to find that they aren't flat-top guitars, nor are they arch-tops. The have a "bent" top design like some mandolins. The necks are huge, they have a very short banjo-like sustain and a very cutting bass-light tone. They are light in weight and general construction is nowhere near as tidy as American guitars of the era. Diz's guitars were set up with heavy strings and a high-ish action & were pigs to play, though he managed very well on them. Incidentally the other Maccaferri connection with Ovation is his experiments with synthetic materials in musical instruments. I used to own a Maccaferri plastic f-hole guitar. In the mid 80's a wharehouse full of new old-stock plastic F-hole & round-hole Macs was found, I think in New York. I picked this one up a few years after the initial interest had waned, for about £90, and sold it a year or 2 ago for over £500. Maccaferri also made plastic ukes, which were a huge success, and plastic violins. The guitars bombed.
[ August 25, 2002: Message edited by: Paul Templeman ] |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | Paul
Great info, I recall reading about those plastic instruments somewhere, and I think the ukeleles were sold in the US during the Hawaiin music fad in the late 40's. I found this web site and did some research, and found Django toured with Duke Ellington in 1946, and left his Maccaferri at home, thinking US makers would vie to give him guitars to play. They didn't, so through a friend he bought an Epiphone in New York at the factory and possibly an amp. The web site has an article about his Epiphone and praises it highly, however I recall a biography that said he was unhappy with it or the tour in general and never toured the States again.
Here is the web site www.hotclub.co.uk
The web site refers to the guitars as Selmer/Maccaferri's, but I think Selmer produced them after Django's time. Anyway, anybody who is interested can try the site, they have practice exercises etc. to learn some Django swing jazz licks.
Bailey |
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Location: Scotland | Maccafferi designed the guitar, which were built by Selmer. The large D-soundhole guitars are the original design & the oval-hole models were Selmer's modification. Django played both types. Macafferri fell out with Selmer after a couple of years, moved to the states & got into injection moulding. His big succsess was a new clothes-peg design which made him enough money for the high tooling costs of the plastic musical instruments. The Ukes made him a fortune, the guitars were a pretty dismal failure. The plastic instruments were made from the early fifties to mid-sixties.
Paul |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | As the story was told to me Mario lost a large fortune on the plastic guitars and made a small fortune on the ukes. What he made the huge fortune on was the plastic clothes pin! This man was WAY ahesd of his time and I understand he was still very sharp till he died. He also dabbled with plastic violins which had less success than the guitars. The guitars were very cool by the way, I've had several over the years and they were very advanced for their time. |
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Another Celebrity Ovation Sighting
