The '54 Tweed Fender Pro amplifier purchased by Keith Richards from Willie's American Guitars (via Willie's American Guitars on Facebook)

The new Rolling Stones album, Blue and Lonesome, came out last week — and it features the extensive use of a vintage guitar amp shipped straight to Keith Richards from a St. Paul gear shop.

Willie's American Guitars, a store in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood, posted on Facebook that "the amp belonged to our own Paul Bergan (If you saw Molly Maher play last year in town you heard Paul playing the amp).
It's a '54 Tweed Fender Pro Amp, recovered in brown in early 60's, painted black in late 60's (following fashion) then paint mostly removed.
I bet 100 local guitarist played it while it was in the store...but too ugly.
Keith Richards saw it and fell in love...the amp is all over the new record."

Great!

A tone machine

Wonder how much the shop was charging for it?

All those musicians who passed it up, what nonsense. You should pick gear with your ears first, then your eyes. Unless the shop was charging a crazy amount.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-01-09 16:41 by MingSubu.

Very cool tidbit.

They go for several thousand $$, so not affordable for many.

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MingSubu
Wonder how much the shop was charging for it?

All those musicians who passed it up, what nonsense. You should pick gear with your ears first, then your eyes. Unless the shop was charging a crazy amount.

If I had to guess anywhere from 3-5K and maybe even higher ?

Here's one for $3.700 where the tweed wasn't painted black and brown and off again.
[www.ebay.de]

[reverb.com]
so that's about the ballpark, I'd say.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-01-09 20:05 by open-g.

Pardon the heretic question but with today's studio tehnology is it really useful to use such great sounding guitars and amps. The possibility of fine-tuning guitar signals are so vast that to me tarcking with a good reissue guitara dn a good reissue amp are more than enough...

Awesome! I love the sound on B&L.

Cool.

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dcba
Pardon the heretic question but with today's studio tehnology is it really useful to use such great sounding guitars and amps. The possibility of fine-tuning guitar signals are so vast that to me tarcking with a good reissue guitara dn a good reissue amp are more than enough...

Great sound inspires the musicians, especially in a band- and live setting. You play better, with more feeling, when you've got great sound in the room you are playing. Finetuning the signals with modern technical means will affect the final product, but not the creation.

Plus there is MOJO in this vintage gear.

resotele

Interesting bit of info.

I had wondered about the amps.

Keith's guitar sound on some of the tracks on B&L reminds me of his sound on Black And Blue (Melody).

Yes it does on some tracks ...though I suspect the then ubiquitous Boogie was used on that occasion.
The Boogies always cover the Fender clean sounds rather well....though nothing sounds quite like an old Tweed amp when wicked up a bit.

I love the guitar sounds on B&L.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2017-01-10 12:50 by Spud.

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Spud
Yes it does on some tracks ...though I suspect the then ubiquitous Boogie was used on that occasion.
The Boogies always cover the Fender clean sounds rather well....though nothing sounds quite like an old Tweed amp when wicked up a bit.

I love the guitar sounds on B&L.

They got the Boogies in 1975, so I'm not sure if they had time to use them on the Black And Blue-sessions. Slave has a similar sound, though.

Some of the songs (Fool To Cry and Cherry Oh Baby, if memory serves) were recorded in 1974.

When did Santana recommend the Boogie to Keith - it must have been summer 1975?

My memory's not that good I'm afraid ;^)

But I think those sounds could be conjured from a variety of Fender based amp designs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-01-10 13:33 by Spud.

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Spud
My memory's not that good I'm afraid ;^)

But I think those sounds could be conjured from a variety of Fender based amp designs.

I remembered that the US tour started in June 1975. Apart from that, my memory is crap

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DandelionPowderman
Keith's guitar sound on some of the tracks on B&L reminds me of his sound on Black And Blue (Melody).

Which guitar on B&L is Keith?

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Koen

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DandelionPowderman
Keith's guitar sound on some of the tracks on B&L reminds me of his sound on Black And Blue (Melody).

Which guitar on B&L is Keith?

Keith is in the right channel on the entire album.

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DandelionPowderman

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Spud
Yes it does on some tracks ...though I suspect the then ubiquitous Boogie was used on that occasion.
The Boogies always cover the Fender clean sounds rather well....though nothing sounds quite like an old Tweed amp when wicked up a bit.

I love the guitar sounds on B&L.

They got the Boogies in 1975, so I'm not sure if they had time to use them on the Black And Blue-sessions. Slave has a similar sound, though.

Some of the songs (Fool To Cry and Cherry Oh Baby, if memory serves) were recorded in 1974.

When did Santana recommend the Boogie to Keith - it must have been summer 1975?

There's pics of Wood and Richards backstage on the 1975 tour with a Boogie -this is most likely at MSG and with Santana's Boogie. They also could have heard them through Pete Townsend and George Harrison, who had Boogie's in 1975. But by all accounts and most importantly from Randall Smith, the owner of Mesa, who said the Stones ordered their first Boogie's especially for the El Mocambo gig.

It is unlikely Slave is recorded through a Boogie, but during mixing in 1980 they could have routed Keith's guitar through a Boogie, or added quite some compression and drive from a good compressor.

Mathijs

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Mathijs

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DandelionPowderman

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Spud
Yes it does on some tracks ...though I suspect the then ubiquitous Boogie was used on that occasion.
The Boogies always cover the Fender clean sounds rather well....though nothing sounds quite like an old Tweed amp when wicked up a bit.

I love the guitar sounds on B&L.

They got the Boogies in 1975, so I'm not sure if they had time to use them on the Black And Blue-sessions. Slave has a similar sound, though.

Some of the songs (Fool To Cry and Cherry Oh Baby, if memory serves) were recorded in 1974.

When did Santana recommend the Boogie to Keith - it must have been summer 1975?

There's pics of Wood and Richards backstage on the 1975 tour with a Boogie -this is most likely at MSG and with Santana's Boogie. They also could have heard them through Pete Townsend and George Harrison, who had Boogie's in 1975. But by all accounts and most importantly from Randall Smith, the owner of Mesa, who said the Stones ordered their first Boogie's especially for the El Mocambo gig.

It is unlikely Slave is recorded through a Boogie, but during mixing in 1980 they could have routed Keith's guitar through a Boogie, or added quite some compression and drive from a good compressor.

Mathijs

That's very likely indeed.

Santana recommended his Boogie to Keith, when he sat in with them (most probably MSG 1975), and Keith dug it. Most likely, that's where it started. However, that was 1,5 year prior to the El Mocambo-gigs. But Keith wanted some customising, didn't he?

C'mon
just buzz off extending that Boogie talk in here, please.
A vintage Fender Wide panel tweed pro is quite a simplistic amp. which happens to sound darn cool.
2 6L6 power tubes, one tone-knob! and a 15" speaker!

the boogie's that Keith played were snarling heavy monsters hidden in a small package.
with more bells and whistles than some new fangled moddeling amps of today.

guess why Keith didn't order his Boogie in the studio for B&L.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-01-10 20:32 by open-g.

Amp angst.

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open-g
C'mon
just buzz off extending that Boogie talk in here, please.
A vintage Fender Wide panel tweed pro is quite a simplistic amp. which happens to sound darn cool.
2 6L6 power tubes, one tone-knob! and a 15" speaker!

the boogie's that Keith played were snarling heavy monsters hidden in a small package.
with more bells and whistles than some new fangled moddeling amps of today.

guess why Keith didn't order his Boogie in the studio for B&L.

You're saying that it didn't work nicely on Black Limousine?

I wasn't talking about the Boogie in the first place, though. I compared Keith's sound (on All Of Your Love in particular) to the sound he had on Melody.

Which amp do you reckon he used on Melody?

Subject line -- please read the Subject line. thanks.

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open-g
Subject line -- please read the Subject line. thanks.

Isn't All Of Your Love on B&L now?

Sorry, I didn't know we weren't allowed to compare B&L-songs with earlier Stones songs sound-wise...

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open-g
Subject line -- please read the Subject line. thanks.

I did and you may want to revise it. The text included in your original post states that Blue & Lonesome "features the extensive use of a vintage guitar amp". It doesn't say "exclusive". Your subject line implies "exclusive". Do you know which is accurate? Was this "Keith's Amp on Blue & Lonesome" or was it "One of Keith's Amps on Blue & Lonesome"?

Thanks for the clarification.

Peace,
Mr DJA

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DandelionPowderman

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open-g
C'mon
just buzz off extending that Boogie talk in here, please.
A vintage Fender Wide panel tweed pro is quite a simplistic amp. which happens to sound darn cool.
2 6L6 power tubes, one tone-knob! and a 15" speaker!

the boogie's that Keith played were snarling heavy monsters hidden in a small package.
with more bells and whistles than some new fangled moddeling amps of today.

guess why Keith didn't order his Boogie in the studio for B&L.

You're saying that it didn't work nicely on Black Limousine?

I wasn't talking about the Boogie in the first place, though. I compared Keith's sound (on All Of Your Love in particular) to the sound he had on Melody.

Which amp do you reckon he used on Melody?

I've no idea what amp keith used on Melody, pre Boogie it could have been a small "black face" Fender perhaps ?

The point I'd make is that although the Boogie is indeed a fire breathing monster when asked to be...it also does the "chimy" and the "woody" Fender clean tones quite well.

You won't get it to sound like a cranked old Tweed because it just doesn't break up in that way...but at lower cleaner settings its essentially quite Fender like.

Whatever amps Keith & Ronnie used for B&L , they chose them well !



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2017-01-11 13:46 by Spud.

The photo on the inner sleeve of Blue & Lonesome shows the Stones playing and the photo shows Ronnie's Fender Customshop Vibro king amp ,I can not see or make out what Keith is using .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-01-11 14:15 by TheGreek.