Yes the 1973 photo of keith is him using a martin. keith is using a gibson 12-string at the 1979 show. He also uses 12-string acoustics in 1969, 1970 and 1971. He uses a harmony 6-string acoustic in 1971 also.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-11-13 10:19 by RollingStonesRob.

It looks like Keith plays Sweet Virginia on that 73 picture... really good looking guitar. I think Keith uses another martin 000 model these days.
I once read that Keith said his favorite acoustic guitar is a vintage martin D-18.

thank you for all this input, gentlemen! and for that beautiful photo, ChrisM.
if the shot's from the Honolulu 73 program, though ... hm, that's rather mysterious!
the Nicaragua benefit was only three days before the first 73 Honolulu gig, and in the photos i have from it Keith's not wearing that blue-stripe shirt.
he *was* dressed like that at one of the 73 Honolulu gigs, but getting photos from the gig into the program for the shows
seems like it would have been tricky even for the Rolling Stones. :E

Keith wore that shirt a lot in 72, of course; but then in Ladies & Gentlemen Keith's playing Sweet Virginia on a Hummingbird, so ... [scratchin head]
so anyway, here's a sweet backstage shot of the Hummingbird in 72:


- 1972, courtesy of the Keno site



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2005-11-13 15:55 by with sssoul.

Thanks again ssssoul for an interesting thread! Good infoas im buying an acoustic within the next two weeks. Thanx,

this set of color photos of one of Keith's way-early 12-strings is from a recent Christie's auction -
i cleverly neglected to save the description of the guitar, so any insights all you Patient and Learned Folks can offer will be very gratefully received:



and ... does this look like the same instrument? (sorry about the watermark!)


- Saville Theatre, december 14th 1969, by Robert Ellis

Not sure what model it is, could be a 'Sovereign' model, notice the 2 different tailpieces both are typical of these guitars so there may be 2 different ones here.

The Oscar Schmidt Co. made 12-strings before & just after the war under the brand name 'Stella'. All the old blues guys such as Blind Willie McTell & Leadbelly used them. They were nice on the outside & rough as guts on the inside & they were loud. After the war Stella was sold to Harmony which initially made Harmony Stella's & then dropped the Stella bit. For years they were the only crowd to make 12-strings until Martin re-issued them in the mid 60's.

Not Fade Away, Tell Me, Good Times Bad Times, & as Tears Go By, come to mind were Keith used the 12-string in this period. Here's a pic from RSG 1964, could be Feb 14, & it's got to be Not Fade Away.



Uncredited pic from the book
The Rolling Stones, An Illustrated Record
by Roy Carr
New English Library, London, 1976



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-11-15 15:52 by vox12string.

ahh thank you Vox12String, for the cool information and for the sweet photo.

according to Nico's site they played Not Fade Away on a few editions of Ready Steady Go in 1964.
i'm not sure i have any of the 64 RSGs on dvd, but i'll happily check what i've got.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-22 15:32 by with sssoul.

smile: found this over on timeisonourside.com, regarding Tell Me:

I [played the acoustic]. I was a proud owner of a 12-string at the time.
Actually, I had two: a Harmony and a Guild. The Guild was very nice.
- Keith Richards, 1977

Keith was playing 12-string and singing harmonies into the same microphone as the 12-string ...
- Mick Jagger, 1995

and for what it's worth, i found this list of Keith's acoustic guitars over on Keno's site:
[www.keno.org]
it's not real thorough, but maybe it's food for discussion/illustration ...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2005-11-15 00:58 by with sssoul.

That acoustic in 1972 has to be a gibson. look at the pattern. gibson and epiphone are the only ones to design those pickguards. I wondered if Keith was using the harmony 12-strings in 1969, 1970 and 1971. I know he uses a harmony 6-string in 1971.

>> That acoustic in 1972 has to be a Gibson. look at the pattern. <<

you mean the shot of Keith with the Hummingbird and the Strat? yeah, that's why i noted that it's a Hummingbird.
i don't know much about acoustic guitars, so i take great pride in my ability to recognize a Hummingbird when i see one. :E

here's a well-known shot from either 64 or 65 - all i know is that this one *isn't* a Hummingbird. :E
naturally, i'd love to hear whatever you Guitar Connoisseurs can tell us about it.
oh and have i mentioned how i love it when you tell us what tracks we can hear the different instruments on?
i appreciate that hugely - thank you very much indeed.


- 1964 or 65, by Jean-Marie Perier (courtesy of AlreadyOverMe)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2010-02-20 22:27 by with sssoul.

does anyone who's following this thread have Rolling With the Stones and a scanner and the time/good will to post a shot or two of the guitar Keith's got on pages 159 and 164, please and thank you very much?
the photos are from the autumn of 1964, and i'd love to know what that instrument is.
i don't see anything quite like it on any of the guitar sites i've been puzzling over ...

It's pretty hard to identify definitively different acoustics on recordings. The way they're miked up has a huge effect on the sound. At least for me...

cc

It's 3am dont you people ever wanna go to bed....here ya go





ROCKMAN

:E thank you kindly Rockman honey! sweet dreams :E

Thanks everybody... all these pictures are fantastic.

Close to you baby....




ROCKMAN

Wow! That looks a like an old Framus guitar. I haven't seen one of those in a while.

thanks for the clue, ChrisM!
it led me straight to this - not that much to it, but still!
[cda.morris.umn.edu]

and a tiny bit more information: [www.rockmine.music.co.uk]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-11-14 23:21 by with sssoul.

Keith in his rented Toronto house, on the eve of Licks tour, 2002

Tom Sheehan



ROCKMAN

yes i was referring to the shot in 72 with the acoustic and strat. the acoustic from 1964 or 1965 is a gibson.

thanks everybody for all this education!

i'm still trying to get a grasp of exactly what the term dreadnought refers to - one description i found says:
"For many years the C.F. Martin D or dreadnought shape guitar has dominated the market for acoustic steel string guitars.
There are many good reasons for this. The large body size gives unparalleled volume and the somewhat bassy sound
makes this a perfect instrument for rhythm guitar playing. As a result this is the ideal bluegrass guitar.
This guitar is also a wonderful instrument for accompanying vocalists since the rich low registers complement almost any singing voice. "
that's from [www.hoffmanguitars.com]

so ... is a dreadnought a particular shape/size of guitar, or are there other defining characteristics? and what are the other varieties?
i mean, when acoustics aren't dreadnoughts, what are they, please and thank you very kindly?

Yup, Dreadnought refers to the size of a guitar, named after the current big battleships, & the first ones were brought out in the early 1900's by Martin. Tons more info about this & other models on the Martin site www.martinguitars.com

Martin & Gibson were the 2 big quality guitar companies in the this period & we tend to use their size designations when referring to guitars. The next size down is 000, then 00, & the smallest,0. There were smaller 'parlour' guitars in the 1800's but you don't see these around much nowadays. There are, of course, variations to these sizes. A good example is the Gibson jumbo J-200 favoured by Elvis in his peanut-butter sandwich days, Emmy Lou Harris also favours this guitar.

The Dreadnought or 'D' sized guitars are an ideal all-rounder, virtually all the Asian copies you see are based on this size. The smaller guitars have less bass so are more suited to, say, the early blues where you want the treble strings to ring out more. Most of the cheap guitars you find in the 20' & 30's are based on the 0 & 00 size. Pick up one of these babes & it immediately says Robert Johnson or Blind Blake, specifically the Gibsons. They had a different scale length than the Martins, only 1/2" but that is enough to give it a differnt feel.

I always thought there was a 12-string on Little Red Rooster but I also recall seeing them lyp-sync the song on TV & I remember it was a cutaway acoustic that Keith was playing. The b/w pic that Rockman posted is of that session, as are the pix on p.158 of Rolling With The Stones, so I was mistaken & it's the Framus he uses on that track



A couple of the Harmony 12-string, one publicity shot & another of the Saville '69 gig.





Here's the only one I can find of the Harmony Sovereign 6-string from the back to the Marquee gig



Finally the mystery guitar. It has an adjustable truss rod cover, adjustable bridge (you can just see the screws on either side of the bridge saddle)
Brian on Keyboards, Charlie on Tambourine, Keith on Acoustic, is it 'Play With Fire'?






Pix by Dezo Hoffmann, RSG, June 1965



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-11-15 16:51 by vox12string.

ohh my THANK YOU, Vox12String! for the education and for all these splendid photos. i am blissed! thank you.
i'm trying to organize all this wonderful input chronologically and by make/style;
when i have it in a semi-presentable state, i'll put it out here in public for discussion, additions, finetuning and so on.

meanwhile, just making sure: the TV program that Keith had the Framus on seems like it must have been
the 1964 Lucky Stars Special taped on november 29th and aired on december 5th - does that seem right to you?
nzentgraf has the set list as:
- Around And Around (Chuck Berry) -playback
- Little Red Rooster (Willie Dixon) -playback
- Off The Hook (MJ/KR) -playback
- Empty Heart (Nanker Phelge) -playback

and: am i following right on the 12-string Harmony? the one Keith has at the Saville Theatre in 69
is the same one as in that 64-or-so promo shot *and* in those auction photos i posted, yes? and it was a Sovereign?

the 6-string Sovereign from the 71 Marquee gig ...
smile, if you teach me how you distinguish it from other 6-strings i promise i'll try to find more photos of it.
as i've noted, the only ones i feel confident of are Hummingbirds and Doves. which i immediately (and proudly!) knew that one isn't. :E



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-11-15 17:58 by with sssoul.

uh ... i lied. i'm sorry!
there is one other acoustic guitar i think i recognize: this Gibson "Everly Brothers" model that Ronnie gave to Keith.


- 1975, by either Annie Leibowitz or Christopher Simon Sykes

here's where i read a bit about it:
[www.provide.net] and [www.ronniewood.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-22 15:35 by with sssoul.

Can't help you with the Lucky Stars Special, my memory isn't that good, but chances are I did watch it. They promoted these shows & as there was only an hour on Wed & an hour on Fri nights we watched them all avidly.

The 6 string Sovereigns were a big guitar, bigger than the dreadnought, I don't know if the 12-strings had the 'Sovereign' designatin even tho they were the same size.

The 12 strings from the 64(?) promo pic & '69 Saville gig look to be the same. Thats why I'm a bit concerned about the pix of the Christies auction because that doesn't look the same. Check out the tailpiece onto which the strings are attached & they're not the same. Also the promo & Saville guitars clearly don't have a pickguard whereas the Christies one has at one time had one but it's been removed, you can see where it's been.

Harmony was a company that would have used whatever was available, different pickguards, tailpieces, tuning pegs etc. Plus they might have changed the specs slightly on a certain model, but it wouldn't have been a big deal.

Here's a pic showing the different styles of Sovereign 6 strings

I found it here [www.fatdawg.com]


And here's a pair that appear to be on sale right now

I've spliced the 2 pix together from here [www.bernunzio.com]

Finally here's a couple of good Harmony links
[www.broadwaymusicco.com]
[members.aol.com]

wow, thank you Vox12String! you are deeply enlightening. :E

meanwhile i was brooding over that Mystery Guitar you posted.
it's a Gibson of some kind? i was hunting for details about Gibson acoustics and found this:
[www.gibson.com]
i waded as far as the B25 model before it started giving me glazed eyes and brain damage,
but maybe it's helpful for someone who understands what it's about.
the index to the whole book is here, in case someone who's interested hasn't got it:
[www.gibson.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-03-22 15:36 by with sssoul.

>> The 12 strings from the 64(?) promo pic & '69 Saville gig look to be the same. Thats why I'm a bit concerned about the pix of the Christies auction because that doesn't look the same. Check out the tailpiece onto which the strings are attached & they're not the same. Also the promo & Saville guitars clearly don't have a pickguard whereas the Christies one has at one time had one but it's been removed, you can see where it's been. <<

actually in the auction photos themselves ... in the shots where Keith's holding the guitar, the tailpiece looks (to me anyway!) like the one on his 64/69 guitar;
the shot where the guitar's just lying there seems to have a different tailpiece.
here are those auction shots again for our viewing convenience - and feel free to tell me i'm hallucinating. i do that sometimes! :E



the pickguard scar is quite plain, of course, but i suppose someone could have put one on it after Keith got done with it, and then removed it oh-so-esthetically?
anyway: does the one Keith's holding look like the same make/model as in the 64/69 shots, even if it's not the same exact instrument?
or are we not sure? here's a larger version, in case it's any help:


- Ready Steady Go 1964 (Rex Features, courtesy of BrownEyedGirll)

then there was that early-64 RSG Not Fade Away you posted - is that also the same guitar as the one Keith's got in the 64 promo shot and 69 Saville Theatre?
(sorry to rerun this stuff but i want to make sure i'm following you right!)


- RSG, probably february 15 1964, courtesy of Vox12String

and while i'm at it ...
what do we make of Keith's 1977 statement that at the time they recorded Tell Me [ie february 1964] he was the proud owner of two 12-strings, a Harmony and a Guild?
was Guild making 12-strings in february 1964? do we have any early-60s photos of Keith with a Guild 12-string? or was Keith maybe misremembering?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2005-11-16 11:05 by with sssoul.

smile: just a pair of sidelights, staring again at these last few photos:
~ Keith's enduring penchant for playing acoustic standing up with no guitar strap has always charmed me. what came over him at that june 65 RSG, i wonder? :E
~ what fine posture all the Stones have always had! even when they're slouching they have great posture. no wonder they're still goin strong. :E

There is a photo from 1966 of Keith using a guild 12-string and he and brian are sharing a marijuana joint together.