I can see all you guys are doing very good and improving a lot

I was about givin' up but i will keep on trying'...

Alex non c'è modo di mandare messaggi privati nel sito? Volevo un paio di info in italiano

senza disturbare gli altri...

Alex -- you are right -- probably 30-40 dollars in the depression - but that is not 150 dollars in today's dollars.  Even if it were, quality vintage instruments increase in value relative to new instruments.  A Kalamazoo was cheaper than a Gibson, it was made, as I said, without at truss rod, so they could sell more guitars.  But by today's standards none of the guitars made in that era would be considered cheap. They were all hand made and from quality tone woods and with good design made in the USA.  The cheapest thing in the depression was labor -- labor costs were extremely low -- few jobs -- high unemployment -- but level of craftsmanship was still very high.  Also there was a huge drop in prices across the board at the onset of the depression.

There are some bargains out there in vintage guitars if you play blues, but if you look at what you call "reproductions" of these guitars today made by luthiers - they cost at least $5,000 - and the wood is not aged.  You have to remember most importantly that African Americans, and Immigrants in this era worked for dollars a DAY -   This is why Gibson created the Kalamazoo brand because they were suffering economically - people could not afford their instruments. 

Stella was a quality old world instrument maker filled with immigrant Italian luthiers who specialized in making mandolins.  It is said Leadbelly contracted with a particular individual there to make his twelve string because he was so expert making dual course instruments.  And any guitar made by the original Stella company would have been expensive even then, because the guitar was not a big market item - it was all mandolins, fiddles and banjos.  They were acquired eventually and all these companies started making instruments on an assembly line to economize and expand their sales; Stella, Kay, Regal, Harmony all pretty much interchangeable employing much of the same labor force in the Chicago area.

@Vinny and Tom..thanks for your informations! It's a pleasure to read you!!

One point though - a jumbo guitar like a J-45 is a modern invention.  Gibson's first jumbo was the J-35 and it was produced in 1938.  Lightnin' Hopkins didn't own a Gibson in until the 60's during the revival, when he had money and it wasn't a J-45 - he always played Harmony's before that. When he had money though he even played a black Strat from time to time.  The mail order guitars were made by different companies so they would not use the same templates as a Gibson.  Prior to 1938 Gibson was not big in the flat top guitar business.  And anyway a J-45 is not a ladder braced guitar, and those older guitars were ladder braced and that's one of the reasons for their particular sound.  There's a biography of Hopkins which describes a concert he did in Carnegie Hall on a bill with other musicians, one of which was a famous Flamenco guitarist playing a custom made guitar which cost thousands of dollars.  It is said Hopkins walked away with the concert playing a cheap Harmony with a De Armond pickup in the sound hole.  Hopkins hit the road playing guitar when he was eight years old and was a lifetime gambler - he always played cheap guitars and frequently would have to hock even those.  But all those guys compensated for the poor action on these guitars by using heavy strings and down tuning from standard a lot - so the strings were playable and they still got a big sound.  Actually you get a much different sound when you do that, and they most of the time used an unwound third string too.  You can take any guitar, put heavy strings on it, down tune two steps and use an unwound third and you will immediately get a blusier sound.  Many of those pre war players used wire for strings too - they could not afford to buy guitar strings either.  They grabbed anything they could afford and found a way to play it. They did not have money.  They played, until the "revival" only for other African Americans - and they didn't have any money either. They either hoboed like Big Joe Williams or had jobs which paid very little in a harsh segregated South.  Hopkins once travelleld to Arkansas with his sister to pick pecans for two dollars a day - so he was not buying a lot of Gibson Guitars. 

I have to qualify that Hopkins remark because very late in his career he did play J-50's and J-60's  -  But only when he was making big money in the blues revival did he change from Harmony's.  Technically, depending on what year it was made a J-50 is similar to a J-45 except for the top finish - but there were a lot of variations in bracing in all the J guitars over the years and depending on which year and model you had they could be very different in sound.  Also in the 60's Gibson made some models with a narrower and thinner necks as well so the models weren't that consistent. Bill Broonzy is one of the only players I have heard of who played a Martin 000-28 most of his career - but he was a big star in Chicago in the 30's and had a lot more money than the average country blues player.  Gary Davis played a J-200, but I doubt he started out with one. 

Maurizio -- you musn't give up -- it can be frustrating but you will get better if you practice even a little every day -- even small segments -- as long as you play every day you will get better and those segments will start coming together into bigger segments and entire songs.  Time is on your side.

Alex-- a depression economics p.s.-- I was watching an Alan Lomax documentary about Appalachia and he was interviewing a 90 year old veteran of the coal mines - during the depression he went to work there at 4:00 in the morning and worked until 10:00 or 11:00 at night and got paid $2.80 a day.  And they had to shop at the company store for everything so they never got ahead. For many working people the price of even a budget guitar was about a month's wages.  And many people worked, got paid, and bought what they needed on the barter system with no real money ever hitting their hands.  My grand father was a Sicilian immigrant and he would drive an old truck out and shovel coal for a week and get paid with a truck load of coal which he would trade for rent and produce and other family needs.  When they sang "I'm broke and ain't got a dime" they really meant it. Money was very hard to come by.  And of course it was even harder for African Americans, especially in the South. These are the conditions that inspired songs like "Hard Time Killing Floor." 

This isn't a "performance" video in that there's no video. I wanted to try mic'ing a new amp I got and so I played the lead guitar to a backing track of "Rock This Town" with the original vocal, bass, and drums. That said, it is a performance in the sense that it is one take (hence, the mistakes during the solos, which are my own) and I didn't do any post-processing on it. It's just my Rode R144 Ribbon mic in front of my 5W Vintage47 Spectator playing my Epiphone Swingster with a cheap $20 Behringer delay pedal and Danelectro OD pedal which I'm using here just for a bit of treble since the amp is recreation of a 1953 Valco and its natural sound is a bit too dark for rockabilly.

I know this isn't what we've been working on in Duke's lessons, but I wanted to participate and, actually, I'm able to translate a good bit of what I've learned from Duke into this type of playing. I hope to put up a video of a performance of Duke-related stuff before the OM is over.

Michael -- WAY COOL -- perfectly appropriate contribution -- fantastic vintage sound you are getting. 

Long time listener, first time caller :)  Jerry's "Blues in B Minor". 

Love that B minor soulful sound, nice one Paul

Great

Great sound On the harp...I'm new on here I can se some great talent !

i think I posted my video on the wrong thread though

Thanks for the encouragement,  it's slow going on the harp & lots to learn ....

Hello everybody!! this is one of the last composition of mine, performed by me and my band : "The Blues Snatch",the title is "crazy sunday,lazy monday".. me on guitar,vocals,Sam Benatti organ and piano ,Enrico The Master Truzzi on drums. The tune is a jazzy-swing 12 bar blues AABA structure with the bridge of a rhythm change..I had got the inspiration listenin to Mr Duke Robillard playin swing ..the difference from standard tune like this is substanially in the first chord treat always like a major7 and not like a dominant...sorry for the uncomplete version but the cameraman these evening was  lil bit "out of tune" ;))) ..i hope you enjoy, thanks for the share.cheers Mattia

Like what I posted above this is not a video but a "live" one-take recording I did of a track I learned here, "Romance in the Dark." Again, it's a Rode R144 Ribbon mic in front of my 5W Vintage47 Spectator playing my Epiphone Broadway with a Danelectro CTO-2 and Boss '63 Fender Reverb pedals. I just recorded it straight over Duke's backing track in Garageband.

Tank You Vinny , JD , Alex for your encouragement, I will keep on triyng I'll let you know