When Merle Travis complained to his friend, Paul A. Bigsby, about the shoddy quality of the Kaufman vibrato arm on his Gibson L-10 guitar, Bigsby set out to build a solution. What he came up with is what is now commonly known as "a Bigsby." Synonymous with Gretsch guitars, you can also retrofit one of these musically expressive units on a Les Paul, a Telecaster or just about any other guitar you can think of. The Bigsby vibrato arm allows the player to raise or lower the pitch of the strings by about a half step, producing an almost pedal steel-like expressive quality as you may apply vibrato to an entire chord as opposed to just a single note.
Hand made Les Paul knock off by HML Guitars with a Bigsby B7 model: In his youth, Bigsby worked as a pattern maker in various SoCal machinery plants. There he learned to hand craft molds used to produce the steel parts for various engines and shop tools. With this skill set, he was able to design and construct his new vibrato unit from scratch. As shop foreman of the Crocker Motorcycle Company, legend has it Bigsby initially used a motorcycle spring as the main point of flex under the vibrato arm.
Modern Gretsch 6120 DSW:
Here is a video showing how these vibrato units are made. Good to see that there is still a fair amount of hands on work done to create these units. The molds used today are the same Bigbsy initially made in the 1950s! The great inventor nailed the design the first time through for a vibrato unit which today is still very popular. In fact, Bigsby stopped building his custom electric Spanish, lap & pedal steel guitars in the late 50's to focus on the booming demand for his vibratos.
I've got a Bigsby on my Gretsch and couldn't imagine playing guitar without one!
Sometimes... maybe every time, it is a great thing to meet one of your heroes.
I met Billy Cox.
Billy played bass with Jimi Hendrix. They met in the early 1960's when the two were serving in the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, KY. Hendrix joined the service as an alternative to the two year jail sentence he was looking at after being arrested for stealing a car in his hometown of Seattle. He made 26 jumps before being discharged after breaking an ankle. We can only imagine what sort of affect these parachute jumps had on the music Hendrix went on to record.
below: Hendrix (left top) Billy Cox (front n' center) The King Casuals, Memphis, TN - sometime 1962?
The pair played together in a number of R&B bands on the chitlin' circuit until Hendrix finally moved to New York City in 1964. He continued to play with a variety of soul and R&B acts such as the Isley Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner, King Curtis, Curtis Knight and Little Richard. Below is the earliest know video of Hendrix backing up Buddy and Stacey in 1965: (note the young left-handed guitarist on the far left side)
Hendrix reached international super stardom with the release of Are You Experienced? in May of 1967. After two years of hard touring and hard living, Hendrix sought some true friendship and a musical partner in his chaotic world. He recruited Billy to play bass, replacing Noel Redding, in 1969. That summer, the two spent some time at a rented house in upstate New York with Mitch Mitchell on drums as well as musicians Juma Sultan, Jerry Velez and Larry Lee. The loosely organized group jammed day and night, working up new material. Although a veteran of the blues and R&B scene (he toured with many national acts, most notably Freddie King), Billy had never played to an audience as large as the one at his first gig with Hendrix in August of 1969: Woodstock.
Billy was Hendrix's bass player from that point on. From the moment he joined the band, he was a major influence in the development of the music Hendrix would write in the later stages of his career... and when I say 'later stages,' I mean the last 18 months. Hendrix's meteoric rise to fame began in the fall of 1966 and was he was dead in September of 1970. Billy was an essential part to the development of such riff heavy songs as 'Izabella,' 'Who Knows,' 'Machine Gun' and 'Freedom.'
I met Billy one morning while working at Rudy's Music Stop in NYC. Some guy was hanging out front of the store at 10:25am as we were opening. Usually if someone is hanging out that early they're about to waste your time. As it turns out, this fella just wanted a Boss OC-2 Octave pedal. Ok... no big deal, quick sale. I grabbed the last one from the stockroom downstairs, ran up behind the counter and wrote up the bill of sale. It was then that I finally took a solid look at my customer.
It's Billy Cox.
Holy crap.
Gulp. I smile and trying to play it cool say, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" He smiles, extends his hand and simply says, "Billy Cox."
"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" says my brain. I mumbled something about what a great influence he's been and what an honor it is to meet him. "Um... that'll be $119.95 please."
It made my day.
Billy, Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell - The Cry of Love Tour '70:
Band of Gypsys, NYE '69/'70:
I was on cloud 9 for a week. No one else at the shop recognized Billy. He struck me as a really sweet and humble guy. Lucky me. After the death of Hendrix's drummers, Mitch Mitchell and Buddy Miles last year, Billy Cox is the last living core musician to have played with the gifted guitarist.
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