Waylons Guitar

Paul Foster · Post by **Paul Foster** » 10 Mar 2010 10:43 am

In the mid 60's I played bass for Waylon, I had a guitar at my apartment that he really liked and wanted to buy it every time he came over
A couple of Months earlier I purchased the guitar from a friend, "SONNY FINCH" I had worked with for $20.00, he was broke and it was rattling around in the back of his old car and he needed gas money to get home. At the previous place that we had worked "Wild Bills" in Scottsdale Arizona, the bartender did leather work on the side so I had the cover put on it, cost me 40.00 and I gave it to him for Christmas in 1965, and he played it during his whole career, Last I heard his son "Shooter" had it, it was a Fender Tele with a maple neck and it sounded like a million bucks He also got a New Fender "Super Reverb" that I had a 15in Lansing speaker put in and he also got that the same night, I did not give him the amp, thats another story, he was a happy camper!!!

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 10 Mar 2010 10:56 am

Paul, what guitar effects did Waylon use to get his classicv sound?

Joe A. Camacho · Post by **Joe A. Camacho** » 10 Mar 2010 11:00 am

MXR Phase 90?

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 10 Mar 2010 11:36 am

I always did like that leather covered guitar.

Back in the early/mid 1980's our band opened for Waylon at a local venue. I noticed that right behind the back line of Fender amps there was a rack with 5 or 6 Tele's, all with leather covers. I guess those were his emergency backup guitars.

Lee, from South Texas

Paul Foster · Post by **Paul Foster** » 10 Mar 2010 2:04 pm

HI Everyone
Waylon did not use any effects at all, he did use a bit of reverb in the amp, nothing else he had a extremely lite touch and used the litest strings I have ever seen, I could not play that guitar I would push the strings off the side of the neck!! When I started with him he was playing a standard strat, and a small fender amp with a single 12, no reverb, just tremelo!! Sounded crappy I played a fender Jazz with a fender Piggy-back 2 12,s had the channels tied togather and used a split cord and played through both channels, loved it, sold it to Waylon when I decided to leave, his brother Tommy took my place. Thanks for asking Paul

Jussi Huhtakangas · Post by **Jussi Huhtakangas** » 10 Mar 2010 2:26 pm

Paul Foster wrote:In the mid 60's I played bass for Waylon, I had a guitar at my apartment that he really liked and wanted to buy it every time he came over
A couple of Months earlier I purchased the guitar from a friend, "SONNY FINCH" I had worked with for $20.00, he was broke and it was rattling around in the back of his old car and he needed gas money to get home. At the previous place that we had worked "Wild Bills" in Scottsdale Arizona, the bartender did leather work on the side so I had the cover put on it, cost me 40.00 and I gave it to him for Christmas in 1965, and he played it during his whole career, Last I heard his son "Shooter" had it, it was a Fender Tele with a maple neck and it sounded like a million bucks He also got a New Fender "Super Reverb" that I had a 15in Lansing speaker put in and he also got that the same night, I did not give him the amp, thats another story, he was a happy camper!!!

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_ ... affce3227c

Jerry Hayes R.I.P. · Post by **Jerry Hayes R.I.P.** » 10 Mar 2010 3:03 pm

Paul, after he became famous, Waylon did use effects to get his "classic sound" and mostly it was an MXR Phase Shifter which he used on "Lukenbach Texas", "I've Always Been Crazy", "Waymore's Blues" and most of his low string stuff. He also had a Keith/Scruggs banjo tuner on the low E string of the Telecaster to lower it to D which he used quite a bit. He got the idea for the banjo tuner from SoCal legend Al Bruno when Al was living in Nashville for a while!....JH in Va.

Gordon Hartin · Post by **Gordon Hartin** » 10 Mar 2010 3:53 pm

If you are looking for leather work Cody Hixon at http://www.greatpointcustomleatherworks.com/home.html is awesome. The leather covered guitars that Shooter has out on the road Cody did.

Gordon

Gordon Hartin · Post by **Gordon Hartin** » 10 Mar 2010 4:04 pm

here is a leather pedal steel front cody made for me

Clyde Mattocks · Post by **Clyde Mattocks** » 10 Mar 2010 4:20 pm

Regarding Waylon's phase shifter, Bill Lyerly and I were at a Waylon sound check in Winston Salem, N.C. in 1976 and he was using a rather bulky unit, possibly a Maestro. Most people I know now use a Phase 90 for that sound. The one I bought in 1977 is still working great.

scott murray · Post by **scott murray** » 10 Mar 2010 5:20 pm

Gordon Hartin wrote:here is a leather pedal steel front cody made for me

i've never seen one of these for the steel. very cool!!!

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 10 Mar 2010 6:23 pm

Gorden, thats a classy look that does not cheapen the steel. Very nice touch. I usually don't like that sort of thing, but that is a well made piece. Waylon did use a Phaser.

Jeff Keyton · Post by **Jeff Keyton** » 10 Mar 2010 6:50 pm

Bear Family records has a single disc called The Restless Kid;Live at JD's. Paul Foster is credited with bass on it. This classic era(1964)of Waylon has no phaser on it. He doesn't have a drummer on part of it either. He does use lot's of reverb and vibrato, and still sounds like Waylon. Is that you playing a Jazz Bass, Paul?

Jerry Hayes R.I.P. · Post by **Jerry Hayes R.I.P.** » 11 Mar 2010 7:06 am

While I was still living in California I saw Waylon in concert once in Anaheim at the Convention Center. He had a small box on top of his amp which looked to be a Phase 90 or something that size. Also at that time (probably late 70's or so) he and the whole band (including Mooney) were all playing through Randall amps, the ones with the black grill cloth and the orange strip across the front. Waylon's & Ralph's were probably the Randall Commander II amp........JH in Va.

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 11 Mar 2010 8:15 am

Discussions on the Tele forum indicate that Waylon used phasers by MXR, EH Small Stone, Maestro, etc. at different times in his "outlaw" period.

I found numerous videos of him on youtube using the effect, but no camera shots of the effects. You can see the pair of huge Fender Super Sixes on either side of him. I remember seeing him using these many times.

The tele forum also mentions the fact that the old leather covered Tele was given to him by his rhythm section way back when. Thanks for that bit of history, Paul.

Slightly off topic, while surfing videos, I found this one of this short steel ride on "Hank Done It"...ironically, Waylon's not using a phase shifter on this one. Don't know who the steel picker is, but that's pretty hot stuff. Some of ya'll probably know? Looks like a keyless BMI D10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnEtRUcKGwc

Note how this live rendition and most of his concert tunes on YouTube are just flying.

Steve Hinson · Post by **Steve Hinson** » 11 Mar 2010 1:15 pm

Waylon eventually stopped using the phaser and started using a Boss CE-1 chorus pedal(the big gray one)...he used two 135-watt Twin Reverbs mounted in large wooden cabinets with 12s in them...either JBLs or EVs,I believe...it has been about 25 years ago,but I used to play electric guitar with George Jones and we did some tours with Waylon...he left the chorus on all the time...it sounded HUGE.

G Strout · Post by **G Strout** » 11 Mar 2010 2:26 pm

Jerry..... that looks (and sounds) like Robbie Turner playing steel on that link. Robbie played with the Highwaymen quite a bit as I remember.

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 11 Mar 2010 5:08 pm

Thanks G.

Rich Peterson · Post by **Rich Peterson** » 12 Mar 2010 8:34 am

Waylon's ending ride is great. Definitely using chorus.

Mike Cass · Post by **Mike Cass** » 17 Mar 2010 4:01 am

When I worked for Waylon in '94-'95 he was playing thru 2 Super Twin's mounted in huge, walnut stained wooden cabinets. He split his signal out of the guitar and ran thru 2 TC Electronics Chorus units, each set on different sweeps and rates, going into separate amps. As Steve said, it was huge.
I too remember the several tele's on the backline, all encased in leather-tooled covers. Since he's gone now, I sure wish I'd bought one of the Fender re-issue Waylon Tele models when they came out in '94. The band was offered them @ cost from the first lot, and it wouldve been hand signed by The Man himself but I passed on it at the time

It wasnt as fancy as Hoss's own guitars, but it was cool in its own right.
Speaking of the low E string Scruggs tuner....it must have been funny to watch from out front, but as Waylon would say a few(very few)words between songs, he'd idly retune that low E string up & down, and since there was really no set list, the band would make whatever preparations were necessary for whatever song we thought was going to be next depending on where he left the string tuned to....well I cant tell you how many times someone got caught with their pants down when he'd all of a sudden retune it again and launch into something entirely different than what we'd thought was coming.....just keeping us on our toes, he was

Jeff Hyman · Post by **Jeff Hyman** » 17 Mar 2010 6:27 am

Here's a photo of a guy that had a Waylon style Tele custom made over (I think) 15 years ago. His friend was a leathersmith and did it all by hand. Marty has since had a stroke and no longer performs.

http://www.hatcreekcountry.com/

Jerry Hayes R.I.P. · Post by **Jerry Hayes R.I.P.** » 17 Mar 2010 1:03 pm

Here's a shot of the Eddy Drake band in SoCal from about 30 years ago with Eddy playing his leather covered Tele. He had a couple of 'em too, I wish the shot was a little more clear....JH in Va.

Ernie Renn · Post by **Ernie Renn** » 17 Mar 2010 6:35 pm

Waylon's Tele!

I'm a Tele player from way back...

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 17 Mar 2010 7:18 pm

Was Waylon playing steel in that photo?

Jack Harper · Post by **Jack Harper** » 17 Mar 2010 7:26 pm

i first met west coast picker sandy coker in the early '70's and he had a tooled leather tele'.
i had seen pictures of it and he in '69 i think with the same guitar.
i last saw sandy in around 2000 at a louisiana hayride re-union in shreveport.
any word on his presence these days?

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hand tooled and sandy coker