The latest collaboration between Jeff Loomis and Jackson Guitars.
Loomis’ relationship with the Jackson brand has spanned over two decades and reached an exciting milestone in 2020 with the release of his signature Kelly and followed up two years later by the release of a robust signature seven-string Soloist.
“It’s a seriously metal-looking guitar,” said Jeff Loomis. “My favorite feature is the heel mount truss rod wheel. As a touring musician, it’s perfect if I need to adjust the neck on the fly. The playability is truly superior and the single volume and pickup toggle switches make it simple yet effective. I’ve played Jackson’s from an early age so working with them again to create this signature model has been incredibly fulfilling. I just really love how this guitar turned out and I know fans will too.”
The through-body, graphite-reinforced neck with 12”-16” compound radius bound ebony fingerboard makes for a light and agile playing experience. The Seymour Duncan Jeff Loomis Signature Blackouts pickups give this metal monolith its roar of clear and articulate tones, even when under the heaviest distortion. A Hipshot HardTail Bridge will handle the rigors and ravages of the road, while a heel-mount truss rod adjustment wheel makes for quick and painless neck relief tweaks. Luminlay side dots on the neck allow for playing on the darkest of metal stages and the black sandblasted ash top finish with white binding gives the Loomis Signature Kelly a distressed and menacing look.
Jeff Loomis Unleashes His Signature Kelly HT | Jackson Guitars
“The Jackson team has delivered a guitar that perfectly encapsulates Jeff's identity as a musician: the intersection of technical mastery and raw power," said Jon Romanowski, Vice President of Product at Jackson. "Following the success of the last two Jeff Loomis signature models, it was clear that fans would be ecstatic to see his unique take on the Kelly model that embodies his preferences and specifications that set an industry standard.”
For more information, please visit jacksonguitars.com.
Jackson Limited-edition Pro Series Signature Jeff Loomis Kelly HT6 Electric Guitar - Satin Black
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Tom Bedell in the Relic Music acoustic room, holding a custom Seed to Song Parlor with a stunning ocean sinker redwood top and milagro Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
A born storyteller, Bedell doesn’t keep his passion to himself. On Friday, May 12, at New Jersey boutique guitar outpost Relic Music, Bedell shared some of the stories he’s collected during his life and travels as part of a three-city clinic trip. At Relic—and stops at Crossroads Guitar and Art in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, and Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center in Wheaton, Maryland—he discussed his guitars and what makes them so special, why sustainability is such an important cause, and how he’s putting it into practice.
Before his talk, we sat in Relic’s cozy, plush acoustic room, surrounded by a host of high-end instruments. We took a look at a few of the store’s house-spec’d Bedell parlors while we chatted.
“The story of this guitar is the story of the world,” Bedell explained to me, holding a Seed to Song Parlor. He painted a picture of a milagro tree growing on a hillside in northeastern Brazil some 500 years ago, deprived of water and growing in stressful conditions during its early life. That tree was eventually harvested, and in the 1950s, it was shipped to Spain by a company that specialized in church ornaments. They recognized this unique specimen and set it aside until it was imported to the U.S. and reached Oregon. Now, it makes the back and sides of this unique guitar.
A Bedell Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides.
As for the ocean sinker redwood top, “I’m gonna make up the story,” Bedell said, as he approximated the life cycle of the tree, which floated in the ocean, soaking up minerals for years and years, and washed ashore on northern Oregon’s Manzanita Beach. The two woods were paired and built into a small run of exquisitely outfitted guitars using the Bedell/Breedlove Sound Optimization process—in which the building team fine-tunes each instrument’s voice by hand-shaping individual braces to target resonant frequencies using acoustic analysis—and Bedell and his team fell in love.
Playing it while we spoke, I was smitten by this guitar’s warm, responsive tone and even articulation and attack across the fretboard; it strikes a perfect tonal balance between a tight low-end and bright top, with a wide dynamic range that made it sympathetic to anything I offered. And as I swapped guitars, whether picking up a Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides or one with an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, the character and the elements of each instrument changed, but that perfect balance remained. Each of these acoustics—and of any Bedell I’ve had the pleasure to play—delivers their own experiential thumbprint.
Rosette and inlay detail on an Adirondack spruce top.
Ultimately, that’s what brought Bedell out to the East Coast on this short tour. “We have a totally different philosophy about how we approach guitar-building,” Bedell effused. “There are a lot of individuals who build maybe 12 guitars a year, who do some of the things that we do, but there’s nobody on a production level.” And he wants to spread that gospel.
“We want to reach people who really want something special,” he continued, pointing out that for the Bedell line, the company specifically wants to work with shops like Relic and the other stores he’s visited, “who have a clientele that says I want the best guitar I can possibly have, and they carry enough variety that we can give them that.”
A Fireside Parlor with a Western red cedar top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
