John Bohlinger drove out to Seth Lee Jones’ home in Tulsa to see the guitars the luthier and slide player builds for himself, plus the barn-find Leslie and the pedalboard behind one of the more distinctive sounds going. Have a look at some quick highlights below, and tune into the new Rig Rundown for all the details.
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Born of a Bad Neck
Jones calls this T-style a story based in failure. Fresh out of luthier school, he built a neck that back-bowed past saving, so he made another, strung it with heavy lap steel strings, pushed the levers and heard it go from a I to a IV, “and the light bulb came on.” He carved the body in 2006 with routers, chisels, and gouges—no CNC—and this is the fourth or fifth neck it’s worn.
Sunny Side Up
Jones picked up this 1966 Stratocaster, mostly original, from Guitar House of Tulsa last year. It came out of Florida with all the red bleached out of the front of the sunburst and none out of the back. The neck has a reverse taper—thicker at the first fret than at the 12th — which Jones figures is a Friday-afternoon mistake, and loves. He keeps the three-way switch, floats the trem, and tunes it to standard D with a set of .011s.
Seventy-Five-Dollar Question
This one arrived at the shop in a trash bag, with its neck whittled to ruin and its Tolex stripped. Jones built a new short-scale cherry neck with a headstock shaped in tribute to Rick Turner, added a guard, oven knobs, and a Tele bridge, and rewired the lipsticks to two volumes and a tone. It’s tuned to C with flatwounds, and nothing else he owns sounds like it.
Cat Pack
Jones runs a pair of Bad Cat Hot Cat 50s with the master up and the gain low—he’d rather get his dirt off the floor and ride it with his volume. A GigRig Humdinger allows the two amps to work together, and he says it does the job cleaner than anything else he’s tried. One head sits on a THD 2x12", and the other amp feeds a Leslie that Jones built from a 21H that survived a barn fire.
Seth Lee Jones’ Pedalboard
A TC Electronic PolyTune starts things off, into a Morley wah, then a Keeley Noble Screamer, an Empress Drive, and a Keeley Mini Comp — which he runs after the drive, and has been told repeatedly is the wrong way around. From there is a Hilton volume pedal and three Keeleys—a Nocturne, Halo, and Oaxa.
