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These barnstorming bandmates are multi-instrumentalists who parade out a music store's worth of gear that provides all the twangin’, cryin’, moanin’, howlin’, and note-bendin’ that’ll get you two-steppin’ or dropping a tear in your beer.
The Food Stamps have been cooking onstage behind the redheaded songwriter pretty much since he left Appalachia and began touring as a full unit. These loyal road dogs have worn the rubber off the tires touring with Mr. Childers. First, they were strictly a live band enlisted to recreate and recharge the material from his first three studio albums Bottles and Bibles (2011), Purgatory (2017), and Country Squire (2019). But with the last two studio records—the triple-album, gospel-country opus Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? and last year’s classic-meets-contemporary Rustin' in the Rain—the Food Stamps went from being his road-warrior comrades to eating big time alongside their leader onstage and in the studio.
During Childers’ headlining arena run and before his second sold-out night at the Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville, the Food Stamps’ CJ Cain (acoustic/electric guitar/mandolin), Jesse Wells (electric guitar/mandola/banjo/baritone/fiddle), James Barker (guitar/pedal-steel), and Craig Burletic (electric bass/double bass) invited PG’s Perry Bean inside their “living room” stage set. When we last chatted with them in 2019, the boys were burning through the small-club circuit with many of the same tone tools still in their rig today, but as venues grow and tours extend, gear needs change and the arsenal capacity increases. In this hour-long Rundown, we cover all their fresh friends, old standbys, and everything else these four buckaroos require to make music that matters.
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Like New
While CJ Cain is the newest member in the Food Stamps, he’s had a long history hanging out and making music with his bandmates in other outfits for years. His addition to the band was a smooth transition and he handles acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and mandolin on a nightly basis. In this Rundown, CJ mentions he’s most comfortable on a dreadnought, but is finding his footing with electric guitar and the accompanying gear.
These old beauts are a pair of vintage Harmony instruments. The electric on the left is a 1960 Stratotone that’s been overhauled with stainless-steel frets, Waverly tuners, and a proper setup. The big boomer on the right is a 1960s H1266 Sovereign Deluxe that also has been upgraded with stainless-steel frets and plays like a dream. The H1266 has a midrange like a Mack truck and sat in the mix really well for the Rustin’ in the Rain sessions. All of his acoustics take D’Addario XTAPB1356 XT Phosphor Bronze strings and his Stratotone uses D’Addario NYXL1149 Nickel Wound strings.
A Class
Cain’s friend Will Parsons has been hand-carving mandolins in Elizabethton, TN, since he was 14 years old. This A-style mando is barky and choppy, qualities that let it gnash through their full-band spread.
The 14-fret dreadnought on the right is a Collings D1A that has a Sitka spruce top, Honduran mahogany back, sides, and neck (modified V profile), an ebony fretboard, bone nut and saddle, nickel Waverly tuners, and pre-war scalloped X-brace pattern (with Sitka spruce).
Lucky Loaner
Here’s a 1966 Stratocaster that Cain was able to bring on the road from an encouraging friend. He notes that it’s a “magical guitar.” The owner let Cain play it as a teenager and recently let him dust it off for this year’s Mule Pull tour with Tyler Childers. This one rocks D’Addario NYXL09544 Nickel Wound strings.
CJ Cain’s (Electric) Pedalboard
His “trial-by-fire” christening into electric guitar has sparked the need for some pedals and his current stable includes a Dunlop EP103 Echoplex delay, a Keeley Mini Katana Clean Boost, a Kingsley Page Tube Boost, a Greer Lightspeed, a JHS Pulp ’N’ Peel V4 compressor, and a Peterson StroboStomp HD.
One Nation, Under Tone
The Harmony and Strat run through CJ’s electric board and then hit his Amplified Nation Overdrive Reverb that plugs into a 1x12 extension cab, which runs a JBL D120F speaker taken out of a 1970 Fender Twin Reverb.
CJ Cain’s (Acoustic) Pedalboard
CJ Cain’s (Acoustic) Pedalboard
Covering his coloring, switching, and tuning needs for flattops and mandolin are a Strymon Flint, another JHS Pulp ’N’ Peel, a Grace Design ALiX preamp, a Keeley Mini Katana, a L.R. Baggs Venue DI, a Morley ABC Pro Switcher/Combiner Pedal, and a pair of Peterson StroboStomps.
Sturdy Steeds
“This is the heartbeat of my rig,” contends Jesse Wells. The kickstart to his rig’s heart is a 1968 Fender Telecaster (top left) that once upon a time had a Bigsby vibrato on it. He bought it off Food Stamps’ tech Patrick Boyle, who still gets to see his old friend every night. The ES-style guitar is a Collings I-35 (top right) has been upgraded with ThroBak PAF humbuckers. RS Guitarworks (lower left) created this Slab Series mashup that blends a T-style with an LP Junior. The pickups are a set of growly Fralin Soapbar P90s. One of the Bluegrass State brothers built him this relic’d partscaster that has a set of Ron Ellis 64S single-coils. And on the far right is a Gretsch G6128T-GH George Harrison Signature Duo Jet that Wells wanted for mellower vibes, and into which he dropped a set of Ron Ellis Ellisonic JLs codesigned by the masterful Julian Lage.
The Oddities
As the man in the band that wears the most hats, Jesse Wells carries a lot of auxiliary instruments. Starting with the Eastwood MRG Tenor (top left), a fancy little unit with mini humbuckers. Next is the Collings 360 Baritone that has a 27.5" scale length and custom Lollar Alnico Pole P90s. Then he has the Gibson RB-250 5-string banjo and a violin handmade by Jonathan Cooper out of Portland, Maine. On the far right is Wells’ Danelectro 59X12 12-string.
Mighty Mites
Letting FOH and PA do a lot of the work, Jesse utilizes a pair of puny punchers—a Muleskinner Tweed based on the 5E3 circuit with a couple 6V6s, and a 1974 Fender Princeton Reverb.
Jesse Wells’ Pedalboards
Up top is the board for Jesse’s fiddles and banjo, which both go to a Grace Design FELiX2 preamp, a duet of L.R. Baggs pedals—an Align Reverb and Para DI Acoustic Guitar Preamp—a Universal Audio Golden Reverberator, and two tuners (TC Electronic PolyTune3 and Peterson StroboStomp HD). A Strymon Zuma powers everything.
The electric board that handles everything else includes a Strymon Flint, MXR Phase 90 (script logo), Origin Effects SlideRIG Compact Deluxe, FX Engineering RAF Mirage Compressor, Wampler Germanium Tumnus, Nocturne Brain Mystery Brain BS-301 tape echo, and Chase Bliss Automatone Preamp. Utility boxes include a Peterson StroboStomp HD tuner, a Radial Headlight Amp Selector, and Truetone 1 SPOT PRO CS12 power supply.
James’ Barkers
For this arena run, James Barker took out a handful of electrics. The candy-apple red Fender Eric Johnson Strat is the lone instrument that he had during the last Rundown. Barker mentions, “It’s all stock. I’ve never done anything to it, and it’s one of my favorite guitars in existence.” Next is a USA-made Epiphone Casino that has a laminated maple-poplar-maple body, a rounded-C mahogany neck, bound rosewood fretboard, and a pair of gnarly Gibson dogear P90s. Then we have a glowing Rickenbacker 1993Plus 12-string that gets busted out for “Universal Sound.” A Gretsch G6122T-62GE Vintage Select Country Gentleman hollowbody gives Barker some traditional country-western twang. And finally on the right side we have a CME Exclusive Gibson Les Paul Standard ’50s that boasts a dazzling “Dirty Lemon Burst” finish that was inspired by the organically fading cherry bursts from the holy-grail period.
Lonesome Whippoorwill
Our 2018 tour visit with the Food Stamps saw Barker using a Sho-Bud pedal-steel guitar. All of his repairs on that 10-string beast were done by Nashville luthier Jeff Surratt who owns and operates Show Pro Steel Guitars. Just before COVID shut down tours, Barker received his custom 10-string Show Pro model seen above, and has been enjoying bending notes and sliding all over it ever since.
Get Amped!
James plays through a pair of amps all night. The pedal-steel Show Pro hits an old Fender Bassman that powers a CavAmp passive rotary speaker cabinet. For the steel’s main tone, Barker relies on a Fender Tone Master Twin Reverb. When he’s playing electric guitar, he drives with the custom-voiced Hall combo (seen in the last Rundown) and a 1970s Fender Super Reverb that’s been modded by removing the first channel’s tone stack (when he hits the bright switch), giving the amp a lot of volume and gain. The Hall is a two-channel design with the right channel (his prime choice) modeled after a Trainwreck Rocket, while the left channel is similar to a Gibson GA-40. The Super Reverb is used for clean parts, and the Hall is for rockin’.
James Barker’s Pedalboards
To accommodate his dual duties, he’s got a pair of pedalboards. Up top is his steel board that uses a Keeley Omni Reverb, Keeley D&M Drive/Boost, Strymon Mobius, and Strymon TimeLine. A Fulltone True-Path ABY Soft Touch switcher controls the amps, while a CavAmp box handles the rotary speaker speeds and stops. His steel is kept in check with a Peterson StroboStomp HD tuner.
Down below is his electric-guitar stomp station that has some duplicates from the steel board (Strymon TimeLine & Mobius, Fulltone True-Path ABY Soft Touch switcher, and Peterson StroboStomp). The fresh faces include a Universal Audio Golden Reverberator, an Analog Man Bi-CompROSSor, a JHS Double Barrel, a JHS AT Drive V2, a Kogoy Musical Devices Rainbowsound, an Analog Man King of Tone, and a Dunlop 535Q Cry Baby.
All About That Bass
Bassist Craig Burletic hasn’t met a 4-string he couldn’t thump. Back in 2018 he was boogying down on a sunburst 2011 Fender P, but he’s since acquired a similar-looking P from 1965 that actually is decked out in pre-CBS specs. He purchased this special instrument off fellow bassist J.T. Cure, who’s in Chris Stapleton’s band. Burletic was floored with the vintage Precision and pinches himself each night because as he puts it, “I didn’t know basses could sound so good.” If you look closely at the D string off the bridge, you’ll notice a bulky burl hanging near the saddle. It’s actually the end of a double-bass string that he slapped on when his standard electric-bass string snapped during a “middle-aged” jam out. He didn’t have any extra electric-bass strings so he put on the double-bass D gut string and hasn’t looked back.
While studying at Marshall University, Burletic fell in love with a 1974 fretless Fender P bass. He learned how to play upright bass on that instrument and wanted to buy it from Marshall, but found the bureaucratic hoops a bit much. However, a few years later he found this fretless 1972 P with a rare maple neck and fingerboard. His double bass is an old American Standard that he scooped off Facebook Marketplace.
10 Outta 10!
Burletic brings the low-end rumble with a pair of thunder buddies—an Orange AD200B MK3 200-watt bass head and an old Fender Bassman. The Orange goes into a Ampeg Heritage SVT 610AV cabinet while the Fender runs through an Aguilar DB 410 cab. And you gotta love the looks of his full setup glowing under the EBT (Eatin’ Big Time) logo.
Craig Burletic’s Pedalboard
No pedals were on the floor for Burletic last time, but he’s since fleeced out a proper pedalboard for the arena tour (even if most of the boxes are utilitarian units). The actual tone twisters are a Boss OC-2 Octaver and an Origin Effects Cali76 Compact Bass Compressor. An A Designs REDDI DI box helps give FOH a crystal bass signal, while the Radial BigShot ABY wrangles the amps. Then he has a pair of Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuners and double Strymon Ojai power supplies.
Childers’ Children
Tyler Childers has long been loyal to Collings. He used them exclusively during our last Rig Rundown, and he’s still plucking those Collings like they owe him money. For a while, his No. 1 was the DS1A (right), but just a few days before we interviewed the gang, the Collings OM1 Julian Lage showed up and since then it’s been used 99 percent of the time. It has many traditional orchestra-model specs (Sitka spruce top, Honduran mahogany back, sides and neck, medium nickel frets, and bone nut and saddle), but what makes this small-bodied acoustic special are the intricate requests from Lage, like recreating the neck profile of his 1939 Martin 000-18 and using a custom satin lacquer that makes the new guitar feel and sound old. FOH has noted that the smaller acoustic with less bass sits much better in the full-band mix. Both acoustics take D’Addario Medium Phosphor Bronze strings (.013–.056).
Tyler Childers’ Pedalboard
For a picker that mainly plays acoustics, his board is expectedly tame with a pair of Grace Design ALiX preamps (one for the Collings and another for fiddle) and a Boss TU-3w Waza Craft Tuner.
TV Time!
When Childers does grab an electric and throw down (usually during instrumental “Two Coats” from Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?), he’ll get loud with this old TV that was actually his grandfather’s RCA set. On the backside rests a custom Square Amps head that Matt Richards built upon Tyler’s request. (Head here to read its quick backstory.) It has a single 12" Weber Vintage Series Ferromax speaker.
Shop the Food Stamps' Rig
Fender Stories Collection Eric Johnson 1954 "Virginia" Stratocaster
Fender Vintera II '60s Stratocaster
Amplified Nation Overdrive Reverb 50-watt Tube Head
Dunlop EP103 Echoplex Delay Pedal
Keeley Katana Mini Clean Boost Pedal
JHS Pulp 'N' Peel V4 Compressor Pedal
Peterson Strobostomp
Strymon El Capistan
LR Baggs Venue DI
Grace Design ALiX Acoustic Instrument Preamp / EQ / DI / Boost Pedal
Morley ABC Pro 3-button Switcher/Combiner Pedal
Fender Custom Shop Time Machine '68 Thinline Telecaster Journeyman Relic
Gretsch G6128T-GH George Harrison Duo Jet
Danelectro 59X12 12-string Electric Guitar
Fender '64 Princeton Reverb 1x10"
Grace Designs Felix Preamp
LR Baggs Acoustic Series Reverb
LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI
Universal Audio UAFX Golden Reverberator Pedal
TC Electronic PolyTune
MXR Phase 90 Script
Strymon Flint
Wampler Tumnus
Radial Engineering Headlight
Gibson Custom 1959 Les Paul Standard Reissue Electric Guitar - Murphy Lab Light Aged Dirty Lemon
Epiphone USA Casino Hollowbody Electric Guitar
Rickenbacker 360/12C63 12-String Electric Semi-Hollow
Gretsch G6122T-62GE Vintage Select Country Gentleman
Fender Tone Master Twin
Fender Super Reverb
JHS Double Barrel V4
JHS AT (Andy Timmons) Drive V2 Pedal
Dunlop CBM95 Cry Baby Mini Wah Pedal
Strymon Mobius
Strymon Timeline
Keeley Omni Reverb
Keeley D&M Drive
Fender Tony Franklin Fretless Precision Bass
Orange AD200B MK 3 200-watt Bass Head - Black
Ampeg Heritage SVT-810AV 8x10"
Aguilar DB 410
Origin Effects Cali76
Boss OC-2 Octaver
Boss TU-3 Tuner
Radial Bigshot ABY
A Designs Reddi Tube Direct Box
Boss Waza Craft Tuner TU-3w
Dunlop 511P100 Primetone Standard Smooth Guitar Picks 1.0mm 3-pack
D’Addario XTAPB1356 XT Phosphor Bronze Strings
D'Addario NYXL1149 NYXL Nickel Wound Strings
D’Addario NYXL09544 NYXL Nickel Wound Strings
Onstage, Tommy Emmanuel executes a move that is not from the playbook of his hero, Chet Atkins.
“My biggest decision every day on tour is, ‘What do I want to start with? How do I want to come out of the gate?’” Emmanuel explains to me over a video call. “A good opener has to have everything. It has to be full of surprise, it has to have lots of good ideas, lots of light and shade, and then, hit it again,” he says, illustrating each phrase with his hands and ending with a punch.“You lift off straightaway with the first song, you get airborne, you start reaching, and then it’s time to level out and take people on a journey.”
In May 2023, Emmanuel played two shows at the Sydney Opera House, the best performances from which have been combined on his new release, Live at the Sydney Opera House. The venue’s Concert Hall, which has a capacity of 2,679, is a familiar room for Emmanuel, but I think at this point in his career he wouldn’t bring a setlist if he was playing Wembley Stadium. On the recording, Emmanuel’s mind-blowingly dexterous chops, distinctive attack and flair, and knack for culturally resonant compositions are on full display. His opening song for the shows? An original, “Countrywide,” with a segue into Chet Atkins’ “El Vaquero.”
“When I was going to high school in the ’60s, I heard ‘El Vaquero’ on Chet Atkins’ record, [1964’s My Favorite Guitars],” Emmanuel shares. “And when I wrote ‘Countrywide’ in around ’76 or ’77, I suddenly realized, ‘Ah! It’s a bit like “El Vaquero!”’ So I then worked out ‘El Vaquero’ as a solo piece, because it wasn’t recorded like that [by Atkins originally].
“The co-writer of ‘El Vaquero’ is Wayne Moss, who’s a famous Nashville session guy who played ‘da da da’ [sings the guitar riff from Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’]. And he played on a lot of Chet’s records as a rhythm guy. So once when I played ‘El Vaquero’ live, Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’” Emmanuel says, laughing.
Atkins is the reason Emmanuel got into performing. His mother had been teaching him rhythm guitar for a couple years when he heard Atkins on the radio and, at 6, was able to immediately mimic his fingerpicking technique. His father recognized Emmanuel’s prodigious talent and got him on the road that year, which kicked off his professional career. He says, “By the time I was 6, I was already sleep-deprived, working too hard, and being forced to be educated. Because all I was interested in was playing music.”
Emmanuel talks about Atkins as if the way he viewed him as a boy hasn’t changed. The title Atkins bestowed upon him, C.G.P. (Certified Guitar Player), appears on Emmanuel’s album covers, in his record label (C.G.P. Sounds), and is inlaid at the 12th fret on his Maton Custom Shop TE Personal signature acoustic. (Atkins named only five guitarists C.G.P.s. The others are John Knowles, Steve Wariner, Jerry Reed, and Atkins himself.) For Emmanuel, even today most roads lead to Atkins.
When I ask Emmanuel about his approach to arranging for solo acoustic guitar, he says, “It was really hit home for me by my hero, Chet Atkins, when I read an interview with him a long time ago and he said, ‘Make your arrangement interesting.’ And I thought, ‘Wow!’ Because I was so keen to be true to the composer and play the song as everyone knows it. But then again, I’m recreating it like everyone else has, and I might as well get in line with the rest of them and jump off the cliff into nowhere. So it struck me: ‘How can I make my arrangements interesting?’ Well, make them full of surprises.”
When Emmanuel was invited to contribute to 2015’s Burt Bacharach: This Guitar’s in Love with You, featuring acoustic-guitar tributes to Bacharach’s classic compositions by various artists, Emmanuel expresses that nobody wanted to take “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” due to its “syrupy” nature. But for Emmanuel, this presented an entertaining challenge.
He explains, “I thought, ‘Okay, how can I reboot “Close to You?’ So even the most jaded listener will say, ‘Holy fuck—I didn’t expect that! Wow, I really like that; that is a good melody!’ So I found a good key to play the song in, which allowed me to get some open notes that sustain while I move the chords. Then what I did is, in every phrase, I made the chord unresolve, then resolve.
Tommy Emmanuel's Gear
“I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head,” Emmanuel says. “So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever.”
Photo by Simone Cecchetti
Guitars
- Three Maton Custom Shop TE Personals, each with an AP5 PRO pickup system
Amps
- Udo Roesner Da Capo 75
Effects
- AER Pocket Tools preamp
Strings & Picks
- Martin TE Signature Phosphor Bronze (.012–.054)
- Martin SP strings
- Ernie Ball Paradigm strings
- D’Andrea Pro Plec 1.5 mm
- Dunlop medium thumbpicks
“And then to really put the nail in the coffin, at the end, ‘Close to you’ [sings melody]. I finished on a major 9 chord which had that note in it, but it wasn’t the key the song was in, which is a typical Stevie Wonder trick. All the tricks I know, the wonderful ideas that I’ve stolen, are from Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, James Taylor, Carole King, Neil Diamond. All of the people who wrote really incredibly great pop songs and R&B music—I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a -half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
I share with Emmanuel that the performances on Live at the Sydney Opera House, which include his popular “Beatles Medley,” reminded me of another possible arrangement trick. In Harpo Marx’s autobiography, Harpo Speaks, I preface, Marx writes of a lesson he learned as a performer—to “answer the audience’s questions.” (Emmanuel says he’s a big fan of the book and read it in the early ’70s.) That happened for me while listening to the medley, when, after sampling melodies from “She’s a Woman” and “Please Please Me,” Emmanuel suddenly lands on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
I say, “I’m waiting for something that hits more recognizably to me, and when ‘While My Guitar’ comes in, that’s like answering my question.”
“It’s also Paul and John, Paul and John, George,” Emmanuel replies. “You think, ‘That’s great, that’s great pop music,’ then, ‘Wow! Look at the depth of this.’”
Often Emmanuel’s flights on his acoustic guitar are seemingly superhuman—as well as supremely entertaining.
Photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva
A trick I like to employ as a writer, I say to Emmanuel, is that when I’m describing something, I’ll provide the reader with just enough context so that they can complete the thought on their own.
“You can do that musically as well,” says Emmanuel. He explains how, in his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” he’ll play only the vocal melody. “When people are asking me at a workshop, ‘How come you don’t put chords behind that part?’ I say, ‘I’m drawing the melody and you’re putting in all the background in your head. I don’t need to tell you what the chords are. You already know what the chords are.’”
“Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’”
Another track featured on Live at the Sydney Opera House is a cover of Paul Simon’s “American Tune” (which Emmanuel then jumps into an adaptation of the Australian bush ballad, “Waltzing Matilda”). It’s been a while since I really spent time with There GoesRhymin’ Simon (on which “American Tune” was first released), and yet it sounded so familiar to me. A little digging revealed that its melody is based on the 17th-century Christian hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which was arranged and repurposed by Bach in a few of the composer’s works. The cross-chronological and genre-lackadaisical intersections that come up in popular music sometimes is fascinating.
“I think the principle right there,” Emmanuel muses, “is people like Bach and Beethoven and Mozart found the right language to touch the heart of a human being through their ears and through their senses ... that really did something to them deep in their soul. They found a way with the right chords and the right notes, somehow. It could be as primitive as that.
Tommy Emmanuel has been on the road as a performing guitarist for 64 years. Eat your heart out, Bob Dylan.
Photo by Jan Anderson
“It’s like when you’re a young composer and someone tells you, ‘Have a listen to Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,”’ he continues. “‘Listen to how those notes work with those chords.’ And every time you hear it, you go, ‘Why does it touch me like that? Why do I feel this way when I hear those chords—those notes against those chords?’ I say, it’s just human nature. Then you wanna go, ‘How can I do that!’” he concludes with a grin.
“You draw from such a variety of genres in your arrangements,” I posit. “Do you try to lean into the side of converting those songs to solo acoustic guitar, or the side of bridging the genre’s culture to that of your audience?”
“I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a-half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
“If I was a method actor,” Emmanuel explains, “what I’m doing is—I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head. So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever. I always think it has to have that kind of orchestral, not grandeur, but … palette to it. Because of the influence of Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, and Elton John, especially—the piano guys—I try to use piano ideas, like putting the third in the low bass a lot, because guitar players don’t necessarily do that. And I try to always do something that makes what I do different.
“I want to be different and recognizable,” he continues. “I remember when people talked about how some players—you just hear one note and you go, ‘Oh, that’s Chet Atkins.’ And it hit me like a train, the reason why a guy like Hank Marvin, the lead guitar player from the Shadows.... I can tell you: He had a tone that I hear in other players now. Everyone copied him—they just don’t know it—including Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, all those people. I got him up to play with me a few times when he moved to Australia, and even playing acoustic, he still had that sound. I don’t know how he did it, but it was him. He invented himself.”
YouTube It
Emmanuel performs his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” illustrating how omitting a harmonic backdrop can have a more powerful effect, especially when playing such a well-known melody.
The Rickenbacker 481’s body style was based on the 4001 bass, popularly played by Paul McCartney. Even with that, the guitar was too experimental to reach its full potential.
By the early 1970s, the great interest the lads had sparked in 6- and 12-string Ricks had waned. But thankfully for the company, there was still high demand for yet another Beatles-played instrument: the 4001 bass.
Paul McCartney was gifted a 4001 by Rickenbacker in 1965, which he then used prominently throughout the group’s late-’60s recordings and while leading Wings all through the ’70s. Other rising stars of rock also donned 4000 series models, like Yes’Chris Squire, Pink Floyd’sRoger Waters, the Bee Gees’ Maurice Gibb, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Stu Cook, and more.
And like that, a new star was born.
So, what’s a guitar company to do when its basses are selling better than its guitars? Voilà: The Rickenbacker 480. Introduced in 1972, it took the 4000-series body shape and created a standard 6-string out of it, using a bolt-on neck for the first time in the brand’s history.
The 481’s slanted frets predate the modern multi-scale phenomenon by decades. The eight-degree tilt of the frets is matched by an eight-degree tilt of the nut, pickups, and bridge.
“It was like a yo-yo at Rickenbacker sometimes,” factory manager Dick Burke says in Rickenbacker Guitars: Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fireglo. “We got quiet in the late ’60s, but when the bass started taking off in the ’70s, we got real busy again, so making a 6-string version of that was logical, I guess.”
The gambit worked, for a time. Sales of the 480 were strong enough at first that, in 1973, a deluxe model was introduced—the 481—and it’s one of these deluxe versions that we’re showcasing here.
“The 481 features slant frets—pointing ever-so-slightly toward the body of the guitar—and the eight-degree tilt of the frets is matched by an eight-degree tilt of the nut, pickups, and bridge.”
Take a close look and you’ll notice that the body shape isn’t the only remarkable feature. The 481 was Rickenbacker’s first production run to feature humbucker pickups. Here, you can see each humbucker’s 12 pole pieces dotting through the chrome cover, a variant casing only available from 1975 to 1976. (Interestingly enough, the pickups had first been developed for the 490, a prototype that never made it to public release, which would’ve allowed players to substitute different pickups by swapping loaded pickguards in and out of the body.)
The new pickups were also treated with novel electronics. The standard 3-way pickup-selector switch is here, but so is a second small switch that reverses the pickups’ phase when engaged.
The inventive minds at Rickenbacker didn’t stop there: The 481 features slant frets—pointing ever-so-slightly toward the body of the guitar—and the eight-degree tilt of the frets is matched by an eight-degree tilt of the nut, pickups, and bridge.
Long before the fanned fret phenomenon caught on in the modern, progressive guitar landscape, Rickenbacker had been toying around with the slant-fret concept. Originally available from 1970 forward as a custom order on other models, slant frets were all but standard on the 481 (only a small minority of straight-fret 481s were built).
The 481 was the deluxe version of the 480, which preceded it and marked the first time the company used a bolt-on neck.
Dick Burke, speaking separately to writer Tony Bacon in an interview published on Reverb, only half-recalls the genesis and doesn’t remember them selling particularly well: “Some musicians said that’s the way when you hold the neck in your left hand—your hand is slanted. So, we put the slanted frets in a few guitars. I don’t know how many, maybe a hundred or two—I don’t recall.”
Even proponents of the 481 do not necessarily sing the praises of the slanted fretboard. Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno, a 481 superfan, told Rickenbacker Guitars author Martin Kelly, “I don’t just love the 481, it’s part of me.... The 481’s slanted frets have made my fingers crooked for life, but I don’t care, I’ll take that for it’s given me riff after riff after riff."
Initial 480-series sales were promising, but the models never really took off. Though they were built as late as 1984, the slant-fret experiment of the 481 was called off by 1979. And these slanted models have not, in the minds of most players or collectors, become anywhere near as sought-after as the classic 330s and 360s, or, for that matter, the 4001s.
For that reason, 481s—despite their novelty and their lists of firsts for Rickenbacker—can still be found for relatively cheap. Our Vintage Vault pick, which is being sold by the Leicester, England-based Jordan Guitars Ltd, has an asking price of 3,350 British pounds (or about 4,300 U.S. dollars), which is still well under half the going-rate of early 360s, 660s, and other more famous Ricks. Some lucky buyers have even found 481s on Reverb for less than $2,000, which is unheard of for other vintage models.
With its idiosyncratic charms, the 481 remains more within reach than many other guitars of a similar vintage.
Sources: Martin Kelly’s Rickenbacker Guitars: Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fireglo, Tony Bacon’s"Interview: Dick Burke on the Creation of the Rickenbacker 12-String | Bacon’s Archive" on Reverb, Reverb Price Guide sales data.
