Jon Graboff Plays A 1967 B-Bender Telecaster | Let's Hear It

[@tonytrout4321]

Marty OWNS Clarence's ORIGINAL '54 Telecaster with the ORIGINAL PullString/StringBender (as it's actual name implies) and it's VERY HEAVY. I had the honor of playing that very guitar on July 17, 2008 when I was in a local band here where I live that had the honor of opening two shows for Marty & The Fabulous Superlatives in Hiawassee, GA at the Anderson Music Hall. It was a day that will literally stay with me for the rest of my Earthly life. Marty is a true country music historian and knows all about the bender mechanism and he and Clarence's family are dear friends to this very day. Marty even met Clarence one time.....but, that was the only time he met him. Susie (Clarence's wife & widow, sold Clarence's '54 Telecaster to Marty in either 1979 or 1980 for the sum of (get this) $1,450.00 along with some Byrds paraphernalia like the masks that were used on the album cover of "Byrdmaniax".....I could go on and on but....I won't bore you.

[@davidrice3337]

thanks -

[@devilsden2283]

Just saw Marty perform and he tore it up on that beautiful b bender...fantastic player as is Kenney also...great post Tony! 👍

[@larryn2682]

Marty would have barely been a teenager when he met Clarence White.

[@maxpeck4154]

5:35 I'm starting to come around to the idea that pickups don't matter as much as the sum of the parts. I don't buy the "tonewood" argument in the sense that it has to be insanely expensive, old-growth, unobtanium blah blah blah... but guitars DO have a certain voice that swapping pickups won't necessarily change. I like SGs and got one a few years ago but realized I do NOT like PAF style humbucker pickups. That set me on a pickup swapping binge. First came a set of low output humbucker sized p90s. They were actually great but I wanted it to be a tad brighter. I tried Lollartrons, gold foils, telecaster-voiced pickups, and finally humbucker sized Firebird pickups. The dammed thing sounded almost exactly the same no matter what pickups I tried, and in some cases worse, than the original humbuckers. Go figure. I ended up selling it but if I had kept it I would've put the p90s back in it.

[@andyokus5735]

I owned a small music store in Roswell GA in 1981-82 and one day some guy came in and dropped off a Marlin pedal steel. He said sell it if you can. I never could get a sound out of it because to play a steel you have to move your knees, feet, use a bar and finger pick like crazy. No one ever looked at it so when I closed the store I called him and said come back and pick up your beautiful green Marlin pedal steel. Oh, it was called " OK Music ". I sure did a lot of shredding in there and reading. Folks don't open a music store unless you have the cash you want to make for a year. Met some famous players who wandered in though. Good experience for a young 24 yr old guy.

[@MichaelHattem]

Absolutely fantastic. Always great to hear someone talking about their love for Clarence.

[@rhum66]

awesome video, i am a die heart for Clarence white's playing on the "sweetheart of rodeo". My favorite record of all time. good to see the héritage is still alive

[@davidherringgo]

So cool stuff. Love this easy going interview . Gene has a great YT video on making these B benders . He is quite a craftsman. I've been a fan of his since way back.

[@paulj0557tonehead]

The College of Rock and Roll Knowledge FB post Birds 8 Miles High 3/14/66 - 3/14/22 brought me here. (Actually Norm Miller's comment, "Well, I don’t know about all of this, but what I do know that the 1972 show The Byrds put on at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania was the best concert I’ve ever been to! The band was at its best, and Clarence White’s string-bender guitar made 8 Miles High a truly epic event!"

[@78tag]

Marty Stewart made the same observation about Clarence - a smooth motion that wasn't obvious when he would bend the string. I've also heard others say that you need to either play a Pedal Steel or a Bender but pick one or the other. There are people with the skills to play both but they aren't the same sound, technique, or style. This interview with Jon is well worth listening to.

[@MrMarkar1959]

I'd like to take a dose of Acid and try a B bender someday,,,sooner than later🎸

[@thomasjohnson7735]

Front row seat. Toooo coool😎!!

[@hairlab9646]

Interesting Vid. Jon sounds like a little bit of a Bender purist. I've played dozens of country gigs as the "steel guitarist" (good steel players are hard to find in lots of places) using a b-bender Esquire. Works in a pinch.

[@Guitarwolfluke]

I have this same guitar, but bought from Norma Harris. Same mechanism, 1966

[@silvrface]

The fills on "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" wee played by Clarence White as a studio musician BEFORE he joined the Byrds and before Gene had made the original b-bender. Time Between as also recorded before Clarence was a member of the Byrds.

[@nahnope8581]

Wasn't sweetheart of the rodeo pedal steel played by lloyd green?

[@silvrface]

​@@nahnope8581 Lloyd Green played pedal steel on the songs recorded in Nashville; the pedal steel parts on songs recorded in Hollywood /L.A. were done by J.D. Maness. Clarence played rhythm guitar and some fills(non-bender; it hadn't been invented yet!) at both as a hired studio musician before he was hired by McGuinn, and after the London/South African tour debacle (during which Gram Parsons was fired)

[@MrPhilfridge]

@@silvrface at last someone who knows some correct facts

[@tenbroeck1958]

Man, I love the licks he was playing, not to "mock" major third licks, but his own were amazing sounding. I am also a Clarence White fan-atic. Very cool that you have a real 1970s Gene Parsons-installed B-Bender.

[@cedarbay3994]

Pete Townsend used a B Bender on Eminence Front as well

[@danielshepherd7147]

Great Video I Have A Dave Evans Pull String Dave Installed FOR Me In 1973 I Love It.

[@HardToBeSomeone]

Thanks Jon 👍🏻

[@Eric-fb2wp]

Man G and B benders have come along way. Thanks to Joe Glaser he made a system that is hardly noticeable. No need to butcher and rought out the back of the guitar. There are some great KZbin Videos showing Joe installing the unit. One video is on the Ask Zac channel. You all should watch it its very interesting

[@Bbendfender]

I sure would like to know the serial number on Jon's B-bender because I own one with a fairly early serial number of 0123. I talked to Gene about it and he said he didn't keep records on his builds so he couldn't tell me exactly when my B-bender was made. I would really like to know when mine was made.

[@jongraboff7999]

Hey Rob. My B-Bender is serial number 0038 made and installed by Gene in 1977.

[@CaitOrDon]

Awesome Jon!

[@marybrowning5657]

I have been a lead guitarist most of my life and have never had the opportunity to play a b bender equipped guitar. It's a sound I have always appreciated. My only question is does it cause tuning issues?

[@peppers776]

Mine doesn’t. I’ve got 9’s on my Parsons White BG double bender. It rarely goes out of tune. Same strings for 2 years too.

[@ianmcculloch8531]

I have the Will Ray Hip-Shot set up and bend my B and G strings. Fit them yourself without marking the guitar in any way. Check out Will playing with The Hellecasters.

[@Garybob-e9q]

Will really made Wylie Gustafson a pile of Cash.

[@stevesnow315]

Jimmy Olander of Diamond Rio plays some really great examples of the B + G bender. He has a tutorial for advanced players somewhere on KZbin.

[@mygreatbigfoot1679]

What’s that next to him on his left with the red knobs ?

[@CreamyBone]

Love it!

[@thefailedmusician8582]

Is this the guy that played with Ryan adams?

[@officialWWM]

Wow, such a complicated setup. Those guys really wanted to bend that B string!

[@phillipholt6005]

I've always mentioned that people buy upgrade parts for beautiful budget guitars before the guitar arrives. They can replace ever conceivable part on the guitar except for the wood which you can't replace the wood! That's how I buy my guitars with the features that I am looking for! I don't even have a soldering gun!

[@thomaslemon3971]

Tonewood argument and riff gatekeeping in the same breath. My man is a walking Reddit post! 😉 But for real, great info and amazing playing

[@kevinolear6717]

Marty Stuart...that is Clarence White's original b-bender.

[@scottdaddario4386]

you'd think he would have mentioned that........

[@silvrface]

Except for the original pickups wound by Red Rhodes. The neck pickup was bad, and Marty thought the bridge was defective - it was actually wound with a very low output primary coil and a "boost" coil with an on/off switch. He thought it was defective and had it rewound. Yikes....

[@davidrice3337]

this is common knowledge

[@eddielathum8405]

i own a 80s model b bender telecaster that i got from my uncle Billy Ray Lathum, he played the banjo with Clarence and Roland white, the b bender installed and signed by Gene Parsons, I'll never part with it

[@sayeager5559]

Nice #EarXTacy shirt

[@dariocarafa3788]

The comment about the pickups and electronics having nothing to do with the sound and all the sound comes from the wood is incorrect.

[@alexandergriggs9934]

"If the wood is good, it doesn't matter what the pickups are" - ???

[@modestoney1577]

I guess what he is saying is that if the guitar doesn´t resonate you can put in the best pickups in the world and it would still lack something. And i fully get it.. Of course if you put in crappy pickups it would sound even worse.

[@alexandergriggs9934]

@@modestoney1577 exactly. In an electric instrument PU are 75% of the game

[@lyonsson6480]

I laughed a little when I heard that too…

[@Kenneth-p1b]

Looks like Grandpa's axe..three new handles and one new head..

[@rodneyshuffler5810]

The bender came along before Parsons and White did their thing.. research it a little more, there's more history to it. Brad Paisley uses a g Bender, same mechanism on a different string. Some people like myself use both, Jimmy Olander is really the king of double bender guitar.

[@lyonsson6480]

Who had a bending mechanism before White’s guitar? Every single account I’ve ever heard says that guitar was the first.

[@rodneyshuffler5810]

@@lyonsson6480 like I said, research it.... the information is out there. Sherwin Linton and Dean Porter are a couple names to start with. I ain't gonna do all the work for you ;).

[@MrPhilfridge]

@@rodneyshuffler5810 So Sherwin Linton mucked around like loads of guitarists with different ideas , Gene produced a device that was refined into a clever piece of engineering that was possible to be factory produced . That ultimately is the defining thing and he got a patent for it which has never been challenged legally . Diversing slightly, if you delve into the world of pick ups you can end up with all sorts of conspiracy theories on who did what and when ,and its nice to speculate ,but returning to the b bender, if you want hard historical facts ,Gene , inspired by Clarence's musing invented the device which is referred to as a b bender .

[@blueterrace]

I remember some guy who used to bend strings using some foot pedal devise.

[@brian50g]

You two look like you could be twins

[@LordHarv]

>santa fe new mexico >wearing an ear-x-tacy shirt Hmmm

[@brokegsx]

Would ear x tacy be a record store ?

[@LordHarv]

@@brokegsx at one time

[@brokegsx]

@@LordHarv we have one here in Louisville

[@LordHarv]

@@brokegsx not since 2011. John Timmons shut down

[@dennisschell5543]

Butchery!!! 🙄