1949 Gibson J-200 with Bigsby Neck
Along with building revolutionary electric guitars, (he basically invented the modern solid body guitar) Paul Bigsby had a sideline making new necks for Martin and Gibson guitars. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Martins and Gibson had fairly large bulky necks and players like Merle Travis, Lefty Frizzell and Hank Thompson didn’t really care for their way they played. The did like like the slender necks Bigsby put on his own electrics so they had him make new necks for their acoustics. This particular example was made for Dewey Groom, a radio DJ that took up singing in the late 1940s. Groom was based in Dallas and achieved some minor local success as a performer but he really made his mark as the owner of the Longhorn Ballroom, a dance hall with a fascinating history.
The Longhorn Ballroom started its life in the early 1950s as Bob Wills’ Ranch House, the Texas headquarters of the famed western swing pioneer. In the later 1950s, after Bob Wills had moved to California, the club was leased to Jack Ruby, the man who later shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of John F. Kennedy. Dewey Groom then bought the dance hall, which had been renamed the Longhorn Ballroom some time in the past. Groom’ and his band The Longhorns were regular performers there as were stars like Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Charley Pride, Ray Price, Tammy Wynette and George Jones. On January 10, 1978, the Longhorn entered rock history when Groom booked a certain band from England.
Yep, the Sex Pistols played the Longhorn during their brief tour of America. By all accounts the show was a mess but you can judge for yourself, The entire 37-minute set was filmed for posterity.
Anyway, back to the guitar. Like many of his more famous country music friends, Dewey Groom had Paul Bigsby make a new neck for his acoustic guitar. (Here’s a great clip of Deke Dickerson playing Lefty Frizzell’s Bigsby-necked J-200.) Like most of the other renecked acoustics, this J-200 this neck is made of maple, very fancy maple in this case, topped with the distinctive Bigsby headstock. I like the way that Bigsby used both his name and the Gibson inlay from the original headstock. The guitar body itself looks like it has seen better days, but that is to be expected from an instrument that has spent a lot of its life in a honky-tonk. Neither pickguard is original and I suspect the guitar has been refinished. This Gibson J-200 is going to be auctioned off on February 15, 2014 by Heritage Auctions. The opening bid is set at $10,000, but I suspect it may go for more than that so you’d better start saving your pennies.
