News August 2010

Grimshaw Meteor.  The first solid body electric guitar made.  See pictures in My Gallery of this extremely rare guitar.

News May 2010

Ken Steers playing Spick and Spanish, Kens tribute to Emile Grimshaw jnr.  Ken had lessons from Emile at the Piccadilly premises in the late 1950,s.  Emile usually played second guitar parts with his students, he was a very competant player in the classical tradition.

Photos of Bernie Marsden on players gallery and a short history of how he aquired his Grimshaw on messages page, Bernie found fame with Whitesnake.

The video of Jimmy Currie with Tony Crombies Rockets has been removed from Youtube, but I have received the OK to feature the clip on this web site, stay tuned as they say.

September News

Another video of Ronnie Genardier using his Grimshaw Revelation with the Jack Payne Orchestra playing some pretty “HOT” ragtime jazz, Ronnie is on the right as you look at the screen. The other guitar player is unknown. Ronnie was still playing a Grimshaw well into the 1950,s.

Look on guitar gallery for some photos of a unique GS30 which previously belonged to Bob Barton of “Beckett” who can be seen using this guitar to great effect on a previous video. The guitar was ordered from the Gt Poulteney St shop to Bobs specification as well as being lefthanded it has some unique features.

I can now supply a superb quality large poster of any Grimshaw guitar featured on My Gallery. So if you haven,t got a Grimshaw this may be some consolation. Price is £10 + £3 post and packing.

Beckett - Old Grey Whistle Test 1974 Bob Barton with GS30

July News

julys news is

Just added video of Beckett from 1974.  What a great band with Bob Barton on lefthanded Grimshaw GS30, this was another special order guitar with full block markers and pink finish on top. Have a look at this impressive set from The Old Grey Whistle Test .

Also added a photo of Richard O,Briens Troubadour manufactured early 1960,s.   Richard is the driving force/writer of The Rocky Horror Show which has proved popular for many years.  This guitar will be auctioned for charity later this year will keep you posted.

June News

Grimshaw Revelation Guitar

By Deke Dickerson

SIX-STRING EXPERIMENTATION AND innovation in the early 20th century mostly centered on the idea of making the guitar louder, so that it could compete in bands with horns, pianos, drums, and banjos—the loudest of acoustic string instruments. In the United States, the Paramount banjo company enlisted C.F. Martin to help build a few double-bodied resonator guitars, the rarely seen Paramount Style “L” from 1933. The company created a sought-after instrument for future Martin collectors, but the design did little to help in the volume wars. It sure looked like it would work, but the results were debatable.

 

A year later, in 1934, across the pond in Great Britain, a banjo player and music book publisher named Emile Grimshaw began manufacturing guitars and other plectrum instruments. The Grimshaw brand, while rarely seen on these shores, was a respectable name in the U.K. until the early 1980s. They had a limited production, never reaching the levels of U.K. brands like Vox or Burns, but Grimshaw instruments were treasured, and found their way into the hands of pre-Beatles British rockers and English jazz cats.

In addition to fairly standard archtops and flat-tops, Grimshaw began making the Revelation model in the mid-1930s, which was strikingly similar to the Paramount Style “L” in many ways. Utilizing the double-bodied resonator guitar concept, the Revelation is basically a standard archtop guitar sporting a modest 16q” width at the lower bout, with a large hole cut into the back to allow sound reflections to hit the “resonator” backplate. The backplate was essentially the back half of a larger-bodied archtop (measuring a manly 18q” at the lower bout) with braces to mount the assembly to the guitar in front. Early versions had two screws holding the back on, but due to rattling problems, later models were glued on. The double-bodied resonator guitar was available in both archtop and flat-top versions, though both are extremely rare now.

While the double-bodied resonator guitar may have been louder than a regular archtop, in the late 1940s Grimshaw began making electric models of the Grimshaw Revelation, with their patented pickup hidden in the end of the fretboard. The guitar shown here is either from that era or an earlier guitar with an added pickup (there appears to be a pencil marking that says “1939” on the printed inside label, however the Grimshaw website points to this being a postwar guitar).

About the time this evolutionary dead-end was made, solidbody electrics were taking over California, and were about to dominate the world. Grimshaw would soon join the fray, and the era of the double-bodied resonator guitar would disappear into the London fog.

 Just listed photos of rare Grimshaw 4 string tenor guitar with resonator back, see guitar gallery.

Grimshaw feature in May issue of Guitar & Bass magazine.   Featuring my collection of guitars

---

For Sale