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Re: Product Endorsement



Talking about the Jaco/Hartke connection: Now
that you mention it, I remember some Hartke ads
during the last couple years of Jaco's life,
where he was playing, I think, a Guild bass!!! 

I find artist endorsements to be pretty funny
anyway. Since about 84, I've been on the Carvin
mailing list (despite having never bought
anything from them) so I get a catalog every so
often from them (once or twice a year, I
suppose). The ones back in the day pictured a
number of guitarists going on about their
guitars. One in particular that stands out in my
mind is a guy named Snowy White. Snowy played
with Thin Lizzy for a couple years during the
early 80's, and also toured with Pink Floyd in 77
and 80, as well as playing on the most recent
Roger Waters tour (he also took part in the
Berlin performance of The Wall). Apart from this
posed shot (which looks like someone handed the
guitar to him in the studio or in a dressing
room, and snapped a photo) in this one Carvin
catalog, the only times I've ever seen Snowy
playing anything other than a battered old gold
top Les Paul were a pair of Thin Lizzy videos!
The one for Chinatown he's playing a Carvin (same
model he's holding in the catalog photo) and in
the Killer On The Loose video, he's playing a
Yamaha (similiar one to what Carlos Santana
played during the late 70's, but without all the
fancy inlay). All the live footage and photos
I've seen of Snowy playing with Pink Floyd or
Roger Waters or Thin Lizzy or doing his solo
stuff, it's always been that Gold Top (except
when playing acoustic, of course). I'm not
positive, but when I saw Roger Waters in 99, I
think Snowy might have been playing a PRS on at
least one song (I was a bit far back, so it was
hard to see just what he was using), though he's
still playing that old Gold Top in the DVD that
Waters put out, and that was filmed a little less
than a year after the show I saw, so I'm guessing
he at least used the Les Paul for most of the
show I saw (it is worth noting that on the DVD,
it looks like he's got a PRS onstage with him,
perhaps as a back up). 

And then you have guys like Neal Schon. Back in
the early 80's, Aria Pro offered a Neal Schon
model, which, as far as I can see, was basically
one of the regular guitars (the name of which I'm
not sure), but with a Floyd Rose tremolo and
perhaps some other minor changes. Then, a few
years later, I start seeing Gibson ads with him
in them (which made more sense, because he always
used Les Pauls more than anything else, going
back to his days with Santana). Then, of course,
around the time Journey did Raised On Radio,
suddenly, Neal has his own guitar company, which
folded after a couple years. And now, it seems he
switches around between a lot of stuff. The last
time he was interviewed in Guitar Player, it was
mentioned that he had recorded his newest solo
album with a custom guitar (the name of which I
forgot), but uses a PRS onstage with Journey, and
I think he mentioned he still plays Strats and
Les Pauls sometimes. 

And don't get me started on that Dimebag Darrell
guy from Pantera (who played Dean ML's all
throughout the early part of Pantera's career, he
was always interviewed saying how great they
were, then suddenly, out of nowhere, just as Dean
started to come back on the scene, he not only
starts playing a Washburn guitar, but the new
guitar was nearly identicaly the old Dean
guitars)

Interestingly enough, the two guitarists that I
can think of who have shown the most loyalty, as
it were, didn't really do those kind of ads.
Brian May, of course, always had his home made
guitar, the Red Special that he's throughout his
entire professional career, and the only time I
remember seeing him doing ANY kind of endorsement
ads, apart from some ads for Superwound guitar
strings, was when Guild first started building
the reproductions of the Red Special (the ones
with the Kahler tremolos on them) in the mid
80's. Now, Burns is offering a copy of The Red
Special, and Brian is featured prominently on
their website. And Jerry Garcia, from about 73 up
until 93, used almost nothing but a trio of
guitars built by a luthier named Doug Irwin.
Jerry DID play a Travis Bean sometimes for a
period of time during the mid 70's, mainly 76-77,
but he eventually went back to playing his first
Irwin (which he eventually set aside for a second
one, which he played for about a decade, and was
retired upon recieving the third Irwin guitar in
89). It was until a guy named Stephen Cripes (who
unfortunately passed away not too long after
Jerry) built a guitar and sent it to the Grateful
Dead's business office as a gift in 93 that Jerry
stopped using the Irwin guitars. The only time I
saw Jerry in a guitar ad of any kind was in the
early 90's, when he and Bob Weir both started
using custom made Alvarez acoustics. 

=====
May you never thirst!
The Scuba Diver Presently Known As Chris

"What do you get when you give a yo-yo to a flock of flamingos?"-James 
Earl Jones

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