Earliest recollections of guitar shops

[JimN]

Alastair Rushworth RIP...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2 ... -obituary/

Bill

I'm sorry to hear of Mr Rushworth's death, despite the shop's peevish deletion of Bob Hobbs from their history. Bob was the man who sold the Beatles those famous Gibson J-160E jumbos and was pictured handing them over. Later (after Bob's retirement), the company doctored the display pictures to show James Rushworth handing them over.

The Whitechapel shop, one of the three major retailers from the golden age of music in Liverpool (the others being Hessy's and Crane's), closed some years ago. The store pictured in the article was the previous location at the very bottom of Islington (a street in Liverpool), from whence it moved in 1960 or 1961. The site was cleared for a road scheme.

Another link with Liverpool's history severed.

[GoldenStreet]

Alastair Rushworth RIP...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2 ... -obituary/

Bill

I'm sorry to hear of Mr Rushworth's death, despite the shop's peevish deletion of Bob Hobbs from their history. Bob was the man who sold the Beatles those famous Gibson J-160E jumbos and was pictured handing them over. Later (after Bob's retirement), the company doctored the display pictures to show James Rushworth handing them over.

The Whitechapel shop, one of the three major retailers from the golden age of music in Liverpool (the others being Hessy's and Crane's), closed some years ago. The store pictured in the article was the previous location at the very bottom of Islington (a street in Liverpool), from whence it moved in 1960 or 1961. The site was cleared for a road scheme.

Another link with Liverpool's history severed.

The printed edition of the obituary in the newspaper itself included a picture of the J-160E presentation to John and George (one of a series taken at the time), that was omitted from the present online version. This shot (sourced from Google images) features presumably Bob Hobbs (bespectacled) and James Rushworth together.

RushW.PNG

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Bill

[Hank2k]

i find this picture really fascinating, here they both are going in to a guitar shop and buying two off the wall guitars and now its just sold for 2.4 million dollars. Did the instrument write the songs? no of course it didnt John Lennon and Paul McCartney did!

http://www.guitarworld.com/acoustics-ge ... 24-million

[JimN]

i find this picture really fascinating, here they both are going in to a guitar shop and buying two off the wall guitars and now its just sold for 2.4 million dollars. Did the instrument write the songs? no of course it didnt John Lennon and Paul McCartney did!

http://www.guitarworld.com/acoustics-ge ... 24-million

The J-160E guitars were certainly not bought off the shelf but had been specifically ordered by NEMS (a few doors away) on behalf of the Beatles .

Like a fair number of other Gibsons at the time, they were presumably not a regular UK Selmer catalogue item. Selmer were always prepared to order in anything the customer wanted, but there were a number of products they never imported for stock, including ephemera such as the Johnny Smith, the Byrdland, the Tal Farlow and even the SG Custom.

[Hank2k]

Thanks for that Jim i just assumed from the pic they were just off the shelf so thanks for clearing that up.

[JimN]

The printed edition of the obituary in the newspaper itself included a picture of the J-160E presentation to John and George (one of a series taken at the time), that was omitted from the present online version. This shot (sourced from Google images) features presumably Bob Hobbs (bespectacled) and James Rushworth together.

RushW.PNG

Bill

Yes, that's Bob on the right with the glasses - he always affected a slightly surly image in the store but was a good friend if you got to know him. He was a great guitar player too - in the classic Django and bebop style. Rushworth's later had the famous "handover" photo airbrushed to edit out Bob altogether. A silly thing to do because Bob was personally better-known and far more recognisable in the city than James Rushworth ever was.

Here's Bob (and Jack Welling on the left) playing a regular Tuesday night pub gig in 1969:

[Gatwick1946]

I wonder if anyone in the North Sussex area remembers Margaret Withers music shop in Brighton Road, Crawley, West Sussex.

It later moved a few hundred yards north of the railway level crossing, to Crawley High Street. I placed an order there in 1964, for my first new electric guitar - a Hofner Violin bass. It cost 55 guineas, and came with a tie-on tag containing best wishes from Paul McCartney. I never did get around to buying a case for it!

Kindest Regards

Christopher