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Ref. Saturday's BBC2 documentary Hello Quo (didn't realise Cliff was a fan!), Francis Rossi had a nice line in semi-acoustics in those early days, before the Teles took pride of place. According to Rick Parfitt, even The Savage played its part in their musical development!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Hello_Quo/





Bill

It's fairly common knowledge that Francis had that Gibson Stereo ES-345 in the earliest part of his involvement with the group. What's slightly less well-known is that he swapped it for a Grimshaw GS30 (a UK-made copy of the Gibson Les Paul) just before the band had their first hit with Pictures Of Matchstick Men.

Today, it's difficult to convey the sense of desperation that existed in 1967. The Gibson Les Paul was unavailable new. Secondhand models were rare in the UK and routine travel to the USA (the main source for used stock of such guitars) was a sci-fi dream.

Enter Emile Grimshaw and his new model at 130 guineas. Even Jim Burns and the Shergold people got in on the act.

Yes, indeed. The TOTP clip shows Francis playing the Grimshaw. Richard Thompson also used one in the early days of Fairport (pre Sandy Denny). It's perhaps surprising the model wasn't more commonly seen than it was at that time.

Bill

When I was a 17 year old student the main guitar shop in Eastbourne had one of those Grimshaw "Les Pauls" on the wall. At the time I was playing a Burns Artist and used to go into the store to "try" the Les Paul almost every other day - it was the guitar I aspired to own as at that time it seemed the closest I would ever get to playing a guitar like Clapton and Green played!

there was an early burns there as well. peter

I read that too about Francis Rossi trading the Gibson for the Grimshaw- was it because the Les Paul shape was the absolute trendiest thing around then? The Gibson would have been a better guitar I would have thought?

Here in Australia, at that time, a lot of guys started trading their Gretsches, Guilds etc and using Gibson SGs for the heavy rock sound, as they were available then, although the new Les Pauls eventually started becoming available here- by which time the Japanese Les Paul copies also became widely available and were very cheap- and much more affordable for young rock players.

These old clips prove very interesting. I saw the one with Hendrix couple of weeks ago all the early shots show him using a Jazzmaster. Great clips .