Jimi Hendrix' Gear and Mods at West Coast Organ and Amp

[swankmotee]

Hey George, I believe the two Super Tremelos were the ones that Billy Cox ended up using on the 70' tour. Now young Dave can probably answer a question I've had about those for many years now! Did you guys disconnect the Tremelo circuit since in the "Jimi Plays Berkley" movie the knobs are removed from the front panel on both of Billy's heads?

[stalkertwo]

Please upload photos. Thanks and peace.

[daveweyer]

I do remember some Superbasses, and there were some 45/100s. Those models, especially from other customers who were blowing tubes provided some of the transformers I used. One good way to fix an older Marshall that was always blowing up would be to use the later Dagnall transformers, and get the plate voltage under control. I believe Marshall discovered this on their own, and in the plexi units you'd find much more comfortable plate voltages, 470-490 volts, right in that range. The transformers were also being slimmed down, with less laminations, and not as good regulation.

Here is a story you won't hear anywhere else; When the Marshall shipment arrived at West Coast and the shipping company started piling all these big cardboard boxes up, I wasn't sure it was Jimi's stuff. There was so much of a pile we had to put it over into Golden West Musical Instrument Rentals, an outfit right next door to West Coast who provided all the equipment for the records being made in Hollywood, and the big shows at the Bowl and other venues. I thought the equipment was being shipped to them because ALL the boxes had big printing on the sides which read--JIM MORRISON LTD!!!! Jim Morrison LTD???? I thought WTF?? I called Jerry Sanders over to look at the boxes, and Neal Moser too. "Has Jim Morrison gotten into the amp business" I asked incredulously. How the hell would he have time for that?
Then we brought over Kay Peterson, who owned Golden West, to see if she had ordered all the stuff for Jim Morrison. No way. So we just started tearing open the boxes, and sure enough, it was all Marshall equipment. I asked Jerry to call Marshall to find out if Jim Morrison had just bought Marshall amps, you know, with all the money he'd been making from "Light My Fire" and so on, but the folks at Marshall said no way. In the hectic days of the '60s rock explosion, names got mixed up, Jim Marshall looked a lot like Jim Morrison on paper, and some guy at the printers had gotten confused and entered Jim Morrison in his type setting system.
So a bunch of Marshall boxes actually said JIM MORRISON LTD on the sides. Wouldn't you love to have one of those boxes? Especially since that was Jimi's equipment.

Nobody but the five of us at West Coast and Golden West ever knew the story. Spread the word, it's untold history.
Anybody else ever see one of those misprinted boxes?

[Tazin]

I cannot see the following amps being from March 1969.
SL/A 5273A Early '70 (around March)
ST/A 4329A Early '70 (Feb/March)
ST/A 4360A Early '70 (Feb/March)

[VelvetGeorge]

I tried to post a pic from my dropbox, but no luck. Sorry. Here's a link.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/to6eoqd9wqjeo ... 4.jpg?dl=0

george

[Tone seaker]

Here is a link to some pics. I think it is the Governor SL 361 It has Marshall labeled EL-34's it looks like. Seems like if those were not factory they would be long gone

http://amparchives.com/album/Marshall/1 ... index.html



http://amparchives.com/album/Marshall/1 ... index.html

I have pics of the Dickenson amp but they might be to early. Can try and post if you all want them

[frenchie]

HOLEY shit ...I kinda knew these little white ovoid stickers would lead us somewhere ....But what a friggin beautiful can of worms

now i ask you daveweyer ....would it be somehow rational to think , in the fillmore east event , the daisy chained lexis where in fact mic'ed up at relatively low ( i mean jimi hendrix low , kinda lol ) in order to retain headroom for clarity ; and then fed through P.As to increase the volume .... I'm meaning P.As which COULD feed cabinets with big ass JBLs ???
Would it be a stupid idea since as you say jimmy's goal was to drive the marshall loud but with also having the possibility to "step on it" a little further on demand , you know the clean edge you say he seemed to like very much ??????

[VelvetGeorge]

Nice! There is SL/ 12361. One pic in that album is obviously not correct though. Different parts on the board and different heater wire colors.

george

[Xplorer]

don't know if this will work but here are some Hendrix amp pictures i've collected :

http://xplorer80.imgur.com/

[Xplorer]

white stickers all over

http://i.imgur.com/nj2SUNC.jpg

[swankmotee]

Yeah looking at Xpolrers zoomed in shot of the Woodstock head there is no doubt that those are big bulb glass ala 6550's!

[Tazin]

I tried to post a pic from my dropbox, but no luck. Sorry. Here's a link.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/to6eoqd9wqjeo ... 4.jpg?dl=0

george

I get the feeling that the amplifier list presented on page 684 of the Electric Gypsy book is a collection of info based on amps present at his death and from other sources such as info possibly acquired from West Coast Organ and Amp Service.

From what I've seen of these reputed '69 Hendrix amps, they do not appear to have been extensively modded....Not to the degree that Dave Weyer has mentioned. Actually, most of them still have a fair share of their original solder joints intack (red dye present).

And please do not ask me to post pictures of any of these '69 amps....Believe me, I wish I could, but I cannot.

[Xplorer]

I tried to post a pic from my dropbox, but no luck. Sorry. Here's a link.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/to6eoqd9wqjeo ... 4.jpg?dl=0

george

I get the feeling that the amplifier list presented on page 684 of the Electric Gypsy book is a collection of info based on amps present at his death and from other sources such as info possibly acquired from West Coast Organ and Amp Service.

From what I've seen of these reputed '69 Hendrix amps, they do not appear to have been extensively modded....Not to the degree that Dave Weyer has mentioned. Actually, most of them still have a fair share of their original solder joints intack (red dye present).

And please do not ask me to post pictures of any of these '69 amps....Believe me, I wish I could, but I cannot.

can you perhaps share some infos about the few mods involved that you've seen on these amps ?

[daveweyer]

So have you all determined that SLA12361 is actually the "Governor"? It makes me a little doubtful, just looking at the underside. I believe there were some obvious alterations that should show. Doesn't it look sort of stock?

Any other pics of the West Coast shipment? There should be some stand up transformers.

Definitely West Coast stickers on the Woodstock equipment, probably put them on there myself. Either me or Neal Moser, who set up all the Strats and other guitars.

In SOME of those cabinets you would find the Thomas Organ Co. Rolas. These were "Bulldog" type speakers, alnico magnets. The Celestion historians deny there were any alnico speakers made in the 1088 series which had higher power ratings, but Thomas Organ insisted they would handle 60 peak watts. Bob Hovland and I checked them at the factory.
According to Vox engineering, they had aluminum formers and better glue.
Anyway, they sound great for guitar and hold up really well. You know who liked their sound a lot........

Something to keep in mind in reference to a posted question, Jimi was in to re-amping, especially early in his career. At first he tried to take the output of his amp and run that into the input of another amp, because he wanted to keep the tone of the amp he liked. To this end he had his 1966 Guild Quantum amp modified so that either section could be used independently i.e. the preamp section had its own output, and the power amp section had its own input on the back of the amp.
So Jimi would get an amp tone, sometimes from a smaller amp, and then run the signal into the power amp of the Guild. This worked especially well if the first amp was connected to its speaker. Then the Guild was run into its own dual 15" bottom, or a different 4/12 bottom. THAT'S how some of the early tones were gotten.
He later gave the Guild stuff to Cat Mother, but you can see a bunch of the old Guild bottoms and Showmans when he is playing with Billy Cox.

Anyway, if you wonder if Jimi was in to re-amping his equipment, he was. It was his first fuzz tone. He tried it with his Marshalls too, but it was obviously too much for the input stages.
There is another story about how we were going to try to set it up to do re-amping on stage, instead of just chaining the Marshalls from the input jacks.

Lot of stuff here, having a hard time keeping up.

Maybe George can tell just by looking at the 12361 pics if it is all stock.

[frenchie]

Something to keep in mind in reference to a posted question, Jimi was in to re-amping, especially early in his career. At first he tried to take the output of his amp and run that into the input of another amp, because he wanted to keep the tone of the amp he liked. To this end he had his 1966 Guild Quantum amp modified so that either section could be used independently i.e. the preamp section had its own output, and the power amp section had its own input on the back of the amp.
So Jimi would get an amp tone, sometimes from a smaller amp, and then run the signal into the power amp of the Guild. This worked especially well if the first amp was connected to its speaker. Then the Guild was run into its own dual 15" bottom, or a different 4/12 bottom. THAT'S how some of the early tones were gotten.
He later gave the Guild stuff to Cat Mother, but you can see a bunch of the old Guild bottoms and Showmans when he is playing with Billy Cox.

Anyway, if you wonder if Jimi was in to re-amping his equipment, he was. It was his first fuzz tone. He tried it with his Marshalls too, but it was obviously too much for the input stages.
There is another story about how we were going to try to set it up to do re-amping on stage, instead of just chaining the Marshalls from the input jacks.

thanks

you just made my day man
perhaps my ears aren't so fucked up after all