James Burton anecdote

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Oskar

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Just read in a compilation of 50s rock music that James Burton used to string his guitar with banjo strings to get that twangy sound. Has anyone here heard of this, and... has anyone tried it. I would think it would make for some gnarly bending to say the least.
 

tiny e

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they are basicly plain strings

nothing too different, really not diffent at all than the ball end plain string we all use - its just that they did not package them for guitar use at that pont time - he switched his then wounds g's out to plain g's and went way lighter using these "banjo" styled gauges
 

Oskar

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Oh...

I thought banjo strings were much thinner than electric guitar strings, but then again I've never strung up a banjo! I guess you explanation clarifies it for me. Thanks.
 

Geo

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As I remember from an interview with him (early '70s)
he would take a regular (medium gauge) set,
not use the low E string, move the rest down
(wound A for low E, etc.) and then use the banjo string
on the high E. This gave him what now is a light gauge set.
When he was doing this light gauge sets were not yet available.

I used to really dig watching him with Ricky Nelson
on the Ozzie and Harriet show and with the Shindogs
on Shindig show. That was pretty much my intro to
Teles. I was dazzled by his playing especially on Shindig.
 

Dave Harmon

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Burton on TV

Geo.....I never missed the Nelson show either...
Occasionally, Burton would use a Rickenbacker 381 prototype with the middle pup removed...you can see that RIC today on their website gallery.
I just had to have one of them so I bought a 60' 360 and wondered for years why I couldn't play the thing like I thought I could.
It wasn't until over 40 years later that I found out why Telecasters have always been so popular.
That RIC ruined a budding musical career so I hung it up and got a real day job that I could eat off of.
Now I have a 44 year old RIC that is like a piece of fine furniture.
I sit on the damn thing while I play the Tele through the Brown Bandmaster....nuttin like the Brown Sound....hehe
 

TG

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Before Slinky strings in the 60s the only way to get a playable set was to buy a banjo string to use as a high E string and to use the guitar strings strung 'down' a string for the other 5...throwing out the bottom E.
I read in an interview somewhere that James Burton uses a really wierd string guage set. His bottom E is only a .25 or .30 or something like that. Can't remember the details.
 

tellypicker

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According to his video...

...he uses strings gauged like this: 9, 10, 12, 24, 32, 38.

The banjo string thing is right. He said he used to use banjo strings on strings 1-4 and then guitar string 4 for 5 and 5 for 6. Then later on in his career he had them gauged and that's what he uses today. That's pretty light.
 

strat-o-teleman

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Burton's String Gauge

I just sold my USA Burton on Ebay--but I had it strung with his custom gauges--9,10,12,24,32,38. You can really bend with these and yes they are twangy--but a little too light for my taste. I found myself pulling the guitar out of tune from too much string pressure. You have to have a very light touch w/ these strings. Guess that's why James is James (I learned his gauges from His HOT LICKS video--a really good video IMO)
 

Matt Hesley

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Wow :eek:

I knew James uses light strings, but that is really light. I'll bet his guitars never have to be re-fretted.

Matt
 

Paul in Colorado

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Elvis Costello played a little club in Marin called The Sweetwater with James Burton backing him up. Jerry Gacia was there and was a huge JB fan. James handed Jerry his Tele and Jerry couldn't play it. He said the strings were like "spider webs." So he ended up playing Elvis' Jazzmaster and Elvis played acoustic.
Jerry/James connection: Ron Tutt played drums with the Jerry Garcia band and Elvis Presley's band with James.
 

scottmac

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Paul in Colorado said:
Elvis Costello played a little club in Marin called The Sweetwater with James Burton backing him up. Jerry Gacia was there and was a huge JB fan. James handed Jerry his Tele and Jerry couldn't play it. He said the strings were like "spider webs." So he ended up playing Elvis' Jazzmaster and Elvis played acoustic.
Jerry/James connection: Ron Tutt played drums with the Jerry Garcia band and Elvis Presley's band with James.

Paul,

That must have been one cool show!

Three of my heroes in a nice small club, that would have been most excellent I'm sure.
 

Dirt

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On his right hand...

JB uses a metal finger pick on his middle finger. :)

Yes, I have the JB video and I like it, too! He's one of a kind. ;)

My best,
Dirt
buddyemmons.com
 

jwj4856

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I know James, live only about 10 miles from him and he did at one time use the banjo string as noted, the strings he uses now are 8-11-14-22-30-38. I tried a set on one of my strats and they were just absolutely too small for me, but they work great for him.
 

mellecaster

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As I remember from an interview with him (early '70s)
he would take a regular (medium gauge) set,
not use the low E string, move the rest down
(wound A for low E, etc.) and then use the banjo string
on the high E. This gave him what now is a light gauge set.
When he was doing this light gauge sets were not yet available.

I used to really dig watching him with Ricky Nelson
on the Ozzie and Harriet show and with the Shindogs
on Shindig show. That was pretty much my intro to
Teles. I was dazzled by his playing especially on Shindig.

+1 to everything said above.
 

tdowns

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There are some of us that tried to determine who played guitar on the early Merle Haggard stuff, James Burton vs. Roy Nichols. Ole Wichita (tj) was one that had a lot of information about that. If you listen very closely, you can identify everything James played on by the loose, slinky, almost sitar sounding tones. Whereas Roy's sounds used much bigger strings. Roy used 0.011s at some point.

Here is the only set I ever saw that was lighter than the JB gauge on the 1st and 2nd strings.

(image removed)
 

boris bubbanov

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When lighter strings first appeared in the store we thought "Hallelujah!" and the lighter they became, the more excited we got.

The idea of really bending the heck out of those strings was just intoxicating.

But I'm not really sure I ever saw anything smaller than .008. Don't remember.
 

Dave Hopping

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When Ricky Nelson had that big string of hits ("hello Mary Lou","Travelin' Man",et cetera),there was a big buzz about JB using banjo strings.
 

Lerb21

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There are some of us that tried to determine who played guitar on the early Merle Haggard stuff, James Burton vs. Roy Nichols. Ole Wichita (tj) was one that had a lot of information about that. If you listen very closely, you can identify everything James played on by the loose, slinky, almost sitar sounding tones. Whereas Roy's sounds used much bigger strings. Roy used 0.011s at some point.

Here is the only set I ever saw that was lighter than the JB gauge on the 1st and 2nd strings.

(image removed)

Holy cats Terry! Wouldn't you snap em from just bending the strings?

And by the way... welcome back!
 
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