Why I Like Big Bodied Guitars

By Ben Little

BIG! BIG! BIG!

TONE! TONE! TONE!

COOL! COOL! COOL!

Cool is so hard to define…but let’s try…. Jimi Hendrix and his Strat, Jimmy Page and his Les Paul, Steve Vai and his Jem, Brian Setzer and his Gretsch. And of course, there's BB King and his big bodied Lucille.

So I guess it gets down to attitude! If one is at home with a guitar, it’s bound to sound good and look cool.

I discovered big-bodied guitars by accident really. I am the proud owner of a Gibson Chet Atkins “Country Gentleman”

Affectionately known as ‘Big Red’. It was previously owned by Andy Cichon. Andy is more known for his bass playing in Rose Tattoo and James Reyne, and he’s now in New York playing bass for Billy Joel, after 6 years with Shania Twain!

But in the nineties, Andy played guitar in a great Sydney rock band called Judge Mercy. In fact, he played ‘Big Red.’ I always used to think that Andy’s huge guitar sound was just due to his stack of Marshalls running at ‘mercy’ volumes. But after a loan one night at one of my gigs I discovered how he got that sound! It was ‘Big Red.’

BIG! BIG! BIG!

TONE! TONE! TONE!

COOL! COOL! COOL!!

So, before Andy moved to New York, I took it off his hands. As soon as I plugged in everything was bigger….top end, mids and especially the bottom end. And with it comes a very sweet tone. It’s a guitar that suits rock as much as it does jazz and country.

And it was red - red guitars go faster!

Try one sometime…….

Gnome Links:

• All the specifications for the Gibson Chet Atkins “Country Gentleman” are at: http://www.gibson.com/products/gibson/chetatkins/CountryGentleman.html
• Wanna see a picture of Andy Cichon? http://www.shania.com/pictures/up/andy.htm
• Gretsch guitars are great looking guitars – have a look…. http://www.gretschguitars.com/whatshot/brian_setzer.html
• Read about how the Ibanez Jem came to be http://www.vai.com/Machines/ibanez.html