pretty sure the D28 is a wide neck making it after 1934 and before mid 1939. That would explain the forward bracing too. My guess is he got it around 1939 after leaving Charlie in 1938. And it could have been bought used too as some seem to think it was a 1936. Bill Monroe was not afraid of buying good used quality instruments! While Charlie was more of brand new type buyer. And I'd have to go back and look but seems I recall it was not a J50 but a J35 natural top based on the pickguard. He may have borrowed Cleo Davis's guitar for that photo as Monroe like to kick off Muleskinner back then and Cleo/Clyde Moody, etc would play his mandolin for that one song.
It has been at least a dozen years since I read the book, but I seem to remember a picture in Can't You Hear Me Callin'? showing Bill with the original band and a Gibson slope shoulder. (I am not sure if it was short-lived Kentuckians in Little Rock or the original Blue Grass Boys in Atlanta.) It was said that Bill had purchased the new axe for the guitar player (Cleo Davis?). I am pretty sure it was a Gibson AJ with a natural top, as it had the distinctive AJ position markers on the fretboard.
Wonder whatever happened to that guitar 75 years later.
I recall Howlin' Wolf kept a Fender Precision bass around because his players kept pawning theirs.
Monroe also kept a 50's Vega banjo just in case he hired a boy with no banjo. Yeah it could be the AJ or J35. I'd have to see the photo to determine which one.
deleted post as the points were already made earlier!
Bernie
____
Due to current budgetary restrictions the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off -- sorry about the inconvenience.
I knew Cleo Davis during the last few years of his life. Beginning about 1981 he was part of the "Florida Opry" located between Auburndale and Lakeland, Florida. I played banjo on his part of the show every Saturday night for about a year. He was still using the Gibson guitar that Monroe gave him at that time. To the best of my knowledge he still owned it at the time of his death in 1986.
Joe Spann
There were not many natural topped Advanced Jumbos built back then. Imagine playing an AJ, given to you by Big Mon, for almost 50 years...
Thanks for the information, Joe.
ZI
I just found a picture online of Bill and the original Bluegrass Boys, with Cleo Davis holding what appears to be an natural top J35. I don't know if it the same picture from Can't You Hear Me Callin?. I know longer have a copy of that book. I remembered it being an AJ; as I get older, memory grows, apparently, less reliable.
Many threads about Bill Monroe on guitar.
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
--M. Stillion
"Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
--J. Garber
Monroe and guitars.
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
--M. Stillion
"Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
--J. Garber
Thanks for posting the band picture, Jim. That was the image I had seen. Does anyone know if it the same picture in Mr. Monroe's biography?
I actually thought Charlie Monroe played an OJ, not a AJ. The pics of his guitar as a member of the Monroe Brothers do not have the distinctive fingerboard inlays of the AJ. OJs were mahogany, AJs rosewood. Of course this from a time when anything goes and those assumptions may be dead wrong on a given guitar.
2006 Duff F5
2006 Gibson Original Jumbo Historic Collection
80 year old fiddle of undetermined ancestry
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
--M. Stillion
"Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
--J. Garber
The guitar Cleo Davis is holding in this picture is definitely a J-35, probably brand new. It can be identified as a J-35 by the straight sided peghead with silkscreen logo, the dot inlays, and the large pickguard similar in shape to what Gibson used on the L-00's. The J-35 was available in catalog listings with a natural top starting in 1939. Many were made with natural tops.
We have a firm date for the introduction of the J-45. It was introduced in August, 1942. J-45's have radiused peghead sides. They had a smaller teardrop shaped pickguard, somewhat similar to a Martin shape, from 1942 to 1954. The silkscreen logo was originally in gold script, and most, if not all of them had the "Only a Gibson is Good Enough" banner in the logo until 1946. By 1948 or '49, the modern block logo had replaced the script. A few early 40's J-50's with a natural finish are said to have been made, but the few that I have seen all had finishes that were suspect.
A side note: There are some early pictures of Doc Watson with a J-45. Some folks believe that Doc borrowed the guitar from his neighbor, Clint Howard. It has been said that when Doc was first discovered, the only guitar that he owned was a Les Paul.
Bill Monroe is playing his F-7 in the old Bluegrass Boys photo, and Amos Garren is playing what appears to be a high quality European bass, which may have been the most valuable instrument in the photo at the time it was taken.
I have heard several rumors about what might have happened to Bill's old D-28. It was said to have been an unusually powerful guitar, which was one reason he preferred his guitar players to use it in those days of performing with a single microphone. I suppose the only person who knows what really happened to it is James Monroe.
Charlie Monroe used several guitars over the course of his career. The ones that were photographed the most were a Gibson Jumbo and a Martin D-45. There are also several pictures of him playing a herringbone D-28.
Does anyone know what happened to Bill's F-7?
Last edited by rcc56; Oct-18-2018 at 1:23am.
I helped the Fretboard Journal folks interview Del McCoury last Spring and I asked him about Bill's D-28 herringbone that was stolen - he said it was a 1939 with a long pickguard and that it was Pete Rowen who had it at a party in Nashville and inadvertently left it, he came back for it but it was gone and it has not been seen since. The podcast interview (FJ Podcast #181) is here:
https://www.fretboardjournal.com/pod...1-del-mccoury/
The part where Del is talking about Bill's guitar starts at about 15:00. Ronnie talks about his F-5 Loar as well - and Rob talks about his Mastertone banjo.
Mark
It should be noted that Bill had two D28 Herringbones stolen. The first one was purchased in 1939 and got stolen in 1947, according to Earl Scruggs (in Ewing: Bill Monroe. The LIfe and Music of the Blue Grass Man, 139). Sometime in 1948-49 Bill would buy another D28, the instrument that got stolen out of James Monroes car while James and Peter Rowan attended a Nashville bar in late June early July 1966 (Ewing, 284).
,...thought it was common knowledge that Bill's D-28 was a 1939, and about the Gibson, that is the one he bought for Cleo to use when he first hired him !,...so likely it was a 1938 or earlier,...looks similar to a J-50, but since was no J-50 that early , had to be a J-35, etc.
My old radio boss was once offered the job of being Bill's manager; (shortly before Ralph Rinzler was hired - he turned the job down because he was smart enough to realize that the job would eventually go to somebody with more status in the music business).
Anyhow, one day Bill was at the house of my old boss, noodling around on his mandolin when he noticed one of the kids watching him, awestruck by the sound of the mandolin. When Bill asked the child if he liked the mandolin, the child said 'Yes' and Bill promised to bring him a mandolin, the next time he was in the area . . . unfortunately, the promised exchange never happened. I suppose it would have been very cool to have owned a mandolin given to you by Bill Monroe.
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