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Post subject: Re: B.B. King's Lucille...what's that extra knob for?
Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 4:29 pm
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Yes Jim/Lomitus I was addressing you-as I thought,you had a lot of irons in the fire-as usual- and been keeping yourself well occupied.Anyway it's good to have you back,your enlightening and entertaining posts were missed by all I'm sure.

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Post subject: Re: B.B. King's Lucille...what's that extra knob for?
Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:32 am
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guitslinger wrote:
\BB made it a policy to call each subsequent guitar Lucille and there were several between his first 345 in 1958-'59 and up until he got the sponsorship deal with Gibson in 1982,when the standardized Lucille that's much like the one we see up to the current day,went into official production.Therefore any f-hole 345-355 you see him with between '58 and '82 was named Lucille as were any ES 350s,135s,Byrdlands etc. that he may have been seen playing until he bought his first 345 Lucille in '58/'59.\

guitslinger, yes, the early Lucille's were just regular Gibson models that BB named 'Lucille'. What I'm referring to is the Gibson model guitar that is called "BB King Lucille". NONE of those had 'f' holes. BB's earlier guitars DID have 'f' holes because they were just regular Gibson production guitars.

As the story goes, BB loved the guitars but not the feedback he was getting. So he used to stuff paper into the 'f' holes. That's why when he worked with Gibson to produce his own signature model, they simply didn't cut any 'f' holes. I'm pretty certain that by the time the model was produced for the masses, there were no 'f' holes on any of them.

Again, not to confuse the Gibson signature model with BB's original 355 or 345 Lucilles. Those, of course, had 'f' holes.

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Post subject: Re: B.B. King's Lucille...what's that extra knob for?
Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:10 pm
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Hi Strings, somewhere along the way there must have been a bit of a mixup in messages. As a big long time fan of BB I knew that all Lucille line and prototypes were f hole free.One thing that always puzzled me about his decision to not have f holes in his namesake model was because of feedback problems that he was having, yet guys like Kim Simmonds of Savoy Brown,Alvin Lee of 10 Years After,Rik Emmet of Triumph etc.,Alex Lifeson of Rush all played guitars of the ES 335 based group either exclusively or at one time or another,rarely-if ever-complained about or appeared to have,problems with feedback,despite playing at volumes that would blow B.B.and his rig off the stage.Gibson put the solid middle block the full length of the 335 etc. bodies right from the planning stages to negate the problem of feedback that the other guitars of the ES series were prone to as they were true hollow bodies in the truest sense of the word.I'm wondering if he chose to drop the f-holes for the sake of esthetics and used the problem with feedback as an excuse for some reason or another,probably for something as simple as thinking that purists would hassle him for changing the look of an iconic guitar,or brand him as some kind of elitist for wanting to change the guitar purely for looks.This is just pure conjecture,it's just that I was always puzzled about why he would complain about feedback problems when other guys (even one bandmate of mine)played the same model as he did without any apparent feedback problems.

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Post subject: Re: B.B. King's Lucille...what's that extra knob for?
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 10:40 am
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Hi, I seem to recall reading something( I can't remember where) about BB Kings early playing days, laying down his blues on possibly a 335 and he got really tired of the feedback it produced. So on future gigs he got the idea of stuffing socks into the f holes and seemingly reducing the the annoying feedback and that is possibly a big factor in not having f holes in his Lucille.
So if you have a 335 that gives off a lot of feedback dig out some old socks. :D

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Post subject: Re: B.B. King's Lucille...what's that extra knob for?
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 12:46 pm
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Rhumba wrote:
Hi, I seem to recall reading something( I can't remember where) about BB Kings early playing days, laying down his blues on possibly a 335 and he got really tired of the feedback it produced. So on future gigs he got the idea of stuffing socks into the f holes and seemingly reducing the the annoying feedback and that is possibly a big factor in not having f holes in his Lucille.
So if you have a 335 that gives off a lot of feedback dig out some old socks. :D


Good to see your post Rhumba !

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Post subject: Re: B.B. King's Lucille...what's that extra knob for?
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 12:58 pm
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Rhumba wrote:
So if you have a 335 that gives off a lot of feedback dig out some old socks. :D


I've heard that argyles have better tone than solid colors. I guess you could mix and match till it smells, I mean sounds just right. :D

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Post subject: Re: B.B. King's Lucille...what's that extra knob for?
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 1:19 pm
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guitslinger wrote:
Hi Strings, somewhere along the way there must have been a bit of a mixup in messages. As a big long time fan of BB I knew that all Lucille line and prototypes were f hole free.One thing that always puzzled me about his decision to not have f holes in his namesake model was because of feedback problems that he was having, yet guys like Kim Simmonds of Savoy Brown,Alvin Lee of 10 Years After,Rik Emmet of Triumph etc.,Alex Lifeson of Rush all played guitars of the ES 335 based group either exclusively or at one time or another,rarely-if ever-complained about or appeared to have,problems with feedback,despite playing at volumes that would blow B.B.and his rig off the stage.Gibson put the solid middle block the full length of the 335 etc. bodies right from the planning stages to negate the problem of feedback that the other guitars of the ES series were prone to as they were true hollow bodies in the truest sense of the word.I'm wondering if he chose to drop the f-holes for the sake of esthetics and used the problem with feedback as an excuse for some reason or another,probably for something as simple as thinking that purists would hassle him for changing the look of an iconic guitar,or brand him as some kind of elitist for wanting to change the guitar purely for looks.This is just pure conjecture,it's just that I was always puzzled about why he would complain about feedback problems when other guys (even one bandmate of mine)played the same model as he did without any apparent feedback problems.

Hard to say, but I believe BB used some very uncommon EQ setting (compared to those you've mentioned) which may have contributed to his claim of feedback. Just a guess!

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Post subject: Re: B.B. King's Lucille...what's that extra knob for?
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 9:15 pm
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That extra knob is for B.B.'s fingers :D

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