Bigsby de Joaquin M

"The first console Bigsby steel guitar which was built for Joaquin Murphy has been found. This instrument has been missing for nearly 50 years. It is dated 1946, and is as far as we know, the earliest Paul A. Bigsby made instrument in existence, it was Murphy who first asked Bigsby to build guitars. This instrument documents Bigsby's extraordinary skill and craftsmanship even at the earliest stage of his guitar-building career. Of course every Murph fan here on the forum knows what it looks like, it's the guitar Murphy is most often pictured with. The importance of this guitar goes way beyond the fact that it was Murphy's. It was the first guitar ever to have features we now see in all modern pedal steels; console stair-step cabinet with metal endplates, separate raised necks instead of just fretboards on top and keyheads instead of just slots for keys. This Bigsby/Murphy Triple Eight Steel embodies not only an extremely important era in the American art of steel guitar, but the first major work of one of the 20th century's most influential post-war guitar builders. Furthermore, this was the guitar that really caught other players interest and got Bigsby into guitar building business, his next customer being the legendary Merle Travis, whom after meeting Joaquin was introduced to P.A. and requested a guitar solid in construction so that it would "sustain like a steel." Bigsby was a one-man operation who influenced other and much larger scale manufacturers like Leo Fender, Ted McCarty, Chuck Wright, etc. I could speculate even more, but you'll get the picture."


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