1970s Blues/Guitar Rock - Friday gig

Status
Not open for further replies.
So did I , and also the City Hall. Rink with Deep Purple.

Re. The Hunter's haversack flap being painted....brilliant. Nearly all our class at South Shields Grammar had the same thing. One lad had a nice little 'business' going albeit it he painted them for nowt! Had forgotten about painted haversacks!.... The Gig Free played at the Locarno a few months before the Free Live gig, got me Tons of Sobs signed and also met the lads backstage. Asked Kossoff for a strum of his Les Paul ( the gold one he used to play).....no problem. Rodgers was surrounded by beautiful women , Fraser and Kirke were setting up.

Wonderful story, and what great memories. Did you like the look - and sound - of Koss's guitar on Friday night?
 


What age / model of Les Paul does John Buckton normally play?anyone know.

Could be owt. There's a few pics of him posing with one that I'd hazard a guess is a Custom Shop 1959 Reissue, which would put it anywhere between '93 and now - not that that would matter a great deal. Would need a closer look really, but it does look like one.

I've seen snippets here and there mentioning him playing a proper Kossoff guitar before - whether it's always been the Ramm guitar like the other night I'm not sure. I have heard tales of at least another Kossoff Les Paul being in the area as well.
 
What age / model of Les Paul does John Buckton normally play?anyone know.

I'll find out but I think it is a genuine early 60s Les Paul.
John has played Arthur Ramm's Kossoff Gibson many times before....there is not another one so far as I know.
He and Arthur are good mates and have several mutual friends who were in Koss's circle of friends back in the day...Terry Slesser, Back Street Crawler's vocalist, being the obvious one. Slesser had a stint singing with Freeway and he and Arthur were together in Beckett.
 
I'll find out but I think it is a genuine early 60s Les Paul.
John has played Arthur Ramm's Kossoff Gibson many times before....there is not another one so far as I know.
He and Arthur are good mates and have several mutual friends who were in Koss's circle of friends back in the day...Terry Slesser, Back Street Crawler's vocalist, being the obvious one. Slesser had a stint singing with Freeway and he and Arthur were together in Beckett.

They wrapped in making them in 1960 so I doubt it. IF it happened to be a 1960 Les Paul then it's worth a friggin' fortune, but it doesn't look like it to me. In fact, this here sort of makes the £200,000 valuation of the Koss/Ramm guitar look a bit on the low side... http://www.normansrareguitars.com/gibson-1960-les-paul-standard-original-hang-tags-and-case.html
 
Couldn't make it, but nice to see the 'Free' spirit being kept alive. Big memories for me being involved with Alexis Korner and crossing paths with the Free/Bad Company boys. I very proudly still own Simon's Ludwig 406 from his recording kit.

We were promoted as the new 'Free', and signed with Atlantic, unfortunately this was the 80's - we couldn't have picked a worse decade to be such :)
 
Couldn't make it, but nice to see the 'Free' spirit being kept alive. Big memories for me being involved with Alexis Korner and crossing paths with the Free/Bad Company boys. I very proudly still own Simon's Ludwig 406 from his recording kit.

We were promoted as the new 'Free', and signed with Atlantic, unfortunately this was the 80's - we couldn't have picked a worse decade to be such :)

:?:
 
They wrapped in making them in 1960 so I doubt it. IF it happened to be a 1960 Les Paul then it's worth a friggin' fortune, but it doesn't look like it to me. In fact, this here sort of makes the £200,000 valuation of the Koss/Ramm guitar look a bit on the low side... http://www.normansrareguitars.com/gibson-1960-les-paul-standard-original-hang-tags-and-case.html

Chris...forgive my ignorance but I think I have it cracked - from the hores's mouth this time. In answer to the earlier query about two Koss guitars being in the region, there is something in that as John's main guitar was previously owned by Arthur Ramm (not the priceless 59 Kossoff he was borrowing from Arthur the other night!) and had been with Kossoff for about a year
Anyway, this is the lowdown on John's guitars from the man himself:

Here is info on my guitars
Both my Les Paul's are from 1968, both have been converted from single coil to humbucking pickups
One of them was originally Arthur Ramms, which is the one he exchanged with Kossoff. Koss had that guitar for about a year.
The guitar on the Freeway posters is a 1959 re issue which I no longer own.
- John

There you have it. Whatever they are, they sound very, very, good!
 
Last edited:
Chris...forgive my ignorance but I think I have it cracked - from the hores's mouth this time. In answer to the earlier query about two Koss guitars being in the region, there is something in that as John's main guitar was previously owned by Arthur Ramm (not the priceless 59 Kossoff he was borrowing from Arthur the other night!) and had been with Kossoff for about a year
Anyway, this is the lowdown on John's guitars from the man himself:

Here is info on my guitars
Both my Les Paul's are from 1968, both have been converted from single coil to humbucking pickups
One of them was originally Arthur Ramms, which is the one he exchanged with Kossoff. Koss had that guitar for about a year.
The guitar on the Freeway posters is a 1959 re issue which I no longer own.
- John

There you have it. Whatever they are, they sound very, very, good!

So I was right! ;)

Aye the story about the '68 rings a bell with me now actually, but I wasn't sure if he was the same lad. I had a feeling he owned or did own A Kossoff guitar, just not THE one. :lol: Cheers for that though. As you can probably by now tell I like a good Les Paul story. :lol:

For anyone who cares, 1968's the year Gibson began making Les Pauls again due to the guitar's increased popularity and demand on the back of the British Blues Boom - think Eric Clapton with John Mayall, Peter Green, Page, Beck, and of course Koss himself. Trouble is production methods had shifted and these weren't quite the same guitar as the late '50s models, and so aren't considered to be the 'Holy Grail' of guitars, unlike the original run of models from '58-'60 are, and in particular the 1959 models.
 
There was a bloke there with with a red SAFC shirt on who I asked whether he was from the SMB. Looked at me like I was mental.

Aye, I kept trying to catch his eye, he must have thought I fancied him or sommat ;)
 
So I was right! ;)

Aye the story about the '68 rings a bell with me now actually, but I wasn't sure if he was the same lad. I had a feeling he owned or did own A Kossoff guitar, just not THE one. :lol: Cheers for that though. As you can probably by now tell I like a good Les Paul story. :lol:
ha! I got that impression...well here's another: John is pretty convinced that the Ramm/Beckett/Koss guitar (not the priceless one!) was used by Koss on the recording of the "Tavellin' in Style" overdubs for thr Heartbreaker album - everything else Koss did by that time was done with a Strat but John reckons the sound/tone and the dates give the game away as the Beckett Les Paul he now proudly owns.
 
Koss with a Strat just doesn't look right.

(think he may have used one on My Brother Jake)

You're right but his latter days with Free featured him on the Fender...I think it was part of his preoccupation at that time with the death of Jimi Hendrix. He took it badly.
Some time later (75) I saw him at the Mayfair with Back Street Crawler and he was reunited with a Gibson.
 
So I was right! ;)

Aye the story about the '68 rings a bell with me now actually, but I wasn't sure if he was the same lad. I had a feeling he owned or did own A Kossoff guitar, just not THE one. :lol: Cheers for that though. As you can probably by now tell I like a good Les Paul story. :lol:

For anyone who cares, 1968's the year Gibson began making Les Pauls again due to the guitar's increased popularity and demand on the back of the British Blues Boom - think Eric Clapton with John Mayall, Peter Green, Page, Beck, and of course Koss himself. Trouble is production methods had shifted and these weren't quite the same guitar as the late '50s models, and so aren't considered to be the 'Holy Grail' of guitars, unlike the original run of models from '58-'60 are, and in particular the 1959 models.
Thanks for this info, never realised the Les Paul went out of production and was only restarted, at least partly, due to the British Blues Boom.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top