#1
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Gibson F25 "Folk Singer"
Anyone else got one of these guitars? Mine's from 1966 and I love it but I'm considering selling it as I have too many guitars... GAS has struck too may times!! Can't make my mind up though haha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib8nTYa2z1Q Would like to hear from other F25 lovers who love that wide neck and funky blues/folk sound. Cheers David
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#2
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Back in the 1990's there was a church musician from another Episcopal parish in my diocese who had one of these. His had a bad crack in the top, and he asked me who I recommended as a guitar repair tech who could fix it. I gave him my repairman's name and number, then asked: "How did it get cracked?"
"Oh, it got cracked on the plane when I returned from the Southeast Asian war games" - meaning that twenty five or thirty years earlier, when he was flying back from his deployment in the Vietnam War, the guitar got broken. It sounded pretty good, but it had a really serious crack. I told him: "You've been lucky so far, probably because it has nylon strings on it, so it doesn't have as much tension on it as if they were steel. But that looks bad and you really ought to get it fixed." "Oh, I will, I will." A couple of years later I saw him with a different guitar, and asked him if he'd gotten his Gibson Folksinger fixed. "No, that guitar just pulled itself apart," he smirked, as if it was some sort of badge of honor that he'd neglected it for decades. Which is typical of that guy. He doesn't like getting precisely in tune with the other musicians, because that's not how they did it back in the Hootenanny days, and starting and ending together seem to be foreign concepts to him. Anyway, sorry to take a detour into that guy's bizarre rationalizations, but his Gibson Folksinger guitar did sound pretty good before he allowed it to completely self-destruct. Wade Hampton Miller |
#3
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That's a great song!!
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'17 Waterloo Scissortail '17 David Newton 00 Rosewood '11 Homemade Strat Ibanez AS73 w/ Lollar P90s |
#4
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Wade, I SO want to jam with your buddy!
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2017 Alvarez Yairi OY70CE - Sugaree c.1966 Regal Sovereign R235 Jumbo - Old Dollar 2009 Martin 000-15 - Brown Bella 1977 Gibson MK-35 - Apollo 2004 Fender American Stratocaster - The Blue Max 2017 Fender Custom American Telecaster - Brown Sugar Think Hippie Thoughts... |
#5
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Hey Wade hahahaha great story!! Sounds like a real character.
But did he have nylons on his F25? These are steel string guitars, albeit with a classical guitar body and neck.. a strange experiment Gibson did back in the day. They sound fantastic when in good condition like this one. This is it recorded in my studio with good mics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIs1Lg1qgo0 Thanks fo the entertaining story anyway. I'm with Ed-in-Ohio, I'd like to jam with him too (wouldn't let him near my guitar though haha) Cheers D
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#6
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Fishtick : Oh thanks!! It's from my 3rd record. I've taken it through a few different arrangements live but seem to always end up getting a bit rag timey on it.
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www.davidphilips.net Last edited by davidphilips; 09-09-2015 at 02:20 PM. |
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Very different from anything else Gibson was making. With a wide nut and a flat board they feel like a classical guitar. Interesting guitar in that they were built to be strung with either nylon or steel strings. These guitars were totally redesigned around 1969.
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"You start off playing guitars to get girls & end up talking with middle-aged men about your fingernails" - Ed Gerhard Last edited by zombywoof; 09-09-2015 at 05:28 PM. |
#8
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After I mentioned my fellow church musician (from another parish, thank you, Lord,) who learned what few musical skills he has during folk music hootenannies and hasn't progressed musically since 1962, Ed wrote:
No, you don't, Ed, you really don't. The guy's an out-of-tune steamroller in human form. It doesn't matter how precisely or well anybody else is playing, so far as he's concerned you're just there to back him up. Even if you're not.... Then David wrote: Quote:
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It certainly has for me.... whm Last edited by Wade Hampton; 09-09-2015 at 07:38 PM. |
#9
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Cool guitar, I have always wanted to try one of these. If you got a good deal on it I would keep it. How many blues guys that can write such killer stuff have such a unique axe? Keep it. |
#10
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Oh very kind thanks man. I suppose you're right, it is unique. I have had quite a bit of work done on it too. The collectors will hate this but I had the saddle set at an angle like a normal acoustic so it intonates well. These guitars have the saddle straight like classical guitars and intonation can be tricky if you're moving around the fret board a lot. You may have just convinced me to keep it. Until next time I decide to sell it haha. ;-)
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Quote:
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#12
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#13
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Yup. I remember when these guitars were new and that is what Gibson advertised and the guys in the music stores would tell you. But I started gigging in the mid-1960s and never knew anybody who strung them with nylon strings either.
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"You start off playing guitars to get girls & end up talking with middle-aged men about your fingernails" - Ed Gerhard |
#14
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Let's just say that I take a different philosophical position on that... whm |
#15
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Good to know I'm doing it right ;-)
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Tags |
blues, f25, folk, gibson acoustic |
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