johhny gimble's mandolin

[John Rosett]

does any know the details on johnny's electric mandolin? i know it started out as an A50, and he added the pickup, but how does he get the low mandola tuning and still have decent intonation? also, what kind of pickup is on that thing?

[Joel Glassman]

Heres part of an email from my friend Buddy McPeters who knows Johnny:

Gimble on the other hand came along and joined Wills in 1949 playing a Gibson A-50 which he had wired up himself with a Montgomery Ward pickup off of a guitar. Shortly after he joined Wills they were in California and the mandolin malfunctioned. Leo Fender took the instrument to the Fender factory and had a Telecaster type pickup and a new volume and tone control installed and charged him $15 for it which Wills paid. The pickup has 4 Alnico IV magnets, is wrapped really full and measures about 5,000 ohms per Paul Glaser in Nashville. It has been rewound at least twice that I know of. Once by Nashville session steel man Shot Jackson and once by a repairman in Austin after which Glaser sorted out some electrical problems.

I interviewed Gimble at length (and played his mandolin) in 1985 for a FRETS magazine article. He is a personal friend. I also interviewed Leo Fender and Tiny Moore about all of this as well. Gimble's tone has always been a little lower in range and yet thinner than Tiny's. Tiny used the high E string. Johnny didn't but added a low C using a guitar 6th string .052 gauge on the bottom. In the 80's he used these gauges: .011, .020, .028, .046 from a Bill Lawrence Guitar Strings set. Now he hand picks his strings and uses .011, .020, .030, .050, and prefers GHS or Gibson Strings. He tunes it up A D G C mandola tuning. In fact, in the 50's and 60's he bought Gibson mandola strings for it while they were still available.

[John Rosett]

thanks, joel, i'm going to give that a try. my old band opened for johnny last year, and i wanted to check out his mandolin, but we had to leave as soon as their set was over. he has the most economical playing style-all this great music is pouring out of his instrument, and his hands look like they're hardly moving.