Tenor Guitar Gallery & Sightings

[Beanzy]

Something along the lines of our random mandolin sightings thread.
Here's a place to gather all those cool images of Tenor Guitar Players or sightings which may be of interest. This has nothing to do with the quality or style of the music (we've got the favourite recordings thread going for that), just the images.

Here's one of 'Wee' Bea Booze which has her pictured with a Tenor. I can't make out anything much but piano on this recording though, so just the image;

[Ed Goist]

"...Honey, it's the tenor guitars...Really...It's all those cool tenor guitars I'm looking at..."

[pfox14]

[Beanzy]

Ah ha! another on Wikipedia........

Cincinnati, Ohio musician Kentucky Graham playing a Gibson hollow-body electric tenor guitar

[Jim Garber]

That is a plectrum guitar, longer neck and different tuning, more like a 5 string scale without the fifth string.

From Wikipedia:

Plectrum guitars played a similar role for plectrum banjo players in this period as the tenor guitar, but they were less common. One of the best known plectrum guitarists from the Jazz Age was Eddie Condon, who started out on banjo in the 1920s and then switched to a Gibson L7 plectrum guitar in the 1930s and stayed with it all his musical life up to the 1960s.

[Jim Garber]

Ah ha! another on Wikipedia........

Cincinnati, Ohio musician Kentucky Graham playing a Gibson hollow-body electric tenor guitar

ETG-150 with the "Charlie Christian" pickup.

[Seonachan]

Sofia Karlsson put Swedish words to the popular tune "Josefin's Waltz" by Roger Tallroth (of Väsen). A tenor guitar makes an appearance (that might be Roger himself playing it?) beginning at about 1:05 and has a brief solo riff around 1:50.

I watched this video many times before I noticed the tenor - I was otherwise distracted...

...by the guitar-bodied zouk, of course.

[JeffD]

Sofia Karlsson put Swedish words to the popular tune "Josefin's Waltz" by Roger Tallroth (of Väsen). A tenor guitar makes an appearance (that might be Roger himself playing it?) beginning at about 1:05 and has a brief solo riff around 1:50.
.

And a bass clarinet!! Way cool.

[Ed Goist]

Here's a few of Lynda Kay of The Lonesome Spurs with three of her tenor guitars, including her James Trussart Tenorcaster-4 electric:

[Charles E.]

Still trying to find an image of Clint Eastwood playing a tenor guitar in "Cat Ballou". Does any one else remember it?

[Beanzy]

I think I remember him in Paint Your Wagon with an ordinary guitar..... not sure though as I'm actually not much of a guitar person. (tenors are a special case)

[rob_pt]

Still trying to find an image of Clint Eastwood playing a tenor guitar in "Cat Ballou". Does any one else remember it?

It was Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye with the instruments in "Cat Ballou," but they were "playing" tenor banjos and had six string guitars slung over their backs which they did not "play" during the movie. BTW, Clint Eastwood did not appear in "Cat Ballou."

Here is one of the song clips from the movie. Great song.

[Martin Jonas]

Peter Kraus and Conny Froboess in 1958:



Kirk Douglas (from tenorguitar.eu):



Martin

[Martin Jonas]

A few more intriguing ones:

Polo Malabel in Paris, 1935, with an unidentified (but cool!) reso tenor:



Little Mike McKendrick:



Both from www.notecannons.com

Martin

[Jim Garber]

Tiny Grimes with an ETG-150 and a Guild Tenor

[Ed Goist]

Eddie Freeman in an ad for the Selmer 'Eddie Freeman Special'

[Eddie Sheehy]

Kirk Douglas plays a Tenor Guitar in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - when he sings "A Whale of a Tail"...

[Charles E.]

I think I remember him in Paint Your Wagon with an ordinary guitar..... not sure though as I'm actually not much of a guitar person. (tenors are a special case)

Ah, yes of course, Paint Your Wagon. Thanks.

[rob_pt]

Angelina Carberry and Martin Quinn playing Fletcher Tenor Guitars

[pfox14]

Actually Eddie Condon played a Gibson TG-50 tenor guitar (not an L-7 plectrum), so Wikipedia is wrong. I've seen his guitar up close and it's not a plectrum. It has a 15-fret neck. Plectrums had 17-fret necks.

[Martin Jonas]

Kirk Douglas plays a Tenor Guitar in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - when he sings "A Whale of a Tail"...

The photo I posted (post #13) is from the tutorial session where he was taught to "play" it. As the teacher plays a 6-string, I presume that Kirk got his tenor in Chicago tuning and is copying the fretting on the top four strings. Kirk is already in costume for the lesson, so I would think that we're only talking about an hour or so of learning a few chord shapes on the day of the shoot to make the visuals more credible, rather than actual in-depth lessons. Strangely, Kirk is wearing the same top in the photo and in the movie, but plays a different tenor.

Martin

[Jim Garber]

Actually Eddie Condon played a Gibson TG-50 tenor guitar (not an L-7 plectrum), so Wikipedia is wrong. I've seen his guitar up close and it's not a plectrum. It has a 15-fret neck. Plectrums had 17-fret necks.

Hey Paul: I stand corrected... sort of. I did a little bit of searching and it looks like Mr. Condon swung both ways (pardon the expression). Here is Eddy Davis who lived near him in Greenwich Village.

He definitely played Plectrum tuning. CGBD -- I use to live on the floor above he and Phyllis at 27 Washington Square North. After he died she gave me his last plectrum guitar to keep for her and she would ask me to come down and play it for her every once in a while. He originally came from Goodland, Indiana. ( I came from Greenhill, Indiana) His first banjo was a tenor which he played in tenor tuning CGDA. Then he saw a plectrum banjo and traded his tenor for it. When he switched to tenor lute and tenor guitar, because he wanted a guitar sound it was much easier to find tenors, since it was very difficult to find plectrum guitars. The last one he had was a Gibson plectrum, which he got from the company, but most of the other guitars he had were tenors. BUT always played in plectrum tuning. There are pictures of me with the guitar on my website. Somewhere I have some tapes of me playing it for Phyllis. I tuned it it Viola tuning, but pitched down to F as the fundamental FCGD. Eddy Davis

This was from an archived discussion about Condon on the banjo hangout.

Come to think of it, Eddy Davis is another one who plays tenor guitar. He plays the std tenor tuning since he started on banjo. Here is a picture from that thread -- Eddy with Mr Condon's plectrum Gibson L-5.

[Ed Goist]

Here's Aaron Embry performing at the Santa Barbara Bowl on 5 May 2012:

[Charles E.]

My friend, Marshall Wyatt, just sent me this picture of the Tennessee Ramblers, circa 1934, the groups leader, Dick Hartman, played tenor guitar on their early recordings.

[dunbarhamlin]

[...]Then he saw a plectrum banjo and traded his tenor for it. When he switched to tenor lute and tenor guitar, because he wanted a guitar sound it was much easier to find tenors

Ooh.
Is the tenor lute peculiar to Vega (i.e. their cylinder back 4 string) or a more generic term?
[Edit] Oops - nvm. have found other references. [/Edit]