Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Made for Strawberry Alarm Clock................

To the best of my knowledge, The SAC posed with the Mosrites but never played them live.

That's correct Skip. In fact Ed King recently had this to say about these instruments.

"Even though the bass was ok, we never used them on recordings. Mosrites are just not player-friendly instruments. Tiny necks...small frets....tinny pickups. They've got everything you DON'T WANT in a guitar. Not to mention that 'safety pin' look. Yikes"

Ed went on to play with Lynyrd Skynyrd and he created and played that amazing lick (on a Stratocaster) that starts off and continues throughout Sweet Home Alabama. That is Ed's voice doing the count in on that song btw.

I saw that Ed King interview as well. Someone on anothe forum posted tha he had seen them use the Mosrites live in '66. I saw the SAC open for The Beach Boys and Buffalo Springfield that year and they definitely didn't use them. I agree with Ed as far as the guitars are concerned, but our bass player had a Mosrite bass that I liked.

Mosrites had tinny pickups? Did the guy have a hearing problem or something?

Tinny? Really? I had 2 different early to mid 60s Mosrites, a Mark 4 and a Mark 5, and both had a fuller, jucier clean sound than any Strat I have ever heard. Especially 50s and 60s Strats in the brige position. Bright-oh yeah-but tinny? Hmmm.

Ed's ears have been shredded by too much "southern rock" played on Les Pauls.

Mosrite's pickups are some of the snarliest, raunchiest single-coils ever overwound. Semie's daughter is re-issuing them, in fact.

As for Mosrites being unplayable, tell the Ventures that...

I recall this entire set of Mosrites being up for sale not too long ago (5 years, maybe?) at a fairly nice price. I wonder who's got them now.

jingle_jangle wrote:I recall this entire set of Mosrites being up for sale not too long ago (5 years, maybe?) at a fairly nice price. I wonder who's got them now.

Ron?

Brian: These images remind me of incense, peppermints and cripplin' mankind.

jingle_jangle wrote:Ed's ears have been shredded by too much "southern rock" played on Les Pauls.

Gents, Ed is on Facebook. His comments were made there in reply to a couple of us who were posing questions about how practical the guitars in question were and did they use them in the studio or on stage. He has played a Strat since the early 60's btw. The other members of Lynyrd Skynyrd played LP's from time to time of course. Edit: I forgot to mention that he retired a few years back and no longer plays professionally.

Peter that was hilarious.

I meant to revise my original comment agreeing with Ed to refer only to the playability issues. I found the pickups to be excellent-definitely not tinny.
Maybe Ed's a heavy-handed caveman like me. I like to choke my guitars into submission.