Thanks to Willie Barry for finding this clip, I had never seen it! Check out the guitar Grady Martin is playing in this clip, never seen him with this one in any other clip!
Now, my first reaction was that this is clearly a Gibson ES-175 with a Bigsby pickup on it. But the more I looked at the closeup of the pickup, I’m thinking it might be a Bigsby pickup copy (it just looks a little too crude to be a real P.A. Bigsby product, especially the spacing of the pickup in the pickup surround).
There was a steel guitarist on the Ozark Jubilee TV show named “Doc” Martin. He made his own copy of a Bigsby steel guitar, and also cast aluminum vibratos (that he called the “Maur-ite” vibrato) that were used on Stratosphere guitars, also made in Springfield, Missouri. My money is on this being one of “Doc’s” creations.
Either way, it sounds GREAT! And super cool to see. Thanks to Willie Barry for hipping me to it!!
Check out the video on YouTube:
