Something fun happened! I have to thank super good guy Kevin Rusch. He was out in the middle of nowhere in eastern Washington and spied this impossibly rare and unique Howard guitar amplifier at a flea market. He posted a photo of it on a Facebook Telecaster Forum, which sent most people to the Google machine, where very little can be found about the amplifiers and guitars made by Tom “Howard” McCormick in Phoenix back in the 1950s and 1960s. They are rare!
I saw Kevin’s post on the FB forum and immediately sent him a message—would he consider going back to the flea market and getting the amp for me and shipping it to me in L.A.? I told him that Duane Eddy had sold me his Howard doubleneck guitar many years ago and I’ve been looking for a Howard amp for nearly twenty years. Like I said, they are RARE. Kevin agreed to go back to the swap meet and grab it for me, and luckily it was still there the next day.
I just got the amp (thanks for boxing it up so well, Kevin), and it’s a cute little sucker. I think it’s one of his student model amplifiers, most of the ones I’ve seen in photos were big amps with 15″ JBL speakers in them. This one is clearly based on a piggyback Standel amp design, with his own unique touches. The speaker inside is a 12″ Jensen. I haven’t fired it up, it looks like it’s been stored in a barn for fifty years (the epoxy shot into the cracked electric plug to try and stabilize loose wiring is a nice hillbilly touch).
I’m going to take it to Bob Dixon here in L.A., who can fix these kind of oddball, no-schematic orphan amps. This one looks promising. A pair of EL84 power tubes and three 12AX7 input tubes— why, if you’ve been around amps long enough, you can already hear what it sounds like, can’t you? I’m intrigued by the two on/off switches in addition to the standby switch. Also, every Howard amp I’ve ever seen has no plate or cover on the bottom of the electronics, which is…interesting…? You definitely have to live without fear of dying in this chosen field of interest of mine.
I met Howard’s daughter many years ago at an event in Washington state, and I think some of the McCormick family wound up there. The guitar that you see in these photos is another, earlier Howard guitar that turned up also in Washington state, who knows, maybe these were originally paired together and are back together again…? If Tom’s daughter is out there, I’d love to hear from you again, I lost all my contacts a few years ago when the kid at the Apple store deleted everything off my phone by accident.
Thanks again Kevin, I know it was a lot of work on your vacation out in the hinterlands, but I really appreciate you taking the time to snag this rare lil’ orphan for me. I hope to hear it back in action soon!
