Old guitars revisited

If you've been playing guitar for as long as I have (almost fifty years in my case)the there will be guitars that you've loved and others- well- let's just draw a line under those for now. It was 1974 and I'd just moved to Northampton. After a few months commuting back and forth to London I was able to look at joining a band and I've already written about Left Hand Drive. When we started both Jack and I were playing Fender Telecasters through H&H combos and we both decided we'd change to something different. Jack always wanted a Les Paul and so we both went down to London to see what was on offer. Despite being left handed, Jack was able to get a brand new DeLuxe goldtop with small pickups from one of the many music shops along Denmark Street. I was struggling, because my Telecaster wasn't worth enough on a trade in for a second hand guitar (i'd already ruled out buying a new guitar) Eventually I settled on a 1964 Epiphone Crestwood. I liked it because it was an unusual shape, about the same size and shape as a Gibson SG (as well as being built in the same factory) but with the small Epiphone pickups that Jack's Les Paul had. Left Hand Drive played a show at the County Rock in Northampton soon afterwards and We both showed off our new guitars

Pretty soon I realised that the tailpiece/tremolo unit made it impossible to change strings easily, so I took the guitar to a luthier in Northampton called Barry Ford, and he fitted a Gibson style tailpiece. Here's the guitar before the alteration

And afterwards

I left Left Hand Drive in 1976 and formed a band called Conspiracy. I used the Crestwood with my Marshall amplifier at first, but it was all too loud and distorted for the music we were playing. I swapped the Marshall for an Orange amplifier and then had the chance to acquire a blond Gibson Les Paul, so the Crestwood had to go. I took it down to Denmark Street and sold it for a pittance. And that was that. A few years ago, out of curiosity, I looked at the prices for 1960s Epiphone Crestwood guitars, and a good one- if any could be found- would be £5000 and upwards, so I resigned myself to knowing that I'd once owned one, even though I'd never have another. Or so I thought. In 2012 the company that owns the Epiphone name reissued a limited edition of 1962 guitars and at a very reasonable price, so I kept my eyes open and eventually one came up at the right price. So once again I was the proud owner of an iconic guitar. However, so things don't change and the guitar had the dreaded tremolo and tailpiece so I took the guitar back to my luthier- the same Barry Ford. He fitted the same tailpiece that he'd fitted on the earlier guitar almost 40 years before. Here it is.

And here's the dreaded tremolo