Some Fun Melobar Facts and the Stories below
Did You know.........?
Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones loaned a Mosrite Melobar to Jimmy Page just before he died...later the Rolling Stones Ron Woods endorsed Melobar and played it on a video CD in the 90's, but no one knows how Brian Jones ended up with one of the very first Melobars...story below
Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones loaned a Mosrite Melobar to Jimmy Page just before he died...later the Rolling Stones Ron Woods endorsed Melobar and played it on a video CD in the 90's, but no one knows how Brian Jones ended up with one of the very first Melobars...story below
Jefferson Airplane played one of the first Melobars on the Crown of Creation Album and on the back of the album called it the "Chicken Guitar".
Lovin' Spoonful, The Grateful Dead, Joe Walsh right at the break up of the Eagles, John Lennon, The Doors, The Mommas and the Poppas, John Cougar Mellencamp's band, Heart, Brooks and Dunn, Charlie Pride, Glen Campbell, Journey, Fleetwood Mac, the list just goes on and on of bands and musicians that played a Melobar and the Smith family worked diligently to try and build an instrument these musicians could use on albums and stage, below are some of the stories and photos.
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Some of the stories are directly from Walt, Ted, John Selby, Mildred, Arlon Roth, Jeff Peterson, Dan Forte and witnesses to the events but you can also look up documentation from Tom Wheeler's Book AMERICAN GUITAR published in 1982, GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE article The Melobar Story March 1985, GUITAR WORLD magazine article with the Melobar Purple People Eater centerfold Sept 1989, GUITAR PLAYER magazine article Melobar's Basement Genius, Sept 1991 and Andy Volk's book LAP STEEL GUITAR published in 2003, VINTAGE GUITAR MAGAZINE Melobar article Feb 2022, Illustrated Book from Willie Mosley BAKERSFIELD GUITARS 2022.
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Jimmy Page and Melobar
This history needs to be straightened out...Yes Jimmy Page has a Melobar and has played it. And this is how I (Ted Smith) became involved:
In the mid 80's I walked in to the house late at night to find Dad in his PJ's talking on the phone. He handed it to me and said, "some player with questions, I've talked to him before and can't help him." Dad stumbled half asleep down the hall and I called after him, "well, what's his name?" Dad shrugged, "some guy with a rock band, Jimmy Page."
You can tell dad was never impressed with rock and roll. I stood staring at the phone not believing it. I put it to my ear and this very English accent was going on and on about some effects box he wanted. It took about five minutes to realize, this really was Page.
It was a tough conversation because he kept asking for some kind of effects box that came with Melobar. I kept telling him there wasn't any effects box. I asked him what Melobar he had and he wouldn't tell me. Finally it ended with me saying I'd look around.
He called back some time later; again looking for this effects box. This time Jimmy opened up a bit and tentatively admitted it was a Mosrite Melobar. I knew we had some Mosrite Fuzzrite boxes and sent him one. He called and said that wasn't it. Finally the story came out...The guitar had belonged to Brian Jones with the Stones. Brian had used the guitar on a sound track for a girl friend with some kind of effects box. He loaned the guitar to Jimmy just before he died. Jimmy didn't want to give the guitar back to anyone and really wanted the effects box. We never did figure out what the box was but it opened an amazing thought that Melobar may have even been on the early Stones albums.
No one knows how Brian got the Melobar and the mystery of the effects box died with him.
Our music society is a strange small world.
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One of the greatest Melobar Pioneers was Rusty Young of Poco. Rusty wrote one of the best books ever on the stand up steel. At the time he got his first Melobar was the the exact time Dad pulled the plug in L.A. and Melobar disappeared. Rusty called his custom Rosac/John Smith built Melobar the Bear in his book and the nick name has stuck to this date. We reconnected in 1981 where I can still see Rusty walking down the NAMM hall and seeing the new Melobars for the first time, he stopped in mid stride and his jaw dropped - it was pretty funny. Rusty re-connected and we built him a Rosac body version with the Lawrence pickups.
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Kevin Kries of Ala Kart
Ma Melobar
You've seen the pictures in the history section of my late mother (mama Melobar) as known by the musicians; and she was very old school prim and proper. Living in a small town like Payette Idaho you can appreciate the gossip that happens. Well Melobar players have always been considered a part of our family. And Kevin with his very hard rock punk look band was no exception. However; unknowingly, they ruined Mom's reputation in little Payette Idaho. A local Payette music store owner stopped to see our booth at NAMM, now this Payette music store was VERY brass band (NO EVIL GUITARS) allowed type of store and the owners wife was talking to mom as Kevin and the band came running in with chains a jangling off their leather jackets and picked mom completely up off the ground with huge hugs saying - "can't wait to party with you tonight."
Well...Mom's reputation was soiled for life in Payette Idaho. Her response, "oh well, Kevin is family, I'll just have to buy a leather jacket now."
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We were always getting great pictures from our Melobar family - this is one of my favorites before the wall was torn down. Lot of guts to pose with machine guns pointed at you!!!
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One of the first Melobar endorsers was Pat Boone just as the Rock scene hit. We have recordings with "Hi This is Pat Boone with my Melobar Guitar..." as part of Dad's easy guitar program. John Smith claims he met the Boones when Mrs. Boone ran out of a house looking for help with thier dog having puppies...have to check with them on that story. But even as young as I was I remember being baby sat by his daughters while Dad and Pat worked on Melobar stuff.
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Dad is fuming in his grave with me sharing this one but I can't help it.
That is his "Beatles" wig and this definitely captures the other side of his personality.
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Walt with friend Sheb Wooley (Rawhide, Warwagon, Hoosiers and wrote Purple People Eater song) and Gabby Hayes
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My Bad...
This guitar was built specifically for Bonnie Raitt. It was at a West Coast managers office when Ron Woods and Keith Richards walked through. They thought it was way cool and the manager gave it to them. Dad asked me if I should build another one for this new artist Bonnie Raitt and I stupidly said...nah, don't worry about it. If you're out there Bonnie; sorry about that.
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Then the story above gets interesting...
Dad...being Dad; demanded the Stones give back the guitar because they didn't give an endorsement with it. He had the nerve to call the East Coast manager who conveniently would only speak French. I'm standing next to Dad as he tells the guy, "well, you'd sure as hell better get somebody who can speak English to tanslate that I'm going to call the New York police and report a custom Melobar stolen by the Rolling Stones." Amazingly the guy suddenly spoke perfect English and said he'd get back to us. Ron Woods called upset and said he just wanted the guitar, not hassles. Dad's reply was, no hassle, just give us an endoresement or the guitar back. I couldn't believe how Dad was handling it and begged him to back off. He wouldn't budge. We then go to a NAMM show and Dad meets with the piano guy (I think his name was McLaughlin) and they talk like old friends for two hours. After that we got one of the first endorsements from Ron Woods and dad and I built the red explorer on the right side for them.
I had a ticket to go back and meet with them but I was 20 years old and started reading the book Up and Down with the Rolling Stones and it so freaked me out that I gave my ticket to my brother John Selby who went back to New York and; in a snow storm with Arlen Roth, delivered the guitars to Ron in his apartment. I guess I should have used that ticket.
Here is a recording done after that time, check out track 6...
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Another "my bad" but an enduring memory for me was my first NAMM show in '81, I was an old 16 years, this was Melobars big return to the scene with the new release of the V and Explorer Melobars. We had all kinds of people showing up like David Lindley, Rusty Young, you name it, really exciting for a young guy trying to prove he was worthy to be at the show. Several older men showed up and one of them runs up to dad and they are laughing and joking immediately, I'd never scene the guy before, so I move to the other side of the booth. An older short heavy set grandpa looking man comes up to me and starts asking me questions about what pickups we are using, scale length etc. I'm more than eager to share everything we are doing with him. I glance over and dad's eyes are glaring at me but I just keep on blabbing on. The old guy and I are getting along great, talking about all kinds of steel guitar projects and I tell him about a couple of new ones dad is working on to patent. Just then a dealer interrupts us, gushing at this old guy, "sir, sir, I've been selling your guitars forever, could I please get a photo?" The old guy shrugs and his suit jacket moves enough for me to see his badge - Leo Fender.
I step way back, as dad and the fellow he was talking to, Bud Driver, come forward. Leo reaches out and shakes dads hand and says, "hey Walt, looks like you finally made it."
They talk for some time together about old times at the radio parts store, which I didn't understand for years until I read some of Fender's early history. Then they leave and dad grabs me by the arm and ask what I told Leo, I tell him and dad shakes his head and tells me to never talk tech with anyone at a NAMM show. So I got reprimanded and the incident wasn't a great memory when I was younger. But as I grow older, I realize just what an amazing ten or fifteen minutes that was, to talk one on one with Leo Fender about steel guitars..._______________________________________________________________
In walks GPI's steel guitar player of the year, David Lindley. He's excited to get an axe to help the look of El Rayo X and our booth is full of people. He's been talking to Dad and John for about an hour when he points to the pickguard on the guitar he's holding here and asks, "who designed that?" Dad and John kind of frown and look over at me, I meekly say, "me..."
David nods and motions me over and says, "that's really good, you've got a guitar designers eye."
Those few words changed my life, and probably is why I am still building Melobars.
When David passed, I really felt it, and I think that was probably the reason why; he was the first person in my life to say well done to anything I'd worked on. I didn't know how to deal with the loss, so I did the one thing I know how to do and that was build some guitars in memory of him. So I've built a half dozen V Melobars.
When David passed, I really felt it, and I think that was probably the reason why; he was the first person in my life to say well done to anything I'd worked on. I didn't know how to deal with the loss, so I did the one thing I know how to do and that was build some guitars in memory of him. So I've built a half dozen V Melobars.
I kept waking up remembering our conversations over the years. He invited me into his house and stopped by where we used to stay in Bueno Park. Always...always, he was gracious and encouraging. I stopped by a concert he was doing in Boise and the band said, no way is he seeing anyone, then I hear David in the back calling out, "is that Ted, send him in." He was bone tired, but would still take the time to say hello. David was just a wonderful person to me for a lot of years.
One of the things that kept me awake was remembering our conversations in the mid 90's when I was building for a living. Several times I called David and tried to talk him into a "Lindley" model. David was excited about it but didn't want a stock model renamed, he wanted a unique guitar and talked about re-manufacturing Gold Foil pickups and using Supro type bodies and different wood laminates. At the time I could barely keep up with the stock models and told him I just didn't have the time or the funds to do all that experimenting...
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The neck has a Rosewood cap laminated from Nut to Bridge
Reverse Supro style German Carve Body
Basically a 6-string ;)
Mohganny Body
Gold Foil Pickups
I even put that photo of David lamanated into the back
Always will remember that comment in 1981,
encouraging a dumb kid,
thank you David.
Always will remember that comment in 1981,
encouraging a dumb kid,
thank you David.
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Smith Curry with the first Steelgitr
This guitar took 8 months of design to finally make work. I had just built a very rough proto-type when Jeff Peterson with Clint Black came into town. Jeff has always been a great friend so I'd built him a very custom tear drop Melobar. I went back stage with the Tear Drop and carried the Steelgitr with me for him to check out. Smith Curry was there and he latched onto it like a man seeing his first Corvette. He walked around back stage all day with it while we ate with Clint and hung out with the band. When show time came I went looking for Curry to get the guitar back and he flatly said, "I can't give it up. I don't have any money to pay for it but I have to have it." Well I've had guitars do that to me too so I relented and let him keep it. This double neck has had that effect on players and I fully know the emotion.
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Another Steelgitr story
This is the first production Steelgitr - that we sponsored in Guitar Player magazine. Great story with this is the guy plays it all the time at a club in AZ. He called me one day and said he was only going to do a short set so he didn't have his Steelgitr. Two guys came up to him and asked him where the guitar was, they'd driven thirty miles just to see him play it. He had to run home and get the Steelgitr to appease the guys. Ever since Rusty Young Melobar has made fans which is the one thing that will make me smile when I die.
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This is one of my favorite moments in Melobar.
I was taking the pictures we were using for the 88 model brochures. Dad of coarse was more musician than business man and broke up the photo shoot plugging the guitars and he and Roy had a blast.
About got us kicked out of the place too...
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Denny Hemingson with Tim McGraw is continueing the Melobar saga really well!
on the left side...
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The fun of NAMM
We had a lot of interesting moments, a few worth sharing...
Atlanta NAMM in the 80's Dad was in the booth, I was walking up and a man was coming straight at me in a very serious manner, he had several other men behind him and as I glanced at his NAMM badge it said Gibson; the guy didn't introduce himself but looked at my Melobar badge and turned to a very large guy with a big friendly smile then back to me and said, "sir (I'm a 21 year old at the time), Mr BB. King would like to meet the inventor of the Melobar"
I was in a little shock but saw the Gibson BB King on this guys badge and motioned him to follow me. Dad was messing with Melobar with a set of amp headphones, he took them off and I had my big moment with BB King saying, "Dad, BB King would like to meet you" then backed out of the booth quickly. I then proceeded to see Dad trying to show BB how to play Melobar, the look on BB King's face was priceless as he kept humoring Dad on how to play Melobar, such a crazy memory. :)
Lot's of other memories over the years, in the 90's Taylor had me take the first Baby Taylors out to the Bluegrass festivals (I think the marketing guy that set it up was Larry), anyway, I went back to Taylor Booth at the next NAMM show to talk to Larry about it and Bob Taylor jumps in and says, why aren't we doing better with the 810 over Martin. Well I'd been talking to Chris Martin the IV at the previous Nashville NAMM about how it was to be the "son" running the company, and wasn't sure how to answer Bob. Out of the blue a month later I get a 810 Bob hand selected from the line (still paid cost on it) with a note from Bob to show this guitar at the Festivals we were going to... How do you tell Bob Taylor that the problem in the Bluegrass world is, it's not a Martin, LOL.
After Dad died, my first NAMM show as Smith Family Music was at Anehiem, often our booth was next to, or in this situation, was directly behind Nationals booth. I've never claimed to be a guitar player, especially at that time of my life, but I would be doing demo's of course, I was playing and someone walked up to me and said "Bob Brozman is listening to you in the National Booth and just said your vibratos sound like your nervously shaking." I think the guy was seeing what my reaction would be, I thought about it for a moment and started laughing hard, I replied, "tell him he's exacly right, if I don't sell at least a couple dozen guitars the next three days I'm going to go broke, so, yep, I'm shaking in my boots."
So many players stopped by the Melobar booth; Jeff Peterson was often at the Nashville NAMMS and one year he brings in Skunk Baxter, who absolutely was a hoot. Skunk played Melobars with Jeff for nearly an hour...a Doobie Brother playing Melobar...only at NAMM.
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Never know where a Melobar will end up...David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, auctioning off 120 of his Iconic guitars, talked about in Guitar World, and what does he mention...a Melobar. That was a surprise to me, no idea he had one.
Building guitars...Ohhh! that must be so much fun.
The ongoing joke when we were building Melobars full time was Susie's patients asking her what her husband did for a living, and she'd say,"builds guitars" and they'd reply, "oh that sounds like so much fun!"...she'd come home and find me on a big belt sander in a cloud of wood dust like this and say, "you're just having fun."
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Revelation of Modern Country Music
Jeff Peterson with Clint Black was a key Melobar man getting us on American Music Awards, the Tonight Show etc. Clint also endorsed the Enhancr for me so I had driven over to the GARLAND HOTEL in North Hollywood area to meet with them. They hadn't arrived yet so I waited in the open bar area next to where everyone got out of taxis to go into the Lobby. As I sat there, Clint's band members started showing up, and If you've ever traveled a lot, seeing someone you know is like a breath of fresh air. They all ended up at my table having a good time. The conversation steered to these guys music history; it was a surprising Revelation...every single one of them had started in Rock and Roll...
Basically as they got older they wanted less of the Rock scene, moved to Nashville to make better money. but their roots were still early Rock.
When I listen to country today, I am reminded of that day...modern country really is, early Rock and Roll now, isn't it ☺
Such a fun guy, I feel like he's more of a brother; but most people don't know that it was Jeff that first talked to Dad about V and Explorer bodies, he was one of the first players to use the Powerslide Melobars getting it on the CMA awards and other TV appearances, he helped start Clint Blacks career and during the 90's Clint used his own band on albums and Jeff (not Paul Franklin as I saw a Steel Guitar Forum post try to claim) was the man on those albums and he got Melobar in the studio before Paul did. He also was the first player to use a Melobro on stage, first player to try the LS lap steels...The list goes on and ON!
He would talk Bill Lawrence and I back into working together after knock down fights :)
He did Scottys steel convention for Melobar BY HIMSELF, he brought players like Skunk Baxter into the NAMM booth to play Melobars...I just have to shake my head and smile...THANK YOU JEFF, and some day I hope the world realizes how great you've always been.
Years later when he was playing for Brooks and Dunn they did a show in Boise and they had a full day so Mom and I took Troy around the town and then up to Sweet for a home cooked meal. Afterwards we climbed into a old pickup and drove to the top of a timered ridge line up in the mountains, I'd just said, "keep your eye out for animals up here" and right then a huge Bull Elk walked out of the tree and just stood there. Troy had never seen anything like it. We get back to the meet & greet of the concert and Troy is telling Kixs and Ronnie I have these trained Elk that come out on cue...he was a fun brother, see you soon Troy!!
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Larry Brooks was another important influence on my life...we met in Denver in the early 80's where he was a Luthier at a store that had bought one of the first Melobar Explorer models - Dad sent me with the guitar for a week and Larry tucked me under his wing a bit as I was a ripe 17 years old. Great guy and those conversations shaped a lot of my standard guitar thinking.
Then he walked up to me at a NAMM show in the 90's with a Fender Custom shop badge, I asked him who he stole the badge from and he said "no really, I'm the custom shop guy" well he took me on a tour of the Corona factory and I finally had to believe him :) , that was an amazingly great day meeting a lot of the original employees that had come back to Fender in the 90's and met the new managers, who, to this day, I think I owe them a huge debt of gratitude, for not making Fender Lap steels in the 90's which would have put Melobar out of business in a second...they were really friendly and kind to me at the factory, to the point, I often wonder if they even protected me - as a little tiny shop trying to make it in Sweet Idaho.
Then he walked up to me at a NAMM show in the 90's with a Fender Custom shop badge, I asked him who he stole the badge from and he said "no really, I'm the custom shop guy" well he took me on a tour of the Corona factory and I finally had to believe him :) , that was an amazingly great day meeting a lot of the original employees that had come back to Fender in the 90's and met the new managers, who, to this day, I think I owe them a huge debt of gratitude, for not making Fender Lap steels in the 90's which would have put Melobar out of business in a second...they were really friendly and kind to me at the factory, to the point, I often wonder if they even protected me - as a little tiny shop trying to make it in Sweet Idaho.
Miss our talks Larry - hope all is good out there!
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JOHN SELBY SMITH
Melobar history doesn't include John Selby Smith Walt's second son mostly because there was a falling out between Walt and John about how to promote Melobar and the 60's drug era, but John really was the one who did amazingly at getting Melobar into the Pro's hands the ultimate with his trip with Arlen Roth delivering in person a custom Melobar for a hand written endorsement to Ron Woods of the Rolling Stones.
Here is a History he penned recently after a stroke and my urging that he get this history down before it is forgotten, really interesting at how connected he was in the 60's music world, if Walt had just let him have a free reign Melobar may have ended up with more than a half page in the history books.
This was written as he was selling one of the custom Melobars he built that ended up in Rusty Young with Poco's hands and many other amazing people...his words:
The Guitar - a customized Rosac much like Denny Hemingson even uses today
The Original ‘Selby’ Melobar Guitar
completed in May, 1973
Authenticated
by the original and current owner …
John Selby Smith
(second
son of Walter Smith, inventor of the Melobar Guitar)
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Dated: August 24, 2014
Instrument Background: In the summer of 1972, having just been
kicked out of a Presbyterian Seminary where I was dodging the draft by becoming
a minister (didn’t work) I moved to the Venice canals in LA and for the second
time in my life, went back to work with my father Walter Smith on his Melobar
Guitar project. As I’ll explain later, he and I had banged heads about the
Melobar’s development five years earlier, and I’d stopped actively helping him
– but now, after a visit home to the ranch in Idaho that summer, we’d found a
new way to work together, and I’d agreed to help advance the instrument
commercially.
Specifically,
because I was insisting on playing the Melobar as a rock/blues instrument (he
was folk/country), he gave me permission to take 6 Rozac Melobars (built a few
years earlier in Bakersfield by former Mosrite employees), tear them apart –
and rebuild them in a more rock/blues-friendly format.
During the
following nine months, with a monthly check from Melobar, I worked on those 6
electric instruments, while also (see ‘Selby Acoustic’ Provenance paper)
working to develop and build two new prototype-designs for a unique acoustic
Melobar. My assistant, Jesse Buck, was of great help during this period. Taking
the 6 electric instruments, we stripped them down from their sunburst paint job
(which I didn’t like) and repainted them – three white, three red. Jesse was an
intuitive electronics genius and he rewired the guitars for three pickups, one
very close to the bridge for a super-sharp sound, one mid-way, and one way off
from the bridge for a deep mellow sound. The controls let you mix however you
wanted to – and back then, that was a great freedom onstage. In a lot of later
custom Melobar rock guitars, that positioning was maintained because,
especially for slide, mixing the mellow with the sharp edge gave remarkable
sustain and feedback potential.
While Jesse
was working out the electronics, I was busy up the hill a few miles at the
luthier Fred Gerlach, who was renown at the time for his powerful custom
12-strings, as played by Leo Kottke etc. He and I had designed a prototype
acoustic Melobar built on a basic Dreadnought format, but with the tilted neck
etc of the Melobar design. As part of that project, I took a big hunk of
rosewood (from an old schooner beam) and started making Melobar fret boards
that looked beautiful, as compared with my Dad’s ‘learner’ metal fret boards
that, to say the least, didn’t appeal to professional musicians. I’m sure my
lungs still have that rosewood sawdust still imbedded (we didn’t know enough to
even use a mask back then) but I did manage to make a couple dozen perfect
samples, and each of the six ‘Selby’ electric Melobars got one of them.
We also put
the newly-introduced Shaller black-plastic machine heads on those instruments
(they’re no longer available and one has stripped), and a rosewood cover for
the instrument panel. I insisted on dropping the instrument from 12 to 8
strings, and tuning it to blues/rock rather than folk/country like my Dad
always did – so I had to hand-make a bridge for those 6 guitars, and that
bridge is still on the current guitar of this provenance paper. Finally, just
in time for the NAMM show that year (1973) in Chicago, we had all 6 guitars
finished, and went to the show driving the van of a guitar amp company.
Everything
that could go wrong went wrong. We sold three of the instruments there, I held
on to the other three – but soon thereafter decided that the guitar business
wasn’t for me – and returned to my alter ego as a research psychologist,
therapist, and author. I sold one of the three remaining ‘Selby’ Melobars, one
was stolen – and I somehow still have this final Red one. I’ve used it in a
few fun bands but making a living playing guitar, even the Melobar, was never
an option for me; so the instrument has spent a lot of time in the closet or on
the wall. I’ve done absolutely zero modification to the guitar – it’s exactly
how it was in 1973.
Early Melobar Work: I’d been involved
with Dad’s Melobar project since 1962 when he first came up with the
slanted-neck concept. Every summer I’d worked with him on prototypes, and
during the summer of 1967, when the first Mosrite Melobars were made, I spent
the summer in California meeting with rock bands and turning them on to the
Melobar. It was great fun! I remember taking Jorma Karkonen of the Jefferson
Airplane an electric Melobar and teaching him how to play it during the 2 weeks
they were recording the album Bathing At
Baxters. They were on a giant recording stage, RCA studios in LA. I
remember him practicing a riff for just a few minutes during a break, then
laying down crazy Melobar tracks; you’ll find three playful slide tracks on the
album with Melobar if you listen close. Shortly thereafter Jorma returned to
acoustic with Hot Tuna – I don’t know what he did with his Melobar after that.
I also gave
early Melobars (the straight Mosrites) to Jerry Garcia when we met in LA during
the summer of ’67, and also spent a (blurry) afternoon with the Mommas and the
Papas up at their house in the Hollywood hills showing them the unique
slide/steel left-hand style. Then I was scheduled to give one to Jim Morrison
of the Doors, because the Melobar was easy to play on stage – but I had to head
back east for my senior year in college – so Dad came down from the ranch to
take over the promotion work I’d set up. He went to the infamous Hollywood Bowl
concert the Doors gave in September ’67 – and then when he went to their hotel
the next day to deliver the Melobar, instead he gave Morrison and friends a
serious 20-minute lecture on morality, and refused to let them have a Melobar
on principle. That was Walt Smith, and even though I often disagreed with him,
I still deeply honor his sticking to his principles.
Around that
time (maybe a year earlier as I remember) John Lennon hid out at my friend Jim
Churchill’s parents house in Ojai while avoiding the police on his marijuana
charge, and during those two weeks Jim says Lennon played a Melobar I’d given
Jim, re-tuning it to his particular preference. When I came by a few weeks
after and retuned the guitar back to my preference, Jim about shot me. Later
on, VOX (owned then by the Beatles) flew my Dad to London and offered him 4 million
dollars for the Melobar patents and company – but Walt never could let go of
his invention, and turned down the offer.
Albert offered
to help me get the instrument into the hands of the musicians he produced. He
also became interested in the early abstract ‘zen’ Melobar music I was
experimenting with in the late sixties; I sent him three different tapes and he
advised me on how to make what I was developing more commercial – but I wasn’t
receptive back then to such advice, so nothing came of it.
Walt Smith – Reflections: My father and
I loved each other and mostly worked well together, ever since he started
tearing regular Fender guitars apart in the tack room of the barn in Donnelly,
Idaho in the summer of 1962. I started helping him with that early inventive
work, and continued supporting him where I could, on and off, for a total of
over six years of my life; so my feelings for the Melobar run deep. I did argue
with Dad on tuning a lot – he insisted that his 10-string or 12-string tuning
was going to change the world. I countered that even rock/blues musicians are
basically traditionalists, and not about to drop a 200-year 6-string tradition
overnight. So I rebelled and started retuning his instruments when I gave them
to rock bands, so that they really cooked for rock and blues … and indeed they
do – even this collector’s Melobar that I have in hand still cranks.
David Lindley
for me was the greatest Melobar player in the world. I first met him at NAMM, I
think in 1982. For years, Dad had been against his instrument being played by
rock and roll stars – he didn’t approve me being a hippie earlier on, and he
was dead-set against free sex and drugs, which for years pretty much sank the
Melobar’s chances of business success in the rock world. But I remember in our
booth at NAMM, when Lindley came walking by and asked to play the axe. Lindley
with his long hair and all – somehow he and Dad struck it off right away with
mutual respect, and soon Lindley had his own Melobar model, using my blues
stringing and tuning as I remember, open E.
Honoring The Inventor: I’m not sure if
it’s been clearly stated elsewhere, but Walt Smith’s primary intent with the
Melobar was to create an instrument that’s both inexpensive and easier to play than
the guitar, so that the whole world could play an instrument. His mother
Imogene also strongly held this vision – and Dad’s seemingly-complex tuning was
actually intended to make playing easier. I on the other hand wanted from the
first to take Melobar in an opposite direction – a custom professional hot axe
that just totally cooked, in a new way that enabled unique sounds to be created
in rock and roll. Finally when David Lindley came along, Dad seemed ready to
make one line of professional Melobars that were seriously high-end
instruments.
Many people
who’ve come across Dad’s inexpensive Melobars rightly judge them as just that –
too inexpensive to deliver a great look and sound. There were relatively few
Melobars made that were high-end. The ‘Selby’ Melobar was my attempt to deliver
that superior quality of sound and presence – but I still honor my Dad’s vision
of an instrument that would be inexpensive and easy to play. My vision just
happened to be different, and so I built those 6 Melobars to reflect that
vision.
It should be
noted that Dad did pay my expenses when, finally, I got a Melobar to the
Rolling Stones. John Taplin had taken me up to Malibu to hang out with the band
one afternoon in 1972 and show Keith Richard the instrument – but I was shy,
they were engaged in all sorts of other things (luckily my Dad wasn’t there or
it would have been another lecture), and I actually never took the Melobar out
of its case. Then in 1985, or maybe it was ‘86, things lined up and I found
myself on a plane to New York with Arlen Roth (formerly of Guitar Player
Magazine) to give Ronnie Wood a Melobar. I spent a couple of hours up in his
apartment, he played it, he liked it – and he sat with me and penned a
hand-written Stones endorsement of the Melobar. I thought I’d finally seriously
helped Melobar take off – but within a week the Stones’ lawyers came after us
and voided the endorsement.
At that point,
I dropped entirely out of Melobar involvement. My father and mother continued
to struggle to make their invention and vision take off as a business – but
they had too many things working against them. Dad ultimately sold his ranch to
finance his vision – he didn’t create a lasting business, but he surely
manifested his vision in … well, for instance, in this beautiful red Melobar
that looks like a work of sculpture as much as a unique musical instrument.
Current Status: There were six ‘Selby’
Melobars that Jesse Buck and I tore apart in Venice and redesigned in 1972. At
this point in 2014, there’s only this sole remaining red one left in view. I
played in a few fun bands with it, I remember getting adept at my particular
‘cowboy jazz’ blues style that evolved out of the early ‘zen’ slide style I
discovered earlier. In one of the short-lived bands, with my brother Doug
(Paul) Smith in San Luis Obispo, while playing this same red Melobar, I began
to develop what I think was my true slide voice.
But my life
took off totally in other directions – mind research, therapy and consulting,
and 40 books (written as John Selby). Meanwhile Melobar as a business came, and
finally went – my brother Ted did his absolute utmost to
make it a financial success and finally did get the company to support itself building a dozen new models and selling over 2000 instruments all over the world for 12 years. Dad is now long-gone to the happy hunting grounds
… and for me, all that’s left are enjoyable memories – and the two original
‘Selby’ Melobars that have been in my possession all along.
Letting them go: Both the ‘Karmi’
Melobar acoustic and the ‘Selby’ electric instruments have felt invaluable to
me all these years; even in my hard times, until now I never considered selling
them. But right now, in the lingering spirit of an inventor’s son, I’m
launching my own business start-up, and to help finance this new invention, I’m
now ready to part with these two instruments, hoping that a collector will
cherish them, and maybe let me visit them now and then. I’m ready to move on.
So with
brother Ted’s help, I’ve written my short history of these instruments, to
clarify for posterity who made them, modified them, and owns them. Please feel
free to contact Ted Smith or Douglas Paul Smith, my brothers, if you
want more information on any of this. And as mentioned, people like Jorma
Karkonen, John Sebastian, David Lindley, Rusty Young (forgot to mention him –
he played a mean Melobar), and any of the others if they’re still alive. Jim
Churchill still lives in Ojai and knows a lot of the Melobar history, as does
Joe Ravetz who’s known me and Melobar since the early seventies.
John Selby Smith
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070416 Post from John Selby on Lennon Mosrite for sale - this will be included with the instrument and signed by John
The third Melobar guitar I’ve owned since the beginning is this sunburst Mosrite electric with its unique history, one of the originals from that first round of manufacturing my dad Walt Smith initiated – I think there were around 300 Mosrite Melobars built by Semi Mosley (of the original Ventures) in his Bakersfield factory. I was a junior in college and spent that summer in Bakersfield working for my dad overseeing and testing those early Melobars as they came off the production line -
I took half a dozen of those first Mosrite Melobars around to show rock musicians in Los Angeles that summer, as documented elsewhere. Then I took this particular instrument of this Provenance up to an old friend of mine near Santa Barbara, and left the guitar there when I went back to finish college.
I returned to visit my friend the summer of 1968, partly to pick up that guitar I’d left with her. She wasn’t home when I arrived, I knew where the door key was, and went on inside the beautiful old country home. I’m not going to mention her name here, because she promised her family she wouldn’t reveal what had happened in that house related to John Lennon, for both legal and personal reasons. What actually happened from my experience was the following, for what it’s worth historically.
Walking through the house (which I knew well from my childhood) I found the Mosrite sunburst in the house’s library/music room. I sat down without thinking and started playing some riffs through the amp, and found the tuning of the guitar entirely changed and a bit incoherent from my perspective – so I just went ahead and retuned it back to its original 10-string chordal tuning that my dad had developed for the instrument.
A few minutes later my friend came in – and totally hit the roof, shouting at me as if I’d committed some great crime. The crime was my act of retuning a unique tuning that John Lennon himself had come up with on the Melobar. In short order I promise not to tell anyone, and was informed that Lennon had been secretly in hiding in this same house for two weeks, and had amused himself by playing the Melobar ... and coming up with his special 10-string tuning for the instrument - which I forever changed and destroyed.
(Provenance Document, page 2)
Because of another unrelated drama, that guitar got put away in a closet in my friend’s house – where it stayed for a number of years before she came for a visit to my house, and brought the guitar back to me. Since then it’s been in my possession and not played hardly at all because I had my special custom 8-string Melobar that I played (Dad’s original 10-string chordal tuning was different from the 8-string blues tuning that I preferred). I admit that for a couple of weeks at one point the guitar was left by mistake down at the barn out in the open, but except for that, it’s in its original condition.
IN SUM: This document verifies the above facts about the provenance of what’s come to be called the Lennon Mosrite Melobar. I saw the instrument being made in the Mosley factory, tested it and then showed it around LA in 1967-8 while I was presenting the instrument’s design to people like the Mommas and the Papas, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, etc – and then left it with my friend. John Lennon got in trouble, with a marijuana arrest as I remember, and hid out at my friend’s house to avoid being sent back to Great Britain to face criminal charges. While hiding out, he played this Melobar and at some point retuned it – then abruptly he left the house with his lawyer. I inadvertently retuned the instrument and it got put away all these years.
Now it’s finally time to let go of all such possessions that I’ve been storing all these years – thus this provenance paper, and my request to my brother Ted Smith to handle the agenting and sale of my Melobars. If you have further questions feel free to write me at john@wizewell.net, or ask Ted, as he knows a lot of the background story from his long-term work running Melobar after my Dad died.
Signed: John Selby Smith _______________________________________ July 4, 2016
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VERY Excited this morning....
Only Melobar and Mosrite buffs will love this - but I'm (Ted Smith) working on my own Tel-O-Bar this morning (December 2014), a creation of a Fender Custom with the P90 on the neck (I sooo love that tone), with a JB humbucker on the bridge - the tone is so bluesy warm that I wanted my Melobar on the bottom to be the same - the most throaty tone Melobar ever had, was from the ones Semi Mosley built for Dad in the 60's (see Melobar's Basement Genius article in Guitar Player Magazine for that history). I look up at the wall last night and my very first Guitar (a white Mosrite) is hanging there with no bridge (gave it to a guy begging for one online), it's been sentimental but not played. It was an emotional decision but I took it down and put it on the bench and started stripping it...
Stamped very clearly, seeing the light of day for the first time in nearly 50 years....
Oct 25 1965
008
The Mosrite Melobars were officially released in 1967 but Dad and Mosley were working on the project for some time to create the 300 that were finally built ending up in the hands of the Rolling Stones and Jimmy Page as discussed below.
For me it was VERY exciting to see that date.
This guitar was my first Melobar that was truly my own...in a month, God willing, it will be resurrected into a very cool double neck Commemertive Tel-O-Bar that I hope to feed my soul with warm blues 'till the day I die
and here it is complete...MORE than worth it, turned out far better than I expected
and tone ohhhhh! I AM IN LOVE
And yes...it's another my bad, but those are the moments we seem to remember.
We were always trying to get in front of Bands to talk about Melobar and in the early 80's I went to a Heart concert in Boise that opened with this guy I'd just been hearing on the radio; John Cougar.
After the concert I see the Busses at a hotel often used for touring and stopped in. I really just wanted to meet Nancy Wilson ;) but as I walk into the far lobby this guy points at me and says "don't I know you?" I said he looked familiar and that I was Ted Smith with Melobar, he motioned me over some yellow tape and takes me back to meet Cougars band, we talk till late and they say they want to see a Melobar, so I drive an hour and half back to Weiser, get a guitar set up, then drive back; with no sleep at all that night - to get there in the morning. The Band is swimming in the pool, I sit down next to this guy and gal...now to my defense, look at these two photos, John actually has a very high forehead he covered back then with a lot of hair, so after swimming, with his hair pulled back...well, the gal ask me if I liked the Cougar show, I stupidly say the truth, "I think the music is great but the Cougar guy needs to stop strutting around like he's Jagger."...the guy gets a real hard look, the gal rubs his arm and the band is getting out of the pool waving me over to a hotel room to show the guitar. As I approach they ask me, what were you talking to John about...well, I've never lived that one down. I...was the American Fool :)
They did ask me if I wanted a job playing slide guitar...I don't think John would have hired me though LOL. Never got the chance to say it, but in case you ever read this John...VERY sorry about that!
Steven Sherman Smith with a Mosrite posing at the Donelly Ranch in Idaho
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I really enjoyed working with Cindy Cashdollar, just a CLASS ACT LADY
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More fun photos
Well I can't interpret Russian but this seems complimentary...:)
Hilarious Pod Cast giving the Melobar History that will make you laugh
https://www.thehighgain.com/podcast/melobar
https://www.thehighgain.com/podcast/melobar
Working on a video museum tour soon, this is a third of the museums guitars
This Melobar Story is kind of personal, and I didn't want to really share it, but several players I've talked to said I should...everyone who's played music has probably had something similar.
In 1985 Dad was trying to raise stock money for Melobar, we were producing a VHS video for potenial investors and they wanted back ground music with Melobar, so we were in this studio with Dad playing "Cheating Heart" etc. The studio engineer was being polite but kept saying, "can you just do some licks, not a song?" Dad got frustrated after a couple expensive hours of this and went outside to take a break. I picked up the Melobar and scratched out some stuff and asked the engineer, just as Dad walked back in, "is that what you want?" The guy clapped his hands and said, "got it!" Dad asked, "got what?"
In 1985 Dad was trying to raise stock money for Melobar, we were producing a VHS video for potenial investors and they wanted back ground music with Melobar, so we were in this studio with Dad playing "Cheating Heart" etc. The studio engineer was being polite but kept saying, "can you just do some licks, not a song?" Dad got frustrated after a couple expensive hours of this and went outside to take a break. I picked up the Melobar and scratched out some stuff and asked the engineer, just as Dad walked back in, "is that what you want?" The guy clapped his hands and said, "got it!" Dad asked, "got what?"
He sees me with the Melobar and says,"oh, Ted can't play anything." Because I wouldn't read notes and play his old songs...I couldn't play at all. The engineer shrugged and I could just barely hear him whisper, "...could have fooled me."
To this day I don't think I can really play, funny how Dads have that way of influencing you. I really didn't pick up Melobar or standard guitar until after Dad died when I was 28 years old. Wish I'd started earlier. The one smile I have is that the investor video music was all by the dumb kid that couldn't play.
To this day I don't think I can really play, funny how Dads have that way of influencing you. I really didn't pick up Melobar or standard guitar until after Dad died when I was 28 years old. Wish I'd started earlier. The one smile I have is that the investor video music was all by the dumb kid that couldn't play.
The truth of Walt Smith is he always wanted to be a Cowboy. Born in Northern California to an ambitious insurance agent he was raised at the Mount Diablo Country Club but he hated the "rich'es" and would escape to a nearby ranch. There he'd dress in old clothes and work hard often hiding who his father was. A local cow hand Pop Smith became a mentor to him in ranching and taught him the business.
My Father Walt Smith started into music at the ripe old age of five years old. Classical Piano lessons taught in the old school way of a ruler over the knuckles and you played it right...period.
Piano didn't travel well on a horse and dad soon picked up the guitar. He caught onto the Steel Guitar and picked it up so fast that his instructor used him on the radio as a prodigy. Playing in honky-tonks and local bars he dove deep into Western Swing but his classical piano back ground gave him the ability to pick up most any instrument the band needed that night.
Mean while his father wanted him to be a business man and forced him to attend Berkley and join a Fraternity. Dad hated it and at a time everyone wore suites and ties to school; he would show up in boots and a Levi jacket which labeled him a misfit rebel.
On a trip to Ojai California with some "bad boy" cowboys he spotted a girl stealing oranges in an orchard they were driving by and started asking who she was. He tracked down her brother Jack Selby at a bar and Jack told him her name was Babe, Dad was like, "no, I mean her real name." Turned out she hated the real name because it was Mildred so even her brother didn't know it. Well he finally got a date and found out she was going to Berkley too.
Elwood Smith - Walt's father - this photo speaks a thousand words
to anyone who has wanted to be a musician (and cowboy) under a business man father
Being an opportunist business man Walt's father sold his insurance company and followed Walt to Arizona to start a huge long staple cotton ranch to supply the war. Walt helped build the ranch that became one of the biggest in the U.S. and part of the ranch John Wayne eventually purchased. But before the big pay off - Walt was infected with a virus from the dust called Valley Fever and nearly died. He moved back to a Ojai with his family to live in a converted chicken coop and barely could support himself teaching music lessons. The idea roots of Melobar started to be born at this time.Steven Sherman Smith and Doug Smith were born during this time. Dad rebounded buying and selling alfalfa hay and by the beginning of the 60's had built a dream house in Ojai and had a large ranch East in an area called Cuyama.
This was the "60's" family before I was born
the original four sons Steven Sherman, John Selby, Doug, and Walt Jr
For everyone- the 60's were a better time in business and my brothers attended private schools and went on to Princeton and Stanford. But now the 60's - and Melobar - changes everything for the Smiths...
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