Barney Kessel and his ES-350 and Fallout with Gibson

**pubylakeg** · 03-01-2017, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by David B

My friend Harry Sankey has a '60s L7 that someone in the past has modified in tribute to Barney's guitar - an ebony board and Charlie Christian pickup were added.

Originally Posted by Greentone

Sankey has a cool guitar.

Just checked out Mr Sankey's website, it states one of his many projects is a tribute to BK's "Poll Winners" recordings, including some soundcloud clips, presumably featuring the Kessel type guitar. The tone he gets on his chord melody is very reminiscent of BK's,

**Burrellesque** · 03-01-2017, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by David B

Burrellesque - Jimmy McGriff's great of course but the video's out of place in a Barney Kessel discussion!

Sorry guys, I got a bit excited seeing the Barney Kessel Model in the video.

**wintermoon** · 03-02-2017, 01:57 AM

Originally Posted by Burrellesque

Sorry guys, I got a bit excited seeing the Barney Kessel Model in the video.

wouldn't bother me if you posted that video in one of my threads, just happens to be one of my favorite videos on youtube, too bad it's only one tune, those guys are smokin'. aside from the greatest, James Oscar Smith, there's not a lot of videos of the master jazz organists in their prime on youtube, excluding modern guys like Joey D.
It was also hard for guitar players to find lefty guitars, you had to have them custom made, much like today.
So Larry's playing his BK upside down, only video I've seen of him w/that guitar.

Jimmy' s widow Margret comes to some of our gigs and I always make it a point to tell her how much I dig his playing [which I do] we play some of his tunes in our sets.

sorry, back to your regularly scheduled BK discussion....

**David B** · 03-02-2017, 09:13 AM

Here's the earliest footage I've seen of Kessel playing his ES350.

**wintermoon** · 03-02-2017, 10:03 AM

This is a few yrs earlier.

**violao** · 11-15-2025, 03:11 AM

Originally Posted by Robertkoa

That's cool...
I wonder if one of these Guys played the Guitar part on Twilight Zone Series theme ?
Tedesco was ridiculously good at sight reading right ?

Jay Roberts, Howard's son, is a pal of mine. Jay is equally as gifted a guitarist as his father, and also started his own Roberts Music Institute that is endorsed by Gibson Guitars. It most certainly was Howard on the Twilight Zone theme track. Howard carved his initials H.R. with a pen knife on the back of his Telecaster because there was a bit of downtime while in the studio with the Wrecking Crew. His famous Telecaster went missing for well over a decade (stolen?) after Howard passed from cancer. Jay's bandmate was down in Las Vegas, and as guitarists do, he was perusing a pawn shop to cruise guitars. He saw a vintage Telecaster with the Howard's initials carved in the back. He knew instantly that it was Howard's Telecaster, and he bought it immediately. Arriving back in Seattle, he presented it to Jay as a gift saying, "I believe this belongs to you."

I had a parallel, but smaller similar experience. While cruising the Ballard (Seattle) Goodwill LP bin, and I found a rare Howard LP that I had never before seen before. This was over 15 years ago before vinyl priced got really stupid. I called up Jay and asked him if he had that release. He did not know it, and so said to myself, "dammit!", because I knew what had to be done. I went straight over to Jay's music institute to drop it off to him, and he was very pleased. He ended up mounting it in a frame and put it pride of place near the entrence to his group combo Jazz lab performance area of the school. I was so very pleased to present that lucky gift to him.

Here in Seattle, and the greater Puget Sound area, we have a large community of amazing Jazz guitrists that keeps growing each year with all of the grads from various Jazz programs at Cornish, UW, WWU, CWU, EWU and WSU. To give you a sense of Jay's immense skill level, about 30 years ago, he used to participate in Guitar Center's Best Guitarist competitions. He eventually stopped participating because he won every single one that he entered. He wanted to give other guitarists to have a chance to compete and win. I personally know just about every single one of the best players in the region, and I would admit that Jay tops all of them.

**daveg** · 11-15-2025, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by Burrellesque

I note that the BK in the video is a Right Hander strung and played by the Left Hander. I cannot imagine that many true left-handed BK models exist?

DG

**John A.** · 11-15-2025, 01:31 PM

Originally Posted by daveg

I note that the BK in the video is a Right Hander strung and played by the Left Hander. I cannot imagine that many true left-handed BK models exist?

DG

I was just talking about this subject with a lefty guitarist I know. He told me had a righty BK for a while and got it for its symmetry, but found it too hard to hard to play because the knobs got in the way. He plays mostly relatively cheap guitars just because there’s more lefty selection down market than up.

**Jimmy Mack** · 11-15-2025, 07:56 PM

Hey, play the cheap guitars! I've had and enjoyed my share. Apparently, so did Glen Campbell.

I wonder what songs featured Glen and his Teisco? I know the Monkees song "Valerie" has some "less than stellar" tones on the soloing guitar - but stellar playing!