What guitar is Louis Stewart holding here?

[JazzNote]

it much resembles a L5C with a Johnny Smith floater, but the headstock and the logo look unfamiliar to me. The photo was taken in the seventies ...



Louis the First | Louis Stewart | Ronan Guilfoyle | The Journal of Music: Irish Music News, Reviews, Concerts & Opportunities

[Chris236]

Ibanez 2471 or 2461

[floatingpickup]

If you zoom in on the headstock, you can read the Ibanez logo.
Keith

[JazzNote]

Thanks guys, i DID zoom on the logo but what i saw on the screen was not enough for me to clearly identify the Ibanez logo. But maybe it's rather a failure of my eyes, not the screen ;-). So obviously it's a 2471, the 2461 is more of a Gibson Johnny Smith lookalike.

[Chris236]

Thanks guys, i DID zoom on the logo but what i saw on the screen was not enough for me to clearly identify the Ibanez logo. But maybe it's rather a failure of my eyes, not the screen ;-). So obviously it's a 2471, the 2461 is more of a Gibson Johnny Smith lookalike.

they are the same guitar except the 2471 has a solid top, 2461 ply. He put his own custom floater on it either way.

[Jimmy blue note]

These were really popular back in the day when Gibsons and hand crafted American guitars were the only serious players in the game. There were no viable alternatives. When these appeared, they were the affordable guitar for the player for whom Gibson was out of reach. So they were popular in the day and Gibson saw them as a serious threat so they moved to sue.
A lot of players bought them. The suit stopped production. This is one of the famous lawsuit guitars.

Nice photo. Tastefully shadowed headstock. Looks like a million!

[JazzNote]

they are the same guitar except the 2471 has a solid top, 2461 ply. He put his own custom floater on it either way.

From what i can see, there are other distinct differences in the two models. The 2471 has a shorter peghead and block inlays, and a pointed end of the fingerboard resembling a L5, the 2461 has the long peghead, no pointed end at the fingerboard and split inlays like a Gibson Johnny Smith.

[Woody Sound]

Besides the guitar, LS should be hailed more as one of the greats.

[Chris236]

From what i can see, there are other distinct differences in the two models. The 2471 has a shorter peghead and block inlays, and a pointed end of the fingerboard resembling a L5, the 2461 has the long peghead, no pointed end at the fingerboard and split inlays like a Gibson Johnny Smith.

You may be right - I’ve never noticed any cosmetic differences although through the years some of these things varied.

[JazzNote]

Besides the guitar, LS should be hailed more as one of the greats.

Definitely yes, he ranks among the greatest IMHO!

[Mick Wright]

Livia Records in Dublin recently began a reissue programme of their Louis Stewart recordings, including some impressive unreleased material, with promises of further exciting items in the pipeline.

Livia Records

All the best
Mick W

[Irishmuso]

Besides the guitar, LS should be hailed more as one of the greats.

Quite right. He also played a lot of guitars, including that Ibanez. From a Gibson reputedly given to him by Benny Goodman, a Guild Artist Award which he played in JJ's pub in Dublin, an archtop handmade by an Irish luthier, a bunch of other Gibson archtops and even a Cort Larry Coryell. Someone, somewhere has a list

[Hammertone]

they are the same guitar except the 2471 has a solid top, 2461 ply. He put his own custom floater on it either way.

Ibanez sold a low-profile, full-sized, floating, neck-mounted, humbucker in the 1970s, which is most likely what is installed on Louis Stewart’s Ibanez 2471. Excellent pickup - I used one for a few years.

[JimR56]

Quite right. He also played a lot of guitars, including that Ibanez. From a Gibson reputedly given to him by Benny Goodman, a Guild Artist Award which he played in JJ's pub in Dublin, an archtop handmade by an Irish luthier, a bunch of other Gibson archtops and even a Cort Larry Coryell. Someone, somewhere has a list

Louis played a lot of guitars, absolutely. I don't have a list, but I could make one, and it would include many guitars that he used in live performances (and not just on album covers). It always amazed me how I would see him using so many different instruments. The sense I got was that he loved the variety and the challenge of playing different guitars, and I almost assumed that most of them were guitars that must have been loaned to him by fans and associates.

I'd not heard (at least I don't recall hearing) about a guitar gifted by Benny Goodman, but I did hear (from reliable sources) that his modified 1930's ES-150 was a gift from Bucky Pizzarelli.

I've been a big fan of Louis since I was introduced to his recordings back in the 1980's by a guitarist/author/collector named Robert Yelin, who operated (pre-internet) a mail-order network for jazz guitar enthusiasts who wanted to find audio and video recordings by famous as well as obscure players from around the world. Although I've known about this forum for many many years, I never registered until today, as I had numerous other forums where I spent too much time (haha). One of them was a jazz forum where I did all I could to promote Louis and make more people aware of him. One thing that came out of that was that I was contacted a few years ago by a guitarist in Wisconsin who had come across some of my posts about Louis from 20 years ago. Turns out that this gentleman was even more of a Louis Stewart completist than I was! Outside of Ireland, there may not exist two bigger fans of Louis. I was fortunate to meet Louis back in 1995, and he was a wonderful man in addition to being among the greatest jazz guitarists who ever lived.