My latest guitar - Ovation Breadwinner

I've been after one of these vintage 1970s solid-body Ovations for a while now, and I finally tracked this beauty down for quite a nice price.

It was sold to me as being an Ovation Deacon but I'm not quite sure. The Deacon was the "posher" version of the Breadwinner and generally had a natural finish, bound fingerboard and "double diamond" inlays on the fingerboard.

Now, whilst my guitar (pictured above) has the smaller scratchplate that adorned most Deacons, it doesn't have the bound fingerboard, diamond inlays, and is a solid black in colour.

My inclination is that it's a Breadwinner with the smaller scratchplate, but I'm not 100% on this.

Any Ovation fans out there? Does anyone have any more info for me?

Link: The Ovation Breadwinner Fanpage

UPDATE: OK... the guys over at The Ovation Fan Club are pretty insistent that it is a Breadwinner, albeit a bit of an unusual one. It looks like they may have mixed and matched parts at the factory. (1 Oct 2006)

BJ & Byrne Guitars Ltd. unveil five new electric guitar models: I can't find out much about this company, but unearthed this on a guitar forum: "There's a new company in London making phenominal hand made electrics called B.J. & Byrne Guitars it's the only all British and Made in GB guitar company and the guitars are not only a pleasure to play, they also are not terribly expensive, considering that they have a life time guarantee. They start at about £500 and go to about £800. They use a selection of Bare Knuckle pick-ups which are hand wound and are w/out a doubt the best pick-up I've ever played with."

Blues guitarist Etta Baker dies, aged 93

If you're on MySpace, add us as a friend. Go to: www.myspace.com/guitarzblog

Guitarist Al Casey dies, aged 69. Casey concocted the funky riff on Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made For Walkin', played on Campbell's By the Time I Get to Phoenix and the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations.

You don't hear guitars solos like these anymore: John Sinkevics, writing for The Grand Rapids Press, asks "Whatever became of the rock guitar solo?"

Behringer Ships iAXE393-USB Guitar With Native Instruments Software

The Left-Handed Guitar Players That Changed Music

Strawberry Alarm Clock's surfboard-inspired Mosrites

eBay: 1967 Mosrite Vintage Strawberry Alarm Clock Guitars
(item 120026471951 end time Sep-14-06 12:30:00 PDT)

Blimey! The now legendary trio of unique Mosrite guitars as used by Strawberry Alarm Clock are up for sale on eBay! One of my very first posts on this blog was about these very guitars. (Thanks to Music Thing for the heads up.)

Local guitar makers put great care into their craft: Article about the Mexican town of Paracho, where everyone is a luthier. (Via Fretboard Journal)

Epiphone Offers a Wide Range of SG Guitars: something for everyone! Even 13-year old goth girls.

Patent bomb-jammer inspired by Jimi Hendrix! Jimi Hendrix turned feedback into an art form – sticking his guitar close to a speaker so that it picked up its own sound and generated deafening shrieks. Now a US inventor is patenting a way to defeat remote-controlled explosives using the same trick. A series of transmitters would create a self-sustaining bubble of radio frequency noise to prevent terrorists from sending a trigger signal to a hidden bomb. (More...)

Solving the mystery of the Web guitarist: Who was that masked man?

The Pikasso 42-String Guitar Even Intimidates Jimmy Page

Pat Metheny's eye-boggling multi-stringed Pikasso guitar has been featured in lots of blogs recently. I originally blogged about it almost 4 years ago! (Some people take a long time to catch up, don't they?) Anyway, if you can't imagine how on earth he'd play it, see this YouTube clip of Pat Metheny playing this beast (although it appears to have lost the upper headstock):

Pink Floyd have best guitar solo ever: Pink Floyd's 'Comfortably Numb' has been voted as having the best guitar solo of all time.

Radio station Planet Rock conducted the survey, and came up with the top 40 guitar solos. Pink Floyd beat the opening riff from 'Sweet Child O'Mine' by Guns 'N' Roses into second place, while Lynryd Skynyrd's 'Freebird' took third place.

The top ten in full:

1. 'Comfortably Numb' - Pink Floyd
2. 'Sweet Child O'Mine' - Guns N'Roses
3. 'Freebird' - Lynryd Skynryd
4. 'Eruption' - Van Halen
5. 'November Rain' - Guns N' Roses
6. 'Stairway to Heaven' - Led Zeppelin
7. 'Sultans of Swing' - Dire Straits
8. 'Aqualung' - Jethro Tull,
9. 'Hotel California' - The Eagles
10. 'Child In Time' - Deep Purple.