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Freddie King's amp. Which one was it?

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11/13/1999 4:42 AM

Freddie King's amp. Which one was it?

Excuse me for posting this message here, but the "news" don't work for me since a month ago or so.

Here it goes:

I would really like to know which brand/model of amp was Freddie King playing through when he recorded "The moon is rising".
And the model of guitar too, if possible.

I have it on a "various artists gold collection" type of CD, so I can't tell the date of the recording or anything else, sorry about that.

Thanks in advance.
(I really need that amp/guitar combo)

jc

11/15/1999 10:01 PM
Stephen	I know he used a Fender Quad reverb in the seventies, the guitar was a Gibson 345 I believe, but I don´t know if he used that gear on that song tough. S

11/16/1999 12:47 AM
John Stokes	I've seen pictures of Freddie with an old Ampeg Gemini. Man, what a player!!

11/16/1999 1:58 AM

I've got a video of him playing live, sometime in the 1970's. He's playing an ES-345 and a silverface Pro or Twin, and his tone sounds just like it does on the records. Maybe I'll dig out that video and see if I can tell which amp it is. I've seen pictures from the 50's of Freddy with a goldtop P-90 Les Paul, and he was probably playing tweed Fenders at the time, too. I don't know which one (or ones), though.

And, yeah, what a great player! I love his phrasing. His solo on "Help Me Through the Night" gives me goosebumps, and the turnarounds on "Are You Ready?" are just too hip.

Michael Tousek

11/16/1999 4:03 AM

So, what I thoght to be a 335, is a 345.
Well, that's good to know. He used p90's on that guitar, didn't he? And as the guitar appears to be quite new on the photos, probably not "real" vintage ones...

About the amp... It seams to my ears to be a small wattage Fender, as it sounds really in the limit; a bit ferther and the distortion would be too much.

A friend told me that maybe he could have some mods done to the amp. Just guessing about.

As I can appreciate in your answers, maybe almost any Fender amp would play like that. Am I right?

jc

11/16/1999 4:56 AM

JC, an ES-345 has parallelogram inlays versus a 335's dots, and I'm pretty sure the guitar Freddy's playing in my video has the parallel inlays. Both used humbucking pickups. In the background you can see his amp, and it's definitely a 2x12 silverface Fender. I'll have to double check to confirm both of these, though.

This was has live rig in the 1970's, though. There are pictures of Freddy from the 1950's where he's got a pompadore hairdo and a P-90 equipped goldtop Les Paul. I'd say what he played evolved as the equipment of the day evolved. In the '50's he probably used P-90 guitars and tweed amps, then humbuckers and tweed, then humbuckers and blonde, then humbuckers and blackface, and finally humbuckers and silverface in the '70's.

I think just about any traditional Gibson guitar and any Fender tube amp would get you in the ballpark. You say his tone is pretty distorted in the song you mentioned, which points to the amp being a tweed, in my opinion.

Michael Tousek

11/17/1999 2:06 AM
JC	I had a few answers about the 345, so that must have been the guitar, although some pics on the web I saw it had P90's on it I think. That´s out of my budget for the moment, but not so with a Fender amp. I'm really looking after one. About the 345, I have been noticed that they were stereo, and I guess if there is a need of using two amps with it or not. jc

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