ALTHOUGH THE SOLID-BODY electric guitar came about largely as a prediction of the kind of hardware that this new, rockin’ form

of music bubbling under the surface circa 1950 was likely to require, the players who ushered in rock ’n’ roll just a few years later more often did it on hollow-body archtop electrics. Elvis Presley’s lead guitarist, Scotty Moore, is a case in point. Having adopted

Fender’s adventurous new Esquire around 1951 or ’52 for his early work with country out� t the Starlite Wranglers, he traded up in 1953 for an instrument that would have been considered a bit classier at the time: a Gibson ES-295. Thus Moore, who would soon become a formative force in rockabilly and rock ’n’ roll guitar, seemed to be swimming against the tide—not that that tide noticed or cared. With gold ES-295 in hand, the guitarist laid down the lead guitar tracks on all of Presley’s classic, early Sun recordings up until July 1955.

The ES-295 was a new model for Gibson at the time, born just a year before in 1952, and was essentially just a gold-� nished, two-pickup rendition of the ES-175 that debuted in 1949. It shared the ES-175’s laminated-maple construction, but departed in its use of a trapeze-like wraparound bridge and tailpiece. The same piece of hardware was used on the � rst Les Paul, released the same year, though it was wrongly adopted on that seminal solid-body, partnered with a � at neck pitch that required loading the strings under the bridge bar rather than over it. Even when mounted correctly, this bridge was still a cumbersome device that afforded barely any scope for intonation adjustment. Soon after purchasing his ’53 ES-295 from the O. K. Houck Piano Company in Memphis, Tennessee, Moore modi� ed it with the addition of a simple trapeze tailpiece and a Gretsch Melita Synchrosonic bridge, which had six independent, fully adjustable saddles and represented a mammoth step forward in tweakability.

Even when mounted correctly, this bridge was Even when mounted correctly, this bridge was still a cumbersome device that afforded barely still a cumbersome device that afforded barely any scope for intonation adjustment. Soon after any scope for intonation adjustment. Soon after purchasing his ’53 ES-295 from the O. K. Houck purchasing his ’53 ES-295 from the O. K. Houck Piano Company in Memphis, Tennessee, Moore Piano Company in Memphis, Tennessee, Moore modi� ed it with the addition of a simple trapeze modi� ed it with the addition of a simple trapeze

adjustable saddles and represented a mammoth adjustable saddles and represented a mammoth

Scotty Moore picks his golden Gibson ES-295 alongside Elvis Presley and bassist Bill Black at a show in 1955–1956.

Writing at scottymoore.net, James V. Roy notes that, after playing the ES-295 on Elvis’ “That’s All Right” and “Good Rockin’ Tonight” in 1954, and “Milkcow Blues Boogie” and “Baby Let’s Play House” in 1955 (among others), Moore traded it toward a new L-5CES on July 7, 1955, again at Houck’s music store. The L-5CES, which retained the carved, solid spruce top of Gibson’s big archtops of the jazz age, was considered another step up the ladder, and Moore climbed yet another rung in October 1956 when an endorsement deal with Gibson landed him a new Super 400CESN. His original ES-295 was purchased by Elvis memorabilia collector Jimmy Velvet, who sold it to an undisclosed collector in the early ’90s for $125,000, its aftermarket Melita bridge still intact. Other guitars that have occasionally been (wrongly) rumored to be “Scotty Moore’s ES-295” are a pair of signed examples hanging in the Hard Rock Cafés in Dallas and Nashville, a third in the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, and a fourth that was owned for a time by the late guitar phenomenon Danny Gatton.

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THE GRETSCH 6120 BEARS ANOTHER star’s name, but one could argue that no performer is more synonymous with the model than

Brian Setzer. Sure, country virtuoso Chet Atkins established the model at Gretsch’s bequest (and famously strayed from the template numerous times over the two decades following its introduction in 1955). But the 6120 Chet Atkins Hollow Body was always more a rockabilly roller than a country picker. Even though Setzer came along as part of a rockabilly revival (you could argue that his band, the Stray Cats, pioneered said revival in the early ’80s) rather than amid the original wave of artists who popularized the style decades earlier, Setzer has arguably done more to bring the 6120 back to the masses than any other artist before or since.

Facing page: Brian Setzer and his 1959 Gretsch Model 6120, Pine Knob Music Theater, Detroit, Michigan, July 1983. © Robert Alford

Like many players who are enamored with a particular model of guitar, Setzer has owned and played several 6120s throughout his career, and he has often performed with recent Gretsch Brian Setzer Hot Rod and 6120 reissue models. The most iconic of all his Gretsches, however, is the very � rst one he ever acquired: a 1959 6120 Chet Atkins Hollow Body that stayed with him throughout his formative years with the Stray Cats in London in the early 1980s. The band’s � rst three successive chart singles—“Runaway Boys,” “Rock This Town,” and “Stray Cat Strut”—absolutely de� ne the tone of a late-’50s 6120 through a reverb-drenched amp . . . the tone that rang in Setzer’s mind as something akin to that of Eddie Cochran, whose guitar he was on the prowl for before he even knew the name of it.

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