At 08:13 AM 3/21/99 -0600, you wrote:
>
>What exactly is a B-Bender? A drink? Guitar? Style of playing the B-string
>on a guitar? Early version of the wonderbra?
alas ye unwashed hairy brethern, sit thee down and thou shalt learn sumpthin.
I'm not sure who the first person to bend a guitar string was, but it has
become a staple of the Country Guitar Playing style. It might of been Roy
Nichols who would bend the string *before* it was picked and then let it
detension back. James Burton might have been the first. He's getting awful
long in the tooth and is the undesputed master of chicken pickin string
bendin. James replaced the strings on his paisley Tele with banjo strings
because they were thinner and he could get more bend out of them.
But I want to talk about Clarence White. Clarence and his older brother
Roland originainally hail from the high lonesome mountains of Maine. Well I
maybe not high or lonesome but they are originally from Maine. Their daddy
relocated them out to Californicate. Roland was bit particularly hard by
the music bug and used to make his brothers Eric and Clarence get up in the
middle of the night and pick with him. If they didn't, he'd kick their
butt. The White Brothers played a bunch of really fine music. They later
went on to become the Kentucky Colonels and had a bunch of hillbilly
longhairs join them. People like Scotty Stoneman, Roger Bush, Billy Ray
Lathum, and LeRoy "Mack" MacNees. The White Brothers, performing as the
Country Boys, were regulars on Joe Maphis's televison program. Maphis
turned young Clarence on to electricity.
Clarence White bought himself a '54 Fender Telecaster in 1965 and began
learning to play it. He made friends with pickers Jimmy Bryant, Don Rich,
and James Burton and learned how to play that thing. It didn't take long
before he was suprising the hell out of his hero/teachers. White hooked up
with Gene Parsons and Gib Guilbeau around '66 or '67 and were performing in
the LA area as Nashville West. The album of the same name was originally
recorded by Parsons as nothing more than a practice tape and features
Clarence *pre-bender*. Clarence was fascinated by the sound of Pedal
Steel. The string bender came into being due to Clarence hitting licks and
getting Parsons to bend the string for him above the nut,that is between
the tuner and the nut. Parsons', a skilled machinist, thought about it for
awhile and put all the synapases in his big ole' head to work and invented
the B-Bender. A mechanical device that will bend the B string on the guitar
when the neck is pushed down. This device involved radical custimization
and more gears and levers than someone with my limited mechanical ability
ever wants to even think about. It was named the Parson's-White
Stringbender. Clarences name was stuck on it because he already had a
reputation as an axe-slinger. Jimi Hendrix was a Clarence White fan, But
make no mistake, Gene Parsons invented the thing. Clarence just showed the
world what it could do.
The B-Bender has come back into style again. Fender now sells a line of
B-Bender guitars licsenced from Parsons. Hipshot makes a bolt on bender
that loosely immitates. But you can have the real thing, not a shoddy
imitation. Gene Parsons install's B-Benders at his mountiantop workshop. In
fact he has now invented an acoustic version. Check out
http://www.stringbender.com
The first ever B-Bender is now owned by Marty Stuart. He owns the
Telecaster that Clarence played and uses it as his main axe. He don't bend
it as much as I would like for him too, although I recently saw a clip of
him on the television where he was bending his little heart away. Made me
proud.
Jimmy Olander of the group Diamond Rio is probably the most heard/radio
friendly B-Bender player out there working right now.
If yu would like more information on bending, check out Gene Parsons
website at http://www.stringbender.com he even has some sound files up there.
for more information on Clarence White, check out
http://ebni.com/byrds/memcw1.html
I apologise now for any inaccuracies. Mary Kat knows far more than I ever
will about Clarence White, Joe Maphis, James Burton and that whole early
california country/country-rock scene. The Bud Rocket is also a
Clarence-Burton authority. I'm counting on you two to clear up any
screwups on my part.
Jeff Wall
http://www.twangzine.com The Webs least sucky music magazine
3421 Daisy Crescent - Va Beach, Va - 23456
