>What exactly is a B-Bender? A drink? Guitar? Style of playing the B-string
>on a guitar? Early version of the wonderbra?
>By the way, is the G. Parsons to which "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man" is
>co-credited Gram or Gene?
>Lance . . .
The Parsons-White B-Bender is a spring & pulley device Gene Parsons invented
for Clarence White's Telecaster. When you pull down on the neck of the
guitar, it activates a pulley connected to the strap button on the upper
bass bout of the guitar & which pulls the B-string and bends it up up a
whole step, which enables one to simulate the string-bending effect of a
pedal steel guitar. Quite an ingenious device, which he has since gone on
to market professionally over the last 30 or so years. Gene has his own
business that builds & installs it; its also currently available from Fender
as a custom option, as well as being featured on one of their Tele models.
Its been used by countless musicians since.
There's a less expensive device that does the same thing called a Hipshot,
retailing at about $80, which can be retro-fitted onto an electric guitar
with out having to route out the inside to install the Parsons String Bender
mechanism. I've had a Hipshot on on my Tele for the last 10 years or so.
The tone and the "pull" are not quite the same, but it works for me, at
least until I can afford one of the Real Things.
"Drugstore Truck Drivin' Man" was co-written with GRAM Parsons in London,
just prior to the South African disaster, & was a sarcastic riposte to the
Nashville audience who had rejected the Byrds after their guest appearance
on the Grand Ole Opry in 1968. More specifically, the song was directed
against Ralph Emory (ie: "this one's for you, Ralph" as McGuinn says at the
end of the cut), who had denounced the Byrds as longhairedhippyweirdofaggots
on his radio show. Between record plays and right-wing comments about the
Byrds, Emory would announce commercials for various items such as truck
components, and it was from this that McGuinn developed an image of the drug
store truck drivin' man who was so reactionary that he mightg as well be
head of the Ku Klux Klan.
Buddy
Among Others Rockets
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Buddy Woodward - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
THE GHOST ROCKETS - "Maximum Rhythm & Bluegrass"
http://www.hudsonet.com/~undertow/ghostrockets
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