Harmony and Stella

[Brad Little]

Not as big as Yamaha and Cordoba/Guild, but nevertheless, interesting: https://www.guitarworld.com/news/harmony-acquires-stella-guitars
Sorta Deja vu all over again a few generations later!

 

[banjomike]

Back in the Stone Age when I took up the guitar, Stellas were the cheap Harmonies. They were the guitar to buy when you couldn't afford a Harmony (or a Sears Silvertone).
Mason Williams, the guy who wrote Classical Gas, wrote a song titled "Thirteen Dollar Stella" that's a double-entendre love song to his first guitar.

The Stella that really tipped me over was one Jon Lundberg made, a copy of the old Stella 12-string that was made before Harmony bought Stella. The guitar couldn't be tuned to A440, but it sure sounded good, far better than the price indicated. Lundberg really admired them a lot, and he never tried to improve the build quality; he left all the braces rough-sawn and square, just like the old guitars.

Jon also loved to remove the top from a Harmony Sovereign and re-work it. He would thin the top, remove the ladder braces and replace then with shaved X-bracing, and some of those guitars were real cannons.
He sold one to John Sebastian, who used the Sovereign as his warm-up guitar on the road. It was the guitar he played at Woodstock as a solo artist after the rest of his band couldn't get in due to the rain, and none of his other gear could come.

He was in the same boat as Richie Havens- no bands, no gear, with 500,000 eager for a show to begin. Their acoustic guitars were all they had to keep that crowd happy. Sebastian and Havens had to go on with what they had brought with them. And then made some history.

 

[GGJaguar]

BandLab Technologies, the owner of Stella and Harmony, also owns Heritage Guitars.

 

[guitarlover]

Is that Bandlab like the DAW (former Cakewalk) ?

 

[GGJaguar]

Is that Bandlab like the DAW (former Cakewalk) ?

Yes!

 

[Guildedagain]

From article;

"Kurt Cobain is said to have used a flat-top Stella Harmony 12-string guitar for the acoustic tracks on Nirvana's Nevermind,"

Lol totally unknown to me, I've had one of these for a long time, near mint, Craigslist find. Seeing what Cobain fans do to these, I think I'll hang on to it a bit longer.





The apocalypse really is near, as he says that "the strings pull on the floating bridge if too tight"and he flops the bridge around, quite obviously impervious to what is intonation and how it affects notes as you go up the neck, it sounds terrible and people are begging to buy it in the comments.

And more Polly guitar worship.



This is mine, killer old timey tone, great for slide.

And with my other Sunbursts

It's amazing how much the 1940's Stella 12 string body shape looks like my F30, or vice versa.

 

[Guildedagain]

He sold one to John Sebastian, who used the Sovereign as his warm-up guitar on the road. It was the guitar he played at Woodstock as a solo artist after the rest of his band couldn't get in due to the rain, and none of his other gear could come.

An amazing moment actually.



This is about as good as we ever got, a high point for the species.

 

[Sauerkrautseth]

John Sebastian may have had an x-braced sovereign, but the one he played at Woodstock belonged to Tim Harden and had the original ladder bracing. https://paulkingart.com/product/john-sebastian-portrait/

 

[Guildedagain]

It hardly matters the bracing when you play like that.

 

[banjomike]

Ladder vs. X bracing is pretty much a player's choice when it comes to the tone color of a guitar.

I have no favorite between them, but to my ear ladder bracing seems to suit some smaller guitars and some larger guitars with shalllow bodies. Guitars like those sound different, boxier, with less sustain and fewer harmonic overtones, but still quite good, with a nice deep bass and rich highs.

The X brace seems to produce a more neutral sonic balance, where there is nothing in the range that jumps out any stonger than the other frequencies in the smaller guitars, while giving the bass big bottom in the larger guitars. Much more sustain in all, an all prpduce richer and more complex harmonics.
It's possible to push an x-braced guitar harder before the sound begins to compress or distort too.

The Ladder bracing may be best for a guitar used in a large band and for a guitar that is used to play rapid-fire lead lines. The Ladder braced guitar sounds louder with less playing effort, and the pronounced midrange tends to give them very clearly heard tone, much like an archtop guitar or a cello.

A solo artist with a good X-braced guitar has almost a small orchestra in his hands, but. one whose sound may get lost in a larger band situation. In a small band, though, the guitar can double for other instruments due to its complexity and versatility.

Both make the top strong enough to stand up to the tension of steel strings, but the X-braced top is the stiffer, and doesn't work as well with x-tra light gauge strings.

All of the above are only my observations.

 

[Midnight Toker]

Out of all the fancy acoustics Jimmy Page has at his disposal, his fav acoustic since the early 70's is still his 68 Harmony H1260 Sovereign. (Was used on Stairway and several other Zep tunes)

 

[Westerly Wood]

I love the shape of that Harmony Sovereign. It looks like a cross between a dread and a jumbo.

 

[SFIV1967]

The Harmony Company | Sovereign H1260, serial # 9631111260 | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

www.metmuseum.org

Ralf

 

[Nuuska]

. . .

The Stella that really tipped me over was one Jon Lundberg made, . . . .

Is Jon Lumberg same guy who built an extra long-scale neck for Leo Kottke's Martin - and later Leo took hacksaw and cut off top of the headstock - including two tuners - in order to fit it in any available case ?

This story is how I came to stringing my dear F-212-CSB w only 10 strings - the octave D&G were too loud w pickup.

However - I did not cut off the headstock - no guitar is harmed here

And - I can not recall if I read this Leo story on Guitar Player way back then - or if he told me - either way interesting

 

[SFIV1967]

Is Jon Lumberg same guy who built an extra long-scale neck for Leo Kottke's Martin

Leo wrote:
"It's a converted D-12-20. It has a 28" string scale, so it isn't pleasant to fret. [Ed. note: Standard scale length on a six-string guitar is 25 1/2".] I use it mostly for slide. [Berkeley, California, luthier] John Lundberg converted it for me. I made it into a 10-string. It probably will return to 12-string status if I ever stop using a magnetic pickup. The octave G and D-strings were just too loud. "

Here's that Lundberg-Martin (she was also converted to cutaway) when she still had 12 tuners:



And here is the cut headstock with 10 tuners:



And the changed bridge:



And the added cutaway:




But Leo Kottke does not own the Lundberg-Martin anymore! She was sold by Carter Vintage in 2020 for something close to $30,000. (at least that was the sales price Carter had set).





Ralf

 

[Nuuska]

Not only did he cut off that headstock . . .

He used to have a Furman PQ-6 Parametric Equalizer as preamp - he ended using no EQ and therefore I copied the preamp section and added a chorus that he liked - i gave him the new small box - he gave me the PQ-6 - on which he had cut the rack-ears off so it would not tear clothes in suitcase. I ordered new frontplate from Furman.

To think how much money that old original frontplate would cathch now on auction . . .

Here's the original unit w new faceplate - residing in my basement - fully functional - picture is about ten minutes old.

I used it for many years w my simple mixing console to get required sound of Bass Drum and snare Drum - worked really well.

 

[banjomike]

A Sovereign plays quite an important role in the hot new streaming series "Daisy Jones & The Six" on Amazon TV.
It was unsusal to watch all the actors; they all actually learned how to sing and play, so the shots where the Sovereign is used is what that guitar actually sounds like.
It sounds quite nice, in my opinion. The girl who plays Daisy comes by her voice authentically; she's Elvis' grand-daughter.

I just noticed a Guild J-something 12-string is used too. I couldn't tell which model it is.

 

[SFIV1967]

I just noticed a Guild J-something 12-string is used too. I couldn't tell which model it is.

At least this seems to be a very old F-212:





Is this the Sovereign you mentioned? Nothing written on the headstock.



Ralf

 

[Guildedagain]

That particular Harmony just happens to be "the one" that Page used to record the acoustic parts on the 1st three or four Zep albums.

 

[banjomike]

At least this seems to be a very old F-212:





Is this the Sovereign you mentioned? Nothing written on the headstock.



Ralf

Yup. Both were the guitars I mentioned.
Both look genuinely old and period-correct for the series.

Thanks for the Guild ID!

....and only God knows why the peghead face on the Sovereign is flat black. The series is trying hard to keep things correct, and I suspect this may be one detail that was done in the movies and TV a lot back in the 60s and 70s to guitars.