GRETSCH WHITE FALCON FRUSCIANTE FULL
He kept his eye on what was trending out of Detroit’s Big Three and even introduced two car–themed Gretsch guitar finishes in 1954: Jaguar Tan and Cadillac Green.Īnd at the 1954 NAMM Show in Chicago, Webster imitated the concept and show car idea by unveiling his White Falcon - a dazzling, bejeweled, white and gold one–off prototype he dubbed the “Guitar of the Future.” He even had it displayed on a rotating pedestal with spotlights for a full Guitarama effect. Jimmie Webster - Gretsch’s main guitar guru, designer, and ambassador of the 1950s - loved cars. None of these vehicles were ever produced, but some styling cues and technology found their way onto future production cars. In 1954, over two million car lovers flocked to auto shows to drool over the sleek Buick Wildcat II, the radically styled Oldsmobile Rocket, the GM Firebird I (basically, a stylized jet with four wheels), and many other wild and colorful show cars. These attention–getting “dream cars of tomorrow” were built to wow the public at popular auto shows and GM’s traveling Motorama. Gretsch had lost some of their popularity by this point, not least because the most recent breed of Rock legends (Hendrix, Beck, Page, Clapton.“A fantasy on wheels.” That’s one way to describe the flashy and futuristic concept cars of the 1950s. Before doing so, he sold the Gretsch company to Baldwin, a maker of pianos who weren’t exactly known for their guitars. Old Fred Gretsch, the company’s owner, has called it a day and retired from the biz. We jump back into our DeLorean time machine now and punch in a date twenty years ahead, to the mid-seventies. The order went in, the guitars were quickly snapped up and the Gretsch 6136 White Falcon began its amazing history. As you can probably imagine, it was an instant hit. The White Falcon, with its massive 17” wide body, white finish, gold hardware, sparkly trimmings and ebony fingerboard, made its debut at 1954’s Summer NAMM show. The puzzle was forming, and boy, was it special! Picking up vibes as he looked around, he began piecing together his ‘Dream Guitar’: sparkly binding from the plastic used by the Gretsch drum department, engraved inlays from the banjo production line, and so on. To get some creative juices flowing, Jimmy took a stroll through the Gretsch factory, where the guys were busy building the brand's wide range of instruments. Gretsch wanted to grab that market, and set out to make an instrument that could out-perform and out-bling Gibson's best. The plan was to out-do Gibson’s enormous Super 400 hollow body jazzer, which at that point was not only one of the world’s most massive production guitars, but a massive hit too. The Falcon was dreamed up by Jimmie Webster, a luthier and sales rep for Gretsch. Gretsch had already been on the go for decades by this point, beginning as they did back in 1883. We are jumping into the driver’s seat of the DeLorean and typing 1954 into the mad-looking dashboard, to travel back in time and arrive at the birth of the Falcon. This is very much the case with guitars: the fifties gave us the best Fenderdesigns, the best Gibsondesigns and the best Gretsch Guitar designs. fountains.things from back then carry a huge amount of talismanic appeal. To someone who was never anywhere near that rose-tinted decade, it seems as though every cultural thing from the fifties – music, cars, clothes, houses, movies – was ineffably cool in a way that no things are these days. The Gretsch Falcon, as we’ll be calling it for the remainder of this blog, begins its story, as all truly great guitars do, in the mists of the romantic 1950s. There’s nothing we can do about these people, so let us quickly forget about them and move on to inspect the hows and whys of Gretsch’s finest! But then, there are some people out there who don’t like Golden Retrievers, too.
There are actually some people out there who don’t think that the White Falcon is one of the most amazing guitars ever. Instead, oh dear Whitest of Falcons, we will humbly talk about why you are so incredible. The White Falcon: we want to write sophisticated poetry in its honour, but alas we lack the ability to appropriately capture its magnificence in rhyme and metre. Omnipotent.ĭear White Falcon, how majestic you are. Perched, as it is, atop the great mountain of guitar magnificence. The greatness of the White Falcon is obvious for all to see. The Greatness of the Gretsch White Falcon
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