History of seven-string solidbodies

OK, back on topic

The alembic plot thickens. Carol Kaye responded and tells me she had nothing to do with this guitar.

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From: "Carol Kaye" <her email>
Sent: Tuesday, 22 February 2011 5:57 PM
To: <my email>
Subject: Re: Alembic seven-string guitar

No it wasn't me. I had a multiple string bass made think it was 9
strings and was eventually scrapped, it wasn't 7 strings tho' and bass
is not a guitar.

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So I'm going back to Alembic...

 

I'm working on this. The email address listed on his forum profile is no longer active, and a google search for the individual "John Robinson" has come up empty. We're both in Sydney so I even tried the white pages, but there are several hundred "J Robinson"s listed.

When I get the time I'll print out a picture and stick it up in a few of Sydney's speciality guitar shops (Guitar Lounge, Jackson's Rare Guitars, Guitar Factory, etc). I'm also going to try the local music forums, and go back to the Alembic forum.

I'll admit being slightly annoyed at the fact that so far I've been able to source information from all over the world, but I appear to have hit a brick wall trying to find a guitar which is apparently in my own damn town.

 

More Alembic news:

I have to say, Alembic's level of cooperation and their response times are astonishing. I've never owned an Alembic, but you've got to love dealing with such a responsive company.

OK, I just got a second email, this time from Mica Thomas, who is the offspring (daughter?) of founder Ron Wickersham.

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From: "Mica Thomas" <email removed>
Sent: Wednesday, 23 February 2011 10:18 AM
To: <my email>
Subject: fw: Re: Alembic seven-string guitar (fwd)

Hi Manning,

Carol is of course right about her instrument being a 9 string bass; it's
sort of a weird combo bass/guitar thing.

The 7-string guitar was custom ordered, it was not our concept, it was a
custom order that we were glad to take the challenge of. However, for us
it's simply the work we do, so keeping track of firsts and getting press
for such things isn't really a priority.

I don't know the original owner's name, but I have a vague recollection he
may be Australian. The initials JEN are inlaid on the front. I will keep
you in mind when I run across details about this guitar and notify you of
my findings. Keep in mind the records are all manual, and details may not
show up for quite a while.

So for now you have a photo of the guitar, initials of the person that
ordered it and a rough idea of the time, circa 1977.

Please feel free to write again if you have any other questions.

Best regards,
Mica


----------------------
Mica Wickersham Thomas
ALEMBIC, Inc.
3005 Wiljan Court
Santa Rosa, CA 95407
707-523-2611 phone
707-523-2935 fax

=================

So this confirms what we already know (except about the initials "JEN" which the forum post suggests refers to a girlfriend), and sadly doesn't actually add very much. Still, I'm grateful for their assistance.

 

Lenny is indeed a jazz guitar god, and it was a tragedy that he died so young.

 

Although we at Wikipedia have our suspicions, we have NOT proved this.

However the fact that this user was able to produce a scan of a letter from the British passport office to Alex Gregory does suggest a very close association.