Your Most Interesting Home Recordings!

[JohnM]

When I lived in California, I lived in Downey for a few years. Our house was about three blocks from Paul Bigsby's house and workshop. It was abandoned and the yard overgrown with weeds, but I used to imagine what it was like back in the late 40's - early 1950's when Merle Travis would ride his motorcycle over to Bigsby's with his guitar slunk over his back and Paul would service the guitar and tune the motorcycle on the same visit. There was a rich country music tradition in SoCal right after the war partially because of the Dust Bowl migration of the 30's and the GI's mustering out of the service after WWII. I hate to be a bug, but where did grand-dad live specifically?

Thanks!
John M

[Shane]

He lived in Fresno at the time. That's about 2 hours away from Bakersfield, which, of course, is also a hotbed for country music.

[JohnM]

Bakersfield = 'Nashville West'

[Viva-Tonal]

What make and model of wire recorder is the one you found?

[Shane]

Well, here's the story. My grandparents' unit (which is in the garage in non-operating condition) was a Silvertone console combination wire recorder/78rpm record player/radio unit. It arrived with one full spool, and a whole bunch of wire on the take-up reel. My uncle also found two loose empty spools with the unit, which later turned out to be a life-saver.

I then bought a suitcase version of the same basic unit off ebay, sans the radio. This didn't work either, but it did rewind. After I relocated the take-up reel from my grandparents' unit to this unit, I was able to rewind all the wire onto the two empty spools I had. I then dumped that unit back on ebay and got my money back.

Then I bought a Webster recorder which was guaranteed to work. Unfortunately, the gears were jamming up when it arrived at my house... nothing would turn. I asked for a refund, and got my money back. The guy said to keep it, as to ship it back would cost too much. I walked away from the whole project for a while, frustrated. Then one day, I got the motivation to take a look at the machine. Three hours of work later, I discovered what was jamming everything up... one of the rubber wheels was rubbing against a metal railing, and it slowed the machine down to zero. I filed the railing down to get it out of the way of the wheel, and the thing took off.

Talk about a time-intensive project, but at least it was cost-effective!