equipment

[ken moores]

I was wondering if anyone might be able to tell me the exact model/year of John Fogerty's speaker cabinets he used. Thanks

Research by TK



In the beginning

The first guitar was the family Stella and later his mom purchased an Orpheus nylon-sting folk guitar for the family. After that John took his savings (from his paper route) and bought a Silvertone and a 5 watt amp for $80.00. He used that from the Blue Velvet time untill the eleventh grade. After the eleventh grade he bought a used 3/4 Supro guitar and put some slinky strings on it, later it was Val Trol resoglas (also from Supro) with 2 pick-up's plus a third in the bridge.



Golliwogs

In 64?- 65? He bought a Fender Mustang (3/4) lot's off the Golliwogs material was made with that. When John was in the army Tom traded the Fender and the Supro resoglas in and got John a Rickenbacker 325. John switched the Rickenbacker vibrato to Bigsby, just before Susie Q.

In Guitar World August 1998 John said that he used a Fender Tremolux (a white tolex piggyback model with two ten-inch speakers) before he bought the Kustom amp, maybe it's this amp on the Golliwogs recordings.



CCR

John wanted a special guitar for songs tuned to "D" like, Grapevine, Run through the jungle, Feelin?blue etc so he bought a Gibson ES-175. Proud Mary, Bootleg, Graveyard Train and a lot of Bayou Country was made on that. You can see a hint of it on the CCR / Booker T Jam Session. Later it was stolen and he bought a Les Paul, the neck got broken and his repair man (Hideo Kamimoto) shortened the neck to make a 3/4 size guitar and then he bought a new Les Paul for D guitar. John owned a least two Les Paul Customs in the CCR days, one without vibrato and one with the Bigsby vibrato. John used Fender Vibrolux silver face with two 12" JBL , Fender Consert and Kustom amp?s, the Kustom amps setting on the Trem / Vib was always at one o' clock. Live it was the Kustom amps with double 2x15" cabinets. (JBL K(?) 130)



CCR recording tech.

John always use a Shure SM57 when he was recording the Kustom amps. The mic was always pointing at the paper on Johns Kustom speaker cause the JBL 130 produced a very bright tone. Tom always played through a Kustom in the studio. The bass was recorded both miked and direct signal.

The Fogerty model is a 1967 K-200-4 model with 2-15" JBL speakers. The footswitch on that amp turns on and off reverb, tremolo/vibrato, harmonic clipper(distortion) and Selective Boost. It was before the daysof channel switching. It IS the same one from the Credence days.



Some Kustom amp info

John's amp's is a 1968 Kustom K200A Model 2-15L-4 also known as the K200A-4. It had Reverb, Tremelo/Vibrato, Harmonic Clipper & Boost controls, (the last number in the model designating the effects) -1 having no effects, -2 with Rev. & Trem/Vib., -3 with Rev., Clipper & boost, & -4, John's model with all the above. Kustom creator (Bud Ross) made the solid state tuck-n-roll guitar, bass & pa.amp heads & cabinets including but not all, the ((100)),150.((200)),250 from '67-'73. The ((100)) was a 50 watt & the ((200)) a 100 watt head. In 1967 models said Kustom "by Ross Inc." on the amps and had a red jewel light, in '68 they dropped the "by Ross" & in '69 they switched to a blue jewel light and put the "((200))" (B-series, B-1 through B-4) on the front of the amp through '70. In '71 the Kustom amp got a facelift with the K150 & K250 series and dropped the plexi face for a metal one, also a square blue power and polarity switch replaced the front toggle. his info was mailed to the John Fogerty Swamp mailing list by John C. Karas



CCR Stage setup

John used the Rickenbacker 325 with Bigsby and the Les Paul without Bigsby. Tom used Guild half-acoustic, one white and one sherry or brown. Stu had a modified Fender Precision bass, a second precision pick-up in bridge position and a Rickenbacker 4001 pickup in neck position.( and some foamrubber under the strings) Doug's drums was a set made by Camco. In the Albert Hall video you can see the huges PA cabinets also made by Kustom. John used two Kustom amps with one speaker cabinet on his side of the stage, and probably one cabinet on the other side. Tom used one Kustom amp with two cabinets behind him. Stu used one Kustom amp and four Sunn cabinets. All Kustom cabinets was 2x15", Sunn cabinets was 2x15" or 2x18".

I always wanted to know what kind of harp did john use

Michael
Hi,

Is it the Harmonic Clipper that gives John the ability to hold a note and have those excellent harmonics kick in? I've not been able to find anything that duplicates this. Do you have any ideas? Please email me at johnalthouse@yahoo.com.

j