The Bob Warford & Clarence White Telecaster - The Second B-Bender Tele - Ask Zac 146

well hello friends and welcome to
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today's episode on Bob Warford Clarence
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White and the second B Bender telly
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so this is the the story of a very
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significant guitar that was of course
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owned by Clarence and then Bob Warford
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was used on
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a lot of uh really big classic you know
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kind of California country rock tunes
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and albums and such
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so we're going to talk about that talk
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about the second V bender and how Bob
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Warford and his dad made it by kind of
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using the original guitar of clarence's
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as a template and actually making some
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improvements upon it
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so hope you enjoy
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first I want to thank my sponsor
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truefire
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all right let's dive in so first a
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little bit about clearance if you're not
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aware of of Clarence white so Clarence
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White was of course a Bluegrass
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guitarist who moved out to California
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with his kind of the Kentucky Colonels
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uh also known at times as the White
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Brothers
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and they came out during the the folk
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boom of the early 1960s the 1964 with
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the onslaught of the Beetle and the
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British Invasion
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the folk boom busted and many
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um kind of disbanded or some change to
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Electric instruments kind of like the
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birds did and others so Clarence picked
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up the Telecaster and was very inspired
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by James Burton and he began kind of a
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dual life of still continuing to play
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bluegrass acoustic guitar which he was
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one of the great innovators on Bluegrass
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acoustic guitar so there could be a
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whole episode just on his significance
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in the world of Bluegrass and his huge
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influence on
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everyone after him including of course
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his most known disciple Tony Rice I
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should say the late Tony Rice
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but he uh
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he had just as significant an influence
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on electric guitar and kind of under the
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inspiration of James Burton he started
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playing a Telecaster and again he was
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living this dual life of playing
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acoustic music
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and also playing electric music
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and he uh he had a couple different
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telecasters and he uh he found this
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white Telecaster that he bought from
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Simi Mosley of moserite Fame
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and the guitar is is right here
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and so here you can see Clarence a young
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Clarence white in the mid 60s and he's
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playing a white Telecaster with a kind
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of modeled uh black you know dark
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pickguard and you know what you can't
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see is that it has a a reshaped
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Stratocaster neck on it
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so this was clarence's favorite guitar
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and he used it presumably even on the
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Nashville West Recordings which is which
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are my favorite Clarence recordings of
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his pre-bender work and frankly my
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favorite Clarence guitar work you know
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of anything that he ever did
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this is also the guitar that he used on
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the sweetheart of the rodeo album with
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the birds and it was his favorite guitar
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and he loved it
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and when the idea came up for doing a b
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Bender
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he decided to put the Bender in his
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second most favorite guitar which was
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this one so this is the famous guitar
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that we now think of as the Clarence
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white guitar and but it was actually his
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second favorite it was not his number
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one guitar
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but it was still a great Telecaster but
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after he and and Jean Parsons installed
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the the B bender on there they uh you
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know he he decided that that was his new
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number one and he wasn't playing the
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other one anymore this is where Bob
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Warford enters the picture
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so Bob was of course grew up in
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California and during the folk boom he
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learned how to play banjo
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and eventually he ended up playing with
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the Kentucky Colonels and or the white
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brothers whatever name they were going
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under at the time
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and Clarence of course was in the
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process of really getting into the
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electric guitar and he encouraged Bob
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Warford to also get into the guitar and
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get into electric guitar playing
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so Bob borrowed a
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you know a simple do a Sonic and then
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later on a jazz master from
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from Clarence and Bob had a noble
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acoustic that Clarence kind of fell in
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love with and so of course by this time
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Clarence is using the B Bender he's
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using his what was his number two guitar
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the Sunburst one is now his number one
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and so he decides to offer his former
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number one guitar the white Telly with
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the Strat neck on it to Bob Warford and
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trade for his Noble acoustic well they
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end up making the trade
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and Bob had the uh you know the white
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telly
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well of course clarence's blazing trails
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with his b Bender work and Bob decides
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that he would like to have a b Bender in
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his guitar too well of course no one's
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doing them uh except for I Mean Gene is
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not really doing it besides the one that
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he did for Clarence
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and so Bob and his father who's an
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engineer decide to figure out how to do
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one on their own well with a little with
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a little help
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so they were able to borrow the Clarence
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white guitar with the gene Parsons
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mechanism in there
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and they take blueprints of it
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and they immediately start making
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drawings and figuring out how to do
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their own Bender
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now there were a couple of things that
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they wanted to improve upon first off is
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that Gene found that he had a problem
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with one of the kind of bolts that he
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ended up having to go all the way
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through the guitar so in this picture
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you can see on the Clarence White Guitar
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it has a bolt going all the way up near
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the nudie Cohen sticker
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and so on on theirs they decided they
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figured out how to uh how to machine or
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how to design around that so they
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wouldn't have to have a a bolt going all
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the way through the guitar
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and here is a picture of the guitar once
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they put in the Bender mechanism so
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first off they wanted to deal with the
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issue of the bolt the second was they
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wanted to deal with the thickness of the
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guitar
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so of course on clarence's guitar
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that of course Marty Stewart now owns it
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is much thicker than a standard
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Telecaster it because most of the
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mechanism is outside of the body so
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instead of being inside it's outside the
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body and so they had to put a shell on
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the back that was quite thick and made
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of Masonite kind of like a Dan Electro
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so Bob and his father that was their
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second you know kind of issue that they
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wanted to address with clarence's guitar
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when they were going to be putting it in
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the white tele
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so they uh they were able to shorten the
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actuator little mechanism from the steel
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guitar because the the actual mechanism
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that you see here it is from a fender
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400 pedal steel that they were able to
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purchase the parts from fender
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and here let's go to the next picture
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where you see the back of it now here
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you can see all of the guts and all the
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glory and you can see that they have
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shortened the little actuators to make
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it to where the the body doesn't have to
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be as thick because their goal was to
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have the guitar to be able to fit in a
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standard Fender case which they were
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able to accomplish
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so here of course you can see that they
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have a you know a much cleaner and you
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know a sleeker design and that's of
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course they have the advantage of having
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Bob's dad who is an engineer and also
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they have the advantage of someone else
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has already done this once and now
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they're able to go about and just kind
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of clean up some of the messiness from
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the first one so you can see that it's a
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much nicer looking mechanism than the
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original Clarence white guitar
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here in the next shot you can see how it
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is still thicker than a regular
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Telecaster but it is not so thick that
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it won't fit in a fender case
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uh here's a and then here's a shot of
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we'll uh you know Bob with Linda
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Ronstadt so I guess we should talk about
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his uh playing career at this point
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so of course being a bit of a uh you
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know a friend and I guess you would call
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them maybe a little bit of a disciple of
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Clarence white that Bob was of course
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learning how to do the B Bender once
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they put it in his guitar
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and Clarence was playing on sessions
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outside of his work with the birds
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and of course people wanted to be able
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to reproduce that sound so one of the
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artists that Clarence played with was
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the Everly Brothers
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and of course Clarence was not able to
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go out on the road with Everly Brothers
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and so he recommended Bob Warford and so
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Bob played with the everlies
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during this time he he was using a super
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Reverb and
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handed up falling in love with Phil
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Everly had a uh had a Viber Lux a
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blackface vibrolux Reverb and they ended
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up swapping amps because each one wanted
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the others so Phil wanted a super Reverb
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and Bob wanted a blackface vibrilux
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Reverb and so they made the swap
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also during this time we need to mention
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red roads red roads of course was a
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famous you know amp hot rodder and
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pickup Winder and of course he made a
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velvet hammer pickups for guys like
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James Burton and Clarence white and
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other other cats and also hot rodded
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amplifiers so for Bob Bob didn't get a
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velvet hammer pickup what he did have
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red roads do was to Hot Rod his vibrolux
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so he had him put a a set of JBL d110
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speakers add a master volume and just in
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general kind of hot rod the thing to get
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it a little uh you know with a little I
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guess what you'd call a a higher idle
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and such so that it was a little more
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dynamic
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so equipped with that and also a Electro
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harmonics lpb1 booster
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Bob hits the road and of course
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originally with the Everly Brothers and
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then he begins playing with Linda
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ronstad
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and he ends up performing on the Heart
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Like a Wheel album which of course was a
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huge breakthrough record for Linda
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that's the album that has When Will I Be
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Loved and you're no good which both
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feature Andrew gold playing electric
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guitar and him selling but then it also
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featured uh you know Willen and darkened
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of the street which featured Bob Warford
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doing beautiful B Bender solos on both
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and those were both done with of course
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his white tele with the Strat neck on it
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the vibrolux that's been hot rodded
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already and the lpb-1 booster that he
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would set to Max
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and that's how he got the beautiful
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distorted tone so you would he would hit
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the front end of the amp really hard
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with the booster and then he could set
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the volume however he wanted it uh with
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the with the master volume that was
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added onto the amp so during
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Bob's time with Linda ronstad
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he became very fatigued to the road he
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told me that he remembered
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being out on the road with Linda and no
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one in the band including Linda could
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they they didn't know where they were
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they had been doing so many shows in a
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row they had no idea what state they
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were in what city they were in
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and at that point Bob decided to get off
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the road
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he also decided to go to law school and
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so we began the process
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it's funny because he got off the road
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with Linda started going to law school
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and then he got a call from Emmylou
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Harris
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so of course Emmylou Harris had put
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together the hot band in 1975 with James
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Burton playing lead guitar
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well James had a couple of dates where
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he was
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you know things were conflicting with
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Elvis and of course James was going to
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do the Elvis shows because that was his
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first priority and so Bob was called to
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fill in for James so during the summer
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of 1975 Bob played some with Emily
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Harris sometimes on his own and
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sometimes with James so you know there's
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shows of course where it's just Bob
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playing with the hot band and then there
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were shows like in this next photo where
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you see James and a bob playing side by
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side he said they played a lot of nice
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fun twin guitars
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so after this
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Bob continues to play on some sessions
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he plays on the
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you know herb Peterson Lonesome feeling
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record which has some great solos the
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Chris Hillman album Desert Rose uh yeah
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there's a number of sessions that he
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plays on but he's pretty much you know
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he's not touring anymore and he's he's a
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lawyer he's a lawyer in Los Angeles
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and uh and he you know still plays to
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this day but he's always you know been a
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a lawyer first and then a a player on
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the side but still during that time he
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made a very big Mark and with a a very
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you know he really created his own stamp
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with the B Bender he didn't
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ever just you know copy Clarence he did
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his own thing he had his own tone and
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he's very identifiable once you hear
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those solos on you know of course the
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tracks that I mentioned of course I'll
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have a Spotify playlist where you'll be
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able to hear you know all these tracks
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but you'll be able to hear kind of the
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connective tissue with his playing and
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uh and his tone
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a fun thing that Bob actually sent me
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that is on my website are the plans for
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his b Bender so here you can see one of
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the shots and the rest of them will be
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at askzac.com
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and very very nice of him to send those
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plans so and then here's a shot of uh of
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course Bob with a pedal steel player
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friend of his playing a gig in the last
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couple years in Southern California
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Let's uh let's just go ahead and drill
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down on on the gear
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um
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of course Bob played the white telly and
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he he strung it up with basically a set
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of Nines in fact it was 9 11 12 24 32 42
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Ernie Ball strings and of course used a
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Gibson Jazz pick that you saw actually
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on one of those past photos where you
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saw the the side of the guitar we had a
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little sticky thing on the side where he
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could stick an extra pick of course his
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amp was a blackface vibrolux Reverb all
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through in fact to this day he still
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uses it hot rodded by Red roads he would
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set the volume on seven
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and then he would set the master to
17:20
whatever volume level he needed in the
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room and then the lpb-1 it was the kind
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that would plug into the amp not the
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guitar because you could get them either
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way where it had a male or female Jack
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on it and he would he had the one that
17:32
would plug into the front of the amp and
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he would set it to maximum boost
17:36
and that's how he would get his sound so
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it was just the sound of that guitar and
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the lpb1 and a hot rodded vibrilux with
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JBL speakers uh great great sound some
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fun asides about the guitar Albert Lee
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borrowed it his b Bender guitar was
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stolen during the making of the luxury
17:57
liner album and so C'est La Vie and
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Pancho and Lefty are
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Albert playing Bob warford's White Telly
18:06
that was formerly owned by Clarence
18:08
White
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thing that I want to address is there
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have been a lot of people that have said
18:15
the guitar was owned by Buck Owens and
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Bob told me that he has never been able
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to make a legitimate connection so as
18:25
far as we know
18:26
the guitar was was never Buck Owens we
18:30
can say that the pickguard was custom
18:33
made
18:34
for that neck because of course a
18:38
Stratton neck has a curved heel not a
18:41
flat one like a Telecaster and the that
18:44
that custom pick guard was made to match
18:47
that neck and so the guitar was kind of
18:50
of course it seems to be a 50s body with
18:54
some later Parts uh later you know
18:57
bridge and such on it and of course a
18:59
mid-60s strat neck that has a transition
19:02
logo and of course cluesome machine
19:05
heads
19:06
yeah and uh yeah he used it on on so
19:11
many great recordings and such a such a
19:14
great style and it's so fun to know that
19:17
you know here's a guitar that was used
19:18
on everything from Nashville West and a
19:21
sweetheart of the rodeo by of course
19:23
Clarence white to all of the great
19:25
recordings that Bob used it on in his
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own career and of course still using it
19:30
to this day
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well I really hope you enjoyed today's
19:33
episode I hope you will learn more about
19:37
Bob Warford and of course Clarence white
19:40
and I want to thank TruFire for their
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sponsorship and I hope you have a great
19:46
week bye