Electra Howard Roberts

My Electra 'Howard Roberts' (Concert Professional as SLM called it) was made in about '77 in the same 'Matsumoku' factory where the Ibanez HR copies were made. The other guy named 'Greg', who left feedback on this guitar, was wrong about a few things. It has a 24 3/4" scale lenght, just the same as the 175 and Les Paul Gibsons. The WHOLE guitar is made of maple, even the neck is made of 3-ply laminated maple. mine has the original pickup which seems to be losing some volume on a couple of the strings. Mine does not appear to have the original tailpiece, though it does have the original tuners, which are about to take their vacation in the case (OHSC) compartment and make room for some new Grover Imperials.

This guitar AMAZES me that it can take on SO many different identities depending on with whom you are playing, and what idiom of music. I play mostly OLD country/western swing, but do my fair share of dabbling in the jazz world, which is exactly why I bought this guitar. I play it through my '65 reissue fender twin amp, but this guitar sounds equally incredible plugged directly into a PA system! I cannot tell a big difference when I use the midrange cicuit, but the caps and diodes may need to be replaced, I am sure. This guitar can cop every tone from B.B. King to Bob McNett(guitarist for Hank Williams)! I have yet to find a guitar which sounds any better on jazzy stuff!

the only thing wrong with the guitar is that the binding around the pickguardstarted to let go, so i am having a new one made for me by Huey P. Wilkinson of Axehandle Guitar Works in New Caney, TX. The old pickguard will go into hiding for now.

i use this guitar ALL the time!

SLM was nice enough to send me a photocopy of the original brochure for this guitar from about 1977. If you need info on this guitar, please feel free to email me or call SLM! I bought this guitar at a great price from Jim Sales, a studio engineer/owner in Hendersonville, TN back in April of 2001.

I do not see myself parting with this guitar. I looked long and hard for even a JUNK jazz guitar! I happened upon a RARE GEM with this one, and I'm KEEPING IT! ;o)

This is a re-do of my previous review...

Now that I have the guitar back in my hands for the first time in weeks, I have noticed several things about it:

1. intonation is perfect. Every note measures perfectly at the 12th fret. That's scary considering this thing has a floating rosewood bridge with no adjustable saddles. Octaves sound perfect - no bothersome out of tune resonance.

2. The neck is so stable as are the tuners. This thing practically jumps in to tune on its own. Seriously, there is no wavering ofnotes the the tuning meter at all!

I had the original pickup rewound and re-installed. Kent Armstrong personally re-wound the pickup and now it sings like a bird putting out about 8.3KOHMS. He re-wrired to PAF specs.

Now the amplified tone is wonderful! The acoustic tone is excellent as well. In fact, I play the guitar acoustically for practice sometimes.

I'd give this guitar 11's for sound, but the highest I can assign here is "10".

My hollow body, Electra Howard Roberts is a 70's model imported from the same Japanese factory that turned out Gibson copies by Ibanez during the infamous Gibson lawsuit era. Electras were imported as the house brand for the St. Louis Music Co, during that time. SLM is still in business and is the current US distributor for Alvarez guitars (also some nice guitars!).

My HR is made of mahogany body (not sure if top is solid) with a 3 piece mahogany neck (like Gibson's HR) hosting a rosewood fingerbaord and 21 frets.

The gold (at one time anyway) Johnny Smith type of suspended or floating pickup is attached to the end of the fretboard ala Epiphone's current Emporer Regent guitar.

Muli-ply binding adorns the top of the guitar with thick single ply binding on the back and binding on the neck and headstock.

Keep in mind that this guitar is modeled after Gibson ES-175 at Howard Robert's request, but wiht an oval sound hole and solid top, no f-holes. Ergo, the HR and all of it's copies are the size of an ES-175. My HR is just a hair under 3.5" deep all the way around.

It's got a 25.5" scale neck with a chunkier neck than is used nowadays and, as a result, is a sheer delight to play.

The finish is a sunburst that is in (and I mann this!) like new condition!

The only thing that is not original is the floating rosewood bridge and saddle.

She still has her perfect shape, brass nut, massive gold plated fancy tailpiece, figured abalone fretboard inlays, gold tone Electra-branded tuners that copy Gibson tuners and work as well or better than anything you can buy today!

She has 3 knobs - volume, tone, and midrange. She also still has her original pcikguard that most guitar sof this era are missing as well as the OHSC that is form fit for the HR! The case highly resembles the newer dreadnought TKL caes with the metla band and all, but my case is a 70's original.

I hope to post a web page or two with pix by 12/02/00 at:

http://www.geocities.com/oasysco/electra.htm

The pickup is a humbucker with 6 adjustable poles. I had to raise the poles to get more volume as the previous owner kept all the poles screwed in. The resulting tone is somewhat thinner and more acoustic in quality than a big, beefy modern humbucker.

As I play jazz, I restrung her with flatwounds. I half expected to kill the sweet, pure acoustic tonewith flats, but I didn't. She's not loud acoustically, but she is pretty!!!

Amplified is where this guitar shines - nice and full jazz chords and good single note tone.

The body is in PERFECT (read "Like New") shape - no gouges, no scrapes, no belt buckle rash, no weathering - nothing! The body looks like new!!!!

The gold has compeltely faded off the pickup. It has faed somewehat form the tuners and tailpiece, though most of the gold remains.

The binding is almost 100% perfect except for some rifling of the top of the binding at the bottom of the neck. All the binding is there, nothing is missing and that slight rifling is all that keeps me form saying "like new" on the binding as well!

There is some oxidiozation on the pickguard bracket and the pickguard has some crstallization in it, but that's is minor compared to what kind of shape other boxes like this are in.

The brass nut is perfect; the tailpeice is perfect; the fretboard is perfect; the frets are perfect; everything works and is in perfect mechanical shape.

I have not had to set the action, truss rod or anything.

With the body in like new condition after 25 years, what can I say?

I called STM to see if they remembered imprtong these guitars. I talked ot "Jerry" woh remember the Electra line and took a verbal double take when I mentioned the HR model as he recalled it. I just wanted to know if they had their catalogs and archives up to snuff to answer a few questions, but alas, that is a work in progress. He did say that he thought the HR retailed somewhere between $500 and $800 back in the 70's.

Too bad HC does not have a "Vibe" category because this guitar is full of cool, vintage vibe!

I have been playing for 8 years off and on over the last 25 years. I own or have owned Gibsonn archtops, Epi Korean archtops, old 50's Silvertone archtops, flattops, solid bodies, etc, etc.

Thankfully, I was able to play this guitar on several ocassions before buying it. The last time I played it on the day IU bought it, I played it for an hour through my amp, checking intonation, playability etc with all of my own equipment.

There is nothing I dislike about - it is just too cool to hate! I compared it to my highly mod'd Epi Joe Pass archtop. It's different than the Epi, but they both serve their purpose.

Would I buy another? Yes, if I could get a decent deal. The only brands I even considered for a vintage HR was Ibanez and Electra (Gibson just costs too much and the newer Epi reissues can't compare).

I'd give ot a 10 if I could have gotten it for free, alas a "9" will have to do:)