Harmony H62 Artist Jazz

Beautiful reissue of the H-62 Artist. These are made in Korea and are
very high quality. The suburst model is very pretty. Surpised about the 20 fret neck but it plays comfortably for a player with big hands.

Top is maple and tone range with the P-13 pickups is wide. Frets seem
like mediums to me giving the guitar smooth sustain. Tuners are great as the guitar stays in tune very well.

Sound is beautiful. For jazz it's awesome on the neck position. Going to the bridge it gets very bright and in middle position very sweet, maybe for rockabilly and finger style Chet Atkins playing.

Used with a Fender 60W Concert with one 12 it seems quite at "home".
Pickup output is lower than a humbucker, of course, but I think that adds to the charm of the instrument.

Sent to me direct from Harmony and played well but needed, as most do, additional set up. Using Jazz lights, 12-52 with wound 3rd.

This H-62 is flawless. They did an incredible job, with great attention to detail.

This guitar is solid. It will last a very long time. Hardware is great.

Would ,absolutely use as only guitar at gigs.

The company is great. Charlie Subecz is a world class guy.

Thnak you Harmony and Charlie.

I've played professionally for 40 years+...

I'll always have this guitar or one like it in my collection.

The look, feel and "vibe" of this H-62 is so great. It is a beautiful instrument.

It compares to Gibson, Guild and Gretsch easily and has a lot of "personality"...

This guitar has the normal two-pickup, Les Paul type wiring diagram with two Gibson designed P-16 pickups from the forties. Deep hollow body, with a nice thick neck-very playable. My particular model was built in '55, though there's probably not too much difference in models year to year. Bakelite nobs look very cool, and the art deco floating tailpiece is cool, as well. When I got mine, the pickguard was missing. Rosewood fretboard.

For my country blues style, this guitar is unreal. It evokes the electrified country blues guys sound very well. It can get very down and dirty, but, at the same time can produce a nice jazzy tone as well. I use it through a very small 5 watt Kalamazoo Model One amp when playing around the house, but, when playing in a live setting, it's like it was built to be matched up with my Twin 12 Silvertone Model 1484.

My guitar was VERY used when I got it. The top has some extreme play wear on it, but the Figured maple back and sides are gogeous, with absoloutley no scratches or dings whatsoever. The action is easily adjusted, and I have found it easiest to play with 11-52 Flat waound strings on it. I sit down to play, and the guitar fits comfortably in my lap.

Mine is a '55, and I got it with all the original pots and pickups in '04- seems pretty durable!

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The guitar not only oozes coolness with its looks, it delivers coolness with its tone. If anyone is looking for a great vintage hollowbody guitar to play blues or jazz on without paying an outrageous price, I couldn't see looking any further than one of these. I will most likely buy at least one more to insure that I have one on hands at all times.

Mid 50s, made in the USA full size archtop electric with two Gibson-made P-16 pickups similar to P-90s. Contrary to what is said in the reviews these pickups were not made by DeArmond. P-16s appear on some 40s Gibsons.

See this site for photos:
http://www.gitaarnet.nl/magazine/artikelen/klassiekers/harmony.php3

Incredible 40s 50s jazz/jump blues tone. Listen to Tiny Grimes or Rick Holmstrom for an example of what these amazing guitars sound like. Huge fat raw tone from the neck pickup, savage bite and midrange bark from the bridge. T-Bone Walker in the middle setting.

Can not be compared to other Harmony products. Extremely high build quality with very fancy appointments and stunningly beautiful flame maple back. Laminated spruce top.

My main gigging guitar since 1995. Very reliable and durable.

Harmony is long gone.

By far the best guitar I have ever owned. The next best thing to a 40s or 50s Gibson with P-90s but the price difference may not be easy to justify once you've played a Harmony like this one.

Harmony H-62 fat-body archtop beautiful sunburst.
Made in 1956??
Solid Top.
2 De-Armond P-90 style pickups.
2 tone and two volume knobs.
3-way switch.

I play jump/traditional blues, this guitar belonged to the famous
bluesguitarist Teddy Morgan. He recorded "ridin' in style" with it.
neck p.u. sounds fat full warm raunchy, bridge pickup is fat but
more mean bluesy, T-bone sound in middle postion: dry clear 50s sound.
I've never heard a guitar sound better. I also have a Harmony H-64
which sounds killer, but this one is a little rougher and better,
the H-64 is softer.

Action is okay.
Pickups are good, can be adjusted in height.
Bridge is not so good anymore.
Guitar has a big crack on the side. I'll let it repaired.
Electrically is everything very good.

We'll see how long it lasts.
I always have the H-64 as backup

second hand bought from Teddy Morgan (thanks!!)

play for 3,5 years.
This is the best sounding guitar i ever heard.
Better than some Gibsons I ve had in my hands....

Made in USA, 1961.
Single Cut.
laminated top(spruce), back and sides(Maple).
2 De-Armond (p-90 style).
2-Vol, 2-Tone knobs. 3-way switch.
Fat neck.

Rough and Dangerus Blues Tone.

US-MADE, 20 frets, laminated top back & sides,
2 p-90 style pick-ups, 2 vol and 2 tone,
natural gloss finish. single cut jazz git, 17"wide, 3,5"deep,

superb jump-blues tone!!!

This is a Harmony hollowbody electric, made in Chicago in the mid-50's. I was told that this is a '56, but I have no way of knowing for sure. The body is a single (rounded) cutaway style, 17" wide, 3.5" deep. The top is spruce and the back and sides are maple. The back is a single piece of maple with beautiful flame. The top look like it's a solid piece of spruce. Finished in clear laquer that has yellowed nicely with time. There is plenty of binding on this guitar: the top has white/black/white/black/white binding, topped off with a big thick layer of tortoiseshell binding. The back is also bound in tortoiseshell, but there are two layers less of white and black. A peek inside the f-holes reveals a soundpost (roughly between the bridge and the bridge pickup) and some tidy braided-metal wire. The maple neck is 24.5" scale, with 20 frets, recently refretted with Gibson mediums. Fake pearl block inlays at the 3d, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th and 15th frets, and more tortoiseshell binding around the edges of the rosewood fingerboard. Unlike other Harmony hollowbodies I've seen, this one has a glued-in neck (as opposed to Harmony's 3-bolt bolt-on necks), which makes it sound and feel much more substantial than other Harmony guitars I've had. In addition to this, the fingerboard is really wide! It's 1.75" at the nut, and a whopping 2.25" at the 12th fret! The tuning pegs are the original open-gear cheapos, only in perfect condition. They feel a little rough, but they are solid and work just fine. The usual floating rosewood bridge (height adjustable) and an ornate tailpiece. Two big DeArmond single-coil pickups with adjustable polepieces, each one has a volume and tone control. There's a three-way switch on the cutaway horn. The pickups are height-adjustable (via two screws) and sit in thick plastic mounting rings that look like more tortoiseshell with a thick layer of clear plastic on top. The guitar didn't come with a case, but that's ok. My only complaint is that there is only one strap button on this guitar! You're supposed to tie your strap around the headstock like on an acoustic guitar, and I hate that! I'll take off a couple of points for that, otherwise, this is a really well-made guitar that feels quite luxurious. By the way, this guitar is pictured on p.235 of the "American Guitars" book...the photo doesn't do it justice, though.

The acoustic tone is nice and warm but not overly loud. The amplified sound (through my '62 brownface Fender Super), however, is unreal. The aged pickup magnets and the resonant body combine for a really sweet sound. The neck pickup is fat, full, and warm sounding, perfect for jazz and blues (providing your idea of blues isn't SRV, CRAPton, and Hendrix). The bridge pickup is bright, raunchy, and quite thick sounding. Perfect rockabilly tone! The "middle" setting yeilds a thinner, twanging tone with both pickups at full-volume, but gets progressively thicker as you roll back the volume on either one of the pickups. This is the kind of guitar that sounds best without any effects (although some slapback or amp tremolo won't hurt) because it's clean tone is just about perfect. There's a bit of hum, but what do you want? They're 45-year-old single coils! That's how they sound, too: old-fashioned. There isn't a bad sound in this guitar...rolling back volume and tone knobs doesn't produce muddy, murky sounds. It just gets darker and more "acoustic' sounding without deteriorating into mush. Since this is a full-depth hollowbody, you'll get tons of feedback if you play too loud or stand too close to the amp. Fine by me, that's what hollowbody guitars do. Don't be surprised! I like stuff like Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, Robert Lockwood Jr, and this guitar works great for 50's rock'n'roll, rhythm'n'blues, and rockabilly.

I don't know how this guitar came from the factory in '56, but with it's new frets, totally straight, massive neck, and a set of .11-.52 flatwounds, it plays like butter. The finish on the top of the guitar has some checking, but the back and sides are near-perfect. there's some normal playing wear on the back of the neck, but not much. Someone took good care of this thing. The workmanship on this guitar is worlds away with what I've come to associate with the Harmony brand name. The other Harmony guitars I've had (a Meteor, several Stratotones, acoustic archtops) were all from the 60's, and that might have something to do with it. Seems like Harmony was less "budgetronic" in the 50's, actually making quality jazz guitars. Very hard to find fault with the construction of this guitar. The only rough spot I can detect is that the f-holes are a little rough, but that's pretty minor.

If you take into consideration that this guitar was being played 15 years before I was born should tell you something...it's built to last! I would have no reservations about using it onstage or in the studio, but I always bring a backup...always! No one wants to watch you change strings...

Harmony is long gone.

At first, I thought that paying more than $300 for a Harmony hollowbody was just plain absurd. This is the guitar that changed my mind. Think of it as a "poor man's Gibson Byrdland" or something...actually, it's not a "poor man's" ANYTHING, it's a pretty high quality guitar! How many cheap guitars do you see with tortoiseshell body binding, huh? I've been playing for about 15 years and I've had many hollowbody cheapos before, but this is the nicest archtop I've ever had. My main guitar is a 1965 Fender Jaguar, and I have some other interesting stuff, but everyone should have a good hollowbody.