That Was The Year... 1960
Workshop, wardens, wheat and Weedon
GRETSCH REVAMPS the Country Club
Stereo guitar with two humbucking pickups, two volume controls and five selectors. Otherwise the all-hollow archtop with bound body and ebony fingerboard looks pretty much the same but sounds much better. Chet Atkins’ Workshop LP is released showing Chet playing a one-pickup Gretsch Tennessean on the cover. As this was the cheapest of his signature archtop guitars sales increased! George Harrison buys himself a decent guitar: a second-hand ‘57 Gretsch Duo-Jet.
THE GOLDEN HOFNER apears in the
Selmer catalogue and steadily gains in popularity as a result, but only with those who can afford it - people like Tommy Steele and Bert Weedon. The thinline body version makes its debut but dimensionally falls short of the aptly named Verithin that also appears on the scene. Ultimately less than 100 Golden Hofners will be produced so they’ll become a collector’s dream.
POPPING ONTO THE SCENE are Mick Hucknall,
Kim Wilde, Steve Vai, Rick Savage (Def Leppard), Roger Taylor and John Taylor (Duran Duran), Amy Grant, Vince Clarke, Michael Stipe, Sarah Brightman, Brian Bromberg (American jazz bassist), William Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes To Hollywood), Tony Hadley, Joan Jett and U2’s Bono and Adam Clayton. Tragically, singer and guitarist Eddie Cochran is killed in a car accident while on tour with Gene Vincent in the UK.
AFTER TRYING VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL
releases The Shadows have finally found their own sound with their fourth release, Apache, written by songsmith Jerry Lordan. Elvis returns home from army service; Lionel Bart’s Oliver begins performances at the New Theatre; radio disc jockeys in America are fined if they accept ‘payola’ for playing certain records; and at the Indra Club in Hamburg, Liverpool unknowns The Beatles begin a 48-night residency.
YACHTSMAN FRANCIS CHICHESTER finishes
his solo crossing of the Atlantic in a record 40 days in Gypsy Moth II; Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh reach the lowest spot on Earth when they descend into the Marianas Trench in the Bathyscaphe Trieste; construction begins on the Aswan High Dam in Egypt; the CERN particle accelerator in Geneva is activated; boxer Cassius Clay wins his first professional fight; London sees traffic wardens and ‘ban the bomb’ marchers for the first time; the farthing ceases to be legal tender and Coronation Street begins on ITV.
FENDER discontinues the Twin combo
(Narrow Panel) and replaces it with the new Twin (Brownface) with an increased output of 90 watts, two 12-inch Jensen speakers and an angled control panel on the front face of the unit. It has two channels (one with vibrato), four 6L6GC output valves and is covered in cream Tolex with a maroon grille (the grille is soon changed to a ‘wheat’ colour), and it’s a real winner!