1960 Gretsch Bo Diddley "Twang Machine"
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Bo Diddley made a name for himself playing rectangular guitars, starting with one that he built himself in 1945, and continuing on through his entire career. He built his first guitar from a rectangular piece of wood fitted with a pickup made from Victrola turntable parts. He was one of the first electric guitarists to collaborate directly with instrument makers on adventurous designs, including his “Twang Machine” and other radically shaped guitars based on the modernistic curves of luxury automobiles. His rectangular guitars later became known as “cigar box guitars” after music promoter Dick Clark first referred to Bo Diddley’s handmade guitar that way
Diddley introduced the “hambone” rhythm to American popular music through his eponymous 1955 hit single The “Bo Diddley beat” strongly influenced other early rock and roll musicians, including Buddy Holly, whose hit “Not Fade Away” features the rhythm prominently.
Twang Machine
In 1958, after Bo Diddley had already popularized the rectangular hand-made guitars and built a couple dozen of them himself, he approached the Fred Gretsch guitar company to request that they build a custom guitar for him.
This made Bo Diddley one of the first guitarists to work with a guitar company on a custom electric instrument, and led to a collaborative effort between Diddley and the luthiers at Gretsch and resulted in three guitars being built. First, the famous rectangular guitar called The Twang Machine, plus two Jupiter Thunderbird guitars.
The Twang Machine guitar was styled after the rectangular cigar box guitars that he and other blues musicians had been playing at the time, except it was filled with state of the art electronic guts.
Diddley played The Twang Machine and other rectangular and odd-shaped guitars for the rest of his career, all the way up until his death in 2008 at the age of 79.
Vintage Guitar: Of the guitars you’ve designed over the years, which style came first?
Bo Diddley: The square guitar. I made one when I was a teenager; its pickup was the part of a Victrola record player where the needle went in. I clamped it to the metal tailpiece to pick up the vibrations. I wasn’t able to buy electric guitars back then, so I built them, and they worked pretty good. Somebody stole the square guitar I built, but in 1958 Gretsch made me one with DeArmond pickups. They only made one authorized square guitar, but I’ve seen other unauthorized models out there. I’m not sure how that happened; maybe it had something to do with the times when the Gretsch company was closed up.Fred Gretsch Manufacturing Company | "Twang Machine" on display at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (Image #5)
1999 Gretsch “Bo Diddley” Model, Serial Number 999138-54 with Roland GK-2A Hexaphonic pick-up . This was the last guitar Bo Diddley played on stage at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa in May 2007. This model is a replica of a rectangular guitar designed by Bo and made for him by the Gretsch Company in the late 1950’s, and is made in accordance with the design and specs personally approved by Bo in 1999. Note that the the Roland pickup and the sparkle stickers on the top were added at a later date - sold for $60,000 (Image #6)
REISSUES & REPLICAS
- 2000-20 Gretsch G6138 MIJ MSRP $3699 - 9.25" x 17-3/4" x 2" with 22 frets and a 25.5" scale, 2 Filtertron pickups, 3 vol, 1 tone
- 2005-13 GRETSCH G5810 BO DIDDLEY - Made in China is a more affordable Electromatic Series version Bo Diddley Twang Machine. It rectangular has the iconic rectangular body, dual chrome humbucking pickups, a bolt-on maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, adjustable bridge, volume and tone controls, three-way pickup switch and die-cast tuners. 9.75" x 17-3/4" x 1-5/8" with 22 frets and a 25.5" scale, 2 humbuckers, 3 vol, 1 tone
The Mach Five Guitar
The M5 Guitar is a 2024 Custom ’60 Gretsch Bo Diddley "Twang Machine" Reissue - faithful reproduction of Bo Diddley's rectangular Gretsch made in 1958. The 6138 has a Firebird Red semi-hollow body, three-piece rock maple neck, ebony fingerboard with dot pearl inlays, 1957-style headstock, dual High Sensitive FilterTron pickups, Adjusto-Matic bridge, G-cutout tailpiece, gold hardware and special Bo Diddley signature truss rod cover.
- Body length 17.75 inches body length
- Body style rectangular shaped body
- Body top material laminated maple body top
- Hollow body semi-hollow body
- Bridge tune-o-matic bridge
- Tailpiece G logo trapeze tailpiece
- Tuners Grover Rotomatic tuners
- Fingerboard inlay material pearl fingerboard inlay material
- Fingerboard material ebony fingerboard
- Fingerboard inlays dot fingerboard position markers
- Finish colors red finish
- Made in Japan
- Number of strings 6 strings
- Scale length 25.5 inches scale-length
- Neck joint set neck
- Neck material maple neck
- Neck width 1.69 inches wide at nut
- Number of frets 22 fret
- Nut bone nut
- Truss rod cover signature on truss rod cover
- Tuner layout three-each-side
- Pickup selector controls 3-way selector switch
- Tone controls 1 tone control
- Volume controls 3 volume controls
- Pickups brand and model Gretsch Filtertron pickup(s)
- Pickups configuration 2 humbucker pickups
Image Reference
1 - Mach Five Guitar
2 - Bo Diddley & Company album cover 1962
3 - Bo Diddley 1965
4 - The original 1960 Gretsch Twang Machine guitar on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC
5 - Twang Machine at the Hard Rock Cafe
6 - BO DIDDLEY LAST STAGE USED GUITAR
Associated Music
Bo Diddley playing his famous song “Hey, Bo Diddley” live in 1973, armed with none other than the Twang Machine