Most of us remember Dave’s guitar. Some of us still speak of it with awe when two or more are gathered together. It was the finest guitar we had ever seen. A Swedish Hagstrom six string dreadnaught acoustic with a built-in pickup (unheard of in those days). It was coloured in the famous Sunburst style. Its neck and fretboard were narrow. Very narrow. I watched him play – wonderfully – and knew that my fingers would never even fit upon it. Bob Askew, however, did have a go on it :
“I knew his beautiful Hagstrom well, although I only ever played a few chords to try it. He did not trust me to play it, which is understandable, considering that my guitar only gave a sound if I hit it hard!”
Paul Cooper was a friend of Dave’s in the 70s, and a great supporter of and assistant to the Band Red Shift, featuring Dave, Tink and Nick Manley, among others. Paul is to be praised by posterity [that’s us now folks] for posting his recordings of the band on Sound Cloud (https://soundcloud.com/theoriginalredshift). Concerning Dave’s guitar, Paul says,
“Just to clarify, the reference to the “Hagstrom” is wrong. It was in fact an early “Burns”. I played it a lot in the late 70’s. One reason it got in such a bad state was the abuse it received from Dave’s temper tantrums. I even rescued it from a vegetable patch in a back garden once after he threw it in there. After a gig at Winchester Art college he tripped over an amplifier and broke the neck. The neck was replaced by an old Fender Stratocaster neck (sacrilege, but he was in a hurry with other gigs booked), I know because I supplied the neck.”
However, Nick Manley has this to say : “Dave had the Hagstrom acoustic when I first got to know him at school [ i.e. in the 60s] . . . As Paul correctly says the Burns was the guitar that had the neck broken and came after [my emphasis] the Hagstrom.”
That’s the answer to that then.
Spike Edney (of Queen), in a piece written for the Old Pricean’s web site Lion Pride pages (https://www.societyofoldpriceans.co.uk/Lion%20Pride.html), but not yet published I’m afraid, remembers Dave’s guitar well, except not that it was a Hagstrom :
“Around late ’67 early ’68 I discovered Dave Cummings. He was a ‘folkie’ at heart – Simon and Garfunkel etc but he possessed an original Gibson J-160E. This was the acoustic guitar that both John Lennon and George Harrison played – be still my beating heart! I was gobsmacked by the coolness of such a possession and I couldn’t even imagine buying one of those, what could the price tag have been? I had no idea, I just assumed that he had the greatest parents on earth-next to mine of course.”
Nick Manley suggests an explanation for Spike’s misidentification :
“[T]he Hagstrom . . . was a copy of the Gibson played by John Lennon – hence the confusion – probably. This was the guitar that was given to Steve Denholm, who restored it, and that I played when we recorded The Beast at Surrey Sound Studios.”
Meanwhile, this was not the first time the Hagstrom had been repaired. Martin Gateshill, who played with Dave in a duo call Tog and then a trio called Ash with Dave and Tink in the mid 60s tells the following tale :
“At that Time Dave and I were a Duo called Tog. I had an old Hoyer 12 string and Dave had a Hagstrom which I rescued. Neither of us knew anything about guitars at that time other than some were harder to play than others. How did I rescue it ? One weekend we were at Wickham at the home of a friend of a friend by the name of Frank Rumble. Frank produced the Hagstrom which had a huge body and really nice slim neck. Sadly the neck was completely snapped off just below the nut. I said I thought I could repair that and Frank said we could have it. I took it away to see what could be done. It was a perfect break, no material missing at all and would glue back almost invisibly. I did that, clamped it up using my dads tools and materials, left it for 24 hours, did a little cosmetic work and found it to be good as new. I handed it to Dave and the rest as they say, is history ;).”
So what eventually happened to Dave’s guitar ? Dave of course is sadly no longer with us to ask, but Nick Manley knows :
“As for the Hagstrom saga. There used to be a printing company called Polygraphic based in Titchfield Dave and John Cameron worked there as did Steve [Denholm]. All music crazy. Steve . . . was and is a pretty good guitar picker. This was around 1975. The hagstrom was a bit worn out by then and Steve either bought or was gifted the guitar by Dave as a restoration project. He stripped the varnish from her so she became a blond and refretted her . . . Steve later gave her to a cousin as an instrument to learn on.”
So, is it still with Steve’s cousin ? Is it still in one piece ? Has it been restored/repaired yet again ?
Unfortunately, I don’t have any way of contacting Steve, so we may never know . . .
And furthermore. who was Frank Rumble ? Where did he get the guitar from ?
To convey how rare such a guitar as Dave’s was in the old days, Martin writes :
“The very 1st electric band to come out of Prices was in 65 or 6. It featured me on Drums and I regret I can’t recall the names of the others. It was the creation of the incredible English teacher of the time Mr Johnson. I think that was how I crossed paths with Dave and Tink a little later. The three of us formed a Trio called The Ash in 65/6 doing mainly The Who covers. I have a very scratchy recording of a couple of songs. Tink was lead guitar and vocals, he played a dreadful old Egmond guitar which cut his fingers to shreds the action was so high. Dave had a ‘catalogue’ Bass guitar and learned to play it as we went along. My drum kit was cobbled together from ancient drums. There was no money, my snare rested on a stool for want of a stand, amplification was provided by a couple of old radios I’d ‘found’ in Dad’s garage and jury rigged an input to. Dave didn’t have a 6 string at that time, he and I more or less learned together . . .”
Martin also writes :
“Dave was easily the best and most creative musician of our cohort, a great friend and fellow traveller.”
Nick Manley says :
Dave gifted the guitar to one Steve Denholm in the late 1970’s, in the Red Shift days. He, Steve and John Cameron worked at Polygraphic, a printing firm in Titchfield. The guitar was again in a bad way and Steve renovated it once more, stripping the varnish off and rendering to a blond finish, and resetting the neck. Once again a lovely instrument. Steve let me borrow it for a recording session when we were in Surrey Sound studios. After that we drifted apart but I ran into him again a few years back at Titchfield folk club. He was playing a Martin and is now a very good bluesy/jazzy player and I had to ask if he still had the guitar. Sadly no. He had given it to a friend who was learning to play, but he has lost contact with him. He said he would try and I am still waiting………..