© 2008 Crambo Records

Another recent addition to Neil’s family of guitars, due to the need to have 2 large bodied accoustics kept in different tunings to cover the requirements of the live set.

A truly beautiful guitar – gorgeous natural detailed tone woods mated to the same combination of ceramic pick-up and internal microphone favoured by Tommy Emmanuel make an impressive package. Used in conjunction with an AER Compact 60 it produces a very natural un-electric accoustic sound through a big PA without the risk of bangs, thumps and howling feedback than you’d get if you used a conventional external mic and boom arrangement to amplify the guitar.

This guitar is a much later Excalibur, as you can see it has a rosewood fingerboard. There’s a good few years age difference between the guitars and you can feel a subtle enhancement and refinement. It sounds even creamier and is lightening fast with very accurate intonation whilst remaining immune from tuning gremlins live.

The best got better, basically…….

Neil says: "Talk about a bargain! This was my very first foray into electric guitar. I bought it in a second hand shop in South Shields for £8. I don’t know what it’s worth now, but it earned it’s keep on the big "slidey" bit in High Wire alright...".

Larrys’ P Bass is a 1978 Sunburst. It is a phenomenal old thing… Gobs of bottom end but plenty of punch and definition too. He feels the same way about it as Neil does about Floyd – wherever he goes it goes…

Floyd is a characterful mid 60’s Telecaster which has graced Neil’s life for over 20 years. The guitar is so personal that Neil had to give it a name. "As it’s PINK in capital letters and I really like Dave Gilmours’ guitar playing it had to be Floyd. This guitar has pure soul – when I die it and the blue Excalibur go in the coffin too, I’m taking them with me !!"

Floyd is now enjoying a well-deserved safe retirement from live playing thanks to the arrival of the black Excalibur, which can produce the same amount of top end crack as Floyd (only louder!) from it’s bridge pick-up whilst proving to be a more stable guitar in a live environment.

Neil's been playing this one for a few years now – "it’s an awesome guitar.  Really powerful pickups,  a Kahler locking trem and a fast accurate neck make it very playable.  5 way switching with a very wide variety of sounds from each individual pickup plus beautiful out of phase blends on the other two."

This guitar has been Neil's "go everywhere" guitar since 1987.  Because of that he's written a lot of songs on it and it's very personal. According to Neil: " It's been bunged in aircraft holds, dropped, battered and I had to play it at gunpoint in Africa !! Not everybody loves it though - if  Larry had a gun he'd have shot it by now as it's thin profile bowled back makes it a bit thin sounding for recording - Tommy Emmanuel calls it "the bloody WOK !!""

Neil has had this one for a while now & it’s growing on him.  When he first played it he was blown away with the sound but found it hard to play compared to the Ovation he’d used for years.  Now it feels a lot more do-able and he's using it on demanding solo guitar instrumentals as well as doing the big strummy thing on the records.