My guitar collection - G&L

 
 

This ASAT Special was built for Texan blues legend and G&L endorser David William Kearney (September 8, 1934 - April 20, 2022), better known as Guitar Shorty. The alder body has a rare Blue Swirl finish as well as a G&L logo on the upper bass bout. The latter indicates this guitar is either a B-stock, frequently handed out when an artist is in urgent need of an instrument, or one built for an artist from the get-go, as is the case here. The hardware and wiring harness are standard fare for an ASAT Special: Saddle-Lock bridge, 2 Jumbo Magnetic Field Design (MFD) pickups with white covers, 3-ply plastic pickguard, volume control, tone control, and 3-position pickup selector. The hard-rock maple #2 Bi-Cut neck has a 7½” radius maple fingerboard, Graph-Tech nut, and Sperzel closed tuning machines. For the current ASAT Special, information can be found here:

http://glguitars.com/product/asat-classic-special/.

 

ASAT Special (for Guitar Shorty)

The story behind this guitar

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Guitar Shorty was not just any guitar player. Although never super famous in his own right, his position in the pantheon of guitar heroes is firmly cemented just by this simple fact: he introduced a certain James Marshall Hendrix to the wah pedal. As you can read in the referenced biography, Jimi frequently escaped the base to watch Guitar Shorty play and was heavily influenced by the guy. Who knows what might not have happened if Guitar Shorty had not married Jimi’s half-sister. As a G&L endorser, he mainly played Legacy Specials and Comanches, many with a similar G&L logo on the body as seen on this ASAT Special. But how did it become available? It is a bit of a sad story, which you can read about in this post on the Guitars by Leo website. Between 2012 and 2017, it had been on sale a number of times by different owners before it ended up in this Collection. The Blue Swirl finish makes it look very attractive. Several Swirl finishes were available between 1992 and 2001, but they were somewhat problematic and tended to delaminate. Nonetheless, the finish on this specimen is extremely well preserved and looks great. Sonically, there is not much difference with the ASAT Special of the previous page. Like that one, this is “just” another reliable workhorse.

The story behind this guitar

1994

G041089

DEC 12 1994, marked ‘ASAT SPC’, ‘Shorty’

DEC 10 1994, marked ‘Shorty’, ‘12-16 94’

D’Addario EXL110 Nickel Wound Regular Light (10-46)