Jimi’s Black Widow

Sourced from the Internet:

“In 1972, solid state amp pioneers Acoustic Control Corporation introduced thier first and only guitar and bass models, the Black Widow. Guitar maker Paul Barth, whos history includes work with Rickenbacker on thier first electrics, did the original designs for the Black Widow. Barths company Bartell made the first few Widows. They had smaller cutaways, a normal neck join, 20 or 22 fret neck, and normal humbuckers.

Acoustic’s Harvey Gerst then took that original design and revamped it, essentially taking it up a notch to a whole new kind of guitar. Gerst deepened the cutaways, and upped the fret count to 24. The pickups were changed to hotter, lap steel style single coils with lots of wire and lots of magnet. The controls were shifted up a bit so the volume was accessible while playing for swells. The bridge rollers were enlarged for more sustain. Weight was added to the body for a better balance. And the novel neck design was introduced.

Barth couldn’t keep up with the numbers Acoustic wanted, so the designs were taken to Matsumoto Moko in Japan. At the time, they were producing some of the finest guitars coming out of Asia, that still rival the American made stuff. The majority of Black Widows out there in the world are Matsumokus.

Then at some point (after Harvey left, so details are missing) Acoustic brought production back to the states, and put it in the capable hands of Semie Mosley, whose Mosrite guitars already shared some design elements with the Widow. The fact that Paul and Semie both worked together at Rickenbacker is no surprise. Its my understanding that a few things changed back to a more normal design after this transition, namely the neck join. Shortly after Mosley took on the Widows, he stopped.

At some other point, Paul Barth took his design to Hohner. To date, I’ve only seen Hohner Widow basses. The overall shape is the same as the Acoustic, and they have the carved top like them as well. The major differences are f-holes on a chambered body, two pickups (on the bass), and an option to have it in natural maple finish with a maple fretboard. Also, while (to my knowledge) Acoustic only made fretted basses, the Hohners were primarily fretless (with one fretted one seen). Smaller differences are the black pad on the back, and bridge/tailpiece design. They have “Hohner” on the headstock and a label in the f-hole stating “Mfg. by Bartell of California”.

All in all its “wildly guessed” that no more than 1000 of these guitars were made for Acoustic. With the fewest being Barths, and no more than a couple hundred being Mosleys.  But due to company hand changes, production hand changes, etc, its really hard to tell. We may start cataloging them here, see how many there are in the world, and how many variations.

Mark Schlipper – July 2004″

Jimi playing an Acoustic Black Widow