A collection of guitars and amplifiers.

Australian blues jazz guitarist Gerry Joe Weise, amplifier and guitar collection.

From Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia.

(1) "Big Blonde" archtop Rockingham Signature prototype guitar with Bigsby. (2) "Red S" vintage 1960 Airline Town and Country guitar. (3) "A Strat" Custom Shop Fender Stratocaster guitar (Buddy Guy Strat with Hendrix / Woodstock pickups). (4) "Grandma" vintage 1959 Fender Telecaster guitar. (5) Modified vintage 1958 Australian Woods Deluxe tweed amplifier. (6) Modified vintage 1970s Kustom orange amplifier. (7) 2 x cabinets with vintage 1968 Celestion Greenback speakers. 

Australian blues jazz guitarist, Gerry Joe Weise, Fender Stratocaster Custom Shop guitar.

Fender Stratocaster Custom Shop guitar.

The guitar is a Limited Edition Custom Shop Fender Stratocaster. It has a handmade 1-ply walnut wooden pickguard, shaped by master guitar builder John Curttright from Rockford Illinois. 

A "Buddy Guy model" alder body and a "Buddy Guy" honey blonde maple neck with jumbo frets. With "Jimi Hendrix 1969 Woodstock" pickups, the middle pickup is an original vintage 1968. 

Special unique wiring. Only the bridge pickup has reverse polarity. The tone controls are reversed so that the bridge pickup has a tone control, and not the neck pickup. And extra adjustments were made to the vibrato system, so that it will always stay in tune. 

VIDEOS.

Australian blues jazz guitarist, Gerry Joe Weise, vintage 1959 Fender Telecaster guitar.

Vintage 1959 Fender Telecaster guitar.

Vintage 1959 Fender Telecaster guitar, with a maple neck, Swamp Ash body, and original pickups, on the Gerry Joe Weise Web Page.

Original backstory, about the Fender Telecaster, by Gerry Joe Weise's good Aussie friend Jon Torano, who was the original owner of this beat up vintage Telecaster, from the Telecaster Forum.

"Here is a story about what used to be my once owned Telecaster. My wife and I had a house in Sydney, Australia. And there was stashed stolen gear found under our house, dating back to the 1980s. As nobody had claimed it, we became the legal owners of this stash. One such item found under our house, was a 1959 Fender Telecaster with a maple neck, all rusted and wrecked! We ended up giving that guitar to ace Australian blues guitarist Gerry Joe Weise who was on the lookout for a vintage Telecaster. As we have been good friends over the years, I gave it to Gerry Joe, knowing it would be put to good use on stage and in the studio. This photo shows what blues guitarist Gerry Joe Weise, had customized on the old 1959 Fender Telecaster. He told me he has also kept all the original replaced guitar parts as well. I will miss having that guitar, but I am sure Gerry Joe is putting it to great use!" by Jon Torano.

VIDEOS.

Australian blues jazz guitarist, Gerry Joe Weise, vintage 1960 Airline Town and Country guitar.

Vintage 1960 Airline Town and Country guitar.

Vintage 1960 Airline Town and Country guitar made in Chicago Illinois. With original DeArmond pickup (Rowe Industries, Toledo Ohio with a single-coil P-90 tone). Solid old maple wood body and neck with a rosewood fretboard.

Airline guitars were sold by catalog through Montgomery Ward in Chicago. These guitars were manufactured at different factories by Valco, Harmony, or Kay; all Chicago companies. Valco also made instruments for Gretsch, National, Sears (Silvertone), and Supro.

The good thing about touring and travelling many different countries, are the possibilities to pick up great quality instruments at a good price. Gerry Joe Weise picked up this Airline Town and Country guitar in Phoenix Arizona during 2009, it had belonged to Los Angeles band Badlands' bassist, who was selling it to buy custom car parts.

VIDEOS.

Australian blues jazz guitarist, Gerry Joe Weise, archtop Rockingham Signature prototype guitar.

Rockingham Signature archtop guitar.

This fine archtop guitar is made in the USA, with Canadian maple wood for the body and neck, spruce wood for the top from Manitoba Canada, a rosewood fretboard with jumbo frets, abalone binding, and an American Bigsby vibrato (that stays 100% well tuned). What is different about this guitar is that the back is made from a one piece solid maple wood (which one will never find among Gibson or Fender guitars, they are all two pieced). 

In the mid 2000s, Gerry Joe Weise received 3 prototypes of the Rockingham, with his signature on the headstock. Each with a different pickup system similar to a Gretsch guitar. He later sold the 2 humbuckers Tri-tronic version, and kept the other two guitars with single pickups in the bridge position, one with a Schaller S-100 pickup, and the other version with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails pickup. The Seymour Duncan Hot Rails is wired as a single-pickup using both rails in a "U" shape (not as a humbucker), and angled as a left handed pickup so as to acquire a more Hendrixian sound (as needed for certain songs).

VIDEOS.

Australian blues jazz guitarist, Gerry Joe Weise, vintage 1930 National Triolian resonator guitar.

Vintage 1930 National Triolian resonator guitar.

Vintage 1930 National Triolian Resonator guitar, single cone Reso-Phonic body, painted bottle green custom color, with a vintage round neck shape. 

In 1927, John Dopyera and George Beauchamp formed the National String Instrument Corporation to manufacture resonator guitars under the brand name National. The first models were metal-bodied, produced at their factory in Los Angeles, California, called : Triolian.

Gerry Joe Weise toured using the National Triolian guitar on stage at concerts and festivals, and once as a solo show opening for the Scorpions in front of 7,000 people.

Australian blues jazz guitarist, Gerry Joe Weise, vintage 1932 Dobro M40 resonator guitar.

Vintage 1932 Dobro M40 resonator guitar.

Vintage 1932 Dobro M40 Resonator guitar, original chromed body, with a vintage v-neck shape. In 1928 Dopyera left National to form the Dobro Manufacturing Company with his brothers. Dobro being a contraction of Dopyera Brothers and also meaning "goodness" in their native Slovak language. Dobro released a single resonator with its concave bowl-shaped surface, under a circular perforated metal cover plate, with the bridge at its center resting on an eight-legged aluminum spider; this system produced more volume than a National resophonic guitar.

Gerry Joe Weise has often toured using the Dobro M40 guitar on stage at concerts and festivals, and once as a solo act opening for the Scorpions in front of 7,000 people.

Australian blues jazz guitarist, Gerry Joe Weise, red colored slide guitars played from the 1970s to the 2020s.

Gerry Joe Weise's red slide guitars over the years, from the 1970s to the 2020s.

Left to right : 1974 Fender Mustang, 1965 Gibson SG, played in the 1970s. 

1977 Gibson Firebird, 1984 Fender Stratocaster, played in the 1980s. 

1964 Silvertone, played in the 1990s and 2000s. 

2009 Danelectro Hornet 67, 1960 Airline Town and Country, played in the 2010 and 2020s.

Australian blues jazz guitarist, Gerry Joe Weise, vintage amplifiers and vintage guitars collection, 1930s, 1950s and 1960s.

Amplifiers and guitars collection, from the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s.

Gerry Joe Weise at The Ranch, Sydney, New South Wales.

Vintage guitars (L to R) : 1930 National Triolian resonator guitar, 1967 Gibson TD 340 guitar, 1963 L-series Fender Stratocaster guitar, 1932 Dobro M40 resonator guitar.

Vintage Fender amplifiers (L to R) : 1955 tweed Champ, 1962 brown tolex Vibrolux, 1963 blond tolex Bassman piggyback amplifier with speaker cabinet, 1964 blond tolex Reverb unit, 1959 tweed Deluxe, 1954 tweed Super. 

My first guitar 1963, by Gerry Joe Weise.

I was born in Sydney in 1959, and my first guitar was in 1963, at 4 years old, in the suburb of Leichhardt, Australia. 

This must be my first public appearance ? The photos were taken by the World's best mother, my Mum ! 

Most of us think their mothers are the best, but my mother was really the greatest ! We were young teenagers in the early 1970's, my little brother (drummer) and myself, we made a rehearsal studio from one of the family house's bedrooms, with a mattress on the window and a huge painting of Jimi Hendrix sprayed onto one of the walls. When the old lady next door would complain about our loud music, our mother would go outside to rebuke her !