HW: Lemmy's six-string

[Doug Pearson]

One question that seems to pop up from time to time is about the photos of Lemmy (presumably early HW era) holding a six-string guitar.  I believe that someone on the list identified it as a Burns Bison (although a search of the archives for "Bison" only turned up a bunch of posts on Bevis Frond side projects).  It turns out that he got it from another well-known rock musician ...

>From http://www.j-tull.com/IAequipment.htm :
"Later came the Burns Black Bison, an elaborately horned devil played through a Burns 30 watt amp and which was soon traded in against a vintage (although then a mere few years old) white Fender Stratocaster. This was purchased from Lemmy, the rhythm guitarist with Reverend Black and The Rocking Vicars for thirty pounds. Lemmy and I probably both wish we had kept the thing to this day, since it would be worth around ten thousand in the condition in which we owned it. Lemmy went on to a lengthy career with Motorhead and a lifelong entanglement with the loudest bass guitar on the planet."
- Ian Anderson

(I found this info in a web search after reading a post on usenet that claimed that Lemmy got his first Rickenbacker bass from Ian Anderson pre-Jethro Tull; not likely, since that would have been 67/68, and Lemmy never touched a bass until he joined Hawkwind in '72!)

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com