This was in the Fall 2010 Fretboard Journal, note from editor:
"There are household names, and then there are household names. Out in the real world, few people know who Harry DeArmond was. In our world, however, he is indeed a well-known figure. Working for a Toledo, Ohio, company called Rowe Industries, DeArmond began manufacturing attachable "guitar microphones" in I939; his original idea was to amplify the sound of an acoustic guitar without having to fundamentally alter the guitar's top (and sound) by installing pickups - especially useful for players of archtop instruments. At first, he offered just f-hole and round-hole models for guitar, but the response was so, um, electrifying that he began to make these floating-style pickups for a variety of stringed instruments. Eventually, DeArmond pickups would be standard features on guitars from a multitude of manufacturers.
Harry DeArmond built pickups for Rowe until he retired in I975, and these Rowe-era DeArmond pickups, each designed by the man himself, are still revered by players of all stripes. Why do I bring this up, you ask? Well, Harry DeArmond's pickups are mentioned in no fewer than five of this issue's features. Luther Dickinson prefers a DeArmond for all of the "funky Harmonies, Silvertones, Truetones, Stellas and Kays" he's amassed. "The old DeArmond pickups are the way to go," he says. "Back in the day, if Elmore James and them wanted to amplify an acoustic guitar, that's what they would use. It still works."
Sam Bush remembers how DeArmond pickups helped propel the music at raucous country barn dances. "The fidler always had an old DeArmond pickup on his fiddle," he recalls, "and when I was a kid, I had a Gibson A-50 mandolin, and I had a DeArmond pickup for it. I don't know what happened to that pickup," he adds, "because they sound pretty good." Hmmm, two votes for the old DeArmonds.
Roy Clark knows them, too. His second guitar ever, an S. S. Stewart archtop, had one. When the Stewart got stolen, Clark put a DeArmond pickup on his Martin D-I8 and used that for lead guitar work around the bustling D.C. clubs. Even oud master John Bilezikjian (aka Johnny B. Oud) had one, a 750-C pickup that was supposed to be used for ukulele.
Deke Dickerson can tell you plenty about DeArmond pickups, for they are central to the story he weaves of one Jim Harvey. An obscure but talented luthier from Southern California, Harvey built amazing Bigsby-inspired electric guitarsthat he often stocked with DeArmond pickups. You get the picture – Harry DeArmond knew his stuff.
We are always amused and often amazed when the same names seem to reappear in story after story. (Wayne Henderson immediately leaps to mind; so does George Gruhn.) And these connections, these universal touchstones, seem to exist independent of age group or preferred genre. (Are there actually two musicians featured in this very edition who are adored for their remarkable versions of "Malagueiia"? Thank you, Messrs. Clark and Bilezikjian!)
At the FJ, you'll always find plenty of talk about the usual suspects: C. F. Martin and John D'Angelico and Lloyd Loar and Leo Fender and Les Paul and so on. But often, the most engaging stories are attached to names not as widely known. In rural Vermont, for example, Michael Millard has been building exquisite, highly personalized acoustic guitars for 40 years. In Colorado, Harry Tuft's Denver Folklore Center has been providing sanctuary (and strings) for famous (and average) pickers since I962.
These are the kind of names that perhaps intrigue us the most. And to that list let me add two more names: John Zeidler and Taku Sakashta. Though they are no longer with us, these two luthiers made a lasting impact on the guitar-building community. For this reason, we are pleased to include in this issue the story of "The Ax," written by its owner, Geoff Cline. The headless guitar was built by Zeidler in the mid-I980s and was recently fitted with one of the last sets of Sakashta pickups ever made. They arrived in Cline's mailbox in February, a couple of days after Taku was senselessly murdered outside his Northern California shop.
Who knows? Maybe one day, players will talk reverentially about the "old Sakashta pickups" like they do today about those classic DeArmonds. And maybe The Fretboard Journal will be around to document it. It's part of our shared history, after all, and it's our job to chronicle it.
MARC GREILSAMER
Editor"