Ernie Ball 6107 Amplifier Corners No Lip Set Of 4    Item #: ERN 6107 

STRING CRAZY - HISTORY OF THE ERNIE BALL - MUSIC MAN COMPANY
Ernie Ball is an unlikely executive. He regards profit-and-loss statements as necessary distractions, and he never does market surveys to determine whether products on the drawing board would succeed. He has earned his reputation by following his instincts. "If it feels right, I know it will sell." Over the years, that philosophy helped Ernie turn his company into a worldwide success. The company's products can be found in more than 5,000 music stores throughout the USA, and are exported to 68 countries.

His high standards and no-nonsense approach have attracted the world's greatest guitar players to his products. The list of musicians who have made music using Ernie Ball strings, accessories, or instruments includes: Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Keith Richards and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, Glen Frey, Joe Walsh and Don Felder of The Eagles, Jeff Beck, Albert Lee, Eric Clapton, Steve Morse, B.B. King, Steve Lukather, Carlos Santana, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, along with members of U2, The Pretenders, AC / DC, and Fleetwood Mac.

The new generation of guitar heroes using Ernie Ball products ensures that the company will play a vital role in the world of music throughout the 90's and into the next century. These players include Metallica, Mike McReady and Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam, Slash of Guns and Roses, Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains, Kim Thayil and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, as well as members of Live, Collective Soul, 311, Bush, Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, Smashing Pumpkins, Matchbox 20, Sugar Ray, Reel Big Fish, Social Distortion, Pennywise, Lagwagon, and the Descendents.

In the past 30 years, Custom Gauge, Slinky, and Earthwood guitar strings, Earthwood acoustic basses, Ernie Ball pedals, and Music Man instruments have raised the standards of musicians around the world. All these products share the classic simplicity, solid reliability, elegant function, and fair price that are synonymous with the name Ernie Ball.

SETTING THE STAGE
Ernie grew up in Santa Monica, California, where his father sold cars and taught Hawaiian steel guitar on the side. "I first picked up the steel guitar when I was nine because my father wanted me to," he recalls. "Bored stiff, I gave it up; but later as a teenager I got the bug and began practicing two to three hours a day. In less than a year I joined the Musicians' Union and landed a jod a job playing six nights a week in a beer bar in south central Los Angeles."

At 19, he successfully auditioned for the pedal guitar slot in the Tommy Duncan band, (former lead singer for Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.) For a year they toured the southwest until the Korean War broke out and EB enlisted in the U.S. Air Force Band. His three-year tour as an Air Force bandsman involved him in diverse musical styles that included Dixieland, concert band, jazz, classical, and big band arrangements. He formed a five-piece combo and soon was playing four nights a week right on the air base. During these years he learned to play standard guitar. When the military band played for various ceremonies or marched in parades, Ern played the bass drum.

After leaving the service Ernie returned to the honky tonks of Los Angeles, but the $53 a week take-home pay wouldn't support his wife and young sons, so he took a teaching job to supplement his playing. At that time KTLA Channel 5 was producing a popular weekly show called Western Varieties. The bandleader heard Ernie play and hired him for the staff band and two solo spots. This job increased his earnings three-fold, and better yet helped Ernie build a name for himself in the L.A. music scene. In those days TV performances were live; no tape delays and no way to dub over a mistake. "This added an element of excitement (and panic.)" Ernie recalls. He soon was getting calls for studio work, and his student enrollment ballooned to a clientele of over 80.

AMERICA'S FIRST GUITAR STORE
In 1958 EB opened a small music shop in Tarzana, a few miles from Hollywood. "We were the first store in the country to sell only guitars. Sales reps would come in and say, "Ern, you've got to sell clarinet reeds, drum sticks, valve oil; bla bla bla," and I'd tell them "I just want to sell guitars," and they'd argue: "There's no such thing as a guitar store; you'll never make it." But Ern wasn't interested in anything else. He knew and loved only guitars. People traveled from miles away to visit the store.

THE STRING IS THE THING - THE GAUGE IS THE RAGE
It was the store's customers who were responsible for EB taking the step that carried his name and his business - far beyond the city limits of Tarzana. He noticed that beginning students were having difficulty pressing down the third string of the Fender #100 medium gauge set, which were the most popular electric strings of the day. "The third string was a 29 gauge, like a giant cable, and the poor kids were getting finger blisters."

IF YOU DON'T DO IT...
"I called my Fender sales rep, Tom Walker, and asked him to tell Leo Fender about the problem. Tom reported back that Leo wouldn't allow lighter gauge strings on his guitars because they caused string buzz, and he wasn't about to re-engineer his neck tension rods. I thought, "OK, Leo; If you won't do it, then I will! I talked a string manufacturer into making me some custom medium gauge sets with a 24 third string instead of a 29."

In the early 60s rock and roll guitar was exploding. More and more people came in to buy a set of guitar strings, throwing away the sixth string, and then buying a banjo first string. This caused every string in the set to be much thinner. Ern thought there should be a rock & roll string set packaged with these lighter gauges. "Again, I called Tom Walker to explain my idea; and again, he reported back that Leo Fender wouldn't discuss it. Then I contacted the people at the Gibson guitar company and tried to talk them into making Rock & Roll strings, but they thought it was a lousy idea. OK; if you guys won't do it, then I really will! And that's how I came up with the first set of Slinky strings (Regular 10 - 46). At first they were only sold locally in my retail shop."

"It occurred to me that a guitarist might want a set of strings in any combination of gauges of his choosing, so I called the string maker again and asked for more strings, but this time I ordered plain strings, all gauges 8 through 24, and all even-numbered wound strings 18 through 58. I built a storage rack out of plywood and pieces of electrical conduit. This fit conveniently next to the workbench behind the counter. When I was busy with customers I would invite a string buyer to use the workbench behind the counter and experiment on his own. Soon scores of guitar players were tinkering around with the Custom Gauge string rack. They loved it!"

The legendary Merle Travis and the Ventures were regular store customers. They took the strings along on their tours, and when asked what kind they used, they would reply, "Ernie Ball." Mail orders started coming in, first from out-of-town guitarists and later from other stores. "We weren't a string company yet." Ernie says, "We were just a little store that had some strings people wanted to buy."

The demand for EB's Slinky strings continued to grow and in 1967 he sold the retail store and moved the string business to Newport Beach. "I wanted to change my lifestyle and work shorter days, learn to surf, learn to fly a plane, and grow a beard." With his staff of only two employees, he found himself doing everything from laying out artwork to packaging string sets. His sons, Sterling, David, and Sherwood, helped out in the warehouse after school.

During high school Ern's third son, Sterling, got a job at a local music store, gaining valuable retail sales experience. After graduating high school he quit the music store and joined the Ernie Ball Company full time as a travelling road rep and phone salesman. He would ultimately become a key character in artist and dealer relations, and later in the design of the Music Man instrument line.

AN IDEA BEFORE ITS TIME
Years before MTV capitalized on the "Unplugged" revolution, Ernie began to dream about an acoustic bass guitar. "I always thought," he says, "that if there were electric bass guitars to go with electric guitars then you ought to have acoustic basses to go with acoustic guitars. The closest thing to an acoustic bass was the Mexican guitarron commonly seen in mariachi bands, so I bought one down in Tijuana and tinkered with it. I installed frinstalled frets and tuners on it, but I never could get it just right." Ernie believed strongly enough in his vision of an acoustic bass to take the idea to a couple of top instrument manufacturers . . . Not interested!

His dream finally found an outlet when he got together with George Fullerton, a former employee at Fender. Ernie had strong opinions about what an acoustic bass should have: "Clarity, power, richness, no dead areas, and no plastic parts. I wanted a bass that was all wood. George preferred making guitars, but the bass was the only reason I started up Earthwood."

In 1972, after tireless work designing and building prototypes, Earthwood guitars and basses were introduced. The Earthwood name reflected Ernie's emphasis on qualities that were natural, and it was also applied to a new line of strings that featured a brighter, more powerful 80/20 metal alloy. Earthwood strings were an immediate success, and generated enough revenue to support the unprofitable instruments.

From the beginning Earthwood was plagued with production and personnel problems. Ern laments: "I didn't want to spend my life with this hassle, so on a Sunday in 1974, I had the locks changed and shut down the operation!" A few years later Dan Norton, a friend and employee, convinced EB to reopen the Earthwood shop. They installed a skeleton crew that turne turned out around four instruments a day. Ultimately about 2,000 Earthwood basses, guitars, mandolas, and baby guitars were built. The instruments are now collectors' items, sought after for their clear, rich tone and fine craftsmanship. Production ended in 1985, to allow the company's talent to focus their efforts in a new direction.

During the 1970's, Sterling Ball helped take Ernie Ball products world wide, setting up distributors in Europe, Japan and Australia. Over the years, Sterling earned a reputation as an accomplished bassist and a shrewd businessman with a solid network of music industry contacts. His uncanny instinct for predicting the future of the guitar soon earned him the position of company Vice President.

THE MUSIC MAN MOVE
By the early 1980's, Ernie and Sterling felt that the market was ready for a finely crafted, American made electric guitar, even though most guitars were being manufactured in Japan, Korea, and Mexico. They believed that with a union of modern technology along with old world craftsmanship they could successfully build high-quality electric guitars and basses in the USA.

In 1984, the Music Man company was for sale. It's solid reputation for professional electric basses and amplifiers was well known. Leo Fender made the instruments and Tom Walker built the amps. Sterling had even been involved in the design of Music Man's most successful instrument, the StingRay bass.

Ernie Ball purchased Music Man in the fall of 1984, and Sterling began to assemble a roster of top artists, designers and craftsmen to develop new Music Man models. Ernie designed and built a new facility in the coastal town of San Luis Obispo, California, and all Ernie Ball and Music Man operations were moved to the new plant in 1985.