2 questions about the Ventures

[rog43win]

Wow, they say there are always 2 sides to every story....I had never heard that one from Semie, either, Paul. But, I agree that Nokie and Semie seemed to have a good relationship, and that Nokie always liked the Mosrite....
One thing is for sure, Semie certainly designed and built a beautiful guitar....and Nokie definitely played it for all it's worth......now the Mosrite is such a sought-after guitar all over the world.......
And, one more thing....I am such an idiot for trading my '64 in..... ...but hindsight is 20/20, right?

Roger

[TimR]

I came across another article in among the old stuff that Del sent me. It's from a 1981 "Guitar Player" magazine interview.

It was a very lengthy interview, but at one point the interviewer asked:

How did the Mosrite Ventures model guitars come about?

Taylor Nokie took his guitar up to Semie Moseley,s repair shop to get the neck slimmed down. He had to leave it there so Moseley said, "Why don't you take one of mine on the road?" Nokie took it out and, of course, no one had ever seen one like it before. He started selling them off the stage.

What exactly was your arrangement with Mosrite?

Bogle We had an exclusive distribution agreement for 5 years. We made a deal with Moseley that he would have the factory and we would have the distribution. When that 5 year period ran out, he thought the guitar was strong enough to go without the Ventures name, so he didn't renew the contract for distribution.

Wilson As far as the neck and pickups go, I never did like the guitar. I didn't like the frets so close together, because I had to play a lot up on the neck, and I had to squeeze down in there. And he was so proud that the pickups were supposedly wound much more than any others. But they were just a little too sensitive. You'd crank it up and get distortion.

[mosriteer]

There's a lot more in Vintage Guitar articles and Tom Wheeler's book. The nail in the coffin was actually the widespread failures of the Mosrite Award amps (which had to be fixed under the warranty period). The 1971 GP article documents this. Don's complaint about the necks and the PUs distorting too easily is part of the 1981 GP article. I am not sure that no revenue was generated for the Ventures from the earlier Mosrite deals - I remember seeing articles to the contrary. Bob and Don lost all of their investments from the Award amp deal. Things may have gotten better between Semie and Don at a later time, as Semie had made a special Mosrite for Don in the late 80s - possibly in an effort to seek the Ventures endorsements for the late 80s reissue. The reissue Ventures models were also "advertised" in the Ventures Club bulletins.

Nokie liked the shape of the Mosrite body and that made it into the Hitchhiker as a result. He also preferred wider necks to facilitate his finger picking style more than anything else. Some of the Mosrite Nokie models have a slightly wider neck and higher frets.

For the interested, Wilie Moseley's "Stellas and Strats" book (from 1994) features a nice article on the post 1992 Mosrite operations headed by Loretta, including a pic of Dana making the pickups and an experimental mini Combo body drying on a rack. WM is apparently a distant nephew of Semie and writes often for the Vintage Guitar magazine.

-Kanad

[Dennisthe Menace]

Kanad, you hit the nail on the head. Most of us know by now that it wasn't the purchase of the Dobro Company that was Semie's undoing,
rather it was one or two people that got money hungry, and wanted to hurry up and get an amplifier built yesterday......and it backfired.
Unfortunately, Semie got caught in the crossfire.

BTW--
Willie G. Moseley wrote an article dedicated to Semi shortly after his passing called "Requiem For an Uncle."
He had mentioned that the 'Uncle' was attributed to all of his close friends calling him just that. Willie had
also mentioned in the article that he was not related to Semie...........FWIW........