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George Harrison's amp and cabinet discovery in
Cheshire man's equipment archive collection. This amp and cabinet were used for
all the lead guitar work by George Harrison on 'Revolver' and 'Sgt. Pepper'. A
Manchester amp repairer discovered George Harrison markings under 50-plus years
of grime, i.e. under the tarnish on the surface of the amp chassis. It had to go
in for repair after it being loaned out for a recording session in Salford in
February 2011.
In April 2011 Tim Scott of ITV News described the amp and
cabinet find as one of the most important amplifier discoveries in the history
of pop music - 'Revolver', which is just one of the albums George used this amp
on for all the lead guitar sounds, is already voted as the most important rock
album of all time.
In April 2011, the rare George Harrison amplifier and cabinet were filmed in use
by a guitarist in the Cavern section of The Beatles Story. The Beatles Story
then exhibited it for several months. The amp and speaker cabinet display
identifying marks relating it to The Beatles on the amplifier chassis and in the
speaker cabinet. The equipment was examined for the ITV film by Billy Kinsley of
the Merseybeats, who was at some of The Beatles' Abbey Road recording sessions
and used to write about Beatles equipment for The Beatles Monthly magazine, and
Billy has confirmed it is definitely George's amp from Abbey Road. Billy said he
was not surprised that George's name was scratched on the amplifier chassis as
he recalls that as The Beatles had amassed artist promo equipment like
amplifiers by Vox, they loaned equipment out to bands who were not as well off,
particularly George, who loaned equipment to Apple artists like Badfinger. Billy
says George got Mal Evans to scratch 'George Harrison' on the chassis of
George's Vox amps.
In 2013, a further Vox UL730 amp and cabinet of George
Harrison's with an amp serial no. just one away from the one discovered in 2011
was purchased and put into the collection, so now two of those sets of amps and
cabinets are in the same collection.
Between late 1965 and summer 1966, Vox produced the very rare 730 series of
amplifiers and matching speaker cabinets. The amp chassis, which were hybrid
transistor pre-amp and valve output (4 x EL84 like an AC30 output stage), were
built 'sub-contract' at Triumph Electronics at Purley and then shipped to the
JMI Vox Factory in Dartford for final assembly into the cabinet and matching up
with the speaker cabinet. According to the Jennings Musical Industries/Vox
factory build records, only 102 of the 730 units were ever built (and 76 of the
102 model 730 amps and cabs were called back and destroyed at the factory
leaving 26 in the whole world). Considering Vox at that point (the height of The
Beatles frenzy and the British Invasion of America) were manufacturing thousands
of units per month of their other amps, 26 out into the world is extremely few.
Not many 730s were sold or built, as the amps were expensive and complicated to
produce, being both transistors (which some people at Vox mistakenly thought was
the way forward for guitar amps in 1966) and valves, which had been the strength
of Vox's previous success. The 730s were not good for use on the road, as they
were introduced quickly, untested, and were not as reliable as Vox's previous
products - any odd one that has survived has only done so with love and
attention and modification to keep them working.
The saving grace of the 730 is its use for guitar by The Beatles on 'Revolver'
and 'Sgt. Pepper' and its use for guitar on albums by Joy Division. George
Harrison apparently loved the germanium transistor pre-amp - the same type of
transistor used in early effects pedals - and this gave him the sound he wanted,
combined with the valve four x EL84 AC30 output stage. According to Vox
information that survived, the Beatles 730s were in the first batch of 40 out of
102 off the production line (76 out of the 102 were scrapped in 1966) and our
example is in the low 20s in the factory serial no. list (and only 26 amps
stayed in circulation in 1966). The Beatles and Abbey Road information and
photos show the 730 amp and cabinet used for guitar by George Harrison on all
tracks on 'Revolver' in 1966 and for guitar by George, Paul and John on 'Sgt.
Pepper' in 1966 and 1967.