Guitarist Al Allen achieved an artist’s dream of developing a unique style and sound when he and Jack Matthew patented a vibrato and installed it on his 1955 Les Paul model Gibson.
Al Allen’s Black Beauty – A Guitar Story
What’s the deal with the arts, and specifically music? A person gets interested in the music others are making, learns chords and scales, seeks out training, and with practice and performance, may reach a point where their abilities are recognized as having value, contributing to a community of music makers and music lovers. A few musicians come up with a personal way of playing that sounds different from what’s been played before … Whether that helps or hinders the artist is hard to tell in advance, but with perseverance, some succeed beyond expectations.
During his life, guitarist Al Allen (1927–2020) demonstrated unbridled curiosity combined with grit — although the man often played it cool, in person — and indeed, developed a unique style of touch and tone that his contemporaries regarded with open and friendly admiration. According to Al, it all came together for him when he began playing his “Black Beauty” 1955 Les Paul custom Gibson guitar.
According to Keith Cady’s research, Al’s work in Detroit included playing in clubs, radio, TV, and Detroit-based recording studios with the likes of Chief Redbird, the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, Boots Gilbert and Chuck Hatfield, Bobby Sykes, Tommy Cantrell, the Davis Sisters (whose hair was often done before performances by Al’s wife Kathy at her salon), May Hawks, Casey Clark (briefly), Danny Richards, Lonnie Barron … You get the idea how popular he was!
Perhaps the earliest recorded example of Al’s picking with his Black Beauty available on a commercial record was Pete DeBree and his Wanderers’ “Hey, Mr. Presley” sung by Jimmy Franklin on Fortune (200). In this rocker, you hear Al’s blend of percussive swing and his guitar’s tremolo. He also recorded during the mid-1950s for Fox Records with the Lucky Lee band, and also with vocal groups the Larados (“Bad, Bad Guitar Man”), and the Romeos (“Fine, Fine Baby”).
Al combined his picking technique, influenced by Les Paul, Tony Mottola, Chet Atkins, as well as Detroit jazz guitarist Bob Mitchell, with the dials on his guitar and amp, as well as a vibrato bar he and Detroit machinist Jack Matthew (1916–1999) created, and eventually patented in 1958. Gibson Guitars ended up licensing and manufacturing the accessory for their guitars.
Here’s an excerpt from a conversation Keith Cady and I had with Al in 2005:
Craig Maki: I wanted to ask you about the [guitar] vibrato [arm]. Were you always a tinkerer? How did you come up with that?
Al Allen: Probably the only guys I seen back then – in the late ’40s and early ’50s – that had one was Chet Atkins and Les Paul. Now, Chet Atkins had one that worked like the one that we made … But what was different about it [Al and Jack’s invention] was, if you pulled the arm up, the strings went up. And you had to push the arm down to make the strings go down. I’m trying to get this right in my head now … Well anyway, it was the opposite of how I thought a vibrato should work. Rickenbacker had a small vibrato – It was either for a banjo, or a four-string guitar, because … you hook up only four strings. Me and Jack started on that one, and we modified that one. And that’s the one I have on my guitar, yet.
CM: That’s the prototype?
Keith Cady: You took it off your [Les Paul] gold top and put it on the black?
AA: After we modified it. I’ve got a picture of it on the gold guitar – a little bitty thing with a handle up there. … I don’t know if you ever heard of Jack L. Matthew? He was my partner on the vibrato. I met him when I first came to town. He was absolutely the best repairman there was (on instruments), in the city of Detroit.
KC: Did you meet him at a show, or did you take something to him for a repair?
AA: I probably took something for him to work on. We got to be very good friends. We had parties and would go out to dinner almost every week. … He was a genius at that stuff. He was in charge of four plants that his brother owned. Honing stuff. … So help me, I’ll swear to you: He could have been a Leo Fender on guitar stuff. He made some guitars and sold them in Detroit. He put pedals on Don Tannison’s steel [guitar], and a whole lot more.
CM: What led you guys to get a patent and go into business [together]?
AA: He did most of the work, and I did most of the paying for the patent papers and everything. … I would try it out, and if there was something I thought was wrong, he’d be able to fix it.
CM: So you were the guy who tested it, and he would make adjustments to it.
AA: More or less, yeah. After we licensed that vibrato to Gibson, we came up with one even better than that one. Much, much better! But there was a span of about five or six years, I think … and we took that one up to Gibson. But they didn’t want to change, because they spent a lot of money on building the one they had going. … Well, they sold them from ’59 until about ’63.
In 1958 Al began a collaboration with local singer and songwriter Jack Scott, for Carlton Records. Al’s guitar featured prominently on the recordings, and Jack’s first single, “Leroy” backed with “My True Love” became a hit gold record. Al and Jack both had unique approaches to making music, and when one heard a Jack Scott record come on the radio, the vocal and guitar parts made it identifiable almost immediately. Between 1958 and 1960, Jack had fifteen tunes in the Billboard Hot 100, including four in the Top Ten, and a total of nine in the Top 40 charts. Al played his Black Beauty on all of these sessions.
In 1959, Al cut an instrumental single for Carlton (511) featuring his compositions “Egghead” backed with “I’m Beat.” In the age when instrumental guitar pop dominated teen-ager playlists (think Duane Eddy, Link Wray, and so on), Al’s “proto-surf” music received great reviews and earned him and his band “The Sounds” radio and TV appearances around Detroit.
After he left Jack’s band in favor of settling back into his domestic life, Al continued playing this guitar with Detroit-based country acts. He remained much in demand, and had the luxury of choosing the gigs he played … all the way into the early 2000s.
Al Allen’s legendary 1955 Les Paul custom with his patented vibrato is currently listed at Lansing’s famous Elderly Instruments. Check it out here.
For a more complete story about Al Allen’s music career, look up the chapter about him in “Detroit Country Music – Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies.”
Available now!
