SCOTT’S SPECIALS ~ Simple, unique instruments hand built and signed by Scott
Dating back to the years before Birdsong, I built (by that I mean there was some cutting and woodchips and sawdust involved) my first guitar build in 1997 and signed the headstock. It became a thing. And after my formative playing and rewiring years of “How many switches can I put in here?” I became enamored with simple, single pickup guitars. Then Birdsong happened, but the simpler builds with the hand signed headstocks kept happening here and there on the side - mostly the Shortbass, the distilled essence of what I thought a bass guitar should be. I mean I love the fancy stuff, I literally dream of carving D’AQUILA scrolls, but a big part of my heart leans toward simplicity. It’s how I live, it’s how I roll, and it’s how I build. It’s how I built my life. Here’s a little menu of a few models I’m currently offering, and then some info on others I’ve built through the decades and their stories.
As I have something ready, or in-process to be claimed, it goes up on the (coming) STORE page.
CURRENT OFFERINGS…
Harmony Hill model
Patterned after a guitar I made for a good friend, this is a warm and full sounding simple solid body jazz guitar, and makes an excellent blues or rhythm machine too. One of my favorites; just a good little guitar to play on! Some 24” scale, some 24-3/4”, most single neck pickup.
FROM THE PAST…
The Shortbass
A sweet sounding little low-end companion, the majority of the instruments floating around with my signature on the headstocks were these. A Birdsong-design based super-simple short scale hand built with the same care and attention but much simpler, so priced in way under them. The Shortbass was the distillation of a Birdsong into its basic form. These were made from about 2012 through 2020. I think a couple of hundred is a good number of how many are around.
The Sundance
There were around 20 instruments including a couple of basses from 1997 - early 2000 built in The Music Shop in Melrose, MA. That was a shop I opened in January of ‘97 and really the beginning of this chapter that has carried me since. There were a handful of guitars bolted together out of parts before that, but most out of the shop I had some sawdust on me from getting together. That was a big step, and they’re pretty crude. The third guitar I ever built was a 24” scale guitar called “The Bean.” I wanted continuity of line like something natural, like a seed; like something that grew this way. I wound up making a handful of them once people saw, felt, and heard them. Like others, I’ll be updating my favorite old models a little and building more going forward. The Sundance will be a refined version of this, named after my favorite record store in the universe in San Marcos, TX.
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HISTORY
Though I’m sure there have been others, the Scott guitars here are the work of luthier/designer Scott Beckwith, most known (known at all, for the most part) for the Birdsong Guitar Co. it turned into. More Scott-signature headstock builds happened through the Birdsong years (2000 - current, mainly starting in 2004 when Birdsong became an actual little company and launched the website), mostly the Shortbasses, and maybe 50 other guitars. So we’re looking at around maybe 300-350 instruments with my “Scott” signature on the headstock as a brand. A handful during the Melrose music shop years got a medallion on the headstock, with an S in a stylized bird-with-wings shape. The Blues Dawg I gave to Alvin Lee of Ten Years After, the S-style guitar for Leigh Stephens of Blue Cheer, and the Dragonfly short scale bass prototype had them. The mold and pouring was done by a jewelry store a few doors down from the Melrose shop. Perella Jewelers - still there! (As is my old music shop). I wanted it to look like an artifact brought up from a shipwreck, and they did.
Above pics:
Build #1 - The first build I ever used wood tools on and made parts for. The Blues Dawg was sold, traded back in years later on another build, and I still have it.
Build #3 - The Bean, the first of them. There are maybe ten or so.
Build #4 - Another Blues Dawg, this was given to Alvin Lee.
Three pics of Leigh Stephens at the Blue Cheer reunion (Chet Helms Memorial Stomp, San Francisco ‘05) with his ‘98 Scott guitar.
The first short scale bass I made, still in the hands of the client I made it for in ‘99.
The Dragonfly bass, another early short scale prototype from 2000. Pictured in the workshop 15 years later. It was since sold.
The museum wall of the original Birdsong workshop, showing early builds and a couple of early Birdsong basses.
The last of the original Beans built in MA, shown in TX outside the shop where it was sold in 2001 - and where my journey continued!
More pics (above):
Adjusting the “Dewey Double Fusion” guitar for Eric Dewey, a guitar teacher at my music shop.
Another of the completed DDF. I think this was build #2.
A bit from the first www.birdsongguitars.com page about the first short scale bass I built, also for Eric. It was build #9.
Beans! My favorite little guitars. One raw in test assembly in pics on a later multi-piece body I think I still have unbuilt somewhere.
The music shop where this whole thing started, just prior to opening in January of 1997.
Another Bean, this one stained brown with black & gold and a Gretsch style humbucker. For a local called “Computer Dave.”
A more recent shot of some old body templates, some dating back to the Melrose “Scott” years.
More Scott-branded builds from the Texas years, 2000-current (coming)…