[TV the Wired Turtle]

TK Smith is hands down one of the really new wave of country swing /rockabilly pickers that showed up on the scene I believe in the late 80s along side neo- honky tonk guys from Los Angeles like Dwight Yoakum. TK Smith was sideman to Big Sandy & His Fly Rite Trio for many yrs until he decided to move on where Ashley Kingman took over swingin and twangin for Big Sandy.

TK has also had a few side projects like the Smith Ranch Boys and the Golden Hill Ramblers but he told me he doesnt really like performing
live. He's kinda soft spoken, very humble and totally talented on
all fronts.

You Tube

What really brought TK first to my attention other than reflecting back on his live rocker status, is that I was searching out some mid century modern (atomic era architecture ) floor plans and furniture, and stumbled on his blog and my mind was blown. The dude has a family history of buicks, hot rods, independent american business ownership and great skill of carpentry craftsmanship that has now extended to bringing back bigsby and stratosphere pickups.

I immediately bought one of his handcrafted garolite armrests and bigsby shims for my baritone telecaster and got so bro-mantic about how hard core old school he is on his pickup builds (uses only vintage american machinery) I went hog wild and bought one of his pickups for the neck of the baritone that I'd had a lollar CC in.. Then when I got that installed, I was so smitten with this original sound I'd heard in old records, I called him up and just took my whole guitar over to him to have the bigsby customized, a Smith Bigsby bridge pickup installed and over all TK'ish set up complete with a customized hand inlaid garolite pickguard.
here's a quick little slide show of my trip out to his shop and him testing my finished guitar.

You Tube

Now he's got my Gretsch Spectrasonic there for a custom bigsby style pickguard in the style of Merle Travis along with a repro neck pickup he's designed after the Stratosphere double neck guitar pkup, that was made famous by Jimmy Bryant and Chet atkins.

[bubblyah]

I'd like to see the specrasonic when its done.

[johsonrod]

thats too cool man

[TV the Wired Turtle]

bubb.. me too I just need to sell some stuff real quick to pay for it when its
finished. Its probably time to off the Gretsch Sweetheart acoustic.

[bubblyah]

Originally Posted by TV the Wired Turtle

bubb.. me too I just need to sell some stuff real quick to pay for it when its
finished. Its probably time to off the Gretsch Sweetheart acoustic.

The good thing is if you sell the sweetheart. It'll get you longing for a better one down the road. Maybe a fancy Gibson acoustic. Like a few I've been looking at and drooling over.

[TV the Wired Turtle]

I'd love a gibson but I could never afford one.. I had to settle for my present acoustic from recording king the RDJ-27

[fender62custom]

Geez...TK Smith sure is a fine & articulate player...love those pick ups/mods too!!! very cool indeed!!

[bubblyah]

Originally Posted by TV the Wired Turtle

I'd love a gibson but I could never afford one.. I had to settle for my present acoustic from recording king the RDJ-27

I don't have the funds for one anytime soon either. I've been using a Simon and Patrick acoustic up untill about 9 months ago. Now that I don't have one I've been looking for the next one. I find that accoustics are the hardest to bond with but gibson's look and sound the best to me right now.

[Crooner]

Thanks for the heads up, Tavo. TK is one serious player.

[TV the Wired Turtle]

The focus of this post though isnt so much about TK smiths playing but rather that he is one of these rare breed american independent craftsmen. He builds a lot of amazing mid century modern furniture pieces using original vintage american machinery and that carries over into these pickups he's making now mostly for telecasters. Hand machining the aluminum casings from blocks of metal stock, staying true to making the bobbins by hand from garolite.. not fiber, not plastic.. from garolite sheets. Every detail is here and the sound of these pickups is like nothing on the market. Its a new paradigm for me, these things are like a mix of fat dynasonic and filtertron but the telecaster isnt lost in the sound. I cant wait to hear what my gretsch spectrasonic is gonna sound like with the new tk smith neck pickup, as I've never been thrilled with the spectrasonics neck pickup position.

[fender62custom]

What are they worth Tavo!! does he have a contact number/email/web address..cheers

Edit: all good..found it!!

[Wayne Gretschzky]

Tavo... I ordered an aluminum neck shim from TK awhile back. Great customer service and it worked well! Can you give a short (and in English) review of the differences between the blade style pu and the one with pole pieces? If I was considering one for the neck position of a Tele, is there a choice, and if either work, and which would you recommend? Thanks for any insight!

[Tele295]

Www.tksmith.net

I played a rockabilly festival with TK back in the day. It was still Big Sandy & the Fly Rite Trio, and TK had this fantastic 50's epiphone zephyr with NY mini hum-buckers. I bought their record with Kaw-liga on it

[montereyjack66]

A fine, fine, post, sir. Thanks for illuminating another underappreciated corner of our world.

mj

[TV the Wired Turtle]

Originally Posted by Wayne Gretschzky

Tavo... I ordered an aluminum neck shim from TK awhile back. Great customer service and it worked well! Can you give a short (and in English) review of the differences between the blade style pu and the one with pole pieces? If I was considering one for the neck position of a Tele, is there a choice, and if either work, and which would you recommend? Thanks for any insight!

Wayne.. These pickups will take away your telecaster sound and turn
that badboy into a psuedo Bigsby guitar. I mean to a degree the pluck and
characteristic twang is there but at the same time these pickups are a big fat warm jazzy woody low end with a hifi top. The blade pickup is designed closely to TK's original Charlie christian pickup but with a bit of bigsby twist. The Pole piece model is suppose to be pure bigsby mixed with the stratosphere pickup heard on early chet and jimmy byant recordings.

I've got flatwound chrome 12s on mine right now so that may be why I feel the tele sound is so removed in conjunction with the bigsby.

regarding the purer version of the stratosphere pickup, I'm having TK install one of his takes on this pickup in my gretsch spectrosonic and it should be ready in another week

[TV the Wired Turtle]

The pickup surround for the TK smith Stratosphere and the pickguard are taking shape on my gretsch spectrasonic now

[TV the Wired Turtle]

ooh looks whats comin down the chimney for Xmas! a tksmith Charlie Christian pkup and funky bigsby pkguard.

[j.s.c]

Very nice
Thanks to share Tavo. I love the Hiro Endo model too...

Anyway, tell me if I'm wrong it reminds me dyna tone, isn't it?

[Tele295]

Originally Posted by TV the Wired Turtle

ooh looks whats comin down the chimney for Xmas! a tksmith Charlie Christian pkup and funky bigsby pkguard.

Awesome!

[db62]

Great thread - thanks for the TK Smith intro.