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MY FRIEND SKIP SIMMONS
Talking about Skip Simmons is like starting a conversation about history. Be prepared to spend time, and you'll be smiling too.
About Amps . . . I've always been a little picky and have worked with many people, both as consumer when I was a performer, and as sound architect when I worked on instruments. Ideology and the relationship between the artist and their tools for expressing art meant that it wasn't just doing good fret work - I had to make the instrument "feel" like it belonged in the performer's hands. I could do that. Haven't seen any one else do that since, and certainly never ( emphasis added ) ever saw anyone do that with amplifiers. I mean old amplifiers, not a new souped up decibel rocket.
My first experiences were with Howard Dumble in the late 60's and Randy Statman in Oakland during the early 70's. Then I retired.
After coming out of retirement last year. I met Skip.
Wow.
Everything he does makes me feel like I can 'sing' through the amp. I know no other amplifier expert, restorer, inventor, and gentleman in his class. He's an educator too; I listened to three hours of finely honed and field proven testimony about every little thing in an amp on my first visit.
He said he will really take time someday to give me details. I liked that.
I asked him to check one thing on an amp I created with Dumble's help. Three hours later, I left with a smile and an orange from his orchard. My amp has sound that NO one has ever heard before.
Skip improved it. That was impossible, but he did.
If you decide you want to travel a ways to meet a legend in the making, it will be well worth the trip. Besides, if he makes you happy or if you are deemed worthy to buy one of his custom hand-made amps, he'll give me another orange.
Best orange I ever had in my life.
I understand that he has extraordinary skill in building / modifying amps for harmonica players, and some travel long distance for his services.
He also makes an A/B/Y footswitch that is excellent.
I really like Skip. So will you. Check out his website at http://www.skipsimmonsamps.com.
Glen "Leo" Quan
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Glen is writing about really special Friends and Heroes. He hopes to publish more of his thoughts in the near future. Some of his Friends and Heroes will include Clayton Orr "Doc" Kaufman, Theodore "Ted" Milson McCarthy, Vic Anderson, Ben Dathe, Jerry Pearring, Alice Glunt, Jeff Berlin, Bobby Vega, Hideo Kamimoto, Bob Winlocks, Billy Pirie, Don Wiggins, Luis Campos, Bill Caspari, Katherine Bowman, Jorma Kaukonen, Paul Kazarian, Bill Boom, George Satero, John Handy and other gifts to our world. Oh, and there are some stories you would never learn from anywhere else.