The JCH registry starts here!

[John Macy]

I am putting the #106 up for sale shortly-it’s a black beauty with 9x9. When I got it from Savell I had Buck Reid rework it and added 705 pickups. I will have some pictures soon and will also have it at the Dallas show in March.

[Wayne Brown]

To keep the timeline straight I thought I would tell my story once again. I have a very unique history with Jimmy Crawford and JCH Steel guitars. I owned serial number 1004. The first commercially built JCH guitar. This was told to me directly by Jimmy Crawford himself and Elsie after Jimmy's passing. There were 3 built before mine. One for himself, John Hughy, and Russ Hicks, from what I remember. My 1st JCH was a crappy blue D-10 which I changed to snow white. Here is the only surviving picture of myself playing a gig on a trailer stage, on a farm, on a very rainy night.

Then I also had the very last guitar he built. If I remember correctly the one before mine was made for Buddy Emmons. This/my guitar was completed by Mr. Buck Reid and Mr. Tommy Minniear as Jimmy had passed away 1/2 way through building it. You can read a very old post on the archived steel guitar forum of what happened exactly.
https://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/009535.html
My guitar can be seen on page 2 of this post and here.

There have been a lot of claims throughout JCH's history of 1st and last etc. I just would like to set the record straight again.
Thanks
Wayne Brown
and PS LOL Yes i am looking for another D-10 JCH

[Gary Thorsen]

Wayne, interesting that you mention Tommy and Elsie. I had many long conversations with both of them and was fired up about licensing the JCH name from Elsie. She was open to the idea if, and that is a very big if, the materials and craftsmanship were up to Jimmy's standards and specifications. After consulting with my friend Tony Glassman, who was in charge of purchasing at Sierra for a good while, we determined that startup costs, molds for casting and machining the same grades of aluminum the first run of about 20 guitars would be closer to $250,000. So relying on those numbers a new JCH would need to sell for almost $15,000. After asking around I found very little interest from prospective customers and decided not to pursue the endeavor even though it would be a noble venture. I love these guitars and think they are worthy of every bit of praise I can muster. As good as people are making steel guitars nowadays, to my knowledge, none are using the quality of metals that Jimmy demanded. It would be cost prohibitive. The secret to tone is something Jimmy understood as well as anyone who ever built guitars. Thank you all for contributing to this effort. JCH and the people involved in building them are all such an important part of Steel guitar history. Gary

[Tyler Hall]

Gary, do you still have the guitar pictured? It looks just like the one I just got a few months ago and it HAS to be one of the very last ones. #3901.

[John Goodrich]

I do not own a JCH, but had an experience at Jimmie's house I won't forget. I was there on vacation with Tommy Minniear in the 80s and we went to Jimmie's house. Tommy was talking to him about painting the wood parts of the steel. Jimmie needed a big roll of foam rubber taken up to his attic and me, being the skinniest, was elected to go up into the attic where it was probably over 100 degrees. I was pulling the foam rubber up and I yelled, " I hate steel players". LOL.
Later, he took us out to his shop where he was making the JCH pedal steels. He handed me some steel wool and asked if I would mind polishing some pedals, which I did.

After we got that taken care of, I asked Jimmie if he could line up a guitar lesson for me by some professional player he knew. I had brought my Telecaster with me. He got out his union book and started calling. The first few were busy. He ended up calling Andy Reiss and lined up my lesson. I went to Andy's house and we sat for an hour and a half just picking and teaching me. I'll always remember that. What I learned that day has still stuck with me. That was before the Time Jumpers days. He's not only a great guitarist, he's a nice guy and great teacher. He didn't charge me anything, but asked if Tommy would paint a guitar body for him. I don't know if that ever happened. I grew up with Tommy and played with him in our first bands in Junior High and High School. He played bass or guitar. It was before he took up pedal steel. After high school he worked in a body shop and learned to paint beautifully, so that's how he got connected with Jimmie, that and he also went to the Crawford's Pedal Steel School. Tommy was also a good bass and guitar player.
Anyway, that's my JCH story.

[John Macy]

I have #106-black mica with 9 floor and 9 knees available for sale.

[Antonio Zuliani]

Ciao Wayne, I'm the lucky owner of that last JCH that once was yours. She's a beauty, and I'm really proud of her