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sings original blues & ragtime songs and plays |
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My
foot
pianos
are clearly inspired by Jesse Fuller's
invention he called a 'fotdella'.
I hosted him a club in Eau Claire Wisconsin in 1966 and he stayed with me for a
few days. He had a plywood box with 5 strings and a piece of a piano
action that he played with his big toe. Sometimes he stood up and danced
on a sheet of wood with tap shoes. I took his 'foot diller' idea (with his blessing) and
made some changes adding more strings to get a full octave and designing a pedal
system like a typewriter to center the strings on the sound board. I have
made about 14 or 15 different models over the years. One is acoustic and the other, more practical model, has
electric pickups designed by Naoyuki Ishishiro. I also have one I leave in
Iowa City for summer gigs. |
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The Owens Crossroads modified to headless. It has an aluminum body, one humbucker and a piezo system designed by Zeta. I made the tuners from strat and tele parts. Sadly, this cool guitar has been discontinued by the company. |
Headless 12-string designed by me and Ekrem Ozkarpat. Originally it used banjo tuners, but I replaced them with two sets of Steinberger Direct tuners. It sounds great!
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