Despite the good times for guitar sellers, Burns London was in desperate need of a rescue. Alas, his strengths did not extend to business and financial management, and by ’65 his company was deeply in debt to suppliers and creditors. Jim Burns was an affable (if eccentric) personality whose forté was guitar design and technology. If you want to know about a Burns-built guitar, you need this book. The most detailed source for information on Burns guitars is The Burns Book (The Bold Strummer, 1990) by Paul Day. Since most of Burns’ guitars ended up in the Baldwin line, there’s no need to go into them at length. Burns guitars were generally well designed and produced, with feather-touch vibratos, a unique “gear-box” truss rod adjuster (which ended up on many Baldwin-era Gretsches), and nifty electronic features like the “Wild Dog” setting on the Jazz Split Sound (basically an early out-of-phase tone). In ’60 he founded his own company, Ormston Burns Ltd., which began selling guitars branded “Burns London.” Among his most endearing guitar designs were the pointy, horned Bison and a guitar made for Hank Marvin, England’s answer to the Ventures. In the late ’50s he was part of Burns-Weill, making some of the earliest production guitars in England. James Ormston Burns was born in England in 1925 and following World War II became involved in making guitars. At least Baldwin made musical instruments, although, as it would turn out, that didn’t make much difference in the final outcome. It was amid this corporate feeding frenzy that Baldwin guitars were born, the result of a collision between the quest for guitars and the fortunes of Burns guitars of London. (Teisco del Rey) came from photographic supplies. Even new guitar importing companies were fueled by money from elsewhere: Strum & Drum (Norma) came from nuts and bolts W.M.I. Most came down on the latter side: CBS (TV) bought Fender, Seeburg (jukeboxes) bought Kay, Norlin (beer, etc.) bought Gibson, Avnet (hotels?) bought Guild, Gulf and Western (oil) bought Merson/Unicord (Univox), King Korn Stamp Company (trading stamps) bought Westheimer Sales (Teisco, Kingston).

The resulting gold rush yielded a number of strange bedfellows, with many guitar companies owned by conglomerates that may or may not have a clue about making and marketing guitars.

Thus, guitars were blessed with the Midas touch, veritable gold mines guaranteed to swell the bottom line as large corporations sought to diversify. The baby boom showed no signs of letting up and “Boomers” were hitting high adolescence – prime guitar playing years.

After all, guitar-driven pop music was red hot, especially after the success of the Beatles in ’64. Back in the Swinging ’60s, one of the coolest things hip companies could do was own a guitar company.

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