Biscuits and Blues presents Freddie Roulette

All Models, summer 1954 to mid 1976 (serial number on neckplate). In 1957/1958 some serial numbers started with a minus sign ("-"), or had a "0" prefix before the number. Also in 1959/1960 some serial numbers were at the bottom of the neck plate instead of the usual top. Double stamped serial number plates were also produced (number on both front and back of the neck plate) in late 1957 to early 1959. As a good example of all four of these serial number oddities, click here. This shows a "double stamped" neck plate, one number with a "-" prefix and stamped on the bottom of the plate, and the other number with a "0" prefix! And yes there is some overlap in serial numbers between years.

4 to 6 digit Neck Plate Serial Numbers (no other letters or markings on the neck plate, except for the rare "-" or "0" prefix, as noted).

  0001  to 6000  = 1954
  6000  to 9000  = 1955
  9000  to 16000 = 1956
  16000 to 25000 = 1957 (some numbers with a "0" or "-" prefix)
  25000 to 30000 = 1958 (some numbers with a "0" or "-" prefix)
  30000 to 40000 = 1959
  40000 to 58000 = 1960
  55000 to 72000 = 1961
  72000 to 93000 = 1962
  93000 to 99999 = late 1963 to mid 1963

  L00001 to L20000 = late 1962 to late 1963
  L20000 to L55000 = 1964
  L55000 to L99999 = 1965

  100000 to 110000 = late 1965
  110000 to 200000 = 1966
  180000 to 210000 = 1967
  210000 to 250000 = 1968
  250000 to 280000 = 1969
  280000 to 300000 = 1970
  300000 to 330000 = 1971
  330000 to 370000 = 1972
  370000 to 520000 = 1973
  500000 to 580000 = 1974
  580000 to 690000 = 1975
  690000 to 750000 = 1976

  7600000 ("76" in bold) = 1976-1977
  800000s = 1979-1981
  1000000 to 8000000 = 1976-1981 (7 digits)
  S100000's-S600000's = 1979-1982
  S700000's to S770000's = 1977
  S740000's to S800000's = 1978
  S810000's to S870000's = 1979
  S880000's to S980000's = 1980
  S950000's to S990000's = 1981
  E000000's to E100000's = 1979-1982
  E200000's = 1982
  E300000's to E310000's = 1983
  E320000's to E390000's = 1984-1985
  E400000's = 1984, 1985, 1987
  E800000's = 1988-1989
  E900000's = 1989-1990
  N900000's = 1990
  N000000's = 1990-1991
  N100000's = 1991
  N200000's = 1992
  N300000's = 1993
  N400000's = 1994
  N500000's = 1995
  N600000's = 1996
  N700000's = 1997
  N800000's = 1998
  N900000's = 1999

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR FENDER AMPLIFIER’S GRILL CLOTH

1. Remove baffle board and speakers (usually pulled from the front of the amp).
2. Remove the staples, careful not to rip original grill. Save it for re-sale.
3. Buy 1 sq yard of your favorite grill cloth..
4. Have someone help you.
5. Staple one side, start at the top.
6. Turn over to the opposite side, have friend pull gently, use a long
right angle square laid on the floor to align the silver thread.
Then staple. It need not be real tight yet.
7. Rotate and do a side. Trick here is too pull just hard enough
to staple but not too hard, else your lines in the grill will bend
and look bad.
8. To do the corners, look how the old cloth was cornered.
9. Staple everything inline right next to each other.
10. Heat it up (A LITTLE); Lay board down flat and use a hair dryer and go around the edges slowly. You will see the material tighten from the heat. The real tough part is if the grill gets too hot, it will pull apart with no warning. So take your time, go over and over. Don’t put heat on the front face of the cloth, it won’t pull evenly,
just around the edges.

EVIL (IS GOIN' ON) -- EVIL BLUES

(HOWLIN' WOLF / WILLIE DIXON)

You're a long way from home, And you can't sleep at night

Grab your telephone, Now something ain't right

And that's evil, Evil Going on baby, I said I'm warning you brothers

You'd better watch your happy home

<>

Long way from home, And you can't sleep at night

Feels like another mule's been kickin' in my stall,

And that's evil, Evil Going out baby 

I said I'm warning you brothers, You'd better watch your happy home

<>

(Watch your happy,Watch your happy, happy home, Evil yeah, Evil right, Evil yeah, Evil ...)

Freddie Roulette's Lap Steel Tuning & Gear:

Tuning:  (low) -- G A A C E A C E -- (high)
String gauges:  .034, .052, .052, .038, .034, .020, .016, .012.

Echo: Ibanez vintage analog delay, OR, custom no-brand-name echos by "Daphne Blue" depending on type of material.  Previously used: Vintage hammond reverb from Marshall 60's Plexi Master Volume amp (not the amp, just the reverb).

Amps / Signal Chain: JC 120, and custom "Daphne Blue" preamp system; back up amp is a home-made amp that Freddie put together in the 1970's; occasional use of graphic EQ in pedal form to adjust steel guitar to each live room.

This is Freddie Roulette's basic live set up.  His studio set-up has varied significantly over the years.  Freddie has used single and double-necked lap steel guitars, but mostly an 8-string single neck.

Freddie's Picks of Good Examples of His Tone:  "Pocket full of Memories," "Can You Hear the Ocean?" and "Sleepwalk."  (All Daphne Blue Recordings.)

The blues was born in the Mississippi Delta in the last decade of the 19th century.

In the 1930s and '40s a huge number of Black Americans migrated north to Chicago and the blues went with them. At the same time, the blues spilled over into Memphis.

In the 1950's the blues had grown up from country music into something we call Urban Blues. The music had changed from solo, acoustic, country music to ensemble, electric city music.

Urban Blues had become national music, not regional music, but it was still the music of African Americans. What the white population of America knew of blues was blues-influenced music.

In the mid-1950s American Popular Music was transformed by a new generation of musicians through recordings of small, independent record labes, principally Sun Records, located in Memphis, Chess Records, located in Chicago, Atlantic Records, located in New York City, and Specialty Records, located in Los Angeles. This was Rock And Roll.

Rock and Roll was not blues, but it was more than mere blues-influenced music, it was blues-drenched music. Blues was confined to the shadows, lurking behind racial barriers. In all of America, only a few white Americans could tell you B.B. King was, in spite of the fact he was constantly criss-crossing the country, playing to sell-out crowds.

By the 1960s blues may have been little known to whites in America, but a few white kids on both sides of the Atlantic were discovering it, and together they would change popular music profoundly and permanently.

The English rock bands that comprised the "British Invasion" were devotees of Chicago Blues. They ate the blues and made it the foundation of their music.

In the early 1960s a handful of young whites in Chicago prowled the bars of Chicago's South Side and adopted the culture and music of the masters they could hear for a few dollars. The black bluesmen accepted them and invited them on stage.

In the mid-1960s these disciples burst on the scene, reaching mass audiences with undiluted, full-fledged blues music, and they made no scecret that they had borrowed it from the real originators. A short list of the disciples would include Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Charlie Musselwhite, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, John Mayall, and Eric Burdon.

A damn burst. The social partition of race was dissolved and through the gap came a parade of America's greatest artists. A short list of the masters would include Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, James Cotton, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Bobby Bland, and B.B. King.

Legions followed. America had the blues and knew it. It was as if a great secret had been disclosed: Our popular music derives its vitality, its form, its emotional power from a musical tradition that began in a dark corner of America where black men and women worked the richest ground in the country for the benefit and prosperity of white people.