Bigsby and Hal Leonard Congratulate Winner in Guitar Giveaway

Bigsby and Hal Leonard Congratulate Winner in Guitar Giveaway
WI’s Brickhouse Music Now Owns Highly Coveted Cutaway
MILWAUKEE – To promote the new hardcover book/CD pack The Story of Paul Bigsby: Father of the Modern Electric Solidbody Guitar, Hal Leonard Corporation and Bigsby teamed up for a guitar giveaway at NAMM. The companies congratulate Jen Burleigh-Bentz from Brickhouse Music in River Falls, WI, who won the limited-edition prize guitar.

The Bigsby BYSW Double Florentine Cutaway features a flat maple top with amber finish, a walnut birds-eye headstock, a rosewood fretboard with dot inlays, chrome volume and tone control knobs, a three-way selector switch on the upper bout, a chrome tune-o-matic style bridge with mounted posts, in-line Kluson style tuners, and two specially designed TV Jones pickups. The suggested list price for the guitar is $3,000.

As evidenced by the accompanying photo, Burleigh-Bentz was thrilled with the victory.

Though most guitarists are familiar with the famous Bigsby Vibrato, very few are aware of the role that Paul Bigsby played in the invention of the modern electric solidbody guitar. In fact, he built the first such guitar for Merle Travis in 1948, predating Gibson’s Les Paul model and Leo Fender’s namesake guitars by years. The Story of Paul Bigsby relates how this enigmatic genius influenced Fender and Gibson – as well as numerous others – in the design and construction of electric guitars.

The Story of Paul Bigsby is a deluxe illustrated coffee table book containing 300+ color and black & white photos. The book also comes with an audio CD of Paul Bigsby, recorded in the late 1950s, telling stories of his business.

For more information or to place an order for The Story of Paul Bigsby (HL00332770 / $50), please call the Hal Leonard E-Z Order Line at 800-554-0626, email sales@halleonard.com, or visit www.halleonard.com.

About Bigsby
The Bigsby Company was founded by Paul Bigsby in the 1950s, as a part of the golden age of Southern California musical instruments revolution. Paul Bigsby invented some major musical instrument firsts, including the first solidbody electric guitar and the Bigsby vibrato system. Bigsby vibratos have featured continuously on Gretsch guitars since the 1950s, and in 1999, Bigsby was acquired by The Gretsch Company. Today guitar makers of almost every style turn to Bigsby vibratos to add the finishing touch to their instruments, and they remain original equipment on many of the world’s bestselling instruments.

About Hal Leonard Corporation
Founded in 1947, Hal Leonard Corporation (www.halleonard.com) is the world’s largest music print publisher as well as the world’s largest educational music publisher, producing songbooks, sheet music, educational publications, reference books, DVDs, CD-ROMs, children’s music products and more. In its more than 200,000 available publications, the company represents in print some of the world’s best known and most respected publishers, artists, songwriters and arrangers. Hal Leonard is headquartered in Milwaukee, WI and also has domestic offices in Winona, MN; New York; and Nashville; and offices abroad in Australia, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.