Burns London

Burns London is a guitar-making company originally formed in 1960 as "Ormston Burns Ltd." It was founded by James Ormston Burns (1925-1998), who has been described as the British Leo Fender.cite book | last = Day | first = Paul | title = The Burns Book | publisher = pp Publishing | date = 1979 | pages = 4 ] Burns guitars were reintroduced in 1992, and the product line now includes a collector's edition of the first model the company produced.

Burns London

James Burns was often described as the British Leo Fender due to the similarity in terms of his life and the direction his company took under his ownership, and the parallels to be drawn between the latter periods of both companies when they were later sold off. Jim Burns set out to make, in his own words, "mass produced one-offs", such as the Marvin, a radical take on the Stratocaster style with many more differences than it is generally credited with. The Bison was another guitar now considered a classic, combining fewer Fender influences with a shorter scale length of 25", and the now famous "Wild Dog" electronics, allowing the high-output Tri-Sonic pickups to be selected in many different, and sometimes unusual, combinations.

The original guitars made many showbiz friends, and were seen in the hands of some high-profile performers of the time, such as Elvis Presley, Hank Marvin and Jimmy Page.cite book | last = Day | first = Paul | title = The Burns Book | publisher = pp Publishing | date = 1979 | pages = 84-87 ] Burns guitars enjoyed a relatively high level of popularity over the course of their first two decades despite often being seen as a cheaper alternative to more expensive US brands such as Fender and Gibson. Copies of the guitars by other manufacturers in Japan, and a Burns guitar was even offered as a prize in a competition organised by Rice Krispies cereal.cite book | last = Day | first = Paul | title = The Burns Book | publisher = pp Publishing | date = 1979 | pages = 11 ] Another reason accounting for the popularity of Burns in Britain especially was the artificially high cost of American goods due to extreme import tariffs, making it expensive to buy US-made guitars in Britain.

Jim Burns' first commercial foray into electric guitar making came in 1958 when he designed and built the "Ike Isaacs Short Scale Model" for the [http://uk.geocities.com/supersoundelectronicproducts/ Supersound] Company. His Burns London name and company changed hands several times during the course of the '60s and '70s, all the while retaining the Burns London moniker. The period and name most fondly remembered is, of course, the original Burns London Ltd, established in 1960. The timing of the establishment of Burns London was perfect, with the British guitar market experiencing a huge boom, in part thanks to the popularity of British pop bands like the Beatles, and again thanks to the high tariffs on US-made goods. Even Ampeg, a relatively well-known brand, bought the license to manufacture guitars under the Burns moniker, most probably for the US market, though these were not a commercial success.cite book | last = Day | first = Paul | title = The Burns Book | publisher = pp Publishing | date = 1979 | pages = 33 ]

The decline

Despite the good times for guitar sales, Burns London Ltd was deeply in debt to suppliers and creditors and in desperate need of rescue. The company and name were sold in 1965 to the Baldwin Piano and Organ Company of Cincinnati for the price of $380,000, small money in comparison to the $13 million paid at the time for Fender (where Baldwin were outbid by CBS). cite book | last = Gjörde | first = Per | title = Pearls and Crazy Diamonds | publisher = Addit Information AB | date = 2001 | location = Göteborg, Sweden | pages = 35 ] Burns UK guitars were not made in London, but instead were manufactured close to Newcastle upon Tyne in Jim Burns' native north east. Only one guitar model sold well, The Flyte, which was originally to be named the Concorde, after the supersonic plane, because of its shape] . Its design proved popular among glam rock performers of the time, such as Slade and Marc Bolan cite book | last = Gjörde | first = Per | title = Pearls and Crazy Diamonds | publisher = Addit Information AB | date = 2001 | location = Göteborg, Sweden | pages = 55 ] The original idea was to manufacture handmade replicas of famous Burns guitars from previous incarnations, such as the Marvin and the Nu-Sonic. The company enjoyed serious critical acclaim from many corners of the market, and manufactured many guitars for individuals, including Steve Howe of Yes and Gaz Coombes of Supergrass. later on, in 1999, the company began work on a budget line called the Club range, outsourcing production to Korea. The Club range became the first Burns guitars ever to be manufactured outside of Britain, but the original Burns design ethics, construction and style didn't suffer as a result, with the range exploding in popularity throughout the following years. The Club range expanded quickly, with nearly every Jim Burns-designed guitar ever constructed from 1960 to 1983 receiving its own budget model, such as the Marquee, the Steer (most famously played by Billy Bragg), the Bison and even the Barracuda six-string bass/baritone model. Newer designs have begun to emerge in the last few years, usually building upon the designs of the '60s originals, such as the Batwing, a Marquee with a Bison-style headstock. Burns also worked with Queen guitarist Brian May to produced a copy of May's famous Red Special guitar (which uses Burns Tri-Sonic pickups), and this model was awarded "Best Electric Guitar of the Year 2001" by "Guitarist" magazine.Squier and Epiphone, with the Korean models more closely resembling the build quality and price of Japanese Fenders.

Notable Burns players

Confusion

Burns London Ltd now produce a great number of guitars, including four complete ranges. The Burns Custom shop sits at the top, with some of its models included in the Elite range. Below those two sit the Custom Elite range, which feature a wide array of construction methods, with the parts constructed in Korea, then assembled and wired in Britain, or the guitar manufactured in a Chinese factory staffed with extremely highly skilled workers, such as the new Jet-Sonic. Finally, there are the previously mentioned Club range, which includes the Korean and Chinese models.

Unfortunately, Burns London have become somewhat infamous amongst its fans for printing misleading information in its catalogues and on the website. Burns continually upgrades its guitars, meaning two guitars of the same type bought within a year of each other can feature different bridges, sometimes pickups and even (in the case of the Batwings and Cobras) a different headstock. This is perhaps due to the nature of the company, with some problems with guitars only coming to light several months after the initial run of guitars, or perhaps a simple desire by the company to upgrade current models. Sometimes it is simply a problem with the pictures printed in catalogues being of prototypes. Most notable in these instances are the Batwings and Cobras pictured in catalogues in the first quarter of 2005. The Cobra appeared to feature a colour-matched Bison-style headstock, while the Batwing had a much smaller, shrunken version. When the guitars went on sale in shops, it appeared that the catalogues had mixed the two headstocks up, with the Batwing receiving the elongated Bison style and the Cobra receiving the much smaller shrunken batwing style. Other examples are the Steer pickguards, which were manufactured from 2000 to 2003 with the stainless steel centre section, which was then changed in 2003 to a black plastic piece, and then swapped back to a stainless steel section again in 2006, and none of the changes were alluded to by any of the catalogues or the website.

Thankfully, all of these inconsistencies proved to be purely cosmetic, and sometimes were simply a result of the guitar going on sale before the appropriate changes were made to the literature and catalogues accompanying them. Although many argue that this simply adds to the charm of the range, and that it helps a now prolific and mass-manufactured range to stick closer to the original 1960 design ethic of "mass produced one-offs" than any other guitar company.

References

External links

* [http://www.burnsguitars.com Burns London Ltd]
* [http://uk.geocities.com/burnsguitarssince1992/ Burns Guitars Since 1992]
* [http://www.handcraftguitars.com HandCraft Guitars (bought remaining stock of Burns USA parts]
* [http://www.shergold.co.uk/hayman.html Hayman]