I just found out that John passed on December 21. For those of you who may not know, John was best known as Ritchie Blackmore's amp and guitar tech. I learned more about the Marshall Major from this man than I ever deserved. After I sold my original Major and cabinets that I bought back in the 70's, I quickly had seller's remorse and set out to find another. I found one that was previously owned by Buddy Miles. John insisted on seeing pictures of every inch of this amp to make sure I wasn't buying one suffering from "Smoke on the Water" disease or had "some stupid cowboy mods". I spent hours on the phone with John and countless emails before he gave it his blessing. He refused any compensation. Just a little history on John.... He worked for McIntosh back in the 60's and repaired amps on the side. Back in the late 60's Deep Purple were using the Marshall Major and they were blowing up on a regular basis. Marshall was repairing them and sending truckloads for DP to use on tour. However, they had no clue as to why they were smoking. John worked on a few because he was a authorized Marshall repair provider. He was able to track down the problems to the cheap OP tranny, UL design, and the flyback high voltage issues when overdriven (Smoke on the Water disease). Marshall followed his recommendations for repairs including sourcing new custom OP trannys. His reputation became well known. Deep Purple and later Rainbow were flying him around the world to work on their equipment in the 70's and 80's. This led to Hammond B3 modifications for Jon Lord, Bass guitar and amp modifications for Roger Glover, and of course his work with Ritchie is legendary - from his built in tube treble booster on the Major, the reel to reel tape echo and drive, to pioneering using radar paint in his Strat, the passive tone circuit in his Strats, and finalizing Ritchie's fret board scallop. When tuned by John, his Marshall Majors could produce 280 watts RMS and run until the output tubes quit - a staggering number for 4 KT88's. John later did work for Tony Iomi during the Dio Sabbath years - that's his Marshall tone on those albums. It is also rumored that Tony took one of his John-modified JCM800s to Laney and was the basis for the Laney Iomi model. One of John's JCM800s can be seen in the background of pictures in Tony's studio when recording Sabbath's last album. John also did guitar and amp work for Bruce Springsteen. In later years he was the guitar, amp, and sound guy for Manowar. He was also a Hammond expert who could probably give Goff a run for his money. John was a prince of a guy who was taken advantage of on many occasions. His treble booster was ripped off and marketed by a guy in Germany. His passive tone circuit for the Strat has been ripped off as well. Of course we can get the radar paint from many sources these days. John was promising to put together a book with pictures and schematics and stories dedicated to the Marshall Major, Ritchie, and all of his modifications. He said he had all the notes together. Maybe a family member or friend will make it happen. I'd like to think of John as a friend of mine. He was so nice and did so many things for me, just because I was a Ritchie and Major fan! We talked about everything from the good old days, concerts, classic rock, and pinball machines. I will never forget his kindness and seemingly unlimited ability.
Jim
Topic: RIP John "Dawk" Stillwell (Read 8485 times)