Annie Clark – better known as St. Vincent – may now be inextricably linked to the effortless cool of her signature Ernie Ball Music Man series. However, the model owes its existence to a more obscure and perhaps unsung hero – the Harmony Bobkat, which Clark played a pivotal role in re-popularizing.
“I got into the Harmony Bobkat because I was playing with Sufjan Stevens and his guitar player at the time was like, ‘You gotta check these Harmony Bobkats out. They’re lightweight.’ And this was when they were still cheap,” she tells Reverb.
Originally dubbed the Silhouette when it first hit the shelves in 1963, Harmony Guitars’ entry-level offset was rebranded as the Bobkat after 1968. Bobkat-based models, including the popular 1477, were also sold under the Silvertone brand and stocked at Sears department stores around the States.
Featuring high-output DeArmond-designed gold foil pickups, the Bobkat tone has lots of character – with clear, crisp highs, and powerful, well-rounded lows, making even the pickups highly sought-after.
“I think the first one I found was at Emerald (City) Guitars in Seattle, and I played it. I was like, ‘I love these gold foil pickups.’ It’s so lightweight. I love the whammy bar.”
Clark admits that she soon took her penchant for Bobkats to the next level, stating, “Anytime I would see one, no matter what the condition was, I would just buy them.” Soon, she started actively scouring guitar shows in hopes of finding another one… or two.
“I went to the Dallas Guitar Show back in the day and bought every Harmony Bobkat I could find. I was the only person not wearing a Tommy Bahama shirt. I really love them.”
And when it came to creating her own signature model, it comes as no surprise that it’s very Bobkat-coded – bar a few well-needed upgrades.
“I took a lot of the lessons from the Harmony Bobkat,” she discloses. “My guitar is similar in spirit, except when you dive bomb on the whammy bar, it stays in tune. That would be the one thing with the Harmony. Obviously, because these are guitars you buy in the ’50s and ’60s at Sears (and were) student player guitars, they’re not meant to be assaulted.”
She continues, “So when I made my signature series, I was like, ‘I want a really intense whammy bar that you can dive bomb, but it still stays in tune.’ Because I used to do that to the Harmony Bobkat, (but) you have one dive bomb, and then you can’t play the guitar anymore because you’ve moved the wooden bridge and it no longer will stay in tune.”
Just this month, St. Vincent picked up three Grammys for All Born Screaming – her self-produced seventh studio album, which also saw her team up with two Foo Fighters.
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