Family Of Man

We get up close and personal with the war-torn guitars belonging to Deke Leonard and Micky Jones from Welsh rockers Man

- David Mead

Man were originally formed in the late 60s and, with their artful meld of blues, art-rock and extended live jams, have often been compared with fellow psych-rockers The Grateful Dead. Sadly, both long-standing guitarists in the band are no longer with us, Micky Jones having died in March 2010 and Deke Leonard in January of this year. On 10 June, a memorial concert was held for Deke at The Princess Royal Theatre in Port Talbot and Guitarist was invited to Swansea’s Sonic One Studios to view a range of instruments owned by Deke and Micky that were being prepped for the gig.

Micky’s son, George Jones, was our guide to the instruments’ history – a former member of the Man band himself and now playing with the aptly named Son Of Man, intent on keeping his father’s and Deke’s music alive. These guitars represent a diversion from our usual Historic Hardware fodder: no museum pieces or glass case dwellers here. These are instruments that have spent years on the road, modded, prodded and proudly bearing all the scars associated with life in music’s front line.

MICKY JONES’S 1960/’61 FENDER STRATOCASTER

One of the curious things about this guitar is that there is no neck date – possibly lost when it was stripped of its original finish around 50 years ago. “It’s always been known as a ’61 Strat,” George tells us, “but I did a bit of research and I think it’s a transition – a ’60/’61. It’s hard to tell, but it’s definitely from one of those two years. The guitar previously belonged to John Cipollina from The Quicksilver Messenger Service and it was originally Fiesta Red; you can still see specks of it down by the springs round the back. It was purchased by my father from John in 1974 on Man’s first tour of America.”