Who was the first to perform with a walk-up stand

[JB Sherry]

In the recent Rick Beato interview of Pat Metheny, Metheny describes building his own walk-up performance stand ( It was to for either acoustic 12-string or a High-strung National he was using ). He said no-one was doing that at the time. Today, there are a number off-the-shelf stands for this, but the product is niche enough to make searching for them tricky. Back then it would have surely been a custom affair.

 

As soon as he said that I thought of Steve Howe. I know he he started using them at some point, but was it 70"s?

 

And, who was the first?

[KuruPrionz]

I saw Yes twice, the first time was before the Tales of Topographic Oceans and the second time WAS TofTO.

Both times he had a sort of revolving stand thingie with the guitars all pointed headstock upwards and he would pull one down and play a bit on it. Really cool contraption. I don't recall seeing anything like that prior to Steve Howe.

 

Still, watching Rick Neilson of Cheap Trick come out on one song, go up a 3 or 4 step plexiglass staircase and dropping guitars off his neck one by one as a song progressed was more fun.

 

Then one time (I saw Cheap Trick 4 or 5 times), he brought the 5 necked Hamer instead, which was even funnier. That's what he used after that, no more banged up guitars.

[Caevan O’Shite]

I believe you are correct, that Steve Howe used one in the early '70s; and Alex Lifeson did with Rush later on, mid/late '70s and/or '80s (later still, I think he just started using electric guitars with piezo saddle pickups to emulate an acoustic-guitar like sound). I don't doubt that similar horizontal playing-position stands had been used before, I seem to have some vague recollection of seeing that- rigged-up or fabricated, live and/or on TV?- when I was a little kid, but I can't be certain. I just have this impression of seeing lots of padding or duct-tape on some such contraption...

 

But, commercially available for purchase? A rarity, and as you pointed out, even a bit tricky just to track down...

[Winston Psmith]

I definitely recall Steve Howe using one in the mid-1970's so he could play "The Clap" without taking off his Electric. I have vaguer recollections of a walk-up stand being advertised in GP, around that time. Maybe somewhere in the Archives?

[Larryz]

JB, Junior Brown created his walk up stand for his live performances in 1985. It holds his Tele on top and his steel guitar below that he plays upside down. One of my favorite country artists. I was going to look for such a commercial stand for playing my Dobro square neck the same way. It relieves wrist strain playing that way which Junior invented. Back in my keyboard days beginning in the early 80's I had thought about a similar guitar stand so I could switch back and forth from keyboard to guitar but never really found one that I would trust to hold a Les Paul and keep it safe from falling over from an innocent bump. I think it's a great idea for a lighter weight electric guitar and and for all acoustic guitars. Junior was not the first but definitely one of the best! Good luck in your searches!

[Winston Psmith]

For some reason, the name "Angel Stands" comes to mind, in connection with Steve Howe's original walk-up stand, but that may just be a trick of memory; I can't find anything about an "Angel" brand of Guitar gear, searching online.

 

I do see listings for Gracie stands, and somehow that sounds familiar?