B-BENDER
The Basic of the B-Bender Guitar
Here’s a picture of the inside of the Parson/White B-Bender.
B-Bender Makers
This is a list of SOME of the B-Bender makers. If you know of others who are good please email me and I’ll add them to this list!
This is the original B-Bender as created by Gene Parson and Clarence White. This system it’s quite invasive.
This is a variation of the previous one and it’s the one Fender uses on the Nashville B-Bender Telecaster.
The most famous user of this type is Albert Lee. It’s again a quite invasive system.
Joe Glaser
Joe is Nashville’s most famous luthier (guitar repair). He’s the man responsible for most of the B-Benders used in Nashville (and on most country recordings). The Glaser bender are the less invasive. Together with the McVay I think this is the best B-Bender available.
Charlie does all the G-Bender for Brad Paisley. He uses a similar system to the Glaser so it’s again no-invasive. As for the Glaser, this one is as good as it gets IMHO.
Will Ray of Hellecasters is the most famous user of this type of bender. It’s a bit different from all the others and not invasive at all! (Just two screws and that’s it!). It feels different from a normal bender so you just have to try and see if it ‘works’ for you.
Various
There are many variations available for the B-Bender: Bigsby Palm Bender, Hipshot Palm Lever, Duesenberg Guitars multibender, Shelton bender and many others, but certainly one particular mention goes to Forrest Lee Jr benders which also work on acoustic guitars! Hear it and him in action in Sunny Sweeney’s track “Refresh My Memory”
B-Bender Famous Songs
This is a list of SOME of the songs where a B-Bender has been used. Honestly this list could become stupidly long.. so I’m just writing a few… If you have better suggestions, please email me!
The Byrds | Tulsa Country | The Eagles | Peaceful Easy Feeling |
Albert Lee | Sweet Little Lisa | Alan Jackson | All American Country Boy | Dwight Yoakam | Blame The Vain | Sunny Sweeney | Refresh My Memory (acoustic B-Bender in action!!) |
What strings shall I buy?
Any set of string would do the job, but most people would use a 0.13 for the B (which is a normal B string in a 0.10-0.46 set). The reason is simply because it doesn’t break as easily as a thinner one!