is there a backstory to the guitars of The Steve Miller Band's Sailor?

A Guild Starfire V with a pickup from a Gibson bass? Could that be a modified pickup from a Precision Bass on Steve's Barney Kessel Custom?

 

Always wondered about that too.

 

According to post #8 at the following link the Starfire / Bass Bucker was an endorsement spec by Miller.

http://www.talkbass.com/threads/installing-a-guitar-pickup-in-my-bass.658790/

 

Those were strange times, and ill considered modifications were very common.

It's amazing, isn't it, how none of those guitars show up today, isn't it? One might even be forgiven for thinking that vintage dealers have a propensity for buying them cheaply and surreptitiously repairing them and selling them as 100 percent standard tech.

Miller had a right hand Strat with a left hand Tele neck,too, which requires that the neck or the body be modified at the base.

 

I always found this band to have two of the most distinctive phases of any band I ever liked (except the Beatles of course)

 

phase 1 being psychedelia and phase 2 being pop? the first two albums are the only ones I own

 

Yeah. You should buy some later ones they are all over every used record shop.

 

I don't know much about guitars for the OP's inquiry but I do like the guitar playing on the Sailor album. Sailor is a very diverse album and well recorded thanks to Glynn Johns. It is one of my favorites of the albums prior to the Joker. The next few albums after Sailor are definitely worth getting, for those of you who don't have them.

Scott