Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad and his Messenger guitar

Here's Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad. Probably taken around 1969. He is the one who turned me on to the guitar as an instrument to play. I originally wanted to be a drummer. I would tap along on an old cigar box to Steppenwolf, Steve Miller, Ten Years After and the Rolling Stones back when I was growing up in Connecticut.

I belonged to the Capitol Record Club at that time. You would sign up for a 12 month stretch and receive a monthly catalog of records(!). You'd choose either their selection for the month or you could choose your own.

One month, Grand Funk Railroad (the Red Album) was the rock selection. Usually I would forget to send the card in with my selection and Capitol would automatically send out their choice. Well I received the GFRR album in the mail and thought "great, another crappy selection I'll play once!" Since that time, a mistakenly sent album rocked my world! I have been a Grand Funk fan since then but only recently had a chance to see Mark Farner play. It was fantastic! He played a Parker Fly guitar because of back problems.

The guitar he originally played was a Messenger Stereo made by San Francisco-based Musicraft. It was a green type of sunburst finish with two pickups, an aluminum neck (very futuristic for the time), built in fuzz unit and stereo outputs. It was also had a semi-hollow body style. (He would tape over the cats-eye f- holes to try to control feedback).

Needless to say, I had to have that guitar! I found one back in 1974. A dude was buying a Les Paul Custom and he needed the money. I got it for two hundred bucks.

It has a regular sunburst finish along with a Bigsby tremolo unit (but no built in fuzz). Everything else is the same as Mark's Messenger. It's a great guitar that stays in tune like nobody's business! Supposedly the neck is tuned to "A". The tone is great. Playing "Closer to Home" and "Aimless Lady" sounds like the man himself. The only problems (inherent on all Messengers) is the crappy single coil DeArmond pickups, sonically very weak, and the nut at the top of the neck. Somehow they filed it too low on the high-E side causing the string to slip out of the groove. Otherwise a groovy guitar that you don't see very often. I understand there are only around 300 or so that were made since Musicraft didn't last very long in the guitar production business.




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