By Martin H. Rots

Most guitarists from the sixties remember the first time they saw a Vox Super Beatle the way they remember where they were when we landed on the moon.  I first saw a Super Beatle on television, at the Beatle's Shea Stadium show.  As a teenage guitarist with a twin twelve Sears Silvertone amp, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, with the exception of Penny, the first love of my life.  I didn't know it was called a Super Beatle, but it didn't matter what they called it, I just wanted to hold it in my arms and not let go.
 
These were no 30 watt AC-30 Vox amplifiers like the Beatles had been using.  These were as big as a man.  Big enough to require chrome frames and casters to move them.  The speaker cabinets could be tilted and there was the beautiful Vox diamond patterned grill cloth.  They were a hundred watts, more than enough to fill a high school gym.

I was in love.

Feeling affluent, I rode the bus instead of walking to Artist's Music Center, our local Vox dealer, the next morning.  Having recently moved to Detroit from southern California, I knew no one and the guitar shop was one of my regular haunts.  It comforted me to see other long hairs and I seldom left the store without having learned a new lick from the friendly employees.

I got off the bus, walked down the street and slipped into the store.  There, against the wall, were a row of Super Beatles.  I walked up to them slack jawed and stared reverently.  I wanted to touch one.  It was like a girl's breast, but better somehow.  With a Super Beatle, I was certain there would be many breasts made available to me.  Having recently mastered The House of the Rising Sun,  a Super Beatle was all I needed to achieve stardom and lose my cherry.

"Nice, huh?"

Stan snapped me out of my trance.  He was one of my few acquaintances in Detroit.  A friendly, long haired guitar salesman and my new mentor.  He would teach me a new lick almost every time I came in, which was almost daily that long, lonely, first summer in Detroit.
"Yeah, it's beautiful," was all I could say, still in awe of the amplifier.

Stan gave me a new Vox catalogue featuring the Super Beatle.  All the English groups who used Vox equipment were featured throughout the catalogue.  At home, I turned its pages until it fell apart and it lay abandoned in a dresser drawer.

I never owned a Super Beatle, but I played with a couple brothers in high school who had matching Vox Royal Guardsman amps, the Super Beatle's 60 watt little brother.  Time and my obsession with the Super Beatle passed, replaced by a passing fling with Sunn amplifiers before retiring from playing still suffering from a long standing, unrequited crush on a Marshall stack.

The Beatle Super or Power Stack was introduced in 1969 to compete with Marshall and Hiwatt, but the changes were more cosmetic than anything.  Two Royal Guardsman speaker cabinets were stacked, one atop the other with a 120 watt head crowning the whole unsteady configuration.  Supported by four casters, the unstable, top heavy arrangement was an accident waiting to happen and the model was abandoned not long after its introduction.  It was still the original Super Beatle I loved.

Vox, so closely associated with the British Invasion groups, became passé along with the British Invasion as rock evolved.  Vox failed to keep up with Marshall and Hiwatt who accommodated ever growing demands for quality, more powerful amplifiers.
 
I wish I still had that old Vox catalogue.  I occasionally Google vintage Vox equipment and stare at the pictures of the Super Beatles.  I can't help it.  It takes me back to being sixteen when everything was possible and it was easy to dream.

To learn more:
http://www.sweetwater.com/feature/technotes/issue31_vox/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_(musical_equipment)
http://www.voxshowroom.com/contents/index.html
http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/equip-sunnamps.htm