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1968 Hagstrom Viking II
During the filming for the 1968 TV Special, "Elvis", a 1968 Red Hagstrom Viking II was borrowed for use by Elvis in several segments of the show including a stand up performance in front of a live crowd. The guitar through the years has been mistaken as his and often referred to as the "Elvis guitar". The guitar in fact belonged to Al Casey, who was one of the session players on that show.
Red Hagstrom Viking II identical to the one used by Elvis in 68 Photo © courtesy Hagstrom Guitars Al said "the producer came to the studio players asking if anyone had something flashy that Elvis could use, that he thought it would make a better shot if he was playing something. I had the Hagstrom in my instrument trunk and offered it."1 Elvis is pictured performing with it in the opening and closing segments of the show and performed live with it for the stand up solo performances recorded on June 29.  Elvis - June 1968 Photo © courtesy EPE, Inc. Hagstrom, a company from Älvdalen, Sweden that primarily exported accordions since 1925 began building and exporting guitars in the 1950s, mainly to the USA. Manufactured only in 1967 and 68, only 1350 of this model, the Viking II, were said to have been produced. The Viking II features gold plated hardware, select flamed Maple and Spruce woods and were available in Mahogany Sunburst and Cherry Red. It had a lightweight 16 inch thinline double cutaway arched body, heavy celluloid binding, 2 pick ups with separate volume and tone controls, 3-way toggle switch for treble, bass or both pick ups and a "Micro-matic" adjustable bridge. Photo courtesy HagstromCanada Reminiscent of a Fender Coronado in design, this model also featured Fender's trademarked headstock shape. The company closed its factory in 1983 though the company exists to this day. The name was licensed by American Music & Sound in 2004 and they plan to start producing guitars again by November.*
Born in California and having grown up in Phoenix, Al Casey, as Vintage Guitar Magazine recently wrote, is one of the great unsung guitar heroes. Playing since the mid 1950s he wrote Duane Eddy's hit "Ramrod". He was a member of "The Wrecking Crew", Hollywood's elite session players along with other guitarists like Billy Strange, Glen Campbell, Mike Deasy, James Burton, Howard Roberts, Tommy Tedesco, and Barney Kessel to name a few. He played on countless sessions with the likes of Dean Martin, Frank and Nancy Sinatra. He played on "MacArthur Park," Sinatra's recording of "That's Life," and even on the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds". In addition to the 68 Special with Elvis Al also played on the soundtrack sessions at Western Recorders in 1968 that originally yielded Elvis' recently remastered hit "A Little Less Conversation". Years after the 68 TV Special Al sold the guitar for an undisclosed amount and it is now said to be owned by a casino corporation out of Illinois.
During the two stand up live performances taped at NBC's
Burbank studio on June 29, 1968 the amplifier used with Al Casey's
Hagstrom was his Benson 200.** Al said "once
Elvis had a guitar to play, he needed an amp to play it through, and the
Benson is what I had with me."1 Like Al, several LA session
players were known to use these in the
'60s. "Famed jazz
guitarist Howard Roberts and Ron Benson designed and produced the first
boutique amps in history with their Benson line of the ’60s. These
became a studio standard of the era, presaging the Boogies, Soldanos,
Bogners, and Evans of the future."2
"The origins of the Benson amplifier arose with Ron's interest in attaining the same sound that Howard Roberts obtained from a Gibson GA50 amplifier. There were several models of the Benson amplifier: the 300, 400 and the head/cabinet combinations the 330 and 360. The 300 was 50 watts and had a 15" speaker and the 400 was 100 watts with four 12" speakers. Howard played a 300 but it had a separate head and speaker. The 200 has a 12" Vox speaker with two 4" Jensen concert series speakers switchable on or off depending on the sound desired. It is about 40 watts with two EL34 tubes, reverb and tremolo in a case only 14" inches tall, 19" across, and about 7" deep."3
Al sold this amp to Doug Miers along with a black one that he purchased from Ron Benson sometime after production ended in the early '70s. *
Hagstrom Guitars, with corrections by Karl E. Hagström
**special thanks to Douglas Dion for his help in identifying this amp and to Doug Miers and Al Casey for setting the record straight. See also The Woodstock Strap
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