WILD, WILD WEST!
AS THE TINY AMPMAKER BEHIND GRAND FUNK RAILROAD’S POTENT HARD-ROCK SOUND, WEST AMPS WERE A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH.
BY DAVE HUNTER PHOTO GRAPHY BY EIJI OTA
BIG, POWERFUL AND seemingly primed to take over the world, the guitar and bass amps made in Michigan by David West and his West Laboratories in the late ’60s and early ’70s embodied a classic breed of local ingenuity. In an era when more was definitely more, they appealed to the archetypal American band.
Back in the golden age of rock, when the American amplifier market was still dominated by a small handful of major manufacturers, several notable regional makers often filled the void for local guitarists who couldn’t easily access or afford the Marshall, Hiwatt, Fender, Ampeg or Sunn stacks that were slaying huge audiences in arena shows around the world. With a “Sure, I can build you a killer stack right here!” attitude, many of these smaller shops delivered a near-classic or two to players in the Northeast, Midwest, West Coast and beyond. David West was just such a maker, and in an era when louder-thanloud was the name of the game, his was also one of very few regional amp brands that seriously threatened to break through on a national scale.