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Tom Jennings

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ROCKHAPPENZ Public Collection

 
 

Tom Jennings  —  Founder of Jennings Musical Instruments which would become Jennings Musical Industries, manufacturers of VOX amplifiers and instruments .....

 
 

The Jennings shop at 100 Charing Cross Road, London


The Jennings factory at 117-119 Dartford Road, Dartford, Kent

 
 

Historically, Jennings was shown a prototype guitar amplifier made by band guitarist and amplifier designer, Dick Denney in 1956.  Denney was going deaf and invented the VOX amp so that he could still hear himself play.  Richard Mann, a friend of Dick's drew up the first blueprints, which were presented to Jennings of Bexleyheath.  Dick Denney received very little for his invention but continued to design from a workshop built in the garden of his council house in Erith, Kent.  The company was renamed Jennings Musical Industries or JMI, and in 1958 the 15-watt VOX AC15 amplifier was launched, and was popularized by The Shadows and other British rock 'n' roll musicians.  The company's more famous product, the AC30 was launched in 1959, and later used by The Beatles on their first two albums.

 
 

Thomas Walter Jennings and Richard Denney


VOX musical instruments


Dick Denney and Tom Jennings

 
 

The Board of Trade embargo on American luxury goods was finally lifted in 1960, and the American guitars that British rock 'n 'rollers lusted after started to appear in the UK.  At the same time there was a growing market for more powerful amplifiers and PA systems to cope with bigger venues.  Engineers like Charlie Watkins, Jim Marshall and Dick Denney at Jennings started to evolve the equipment that would make the "British Invasion" heard around the world and earn them their place in rock 'n' roll history.  In order to increase their market, JMI engaged Thomas Organs to distribute to the American market, and as a result of this, JMI had problems meeting the increased demand for their equipment and, during 1964, Jennings sold a controlling interest in the company to Royston Industries to finance increased production facilities and product range expansion.  The JMI brand continued to be used on the range of VOX products.

The manufacturing base was moved to Erith, Kent, where the UL amplifier series (705, 715, 430, 730, 460, 760, 4120 and 7120) and the solid state models (Traveller, Virtuoso, Conqueror, Defiant, Supreme, Dynamic Bass, Foundation Bass and Super Foundation Bass) were made.  Even so, by 1966, Thomas Organs, not getting enough product to fulfil their US orders, started to construct VOX amplifiers themselves.  These were sold with rather strange "British" names such as Viscount, Essex, Westminster, Royal Guardsman and Buckingham.  Their flagship product was a 100-watt amplifier that was christened Super Beatle.  By 1967 Tom Jennings had been removed and Denney had left the company, which filed for bankruptcy in 1968.  During the bankruptcy proceedings some of the former JMI management were permitted to resume production of the more recently introduced solid state amplifier designs under the name VOX Sound Equipment Ltd (VSEL).  Although some hand-wired AC-30 and AC-50 amplifiers were made, no other new models were introduced and they had a problem with the fact that the solid-state amps just didn't sound the same as their valve-based siblings.  The company name was shortened to VOX Sound Limited (VSL) and itself filed for bankruptcy in 1969.  During this bankruptcy period the company assets were held by the British banking firm Corinthian Securities and the only new product produced was an updated version of the Jaguar organ which was marketed under the name Corinthian.  VOX was purchased by Birch-Stolec Industries in 1970 and the manufacturing base was again moved, this time to Hastings in Essex.  Birch Stolec were the owners of Lemark Transformers who were one of the major creditors from the VSL bankruptcy.  They retained the VSL brand under which they produced the V100 Head (a 100 watt, printed circuit, all tube amplifer) and PC board-based versions of the AC-30 and AC-50.  Also produced at this time were minor version revisions of the solid state VOX amplifiers originally produced by JMI in 1967.

Former bass guitarist of the Dave Clark Five, Rick Huxley, became the sales manager for the new productions, and in 1973 Dallas Musical Industries (Dallas Arbiter), who produced the Sound City amplifier, bought VOX from Birch-Stolec.  They replaced the PC board AC-30 and AC-50 amplifiers (which had a number of problems), with hand wired models rather similar to the original JMI designs.  DMI also introduced the AC-120 and Escort 30 amplifiers.

 
 

Tom Jennings
A newspaper article focussing on the Jennings Enterprise


Plaque presented by The Dartford Borough Council
recognising the Jennings Enterprise and Dick Denney



Rose, Morris and Co. showrooms at 81-83 Shaftesbury Avenue, originally at Gordon House Road, North London.  Commonly
known as Rose-Morris, it distributed Marshall products from 1966-81, extending disproportionate attention to that brand.

 
 

In 1978 DMI sold VOX to Rose Morris (the distributor of Marshall amplification equipment throughout Europe in the 1960s and 1970s), who bought the company as a safety net against losing their distribution contract with Marshall.  The name of the company was again shortened, becoming VOX Limited under which they introduced the V125, the Escort 50, the Venue, the "Q" series of amplifiers, and made further modifications to the AC-30.  Korg eventually purchased the VOX entity from Rose, Morris and Company in 1993, starting a new era of increased production and innovation.