Dean Markley Signature Series 120 (1984) Formorly owned by Gary Moore
This amp is from The Gary Moore Collection and is very special to me because it’s the amp Gary used to record ‘The Loner’.
“Gary had a number of these amps, but this was the most-used and can be heard on the track ‘The Loner’, recorded on the 1987 ‘Wild Frontier’ album.” – Gary’s guitar technician Graham Lilley
In an interview for Guitarist Magazine (Nov 1985) Gary spoke about using the amp in the studio on Out in the Fields and other tracks on the Run for Cover album.
What did you think about the Dean Markley amps?
They’re on the album. Great amps, it’s just that for the live stuff..It’s not really fair for me to say l’d never use them live, because I’ve only done three shows on this tour, with fifty-five more to do, and I might incorporate them into the act. In the studio they were just brilliant. They’re on Out in The Fields, all that stuff in various combinations and sometimes with effects, too. Very even, uniform sounds; you could put the two amps up, two cabinets and stick mikes in front of them and you’d get virtually the same sound in the control room. The mikes seemed to be able to handle what they were putting out, which was a beautifully even sound. It’s hard to find an amp you can trust like that! I remember the first Markley amp they sent me, I put it in a corner in one of the studios in Air London and I knew as soon as I switched it on. We stuck one Shure on it and the engineer pushed up the fader. No EQ, nothing; it was exactly the same. It was just beautiful. I used it on the solo on Out Of My System, one of the tracks we did at Bow Hill. It’s on the cassette, not on the album. It just sang sweetly, a lovely amp.
The Dean Markley Signature Series is a very good sounding amp although apparently didn’t catch on and not very many were produced. They did have a number of high profile users, in addition to Gary Moore, including Eric Clapton. They were used by Gary primarily in the studio, as they could get great tone at low volumes. I would describe the amp as very similar to a JCM 800 with slightly more gain and built-in reverb. I’ve used this amp on some studio recordings and used it to record my own version of ‘The Loner’ as a tribute to Gary.
