The Jimmy Bean (1975)

Orange launched the denim-clad Jimmy Bean stack and hugely popular Voice Box, famously used by Stevie Wonder and Peter Frampton.

Mick Dines, Orange’s former Production Manager, remembers denim, leather and a different direction: “The Jimmy Bean was Cliff’s idea, a guitar stack styled in denim and leather.

“At the time, everyone was wearing jeans, so we thought the Jimmy Bean might kick off a new trend in amp design. Sourcing the denim and leather for the cabinets wasn’t as easy as you might think. We wanted the nameplate to resemble the brown leather patch you get on the back of jeans, but we eventually settled on engraved brass and real leather end panels.”

Portable, Playable – But Overlooked

“I’ll never understand why the Jimmy Bean didn’t take off,” laments Cliff Cooper, Orange Founder and CEO. “It looked great, and the amp itself was portable and very versatile. It had twin channels, a built-in tremolo, and a switchable sustain circuit. I’ve always felt we should have made it a valve amp — that might have made the difference.”

Despite its distinctive look and practical features, the Jimmy Bean stack didn’t find commercial success. But the Voice Box that carried the same name was a different story.

The Voice Box That Spoke Volumes

“The Jimmy Bean Voice Box was a big success. Almost everyone used them — Stevie Wonder, Jeff Beck, Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton. John Miles used it on Slow Down, which reached number two in the Billboard charts.

The Voice Box was connected between the instrument amplifier and the loudspeakers. When activated via a footswitch, it routed the signal through a high-powered transducer and up a clear flexible tube. The tube was clipped to the mic stand and fed into the performer’s mouth, allowing the guitar sound to merge with the shape of their vocals, which the microphone would then capture and feed through the PA.”