Rick Turner - Founder of Rick Turner Guitars Passes Away At Age 79

 

Rick Turner Model 1

Warwick Lancelot Armstrong "Rick" Turner III was born on July 30th, 1943. and passed away recenly on April 17th of 2022. Though his guitars may not have been as well known as Fender and Gibson, many players such as Jesse Colin Young, John Entwistle, and especially Lindsey Buckingham all relied on his unique instruments. 

Rick Turner (recent photo)

Turner grew up in Marblehead, Massachusetts and started helping to make and repair musical instruments when young soon after was given his first guitar at the age of 11. He attended boarding school in Rhode Island before starting at Boston University in 1962. It was there where Turner started going to folk clubs and coffeehouses, and began repairing guitars at a store in Cambridge. 

He also began playing in a band called Banana and the Bunch, with Lowell "Banana" Levinger and Michael Kane, who later played with The Youngbloods. 

In 1964, the three musicians opened a music store in Martha's Vineyard. The next year Turner was invited to play guitar on tour with Ian & Sylvia. He also played on the duo's 1966 album, Play One More. 

Early Days In A Band

Following this tour Turner moved to New York City in 1966. He was a founding member of the psychedelic band Autosalvage, which released a self-titled album on RCA in 1968. He continued to work a second job repairing guitars, 

His band, Autosalvage,  eventually split up and Turner moved to Point Reyes, California. 

An Early Alembic Guitar 
 Does it look familiar? 

Then in 1970 Rick Turner, Ampex audio engineer, Ron Wickersham, Bob Matthews, a recording engineer, became three equal shareholders of Alembic Incorporated. Alembic was founded by Owsley Stanley in 1968, and was involved in the design and construction of the Alembic instruments. 

The initial purpose of Stanley's company was formed to support and supply The Grateful Dead. After the sale Alembic  went on to build exceptionally fine guitars and basses. 

In 1979 Turner founded Rick Turner Guitars, the business he ran for the remainder of his life. 

Early Alembic Peanut Guitar

Turner joined Gibson in 1988 where he served as president of Gibson Labs West Coast R&D Division. 

1992 Gibson Chet Atkins SST

Four years later, he left Gibson in 1992 and ran a guitar repair shop at Westwood Music in Los Angeles where he developed piezo pickup designs, while working with Jackson Browne, David Crosby, and others. He later co-founded Highlander Musical Audio, manufacturer of piezo pickups for acoustic guitars. 

Rick Turner

Through Rick Turner Guitars he continued to design and build guitars for many professional players including Lindsey Buckingham, Ry Cooder, David Lindley, and Andy Summers. He was also a regular columnist for Acoustic Guitar magazine and was a columnist for Bass Player, Frets and Guitar Player magazines. 

D-Tar Pickup-Mic System

He partnered with Seymour W. Duncan to form D-TAR Multisource Pickup-Mic System. He used this in his most well-know instrument The Turner Model 1 electric which Turner designed in 1979 for use by Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham Buckingham continues to use the Model 1 to this day. 

Model 1

The Turner Model 1 pioneered the use of curved plates on the front and back in order to reduce standing wave hysteresis loss and the use of 18 volt preamps in an attempt to tame the 'quack' sound commonly associated with piezoelectric acoustic guitar pickups. 

Modulus Graphite Neck 

Rick Turner also held the patent on the graphite guitar neck, which he developed in 1976 with Geoff Gould. Gould used this neck as the basis for his guitar/bass replacement neck company; Modulus Graphite. 

Rick Turner was generous with his time and taught mandolin-building courses in the US and Australia and was extremely active on a wide range of musical instrument Internet forums and social media groups. 

Turner died from congestive heart failure and a stroke on April 17, 2022, at the age of 78. 

His friend, Paul Reed Smith, described Turner as a “special soul”. 

“Rick Turner was a gifted guitar maker, an innovator, and a special soul,” wrote Smith. “At the beginning of my career, he selflessly helped my company through a review in Guitar Player magazine. His honesty and willingness to help another instrument maker left a lifelong, very positive impression on me. I send my very best to his family and friends.” Rick Turner guitars, basses, and ukuleles are exquisite instruments. 

Turner Model 1 and
Model 1 Featherweight

The guitars include two versions of The Model 1; The Model 1 and the Model 1 Featherweight.. Both versions of this guitar comes in 3 models; Deluxe, Standard, and Special.  

These instruments include the Timerline Piezo pickup with the built-in D-TAR 18 volt preamp.

Turner Renaissance Models

Turner also offers four versions of his Renaissance model guitars.

Rick Turner Bass Guitars

In addition to the company's guitar line, Rick Turner Guitars also offers three models of bass guitars.  

The Pretzel

Rick Turner built a couple of very interesting guitars in the 1970's. One of them, known as The Pretzel. 

This instrument was built without using hand tools, other that a Sear electric drill and a drill press. 

It was housed in the New York City Museum of Art and Design, the later moved to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  

Turner Model T

The other guitar is the Turner Model T. The design was based on the shape of vintage Kay Kraft guitars from the 1920's, and a Double Horseshoe magnetic pickup based on Rickenbacker guitars of the 1930's,  In addition to the horseshoe pickup, the electronics include an "all controls bypass switch, which provides a direct load-free signal to the output jack.

Click on the links below the pictures for sources. Click on links in text for further information.

©UniqueGuitar Publications  2022 (text only)