Rickenbacker Guitars were founded in 1931 by Adolph Rickenbacher and George Beauchamp (pronounced Beechum).
The company started out with the Frying Pan This was a steel guitar designed and made by Beauchamp. It featured a horseshoe magnetic pickup that surrounded the strings. The body was round and the neck looked like a long handle.
Through the years Rickenbacker (which altered its spelling) has produced many of the world's finest and most recognized guitars.
One of the key designers that came to work for Rickenbacker was Roger Rossmeisl. He learned his craft from working with his father, Wenzel Rossmeisl. Wenzel had founded Roger Guitars in Germany and manufactured fine quality archtop hollow body guitars. In fact Wenzel Rossmeisl e may have been the first electric guitar manufacturer in post-war Germany.
Roger moved to the United States in 1952 and immediately went to work for several notable guitar manufacturers.
While in Germany, Roger had communicated with Ted McCarty and was offered a job with Gibson. After conflicts with the company, Rossmeisl left and was offered a job by Paul Barth, who was managing Rickenbacker guitars for Francis C. Hall.
Rossmeisl stayed with Rickenbacker for eight years before being hired by Fender. Rossmeisl also had some history with Semie Mosley and Mosrite guitars. Rossmeisl has become well known in the industry for the German Carve. This is a beveled carve around the guitars perimeter which causes the guitars top to stand out.
It was Rossmeisl who was responsible for many of Rickenbacker's most famous designs and he is responsible for the Rickenbacker 325 Capri, which was the guitar we most associate with young John Lennon. It is the guitar he was playing when many of us first saw The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show.
The Rickenbacker 325 was the first of the Capri series of hollow body guitars released in 1958 by Rickenbacker.
Rickenbacker uses numbers ending in zero for all full scale instruments. Numbers ending in 5 are indicative of a short scale neck.
The neck on Lennon's 1958 Capri guitar was extremely short at a mere 20 3/4" from nut to saddle. The cutaways were representative of a crescent moon design. Though the body looks solid, it was actually hollow and sculpted from Alder.
Many Rickenbackers are sculpted from a solid piece of wood and the capped with and arched or flat top. This guitar had a flat Alder top with no soundholes. Lennon's guitar was one of the first batch made. Subsequent models after 1958 boasted a soundhole.
The unfinished rosewood neck came with dot fret markers. The body was small and was only 12 3/4" wide. Lennon purchased the guitar at a music shop in Hamburg where the Beatles were playing in the local bars and clubs. George Harrison once quipped the he and his mates purchase guitars at a Hamburg shop and didn't know if they ever finished paying for them.
The body was 2" thick and the pickguard was painted gold. The headstock featured the unique Rickenbacker slant. There was no volute on this guitars neck. The nut was thicker than most guitar nuts.
The jack plate was elongated. This feature was not unusual as most Rickenbacker's came with double inputs. One was for monaural sound and the other was a stereo feature called Ric-O-Sound.
After owning the guitar for a short time, Lennon, while still in Hamburg set his mind to modifying the guitar. The guitar came with gold and brown knobs to control volume and tone. . Lennon replaced them with Hofner style knobs.
For reasons unknown, Lennon disconnected the middle pickup. The Rickenbacker 3 way selector only allowed for one pickup at a time. Perhaps he was trying to get the neck/bridge pickup combination.
After returning to Liverpool, Lennon continued modifying the instrument. The original Capri came with a standard Kaufman Vibrato. This was a device with twin springs that pulled the strings down on the first strings tightening the tension and loosening the lower strings. Instead of going down or down and up, the Kaufman was designed to push side-ways. The unit was similar to the Gibson Vibrola.
Harrison's Gretsch Rocket came with a Bigsby Vibrato, so Lennon removed the existing vibrato and put on a Bigsby unit. A Bigsby bow tie bridge was also installed.
In 1962, just before The Beatles became an international phenomena Lennon took his guitar to Jim Burns (of Burns guitars) to have it repaired. Burns made a few changes to the instrument. He painted the body and neck glossy black.
The Hofner knobs were replaced with Burns knobs.
Lennon owned two other Rickenbacker 325 Capri's. One was purchased while the Beatles were in Miami. The other was purchased at Rose-Morris Music (which was Rickenbacker's main U.K. distributor) in 1996. The middle pickup on these subsequent instruments remained working. These also had the two step Ric' pickguard.
Recently my friend Deny Brigance and I were discussing Rickenbacker guitars. He told me that after actually playing a Ric 325, he could not understand how Lennon could play that guitar. The neck was so short and the frets were cramped together.
After playing standard sized instruments a 20" neck would be a challenge not just to play, but to keep in tune.
As a tribute to Lennon's association with the Capri, Rickenbacker came out with the 325C58 was an exact replica of the 1958 model 325, just as John Lennon first purchased in Hamburg. This is prior to any modification. Featuring gold nameplate and pickguard, gold-on-brown knobs, an elongated jack plate, and Kauffman Vibrola. It was available in Jet-glo (Ric's term for black) or Maple.
Rickenbacker came out with another model that was more like Lennon's guitar post the modifications.
The Model 325C64 duplicated the Model 325 as produced in 1964. complete with semi-hollow Maple body, instead of Alder, re-shaped body and headstock, three vintage-style pickups, and Rickenbackers Accent Vibrato. This model is still available.
Johnny Antonopoulos aka Johnny A is like a lot of us guitarists, only better. Much better. In 1964 the Beatles hit the scene and guitar mania hit the world. Johnny A was only 12 and like many of us he became enamored with the guitar.
He formed a band in the Boston Massachusetts area and became well known. He improved and evolved into playing guitar for 7 years with The J. Geils front man, Peter Wolf. It was during this time he got into record production.
Although he played Strats early on, he migrated to Gibson guitars and developed a working relationship with Gibson's Custom Shop.
Johnny developed a style that is said to blend Pat Martino and Joe Satriani together. He makes great use of the Bigsby much like Chet Atkins. Using it to put a little vibrato at the end of a phrase. Unlike a lot of shredders, Johnny's style is restrained and lyrical.
Prior to the Gibson Custom Shop building Johnny A's guitar, he had been playing a Gibson ES-295. The body on the 295 is similar to a Gibson ES-175, but is painted gold. It came with twin P-90 pickups and generally had a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece.
During his tenure with J. Geils and Peter Wolf, he was able to test out some wonderful Gibson instruments, particularly a reissue Gold top Les Paul and Flame top Les Paul. .
Gibson Johnny A Model
Gibson debuted The Johnny A model in 2003. The impetus for this instrument was born in a 2002 conversation he had with Gibson representatives at the Nashville NAMM show.
It has a smaller than normal body than one would find on a ES-335, but with similar accouterments, such as dual humbuckers with separate controls, a Bigsby Vibrato and top of the line gold plated hardware.
The ebony fretboard has beautiful inlays for position markers. It has a 25.5" scale. This was similar to the Gibson L-5 hollowbody.
The headstock is top of the line with a triple crown inlay. The bodies top, bottom and the neck are bound in white trim. The most stunning aspect of the guitar is the double Florentine cutaways and cats eye sound holes on either side of the guitars beautiful flame maple top.
Check out the string break from the bridge to the Bigsby
The bridge pickup is placed closer to the neck than on a Les Paul. This helps the guitar to get a sweet Jazz sound, but fattened up with the bite of the treble pickup.
The pickup selector is placed by the bridge for quick changes. The guitar comes with a sweeping pickguard that sets it off. In short it is a work of art.
Johnny has three of these instruments. One in a beautiful vintage quilted maple red burst finish, one in a lighter finish and the other in a transparent glossy black finish.
I can't help but recall seeing this guitar before in years gone by. After scanning a lot of resources I finally came across a Kay model from the mid 1960's.
The model was the Kay Red Devil, K592. This guitar was available only in red circa 1963.
It came with two single coil pickups and a Kay version of a Bigsby vibrato. It was also sold under the Truetone brand by Western Auto Stores and under the Silivertone brand.
LIke the Johnny A model, the Kay K592 had two Florentine cutaways.
It's like they say, "Everything old is new again."
In my post about Barney Kessel's guitars, I mentioned he had a luthier build a short scale twelve string neck from a Gibson twelve string guitar that was attached to a mandolin body.
This got me thinking about the Vox Mando Guitar.
This was a combination mandolin-guitar that allows you to play mandolin music while playing the left-hand fingerings like a guitar.
It was tuned like a regular guitar, but an octave up. A mandolin is tuned in fifths.
The very first instrument in recorded history that fits the mandolin-guitar definition is the mandolino Genovese, or Genoese mandolin, popular in the 1700's and 1800's in and around Genoa, Italy.
During that era in Italy, mandolins were all the rage. Different regions developed their own variations of mandolin, with a differing array of strings.
The Genoese mandolin was tuned like a guitar and had six courses of strings. This meant each string was doubled and tuned the same, unlike a twelve string guitar in which the lower four strings are an octave apart. The Genoese mandolin was tuned an octave higher than the guitar.
1965 Vox Mando Guitar
In 1965 Vox Musical Instruments created the Vox Mando Guitar, sometimes known as the Octave Twelve.
Like it's mandolin predecessor, the Vox Mando-Guitar had a short scale neck with 17 frets, however the guitars strings were tuned like a twelve string guitar with the lower four courses doubled an octave apart and the top two strings doubled in unison. This provided a sound much like you would have if you capo'd a twelve string guitar at the twelfth fret.
It sounded nothing like a mandolin. Instead it had a big jangly sound especially when amplified through a Vox AC30.
The Mando Guitar was manufactured for Vox by Eko Guitars of Italy. I think some of it's design inspiration came from the Teisco May Queen guitar.
Back in the day, the Mando Guitar was not a hit for Vox since no artists of the day endorsed it. Although this advertisment states George Harrison played one. Brian Jones played one too.
The only guitarist I have seen use one is Buddy Miller. I saw him and his wife Julie at a local club and Buddy used it on one song.
To study Barney Kessels personal guitar, we first need to take a look at Charlie Christian and the Gibson Charlie Christian model aka ES 150.
Barney Kessel was born on October 17, 1923. As a boy he saw a book entitled How to Play Guitar in Five Minutes. He became fascinated with the guitar shortly after that and like a lot of us, Kessel listened to recordings and learned to play guitar by copying licks. He grew up in Oklahoma during an era when Western Swing music was popular. So much of what he learned came from players like Eldon Shamblin, Junior Barnard, Billy Dozier and Jimmy Wyble.
At 14 years of age Kessel left school to join a big band led by Ellis Ezell. Kessel got his start as the only white player in Ezells group. The group played at Black dance clubs throughout Oklahoma.
Kessel was enamoured of Charlie Christian and his style of playing. Christian is best known for his association as the guitarist for Benny Goodman's sextet and big band. Christian is also one of the first guitarists to use an electrified instrument and had a major influence on how jazz music is played which influenced R&B and early Rock guitar styles.
Originally Kessel's style was modeled off of Charlie Christian's playing.
Christian, who was also an Oklahoma resident heard of Barney Kessel on a visit to his home. The pair met and Kessel had the opportunity to play with Christian at a jazz jam session. It was during this meeting that Kessel discovered here are two guys playing like Charlie Christian. He felt the need to find his own playing style.
Charlie Christian encouraged Kessel to move to Los Angeles and get involved with the music and recording industry. Kessel fell into orchestras led by Chico Marx, Les Brown, Charlie Barnet and Artie Shaw. Kessel went on to be one of the most recorded guitarists in history, doing everything from radio and TV shows to film scores and commercials. Recording helped pay the bills.
Barney was part of the LA Wrecking Crew, which backed up most of the hits of the 1960's. Listen to the opening lines of the Beach Boys song, "Woudn't It Be Nice." The first four bars sound sort of like a calyopy, but it is actually Kessel and another player both on 12 string guitars. The instrument Kessel played on that track was unusual. It had a mandolin body and a short 12 string neck.
Kessel went on to back up other Capitol Record recording artists such as Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke and many others. He won awards from Downbeat magazine and was a columnist for Guitar Player magazine.
Above all things Kessel a consument jazz guitarist and well respected by his peers. He played in a guitar trio that featured Herb Ellis, Charlie Byrd and at times Tal Farlow. In the late 1960's Kessel owned a music store which was one of the first that employed guitar technicians to modified guitars.
Which now brings us to Kessel's guitars. Kessel gave his name to instruments produced by several guitar manufacturers; Kay, Gibson and Ibanez.
Kay produced a number of Kessel models at their Chicago based manufacturing plant. The bodies of several of these instruments resembled Kessels Gibson ES-350, with it's large hollow body, f-holes and Venetian cutaway. They also produced an Artist model with 3 pickups and double Florentine cutaway. All guitars came with what is known as the Kelvinator headstock, named after a refrigerator built during the 1950's.
Kay Barney Kessel
Kessel's name was emblazoned on the guitar's scratchplate. It featured two single coil DeArmond pickups.
In later years when Kessel was asked about the Kay guitar he commented, "I'd never play that guitar. It is awful."
1961 Gibson B. Kessel
In 1961 Gibson produced two similar Barney Kessel models. This large hollow body electric instrument featured two chrome plated humbucking pickups each with their own volume and tone controls, double Florentine cutaway.
It was bound all around the body and neck. A rosewood base held a tune-o-matic bridge in place, so the bridge was not mounted directly to the body.
The strings were anchored by a trapeze tailpiece. Between the struts of the tailpiece was a unfinished rosewood block with a nameplate that bore Barney Kessels name.
The bound neck had a rosewood fretboard with either parallel position markers. The bound 3 on a side headstock was Gibsons standard shape and finished in high gloss black with a crown inlay.
The guitars spruce body was finished in cherry sunburst. The pickup throw switch was on the lower cutaway bout.
The Barney Kessel C (custom) was came with similar accouterments however all the hardware, including pickup covers, was gold plated and the position markers were bow tie shaped and the headstock inlay was a large quarter note. Both guitars were 25 1/2" scale and the fretboards had 20 frets. These guitars did sell well, but maintained in production through 1973.
Ibanez Barney Kessel
Ibanez produced a Barney Kessel model. I've only seen the prototype in a Youtube video. The body is narrower than the Gibson and it appears to have a Florentine cutaway.
Ventura Barney Kessel
There were also several Asian companies making knock-offs of the Barney Kessel Gibson model.
1947 ES-350
Barney Kessel's personal guitar that he was most often scene with in concert is a Gibson 1946/47 modified ES-350. This guitar has a tobacco brown body and a Venetian cutaway. It was an electrified version of the Gibson L-7.
The standard version ES-350 came with twin humbucking pickups and a 24 3/4' scale neck with trapezoidal position markers and 19 frets. It was a fairly fancy guitar. There were some single pickup models produced.
I do not know where Kessel's guitar was modified or who made the changes. Barney had a Charlie Christian pickup installed at the neck. In my opinion this modification was a fairly big deal, since the standard spruce top on the ES 350 was routed for one or two humbuckers. The Charlie Christian model pickup was a different shape and required thee holes to be drilled into the guitars top.
Kessel's guitar also had 2 bakelite chicken head knobs that he took off of an old phonograph. He states these helped him determine their positions when on a dark stage. The ES 350's neck was also modified. Gone was the fancy 19 fret fingerboard and it was replaced with a 20 fret model fretboard with dot position markers. I do not know if the neck was a 25 1/2 or a 24 3/4" scale. The bridge was sculpted from rosewood. He also replaced the original Kluson tuners with open back Grover tuners.
After thinking about the modifications done to Kessels guitar it hit me that Kessel was turning his cutaway ES 350 into a cutaway version of the ES 150 that his mentor Charlie Christian played. The ES-150 had a 20 fret neck with dot markers, the Charlie Christian pickup with 3 bolts holding it to the body and one tone and one volume control both made of bakelite.
How ironic it is that the Gibson Barney Kessel and the Kay Barney Kessel were so fancy and Kessel's own favorite guitar was so very plain. But as Kessel says in a video, the guitar is only an outlet for my music. It is the music that is important.
Thanks to Raybob Bowman for reminding me about Barney Kessel.
I thank all the folks that read and especially the ones that respond to the articles. I treasure your knowledge and thank you for updates and even corrections. Apparently Barney Kessel's personal guitar has found its way into the hands of jazz player, Bruce Foreman. Check out this link.
Rickenbacker Guitars were founded in 1931 by Adolph Rickenbacher and George Beauchamp (pronounced Beechum). 
