Why RICKENBACKERS aren't more popular... | Friday Fretworks

hey guys i'm chris buck and everyone welcome to friday threat works and this week we're taking a look at a bit of an anomaly a guitar brand that over the years has been played by some absolutely huge musicians most notably of which the biggest selling band of all time yet to myself and lots of guitarists that i know remains a bit of an enigma of course talking about rickenbacker [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] growing up i was absolutely mesmerized by the start of the beatles hard day's night long before i had any concept of what a band was or even what an electric guitar was it had some strange hypnotic hole over me i guess ultimately it would be eric clapton that would first introduce me to the idea of electric guitar as a solo instrument but on some cellular level i think that start of a hard day's night was the first time that i vividly remember hearing music and realizing the power that it could have it's a chord that i guess ultimately is one of the most famous that has ever been committed to tape and over the years has been discussed and agonized over ad nauseam by musicians guitarists the world over and therein lies the contradiction the most famous chord of all time was recorded on two instruments that in the great pantheon of electric guitar discussion barely factored in the conversation it's why isn't rickenbacker a household name the rickenbacker story can be traced all the way back to 1918 with the arrival of one adolf rickenbacher no doubt how it was pronounced being spelt with a ch as opposed to the ck that he later changed it to a more angler-sized version of his name he arrived in los angeles in 1918 from his native basel of switzerland however it wasn't until 1953 when he sold his company the rickenbacker manufacturing company to one fc hall the owner of radio tell when rick and biker guitars as we recognized them today started to emerge the first electric guitar the combo 400 was introduced in 1956 however it was the capri 325 model introduced in 1958 that would unexpectedly go on to change the face of popular music forever when this happened ladies and gentlemen the beatles [Music] [Music] so [Music] john lennon bought his rickenbacker 325 one of only 28 produced by rickenbacker in 1958 to give you an idea of the size of their output at that particular point during the beetle's residency in hamburg germany in 1960 the 325 is a rather unusual guitar in that for a semi-hollow body it doesn't have any f holes and at 5 8 scale is considerably smaller than a typical electric guitar john purchased one of only eight models finished in natural and upon his arrival back in liverpool changed the stock cal from vibrola to a big speed however two years later in september of 1962 it was sprayed black more in keeping with brian epstein's vision of the band however it wasn't until february 9th 1964 the beatles first appearance on the ed sullivan show reportedly watched by over 73 million people the rickenbacker name finally made its entrance onto the world stage company owner fc hall clearly recognizing the impact of this performance arranged to have john given another three to five george to be given one of the new 360 12 models 12 string notable for the alternate tuning pegs a clever solution to the placement of the other six strings and slightly later around the time of beatles performance at the hollywood bowl paul to be given a 4001 base needless to say the impact of the beetle's performance on the ed sullivan show was seismic and it wasn't long until bands on both sides of the atlantic were clamoring to get a piece of the rickenbacker action one particularly notable example stateside of course being roger mcguinn of the birds who with his 360 12 guitar he bought after seeing george harrison's in the movie a hard day's night guitar that would go on to define the sound of the bird's hits mr tambourine man and turn turn turn it wasn't long until pete hounds end at his and throughout the late 60s thanks to the british invasion rickenbacker became a name that was synonymous with the sound of popular guitar music however as the 1960s became the 70s the characteristic jingle jangle of the rickenbacker somewhat fell out of fashion and surprisingly it was actually the company's 4001 base that became their hallmark throughout that decade of course paul mccartney used his extensively with wings chris squire roger glover roger waters for periods of course lemmy john entwistle getty lee peter quafe bruce foxton even phil lynette was seen with the 4001 when he wasn't playing fender however after near enough a decade of indifference to the 4001 6 and 12 string counterparts the near enough simultaneous emergence on either side of the atlantic paul weller with the jam and his 330 and of course tom petty the album cover of down the torpedoes of course featuring mike campbell 6 2012. rickenbacker was back and in the decades that followed the likes of rem the smiths u2 and radiohead all heavily relied on rickenbacker to get this sound of course then in more recent years the likes of the manic street preachers courtney love kasabian and more recently tame impala again all been seen sporting rickenbackers so considering rick and backer guitars and basses have been responsible for some of the most iconic and endearing music ever recorded why isn't the brand as big a name as say fender gibson or even more recent companies like prs and one thing people regularly point to is their price yes they're not cheap and they tend to be priced somewhere between the two and four thousand pounds mark depending on model but at heart i think the one reason it's infinitely simpler than that nice public perception rightly or wrongly rick and backers are seen traditionally as rhythm guitars strats and les pauls do a bit of everything rick and backers do jangly chords i'll take the borrowed 330 that i'm playing in today's video nut width is virtually the same as a strat or a les paul but by the time you get to the 12th fret it is considerably narrow which if you have larger hands can lead to the sensation of crowding when you get north of the 12th fret now to be honest i didn't find it quite as difficult to play as i was expecting given how much you do read about this as an issue with rick and backers but it does take a little bit of acclimatisation to get your head around even more so considering it actually has 24 frets there's also the enduring mystery of the fifth knob george harrison famously never quite figured out what it was for and apparently jim hall fc hall's son who now runs rickenbacker has been quoted as saying that it's rather redundant and would have been phased out by now if it wasn't for the outcry of the rick and back purists now it took a minute for me to try and get my head around it but my understanding is is that it operates as a second volume control for the neck pickup traditionally the neck pickups on rick and backers are much hotter than the bridge so a way of kind of balancing the discrepancy or the relative volume between each pickups was seen as essential these days not so much but i'll try and demonstrate it in this next [Music] clip [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] lastly considering rick and backers incredibly rich and varied history you couldn't exactly accuse them of overly relying on it if at all if i'm honest it's rather surreal that they've done the odd signature model over the years but presumably due to the size of the factory they tend to be confined to limited edition runs which of course drives the price up putting them out of the reach of musicians who would more than likely be playing them on stage thus spreading the rickenbacker wood rick and backers in general are quite hard to come by and a quick look at the websites of a few of the uk stockists more often than not shows the models either out of stock entirely or just available to order available to pre-order and a quick look at rick and back his own website transports you straight back to 1999. it's actually a treasure trove of information but if you didn't know better you might actually think that it was a defunct company with an archived website i think all of this can lead to a sense that they're not really interested in pushing the brand although that said nam last year when i was there their footprint or their presence or their stand was incredibly impressive with every instrument that they manufacture being beautifully displayed it's all just very contradictory and i think the one thing that gets lost in the melee is that rick and backer are a company that make fantastically well made guitars that truly do sound unique and have a voice all of their own and if this video has done anything today it's made me realize that i think i need a brick and backer as ever i'm chris buck thank you very much for watching friday friday works please subscribe and hit the bell icon if you've made it this far and i shall see you next week for another episode of friday fret works cheers guys take care i'll see you soon [Music] so [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Chris Buck

Views: 370,439

Keywords: Rickenbacker, Rickenbacker Guitars, Rickenbacker 330, Rickenbacker 620, Tom Petty Rickenbacker, Rickenbacker 4001, Rickenbacker History, That Pedal Show, Andertons, Rhett Shull, Mary Spender, Tim Pierce, Pete Thorn, Rabea Afro, Paul Davids, Chris Buck, Guitar Lesson, The Beatles, The Beatles Rickenbacker, John Lennon, John Lennon Rickenbacker, George Harrison Guitar, George Harrison Rickenbacker, Paul McCartney Rickenbacker

Id: Os5jgQTEIvc

Length: 12min 39sec (759 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021