Charvel

Charvel is a guitar brand originally founded by Wayne Charvel in Azusa, California and then later, Glendora, California (only the PO Box was in San Dimas); they were made popular by famous rock guitarist Edward Van Halen, and later, others like Warren DeMartini (Ratt), Jake E. Lee (Ozzy Osbourne) and George Lynch (Dokken). The main Charvel models were (then) unique custom revamps of the Fender Stratocaster - often consisting of a Strat-shaped body with a single humbucker and Fender style tremolo bridge system. Many other custom creations were available as well.

History

In November 1978, Wayne Charvel sold the company to Grover Jackson. Wayne left the company soon after and ceased to have any real association with the brand name from this point on. In 1980, Grover was introduced to Randy Rhoads. They began to develop a guitar designed by Randy himself. The initial version was not angular enough for Randy but the second try yielded what Randy called the "Concorde". Grover was worried the radically styled and neck-through guitar was too different from Charvel models so he decided to put his own name on the headstock, just in case the model failed. It later became the “Rhoads Model” (this model remains one of Jackson's top sellers). This guitar was the impetus that inspired Grover to start Jackson Guitars. Both brands were manufactured in the Glendora location up until 1986 and then in Ontario, California.

In 1989 Grover sold Jackson/Charvel to the Japanese manufacturer AMIC. The Charvel guitars were produced exclusively in Japan to a very high standard from 1986 to 1991. The Model 4 and Model 6 (both featuring active electronics) variants were the most popular. In 1989 the line up of guitars was revamped into a number of different series, the Classic, Fusion and Contemporary Series among them. Guitars in the Classic series included the 275, 375, 375 deluxe, 475 and 750xl. The fusion series had shorter scale necks than the others and included the Fusion deluxe and Fusion custom models. The contemporary range included the Predator and Spectrum models. The spectrum guitar was inspired by a custom Jackson guitar built for Jeff Beck. This unusual instrument was based on a Stratocaster shaped body but with reverse headstock, a fender precision bass inspired scratch plate, wild colors and an active tone circuit. Most of the guitars at the time were equipped with Schaller made hardware including a licenced Floyd Rose locking tremelo. The korean made Charvette brand was also produced to cover the lower end of the market at this time.

As the 90's progressed the brand fell from favor due to changes in music fashion and a drop in quality as the Charvel name was applied to lower quality budget instruments. In more recent years various attempts have been made to revive the brand with higher quality Japanese and American made models such as the Journeyman. The original USA manufactured Charvels (referred to as San Dimas after the PO Box on the neckplates) are some of the most desirable and sought-after guitars in the world today.

Wayne Charvel made a namesake model offering through Gibson, the "Gibson W.R.C. Signature Model" - of which only 200 were made, but this saw little recognition and was short-lived. Charvel/Jackson was subsequently bought by Fender, and the Charvel name saw a rebirth with several U.S. made "San Dimas" models - so-named in order to recapture the original association of the Charvel name to high-quality, American-made professional guitars. Charvel now offers several models, American made and boutique priced, featuring an Eddie Van Halen signature model - a short run of which are actually paint stencilled by Eddie himself.

Sometime in the late ‘90’s Wayne Charvel himself began offering hand-made guitars from his new Northern California shop, under the name Wayne Guitars.

External link

• Charvel Guitars and Basses

A Charvel Fansite...www.Charvels.com