Something I’ve always found curious was the discrepancy between “correct” and “incorrect” technique on the guitar. If you ever study classical guitar, you’ll get schooled on proper positioning of the left (and right, for that matter) hand, with the thumb in the middle of the back of the neck and the fingers coming down perpendicular to the strings. This helps maximize your reach and make it easier to fret the often complex harmonic line movements. It works. But then along comes Jimi who plays left-handed upside down and backwards with his darned thumb looped over the edge of the fingerboard and creates genius. Go figure.

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

In any case, periodically guitar designers turn their attention to the ergonomics of the guitar fingerboard and implement improvements to the traditional parallel fret layout. In modern times Oregon luthier Ralph Novak employs his patented “fanned fret” concept—with lower frets angled toward the bass side of the head, gradually migrating in a fan-like shape so that higher frets are angled toward the bass side of the body—on his Novax guitars.

Of course, somebody has always done something before, and in this case, conceptually if not actually, at least, it was Rickenbacker who came up with the slanted frets idea in 1973 with its Model 481. Or actually they reportedly did the slanted frets as a custom option as early as 1969. Rickenbacker had a tradition of trying to improve the ergonomics of guitar necks. Back in 1961 Rickenbacker designer Peter Sceusa filed a patent for a parabolic neck profile that was narrower at the top of the back to make it easier for ladies and people with smaller hands to fret the guitar (granted 1963). Who came up with the idea of slanting the frets I don’t know, but the idea was that if you’re resting the neck in the crook of your thumb, the fingers naturally curve forward. Thus, if you angle the frets slightly forward on the bass side, it’s more comfortable to fret, more natural.

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

The notion must have been at least somewhat popular because the concept got its own guitar model with the 481 introduced in 1973. Basically this is a solidbody with what’s called the “cresting wave” shape derived from Rickenbacker’s distinctive 4001 bass guitars. Rickenbacker even came up with a pair of high-output humbuckers with 12—count ‘em—adjustable pole pieces each for the 481 which only ever appeared on this guitar. One of the toggles is a threeway select and the other is a nifty phase reversal switch.

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

Hard information on the 481 is difficult to come by. The slant-fretted Model 481 was offered for 10 years from 1973-1983, but online references suggest that these are relatively scarce. There was a sort of companion Model 480 which had a similar shape, but different electronics and no slanted frets. Apparently, the Model 481 is favored by a guitarist named Serge Pizzorno of the contemporary band Kasabian, but I confess I don’t know their music (reflective of someone like me advancing on in age).

I love the idea of this guitar, even if for me the slanted frets don’t work all that well. They’re not a real obstacle to playing—they’re not that slanted—but if you favor classical technique, like I do, they’re no real advantage, and they don’t work all that well if you play a lot of barred chords. Unless maybe you’re Jimi, but who is?

Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar with Slanted Frets

Certainly the Model 481 is one of the more desirable of Rickenbacker’s 1970s output, probably because it’s so unlike the usual Rickenbacker. I love phase reversal switches and I love crushed pearloid shark’s teeth inlays and even the varnished fingerboard surface. That it’s so unusual is probably why I was so attracted to the Model 481 in the first place. Well, come on. You gotta love any guitar with slanted frets. Whether or not the guitar really fits in with your personality.

The Right Slant on a Rickenbacker (Vintage 1973 Rickenbacker 481 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1967 Fender Coronado XII Wildwood 12-String Electric Guitar

Whether some cat took LSD, or anything lighter, while playing this guitar is also unknown. But there’s NO doubt drugs were involved. That’s because this is a Wildwood. And we’re not talking Jersey Shore here.

Well, ok, we really don’t know for sure about the sex and rock. This is a Fender electric guitar, after all, and I don’t think someone bought it to play jazz standards. Or Kumbaya. So that’s a yes on rock ‘n roll. And, anyone who’s ever played rock, by definition, had to think playing it would lead to at least the chance of a score – I know it’s circular logic, so let’s move on to the drugs.

1967 Fender Coronado XII Wildwood 12-String Electric Guitar

The Wildwood concept was invented by a Danish inventor, who hit on the idea of injecting dyes into growing beech trees. As the trees matured, their wood grain colored in green, gold and purple, gold and brown, dark blue, purple and blue, or blue-green. Someone at Fender, thinking this must be what the kids were looking for, bought the idea of making guitars out of Wildwood. Groovy.

The task of designing Wildwood guitars fell to Roger Rossmeisl. Roger is hardly a household name among general guitar fans, but he’s known to cognoscenti. Rossmeisl was born in Graslitz, Germany, in 1927. He learned guitarmaking from his father, Wenzel, who built Roger archtop guitars during the 1930s and introduced the first electric guitars to Germany in 1947.

1967 Fender Coronado XII Wildwood 12-String Electric Guitar

In 1952 Roger came to the US and landed a job with Gibson. The gig did not work out. Persistant, Rossmeisl went West and hooked up with F.C. Hall and Rickebacker. Accounts are fuzzy about the next facts, but by 1956 Rossmeisl was responsible for designing the Combo 600 and 800 series solidbodies, the legendary 4000 bass, and the Capri lines. He introduced both the top-relief German carve to American guitars (cf Mosrite; Semie Moseley briefly worked for Rossmeisl) and the more specific cresting wave design.

That alone would be enough to secure his fame, but Rossmeisl next approached Leo Fender about designing a line of bolt-neck acoustics in 1962 and was hired. In 1963 Fender’s broomstick acoustics debuted with a support dowel running from heel to tail and, significantly, exotic woods. Not new but cool. And not popular.

Roger is supposed to have known the Danish drug dealer and brought him to Fender. The Wildwood acoustic dreadnoughts and thinline electrics debuted in 1966. Which brings us back to this Coronado XII. The colored graining is in nifty green. The construction is solid, though hollowbodies without a log are not my favorite. And, even though my father hailed from Toledo and I’ve lived there several times, the Glass City’s DeArmond pickups have never been on my must-have list.

Fender Wildwoods officially lasted until 1971, but they were hardly a success, and are now a part of guitar legend. Japan’s Teisco company produced some knock-off Wildwood-style guitars, but they were not any more popular. Roger Rossmeisl returned to Germany and eventual obscurity. Leaving us only, I guess, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll – and the Fender Coronado XII Wildwood.

Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll (1967 Fender Coronado XII Wildwood 12-String Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

1965 Alamo Fiesta 2586R Electric Guitar

If you’re like me, you totally missed Alamo guitars. I only became aware of them in the 1990s when a dealer friend of mine almost shyly revealed he had a whole collection of them in his basement.

Learning about Alamo guitars put me on the scent of a story and, with a tip from Chris at Krazy Kat Music, I found myself on the phone with one Charles Eilenberg, born in Newark, NJ, then living in San Antone. Eilenberg had studied electronics and after World War II was recruited by Milton Fink of Southern Music, the Texas publisher and distributor, to set up a manufacturing operation. In 1947 Alamo began making phonographs and battery-powered radios. Alamo guitars and amps entered the world in around 1949-50.

1965 Alamo Fiesta 2586R Electric Guitar

Alamo actually may have had higher pretensions to quality in the early days. Some of its early tube amps are pretty good and compare favorably to other smaller ’50s producers like Premier. But in around 1962 Alamo struck a distribution deal with C. Bruno & Son and basically began competing at the low end of the market, a poor man’s Danelectro (check out the bridge) or Harmony or Kay. Even Teisco. Their distribution appears to have been regional and spotty, which explains shy I’d never seen them before. Indeed, Eilenberg described a brisk trade South of the border, including into South America.

Early Alamos were somewhat inspired by Rickenbacker guitars, but by 1965 their designs had clearly gone over the top. In fact, it’s safe to say that, even in a whacky pack like that of the mid-’60s, Alamo guitars were among the boldest in America! Like this 1965 Alamo Fiesta Model 2586R!

1965 Alamo Fiesta 2586R Electric Guitar

While these look like solidbodies, they’re actually hollow, with birch plywood top and back over a hollow core, a construction method Alamo preferred until the final days, when true solids joined the line.

As cool as the Alamo eye candy is to look at, these pretty much play like you’d expect from road kill! Actually, the little single-coils are no worse than much other ’60s fare, but let’s just say they’re an acquired taste!

Pee Wee didn’t find his bike when he reached the Alamo because, as you’ll recall – in an epiphany of disappointment that ranks right up there with Voltaire’s injunction to tend your garden at the end of Candide – there’s no basement in the Alamo! For me, the Alamo basement treasures my friend introduced me to did let me reach Mr. Eilenberg, a lucky fate because before I was able to get his story into print, he’d passed away to meet his fate. If I hadn’t talked to him, we might never had been able to properly remember these Alamos.

Remember the Alamo! (1965 Alamo Fiesta 2586R Electric Guitar from MyRareGuitars.com