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Jackson Guitars

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File:Jacksonlogo.JPG
The Jackson logo

Jackson is a guitar manufacturer originally owned and operated by Grover Jackson, a partner of Wayne Charvel of Charvel Guitar Repair. It is probably best-known for its "Rhoads" V model guitar, originally designed and used by guitarist Randy Rhoads. Jackson's today are most notable for their outstanding quality and fast playability. This model inspired Grover to start the Jackson guitar company. [citation needed]

Wayne Charvel sold his interest in the Charvel name to Grover Jackson November 10, 1978. The shop was located in Glendora, California (while using a PO Box in neighboring San Dimas) and manufactured guitars in this location from 1979 to 1986, when the Company merged with IMC (International Music Corporation), a Texas based importer of musical instruments. The factory moved to Ontario, California.

Recently, rights to the Charvel name and permission to manufacture Charvel guitars was granted to the Fender Guitar Company. Fender is now manufacturing guitars that are almost exactly like the original San Dimas Charvels, save for a few details.

Jackson Guitars has become most famous for its slender and elegant models, often with an aggressive look popular with harder rock and metal music and are known for their fast playing necks. This made them particuarly popular among extreme metal guitarists in the 80's and early 90's (see artists list). Jackson's are known for their excellent quality and fairly low price, this was caused by their buy out by Fender in 2001.

Almost all Jackson (and many Charvel) guitars share the typical pointed, roughly triangular headstock, originally designed by Randy Rhoads and subsequently copied by many guitar companies. Various models, however (especially a good number of Dinkys) do have a reversed pointy headstock with the tip pointing upwards. Charvel/Jackson was the target of many copyright lawsuits from Fender which ended the use of Stratocaster styled headstocks for Jackson and Charvel guitars until recently. Jackson is currently owned by Fender Guitars, who bought the company from AMIC in the Fall of 2002.

Jackson guitar models

A Jackson guitar

Jackson's trademark guitar models include:

  • The Randy Rhoads guitar, an asymmetric 'V' shaped body with pointy ends.
  • The Soloist or Dinky. The Soloist has a neck-thru neck with the superstrat body design. The Dinky has a similar design but have bolt-on necks. Popular among lead guitarists in the metal genre.
  • The Kelly, a sleeker version of Gibson's popular Explorer, popularized by Marty Friedman.
  • The King V, a symmetric 'V' shape with long pointy ends that is about 40% larger than a standard V, which was originally created for Dave Linsk but was made famous by Robbin Crosby in 1984. However, by 1986 Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine became the guitarist most identified with using a smaller version of this model. After creating a custom King V for Mustaine, Jackson later began mass-producing a Dave Mustaine Signature Series King V, which would become one of their best selling guitars.
  • The DR, a reverse headstock model, made popular by Anand Bhatt.
  • The Warrior, a very aggressive looking body consisting of four pointy ends (similar to the rare B.C. Rich Stealth model popularized by Chuck Schuldiner).
  • The Kelly Star, a vaguely star shaped body, actually the front half of the Kelly with the pointy ends of the Rhoads model.
  • The Y2KV, Shaped almost like a Gibson Flying V but yet different, designed and made popular by Dave Mustaine of Megadeth.
  • Jackson Professional Series was the Made in Japan line of many popular USA models. Ergo, all Jacksons with "Professional" on the headstock were made in the Japan factory.
  • The Performer tag is denoted on Jackson models produced in the early 90's in overseas factories (primarily Korea). Prices usually ranged from 400-800 dollars based on specifications.

While a few Jackson headstocks have had the "Strat head" shape, most have been the pointy style shown above, designed by Randy Rhoads in 1980 - it is styled after the sleek nose of the jetliner Concorde. The Randy Rhoads V was the first guitar to carry Grover Jackson's moniker and was originally known as the Concorde.

Many Jacksons also have "graphic" finishes, usually only available on custom shopped guitars for other companies, as a standard feature. Some of the most popular include the "Pile O' Skulls" finish, popularized by Suicidal Tendencies's Mike Clark, "Lightning Bolt", "Graveyard", "Nebula", "Snakeskin" "Shattered Glass", "Bolted Steel", and more. Jackson's custom shop features the option of upgraded versions of a few of these finishes.

In fact, Jackson sued ESP in the late 80's for their use of the headstock Jackson was famous for. It is true that Fender sued Jackson Charvel in the 80's to discontinue their use of Fenders trademarked Stratocaster headstock.

In the early 1990's, Grover Jackson worked with Washburn International headquartered in Vernon Hills, Illinois. Washburn open a manufacturing facility in downtown Chicago on Elston Avenue that produced a limited number of American made Washburn electrics. Although typically known as an importer, Jackson convinced Washburn to invest in people, equipment and processes to produce certain Jackson supervised models in Chicago. To this day, these models are floating around the U.S. and have been "appraised" for as low a $147.00 when in fact Jackson supervised and designed many custom features often requested by high profile artists. Components for the Jackson models were often produced by local Chicago contractors on precision numerical control equipment but in much less volume than that of a larger higher profile manufacturer. After Jackson's departure from Washburn, the downtown Chicago facility remained open briefly and then closed.

Jackson players and endorsers, past and present

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