As I type these words, it is still May for two more hours. Plenty of time to give you the May Guitar of the Month, right? Right. Good. So lets talk about one of the most prominent and popular designs of the last twenty years.
By 1986, Ibanez had been through plenty. Salvador Ibanez Acoustics was bought by Hoshino Gakki in 1929. Salvador Ibanez's workshop was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War, and Gakki was quick to purchase the name of well-regarded builder. Gakki began manufacturing guitars under the Salvador Ibanez name, eventually shortening the brand name to simply 'Ibanez'. The 1960s brought some wild designs. The 70s found the company producing copies in such quantities that Ibanez aficionados refer to this time as 'the lawsuit period'. The late 70s and early 80s saw Ibanez experimenting with new designs and trying to find their place in the guitar world, a place that didn’t involve so many Les Paul copies and court cases.
There was the Iceman. The Roadstar. The Universe. And the Jem.
The shockingly popular though shockingly pricy Jem.
Rich Lasner was the designer of the Jem and head of the Ibanez Design team in 1987. "After the huge success of the Jem guitar, we were faced with lots of pressure from dealers and the head office to make a less expensive version that more people could afford," Lanser said in an interview with IbanezRegister.com. "We’d had the Roadster Guitar and Roadstar Guitar series before, so we contracted those to RG. We wanted something like Gibson had with SG."
It’s somewhat ironic the guitar that would grow to become such an iconic instrument was originally intended as a sort of 'Squier' version of the Jem, a Jem-lite. Lasner continues: "Since we were really just taking the JEM idea down a couple of price levels, we had the JEM design to guide us. Except for some trim differences, the RG proto was much like the finished version."
The first RG, a 550, was more successful than the dealer could have hoped. In the years since there have been countless adaptations and variations. Pickguard or no pickguard? Prestige format? How about some wild body graphics?
So what is it about this guitar? While other giants of the super-Strat-soaked 80s like Jackson, Kramer and B.C. Rich have faded in to the background of mainstream guitar, the RG series has survived and florished. Metal players, 90s grunge-chunkers and jazz cats have all claimed the RG as their own.
Like all enduring guitar models, the RG has a deadly combination of features, an alchemy that somehow makes the whole greater than the parts. Superfast neck. Incredibly light body. The ability to hold a tuning like nobody’s business. Great distinctive tones. All that and an affordable price.
"I think we were very lucky," Lasner reflected. "The basic design of the guitar has aged well, and doesn’t look dated. The main elements of the guitar are still contemporary and have become somewhat of a classic design."
Amen, brother.
Coming in June: Our first non-pointy-headstock Guitar of the Month.