 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Musical instruments |
| Founded | 1974 in Azusa, California |
| Founder | Wayne Charvel |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Electric guitars |
| Parent | Fender Musical Instruments Corporation[1] |
| Website | charvel.com |
Charvel is a brand of electric guitars founded in the 1970s by Wayne Charvel in Azusa, California and originally headquartered in Glendora, California. Since 2002, Charvel has been under the ownership of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.
Charvel guitars became popular in the 1980s due to their association with famous rock and heavy metal guitarists such as Eddie Van Halen (Van Halen), Gary Moore, Warren DeMartini (Ratt), Jake E. Lee (Ozzy Osbourne), Eddie Ojeda (Twisted Sister), George Lynch (Dokken), Allan Holdsworth, Shawn Lane, Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi), and others. Modern Charvel players include Guthrie Govan (The Aristocrats), Satchel (Steel Panther), Mike Orlando (Adrenaline Mob), Joe Duplantier (Gojira), Angel Vivaldi, and Chris Brooks.
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After working at Fender for three years in the early 1970s, Wayne Charvel started "Charvel's Guitar Repair" in 1974 to refinish and repair out-of-warranty Fender instruments. The shop earned a solid reputation among performing artists for its repair work, custom finishes, and upgraded parts manufacturing. When Asian companies began copying Charvel's parts and selling them at a discount, Charvel decided to begin assembling complete guitars on the advice of Grover Jackson. Charvel guitars were assembled from wood parts made by Boogie Bodies and Schecter, with various Charvel and after-market hardware.[2] After filing for bankruptcy, Wayne Charvel sold what was left of the company to Grover Jackson in 1978, and ceased all associations with the name.
After purchasing the company name, Grover Jackson moved the business to a new location and tooled it to produce guitar bodies which he sold to Mighty Mite and DiMarzio, using the proceeds to fund an expansion into making necks. During this time B.C. Rich, SD Curlee, and Music Man approached Charvel to manufacture various wood parts. The income from these sales provided the Charvel shop with additional tooling and experience that gave Jackson the footing required to grow the Charvel brand.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Charvel popularized custom revamps of the Fender Stratocaster design — often consisting of a Strat-shaped body with a single humbucking pickup and Fender style tremolo bridge systems. This modernized Stratocaster configuration (commonly referred to as the superstrat) was particularly well suited to the heavy metal style of music that was very popular at the time. Charvel guitars became renowned for its use of creative graphics, unfinished maple necks, and various innovative appointments.
In 1980, Grover Jackson met Randy Rhoads, who had recently joined Ozzy Osbourne's new band as lead guitarist. They worked together to develop a guitar to complement the polka-dotted Flying V built for Rhoads by Karl Sandoval. The prototype was not angular enough for Rhoads, but the second design produced a shape that Randy referred to as the Concorde. Jackson worried that the radically styled neck-through guitar was too different from Charvel's familiar 'Superstrat' theme, so he labeled the instrument with his own name on the headstock in case the design proved unpopular. Contrary to Jackson's concerns, the visual impact of this guitar spawned the "Rhoads Model" that soon became iconic in the industry and later inspired Jackson to found Jackson Guitars.
Charvel (and Jackson) guitars remained in production at the Gladstone Street shop in Glendora, California until 1986. In 1986, as part of a licensing agreement with IMC (International Music Corporation), the manufacturing facilities moved to Ontario, California, and production of USA-built Charvel guitars ceased.
The success of Charvel in the 1980s led Jackson to mass-produce popular configurations in Asia. Each California-produced Charvel guitar was essentially a hand-built custom instrument. However, Japanese assembly line versions that appeared in 1986 were categorized into model numbers.
In 1989, Jackson sold Charvel/Jackson to the Japanese manufacturer IMC (International Music Corporation), who made Charvel guitars exclusively in Japan from 1986 to 1991.[3]
The Japanese made Charvels that appeared in 1986 are easily distinguished from San Dimas instruments by several distinct differences:
When Fender Musical Instruments Corporation acquired Charvel's parent company, Jackson, in 2002, the Charvel brand entered a renaissance with several USA-made "San Dimas" models which were named to recapture the original association of the Charvel name with high-quality, American-made professional guitars.
Fender now offers several series of guitars in the Charvel brand including both moderately-priced and "boutique-priced" instruments, all of which are produced in Fender's factories. The brand also operates a full-service custom shop within the Fender Custom Shop facility in Corona.[6] One of Charvel's recent and notable Custom Shop models was the Eddie Van Halen signature "Striped Series" model (marketed as the Charvel EVH Art Series), a short run of guitars paint-stenciled by the guitarist.
Charvel currently offers a range of guitars using Stratocaster-style (Dinky, San Dimas Style 1, and So-Cal Style 1) and Telecaster-style (San Dimas Style 2 and So-Cal Style 2) bodies, all of which are produced in Fender's Corona, USA and Ensenada, Mexico manufacturing facilities:[7][8]
The brand also offers Limited Edition runs of guitars, including "Super Stock" models which are sometimes offered in a "relic" finish.[10]
A Chinese-built line introduced in 2011,[11] the budget Desolation series guitars had an oiled neck and 24 frets. A number of versions were available:[12]
In 1989, the Charvel line was expanded into a number of different series, including Classic, Fusion and Contemporary:
Most of the guitars at the time were equipped with Schaller hardware, including a licensed Floyd Rose locking tremolo.
The Korean-made Charvette brand also came into being to service the entry-level. In the 1990s, the Charvel CX series was imported as a lower-priced instrument.
The collectible status and escalating market prices of early USA-made Charvels resulted in counterfeit "San Dimas Charvels" being misrepresented as genuine. These fakes were often created by swapping necks and/or "San Dimas"-stamped neck plates onto Asian-made Charvels or other inexpensive guitars,[13] adding a reproduction San Dimas era "Charvel - Made in USA" headstock decal.[14]
Wayne Charvel resurfaced in guitar manufacturing several times since selling the brand in 1978, with varying degrees of success. He created a namesake model offered through Gibson: the Gibson W.R.C. Signature Model. Only several hundred were produced, and they were short-lived—mainly because of a lawsuit filed by Jackson. Gibson made the W.R.C. models from 1987 to 1988 in three standard colors: red, black, and white. Of those produced, 200 were 'show case' models that featured Wayne Charvel's signature on the bell and were accompanied by a letter from him.[15] The WRC model came with a tan faux leather case with hot pink interior and combination locks. Earlier models had a Kahler Spyder tremolo, while later models featured a Floyd Rose Original. All featured a maple bolt-on neck with ebony fingerboard.
Today, Charvel and his son Michael own and operate Charvel Music, a full line music store in Paradise, California, and manufacture guitars as a joint venture under the name Wayne Guitars.[16] Their houses and shop burned down in the 2018 Camp Fire.
