Considering Fender’s been in business for 77 years, this was a momentous event in the company’s history. Surely, it opened near the historic Fender factory in Fullerton, California, right? Maybe adjacent to the modern Corona, California, factory? Leo Fender’s childhood home?
If you guessed any of these locations, then you’re only a couple of continents off — Fender’s flagship store opened in the bustling megalopolis of Tokyo, Japan. And as crazy as that might sound to American guitarists, no other country is so deserving of representing the 6-string’s historic legacy outside of America itself. The steel-string acoustic and electric guitar might have been born in the United States, but, as you’ll soon see, they’ve found a second home in the land of the rising sun.
Japan’s Classical Upbringing
Where to begin? While this story is primarily concerned with the history of Japanese guitar making through our uniquely American perspective, Japan’s interest in the 6-string stretches back to before the rise of mid-20th-century MIJ (Made In Japan) exports.
Where to begin? While this story is primarily concerned with the history of Japanese guitar making through our uniquely American perspective, Japan’s interest in the 6-string stretches back to before the rise of mid-20th-century MIJ (Made In Japan) exports.
That is, until the United States arrived. Japan entered diplomatic and trade relations with the USA, and the country was introduced to a rush of Western ideas and goods. Naturally, this included the star of our story: the guitar, in its contemporary, gut-stringed, classical variation.
The classical guitar and many other Western instruments were quickly adopted, with several reports of Japanese musicians enthusiastically venturing across the ocean to train with European masters. However, few prominent Western musicians dared to travel to the East until 1929, when maestro Andrés Segovia — arguably the first world-class Western guitarist to perform in Japan — performed a string of concerts in Tokyo and Osaka. All at once, the classical guitar’s popularity skyrocketed, with bountiful demand and precious little supply.
It’s around this time that a few familiar faces begin to appear. A small bookstore in Nagoya, Japan, founded by Matsujiro Hoshino, started importing classical guitars from Salvador Ibáñez — yes, that Ibanez. Yamaha (at the time known as “Nippon Gakki,” or, in English, “Japanese Musical Instruments”) had already accrued nearly half a century’s worth of instrument-building expertise before jumping into the Spanish guitar game in the early 1940s.
During this era, Japan experienced a concurrent musical craze — Hawaiian music — fueled by early electrified lap steel guitars. The first Japanese electric guitar company, Guyatone, began constructing electric lap steel guitars and amps by 1933, only a few years after their inventions in America. Japan’s instrument industry was barreling toward the same 6-string revolution that was happening in America, with one rather significant hurdle in their path: World War II. (...)
Boom & Bust
The ’60s would be the first time American guitarists really got an authentic taste of Japanese electric guitars; as we’ll soon see, it was a veritable flood of instruments.
Why was Japan so fond of surf rock? For one, it was a fresh, new form of music that exclusively featured the electric guitars and basses that were steadily winning over the hearts of young Japanese musicians. And, more importantly, surf music is mainly instrumental — there’s no language barrier to muddy the musical waters.
The first big-name American act to tour Japan would be the Ventures in 1962, and the band’s impact on Japanese guitar culture cannot be overstated. Remember the classical-guitar stir caused by Segovia in 1929? Magnify it tenfold. The demand for electric guitars experienced exponential growth in Japan, further driving the need for more Japanese guitar factories. (...)
The Lawsuit Legend
It’s an almost universally accepted fact among guitar historians that the ’70s was a tough time for the guitar industry. Japanese factories reacted to the dismal landscape by taking a more cautious and conservative approach to guitar building; the wild and peculiar Japanese 6-strings of the 1960s largely disappeared for a time. Moreover, even a few big-name American brands began outsourcing production to Japanese factories, such as Gibson transforming Epiphone from an American-made brand fully on par with its Kalamazoo counterparts to a lower-priced brand aimed at the student market.
The quality of American guitar manufacturing continued on a downward streak, but, at the same time, the Japanese factories left over from the guitar boom’s bust only raised the quality of their instruments. Brands such as Greco, Hondo, Fernandes, Burny, Takamine, Suzuki, Ibanez, and Aria began creating heavily inspired or near clones of classic American guitars, some of which (but certainly not all) built to a higher standard than their contemporary American equivalents.
Most of those instruments were relegated to beginners or hobbyists (the reputation, if not the quality, of Japanese guitars was still rough at this point), but by the latter half of the ’70s, American companies began to take notice, and these imitations were regarded less as flattery and more as “cutting into our bottom line.”
If you’ve ever wondered why Japanese guitars from the late 1970s and early 1980s are referred to as “lawsuit” guitars, then here’s why: While many parts of a guitar can be cloned with impunity, Gibson secured a trademark for its headstock shape in hopes of scaring off would-be clones. Many Ibanez copies from that time featured a nearly identical headstock to an actual Gibson instrument, prompting Gibson to take Ibanez to court — the two companies settled, and Ibanez modified its headstock. That’s it. Frankly, this was one of the period’s only full-scale “lawsuits” — it’s all a bit less exciting than the name implies!
Fender took a slightly different approach at the time. Japanese labor and production costs were significantly lower than their American equivalents, so the lower-priced 6-string copies made by Japanese companies like Tokai and Greco were far more alluring to consumers than a full-priced Fender.
Instead of a lawsuit, Fender established a joint venture in 1982 between several Japanese distributors and the FujiGen Gakki factory — the same factory that was making the clones that were eating into Fender’s sales. This would mark Fender’s first move outside of the United States.
by Cameron Day, Sweetwater | Read more:
[ed. I've had two Ibanez 335 Gibson copies, a Takamine 12 string (Martin copy) and a Yamaha "red label" acoustic over the years. My buddy had an Ibanez Les Paul copy. All were equal to, if not better than the originals. Heard about these "lawsuit" guitars over 40 years ago from a retired Nashville musician when it was all very mysterious and no one knew the whole story. He sold me my first one.]
