One cannot really write about G&L without firstly venturing a little into the history of G&L's late founder Leo Fender. Leo Fender's inventions arguably form the tap-root of the modern, solid-body electric guitar industry.
I defy you to show me a guitar player who doesn't know Fender. You show me a guitarist without respect for the Telecaster or the Stratocaster, and I will easily prove that guitarist to be a total muppet, or at least, a wax-sculpture.
Leo Fender realized the Fender Telecaster (originally Broadcaster) in 1951. It was the first mass-produced Solid Body Electric-Spanish guitar that the world ever knew. He went on to develop the Stratocaster in 1954. He also created the famous Precision and Jazz basses, and some of the finest guitar amps the world has ever seen. Do I need to list the names of some of the great Fender players to have rocked the Music-World's timeline? Hendrix, Blackmore, Clapton, Marvin, Malmsteen, Cobain, Harrison... The list goes on and on.
Owing to poor health, Mr Fender sold his guitar manufacturing company to CBS in 1965. He took his mind with him however, and in the 1970's, designed and produced instruments for Music Man. When relations between he and Music Man began to sour, Leo Fender and his long-time associate George Fullerton formed G&L (George and Leo) to keep the machine rolling. Leo Fender reported in a print advertisement for G&L that G&L guitars were, "the best instruments [he] had ever made."
G&L's production lines have always been limited somewhat. Because of that, G&L have always had the ability to built a range of custom instruments to various specifications. Owing to this fact, and of course the ridiculously high quality the instruments, G&L guitars and basses are highly regarded by musicians and collectors the world over.
In 2003, G&L launched their Tribute Series as a more affordable alternative to the American built instruments. The instruments in this series were built in Korea to G&L specs using pickups developed in the G&L factory and mostly foreign-made hardware. As I stated in my introductory paragraph to this article, I simply cannot help but sing their praises. Relative to the price, these instruments are awesome.
Although the hardware is manufactured outside of the G&L factory, it's still pretty dang good. The ASAT (Tele) models come with a set of six, easy intoning brass saddles set in a steel bridge, Basswood or Swamp-ash bodies, 18:1 ratio sealed-back tuners, American-made, Fullerton designed, magnetic-field single-coil pickups and beautiful hard-rock maple or rosewood fingerboards.
I also had the pleasure of playing a G&L Legacy. This to all intents and purposes, is a Strat, and Strat-type guitars are my favorite. This guitar blew my mind from the moment I struck my first chord on it. It rang like a bell, and had a great-deal more sustain than one comes to expect from a Strat, much less one in THIS price-range. Where it differs from the ASAT is obviously in the bridge (G&L Dual-Fulcrum Vibrato with die-cast saddles), it has a five-way switch (as opposed to the ASAT 3 way) and 3 Fullerton-made Alnico V single-coil pickups.
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When plugged into an amplifier, the ASAT has a much hotter sound than the Legacy, the Legacies Alnico V's being somewhat closer in spec to the pre-CBS fender sound. Still, as any Strat player would most likely agree, crank the thing right up to 11 and ears will bleed joyously. It's as sweet sounding as any sonic ice-cream, and is smothered in audio-fudge.
All of that being said, one must remember that these are not the American model G&L's. The Tribute Series instruments do have some rough edges, but that is nothing that a half-decent Luthier couldn't sort-out with a file, a bit of sand-paper, a measure of patience and an hour or so. At the price that these instruments are fetching, one can easily justify a few hundred Rands spent on a mild setup. Once that is out of the way, you'll have an instrument worth faaaaaar more than it's weight in gold.
Now, onto the American model G&L's. They landed in South Africa a week or two ago and so far, I've only had a gander at them. To be truthful, they were so beautiful, framed up in their high quality cases in the warehouse at Tuerk Music, I could hardly bring myself to sully them with my sweaty fingers. Sadly, I was too pressed for time that day to get over my guitar-geek anxiety and really pick one up and get into it, and it's probably better. Those guitars are special. They are like exquisite virgins, just waiting to be owned by someone who will love them wholly. I spoke to Mike, the man in charge of the guitar department at Tuerk, and asked him to tell me a little about their G&L range of guitars.
Mike: There are Indonesian ones, the Tribute Series, they make replicas of the American models using the American Pickups, the exact same pickups. The difference would be in the electronics and the hardware, which is designed after the fashion of the American stuff. Other differences would be that generally they have three piece bodies as opposed to the one or two-piece bodies of the American models. Generally, with the clear finishes (which are 2K acrylic) you'll get an ash body and with the opaque finishes a basswood body. They also do a full range of basses, the L2000's, the L2500's, the SB2's, and then on the guitar side there are the ASAT classics, the ASAT specials, the Bluesboys, the Legacies, the S500's and Commanches. You don't have any custom options in the case of the Tributes which is also obviously where the price comes down.
With the American ones, all the basic models are completely customisable so you can order the ASAT classic S which is basically a Tele type but with a middle pickup, a cutaway for your arm and a rib-cage contour which is pretty cool, and a series switch so you can run all three pickups in series. You can order a standard model with a rib-cage contour with a Bigsby if you want too. You can order for the body to be hollow. Lot and lots of options available and made to order. They are not ordinary production-line guitars. We tell them exactly what we want down to the last detail in terms of neck-profiles, machine-heads, bridges. If you wanted, you could even order a guitar with active EMG pickups, although I'm not sure why you would wanna do that, but you can.
The guitars are also run through a Plek machine, so they are precision setup and the fret-work is very very good. The pickups are all made in their factory in california except when you're looking at Seymour Duncans or EMG's and the bridges and tuners are all made by Schaller and you can specify locking or non-locking. They also all come with GNG hard-shell cases. They're the original hard-shell cases, they used to make cases for Fender. Obviously great quality cases. They all come with authenticity certificates signed personally by Phyllis Fender [Leo Fenders Wife and honorary chairperson of G&L] to show you just how real it is. They're all made in Fullerton California at the original Music Man factory.
As far as a brand is concerned, I'd put them up there with the Fender Custom Shop in terms of the level of quality and the types of pickups they are using. There is a lot more past that though. If you order a custom you don't have to wait a year. You can order one now and have it in eight weeks at exactly the spec you want.
Me: What's kind of response have the guitars gotten since they landed in South Africa?
Mike: The response is very positive, in fact, there is a high-end guitar dealer in Cape Town, a guy called Guitar Experience who only does Custom Shop Fenders, Custom Shop Martins, old, vintage guitars and boutique brands. He bought a couple of ASATs the other day and he was telling me, and I asked if I could quote him, he's telling me that the pickups easily stand up to anything that comes out of the Fender Custom Shop, and in terms of build quality, there is no Fender that is built this well, which is quite something coming from someone who only sells custom, quality guitars, so definitely, quality-wise, they're really really great.
Me: Thanks Mike.
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If you are in South Africa and are interested in G&L guitars, and would like to check them out for yourself, you can start following the following links:
http://www.tuerkmusic.co.za/
http://www.glguitars.com/index.asp
or you can call Tuerk Music Technologies on 011 792 8402.
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