John Frusciante from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth and Blixa Cash from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Three greats in music history who all have one thing in common: they play a Fender Jaguar. Here you can find out exactly what the success of the electric guitar from Fender, which was introduced in the 1960s, is all about.
Torn off the surfboard
The Fender Jaguar was born in 1962. As the musical instrument company’s great hope, the short-necked electric guitar was born on the American West Coast, in the midst of a surf-loving culture. Many bands liked the solid-body guitar made of alder and ash wood with a maple neck. Among them Carl Wilson. The lead guitarist of the Beach Boys dug out $379 and then held his jaguar in the hand. At least for the first recordings of the legendary group.
After a brief upswing, most surf bands seemed to be taken care of and Fender Jaguar sales figures plummeted. The guitar, which was developed based on the model of its predecessor, the Jazzmaster, was never really able to catch on.
The sounds became harder and more political. Jimi Hendrix and all the others did not see a Fender Jaguar as the model with which they could take action against injustices in society. Instead, the models were Stratocaster and Telecaster to the electric guitars of the hippie era. Because just a few years after the Jaguar appeared on the market, it already disappeared into some niche. In 1975 it was finally completely removed from Fender’s range.
From the outsider model to the electric guitar of the 90s
Timeskip. It took a blonde outsider to bring Seattle grunge to the forefront. A musician who had so little money that he bought a Fender Jaguar, which was going around for very little money at the time. Back then it was an electric guitar for outsiders. Perfect for Kurt Cobain. Grungers, punks and musicians who didn’t care about expensive instruments rediscovered the rejected model from the 60s and opened up a completely different era. Strumming teenagers took advantage of the Jaguar’s short scale and were able to play fast riffs, grasp complicated fingerings and learn guitar at least somewhat more easily. In addition, the guitar sounds a little thicker than its direct relatives due to the shorter neck, the typical single-coil hum of the Jazzmaster was counteracted with further developed pickups and the pickups could be switched out of phase, which enables a sharp, bright sound.
fender responded to the enormous increase in popularity with the “1962 Reissue Jaguar”, which was launched on the market in 1999. There are also some signatures now. Including that Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar. And the Kurt Cobain Jaguar, which the Nirvana singer would certainly have liked, is an unusual hybrid of a Fender Mustang and a Jaguar.
You can see John Frusciante with his Fender Jaguar here:
John Frusciante elevated the Jaguars to the rock Olympus with the intro of “Under the Bridge”, Kurt Cobain’s pain was for an entire generation – and probably still is.
History in fast motion: This cult instrument defined the sound of the surfer generation in California a few decades ago, then disappeared from the surface and experienced its awakening in grunge, punk and at the hand of Kurt Cobain.