1980 Hagstrom SuperSwede Guitar (The Legend with the Zero fret) 'Noodling' By Chris Cox скачать в хорошем качестве

1980 Hagstrom SuperSwede Guitar (The Legend with the Zero fret) 'Noodling' By Chris Cox

I say in the video this was a 1983 model - I meant to say it was a 1980. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Karl Erik Hagström Senior told me this was the finest guitar they made, but without sounding cheeky, we already knew that because when we started collecting this was one of the very first we bought (From Halkan's Rockhouse, Stockholm in October 2001). It could have spoiled our expectations for many that followed simply because it was such a fine guitar. However for those that know the Hagstrom story, there is much more to this original brand than the hype associated with the big names in guitar manufacture. It is an amazing story of a company miles from anywhere looking for pioneering opportunities to impress and maintain what had become the biggest music enterprise throughout Scandinavia. This was no inward looking family company. It had a trading history with over 47 countries and the world was starting to get smaller (you thought that was a recent problem for companies?) Yes long before the world wide web, Hagstrom were getting out there supplying music to the world under the direction of the founder Albin Hagstrom. At home they had music stores in almost every town in Sweden, Norway and throughout Scandinavia. They supported music education in schools - obviously good for business too, but as we all know music is good for childrens' development. Outside the region they had been suppliers of quality Hagstrom Accordions to the world with manufacturing hubs as far afield as Teeside Great Britain and Jamestown New York USA and that was only up to World War II. By the end of the 1950's sales of Accordions were all but 'drying up', so Albin's son Karl Erik Hagstrom senior diverted all the attention into making guitars in 1958. They were already the regional distributors for Gibson and Fender amongst any brand that was worth selling through their retail network. Many products were made under contract and locally branded Hagstrom too, but they were primarily a manufacturer, and needed to support a loyal workforce as long as they could. In fact accordion manufacture continued until the mid 1970's, but sales were so low by then that the company resorted to burying complete, cased, ready to sell brand new Hagstrom Accordions in an area on which now stands a car park alongside a filling station and supermarket, quite close the the offices and local museum. So now you understand why this is such a fascinating story. Certainly some of the products they came up with were quirky, but they were all bold and pioneering, aiming to change the world. Take the joint venture Hagstrom did with Ampeg to develop the world's first analogue Synthesiser Guitar system - very costly as within months of it's launch polyphonic/midi etc came along and killed it stone dead! So you can't fault the effort they put into ideas. Even today the former electronics division still trades under the name Amtech headed up by a former Hagstrom employee Bengt Eriksson, supplying bespoke echo systems under the brands Age-One and Age-Pro. In the 1960's Hagstrom produced portable wind organs / keyboards, valve amps based around Mullard and other designs, the world's first portable stereo live pa systems, phenominal live and recording mixers - that you can still find in use today. The trouble is that anything bigger than a guitar was very expensive to send out around the world. So, given the wide area of development that Hagstrom delved into and the increased competition from new manufacturing regions, there were bound to be some things that worked and some that were too expensive to continue, or simply some that got left behind. In the end they could not compete with cheaper larger Far Eastern Corporate manufacturing, and ceased manufacturing in 1983. Along the way there had been historic - indeed iconic Hagstrom slices of history that included the likes of Hendrix, Bowie, Elvis, Zappa through to ABBA and many many more. There had been unique ideas and unforgettable designs. There had been complex engineering that will last longer than anyone could have imagined, so if you still think of Hagstrom as being a little copycat company from a small insignificant part of the world, then you should think again. No company gets everything right, but a lot of companies have an easier route to market, and in the end this was essentially a family run business that achieved a heck of a lot more than most. So from Sparkle guitars made out of accordion materials to this stunning late example the SuperSwede, Hagstrom proved themselves as much as anyone else in the market. You can find more at http://www.hagstrom.org.uk This demo was put together September 2013 by Elixir String endorsee Chris Cox http://www.goldenboulder.org.uk   / chriscoxguitar