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Totally a nostalgia purchase, justified very thinly by the observation that I don't have a solid-body single-coil type guitar. The red Hagstrom I, plastic front, vinyl back, in all its tacky glory, was my first "real" guitar. I always regretted losing that guitar, literally, when my mother got our house during my parents' divorce (my dad got me!) and emptied the attic, which is where my Hagstrom had been imprisoned during my John Denver Wanna-Be period. About which I will say no more.
So... always wanted another red Hagstrom just for the memories, and this arrived today! It's all original (most lack the tremolo bar) and in great shape--most have cracked acrylic fronts. And I'm having fun playing with it. Need to do a little set-up, but I'm communing with the ghost of music past...
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03-19-2018 06:12 PM
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I remember that guitar! I worked at Sam Ash Hempstead when they came out ( I was 17) and I thought they were a pretty spanky sounding guitar at the time. Tremolo was very good, I thought, and the value was great. Very thin neck too that reminded me of the Ventures model Mosrite. I thought that neck was like greased lightning. Any way, thanks for the memory and have fun with it.
Tom
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Very cool Lawson.
What are you playing on it? It can’t be any worse than a Tele for Jazz.. I’M KIDDING..
Joe D
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please tell me you had the john denver hair
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My first employer as a guitarist-for-hire had one of these. I think it still had the original strings on it. I used to change the strings on it once a year, on my time and dime, just to play it for a few hours. Taped to the back was a sheet of paper with 200 song titles in a tiny, neat script. He knew (and called) many more, but 200 was really all there was room for. I learned a lot playing with him.
Congratulations on your cool new guitar, and play it in good health!
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Very very cool. The red color is SO period correct for the early 60s! I have a lefty 66 Hagstrom III and I used it regularly with my Rocksteady-Reggae band. It has just the right mid-60s island sound. And the thin necks on these Hagstrom somehow are just right -- and this from a guy who prefers chunky baseball bat necks on my Teles and fat v-necks on my prewar archtops.
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And the wire-rimmed glasses, and the 12-string guitar, and the flowered shirts... oh yeah.
Originally Posted by joe2758
The Great Folk Music Scare of the 70's ... when it almost caught on.
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I plan to play anything I can think of on it. I just love this thing. It's like dating a cheerleader with a lot of make up and costume jewelry, but in her tacky way, she's kinda hot. Originally Posted by Max405
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Lawson
As you know, I have the same guitar and love it. World's thinnest neck, and all.
Enjoy!
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Hey, Enjoy it. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
Hagstrom guitars were no joke. I saw a display one time of one of Elvis’s jumpsuits and it had a Hagstrom guitar with it. It looked like a cross between a 335 and a strat. Complete with the cigarette burn on the headstock. It was red too!
Joe D
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dang right
cheers
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Al Casey's Viking II? Originally Posted by Max405
Edit: LOL we posted at the same time
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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Yeah, Hagstroms were no joke. They were well made, great sounding guitars that were super easy to play. IIRC, they came from the factory with _flat-wound_ strings. Of course, in the early-to-mid 1960s nobody was yet using "slinky" strings.
I have two. (1) a red Hagstrom I just like Lawson's, that I've had since the 60s, and (2) a mid-60s sunburst Hagstrom III that I've had since the mid-70s. (That one was a wedding present to me from a guy in my band! He figured we had plenty of blenders, toasters, etc. He got it from the founder of "Up With People" back in the day, IIRC.)
They are very Fender-like in quality and sound. I can understand why The King would play a Hagstrom. Nice guitar.
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in the 60's hagstrom was connected with guild...the famous rock era big guild bass pickup (dark star!) (as used by lesh, hillman , casady etc) was a hagstrom
also the hagstrom whammy bar was used on guilds..ala zally in lovin spoonful
cheers
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I have a newer HJ-800. Really well made and sounds great including the pickups IMHO. And I prefer thicker necks but there is something about thin Hagstrom necks that make them still very playable and comfortable. Originally Posted by Greentone
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coryell!
alpha & omega
cheers
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That's so funny GT. I got a guitar as a wedding present too. It was the Casio PG380 midi guitar. A black one. Originally Posted by Greentone
JD
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Here's one of my early bands, with the Hagstrom I in action.
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Ahhh, these memories... My cousin had a Hagström Viking II in the mid-sixties. My memory may fool me, but I still remember that one as having by far the easiest neck to play. It was so easy, my cousin used to say you only needed to blow at the strings to hear a chord. At that time we had a small guitar shop in town that only sold Höfner, Framus and Hagström guitars. I frequently tried them all, but regrettably no money to buy one.
At that time my cousin asked my dad if I could join his band as second guitar player, but my dad did not allow that. Being only fifteen years old, he said, I was too young. That was the second time, happened before with another band when I was fourteen. These were the 1960s too. We used to listen to our parents. That changed a few years later
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When I was really young, maybe 14 or 15, my dad took me into a music shop because he wanted to hear whether I could "really play" if I had a decent guitar. I immediately fell for that bright red Hagström and played it for about 15 minutes. When I was done, my dad told the guy at the shop, "Okay, pack that one up. We'll take it." BUT... I didn't get it until Christmas. Along with it was (I think) a Sears-Roebuck tube amp with tremolo, reverb, and a single 12" speaker.
I was in heaven.
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Hahaha, definitely not my dad. Lucky you!
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Lead guitarist in rock group i was friends with had that Hagström as black/white finished one in 1965-67. It was when i still lived in Finland, he swapped it to Gibson ES-335. I moved later to Sweden, where i was able to purchase many nice guitars too.
Those were the days...
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Haha! My dad did something similar with my brother and myself. We ended up getting a Mellotron organ and a 100 watt Kustom combo amp. It was great until we broke it by pushing in all the drum machine buttons at once so that none could be pushed in again to release them all. My dad was super pissed, but to his credit he took it apart and fixed it. After a good scolding of "Never do that again" we carried on wreaking havoc in the basement. Good times! Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Nice rig--Mellotron and Kustom 100. You could get some sounds with that. Originally Posted by lammie200
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Yeah, not to get too off topic, but we were loud. I played the tamborine and some other percussion. My brother played the Mellotron. We had a fill-laden drummer, a P bass player, and a tall lanky left handed pimply faced greasy haired guitar player. I think that he played an LP, but I can't remember exactly. As I recall we stopped playing together right around the time Hendrix died. Wild Thing was in our repertoire. Light My Fire, Smoke on the Water, etc. Makes me feel a little embarrassed. I remember playing a couple of birthday parties. The girls were enthralled, but we were too young to do anything about it. Originally Posted by Greentone
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