Customer Reviews

Rickenbacker

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Richard Smith's book is simply the best available on Rickenbacker guitars. The Rickenbacker story is presented directly and simply. Of course there are lots of insanely cool pictures of Rickenbacker guitars. An invaluable source of information for the collector, or for the normal guitarist, a great book to just plain read. I gave this four stars instead of five because of the spelling errors that reoccur throughout the book. As opposed to the Bacon/Day Rick book, this is not just a quick gloss of the company's models but an indepth look at the company. I hope Smith updates this book every so often. As it stands it is the best reference on this subject in its field.

This book is a great help to all the people who love the Rickenbacker music instruments. In this book you can find informations and details about the history, the people behind this industry, a great selections and lots of pictures and info about almost all the models on guitars, bass, steels, etc, etc. Also you can know about the greatest musicians playing Ricky's since 1920 to the present. If you own a Rickenbacker this is your book. Congratulations to Richard R. Smith for this excellent work !!

This book is an excellent overview of Rickenbacker guitars and basses from the beginning of the company up to 1987. However, it is woefully out of date, as many models have been added and/or dropped in the meantime. It would be nice to see an updated version of this book. Additionally, I was a little disappointed that except for a color section in the middle of the book, the entire book was in black and white, which makes it difficult to know what the author is talking about when he comments on the finish/color of a guitar! Still, an interesting book and essential for anyone who is a Rickenbacker fanatic like me.

I found the strengths of the book were, how it described it's history / the creation of the company in the 1930's ( under " Electro String " ) both before and after World War Two ( mid-late 1950's onwards );the wealth of COLOUR photo's of mid-late 1950's trade shows and models ( women holding the guitars ) showing a lot of both well known and lesser known guitar models ( many early solid body guitars that were later discontinued - plus their colour schemes such as " Cloverfield Green " and " Blonde " ). This also includes the Bass guitars. Also good info on all the models. It's weaknesses aren't many, it needs a bit of an overhaul / error check and an update on currently available models / colour schemes. I would have liked to have seen more colour photo's as many B&W photo's are available in colour on Rickenbacker's website. Plus it would have been nice to have a detailed drawing / explanation of the controls on a guitar ( tone, pickups, volume ) and the different types ( of pickups ) and how they evolved. This may mean creating 2 x volumes or parts ( Part 1 and Part 2 ). Overall a great book !

This is a great book that needs to be brought up to date. There are a lot of Rickenbacker guitar changes, deletions, and additions that have occurred since 1992.