Charvel

Charvel is a famous guitar brand that was renowned for their outstanding quality and fast playability. The Charvel brand of guitars was originally owned and manufactured by Wayne Charvel in Azusa, California. Their guitars were made popular by famous guitarists such as Edward Van Halen, George Lynch (Dokken), Warren DeMartini (Ratt) and Jake E. Lee (Ozzy Osbourne).

The original Charvel guitar models were actually unique custom revamps of the Fender Stratocaster. Apart from other custom built guitars, the Charvel guitar featured a Strat-shaped body with a single humbucker and Fender style tremolo bridge system. Wayne Charvel sold the company to his partner Grover Jackson in 1978. Soon Wayne ceased to have any real association with the brand name. By 1980, Grover collaborated with Randy Rhoads to create a new range of guitars designed by Randy.

The initial versions created by Randy were not angular enough. However, the second version was a radically styled neck-through guitar. It was named by Randy as the "Concorde". According to Grover, this new guitar was quite different from the Charvel models and so named it after his own name. This new version became known as the "Rhoads Model", which was the inspiration behind establishing the Jackson guitar company. The Rhoads Model was one of Jackson’s top selling guitars.

By 1989, Jackson Charvel was sold to the Japanese manufacturer AMIC and was subsequently bought by Fender. Several Charvel guitars including the Charvel EVH Art Series guitar and Charvel electric guitar are available in many online music stores.