Tha t Wa s The Year... 1975 Margaret, Rembrandt & Gabriel
FENDER DISCONTINUES ITS JAGUAR GUITAR! Introduced in 1962, the Fender Jaguar is finally dropped from the production schedule in its unlucky 13th year, due to disappointing sales compared to the cheaper Stratocasters and Telecasters. With its twin single-coil pickups and offset body shape (as first used on the Jazzmaster) it’s a sad loss, tempered by its inevitable rise thanks to a new wave of players.
HANDSHAKES ALL ROUND as an American Apollo spacecraft docks with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in orbit for the first time; NASA launches Viking 1 as part of its Mars Mission; Rembrandt’s The Night Watch painting is slashed while on show in Amsterdam; and the Space Mountain attraction opens at Walt Disney World in Florida.
GUILD INTRODUCES THE D-40C Bluegrass Jubilee Cutaway adding a sharp Florentine cutaway to allow easy access to the upper frets on this popular model. This dreadnought sports a solid spruce top, mahogany back and sides, bound body and a solid one-piece Honduras mahogany neck. It has a rosewood fingerboard and the natural-finish body is bestowed with a tortoiseshell pickguard.
NEW MUSICAL RECRUITS include Jack White, KT Tunstall, Michael Bublé, Enrique Iglesias, Natalie Imbruglia, Jack Johnson, Tom Delonge and Spice Girl Mel B. Demobilised are T-Bone Walker, Tim Buckley and Pete Ham of Badfinger. Ronnie Wood joins The Rolling Stones; bassist Steve Harris forms Iron Maiden; Led Zeppelin sell out three concerts at Madison Square Garden, New York in four hours; Ritchie Blackmore leaves Deep Purple and forms Rainbow; Peter Gabriel leaves Genesis and drummer Phil Collins takes on lead vocals.
MICROSOFT IS FOUNDED by Bill Gates and Paul Allen; Japanese mountain climber Junko Tabei is the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest; oceanic explorer Jacques Cousteau finds the wreck of HMHS Britannic which sank in 1916; and both VHS and Betamax systems compete to become the accepted video-recorder standard.
FOLLOWING A REFERENDUM the UK votes to stay in the European Community; the Group of six industrialised nations is formed under the heading of G6; in Scotland, the first petroleum pipeline connecting Grangemouth and Cruden Bay is opened for business; the price of petrol increases by nearly 70 per cent during the year as inflation spirals; Margaret Thatcher is the new Prime Minister; and the war in Vietnam finally comes to an end.
A SMALL RUN OF STARCASTER guitars and even the odd bass slips out of the Fender factory. It’s the Big F’s answer to Gibson’s ES-335 with a bound semi-hollow asymmetrical double-cut maple body, arched top and f-holes attached to a bolt-on maple neck with a new headstock shape and a maple fingerboard. The electronics are OTT, with two volume and two tone controls plus a master volume and three-way selector, all for the twin humbucking pickups.