S. D. Curlee

S.D. Curlee was a guitar manufacturer from Matteson, Illinois back in the late seventies and early eighties. The company went out of business after that, but for a while their electric basses were popular, much more so than their guitars. They were especially popular in Belgium during the late seventies and early eighties because of the poor products then coming from Fender.

History

This small enterprise was founded by Randy Curlee around 1975 in Matteson, Illinois. The name S.D Curlee came from the three original designers, Sonny Storbeck, Randy Dritz, and Randy Curlee. According to Michael Wright (Guitar Stories), this independent entrepreneur build and sold around 15000 handcrafted instruments — 12000 bass guitars — between 1975 and 1982. Curlee wanted to offer a quality built instrument at an affordable price. Advertising campaigns were rather scarce: only a handful of ads exist. A rather classy 8 page color affair from 1979 and a few B/W flyers got some distribution.

During these years, the Curlee brand was also licensed to Hondo. S.D. Curlee were one of the first instrument manufacturers to use this approach to the issue of unlicenced copies of premium brands. Many other instrument companies subsequently followed their lead, such as the Fender's Squier brand of asian manufactured products and more recently the OLP brand of licensed MusicMan products.

During the early eigthies the climate for these 'all natural' instruments changed drastically. New composite materials like the carbon resin used on Steinberger, Status or Modulus instruments became the state of the art. Headless designs, flashy colors and an altogether different approach forced Curlee and his contemporary contenders into new grounds. Randy went to work for Yamaha instruments and sadly deceased in 2005.

The sound of wood however did return; by the mid to late eighties companies like Spector and Warwick succeeded to re-introduce natural finishes.

Construction

The Curlee instruments featured a unique blend of neck through body design and had a bolt-on neck, which was anchored in the body with a heavy brass plate.

All of the bass models shared the same basic, almost symmetrical shape (inspired by the Gibson Les Paul double cutaway Junior), and were available in a fretless version. These were the various models:

* Standard 1 (1 P-bass DiMarzio, mahogany body, maple neck, originally equiped with a Gibson like humbucker located near the bridge)
* Standard 2 (identical to the above but 2 pick ups)
* Butcher (body made of butcher block maple)
* Liberty
* Curbeck (body made of walnut, maple stripes)
* Summit (body and neck made of laminated walnut)
* C-30 (violin shape, walnut/maple body, maple neck) probably the rarest Curlee Bass produced
* Yankee (active electronics ,walnut body, maple neck, small upper horn/lower bout inclination, ...sort of an 'updated'version of the Curbeck ) - released in the early eighties. The Yankee was advertised with three different pick up configurations; 1 P-bass (Yankee I), 2-Pbass (Yankee II) and the rare Yankee II-J including 1 p-bas (bridge)/J-bass (neck). Most Yankees have a 2 p-bass pick-up set up (Yankee II).

Curlees featured state of the art hardware, usually included on much more expensive brands: Gold Grover tuning heads, Badass II bridges and high output DiMarzio's. The 32 1/2' medium scale neck proved a comfortable compromise. Everlasting sustain and playability are the basic ingredients of these instruments. Unfortunately, some bassguitars have truss-rod issues. Curlee's are an acquired taste but they are undoubtedly 'steals', outclassing much more expensive basses.

For one reason or another, Curlee introduced a German Carve body finish and silver hardware on all latter day models.

Cultural effect and availability

Although the brand nowadays enjoys a minor cult-like status, only a few famous bassists were spotted with Curlee models in the mid to late seventies. Former Mahavishnu Orchestra bassist Rick Laird had one, R. "Skeet" Curtis played one (and still has it) while touring with Parliament, and Nick Lowe was using a Curlee fretless on a few assignments and that's about it.

As of 2006, Curlee basses occasionally appear on eBay for about US$400 and are generally considered a poor man's alternative to Alembic Inc.