Not sure who exactly did it, but if you play an "old" Capri, with the higher waist, and a "later" one, you'll immediately be aware of the immense improvement in playing comfort...the guitar balances better if you're sitting down, and the headstock end of the neck is right in reach. This makes the guitar feel more compact than it is. I love the beauty of the old Capris, but for sit-down playing, the new style wins hands-down.
Now, who plays sitting down, you ask?
Re: Fender Coronado and especially LTD. I was musically active and an equipment gearhead back in the mid-to-late '60s when these were fresh on the market, and as far as I can remember, they were met with stunned silence. I think they sold like Valentine's Day cards on February 15th.
The music scene, primarily in the UK ,Oz, and America, was changing rapidly and the guys in charge (who were fully 30 years older than their customer base at the time), ranged in attitude from, "they'll like what we give them as long as it's got bright shiny stuff all over it" (witness that Kay knockoff bass and all the Japanese solidbody stuff that came out in post-'64--mediocre at very best, and mostly nasty, cheap and anything but cheerful, though much of it is highly-collectible these days), to real attempts at breaking new sonic and aesthetic ground (Mosrite, Rickenbacker 12s, transistor keyboards).
Here we've got the collision between the acoustic expert, traditionally-trained luthier who was Rossmeisl, with his German esthetic and eye for detail and European methods and vision, and an America that began the guitar blitz weakly with the cowboy music, and then the Kingston Trio and PP & M (in any event, flattop Western guitars ruled) and then built upon itself and bled over into electric instruments with the Invasion, in a HUGE way.
His work for Gibson largely ignored, he moved on to doing lovely work for Rickenbacker (the unrealized peak of his powers) and went on to play a large part in Fender's post-CBS foray into acoustic instruments, if Forrest White's account of this episode is to be believed. Here's this mega-conglomerate, arrogant as hell, but having limited knowledge and industry connections, being faced with a directive to capture X percent of the acoustic market away from Martin, Gibson, and Guild. Who turns up but Rossmeisl with pretty decent credentials and a really nice portfolio, talking the talk and walking the walk. After he gets the acoustic operation moving along and fires put out, he sells Fender management (or they sell him?) on a premium line of acoustics and acoustic/electrics, which they put together with the Wildwood dye process and lay the biggest egg of the '60s.
The LTD, though a collectible rarity now, was the culmination (read: biggest flop) of the whole mess, with a very weird combination of post war Teutonic details (German-carved top, checkerboard purfling, traditional German proportions of the day) with "modern" American appointments like coloration and some of the hardware details. There are a number of jarring notes; among them is the AWFUL tailpiece design, the FUSSY pickup rings, the totally NON-FENDER headstock, and of course those nasty color combinations.
Funny, many of these elements worked and continue to work on Rickenbacker instruments, but fell worse than flat on the Fenders. I don't regret that; in fact, I'm glad that there aren't too many of these things to lay eyes on. The era has been over for a long time and I'm glad of that.
That having been said, Dan, anytime you want to consider unloading that monstrosity
, let me know!
