The Swede sound of Hagstrom Guitars
by Luke Taylor
July 08, 2015
If you don't immediately recognize the name Hagstrom Guitars, there may be good reason for that.
"In the 1950s, there was some concern that an American audience wouldn't be comfortable with this 'Hagstrom' kind of guitar," explains Laura Cederberg, " so many of the original guitars were sold as Goya guitars."
By summer's end, Cederberg and her colleagues at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis hope the Hagstrom guitar will be much more well-known, at least among Minnesotans. Until Oct. 25, the ASI is hosting an exhibit called "Amp Up! The Hagstrom Guitar Sensation." The exhibit features a number of Hagstrom guitars from the 1950s to the present, and the exhibit is augmented by a series of concerts by local musicians who will get to play one of the displayed instruments.
Local musician Mark Ritsema helps get the series started on Wednesday, July 8, at 8 p.m., when he and his band, Suzie, perform at the ASI's Turnblad Mansion Ballroom. Ritsema had been unfamiliar with Hagstrom guitars at one time, too, but when he played in the local band Mouthful of Bees, he noticed lead singer Chris Farstad playing one. "Once I saw that I started recognizing it more," Ritsema says. "I noticed that Bowie used it, and Kurt Cobain had one at one point."
Besides Bowie and Cobain, Elvis Presley and Frank Zappa are among other rock legends who played Hagstrom guitars. It's an impressive roster for a company that began as an accordion maker. Hagstrom was founded in 1925 by Albin Hagstrom in Älvdalen, Dalecarlia, Sweden. Dalecaria — called Dalarna in Swedish — is a province that stretches across the central portion of the country. "There are two things in people's heads when they think about this part of Sweden," Cederberg says, "they're thinking about the Dala Horse and [about] Hagstrom."
The Hagstrom Company built a solid reputation as an accordion maker and as a music educator, through its shops that not only sold instruments, but also offered lessons and learning materials. In the 1950s, however, Hagstrom began to notice a decline in interest in the accordion. "Hagstrom's son actually goes to New York and quickly finds out that everybody is abuzz with rock 'n' roll, and so he comes back and he says, 'Let's look at the guitar; maybe this is a new way to get in on it'," Cederberg explains.
The decision turned out to be good for business and for musicians. Hagstrom was able to reapply a lot of the techniques he used in building accordions to guitars. "Hagstroms are glitter guitars, really sparkly, using the remnants of this mother of pearl production that they had," Cederberg says. "It also becomes quite more efficient to make a guitar; it's about four times cheaper to make one Hagstrom guitar than it is to make one Hagstrom accordion."
Hagstrom also earned a reputation for the sturdy truss rod inserted in the necks of its guitars, which allowed the necks to be made of thinner material. The company also began using fiberglass — again, an idea borrowed from the accordion — as the fretboard material. With thin necks, smooth fretboards, and a lower string setting than most other guitars on the market, the Hagstrom gained a reputation as an easy soloing instrument.
Ritsema recalls what struck him about the Hagstrom guitar when he heard Farstad playing one in Mouthful of Bees. "He played that guitar really jangly and loud; it had a really cool surf tone to it," Ritsema says. "So after I played with him, I actually went and bought my own Hagstrom from Twin Town, and it was a really nice hollow body mahogany Hagstrom, a newer one."
Ritsema says he wasn't exactly sure what he was getting when he purchased his Hagstrom, explaining he was drawn to the instrument's design, but he certainly enjoyed playing it. "It's more of a jazz-sounding guitar when you play it unplugged or just clean," he says. "I was running it through chorus and flanger and distortion even, and with a hollow body, you can get some really weird sounds. I was mostly doing that, and it turned into a psychedelic sound, but still a really bright tone — sort of tinny but in a good way."
Alas, Ritsema's time with the Hagstrom would be short lived. "In the first month, I dropped it, and it broke — shattered, basically. I haven't played one since, and that was about six years ago," he says.
This week, that will change. As part of being invited to perform at the American Swedish Institute, Ritsema gets to pick one of the exhibit's guitars to play at the concert. Ritsema's band, Suzie, may throw in a few originals, but their set will feature a lot of covers, including a number of songs by Swedish producer and songwriter Max Martin, who has written for such pop stars as Justin Bieber and Britney Spears. "We're also to do a cover of this band, Makthaverskan , which is a new Swedish band, they're more like an indie rock band," Ritsema says. "So we're going to focus on the pop music, like the ABBA side of stuff."
Suzie will even look to Swedish street fashion for its onstage wardrobe. Asked if he and his bandmates considered the matching outfits popular with 1970s Swedish dance bands, Ritsema just chuckles. "That would be cool, too," he says. "but we're on a budget."
Amp Up! The Hagstrom Guitar Sensation is on exhibit at the American Swedish Institute until Oct. 25. The ASI is also exhibiting The History of Swedish Music in Three Minutes or Less, featuring the Gothenburg Combo guitar duo. Further details are available on the American Swedish Institute's website.
