THE UNSTOPPABLE RISE OF IBANEZ — THE IBANEZ THAT WE KNOW AND LOVE TODAY, THAT IS — STARTED 50 YEARS AGO. BELOW, CHRIS GILL DELVES INTO THE FASCINATING TALE OF ONE OF THE WORLD’S TOP GUITAR BRANDS
STORY BY CHRIS GILL PHOTO BY JEN ROSENSTEIN
The Ibanez story — as most of us know it — began that late-summer day at a European music trade show. However, the history of Ibanez guitars goes back much further than that. Hoshino Gakki Ten (“gakki ten” means “musical instrument company” in Japanese) started in 1908 when the Hoshino family decided to add a musical instrument department to its successful bookstore business. Interest in the guitar grew in Japan during the 1920s as the Hawaiian guitar craze reached Japan. Andres Segovia’s first concert in Japan in 1929 further expanded demand. Fortunately, Hoshino had started importing Salvador Ibanez guitars from Spain that same year.
As Hoshino’s business grew, the company became one of Japan’s biggest exporters of musical instruments, particularly during the mid Sixties when Beatlemania led to a significant boom in guitar sales. The U.S. was one of the most lucrative markets for Ibanez guitars, but it was difficult and confusing to conduct business there due to a lack of centralized distribution. Instead, distribution was handled by several dozen different regional distributors, each with its own separate practices and procedures.
Yoshihiro Hoshino decided to make the highly controversial move of dealing with just one agent in the U.S. to handle distribution. The most logical candidate was the Elger Company, owned by Harry Rosenbloom, who had a retail store that sold Hoshino products and who also was an importer, distributor and manufacturer. Further sweetening the deal was Elger’s strategic location in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles north of Philadelphia and close to several major highways that provided quick and easy access to major shipping ports, including Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newark and New York.
When Elger and Hoshino joined forces in 1972, the Ibanez guitar catalog resembled a “greatest hits” collection of America’s most popular acoustic and electric guitars. The acoustics were basically reproductions of Martin and Gibson models, while the electric guitars and basses included copies of various Gibsons (Les Pauls, SGs, ES-175s, ES-335 and 355s, a late-Sixties style Flying V, plus EB and Les Paul Recording basses), Fenders (Strats, Teles, Jazzmasters, P- and J-basses), Ampeg lucite guitars and basses, and Ampeg, Hofner and Rickenbacker s
