I discovered exactly who built the first iteration of Ry Cooder's bottleneck 'Coodercaster' guitar. It was
John Carruthers from
Carruthers Guitars, 346 Sunset Avenue, Venice, CA a few blocks from Ry Cooders home in Santa Monica.
Here is a picture of the Carruthers Guitars machine shop where the machining work was done to mount the pickup, and to retain the fender bridge.
I was interested to find out the approximate date, and what the circumstances were that prompted this work.
I (wrongly) assumed that the first recorded example of the use of this Oahu/Fender was the soundtrack of Blue City Down which was released on 2nd May 1986. I have subsequently found that this soundtrack was recorded using the
'daphne blue' stratocaster with the p90 in the bridge position through a tone booster and a Gates Sta-Level broadcast compressor, as was the bulk of the 'Crossroads' soundtrack music, recorded from May 1985 - September 1985 at Studio B, Ocean Way Recording, 6050 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood.
It seems the Crossroads project was the impetus for the development of the Oahu/Fender, especially the sound Ry was trying to get for the 'guitar duel' scene at the end of the film.
During a 6 week location filming in the Mississippi Delta, Arlen Roth (who was training Ralph Machio the lead actor to mime guitar playing) came across 'Frank Frost and the Wonders' playing together with 'Son Thomas' in a Juke Joint in Greenville, Miss.. The guitarist was playing slide on a 1959 Supro Ozark, just like this one below - fitted with the Oahu string through pickup.
Ry Cooder loved the sound they made, and organised for Frank Frost to be included in the film for the 'juke joint' scene at the end.
By the time they returned from location shooting and all turned up at the film lot in LA a month or so later for the final 'Crossroads' shoots (in an exact studio built recreation of the Greenville, Miss Juke Joint) things had changed. Ry had been to John Carruthers shop and now had an Oahu pickup mounted on his 1960's sunburst 'Buddy Holly Reissue' stratocaster. (Which he had bought as a scrap, body only piece).
He used this to record the Ralph Machio 'mimed' slide parts for the final scene guitar duel against Steve Vai.
Guitar Duel from 'Crossroads' film.
As far as I can tell, this is the first recorded 'Coodercaster' output.
Quote from Arlen Roth
'Walter Hill wanted the end to be more of a "boxing match" as he put it, so I guess it had to be the blues version of the Karate Kid, starring Ralph Macchio!!! This all disappointed Cooder quite a bit, too, as he was supposed to be "on camera" for the part Vai eventually played in the film. The scene originally opened also with Vai cutting down Shuggie Otis (onetime guitar phenom and son of the renowned LA blues bandleader, Johnny Otis), but after many days of shooting, it ended up on the cutting room floor, because they said it was not politically correct to have a white guy beating a black guy - even if the white guy was supposed to be the devil..'.
This guitar was subtly different from the coodercasters built by Dave Hill - it had a Gibson PAF humbucker in the neck position similar to the ones used by Keith Richard (no Teisco),
Here is a picture of this 'Carruthers Coodercaster' guitar, from January 1988.
Dave Hill built his first Coodercaster in mid 1987, as far as I can determine. He used a Teisco pickup in the neck position on all his guitars, since he loved the sound that John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf had been getting from their guitars fitted with Teisco Gold Foils in the '60's and '70's.
The Crossroads film was released on 14th March 1986. Arlen Roth wrote a monthly column in 'Guitar Player' magazine, several of which talked about the making of the Crossroads film.
David Lindley came into the possession of a Teisco equipped 'Dave Hill Coodercaster' sometime in early/mid 1988. As far as I can discover, he did not buy it directly from Dave Hill.
Ry Cooder didn't change his neck pickup to a Teisco (at the suggestion of David Lindley) until well after he recorded 'Get Rhythm' which was released in November 1987.
In
this fascinating (and definitive) interview recorded in 2006 you can hear Ry Cooder himself talk about these two guitars, the 'Daphne Blue' Stratocaster and the Sunburst 'Buddy Holly Reissue' Coodercaster.
The 'Daphne Blue' Stratocaster originally had had a p90 added to the bridge position. This guitar was his main bottleneck instrument up to and including the Crossroads film project. It was subsequently modified for soundtrack work, ballads and 'touching' music by the addition of a bigsby tailpiece, a replica 8 string bigsby steel guitar pickup (made by Paul Warnick) in the bridge position and a guyatone single coil pickup in the neck position. It is fitted with flatwound strings and is mainly kept in Open G tuning.
The sunburst 'Buddy Holly Reissue' Coodercaster was fitted with the budget mail order Oahu pickup (with the one fake wooden magnet) to complete the Crossroads soundtrack project. This instrument has subsequently been modified many times, with the neck pickup being changed from the Gibson PAF humbucker to a Teisco Gold Foil at the suggestion of David Lindley sometime during or after 1988. We know it certainly had a Teisco neck pickup by 1992, but this may have been fitted much earlier. It is fitted with roundwound strings and is usually tuned to Open D.
My Dave Hill Coodercaster is dated 4th November 1989.