Who was the first guitar player to rock a reverse headstock? Hint: It wasn't Jimi Hendrix.
Jimi Hendrix and Otis Rush flipped their right-handed guitars over and played them lefty. Steve Miller flipped a lefty over and played it righty. They all certainly helped to popularize the look of the upside down headstock, but none played a true "reverse headstock", with the orientation of the headstock intentionally mismatched to the body. So who was the first player to do it? And which guitar company was the first to offer it as original spec?
The idea of situating the tuning machines along the treble side of an electric guitar headstock is probably older than you think. The Iolana lap-steel, manufactured by Valco in the 50's, was a double-neck affair with a reverse-headstock on the lower of the two necks to improve tuner access. The first production 6-string electric guitar to feature a reverse headstock - on a neck-through design no less - was the Gibson Firebird®, which was released 1963. This model is now commonly referred to as the "Reverse Firebird®", not because of its reverse headstock, but because of the unusual prominence of its lower bout. The tuning machines on those early models were "banjo-style" tuners, with the buttons situated behind the headstock, in-line with the gears.
The reverse headstock as we think of it today was certainly inspired by players like Otis Rush, Jimi Hendrix, and Steve Miller, all known for rotating the entire guitar 180 degrees and playing it upside down. While Otis and Jimi may have done it out of necessity (left-handed models being somewhat rare), Steve probably did it because he liked the look. However, flipping the guitar over in such a manner had an undesirable side-effect: it put the controls, tremolo bar, and output jack in an unusual and awkward position, and inhibited access to the upper frets.
Fender® instruments, however, had an important distinction from other manufacturers. Their modular, bolt-on design opened up the possibility of mixing and matching components. The first person to actually bolt a left-handed neck to a right-handed body was probably someone who, like Steve Miller, simply liked the look of the topsy-turvy headstock. Unlike Miller, however, this approach allowed them to keep the guitar's controls, tremolo bar, and output jack in the traditional locations.
So, who was it?
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