S. D. Curlee

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An example of an S.D. Curlee electric bass
An example of an S.D. Curlee electric bass

S.D. Curlee was a guitar manufacturer from Matteson, Illinois back in the late seventies and early eighties. The company went out of business after that, but for a while their electric basses were popular, much more so than their guitars. They were especially popular in Belgium during the late seventies and early eighties because of the poor products then coming from Fender.

[edit] History

This small enterprise was founded by Randy Curlee around 1975 in Matteson, Illinois. The name S.D was completely fictitious, but simply sounded better than the Randy/Curlee combination. According to Michael Wright (Guitar Stories), this independent entrepreneur build and sold around 15000 handcrafted instruments — 12000 bass guitars — between 1975 and 1982. Curlee wanted to offer a quality built instrument at an affordable price. Advertising campaigns were rather scarce: only a handful of ads exist. A rather classy 8 page color affair from 1979 and a few B/W flyers got some distribution.

During these years, the Curlee brand was also licensed to Hondo. This branding was a very clever move because in the seventies the Asian market was quite notorious for copying American and British originals without paying any royalties to the owner/designer.

During the early eigthies the climate for these 'all natural' instruments changed drastically. New composite materials like the carbon resin used on Steinberger, Status or Modulus instruments became the state of the art. Headless designs, flashy colors and an altogether different approach forced Curlee and his contemporary contenders into new grounds. Randy went to work for Yamaha instruments and sadly deceased in 2005. The sound of wood however did return; by the mid to late eighties companies like Spector and Warwick succeeded to re-introduce natural finishes.

[edit] Construction

The Curlee basses featured a unique blend of neck through body design and had a bolt-on neck, which was anchored in the body with a heavy brass plate.

All of the bass models shared the same basic, almost symmetrical shape, and were available in a fretless version. These were the various models:

  • Standard 1 (1 P-bass DiMarzio, mahogany body, maple neck)
  • Standard 2 (identical to the above but 2 pick ups)
  • Butcher (body made of butcher block maple)
  • Liberty
  • Curbeck (body made of walnut, maple stripes)
  • Summit (body and neck made of laminated walnut)
  • C-30 (violin shape, walnut/maple body, maple neck) probably the rarest Curlee Bass produced
  • Yankee (active electronics and a slightly more modern shape) - released in the early eighties.

Curlees featured state of the art hardware, usually included on much more expensive brands: Gold Grover tuning heads, Badass II bridges and high output DiMarzio's. The 32 1/2' medium scale neck proved a comfortable compromise.

[edit] Cultural effect and availability

Although the brand nowadays enjoys a minor cult-like status, only a few famous bassists were spotted with Curlee models in the mid to late seventies. Former Mahavishnu Orchestra bassist Rick Laird had one, R. "Skeet" Curtis played one (and still has it) while touring with Parliament, and Nick Lowe was using a Curlee fretless on a few assignments and that's about it.

As of 2006, Curlee basses occasionally appear on eBay for about US$400 and are generally considered a poor man's alternative to Alembic Inc.