Remembering the genius of Ken Parker

The maverick luthier has passed away aged  73, but his legacy shows he was always ahead of the curve

Ken Parker, an underrated and ingenious guitar maker, has died aged 73 after a two-year battle with cancer.  

Parker Guitars may not be a household name, and it’s actually highly unlikely that those reading this will own one of his builds, but a look at his legacy of craftsmanship proves that he was always one step ahead of the curve. In fact, the ripples caused by his greatest achievement can still be felt at the heart of one of modern guitar’s most forward-thinking companies.

Raised in parsonages in Kensington, Connecticut, in Islip, Long Island (for ten formative years), and in Poughkeepsie, New York, Parker was just 13 when he made his first-ever guitar out of cardboard and wood. Afterwards, he built a bass for his brother, Alan, to further test and develop his skills.

In the early 1970s, Ken moved to Rochester, NY, to work with furniture maker Richard Newman, where he began designing and building stringed instruments, including his first archtop guitar.

Parker came to the realisation that a guitar must be “in agreement with itself.” He felt that each instrument must be perfectly balanced by every measure to perform at its absolute best.

A decade after opening a shop in Connecticut, where he worked on all kinds of stringed instruments, he founded Parker Guitars, having looked at two unlikely animals for inspiration for what would become his flagship axe's most unique feature.

An excellent exoskeleton

Speaking of his signature Parker Fly last year, former King Crimson and current BEAT guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew sang Parker's praises.

“I felt like Ken Parker had taken 20 years to eliminate all the things that normally happen with electric guitars,” he told Premier Guitar. “All the problems you have, the tuning, the neck, the frets wearing out; everything that normally can go wrong with a Fender or Gibson. He figured it all out.”

The crucial change to the electric guitar recipe? A carbon fiber exoskeleton.

“Wooden guitars tend to deform, Parker told D'Addario last year. “The wood is loaded with a tensile force of all the strings, and that's quite a lot of force for a little piece of wood to sustain year after year.

“So this is where composite material comes in, and I added it to wood as an ingredient to help the wood withstand the continual load that it sees as a result of having a set of guitar strings tuned up to pitch.

Parker guitars are made from lightweight woods. With a stronger outershell, the core of the guitar becomes less important.

“We wanted to deliver a high-quality product that didn't need repair and would hang in there and serve the musician as a dependable piece of gear. So, just like a cicada or a lobster, all the strength of the structure is right at the outside surface. We don't really care so much about the material on the inside if it's strong. Most of the loads are being taken by the skin of the structure.”

Belew says it makes the guitar “10,000 times stronger,” solidifies tuning stability, and never needs intonating as a result. You could stand on the neck, and it would take it like a champ.

The next generation

What makes this particularly impressive is that, today, Dutch guitar makers Aristides are heralded as one of the best for its progressive approach to luthiery. These guitars are made from a special material called Arium, and are made from moulds, meaning the entire guitar is a one-piece construction, then capped with a richlite fretboard.

Arium, essentially a carbon fiber-like material, was created after a team of Dutch scientists began an extensive research operation to find the ultimate guitar-making material. Work started in 1995, two years after the Parker Fly was introduced.

Sure, there are differences between the two concepts, but it could be argued that Parker’s innovations were the precursor to the research that would, in 2007, result in the birth of Aristides guitars.

Aristides springboarded off Parker’s groundwork and has proved that wood isn’t actually a vital ingredient for electric guitars. Its richlite boards are also made from paper, so aren’t classed as woods – a claim the firm stood by even after I told them that paper comes from trees. But I’m no scientist.  

Of course, there are still plenty of purists out there who bawk at innovative guitars. But those who have embraced these guitars can vouch for their effectiveness. They sing like angels and stay in tune far better than your standard Stratocaster.

A bridge of no sorrows

The exoskeleton wasn't Parker's only innovation; his bridge system was next level. It was a lightweight tremolo with rock-solid tuning stability, while an in-built housing accommodated piezo pickups, bestowing his electric guitars with authentic acoustic tones. And it was built to be versatile.

It could be set up to be a floating, Floyd Rose-style trem, have a dive-only action like a Strat, or be a traditional hardtail, and there was a tuning wheel on top of the body, later hidden within the body of the guitar, to adjust string tension. It seems incredible that this concept hasn't been adopted/copied by other firms yet.

And that headstock looks familiar, right? While his bridge hasn't been copied, that headstock certainly has.

In his later years, Parker's archtop guitars relied less on carbon fiber, only using it to reinforce the neck and its neck joint. He continued to evolve, challenging not only the decades-old electric guitar recipe but his own signature brews, too.

I recently had the honour of reviewing the new Strandberg Boden N2 Standard. I made a point there that stands here. The Fender Stratocaster has hardly changed in its 70+ years in existence, and that's the case for most electrics. Strandberg, Parker, and Aristides challenge that concept - they're always looking forward, rather than simply cashing in on nostalgia or getting complacent.

D’Addario called Ken Parker “the man who changed guitar forever.” It’s hard to argue with that.

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