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Rock 'n' Roll Star

These are not exactly commonplace. In fact, in all my years of looking for Kawai guitars, I've never seen another anywhere until last year, when they started appearing all over the world!

The Kawai Rock ‘n’ Roll Star seems to have been around at the same time as the KS range - so that would make it a late 70s/early 80s guitar.  This is deduction again on my part rather than definitive information.  This image (right) was taken from the same Kawai guitar catalogue that featured the KS10, KS11 and KS12 models.

Again, you can’t criticise Kawai for being unimaginative, or for turning out derivative copies of established guitar designs!

The body is actually quite thin, and although it obviously has a soundhole, the acoustic volume of this guitar is low.  The body is made of silver heart with a spruce top, and a has a three piece silver heart neck.

I’ve seen these guitars with either P90 (as shown) or covered coil humbuckers as standard, and I’ve also seen a few with a second pickup added in the soundhole as a “mod”.

It was available in metallic blue, cherry sunburst or brown sunburst.

I acquired my Rock n Roll Star when Toddy (Blondie UK - see www.blondieuk.com) found this site and emailed me to tell me that he'd been asked to repair one ... and might I be interested in it?

I met up with John in a service station car park ... some cash changed hands in one direction, and a new guitar was added to my Kawai collection.

This guitar has certainly had a hard working life.  Although it hasn’t suffered the “usual” mod of a pickup in the soundhole, it has had a coil tap switch retro fitted, handily just below the soundhole.  Try missing that when strumming!  It also looks like it’s had some sort of Bigsby abberation fitted.  The photo doesn’t show it, but the top is coming away from the body, and there are numerous dings all over it. 

One day, just after I get rich, I’ll maybe get it some proper tlc, and have it refinished properly.