Randy Rhoads’ Guitars and Gear

As far as the dating goes, Randy supposedly started using the Harmony around the age of 12 – which would be circa 1968/69, and his mother Mrs. Rhoads described the guitar as “old” in an interview given years later. Randy’s brother Kelle guessed that the guitar was probably from 1964 or 1965.
Going from that, and based on the photos of the guitar taken at Musonia on which we can see that the guitar has red burst finish, two pickups, and a tremolo bridge – we can guess that the guitar was most likely a 1965 H56 model. First single cutaway Harmony Rocket to feature the tremolo bridge was introduced in 1965, and it was made up until 1967 when it was replaced with a double cutaway model. Comparing this info with Kelle’s estimation, the year 1965 seems most plausible.

Randy’s SG was supposedly originally red, and it was repainted in black after Randy got the guitar. This info is purely speculative, as there are very few photographs of Randy playing this SG.

What’s unclear about this guitar is exact time of the purchase, and it’s origins. In an interview with Gibson, Randy’s brother Kelle said that Randy bought the guitar himself from a Guitar Center, and that it was slightly used. During an interview with Randy’s mother in 1982, she said that the guitar came from the owner of a rehearsal studio that the bend (Quiet Riot) was playing at.
These two stories do not necessarily contradict each other; Randy might have seen the guitar at the Guitar Center, and talked about it with his bandmates. We couldn’t find out who exactly is the person who owned that studio, but for what it’s worth, he might have been a very good friend of Randy, and someone who strongly believed in Randy and his talent – so he bought the guitar for Randy.

Be it as it may, the guitar was probably purchased in late 1974, or the early 1975, and it quickly became Randy’s favorite instrument. He used it on practically all off the live gigs with the Quiet Riot, and for some stuff on “Blizzard of Ozz” with Ozzy Osbourne. It was completely stock, except for the tuners which were replaced with Schallers.

The KS Flying V was finished in black with white polka-dots all over the body and neck. The hardware was originally chrome from Fender, but it was replaced with black, and the guitar was equipped with a DiMarzio Distortion Plus in the bridge position and a DiMarzio PAF in the neck.

Shortly after Randy received the guitar, the unusually-shaped headstock broke after the guitar fell on the ground accidentally –  but it was soon replaced and re-painted. The whole neck was supposedly originally taken from a ’60s Danelectro guitar, and didn’t have a truss rod, so Randy struggled to keep it in tune. Nonetheless, he played this guitar very often live, but it’s unclear if he ever recorded something on it. When he joined Ozzy in 1980, he received the white Charvel, but we couldn’t find out if this happened before the recording of “Blizzard of Ozz” or after. Max Norman who produced the album remembers that Randy used a polka-dot Charvel on pretty much all the guitar tracks (The 1982 Max Norman Interview), but Karl Sandoval V was the only polka-dot guitar that Randy owned at that time, so Max was probably talking about this guitar.

Randy enjoyed his white Concorde, but felt that the body shape was not distinctive enough from the traditional Flying V, so he decided to elongate the top ‘horn’ on the new prototype, which resulted in a more aggressive look. Guys from Jackson also added their own ideas, which included a gold pickguard, and fixed tailpiece with strings anchored in the body instead of a tremolo.
The guitar also featured Grover locking tuners and Seymour Duncan pickups (TB-4 bridge and a SH-2 neck).