1 3/4"
nut width
Compound-radius
fretboard
Middle-position clean tones drip with
a funky, soulful, and open bottom end,
yet also possess a biting toppiness.
Kern County Via Ventura
Our Bakersfield arrived dressed in a combination of visual elements borrowed from
Fenders of the ’50s and ’60s. The single-ply
Bakelite pickguard and brass saddles (which
are compensated to add modern functional-ity) on the Callaham bridge hearken to the
’50s, while the swamp ash body’s custom
sea foam finish and the thin rosewood
fretboard look and feel distinctly ’60s.
Elsewhere, however, the guitar is distinguished by contemporary nods to improved
playability. No doubt such features as the
forearm contour and tummy-cut are nods
to the TeleGib.
Our test guitar came with a Seymour
Duncan SM1 mini humbucker in the
neck position, though a traditional Tele-style single-coil wound specifically for the
Bakersfield by the Duncan Custom Shop
is also available in the neck position. At
the bridge, you’ll find a hand-wound Real
Broadcaster single-coil, another Duncan
Custom Shop design. Aside from the classic 3-way switch, the control plate is home
to Duncan’s Ultra-Smooth Tone pot and a
Liberator Volume pot that enables solderless
pickup swapping.
The most striking feature of the
Bakersfield might well be the neck, which
has a nice beefy profile lifted directly from
a ’ 52 blackguard Telecaster, and an ample
1 3/4" nut width that’s a string-bender’s
dream. The compound fretboard radius
goes from a flat, Gibson-like 12" to an even
flatter 16" after the 12th fret. Compared to
a typical vintage 7. 25" radius and 1 5/8"
nut width, the difference is significant, feeling a bit like a comfortable acoustic guitar
neck—little surprise given the name on the
headstock.
Bakersfield Heat
Warming up with some scales, I discov-
ered the Bakersfield’s smooth, low action
felt great. At times, the neck felt a bit too
new, and some rounding of the fretboard
edges and fret ends would have gone a long
way to make the Larrivée feel a little more
broken-in. But that minor gripe failed to
distract me from the pleasing resonance in
both the body and neck. The guitar felt
warm and bassy unplugged, which, I sus-
pected, would translate into some thicker-
than-average Tele tones.
