Melody Triple Cutway floating bridge 1960

AMONG THE SPARKLE CELLULOID GUITAR MAKERS WHO STARTED IN THE RECANATI/CASTELFIDARDO AROUND 1961, MELODY IS THE LEAST KNOWN. THEIR INSTRUMENTS ARE AMONG THE MOST INTERESTING THOUGH. BUT THEY ARE ALWAYS CONFUSED WITH EKO’S. NOT WITHOUT REASON, SINCE MANY OF THEM WEAR AN EKO LOGO. HERE’S THE STORY.

The Melody company was set up in 1961 in Potenza Picena, a small town only six miles from Recanati. Founding associates were: Stellio Pescetti, Mr Gerio (ex-accountant of the Marinucci company), Giuliano Gurini (formerly of Marinucci), Fernando Piatti (previously of La Clavietta, a subsidiary of Marinucci), and Mr Branko Kapitanovec, a Yugoslav citizen who came from Eko (which reminds us of the relationship Eko’s founder Oliviero Pigini had with the Slovenian maker Melodija Mengeš back in the 50′s). As a whole, a well experienced team in guitar making.

Melody guitars from the sixties first half shared mostly the same hardware, electronics and general design as the early Crucianelli, Welson and especially Bartolini / Gemelli electrics, except that they never had any zero-fret — which was the right thing to do. There were very skilled people in the company. Melody introduced as soon as 1963 a neck adjustment system which was just like the “Micro Tilt Neck” patented by Fender seven years later!

In 1964-65 a powerful shareholder joined the company, Oliviero Pigini and his Eko group, who were looking for additional production capacities. Mr Branko stepped back. Melody became for all practical purposes an Eko subsidiary. Melody instruments were rebadged with an Eko logo, then the company manufactured virtually only Eko products. From 1969 on the Melody name was sporadically revived as a sub-brand of Eko to liquidate inventories of unsold instruments.

Finally, Eko withdrew in 1972 from the company’s capital. Independent again, Melody dedicated itself to developing models of its own, mainly flat top acoustics that show a very strong and very logical influence from Eko. Then the electrics evolved more and more towards perfect copies of Gibson and Fender models, just like Gherson was doing at the same time.

Ironically, Melody managed to survive longer than its ex-parent company Eko. Following Eko’s demise in 1983 its production manager Remo Serrangeli joined Melody, which remained in activity until 1988. If it was not for the long gap of 1964 through 1972, one could say that Melody was Italy’s longest living guitar making company in modern times.

The first generation is defined by the neck construction, made of five converging pieces of maple/rosewood (or oak?), and the very special headstock. The non-adjustable floating bridge, similar to the one fitted on the oldest Bartolinis and Welsons, distinguishes the earliest examples.

As for all Bartolini, Gemelli, Crucianelli, Welson etc. guitars from those years, electronics were sourced from Nando Marchetti, Castelfidardo, and the vibrato was the well known generic device made by the Gama company, also in Castelfidardo. But for the tuners Melody generally preferred Van Ghents (like Eko).

Unlike all other makes from the Castelfidardo-Recanati district, Melody solidbodies never were fitted with a glued-in neck, they had from the beginning a bolt-on neck, with the distinctive T-shaped three-screw neck plate. Did Melody apply this solution even before Eko did? This cannot be ruled out. The company was quite advanced. And didn’t use a zero fret