Jackson

Grover Jackson founded Jackson Guitars in Glendora, California, in 1980, and the pointed-headstock, sharp-cornered guitars that followed — Rhoads, Soloist, King V, Kelly — became the visual shorthand for 1980s metal almost as much as the music itself. Randy Rhoads' own signature model, developed with Jackson while he played for Ozzy Osbourne, set the template the rest of the range grew from. Fender bought Jackson outright in 2002 and now builds it across Corona, Ensenada and Japan for the higher-end lines, with budget models out of Indonesia and China. New signature guitars for metal players — Misha Mansoor, Jeff Loomis and others — are the backbone of our Jackson coverage. Here's what we've written.