Over the years, there have been countless brands of American guitars built in small numbers - with many of them being high quality instruments that simply did not have the marketing or broad distribution to become long lasting enterprises.

The subject of this post is an Oasis electric guitar that belongs to my friend and former bandmate Eric Tucker, who is also the chef at Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco.  I've had the pleasure of playing and even recording with this fine instrument, many years ago.

The Oasis brand existed from around the mid-70s until the early or mid-80s and the company was headed by luthier Gary Cooper, who worked in the San Francisco Bay Area. I haven't confirmed it, but I believe Cooper may have been an alum of Alembic or had some association with that Bay area firm. I have no idea how big the Oasis operation was - given the rarity of the instruments it may well have been a one-man operation.

This particular Oasis is built from what I believe is korina - a blonde mahogany - made famous for its use in the original 1950s Gibson Flying V and Explorer.

Eric's recollection is that he got the guitar in 1982 at either 48th Street Music or Stuyvesant Music in exchange for a Guild and a Yamaha acoustic. The guitar is probably from the late 70s or 1980, judging from some other posts I've seen around the internet.

The guitar was originally equipped with two humbuckers with solid black covers, which may have been Bartolinis - and were according to Eric, low-impedance and fairly low output units. Currently, Eric's guitar has a 1983 Dimarzio Super Distortion in the bridge position and a 90s Seymour Duncan Jazz pickup in the neck.

The guitar is very well built - and I remember it having nice even action - I used this guitar to record almost all of my guitar tracks on the one Crucial Youth album - playing through an early 70s Marshall stack that belonged to producer Nikki Garratt (UK Subs).

The information available on Oasis and Gary Cooper is sparse at best, but Eric did send me a link to a cool Youtube video that edits together parts of two interviews that Cooper did for cable TV.  During the first part of the interview, which I believe was done around 1980,  Cooper is holding a guitar that appears identical to the Oasis in this post.  During the second part, Cooper is showing off some more mid-80s looking designs, complete with locking tremelos and "droopy" headstocks.

Interview with Gary Cooper of Oasis Guitars

Sadly, Gary Cooper was killed in a car crash around 10 years ago - if anyone has an exact year, please let me know!

Also, if you have an Oasis guitar or other pictures and information - please let me know and I'll add to the post.

Addendum: Another Oasis guitar from a few years earlier, courtesy of Jerry Campbell

Jerry was kind enough to share a picture of his Oasis guitar, which is a prototype for Oasis guitars, and dates to 1975/1976.  

This guitar differs from Eric's in having what appears to be an arched and bound flamed koa body, a different tailpiece and off-the-shelf pickup surrounds (see below - these are not original).  The overall body and neck profile appear to be the same as Eric's korina wood example.

To quote Jerry:

"This guitar was developed for me in mid 1975. Gary let me choose the woods for it and let me help design it. Serial #018, it is the prototype guitar for his Oasis line. After the NAMM Show in 1976(winter show), Gary built a matched set (electric guitar and mandolin) for Seals and Crofts based on this guitar. I have recently been in contact with his original building partner, Louis Armstronger(no kidding)."

"The body is solid bookend matched flame koa. The neck consists of two pieces of maple,two strips of rosewood, two strips of alder, and vermillion down the center. The fingerboard is vermillion. The headstock has a veneer of flame koa. Neck and body are bound with white-black white binding. The control cavity on the  back of the guitar is matched flame koa. Tuners are Schaller. This guitar originally came with Bartollini Hi-A Beast pickups. It now sports a Seymour Duncan JB at the bridge, and an original D'Marzio PAF at the neck. The Les Paul pickup switch is from Owsley Stanley III's '53 Les Paul.....a little San Francisco Ju-Ju."

Watch for some additional photos of this beautiful instrument in the near future.