Charles Kaman was a master of innovation and entrepreneurship whose work has had a profound impact in my life for many reasons.
You can’t say “innovation” without “ovation”
This always fascinated that the definition of the word “innovation” refers to “introduce as new” while the definition refers to “”exult, rejoice, triumph.” So similar in sound and while I think this was a happy accident I want to applaud the innovative work of Charles Kaman, a legend of entrepreneurship.
Accept the things you cannot change
Charlie had an old Martin D Guitar whose neck was badly warped and split, in need of repair. He was taken through their shop, noticed that they were putting things together with glue and clothespins. His response was “Hey, man, we can cut your costs in half. We know how to tool these things, we’ve been doing it for years on helicopter rotors.” Charlie made an overture about buying Martin, but was turned down. Martin was a family business, and wanted to stay that way. Kaman also looked at Harmony guitars, but determined that it was better to build fresh and new.
Have courage to change the things you can
In the early 1960s, however, financial problems from the failure of their commercial flight division forced them to expand into new markets. As a result, Kaman founded Ovation Instruments, which later became Ovation Guitars. Kaman, who was a guitar enthusiast, used his insight about acoustic vibrations and composite materials to develop an acoustic guitar that featured a signature rounded-back design.
Their first prototype had a conventional “dreadnought” body, with parallel front and back perpendicular to the sides. The innovation was the use of a thinner, synthetic back, because of its foreseen acoustic properties.
Unfortunately, the seam joining the sides to the thin back was prone to breakage. To avoid the problem of a structurally unstable seam, the engineers proposed a synthetic back with a parabolic shape. By mid-1966, according to Ovation, they realized that the parabolic shape produced a desirable tone with greater volume than the conventional dreadnought.
Not everyone is going to like it
As good as these instruments were — and as great as they sounded — sales to retailers were not so easy. Dealers didn’t know what to make of Ovations. A Roundback guitar might as well have been a UFO. Consequently, they were reluctant to take a chance on stocking the line.
I think one of the reasons some folks had an issue with them is that that they don’t sit comfortably on your lap when playing and are inclined to slide forward. This means that the player has to use the crook of their arm pressed against the top of the guitar to hold it in place. Considering that the top is the sound of an acoustic guitar forcibly resting your arm against it isn’t going to do its resonance any good. People either love them or hate them and this debate has been going on for nearly 50 years…haters gonna hate, I however love the way the vibrations feel when hugging (yes hugging) the guitar while playing.
Innovations connect people in unseen ways
Ovation first caught national attention in 1968 when Glen Campbell hosted a variety show he called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS, and in the following year, 1969, he became one of Ovation’s first endorsers. Not long after the company had to hire quickly and this presented a great opportunity to my mother, who did not have a high school degree as a result of starting my family at a young age.
Glen Campbell’s endorsement of these innovative guitars gave my family the well deserved break we needed. My mother learned on the job how to build high tech electronics and allowed our family to prosper the rest of her working years. Last summer I travelled to Tennessee to visit my mother, who liked Glen Campbell, suffers from dementia. during that trip I stopped in Nashville to see his guitar, the one that started it all…I can’t even begin to explain how just seeing it impacted me.
This was my holy grail. This physical object, this product, embodied my mother’s pride, my families salvation and was used to play a song that raised awareness of the disease that both Glenn and my mother share. At 47 years old, I have never cried in public so powerfully as I did in seeing Charles Kaman’s beautiful invention. I own a copy of this guitar that I keep next to my desk to always remind me of my roots.
Innovations inspire in unforeseen ways
Upon researching this post I learned that Charles Kaman originally wanted to be a pilot but that his hearing loss (deafness in one ear) made him unfit to fly. In all my years of being inspired by him I never realized that he too as hearing impaired. The path his life followed would have been profoundly different if he had become a pilot as he dreamed of.
By playing the hand he was dealt and always moving forward rather then feeling sorry for himself for one second I will always be grateful. He not only brought well paying jobs to Connecticut, he also saved my family by giving us a chance… and above all helped bring beautiful music to the world through the hands of musicians that embrace his innovations. Charles Kaman was a man who designed a product he believed in as well as he possibly could and when done right that is sheer magic!