Vintage Guitars
Bill Lawrence was known for his pick-up design and his long career as a German based guitarist. In fact, when visiting the Framus Museum in Markneukirchen Germany, you can learn of his influential musical career when he was known as Billy Lorento. Always interested in electronics, he applied his...
Matt Umanov opened his first guitar shop in 1963, following his dream to have a life in music. Over the years, Matt has become one of the world’s leading experts on guitars, which is often expressed in his passion of putting the right instrument in his customer’s hands. Matt Umanov Guitars is...
Walter Carter along with his wife, Christie, formed Nashville's "friendliest guitar store" when they opened Carter Vintage Guitars. With a last name so well known in country music, you can understand why a beautiful painting of Mother Maybelle Carter adorns the outside wall of the building. The...
Jimmie D. Webb operated a small music shop in Antioch, California, which was also the headquarters for his amplifier business. The Webb Amps were widely used by electric blues and rock bands, mostly in San Francisco beginning in the early 1970s. Although he never developed a production line or...
R.C. Allen was a guitar luthier that used the style of his many friends of the era in the early 1950s in Southern California when guitar innovators were reshaping the instrument and grooming it for a new birth. RC was building his own unique instruments when Leo Fender and Lowell Kiesel of Carvin...
Bob Luly built the first sound system for the Rolling Stones that they used in the United States. The system was created for the Orange Show in the 1960s and led Bill to build systems for the likes of Three Dog Night and Frank Zappa (whom Bill played electric bass for on stage in the early part of...
John Carruthers has established himself as a leading expert on guitars and amplifiers as a designer, builder and repairman. Working along side Leo Fender at Music Man, John helped improve the quality of the product line and years later helped establish a series of instruments for Yamaha including...
Norman Harris loves guitars! His vast knowledge and collection has made him one of the industry’s leading experts on vintage guitars and basses. As the founder of Norm’s Rare Guitars in Tarzana, CA, he played an important role in the great boom in vintage guitars that began in the 1980s. His...
George Gruhn is without question one of the top experts of vintage guitars on the planet! George collected guitars before opening the world renowned Gruhn Guitar Shop in Nashville, TN in the early 1970s. Since that time he has authored several historical reference guides and thousands of articles...
Les Paul will forever be known for his role in the popularity of the electric guitar, the design of the Gibson Les Paul guitar, the multi track recording, the early guitar effects, and his million selling recordings with wife Mary Ford. However, did you know Les also appeared as product endorsee in...