electric guitars

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Electric_guitar

Veillette

Veillette acoustic, electric and bass guitars are built by Joe Veillette, AndeChase, and Jimmy Eppard, in Woodstock, NY. Joe Veillette learned guitar making in the early 1970s with Michael Gurian and made acoustic guitars until 1975 when he founded Veillette-Citron guitars with Harvey Citron. Veillette-Citron guitars proved popular and sold well until closure of the company in 1983. Over the next 8 years Joe made very few guitars: he was performing as the singer & guitarist of The Phantoms. In 1991, he founded Woodstock Music Products with Stuart Spector, making Spector basses & starting a line of Veillette electric & baritone guitars.

VANTAGE

The original Vantage brand guitars were produced in Japan (by Matsumoku?) during the 1970s: The Avenger and Invader series had the most unusual body styles. Double cut-away VP, VS and VSH modesl were more conventional. All these models had great features with multiwood natural finish bodies fashionable in the late 1970s.  The Vantage brand name reappeared on lower quality guitars produced by Music Industries (Jay Turser) in the 1990's up until 1998.

Vaccaro

Vaccaro Guitar company was founded in 1997 by Henry Vaccaro Sr. and Henry Vaccaro Jr. as a maker of aluminum necked guitars and basses - having retained the rights to the Kramer aluminum neck patent. They stopped making guitars in 2002. The following company bio comes from their website in 2007 (the site is no longer active):

"In April of 1997, Vaccaro Guitar Company was established to propel guitar manufacturing into a new dimension through its vibrant designs and innovative manufacturing techniques. This newly formed company intends to position itself as a leading American Guitar Manufacturer by producing a unique line of guitars with its revolutionary patented V-Neck, built with the highest quality materials.

Vaccaro Guitar was born from a marriage of frustration and vision. Henry Vaccaro, Sr. and Henry Jr. saw a void in the marketplace for something new and different.

VALLEY ARTS

There are three distinct periods in Valley Arts history: the original period, the Samick era and the Gibson era.

Original Valley Arts era

The Valley Arts brand began in a music shop run by Duke Miller. Miller was a guitar teacher, and when he went off to music teaching position at the University of Southern California, two of his students Mike McGuire and Al Carness bought the music store business. Around In 1973, they moved from the shop's original location on Laurel Canyon Blvd. to Ventura Blvd.

Although they specialised in teaching, McGuire also began learning how to repair guitars quickly building a good reputation. An important watershed in the Valley Arts story was when Larry Carlton ordered a refret of his old Gibson S.G.The Valley Arts did repairs for an impressive client list including Tommy Tedesco, Steve Lukather, Robben Ford, Mitch Holder, Mundell Lowe, Al Viola and Duane Eddy.

James Tyler

James Tyler has been making custom electric guitars since the early 1970’s. Tyler studied architecture, design, music, photography & theology in college. He paid his way through college doing guitar repair work at local guitar stores, and also as a car mechanic. Later into the 1970s, he got went to work at Norman’s Rare Guitars in the San Fernando Valley and became their main repair and restoration guy. He opened his first repair shop in Reseda, California in 1980. His reputation grew by word of mouth up through the later 1980s and early 1990s - his guitars became popular with some of the top session players and artists in the Los Angeles music scene. The operation at James Tyler Guitars has grown slowly over the years with no partners, no investors.

TV Jones

TV Jones was founded by Thomas Vincent Jones in 1993 as a custom guitar and repair shop. Tom had previously learnt his craft in the late 1980s to early 1990s working at The World of Strings in Long Beach, California, where he became known as a go-to guitar tech for many players in the area and around the world. Tom’s interest in the Filter’Tron pickup arose from his association with guitarist Brian Setzer, whose guitars Tom has worked on since 1993. In 1998, Setzer chose Tom’s Hot Rod pickup design in a blind test of many different pickups for the new Gretsch Hot Rod guitar line. That moment launched TV Jones, Inc. into a lively relationship with Fender and Gretsch Guitars. Several months later, Tom became an independent consultant for the Gretsch Guitar Company designing pickups, guitars and more.

James Trussart

James Trussart is a musician-turned-luthier. His career began in the 1970s as a violin player in his native Paris. He turned his attention to making violins and then guitars in the 1980s. He is now a resident of southern California, where he makes custom steel-bodied guitars, basses and violins out of metal.

Instruments come in a variety of finishes: from shiny chrome to weathered and rusty. Trussart's "Rust-o-matic" technique involves leaving the guitar body exposed to the elements for several weeks, allowing it to corrode, then sanding it to replicate years of distress, and then finishing it with a clear satin coat. The metal construction leads to a distinctive tone: and many leading players have a Trussart metal guitar in their collection.

To date your Trussart guitar look at the serial number: the first two digits are the year the guitar was made, and the rest are the number of guitars produced to that date.

Traveler

Leon Cox conceived and built the  first Traveler Guitar in his garage workshop in Redlands, California in October of 1992. He used tuning machines from an old acoustic guitar, spare conduit left over from a home improvement project, and wood salvaged from a discarded bar top. Cox, whose wife worked as a nurse, was inspired to install the diaphragm of a stethoscope in the body of his prototype to provide the player with a battery-free, private listening experience. During the next three years, more than three hundred of “The Traveler” guitars were produced, both in Cox’s garage and at an outside shop. Then, in the summer of 1995, Corey Oliver walked into Redlands Guitar Shop and was fascinated by the unique instruments and offered to take the entire inventory on a sales road trip. Cox agreed. So, Oliver and then-partner Carey Nordstrand (of Nordstrand Basses fame).

Tom Holmes

Tom Holmes has been electric guitars and pickups since the 1970s in Joelton, Tennessee. Holmes has made electric guitars or pickups for many famous guitar players including: Bo Diddley, Lenny Breau, Billy Gibbons, Gary Moore, Peter Frampton and Albert King. Since the early 1990s his USA made PAF pickups have become legendary. Some Tom Holmes pickups & guitars are made in Japan (by Momose?). Holmes was considering retirement 2022 but as of January 2023 he was still winding pickups at around 7 sets per month.

TOM ANDERSON

Established in 1984, Tom Anderson Guitarworks is an American company dedicated to creating the highest quality electric guitars. Tom Anderson started out working for Dave Schecter in 1977 and stayed until the company was sold in 1984. Anderson then started his own company, whose first contract was building pickups for Schecter Japan.

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