John Carruthers first began building guitars while still at school in the 1960s. After graduating he worked at Westwood Music in West Los Angeles repairing guitars. At Westwood John was able to offer advice to both C.F. Martin IV and Bob Taylor early in their guitar making careers. Over the years Carruthers established a solid reputation which led to work on many famous players guitars and even a column in the Guitar Player magazine. Yamaha asked Carruthers to work for them as a consultant to help design their SG, SA, FG and FC electric and acoustic guitars, and their highly successful BB basses. Bill Schultz hired John to work at Fender.  John’s career working on design and production spanned from their Fullerton complex to Brea, and finally to Corona.  John worked on the designs and implementation of the Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy D’Aquisto, Robben Ford, all Vintage Reissues and the Acoustic lines of guitars. John also worked for Ibanez and helped them design and improve many of their guitars After a few years, he bought his historic shop in Venice Beach, CA, where he remained for  30 years. In 2011, Carruthers Guitars moved from the historic Venice facility to a new facility in Camarillo, CA.  The new facility is nearly three times the size  and is better equipped for manufacturing John’s renowned guitars and basses.