Dan Erlewine | |
|---|---|
 Erlewine in 1966 | |
| Born | c. 1945 (age 78–79) |
| Occupation | Luthier |
| Years active | 1963-present |
| Known for | Instructional videos |
| Website | danerlewine |
Dan Erlewine is an American luthier and the author of five books about guitar repair. He has made instructional videos about the luthier trade since 1983. He works for a luthier supply company, Stewart-Macdonald (StewMac).
He was born c. 1945 and he grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His mother was an artist, and his father's hobby was working with wood. [1] In an interview with PBS he said, "In about 10th grade I went into a pawn shop in Detroit and bought a cheap guitar, one that had been painted with black and white stripes." In 1963 after he had been working on guitars as a hobby he began working at a music store: Herb David Guitar Studio. In the 1960s Erlewine also played in rock bands. [2] In the 1960s he played lead guitar in a band called The Prime Movers. His brother Michael was also in the band. The band was prominent in Ann Arbor, Michigan but did not go on to headline in other areas of the country. [3]
In 1969 Dan Erlewine and his brother opened his own music store in Ann Arbor which he named Erlewine Instruments. [2] Dan's brother Mark also became a luthier and he is known for working on Willie Nelson's famous guitar Trigger. [4]
In 1983, Dan began filming himself working on guitar; creating instructional videos about the luthier trade. [1] In 1984 he went to the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) convention, to demonstrate luthier work at the Dunlop Manufacturing booth. It was at NAMM that Erlewine was discovered by Stewart-Macdonald (StewMac) [2] He was then hired by StewMac and began producing content on VHS, DVD, and YouTube videos. He delivers his instructional videos about the luthier trade with a calm demeanor. [1]
He also began building custom electric guitars and he built guitars for blues guitarist Albert King. [1] Erlewine saw Albert King playing an upside down Gibson Flying V named "Lucy" when he attended the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival in Michigan in 1970: in 1971 he met King at a show in Ann Arbor. Erlewine offered to build King a true left-handed Flying V out of a 125-year old piece of black walnut. King agreed and came to Erlewine's shop the next day, where Erlewine measured his guitar and took notes. King asked for his name to be inlaid on the fretboard, and the name "Lucy" on the peghead. This Lucy was delivered to King in May 1972. Since then Erlewine has made a number of copies, all from the same slab of walnut; Erlewine said in 2009 that he had enough wood to make 20 or so Lucys. [5] The guitar he built for Albert King was named Lucy and it is in the style of a Gibson Flying V. Blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa played Albert King's guitar Lucy and liked it so much that he had Dan Erlewine build him a copy. Bonamassa's name is inlaid on the fingerboard. [6]
He built for American guitarist Jerry Garcia of the rock band the Grateful Dead. The guitar was named the "Stratishcaster". The guitar is a Fender Stratocaster which has been customized with a Gibson style stop tailpiece, and a rosewood pickguard. The guitar also has numbers which are inlaid as fret markers in the fingerboard. [1]
In 1975, he opened a new shop called Dan Erlewine's Guitar Hospital. The new shop was located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. [1] Vintage Guitar Magazine has said Dan Erlewine is a "world-class repair expert" and "Among the famous names in American guitar lore". [7] Acoustic Guitar Magazine has said he "might be the most famous guitar repairperson on earth". [1]
In 2021 he began a relationship with the Iris Guitar company to manufacture a version of an acoustic guitar which is similar to the 1937 Kalamazoo KG-11. The guitar features banjo-style guitar tuners, a long headstock and a built-in brass capo which screws into the guitar neck. [7]
The fingerboard is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The strings run over the fingerboard, between the nut and bridge. To play the instrument, a musician presses strings down to the fingerboard to change the vibrating length, changing the pitch. This is called stopping the strings. Depending on the instrument and the style of music, the musician may pluck, strum or bow one or more strings with the hand that is not fretting the notes. On some instruments, notes can be sounded by the fretting hand alone, such as with hammer ons, an electric guitar technique.
The Gibson ES-335 is a semi-hollow body semi-acoustic guitar introduced by the Gibson Guitar Corporation as part of its ES series in 1958. It features a solid maple wood block running through the center of its body with upper bouts that are hollow and two violin-style f-holes cut into the top over the hollow chambers. Since its release, Gibson has released numerous variations of and other models based on the design of the ES-335.
Albert Nelson, known by his stage name Albert King, was an American guitarist and singer who is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential blues guitarists of all time. He is perhaps best known for his popular and influential album Born Under a Bad Sign (1967) and its title track. He, B.B. King, and Freddie King, all unrelated, were known as the "Kings of the Blues". The left-handed Albert King was known for his "deep, dramatic sound that was widely imitated by both blues and rock guitarists".
The Gibson Flying V is an electric guitar model that was originally introduced by Gibson in 1958. The Flying V offered a brand new, radical, "futuristic" body design, much like its siblings: the Explorer, which was released the same year, and the Moderne, which was designed in 1957 but not released until 1982. The initial run of guitars used a distinctive wood of the Limba tree marketed by Gibson under the trade name "korina"; later models used more conventional woods.
The King V is an electric guitar model made by Jackson Guitars.
Joseph Leonard Bonamassa is an American blues rock guitarist, singer and songwriter. He started his career at age twelve, when he opened for B.B. King. Since 2000, Bonamassa has released fifteen solo albums through his independent record label J&R Adventures, of which eleven have reached No. 1 on the Billboard Blues chart.
The truss rod is a component of a guitar or other stringed instrument that stabilizes the lengthwise forward curvature of the neck. Usually, it is a steel bar or rod that runs through the inside of the neck, beneath the fingerboard. Some are non-adjustable, but most modern truss rods have a nut at one or both ends that adjusts its tension. The first truss rod patent was applied for by Thaddeus McHugh, an employee of the Gibson company in 1921, though the idea of a "truss rod" appears in patents as early as 1908.
The Prime Movers were an American blues band based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, which was formed in 1965. The band originally consisted of Michael Erlewine, Dan Erlewine, Robert Sheff (keyboards), Robert Vinopal (bass), and Michael "Spider" Wynn (drums). Vinopal left soon after the band's formation and was replaced by Jack Dawson. Wynn left a short time later and was replaced by James Osterberg, who would later become famous as Iggy Pop. When he joined the Prime Movers Osterberg took the name "Iggy", from his previous band The Iguanas.
Phillip J. Petillo was an American luthier. In the 1970s he built prototypes for Travis Bean and Gary Kramer for what would become Kramer Guitars.
Jim Campilongo is a New York roots rock guitarist, known for recording a series of mostly instrumental albums. He is also known for being a member of The Little Willies with Norah Jones.
Vintage Guitar is an American magazine that focuses on vintage and classic guitars, amplifiers, effects, and related equipment, as well as notable guitarists from all genres and eras. The publication's feature stories and monthly columns cover a diverse range of topics by contributors, including some of the biggest names in the industry and renowned authorities like Dan Erlewine, George Gruhn, Wolf Marshall, Richard Smith, and Seymour W. Duncan, as well as some of the best-known writers in the field, including Pete Prown, Walter Carter, Dan Forte, Dave Hunter, Rich Kienzle, Michael Dregni, John Peden, Greg Prato, and others.
This is a list and description of the guitars and other equipment played by musician Stevie Ray Vaughan. Vaughan played a number of Fender Stratocasters throughout his career, one of which, a 1963 body and a 1962 neck, became "the most famous battered Strat in rock history." He was notoriously hard on his guitars, and many of them required extensive periodic maintenance, as well as other equipment. He used a limited number of effect pedals, and favored Fender and Marshall amplification.
Elderly Instruments is a musical instrument retailer in Lansing, Michigan, United States, with a reputation as a "megastore", a repair shop and a locus for folk music including bluegrass and "twang". Specializing in fretted instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, banjos, mandolins, and ukuleles, Elderly maintains a selection of odd or rare instruments. Elderly is known as a premier repair shop for fretted instruments, as one of the larger vintage instrument dealers in the United States, and as a major dealer of Martin guitars in particular.
Bobby Radcliff is an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. Radcliff, raised in Bethesda, Maryland, started playing guitar, and blues in particular, in his early teens.
Abraham Wechter is an American luthier who has been making custom guitars since the 1970s. He is known for building 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars and acoustic bass guitars. He was a student of luthier Richard Schneider, and for ten years he worked for the guitar company Gibson. After leaving Gibson, he started Wechter Guitars in Paw Paw, Michigan. In 2008 he moved his shop to Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Blues Deluxe is the third studio album by American blues-rock musician Joe Bonamassa. Recorded at Unique Recording Studios in New York City.
Huss & Dalton Guitar Company is an acoustic guitar and banjo manufacturer in Staunton, Virginia. The company was started on October 1, 1995, by luthiers Jeff Huss and Mark Dalton. Their first shop was located in the Mennonite community of Stuarts Draft, Virginia. They moved to their current location in Staunton in 1999. According to the company, the founders wanted to build an acoustic guitar that paid homage to guitar tradition while incorporating improvements in structural design and cosmetics. The company currently operates on a small scale, producing around 250 instruments per year in a two-story brick workshop.
Lucy is the name given to the Gibson Flying V and a series of copies owned by blues guitarist Albert King. King apparently picked the Flying V because of its style, and in return helped make it famous.
The Repair Shop is a British daytime and primetime television show made by production company Ricochet that aired on BBC Two for series 1 to 3 and on BBC One for series 4 onwards, in which family heirlooms are restored for their owners by numerous experts with a broad range of specialisms. Furniture restorer Jay Blades acts as the foreman.
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