Bill Lawrence (guitar maker)

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Bill Lawrence

Bill Lawrence (born Willi Lorenz Stich on March 24, 1931 in Wahn-Heide (near Cologne), Germany) is a recording musician and an electric guitar pickup designer/maker and guitar designer/maker in the musical instrument industry, designing pickups and guitars for Fender, Gibson, Peavey and other guitar companies from the late 1960s to the present, with many patents (see below).

His birth name was anglicized to "Bill Lawrence" and claims under oath at the USPTO to have used "BILL LAWRENCE" since 1962. In the early '50s, he also used Billy Lorento as a stage name and had his own guitar and string line with the German guitar manufacturer, Framus. However, since the 1960s he has performed and recorded under the name Bill Lawrence (see 'external links' below).

Later, in the 1970s, Bill designed guitars for Framus Nashville. Hans Peter Wilfer, who owns Framus today, is writing a book about Framus' history and has interviewed Bill about him and his extensive knowledge of the company's history. (http://www.framus.de/modules/frameset/frameset.php?lang=en),

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bill started winding and offering replacement pickups in the U.S. and working on professional guitarist's instruments at his Greenwich Village, New York custom guitar shop with Dan Armstrong.

Players like Jeff Baxter with the Doobie Brothers and Joe Walsh with the Eagles, and many, many others in the music scene were regulars there. Larry DiMarzio joined the team and when Lawrence left to work with Gibson Guitars, DiMarzio continued with Lawrence's direction and started the first replacement pickup company in the 1970s, DiMarzio Pickups.

Bill Lawrence worked for Fender since 1995, developing a special-design humbucking bass pickup for the Roscoe Beck basses and the American Deluxe Precision Bass. He was also responsible for the Samarium Cobalt Noiseless series, launched in 2004 and used on the Fender American Deluxe Series of electric guitars and basses.

Bill was the guitar consultant for the band Aerosmith for a time, and is mentioned in the liner notes of their album Pump, released in 1989.