Heritage Guitars

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Heritage Guitar Inc.
Heritage Guitar Inc.

Heritage Guitars is a guitar manufacturer in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Contents

[edit] History

Heritage Guitars was founded in 1985 by ex-employees of the Gibson guitar factory.[1] In 1984, Gibson moved production from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Nashville, Tennessee.[2] Some of the employees that did not want to move started production of guitars under a new name.[2] The company set up their factory in Gibson's former Kalamazoo premises.[1]

[edit] Current status

Heritage is a boutique manufacturer, making semi-hollow guitars, large jazz boxes, solidbody electrics.[1] In these types of guitars, Paul Reed Smith Guitars and Gibson guitars are the closest nominal equivalents.

In general, Heritage makes guitars that are similar to Gibson's products,[1] [3] but are constructed in a much more hand-made fashion, and with much greater individual attention to the instrument by the builders.[4] For example, all Heritage full-body semi-acoustics have solid wood tops, while many of the Gibson guitars of this type had laminated tops after World War II.[2] Apart from the use of a Plek automated fret-dressing machine to grind the frets to the correct crown and intonation, Heritage guitars are hand-made, without the use of CNC machines for woodworking.

[edit] New Management Joins the Old

Heritage experienced some financial difficulties related to late shipments in late 2007, and the owners went so far as discussing the sale or closing of the company. The owners, who excel at making guitars, admitted that they weren't focusing on maintaining the business as they should have. However, fate almost seemed to intervene. According to the business-oriented magazine Encore, Kalamazoo-based attorney Vince Margol - during that same period - told his wife while on vacation that if he could do anything he wanted, he would "ask the guys at Heritage Guitar to teach me how to do what they do so that when I'm ready to retire, I could buy the company." When Margol arrived home from vacation, he contacted the previous owners, and worked out a partnership with them. According to Robert M. Weir, who wrote the Encore article, Margol remains pleased at his good fortune: "I pinch myself every morning. The greatest of planners could not have made this thing fall into place the way it has." Margol has added his business and technical expertise to the guitar-making expertise of the previous management team, and currently, Heritage looks like it is already making positive changes.

[edit] Endorsees

[edit] Johnny Smith

In 1989, jazz guitarist Johnny Smith withdrew his endorsement from Gibson and awarded it to Heritage, which began production of the Heritage Johnny Smith. The Gibson model continued in production as the Gibson LeGrand.[5]

Smith has since moved his endorsement from Heritage to the Guild Guitar Company.[5]

[edit] Alex Skolnick

More recently, metal musician Alex Skolnick had began endorsing Heritage Guitars, as opposed to his older Ibanez models.

[edit] Roy Clark

Roy Clark playing a Heritage H535. [1]
Roy Clark playing a Heritage H535. [1]

Country musician, Roy Clark, currently endorses Heritage guitars, which makes a signature model.

[edit] Citations

  1. ^ a b c d (Bacon 1991, p. 151)
  2. ^ a b c (Freeth & Alexander 1999, p. 106)
  3. ^ (Freeth & Alexander 1999, p. 107)
  4. ^ (Freeth & Alexander 1999, p. 106-107)
  5. ^ a b "Johnny Smith Goes Full Circle" Interview with Charles H. Chapman

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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