John Birch (luthier)

John Birch
Born	1922 West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom
Died	November 2000 (aged 77–78)
Occupation(s)	Luthier
Instruments	Electric guitar

John Birch (1922 – November 6, 2000) was an English luthier mainly known for his electric guitars. His customers included Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, Brian May of Queen, Manny Charlton of Nazareth, Dave Hill and Jim Lea of Slade, Gerry Shephard of The Glitter Band, and Roy Orbison.

John Birch was born in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom in 1922. He became involved in guitar building as a Royal Air Force officer based in the South Pacific Islands in World War II. Returning to England at the end of the war his interest musically was in collecting Hawaiian Records.

In 1963 he met Basil and Pat Henriques of the "Waikiki Islanders" group, a Hawaiian group formed by Pat's father Bill Cox and his brother Archie in 1937. Birch was, during the '60s, living at 33 Innage Road Northfield and working as a field service engineer for Ampex VTRs.

After a series of experiments with a few joint designs Basil Henriques and Birch (using Henriques' Fender 1000 pedal steel guitar as a testbed) came up with a new pickup design using multiple polepieces and a coil potted in baked epoxy resin. On subsequent BBC "Night Ride" broadcasts and later EMI Abbey Road recordings, the pickups on Basil's guitar proved to be a revolutionary design in both sustain and fidelity. EMI were so impressed with the stereo sound of Basil's guitar that they offered Basil and the Waikiki Islanders a 10-year contract on their Stereo Label "Studio Two Stereo".

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