José Ramírez III

José Ramírez III (1922–1995) was a luthier and the grandson of José Ramírez, founder of Ramírez Guitars. He was responsible for major changes both to the company and to the classical guitars it produces.

Ramírez was raised in a guitar making family, and served his luthier's apprenticeship in the family business founded by his grandfather and by then run by his father José II. During and in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War material shortages forced them to experiment, and the young José developed a love of innovation. But this was also a frustrating time for him; Frequently, his father sold his work with little if any documentation as to the construction, the results, or the buyer.

In 1954, his brother Alfredo, who had been doing the administrative work of the family business, died, followed three years later by their father, forcing Ramírez to give up guitar making for a time to supervise the business. Undeterred, he committed his designs to paper for journeymen to make.

Ramírez worked closely with top performers, which brought acceptance to his innovations. In Andrés Segovia, whom he first met in 1952, he found a performer who was like him passionate about achieving greater volume and clarity, to allow the classical guitar to be accompanied by a full symphony orchestra. Daring to tamper with the designs of Torres, Ramírez built larger and more powerful concert guitars, with longer scale lengths and asymmetrical bracing. Both of these innovations, and many others, are standard today. Segovia was an uncompromising customer, but when Ramírez' designs gave him what he wanted, an unsurpassable supporter.

More radical still, in 1963 Ramírez built a ten-string guitar for Narciso Yepes, to accommodate Yepes' unique chromatically balanced tuning. Later he developed an eight-string guitar for José Tomás. He also experimented with different woods and varnishes and countless other major and minor innovations.

In the 1960s, to cope with increasing demand, Ramírez moved his workshop to its own building, and greatly expanded the number of employees, leaving the original premises as a shop only. He continued to supervise every aspect of the business until 1988, when he passed control to his children José IV (also known as José Enrique Ramírez García or just José Enrique) and Amalia, both themselves by then guitar makers.

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