Tony Zemaitis
| Tony Zemaitis | |
|---|---|
| Born |
10 April 1935 London, England |
| Died | 17 August 2002 (aged 67) Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupation | guitar maker |
| Children | Tony Zemaitis, Jr. |
Tony Zemaitis (1935 - 17 August 2002) was a British guitar maker from London. He is mostly known for his "metal top" electric guitars.
Under the leadership of his son Tony Zemaitis, Jr., Zemaitis Guitars continued this guitar-making style after the luthier's death in 2002.
Zemaitis (born as Antanas Kazimeras Žemaitis) was born 1935 in London, England of Lithuanian family and left school at the age of sixteen to help out with family finances. He took up a five-year apprenticeship as a cabinet maker, but it was only when he found an old damaged guitar in his family attic that he found his real passion in life. After completing his national service, Zemaitis expanded this hobby in 1957 by producing a few basic guitars to learn about construction, soundhole shapes, tonewood, and string length. He experimented with differing multi-stringed instruments with some of these models making their way onto the folk scene. In 1960 he began selling his guitars at a price to cover the materials he used and soon realized that musicians needed instruments that were simple and light. By 1961, after being mentioned in the music press, Zemaitis started to be approached by leading players who wanted to use his guitars.
In 1970 Zemaitis started experimenting with placing a metal shield on the top of the guitar in order to eliminate microphonic noise picked up by the guitars' pickups. His first metal top guitar prototype was purchased by Tony McPhee, while the second was for Ronnie Wood of Rolling Stones fame (he was in the Faces at the time). Wood played the instrument on The Faces' Top of the Pops appearance in 1971, and the shiny appearance of the guitar raised an incredible amount of interest from guitar players. Zemaitis asked gun engraver Danny O'Brien to do artistic engravings on the metal top and other metal parts, and started building custom-order guitars for the rich and famous. His most famous guitars are Ronnie Wood's 24-fret metal top guitars (a total of four guitars were built for Wood), which he used from 1971 until 1995, Ronnie Wood's "Desert Island" (or "Slide on This") metal disc top guitar, Keith Richards' 5-string "Skull&Bones" guitar, Eric Clapton's "Ivan the Terrible" 12-string acoustic guitar, various acoustics and resonators for George Harrison and basses and resonator for Ronnie Lane. Aside from metal top guitars, from the mid-70s Zemaitis also started decorating the tops of his guitars with elaborate pearl inlay, either figures like dragons and skulls and bones, or complete mosaic-like inlaid tops. These guitars command the highest prices.
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