Bakersfield put stamp on guitar industry

Saturday September 28, 2002, 07:20:12 PM

In the 1960s, the name Mosrite was synonymous with reverb-laden surf music, clean Western guitar twang -- and Bakersfield.

Crafted in a nondescript factory just across the tracks from what was then known as the Bakersfield Civic Auditorium, Mosrite's Joe Maphis and Ventures model guitars made the music industry sit up and listen for the better part of a decade.

Surf bands and country music stars, including the Ventures, Glen Campbell and Barbara Mandrell, played Mosrite instruments.

But Mosrite wasn't the only guitar brand born and built in the Bakersfield area during that freewheeling era. Though it was by far the most successful, other brands -- including Gruggett, Hallmark, Standel and Epcor -- were spawned by the Mosrite miracle.

"All of these companies have a great deal of importance in guitar history," said David Stark, a local guitar maker who at one time worked under Bakersfield luthier Bill Gruggett. "I have sold at many guitar shows and the importance of tracing and knowing the history of some of these guitars and the stories behind them is the key factor."

The stories are many.

It all began with Semie Moseley, an apprentice of the Rickenbacker guitar company who became the founder and beating heart behind the Mosrite phenomenon. At the peak of production in 1968, more than 100 employees were cranking out 1,000 Mosrite guitars per month at the Bakersfield factory. And a select few of those employees were becoming great guitar makers and repairmen in their own right.

Bakersfield guitarist Gene Moles, a regular on "The Jimmy Thomason Show" and the assembly line inspector for Mosrite, operated his own guitar repair shop in east Bakersfield for three decades before his death last spring.

Other Mosrite alumni went further, starting guitar companies of their own in the mid-1960s.

"I started a new guitar brand because there were more guitars needed than the present suppliers could produce -- and we had a good product," said Joe Hall, the founder of Arvin-based Hallmark guitars.

"There were only three guitar makers in Bakersfield," said Hall, who now lives in Independence, Kan. "Semie learned the trade from Bigsby and Rickenbacker. Bill (Gruggett) and I learned from Semie."

Gruggett left Mosrite in 1966 to throw in his lot with Hall. But the market dried up before Hallmark entered its second year. Nevertheless, close to 1,000 Hallmark guitars were built, said Joe Hall, far more than the 40 or so cited by other sources.

Some say the war in Vietnam caused an increase in the availability of used musical instruments, cutting into sales of new equipment. Whatever the reason, the shutoff was sudden and unexpected and caught all of the guitar makers by surprise, Hall said.

Probably the shortest lived of the area's entrepreneurial endeavors was initiated by Ed Preager, a sales representative for Mosrite.

"Ed contacted me in late 1966 and asked if I would be interested in building his line of guitars," Hall said. "I accepted his contract and we built the first Epcor guitars in the Hallmark Arvin facility."

But it was an unhappy partnership, and Epcor never really got off the ground. An estimated 70 guitars were made, 35 at the Arvin facility and another 35 in 1968 by Bill Gruggett after the respected luthier started his own guitar brand in Bakersfield.

Gruggett, too, had difficulty competing against the big names. He made the first 40 or so of his Stradette model guitars at his home before opening a shop on the 3800 block of Chester Avenue. Fewer than 125 Stradettes were ultimately made, though Gruggett continues to produce highly prized custom-built guitars emblazoned with the Gruggett name.

"So much came out of Bakersfield during that era -- it astounds me," said Bob Shade, a vintage guitar collector and luthier in Maryland who owns several guitars built in Bakersfield during the '60s.

Shade admits he is smitten by the Bakersfield guitars. But does the period reflect a golden age of guitar making for Kern County?

Not quite, says Joe Hall.

"The correct statement would be that Semie Moseley taught several people too much about the trade and caused the competition that followed," he said. "Myself and Bill Gruggett were the only two people Semie ever taught the entire process to."

Golden age or not, many of the Bakersfield-built guitars that originally sold for less than $300 are fetching $15,000 and more from collectors -- if they can be found at all.

Like Shade, rockabilly revivalist, guitarist and recording artist Deke Dickerson holds Bakersfield's 1960s-era guitar makers in high esteem. He refers to Hallmark as a "short-lived, but completely genius" guitar company and he owns solid-body Standel guitars dating from 1966-67.

Originally built by Mosrite, Standel's later history is somewhat hazy, Dickerson said. But one thing is sure: They sound great onstage, he said.

"They are part of the arsenal of guitars that I use all the time," Dickerson said of his prized Standels. "These I think are some of the most innovative and unusual guitars produced during this era."

Lightspeed Systems