A.C.
Zemaitis was born in London 1935. He started working as a cabinet
maker. Tony's carrier as Guitar Maker started in the mid fifties, when he
copied an acoustic guitar, because he didn't have the money to buy one.
Tony liked it so much, that he started making guitars for friends.
And bit by bit the passion increased and his hobby became his
profession.
In the sixties, when it was hard to get 12 string guitars in
London., he made 12 string guitars for professional players like
Ralph McTell, Spencer Davis, Eric Clapton
and Jimi Hendrix.
This made Tony popular in England and players like,,
George Harrison, Mark Bolan, Ron Wood or Ronnie Lane asked Tony to make
guitars for them.
The wonderful design was another reason beside the great sound of his guitars, why musicians love Zemaitis guitars.
He made an blue acoustic guitar for Donovan, with stars and moon whole for the sound.
When the demand for electric guitars grew, Tony designed his first
prototypes . He started using metal as a shield to reduce humming of
guitars.
Not only did he liked this new technical detail, he designed
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the
front of the guitar in metal, this led to the idea to engrave the metal. His friend and customer Danny O'Brien starts engraving the guitars for Tony. The metal front Zemaitis was born.
The best advertising for Tony and one of his biggest fans is Ronnie
Wood who played his guitars with the Faces. Beside the classic metal
front, he played a guitar called disc front.
Soon more and more stars started to play this unique Zemaitis guitars.
In the mid 70ies Tony made his first mother of pearl fronts for Ronnie
Wood and for James Honeyman Scott. This model became a further classic
design.
Based on the great
sound and the unique designs of Zemaitis guitars, Tony became the
most popular guitar maker in this world.
Tony sadly passed away on 17 th August 2002.
But the fascination of his guitars lives on. The prices for Zemaitis guitars are rising more and more.
The demand for this guitars is so big, that licensed Zemaitis
guitars where build in japan today and many guitar maker in the world
are starting to copy designs of Tony Zemaitis.
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