The Master Luthier who Changed Everything
Join us in celebrating the legendary Dan Erlewine, a true icon in the world of guitar craftsmanship. From a small-town repairman to a globally revered educator and innovator, Dan has inspired millions to learn, build, and repair guitars.
In this special 80th birthday tribute to Dan Erlewine, we take you through the journey of how Dan became one of the most beloved figures in the guitar industry, shaping StewMac into the company it is today. We are honored to recognize his unparalleled contributions and express our deepest gratitude for his lifelong dedication to the craft.
In this special 80th birthday tribute to Dan Erlewine, we take you through the journey of how Dan became one of the most beloved figures in the guitar industry, shaping StewMac into the company it is today. We are honored to recognize his unparalleled contributions and express our deepest gratitude for his lifelong dedication to the craft.
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MusicTranscript
00:00Alright, let's do it. Take one. Ready Dan? Yep. Whenever you're ready, action Dan. Today's
00:08trade secret is...no. One more. Alright, here we go. Intro, take two. Today I'm going to
00:14give you five tips...no. Does it look like I'm reading? No, it doesn't. Okay, ready?
00:21There we go. Take three. Cameras are rolling. Hi. Today I've got a screw loose. Not me.
00:30On this Epiphone Riviera that belongs to James that works at Stumac with. A few years ago
00:36we at Stumac decided to make a video tribute to Dan Erlewine on the occasion of his official
00:42retirement. Dan is one of those guys that doesn't actually ever retire. He was continuing
00:48to host videos and hang around Stumac and we just never found an appropriate time to
00:54publish that video. Well today folks is Dan Erlewine's 80th birthday. We thought we would
00:59honor him by showing that video to you now. So here's to a legendary luthier, educator,
01:06innovator and dear friend, our Dan Erlewine. Hope you enjoy it. Cut, cut, cut. It was good
01:12but give me more emotion like you're really going to miss me. I see you all the time.
01:17I'm not actually going to miss you. We're still going to do it again. Take 32.
01:21Dr. Dan to emergency. Dr. Dan to emergency.
01:27Hi, I'm Dan Erlewine. Perhaps you think of this as a real nasty case. Not true. Here at the Guitar
01:44Hospital we have dealt with this sort of problem many, many times. Honestly, it was my older
01:50brother Michael. Michael had bought a PK 957 Panasonic, the first consumer grade video camera.
01:56He loaned it to me. He said, what you should do is take videos of what you're doing and show people.
02:01Five millimeters. Three millimeters. Those videos were very important. That's how I found
02:17Stu Mack or they found me. And of course, my brother, Tom, he's a brilliant artist and
02:21illustrator. Dan was working as a small repair shop and wanted to be doing more repair work.
02:25And so we collaborated and thought about it. Back then, you only could find a guitar repair
02:31shop in a big city and there weren't that many. New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, oddly enough,
02:36Ann Arbor, Michigan, Denver, and then San Francisco. And that's where you could get
02:41a serious repair job done. We did this thing, which was, doctor, can this guitar be saved?
02:47And this was when Dan was going to be offering repairs in your music shop. That went on to, hey,
02:53why don't you just train your guy in the back room to learn from Dan's videos? And the idea
02:58there was, if your music shop is sending repairs to Dan, you're losing business. And so we had this
03:05little flyer, had a picture of Dan in a prison suit that said, I've been stealing your customer
03:10for X number of years. Stop me before I do it again. So it was all this stuff to try to make
03:15an impact with Dan and his business. And it made an impact. We met him, I believe, in 1984 or 85
03:23at a trade show in Chicago. Dan was ahead of his time in producing DVDs on guitar repair.
03:30I may be an amateur photographer, but I'm a damn good repairman and I always try to be fair by
03:35packing as much information into these courses as I can. Usually if it's a quarter-inch plow,
03:40all you need to do is lock the quill and run it back and forth, then go to your next three-eighths,
03:44do the depth shot, lock the quill at that three-eighths, run it back and forth, and you'll
03:48get a smooth wall. He was at the trade show, we were at the trade show. By chance we got to meet
04:06him. Stuart thought, well, this is interesting. I think I'll go meet him in Michigan. So he planned
04:10a trip up the coast of Michigan and stopped in to see Dan. Came back and I said, well, how'd that
04:15go? And he said, great, we're going to hire him. So I had two questions. One of them was how clean
04:20was his shop? We'll get back to that answer to that one. And the second was, what is he going to
04:25do? So we brought him in and I was the shop foreman at the time. I had Dan do things like take a pile
04:31of wood out to Amesville and plane it to bring it back to make workstations, which was the original
04:36neck jig. Dan came back and was like, I'm never doing that again, that was awful. And I'm like,
04:39what do you mean you're never doing that again? You're working in the shop. I was used to being
04:43my own boss, doing whatever I felt like. To keep someone like me in line isn't easy,
04:48because I'm always thinking of doing this and that. And eventually I got to do it that way.
04:53That tussle went on for a few years, trying to figure out exactly where Dan fit in. All the while,
04:58Dan was writing articles for Guitar Player Magazine. Let's get him into Guitar Player
05:03Magazine. And that was like the big scheme. And so for that, we invented a bass. I drew the body
05:10and he had this cello style peghead. We called it the Early Wine Lifetime Bass, because it's the
05:16only bass you're ever going to want. We took a picture of it like Dan was a little factory or
05:20something and got it into Guitar Player Magazine. And not long after that, he started writing
05:25articles for them. And that's what got lots of people knowing about him. In 1990, this book came
05:32out, which was a compilation of all of Dan's articles. I'll open this one up because it's
05:36signed by Dan back in 1990. And it became, obviously, the Bible around the world for
05:43guitar repair. I came to know Dan Early Wine from Guitar Player Magazine. I've been interested in
05:50guitar since around 1980. And when Dan started his column, it was one of the very first things
05:57that I would go to to read, because I was just as interested in learning how to play as well as
06:04build and understand these guitars. So at this point, we started using them more for educational
06:09stuff, doing videos. Hi, I'm Dan Early Wine, and welcome to Guitar Electronics and Hot Rod
06:14Techniques. So all these were being sold, and Stuart McDonald's name was growing in the guitar
06:18world, thanks to Dan being here and bringing in more tools. I'm always finding a new way to do
06:23any job because I get bored doing it the other way. I met Don McCrosty. Don ran the machine shop.
06:29He once said to me, I don't have any ideas, but I can make them into products. I always like Dan's
06:34ideas. He would rough it out in a rough form, but we couldn't sell something like that to a customer.
06:42I always looked at my job as distilling it, the least number of little components,
06:48so it was manufacturable. We'd have a list, new ideas would get thrown on the list,
06:52and this list was always churning, and it was all kinds of things. If I'm doing any kind of
06:57accurate work in the shop, I'm wearing the OptiVisor, and I have been for 25 years,
07:02so long that I often forget I'm wearing it. I'm Dan Early Wine, and this is the shop stand. Hi,
07:07I'm Dan Early Wine. I'm in my guitar shop to show you the guitar repair vise, and I thought you'd
07:12like to see how I solved the problem of getting a good string spacing at the nut when I start out.
07:17At that time, everybody doing repairs and lutherie seemed to be trying to hold their secrets real
07:23tight to themselves. If they knew how to do it, they weren't going to tell you because then you'd
07:27be a competitor. Between the guitar player articles and the videos, everything about Dan is
07:34here's how to do it, sharing how to do it, and that whole sharing thing, that's really the core.
07:39That's really what the whole thing is about. It's about sharing information, so Dan just gave it all
07:43away from the start. There you have it. That's how to mix hot high glue, and you can heat it and cool
07:48it and heat it and cool it, and it'll last you for weeks, and you'll learn to love it just like I do.
07:52I didn't like the fact that other people wouldn't share things with me. In the early 60s, when I
07:58would go to Paul's music store and I would ask to buy some fret wire, he wouldn't sell it to me.
08:03The same with a nut. I wanted to buy a nut or a blank for a nut, and he wouldn't sell it to me.
08:08It's kind of like the guilds in Europe. You just don't pass that information on. It could affect
08:13your livelihood. That's how I got the name Trade Secrets. The invention of my brother Tom and I,
08:19we filled the catalog with up to eight pages some years. People would send in their new ideas.
08:25I encourage people to send us their ideas because we learn so many things that way.
08:30Someone like me can't hold it inside. I want to show people. I'm proud of what I do. I get excited,
08:36and when you have people to share it with, that's just a wonderful thing. You know, I got to
08:42interview B.B. King in 1991 for Guitar Player Magazine, and he was playing his very first
08:47own model of Lucille, and I put it in the Guitar Player Repair Guide. When it was all done, he let
08:52me take Lucille and play it, and he played chords for me. He says, go ahead, and I was playing B.B.
08:57King licks, and I know a lot of them. Not everybody knows about Dan. You actually have that in common
09:02with him. Dan was a professional musician before he started into the building and repairing his career.
09:09Playing with some heavy hitters too. Yeah, definitely. Well, Iggy Pop, as he's known today, was a really
09:15good buddy of my wife Joan. He put Joan and I together, kind of played matchmaker. He was in a
09:19band called the Iguanas. They were a rock and roll fraternity band, and we were trying to be a blues
09:24band. We stole him away from the Iguanas. He wanted to join our band. We named him Iggy because that
09:30was short for Iguanas. So Jim and I were roommates for a year or so. I got a photo of that walking
09:35down the street in Ann Harbor in a hot summer, not even wearing shoes. Hippies. It's not that I don't
09:41love this 1940 J35. I love it, and it's wonderful, but it's kind of big for a little guy like me.
09:47That's why this little sweetheart is my favorite. Let's give him one. All right.
09:56You know, Dan's always had apprentices in his shop. I started working for him when I was 14,
10:01maybe 15. Really, I just did the old-fashioned like apprenticeship where people would go find
10:07like a trademaster and some other apprentices at the time that I was there, and he's got a
10:11whole new crop of apprentices now, so. And there were people before me, lots of people. That gives
10:16more weight to all his educational stuff because he's actually lived it. And continues to live it.
10:22Yeah. Wow, I wouldn't have been able to do it if you hadn't have showed me how to do it.
10:26Maybe, but you can do it next time. Next time. Take it away, Lorna. First try.
10:31All right. Sounds good so far.
10:52So we're in my shop on Court Street in Athens, Ohio. It's full of stuff that Dan has either
10:58paid me with, such as this bench. This is an old craftsman chest from Dan. An old machinist
11:04chest that Dan built. A lot of my power tools. My neck jig is from his shop. He was just like,
11:09yeah, take this. You need this. Once you're in, you're in. It's like family. Went through a
11:13really rough patch like a year after working for him. He fired me twice that year. And it was just
11:19like, no, you're done. Go home. He followed up and was like, hey, just take a week or two off
11:23and come back. Like we'll have a beer and talk this over and get back at it. Dan's been there
11:28at times for me when I felt completely alone. My wife and I, when we were dating, we separated for
11:33nine months and he was integral and picking me back up through that and got me through it.
11:4118 months later, I was fortunate enough for him to accept my invitation to be a groomsman at my
11:45wedding. He was just like so touched that I thought of him that way. And I was just like,
11:50this is a friendship of a lifetime. I will think about our friendship forever. He always says in
11:54the shop, if you want to be a better luthier, be a better person. When you start to apply that to
11:59your life, your work gets way better. Adaptability, thinking on your feet, research, thinking things
12:05through, being patient, staying focused. Cause it's those moments where you're thinking about
12:10the hardships in life that you make mistakes in your work. So when I came to Dan, it was like a
12:15master's class coming from a repair shop where I had to like every day have so much output in order
12:22to pay my bills and keep the shop work moving. Coming into Dan's was a whole new experience
12:27because he didn't have to operate like that. His whole job is education and coming up with new
12:32tools and new ideas to share with the world. So I paid attention to details I didn't pay
12:36attention to before. And it made me such a better repairman. Speaking of wiring, since this is such
12:41an important job to me, I've asked the best wiring man I know, Gene Embodick. Come on, Gene. Gene and
12:47I have worked on guitars for 30 years. He works at Stumac and he's going to do the honors here.
12:52Thanks, man. I really appreciate you bringing me in on this. Vintage Gibsons are my favorite. We'll
12:56pull apart that PAF and pull the coil cut wire out, put a new lead wire on it. I've aged some
13:02covers that I think are going to look great on this. God. Yeah, those came out really good. Oh boy.
13:07Teaching is an art in and of itself and teaching on video and connect with people through a camera
13:14lens. Even now, even comments on 10 year old videos of people who are just finding Dan for
13:19the first time like, I love this man. Like they've never met Dan before and they immediately
13:25connect with him and know they can trust him and they know that what he's saying holds weight
13:30and that they should listen. I've absolutely tried to emulate that. That's something that I hope has
13:36translated into the work that I've done. I've been lucky enough to follow in his footsteps
13:41and I hope that I can carry that along too, that connection. You have to know what you're doing.
13:46You have to be good yourself in order to explain it. Be honest, tell the truth, you know,
13:52really think about it. And with video, you can show it. For me, seeing is believing. You watch
13:59somebody do something very tricky and bingo. Dan will never tell you he knows everything.
14:05He will never tell you that the way he does something is the best way or the right way or
14:10the only way. He's always looking for a new way to do something. So he's not just an educator and a
14:16teacher. He's forever a student. His whole motivation is to take that knowledge and refine it
14:22and give it back to everybody else. That's what separates Dan. Dan has this very infectious love
14:29of the craft that, you know, when you are in his orbit, when you watch his videos, you know,
14:35even read the books, you just get caught up in the fact that, you know, this is just so cool.
14:40It's so interesting in that you learn to do this one thing and then you feel empowered. And now
14:44you want to do 10 other things and you feel like you can because not only, you know, has Dan made
14:49you feel like that, but there's also a hundred other pieces of content that he's got out there
14:54to sort of help you and nudge you along as you're learning.
14:58And this is going to be intro take one and action.
15:04Recently a wonderful thing happened to me. A dear friend of mine passed away. That's not the
15:09wonderful thing. I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm sorry. As a whole, the Lutheran industry wouldn't be
15:24without what it is without Dan. Dan's ability to not do the same job the same way twice always leads
15:33to new ways and new tools and new tool ideas. He's constantly hacking and trying to find a
15:41better way. I just got an idea. They should sell aerosol cans of thinner so we can spray our tips
15:48out. That's brilliant. Remind me of that. Amazing to just have this innovator that just is constantly
15:57looking for another way. Between that and his willingness to educate, it's one of the things
16:04that Stumack is most known for is sharing information. Dan's the reason why. Stumack would
16:10not be where it is today without Dan. That's for sure. Right now I'm standing in front of
16:17kind of the command center for the Luth group. Once again, without Dan Earlywine,
16:22probably not going to happen. Dan's influence on my life is just immeasurable. It's hard to
16:30overstate, really. Dan, there's not much that I can say about you that we all don't already know,
16:35but your skill, your knowledge, and your generosity brought a lot of attention to the
16:42field of guitar repair, and it also brought a lot of attention to Stuart McDonald, and that's
16:47something that we all thank you for to this day. He's like having your favorite uncle show you how
16:52to work on guitars, and there's always some little tidbit in there that means you have to rewind this
16:57tape. Hopefully it would rewind and come out of the machine. Rewind this tape and watch it over
17:02and over again because Dan had just shown you something that had never been done before because
17:05he just kept inventing ways of working on guitars. So to Dan and his retirement, I just want to say
17:12thank you from me, from everybody at Stuart McDonald, from everybody in the world for
17:15building this legacy of guitar repair, which goes on and on. So you are the start of all that for so
17:22many of us. Some of you may have already heard that I retired at Stumac, but you don't have to
17:27worry about my future because right now I have two part-time jobs, one at the post office and one at
17:33UPS, so I'll be all right. Hi Susan! Come on in. Let me show you what we got going on for the fall here.
17:41One thing that's pretty exciting, I just got this guitar in and I haven't seen it for like 47 years.
17:47This is one I built in 1977. Back then it looked like this. I was pretty proud, you can tell.
17:53And then somebody sunbursted it, and recently I decided to make one or two again this fall.
17:58This is so much fun to see this thing. What was I thinking? Black walnut from the Albert King
18:04Black Walnut. Mahogany neck from my old Honduras. I still have the pickup that Tim Shaw made back in
18:101977. I took all the electronics out. They had put some really weird stuff in it. Jerry Schaefer,
18:16and it's inlaid in the peghead. Jerry died some years ago. His gravestone has this engraved on it.
18:22Can you imagine? So he loved this. An ongoing project here is the Lucy Flying Vs. This is a
18:28right-handed one, and I'm in the process of making it right now. This would be a left-handed. That's
18:33what Albert had. That's the look that I like the best actually. These are custom order. I've got a
18:38couple going right now. We're also making the Jerry Garcia guitars. I call this one Stratish
18:44Caster, because it doesn't have a tremolo. He wanted the tune-o-matic bridge and a stop tail
18:49piece to keep it simple. He came over to the shop and liked a lot of the things I was doing, and
18:54I had an old D-18 Martin that I'd inlaid numbers in it, kind of as a camp joke or something. He
19:00loved that, so he wanted that. Here's Jerry. That's what he looked like when I met him. Here's a
19:05project I started before COVID. This Naughty Pine Tele Stumac was selling those back then, and my
19:11old buddy and longtime apprentice, Elliot John Connery, made me a burning brand. That's a DN&E,
19:17or the Rising Sun. Kind of gretchy. It's got tortoiseshell binding, hearing bone strips inside,
19:22something I've never seen. This particular one has the glazer bender installed. It runs through
19:27the body. This is the neck plate, and that's the lever your strap goes on and pulls the string.
19:33I have some old mahogany that I've had 45 years, old-growth Honduras, and I make some necks that
19:39are like a maple neck in that it doesn't have a fretboard. I learned that my favorite tuners are
19:45Ricard Cyclone tuners. These are the best tuners I've ever used, and all these guitars,
19:50you're going to have them. This is a 400-year-old Douglas fir quarter sawn baritone neck. If you
19:56hold this and hit it with a hammer, it's just, it rings, and it doesn't have a truss rod. It's so
20:02strong, it doesn't need one. I'm not sure what body I might put this on. I got about a half a
20:07dozen or maybe a little less of these aluminum bodies made for the Harley-Davidson run that
20:12Fender did in the early 90s. Polished aluminum. The same thing on the Tele. And here's the real
20:18piece de resistance, a copper one. Can you imagine this? I'm not trying to be a show-off. I'm just
20:24pretty excited about this stuff. Another thing, see, I've always wanted a Telecaster that
20:29sits here, because my shoulder's bad. Hey, TK, what is this wood? Limba. Limba. Carina. It's got
20:35some crazy carves in it. So now, instead of having the neck out here, it's going to be right here,
20:40like Mike Bloomfield. He always played it with his strap on, and the neck was up here. I think
20:45we've got a picture of that, too. Forgot about that. My hero. I sold him that guitar, too.
20:52Traded it. Did I tell him about the Luth Group? No. The Luth Group is an organization that I
20:57belong to with a bunch of Luthiers of all ages and all skills, and we all share ideas. I've never
21:03learned more in four years than I have from the young people coming up today. They think I'm
21:08something. No way. You can join this group. Check them out. The Luth Group. So that's a wrap.
21:14It's looking like a real busy fall and winter. We're going to make a lot of guitars, and
21:18I guess I'm not retired after all. I've got too much fun going on here.
21:23Dan, happy retirement. I'm really happy for you. I think that it's a good time for you to go off
21:29and do some of the things you've been wanting to do. Dan Earlywine, I love you. Thank you for
21:34everything that you've done for me, everything you've done for the trade, and everything that
21:39you've done for Stuart McDonald. Dan, happy birthday. I love you so much. I'm so thankful
21:46for all the time I've spent with you and everything you've done for me. Thanks for
21:50inspiring me, first and foremost. Thanks for always supporting me. I was afraid of getting
21:54old before I met you, but you've taught me that we can all stay that boy learning guitar,
22:00finding it for the first time forever. Happy retirement, Dan. I love you, buddy. I've got
22:06your original book here, and what you wrote to me is beautiful, and I love you. Hey, Dan,
22:12congratulations on your new change of life and your newfound freedom. Not only did you teach
22:18us all how to fix guitars, it added so much to the guitar-making community.
22:23You've also given us a real boost in fashion eyewear. Thanks, Dan. Hello, Dan and all my
22:30friends in Athens, Ohio. You made me feel like a more legitimate contributor to the conversation
22:37by listening to me, and it's been endlessly important to me. I also wanted to say that
22:42you're one of the most excitable, interested people in this field, which makes you so fun to
22:48be around. You've never really kind of gotten bored with guitars, which I aspire to find you
22:56a really inspiring individual. You know, I can't tell you how much you mean to me, basically.
23:00You've made all of our lives, like, who do this just so much easier, and the fact that you and
23:06I have actually become really good buddies just means the world to me. And I just want to leave
23:10you with a quote that I heard you say a couple of months ago when I was visiting you in your shop,
23:15and you said to me, the worst thing we can do is make it worse, and I thought that that was
23:21freaking gold. All of us have done a ton of guitars. Happy birthday, Dan. Happy birthday
23:28for the best of us, my dear friend Dan Erlewine. We love you for 80 years more of luxury and Dan
23:38Erlewine. Hey Dan, I just wanted to send a video and say happy 80th birthday. Can't wait to get
23:46back up there and keep working on some guitars with you. Hope you have a great happy birthday.
23:50I love you. Hi Dan, happy birthday. Miss being in the shop with you. I'm gonna be back in about
23:56two weeks, and we're gonna be building guitars like crazy. It'll be just like when I was 17
24:01and we built this one, my very first build. Yeah, see you soon. Happy birthday. Hola Dan,
24:08feliz cumpleaños mi amigo. Thanks for being a great boss. Dan, it's been great working for you.
24:12Congratulations on 80, Dan. I think Dan has been the only person I've ever met that's truly changed
24:17the world for so many people, and recently in my world. Bottom line is that I don't think there's
24:22ever been a day I've left this shop that I didn't feel better than when I got here, and that's
24:25because of Dan. Happy birthday, Dan. I love you. Happy retirement, Dan. This is Rod from Brazil,
24:33and I really have to be your friend. I know the world loves you, so this is a big hug from Brazil,
24:40Dan. Bye. Dan, without you, without me, without this workshop, happy retirement. Dan Erlewine,
24:48this is Alex Glasser. I wanted to say thank you. All the help you've provided all of us
24:53repair guys and guitar builders over the years through the Stumac stuff and just in real life,
24:59and the biggest help, the biggest trick I ever learned from you are these guys,
25:04drilling these holes. It's made my life so much easier. Happy 80th birthday, Dan, from the
25:10luthier bench. We love selling your guitars, and we want to wish you and Joan many years of health,
25:17happiness, and guitars. Damn that Dan Erlewine. Jugglers for 160 points. Hi, Dan. We hear it's
25:27your retirement. We just want to say what a great GAL booster you've been, how good you've been to
25:34the whole luthiery community. You've been a true believer and a builder of the American luthiery
25:40boom. In conclusion, we would like to say Dan is great. Dan is good. Dan is great and good.
25:52Hi, Dan. Congratulations. Enjoy your retirement. Hello. Is this thing on? Is this thing on? So,
26:01Dan, you're retiring. I don't believe that for a second. I know you're going to be out there doing
26:06something as long as you can be, and that's going to be in the shop or building guitars
26:11or just plain raising hell. I wish you the best of luck in your new endeavor and your repair shops,
26:17and I look forward to absolutely having a great relationship with you
26:23building guitars together, and I'm sure that's going to be fabulous. Dan, congratulations.
26:47Thanks a lot. Bye.