©2011 SANTA CRUZ GUITAR COMPANY like you made violins.” McGuire and Patterson guided Hoover in practical applications of his knowledge, the former teaching the young apprentice the fundamentals and the latter helping him learn specific things like making dovetail neck joints. a short time, Hoover was building Martin-style Within dreadnoughts. His early guitars caught the attention of local luthiers who were making mandolins. “One of them was now famous for pretty the violinist who’s Anger, Darol made mandolins much everything,” Hoover says. “We together for a while, and we’re still good friends.” and by Hoover soon returned to making guitars exclusively, the middle part of the ’70s had gotten pretty good at it. Davis—two repairmen from William When Bruce Ross and giving to invest in a company, Union Grove Music—offered Hoover $500 in credit in exchange for his teaching them to build guitars, Hoover was all ears. “They were brilliant guys who made a beautiful contribution to triangulate this thing,” Hoover says. “But of course, we fought about fundamentals the idea of part of the fire that forged like crazy and that’s Santa Cruz Guitar Co.” some, that triangulation was the birth of boutique guitar To making in the United States. “What that means to me,” Hoover says, “is that this is not about the individual just trying to trying to rough it out by himself, or the guy who’s be the next Martin—this is the luthier principle of working a hugely important part of how together as a team.” It’s Santa Cruz began and how it has been able to continue its why pursuit of creating great instruments, Hoover says. It’s he has continued to bring budding luthiers into the fold, producing many who have gone on to make names for built guitars for who’s themselves—like Roy McAlister, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, and Robby David Crosby, Fulks; Michael Hornick of Shanti Guitars; Bill Hardin of who still lives and works in Traugott, Bear Creek; and Jeff Santa Cruz. Hoover says, “Everybody who works here is a Even today, career guitar-maker.” Santa Cruz Goes Global Hoover was just 25 on September 22, 1976, when he signed a partnership agreement with Ross and Davis, making Santa a couple of years, the team Within Cruz Guitar Co. official. came up with its Santa Cruz D model dreadnought with back and sides made of koa—an unusual choice for that from the center Tapered Also unusual was its bracing. time. of the X out towards the sides, it was totally unlike either the new Martins of the period, or the older ones. Its materials and design gave the Santa Cruz D just the kind of balanced bass-to-treble response that some younger acoustic guitarists were looking for. emotion. “I’m not a fancy guitarist,” he says, Hoover’s “I do a lot of thumb work, I do some modestly. fingerpicking, but I’m not a lead guitarist—I’m a rhythm guitarist.” pauses and lowers his voice, as if to make sure no Taylor when I play a Santa Cruz, I feel know, one is listening: “You like I’m cheating,” he continues, then lets out a big, have to do too much to sound sustained belly laugh. “I don’t really good!” The Ballad of Otis B. Rodeo In the early 1970s, Hoover was just another 20-something California folksinger with a guitar—on track to set the world on fire—when one day someone stole his beloved Martin D-28. you read “I was going to be the next Bob Dylan—didn’t sitting in about that?” Hoover says, with a soft chuckle. He’s later in the afternoon, next to a front office his factory’s When he guitar magazines. table overflowing with coffee looks like the kind of friendly smiles, the 63-year-old folksinger the puppeteers of Sesame Street might caricature: rounded glasses, a full gray beard, and straight brown hair tied back in a ponytail. “But when my Martin got stolen,” he continues, “everything changed.” crossroads That crime more than 40 years ago was Hoover’s moment—the planets aligned in such a way that had him In building guitars rather than playing them professionally. become one of the most revered the years since, he’s steel-string makers in the world, the Santa Cruz logo among the company makes between 500 Today, the most coveted. with 75 percent of those falling into and 650 guitars a year, the custom category. Hoover had been fascinated by the inner workings of guitars long before he dreamed of making them for a living. Growing up in Hanford, California—an agricultural town about 200 miles southeast of Santa Cruz—he’d help his dad, They’d build a commercial artist, set up local store displays. the shelving themselves, working with wood, foam, metals, Hoover says. also made stuff,” and other materials. “We take things apart, “My dad always encouraged me to tinker, figure things out.” when Hoover got his first steel-string at 15—an Naturally, for $47.50—he not OM-shaped Harmony, all-mahogany, John Fogerty was looking for a road guitar similar to the John Fogerty was looking for a road guitar at home. His two ’50s-vintage Gibson jumbos he keeps “I wanted to to call Hoover. him friend Brad Paisley urged as good as those take a guitar on tour with me that sounded ‘Oh yeah, no old Gibsons,” Fogerty says. “Richard said, something When a guy like Richard Hoover says problem.’ knowledge a very big deal. He has so much like that, it’s and expertise.” ask Richard to Scott Law agrees. “Be careful what you it is [you want],” build, because he’ll build exactly what team was so proud of the guitar they Law says. Hoover’s album Black built for Law—whose all-acoustic solo they asked if he Mountain came out earlier this year—that minded them making it a signature Santa Cruz D-Law of course,’” Law says. model. “I was like, ‘Yeah, “Everyone there—the whole crew—is a really nice family They’re just righteous, you know?” of people. . . Inside the Factory On a Friday morning, Hoover—wearing faded jeans, brown boots, and a green sweater vest over a long-sleeve shirt—leads a group of about eight on a tour of his big stacks of spruce showing off 9,000-square-foot factory, as young builders lean over work and strips of mahogany, tables, sawing, drilling, sanding, and painstakingly The constructing the inner bracing of soon-to-be guitars. Photos of floors are concrete, the walls a dull yellow. musicians hang in the work areas: Jimmy Page, Peter Rice in the wood room; a giant Hendrix Tony Rowan, and Otis Taylor, who chose rosewood for his original signature Taylor, Otis model—seconds Taylor Santa Cruz guitar—the Otis He laughs. “I personally like that—I don’t want people to He laughs. “I personally like that—I don’t hear every note I play.” Before the 1970s, there was no information in print on steel-string guitar making. “Violins—tons; guitars—nothing,” Hoover says. He read everything his mother got him about building violins. “The whole principle of violin making was choosing, manipulating, and controlling the instrument to get the quality of sound you want, and that was nothing at all like steel-string guitar making, which had been born in factories for mass consumption. So I came in first assuming you made guitars Hoover still communicates clearly with customers who are looking for high-quality instruments to serve specific purposes. “Say you play bluegrass—you’ll probably want want that,” he prominent bass. If you play jazz, you won’t tells the tour group. “Rosewood gives you a more blended type of sound.” It wasn’t much. It wasn’t The Santa Cruz Guitar Co. soldiered on, and to date the company has built more than 14,500 guitars. In the years since, Santa Cruz has designed models of styles that have attracted orders from numerous different dozens of famous guitarists, including Clapton, who saw an ad for the company and commissioned a carved-back F model. By the early 1980s, co-founder Davis had left the career path; in 1989, Hoover company to pursue a different Ross. bought out his other co-founder, At first, Hoover and his colleagues avoided making more of what the company them, because the instruments weren’t three years, though, the Within had become known for. team acquiesced and Santa Cruz rolled out its first Rice model. Tony the important signature guitar, The initial guitar that Santa Cruz made for him was a bit ears, so the team went back to the too balanced for Rice’s they had done to previous drawing board, undid all the stuff the guitars to bring balance to them, and enlarged When he took it on the road with soundhole. Rice loved it. him and played it before audiences, Santa Cruz got Rice’s.” Tony inundated with orders for guitars “just like When Rice, who famously had been playing the late 1935 Martin D-28, approached Santa White’s Clarence Cruz about building him a new instrument, Hoover and his team came up with some ideas. Rice wanted a more up-to-date version of his Martin, but with a slightly brighter sound that he could use in the studio. With the emergence of progressive bluegrass—which the emergence With blended jazz techniques with old-time folk and country—the tenor of acoustic music had changed by the mid-1970s, and Santa Cruz aimed to serve the musicians earlier who played this new sound. By 1978, Hoover’s was performing with Anger, instrument-building partner, mandolin player David Grisman, whose group also Tony included a young flatpicking guitar genius named Rice. In the mean time, Santa Cruz had rolled out two more models—the H, originally commissioned by luthier expert J-185—and inspired by Gibson’s and the F, Paul Hostetter, business was picking up. Hoover had already done some research on guitar making. “My mom was a professional reference librarian—she was sort of the search engine of her day—and she had gotten me everything that was available on instrument building,” he says. Hoover landed in Santa Cruz in 1972, and his Martin promptly disappeared. He looked around for a new guitar at the local Union Grove Texan and saw an Epiphone Music shop. He fell in love with the instrument, but clerk sent him over to nearby A it. afford couldn’t Bruce Beneficial Finance, where he talked with loan officer McGuire, who happened to be a classical-guitar builder. McGuire introduced Hoover to Jim Patterson, a hobbiest early and the two served as Hoover’s steel-string maker, mentors. “They’re the reason I stayed here,” he says. After leaving Hanford, Hoover traveled the country, lived After leaving Hanford, Hoover traveled the country, in a commune, and performed with his Martin D-28 as Otis B. Rodeo, a stage name he cribbed from another childhood guitar—a cheap, nylon-string Rodeo he’d gotten for the name I originally built “That’s Christmas one year. he says. “In fact, I still sign guitars that guitars under,” way.” only learned to play it to impress the girls at school, but he took it apart. “I thought, oh, I can put all this stuff together—I can play guitars, I can make guitars, I can work he says. “How cool is that?” in wood, I can discover stuff,” Hoover’s soft-spoken demeanor and easy smile belie a Hoover’s listen closely quick, dry wit that you’ll miss if you don’t At one point, he motions over the steady whir of machinery. Adirondack spruce and quips, “This wood got to a stack of what Martin and a big buzz in the guitar world because it’s At used back when they made really good guitars.” Taylor between hand-built when discussing the difference another, diminish and mass-produced instruments, he says, “I don’t cheap guitars—you can write a song on one that’ll change Then he gets serious. “But our job is to make the world!” the most sophisticated instruments.” The tour group—seven men and a woman—is getting a journey from trees to fully built crash course on a guitar’s instruments. Santa Cruz, Hoover says, has long been committed to “green” wood procurement, using materials such as responsibly harvested Indian rosewood and he tells the At the onset of the tour, reclaimed spruce. have trade secrets, so ask any questions don’t group, “We you want.” Finally, Hoover picks up the back and side pieces that Finally, yet been assembled with a braced top. “When we haven’t there will be a new note—the air put all of this together, brought into space,” he says. “If these pieces aren’t you lose everything you gained from the harmony, bracing.” In the wood room, Hoover reaches for a piece of Sitka spruce and taps on it. “Listen,” he says. “It has a distinctive bass and treble sound even before we put the bracing in.” He walks to another table, taps on an already-cut guitar top been fully braced, and pauses for a second: “When I that’s hear this been braced, you don’t tap the tops that haven’t sustain.” poster and collage of magazine images—from Hank Allman to Questlove of the Roots—in and Duane Williams rack of cassettes spanning from the A the finishing room. Halen keep the workers entertained as they Van Byrds to focus deeply on their individual tasks. This story originally appeared in 2014 to mark the 38th anniversary of the Santa Cruz Guitar Co. SCGC celebrates its milestone 40th anniversary this year with two Sept. 24, 2016–in Sept. 23, and Saturday, concerts–Friday, Santa Cruz, California. Taylor is hardly the only artist to be inspired by the Taylor instruments Richard Hoover makes at Santa Cruz Guitar Co., the boutique shop he founded 38 years ago in the Northern California beach town some 70 miles south of San Francisco. Other Santa Cruz owners have included Eric Rice, country star Brad Paisley, Tony Clapton, flatpicker folksinger Janis Ian, CCR founder John Fogerty, picker Scott Law, jam-band-improviser-turned-bluegrass and many less well-known players and guitar aficionados. “People like the guitar because it has a very deep sound,” just such a high-grade instrument. says. “It’s Taylor guitars are masterpieces.” Richard’s Who wouldn’t like it? With its earthy, red clay-colored its earthy, With like it? Who wouldn’t Chicago OT mahogany top, back, and sides, the small-body The instrument has a is no-frills guitar art at its finest. 13 frets stopping subtle but utterly distinctive look, with and an the body, just beyond the joint where the neck meets Taylor’s insignia based on the signature that elegant OT It also used in his paintings. Sr., Taylor Otis artist father, the singer’s has a rich and resonant growl that befits on albums hard-hitting story-songs about racial injustice the Earth and last Walked When Negroes with titles like American Native is Gone, his tribute to World My year’s culture. The next day, Taylor upped the ante, bringing in his new Taylor The next day, Chicago model. “Bill Taylor signature Santa Cruz Otis says. “He really Taylor picked it up and started playing it,” liked it.” “He said, ‘Hey man, check out this Martin I have,’” Taylor Taylor I have,’” “He said, ‘Hey man, check out this Martin remembers. In late May, the acoustic-blues and folk singer Otis Taylor Taylor and folk singer Otis the acoustic-blues In late May, Immersive Studios in Boulder, was hanging out at on some new songs, when he ran into Colorado, working The for String Cheese Incident. Bill Nershi, the guitarist their instruments. two got to talking about By Mark Kemp: September 23, 2016 Kemp: September By Mark Richard Hoover’sRichard a Milestone Co. Celebrates Cruz Guitar Santa In late May, the acoustic-blues and folk singer Otis Taylor was hanging out at Immersive Studios in Boulder, Colorado, working on some new songs, when he ran into Bill Nershi, the guitarist for String Cheese Incident. The two got to talking about their instruments.

“He said, ‘Hey man, check out this Martin I have,’” Taylor remembers.

The next day, Taylor upped the ante, bringing in his new signature Santa Cruz Otis Taylor Chicago model. “Bill picked it up and started playing it,” Taylor says. “He really liked it.” John Fogerty was looking for a road guitar similar to the Who wouldn’t like it? With its earthy, red clay-colored two ’50s-vintage Gibson jumbos he keeps at home. His mahogany top, back, and sides, the small-body OT Chicago friend Brad Paisley urged him to call Hoover. “I wanted to is no-frills guitar art at its finest. The instrument has a take a guitar on tour with me that sounded as good as those subtle but utterly distinctive look, with 13 frets stopping old Gibsons,” Fogerty says. “Richard said, ‘Oh yeah, no just beyond the joint where the neck meets the body, and an problem.’ When a guy like Richard Hoover says something elegant OT insignia based on the signature that Taylor’s like that, it’s a very big deal. He has so much knowledge artist father, Otis Taylor Sr., used in his paintings. It also and expertise.” has a rich and resonant growl that befits the singer’s hard-hitting story-songs about racial injustice on albums Scott Law agrees. “Be careful what you ask Richard to with titles like When Negroes Walked the Earth and last build, because he’ll build exactly what it is [you want],” year’s My World is Gone, his tribute to Native American Law says. Hoover’s team was so proud of the guitar they culture. built for Law—whose all-acoustic solo album Black Mountain came out earlier this year—that they asked if he “People like the guitar because it has a very deep sound,” minded them making it a signature Santa Cruz D-Law Taylor says. “It’s just such a high-grade instrument. model. “I was like, ‘Yeah, of course,’” Law says. Richard’s guitars are masterpieces.” “Everyone there—the whole crew—is a really nice family of people. . . They’re just righteous, you know?” Taylor is hardly the only artist to be inspired by the instruments Richard Hoover makes at Santa Cruz Guitar Co., the boutique shop he founded 38 years ago in the Northern California beach town some 70 miles south of Inside the Factory San Francisco. Other Santa Cruz owners have included Eric Clapton, flatpicker Tony Rice, country star Brad Paisley, On a Friday morning, Hoover—wearing faded jeans, brown CCR founder John Fogerty, folksinger Janis Ian, boots, and a green sweater vest over a long-sleeve jam-band-improviser-turned-bluegrass picker Scott Law, shirt—leads a group of about eight on a tour of his and many less well-known players and guitar aficionados. 9,000-square-foot factory, showing off big stacks of spruce and strips of mahogany, as young builders lean over work This story originally appeared in 2014 to mark the 38th tables, sawing, drilling, sanding, and painstakingly anniversary of the Santa Cruz Guitar Co. SCGC celebrates constructing the inner bracing of soon-to-be guitars. The its milestone 40th anniversary this year with two floors are concrete, the walls a dull yellow. Photos of concerts–Friday, Sept. 23, and Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016–in musicians hang in the work areas: Jimmy Page, Peter Santa Cruz, California. Rowan, and Tony Rice in the wood room; a giant Hendrix ©20 1 poster and collage of magazine images—from Hank 7 SANTA CRUZ GUITAR COMPANY Williams and Duane Allman to Questlove of the Roots—in the finishing room. A rack of cassettes spanning from the Byrds to Van Halen keep the workers entertained as they focus deeply on their individual tasks.

In the wood room, Hoover reaches for a piece of Sitka spruce and taps on it. “Listen,” he says. “It has a distinctive bass and treble sound even before we put the bracing in.” He walks to another table, taps on an already-cut guitar top that’s been fully braced, and pauses for a second: “When I tap the tops that haven’t been braced, you don’t hear this sustain.”

Finally, Hoover picks up the back and side pieces that haven’t yet been assembled with a braced top. “When we put all of this together, there will be a new note—the air space,” he says. “If these pieces aren’t brought into harmony, you lose everything you gained from the The Ballad of Otis B. Rodeo bracing.” In the early 1970s, Hoover was just another 20-something The tour group—seven men and a woman—is getting a California folksinger with a guitar—on track to set the crash course on a guitar’s journey from trees to fully built world on fire—when one day someone stole his beloved instruments. Santa Cruz, Hoover says, has long been Martin D-28. committed to “green” wood procurement, using materials such as responsibly harvested Indian rosewood and “I was going to be the next Bob Dylan—didn’t you read reclaimed spruce. At the onset of the tour, he tells the about that?” Hoover says, with a soft chuckle. He’s sitting in group, “We don’t have trade secrets, so ask any questions his factory’s front office later in the afternoon, next to a you want.” coffee table overflowing with guitar magazines. When he smiles, the 63-year-old looks like the kind of friendly Hoover’s soft-spoken demeanor and easy smile belie a folksinger the puppeteers of Sesame Street might caricature: quick, dry wit that you’ll miss if you don’t listen closely rounded glasses, a full gray beard, and straight brown hair over the steady whir of machinery. At one point, he motions tied back in a ponytail. to a stack of Adirondack spruce and quips, “This wood got a big buzz in the guitar world because it’s what Martin and “But when my Martin got stolen,” he continues, “everything Taylor used back when they made really good guitars.” At changed.” another, when discussing the difference between hand-built and mass-produced instruments, he says, “I don’t diminish That crime more than 40 years ago was Hoover’s crossroads cheap guitars—you can write a song on one that’ll change moment—the planets aligned in such a way that had him the world!” Then he gets serious. “But our job is to make building guitars rather than playing them professionally. In the most sophisticated instruments.” the years since, he’s become one of the most revered steel-string makers in the world, the Santa Cruz logo among the most coveted. Today, the company makes between 500 and 650 guitars a year, with 75 percent of those falling into the custom category.

Hoover had been fascinated by the inner workings of guitars long before he dreamed of making them for a living. Growing up in Hanford, California—an agricultural town about 200 miles southeast of Santa Cruz—he’d help his dad, a commercial artist, set up local store displays. They’d build the shelving themselves, working with wood, foam, metals, and other materials. “We also made stuff,” Hoover says. “My dad always encouraged me to tinker, take things apart, figure things out.” Naturally, when Hoover got his first steel-string at 15—an all-mahogany, OM-shaped Harmony, for $47.50—he not

only learned to play it to impress the girls at school, but he like you made violins.” took it apart. “I thought, oh, I can put all this stuff McGuire and Patterson guided Hoover in practical together—I can play guitars, I can make guitars, I can work applications of his knowledge, the former teaching the in wood, I can discover stuff,” he says. “How cool is that?” young apprentice the fundamentals and the latter helping him learn specific things like making dovetail neck joints. After leaving Hanford, Hoover traveled the country, lived Within a short time, Hoover was building Martin-style in a commune, and performed with his Martin D-28 as Otis dreadnoughts. His early guitars caught the attention of local B. Rodeo, a stage name he cribbed from another childhood luthiers who were making mandolins. “One of them was guitar—a cheap, nylon-string Rodeo he’d gotten for Darol Anger, the violinist who’s now famous for pretty Christmas one year. “That’s the name I originally built much everything,” Hoover says. “We made mandolins guitars under,” he says. “In fact, I still sign guitars that together for a while, and we’re still good friends.” way.” Hoover soon returned to making guitars exclusively, and by Hoover landed in Santa Cruz in 1972, and his Martin the middle part of the ’70s had gotten pretty good at it. promptly disappeared. He looked around for a new guitar When Bruce Ross and William Davis—two repairmen from and saw an Epiphone Texan at the local Union Grove Union Grove Music—offered to invest in a company, giving Music shop. He fell in love with the instrument, but Hoover $500 in credit in exchange for his teaching them to couldn’t afford it. A clerk sent him over to nearby build guitars, Hoover was all ears. “They were brilliant guys Beneficial Finance, where he talked with loan officer Bruce who made a beautiful contribution to triangulate this thing,” McGuire, who happened to be a classical-guitar builder. Hoover says. “But of course, we fought about fundamentals McGuire introduced Hoover to Jim Patterson, a hobbiest like crazy and that’s part of the fire that forged the idea of steel-string maker, and the two served as Hoover’s early Santa Cruz Guitar Co.” mentors. “They’re the reason I stayed here,” he says. To some, that triangulation was the birth of boutique guitar Hoover had already done some research on guitar making. making in the United States. “What that means to me,” “My mom was a professional reference librarian—she was Hoover says, “is that this is not about the individual just sort of the search engine of her day—and she had gotten trying to rough it out by himself, or the guy who’s trying to me everything that was available on instrument building,” be the next Martin—this is the luthier principle of working he says. together as a team.” It’s a hugely important part of how Santa Cruz began and how it has been able to continue its pursuit of creating great instruments, Hoover says. It’s why he has continued to bring budding luthiers into the fold, producing many who have gone on to make names for themselves—like Roy McAlister, who’s built guitars for David Crosby, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, and Robby Fulks; Michael Hornick of Shanti Guitars; Bill Hardin of Bear Creek; and Jeff Traugott, who still lives and works in Santa Cruz.

Even today, Hoover says, “Everybody who works here is a career guitar-maker.”

Santa Cruz Goes Global

Hoover was just 25 on September 22, 1976, when he signed It wasn’t much. a partnership agreement with Ross and Davis, making Santa Cruz Guitar Co. official. Within a couple of years, the team came up with its Santa Cruz D model dreadnought with Before the 1970s, there was no information in print on back and sides made of koa—an unusual choice for that steel-string guitar making. “Violins—tons; time. Also unusual was its bracing. Tapered from the center guitars—nothing,” Hoover says. He read everything his of the X out towards the sides, it was totally unlike either mother got him about building violins. “The whole the new Martins of the period, or the older ones. Its principle of violin making was choosing, manipulating, and materials and design gave the Santa Cruz D just the kind of controlling the instrument to get the quality of sound you balanced bass-to-treble response that some younger acoustic want, and that was nothing at all like steel-string guitar guitarists were looking for. making, which had been born in factories for mass consumption. So I came in first assuming you made guitars

With the emergence of progressive bluegrass—which blended jazz techniques with old-time folk and country—the tenor of acoustic music had changed by the mid-1970s, and Santa Cruz aimed to serve the musicians who played this new sound. By 1978, Hoover’s earlier instrument-building partner, Anger, was performing with mandolin player David Grisman, whose group also included a young flatpicking guitar genius named Tony Rice. In the mean time, Santa Cruz had rolled out two more models—the H, originally commissioned by luthier expert Paul Hostetter, and the F, inspired by Gibson’s J-185—and business was picking up.

When Rice, who famously had been playing the late Clarence White’s 1935 Martin D-28, approached Santa Cruz about building him a new instrument, Hoover and his team came up with some ideas. Rice wanted a more up-to-date version of his Martin, but with a slightly brighter Hoover’s emotion. “I’m not a fancy guitarist,” he says, sound that he could use in the studio. modestly. “I do a lot of thumb work, I do some fingerpicking, but I’m not a lead guitarist—I’m a rhythm The initial guitar that Santa Cruz made for him was a bit guitarist.” too balanced for Rice’s ears, so the team went back to the drawing board, undid all the stuff they had done to previous Taylor pauses and lowers his voice, as if to make sure no guitars to bring balance to them, and enlarged the one is listening: “You know, when I play a Santa Cruz, I feel soundhole. Rice loved it. When he took it on the road with like I’m cheating,” he continues, then lets out a big, him and played it before audiences, Santa Cruz got sustained belly laugh. “I don’t have to do too much to sound inundated with orders for guitars “just like Tony Rice’s.” really good!”

At first, Hoover and his colleagues avoided making more of them, because the instruments weren’t what the company had become known for. Within three years, though, the team acquiesced and Santa Cruz rolled out its first important signature guitar, the Tony Rice model.

In the years since, Santa Cruz has designed models of numerous different styles that have attracted orders from dozens of famous guitarists, including Clapton, who saw an ad for the company and commissioned a carved-back F model. By the early 1980s, co-founder Davis had left the company to pursue a different career path; in 1989, Hoover bought out his other co-founder, Ross.

The Santa Cruz Guitar Co. soldiered on, and to date the company has built more than 14,500 guitars.

Hoover still communicates clearly with customers who are looking for high-quality instruments to serve specific purposes. “Say you play bluegrass—you’ll probably want prominent bass. If you play jazz, you won’t want that,” he tells the tour group. “Rosewood gives you a more blended type of sound.”

He laughs. “I personally like that—I don’t want people to hear every note I play.”

Otis Taylor, who chose rosewood for his original signature Santa Cruz guitar—the Otis Taylor model—seconds In late May, the acoustic-blues and folk singer Otis Taylor was hanging out at Immersive Studios in Boulder, Colorado, working on some new songs, when he ran into Bill Nershi, the guitarist for String Cheese Incident. The two got to talking about their instruments.

“He said, ‘Hey man, check out this Martin I have,’” Taylor remembers.

The next day, Taylor upped the ante, bringing in his new signature Santa Cruz Otis Taylor Chicago model. “Bill picked it up and started playing it,” Taylor says. “He really liked it.” John Fogerty was looking for a road guitar similar to the Who wouldn’t like it? With its earthy, red clay-colored two ’50s-vintage Gibson jumbos he keeps at home. His mahogany top, back, and sides, the small-body OT Chicago friend Brad Paisley urged him to call Hoover. “I wanted to is no-frills guitar art at its finest. The instrument has a take a guitar on tour with me that sounded as good as those subtle but utterly distinctive look, with 13 frets stopping old Gibsons,” Fogerty says. “Richard said, ‘Oh yeah, no just beyond the joint where the neck meets the body, and an problem.’ When a guy like Richard Hoover says something elegant OT insignia based on the signature that Taylor’s like that, it’s a very big deal. He has so much knowledge artist father, Otis Taylor Sr., used in his paintings. It also and expertise.” has a rich and resonant growl that befits the singer’s hard-hitting story-songs about racial injustice on albums Scott Law agrees. “Be careful what you ask Richard to with titles like When Negroes Walked the Earth and last build, because he’ll build exactly what it is [you want],” year’s My World is Gone, his tribute to Native American Law says. Hoover’s team was so proud of the guitar they culture. built for Law—whose all-acoustic solo album Black Mountain came out earlier this year—that they asked if he “People like the guitar because it has a very deep sound,” minded them making it a signature Santa Cruz D-Law Taylor says. “It’s just such a high-grade instrument. model. “I was like, ‘Yeah, of course,’” Law says. Richard’s guitars are masterpieces.” “Everyone there—the whole crew—is a really nice family of people. . . They’re just righteous, you know?” Taylor is hardly the only artist to be inspired by the instruments Richard Hoover makes at Santa Cruz Guitar Co., the boutique shop he founded 38 years ago in the Northern California beach town some 70 miles south of Inside the Factory San Francisco. Other Santa Cruz owners have included Eric Clapton, flatpicker Tony Rice, country star Brad Paisley, On a Friday morning, Hoover—wearing faded jeans, brown CCR founder John Fogerty, folksinger Janis Ian, boots, and a green sweater vest over a long-sleeve jam-band-improviser-turned-bluegrass picker Scott Law, shirt—leads a group of about eight on a tour of his and many less well-known players and guitar aficionados. 9,000-square-foot factory, showing off big stacks of spruce and strips of mahogany, as young builders lean over work This story originally appeared in 2014 to mark the 38th tables, sawing, drilling, sanding, and painstakingly anniversary of the Santa Cruz Guitar Co. SCGC celebrates constructing the inner bracing of soon-to-be guitars. The its milestone 40th anniversary this year with two floors are concrete, the walls a dull yellow. Photos of concerts–Friday, Sept. 23, and Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016–in musicians hang in the work areas: Jimmy Page, Peter Santa Cruz, California. Rowan, and Tony Rice in the wood room; a giant Hendrix

poster and collage of magazine images—from Hank Williams and Duane Allman to Questlove of the Roots—in the finishing room. A rack of cassettes spanning from the Byrds to Van Halen keep the workers entertained as they focus deeply on their individual tasks.

In the wood room, Hoover reaches for a piece of Sitka spruce and taps on it. “Listen,” he says. “It has a distinctive bass and treble sound even before we put the bracing in.” He walks to another table, taps on an already-cut guitar top that’s been fully braced, and pauses for a second: “When I tap the tops that haven’t been braced, you don’t hear this sustain.”

Finally, Hoover picks up the back and side pieces that haven’t yet been assembled with a braced top. “When we put all of this together, there will be a new note—the air space,” he says. “If these pieces aren’t brought into harmony, you lose everything you gained from the The Ballad of Otis B. Rodeo bracing.” In the early 1970s, Hoover was just another 20-something The tour group—seven men and a woman—is getting a California folksinger with a guitar—on track to set the crash course on a guitar’s journey from trees to fully built world on fire—when one day someone stole his beloved instruments. Santa Cruz, Hoover says, has long been Martin D-28. committed to “green” wood procurement, using materials such as responsibly harvested Indian rosewood and “I was going to be the next Bob Dylan—didn’t you read reclaimed spruce. At the onset of the tour, he tells the about that?” Hoover says, with a soft chuckle. He’s sitting in group, “We don’t have trade secrets, so ask any questions his factory’s front office later in the afternoon, next to a you want.” coffee table overflowing with guitar magazines. When he smiles, the 63-year-old looks like the kind of friendly Hoover’s soft-spoken demeanor and easy smile belie a folksinger the puppeteers of Sesame Street might caricature: quick, dry wit that you’ll miss if you don’t listen closely rounded glasses, a full gray beard, and straight brown hair over the steady whir of machinery. At one point, he motions tied back in a ponytail. to a stack of Adirondack spruce and quips, “This wood got a big buzz in the guitar world because it’s what Martin and “But when my Martin got stolen,” he continues, “everything Taylor used back when they made really good guitars.” At changed.” another, when discussing the difference between hand-built and mass-produced instruments, he says, “I don’t diminish That crime more than 40 years ago was Hoover’s crossroads cheap guitars—you can write a song on one that’ll change moment—the planets aligned in such a way that had him the world!” Then he gets serious. “But our job is to make building guitars rather than playing them professionally. In the most sophisticated instruments.” the years since, he’s become one of the most revered steel-string makers in the world, the Santa Cruz logo among the most coveted. Today, the company makes between 500 and 650 guitars a year, with 75 percent of those falling into the custom category.

Hoover had been fascinated by the inner workings of guitars long before he dreamed of making them for a living. Growing up in Hanford, California—an agricultural town about 200 miles southeast of Santa Cruz—he’d help his dad, a commercial artist, set up local store displays. They’d build the shelving themselves, working with wood, foam, metals, and other materials. “We also made stuff,” Hoover says. “My dad always encouraged me to tinker, take things apart, figure things out.” Naturally, when Hoover got his first steel-string at 15—an all-mahogany, OM-shaped Harmony, for $47.50—he not ©20 1 only learned to play it to impress the girls at school, but he like you made violins.” 7 SANTA CRUZ GUITAR COMPANY took it apart. “I thought, oh, I can put all this stuff McGuire and Patterson guided Hoover in practical together—I can play guitars, I can make guitars, I can work applications of his knowledge, the former teaching the in wood, I can discover stuff,” he says. “How cool is that?” young apprentice the fundamentals and the latter helping him learn specific things like making dovetail neck joints. After leaving Hanford, Hoover traveled the country, lived Within a short time, Hoover was building Martin-style in a commune, and performed with his Martin D-28 as Otis dreadnoughts. His early guitars caught the attention of local B. Rodeo, a stage name he cribbed from another childhood luthiers who were making mandolins. “One of them was guitar—a cheap, nylon-string Rodeo he’d gotten for Darol Anger, the violinist who’s now famous for pretty Christmas one year. “That’s the name I originally built much everything,” Hoover says. “We made mandolins guitars under,” he says. “In fact, I still sign guitars that together for a while, and we’re still good friends.” way.” Hoover soon returned to making guitars exclusively, and by Hoover landed in Santa Cruz in 1972, and his Martin the middle part of the ’70s had gotten pretty good at it. promptly disappeared. He looked around for a new guitar When Bruce Ross and William Davis—two repairmen from and saw an Epiphone Texan at the local Union Grove Union Grove Music—offered to invest in a company, giving Music shop. He fell in love with the instrument, but Hoover $500 in credit in exchange for his teaching them to couldn’t afford it. A clerk sent him over to nearby build guitars, Hoover was all ears. “They were brilliant guys Beneficial Finance, where he talked with loan officer Bruce who made a beautiful contribution to triangulate this thing,” McGuire, who happened to be a classical-guitar builder. Hoover says. “But of course, we fought about fundamentals McGuire introduced Hoover to Jim Patterson, a hobbiest like crazy and that’s part of the fire that forged the idea of steel-string maker, and the two served as Hoover’s early Santa Cruz Guitar Co.” mentors. “They’re the reason I stayed here,” he says. To some, that triangulation was the birth of boutique guitar Hoover had already done some research on guitar making. making in the United States. “What that means to me,” “My mom was a professional reference librarian—she was Hoover says, “is that this is not about the individual just sort of the search engine of her day—and she had gotten trying to rough it out by himself, or the guy who’s trying to me everything that was available on instrument building,” be the next Martin—this is the luthier principle of working he says. together as a team.” It’s a hugely important part of how Santa Cruz began and how it has been able to continue its pursuit of creating great instruments, Hoover says. It’s why he has continued to bring budding luthiers into the fold, producing many who have gone on to make names for themselves—like Roy McAlister, who’s built guitars for David Crosby, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, and Robby Fulks; Michael Hornick of Shanti Guitars; Bill Hardin of Bear Creek; and Jeff Traugott, who still lives and works in Santa Cruz.

Even today, Hoover says, “Everybody who works here is a career guitar-maker.”

Santa Cruz Goes Global

Hoover was just 25 on September 22, 1976, when he signed It wasn’t much. a partnership agreement with Ross and Davis, making Santa Cruz Guitar Co. official. Within a couple of years, the team came up with its Santa Cruz D model dreadnought with Before the 1970s, there was no information in print on back and sides made of koa—an unusual choice for that steel-string guitar making. “Violins—tons; time. Also unusual was its bracing. Tapered from the center guitars—nothing,” Hoover says. He read everything his of the X out towards the sides, it was totally unlike either mother got him about building violins. “The whole the new Martins of the period, or the older ones. Its principle of violin making was choosing, manipulating, and materials and design gave the Santa Cruz D just the kind of controlling the instrument to get the quality of sound you balanced bass-to-treble response that some younger acoustic want, and that was nothing at all like steel-string guitar guitarists were looking for. making, which had been born in factories for mass consumption. So I came in first assuming you made guitars

With the emergence of progressive bluegrass—which blended jazz techniques with old-time folk and country—the tenor of acoustic music had changed by the mid-1970s, and Santa Cruz aimed to serve the musicians who played this new sound. By 1978, Hoover’s earlier instrument-building partner, Anger, was performing with mandolin player David Grisman, whose group also included a young flatpicking guitar genius named Tony Rice. In the mean time, Santa Cruz had rolled out two more models—the H, originally commissioned by luthier expert Paul Hostetter, and the F, inspired by Gibson’s J-185—and business was picking up.

When Rice, who famously had been playing the late Clarence White’s 1935 Martin D-28, approached Santa Cruz about building him a new instrument, Hoover and his team came up with some ideas. Rice wanted a more up-to-date version of his Martin, but with a slightly brighter Hoover’s emotion. “I’m not a fancy guitarist,” he says, sound that he could use in the studio. modestly. “I do a lot of thumb work, I do some fingerpicking, but I’m not a lead guitarist—I’m a rhythm The initial guitar that Santa Cruz made for him was a bit guitarist.” too balanced for Rice’s ears, so the team went back to the drawing board, undid all the stuff they had done to previous Taylor pauses and lowers his voice, as if to make sure no guitars to bring balance to them, and enlarged the one is listening: “You know, when I play a Santa Cruz, I feel soundhole. Rice loved it. When he took it on the road with like I’m cheating,” he continues, then lets out a big, him and played it before audiences, Santa Cruz got sustained belly laugh. “I don’t have to do too much to sound inundated with orders for guitars “just like Tony Rice’s.” really good!”

At first, Hoover and his colleagues avoided making more of them, because the instruments weren’t what the company had become known for. Within three years, though, the team acquiesced and Santa Cruz rolled out its first important signature guitar, the Tony Rice model.

In the years since, Santa Cruz has designed models of numerous different styles that have attracted orders from dozens of famous guitarists, including Clapton, who saw an ad for the company and commissioned a carved-back F model. By the early 1980s, co-founder Davis had left the company to pursue a different career path; in 1989, Hoover bought out his other co-founder, Ross.

The Santa Cruz Guitar Co. soldiered on, and to date the company has built more than 14,500 guitars.

Hoover still communicates clearly with customers who are looking for high-quality instruments to serve specific purposes. “Say you play bluegrass—you’ll probably want prominent bass. If you play jazz, you won’t want that,” he tells the tour group. “Rosewood gives you a more blended type of sound.”

He laughs. “I personally like that—I don’t want people to hear every note I play.”

Otis Taylor, who chose rosewood for his original signature Santa Cruz guitar—the Otis Taylor model—seconds In late May, the acoustic-blues and folk singer Otis Taylor was hanging out at Immersive Studios in Boulder, Colorado, working on some new songs, when he ran into Bill Nershi, the guitarist for String Cheese Incident. The two got to talking about their instruments.

“He said, ‘Hey man, check out this Martin I have,’” Taylor remembers.

The next day, Taylor upped the ante, bringing in his new signature Santa Cruz Otis Taylor Chicago model. “Bill picked it up and started playing it,” Taylor says. “He really liked it.” John Fogerty was looking for a road guitar similar to the Who wouldn’t like it? With its earthy, red clay-colored two ’50s-vintage Gibson jumbos he keeps at home. His mahogany top, back, and sides, the small-body OT Chicago friend Brad Paisley urged him to call Hoover. “I wanted to is no-frills guitar art at its finest. The instrument has a take a guitar on tour with me that sounded as good as those subtle but utterly distinctive look, with 13 frets stopping old Gibsons,” Fogerty says. “Richard said, ‘Oh yeah, no just beyond the joint where the neck meets the body, and an problem.’ When a guy like Richard Hoover says something elegant OT insignia based on the signature that Taylor’s like that, it’s a very big deal. He has so much knowledge artist father, Otis Taylor Sr., used in his paintings. It also and expertise.” has a rich and resonant growl that befits the singer’s hard-hitting story-songs about racial injustice on albums Scott Law agrees. “Be careful what you ask Richard to with titles like When Negroes Walked the Earth and last build, because he’ll build exactly what it is [you want],” year’s My World is Gone, his tribute to Native American Law says. Hoover’s team was so proud of the guitar they culture. built for Law—whose all-acoustic solo album Black Mountain came out earlier this year—that they asked if he “People like the guitar because it has a very deep sound,” minded them making it a signature Santa Cruz D-Law Taylor says. “It’s just such a high-grade instrument. model. “I was like, ‘Yeah, of course,’” Law says. Richard’s guitars are masterpieces.” “Everyone there—the whole crew—is a really nice family of people. . . They’re just righteous, you know?” Taylor is hardly the only artist to be inspired by the instruments Richard Hoover makes at Santa Cruz Guitar Co., the boutique shop he founded 38 years ago in the Northern California beach town some 70 miles south of Inside the Factory San Francisco. Other Santa Cruz owners have included Eric Clapton, flatpicker Tony Rice, country star Brad Paisley, On a Friday morning, Hoover—wearing faded jeans, brown CCR founder John Fogerty, folksinger Janis Ian, boots, and a green sweater vest over a long-sleeve jam-band-improviser-turned-bluegrass picker Scott Law, shirt—leads a group of about eight on a tour of his and many less well-known players and guitar aficionados. 9,000-square-foot factory, showing off big stacks of spruce and strips of mahogany, as young builders lean over work This story originally appeared in 2014 to mark the 38th tables, sawing, drilling, sanding, and painstakingly anniversary of the Santa Cruz Guitar Co. SCGC celebrates constructing the inner bracing of soon-to-be guitars. The its milestone 40th anniversary this year with two floors are concrete, the walls a dull yellow. Photos of concerts–Friday, Sept. 23, and Saturday, Sept. 24, 2016–in musicians hang in the work areas: Jimmy Page, Peter Santa Cruz, California. Rowan, and Tony Rice in the wood room; a giant Hendrix

poster and collage of magazine images—from Hank Williams and Duane Allman to Questlove of the Roots—in the finishing room. A rack of cassettes spanning from the Byrds to Van Halen keep the workers entertained as they focus deeply on their individual tasks.

In the wood room, Hoover reaches for a piece of Sitka spruce and taps on it. “Listen,” he says. “It has a distinctive bass and treble sound even before we put the bracing in.” He walks to another table, taps on an already-cut guitar top that’s been fully braced, and pauses for a second: “When I tap the tops that haven’t been braced, you don’t hear this sustain.”

Finally, Hoover picks up the back and side pieces that haven’t yet been assembled with a braced top. “When we put all of this together, there will be a new note—the air space,” he says. “If these pieces aren’t brought into harmony, you lose everything you gained from the The Ballad of Otis B. Rodeo bracing.” In the early 1970s, Hoover was just another 20-something The tour group—seven men and a woman—is getting a California folksinger with a guitar—on track to set the crash course on a guitar’s journey from trees to fully built world on fire—when one day someone stole his beloved instruments. Santa Cruz, Hoover says, has long been Martin D-28. committed to “green” wood procurement, using materials such as responsibly harvested Indian rosewood and “I was going to be the next Bob Dylan—didn’t you read reclaimed spruce. At the onset of the tour, he tells the about that?” Hoover says, with a soft chuckle. He’s sitting in group, “We don’t have trade secrets, so ask any questions his factory’s front office later in the afternoon, next to a you want.” coffee table overflowing with guitar magazines. When he smiles, the 63-year-old looks like the kind of friendly Hoover’s soft-spoken demeanor and easy smile belie a folksinger the puppeteers of Sesame Street might caricature: quick, dry wit that you’ll miss if you don’t listen closely rounded glasses, a full gray beard, and straight brown hair over the steady whir of machinery. At one point, he motions tied back in a ponytail. to a stack of Adirondack spruce and quips, “This wood got a big buzz in the guitar world because it’s what Martin and “But when my Martin got stolen,” he continues, “everything Taylor used back when they made really good guitars.” At changed.” another, when discussing the difference between hand-built and mass-produced instruments, he says, “I don’t diminish That crime more than 40 years ago was Hoover’s crossroads cheap guitars—you can write a song on one that’ll change moment—the planets aligned in such a way that had him the world!” Then he gets serious. “But our job is to make building guitars rather than playing them professionally. In the most sophisticated instruments.” the years since, he’s become one of the most revered steel-string makers in the world, the Santa Cruz logo among the most coveted. Today, the company makes between 500 and 650 guitars a year, with 75 percent of those falling into the custom category.

Hoover had been fascinated by the inner workings of guitars long before he dreamed of making them for a living. Growing up in Hanford, California—an agricultural town about 200 miles southeast of Santa Cruz—he’d help his dad, a commercial artist, set up local store displays. They’d build the shelving themselves, working with wood, foam, metals, and other materials. “We also made stuff,” Hoover says. “My dad always encouraged me to tinker, take things apart, figure things out.” Naturally, when Hoover got his first steel-string at 15—an all-mahogany, OM-shaped Harmony, for $47.50—he not

only learned to play it to impress the girls at school, but he like you made violins.” took it apart. “I thought, oh, I can put all this stuff McGuire and Patterson guided Hoover in practical together—I can play guitars, I can make guitars, I can work applications of his knowledge, the former teaching the in wood, I can discover stuff,” he says. “How cool is that?” young apprentice the fundamentals and the latter helping him learn specific things like making dovetail neck joints. After leaving Hanford, Hoover traveled the country, lived Within a short time, Hoover was building Martin-style in a commune, and performed with his Martin D-28 as Otis dreadnoughts. His early guitars caught the attention of local B. Rodeo, a stage name he cribbed from another childhood luthiers who were making mandolins. “One of them was guitar—a cheap, nylon-string Rodeo he’d gotten for Darol Anger, the violinist who’s now famous for pretty Christmas one year. “That’s the name I originally built much everything,” Hoover says. “We made mandolins guitars under,” he says. “In fact, I still sign guitars that together for a while, and we’re still good friends.” way.” Hoover soon returned to making guitars exclusively, and by Hoover landed in Santa Cruz in 1972, and his Martin the middle part of the ’70s had gotten pretty good at it. promptly disappeared. He looked around for a new guitar When Bruce Ross and William Davis—two repairmen from and saw an Epiphone Texan at the local Union Grove Union Grove Music—offered to invest in a company, giving Music shop. He fell in love with the instrument, but Hoover $500 in credit in exchange for his teaching them to couldn’t afford it. A clerk sent him over to nearby build guitars, Hoover was all ears. “They were brilliant guys Beneficial Finance, where he talked with loan officer Bruce who made a beautiful contribution to triangulate this thing,” McGuire, who happened to be a classical-guitar builder. Hoover says. “But of course, we fought about fundamentals McGuire introduced Hoover to Jim Patterson, a hobbiest like crazy and that’s part of the fire that forged the idea of steel-string maker, and the two served as Hoover’s early Santa Cruz Guitar Co.” mentors. “They’re the reason I stayed here,” he says. To some, that triangulation was the birth of boutique guitar Hoover had already done some research on guitar making. making in the United States. “What that means to me,” “My mom was a professional reference librarian—she was Hoover says, “is that this is not about the individual just sort of the search engine of her day—and she had gotten trying to rough it out by himself, or the guy who’s trying to me everything that was available on instrument building,” be the next Martin—this is the luthier principle of working he says. together as a team.” It’s a hugely important part of how Santa Cruz began and how it has been able to continue its pursuit of creating great instruments, Hoover says. It’s why he has continued to bring budding luthiers into the fold, producing many who have gone on to make names for themselves—like Roy McAlister, who’s built guitars for David Crosby, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, and Robby Fulks; Michael Hornick of Shanti Guitars; Bill Hardin of Bear Creek; and Jeff Traugott, who still lives and works in Santa Cruz.

Even today, Hoover says, “Everybody who works here is a career guitar-maker.”

Santa Cruz Goes Global

Hoover was just 25 on September 22, 1976, when he signed It wasn’t much. a partnership agreement with Ross and Davis, making Santa Cruz Guitar Co. official. Within a couple of years, the team came up with its Santa Cruz D model dreadnought with Before the 1970s, there was no information in print on back and sides made of koa—an unusual choice for that steel-string guitar making. “Violins—tons; time. Also unusual was its bracing. Tapered from the center guitars—nothing,” Hoover says. He read everything his of the X out towards the sides, it was totally unlike either mother got him about building violins. “The whole the new Martins of the period, or the older ones. Its principle of violin making was choosing, manipulating, and materials and design gave the Santa Cruz D just the kind of controlling the instrument to get the quality of sound you balanced bass-to-treble response that some younger acoustic want, and that was nothing at all like steel-string guitar guitarists were looking for. making, which had been born in factories for mass consumption. So I came in first assuming you made guitars ©20 1

With the emergence of progressive bluegrass—which 7 SANTA CRUZ GUITAR COMPANY blended jazz techniques with old-time folk and country—the tenor of acoustic music had changed by the mid-1970s, and Santa Cruz aimed to serve the musicians who played this new sound. By 1978, Hoover’s earlier instrument-building partner, Anger, was performing with mandolin player David Grisman, whose group also included a young flatpicking guitar genius named Tony Rice. In the mean time, Santa Cruz had rolled out two more models—the H, originally commissioned by luthier expert Paul Hostetter, and the F, inspired by Gibson’s J-185—and business was picking up.

When Rice, who famously had been playing the late Clarence White’s 1935 Martin D-28, approached Santa Cruz about building him a new instrument, Hoover and his team came up with some ideas. Rice wanted a more up-to-date version of his Martin, but with a slightly brighter Hoover’s emotion. “I’m not a fancy guitarist,” he says, sound that he could use in the studio. modestly. “I do a lot of thumb work, I do some fingerpicking, but I’m not a lead guitarist—I’m a rhythm The initial guitar that Santa Cruz made for him was a bit guitarist.” too balanced for Rice’s ears, so the team went back to the drawing board, undid all the stuff they had done to previous Taylor pauses and lowers his voice, as if to make sure no guitars to bring balance to them, and enlarged the one is listening: “You know, when I play a Santa Cruz, I feel soundhole. Rice loved it. When he took it on the road with like I’m cheating,” he continues, then lets out a big, him and played it before audiences, Santa Cruz got sustained belly laugh. “I don’t have to do too much to sound inundated with orders for guitars “just like Tony Rice’s.” really good!”

At first, Hoover and his colleagues avoided making more of them, because the instruments weren’t what the company had become known for. Within three years, though, the team acquiesced and Santa Cruz rolled out its first important signature guitar, the Tony Rice model.

In the years since, Santa Cruz has designed models of numerous different styles that have attracted orders from dozens of famous guitarists, including Clapton, who saw an ad for the company and commissioned a carved-back F model. By the early 1980s, co-founder Davis had left the company to pursue a different career path; in 1989, Hoover bought out his other co-founder, Ross.

The Santa Cruz Guitar Co. soldiered on, and to date the company has built more than 14,500 guitars.

Hoover still communicates clearly with customers who are looking for high-quality instruments to serve specific purposes. “Say you play bluegrass—you’ll probably want prominent bass. If you play jazz, you won’t want that,” he tells the tour group. “Rosewood gives you a more blended type of sound.”

He laughs. “I personally like that—I don’t want people to hear every note I play.”

Otis Taylor, who chose rosewood for his original signature Handmade, Handed Down. Santa Cruz guitar—the Otis Taylor model—seconds santacruzguitar.com - 831.425.0999