1970s: Fame
In 1970 Zemaitis started experimenting with placing a metal shield on the top of the guitar in order to eliminate microphonic noise picked up by the guitars' pickups. His first metal top guitar prototype was purchased by Tony McPhee, while the second was for Ronnie Wood of Rolling Stones fame (he was in the Faces at the time). Wood played the instrument on The Faces' Top of the Pops appearance in 1971, and the shiny appearance of the guitar raised an incredible amount of interest from guitar players. Zemaitis asked gun engraver Danny O'Brien to do artistic engravings on the metal top and other metal parts, and started building custom-order guitars for the rich and famous. His most famous guitars are Ronnie Wood's 24-fret metal top guitars (a total of four guitars were built for Wood), which he used from 1971 until 1995, Ronnie Wood's "Desert Island" (or "Slide on This") metal disc top guitar, Keith Richards' 5-string "Skull&Bones" guitar, Eric Clapton's "Ivan the Terrible" 12-string acoustic guitar and The Faces' Ronnie Lane's basses. Aside from metal top guitars, from the mid-70s Zemaitis also started decorating the tops of his guitars with elaborate pearl inlay, either figures like dragons and skulls and bones, or complete mosaic-like inlaid tops. These guitars command the highest prices.
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Famous quotes containing the word fame:
“That land is like an Eagle, whose young gaze
Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plume
Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze
Of sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapped in gloom;
An epitaph of glory for the tomb
Of murdered Europe may thy fame be made,
Great People! as the sands shalt thou become;
Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade;
The multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)