Tony Zemaitis Guitars Forum
Welcome to the Tony Zemaitis forum, the only on-line forum dedicated to the guitars of Tony Zemaitis and their Japanese re-issues. This is how Zemaitis guitars came into my life...
In 1971 Rod Stewart sang Maggie Mae on Top of the Pops with Ron Wood and Ronnie Lane who played incredible looking instruments. In 1975 the Stones were playing those same incredible guitars, custom-made instruments, built by an eccentric Englishman named Tony Zemaitis.
In early 1993 British mag 'Guitar' ran a four-page special on Gilby Clark's new pearl Z guitar, complete with Tony's phone number. The price quoted was hefty, but no longer out of my reach, so I called Tony and that afternoon sent off a chunky deposit.
When finally my guitar was ready, I traveled to England and picked her up, and met Tony and his lovely wife Ann. Tony was gracious enough to keep a wonderful correspondence, keeping me updated on the build process, but also we started touching more and more on personal matters and I recall sending him a copy of my flamenco guitar solo album, which pleased him to no end as he had dabbled in flamenco himself, and actually the first guitar he'd ever built was a flamenco guitar, which I got to play at his house. We hit it off royally, in other words.
So, how good was the guitar? I played a set with her and she sounded fantastic! OK, now back to my trusted old 1957 LP Gold-top. What's wrong? Who messed with the settings of my amp? Where was my glorious sound of moments ago?
I found out that the Z way out-sounded the Goldtop. So I put six guitars up for sale and ordered another Z!
Tony and I remained friends throughout the years, and with sadness I learned of his passing. Finally I am able to honor this great guitar builder and great person by hosting this forum. It was long in the making!