© Tonesmith 2009 All Rights Reserved
History, About me ( I guess). A Personal note.
My name is Kevin Smith I have been doing guitar work for 20 years, and unintentionally longer. I grew up around guitars. I was born in 1961, in Fosston, Minnesota. Definitely farm country.
I was introduced to guitars as a young kid. Many in my family were musicians, including my mother who sang and played guitar. I remember being five and my mom and uncles would be jamming in the living room, it was so awesome to watch. I was always around guitars. As I time went on, I started plinking around a bit but it wasn't until my uncle said “Here, this is a bass, do this.” This is when I felt like I was able to play (at least in my mind). Years later my uncle left a bass, a Norma, (ooh! lol) but he had pulled all the frets out. I played it anyway and didn't think much about it. So all thru high school, I played that Norma until I bought my first real bass. It was a Rickenbacker 4001. I had saved to get that and I still have it!
After high school I attended technical school in Red Wing, MN for Electronic Musical Instrument Repair. While there, I would drop by the string instrument class (umm, just visiting), and I brought my 4001 there to get it re-fretted (I had actually learned something.) So as time went on I got into repairing and finishing.
I eventually started doing repairs on the road (whatever you want to call it: roadie, gopher, etc.) with a Midwest bar band in 1984 (Okay. Big hair.. who doesn’t have something from their past?) I was doing refinishing in the hotel rooms (not recommended) and other modifications to guitars.. (No never put a Kahler on a 59 strat!) But I definitely got some good experience.
After leaving that band and as time went on, I had more and more people coming to me with their guitars. I started a business which I named GLF for Guitar and Light Fabrication. I was doing many restorations for people and stores. Of course you could find old guitars fairly cheap and restore them, but I felt these guitars were missing something. They were cool and all, but still they seemed narrow in their range of tone. That's why you had a Strat for one song, LesPaul for another and a Rickenbacker for anotherI . I felt there was room for improvement.
I started my own line of guitars in 1991 which I called Tonesmith by GLF guitars.
In 1997 I changed the name of the business to Tonesmith. I though it was neat since it would be a way to include my name, (what the heck?) I decided to go with the semi-hollow body style and a softer wood on the back and harder on the top. The first body styles were the traditional 412 Strat and 510 Tele Styles. The first original shape was a 316, and last was the 320. And I thank my nephew Mike Cruser for encouraging me to go for it. --Thank you Mike!!
The wood I use all have stories behind them as well. I have cherry that was cut and hung in a garage for 50 years. I have Brazilian Rosewood that was cut in world war II and came to the US as a crate. I have black walnut from my friends family farm in Iowa, and also I have lumber from my Brother in-law's saw mill in Two Harbors MN. (Which is Mike’s Dad).
Even though this gets a little long, the reason I write this is so you may know a little about me and how I stand behind each instrument that I build. I hope you guys enjoy playing and always feel free to contact me about any guitar questions!
Thanks Kevin.
