About Giffin Guitars:
Roger started Giffin Guitars in England, where it existed in various
forms from the late 60's up until the mid 80's. During those years
Roger was fortunate enough to hook up with a lot of very good
musicians. This gave him the opportunity and encouragement to designand
build guitars that became widely accepted in England at that time.
The workshop: The workshop was located under a bridge by the river
Thames in London, and it soon became a meeting place for many 'name'
player of that time. It became the hotspot for people seeking great
guitars and guitar service. Regular customers included Eric Clapton,
Pete Townshend and John Entwhistle (The Who), Mark Knopfler (Dire
Straits), Andy Summers (The Police) David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), and
many more. Hundreds of quality, reasonably priced guitars were made at
"Giffin Guitars." The Giffin Guitar workshop was in operation at this
location for about 7 years, and the retail part of the workshop, which
existed for about 3 years, was an outlet for Giffin Guitars as well as
for other brand name guitars.
Moving to California: In the late '70s, Roger was designing a prototype
guitar that became the Steinberger 'M' series. It was because of this
guitar that Roger Giffin was offered the job to run Gibson's West Coast
custom shop in Los Angeles. A needed change at that point, and so Roger
jumped at this opportunity.
The Gibson Custom Shop: So, in 1988 Roger moved to California. Once in
L.A. and, employed by Gibson, he started building Gibson Custom
instruments and fronting the Gibson West Coast repair shop. During this
time, he built many different Gibson custom guitars, while the "Giffin"
side of things was "on a slow burner." The client list during this time
included names like Eddie Van Halen, Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, Jimmy
Page and Malcolm Young, among many others. Roger ran the Gibson custom
shop up until Dec. '93 together with his co-worker and good friend Gene
Baker. At that point it was decided that the whole Gibson operation was
to be moved to Nashville.
R&B Instrument Services: In early 94', with his partner Brett
Allen, Roger started R&B instrument Services (on Sunset Blvd.).
For the next three years they were kept very busy mainly on repairs and
service. Then, in the spring of '97, Roger branched out on his own
again.
Giffin Guitars U.S.A.: Roger Giffin worked in Los Angeles up until June
of 2004 building small quantities of hand made guitars from his home.
In July 2004, Roger moved once again, and is now operating from
beautiful Portland, Oregon. Roger continues to maintain, as always, the
very highest hand built standards for his instruments. Roger feels that
his hands-on approach to guitar building still gives him the greatest
satisfaction, and it allows him to produce unique and individual
instruments.
And we couldn't agree more!
|
|
History Of Giffin Guitars
