Mosrite

Mosrite M style headstock

Mosrite M style headstock

Mosrite is an American guitar manufacturing company, based in Bakersfield, California, from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Founded by Semie Moseley, Mosrite guitars were played by many rock and roll and country artists such as Tommy Tedesco, Davie Allan, Kurt Cobain, Joe Maphis, John Entwistle, Larry Collins, Buck Trent, Nick McCarthy, The Ventures,Bill Parrilli, the MC5, Iron Butterfly, Arthur Lee Love, Johnny Ramone, Ricky Wilson, Kayama Yuzo, and Kevin Shields. A friend of Moseley, a singing preacher named Rev. Ray Boatright, was deeply impressed with Moseley's guitar designs, and put up front money for Moseley to found his guitar company. In gratitude, Moseley named the company by combining his and Boatright's last names. It is generally pronounced "MŌZE-right.

Mosrite guitars were known for innovative design, beautiful engineering, very thin, low-fretted and narrow necks, and extremely hot (high output) pickups. Moseley's design for the Ventures, known as the "Ventures Model" (later known as the "Mark I") was generally considered to be the flagship of the line, but all of his guitars bore his unmistakable touch. Mosrite also produced several types of double-necked guitars, which were the types favored by Collins and Maphis; this design was also used by Nick Nastos, lead guitar player for Bill Haley & His Comets, during 1968.

History

In Bakersfield, Semie Moseley started playing guitar in an evangelical group at age 13. Semie and his brother Andy experimented with guitars since teen-age years, refinishing instruments and building new necks.

Semie Moseley began building guitars in the Los Angeles area around 1952 or 1953. He began by apprenticing at the Rickenbacker factory, where he learned much of his guitar making skills from Roger Rossmeisl, a German immigrant who brought old-world luthier techniques into the modern electric guitar manufacturing process. One of the most recognizable features on most Mosrite guitars is the "German Carve" on the top that Moseley learned from Rossmeisl. During the same time, Moseley apprenticed with Paul Bigsby in Downey, California, the man who made the first modern solid-body guitar for Merle Travis in 1948, and who invented the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, which is still used today.

File:Joe-maphis-fire-on-the-strings.jpg

Cover of Joe Maphis' album "Fire on the Strings", published in 1957 with his custom double-neck Mosrite guitar.

In 1954 Semie built a triple-neck guitar in his garage (the longest neck was a standard guitar, the second-longest neck an octave higher, the shortest was an eight-string mandolin). He presented a double-neck to Joe Maphis, a Los Angeles-area TV performer. By 1956, with an investment from Reverend Ray Boatright, a local Los Angeles minister, Semie and Andy started their company, Mosrite of California. Semie, who built guitars for the L.A.-based Rickenbacker company, said to his co-workers that he was making his own product, and he was fired by Rickenbacker.

When they began, their production was all custom, handmade guitars, built in garages, tin storage sheds, wherever the Moseleys could put equipment.

In 1959, Andy moved to Nashville, Tennessee for a year to popularize the Mosrite name and sold a few to Grand Ole Opry entertainers, people, and to road musicians. Andy said: "And that’s how we kept the factory going at the time: custom guitars".

Moseley made guitars in Los Angeles until 1959, when he moved to Oildale, California, just north of Bakersfield.

In 1962 he moved his shop to Panama Lane where he designed and produced the first Joe Maphis model guitars, which would become the Ventures model guitars. (Joe Maphis would later get a model of his own, similar to a Mosrite Combo model but without the F-hole.)

Mosrite Ventures II (1964)

Mosrite Joe Maphis Double Neck (1968)

At the peak of production in 1968, Semie and his brother Andy, with their crew of 107 employees were making 1,000 Mosrite guitars per month which included acoustics, standard electrics, double-necks, triple-necks, basses, dobros, even mandolins.

Mosrite of California went bankrupt in late 1968 after they contracted with a competitor to market their guitars. After this, the they tried to deal directly with stores, and they sold 280 guitars in 1969 before they came to the shop one day and found their doors pad-locked. Two years after his bankruptcy, Semie was able to get back the Mosrite name, and in 1970 he started making guitars again in Pumpkin Center near Bakersfield. He moved his factory three times in the next 20 years, to Oklahoma City in the mid-70s, to the township of Jonas Ridge, in Burke County, North Carolina in 1981, and to Booneville, Arkansas in 1991.

Though a genius at guitar design and construction, Moseley lacked many basic skills necessary to be a good businessman, and the company fell on hard times repeatedly in the late 1960s and 1970's, but continued to produce Mosrite guitars until 1993 in North Carolina and Arkansas. Most of them were exported to Japan, where their popularity remained very strong. The quality of the instruments always remained very respectable. Semie Moseley died in 1992. His wife Loretta continued to produce Mosrites a year or so after his death.

Semie Moseley occasionally used the name "Gospel" for some of his guitars, most notably in 1969 and 1970 when he had lost the Mosrite name to Sears. Due to this, there exist some Mosrite guitars with Gospel painted on the headstock or, in some cases, painted on a piece of plastic and bolted on the headstock. Semie also used the name Gospel in approximately 1990 for a small line of guitars.

Kurt Cobain's Mosrite Gospel Guitar (a very rare 'Mark V' Gospel, which is essentially a "Ventures" Mark V guitar relabeled as a Gospel after the Ventures endorsement deal ended) was featured in an online auction in 2006 by Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas, TX, fetching $131,450.00.

Mosrite has recently been restarted by Loretta in 2007 and since 2008 has been selling custom Mosrites via their website.

The company now has recently released the Semie Moseley Model ’63 and ’65, based on the Ventures models made in those two years. Both models are made to the exact specifications as the original models; they are 100% hand-made and were created to commemorate Semie Moseley.

Semie's daughter, Dana Moseley, is also a luthier and continues to build Mosrite guitars. She also helps kick off the monthly "Mosrite Jam" in Bakersfield.

Guitar Design

Vibramute Vibrato

Moseley designed his own hand vibrato units. The Vibramute consisted of a solid cast metal base, and a string stop connected to a vibrato arm lifted by a large spring. The bridge, also designed by Moseley, he called the Roller Matic bridge. Each string sat atop a raised post with individual string rollers. This allows for the tension between the string stop and bridge to stay equal to the tension between the bridge and nut which helps with guitar stay in tune and reduces string wear when using the tremolo. It is also ideally positioned for easy palm muting of the strings. Early models of the Vibramute also had, as its name implies, a foam rubber string mute at the front, similar to the Fender Jaguar, but most players disliked it. That, in conjunction with many requests to lengthen the rather short vibrato handle, led Moseley to slightly re-design the unit for the 1965 and beyond guitars. He named this incarnation the "Moseley" vibrato, though its differences with the Vibramute are slight.

Body

The body of Mosrite Ventures models are shaped so that the lower horn of the body is longer than the upper. Many Mosrite Guitars have a beveled edge around the body called a "German carve". The Gospel models have a unique flat face body with rounded edges.

Stereo 350 models are shaped similar to Fender's Telecaster guitar. Stereo 350 models feature two output jacks and a circuit to send each pickup's signal to a different amp, If desired.

Bluesbender and Brass Rail guitars are shaped similar to Gibson's Les Paul.

Neck

Most Mosrite necks are narrow and thin. Most also have thin, very low frets (sometimes called "speed frets") And are about the same size as Gibson "Fretless Wonders". However, Unlike a Fretless Wonder, Speed Frets are rounded on the sides which is proper for a guitar. Mosrite guitars also had a "zero fret" for super low action. The headstock has the outline of the letter "M" at the top.

Early 70s Mark I models have thinner necks and wider fretboards than the 60s models.

Brass Rail models feature a brass rail in the guitar neck that has the frets hammered in. The purpose of the brass rail is for sustain.

Notable users

Joe Maphis model

• Nokie Edwards - The Ventures
• Don Wilson - The Ventures
• Bob Bogle - The Ventures
• Gerry McGee - The Ventures
• Greg Camp - Formerly of Smash Mouth
• Fred "Sonic" Smith - MC5, Sonic's Rendezvous Band
• Davie Allan Davie Allan & The Arrows
• Star Crunch aka Brian Causey - Man or Astro-Man?
• Tommy Tedesco
• Joe Maphis - Wanda Jackson, Ricky Nelson and others.
• Arthur Lee - Love
• Buck Trent
• Nick McCarthy - Franz Ferdinand
• Kurt Cobain - Nirvana
• Greg Camp - Defektor, formerly Smash Mouth.
• Jimi Hendrix - Used a Fuzzrite pedal.
• Johnny Ramone - The Ramones
• Kevin Shields - My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream
• Nick Royale - The Royale (Signature)
• Ricky Wilson - The B-52's
• Takeshi Terauchi - Blue Jeans
• Yuzo Kayama
• Ben Weasel - The Riverdales
• John Entwistle - The Who
• Efrim Menuck - Godspeed You! Black Emperor, A Silver Mt Zion
• Kevn Kinney - Drivin N Cryin
• George Wharmby - The Systematics
• Jason Stollsteimer - The Von Bondies
• Jeordie White - Marilyn Manson
• Josh Cocoros - Beatnik Termites, The Quarantines
• Mark Neill - The Unknowns (band) Soil South Productions

Further reading

• Landers, Rick; Brennan, Tim, "The Story of Mosrite Guitars, Part One". Modern Guitars magazine, January 18, 2005
• Price, Robert, "The Man Behind the Mosrite" (archived 2008 copy), The Bakersfield Californian. Has biographical notes on Semie Moseley.

External links

• mosrite.us
• Mosriteguitars.com
• Mosrite Forum
• The Mosrite Gospel guitar, North American Instruments, 2000. With some personal notes on its builder.
• "Mosrite History", Tym Guitars, Australia.