Robert Benedetto to Team Up with Guild


The Benny	The Manhattan	La Venezia

July 26, 1999 -- Fender Musical Instruments Corporation is pleased to announce that it has come to an agreement with renowned master guitar builder Robert Benedetto. As part of the agreement made final on March 5, 1999, Guild(R), the venerable Rhode Island based subsidiary of Fender, has brought Benedetto on board to lend his expertise and incorporate design changes to their Artist Award Model and Stuart archtop guitars. In addition, a line of hand-built Benedetto(R) guitars will be made at Guild's Custom Shop in Nashville, Tennessee. This line will include existing Benedetto designs such as the Manhattan, the La Venezia and the Benny, as well as any new designs that Benedetto may create in the future.

Since he began hand crafting archtops in 1968, Master Luthier Robert Benedetto has come to be considered the world's premiere expert on archtop guitars. As part of the arrangement, Bob will personally work with and instruct Guild's Custom Shop guitar makers as to the exact specifications of his new model designs. These guitars, referred to as Guild-Benedetto models, will be studied for future manufacture at the Westerly, Rhode Island location

Guild has crafting archtop guitars since its first electric archtop in 1954. Two years later, Guild added acoustic archtops to their line of guitars and introduced both the Stuart series and the Artist Award Model. Although Guild enjoyed success and industry acclaim for their craftsmanship, the company decided in 1973 to make archtop guitars on a custom order basis only. With the resurgence in popularity of the archtop guitar during the 1980's, Guild reintroduced their line to standard production and have continued to hand craft them at their Westerly, Rhode Island facility.

Bill Acton, Guild's Marketing Manager, states, "Guild will continue to constantly improve quality standards for their jazz guitars under Bob's direction. We are confident that this agreement will expand on Guild's already superb line and that both the Guild and our new Benedetto archtops will achieve a maximum tone, touch and feel that is unsurpassed."

Visit Guild on the web at www.guildguitars.com.