Boogie Bodies was started By Lynn Ellsworth
Information below provided by Lynn.
Wayne Charvel and I started Boogie Bodies back in 1976. I use
to make replicas of antique furniture and Wayne Charvel asked me to
make a copy of a Fender Strat body from some exotic
wood. Wayne and I had a band when we were in college called
the Nonchalants. I found a large piece of East Indian
rosewood and made a Strat body. He showed it to John
Kay (Steppenwolf) and Peter Townsend and the company got some exposure
from this. I was in cancer research up here in the Seattle
area and was making the bodies and shipping them down to Wayne who
lived in Azusa, California. We were only making bodies at
this time and thus the name Boogie Bodies. My next door
neighbor was Jim Warmoth, a retired watch maker and steel
worker. I sold him an interested in Boogie Bodies for $5,000
and like an idiot I gave him additional stock so that he and I both
owned 50% of the company. Big mistake. His son, Ken
Warmoth and Jim were secertly making equipment to produce the bodies
and necks. They copied the templates and then started Warmoth
Guitar Products. They make great products but their
reputation and business practices set them apart. The turtle
logo was mine and was gifted to me by an artist friend of
mine. I wasn't going to spend the time and money to take them
to court besides I was busy calling on hospitals and oncologists with
my job in cancer research.
The referred to one piece guitars made in the late 70's were
always three pieces. The neck blank had two wings glued on
and matched so that most looked like they were one piece.
There were only 9 made and are extremely rare and
collectable. VanHalen has one mahogany, Clapton has a
Zebrawood with 2 truss rods, my ex-wife has a Zebrawood with two
truss
rods, Manny Charleton from Nazareth has a one piece Les Paul copy, Big
Red has a maple one piece. Tom Cupp had a one piece birdseye
maple that his wife sold when he got divorced, two were destroyed in a
fire, Doug Rowell in Portland has a very rare
one piece made from
Bloodwood, Mighty Mite (Randy Zacoto) had a
beautiful birdseye maple
one piece. The one piece guitars were made for Boogie Bodies
by John McFadden. He built the guitars under our supervision
and we then painted them, assembled, etc. I have no idea
where the others are. Wished I did because they are worth a
fortune.
We don't have any logs to document guitars and a time period in which
they were made. I made very few guitars after the Boogie Body
Warmoth split. I worked with Floyd Rose in getting an
audience with VanHalen and made templates' for Floyd Rose so that his
system could be retro-fitted onto existing guitars. Floyd
wanted to go into business and have an exclusive but the
Warmoths' nixed the idea. We would of all be millionaires by
now. One of the other reasons for the split with
Warmoth.
We really liked the Fender Strat design and only one Les Paul one piece
was produced. Craig from Jefferson
Starship has a black Strat
copy, but it was not a one piece. I knew many people and was
constantly introduced to some of the best guitar players in the
world. I developed and invented the 2 TEK bridge but was
cheated out of that. Only two guitars (Zebrawood) were
produced with two truss rods, thus the necks were quite
large.
I now make custom guitars using exotic woods. I sign
everything with a date and serialize them. The most popular are the
Telie style. I have a few custom wound Kent Armstrong
humbucker Telie pick-ups that shatter anything that is on
stage. Unfortunately I only have 5 left and they are destined
to power up the 3,000 year old redwood burl models. These
guitars have to be heard. Every guitar player asks what the
guitars are made of and what is powering them. These are some
of the best sounding Boogie Bodies ever produced. That is saying a lot
because there were many Boogie Bodies produced that are
killer.
Hope this answers some of your questions. Sorry about not
having a log book available. We had one but it disappeared
with the Warmoth breakup. Boogie Bodies use to make the
bodies and necks for Charvel, Schecter and Mighty Mite in the
late 70's. We stopped because they were not paying their
bills.
Have a great day and talk with you later.. Maybe someday you
will have the opportunity to here one of the specialized Telie types
under construction. They just kick ass and everyone is amazed
at the sound!!!!!!
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