A mate of mine, John Hill, can put this better than I
A great friend and colleague, a legend in the guitar world, DAN SMITH
Vice President and chief navigator of the unpredictable monolith that
was Bill Schultz's Fender, the master of making the magic happen, the
true saviour of the biggest brand in music who could craft a guitar from
a tree into a musical instrument and who truly loved the brand that
changed the world, has gone to that great gig in the sky.
Dan could do
everything from guitar design to brand communications, from
finance and marketing strategy to engineering and he didn't ask anyone
to do anything he couldn't do himself and frequently did do himself! Dan
was a great guitar picker and sang like Lou Rawls, he even persuaded
his father who had retired from Kodak production engineering (at a
cruelly beleagured time for Fender) to re-engineer the entire guitar
production process in Fullerton.
Dan is with his heroes now and although
he was from Rochester New York, through his considerable acheivements
in the golden state he became California's own and a true guitar hero
that the entire guitar community will mourn along with his wife Sylvie
and his Fender custom shop master builder son Jason. My thoughts and
prayers are with you Sylvie & Jason Smith
and in admiration of a truly great man. Many of us Brits will be
thinking about Dan on this sad day and he will be remembered at the
David Gilmour concert tonight at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
Comments
John Hill - is that the same John Hill use to work for Ivor Arbiter and Paiste amongst others - tall guy with a beard I recall
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
I recall him at Paiste when they arranged a few promotional shop tours that included the big gong from the end of the video for Bohemian Rhapsody - we had it in the shop window for about 1 month - Hit it and all the windows vibrated like a J200 top
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
RIP
R.I.P.
I said maybe.....
Smith, Schultz, et al had the vision to return it to greatness again.
Definitely one of the industry good guys. RIP.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
One of the big names of the industry and the man who saved the greatest guitar company of all time (IMHO etc.)
Shooting from the hip and a fading memory bank, did he not then work for Ensoniq for a while ?
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