A Collection of Ren's Memories, Building Guitars for Some of the Greats!
Johnny Depp
How the Pirate Guitar for Johnny Depp came about was from watching the 1st movie with my wife. In the scene when Ms. Swan and Captain Jack are sitting on the beach and he said “That’s what a ship is, you know. A ship is not just a keel, hull, deck, and sails…. That’s what a ship needs. What a ship is, what the Black Pearl really is ….. is freedom.” I thought that sounded to me like a guitar…. it’s not just at top, back, sides with a neck and some strings, that’s what a guitar needs…. What a guitar really is….. is Freedom. Freedom that will take you wherever you want to go…
When Johnny got the Pirate guitar at the film lot in California, I was told that he sat in the shade of one of the buildings on a curb for about two hours just looking at all the details on it before he ever strummed it. And then he played it, loved it and as far as I know he still has it. Jerry Bruckheimer liked it so much they ordered another one.


Paul McCartney
I had the privilege of designing a retro build of an Epiphone guitar here in Montana. He insisted that it wasn’t an Epiphone guitar that was built overseas. We built it to the original spec of the Texan model of the Epiphone that had been built in the mid 60s. This run of guitars were all distressed to match his personal original Epiphone. Eventually the series of 100 units were signed by Paul himself and used as donations to fundraisers that sold at auction for tons of money. In the hands of Paul McCartney, this guitar gave the world “Yesterday” and dozens of other Beatles greats.
Jorma Kaukonen
“Jorma played a guitar I had designed called the Star for a long time, which was basically a J-185 model with a sharp shoulder cut away. He played that for a long time, wearing the frets completely out. Jorma was a guitar player in Jefferson Airplane when Janis Joplin was in the band. He’s just a great guitar player. He makes music work; he makes it digestible for everybody. He’s comfortable in his presentation and is not just a guitar player, he is a great entertainer.
In this picture he is playing a prototype “Chet Atkins” Thinline Acoustic Electric.”


John Oates
“John Oates came to the Gibson Acoustic Factory, here in Montana. He was playing at the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky and we were presenting this guitar to him. He had asked to have a guitar built to his specs and that’s the one in this picture of him above. It’s an L-OO that’s very similar to a B-25 in its look because of the red sunburst and the large guard but we added some inlay and bound fretboard and headstock and put a couple inlays on the bridge to just kind of dress it up for him.”
Jackson Browne
“Jackson is a true gentleman. This guitar is his favorite size and shape, which is an early 30s Gibson Guitar that originally was made for Roy Smeck. Having known Jackson for a while, he would come up for his birthday and hang out at the Gibson Factory. I would listen to him telling stories about a specific guitar that he used to write a specific song, commenting that there’s music in every guitar, if you can find it. And some of them shouted out at you. I decided to build him a guitar of European Walnut back and sides because I loved the way the wood works. Having used it for gun stocks for half a century I was very aware of how it machined and really liked it. He played that guitar when it was presented to him in Hollywood and said, “there are at least three songs in this, I gotta have this one”. This was the 10th or 11th attempt to build him a guitar that would partner with him. All the others were great guitars, they just didn’t have his songs in them I guess.”


Kix Brooks
“When Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn were performing together as the legendary duo Brooks & Dunn, we had the privilege of crafting custom guitars for them. One of the standout pieces was a guitar with intricate barbed wire inlay designed specifically for Kix Brooks. Does anyone remember that iconic guitar?”
Keb Mo
“Keb Mo came through Montana to visit the factory and we built this guitar for him designed to his specs. It is a 12 fret mahogany L-OO, a specific guitar for his playing style which we dressed up a little bit. Funny, funny guy. Just a real down-to-earth guy. Good picker, good musician, great guy.”


George Harrison
“George Harrison was given a guitar that I designed in the early 90’s, the J-2000; which is a 185 size Gibson shape with a soft shoulder cutaway. It has an inlay pattern that I had used on Ferguson banjos in the early 70’s. An inlay pattern we’re still currently using today. It was placed in his hands by my son, Mattew who at the time was the artist relations representative for Gibson.”
Emmylou Harris
“Emmylou Harris – what can be said about Emmylou Harris.
I first met her in Nashville. I did design a model that we call “the Emmylou” for Gibson, but her famous guitars have always been the SJ-200 which she’s shown playing here. We made several of them for her at different times. I’ve played with her on a Music Video that was called ‘A Day in the Life of Country Music’ that was filmed here at the factory, here in Montana. That was so fun.”


Elliot Easton
“Elliot Easton – I met him through my son Mattew, who at the time, was artist relations for Gibson, and Elliot requested certain left-handed guitars done by Gibson. A rock icon for sure, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist of the group The Cars. Just an incredible guitar player. He requested me to build a lefty Hummingbird. I made it like they made them pre-65’ at his request. He loves that guitar and is still trying to wear it out so I can build him another one.”
Arlo Guthrie
“Arlo is a buddy. I did number of instruments for Arlo and his family over the years as a Gibson Endorsee and player and we became friends and still keep in touch through other friends. We built him this particular guitar and presented it to him on one of his trips here to Montana. The model pictured is an SJ-200 with a custom vine inlay that we built him. We actually made a number of these over the years for different people. He’s great. Loved his band members too.”


Ron Wood
“Ron Wood, of the Rolling Stones, was an artist that I had the opportunity to design a guitar for. We built him a SJ-200 and it had artwork specifically at his request of “something that was akin to flames”. I came up with a flame scene inlay for the fretboard made of abalone and mother of pearl and a hand engraved double pickguard on the guitar.”
John Lennon
“Gibson was invited by Yoko, John’s wife, to build a set of Tribute Guitars at the Acoustic Factory in Bozeman. I traveled to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was allowed to take John’s J-160E out of its display and do a complete assessment of all of the elements and the condition of the guitar up to and including the artwork that John had done. This set was built as a trio. One was a copy of the “Bed-In” guitar, which had his artwork (but my initials on it); the 2nd Psychedelic one which was painted in our booth that was blue and purple. I had Jason Jones of the custom shop hand paint all the contrasting orange lines. The original is believed to have been done by the artist Steve Weaver. The 3rd one was a standard model prior to him stripping the finish off and painting it psychedelic and then later stripping the color into natural and doing the artwork during the Bed In with Yoko. Great project, I loved doing it.
As a tribute to him, Yoko took one back to the John Lennon Museum in Japan. Very cool.“


John Mclaughlin
“In 1973, a friend of mine and customer, Rex Bogue, came to me to build guitars for him. As we created these instruments, he would take them up to the Roxy nightclub on the strip and show them to different artists and showed one to John McLaughlin who asked to have a double neck made. So I built this double neck guitar as well as others, for Rex, with Rex doing the genius part he did which was the electronics and I spent the time doing the carving and building of the guitar.”