Luthier: John Ray

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John Ray (1965) grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. After finishing a linguistics degree in Montréal in 1988 he returned to Edmonton to work as a cook and then a house painter. His passion for the guitar (as a player) pushed him to seek some way to enter the world of the guitar. On the advice of a guitar teacher in Montréal, he left Canada in 1989, determined to learn guitar construction from the great makers in the homeland and birthplace of the modern Spanish guitar – Andalucia, Spain. Teaching English provided enough income to pursue both guitar making (his first guitar being built on his kitchen table!) and the perfect tapa to accompany the occasional glass of wine. But what he thought would be achievable in a year took 10 years to accomplish and even then there was so much more to learn. Those in Granada who helped open the doors for John were many (including José Angel Chacón Tenllado, Jonathan Hinves and even Antonio Marin), but his key teacher was the late Rolf Eichinger, who in 1999 took John in and helped him establish the fundamentals of guitar construction and approach that were necessary in the eventual mastery of his craft. John cites this relationship as the most critical and feels that his career as a professional guitar maker became secure with the assistance and attention Rolf provided.

Some of the musicians who have helped guide John in his quest to make a better guitar are Javier Riba, Evaristo Valenti, Carles Trepat, Victor Bravo and Paola Requena – all from Spain, George Papathanasiou of Greece and Tita Avendaño of Chile. There is also a growing group of exciting younger guitar makers in Granada with whom John often meets with to exchange ideas. The guitar collections of Casa Luthier and of Angel Luis Cañete have also given John the opportunity to study older, historical instruments. As John’s reputation for repair and restoration continues to grow, more instruments needing work are entrusted to him, which has provided the opportunity to study in greater detail instruments by such makers as Torres, Laprevotte, Barbero, Lorca, Pages, Vicente Arias and Santos Hernandez, among others. In John’s own words: “I strongly feel that my most important asset is being privy to a living tradition that is centuries old. My study of historic guitars and my attempts to reproduce them have also taught me much.”

Today John uses well-aged timbers, hot hide glue, very traditional methods, and the accumulated knowledge of those who have gone before to make responsive, very comfortable instruments which respond to every nuance of the musician’s performance. He feels that once a maker is able build a guitar which is an adequate tool for a demanding musician, the rest of the task is to develop the personality of his work, make something unique and try to maintain and improve the level of his work. An important aspect of a great maker is that the instruments be reliably consistent from one to the next we can say that this is true of John Ray’s work. As a result, we feel privileged to be John’s exclusive US dealer.