George Gruhn was born on August 21,1945 and is an American writer, businessman and ophiophilist.
15 Facts About George Gruhn
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George Gruhn is considered one of the foremost experts on vintage American guitars and fretted instruments, and the author of several books on the subject.
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George Gruhn is the founder of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, and has sold guitars to musicians such as Hank Williams, Jr.
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George Gruhn developed an early interest in zoology and began collecting reptiles.
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George Gruhn's family relocated to Pittsburgh and later Chicago, where Gruhn attended Oak Park and River Forest High School.
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George Gruhn noticed that older and used acoustic guitars sounded better than new ones, and had the idea that vintage instruments could potentially be categorized much like zoological taxonomy.
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George Gruhn developed a fascination for vintage guitars and found so many good deals that he began buying and selling the instruments for a profit.
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Later, while pursuing graduate studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, George Gruhn received a phone call from Hank Williams, Jr.
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George Gruhn returned the following day in a Cadillac Eldorado, and bought enough guitars to fill the car.
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George Gruhn opened George Gruhn Guitars on January 2,1970 with an inventory of 22 instruments in a 20 x 40 foot space at 111 4th Avenue North, in what was then a rundown section of downtown Nashville's Lower Broadway district, next to the stage door of the Ryman Auditorium, the home of the Grand Ole Opry.
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George Gruhn's store played a key role in establishing the vintage guitar market while becoming one of the world's leading vintage musical instrument retailers and attracting the business of notable musicians, including Eric Clapton, Brad Paisley, Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris, Billy Gibbons, Rick Nielsen, Vince Gill, and John Hiatt.
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George Gruhn has been a featured columnist for Vintage Guitar, Guitar Player, Bluegrass Unlimited, and The Music Trades magazines.
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George Gruhn utilized his idea for applying zoological taxonomy observation techniques to vintage fretted instruments, modeling identification keys after zoological equivalents and collaborating with co-author Walter Carter to publish George Gruhn's Guide To Vintage Guitars: An Identification Guide for American Fretted Instruments in 1991.
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George Gruhn collaborated with Carter again to release two books, Electric Guitars and Basses: A Photographic History and Acoustic Guitars and other Fretted Instruments: A Photographic History in 1999.
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George Gruhn is married and has a daughter named Amanda Lynn.