• Ernie Ball
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Ernie Ball Music Man Custom Design Experience

Stinks...Wonder Dog!

Big Poppa

Big Poppa

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Feb 9, 2005
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Coachella & SLO, California
Ok this gets a long story

In the early seventies we werre just expanding our international distribution. IN France none of the heavy hitters would even look at us. We ended up with two brothers. The Garnier Brothers. They made pan flutes and other wierd stuff. No experience in the guitar business but they were passionate and theonly ones interested.

THey started like gangfire.....the younger brother Gerard was very creative and aggressive. They started taking on other lines and the other brother went back to making pan flutes and Gerard went nuts with distribution.

In 1984 when we bought Music Man he declined to carry them and we were left lookin for aanother distributor for Music Man. The roblem is that we didnt have any production and most people thought we were going to fail. I chose a little custom maker of electric guitars that was very small but wanted the line badly. His Name is Patrice Vigier. Patrice grew into on eo fothe bigger distributors in France and still a great customer partner and friend.

Gerard got the golf bug and started a distribution business in the golf industry. He had no lines so went to taiwan and china and used a name he made up....Tom Walker.....(just like the co founder of Music Man) only he came up with TOm Walker by combining TOm Watson and Johnny WALKER. His business started taking off and he came to a NAMM show and asked me what line he should try to get and I said there was this little company in Carlsbad named Callaway and they were coming out with a club called Big Bertha and that he should drive to Carlbad and wait in the lobby until they agreed to sell him. He did just that and became the Callaway distributor for France.

He decided that this sourcing and creating brands was fun and came up with the name Jim Harley after Jim Beam and Harley Davidson. He was a big distributor for the Ernie Ball products. His mistake was ripping off my designs under the im Harley name. I terminated him and he was shocked. He couldnt believe that I would not sell the lnow biggest distributor in France even if he was ripping me off. Patrice took the string line and has done a fantastic job.

In the 90's Callaway was huge and decided that they needed to control their own distribution and bought Gerard out of the Golf business for millions. TO this day Gerard hugs me and gets teary eyed thanking Ernie Ball for his start and thanking me for the Callaway tip. He wishes that he could sell our stuff but he still is selling ripoffs.

I really like Gerard and consider him a friend. We agree to disagree and the Jim Harley and I love Patrice and lena as our distributors. It is funny that Ernie Ball had a role in the growth of two of the bigest distributors in France though......
 
MN246

MN246

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Jun 17, 2005
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343
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Oregon
If I could read German, I would be interested in what the discription says. Whatever is says, even for a knock-off, it seems to be very poorly executed.
 
Dead-Eye

Dead-Eye

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Jan 8, 2007
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485
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Cologne, Germany
MN246 said:
If I could read German, I would be interested in what the discription says. Whatever is says, even for a knock-off, it seems to be very poorly executed.
Click to expand...

"With heavy heart I part with this all-round guitar, a copy of the Music Man Silhouette."

The rest just lists the features...he says he doesn't know what kinds of wood were used but that it's lighter than a strat or a tele.
 
lenny

lenny

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Feb 4, 2006
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Nova Scotia Canada
So this is an old knockoff just being resold i wonder what year it is because it is in very good shape Bad Logo though hahaha
 
MN246

MN246

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Joined
Jun 17, 2005
Messages
343
Location
Oregon
Dead-Eye said:
"With heavy heart I part with this all-round guitar, a copy of the Music Man Silhouette."

The rest just lists the features...he says he doesn't know what kinds of wood were used but that it's lighter than a strat or a tele.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dead-Eye, you're awesome!
 
Beth

Beth

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Aug 16, 2002
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Location
Indio
Wow, and yet another colorful thread of wisdom has been woven into the proverbial Music Man history blanket. Thanks for the info, Pops!

So..... shall we sic Wonderdog on him? :D
 
spkirby

spkirby

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Feb 3, 2004
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1,273
Location
UK
BP,

When you have a minute please PM me with some next-big-thing business tipoffs ;) :D

Steve
 
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