My father was a native of the town of Rincon, Puerto Rico and my mother was from Boston Massachusetts. I was raised in the Capital of Puerto Rico, where I received my primary and my secondary education. When I was younger I remember wandering around the restaurants right next to my school which had a jukebox, and I realized this person named Odilo Gonzalez was singing “jibara” which is equivalent to country music in the U.S. That experience in my life will eventually grow into my passion for my Puerto Rican traditional instruments and singing.

I was born on the 30th of April in 1945. Growing up I was always into music, especially musica jibara. As I grew older I decided I wanted to be an engineer instead, so I decided to move to Medford, Massachusetts to attend Tufts University in 1964. I was learning more about engineering but there I realized that I was more interested in learning art instead of learning engineering. There I decided to move again to New York City and from there I studied industrial design at Pratt institute. I earned my Bachelor of industrial design in 1968. After I earned that degree, I decided to work as a professional furniture designer.

In 1969, when I was working as a furniture designer I met Micheal Gurian. He was a master at guitar making and I looked up to him. When he offered to teach me how to craft a guitar, I was very happy and shocked at the same time. I mean he is a master at guitar making and I was also into music and instruments so when he offered to teach me, I couldn't decline the offer, so under his mentoring, I began training in the craft of guitar making. When I realized working as a furniture designer and learning how to craft a guitar was too much, I decided to leave my job and focus more on guitar making instead. I moved to New Hampshire to work in Gurians guitar making shop. In the shop I met many people, but I became very close to Micheal Millard. Eventually we decided to establish our own shop together named “Froggy Bottom Guitar”, Where I completed my training in guitar making. In 1974, I decided to leave the Froggy bottom guitar and establish my own first private guitar making studio in Williamtown, Massachusetts. During the next five years I moved my studios to many places such as North Adams, Amherst, Massachusetts, and finally to Easthampton Road in Northampton where it currently resides till today.

I spent 40 years hand-crafting guitars, well not only guitars but other instruments from North America, Europe, and Latin America. In 1985, I decided to focus on the stringed instruments of my country Puerto Rico. Over the years I’ve become very good with crafting these instruments. I have made a lot of ten string cuatro, and built some for musicians in the United States. Some of my known customers include Arlo Guthrie, Michael Lorimer, John Abercrombie, Country Joe McDonald, Todd Rundgren, June Millington, and Joel Zoss. I’ve also taught guitar making for over 20 years in my studios, and in schools.

In 1992, I co-founded “The Puerto Rican Cuatro Project '' with Juan Sotomayer. This Project is a non-profit organization which is dedicated to fostering the traditions of Purtorican Traditions of Puetorican traditional musics and instruments. I’ve also written “Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology:'' which became the textbook for people who work in my field and some people even call it the “Bible of guitar making”. This was my story of how I became one of the well known guitar makers. Thank you so much for listening to my story.