I have been lookin at the mosrite forum for a long time now, just looking at comments. my name is sonny, some of you probably know me through raygun. i may not have a lot to contribute, but i thought it would be nice to be part of the forum. i love mosrites. i fell in love with mosrite guitars when i met the ventures at a concert around 1963 or 64. in fact, i still have a mosrite celebrity II that gene moles dated at about 1965 a few years before he passed on. It does need to be restored, which i have been planning on doing since i retired a few years ago. but i have been so wrapped up in our little pickup and guitar business that i never seem to get around to doing it. i did have the opportunity to meet semie and his brother, i still have semie's business card framed in my office. we talked about the possibility of my shop building guitar bodies and shipping them to him. i would have loved to be involved but there was too much risk in his proposal for me and not enough for him.
i knew a little about him because my brother-in-law and cousin worked for him during the 60's. semie was living in rio oso, close to where our shop is now, at the time. but actually, i grew up in bakersfield around buck, bonnie and fuzzy owens. plus merle haggard, as they played at a little bar on edison hwy. a good friend of mine, who now lives in oregon, sonny brown, used to play bass for buck. sonny also has close ties with rose maddox and so many others i can't remember. the last time i saw him, he still had his ventures model bass that he bought some time in the mid 60's or so. well, enough of my huntin and peckin. thanks for having me on the forum.
-sonny
