Mosrite

Mosrite Ventures model

Mosrite guitar

Mosrite is an American guitar manufacturing company, based in Bakersfield, California, from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Founded by Semie Moseley, Mosrite guitars were played by many rock and roll and country artists.

Mosrite guitars were known for innovative design, high quality engineering, very thin, low-fretted and narrow necks, and extremely hot (high output) pickups. Moseley's design for The Ventures, known as the "Ventures Model" (later known as the "Mark I"), was generally considered to be the flagship of the line.

History

Apprenticeship

In Bakersfield, Semie Moseley started playing guitar in an evangelical group at age 13. Semie and his brother Andy experimented with guitars from their teen-age years, refinishing instruments and building new necks.

Semie Moseley began building guitars in the Los Angeles area around 1952 or 1953. He began by apprenticing at the Rickenbacker factory, where he learned much of his guitar making skills from Roger Rossmeisl, a German immigrant who brought old-world luthier techniques into the modern electric guitar manufacturing process. One of the most recognizable features on most Mosrite guitars is the "German Carve" on the top that Moseley learned from Rossmeisl. During the same time, Moseley apprenticed with Paul Bigsby in Downey, California, the man who made the first modern solid-body guitar for Merle Travis in 1948, and who invented the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, which is still used today.

Mosrite founded

Cover of Joe Maphis' album "Fire on the Strings", published in 1957 with his custom double-neck Mosrite guitar.

In 1954 Semie built a triple-neck guitar in his garage (the longest neck was a standard guitar, the second-longest neck an octave higher, the shortest was an eight-string mandolin). He presented a double-neck to Joe Maphis, a Los Angeles-area TV performer. By 1956, with an investment from Ray Boatwright, a local Los Angeles minister, Semie and Andy started their company, Mosrite of California. In gratitude to Boatwright, Moseley named the company by combining his and Boatwright's last names; the name is properly pronounced MOZE-rite, based on the pronunciation Semie Moseley used for his own name. Semie, who built guitars for the L.A.-based Rickenbacker company, said to his co-workers that he was making his own product, and he was fired by Rickenbacker.

When they began, their production was all custom, handmade guitars, built in garages, tin storage sheds, wherever the Moseleys could put equipment.

In 1959, Andy moved to Nashville, Tennessee, for a year to popularize the Mosrite name and sold a few, including to Grand Ole Opry entertainers and road musicians. Andy said: "And that’s how we kept the factory going at the time: custom guitars".

Moseley made guitars in Los Angeles until 1959, when he moved to Oildale, California, just north of Bakersfield.

In 1962 he moved his shop to Panama Lane where he designed and produced the first Joe Maphis model guitars, one model of which would eventually evolve into the "Ventures model" guitar and bass. (Joe Maphis would later get a model of his own, similar to a Mosrite Combo model but without the F-hole.) At this time, Mosrite made everything in-house, except for the tuners. At the peak of production, in 1968, Mosrite was making around 1,000 guitars per month.

Mosrite Ventures II (1965) Reissue

Mosrite Joe Maphis Double Neck (1968)

Bankruptcy, and restart

Mosrite of California went bankrupt in late 1968 after they contracted with a competitor to market their guitars. After this, they tried to deal directly with stores, and they sold 280 guitars in 1969 before they came to the shop one day and found their doors pad-locked. Two years after his bankruptcy, Semie was able to get back the Mosrite name, and in 1970 he started making guitars again in Pumpkin Center near Bakersfield. He moved his factory three times in the next 20 years, to Oklahoma City in the mid-70s, to the township of Jonas Ridge, in Burke County, North Carolina, in 1981 (where a factory fire destroyed the operation), and to Booneville, Arkansas, in 1991.

Though an acknowledged genius at guitar design and construction, Moseley lacked many basic skills necessary to be a good businessman, and thus the company fell on hard times repeatedly in the late 1960s and 1970s, but continued to produce Mosrite guitars until 1993 in North Carolina and Arkansas. Most of them were exported to Japan, where their popularity remained very strong. The quality of the instruments always remained very respectable. Semie Moseley died in 1992. His wife Loretta continued to produce Mosrites a year or so after his death, and since 2008 has been selling custom Mosrites via their website.

The company now has recently released the Semie Moseley Model ’63 and ’65, based on the Ventures models made in those two years. Both models are made to the exact specifications as the original models; they are 100% hand-made and were created to commemorate Semie Moseley.

Semie's daughter, Dana Moseley, is also a luthier and continues to build Mosrite guitars. She also helps kick off the monthly "Mosrite Jam" in Bakersfield.

Similar Models and Replicas

"Eastwood Guitars" makes a Hi-Flyer model which is similar to Mosrite Bass Guitars.

Notable users

Joe Maphis model

• Joe Maphis
• Ricky Wilson
• Kurt Cobain
• Johnny Ramone
• Art Greenhaw

Further reading

• Landers, Rick; Brennan, Tim, "The Story of Mosrite Guitars, Part One". Modern Guitars magazine, January 18, 2005
• Price, Robert, "The Man Behind the Mosrite" (archived 2008 copy), The Bakersfield Californian. Has biographical notes on Semie Moseley.

External links

• mosrite.us
• Mosriteguitars.com
• The Mosrite Gospel guitar, North American Instruments, 2000. With some personal notes on its builder.
• "Mosrite History", Tym Guitars, Australia.
• Mosrite Guitars, "Mosrite Guitars at Front Porch Music", California