froc guitar world bio...                     HOME

I have been studying, playing, repairing and building guitars for 40 years now, with no end in sight... The first five or so years, were mainly dedicated to becoming a decent musician -with the help of my famous brother, Frank. Then I toured for nearly 10 years with several original and cover ensembles. I was gigging 6 nights a week and making good money! Remember those days? This afforded me the opportunity to buy and trade dozens of guitars...  Having a bent for woodworking, it was natural for me to tinker with, customize and repair my acquisitions and those of fellow band members. This context gave me fast feedback on what worked and what didn't and also the virtues and flaws of popular designs.

Then in 1975, while on tour in Canada, I met George Furlanetto in a music shop. George was the ace repair guy and we started comparing notes and it quickly became clear that we were destined to become career brethren. He told me that he was tired of retail repair and wanted to manufacture custom guitars and basses. I told him that I was nearly sick of touring and wanted to design and build. After an hour, he simply said: "call me, whenever you are ready". About a year later... I called George. He said, "come on up, I have secured a small factory in Hamilton". That's where we started F-Guitar (Filipetti-Furlanetto). George still gives me a lot of credit for those days, but I got the deal... He was then, and still is, the finest craftsman/artist I have ever known, although, Tom Bazzolo is in the same league.

After honing my woodworking-luthier skills with George in Canada, I returned to Connecticut to open The Guitar Clinic, in Simsbury. It was a cute little shop where I did repairs, lessons and started building my first "F" guitar. Strong alliances were forged with the likes of: Burt Teague, Jeff Pevar, Ron Richard and in particular, Ron Bolduc. They were all, an integral part of the first support group. After about a year, it became necessary to move into a larger space, in downtown, Hartford. Ron Bolduc became the shop manager while I was darting back and forth to Canada -with the help of ace pilot/pianist Lorenzo Filipetti. We had many great adventures and logged lots of miles. It was all quite impossible, but it didn't seem to matter...

By 1980, the Hartford music scene was very attractive and the setting was right for The Guitar Clinic to become a point of convergence for some of the finest area players: Bob Kobus, Cary DeNigris, Jim Chapdelaine, Trudy Silver, Bruce Finer, Dave Stoltz, Teddy Scheips, Nat Reeves and Steve Swallow, being the most frequent visitors... There was always a jam, music theory discussion, jazz history lesson, or some metaphysic in progress. Many of us recall that era as "the golden age" of our musical evolution. Looking back, it was certainly the most accelerated learning environment that I have yet encountered. Although I was making quite a few guitars at that point, our building was sold - to become a "more cost effective" parking lot! This knocked the wind out of my downtown sail, but with strong encouragement from Bob, Bruce and Trudy, I decided to downsize and turn my attention to playing jazz guitar. By 1984, rather heart broken, I told George that it might be best if I took quiet leave of F-Guitar. With his blessing, I put down my chisel and picked up my axe! Since George is a fine bassist, he decided to focus his talents on world-class bass design and restructured as: F-Bass (fbass.com).

For the next few years, while studying and playing "jazz" guitar, I became deeply immersed in designing music softwares with the brilliant artist, composer, programmer: Greg Jalbert (imaja.com). Through this collaboration, I was allowed to enter the inner sanctum of pioneer software developers the likes of: Geoff Brown, Don Williams, Ray Spears and Dave Oppenheim... Much of my "high tech" education would not have been possible without the help of Duane Warren and Ray DeChamplain, at Creative Strings. During this period, I also began exploring, performing and recording many "free-form" improvisations with Bill Walach, Paul Flaherty and Richard Downs.

Fast forward to 1995 or there about...
 
I'm playing trio in a well known jazz stop called The 880 Club and a rather stocky, gentle guy comes up to me, at the break and says, "Hi, I'm Chris Morrison, you have an interesting style and your sound is very unique, what the heck is that guitar?". It almost seemed like a compliment so I said, "Well thanks, I built this "SBJ" guitar in 1980, but nobody seems to get it, except me" ... "can I try it?" ... "sure"! So, he turns the amp way down, and starts ripping off all this amazing stuff... this guy is no joke! After a few minutes, he walks over and says, "I want one, how much and how soon?". I said, "Well, I'm not really building at the moment and I would like to revamp this model to get a bit more air in the sound". He said, "OK, I'll write you a check for half tonight".  Thanks Chris, for your outstanding musicianship and for jump starting my luthier battery.

Since the Millenium, I have written/compiled several educational and entertaining guitar books and of late, the Froc Duo is delighting patrons around the Greater Hartford area...