Bolt Prototype 1, Bolt Prototype 2, Lightning Bolt, Top Hat, Eagle, Tribute
Garcia’s Intended Guitars
Steve Cripe was a wood craftsman who specialized in customizing sailboat interiors with exotic woods. It wasn’t until his late thirties that he began using those skills to build guitars. Not being a guitar player, he wanted feedback on his creations. He wrote in the Unbroken Chain Grateful Dead fanzine #47 and #54respectively that, “I couldn’t get enough constructive criticism … after listening to a great version of Morning Dew, I decided to build and deliver a guitar to Jerry.”
John Barlow sums up Cripe’s preoccupation nicely in this lyric from Lazy Lightning: “It’s an obsession but it’s pleasing.”
Along the way, two prototype guitars were crafted and put aside, two made it to Jerry and two more were intended for Garcia. But then Jerry died. Fortunately, those two guitars, Eagle and Tribute, survived the explosion which took Cripe’s life. Much is known and has been written about Lightning Bolt and Top Hat, but what about the other ones?
Lightning Bolt Prototype 1
“Green heart core with Lignum Vitae top and back – two of the hardest and heaviest woods in the world. Laminated Brazilian rosewood and maple neck, laminated headstock shaped very similar to the upper end of the body, 22 fret Brazilian rosewood fretboard with inlayed Lignum Vitae sapwood lightning bolt, Schaller hardware. Bright sound with unbelievable sustain.” — Original description by Steve Cripe and transcribed by Hal Hammer, Jr.
Prototype 1 Owner: [They were] absolutely correct about the ‘sweet’ sound and incredible ‘sustain’. 13 pounds! It does feel like a bowling ball strapped on your shoulder though.
Theresa McFarlane: The guitar in the picture “Guitar Man”, had already been built when I met him. That’s the original one that Steve spoke about in Unbroken Chain that had “the business end of a baseball bat”. That guitar was the catalyst for Steve; every time he looked at it, it was the inspiration for him to do better and get a guitar to Jerry.
Guitar Man: From the St. Petersburg Times Article, January 26, 1996
Stephen Cripe Holding Lightning Bolt Prototype 1
“Zebrawood core with Cocobolo top and back, laminated Cocobolo and maple neck with Brazilian rosewood center stripe, 22 fret ebony fretboard, laminated headstock, black Schaller bridge, Gotoh tuners. Wired same as #4. Warm sound. The only reason I did not send this guitar (instead of Lightning Bolt) to Jerry was because the fretboard was 22 frets. I assumed that he would want 24 frets, so I built the “Bolt” using this guitar as the basic design.” — Original description by Steve Cripe and transcribed by Hal Hammer, Jr.
Prototype 2 Owner: The electronics cavity was all wood with a brass plate on the inside. I said [to Cripe], “Well you know you don’t have serial numbers, why don’t you scribe in there what you told me: Prototype of J. Garcia’s Lightning Bolt, June “92”, S. R. Cripe.” That’s on the inside.
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Flight of the Eagle
Cripe began building Eagle after Garcia adopted Lightning Bolt as his main guitar and while Top Hat was being constructed in the fall of 1993. It started its life routed for two pickups. According to those who knew him, Cripe had a bit of ADHD and would start and stop many guitar projects simultaneously and modify them as the spirit moved him. Eagle was that type of build. It was built, rebuilt, and at some point, routed for a third pickup. It has the same Stewart McDonald 24 fret dot fingerboard as Lightning Bolt.
Eagle had not been completed when Garcia died in August 1995. When Cripe passed nine months later, the guitar was complete except for the final wiring.
What is known about Eagle so far is derived from a description in Cripe’s Notes, along with oral testimony of those who personally knew Steve Cripe and his work and were closest to him: Hal Hammer, Adam Palow, Pat and Tim O’Donnell, and Cripe’s common law spouse, Theresa McFarlane.
Cripe’s “Guitar Description to Accompany Photos” Notes consist of two sheets prepared on a word processor by Hal Hammer that he submitted to the Blue Book of Guitars. The notes were prepared collaboratively by Cripe and Hammer with guitars in hand (except Lightning Bolt which had already been sent to Garcia). Hammer said they were initially rejected. The Blue Book editor told him it was too much information about an unknown luthier. Later in 1998, the 5th Edition of the Blue Book of Guitars included information on Cripe along with a picture of the Bolt Prototype 1 and Tribute AKA Saturn. In the listing, Hammer wrote that, “A relationship developed between Cripe and Garcia, and Cripe began building a few more guitars for him.”
The description of Eagle from Cripe’s Notes reads: Purpleheart core with Cocobola top and back, laminated Cocobola, maple and purpleheart neck, laminated headstock, 24 fret Brazilian rosewood fretboard, warthog tusk ivory eagles head inlay, semi-hollow body. No electronics. Was most likely to be Jerry’s next guitar. This guitar was built at the same time as Jerry’s “Top Hat”. — Original description by Steve Cripe and transcribed by Hal Hammer, Jr.
I received this photo from Cripe’s friend Shannon. Shannon knew Harriet Rose, who knew David and Pam Grisman; people instrumental in getting Lightning Bolt into the hands of Garcia. Cripe’s “Guitar Description” Notes were retrieved from the files Pat and Tim O’Donnell recovered from Cripe’s workshop shortly after his accident. Those notes are a snapshot of Cripe’s work in progress at a point in time. The files were in disarray and the photos that were to supplement Cripe’s Notes were loosely scattered throughout the files. There were no pictures of Bolt, Top Hat or Eagle in the files when I visited Pat in 2009. This may be a copy of the photo that was to accompany those notes.
Armato: Tell me about finding Steve’s files. What condition were they in when you discovered them?
Pat O’Donnell: There wasn’t anything organized. It was just like some notes on loose leaf paper out of a journal or something. What happened is that the hurricane of 2004 destroyed our shop in Jensen Beach, and I lost a bunch of stuff and I’m afraid that some of that is what we lost in that building.
Armato: You let me come by years ago [2009] and scan Cripe’s “Guitar Description” Notes and many of the pictures of the guitars he was building or had built.
O’Donnell: Oh yea, I still have those pictures.
Armato: Originally, I emailed you because I had purchased Eagle from Rhonda [Williams], Steve’s sister. I came across your website way back when [August 2001] and there was a picture of you holding Eagle and the caption read: “Was likely to be Jerry’s next guitar.”
O’Donnell: I do remember wiring that guitar … the wiring scheme was unfamiliar to me. This is my work. I drew this schematic based on the wiring I found in the guitar when I completed it for Theresa.
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Steve Armato: Given your conversations with Steve Cripe, what are your thoughts about Eagle starting out with two pickups?
O’Donnell: 3 pickup guitars, with the exception of the Strat, are rather unique or they are not as common. It would make sense that starting out, he would have done them with two pickups. That would be the normal way it would evolve.
Adam Palow: My understanding was that Eagle was done at one point. And it was done with 2 pickups. Have you seen pictures of it completed with 2 pickups?
Armato: No, but there’s a picture of Kimock’s Teak completed with 2 pickups, and it was later [rebuilt and] routed for 3 pickups.
Palow: Several of the Stratocaster style guitars he built at that point had 2 pickups [Eagle, Teak, Koa, Headless]. I think he glued up multiple bodies at the same time, because you have to go through all that work of plane-ing and sorting and picking your layers. I’m guessing that he did not just do one single body and neck completely. He cut the wedges from the neck in bulk.
Armato: Right, he told the St. Petersburg Times in January 1996, that he spent about three months making each one, building three at a time.
Palow: When I went to the shop two weeks after he died, there was a 55-gallon drum that was 1/3 to ½ full of individual tapered slats that would be glued together to become neck lengths. He was doing that work in batches. And the bodies too. He’d have to not only plane all those different pieces of wood to their various thicknesses, but if he had to glue one up and clamp it, why not do two or three at a time? Because then you’re going to have to put them on a bandsaw and cut them out and do all the other work. So, that scenario only makes sense, especially at that point where Garcia had already received Lightning Bolt. He knew then that more orders would be coming in, so why not make some more guitars.
Armato: In that same article he said he expected to fill six orders over the next six months.
Palow: Going back to Eagle, my recollection is that it was finished at some point, and he didn’t like either the way the finish had been applied, you know the actual gloss coats, or he wanted to put in the third pick up, I don’t remember what the case was, but when he took the finish off, he had to actually remove the eagle inlay, and carve down into the body so he could re-inlay it. He told me some story about that, but I don’t remember all the specifics, but the eagle inlay had to physically come out and then go back in. At some point, he decided it would be more efficient or effective to have a third one in there. It might have been during the refinishing that he routed it for the third pickup. Things evolve over time, especially if you’re a creator and inventor.
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Adam Palow: The Eagle guitar is one of the best guitars I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. I had it in my possession on loan for a few weeks back in 1997 and tried to purchase it a few times but never had the right amount of cash at the right time.
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Armato: One of Steve Cripe’s associates was Adam Palow, who had numerous conversations with Steve [over the last 6 months of Cripe’s life]. Steve was in the process of building a guitar for him and Palow is pretty sure it was in the shop that blew up. Palow was into [building] amplifiers and he and Steve started comparing notes. Adam was going to move from CA to FL to apprentice under Steve. Adam’s recollection was that at some point Steve didn’t like the finish on Eagle, he didn’t know if it was the gloss or the coat but that he actually had to remove the Eagle inlay, carve down into the body and re-inlay it. Did you have any knowledge about that?
O’Donnell: No, I didn’t, but believe me, all that kind of stuff happens. I’ve run into numerous situations where I had to remove the finish and start all over.
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Hal Hammer: He was kind of like me, in that, he pretty much had ADHD, like I do. He would start a million things and go back and forth from one to another and we had the discussion, and he said, “I guess that I’m kind of scattered.” And I said, “No, no, when you build guitars, they have to have a lot of resting time. So, we need to find something to do while they rest.”
But now, I got to tell you what he would do. He’d make a guitar, and he’d decide he didn’t like it, and he’d cut pieces off it, and he’d rework it, and he’d remake it. Then I’d go, well that guitar looks very much like that other one. And he would say, “Well it’s the same one, it’s just been reworked.”
Armato: Cripe’s notes, let me go back to his notes on Eagle: “Was most likely to be Jerry’s next guitar.”
Hammer: Yeah. But the thing is, it was most likely to be Jerry’s next guitar, except that, he wasn’t sure Jerry would like it for a couple reasons. First of all, it was pretty heavy. Not as heavy as the [prototype] Lightning Bolt[s], but it was still pretty heavy. But the other thing is it was a different shape, and he wasn’t sure …
Armato: That Jerry would like it?
Hammer: He wasn’t sure. And then for a while he thought “What about Bob Weir?”
Armato: Because it was similar to the Modulus guitars that Weir played?
Hammer: Exactly. And I said, that’s like trying to sell Chevrolet’s to Ford Motor Company. They already build something, and they already have something in mind, why would they go to a competitor?
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Armato: When I first got the guitar [Eagle], I started researching on the internet and I came across a picture of Pat O’Donnell holding it and it said it “was most likely to be Jerry’s next guitar.” So, I contacted them, and Tim responded back and said we have notes that Steve put together and they said it “was most likely to be Jerry’s next guitar.” Now I know Steve probably was building a lot of guitars with Jerry in mind. But tell me what you remember.
McFarlane: He would have loved to have given that guitar to Jerry.
Armato: Eagle at one point only had two pickups. And then it became a 3-pickup guitar. Do you remember anything about that?
McFarlane: Yes, I do. I remember that now that I look at the picture. The neck on the Eagle is so beautiful, he really streamlined that neck.
Armato: And I’ve been told Cripe wanted to finish those up, Eagle and Tribute in Jerry’s memory.
McFarlane: Well, see with the Eagle, it’s very possible that Steve may have wanted to send that one, but he said that you see, yet he held on to that guitar for quite some time. I think that what he was going to do, personally, was remake it better. Because he was very rarely satisfied with a completed work unless a customer was right there. It was hard for him originally just to send Bolt off even though Jerry was his idol. He listened to his music all the time. He turned me into a fan too. When Steve was out on the ship in the merchant marines, he would ask me to record the Grateful Dead Hour every Sunday night for him. And I did that.
Armato: How did Cripe come up with the Eagle Logo?
McFarlane: I gave him the inspiration to put an eagle on there because after all, it’s our country’s symbol, right? And also, a different shape, I was really tired of seeing that dog-eared style.
And the “C” [on the headstock] for his initial instead of just the firecracker. I said “Why don’t you sign or autograph the guitars?” I was asking Steve to put the firecracker a little lower and start using his initial and that’s what he did. He started using the initial.
Armato: Did Steve write the articles in the Unbroken Chain, or did you help him?
McFarlane: I pushed him a lot … Steve was very humble. Unbroken Chain came out with an article. Steve brought it home and he showed it to me [and said] “Well, they said they thought this was another Irwin guitar.” I said, “What, you’re kidding me.” So, I grabbed the magazine and said, “Well that’s just not gonna do it.” He said, “Oh don’t worry about it, so what.” I said, “What do you mean, so what? You built this guitar; you deserve the credit for this.” So, I got in touch with Unbroken Chain, and I said, “Yo, you need to print a retraction. This is not an Irwin guitar, this is a Cripe guitar. So, the very next issue that came out they apologized and everything … and printed Steve’s article. It was really sweet of her to do. It was a woman editor [Laura Paul Smith].
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McFarlane: He was a very quiet man. He said Jerry was a private man and this was coming from Steve Cripe who was also a very private man. Steve was a very humble man. The world lost a great luthier.
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McFarlane: Unless he wanted you to know something, you didn’t know shit. He was very private. There were things that I didn’t even know.
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Once Jerry died, Cripe began the process of selling his remaining guitars. He went to work completing Eagle, including the pickups, but did not finish the final wiring of the electronics. That was left for Pat and Tim O’Donnell at Resurrection Guitars to complete at the request of McFarlane.
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I received this email from from Greg Poulos in November 2012:
I thought you might be interested in this… Shortly before he died, Stephen Cripe mailed me a stack of photos of all his guitars he had for sale. He wrote extensive notes on the back, which I scanned in, along with the letter he wrote me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/96739540@N00/sets/72157632107787337/
Greg
Cripe sent Poulos, a prospective customer, several pictures, including this early photo of Eagle with the 2-pickup routing. It is like the one above but unlike the one above, there is no shadow in this picture. This undated photo was sent to Poulos after Jerry died and before November 27,1995. That is the date Prototype 2’s Purchase Agreement was signed by Cripe and the purchaser. If you follow the link above this picture, you will see that the Prototype 2, listed as #8, was included in the same batch of photos sent to Greg.
Armato: Why would Cripe send a letter to Poulos with Eagle included if it was intended for Jerry?
Palow: I think it was like a sales brochure, and it was after Jerry died and before his big magazine articles [Guitar Player and Guitar Shop, both December 1995 with a street date a month or two ahead of that]. So, prior to those articles, that was the beginning of the Internet, there were few websites and limited email. He was literally sending out physical copies of pictures. And trying to drum up sales. He was sitting on $20,000 of inventory or more.
Pat O’Donnell: One thing I remember, at some point Steve and I were talking about something, and he said to me, obviously you’re making money at this, and I said yea. He said, well how do you make money? I can’t make any money doing this. Naturally he sold the guitar to the Garcia corporation. But he had no outlet. He had to find somebody that wanted a guitar, and he would build it. He obviously put a lot of time into learning his skills – learning to transfer his boat building skills into building guitars. He didn’t have a steady source of income unless he was doing some boat work to make ends meet. I told him I did a ton of repair work, and I had a storefront and people come and drop off their stuff off and that pays all the bills, and I make a profit out of that. If I sell a custom guitar, then that’s over the top.
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From the article by Baker Rorick, Jammin’ with Captain Trips, Guitar Shop magazine, December 1995, Jerry’s Florida Guitars
Today, Steve Cripe is proud that his labors of love – really expressions of thanks to Jerry from a loyal fan – were loved and played in return. Inspired, he’s now getting more into lutherie and has built three acoustic guitars (with bolt-on necks) and is working on a semi-hollow body electric. You can contact him at P. O. Box 358, Trilby, FL 33593, (904) 583-4680.
From this we know Cripe was still working on Eagle in the fall/winter of 1995 as it was the only semi-hollow guitar he built.
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Armato: Did Cripe ever have a conversation with you about sending Eagle instead of Top Hat? Sometimes when I think about what Hammer said, Cripe thought about it and then he wasn’t sure …
Palow: I don’t know that he specifically said instead of Top Hat, but you know definitely, Eagle was one of the guitars in Steve’s mind that he thought would be worthy of it; and had at some point intended to send it until he changed his mind and intended to send him Tribute. Tribute would probably never have been exactly what it was, had Jerry lived, it probably would have been a slightly less adorned instrument.
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Armato: Hal and Theresa alluded to Cripe having an element of ADHD. He would pick things up and put things down. Do this one day, switch gears, then do that. It wasn’t like there was a master plan in place, right? He started out and at some point, early on, everything he did was with Jerry in mind.
Palow: Yea, totally. That’s pretty much what he told me. Even the Ebony guitar that Kimock has, at one point in Steve’s head, he’s thought “This is going to be the guitar that goes to Jerry”. He finished the guitar and said, “I can do better”. So, he went on to the next one. With that said, Ebony wasn’t built for Jerry, but his inspiration for building these guitars was Jerry Garcia. So, in his mind when he was building Ebony, he’s thinking maybe this one is going to be good enough for Jerry. But because he was such a perfectionist, and he was watching the “So Far” video over and over, when he finished it, it wasn’t good enough for Jerry. And in his mind, he could do better. This guy was just climbing the ladder, thinking, ‘I’ve got to get there’. It was his one life goal to get guitars built for Jerry. A lot of people don’t understand that single minded dedication and passion. There wasn’t linear thinking to any of this. It was a guy trying to get something done and make something happen and he did. There was no master plan. People say if this were a movie, nobody would believe it, but that’s kind of how it was. Steve was just a dude. He’d get up in the morning and whatever he felt like working on, he was going to work on. That’s why I was able to call him in the afternoon and we’d sit on the phone for two hours because it’s not like he was cranking away at this master plan, he was just working on stuff in the shop and he would make time to talk to me, he was a laid-back beach boat dude.
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Hammer: He told me to form a corporation for him and begin to book a “Show Tour” for the Jerry Garcia guitars. He wanted to get them out on tour, and he wanted to do it quickly. Since Jerry had died, Steve said that the estate might send the guitars back to him. We heard that Doug Irwin got back either one or more of his, but we weren’t certain.
According to Steve, the “Eagle”, with an original sale price of only $12,500, was to be substituted for the “Masterpiece/[Tribute]” in the tour, initially, not as “Jerry’s Next Guitar”, but he stated that it was created as a “Companion Piece” for “Lightning Bolt” and “Top Hat”. “Masterpiece/[Tribute]”, if and when it was completed, was then to be shown as the guitar that was to be “Jerry’s Next Guitar”. The underlying reasoning was that evidently Jerry had commissioned, even if unofficially, for Steve to build him two more guitars. One was requested by Jerry (Masterpiece [Tribute]) to be a refinement of the first two, and the other one (Eagle) was to be a guitar that Steve was free to create, based on what he then knew about Jerry Garcia, his tastes, and playing preferences. Steve thought that it would be a thrill to see Jerry try to decide which one he liked best.
The guitar that has the lightning bolt inlaid in the fingerboard, is the original “Lightning Bolt”. Steve used it as a developmental prototype, and it served as the experimental “pilot” piece to refine the design and features used to create the “Lightning Bolt” that went to Garcia. This guitar was estimated to be in the $30,000 range in value, at the time.
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Armato: After publishing the Cripe Tribute website, Hal Hammer emailed me and said he found further documentation. He said Cripe wanted to have a Jerry Garcia guitar exhibit. He said that he wanted Eagle to be listed as a “companion piece” to Bolt and Top Hat. He wanted Masterpiece to be considered Jerry’s next guitar. I always thought when he was referring to Masterpiece, he meant Tribute. What are your thoughts?
Palow: Yea, from the first time I saw Tribute, I literally considered it his masterpiece work, all the inlay that went into that, that was so above and beyond even the great work he had already done. But I’m guessing maybe Theresa called it his “Masterpiece”. It doesn’t seem like Steve to call one of his guitars “Masterpiece”.
Armato: Theresa often described Steve as a private, humble person. Did you consider Cripe a humble person? Did he underplay himself?
Palow: Yea, that’s what I mean. I can’t imagine him saying ‘This is my masterpiece’. He knew what he had accomplished but I don’t know if anything was good enough for him yet.
And that’s why he built the Tribute, because I think that he was probably a little bit miffed that the finish was having a problem on Top Hat.
Steve told me he was frustrated that after Garcia had received it, at some point he had heard either by phone or by photograph that the top finish layer had started to separate from the wood below. And being the perfectionist he was, I think that he wished that he had the ability to get it back in the shop so he could fix it. That’s what you see happening in that patchy whiteness under the finish. It is delaminating. It is actually separating from the wood itself. Like if you peel off a piece of scotch tape. He probably used a polyurethane finish, I’m not sure of that. But whatever the finish is, because it’s no longer attached to the wood, you can’t see the grain. You’re basically seeing the imprint of the grain on the polyurethane as it’s lifted and it just becomes kind of opaque.
So, he wanted to make sure the next one was damn good. I think that’s why he poured so much of himself into Tribute.
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Armato: Did Steve ever talk to you about a guitar called Masterpiece?
O’Donnell: No.
Armato: From what I gathered, Steve wouldn’t call any guitar of his “a masterpiece”. He always wanted to better himself in what he just did.
O’Donnell: Yea. I agree that’s the kind of guy he was.
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Hal Hammer: Initially . . . Steve would have made every guitar for Jerry! It didn’t start out that way . . . He just wanted to make guitars because he was fascinated with what he had seen of guitars and viewed it as a personal challenge – to see if he could make them. He experimented, a lot, trial and error, on two planes: (1) He simply “took a flyer” based upon his intuition and supposition, and (2) He tried things that he had either seen other luthiers do, or that they told him they could do. In some ways, he was naive about the guitar-making processes in the beginning, and he believed what people said . . . even when they were pulling his leg. However, it is my belief that they underestimated his genius with wood and his ability to learn quickly. I also believe that it was his spirit of adventure and willingness to take a chance . . . break new ground . . .”wing it” . . . that led to his remarkable achievements. Without the creative talent and his ability to just charge in there and do it, he might have been just another great woodworker, making furniture and doing sailboat interiors.
I believe it was a combination of his abilities – some undefinable – and his aggressive spirit that led him to see where a guitar was in the wood. All wood is not guitar. You select the wood, join it, live with it, examine it carefully, and sometimes it gives you feelings or impressions. Then, if you are receptive, you begin to see the guitar. Once you have that vision, you remove everything that is not guitar, and you have it. Steve felt like that, and consequently his guitars came out with different shapes, different looks, tones, and personalities. He began to realize that some of these “personalities” that various guitars exhibited, made them right for some people and wrong for others. Often, he started a guitar with one player in mind and, after the guitar manifested itself, he realized it was not suitable for the originally intended person and should probably go to someone else. It was complicated and simple . . . all at the same time. Consequently, the purpose of many of the guitars changed frequently. Various revelations or events contributed to the change. Steve would watch a video and get an idea. He went to the Tampa guitar show and really got an eyeful that excited his thinking in a major way. All sorts of things changed after that.
Nobody will ever know—100% for certain—just how many guitars Steve actually intended for Jerry. There are several reasons I say that. First, Steve didn’t know, because his intent would change with his knowledge level, exposure to industry information, and the guitars themselves. And then, of course, there was Jerry’s untimely death. That affected Steve tremendously. At one point it was as though he felt that if there were enough guitars that Jerry was supposed to have, play, and adore, that he would somehow rise from the dead, no pun intended, and once again be around to play them. Grief affects all of us in various ways. I believe that making guitars for Jerry was Steve’s way of dealing with Jerry’s death. He started every guitar for Jerry. But then, as the grief subsided and the guitars came into their own, he realized that they might not actually be “Jerry’s Guitars”. Throw into the mix that other people were now ordering and looking at Steve’s guitars, since he had achieved some notoriety, and you will see how things evolved, making it impossible to know, absolutely, which guitars would . . . and which would not, have really been for Jerry. However, I do know that, when Jerry died, Steve had an order for two guitars. One that Jerry specified, and one that Steve was to be free to create.
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Palow: He didn’t tell me that they ordered two guitars, he just told me they gave him a check for twice what he was charging. I assumed that was to pay him for Bolt and Top Hat at the same time, even though Bolt was a gift.
Steve did tell me that after Top Hat was received, it seemed pretty clear that he was going to build more guitars for Jerry based on his staff’s encouragement. Even if there wasn’t a signed contract saying, “please send us more guitars”, I think that there was probably some sort of a “hippie handshake agreement” to deliver more to Jerry.
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Armato: Refresh my memory on how you first met Steve.
Pat O’Donnell: In the spring of 1996, at the time my wife was managing a bunch of cancer treatment centers around Florida. She traveled a lot. At one point, she had a meeting in Tampa. I tagged along with her and went to the guitar show [Tampa Guitar show – February 24, 1996]. Down at the end of the show, there were the prototype Lighting Bolt and a couple other pieces, and I knew right away that this was special stuff. This wasn’t just run of the mill production guitars. I started examining the stuff, and I got to talking to Steve and he was there with Hal Hammer, they had a booth there. We started talking shop and Hal was getting annoyed because we were in the way of people. He said why don’t you guys take off. So, him and I took off, we left the show, and we went to a restaurant and had something to eat and talked. When we got back the show was over. [Laughter]
Armato: What did you think of him? What was your first impression of him as a person?
O’Donnell: He was fascinating. He was an interesting guy, good guy to have a conversation with. Everything moved really quick, he was right on the money with his thinking, very sharp. Just a real sharp, interesting kind of guy.
Armato: Hal Hammer said that “Jerry had commissioned, even if unofficially, for Steve to build him two more guitars. One was requested by Jerry (Masterpiece/[Tribute]) to be a refinement of the first two, and the other one (Eagle) was to be a guitar that Steve was free to create, based on what he then knew about Jerry Garcia, his tastes, and playing preferences. Steve thought that it would be a thrill to see Jerry try to decide which one he liked best.” He went on to say, “I do know that, when Jerry died, Steve had an order for two guitars. One that Jerry specified, and one that Steve was to be free to create.”
O’Donnell: Yes, that is my understanding as well.
Armato: Did you and Hal ever collaborate on any work, or did you work for him at any time, or did you build anything for him?
O’Donnell: No. Other than meeting him at the Tampa show where Cripe shared a booth with him, I did run into him at a guitar show in Texas. The Blue Book of Guitars people were there, and I was showing them a Thin-line Tele I built. Hal expressed an interest in writing up a review on it, but I never heard anything back after that.
Pat O’Donnell in his workshop after wiring up Eagle.
O’Donnell: As far as the Eagle guitar goes, it was my understanding going back as far as I can remember that it was going to be sent to Jerry. That was my understanding. I did know that as a fact.
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Tribute AKA Saturn
Tribute AKS Saturn under construction
Tribute was under construction but not complete when Jerry died. It was completed including pickups and wiring when Cripe died.
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Armato: What was Steve’s inspiration for the palm tree motif?
McFarlane: Well, we lived in Florida, didn’t we?
Armato: And the dolphin was on the truss rod cover too!
McFarlane: Well, need I say? We are Floridians.
Armato: Steve did an interview with the St Pete Times. In the article it says, “Cripe said Garcia’s staff encouraged him to send more of his creations.”
McFarlane: Yep, sure did. He did want to as long as Jerry would have them.
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Armato: Did you have conversations with Cripe about either Masterpiece or Tribute, guitars with those labels?
Palow: Oh, we talked about the Tribute, yea.
Armato: How do you know that what we refer to as Tribute AKA Saturn is what he was talking about with you? Did he describe the palm tree on the headstock?
Palow: It was the palm tree. I don’t recall anything about the Masterpiece. In our conversations, I know he had started working on my guitar, and it was in the shop that blew up. I hadn’t sent him the $1,000 deposit yet and I said I’d get it to him. I know he had started it because I had custom ordered special colors and it was a bolt copy. I wanted yellow and purple instead of red and blue on the bolt. I don’t think he had gotten very far on it. The last time I talked to him it was more than a few weeks before he passed. Maybe it was late March or early April.
Armato: Back to Tribute, did you label it Tribute or did he?
Palow: I think that I got the name from Steve or Theresa, it wouldn’t have been something I came up with on my own. Because I tried to refer to those guitars as whatever they referred to them as. That’s why I refer to Kimock’s Teak guitar as number 6.
Armato: Did he refer to it as Saturn?
Palow: There were a few names, the Saturn and the Tribute, Theresa might have referred to it as Masterpiece, I don’t think that Steve would ever have referred to it that way himself. That doesn’t sound like something he would say about his own work. I don’t think he was ever satisfied enough with his own work to call anything a masterpiece no matter how good it was.
Armato: Do you remember him referring to it as Saturn?
Palow: Oh yea, sure.
Armato: Did he ever mention to you that he had built another guitar with a Saturn emblem on the electronics cover?
Palow: I think there was some discussion of that, but this Saturn was significant because it had the sterling silver rings. I don’t know if the other one did or not.
Armato: There was another customer, he worked with Cripe on his guitar including the design of the Saturn. But the planetary rings on his are made of purpleheart, padauk, and white maple. He [the customer] chose Saturn because he was an astronomy buff. He also drew out the design for the fret markers he wanted. Other customers said they picked out their own fret markers too.
I think this guy’s Saturn was started after but completed before Tribute. It was built quickly because it was a custom build. It was shipped to him on March 12, 1996, so the electronics covers were probably made side by side. Cripe probably liked the way the Saturn inlay turned out and thought ‘I’m going to one up it’, hence the sterling silver rings.
Palow: That’s what I thought too, I have no doubt the other one preceded it. Why Steve chose the Saturn for Tribute instead of the bolt, maybe because Jerry had passed, and he figured at some point this was going to be sold to someone else. I don’t know. It’s hard to figure out. There are some things I can intuit, like why he used Schaller pickups and hardware instead of Super two’s, that’s easy because it was German made. He loved it.
You’re investigating a cold case from 30 years ago. Trying to jog people’s memories. I mean I’ve got a decent memory. There are some things where I will tell you that I don’t remember. There are some things that are seared into my brain because that was a very important thing for me to be doing at that time in my life. It mattered a whole hell of a lot to me, so I remember a lot of the details. That trip in June 1996, I was to be meeting with him in person.
When I purchased the Tribute from Theresa it was with the full understanding that it was to be Garcia’s next guitar had Garcia survived. And I knew that from Steve as well.
Armato: Tribute was not loaded with DiMarzio Super 2 pickups when Cripe died. If it was intended for Jerry, why did he use Schaller pickups?
Palow: Steve had a fascination with German engineering. He considered it superior to everything. He had a Mercedes, Theresa had a Mercedes. He used Schaller hardware and Schaller pickups, because in his mind, that was the best.
Steve was building guitars and was wiring them up so he could test them at his shop. The way I look at it, Cripe was the builder, and Brawer was the electronics guy. He knew that once they were sent off to Jerry, they would be redone by Brawer. With Jerry gone he finished making Tribute to his own liking.
When I got number 6 (Teak) for Kimock, not only did I get the unfinished guitar, that was just the body, ready to have the hardware mounted, but I also bought a trio of DiMarzio Super Two’s that Cripe had, that had never been installed in anything. I gave those to Ed [Giguere] when he bought the guitar.
Steve was aware and he had access to that stuff but after Jerry died, he put Tribute together with Schaller pickups because it was no longer going to Jerry. He had to put it together so he could test it, and he used what he was comfortable with and what he had on hand.
Also, with Tribute, Jerry died during the process of building it so when Cripe wired it up there was no point in putting in the loop because it wasn’t going to Jerry at that point. When I got Tribute, the electronics did work because I remember using it in the studio, but it was just wired with a 5-way switch like a Stratocaster. I then took it to Brawer and had him put in the other stuff. I only had Brawer put in the effects loop and the coil tap. There was a Schaller Piezo bridge pickup in the guitar when I got it, and I had Brawer wire it in for me. The pre-amp was a different thing. The pre-amp didn’t get installed by Brawer until Andy Logan took it in.
Adam Palow in Studio with Tribute in 1996
Thomas Farr [Cripe customer]: Steve wasn’t an electronics guy, and I think he sent the body [of the guitar he was building for me] without the neck to Brawer to do the electronics … Brawer was the guy and still is the guy.”
***
Palow: I flew to Florida from California and shipped Tribute back to California. So, it was in California from roughly 1997 until I moved to Florida in October 2003.
***
Hammer: He made Palm Tree, in-fact we photographed Palm Tree in my backyard.
Armato: Was he going to send that one to Garcia, as well?
Hammer: He asked me what I thought, and I said, “No, you have to remember Jerry Garcia can only have so many guitars. But there are a whole lot of people in the world who would like to have great guitars.” And he said, “Well, you seek out famous people.” I said, “No. I don’t.” And he said, “Well, you made guitars for Keith Richards.” And I said, “Yeah, that’s because I was asked to.” And he said, “Well, maybe they will ask me.” I said, “You already make guitars for Jerry Garcia. Nobody in the world can do better than that.” A lot of the best guitars that Steve made took a long time to make. I understand that because sometimes I take more than a year or two to build a guitar, if it’s something that I really feel. A guitar needs a lot of resting time.
***
Cripe died on May 21, 1996. Shortly thereafter, Hal Hammer took this memorial picture with Jerry’s intended guitars beneath it that he and McFarlane set up.
McFarlane: The Dead office sent a beautiful wreath. The Grateful Dead productions sent the heart with the bolt through it. It was either Parish or Dennis McNally. That was freaking amazing. I was so touched by that, so very touched. A lot of that day is a blank. I was 80 feet away from the explosion. The ATF guy said he didn’t know how I was still alive, and the house trailer was still standing.
O’Donnell: There was no real fire, just one big bang. For stuff to get charred like that, it must have been some explosion.
McFarlane: Pat and Tim came up and they gathered up all the exotic woods and equipment and I was trying to show them everything. I was so proud of Steve and mortified as well.
O’Donnell: Theresa called me the following day after I had spoken to her and asked me if I could come over and help her and kind of organize stuff over there. I couldn’t get away for a couple days, but I finally did get there within a few days. She was really having a hard time with it. At that time, she had a couple people Steve had been talking to about building guitars and he had agreed to build one, but hadn’t started working on it, but the deal was basically struck. She put me in touch with those people and I was able to finish up the projects for her.
Armato: You had to make a few trips to retrieve materials?
O’Donnell: The first couple of times I went up to assess stuff and put things away so they wouldn’t get messed up in the weather and to bring back some guitars that I was finishing up for her, getting them ready. Some of them were not painted, some needed electronics work done.
Also, there was stuff that needed to be repaired, and stuff that Steve had started that wasn’t sold, that needed to be finished. Some of that stuff I finished up for Theresa. [Wiring Eagle was among these, see Tim O’Donnell email below]. About that time, I guess, Steve’s Dad willed the place over to Theresa. I went to a vintage guitar show in Nashville, and Theresa went along, and we set up the booth with some of Steves’ stuff and she was able to tell people the story about Steve and the guitars.
McFarlane: At some point, I gave Steve’s remaining guitars to his parents in Spring Hill, Florida, and some went to Pat for completion and then after his dad passed away, his sister Rhonda in California, came and got them and she returned with their mother to California.
***
Armato: When you visited Theresa the first time, where were all the guitars?
Palow: The guitars were in the house and some of them were wrapped in blankets and stuffed under the bed. There was an acoustic guitar project that he never finished, there was a bolt-on acoustic guitar that was stuck between the bed and the nightstand on his side. I played the bolt-shaped acoustic guitar while I was there the first time.
Armato: What about Eagle and Tribute?
Palow: They were back in her bedroom, probably in her closet. My friend and I would be sitting on the couch, and Theresa would tell us a story, we’d talk, I would play a guitar, she would disappear back into the bedroom and out would come another guitar. I think she was kind of feeling us out too, like “Are these people trustworthy?” Because she didn’t know me. I would call to talk to Steve and before he got on the phone, he’d be down at the shop, sometimes it would take ten minutes to get up to the phone. So, I would chat with Theresa, she’d be watching Andy Griffith. So, I knew her a little from chit chat and she felt comfortable enough with me to let me come over to see the guitars.
I gave her a deposit that day on the Teak guitar. And that had no pickups and no hardware. Other than the trio of Super Two’s I bought with it.
Adam Palow with Eagle in June 1996 in Steve’s house while visiting McFarlane.
Palow: I played a few of those guitars through Steve’s Fender Pro Junior. It had blond tolex with wheat grille, a 15-watt cathode bias amp. I bought that from her.
Armato: What were your impressions when she brought out Eagle and Tribute?
Palow: It was amazing. It was a weird scene because her man had just died a few weeks before. And she’s in all stages of grief at the same time. She’s crying, she’s telling stories, she’s showing us all sorts of other woodworking stuff he did and bringing guitars out in the meantime. Then she would take a guitar back to the bedroom.
At the same time, when those guitars came out, it was like, man, the Eagle especially, because I was a Strat player, and that mostly fits me. I would love to deal with this guitar. I loved the inlay; it had a great neck. When I saw the Tribute, I was kind of like, I didn’t want it for a personal guitar for myself because I didn’t want to have people looking at me like, oh, you’re trying to be like Jerry. It was great for what it was, but I never considered it my guitar. So, when I saw it, it was like that’s his masterpiece for sure. And I admired all the work he did. On a personal level I thought, cool, someone’s going to love that someday.
I was more interested in the Eagle; I also liked the ebony that went to Kimock.
Theresa told me I could pay her mortgage which was $35,000 for Eagle. I laughed and told her I can’t do that. I don’t think the Eagle was ever for sale to me. I felt like it was off limits for me for some reason. I don’t know if she had other people in mind or it was just too personal to her. She used to hug that guitar, like, this is mine, I’m keeping this one. I’m guessing that it had a lot more sentimental value to her than the other ones.
***
“Was most likely to be Jerry’s next guitar” – Steve Cripe
Armato: These words altered the course of my life. My life as a Deadhead began in April 1967, although I didn’t know it at the time. I remember browsing through records at a department store. I picked up the self-titled Grateful Dead LP and just paused to consider what I was holding. I had no idea, but I was entranced. The same thing happened when I picked up Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience a few months later, only it was different.
***
10/8/07
Nicholas Meriwether: Tell me about your first memory of Cripe.
Armato: I remember reading an article in the Unbroken Chain fanzine about Jerry’s new guitar and at that time it didn’t really click with me that it was an interview conducted with the luthier himself, Stephen Cripe. But anyway, I remembered Jerry having a new guitar. It looked much like the guitars he’d been playing for quite a while, the Doug Irwin guitars, handmade guitars designed for Jerry Garcia. He played three different guitars, and they were all made with exotic woods. They were heavy guitars, and I think they weighed as much as 13 pounds which is a very heavy guitar. The average guitar weighs much less. Usually when they get over 10 pounds, they are not very desirable for most people, but with that said, he played a few Doug Irwin guitars. I don’t believe I ever saw a Doug Irwin guitar for sale anywhere. Then a few of Jerry’s were auctioned off a few years ago. I have been trying to think about my first recollection of Cripe and I think it was just that Jerry had that new guitar. The buzz at the time was that it sounded like Jerry was playing an electric acoustic guitar. There was a big buzz among the community, pros and cons on whether it was a good change or not. I guess just the general knowledge that a Cripe guitar existed started to develop in my mind and I did not think much of it. And as history went on, Garcia died in 1995, and Cripe died in 1996.
In 2001, Cripe’s family started to sell his guitars on eBay. I was on eBay a lot buying and selling guitars and I remember a Cripe guitar being sold on eBay and it did not resemble the shape of Garcia’s guitars. I remember seeing an auction for one with an Eagle on it and I probably looked at the pictures a hundred times. I read the description a hundred and fifty times and I was trying to decide, ‘what am I going to bid? I want this guitar. I have got to have this guitar. It was such a unique guitar that okay, well I’m going for it.’ I think I remember that the bidding was around $4,000 for the guitar. At the time there was no Snipeware. Snipeware is a software that allows you to put in whatever bid amount you want, and it will automatically place that bid at whatever time interval before the end of the auction you wish to have it engaged. So, six seconds before the end of the auction is typically when I put in my bids. I don’t remember what time of the day the auction ended, but I had to be in front of the computer hoping that my dial up connection would sustain itself. I remember bidding, I just said, ‘Okay I’m bidding $11,111.11’ and fortunately I won it for less. I was ecstatic and that was my entry into the world of Cripe guitars.
***
On July 23, 2001, I won the auction for Eagle. I acquired it from Rhonda Williams, Steve’s sister, who was auctioning a handful of his guitars. I sent a check to her on 7/25/01. I bid unsuccessfully on a few others.
Pictures from the eBay auction for the Cripe Eagle
The guitar was breathtakingly beautiful. I took the picture below of Eagle shortly after receiving it.
I began researching Cripe on the internet and found a picture of Pat O’Donnell holding Eagle with the back of the guitar facing the camera – this is a screenshot from the website for Resurrection guitars. The caption read: “Pat O’Donnell and the Eagle. Steve’s notes indicated that this guitar was to be Jerry’s next. The guitar was finished up at Resurrection after Steve’s accident”.
The following email exchange then took place:
From: Steve Armato
To: Resurrection Guitars
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001, 3:06 PM
Subject: Cripe Eagle
Pat,
I recently acquired Steve Cripe’s Eagle. I am very interested in knowing more about its history. My understanding is that you may have finished this guitar after Steve’s accident. Is this true? Your web site also states that Steve’s notes indicated that this guitar was to be Jerry’s next. Those notes would mean a lot to me as the owner of the guitar. Any possibility of getting them? The piezo system does not work on the guitar nor does the push/pull pot. Any idea what was intended? Thanks for your time.
Steve Armato
***
From: Resurrection Guitars
To: Steve Armato
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001, 10:49 AM
Subject: Re: Cripe Eagle
Steve, I’m glad to hear that you have the guitar. I’ve had the joy of playing that guitar and it feels like an old friend. This guitar was finished after Steve’s accident. We finished it at our shop in Jensen. We have Steve’s notes on the guitar tucked away somewhere and he was very happy about the guitar because of the shape, and I feel because it was a much different animal than the design that Doug Irwin made. My father put those notes in a safe place so I will see if he knows where they are. The guitar has a Bartolini preamp in it which is powered by a nine-volt battery. The battery is in the back of the guitar under the plate that runs with the stripes of the neck laminations. I think there are four small Phillips head screws. The push pull pot is either a bypass switch which turns on the bridge pick-up regardless of the position of the five-way switch or a mono stereo switch. I’m pretty sure it’s a stereo mono switch. The knob closest to the eagle head is a blend control between the piezo and magnetic signal. If I remember correctly the jack closest to the eagle head is the piezo jack and the one below it is the magnetic jack. The guitar is stereo out of both jacks when the push pull pot is down and mono out of the magnetic jack when the push pull pot is up. There must be a dummy jack in the piezo jack when in mono mode. It was a little strange to get used to and since that time the diagram from that guitar has become a little more user friendly. I can also dig up the original diagram and send it to you and if you have a good luthier in your area have him go through it for you with the original diagram. Another option would be to wire it like the current guitars which is a little easier to operate and accomplishes the same thing. The last time I saw that was March 23 of 1999 where I played it at a club in Stuart. The next day I left on vacation to Colorado. What a great week that was. Call me at our shop and I’ll see what I can find for you. Tim
***
A couple years later, I sent another email to Tim.
***
From: Steve Armato
To: Resurrection Guitars
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004, 10:46 AM
Subject: Attention Tim – Cripe Eagle
Tim,
I know it has been a few years, but I still have this guitar and wanted to see if I could get the original (or a copy) of Cripe’s notes regarding this guitar being intended for Jerry Garcia.
Thanks.
Steve Armato
***
From: Resurrection Guitars
To: Steve Armato
Sent: Wednesday, Apr 20, 2004 – 7:46pm
Steve, Get me a fax number and I can fax you over a paper titled “guitar description to accompany photos”. His letterhead is on the top of the page. The last description is: purpleheart core with cocobola top and back. Laminated cocobola, maple, purpleheart neck. Laminated headstock. 24 fret Brazilian fretboard, warthog tusk ivory eagles head inlay. Semi hollow body. No electronics. Was most likely to be Jerry’s next guitar. This guitar was built at the same time as Jerry’s top hat.
That’s what it says. My scanner is down right now so let me know if you have a fax number. When we got the guitar, it had no electronics, and we wired it up. Peace Tim
Regards, Tim O’Donnell,
Resurrection Custom Guitar Company
Tim O’Donnell faxed these notes to me from Resurrection Custom Guitars workshop on April 21, 2004. These notes were in Steve Cripe’s files when Pat O’Donnell retrieved all Cripe’s files, guitar body templates, the Opium bed wood, guitar necks, guitar bodies, woodworking equipment, etc.
Hal Hammer said he sat with Steve Cripe with each guitar in hand, except Lightning Bolt. It is uncertain when they were written but most likely while he still had Top Hat. So that would put it approximately October 1993.
***
***
Later that year, I wanted to Jerry-ize Eagle, so I sent it to Gary Brawer to have the work done.
Brawer invoice
***
On February 2, 2002, I took Eagle to the Georgia Theatre in Athens, GA, to see the Steve Kimock Band. I had pre-arranged to meet Kimock backstage and show him Eagle. Someone took a picture of us together, but I don’t have a copy. We had fun comparing his Teak guitar with Eagle.
I was so enamored with the tone Kimock was getting from the Harmonic Design Z-90 pickups that I put a set in Eagle, and it stayed that way until it went to Andy Logan.
***
Andy Logan became the steward of Tribute around February 2013 and Eagle in November 2017. Andy sent Eagle back to Gary Brawer to have it Jerry-ized again and here is Zach Nugent holding the current configuration of Eagle.
***
Palow: It is a shame that Steve didn’t live long enough to be widely recognized for his work. During the short time I knew him, I was convinced that he’d be considered among the top luthiers of his generation. I still feel that his guitars are unmatched by those who aspire to copy them and am honored to have owned a few of them.
***
Palow: Steve Cripe and I used to sit on the phone for hours at a time and he told me about both of those guitars, Eagle and Tribute, that he had intended for those to go to Garcia at some point. With the Eagle, he had put it aside and moved on to the Tribute because that was the style of guitar that Garcia played. But he told me flat out that he had intended the Eagle to go to Garcia at one point in time.
***
Palow: And that last conversation I had with Steve; it was almost prophetic in a way. He was talking about the Tribute guitar, specifically, and how he was building it for Jerry, and Jerry had passed away, and he really poured himself into it to make it a tribute to Garcia, which it obviously is. But the comment he made was, he didn’t know what he was going to do with it at this point because the last thing he wanted was for it to hang on some collector’s wall and never get played. To me, when Steve passed away shortly after that conversation, I considered it a personal mission to get it into the hands of players because that’s what Steve would’ve wanted.
So, thank you so much, Andy Logan and the Grateful Guitars Foundation, for assuming from me the role of stewarding Tribute, and for doing what you’re doing, getting Eagle and Tribute into the hands of live players.”
Steve Kimock playing Tribute during soundcheck, Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa, FL, 1/14/06
Palow: Kimock played the Tribute, and I took a video of him on stage before a show. Tampa 2006, he loved the guitar for what it was, but he didn’t want to put on the face of playing Jerry’s guitar.