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LARRY CRAGG is everywhere!!!
EXCERPTS from an article contributed to the site from Robert Garriott.
Thanks friend.
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From the April 16th, 2001 edition of a
Local Marin County Newspaper
Marin County California Profiles: Larry Cragg
photo ©
Doctor to the Stars: Larry Cragg has worked on the guitars of
the Rolling Stones, Carlos Santana, and Neil Young, to name a
few.
Cragg, 52, a big man with a gray blond ponytail and an amiable
manner, radiates an enthusiasm for the nuts and bolts of rock
that doesn’t appear to have flagged after 30 years in a business
notorious for spectacular burn-outs.
While his reputation is as a master guitar tech, he ‘s also an
accomplished musician in his own right, often performing with
Young on stage and on records. A multi-instrumentalist, he plays
guitar, pedal steel, banjo, mandolin, saxophones and keyboards,
and practically anything and everything else that can eke out
a tune.
“Im sort of the old utility guy,” Cragg says. “Whatever Neil needs,
I can play. From just being his guitar repairman, I’ve ended up
being a part of his family, so to speak, and getting to play with
him as a member of the band.”
For Cragg music and the instruments that make it have been a passion
since his mother a piano teacher, started giving him lessons as
a boy growing up in Winnetka, IL.
At 19, Cragg ventured west to California to attend the Monterey
Pop Festival. It was 1967 the fabled Summer of Love, and he was
instantly swept up in the exploding San Francisco rock scene.
“I said, That’s it,” he recalls, brightening at the memory, “I’m
coming here.”
Making his way to Marin, he started minding the store for $10.
a day at Prune Music, a legendary Mill Valley guitar shop that
was a hang out and resource center for many musician in the 70’s
and early 80’s.
“You’d have Mike Bloomfield and Carlos Santana jamming in the
store,” Cragg recalls. “Steve Miller would come in. It was a meeting
spot. It was a really cool place. Everybody used to come there.”
He didn’t have a clue that his hobby could somehow turn into a
thriving career.
Cragg quickly found himself working on the guitars of the rock
bands that were making the so-called San Francisco sound the biggest
thing in popular music ...
“Everybody in the San Francisco bands lived in Marin then,” he
says. “Instead of watching them at The Fillmore, I was working
for them. I started with Country Joe, Quicksilver, the Airplane,
Santana. I still work for Santana. I’ve been his guitar guy all
along.
Through amplifier tehnician Randy Smith, who would go on to found
the successful Mesa Boogie amplifier company, Cragg met Neil Young.
He has been on every tour with Young, including those with Crosby,
Stills and Nash since 1973.
After Prune Music closed in 1985, Cragg and his wife Christine,
bought a beautiful old house on a creek in San Anselmo and built
a separate workshop for his guitar repair business. he worries
when he has to stop fixing guitars to go on the road.
“With my customers, I feel like I’m their doctor and I’m leaving
them in the lurch,” he says.
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