Darrow Montgomery
ARTS
Chord Progress Fifty years later, the Nagoya guitars sold by one D.C.-area music shop are still prized, sought after, and played. By John F. Maclean Contributing Writer Three months into quarantine, I got my father’s old guitar down from the attic. After I cleaned and polished it and put on new strings, I was impressed: The dusty wood transformed into a sleek brown and tan instrument that looked very similar to Martin’s classic acoustic dreadnought guitars. When I strummed, it had a full, rich, melodic tone. But the guitar manufacturer’s name stamped on the inside of the body—the Nagoya Guitar Company—was unfamiliar. My father’s guitar wasn’t the only Nagoya around, though. First popular 50 years ago, people in the D.C. area still had them, still talked about them, and were as impressed by them as I was. I was holding a local gem, sold in the thousands during its production run in the 1970s, and still prized, soughtafter, and played by musicians in the region. 22 april 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com
Fifty years ago, the construction and marketing of guitars went through a period of bedlam. Clone guitars of established electric and acoustic brands were being produced cheaply in Japan. Some were similar enough to result in copyright litigation: In 1977, the Gibson Guitar Corporation sued the Elger Guitar Company, which imported Ibanez guitars, for copyright infringement of its headstocks. In addition, C. F. Martin & Company acoustic guitars—which were established, expensive, and dated back to the 1920s—were going through a perceived drop in quality. That was rooted in two factors: a high increase in production from the popular folk music phase and a sea change in the expertise of guitar technicians, according to Reverb and guitar technician Dru Lore, who works for Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center in Wheaton. “The older generation all retired at the same time [at Martin], and there was a learning curve,” Lore says. The guitar world was like an open road for someone with a little imagination. Into the void stepped Koob Veneman of Veneman Music, a local chain of stores based in Rockville, Silver Spring, Greenbelt, and Falls Church, though it would later branch into Bethesda and Springfield. Veneman had a reputation for creatively marketing and selling musical instruments. “If you could think of it, he did it,” says Tony Litz, of Gaithersburg’s Victor Litz Music, whose music store competed with Veneman’s. Veneman’s previous successful ventures included opening musical instrument superstores and publishing a national mail-order catalog. Albert “Ted” Veneman, the son of Koob Veneman, who died in 2010, says his father saw a market for inexpensive, quality guitars, and forged ahead in a new space.
“He went to Japan in the 1960s with a Martin guitar to see who could make anything similar, but a lot cheaper,” Ted Veneman says. “My father got to know a number of guitar makers in Japan who could work when and at what price.” Starting around 1971, Koob Veneman had the guitars manufactured by a group of Japanese independent contractors, who worked for less money than U.S. guitar technicians. Because the contractors were based in Nagoya, Japan, Koob named them the “Nagoya Guitar Company.” There was no factory floor; the guitarmakers worked in whatever space they had available. “Dad [once] described guys working on a guitar in the alley outside, wherever they could find the space,” Ted Veneman says. The Nagoya N-18—my father’s model—was one of seven Nagoya models, which included 12-string guitars as well as the six-string acoustic N-18. Though they were listed in Veneman’s national catalog, Nagoya guitars were intended for D.C.-area customers. “He never intended to sell them outside of the area,” Veneman says. And sell they did. Although no official numbers were kept of the number of Nagoyas sold, William Johnson, who worked for Veneman Music from 1971 to 1985, said thousands of the guitars sold during the years they were made, from about 1971 to 1979. “At its height, we sold 20 to 30 guitars a day, many of them Nagoyas,” Johnson says. “They were a household name in the region,” Litz says. Ted Veneman, who co-managed the stores starting in 1971, agrees the guitars sold well. “The guitar business was very good to us, we made money, they were profitable guitars,” he says. Ted also says that the success of the guitars was based on his father’s good market instincts. The Nagoya’s appearance, which was similar to Martin guitars with a dreadnought shape, a spruce
