Dan Armstrong - Man & Guitars

Kent Armstrong

Kent Armstrong was a young man in his teenage years when Dan opened up his shop in 1965. A few years later he was working for Dan in his father's shop after school and he would eventually come to apprentice under Bill Lawrence. In 1971 Dan, along with sons Kent and Eric, moved to England where Dan began to design new musical products. Already Kent had a fairly lucrative offer of going to work for none other than Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page as his guitar tech.
Eventually Kent and Eric attended college and by 1972 Kent had become involved with his father as together they began to manufacture the Dan Armstrong London series instruments. Once college ended Kent eventually went on to being head of quality control at the facility. When the London series guitars project came to an end Kent put his vast accumulation of pickup knowledge to use and started a courier service riding motorcycles going in and out of London several times daily offering local music shops a 24 hour turn around time on pickup repairs. He eventually went on to design and market his own line of pickups under the name Rainbow Pickups. Today, Kent Armstrong offers a full line of instrument pickups where along with his son Aaron, has also produced pickups for all of the reissue Dan Armstrong · Ampeg guitars and basses as well as Ampeg's AMG100 series instruments.

Eddie Diehl

New York's legendary jazz guitarist Eddie Diehl was born Edward Philip Diehl Jr. on June 16, 1936 in Staten Island, NY. He was already a house-hold name, not only in the jazz circuit, but all over the New York area long before Dan came to the city. Doing session work and playing live in the area it wasn't long before Dan heard him play. It was at a jam session where Dan met and became aware of Eddie's skills - not only as a brilliant guitarist, but as a luthier and eventually asked Eddie to work for him. Eddie felt he could work by day and play at night, so he agreed and worked as Dan's chief repairman. After Dan closed up shop in 1971 Eddie went to work at various other shops, including the Folklore Center in New York City.

Afterwards he did repairs, taught improvisation, lectured on the Beat era and played Jazz in various venues on the East Coast. He was much sought after for his fret work by professional guitarists, and years later occassionally did fret work for Carl Thompson when Carl got behind in things. In 2006 along with legendary jazz pianist Hank Jones, drummer Mickey Roker & bassist John Webber - Eddie released the CD/Album named Well, Here it is... which has been described as "A totally satisfying, urbane, smoothly swinging conversation among four polished jazz veterans." Sadly Eddie passed away on June 20, 2017 in Poughkeepsie, NY where he had been living when I interviewed him back in the early 2000^'s.

Steve Kubica

At left, Steve Kubica originally took his guitar to Dan to have a pickup rewound and ended up working for him. After his time at Dan's shop he worked for several other shops until he formed his own, called Guitar Magic which he still runs.

Kurt Munkacsi

Kurt Munkacsi worked in Dan's shop for a little over a year when Dan closed everything up and moved to England. He then went to work for Carl Thompson at the Guitar Lab where he worked for another year. While working there he was also attending the Institute for Audio Engineering. After graduating he left the Guitar Lab where his assistant there, Steve Blucher, took over. Shortly afterwards he began to work with Philip Glass working in a studio called Butterfly Recording which was a mobil recording studio where one of the main clients was John Lennon. Away from the studio he was the Sound Designer for live performances and by the mid 1970's his role had changed as he became Philip's Producer. Today, Kurt continues his role as Producer for Philip Glass.

Matt Umanov

Matt Umanov helped Dan design the prototype acrylic instruments for Ampeg back in 1968. Ironically, it was while building the prototypes that his sublet ran out and he temporarily moved in and worked alongside Eddie Diehl and Carl Thompson in Dan's shop doing the more difficult instrument repairs that came in. After completing the acrylic prototypes for Dan, Matt once again found a place of his own to set up shop. Today he owns and runs Matt Umanov Guitars in New York City. As one who loves the sound of wooden instruments, it is equally ironic that he is shown at upper left, in the past with Dan, developing what many called the futuristic clear guitar - while at upper right, and later in life, he is seen with yet another acrylic guitar - this one from the past - a rare 1936-40 acrylic Gibson L-5.