John Cruz Custom Guitars Premier Fifty Crossville TL Matador Red with India Ivory Strip “Banshee”

John Cruz Custom Guitars Premier Fifty Crossville TL Matador Red with India Ivory Strip "Banshee"

Legendary luthier John Cruz has spent a lifetime handcrafting musical instruments for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, open-mic-night heroes and everyone in between. After several decades building at one of the world’s most respected custom shops, he forged his own path to rural Tennessee and is finally able to build guitars 100 percent his way – with zero corners cut, zero permissions asked and zero apologies.

John’s initial offering is the exquisite Crossville TL, limited to 25 instruments worldwide. This nitrocellulose lacquer-finished masterpiece features a medium-weight alder body, hand-rubbed oil-finished quartersawn maple neck with maple cap fretboard, John Cruz Custom Designed pickups, Gotoh bridge and tuners, and every tiny nuance a player would expect John to build into his company’s first instruments.

“Simplicity and beauty mean a lot to me when it comes to building electric guitars. Vintage guitars are great, but require subtle—and sometimes, not so subtle—upgrades and modifications to further inspire players to create the music they were born to make. These guitars means so much to me as they’ve been decades in the making. I’m certain you’ll see, hear and feel the love I put into these guitars when you play one.” – John Cruz