When master luthier John Monteleone begins work on a new guitar, it’s the materials – thick boards of maple, spruce and exotic hardwoods like Hawaiian koa and Brazilian rosewood – that appeal to him, he says.
“I just look at the wood and it tells me, ‘I want to become something and I can’t wait to hear what you have.’ So it’s very rewarding and that’s what keeps me going,” said Monteleone, 77.
It is these unique insights, as well as his cutting-edge designs and the sound he can achieve with his instruments, that have earned Monteleone international recognition. Since the mid-1970s, he has created custom instruments for leading rock, jazz and folk guitarists such as Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Julian Lage, Anthony Wilson and Ben Harper – many of them in his 2,400-square-foot workshop in Islip. In a 2022 documentary, “John Monteleone: The Chisels Are Calling,” many of those musicians praised the self-taught guitar maker’s craftsmanship. Knopfler, the lead guitarist of the rock band Dire Straits, has compared his artistry to that of Leonardo da Vinci and even wrote a song in his honor.
Now, closer to home, Monteleone is being honored with an exhibition at the Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages in Stony Brook that features nearly 50 guitars, mandolins and other stringed instruments he built between 1971 and 2023. Many of them are privately owned, including the “Four Seasons” guitar quartet he built from 2002 to 2006 and on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Joshua Ruff, co-director of the Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages, and John Monteleone at the museum. Photo credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
“Musical Masterpieces: John Monteleone’s Guitars and Other Instruments” runs through Oct. 13. It focuses on archtop guitars like his 1997 “Rocket Convertible” and his 2021 “Scarface,” both of which have side sound holes, an innovation he developed to solve the problem of players having to lean over the front of their guitar to hear the sound the audience hears. “I wanted to bring that sound directly to the musician, right into his ears,” he said.
The exhibition also features other historical guitars that were important to Monteleone and were made in the 20th century by guitar makers Gibson, John D’Angelico, James “Jimmy” D’Aquisto and Selmer-Maccaferri.
“This exhibition showcases the artistry of a guitar maker with deep Long Island roots. John has a transformative story that goes far beyond the world-class instruments he makes,” said Joshua Ruff, co-executive director of the museum and curator of the exhibition.
ROOTS OF A GUITAR MAKER
Monteleone said his family came to the United States from Palermo, Sicily. His grandfather, Salvatore, was a pastry chef and owned bakeries in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and his father, Mario, was an artist and sculptor who had trained at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in Manhattan. The Monteleone family eventually settled in Islip, and his father worked as an industrial model maker for companies such as Republic Aviation Corp. in Farmingdale. Monteleone worked frequently with his father and, as a teenager, he said, helped cast lead weights to balance helicopter rotors.
Monteleone said it was his curiosity about how things worked that led him to take apart his family’s grand piano at age 10. “It was having problems with the keys and I was a curious boy who wanted to find out if I could fix it,” he recalls. “With permission, I was able to take the cases apart and take a close look at the problems. I could see the engineering and get it back to full working order.”
At the age of 14, an interest in folk music and acoustic guitars “ignited a real fire in me.”
BUILDING HIS FIRST GUITAR
Monteleone said he dreamed of owning his own guitar but couldn’t afford one, so he started visiting music stores and getting a visual impression of how guitars are made.
“There were no published books, no information on how to build something like this, so I broke it down into simple terms. I picked up my dad’s Yellow Pages and looked for wood suppliers for musical instruments. And that’s how it started,” he said.
An accomplished player of many stringed instruments, Monteleone graduated from Tarkio College in Missouri in 1970 with a degree in applied music. He was a substitute teacher for a time and worked with his father while continuing to build his own instruments. He was working on his fifth guitar when he heard an ad on the radio in 1973 for the Mandolin Brothers in Staten Island, who were buying, selling and trading old guitars, mandolins and banjos.
“They had a specialty; their idea was to create a whole new industry. I was lucky to meet these people at the right moment,” he said. “When they said we need a mechanic, my career began.”
Musicians who worked for Judy Collins and Peter, Paul and Mary came to the Mandolin Brothers, and Monteleone said he did their repairs. In 1976, he set up a workshop in Bay Shore. Little by little, he began experimenting with his own designs.
Monteleone bends wood for a guitar in his workshop. Photo credit: Rick Kopstein
266 MANDOLINS
“Over time, the vintage instruments became quite expensive for some musicians, so the opportunity to build a replica mandolin presented itself,” he said, adding that word had spread about his instruments. “The opportunity was great to build something they could afford, and so to date I have built 266 mandolins.”
At the time, Monteleone charged about $850 to build an instrument. Today, his archtop guitars – which have a curved top similar to a violin and raised strings – sell for $55,000 to $175,000.
Monteleone said that in the early days of his business, he had to teach himself everything because there was no way to connect with other luthiers. “In the ’60s, I didn’t even know the term luthier… Slowly, the information became available and was passed on.”
ISLIP WORKSHOP
Monteleone opened his current workshop in Islip in 1990. Ruff said the luthier’s workshop is his ecosystem. “It’s a place where you can watch him do the work of his life, and there’s a story in every drawer.”
In Monteleone’s meticulously organized and spotless workshop, there is a filing system of wooden drawers salvaged from a 19th-century hardware store where he stores pieces of wood for various parts of the guitar and mandolin. Another set of drawers contains tuning pegs, including some made of gold that he has engraved with his initials, and all the items he uses for custom inlays on the guitar’s fingerboard, bridge, and pickguard: abalone, mother of pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell, gemstones, turquoise, and cast stone.
Another storage system includes flattop and archtop guitar woods. “I take pieces that I put together as a working pair,” he said. His favorite combination for an archtop is maple and spruce “because of the tonal balance and the response it can provide.”
Monteleone has a careful organizational system, like these drawers that store some of the components of his custom inlays for guitars, mandolins, and other stringed instruments. Photo credit: Rick Kopstein
The main work space is designed so that he can move around freely. “I built this studio specifically so that I can take advantage of the northern light above my work tables,” he said.
Monteleone also owns antique machinery that he has salvaged and repurposed, including a 1920 milling machine for carving and a number of other machines such as a pantograph that allows him to roughly carve the pieces of wood he selects from a template. There is a buffing wheel for polishing and a spray booth where he does all of his own finishing.
In his office, Monteleone has one of his favorite mandolins, which he built in the 1970s, and the first guitar he ever made. He said he only recently achieved the sound he wanted. It took 60 years, and he remembered having tears in his eyes when he heard it.
RADIO FLYER COMMISSION
One of the guitars Monteleone is currently working on is an 18-inch “Radio Flyer” guitar for Huntington resident Steve Salerno, a professional musician who plays jazz and classical music.
Salerno, who is also a collector, declined to disclose the price, but Rudy’s Music NYC is offering a Monteleone 1995 “Radio Flyer Deluxe” for $120,000.
“John didn’t want his guitars to be unaffordable for players, but simply because of his artistry, great craftsmanship and his feeling for sound, the value of his guitars has skyrocketed,” said Salerno, 62.
John Monteleone, left, with daughter Sam Monteleone and Steve Salerno at a performance at the Jazz Loft. Photo credit: Rick Kopstein
Of Monteleone’s importance to the guitar world, Salerno said, “I don’t know anyone who comes close to having the ability to build an instrument, having an artistic vision for it and really understanding how every single part of the instrument works. John just kept evolving, and he did it at an early stage.”
Monteleone, who has built 228 guitars, also has a great understanding of musicians’ needs, Salerno said, and makes each instrument individually. “He doesn’t build the same guitar twice; he makes sure that each instrument is a truly individual creation.”
ARTISTIC INSPIRATION
Monteleone’s designs are based on history. He said the ornamentation of the instruments dates back to early organ building, when each instrument was a unique work of art. “Even on early Renaissance guitars, some of the inlays were more extravagant,” he said.
He said his inspirations were the Art Deco architectural designs of the 1920s, as well as toys and equipment from that era through the 1950s. He was also a collector of model trains, which he said led to a train guitar series, including “The Orient Express,” which is painted royal blue with gold trim to reflect the original 1920 train.
Although Monteleone says he is no longer involved in restoration work, he did get involved in violin making in the 1980s “to experience the process and the experience, to learn the depth of violin making, because I felt it was important for historical understanding.”
Over the past two years, he has also built two mandolins that are similar to mandolins but larger, but he said he currently only builds custom guitars.
Monteleone acknowledged that he is persevering in an industry that has changed, with the market flooded with mass-produced guitars and few shops like his left.
“I was in the right place at the right time in terms of developing my career and my art,” he said. “The doors opened for me at the right time.”
