Milwaukee’s Rauen Guitars Celebrates 40 Years

Internationally recognized luthier hosts a performance

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Every year at the annual “Nod to Bob” benefit concert, Denny Rauen opens the marathon evening performing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” on bagpipes. That’s an odd bit of trivia for a guy whose work on guitar restoration and repair includes clients Keith Richards, Buddy Guy and Leo Kottke.

Rauen celebrates 40 years of adventures in lutherie Sunday night with “More Guitar … Denny Rauen, Peter Roller and Peter Mac.” It happens Sunday, 7 p.m. at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn linnemans.com/event/april-3-2022

Before setting up shop in Milwaukee, Rauen worked for SD Curlee and Dean, guitar builders in the Chicago area. He saw the need for a boutique custom shop and had the skills to work on musicians’ treasured instruments without losing the elusive mojo that permeates the tools of their trade.

“When I left manufacturing in 1982 and started this new business model I was taking a risk but here I am 40 years later going strong and loving it every day,” Rauen says. The vast majority of musicians he deals with are “an overqualified underpaid group of folks that are the definition of ‘starving artist.’ In other words, I built a business model around serving some of the poorest folks in our society. Being that the work is actually 19th century hands-on skilled craftsmanship and not just popping in a new module or computer chip the dollars rarely match the time and intricacy of the work.” He cites a healthy love for the bohemian lifestyle as a requirement.

He says his shop design never included a retail music store which was crucial in allowing for the focus needed to do the highest level of work.

During the pandemic, Rauen also filmed and edited videos, to be streamed and then archived on YouTube, for artists playing “Peace Through Music” and “Nod to Bob” when the benefits could not be staged in person.

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Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The innovations of Waukesha’s Les Paul and Leo Fender are now commonplace, reaching beyond the world of music. Rauen can lay claim to membership in that elite group. “I’ve had the good fortune of working with so many great musicians over the years so it’s hard to pick one, but the project that sticks out is my multi-radius fingerboard creation back in 1979. Today it’s commonly called compound radius or conical fingerboard but those are just different names for my original multi-radius fingerboard creation,” Rauen says.

Perfecting his special fingerboard was a challenge but how to share the idea proved to be even more of a challenge. It took him several years which included a conversation with Leo Fender sharing some of his wisdom before Rauen finally decided to publish the idea in a luthiers’ trade journal.

After spending time and dollars with patent lawyers, it became clear that chasing patents would put him in a box he didn't want to be a part of. “I was 26 years old with lots of ideas and felt giving this one idea to the guitar building community was the right thing to do, so like many luthiers before me I published the idea and shared it. That was over 40 years ago and to this day my proudest decision as a luthier.”

Rauen’s plan for the “More Guitar” show is for folks to experience some serious stripped down solo guitar playing in various styles. “Peter Mac and Peter Roller typically perform in bands but are tremendous solo players. so it’ll be exciting to hear what they choose to play,” he says. Rauen will also be showcasing a handful of original tunes from an in-progress solo record. “We may even play a tune or two together.”

Peter Roller’s Custom Telecaster Style Guitar

Hooligan’s on North Avenue used to host live music on Monday nights. It was here that Denny Rauen and musician Peter Roller first crossed paths. “I was playing lead and steel guitar with the late ‘80s (lineup of) Paul Cebar & the Milwaukeeans, performing up on the bar at Hooligan’s when Denny first approached me on a break,” Rauen recalls. “After name introductions he said, Peter you’ve GOT to be playing a better electric! I was using a homemade Telecaster body from earlier Minneapolis days built of solid maple.”

The heavy weight body was not good for solid body electric guitar tone, “Denny knew this, I did not,” Roller recalls. Rauen was so passionate about the topic that he offered to hand build Roller a custom Telecaster—neck, body and controls to the guitarist’s specifications.

“Of course, I took him up on the offer. We also discovered we were both living in Whitefish Bay with small children heading to the same grade school, so we had much in common.”

Rauen’s first shop was in half of what became Mimma’s Italian Restaurant on Brady Street; it is currently Dorsia. Roller was teaching guitar at nearby Wisconsin Conservatory, so it was easy to stop by for repairs or just to visit. “What one saw there was an old bakery counter with glass front and inside was a little cubby hole where young daughter Lindsay spent the workday with her (single) Dad!” Roller recalls. “I eventually gave son Josh his first slide lessons and he has gone on to be quite the shredder in that guitar style!”

Roller’s Main Axe

The Rauen Tele has worked through gigs with Paul Cebar, blues with Steve Cohen, Gospel with the Masonic Wonders and leading Roller’s own instrumental combos. It features the flexibility of three pickups, creative switching and the skinny radiused neck Rauen created to the guitarist’s wishes. “He even hand inlaid a unique doodad at the 12th fret that he said was an impression of my playing, what could I say?!”

At the Linneman’s celebration of 40 Years of Rauen Guitars, Roller will be focusing on his guitar influences and the original solo pieces in many styles found on his Blue Fog CD. That mostly acoustic instrumental album has hints of Brazilian bossa nova, acoustic blues and ragtime, instrumental pop tunes and even some Hawaiian slack key.

More info here: rauenguitars.com.