What makes a man? For Gary Free, the answer is Micro-Frets. Before Will and I started this endeavor, we wanted to make sure we were on the right path. We had heard that one of the plant managers was still around. The hunt did not take long. We met Gary at a lunch meeting and knew that his knowledge, wisdom and insight into all things Micro-frets was one of the most important milestones toward getting this operation off the ground.

Today, Gary is still a vital part of the Micro-Fret team. His enthusiasm, and skill are the glue of the operation. I had the pleasure of interviewing him, and I would be remiss if I did not get this up on the website so that others might share in the stories Gary had to offer. I was surprised and delighted with our afternoon. I hope you, the reader, enjoy this pearl in time.

Paul Rose: Were you there when It started Up?

Gary Free: : No, no not when it first started. When they first actually started, they actually started out making the Micro-nut and the calibrato..

Paul Rose:  You mean they just made the parts?

Gary Free:  They just made the micro-nut and sold the micro-nut and the calibrato. Then he [Ralph Jones] decided he wanted to make guitars too, so they [Ralph Jones and Huggins] made guitars.

Paul Rose:  You said originally that it was not called Micro-Frets?

Gary Free:  Right, At first they were going by Micro-Tech. Then they went to the show up in Chicago, one of the trade shows, after they started making the guitars, too. There was some other woman there, and she had the same name and that woman raised heck. So then they had to change over to Micro-Frets.

Paul Rose:  Was it an instantaneous thing?

Gary Free:  Yeah Sure.

Paul Rose:  Did they Start in Frederick at the Blue building?

Gary Free:  He [Jones] started at home in the shop and Jones used to do work for Huggins. You know, little side jobs.

Paul Rose:  What was their relationship?

Gary Free: Jones was the inventor. Huggins was the business man and money man, he was a millionaire. I used to ask him, "We aren't making any money, you know?" and he said "you know it’s a tax write off." It was to him. But if it made it, it made it. And, if it didn't well. . . .Of course he [Huggins] liked it, he liked what they were doing. It was something different. He was a real-estate salesman and he had the whole East coast Trailer franchise thing; a real business man. Jones had done some work for him. Jones could do just about anything. Jones did stuff out of his own shop. Jones built furniture; really nice furniture, unique stuff. And he was doing the micro-nut and calibrato and he showed Huggins, "look what I'm doing.”. Huggins probably said, "lets put it on the market." Then they started and they started making guitars. After they had been together about a couple of years.

Paul Rose:  What kind of guitars did they have at that point? The Golden Melody?

Gary Free:  And the plainsman and the Huntington.

Paul Rose: : Those had the Bigsby style tremelo bar.

Gary Free:  Yeah, right. That is the calibrato they had then.

Paul Rose:  Did they come out about the same time?.

Gary Free: : When I went there, basically they had the Plainsman, the Huntington and the Orbiter, the cordless guitar.

Paul Rose:  So the Orbiter was early.

Gary Free:  And the Spacetone came later. And a lot of the others. . . the Covington . . .they changed the names on them a couple of times. The Golden Melody I still call the Stage II. It went from Golden Melody to Stage II and you all took it back to Golden Melody. They had some guys come in, and said "we need to change the names on some of these, beef it up a little bit." One of the basses, they called it the Rendevous bass. It wasn't a good name. Then Jones named those guitars. He was from West Virginia. The Huntington was from Huntington, West Virginia. And the model, Covington, was from Covington, West Virginia. You See, him and his father made some flat-top guitars way back. I don't remember what they were called, but him and his father got started making guitars. His dad made fiddles, too. Or violins . . . up there its called a fiddle.

Paul Rose:  When they had to make the guitars, they also had to make the machines to make the guitars.

Gary Free:  We had to custom build the our own machines. You couldn't buy those things. All the companies that were making guitars they all did the same thing. You couldn't go out and buy one of those things.

Paul Rose:  What other guitars were popular at that time, Fender, Gibson?

Gary Free:  And Gretsch. And when He came up with those ideas about the guitar, He [ Ralph Jones] knew he had to come out with something better; something more extraordinary something with new things, to override to compete with those people. And that’s what he did. And he had a lot of great ideas, he really did. He was really amazing.

Paul Rose:  Now you started there before your dad.

Gary Free:  Yeah, there for a good while. He was there about six years.

Paul Rose:  When you were there how many people did they have working?

Gary Free:  Maybe ten people. At one time we got around twenty, toward the end. Sometimes with twenty people you had a job that didn't last you all day, so you had to do something else.

Paul Rose:  And different people would come by?

Gary Free:  Yeah, Johnny Cash bunch came in (not Johnny). Carl Perkins was there that day. He was there, with the cash band. They sat there and played there, I played with them, too. Tommy Cash came in too. It was starting to catch on. But then when He (Ralph Jones passed away) what happened there. . .

Paul Rose:  Whose idea was it was to do the radical finishes?

Gary Free:  It was Jones. He was the one to do the radical designs.

Paul Rose:  Do you have a favorite memory of Micro-Frets?

Gary Free:  I guess a lot of the good times (well I loved every minute of it). I went through it all, because I kept after him. "Mr. Jones, show me how to do this, show me how to do that." I would keep after him. "Ok, I'll show you one of these days." Then pretty soon, "You going to show me how to do that?" "Ok, I'll show you." I'd keep after him because I might need that one of these days and I did. I learned every bit of it; from loading the lumber off the truck, doing it the whole way through the finishing - The Whole nine yards. Packed it up, put it in a box, and send it out the door. The whole nine yards.

We used to have a fun at lunch time. All us guys would hurry up and eat so we could sit there and jam. We had good jam sessions. We couldn't wait. The women had a lunch lounge, but we didn't. We just would get together where I had my amps where we would intonate the guitars and we would get there and hook up and play. One guy played bass and flute, and he would be playing flute along with the guitar.

Paul Rose: : Was Huggins there full time?

Gary Free:  He was there pretty much all the time, down in the office. Him and his wife.

Paul Rose:  Were there any long timers?

Gary Free:  Well dad was there about there six years. Some of the girls that were there were there for a good long while. One of them was there till it was over, when it was closed.

Paul Rose:  Was it a year after Jones died that Micro-frets shut down?

Gary Free:  Yeah about a year.

Paul Rose:  Huggins tried to keep it going?

Gary Free:  He was trying to keep it going, then he had a heart attack and was in the hospital for months. Both of them was . . . .He kept me there to try and keep it going and at the same time he was trying to sell it. The whole time I heard that from the beginning. You could hear them say "If somebody would buy it, give them good money they would sell it to them." I remember hearing that. They did not want you to hear it but, but I did.

Paul Rose: : Were there a lot of startup companies like Micro-Frets vying for the business?

Gary Free:  No, there were a lot of companies, but not like today where every time you turn around. . . . there were some, of course, but not like the amount now.

Paul Rose:  It seemed like Mr, Jones had good ideas. It was a good intent.

Gary Free:  He was being innovative. That were things that he had done and after you see them, you ask, "Why didn't somebody else do that a long time ago? But he did it!"

Paul Rose:  Now somebody else designed the pickups

Gary Free: : That was Billy Lawrence. They contracted him to do it. He would get a percentage on the set going out to the guitars. When they came out with the Hi-Fi pickups, they bought it from him. He got cash for doing it. Hard to tell what. . . .

Paul Rose:  Was there anybody else involved in the design? You had some designs. . .

Gary Free:  I did some of the designs. I designed the Swinger and the Husky bass. And I designed the pick guard - the later one with the cut. On the one piece bodies where we started gluing the bodies together, so that way all you had to do was to take the screws out and get in there and work on it. That was my design. I did it one day and showed it to them and they seemed to like it. They said, "Oh yeah we like that. We're going to do that." I did that because a lot of times the controls are way down here and you are trying to reach the controls, but you still need the pick guard, so I did that so you have the controls up close.

Paul Rose:  Were there anyone else that helped out with the designs?

Gary Free:  No, just me and Jones. That was it. Jones came up with all the design stuff. Like the original Calibrato that thing was beautiful. It was pretty nice. Something else. . . a hell of a design. He was very artistic, too.

Paul Rose:  What kind of feedback you were getting from players?

Gary Free:  They liked them! They liked the sound of them. The neck and everything.

Paul Rose:  What do you think about how guitars are made today compared to the Micro-Frets of yesterday?

Gary Free:  The more I remember and now that we got ours, the sound is better. The tone quality is better. It’s a good sound. It is unique. You pick up some of those Gibsons, fenders and Gretsches and some of them things sound terrible! One of my favorite sounds was one of those guitars my son found in the garbage can! Cause it sounded good!

Paul Rose:  You get a kid coming off the street and they will buy a strat.

Gary Free:  But look, because everybody else has got one. But someone who appreciates the sound and all will hear this and like it. They will appreciate it.

Paul Rose:  What about the playability?

Gary Free:  Oh that is fine. . I am really surprised about it. It feels good.

Paul Rose:  When I have taken the guitar out to some folks, because of the raised pickups they are a little uncomfortable with it.

Gary Free:  We used to have the same problem.

Paul Rose:  But when Tim came the other night, he said, "I am growing to like this because it is a away from the body, I can arc the tone.. . ."

Gary Free:  It is better. Its Better! It is like an arched top guitar! I think that round diaphragm does that. I know it does. When I played the Huntington, I don't hear no other guitar that has a tone like that. . . I heard that thing. And I said, "Man that sounds good!" And Billy Lawrence was there and he had a DiAngelico, and I said, "That thing sounds like the DiAngelico." I said, "Billy Come up here, I want you to hear something." I said, "Play this guitar." He played it and said, "Man . . this is mine!" That was one of the first ones, too. He took it right there. Took it down where he was at. Said, "this was mine!" Took it right out of my hand!

Paul Rose:  You had dreams of where Micro-frets might go. . . . is there some other things to make us better in the future?

Gary Free:  Experiment with the pickup and get different tone quality. You have to come up with something new. . . something different. That's what HE did! He did that along with everything else he did. He would come up with an idea then he would try this. . . try that - a little experiment. Sometimes five or six little things he'd be doing. . . go over and do a little bit on this one. . .another day . . . go over and do a little bit on that one. And then if it worked out. . . it worked out. He had new and innovative ideas which were good ideas and were workable and feasible, it wasn't hype. It was for real. It did what it was supposed to do. The real thing . . .Like mother nature. Mother nature only works certain ways. Not just hoopla.

Paul Rose:  Do you have any final thoughts about Micro-Frets?

Gary Free:  Mr. Jone's ideas were very good. The changes he made on the guitar were very innovative and very good. And it died out when he died. And I think it should have never died. I wanted to see it come back and keep going and maybe even get better. But at least, bring his ideas and his innovations back to life and use them, which they should have never have been lost. That's my main goal.