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<\/p>\nFolks who frequent Montrose are familiar with Rockin\u2019 Robin, the guitar shop on Shepherd with murals of Freddie King (\u201cThe Texas Cannonball\u201d) and Stevie Ray Vaughan painted on its side wall.\u00a0 But what they may not know is that the founders of Rockin\u2019 Robin \u2013 Bart Wittrock and Dave Wintz \u2013 also started a company that manufactured guitars in Houston beginning in the \u201880s and marketed them under the banner of Robin Guitars.<\/p>\n
The history of this relatively little-known (compared to Fender, Gibson, et al.) brand has been documented in a new book, Thunder Out of Texas: The Illustrated History of Robin Guitars (Acclaim Press, 128 pp., $29.95), written by Willie Moseley, the senior writer for Vintage Guitar magazine.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be deceived by the relatively low page count.\u00a0 The book is designed in an 8 \u00bd x 11 format and contains over 500 photos, most of them in color and printed on high-quality stock.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moseley has written several books dealing with the history of the guitar and of specific brands, among them Peavey Guitars: The Authorized American History.\u00a0 Why Robin?\u00a0 \u201cRobin had attracted my attention fairly early in my career with Vintage Guitar,\u201d Moseley says. \u00a0\u201cI toured the factory and the Rockin\u2019 Robin store in 1993 when I was in town to work the Vintage Guitar booth at a guitar show at the George Brown Convention Center that the magazine was co-sponsoring. Many of their models had a distinct and interesting aesthetic but still maintained a perceptible retro vibe in their design.\u201d<\/p>\n
Initially, Robin guitars were manufactured in Japan by the Tokai company.\u00a0 These instruments were, by and large, similar to Fender Stratocasters, with some Gibson Explorer-ish guitars thrown in for good measure.\u00a0 But when the American dollar took a nosedive in relation to the Japanese yen in 1987, Wittrock and Wintz realized that the time had come to move their manufacturing stateside. Wintz set up shop in a facility west of downtown Houston, later moving the operation to an office park off T.C. Jester.\u00a0 Moseley quite correctly refers to the development as \u201chomecoming in reverse.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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This shift ushered in an era of distinctive (wild?) designs, both in terms of body shapes and graphics.\u00a0 While the Medley guitar featured a Strat-style body, that particular model was available with either a reverse headstock or a decidedly non-standard \u201cY\u201d shaped headstock with four tuners on one side and two on the other.\u00a0 Later, the Machete debuted with a body style inspired by Gibson\u2019s Firebird that also vaguely resembled an Explorer with rounded corners.\u00a0 By the \u201890s, Robin was offering customers the option of custom graphics.\u00a0 Photos in Thunder Out of Texas show a Bart Simpson design, a U.S. Air Force motif and a rendering of the three crosses on Calvary.<\/p>\n
In addition to Wittrock and Wintz, a number of Houston names show up in the narrative.\u00a0 First-call luthiers Neil Sargent (Robin\u2019s first employee) and Ron Pace are mentioned, as is Allen Hill (of the Allen Oldies Band), who worked as an artist relations representative for Robin, along with Freddie Cisneros (aka \u201cLittle Junior One-Hand\u201d), who managed Rockin\u2019 Robin for a time. \u00a0Also mentioned is attorney Dahr Jamail, a Robin guitar owner whose band Titty Bingo probably spent more on bumper stickers than guitar strings.<\/p>\n
Texas musicians who are mentioned as Robin players in Thunder Out of Texas includeBilly Gibbons and Dusty Hill (ZZ Top), Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan (who frequently played a double-neck Robin at the same time), Eric Johnson, David Grissom and Ray Benson (Asleep at the Wheel).<\/p>\n
Robin was a company that had a unique aesthetic.\u00a0 How to describe Robin guitars to someone unfamiliar with the brand?\u00a0 \u201cIf they were only familiar with Fender and Gibson\u2014a likely occurrence\u2014I would first brandish a Robin Wedge in front of them to get their attention,\u201d Moseley says, noting that players should \u201cbe careful with any guitar that looks like a medieval battle weapon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Wedge was perhaps the most radical of Robin\u2019s designs. Mosely points out that the instrument was \u201ca lot more balanced and comfortable\u2014standing or sitting\u2014than you might think, as hyped by Bart Wittrock. He used to love to strap one onto someone who\u2019d never played the model, to watch their reaction.\u00a0 And that included me, on my first visit to Rockin\u2019 Robin. He probably said, \u2018I told you so\u2019 to hundreds of players!\u201d<\/p>\n
Robin ceased taking orders for new instruments in 2010, in part due to the economic downturn which followed the financial crisis of 2008.\u00a0 The new reality meant that profit margins were shrinking, and rather than raise prices \u2013 something he didn\u2019t think would have been fair to his customers \u2013 Wintz elected to shut the company down.<\/p>\n
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However, two Houstonians \u2013\u00a0entrepreneur Jack Brandt and amplifier builder Jake Rynearson \u2013 began their work to resurrect the brand in 2023.\u00a0 Operating out of the Robin manufacturing facility on T.C. Jester, the new company will manufacture Robin guitars, Rio Grande pickups and Steamboat tube amplifiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re taking the right approach with the guitars by easing back into the market, and this time accompanied by an amplifier line,\u201d Moseley says. \u00a0\u201cI think they have the potential to succeed again. As we are conversing, the October 2025 guitar show in Mesquite is going to be an important event in reintroducing the line to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did the fact that Robin was a Texas company make a difference?\u00a0 \u201cAbsolutely. Texas is its own musical planet. It\u2019s located just to the left of the heartland of American music \u2013 New Orleans, Mississippi delta, Memphis, Muscle Shoals, Nashville, Macon \u2013 so a lot of those locations and the genres nurtured therein have, of course, seeped into the Lone Star State. There\u2019s also the influence of Mexican music,\u201d Moseley says.<\/p>\n
\u201cTexas doesn\u2019t have a proportionally large guitar-making history, however. Messrs. Wintz and Wittrock tried to exploit the hyper-diverse Texas music scene in an admirable manner with some great designs.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information on Thunder Out of Texas, visit AcclaimPress.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n For more on Robin Guitars (along with a ton of photos), visit RobinGuitars.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n