Bernie Rico Sr. with
an early Eagle bass
at his L.A. fabrication shop on Valley
Boulevard circa
1977. A Mockingbird
bass and various
double-cutaway
Eagle and single-cutaway Seagull
6-strings hang
behind him. Photo
by Andy Caulfield
An early photo of Bernardo’s Guitar Shop
located at 2716 Brooklyn Avenue in Los
Angeles.
Mal Stich with a custom B.C. Rich circa 1978.
Photo by Andy Caulfield
136 PREMIER GUITAR OCTOBER 2011
B.C. Rich’s origin can be traced to
Bernardo’s Guitar Shop at 2716 Brooklyn
Avenue, in Los Angeles. In the mid ’50s,
Bernado Mason Rico purchased the
store from the Candelas guitar shop and
opened his namesake store. He didn’t
work on the guitars himself—he chose
to focus on day-to-day operations—but
instead hired luthiers from Paracho,
Mexico, which is widely regarded as
the guitar capital of that country. Rico
helped many of these luthiers gain residence and naturalization as citizens of
the United States. Rico’s son Bernardo
“Bernie” Chavez Rico, an accomplished
flamenco guitarist, did become involved
with the guitar making, however.
Father and son brought bodies in
from Mexico, had them painted and
assembled at the shop for mariachi, clas-
sical, and folk musicians. By the early
’60s, folk music had become popular
and folk artists started bringing in their
acoustic steel-string guitars to the shop
for repairs. Word spread, and throngs of
musicians like Barry McGuire and David
Lindley started bringing in Martins and
Gibsons for work and daring modifica-
tions, such as disassembling a Martin
D- 18 and putting in a 12-string neck.
