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You have to remember that both John and I were professional musicians in our own right. John, since 1959, had built up an enormous following in England and, later, in Germany as a solo performer, playing finger style guitar, mouth bow, mountain dulcimer, et al. In 1962 he did a ground-breaking tv show on the BBC called “Hold Down a Chord” which was an extraordinary success thanks to good timing. Skiffle was dying down and folk music was a’comin’ in! However, the main reason why it was such a great success was that John was an amazing teacher! He could explain what musicians understood instinctively to those who didn’t have that instinct and they would get it and make music. Grandparents learned with their grandchildren! That show was eventually translated into German and, at one point, Der Stern call John “Bigger than Big Bird”!

In 1965, he’d been asked to endorse a string line for an English company. Rather than just agreeing to allow them to just use his name, he learned how to make and design strings so he could do it himself.

By the time he had come to the states in 1978, he’d written over 40 “how to” books, most on the guitar, but also included dulcimer, bouzouki, ukulele and a few miscellaneous passions as well, like fly fishing! He had his own publishing company. He was a triple scale studio musician and music producer in England as well. Given that he was also an inveterate tinker, he was perfectly situated to create accessories for musicians and worked for many accessory makers in the UK. He always said he waited for other people to produce products and, when they did not, then he did. He designed guitar bracing patterns which are still used today.

He came to work at Martin Guitars in Nazareth, Pa, which is about 20 miles from Center Valley where I live. His knowledge of Martin Guitars was extensive, both as a collector and as a player. One of his first jobs was to write a “corrections” list for Mike Longworth’s Martin history and his badly copied type-written sheet was originally included in the book. He was going to be their first clinician, doing workshops, as well as being the resident inventor. He was like someone going to the Promised Land! There was a strike during the time he was there and, for a short time, he was able to fulfill a lifelong desire to build guitars there. Martin’s promises were unfortunately never fulfilled and, to my knowledge, the only one of his inventions which they released was the “Broken Heart” Pick, the very first asymmetrical pick.

At that point, he was not that well-known in the States. When most Americans became aware of the English Guitar Scene in the 70’s, his ground-level influence there was already old news as John had already been spending most of his time performing on the continent.

I learned how to play the guitar and started playing professionally in 1963, after high school, but certainly never garnered the attention and fame John achieved. I picked up the Autoharp and Mountain Dulcimer and started playing at festivals and coffeehouses locally and made a small niche for myself. In 1966, I went down to West Virginia for the Glenville Folk Festival and got my first real taste of the wealth of American traditional music to still be found in the mountains. In Fall of ’66, I went to Europe with my sister, to accompany her on her way to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. But along the way, I realized that there might be a place for my playing in Europe. In December 1967 I returned and travelled around Europe for six months with my boyfriend, finding small jazz and folk clubs where we could perform. In 1970, I went back to Europe alone and spent 5 months travelling, meeting musicians, finding places to play, and finding myself. That was my perfect timing…to be in Paris then. I was invited to the first American-style Festival at Lambesc, and got to spend most of the next seven years there on and off.

In 1977 I met and started performing with two brothers from West Virginia, Joe and Dennis Dobbs. We did an album of Fiddle Tunes [now available on CD as “Joe Dobbs Plays Fiddle Tunes”] in 1978 and then did an album of “mine” with my songs and favorites called “Take Care of Yourself,” which came out in 1979 and was re-released as a CD three years ago.

John and I actually first met in Paris in 1971, at the Hootenanny at the American Church. I was getting off stage and he was getting on. We’d known about each other because we were both mountain dulcimer players and, at that time, there were not too many of those around. Friends of mine in Paris said if I ever needed a place to stay in London, I should contact John, but I never did.

In Fall of 1978 I ended up driving John and a friend from Martin to another friend’s house for dinner. We hit it off right away.

When John left Martin in 1979, he went to work designing instruments [Jester guitars] and accessories for Jay Associates which was run by ex-Martin officers. And he also designed an entire range of strings for them.

By 1980, John designed the open-back hammer dulcimer we named after my family farm, Breezy Ridge, and local wood workers produced them. I still had to string them though!! The dulcimers were distributed through Jay Associates for about six months, until they went out of business. I guess you could say Breezy Ridge was already in business then though I did not realize we were starting a “company.” All I knew was that I was stringing dulcimers and keeping books. Of course, all of this was interrupted by travels to festivals and concerts, selling dulcimers and LPs along the way.

Early in 1980, John released his first LP in the states, “Alive and Well…and Living in America.” It was to answer the question of where he disappeared to! (This was re-released on CD in 2022 as well.) And we recorded a concert we did in 1980 at Godfrey Daniels Coffeehouse which was released as the LP “Together”, (and re-released on CD in 2022). On New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1980, John and I teamed up with five other local musicians and recorded at Godfrey’s as a band later called Breezy Ridge Radio Cowboys. This recording was totally forgotten until the tapes were digitized with all the lp tapes and, suddenly, there it was! A total joy and surprise—the crystallization of a moment in time!

In 1981, good friend of John’s from England, Maurice Summerfield, contacted John about releasing a string line in the U.K. under his endorsement. But at that point, the specifications for a new string line had already been worked out [for the now defunct Jay Associates] so the line materialized very quickly. As they took off in England, John asked if we would be able to handle the line for the United States and Canada to which Maurice agreed. So, by the end of 1981, John Pearse Strings were available in the U.S. and Breezy Ridge was really in business.

John suffered a catastrophic medical accident in August 1983. During a myelogram, a ruptured disk C3-C4 was punched into his spinal cord and he was literally paralyzed from the neck down. It was devastating! Imagine a guitarist not being able to touch his thumb to his index finger. Imagine a guitarist not being able to feel where in space his hand was…where his feet were! He swore he would walk out of the hospital, which he did, haltingly. And during his long rehabilitation, he first learned to play slide guitar because we could hang a bar on his fingers. And when he could use his hands, he said he needed to relearn how to play the guitar, using his own books, because the dye from the myelogram had gone into his brain.

At that time, we might had chosen to let everything drop, except for one thing. Doc Watson bragged on our strings in Frets Magazine. He said
     “…there’s a new brand of strings we’re using, and they’re the best strings we’ve ever found.
     They’re Pearse strings designed by [English guitarist] John Pearse. They’re precision-made,
     with bell bronze instead of just run-of-the-mill bronze, which is what a lot of string makers use
     now. These are the best I’ve ever put my fingers on. The tone durability of the string, the life,
     the whole thing is the best. Unless the quality falls off, son, I tell you, I’ll be with these strings
     the rest of what time I pick, and you don’t hear me say that about nothin’ much. I won’t brag
     on it. Merle and I played a whole tour on one set apiece. I just now changed ‘em and we’ll do
     one show on the new set. I put ‘em on when we went on the road, and they lasted 24 shows.
     You usually lose the crispness after five or six shows with other strings, but Merle’s were still
     crisp when I took ‘em off. The only thing is that when you play ‘em that hard and that long,
     they start to fret off, because the winding begins to wear at the frets, and they lose their
     intonation. I use the medium gauge and Merle uses the light gauge.”
                                                                                                                                       Frets Magazine August 1983

The result was, even before John was out the hospital, we were being inundated with requests for our strings. And we realized that this might be a way to make a living even if John would not be able to perform any more. We needed something to keep going. It was never my intention to start a company, but here we are, now 46 years later!

Without Doc and Merle, we would not be here and, bless their hearts, both he and Merle used our strings for the rest of their lives. In later years, Doc changed to light gauge. And Breezy Ridge eventually became a sponsor for Merlefest, to recognize our debt and express our gratitude.

John and I both believed in the company, in its ability to offer products which musicians, like us, and ordinary players needed and wanted. The strings were just the first step. That was the basis of the company’s reputation…our reputations as musicians, professionals, and hopefully good people. Over the years, the string line has expanded from our original three sets for guitar. And John always claimed the new accessories were born of his low boredom threshold.

We both believed in the power of Music! Part of it, I think, is because we had both been teaching these “non-classical” instruments we played. You learn very quickly that either you are important, or the music is important. And both of us had absolutely concluded that it was the music that was important! And that belief is the foundation of the company.

Over the years, John was able to get around better, though still having very little spatial sense below his neck. His guitar playing became the proof of the power of his mind and his will, as he still couldn’t feel his fingers…or his feet, for that matter, though few really comprehended his deficits. His and my personal relationship changed and John married Linda and I married Spafford. The company remained the constant.

In the early 2000s, John moved back to Europe, finally residing in Germany and performing there until his  passing in 2008. I bought out his half of the company from Linda, and have continued running it since. My Spafford died in 2013.

Let me reiterate that both John and I knew a truth. Music is important. It was our firm conviction that we didn’t care what strings or accessories you used, as long as they were giving the musician in you what YOU needed to make YOUR music. We hope you use our products, but the most important thing is that when you want to play, and you take out your guitar, dulcimer, whatever, that it sounds good, so that you play it. I do not want you to take out an instrument and have the strings so dead that you turn around and put the instrument away! The loss of that music that you wanted to play affects all of us as does every note of music that you do play! Every note changes the vibration of the whole. So the more people who make music, the better the vibration of the whole. I wrote a song for my sister and the chorus goes,

       If you put your thumb in the ocean, you’ve gotta have faith that level changed.
       But it would be nicer if you could see!                       From “Martha’s Marigolds”

Hopefully you are familiar with our bumper sticker which says, “Music Really Does Make the World a Better Place!” We’ve printed over 250,000 of them and the demand never dies. What is neat is that it has been unconsciously copied by others since. Truth is truth.

And with that as our intention, we truly believe that the products we make are charged with Love and help make the world a better place, one note at a time!