Peavey to resurrect CA Guitars?

We posted this past spring about CA Guitars closing up shop and going out of business, news that was most unwelcome to the small but exceedingly loyal band of CA aficionados out there.

Their instruments were built with a carbon fiber composite that made the guitars impervious to changes in temperature or humidity, offering players an instrument with a stability and consistency that was hard to match in traditional, wooden guitars. Arguments raged about the tone and response of CA Guitars as opposed to their wooden counterparts, and given the radical concept and material, they remained a small niche in the guitar market.

Tim Stafford with an early prototype of his CA guitarBut not without highly visible proponents. Tim Stafford was an endorser, and used his CA regularly on stage with Blue Highway, and continues to do so even now. Despite being near heresy in bluegrass circles, Tim maintains that he has found his CA to be an effective and reliable road guitar, and has even used it the studio as well.

For the past month or so, rumors have been swirling that CA has been purchased by Peavey, the mega-manufacturer of guitars, amplifiers, and sound reinforcement located in Meridian, MS – not far from the former Lafayette, LA home of CA Guitars. A number of guitar discussion sites posted information that this was official, but Peavey has so far made no announcement of this acquisition.

In fact, dozens of attempts to discuss this question with company spokesmen have been unsuccessful. They quite simply refuse to acknowledge the rumors, neither confirming nor denying. The closest thing to an official response came through a volunteer moderator on a Peavey support forum.

There isn’t a whole lot we can say just yet, but the production line and equipment is now in the process of being set up. The plans are to get CA back up and running asap, so expect to see some announcements in the VERY near future.
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Roger Crimm
Peavey Customer Service

That was posted on August 11.

One wonders why the company has been unwilling to discuss this with the press – or with former CA endorsers. Stafford tells us that he has also repeatedly sought to speak with someone at Peavey about them picking up CA, and his experience has been identical to ours: a call back is promised, but never occurs.

We’ll keep an eye on this and see where it goes.

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.