It’s not often a guitar can be said to have been inspired by a TV show, but that is the case with this 1982 Veillette-Citron Shark, which came about as a result of the success of the program “Welcome Back Kotter.” Well, in a pretty roundabout way, that is!
Veillette-Citron guitars were the product of a friendship and brief partnership between Joe Veillette (pronounced “Vay-ett”) and Harvey Citron. The native New Yorkers struck up a relationship while studying architecture at City College. Citron was also a guitar player who started lessons at age 11 and began performing when he was 12. Indeed, in the ’50s, Citron set up a “stage” (made of tables) in his basement and played rock (on a Martin 0017) with neighborhood buddy Carmine Appice. His guitar playing got Veillette interested, and he purchased a Gibson acoustic. One day, the headstock snapped off the Gibson, yielding an unsuccessful quest to get it repaired.
About this time – circa 1972 – luthier Michael Gurian was teaching guitarmaking classes at a YMCA that included Veillete and Citron as members. By this time, Veillette had his “dream job” with a Park Avenue architect, but after watching Gurian, he was bitten by the guitarmaking bug. So he quit his job to make guitars. His first attempt was an electric pieced together with parts including a body made of plywood from a piece of furniture. It never got very far and eventually hung on the wall. Every time Citron would visit, he’d ask how the guitar was coming. Veillette would snap, “I don’t believe in electricity.” Veillette turned his attention to acoustic guitars, and finished his first that year, then made another 14 or 15 by ’74.
Meanwhile, Citron was playing in bands and becoming increasingly interested in electric guitars. A fellow who worked in Dan Armstrong’s repair shop showed him a wiring diagram and another person who worked with Bill Lawrence introduced him to the innards of pickups.
At this time, Citron experienced a personal tragedy. During a visit with Veillette afterward, Joe took the electric guitar off the wall and said, “Here, finish it.” Citron did, including making the pickups. He became completely taken by making something functional – that could be plugged in and played – then proceeded to build his own guitar.
Experimenting with pickups, before long Citron was doing mods for other guitarists and string testing for Tom Vinci, a guitarmaker who also built ukes for Arthur Godfrey. When Vinci relocated to Long Island in 1974, Veillette briefly moved in to his empty space in Brooklyn. Soon thereafter, with his wife expecting their first daughter, Veillette moved upstate to the Catskills around Woodstock, which was popular with artists.
In ’74, Citron visited Veillette and, over the course of a weekend they built a guitar together. In ’75, they set up shop, and Veillette-Citron guitars was born. Prototypes were built and displayed at the Chicago NAMM show in the summer of ’76. The company became known as one of the most innovative of the time. At its peak, it employed five or six workers, including the principals.
Which brings us to the Shark…
One of Veillette-Citron’s neighbors was John Sebastian. In 1975, Sebastian got the gig to write and perform the theme song for a new TV sitcom called “Welcome Back Kotter.” The show, which aired into ’79, became a hit – and so did its theme song, reviving Sebastian’s career.
At the time, Sebastian was performing “Welcome Back Kotter” with a Fender six-string bass tuned higher than normal and played with a capo on the second fret, essentially making it a baritone guitar. In around 1981, Sebastian approached Veillette-Citron about making a baritone; as a member of Lovin’ Spooful, he had watched guitarist Zal Yanovsky play a Guild S-100 Thunderbird – a Gumby-shaped solidbody with built-in stand (a variation was profiled in the March ’11 issue of VG). Sebastian wanted his new baritone guitar to look like that. The Veillette-Citron Shark was born!
Sebastian’s Shark employed neck-through-body construction, but that was quickly changed to a glued-in neck. The first two or three Sharks imitated the Guild design, but then Veillette-Citron changed the upper horn while keeping the two-point lower bout.
The Sharks was conceived as a baritones, and the majority of those were made with a 283/4″ scale. But there were a few six-string guitars (emphasis on few) made, along with 12-string guitars, basses, and one 12-string baritone. The one shown here is one of a very few guitar versions, though the scale is still pretty long at 255/8″. The neck is glued in, with no heel. The body is a sandwich of plain maple with a curly-maple neck. The electronics are straightforward, with two single-coil pickups. The mini-toggle is a three-way, with one Volume and one Tone control. The pickups are unexpectedly smooth and throaty, better for thoughtful jazz than brilliant leads. This example plays fine, though with such a well-made guitar, the use of plain single-coil horsepower is a little underwhelming.
Harvey Citron recalls that fewer than 50 Sharks were made, while Joe Veillette estimates the output at closer to 15 to 20, total. Toward the end, a few were made under the name Mark I.
Veillette-Citron guitars are numbered consecutively and shouldn’t be hard to date; pasted in the control cavity of each guitar is a little slip signed and dated by Harvey Citron.
Veillette-Citron guitars were made until 1983, when the two luthiers decided to go separate ways. Joe Veillette went on to work with Stuart Spector, which was owned by Kramer Guitars. In 1990, Veillette introduced a line of basses, and he continues to make instruments. Harvey Citron spent time working on designs for Guild (the X-92 was his) and continues to make instruments. The two remain friends. They, along with John Sebastian, still live in the Woodstock vicinity. Now we can all say “Welcome back” to the Veillette-Citron Shark!
This article originally appeared in VG‘s April 2011 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
