Right here in Fairhope, a quiet waterfront town better known for its streets of shops and writers, sits a workshop that has quietly served some of the biggest names in rock history. Roger Fritz has spent roughly six decades making, repairing and restoring guitars, and the walls of his shop hold evidence: a photograph of Beatles guitarist George Harrison on stage playing one of Roger’s hand-made instruments, framed beside the letter Harrison wrote to thank him and describe how much he loved the guitar’s sound.
From a Mickey Mouse Toy to Murphy High School
Fritz didn’t set out to become a luthier. As a child in Granite City, Illinois, he and his brother John received Mickey Mouse toy guitars, and the pantomiming that followed planted the idea that he needed the real thing. When requests for a Fender or Gibson went nowhere, he tried stringing up a toy with flat-wound electric strings — until the nylon-string bridge collapsed under six taut steel strings. “I guess that was when I started repairing guitars,” he has joked, “when that one trashed itself.”
He bought his first store-bought guitar in 1964 — a red Fender Mustang his mother co-signed for. The family moved to Mobile, and at Murphy High School he and his friends formed a band. Their 1969 set at the school talent show, two Jimi Hendrix songs, was ruled too controversial for the talent show; at a CYO event the same year, the band borrowed a coffin as a prop, with Roger climbing in to sing until the performance was shut down.
He has been building and playing ever since — playing locally with groups like Rondall and the Kit Kats, the Leavin Brothers and Mike Estep, and performing with his wife Christy as the duo ROGERWOOD, with a base in Fairhope that stretches from California to the Mobile area.
The Buchanan Breakthrough and a Letter from a Beatle
The career-defining partnership began in Nashville, where Roger moved after college and worked at Rose Guitars. Fellow musician Marc Fisher introduced him to Roy Buchanan, the influential electric blues guitarist and pioneer of the Telecaster sound. Buchanan had guitars with problems; one thing led to another, and Roger proposed building him a custom instrument. The collaboration produced the Roy Buchanan signature Bluesmaster — and in 1988 Roger and John Fritz partnered with Buchanan to open Fritz Brothers Guitars in Mobile, near the intersection of Airport and University.
Buchanan’s reputation opened doors. Roger later sent one of his guitars to George Harrison, received a letter back praising the instrument’s sound, and found his standing in the industry transformed. “It put me into a different light,” he says. “There was a good buzz after that.” His custom guitars have since found their way to players including members of the Bangles, Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, Randy Jackson and others. Lesser-known, he notes, journeyman musicians and serious hobbyists buy most of what he builds.
The Fritz Brothers catalog has grown from the electric line into basses and acoustic models, with the shop milling its own patented stainless steel hardware and winding pickups in-house, and a deep supply of exotic and rare tone woods on hand. Roger joined the Kay Guitar Company team in 2007 to help develop its vintage reissue instruments, and remains a certified Gibson Brands repair and restoration expert.
Session Work From Los Angeles to Mobile
Roger’s musical résumé rivals the workshop’s. He spent time in Los Angeles as a session musician, where he met Christy, and has recorded with Michael Jackson and Booker T. Jones of Booker T. & the MG’s. He grew up in the same hometown — Granite City, Illinois — as Sheryl Crow, and the two recorded her Home for Christmas album with Grammy-winning producer Bill Bottrell. Roger and Bottrell hit it off and recorded a Shelby Lynne album in Mobile at the old Jackson Street fire house; Roger can be heard on Lynne’s “Where I’m From.” He later lived in Nashville, playing with Tree Studios, now SonyTree Studios.
These days his Fairhope shop produces new custom guitars and handles the repairs and restorations artists send in from the road. He has also completed a state-of-the-art recording studio on the property, with its first sessions already booked — a new chapter he expects to make regular for up-and-coming bands.
The Book and the Family Behind It
His story is now the subject of an authorized biography, A Luthier’s Life: The Guitar Odyssey of Roger Fritz, by Willie G. Moseley, the senior writer for Vintage Guitar Magazine who has penned several books on music. The book includes recollections from musical legends such as Darryl Jones, Bill Bottrell and Vicki Peterson, along with more than 200 color photos. The Mobile Arts Council, at 6 South Joachim Street in downtown Mobile, hosted the release party and book signing from 6 to 9 p.m. on a Friday evening, published by Acclaim Publishing.
Asked about his best memory, Roger doesn’t cite the famous names. It was meeting Christy in California. His proudest moment: when his kids were born. Daughter Greta, a student at the University of West Florida, is an up-and-coming artist and songwriter; son Emmerson, a business major at the University of South Alabama, planned to join the Space Force after graduation. The family’s creative streak reaches further still — Roger’s first cousin, Willie Fritz, is the head football coach at Tulane.
For a town of Fairhope’s size, the presence of a luthier whose guitars have been played on stage by a Beatle is remarkable. For Roger, the explanation is simpler: make a guitar you want to play and hear, in that order, and let the players find you.
Inside the Workshop: Custom Builds, Repairs and a Long Waitlist
Step into the Fritz Brothers Guitars shop along Scenic 98 and the first impression is sheer volume: hundreds of instruments in every stage of completion, from bare bodies and partially assembled necks to finished, gleaming guitars, filling nearly every surface. Asked during a 2022 visit how he keeps it all straight, Roger Fritz smiled and answered simply, “I don’t.”
The workshop’s services fall into a few main lines:
- Custom guitar builds, starting at $2,500
- Guitar repairs, starting at around $500
- Guitar molds built on his approach to the science of sound, produced for large companies internationally
Demand keeps a waitlist in place. Over his career, Fritz also worked at several guitar houses, where he taught his methods to the builders he supervised. Beyond his work for rock and country stars, he keeps local players in tune, among them Mobile-area songwriter Grayson Capps, known for putting his guitars through hard use on the road.
A Performance Space on the Property
The property also includes a performance area alongside the recording studio, and it has hosted gatherings such as music bonfires and a guitar drop on New Year’s Eve.
A Shop That Doubles as a Stage
The shop itself has long doubled as a community gathering spot. Beyond the work benches, the property holds a small performance area and a recording studio, and Roger has hosted neighborhood gatherings there for years — bonfire evenings built around live music, and an annual New Year’s Eve “guitar drop” that has become its own quirky Fairhope tradition. Local musicians rely on the shop, too: singer-songwriter Grayson Capps, known for working his instruments hard on stage, has been a repeat visitor for repairs and tuning between tours.
Roger’s services run the full range of the craft. Custom guitar creation starts around $2,500, with repairs beginning near $500, and he has also produced guitar molds — the “science of sound” he developed over decades — for large instrument corporations internationally. As one might expect, the waitlist for a custom build stays long, and Roger has learned to take it in stride.