“He needed nobody; Jerry was his only customer”: Tom Lieber apprenticed to Jerry Garcia's guitar builder Doug Irwin in the ’70s – now he’s raising the ’Dead once again

Tom Lieber, luthier of choice for Jerry Garcia, sits with some of his wildest creations, and holds a bass like you have never seen before.

CORRECTION 6/18/25: A previous version of this article used a headline that incorrectly described Tom Lieber as a co-designer of Jerry Garcia's Wolf guitar, when the original sole designer and builder was Doug Irwin. GuitarWorld.com is happy to apologize for the mistake.

Every gear company will have a pedigree of talent that it’s most associated with, though in the case of Lieber Guitars, it boils down to one band above all others – rock ’n’ roll originals the Grateful Dead.