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Guitar World
Guitar World
Entertainment
Jacob Paul Nielsen

“Jimi was staying at a hotel in Times Square. He had his hair set in pink curlers and we would just talk band drama”: Electro-Harmonix founder Mike Matthews on befriending Hendrix, booking Chuck Berry and the birth of pedal culture

EHX founder Mike Matthews stands in a warehouse with his fists in the air. He wears a tan jacket and has a trademark cigar in his mouth. .

Mike Matthews doesn’t play guitar. He’s a businessman. Always has been, always will be. Business opened for Matthews in his hometown – the Bronx, New York – circa 1946, when he was just five years old.

As a child, he’d stop at nothing in his feverish pursuit for profit, collecting golf balls from New York City sewers with a coat hanger and sneaking out to the lake to collect fishing lures during his time at summer camp.

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