Bill Lawrence - An Extraordinary Guitarist, and Pickup Manufacturer

Fender Discussion Page

When I first discovered the internet in the late 1990’s there were a number of guitar sites that I liked to visit. One unique one was The Fender Discussion Page aka FDP where I posted as MarcO.

I spent a lot of time on that site I met a lot of wonderful people. I still keep in touch with a few of them. Sadly the page disappeared in January of 2020. I believe someone has reopened the discussion page under the name of Moe's Tavern 2.0.

Bill Schultz former CEO FMIC

When the site first opened, the management of the Fender Musical Instrument Company also posted, using pseudonyms. Then one day they revealed who they were, and surprised us all. These were people that were well-known to Fender aficionados, and included William (Bill) Schultz, the CEO of FMIC,  John Page, who was in charge of their Asian affiliations at that time, and several other folks.

Some of the sponsors of the site, were also quite vocal, and were availble to answer questions about their products and services.

Bill Lawrence September 2007

Among those, and one of the nicest sponsors was Mr. Bill Lawrence, and his wife Becky. What sweet people! At the time Mr. Lawrence was selling his very unique pickups through his company; Wilde USA, as in Wilde Bill.

Billy Lorento - Willi Lorenz Stich

Willi Lorenz Stich was born in 1931 in Wahn, Cologne, Germany. As a youth, he learned to play violin, but that venture ended when he was injured by experimenting with a rocket-propelled bicycle.

During his teen years he had been listening to American Jazz guitar players, especially Barney Kessel and Charlie Parker. So Willi learned to play the electric guitar, and he became quite good at it, and was known for his perfect execution of speedy passages.

Lorenz Stich began playing in clubs where he was called Hot Bill. He eventually became very well known in Europe, by entertaining at American military bases, and sharing the bill with the likes of Dinah Washington, and Sam Cooke. He took on the stage name of Billy Lorento.

'61 Framus
Billy Lorento 5/120

Lorenz Stich/Lorento was the first major endorser of the German-made Framus guitars and strings. Later on the company even built a Billy Lorento 5/120 model for him.

During the early 1960’s, Lorenz had changed his name to Bill Lawrence, and signed a deal with Fender guitars as an endorser in their European market.

Billy Lorento aka Bill Lawrence

Not only was Bill a great player, but he understood technical aspects of the electric guitar, especially the workings of guitar pickups.


While still in Germany, Bill and two partners started a company called Lawrence Electro Sound, and offered the pickups that he designed under the name Lawrence True-Sound Pickups. These pickups were marketed to German electric guitar manufacturers.

Lawrence Audio Electric Piano

Later in that decade, Bill came to America settling in New York City’s Greenwich Village. It was there that he developed the Lawrence Audio electric piano, which unlike many other electric pianos that used metal tines, the Lawrence version used actual strings struck by hammers.

Microfrets Guitars

Lawrence' reputation became well known, and one of his first jobs with MicroFrets designing pickups for their unique guitars.

Dan Armstrong

Through that association, he met Dan Armstrong and helped Armstrong design guitar pickups. Through this friendship, Bill Lawrence eventually took over day to day running of Armstrong’s New York City shop when Dan relocated to Los Angeles, and later moved to England.

It was there that Lawrence got an education by restoring and rebuilding guitar pickups from other companies, and repairing and restoring guitars for the many professional players that came into town.

Bill Lawrence 1965

He began to understand the existing pickups internal flaws, and found ways to improve their designs. He was one of the first to start retrofitting new pickups onto existing guitars, which was an uncommon practice at the time.

Two of Lawrences' assistants at the time were Dan Armstrong’s son, Kent, and a young guy named Larry DiMarzio. Both of these men went on to create their own guitar/bass pickup companies.

Bill’s work for Armstrong got the attention of the owners of Gibson Guitars in Kalamazoo, Michigan. They offered him a contract to come work for them as a guitar and pickup designer. The Gibson/Norlin Company eventually put Bill in charge of design. Lawrence helped get the company up and running more efficiently and building a more consistent product. Around this same time, 1974, he was still associated with Bill Lawrence Products.

Gibson L6-S - 1977

During his tenure at Gibson, Lawrence created the L6-S solid-body guitar, and the Ripper Bass, which had twin Super Humbuckers. In an article, he said that his tenure with Gibson started around 1974 at a time when the Norlin had just purchased Gibson from CMI.

1974 Gibson Ripper Bass

Norlin was a venture owned by ECL, a Panamanian beer company, and the owners were looking to make a quick profit. At the time the company was more concerned about making money than producing great guitars. Bill Lawrence stepped in and made certain their primary goal was to produce a guitar worthy of the historic Gibson name.

David Berryman and 
Henry Juskiewicz

Gibson/Norlin eventually was sold to partners Henry Juszkiewicz and David Berryman, Henry asked Bill Lawrence if he would help them to get started. Lawrence signed on as a consultant.

At the time many of people that had worked for Gibson had left the company, but Lawrence was able to recruit some of these craftsmen. He also made a concerted effort to convince the new owners that what quality was what mattered the most.

Bill Lawrence

The new owners moved Gibson headquarters and factory to Tennessee. Lawrence moved with them settling in the Nashville area. Though he maintained a consulting relationship with Gibson, he was still creating pickups under his own name.

1980's Bill Lawrence FT-145

He invented the FT-145 Soundhole pickup for acoustic guitars, and the first single coil, noise-free pickup for Fender, called the single blade L-220.

Wild L90 Humbucking pickup set

He also invented the L-90 twin -blade humbucking pickup, and subsequently, the L-500 humbucker, and the hot L-500XL. In fact both of his humbucking pickups were reverse engineered by a major after-market company.

Fender Roscoe Beck Pickups

Fender hired Bill to create the pickups for their Roscoe Beck Signature bass guitars. This resulted in Bill developing Samarium Cobalt noiseless pickups, that use a rare-earth magnetic material called Samarium, combined with cobalt. These were called SCN pickups.

Bill Lawrence L-280 Noiseless pickups

In the 1990s, as a consultant for Fender, he designed the L-280 Noisefree pickups for Stratocasters and Telecasters. Lawrence also was the first to invent solderless high-performance guitar cables and plugs. He also invented Long Life Guitar strings.

Bill Lawrence passed away in November of 2013.

Bill, Becky & Shannon Lawrence

At this writing, Bill’s wife, Becky Lawrence and daughter, Shannon are keeping the legend going by doing hands-on work. Both have been winding, making and selling pickups for many years. Shannon, started as a teen winding pickups.

Shannon working on pickups

Both ladies continue to hand-make the pickups, producing retro-fit models under Wilde USA, and Keystone brand. They offer a line of guitar, and bass pickups, as well as pickups for steel guitars.

In reading about Bill Lawrence, I found he was a very diplomatic man when dealing with those who worked for him.

He knew that encouraging newer builders to produce a quality instrument does not call for insulted or berating them, but providing positive answers to guide them.

An Article about Bill Lawrence

Another thing I have learned about Mr. Lawrence is that he knew the history of luthiery. He could break down how an Amati violin is different than a Stradivarius. He also was able to describe the mathematical method that Lloyd Loar used in the mid-1920’s to produce guitars and mandolins that were loud enough to cut through an orchestra.

And finally, if he were still alive, he could have taught an advanced college level course on the science of musical instrument pickup design and improvement.

Gibson "Charvel" US2

During the transition time at Gibson while he was consulting, Bill Lawrence helped Wayne Charvel to design pickups for US1 and US2 guitars. Gibson had acquired Charvel.






As Paul Harvey would say, "And now, The Rest of the Story".

Jzchak 'EZ' Wacjman

Jzchak 'EZ' Wajcman was a young guy who owned a bar in Munich, Germany called The Club Castel. In 1965 Willi Lorenz, who was already a well known guitarist, walked into Wajcman's club looking for the clubs manager Nathan Grossman.

Willi had a big problem. He had been involved in an automobile accident that damaged a pickup on his Fender Stratocaster. Willi had managed to fix the pickup prior to his show, but was now concerned about getting the "Charlie Christian Sound", which he considered to be the pinnacle jazz guitar sound.

In talking with Lorenz, Wajcman was fascinated by guitar pickups; their function, and how they were made. Lorenz not only explained it all, but the following day the two men went to a nearby toy store and purchased a small motor to use as a pickup winder. They then made a pickup by using a small plastic ruler for a bobbin, some magnets, and magnetic wire, and installed it on a Fender guitar.

17 year old Hot Bill on the right

They thought it sounded great, but sought out other opinions. At the time their were four guitar manufacturers in Germany; Hopf, Hoyer, Hofner, and Framus. They visited each and each of the manufacturers were very impressed.



Wajcman traveled to New York City, and was able to get an interview with Fred Gretsch. He showed Mr. Gretsch the pickup, and Gretsch had a tech install it on one of his companies guitars. Gretsch was also impressed and told him, "you have a piece of gold on your hands".

Wajcman then visited Guild Guitars in New Jersey and met with Al Dronge, who was equally impressed.

One of the companies first pickups

On his return to Germany, Wajcman rented a space with the idea of building guitar pickups with Willi Lorenz Stich, and another partner. At the time Lorenz was using the stage name, Billy Lorento, They decided to Anglicize the name and decided their pickups would be called Bill Lawrence pickups.

Their company would be called Lawrence Electro Sounds.

Though the pickups were offered to the all the German guitar manufacturers. Framus was the company that inked a deal with Lorenz Stich, and Wajcman.

Bill Lawrence 1968

A year later the men visited the United States to introduce their pickups to USA players. They began selling their products as replacement pickups to improve the sound of guitars and basses, and were first company to offer replacement pickups, which were sold under the name Lawrence Sound Research.

In 1984 Bill Lawrence parted ways with the company, and gave up the the trademark, 'Bill Lawrence'.

Jzchak 'EZ' Wajcman had already closed the German company in 1970. In 1984 he purchased the American company and trademark from Bill Lawrence.

Jzchak 'EZ' Wajcman - 1966

Wajcman changed the company name to Bill Lawrence USA. The disclaimer on the Bill Lawrence USA website reads "Jzchak Wajcman DBA Bill Lawrence Products, Bill Lawrence guitar pickups, Bill Lawrence USA is not associated with the designer "Bill Lawrence" since 1984". Bill Lawrence USA pickups were preferred by Dimebag Darryl, and Nuno Bettencourt.

Bill Lawrence USA pickups

Since then both companies offer pickups, sometimes under similar model names. And both companies build excellent pickups.

Wilde Pickups

I am told that Bill Lawrence USA pickups are considerably hotter, and dirtier than the ones made by Wilde, which have a warm and full sound.

Click on the links under the pictures for sources. Click on the links in the text for further information.
©UniqueGuitar Publications 2020 (text only)