As a drummer and drum builder, Johnny Craviotto was involved in the music business for over 40 years. He began his professional career as a drummer in the early 1960's and quickly progressed to work with Rock 'N' Roll pioneers Ry Cooder, Buffy St. Marie, Moby Grape and Neil Young.



In the 1970's, as Johnny Craviotto became interested in the history of vintage drums, he began collecting classic drums and closely studying the art of drum building. Over the next few years, through extensive experimentation and great patience, he developed a proprietary process for producing perfectly round drumshells from a single piece of steam-bent hardwood.



Although one-piece drumshells had been made for centuries, they were often primitive and had been replaced by more consistent, more stable plied-drumshells for much of the 20th Century. However, while plied drumshells are easier and less expensive to produce, they characteristically lack the subtle sensitivity and tonal qualities preferred by top professionals. Johnny Craviotto was able to integrate his traditional drum designs with modern materials and production methods to single-handedly raise the solid-shell snare drum to an art form and resurrect its prestige and popularity in the market place.



Since the mid 1990s, John Craviotto solid shells have become widely accepted as the state-of-the-art for snare drum sound and performance. Today, as a drummer and drum maker, Craviotto continues to refine the age-old art of solid-shell custom drum construction-- building on his "solid" reputation as the reigning authority on the tradition. Drums made from Craviotto shells remain among the most prestigious instruments of their kind and continue to be used and endorsed by many of the world's leading drum artists. The perfect blend of tradition and innovation, the Craviotto name represents the world's most classic drum design in its most modern form.



Factoid: One time, Johnny Craviotto was the drum tech for the Doobie Brothers.