Chuck Erikson - The Duke of Pearl

Chuck Erikson

Chuck and Cheryl Erikson

I called my friends Chuck and Cheryl Erikson after speaking with Gregg Novosad. I'm happy to report that they are doing great, keeping up with family, friends and community.

                       

                           

The Duke of Pearl

Chuck is exuberant about his business, The Duke of Pearl, purveyor of all things nacreous, testicular and chatoyant. Ever the alchemist, he's come up with another remarkable shell inlay innovation - this one for a Paul Reed Smith limited edition. However, I can only remark on it, since he's promised the scoop to his friends at Fretboard Journal - I'll post the article when it becomes available. As consolation, he sent me some photos of banjo inlays that he did for his friend, who wrote the yuletide hit "Grandma got run over by a reindeer".

Custom Inlay by Chuck Erikson

The Eriksons, the Laskins and the Sifels - True Friends

The Eriksons and the Laskins

Night Dive

A few years ago I visited Chuck and Cheryl at their hand-built log cabin near Grass Valley, CA. Chuck showed me his custom Grit Laskin guitar "Night Dive"...

We then called Larry Sifel, founder of Pearlworks, Chuck's friend and business partner . Larry was blissfully sitting in the hot tub with his wife Jean under a starry evening sky in Maryland. He talked about how happy he felt at that moment. He offered to prototype some inlay designs for us in his shop at home. Sadly, a few months after our conversation, he died of a heart failure.  

As one friend put it: 

"Larry was an exceptional guitarmaker and incredibly creative inlay artist and machinist, who along with Chuck Erikson invented laminated shell product called Abalam. His company, Pearlworks was responsible for much of the inlay seen on guitars by C.F. Martin, Fender, Paul Reed Smith, Taylor, and others. In particular his recent efforts yielded the PRS doubleneck Dragon and Martin’s Night Dive a collaboration with his long time friend William Grit Laskin. He was semi-retired and was looking forward to getting back to guitarmaking as well as some inlay projects with Chuck Erickson the likes of which Chuck remarked haven’t been done in hundreds of years. He is survived by his wife Jean, and son Ben and his mother Irene along with many nieces nephews, cousins in-laws and close friends."

Eulogy for Larry Sifel from Greg Artzner of Magpie:

http://www.pearlworks.com

In it he quotes Lennon and McCartney:

"...in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make" and concludes "As I look out at you all, and see the love that Larry made, I see what I would call heaven."