The beginning of the Mos-Rite guitar company, 1955: Semie Moseley, gifted teenage guitarist, performs as part of Reverend Ray Boatright’s Pentacostal Gospel Crusade. During this time in the mid-1950s, Reverend Boatright let Semie stay at his house in Norwalk, California, bought him a set of tools from Sears, and let the young man make and customize guitars of his own creation in a toolshed behind his home.
Semie called the newfound company Mos-Rite, an amalgamation of his last name, Moseley, with Reverend Boatright’s last name. By the early 1960s, Mos-Rite became simply Mosrite guitars, and in 1963 the company rocketed to national fame with their Ventures Model guitar, endorsed by The Ventures instrumental group.
This ad is from 1955 and shows Semie Moseley performing as part of Reverend Boatright’s show in San Francisco. (I am going to write the Mosrite book if it kills me! It has to be done!)
