A Cold Winter
Throughout the early 1960s, John D’Angelico’s health began to fail. As the only other worker in the shop, D’Aquisto gradually took over more of the instrument production. Then, in the bitter cold winter of 1964, D'Angelico passed away from heart failure. He was only 59 years old. After inheriting “the bench,” D’Aquisto eventually purchased the shop from the D'Angelico family, but later went on to build guitars under his own name. Today, D'Angelico and D'Aquisto are widely regarded as the two greatest archtop guitar makers of the 20th century.
