1922, August 2 – Birth of Oliviero Pigini in Castelfidardo - Marche. His parents are not in the locally dominant accordion business (his father manages a large agricultaral estate nearby) but many relatives are. His mother’s great aunt married Sante Crucianelli, founder of one among the most important accordion making companies in town.

Young Oliviero Pigini, who has a gift for drawing, gets his first job in a small shop that produces decorated parts for accordions. Then he shifts to a much larger one, Crucianelli.

1945 – WW-II is over. Italy is devastated, Castelfidardo’s accordion industry is a disaster area. Oliviero Pigini comes back home and founds a temporary occupation as a civil servant in an agricultural census office.

Meanwhile the Americans have a victory to celebrate, they need accordions by hundreds of tons. Castelfidardo’s family businesses start their activities again, stronger than ever. A precocious economic miracle is taking place in an area that was virtually starving short before.

Oliviero joins his uncle Marino Pigini who runs a medium-sized accordion manufacture and promotes as foreman. Later he became the assistant of another uncle, Gaetano, who owns a flourishing company that distributes accordion raw materials and accessories.

1952 – Oliviero, now thirty years old, thinks it is about time to go independant. He leaves uncle Gaetano and opens a similar raw materials business, his own. Accordion demand is just peaking at that time.

The instrument is at the centre of every ballroom dance orchester and factory choir, is still the base of popular music in countries such as France, Holland, Scandinavia. The Italian makers now dominate that huge market, German competition is left far behind. In Castelfidardo the biggest firms employ hundreds of people.

1956 – Accordion demand began slightly to decrease in 1953, now the decline is getting steeper year after year. Shipments to America are waning, the country is just entering the rock’n roll era. In Italy, the first wave of “cantautori“ (singers/songwriters) favours more intimacy in the instrumentation, while the raging urbanization requires less noise at home.

Looking back it seems self-evident that the guitar is the phenomenon to come. Even accordion bands need a rhythm guitar after all, especially for jazzy and waltz tunes, but the arched top ‘Schlaggitarre’ is mainly a German specialty, despite Catania’s and Meazzi’s efforts to enlarge their share of the domestic market.

In Castelfidardo people still believes the recession is just a passing phase. Oliviero Pigini is the first to understand that times are seriously changing. He starts a mail order business of acoustic guitars, through a subsidiary called Giemmei for GMI, Giocattoli Musicali Italiani, “Italian Musical Toys“. These cheap guitars for beginners were no much more than toys but were actually of Yugoslav origin, sourced from a state controlled factory near Zagreb, just across the Adriatic sea.

1959 – Oliviero Pigini comes to the conclusion that time has come to set up his own guitar production. There is no time to loose, Swedish accordion builder Hagström is showing the way, is just reconverting to the electric guitar and already successfully selling in the USA.

After many others uncle Marino’s accordion factory has to close its doors. Oliviero seizes the opportunity and takes over the plant and its skilled workforce in woodworking.

Now things go incredibly swift. Oliviero Pigini had spent about twenty years of his life in the accordion sector but has no experience in guitar making (did he even play the instrument?). He gathers technical information from all over the world, picks up contacts to set up a sales network in Italy and abroad. He takes a trip to Catania and convinces two renowned master luthiers, the Paladino brothers, so settle (with their families) to Castelfidardo, and obtains to be representative for sale and after sale service in Italy of Wenzel Rossmeissl, who builds supreme quality electric jazz boxes in Germany under the Roger brand. Now the company can build on a firm know-how basis in both acoustic and electric guitars.

Amplifiers are going to be needed: Oliviero Pigini convinces an electric equipment builder to make some. No one can withstand Oliviero irresistible power of persuasion, also when it comes about financing.

The newly founded Eko S.A.S. di Oliviero Pigini & Co. starts producing flat top and arched top acoustic guitars (soon to become the P and 100 series), unsurprisingly reminiscent of Catania designs, while the first generation of Eko electrics is being taking shape on the drawing tables.

Circumstances cannot be any better. Rock music is permeating into mainland Europe. In Italy the breakthrough is explosive. In the summer, during a big song festival held nearby in the regional capital Ancona, an unknown young man called Adriano Celentano becomes overnight the nation’s first rock’n roll hero. The sound of electric guitars suddenly invades radio waves and hit parades.

1960 – Eko produces an extended range with various nylon and steel strung guitars, and introduces the 100 (minimalistic archtops), 200 (same shape with richer features), 300 (small-bodied semi-acoustic electric guitars) and 400 series.

Models 100 and 200 are in direct competition to the Framus Sorella and countless other German archtops. The Eko 300 is offered as an alternative to the Höfner Club or Framus Hollywood, Europe’s best selling electrics of the late 50’s. Wenzel Rossmeissl, who is by then reducing his own production and increasingly concentrates on Eko ’s distribution in Germany, was certainly influential in that choice.

The solid bodied 400 (often called ‘Ekomaster’) is a master stroke. As far as electrical construction and finishing techniques are concerned it takes an obvious inspiration from the already established Hagström Deluxe and Standard series, but instead of aping a LesPaulish Höfner Club the shape leans towards Fender’s top-of-the-line, the recently introduced Jazzmaster.

The whole production is build with glued-in necks. Pickups (optional on the 100 and 200 series) have a sparkle or perloid plastic topping, soon to be substituted with visible polepieces.

There is still some trial-and-error in the designs but the guidelines are clearly defined: Eko ’s philosophy is to offer a complete range of guitars, made with standardised solutions and industrial procedures that warrant consistent quality. The company targets the most buoyant market segment, i.e. affordable instruments that can also be used at a semi-pro level if the dreams of thousands of beginners come true. Eko sells the tools for the dream.

Those tools are all about sturdiness. Unlike German makers who still retains for their archtops the construction principles they had been using for generations in violin and cello manufacturing, i.e. thin slices of solid wood and subtle finish layers, Eko ’s acoustic and semi-acoustic guitars are made of thick laminated woods with heavy glossy finishes. Sound is less booming but well-balanced and generally has aged nicely. The sparkle plastic covered 400 solidbodies use a specially commissioned celluloid that is virtually indestructible, not the thin fragile grade that was used for accordions. Pigini knows how teen-agers are going to handle their instruments, they follow the examples shown on the TV (rolling on the floor while playing the guitar was very trendy in 1960).

1961 – Eko guitars are available throughout Western Europe. Some are even making inroads in North America.

The distributor ring has to be constantly enlarged and upgraded as the company grows. In the beginning Oliviero Pigini had to rely on minor wholesalers who often marketed the guitars under their own brands. Now Eko can afford to select major distributors for the export. The company is already Italy’s number one guitar maker. But it is a rank of European leader Oliviero Pigini is after.

The rise of Eko draws the attention of Thomas and Guy LoDuca. Their company LoDuca Bros, founded in 1941 in Milwaukee, WI, has been selling accordions and tabletop chord organs in the 50’s. Now they are in need of guitars for about 600 points of sale they have in their distribution network. U.S. domestic production cannot keep up to the overwhelmingly growing demand. Upmarket American brands are expensive, even there. Japanese companies are already supplying the lowest end of the market. Consequently, any import from Europe finds a buyer. Hagström, Höfner, Framus are already there. Most needed are mid-priced instruments, both acoustic and electric, that could compete with the American Danelectros, Kays or Silvertones if they can offer a somewhat flashier appearance. This is exactly what Eko has in store.

The LoDucas are familiar with Italy. Their roots are there, their accordion suppliers too. They have heard of Eko, they come in touch with Oliviero Pigini. If he wants he has an opportunity to sell more than twice his current output. Eko ’s capacities are already reaching their limits, but Oliviero takes up the huge challenge.

He has only a few months to revamp the product lines according to American requirements, develop new guitars, hire and train new collaborators, acquire additional machinery and put onstream a much larger factory. But a new factory has to be found in the first place. Eko is the classical situation of a rapidly growing young business that has to invest while previous investment is not yet paying back. The banks are cautious, the music instrument sector has proven to be so disappointing in recent times. Manufacturing electric guitars at an industrial scale and sell such unserious things by hundreds of thousands in America? That sounds just crazy.

Castelfidardo’s municipal authorities do not want to bother of such foolish plans. They have enough to worry about with the acute accordion crisis.

Oliviero’s younger brother Lamberto points out that there are better opportunities in Recanati, a picturesque city 10 miles South of Castelfidardo. Though a Catholic priest in his daily life Lamberto Pigini has also a sense for entrepreneurship — he is a Pigini too. He finds a large factory, a closed down silk spinning mill that belongs to a monastery. The site can be hired for a reasonable rent. The city council is more open-minded than Castelfidardo’s and grants favourable conditions, including some free services during the start-up time.

A temporary partner contributes with 30% of Eko ’s capital. Oliviero’s relatives mortgage their properties. The company collects the funds to undertake a transfer to Recanati.

This is a bold decision. It is easy to get Italians to emigrate to the other end of the peninsula or of the planet Earth, but moving to the next town is nearly unthinkable, especially in Central Italy where people are deeply rooted in their soil and their traditions (and where the next town has generally been seen as some kind of hereditary enemy since the Middle-Ages).

Oliviero Pigini gathers around him an enlarged executive staff with highly talented individuals like Pio Boccosi, Augusto Pierdominici, Giovanni Vignoni and above all Ennio Uncini, who will play a key role in the future. But at the employee level many or most people prefer to remain in Castelfidardo, where the rumour has spread that damn Pigini has obtained a staggering contract in the States.

1962 As a consequence a new generation of guitar operations suddenly springs up in Castelfidardo in early 1962. Crucianelli in the first place (maybe as early as late 1961), then Welson and an intricate cluster of brands offering basically the same models (Bartolini, Gemelli/Cingolani, Morbidoni/Dega etc.). Those newcomers, previously known as accordion manufacturers (except Bartolini) all use parts and sub-assemblies supplied from a common pool of sub-contractors believed to be led by the Polverini Brothers company. Hence a lot of similarities in the hardware that define a “Castelfidardo School“ (though Bartolini and Gemelli had actually their head offices in Recanati).