Associated Press Photo by Austin American-Statesman Mark Erlewine repairs a vintage Fender Jazzmaster guitar at his shop in Austin. Erlewine has been building and repairing guitars in Austin for more than 30 years.

Associated Press Photo by Kelly West Mark Erlewine repairs a vintage Fender Jazzmaster guitar at his shop in Austin.

Associated Press Photo by Kelly West Mark Erlewine measures the action on a vintage Fender Jazzmaster guitar that he was repairing at his shop in Austin.

Associated Press Photo by Ricardo Gandara Mark Erlewine repairs a guitar owned by Willie Nelson, at Erlewine's shop in Austin. "Willie plays with abandon," Erlewine says, explaining the hole in the front of the guitar, which has the signatures of Johnny Cash, Roger Millier, Ray Benson and many others whose names are too faded to read.

AUSTIN (AP) -- Small pliers, wrenches, screwdrivers, a vise, chemicals and intensely bright lamps cover this working man's table like confetti. Mark Erlewine is cradling a vintage Fender Jazzmaster.

"It's certainly been altered. The finish is worn. The controls aren't working properly," he says. "The foam under the pickup needs to be replaced, and so will the strings. The frets, too."

Every guitar that's been played hard, busted over someone's head or is just plain old needs the TLC, knowledge and craftsmanship of someone like Erlewine. Guitar players depend on their luthiers to keep them strumming.

The steel-guitar-playing Erlewine, 57, is that man, and he's been doing it for almost 40 years, repairing and making guitars for musicians including Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Ted Nugent, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

"Willie once told me as long as I kept Trigger going, his career would keep going," he says about the beloved Martin N-20 classical guitar distinguished by a hole Nelson has created with his heavy playing and frequent use. Erlewine has lost count of how many times he's braced the wood to strengthen the wood around the hole.

On this morning at his workshop, however, he's working on a 1978 Jazzmaster owned by James Faron of Austin. To determine "where's it's been" he uses a 6-inch metal ruler to "measure the action," that is, the height of a guitar string at the 12th fret. Then, he inspects the neck, using a straight edge.

For two weeks or so, he will work on and off with the guitar -- that's how it's done, especially when he applies glue or lacquer to the finish that requires more than a day to dry.

Erlewine picked up his first guitar when he was 14 and joined his first band at 19.

He's from Ann Arbor, Mich., where in 1969 he served as an apprentice for his cousin Dan Erlewine, who'd made a name for himself in the guitar repair industry. At the time, Mark Erlewine was playing at honky-tonks in the Detroit area. A fellow musician, James Machin, visited Austin in 1973 and called Erlewine. "You have to bring your shop here," he told him. "This is the mecca of country music."

Erlewine moved to Austin in 1974 and joined the New Oso Band that backed up the rockabilly Reynolds Sisters. His shop was next to a massage parlor visited often by the vice squad.

"In those days a young guy could play music till midnight, because that's when the bars closed, and run a guitar shop during the day," he says.

"Crazy, wonderful times. Austin was a small, homegrown community of music. Willie was just getting here. B.W. Stevenson, Plum Nelly, the Dixie Diesels and Freda & the Firedogs were playing around town."

For years, he'd been friends with ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons and made several guitars for him. He's made more than 1,000 guitars through the years, including his trademark "Chiquita" traveling guitar that he designed with Gibbons. Christopher Cross purchased a custom left-handed guitar for Paul McCartney.

A couple of years ago, a married couple walked in. The man was toting a black trash bag. Inside was his Martin in pieces, thanks to his wife, who used it on his head to make a point.

"The couple was going through counseling and were trying to mend their relationship. That was touching. Part of the process was fixing the guitar that she broke over his head," he says.

A West Texas family brought him a small Martin acoustic guitar made in 1853. "Their great, great grandfather was a Confederate officer. The guitar was his only companion in a prison camp. They wanted me to refurbish it. That's the fun part of this job, doing the research on an old guitar and then applying what you know to fixing it," he says.

Fixing a guitar is "an immediate, simple gratification for me, even a kind of therapy. The physical alteration of any instrument to play and sound better is a pleasure for the customer. For me, it's worth a lot to being happy at something you like to do."