Career
Guitar World dubbed him "The Amp Doctor" for his work in tube amplifier repair and modification. As a native of Puerto Rico, Díaz was playing guitar by age six. Listening to records by Robert Johnson and Sonny Terry sparked an early love for blues music
At 12, he was guitarist for The Hungry Men, where he would remain until 1969, when he came to the mainland with Johnny Nash (of "I Can See Clearly, Now" fame), before moving on to join Frijid Pink.
During the seventies, Díaz played a major role in the thendeveloping market for vintage tube-powered guitar amplifiers. In 1979, Díaz befriended the as-yet-unsigned Stevie Ray Vaughan, and ended up as his amplifier technician.
By the early eighties, Díaz was designing and building prototypes that would become his own line of guitar equipment. The early eighties also saw many partnerships with companies such as Angela Instruments and John Sprung"s American Guitar Center.
Díaz served as Clapton"s technical adviser on the Journeyman album.
In 1988, General Electric Smith, who had just joined Bob Dylan"s band, brought Cesar on board to tend to the two guitarists" gear and tone. Díaz began to manufacture amplifiers and guitar effects—hand-made, in small production runs. His amplifiers are built in the Fender tradition.
The Classic Twin-100, for instance, is a 100-watt two channel amp inspired by the Fender Twin.
Effects include a spring reverb unit His Tremodillo tremolo pedal is highly sought after.
In 1992 Cesar performed in and helped to design "The Ultimate Guitar tech " film. The film was a very well received guitar tech industrial training film teaching the best way to change and tune strings on the guitar, to fixing tube amplifiers.
Filmed, produced and edited by Leonard J Eisenberg, the JJmi Hendrix photographer.
