José Ramírez Martínez was born in May 1922. He joined the family workshop at the age of 18. His apprenticeship took place with no privileges but very soon he was admitted as a journeyman and he quickly began to experiment developing the guitar as a concert instrument. Because of the lack of material, and the fact that his investigations were not very profitable, his father and he would constantly argue about his father selling his experiments without keeping track of his work.

In 1954 his brother Alfredo died. He was in charge of the administrative work and was Jose’s best supporter, for he was convinced that Jose’s experiments would achieve their objective.

Three years later his father died and José took over the running of the business with the help of his wife, Angelita. He had to give up his bench in the workshop and devote himself to full time management and supervision of his journeymen. He would work out his designs on paper and assign his journeymen to carry out the experiments he devised. Many of his investigations bore interesting fruit; like the discovery of red cedar for the harmonic top in 1965. This discovery was later adopted by practically all guitar manufacturers in the world, although at the beginning it was highly criticized because of its innovative nature.

He also tried different varnishes, and since his guitars were lacquered with alcohol based shellac like furniture, he felt they needed a more consistent rich varnish that not only protected the wood but would bring a better sound out of the instrument. Finally he got the owner of a laboratory; which sympathized with his restless pursuit, to mix an elaborate urea based varnish that gave an excellent result.

We had used this urea based varnish for many years but regrettably, some years ago, the laboratory changed their formula; affecting the quality and we had to stop using it. José Ramírez III made several experimentations with the string length; arriving at a particular scale that gave the best result for sound and projection without being too long. This 664 mm scale is the one being used today, but there was also a demand for a shorter scale that forced him to design a guitar with a 650mm scale. This happened in 1986, and for that reason the model was named C86; referring to the year of its creation. Later on his son José Enrique modified the design; keeping the 650mm scale but changing the name of the pattern.

In 1983 Jose designed the “camara” guitar, with the intention of eliminating the “wolf notes.” It gave some positive results; for instance the clarity of its sound was excellent for studio recordings. This model adds an interior finish of Jacaranda or Caviuna located near the middle of the sides. The new guitar models were built with double sides of cypress in the interior. Later on they would change and use sycamore - and then they began to build them with half double internal sides. That remained until 1991. The double sides of cypress are glued to the Rosewood. Don't get confused and think this is plywood, since Jacaranda, caviuna and cypress are all solid woods. It was one of José's Ramírez III acoustic experiments, and because of its excellent results, we still it use it today in our traditional guitars. In fact, some other guitar makers are using our technique at the moment. For all of his experiments and investigations, it is impossible to not give honorable mention to the 10 string guitar. This instrument was designed by Jose at the beginning of age 60. He started by performing some tests based on the “viola d'amore”, but didn’t get satisfactory results, so he looked for the cooperation of Narciso Yepes who was very helpful in the development of this instrument.

Later he designed the eight string guitar for José Tomás. Meanwhile, José's main collaborator was Andrés Segovia…. Ever since they met in 1952, Segovia was the one pointing the way with his wise critique. His demands and his scant approval reined supreme in Jose’s ears, for Maestro Segovia was extremely demanding when he had to choose an instrument for his use. This provided a great stimulus for Jose in knowing that Segovia should be interested in one of his guitars. In 1960 he built a guitar in which he compiled all the experiments that had given him good results. He added new ideas like the thickness of the wood, and asymmetries in the internal structure as well as vibrant masses at the traverse bar... When Segovia tried that guitar, he said he would like to keep it for a season, so he took it with him for awhile and traveled with it; making the Australia Tour in 1961. That was the first of a long list of guitars built by José Ramírez III for the Maestro to perform with in his concerts. As his construction techniques improved, he continued to experiment.

Those days coincided with the beginning of a long period of expansion, and this helped propel the guitars to world-wide popularity. José moved the workshop to General Margallo Street while maintaining the small store at Concepción Jerónima 2. In the new workshop, he teamed-up with several guitar-makers to be able to take care of the growing demand for his instruments. Later, toward 1970-71, he moved the workshop to a larger building, accepting even more journeymen; as the waiting list for his guitars had increased by two years. However, the workshop never became a factory. There were and are machines dedicated for fine work but there were machines dedicated for coarse work while the delicate work was done by the artisans. He ended up having a great number of journeymen building each guitar; from the beginning to the end, in accordance with the traditional method.

This was not "mass production," and never was. There were; on the other hand, several apprentices helping the journeymen in their tasks. They would loosen screws; untie borders, sand, and other jobs that allowed more time for the journeymen to do their delicate work. Also in 1971, the store in Concepción Jerónima Nº2 closed. They moved to a larger one, exactly in front of the old one at number 5, on the same street.

Many honors and awards were given to him; among the most outstanding were the gold medal of the Guitar Society in Chicago in 1962, the Bronze medal award by the Official Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Madrid, gold medal to the exemplary Artisan of the Union Work of Craft, in Madrid, in 1972. He was also elected Honorary Partner of the Centre Culturale de la Chitarra in Rome in 1968, and Honorary Partner of Music in Compostela in 1983. He obtained the DIAPASON D'Or from the Ministry of Education and Culture of France in the year 1987, etc.

From all of the many cherished awards, the one he held most dear was a letter dedicated by Andrés Segovia honoring his work.