D'Angelico, born in New York City, began his learning at the age of nine in the workshop of his uncle, Signor Ciani who was known for his fine, traditional-style Italian mandolins and flat-top guitars. D'Angelico also studied violin making, which later influenced his arch-top guitar designs. After his uncle died, D'Angelico ran the workshop for his aunt and managed approx. 15 employees until 1932, when he set up his own shop.

D'Angelico's shop was located at 40 Kenmare Street in New York City. In 1959 the shop moved across the street. D'Angelico instruments were strictly hand made, in limited quantities. In the late 1930s, when production was at its peak, D'Angelico was able to make approximately 35 instruments per year with the help of two or three workers. In late 1952, Jimmy D'Aquisto began to work as an apprentice, and he was D'Angelico's only assistant from 1959 until D'Angelico's death. Production during this period was limited to approximately 15 instruments per year and an increasing amount of work was done by D'Aquisto under D'Angelico's guidance, until the instruments made just prior to D'Angelico's death were finished almost entirely by D'Aquisto.

During 32 years of production and innovation a total of 1,164 guitars were produced. Although these superb hand-crafted instruments originally sold for prices similar to those of factory-built models, today they are highly collectible, and are regularly included in museum and gallery shows as the guitar representative of the high art and design of the Art Deco style.

D’Angelico adapted techniques that had been used for centuries, and then improved these delicate manual processes in order to build the modern instruments demanded by his musician clients. Many of D'Angelico's customers and musician friends were interested in guitar design. No less a person than Johnny Smith said about him: While I was living in New York I spend a lot of time in the workshop of my dear friend John D'Angelico. He made the finest guitar I had ever played and really headed me in the direction of achieving the sound and playability I was looking for. Like Johnny Smith, many other guitar player contributed to the evolution of D'Angelico's products by offering suggestions and ordering instruments with special custom features. These guitarists often requested special size and structural difference as f.e. body depth, scale length or neck width and that additional features and stylish embellishments are incorporated in the finished design.

Therefore, D'Angelico guitars are found with considerable variations. Some had classical-width fretboards, while others had extremely narrow necks. In the late '50s and early '60s, for example, D'Angelico made many guitars primarily for recording use, and these were generally shallower than the guitars he made earlier. As D'Angelico instruments possess an exceptionally smooth, mellow tone, excellent sustain and such balance that each note on the fretboard is nearly equal in volume, it makes them extraordinarily fine for studio recording and for stage use with a pickup.

The marvelous reputation of “D’Angelico-built” guitars quickly spread throughout the musical community, and soon John D’Angelico’s small New York workshop was attracting professional musicians from all over the United States.

John D’Angelico's foremost guitar designs included features in the geometric Art Deco style that was enormously popular in New York at the time, and was widely used for architectural and industrial applications. The signature ziggurat inlay, which appeared on the first New Yorker model headstock, became D’Angelico’s iconic trademark. This “stair-step” motif is actually an Art Deco rendering of the famous New Yorker Hotel. D’Angelico named another of his early models, the Excel, from the New York State slogan, “Excelsior!”

Today, D’Angelico Guitars are made to perform. Boundaries of creativity and innovation with bold methods of design and construction have been stretched to maintain the exquisite craftsmanship and imaginative techniques learned in the Kenmare Street shop, using only top quality woods and components for each and every model. Archtops, Semi-Hollows, Solid-bodies, Flat tops and Custom-Made. Each D’Angelico is crafted to have a soul, a personality and a voice.