2019 AGS Magazine_V5

April 12, 13, & 14, 2019

LUTHIERS OF FINE STRINGED 

INSTRUMENTS 

The Artisan Guitar Show welcomes you to its third annual 

celebration of guitars and music. This is the complete show for 

guitar and music lovers and includes guitar makers, a concert 

series, and master classes. This shows provides an opportunity 

for music lovers, musicians, students, guitar enthusiasts, 

and luthiers alike to experience a showcase of the finest 

handcrafted guitars in the world and their makers. 

The performing artists who appear in our concert series can 

only be described as world-class talent. The lecturers who 

teach at our master classes are truly leaders in their fields and 

are respected around the world. 

The Artisan Guitar Show would like to thank the artists, 

educators, guitar makers, and sponsors who help to make 

this event a premier hand-crafted guitar, education, and live 

performance venue. 

A show is nothing without the many great enthusiasts 

who attend, so thank you for coming. It is our sincere 

hope that your memories from the Artisan Guitar Show 

will bring you joy for many years to come. 

Musical instruments are your passion. 

Protecting them is ours. 

For over 25 years, fine musical instrument players, 

collectors, builders and sellers have depended on 

Heritage to customize a comprehensive and affordable 

insurance policy for their needs. It’s time you 

joined them! 

Compare our dealer and maker protection options 

with your current policy... and see why 11,000+ 

clients throughout the U.S. and Canada trust 

Heritage Insurance Services, Inc. 

Nobody appreciates fine instruments like Heritage. 

That’s why we’re committed to protecting your 

instruments from damage and theft on a worldwide 

basis. We have flexible and affordable policies 

that are customized to meet your needs. 

COVERAGE HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDES: 

● Your stock in trade 

● Consignments/Entrustments 

● Non-owned instruments 

● Worldwide coverage 

● Instruments at shows 

● Work in progress 

● Shipments 

● Breakage including devaluation 

● Business personal property including 

raw wood, tools, fixtures, machinery 

Call or e-mail to ask about the best 

coverage in the industiry. 

1-800-289-8837 info@musicins.com 

SHOW HOURS 

Friday, April 12, 2019 • 6:00 - 10:00PM 

(Private Sneak Preview and Concerts for VIP Ticket Holders Only) 

Saturday, April 13, 2019 • 10:00AM - 6:00PM 

(General Admission Show Hours) 

Saturday, April 13, 2019 • 6:00PM - 10:00PM 

(Private Reception and Concerts for VIP Ticket Holders Only) 

Sunday, April 14, 2019 • 10:00AM - 4:00PM 

(General Admission Show Hours) 

CONTENTS 

Exhibitor Layout 2 

Concert and Master Class Schedule 3 

Master Class Information 5 

Artisan Giveaway Guitar 6 

The Tree 8 

Kalamazoo Gals 10 

Brent Mason 14 

Amplifying Quality Instruments 18 

The Invisible Guitar 24 

Five Minutes with Kathy Wingert 32 

Pearl Inlay 34 

Jimmy Webb 38 

Five Minutes with Kent “Carlos” Everett 44 

Five Minutes with Bruce Sexauer 45 

Dana Borgeois - An Amazing Time 48 

In the Eye of the Beholder 52 

Five Minutes with Rick Maguire 58 

Five Minutes with Bill Comins 63 

www.musicins.com 1.800.289.8837 

Web: www.artisanguitarshow.com • Instagram: @artisanguitarshow 

Twitter: @ArtisanGTRshow • Facebook: /artisanguitarshow 

©The contents of this magazine may not be reproduced without the express 

permission and approval of the contributors, publisher and/or The Artisan Guitar Show. 

Magazine design and production - Stuart Mono 

Cover and Contents Photos: 

Guitar: The GRAND CENTRAL 

by John Monteleone 

Photo Credit: Rod Franklin 

artisanguitarshow.com | 1

Exhibitor Map 

Maxmonte 

Guitars 

5 6 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 8' X 9' 8' X 18' 8' X 9' 8' X 18' 8' X 9' 8' X 18' 

8' X 10' 

Maxmonte 

Humphrey 

DHR Guitar Experience Monteleone 

Bourgeois Guitars 

Comins 

Damman Jack Daniel’s 

Guitars 

Guitars 

DHR Publishing 

Guitars Instruments 

5 6 

7 

13 

8 

9 

10 

11 12 8' X 10' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 8' X 9' 8' X 18' 8' X 9' 

8' X 18' 8' X 9' 8' X 18' 

Yen 

Maguire 

Mirabella 

MacCubbin Circa Guitars 

Heritage 

Osthoff 

Galloup Guitars Lehmann 

Guitars 

Guitars 

Guitars 

Insurance 

Guitars 

Guitars 

Strings 

DNA Ryer 

14 

Guitars 

31 32 

39 40 

47 48 

55 

8' X 10' 

56 

8' X 9' 8' Maguire X 9' 

Mirabella 8' X 9' MacCubbin 8' X 9' Circa Guitars 

8' X 9' Heritage 8' X 9' 

8' X Henriksen 

Galloup 9' 8' Lehmann X 9' 

Guitars 

Guitars 

Guitars 

Insurance 

Guitars 

Guitars 

Emergency Exit 

Amps 

Strings 

DNA Ryer Wilborn Duke of Pearl 

Tim Bram 

FE Tellier 

Sam Guidry 

Pellerin 

Bethany 

Trenier 

4 

10' X 12' 

Guitars Guitars 31 ' 32 

Guitars 39 Guitars40 

Guitars 47 

Guitars 48 

15 55Guitars 

56 Guitars 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' 8' X 9' 10' 8' X 9' 

Skytop 

30 33 Wilborn Duke of Pearl 38 41Tim Bram 

FE Tellier 46 

Sam Guidry 49 

Pellerin 54 Bethany 

Bam Cases 57 Trenier 

Guitars 4 

8' X 9' 8' 

10' X 12' 

Guitars X 9' 

' 8' X 9' 

Guitars 8' X 9' Guitars 

8' X 9' Guitars 8' X 9' Guitars 

8' X Guitars 9' 8' Guitars X 9' 

Morrissey 

Wingert 

Davide Serracini, 

Phifer 

Bruce Sexauer, 

LeGeyt 

Robbins 

Everett 

Skytop Guitars 30 Guitars 33 

Luthier 38 Guitars41 

luthier 46 Instruments 49 

16 54 Acoustics 57 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' 8' X 9' 10' 

Guitars 

3 

8' X 9' 

9' X 10' 

Guitars 

Morrissey 

Wingert 

Davide Serracini, 

Phifer 

Bruce Sexauer, 

LeGeyt 

Solid Robbins Ground 

29 34 

Guitars 

Guitars 

37 42 

Luthier 

Guitars 

45 50 

Instruments 

53 

Acoustics Stands 58 

Acoustic 

Guitars 

3 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

9' X 10' 

Remedy 

Zimnicki 29 Kostal 34 

American Music 37 Greenfield 42 

Borghino 45 50 Circle 

17 53 American 58Ken Parker 

Acoustic Guitars 

Guitars 8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

Furniture 8' X Guitars 9' 8' X 9' 

Guitars 8' X 9' Strings8' X 9' 

Archtop 8' 8' X 9' 10' Archtops 8' X 9' 

Remedy 

Zimnicki 

Kostal 

American Music 

Borghino 

Circle 

Guitars American McKnight Ken Parker 

2 

28 35 Guitars 

Guitars 36 43Furniture 

Guitars 44 

Guitars 51 

Strings 52 

Archtop Guitars 59 Archtops 

10' X 12' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X Guitars 9' 8' X 9' 

2 

28 35 

36 43 

44 51 

18 

10' X 12' 

52 8' 10' 59 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

Kalamazoo 

Laurent Brondel 

Luthier 

Gals 

Kalamazoo 

Klein-Kauffman 

Exhibit 

Gals 

Emergency Exit Guitars 

19 

LIE-NIELSEN 

Benedetto Exhibit 

Maegen 

LHT Guitars 

Ribbecke 

Hearne 8' X 10' Froggy Bottom 

Guitars 

TOOLWORKS 

LIE-NIELSEN 

Wells Maegen 

LHT Guitars Guitars Ribbecke 

Hardwoods Widman Hearne Custom Guitars 

TOOLWORKS 

Guitars 24Wells 

Guitars 

Hardwoods Electrics 

Guitars 

Guitars 6' X 24 9' 

6' X 6'8'' 

1 27 

26 

25 

6' 23 X 9' 

22 

1 27 

26 

25 

23 

22 20 6' X 6'8'' 21 

10' X 12' 

8' X 10' 8' X 10' 8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 10' 21 

10' X 12' 

8' X 10' 8' X 10' 8' X 9' 8' X 9' 

8' X 10' 

8' X 10' 8' X 10' 

8' X 10' 

Exhibitor/Guest 

Entry 

2 

52 

36 

16 

54 

44 

10 

45 

40 

51 

11 

13 

37 

8 


Entry 

American Archtop Guitars 

American Music Furniture 

BAM Cases 

Bethany Guitars 

Borghino Guitars 


Bruce Sexauer, luthier 

Circa Guitars 

Circle Strings 

Dammann Instrument 

Davide Serracini, Luthier 

DHR Guitar Experience 

6 

19 

50 

56 

24 

27 

39 

25 

31 

5 

18 

32 

9 

29 

48 


ARTISAN GUITAR SHOW EXHIBITORS: 

26 

Lattanze 

Guitars 

7 

Humphrey 

Amplifiers 

8 

DHR Guitar Experience 

DHR Publishing 

Laurent Brondel Luthier 

LeGeyt Instruments 

Lehmann Strings 

LHT Guitars 

LIE-NIELSEN 

MacCubbin Guitars 

Maegen Wells Guitars 

Maguire Guitars 

Maxmonte Guitars 

McKnight Guitars 

Mirabella Guitars 

Monteleone 

9 

Morrissey Guitars 

Monteleone 

10 

4 

33 

58 

41 

21 

55 

43 

22 

15 

47 

7 

12 

59 

1 

35 



DNA Ryer Guitars 

Duke of Pearl 

FE Tellier Guitars 

Galloup Guitars 

Hearne Hardwoods 

Henriksen Amps 

Heritage Insurance Services, Inc. 

Jack Daniel’s 

Ken Parker Archtops 

Kostal Guitars 

11 

Comins 

Guitars 

12 

49 

42 

23 

53 

46 

3 

17 

38 

57 

20 

30 

34 

14 

28 

Jack Daniel’s 


Entry Entry 

Pellerin Guitars 

Phifer Guitars 

Ribbecke Guitars 

The The Central Central Ballroom Ballroom 

Sam Guidry Handmade Guitars 

Skytop Guitars 

Solid Ground Stands 

Tim Bram Guitars 

Trenier Guitars 

Widman Guitars 

Wilborn Guitars 

Wingert Guitars 

Yen Guitars 

Zimnicki Guitars 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

20 

Damman 

Instruments 

Yen 

Guitars 

8' X 10' 

Henriksen 

Amps 

8' X 10' 

Bam Cases 

8' X 10' 

Solid Ground 

Stands 

8' X 10' 

McKnight 

Guitars 

18 

8' X 10' 

Laurent Brondel 

Luthier 

19 

8' X 10' 

Widman Custom 

Electrics 

8' X 10' 

Concert & Master Class Schedule 

The Artisan Guitar Show Concert Series features great concert performances throughout the weekend with highly 

talented and respected musicians showcasing only the finest instruments being created today. These performances 

include presentations by international performers with an emphasis on finger-style masters, singer-songwriters, harp 

guitarists, and players who make jazz archtop guitars sing. 

TIME ARTISAN GUITAR SHOW CONCERT SERIES SPONSOR LOCATION 

SATURDAY 4/13 

11:00 AM Hiroya Tsukamoto Robbins Acoustics Heritage Room 

12:00 PM Mark Lemaire Yen Guitar Heritage Room 

1:00 PM Robin Bullock MacCubbin Guitars Heritage Room 

2:00 PM Tim Farrell DHR Guitar Experience Heritage Room 

3:00 PM Adam Miller Greenfield Guitars Heritage Room 

4:00 PM Richie Hart and David Gilmore Phifer Guitars Heritage Room 

5:00 PM Courtney Hartman Bourgeois Guitar Heritage Room 

SUNDAY 4/14 

10:30 AM Alex Anderson Pellerin Guitars Heritage Room 

11:30 AM Kinloch Nelson Lehmann Strings Heritage Room 

12:30 PM Lyle Brewer Ken Parker Archtops Heritage Room 

1:30 PM Joe Mass McKnight Guitars Heritage Room 

2:30 PM Luke Brindley Circle Strings Heritage Room 

TIME ARTISAN GUITAR SHOW VIP EVENTS SPONSOR LOCATION 

FRIDAY 4/12 

6:00 PM Jazz All-Stars featuring Jimmy Bruno, Sean McGowan, 

and Steve Herberman 

Comins Guitars 

Henriksen Amplifiers 

Heritage Room 

8:00 PM Brent Mason Artisan Guitar Show Heritage Room 

SATURDAY 4/13 

6:00 PM Maurizio Brunod Borghino Guitars Heritage Room 

8:00 PM Jimmy Webb Artisan Guitar Show Heritage Room 

The Artisan Guitar Show Master Class Series provides learning opportunities that are nearly impossible to find 

elsewhere. These master classes are diverse and our lecturers are quite literally masters in their fields. 

TIME ARTISAN GUITAR SHOW MASTER CLASS SERIES SPONSOR LOCATION 

SATURDAY 4/13 

11:00 AM Tim Farrell - Acoustic Guitar Music of The Beatles Cameron Room 

12:00 PM Dick Boak - The Many Elements and Variables of Tone Cameron Room 

1:00 PM Brent Mason - Blurring the Lines Between Country & Jazz Guitar Cameron Room 

2:00 PM Jimmy Webb - Songwriting Clinic Cameron Room 

4:00 PM Sean McGowan - Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Cameron Room 

5:00 PM John Thomas - Kalamazoo Gals Cameron Room 

SUNDAY 4/14 

11:00 AM Lie-Nielsen - Working with Heirloom Quality Hand Tools Cameron Room 

12:00 PM Dana Bourgeois - Top Voicing the Steel String Guitar Cameron Room 

1:30 PM Jimmy Bruno - Jazz Master Class Cameron Room 

REPRESENTING THE VERY FINEST ARCHTOP LUTHIERS AND RELATED BUSINESSES 

www.finearchtops.com 

2 | artisanguitarshow.com 

artisanguitarshow.com | 3 

Adam Miller Alex Anderson Brent Mason Jimmy Webb

Master Classes 

All take place in the Cameron Room 

Courtney Hartman 

Jimmy Bruno 

Joe Mass 

Maurizio Brunod 

Hiroya Tsukamoto 

Sean McGowan 

Luke Brindley 

Dana Bourgeois 

Acoustic Guitar Music of The Beatles - Tim Farrell 

In this workshop we will discuss the importance of the acoustic 

guitar in the songwriting, performances and recordings of 

the music of The Beatles, beginning with their first single and 

throughout their career. We will explore the unique compositional 

approaches, choices of chord voicings, playing techniques, etc 

… that have made The Beatles music both enjoyed and revered 

for many years. Examples will include iconic acoustic guitar parts 

from classic and timeless songs such as Yesterday, Here Comes 

The Sun, Blackbird, etc … We will walk step by step through the 

creation of a solo guitar arrangement for You Never Give Me Your 

Money. This is a hands-on workshop so bringing your guitar is 

recommended but not required. 

Saturday, April 13, 11:00AM 

The Many Elements and Variables of Tone - Dick Boak 

Most simply, Dick Boak will delve into those aspects of a guitar 

that influence tone. Nearly everything plays a part. The wood of 

the soundboard, the tonewood choice for back and sides, the 

weight of the guitar, of course, the bracing, the scale length, the 

choice of strings, the size of the body. There are as many variables 

in an instrument as there are words to describe the tonal result. 

What do you look for in an instrument? Warmth, clarity, brilliance, 

volume, projection? What choices should you make to achieve 

the tone you aspire to. Dick Boak spent his career assisting the 

greatest guitar players of our time make these choices. Come join 

in the discussion. 

Saturday, April 13, 12:00PM 

Blurring the Lines Between Country and Jazz Guitar - 

Brent Mason 

Brent Mason is one of the most recorded guitarists in history. 

He was discovered by and recorded with legendary guitarist Chet 

Atkins and is a Grammy Award winner. His honors include 12 

Academy of Country Music Guitarist of the Year awards, and two 

CMA Musician of the Year awards. Brent has been named 

as one of the top ten session guitarists in the world. Please 

join Brent as he instructs on how to blur the lines between 

country and jazz guitar. 


lamazoo Gals -- a story of the extraordinary women and Gibson’s 

banner guitars of World War II. 


Hand Tool Tips for Superior Results - 

Lie-Nielsen Toolworks 

Roger Benton owns and operates a custom design/build furniture 

shop and lumberyard, RE-CO BKLYN, which works with local 

arborists in the New York City area and specializes in harvesting 

storm damaged trees for lumber. In addition to sourcing, milling, 

and drying lumber and slabs, the RE-CO BKLYN design and build 

team has created one-of-a-kind pieces for private and commercial 

clients ranging from local homeowners to popular celebrities as 

well as hotels, restaurants, bars, retail stores and more. 

Roger has been a member of the Lie-Nielsen Toolworks Hand 

Tool Event® staff since 2011. 

Sunday, April 14, 11:00AM 

Top Voicing the Steel String Guitar - Dana Bourgeois 

Dana Bourgeois has been building guitars for more than 40 

years. He is known throughout the world for his superb craftsmanship 

and as one of the foremost authorities on the voicing, selection 

and utilization of fine acoustic tonewoods. Learn what makes 

Bourgeois guitars unique and why they sound the way they do as 

Dana delves into a comprehensive analysis of top voicing strategy. 

Sunday, April 14, 12:00PM 

Jazz Players Master Class - Jimmy Bruno 

Jimmy Bruno was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is a 

master jazz guitarist and jazz educator. Jimmy is one of the most 

critically acclaimed jazz guitarists performing today. He came 

to prominence as a jazz musician in the 1990s after a successful 

twenty-year career as a sought-after commercial guitarist and 

session musician. Please “sit in” as Jimmy discusses the nuances 

of playing jazz guitar. 

Sunday, April 14, 1:30PM 

Lyle Brewer 

Mark Lemaire 

Alex Anderson 

Songwriting Clinic with Master Songwriter Jimmy 

Webb 

Jimmy Webb is an American songwriter, composer and 

singer known worldwide as a master of his trade. Since his 

first platinum hit “The Worst That Could Happen,” Webb has 

written numerous hits including “Up, Up and Away,” “By the 

Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” 

“Didn’t We,” “All I Know,” and “MacArthur Park.” Please join 

Jimmy as speaks on the intricacies of song writing. 


Richie Hart 

David Gilmore 

Dick Boak 

Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar - Sean McGowan 

Sean McGowan is a fingerstyle jazz guitarist who combines 

many diverse musical influences with unconventional 

techniques to create a broad palette of textures within his 

compositions and arrangements for solo guitar. Learn the art 

of fingerstyle jazz guitar with this insightful lesson as Sean 

discusses several performance techniques, playing multiple 

parts, walking basslines, creating full arrangements, and 

improvisation. 


Steve Herberman 

Tim Farrell 

Robin Bullock 

Kalamazoo Gals - John Thomas 

John Thomas is a “law professor by trade, a guitar player 

still striving for mediocrity, and a freelance writer by necessity.” 

Please join John as he tells the story of the amazing Ka- 



WIN 

THIS 

GUITAR! 

“The Tree” Giveaway Guitar Specifications 

12 Fret Parlor Guitar 

Slot head 

24.75″ Scale 

1.75″ Nut 

2.25″ Bridge Spacing 

Old Growth Red Spruce Top 

and Bracing 

“The Tree” Mahogany Back 

and sides 

Honduran Mahogany Neck 

Ebony Fretboard with Abalone Diamond 

Inlays 

Ebony Pyramid Bridge 

Bone Nut and Saddle 

2 Way Adjustable truss rod with 

Carbon Fiber neck reinforcement 

Modified V profile to Neck 

Curly Maple Bindings and Trim 

Ablalone Rosette, Back Stripe 

and Top Purfling 

Side Purfling with Miters into 

End graft 

Waverly 3 on plate engraved tuners 

with Ebony Buttons 

Waverly Bone bridge pins 

Waverly strap pin and end pin 

The 2019 Artisan Guitar Show Giveaway Guitar 

When the Artisan Guitar 

Show learned that Adam 

Buchwald from Circle 

Strings would build the 

2019 giveaway guitar, we could not 

have been more pleased. Adam is recognized 

and respected for building 

high-end acoustic guitars. The Mahogany 

12 Fret Parlor Guitar being created 

for the show giveaway is sure to make 

some lucky person very happy. 

Like so many guitar makers, Adam 

learned the craft through a combination 

of being mentored by masters and 

practical experience doing instrument 

repair. His mentors included noted 

Brooklyn-based guitar master repairman 

Bob Jones. He also enjoyed a 

stint working as head repairman with 

Steve Uhrik, Peter Kohman, and Jason 

Petty at RetroFret also in Brooklyn. 

Adam was destined to merge this 

fundamental understanding of guitar 

structure and function learned through 

repair with the art of handcrafting guitars. 

When Michael Millard of Froggy 

Bottom Guitars offered Adam the opportunity 

to build with the Froggy Bottom 

team, the final transition from repairman 

to respected guitar maker was 

complete. He remembers this time at 

Froggy Bottom as an “incredible experience” 

and commented “I learned 

so much about guitar building, dedication 

to a craft, hard work, and most 

importantly, myself.” 

Fundamental to building a fine instrument 

is not just an understanding 

of the mechanics of construction, but 

of the music itself. Adam is perhaps 

first and foremost a musician. He has 

a passion for the banjo, mandolin and 

guitar and is a skilled player. Being a 

working musician allows Adam as a 

guitar maker to more fully understand 

what another musician might seek in a 

fine instrument. 

Adam resides with his family in Vermont 

and is a graduate of UVM. Circle 

Strings and the new Buchwald venture 

Iris Guitar Company are located 

in South Burlington, Vermont. Adam 

Buchwald does his creative work in 

the same shop as Creston Electric Instruments; 

this is where noted guitar 

maker Creston Lea builds his custom 

electric guitars. 

Luthier Nicholas Durkee assists in 

running the shop with Adam. Nick 

studied at the Galloup School of Lutherie 

in Big Rapids, Michigan where 

he completed the Master Program. 

During his time at Galloup, Nick completed 

a solid body electric guitar, two 

acoustic guitars, and an archtop guitar. 

Ultimately, he accepted an apprenticeship 

working under master builders 

Sam Guidry and Brian Galloup. Adam 

refers to his protégé as a “killer worker 

and great guy.” Most importantly, 

Adam is quick to say, “I am lucky to 

have him.” 

This Artisan Guitar Show giveaway 

guitar has been handcrafted by Adam 

Buchwald of Circle Strings and it features 

stunning Mahogany back and 

sides from the “The Tree”, which is 

now legendary for its appearance and 

tonal qualities. “The Tree” is described 

by luthier tools and guitar parts provider 

StewMac as the source of the “most 

notorious tonewood in the world and 

its look is unlike any other mahogany 

in the entire world.” 

Only great things can come from a 

venture that includes Circle Strings and 

StewMac. 

We will see you on Sunday afternoon 

of the Artisan Guitar Show at 3:00 PM 

when some amazingly fortunate guitar 

enthusiast will take ownership of this 

beautiful guitar. Remember, you must 

be present to win! 

The Iris Guitar Company is the vision 

of guitar maker Adam Buchwald of 

Circle Strings. Adam wanted the great 

musicians who could not afford an 

expensive hand-crafted guitar to have 

access to quality instruments that are 

affordable. Each Iris Guitar is made 

by hand in Burlington, Vermont in 

the same small shop as Circle Strings 

and Creston Guitars. Circle Strings is 

known and respected by players and 

collectors alike; Iris Guitars feature 

the same fine attention to detail and 

quality. The build process of the Iris 

line has been streamlined by focusing 

on a single model with limited options 

and this has allowed Adam to create 

a quality instrument that is affordable. 

This simple philosophy will help to 

make a more affordable version of 

already incredible instruments keep 

coming out of the same shop for years 

to come. For more information, please 

visit www.irisguitarcompany.com. 



The 

Tree 

James Brill of StewMac 

StewMac is proud to have 

supplied all of the woods 

and materials for this remarkable 

build. The mahogany 

used for this stunning guitar is from 

our own stash of The Tree. 

More than any other wood, the mahogany 

of The Tree has become nearly 

mythical to builders and players alike. 

The story of The Tree is a true wild jungle 

adventure. 

The Tree—a figure like no other 

The Tree was a massive 500-year-old 

mahogany located in the Chiquibul 

Jungle of Belize. More than just a typical 

straight-grained mahogany, The 

Tree takes figured wood to a whole 

new level. 

What is it that makes this wood so 

unique? The rarity comes from the fact 

that we only know of a single mahogany 

tree with this intensity of quilt. Every 

inch is covered with dense, three-dimensional 

movement. More than just 

“figured” or “flamed”, The Tree exhibits 

the even more rare “tortoise shell” 

figure and “rolling sausage quilt”. 

Quilt this concentrated is rare for most 

woods, even more so for mahogany. 

The fight and recovery 

Before it was known for its amazing 

figure, it was first desired by loggers 

solely for its massive size. In 1965 the 

original loggers, cutting with hand 

axes, started to chip away at the enormous 

10-foot diameter base. It was 

slow going with such limited tools, and 

took weeks of chopping one axe swing 

at a time. But The Tree would not go 

without a fight. 

After the arduous chopping, The 

Tree finally started to give way—but in 

the wrong direction. The giant 100-foot 

tall mahogany fell backward, and violently 

tumbled down a ravine to rest on 

the jungle floor. The loggers were unable 

to move the massive log out of the 


ravine and abandoned The Tree to rot. 

Ten years later, Robert Novak was 

made aware of this fantastic wood 

while he was living in Belize. With just 

one look at the intense figuring in his 

small sample, he knew he had to find 

The Tree. After securing more modern 

logging equipment and an experienced 

team, he began the quest to 

locate the log in the late 1970s. 

After endless searching through the 

jungle, Novak finally found The Tree 

and began the daunting task of processing 

it into usable timber. Due to 

its massive size and remote location, 

this was not a simple operation. Novak 

and his team chopped and dragged 

The Tree for miles through the barely 

accessible jungle just one small section 

at a time, and then had to float each 

section 90 miles down the river to the 

closest mill. 

From raw wood to guitars 

What makes this wood even more 

rare is that only a small portion was 

sold to luthiers, initially most went to 

custom furniture makers. There are 

thought to be less than 200 acoustic 

guitar sets of The Tree remaining 

worldwide. 

It was not until the late 1980s and 

early 1990s when boutique builders 

like Tom Ribbecke, Richard Hoover, 

and Harvey Leach began making showpieces 

from The Tree that guitar lovers 

became aware of this incredible wood. 

In the last 20 years with the explosion 

in boutique guitar building and the 

growth of the internet, more builders 

and customers have been able to see 

this beautiful wood, behold its uniqueness, 

and want to experience it. 

Once only seen in the dark corner of 

a guitar show and discussed in hushed 

tones, more and more makers have finally 

been able to start their own builds 

with this breathtaking wood. 

Over the last year, StewMac has 

been adding to our WOODSTAX collection 

of exotic and rare woods, and 

we have been fortunate to have a limited 

supply of The Tree. We are happy 

to be stewards for this amazing wood 

and bring it to the guitar market. 

STEAMING OUT A DENT ACTION ADJUSTMENT STAINING 

BOARD ROUTING FOR BINDING FIXING A WARPED TOP C 

A TRUSS ROD CHANNEL ADJUSTING PICKUP HEIGHT INST 

ING NEW PICKUPS REWIRING A GUITAR LEVELING FRETS 

CROWNING FRETS POLISHING FRETS INSTALLING A SKIN 

JO HEAD SHIMMING A NECK FIXING A CRACKED SOUNDBO 

FIXING A SCRATCHED FINISH DROP FILLING A FINISH INST 

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Kalamazoo 

Gals: 

The Story of the Unsung Women 

Who Built Gibson’s “Banner” 

Guitar during WWII. 

by John Thomas 

“Only a Gibson is Good Enough,” 

proclaim Carl Kress, Nick Lucas, Rudy Vallee, and 

other leading musicians of the early twentieth 

century. Grinning broadly and holding shiny new 

Gibson guitars, nearly every famous guitarist of 

that era peers from the pages of Gibson’s 1936 

catalog, holding the only instruments that “meet 

the demands of the day.” Moreover, intones the 

catalog, “Ask any guitar player, whether he is just 

a beginner or high salaried artist, what kind of a 

guitar he is playing, and then notice the feeling of 

pride in his voice when he answers, ‘A Gibson.’” 

The “Good Enough” slogan moved from the 

ad copy of Gibson’s marketers to the mouths of 

its artist endorsers, and on to the pages of Gibson’s 

catalogs, and by 1942 it had come to rest on 

the golden banners appearing on the headstocks 

of Gibson’s World War II flattop guitars. There it 

would reside for four short years, and then vanish 

sometime in 1945. 

It is here that our mystery begins. Why did 

the “Banner” disappear? Was it because rival 

Epiphone touted its guitars as suitable for those 

for whom “Good Enough Isn’t Good Enough”? 

Was it the result of management and ownership 

changes at World War II’s end? Was it a signal that 

the company would embark in a new direction 

with the return of its work force after the war? Or, 

does the explanation lie in a confluence of these 

factors? 

This mystery runs much deeper than a silkscreened 

company motto, though. The guitars 

that were graced with the Banner are some of the 

finest steel string instruments ever built. Those 

from the period 1942 to 1945 are not only unique 

in having that golden Banner; they are unique in 

construction and tone. They are more delicately 

built, perhaps more refined, than their pre-war 

predecessors and post-war successors, sporting 

thinner bracing and top and back plates and an 

overall lighter construction. Indeed, the Banner 

guitars embody a watershed in Gibson’s development 

of its flattop models. After a little over 

a decade of experimentation with the bracing 

that reinforces a guitar’s top (and thus influences 

its sound), Gibson settled on a configuration 

that persists in its instruments to this day. Moreover, it 

introduced the new architecture in a new line of guitars 

that began shipment during the trying days of the Second 

World War. 

How was Gibson able to shine during one of the darkest 

periods of American civilian industry? The authors of 

Gibson’s Fabulous Flattops offer the conventional explanation: 

“[T]hough nearly 90% of Gibson’s work force 

was taken from guitar production and put to work on war 

contracts, the 10% remaining were the company’s most 

seasoned craftsmen.” 

Hmmm? A quick glance at the company photos of the 

workforce during the war years reveals that nearly every 

one of those “craftsmen” was actually craftswoman. Yes, 

nearly every single luthier employed at the Gibson Company 

during World War II was a woman. Indeed, at a 1944 

meeting of the Stringed Instrument Manufacturers Subcommittee 

of the nation’s War Production Board, Gibson 

General Manager Guy Hart announced that the “plant is 

now being run almost entirely by women.” 

The altered workforce gender balance did not adversely 

impact Gibson’s productivity. Despite shortages of raw 

materials and the demands of wartime contracts to produce 

aircraft and radio parts, those women still managed 

to produce nearly 25,000 musical instruments, including 

over 9,000 of those “Banner” flattop guitars. So, in that 

confidential meeting of the War Production Board Subcommittee 

was the company’s General Manager bragging 

about his workforce? No, he was complaining. In 

public, the company simply denied that it was building 

guitars. Its wartime advertisements asserted that because 

it “had to convert almost 100%” from producing “musical 

instruments to intricate parts of metal,” it had ceased guitar 

production entirely. It claimed that it would turn back 

to musical instrument manufacture upon “the safe return 

of our boys at the front.” 

That’s right—although Gibson was able to build and 

sell tens of thousands of guitars during WWII, it nonetheless 

disavowed making them. The passage of time 

has rendered the story even more curious. In 1973, Julius 

Bellson, who was Gibson’s personnel director at that 

time and thus oversaw the hiring and retention of those 

women, published a history of the company in which he 

contended that the challenges of WWII “forced us to stop 

the manufacture of musical instruments.” Since that publication, 

musical instrument historians have been repeat- 




ing Bellson’s erroneous claim. 

When those women walked through the doors 

of Gibson’s factory at 225 Parsons Street in Kalamazoo, 

Michigan in January 1942, at the precise 

moment that Glenn Miller’s I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo 

topped the Hit Parade, that little golden 

Banner slid right onto the headstocks of the guitars. 

And when the “boys” returned to reclaim 

their jobs, the Banner disappeared. If you are fortunate, 

and you find an old Gibson guitar bearing 

that Banner, you are holding in your hands the 

product of those forgotten craftswomen. Despite 

the contemporaneous denial and revisionist history, 

the evidence of the handiwork of these women, 

the Kalamazoo Gals, endures. 

No one has previously noted this, and no one 

has taken the time to try to interview the surviving 

women luthiers. A myriad of questions comes to 

mind. How were they trained? Did they use different 

techniques than their male predecessors? How 

did they feel when ceding their jobs back to the 

men? Where are these women now? How do they 

feel about their anonymity? What do they think 

their legacy should be? 

The Case of the Mysterious Banner Guitars does 

not end with the guitars’ builders; the guitars themselves 

have also been slow to reveal their secrets. 

Gibson maintained few records during the war 

years. If you’re lucky enough to find a Banner Gibson, 

what you see is what you get. True, there are 

some catalogs from the post-war era that depict 

the Banner guitars, but they are chock-full of 

inaccuracies. Many models were never 

depicted in a photograph and the 

images that the catalogs do present 

were often re-touched examples 

from prior years. Sometimes they 

display constellations of features 

that have never been seen on 

actual guitars. In fact, the guitars 

themselves all seem to be one-off 

instruments. 

Read the available literature, surf 

the Web, join in any of the online forums, 

and head off to find a Banner 

Gibson. Chances are that the guitar 

that you come across won’t quite fit 

the description that you’ve envisioned. 

Back and side woods vary, as does neck 

construction. Indeed, it may be more 

difficult to find two Banner Gibsons that 

are alike than it is to find a one-of-a-kind 

collector’s piece. 

If you do find a Banner Gibson, you will likely not 

be able to determine precisely when it was made. 

The Gibson Company is not like their main competition—the 

Martin Company, a company that has 

maintained meticulous records over the years. Find 

the serial number on a Martin, log onto their online 

data base, and you’ll discover the precise date 

when your guitar was built, whether it was made in 

1898 or 1998. 

You’ll not have such an easy time dating a Gibson, 

since the company failed to use a consistent 

numbering system. Sometimes they neglected to 

put any identifying numbers on a guitar, and at other 

times the instrument had two completely unique 

numbers. That’s right. Two different numbers. Gibson 

used an equally unpredictable serial number 

system on its high-end, carved, archtop guitars, 

and employed a beguiling Factory Order Number 

(FON) system that it put on batches of most other 

guitars. Gibson sometimes used both numbering 

systems on a single guitar, and, to add to the confusion, 

neither numbering system is sequential. If 

your guitar has that golden Banner, then you can 

assume that it appeared, apparently out of thin 

air, during the war years when Gibson claimed it 

wasn’t building guitars. But, if you want to know 

more about your instrument and those who made 

it, you’ll need to conduct a serious inquiry. 

So, grab your tweed jacket, magnifying glass 

and pipe, don your deerstalker cap, and make like 

Sherlock Holmes. Join author John Thomas in his 

quest to solve the Case of the Mysterious Banner 

Gibsons. Using photographs, historical documents, 

and video clips of his interviews, John will tell the 

story of finding and interviewing twelve women who 

appeared in Gibson’s 1944 workforce photograph. 

He will also present X-ray evidence that demonstrates 

that the “Banner” Gibsons are more refined 

than those instruments built by the male 

predecessors and successors to the 

Kalamazoo Gals. 

As novelist Jonathan Kellerman put 

it in his foreword to Kalamazoo 

Gals, “The contributions of Rosie 

the Riveter and her cohorts to 

the survival of American manufacturing 

during the “Good War” are 

well known and beyond profound. 

But until now the contributions of 

a band of intrepid, unpretentious, 

stunningly skillful, thoroughly 

American women to both the war 

effort and to the endurance of one 

of the greatest musical instrument 

manufacturers ever known has gone 

unheralded. Let’s hear it for Jenny, 

Mary Jane, Delores, Helen, Alice, Ruth 

and their cohorts. Kudos to John Thomas 

for telling their story.” 

WELCOMES THE 

ARTISAN GUITAR SHOW 

COMMUNITY 

Pre-order your signed copy 

of Acquired of the Angels 

by Paul Schmidt 

ANNOUNCING THE 3RD EDITION: 

THE LIVES AND WORKS OF JOHN D’ANGELICO 

AND JAMES L. D’AQUISTO 

Guitars made by John D’Angelico and James L. D’Aquisto are regarded as 

the pinnacle of 20 th century lutherie. Paul Schmidt has written the defi nitive 

study of these masters, and the 3 rd Edition, published by DHR, features: 

• The complete story of the makers with new interviews and stories 

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For over 30 years, DHR has helped players and collectors, both right and 

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Our shop is located at 577 Delta Ave, Suite C in Cincinnati, Ohio 45226 | 513-260-8260 


A Very Special Session with Brent Mason 


In 

1974, 

the legendary band Steely Dan quit touring and 

became a highly-successful studio-only band. At 

that time, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen chose 

the approach of recording with only highly-talented 

studio session players. Using a collective of 

session players rather than a permanent band was 

not necessarily a unique approach in the recording 

industry. 

The modern history of recorded music was 

largely built on the backs of session players. These 

are the unsung heroes of modern music known as 

“sideman.” They have names that most have never 

heard such as Hal Blaine, James Jamerson, Carol 

Kaye, Tommy Tedesco, and Eddie Willis. A few 

of these “sideman” like Glen Campbell and Leon 

Russell emerged to enjoy successful solo careers, 

but for the most part these musicians lived in the 

shadows of the recording industry. 

The reality is that session players from informal 

collectives like the Wrecking Crew in Los Angeles 

and The Funk Brothers on Motown Records have 

played on more hit songs than literally anyone in 

the music business. As an example, Wrecking Crew 

drummer Hal Blaine, has played on more than 140 

top-ten hits with approximately 40 of them being 

number-one songs. In recent years, these fine musicians 

have been honored in the documentaries 

Hired Gun, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, 

and The Wrecking Crew (produced by Denny Tedesco 

who is the son of session guitar legend and 

by John Detrick 

Wrecking Crew member 

Tommy Tedesco). 

Among these unsung 

heroes of modern music 

is Nashville-based guitarist 

Brent Mason. 

Brent has quietly built a career as a session guitarist 

that is largely unparalleled in the industry. 

He is a Grammy Award winner, a 12-time winner 

of the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Guitarist 

of the Year Award, and a two-time winner of the 

CMA Award Musician of the Year. Brent has played 

on more than one-thousand albums and is credited 

with playing on 1,782 hit singles -- a number 

that continues to grow. Somehow, while amassing 

these awards and accomplishments, Brent has also 

released two of his own albums, worked as a producer, 

and also holds several credits as a songwriter. 

On a mid-winter Saturday morning I had the 

good fortune to talk with Brent about his life and 

career. Brent was born into a musical family in Van 

Wert, Ohio; it is almost as though he was destined 

for the life of a professional musician. His parents 

played in a popular country band and both were 

prominent on a tri-state music scene that included 

Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. The Mason family 

home was often filled music and the musicians who 

came there to rehearse. Brent jokes about being 

treated to Buddy Rich “solos every morning of my 

life” by his brother Randy who was the drummer of 

the Mason family band. 

Music was always a part of his life. The family 

home was filled with the sounds of a “diverse, 

eclectic collection of music” that included Louis 

Armstrong, Merle Haggard, and Ray Charles. The 

mainstays were players like Chet Atkins and Jerry 

Reed. All families have their stories, and a favorite 

in the Mason home was about three-year-old Brent 

“piling up pillows” to reach inside the exceedingly 

tall family record player. As Brent tells the story, he 

was not tall enough to see inside the record player, 

so “I looped my arm up over and popped the 

arm down on my favorite song -- Mack the Knife by 

Bobby Darin.” 

Brent was eight years old when he began to take 

the guitar seriously. His parents provided unyielding 

support and encouragement. In conversation, 

Brent recalls being captivated by the playing of 

Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed who “played the bass 

line and melody lines together.” Brent’s father was 

a fingerstyle player and Brent remembers being 

inspired and asking about the Jerry Reed playing 

style “Dad, is he doing that all at once?” When it 

came time to further Brent’s career, the family never 

considered Los Angeles and New York – it was 

Nashville all the way. 

When Brent turned 15, his mother loaded him 

into a Ford Econoline van and headed to Nashville. 

He told me this great story about pulling into the 

rear parking lot of RCA Studios and seeing Chet 

Atkins walk across the lot to the studio. His mother, 

in her enthusiasm and excitement, sent Brent out 

of the van to approach Chet. Brent recalls being a 

“nervous wreck.” He followed Chet toward the studio 

playing like a “one-man Mariachi band” -- just 

to have the door close without any acknowledgement 

from the legendary country guitar player. 

Their paths would cross again. 

Brent also told the story of his meeting with an 

A&R representative from RCA around this same 

time. He had rehearsed and flawlessly played a 

complicated Jerry Read song “verbatim or notefor-note.” 

The executive was polite and encouraging, 

but nonetheless recommended that Brent “go 

home and finish school.” At the time, the industry 

was looking for “commercial artists” and not necessarily 

flawless technical players. Brent mentioned 

that at 16 he was probably pretty young to begin 

a music career, but noted that 15-16 is probably 

now a common age for young musicians to pursue 

their artistry. 

Brent arrived in Nashville permanently at the age 

of 22 and that is when the rest of this story truly began 

to unfold. Nashville was a completely different 

experience for a young musician. Back in Ohio, he 

was respected as the finest player in town, but every 

small town had its own guitar prodigy. In Nashville, 

all those amazing players were pursuing the 

same goal in one town and the competition was 

intense. Brent muses “It was just like the John Sebastian 

song Nashville Cats. There were thousands 

of great players in Nashville. That is exactly what I 

experienced, but the competition just lit a fire in 

me and made me a better player. You have to go 

through a lot of rejection and everything is about 

timing, but the worst thing you could do was give 

up.” 

At that time, Brent was playing at the Stagecoach 

Lounge in Nashville with a band that he describes 

as “musician’s musicians.” Because of the 

talent of the band, the lounge constantly had important 

people coming to listen. Touring musicians 

would come off the road and come to hear them 

play. The audience included not just the touring 

musicians, but country music fans and Music Row 

executives alike. He describes the time period as 

being filled with nervousness because you had to 

play “phenomenal every night and that was a lot 

of pressure.” Among the important people who 

would frequent the Stagecoach Lounge to hear 

the band was Chet Atkins. Chet would often bring 

friends and associates such as Mark Knopfler and 

George Benson. 

Most careers have a turning or tipping point, 

and Brent’s career was no different. He was living in 

a small duplex when the telephone rang and it was 

Chet Atkins calling. It was around 1985 and Chet 

was recording his Stay Tuned album that would 

feature guitar legends George Benson, Larry Carlton, 

Earl Klugh, Mark Knopfler, Steve Lukather, and 

Dean Parks. Chet was inviting Brent to join him on a 

track with Mark Knopfler. Brent recalls Chet asking 

him if he could be available on Thursday; “So, trying 

to be cool, I said ‘let me check my schedule.’” 

Brent laughed as he told me “My schedule was a 

calendar thumbtacked to the wall and it looked like 

a snowstorm. I told Chet ‘yeah, I can do that. I think 


it will be good.’” 

Brent recalled the recording experience -- “It 

was nerve-wracking to sit in front of Chet Atkins 

no more than an arm’s length away. My hands were 

shaking.” He went on to say working with Chet 

“put the word out and gave me a little prestige. I 

sort of parlayed my career from that experience.” 

From there his reputation flourished and grew. Respected 

producer Kyle Lehning, who was producing 

Dan Seals at the time, was another interesting 

connection in those early days. Kyle did not call 

Brent for the “tracking” dates because he was not 

sure that Brent was up to par just yet, but he often 

involved Brent in the final production recording. 

Brent ended up playing solos, fills, and harmony 

parts and that diversity showed the recording 

world that he was ready for the role of prominent 

session player. 

It was interesting to talk with Brent about the 

evolution or transformation of country music during 

the span of his career. It is his view that country 

music has always been a little in awe of pop music 

if only for its commercial popularity. Brent sees 

modern country music right now as nuanced with 

a pop sound and even hip-hop. Regardless, he 

refers to the traditional sound of Merle Haggard, 

George Jones, Hank Williams, and Loretta Lynn as 

representing a “pride and integrity” that is stronger 

than anything in music. At times, he feared that 

modern traditionalists like George Strait and Alan 

Jackson might be the “Last of the Mohicans.” He 

is convinced though that the audience is always 

going to drive the music, and so long as there is 

demand for the traditional music, it will remain. In 

his words, “I hope it never goes away…” 

Just as interesting was Brent’s contrasting the 

session player to the touring musician. Dating back 

to the 1960s, there has been some resentment between 

the two factions. Touring musicians would 

spend lengthy periods of time on the road playing 

the music but return home and not be considered 

good enough to record the music. Many touring 

musicians were clearly good enough for the studio, 

but some lacked the confidence to pursue 

work as a session player. After all, when you make 

a mistake on stage you just keep playing, but in the 

recording studio a mistake is captured and must 

be corrected. Other talented touring musicians 

were excluded from the recording process in favor 

of session players simply because that was how 

things were done. Brent acknowledged the hardship 

of touring for musicians who spend years on 

the road with long periods of separation from their 

families. He commented, “for a session player, often 

the biggest complaint of the work day is the 

traffic getting home to your family at night.” 

As with everything, technology has changed the 

music industry. In Brent’s words, “anyone with a 

pre-amp and Pro Tools can contribute to a recording 

now from home.” These days most artists have 

studios in their homes and that provides great 

opportunity for touring musicians to become studio 

players as well. Technology has also bridged 

the gap between the quality of studio and stage 

performances. Tuned vocals, playing to recorded 

loops, and presenting isolated recorded tracks 

during stage performance as though they are live 

have made the concert experience sound more 

polished, produced, and professional. 

Brent was quick to point out that technology 

has also helped to engage the audience in new or 

different ways. He mentioned documentaries that 

show music fans the overall scope and complexity 

of the recording process and how often people 

have commented on the interesting backstories. 

He also laughed about people who would say “I 

thought you played with Alan Jackson? I saw him 

at the fairgrounds and you weren’t in the band.” 

Even after Brent would explain the differences between 

the recording and touring aspects of the 

music industry, some well-meaning people would 

still reply “Just hang in there. I’m sure you’ll get to 

where you want to be.” Others would see Brent on 

awards shows and immediately understand that he 

is exactly where he wants to be. 

I asked Brent if there was a Nashville-based 

Wrecking Crew – a group of musicians that if all 

called together could make magic. He mentioned 

players such as keyboardist Matt Rollings, bassists 

Michael Rhodes and Glenn Worf, and drummers 

Eddie Bayers and Lonnie Wilson. He also commented 

that the session process can be very different 

now than in his early years. Now he is often 

called to a job with no indication of what music 

style he is going to be playing; that uncertainty requires 

bringing 30 guitars, amps, and the associated 

effects to a session just to be ready for what 

might come. Thankfully, cartage teams are there to 

provide the much-needed support. 

I asked Brent about his guitar collection and it 

contains 50-60 guitars with 5-6 of the instruments 

in frequent playing rotation. The focus of his collection 

is more on vintage instruments because 

they are what he loves. He also mentioned that 

the voice of each instrument serves a distinct purpose. 

We also discussed the possible barriers to 

using hand-crafted guitars in the studio. It seems 

that producers often have a specific sound in mind 

and experimentation with the voicing of one-of-akind 

instruments, regardless of how appropriate 

and beautiful they might be, just does not fit the 

often-strict schedules and budgets of the studio 

environment. 

Brent has been named one of the top ten session 

guitarists in the world along with players like 

Jimmy Page, Larry Carlton, Tommy Tedesco, and 

Steve Cropper. After years of approaching life with 

the mindset of a workaholic, like most of us, Brent 

is figuring out what really matters. Even more important, 

he is taking the time to enjoy those things. 

In his words, “We all sort through our lessons and 

mistakes and at 59 you would think I would have it 

figured out. To look across a rippling ocean in Hawaii 

or the calm of a lake here at home and see the 

majesty and magic is really not that hard.” Most 

important for Brent is simply appreciating and enjoying 

the ones he loves. To quote the Counting 

Crows, Brent Mason is “holding on to these moments 

as they pass…” 

A Special Tribute For Brent Mason 

Tim Bram knew from a very young age that he wanted to work 

with his hands. At the tender age of 14, he combined his love 

of music and a passion for woodworking to build his first guitar. 

From that day on, he has strived to make great guitars that are 

recognized for the fineness of the materials used and for precision 

craftsmanship. 

Tim is a master craftsman with more than 30 years of woodworking 

experience. He is respected for creating one-of-a-kind 

furniture masterpieces quite often created simply from the vision 

and aesthetic wishes of his clientele. 

The guitar was never far from his mind 

during the years that he was building 

fine furniture. In Tim’s words, “Now, my 

focus is on building beautiful, playable 

and versatile great sounding guitars 

that I am proud to put my name on.” 

Although Tim Bram Guitars creates 

different styles of instruments including 

its KB2 16” Oval Hole Archtop, it 

is the hand-carved archtop inspired by 

the American Telecaster® that has the 

guitar world taking note. It is this very 

Telecaster®-inspired Tribute archtop 

that first caught the attention of the Artisan 

Guitar Show. 

Guitarists Tim Lerch describes his 

playing experience with the hand-carved archtop by saying “The 

craftsmanship, woodworking and designs are rather remarkable. 

A joy to play and a beauty to behold.” Guitarist Tom Lagana, another 

fan of hand-carved Bram archtops commented, “Tim Bram 

creates guitars for both the professional musician and the collector 

alike. Upon first glance, the physical beauty and craftsmanhip 

are apparent. It is only upon playing the instrument that the true 

beauty is revealed.” 

In conversation, Tim once said that if he could have just one 

guitar player in the world play his guitars that it would be Nashville-legend 

Brent Mason. After a 

few e-mails and telephone calls as 

well as a trip to Nashville by Tim 

Bram, Brent will now be receiving 

his very own Telecaster®-inspired, 

hand-carved Tim Bram Guitars archtop. 

On Friday evening, during 

the Brent Mason VIP concert performance, 

Tim will present Brent 

with his very own Tim Bram Guitars 

instrument. Please join us for 

this great moment in Artisan Guitar 

Show history. 



Amplifying 

Quality 

Instruments 

by Peter Henriksen and 

Gerry Humphrey 

Amplifying Quality Instruments 

by Peter Henriksen 

and Gerry Humphrey 

You only need an 

amp for performing, so other people 

can hear you playing, right? 

Well, it’s certainly important in that 

regard, but amps are also popular 

with lone guitarists as they improve 

their skills and continue their quest for 

the ultimate tone. Playing a wonderful 

guitar through a high-quality amplifier is a great 

way to develop finesse and touch with your fingering 

style as you don’t need to lean into the instrument 

itself too hard. What sounds better than 

a sweet guitar? That same guitar, only louder, 

played through a really nice amp. 

No matter what kind of guitar you’re playing, 

and no matter what style, as soon as you plug a guitar 

into an amplifier, you’re technically an “electric 

guitar player”. This is particularly problematic with 

higher-end guitars, because you can plug a $500 

budget guitar into a great amplifier and make it 

sound 

great, but as soon as you 

plug an upper end instrument into a cheap amplifier, 

any nuanced qualities so painstakingly built 

into that guitar are completely lost. The key to 

building a great amplifier is to take into account 

that the greatest attributes of a quality instrument 

are subtle but are the most important and necessary, 

and the highest compliment is to have someone 

say that the amp “sounds like my guitar, only 

louder”. 

Luthiers can spend years working on a single 

instrument; they spend a lifetime mastering their 

craft and, like all great artists, pour their heart, soul 

and every fiber of their being into their work. Installing 

a pickup on an otherwise acoustic instrument 

with the intent of amplifying that signal through a 

variety of technologies manufactured by different 

companies in an attempt to replicate the acoustic 

sound of the instrument becomes a daunting proposition 

for the amplifier designer, player and the 

luthier alike. No one wants the sound of the instrument 

mis-represented. Building 

an amplifier to faithfully replicate 

the sound of a great variety of instruments 

is no simple task, and 

there are as many approaches as 

there are companies out there doing 

it, but they all share some basic 

principles and understanding 

these can help musicians choose 

which type of amplifier works best 

for their instruments. 

The first element in the signal 

chain is a pickup, microphone, or 

combination thereof. The difficulty 

with amplifiers is that you need 

to accommodate not only different 

takes on a pickup design, but 

completely different types of pickups. 

There are so many different 

Monteleone Stingray 

choices for generating a signal, but they basically 

boil down to three different common types: Electromagnetic 

pickups, piezo-electric pickups, and 

microphones. Most guitars use only one of these 

types, but in acoustic guitars a blended system of 

piezo-electric and microphones are not uncommon 

and adding a piezo-electric pickup to a guitar with 

an electromagnetic pickup has become a design 

choice to get a different type of response (the character 

of which depends on who you ask and how 

it’s implemented). In lay terms, an electromagnetic 

pickup translates the vibration of the string into a 

signal, whereas a piezo-electric pickup translates 

the vibration of the guitar’s top, and a microphone 

utilizes sound pressure from the instrument itself to 

create signal. 

Most archtop and solid-body electric guitars 

have the familiar electromagnetic type of pickups. 

These come in many different variations themselves, 

but are for the most part fairly standard 

outputs and impedances which have been used 

for a long time, so while these pickups can vary 

greatly in design and tone, amplifying the signal 

isn’t quite as tricky as with piezo-electric pickups 

or microphones. From the luthier’s perspective, 

however, these can be the least desirable choice 

because most types require drilling holes into the 

top of the guitar which changes the acoustic nature 

of the guitar itself. Consequently, many opt 

for a “floating” electromagnetic pickup, typically 

attached to the neck so that the top of the guitar 

is unmolested. This is best for the acoustic nature 

of the guitar, but for the most part floating pickups 

are more difficult to amplify because they aren’t 

anchored as well to the instrument and tend to 

output less fidelity and lower signal levels. Building 

an input gain control into an amplifier, or two separate 

inputs to accommodate lower output pickups 

can help alleviate this issue. 

Traditionally piezo-electric pickups have been 

the flattop acoustic guitar pickup of choice as they 

translate the vibration of the instrument into signal 

and so, properly designed, tend to be a much truer 

representation of the actual sound coming from 

the guitar. In the past these types of pickups were 

always best with a preamp before sending the signal 

to an amplifier; however Piezo-electric designs 

have come a very long way in recent years, and 

most no longer require an outboard preamp to 

work well with a guitar amplifier. As with electromagnetic 

pickups, designing an amplifier knowing 

that there will be a variable amount of input signal 

coming in is key. 

Microphones are perhaps the most difficult input 

device to handle from an amplifier perspective 

because microphones are most prone to feedback, 

may require phantom power and generally output 

a low impedance balanced signal which traditional 

guitar amplifiers are not equipped to deal with. 



Most solid-state amplifiers with either an acoustic-focused 

design or multi-purpose, multi-channel 

design are going to have a special mic input and 

phantom power. Otherwise, it’s best to use a special 

mic preamp or, in cases where a combination 

of a pickup and a microphone are being used, a 

blending device will condition the signal. Many 

pickup/mic systems have this blend control built 

into the guitar, or are sold with the device. 

Once the signal is generated, it is now off to the 

amplifier. There are three basic components to 

an amplifier: the preamp, the power amp and the 

speaker. 

The preamp is where most of the character of 

an instrument amplifier is developed. The primary 

job of the preamp is to take the signal sent from 

the instrument and bring it up to the appropriate 

level for the power amp to do its job. It is in this 

stage where the tone controls are used along with 

the preamp gain to condition the instrument’s signal. 

It is also at this stage where a lot of unwelcome 

sounds and distortions can be introduced. 

Often acoustic instruments, because they use 

piezo-electric pickups, require or work better with 

an additional preamp because they don’t output 

enough signal that a traditional guitar amp can accommodate. 

Modern amplifiers and piezo electric 

pickups are high enough quality that an additional 

outboard preamp isn’t really necessary, but there 

are a lot of very high-quality devices designed to 

improve, enhance or just clean up the signal on its 

way to the amplifier. 

Most preamps have some type of tone controls. 

Musicians are universally familiar with a basic tone 

control, where you turn up or down the bass and/ 

or treble of an instrument. These passive shunting 

circuits are standard in almost any kind of audio 

amplification because they are the most intuitive 

way to change a signal to suit personal preference. 

Beyond that, there are also active controls and 

equalization to further fine tune the signal. One 

reason it’s important to have an amplifier designed 

specifically with an acoustic guitar in mind, is that 

general market amplifiers are designed with a 

“scoop” built into their preamp, meaning the midrange 

frequencies are artificially turned down because 

when playing rock on an electric guitar those 

frequencies can become “muddy” and unpleasant. 

With acoustic guitars, or archtops and jazz music, 

you need those frequencies because you want a 

much more piano-like response. 

The preamp is really where there can be a real 

“art” to audio design. Different components can 

make a difference in whether something is dark 

or bright, even if they have the same specification. 

Just like choosing a type of wood, choosing 

a brand and type of capacitor can change the 

sound; for example going from a less expensive 

type of capacitor to a polypropelene capacitor will 

add brilliance to a sound, but the finer elements 

can even change greatly depending on the manufacturer 

and the individual components tolerances. 

Even something as simple as a different batch 

can make a difference in the sound and although 

subtle, not necessarily insignificant. This is typically 

where math and engineering take a backseat to using 

one’s ears to make design decisions. 

The next stage in amplification is the power amp. 

Power amplifier designs are a little more straight 

forward and have traditionally been broken into 

classes (A, A/B, etc…) but in the simplest terms, 

these days there are three basic types of power 

amplifiers on the market: Tube amps, traditional 

transistor solid-state amps, and class D (switching) 

amplifiers. 

Tube amplifiers are the oldest of the technologies, 

and their design is an art unto itself -- every 

little thing matters including where wires are 

placed when connecting components together. 

Solid state power amplifier architecture uses a 

transistor as opposed to a vacuum tube, reducing 

weight, size, cost and maintenance, but requiring 

more complex circuits. Most recently, class D amplifiers 

have become more available and are the 

predominant amplifier on the market for acoustic 

instruments as they put out the most efficient power. 

In the beginning, class D amplifiers had both 

quality and fidelity issues as well as noise problems 

when applied to instrument amplifiers (as opposed 

to consumer audio applications), but those problems 

are largely a thing of the past. 

When designing an amplifier for acoustic instruments, 

or any instrument where you do not want 

the signal to contain any distortion, you want as 

much power as is practical. The more power you 

have, the more volume and dynamic control you 

can get from the instrument without mud or distortion; 

however that brings with it size and weight. 

Class D amps are the most economical way to do 

this, but can be missing the analog warmth you get 

from a tube amp design. As with the preamp, this 

is where designs need the attention of the designer’s 

ears as much as anything. 

If weight is not so much of a concern, then a 

well-designed tube amp can deliver a few things 

that aren’t possible with even the most sophisticated 

digital circuitry. One of the unique characteristics 

of vacuum tube technology is that tubes can 

produce harmonics naturally. Why might this be 

important, and doesn’t this constitute some type 

of distortion of the input signal? A purist would say 

yes – it’s harmonic distortion, but when you take 

into consideration the loss of the “total” sound and 

nuances that a single-point pickup system doesn’t 

deliver to the amp, then it’s a reasonable trade-off. 

When playing your favorite acoustic guitar, 

you’re hearing all kinds of sounds coming not just 

from the sound hole, but from the sides, the back, 

the neck and the strings themselves. A lot of the 

complexity of that sound is lost when you use a 

single-point, or even a dual, pickup system that 

samples the sound from a very narrow space on 

the guitar. 

Vacuum tubes help by reintroducing some of the 



harmonics that are lost, giving a very natural sound 

that has a certain sparkle to it. 

Designing a tube amp from the ground up, specifically 

for an acoustic instrument, is a much different 

animal than a traditional tube amp for an electric 

guitar. Maximum headroom at every point in 

the signal chain is key, as is using very high quality 

components, thoughtful cabinet design and the 

best speaker/tweeter combination available. 

Choosing the right speakers for an amp is an 

area where there truly are no wrong answers. Some 

are just better than others, and sometimes it can 

be fairly subjective . Speakers can be cheap, expensive, 

bright, dark, fast or slow in response, and 

as long as they are within the specs of the amplifier 

and cabinet design, it’s all a matter of taste. Typically 

for acoustic and archtop guitars, the idea is to 

use a speaker that has a full range and flat response 

so as not to introduce too much of the speaker’s 

own character into the sound. Often times speakers 

used in these amps weren’t originally intended 

for guitar amplifiers, but rather PA systems. 

For an acoustic guitar, it’s best to use a hi-fi quality 

speaker, overrated in terms of power so there’s 

no possibility of breakup, and match it with a 

high-power tweeter to fill out those high frequencies. 

Like our luthier brethren, whose hard earned 

skills and carefully chosen materials set them apart 

from mass-market manufacturers, there are very 

few amplifier builders that recognize the need for 

an amp to rise to the quality of sound produced 

by a custom hand-built guitar. Playing acoustic 

doesn’t mean playing unplugged. If you love the 

sound of your guitar, you’ll love it even more with 

the right amplifier. playing unplugged. If you love 

the sound of your guitar, you’ll love it even more 

with the right amplifier. 

Your fine guitar deserves 

a fine stand. 

www. sgstands.com 



Illustration credits: 

Laura-Chanel Lesperance 

The Invisible Guitar- 

Beyond the Wooden Box 

by Michael Greenfield 

The following is meant as 

information that will afford 

the player a deeper 

understanding of the 

instrument and help 

them make informed decisions when purchasing 

an instrument. 

Where does the object end and the musical instrument 

begin? The following is a look into the 

world of the invisible guitar – the guitar we cannot 

see. 

The handmade acoustic guitar and its culture 

have become very fashionable. Consequently, 

we are being bombarded with information. Social 

media, internet discussion forums and boutique 

guitar galleries are all contributing to the cacophony. 

I did a Google search for “what makes a great 

acoustic guitar” and got 5,980,000 results!! What 

are the elements that influence a guitar’s voice? 

Rosettes? Peghead overlays? End grafts? Sound 

Ports? What about “tonewood”? 

There are more guitars being made today, by 

more people, than at any time before in history. 

The reality is that many who are making guitars today 

have made fewer than 50 instruments. They 

are blindly executing woodworking techniques to 

reproduce the options and features found on popular 

instruments. Yet they have no understanding 

of the mechanics of the instrument nor the physics 

that make the guitar work. In short: they may not 

be crafting guitars that sound good and are inspiring 

to play. 

Were the great instruments that came before us 

an accident? Or the result of purposeful, careful 

acoustic design? 

My mantra is and has alwaysbeen: if you 

want to build something new, go study at a museum 

first… so let’s do that! 

Classic Masters 

Antonio Stradivari (1644 – 1737) 

- The myth, the man, the reality: 

Antonio Stradivari apprenticed under 

and worked for Nicola Amati for 

some 20 years. The story goes that 

for Stradivari to keep his job, he had 

to produce, in part, two instruments per 

week. This means he had carved plates 

and closed boxes for some 2,000 instruments 

in the white, before even opening his 

own workshop. 

C.F. Martin Co. (Golden Era, 1929 – 1936) - It 

was the Great Depression and the famous Pennsylvania 

guitar manufacturing company was experiencing 

decreasing sales. Guitars were being built 

by journeyman instrument makers, and of course, 

the company only kept the very best of them.Had 

stockpiles of wood to choose from, so their very 

experienced guitar makers only chose the finest 

materials available. By the Golden Era, C.F. Martin 

had accrued a century of empirical instrument 

making, tweaking, refining, adjusting… 

Lloyd Loar (1886 - 1943) - Loar was a renowned 

Chicago musician and luthier. Very interested in 

physics as a teenager.Fan and student of Stradivari 

and the Cremonese violin makers. Dissatisfied with 

the commercially available instruments to him at 

the time, he began looking at how to improve them 

through physics. Employed and applied acoustic 

principles from the viol world to the instruments he 

was designing at Gibson. Responsible for incorporating 

F-holes, tuning the air chamber, tuning the 

top and back plates and tuning of the tone bars 

on the mandolins and guitars he designed at Gibson. 

Ultimately became a professor of acoustics at 

Northwestern University and taught courses on the 

physics of music. 

Modern Masters 

Sam Zygmuntowicz (who has generously given 

me permission to adapt his title: “The Invisible 

Violin”). Zygmuntowicz is the creative director of 

the Strad3D project, which The Strad Open Music 

Library called “one of the most ground-breaking 

and comprehensive studies of the violin form ever 

conceived.” It involved the first 3D laser vibration 

scanning of Stradivari and Guarneri violins, and included 

acoustic testing and CT scanning. He worked 

with Dr. George Bissinger, a long-time leader in violin 

acoustics research. Among others, Sam’s clients have 

included Joshua Bell and Isaac Stern, who owned two 

of his violins. 

After Stern died in 2001, both violins were sold at 

a Tarisio auction in 2003. Each violin surpassed the 

previous record for the highest price paid for a string 

instrument by a living maker at auction. One of the 

instruments sold was a Guarneri-model violin made 

in 1994 for Stern. That 1994 violin held the record for 

the highest price paid for a string instrument by a living 

maker at auction until the record was broken in 

October 2013. 

Joseph Curtin - Curtin is the 2005 recipient of a 

MacArthur Fellows Program. a.k.a. the “genius grant”. 

Known for using technology such as MRIs, lasers and 

other scanning devices to measure the acoustics of violins, 

to aid in his designs. He was part of the Strad3D 

Project team as well. Uses the information gathered 

to create replicas of famous antique violins, as well 

as research for more avant-garde designs including 

instruments made from carbon fiber. 

Also worked to create a digital model of the violin 

that, when played next to “the real thing”, fooled expert 

listeners in a blind test. In 2013, the most expensive 

new instrument to ever sell at auction was one of 

Curtin’s. He’s the guy who beat Sam Zygmuntowicz’s 

earlier record! 

Stefan-Peter Greiner - Greiner worked with physicist 

Dr. Heinrich Dünnwald between 1992 and 2010. Dünnwald, 

who was a renowned scientist in violin acoustics, 

closely analyzed over 1,300 violins. As part of this 

research, the two conducted the first tomographic 

study of a Stradivari and analyzed the components of 

the old Cremonese varnish, applying advanced scientific 

methods. Greiner’s ongoing research includes 

continued analyses of the sound of string instruments, 

CAT and 3D technology, dendrochronology 

of spruce, and UV-laser and infrared spectroscopy of 

historic violin varnish. 

James Ham - Ham began repairing and restoring instruments 

of the viol family in 1972. He had access 

to and repaired several thousand instruments. Began 

building new instruments incorporating carbon fiber, 

laminated ribs (balsa core), using balsa for violin and 

cello tops (some balsa exhibits low density with favorable 

damping properties for a bowed instrument). 

Creator of the “ultra-light” cello, which uses a bolt-on 

neck, laminated composite tops, carbon tube reinforced 

neck and heel and a more ergonomic body 

design. 

Of course, back in the world of the guitar, there are 

masters like Ervin Somogyi, Ken Parker, Daniel Friedrich, 

Jose Romanillos, Robert Ruck, Greg Smallman 

and many others, who take a decidedly scientific approach 

to the craft and have also examined, repaired 

and restored countless contemporary and historic instruments. 

“The adjuster” 

In the viol world, a skilled adjuster can make very 

good instruments into great instruments by adding 

mass, stiffening or removing wood from specific areas 

of the instrument or adjusting its geometry or 

sound post. A skilled adjuster can manipulate the 

instrument’s voice, subtly changing the presentation 

of a single string. Their importance in maintaining 

instruments for artists is arguably greater 

than that of the maker. 

In the world of the guitar, the adjuster (a great 

repairer/tech) can: 

•Maintain or improve intonation. 

•Correct fingerboard geometry and maintain 

fretwork (the interface between player and instrument). 

•Remove and reset a guitar’s neck angle for optimal 

geometry, which is critical to a guitar’s ultimate 

voice and proper playability, according to 

the musical style (bluegrass, jazz, fingerstyle, etc.). 

•Perform an exceptional setup, including the fabrication, 

installation and adjustment of nuts and 

saddles, which have a profound influence on the 

tone of a guitar. 

All the above share a common thread: the careful 

examination, measurement and maintenance 

of hundreds or thousands of instruments leads to 

a profound understanding of great sounding and 

playing instruments and what qualities exceptional 

musicians appreciate in them. Furthermore, taking 

a scientific approach to that measurement, learning 

to manipulate the voice and performance of 

the instrument to address players’ specific needs, 

are the elements that can contribute to the crafting 

of exceptional musical instruments. There is no 

magical unicorn dust for making world-class guitars 

or other instruments. You have to do the work. 

The guitar 

I view the guitar as a drum. Ervin Somogyi refers 

to it as an air pump, which it is. The drum, or guitar-shaped 

air pump, is a rigid rim with two thin, 

vibrating membranes on either side. Simply excite 

the membrane and the molecules stimulated by 

the vibrations carries the sound through the air. 

The more efficient the system, the better the amplified 

sound. Simple! 

Objet d’art or musical instrument? 

Sadly, I believe the musical instrument has become 

lost in the object. Many modern guitars are 

little more than bedazzled wooden boxes. At what 

point does the wooden box become a “guitar”? I 

suggest it becomes a guitar when a musician picks 

it up to play music and then it must perform as a 

conduit for the player to express themselves. 

The chain of purposeful, conscious thought (as 

described by Sam Zygmuntowicz) 

Unlike a singer, who can open their mouth and 

sounds come out, a guitarist is dependent on this 

“box of wood” in order to express themselves. 



The musician stands on stage. Their brain sends 

an impulse though their nervous system, which 

stimulates muscles to move their fingers, which 

manipulate the strings on their instrument, at their 

point of contact. The string energy animates the 

instrument’s soundboard, which moves the air inside 

the instrument through compression and refraction. 

The moving air inside and around the instrument 

travels through the air in the concert hall, 

arriving at the ear drum of the listener. The moving 

air (sound wave) exciting the listener’s ear drum 

creates an impulse, which travels to their brain and 

they hear the music! 

That which we cannot see - but can measure! 

I ask you to please think carefully about the following 

definitions in how they relate to music in 

general and the guitar specifically: 

Sound 

A sound wave is a vibration of molecules that 

travels through some medium (air) to the ear. 

Response 

A reaction of an organism or any of its parts to a 

specific stimulus. 

Resonance 

A phenomenon in which a vibrating system or 

external force drives another system to oscillate 

with greater amplitude at specific frequencies. 

What are resonant frequencies and why are they 

important in musical instruments? Why measure or 

control them in the first place? 

A resonant frequency is the natural vibrating 

frequency of an object. EVERYTHING has a resonant 

frequency (Fig. 1). When you play a note on 

an instrument that corresponds to the resonant frequency 

of one of its parts, be it the top, back or the 

air resonance (even the neck), that corresponding 

note you have played is noticeably affected. You 

can hear it. Read the definition of resonance again 

and think about this…. 

In some instances, when the note corresponding 

to the body’s air resonance is plucked (for a guitar, 

typically on the low E string between low F and 

A), it is reinforced and heard as a “stronger” note. 

Sometimes when the note is plucked, the note 

begins with an attack transient and a brief stronger-than-normal 

fundamental. Then the overtone 

series blooms, losing the note fundamental within 

the context of a chord. When a note fundamental 

does not sustain as long as its harmonic counterparts 

within a chord, the player often perceives it 

as a weaker note, or a “wolf-note”. 

Resonant frequencies are inherent in every musical 

instrument and the player can hear the slightly 

uneven response even if they do not know the 

cause. One of the challenges for a guitarmaker 

(or any instrument maker) is to produce as even a 

response as possible, everywhere on the fingerboard. 

When a guitar is handmade, there is an opportunity 

to either manipulate these resonant frequencies 

or keep track of the resonant frequencies 

of their instruments and make note of which ones 

produce the most even and musical response in 

their instruments. 

Response 

To maximize the guitar body’s efficiency and realize 

an even response throughout the frequency 

range, I track and manipulate the deflection, resonant 

frequency, weight and several other characteristics 

of the top, back and bridge throughout 

the build process: 

•When selecting and preparing materials. 

•After bracing the plates and carving their braces. 

•After closing the body. 

This is a simplified explanation of resonant frequencies 

and their relationship to the guitar. Many 

other factors are involved: soundhole size, the 

coupling between two or more different resonant 

frequencies, damping within the system and materials, 

the effect of the instrument’s maturing on 

evenness of response, etc. 

Wood 

Species does not equate to quality (despite what 

the internet says). It simply does not work that way. 

Density 

All wood has a specific gravity (density), be it 

soundboard material or tropical hardwoods for 

back plates and rim assemblies. Qualities like bass 

and treble are not found in a species of wood. They 

are a function of the design of the instrument and 

how it is built. For example, many people think maple 

is crisp and thin or trebly sounding. I submit for 

your listening consideration… the cello! It is made 

of maple (and spruce). If well-made, it is a beautiful 

sounding instrument – anything but thin or trebly. 

Contrarily, many people look to Brazilian rosewood 

as the holy grail tonewood for guitars. It can 

make wonderful sounding guitars. So will maple… 

or many other wood choices. And we have all heard 

underwhelming guitars made of Brazilian rosewood. 

So there is something more to a successful 

instrument than merely the species of wood. 

For consideration when selecting wood for a 

guitar: is the musical goal to accompany a vocalist, 

reproduce complex chords, quick passages, adagio 

passages with open voicings? Is the instrument 

to be used for recording, layering parts, sitting in 

a mix, playing a part in a large ensemble? Ideally 

you are selecting wood to realize a musical goal; 

through careful design, we can configure instruments 

to address specific needs. 

Rather than species, I consider wood density 

when making decisions about voicing and configuring 

an instrument (“families” of wood are considered, 

i.e. rosewood, mahogany, maple). Even 

within a given species there can be significant differences. 

I have sets of Brazilian rosewood with a 

density close to that of some mahoganies and other 

sets that approach the density of ebony. These 

will make very different sounding guitars. 

In brief, this is how I see the contribution of 

density to a guitar’s voice: when a string is excited 

(plucked), it initiates a complex sequence of 

events. Two of the responses generated by the 

system are perceived as attack and decay. While 

measured in milliseconds, these are easily heard. 

In general, high density woods will present with a 

slow attack and a long decay. This will yield guitars 

that have a very “wet”, lush, reverby voice. On the 

other end of the spectrum, low density woods (maple, 

cypress, etc.) present with a very quick attack 

and short decay. These woods produce guitars 

with a very immediate voice with clarity and separation 

between notes. With this in mind, I submit 

that rather than bass and treble, the back and side 

material “color” and influence the overtone series 

of the guitar’s voice. 

Other factors like internal damping (see question 

below) can impart tonal characteristics often 

described as dark or bright, vitreous or rich. Again, 

these factors are not necessarily species specific 

but rather vary from board to board. 

Soundboard material is much the same as 

above, with western red cedar on the low-density 

end and Adirondack spruce on the high-density 

end. (These are, as above, generalizations.) 

Considering wood density and musical goal of 

the instrument helps me make decisions when 

selecting materials to pair for a specific result. 

What is “master grade” wood anyway? 

Currently, wood is graded and sold for its aesthetic. 

While that is a consideration, I evaluate 

soundboard material by its physical metrics. The 

quality of a piece of wood is ALWAYS the most important 

factor in my selection of wood for an instrument, 

much more so than species or aesthetics. 

Bryan Galloup has been studying wood properties 

for over a decade and is developing a new system 

for grading wood. A few suppliers are beginning to 

grade their wood in new ways as well. That seems 

to still be a few years away. 

I have been doing my own measurements and 

research for the past few years as well. Here is a 

look at some of the metrics I consider when selecting 

wood (Fig. 2): 

Grains per inch 

Grains per inch are the result of the growing conditions 

of the tree. These manifest themselves in 

a number of ways, most visibly in early and late 

growth grain lines in the wood (the light and dark 

lines on a soundboard). Many people believe 

that very tight grained spruce is somehow better. 

I disagree. Furthermore, in 2012, Pacific Rim 

Tonewood (one of the world’s largest suppliers of 

Sitka spruce) had a scientific study conducted by 

Les Jozsa (Research Scientist Emeritus, FP Innovations), 

who measured the metrics of coarse, medium 

and fine-grained Sitka spruce. The findings 

were that 12 – 14 grains per inch (in the stand of 

trees examined) exhibited the best characteristics 

for building guitars. My preference is somewhere 

between16 – 20 grains per inch, depending on the 

species, certainly not 30 or even 40 grains per inch 

as is sometimes seen as desirable. 



Grains per inch can have a profound effect on: 

Density 

Density is defined as mass/volume. Think about 

this and how that might affect a note’s attack and 

decay (see above). 

Stiffness 

Stiffness is how much something resists bending 

or moving under a set load. This is also known as 

modulus of elasticity (simplified definition). 

Your guitar’s soundboard is like a trampoline: if 

the surface is too stiff and the person jumping is 

very light, you don’t get much bounce. On the other 

hand, if the trampoline is tensioned loosely and 

a heavy person jumps, you still don’t experience 

the optimum bounce. In this analogy, the weight 

of the person represents the pull of the strings (a 

known quantity). One of the tasks of the luthier is 

to create a trampoline that is tensioned perfectly 

for the weight of the person jumping: a soundboard 

that has the perfect stiffness to maximize the 

energy transfer of the strings. 

A tiny reduction in soundboard thickness or 

shaving a small amount of wood from a brace can 

dramatically affect the stiffness of the component 

involved and therefore affect the response and 

voice of the guitar (more about this coming up). 

This is a phenomenon that can be realized intuitively 

over decades of guitar building. The more 

guitars I build, the more this instinct of optimum 

stiffness is fine tuned. 

Ability to Resonate 

This is sometimes referred to as the Radiation 

Ratio, or Radiation Coefficient. It is the relationship 

between stiffness and density and is the key factor 

in crafting a responsive guitar. 

Resonance Quality (Q) 

This is the relationship between velocity (speed 

of sound) and density. In its most basic iteration, it 

is the sound the board makes when you tap it. 

But back to Stradivari… 

“The science explains what we know intuitively 

as makers.” -Judy Threet 

Looking away from the science for a moment, 

a guitarmaker who has examined, flexed, held, 

tapped, listened to and selected thousands of 

soundboards and subsequently built instruments 

with those materials can make determinations of 

the above metrics empirically. 

So how does all this work? One of the basic 

principles of engineering (physics) we use in instrument 

making is the Cube Rule of Stiffness. This 

rule states that the stiffness of a component is the 

cubed function of its height or thickness. What this 

means is that if you double the height of the brace 

(top plate, neck, etc.), the stiffness goes WAY up. 

Imagine a top brace with a stiffness coefficient of 

2; if you double the height of the brace, its stiffness 

coefficient is not 4, it is now 8 (2 x 2 x 2)! Look at it 

another way: steel string guitar top plates are typically 

between 2.6mm to 3.0mm thick, the differential 

between these two extremities being a mere 

0.4mm (0.0157 inches). All other properties being 

equal, the difference in the stiffness coefficient between 

these two dimensions is more dramatic than 

some would initially think. The thinner plate has a 

stiffness coefficient of 2.6 = 17.57 while the thicker 

top works out to be 3.0 = 27, an increase in stiffness 

of over 150%! 

Do you need to know this? No – not that there is 

anything wrong with having a deeper understanding 

of the inner workings of things. But now consider 

this: many factories and even small builders 

find and establish the dimensions of plate thickness 

and bracing that will yield a competent instrument. 

They establish an average of parameter 

specifications and build all their guitars to these 

numbers. However, two pieces of wood never exhibit 

the same characteristics (even the same piece 

of wood). Every top plate and brace made from 

wood can and does vary in stiffness and density. 

The advantage that an experienced guitarmaker 

has is that we can individually evaluate each component 

to fine tune its dimensions and realize the 

perfect stiffness to weight for the load that will be 

applied, thereby realizing a consistently maximized 

transfer of energy from the strings to the soundboard. 

Helmholtz resonance – The air column 

One of the elements that a guitarmaker should 

think about a lot when designing a guitar is the 

soundhole: its size, its position and the reinforcement 

around it. The soundhole affects the main air 

resonance of the instrument and, ultimately, how 

efficiently it allows the internal sound waves to 

project from the guitar body. 

The size of a soundhole is one of the principal 

factors that determines the main air resonance, 

known as the Helmholtz resonance. The general 

rule is that for a body with a given internal air 

volume, the larger the soundhole (or soundholes), 

the higher the air resonance. There are optimum 

soundhole sizes that maximize the efficiency of various 

sized guitar bodies. 

Side ports have become popular in guitars. One 

of the reasons I am not enthusiastic about side 

ports is that, like the front soundhole, they enlarge 

the overall aperture of the guitar body, raising the 

Helmholtz resonance of the guitar. For instance, a 

guitar with no side port and the same instrument 

with multiple or a large side port can affect a difference 

in the main air resonance of two full tones. 

Since all the main resonances on the guitar are affected 

by each other, this must be carefully calcu- 



lated to result in a successful instrument. Just cutting 

an extra random hole, anywhere in a box, will 

not net a tuned and coupled system. 

The Neck – Controlling the wiggle! 

Few consider this, but if carefully designed and 

crafted, the neck of a guitar can minimize unwanted 

oscillation, or wiggle, in the system, and will transmit 

more string energy directly to the soundboard, 

making for a more efficient and better sounding 

guitar. Another bi-product of good neck design 

can be stability. The opposite is also true, and a 

neck lacking stiffness can detract from the guitar’s 

efficiency and introduce chaos into the system. 

The thickness of the neck will exponentially increase 

its stiffness (the cubed rule revisited). Slight 

changes in thickness can dramatically reduce movement 

in the neck and increase overall response. 

Often overlooked and equally important is the 

peghead. Its design and stiffness is as important in 

making a responsive guitar. In addition to not making 

the neck too thin and reinforcing the peghead, 

the use of carbon rods, carbon fiber, engineered 

composite reinforcements and other means of stiffening 

the neck all improve the guitar’s response. 

Additionally, fabrication of the fingerboard, the 

cutting of its slots and proper fretting all increase 

the overall stiffness of the neck as an assembly. 

Conclusion 

Where does the object end and the musical instrument 

begin? With exquisite SOUND and inspiring 

playability. 

Great instruments are the result of purposeful, 

acoustic design. This is realized through decades 

(or even centuries) of empirical experience and/or 

research, the careful examination, measurement 

and maintenance of hundreds or thousands of instruments, 

as well as a profound understanding of 

what qualities musicians appreciate in exceptional 

instruments. 

Finally, crafting the instrument with an understanding 

of and sensitivity to the physical properties 

of the materials used, how they behave within 

a coupled system and how to manipulate them to 

achieve specific, musical goals – this is how I see 

the guitar. 

THE INVISIBLE GUITAR! 



Artisan Guitar Show: The modern 

guitar is often a visual aesthetic masterpiece. 

The guitar, regardless of its 

physical beauty, is the perfect example 

of form needing to follow function. 

How difficult is it to find that perfect 

balance between aesthetic style and tonal substance? 

Kathy Wingert: I find it very difficult to find the perfect balance 

because design is not my strong suit. All my designs 

are following function. I don’t visualize well, but I adjust well, 

so I’m better with clay than with a pencil. I think that willingness 

to just follow function has allowed me to be a little 

more flexible with client requests because it’s okay with me 

if lines get moved around. 

Artisan Guitar Show: You were once quoted as saying that 

some of your earliest guitars ended up being used to roast 

marshmallows. How important do you think it is to encourage 

young guitar makers to explore creative experimentation 

and especially not to fear failure? 

Kathy Wingert: I can be such a great devil’s advocate, if a 

young builder seems hung up on getting everything perfect, 

I really try to push to just get that first guitar going, 

strung, beat up, played, enjoyed. On the other hand, if they 

are not giving the wood the respect it deserves, if they give 

the impression that they think details aren’t important, I try 

to instill a strong sense of consequence. I might have gotten 

that from my mentor. One of my first days at his shop he had 

me draw out some parts for cutting. I brought the wood to 

him with my carefully mapped cutting lines and he asked 

me where the line was. I was dumbfounded, as the line was 

right there in thick pencil. He showed me how to use a lead 

holder and get really fine lines. Lesson learned. The next 

day I heard him tell a coworker who had come from aerospace 

“if it’s less than five thousandths, I don’t even want to 

hear about it.” 

Artisan Guitar Show: Creating a guitar is a process that 

begins with an idea or vision, progresses through construction, 

and concludes with the proper set-up of the instrument. 

When you as a builder decide on a design and determine 

the overall scope of the finished product, does the 

process become strictly defined or is it always a little fluid 

or dynamic? 

Kathy Wingert: That’s a really good 

question, but I think my style of 

building makes fluidity a necessity. I 

try to keep fixtures to a bare minimum 

because of my limited space, 

and I’m always chasing the best use 

of the wood, so where I know there 

is some builder somewhere who can 

build a neck joint and a guitar body 

separately in a precise jig and it will 

fit perfectly, that’s not my experience. 

And some things I just do that 

hard way because the outcome is 

worth it to me. One of those things 


5 

Minutes 

with 

Kathy Wingert 

is setting the neck and fretwork. I don’t dress the fretboard 

until the neck is on the body. It risks the brand new finish 

and makes for lots of little struggles at the end, but I don’t 

have to deal with guitars coming back to me from across 

the county (or world) for a flip at the end of the board or 

a super light, buzz free set up thatcan’t be achieved with a 

lower saddle. 

Artisan Guitar Show: The spirit of giving in the guitar community 

is awesome and the relationships established between 

generations of guitar makers is inspiring. In your own 

life, you have enjoyed the remarkable good fortune of training 

the talented Isaac Jang, and your daughter Jimmi Wingert 

is an extremely accomplished inlay artist whose work 

adorns your instruments. Do you feel there is something 

unique and even “old world” about the way guitar makers 

prepare the next generations to carry on the craft? 

Kathy Wingert: I was surprised to learn that the solo builder 

workshop with a small number or helpers is actually a later 

development in the history of instrument making. I’m short 

on details or a source, but I read somewhere that once upon 

a time it took a very large shop to turn out instruments because 

a cadre of apprentices and journeymen were required 

to power the large tools. Then a group of enterprising guys 

decided to subcontract for the violin makers in Cremona. 

They would show up in the morning, do the heavy cutting, 

and head out to the beach in time to dig clams. But back 

to the question, I don’t know whether it’s old world or just 

good Karma, but people helped me. I don’t just give it away, 

I don’t have a set standard for what it takes to get in the 

door, but I can tell you this, they have to knock more than 

once. With Jimmi, on the other hand, I had to work on her 

for a long time. She finally admitted she didn’t want a guitar 

maker’s life. She had seen behind the curtain for enough 

years to know that it wasn’t very pretty, and she wanted a 

more normal life. Larry Robinson was able to convince her 

that the life of an inlay artist allowed for a shorter work day. 

Artisan Guitar Show: Please name three recordings that 

you think would be a great addition to any music library or 

collection. 

Kathy Wingert: Emil Gilels playing the Beethoven piano 

sonatas. If you’re a fan of the Pathetique Sonata, he has a 

particular way of playing the dramatic, chordal opening in 

a way that sounds like a wail. 

I have never understood how 

great pianists can make the 

piano appear to do things we 

know it cannot. 

Kate Rusby: Underneath the 

Stars. Brilliant arrangements of 

folk ballads. Her band is a text 

book on how to play just the 

one right note. 

Any of the Claude Bolling 

suites because they are just 

cheesy good fun and impeccable 

playing. 

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The story of a hand pearl inlay 

engraver in a modern builder’s world 

By Glenn Carson 

of pearl and sea snail still requires just three basic 

tools; a fine pen, scribe, and a single onglette or 

square hand graver. With those, and with a “little” 

practice, you can bring a plain mother of pearl inlay 

to life. A few of my attempts are shown here. 

The process is fairly simple, but like playing music, 

getting the execution down will take a serious 

time investment. First develop an eye for design 

by studying the natural world and all of the best 

In 1975, I bought a copy of Foxfire Book 3, 

heard my first good acoustic music close 

up and personal, and decided to make a 

fretless banjo based on simple plans in the 

book with the most basic of hand tools. When I 

went to the Home of Bluegrass music shop in 

Harrisburg, PA to purchase the first set of strings 

for it, I made an instant connection with a great 

player there (Bob Buckingham) who inspired me to 

make more banjos and became one of my lifelong 

music pals. By late 1979, I was deep into building 

acoustic instruments, and pushing myself to learn 

everything I could about building banjos, including 

the ornamental aspects from the best instruments 

of the late 1890’s, which found me struggling to 

learn pearl inlay and engraving, metal engraving, 

and heel carving. I was fascinated by the design, 

handwork and craftsmanship of those instruments, 

especially the best early Fairbanks banjos, and the 

fact that they combined wood, metal, inlay, carving 

and engraving and could also make the music that 

drew me (I mostly play old time fiddle and banjo) 

made them irresistible to me. 

Living near Harrisburg, the first twenty years or 

so of my luthier journey back in the dark ages (pre 

internet…) was a very isolated and often frustrating 

time, as I couldn’t find anyone to show me how to 

do the things I was so interested in. As a result, 

I made lots of mistakes (like inlaying every other 

fret on my first fretted banjo), but still found the 

rewards and people I met through building and 

playing music enough to make me want to continue 

to improve and learn more. Somewhere in the 

late 1990’s, I finally got online while seeking parts 

for a banjo I was making for my son and my luthier 

universe expanded greatly in short order. Suddenly, 

I had luthier and music friends from all over, and 

Banjo by Glenn Carson for Reed Martin, 2008 

soon I found myself working in collaboration with 

some of them, eventually including OME & Fielding 

banjos and Froggy Bottom Guitars. It is ironic 

that the Artisans Guitar show is held in Harrisburg 

within a mile of that first music store, where I first 

connected with this world, and is filled with world 

class guitars made by some of the planet’s finest 

luthier’s helps to illustrate that change that the digital 

world has had on many of us. We are now very 

connected, and I believe that having the ability to 

see high quality craftsmanship and also interact, 

learn and share techniques has resulted in an explosion 

of some of the best musical instruments 

that have ever been constructed. We are living in 

a renaissance time. Even though we small builders 

have the option, and sometimes necessity of 

precise power assists, computers, CNC, and other 

improvements, the really great thing about hand 

building instruments is that there is still a major 

role for hand craftsmanship and personal expression. 

This type of builders show defines that well. 

The definition of artisan is “a worker in a skilled 

trade, especially one that involves making things 

by hand”. A quick walk through the show is all it 

requires to know that the builders exhibiting instruments 

at this show are all driven by that intangible 

something that drives them to push their skills to 

the utmost. 

There are many forms of expression in the field 

of instrument inlay, such as some of the incredible 

inlay “picture inlays” being created by inlay artists 

out of all kinds of materials, but my personal 

obsession/passion is still stuck back in that 1890’s 

world of Italian, German and English born European 

trained craftsmen who came to the states and 

made those fancy Boston banjos back in 1895. 

That form of engraved black filled cuts on mother 

Froggy Bottom inlay engraving – Inlay and inlay design 

by Andy Mueller, engraving by G. Carson 

work you can find, in all kinds of mediums, and 

you can find inspiration in old instruments, stone 

and wood carvings, antique firearms engravings, 

antique cash register castings, vintage wall paper 

patterns, and every Dover design book you can 

get your hands on. Draw and sketch during your 

free time. I am a life-long “doodler” who draws 

while on the phone, during meetings, 

while watching tv or movies, 

and have filled many notebooks full 

of ideas. When designing, don’t 

copy anyone else, and take pride in 

letting your own ideas come to light. 

Second, procure a few of the best 

hand gravers you can, keep the overall 

length as short as you can, and 

invest in the absolute best graver 

sharpening set up you can afford. 

Plan to spend more time on the design 

than actual engraving, and sometimes 

much more. Lightly scribe the 

major layout lines, and engrave the inlays, 

using light cuts to establish the lines 

and going back over to add definition. I 

don’t obsess over symmetry, but tend to free 



hand my guide lines and allow slight variations to occur, as I 

think they add life to the designs. 

Glenn Carson has been building banjos since 1975 and 

struggling to learn the art of design and engraving since 

1977. When not working on banjos or engraving, he manages 

several large RCRA groundwater remediation projects 

or is in a river somewhere with a fly rod. He lives in Mt. Holly 

Springs, PA. 

Froggy Bottom guitars – Inlays by 

Andy Mueller, engraving by G. Carson 

Banjo and inlay by Dan Drabek, 

engraving by G. Carson 

Thoughts on the fine work 

of Glenn Carson 

As a luthier working on instruments since the early ‘60s 

and seeing many examples of fine carving and engraving 

on the earlier Fairbank’s as well as other engraved banjos, 

I have never seen any work that surpasses that of Glenn 

Carson. Another bad habit I have is owning and shooting 

fine English Shotguns. There is another place to see beautiful 

engraving although in metal. This makes me comfortable 

in expressing and opinion on the amazing work on 

mother of pearl and abalone by Glenn Carson. 

Harry M. Sparks, Architect 

In an age when mechanical reproduction is readily available 

and widely employed, Glenn’s work is a rare treat. 

Working within the constraints imposed by the shape and 

material of an inlay piece, Glenn strives and succeeds at 

keeping his work fresh and inventive. As a result, each 

headstock logo or set of fingerboard inlays he engraves is 

different from the last. By now I’ve seen maybe a hundred 

examples of his work on our guitars, all unique. And his 

execution boggles the mind! 

Andy Mueller, Froggy Bottom Guitars 

We 1st met Glenn at Clifftop old time music festival in 

West Virginia years ago where we were vending our claw 

hammer banjos that my husband Will Fielding built using 

native hardwood primarily from Vermont, where we lived. 

We immediately had a rapport for each other’s work and 

decided to collaborate, with Glenn engraving a design on 

a banjo in progress. It was a match made in banjo heaven 

and they worked on many more after that! 

Will and Glenn had the same sensibilities and love for 

elegant yet understated designs that only enhanced the 

beauty of Glenn’s engraving, contrasting with the wood 

using a minimum of finishes so as to honor the trees. 

Poetry in motion! 

Paula Fielding, Fielding Banjos 

“OME Banjos has offered hand-engraved Motherof-Pearl 

inlays on it’s banjos since early 1971 and Glenn 

Carson’s engraving is simply the finest we have ever seen!” 

Tanya Ogsbury 

Experience the culture of fascinating destinations in small group 

settings with expert guides, always with the focus on music. 

EXPERIENCE IRELAND AND ITS MUSIC AS THE LOCALS DO 

EXPLORE THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF SPAIN 

JOIN US FOR A MUSICAL JOURNEY THROUGH CUBA 

“I have traveled a lot, 

but never before with 

a focus on music. 

That focus made this 

particular trip into one I 

will never forget. Just go!” 

—MONICA 

JANUARY 2018 PARTICIPANT 

WWW.WINGERTGUITARS.COM • (310) 522-9596 

Colin Vance banjo/inlays – engraving by G. Carson 

LEARN MORE AT STRINGLETTER.COM/TRAVEL 




Jimmy Webb – A Conversation 

The shaping of a person is accomplished in many ways. Many factors influence how we develop 

and who we become as a person. There are of course the natural forces dictated by 

nature. Just as certain is the profound impact of nurture on the soul. We are nurtured in many 

ways beginning with family influences and then finished by our direct experiences with the 

outside world. For many people, music is a profound source of both identity and joy. The 

music of Jimmy Webb has indelibly left its mark on the soul of the world. 

The shaping of Jimmy Webb began in rural Oklahoma. His father was a Baptist minister who played 

guitar and his mother was an accordionist. Jimmy described his father as a “charming guy and good evangelist” 

and said that it was “wonderful to see him play his guitar and sing a hymn” during church services. 

The Webb family members were all singers and sang collectively in church. Jimmy started playing piano at 

the age of six and as he grew older and more proficient, he became the church pianist. It was this church 

environment that played a key role in the development of Jimmy Webb the musician that we know and 

love today. 

Jimmy was greatly influenced by being so deeply 

involved in the church community. He recalls 

that “life, death, salvation, and damnation were 

constant themes and people were in great emotional 

need.” In his view, the “emotional surround 

of organized religion cultivates the ability to feel 

and empathize and even be truly joyful.” This highly-emotional 

church experience provided the basis 

for the heartfelt music which was later created by 

Jimmy Webb. Practically speaking, in respect to his 

professional career, he also mentioned that “religion 

is the oldest show business there is.” 

Religion also proved to be a barrier to growth for 

Jimmy. The Webb children were not allowed to listen 

to or play rock and roll music or even to dance. 

Rock and roll music was considered the “devil’s 

instrument” and was believed to be designed to 

take over the lives of young people. Those were 

simply the religiously conservative views of the 

household. Still, like many other teenagers at that 

time, Jimmy would hide his radio in bed at night 

after his parents were sleeping and listen to the 

music that he loved. He also mentioned that he 

would “sneak into dances, hide in the back, and 

By John Detrick 

make myself as small as possible” just to experience 

the music. 

For as important as family was in the shaping of 

Jimmy Webb, it was perhaps the collapse of the 

family unit through tragedy that was just as significant. 

The Webb family had been living in southern 

California barely a year when his mother became 

ill. She was diagnosed with cancer and buried all 

within a five-week time period. In Jimmy’s words, 

her death “completely fractured the family.” Filled 

with despair and sadness, Jimmy’s father went 

home to Oklahoma with a couple of the Webb children. 

Jimmy and his sister Janice stayed in California. 

The father-son relationship was already quite 

strained for many reasons. Their goodbye was very 

emotional as Jimmy’s father cautioned him “Son, 

this songwriting thing is only going to break your 

heart.” This is where the story of Jimmy Webb the 

songwriter truly begins. 

At 17 years of age, Jimmy hit the streets of Hollywood 

with his portfolio in hand. If asked what 

he did professionally, he would reply that he was 

a songwriter even though he did not really have 

a songwriting credit at the time. In the blink of an 

eye, when he was approximately 

20, Jimmy Webb was 

a respected hit machine. By 

1967, he had By the Time 

I Get to Phoenix by Glenn 

Campbell and Up, Up and 

Away by the 5TH Dimension 

on the charts together. The 

competition for Record of the 

Year at the Grammy Awards 

was intense in 1967. As Jimmy 

explains it, he was up against 

Gentle on my Mind by John 

Hartford and Ode to Billie Joe 

by Bobbie Gentry – tracks he describes as “pretty 

fantastic records and great songs.” Ultimately, Jimmy’s 

Up, Up and Away won the prestigious award. 

To Jimmy, this time in his life “was a blur.” He 

was working as a contract writer for Johnny Rivers 

Music making $100.00 per week and driving a Camaro 

convertible as a company car – in his words 

“it was a groovy little niche.” He remembers going 

to the company accountant because he was worried 

about his taxes. He was told that he had not 

met the minimum filing threshold so he would not 

have to file a return or pay taxes. About a year later, 

after the success of By the Time I Get to Phoenix 

and Up, Up and Away, he went back to the accountant 

again to inquire about paying his taxes. 

Jimmy learned that he had gone from making 

essentially nothing to $60,000.00 in approximately 

one year. He commented “$60,000.00 wasn’t a 

bad living – especially at that time when money 

was worth a lot more. I was from Oklahoma and 

west Texas and we lived in places where we didn’t 

have two sticks to rub together. I didn’t even understand 

the words ‘sixty-thousand’ and I had 

never even heard anyone 

say ‘sixty-thousand dollars’ 

before. I didn’t know there 

could be that much money in 

one place.” He continued “I 

was having a great time just 

writing songs, but I had to sit 

back and ask myself ‘what is 

this? This is something else. 

This was something entirely 

different – there was money.’ 

And I have to say, me and 

money were a volatile combination.” 

The singer/songwriter model was never a particularly 

unusual approach in the music industry, but 

the listening world was also somewhat accustomed 

to the disciplines being separated. Singers such as 

Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Elvis Presley sang 

the songs, and songwriters such as Hal Arlen, Jerome 

Kern, and Johnny Mercer wrote the songs. 

There was a time though, in American music history 

when the singer/songwriter became the driving 

force in popular music. Jimmy describes that time 

of transition as having largely shaped his career. He 

summarizes the transition by saying “There have 

always been singer/songwriters. The Beatles, Neil 

Sedaka, and Paul Anka are all examples. What 

made it different was now you could only be a singer/songwriter.” 

Jimmy was primarily a songwriter, but he did 

perform his music as well. His idols were Burt 

Bacharach and Hal David. In his view, when Carole 

King released Tapestry, the world changed. “Tapestry 

was the catalyst for the singer/songwriter 

movement, and it was not just a singer/songwriter 

movement, but a movement of social change and 

cultural change. The pool of old songwriters was 

really alarmed. The old formula of getting a great 

song to a great singer was gone.” In his opinion, 

the singer/songwriter movement was very much 

a minimalist movement. “Artists like James Taylor 

and Simon and Garfunkel could load just their guitar 

cases and hit the road. It was almost anti-show 

business.” As Jimmy views it, “the economic model 

was at the heart of the movement” if only because 

it was very inexpensive to tour. 

When asked if the singer/songwriter movement 

still drives the industry today, his answer was no. 

“The music might be similar, but the touring model 

is not. All those guys, the hotel rooms, airfares, 

friends and families, the followers -- the whole traveling 

village that moves as one and manages to 

traverse the entire country and come down in some 

city and put on a show that night – a huge show – 

a broadway show. That’s today’s business model. 

The money is all at the top.” He continued to say 

“The singer/songwriter was pretty much a self-contained 

act. They didn’t require any special M&Ms in 

the dressing room. He usually wouldn’t need much 


of a soundcheck and after the show he would head 

back to the Holiday Inn and then out of town. The 

beauty was that he got to keep much of the money.” 

Jimmy lamented that so many of the venues 

that supported the touring singer/songwriter, like 

The Bottom Line in New York, are simply gone. It 

seems that for some executives in the industry the 

music continues to be as much about the money as 

it does the art. 

The music and lifestyle of Laurel Canyon in the 

late 1960s and 1970s changed the world. Jimmy 

spent time in Laurel Canyon, but he was never really 

a part of the canyon scene. At the time, he was 

no longer working for Johnny Rivers Music. He was 

living with two college roommates, a small fireplace, 

and of course, his grand piano. He recalls 

being “only peripherally aware of the scene. I knew 

Joni Mitchell lived up the hill, but I did not know 

her. I knew there were other similar people living 

there, but I never went over and hung out. I was 

insulated and my life was always so booked up.” 

The peace and love hippie days were fading, 

and for Jimmy Webb, that rarified air was also 

mixed with judgement. He recalls “I was never 

considered to be a proper anti-government force. 

The truth is that I was a liberal. I was a pacifist. I was 

against the war in Viet Nam, but I was viewed as a 

smug little kid who had it made -- hanging out with 

really-rich people. I was viewed as someone who 

didn’t care about the issues of the day -- I was too 

rich to care.” The truth was that Jimmy’s personal 

commitment to liberalism, pacificism, and his antiwar 

stance came at great personal cost. Jimmy’s 

refusal to support the war in Viet Nam shattered his 

relationship with his father who was a former member 

of the United States Marine Corps and held 

deeply religious conservative views. 

The judgement that Jimmy experienced would 

have weighed heavily on the shoulders of any 

feeling person. He specifically recalls playing at 

the now-famous Troubadour one night when the 

resentment over his success could not have been 

more evident. It was a simple snub, but a nonetheless 

powerful rejection when an anonymous critic 

wrote on the dressing room wall “Jimmy Webb 

plays good cash register.” Being rejected as an 

outsider by supposedly like-minded people was 

difficult for Jimmy. I suppose the reality is that success 

quite often breeds resentment. 

As we talked, Jimmy contemplated the possibility 

that he had developed a complex of sorts from 

the rejection of those times. “I spent a good many 

years trying to prove I was one of the guys.” The 

cultural, social, and political reality of Jimmy’s life 

was quite different than what was perceived by 

many. “I was at the Monterey Pop Festival. I was on 

the stage at the birth of the relationship between 

rock and roll and left-wing politics. I was there 

when it was born. I was playing. I was in my hippie 

garb -- I had my uniform on. So, it’s very hard 

for me to have people who don’t know me and 

don’t understand that side of me just dismiss me 

as a flash-in-the pan, middle-of-the-road songwriter 

from the sixties.” It seems that when we judge 

another person it reveals more about who we are 

than the person being judged. 

Discussing that time in music history with Jimmy 

is both enlightening and entertaining. I asked if he 

thought the 1960s and 1970s time period was being 

represented well and accurately by both the 

media and in documentaries. He commented “I 

know this -- nostalgia is alive and well. People tend 

to love that music. I notice that a lot of advertisers 

are using that music -- The Beatles and The Rolling 

Stones – it would not surprise me to see Joe Cocker 

advertising socks.” The reflections and insights 

of Jimmy Webb on that time in American history 

come from someone who is eminently qualified to 

speak on the subject. 

It is easy to agree when Jimmy states “Nothing 

has come close to that time in music. I am going to 

make one of those statements that I am famous for 

-- I don’t think there is any music since the 1960s 

and 1970s that has been any better.” Jimmy is a 

master craftsman, so “melody, chord structure, 

construction, the architecture of the way these 

things were put together” are all very important to 

him. “To me, that all seemed to have peaked with 

The Beach Boys and Pet Sounds.” Respected record 

producer George Martin, who produced The 

Beatles, was like a second father to Jimmy. Martin’s 

view of the seminal work created by Brian Wilson in 

the Pet Sounds recording supports Jimmy Webb’s 

opinion. Jimmy quoted George Martin from a 

conversation they shared, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely 

Hearts Club Band was only an attempt to equal 

Pet Sounds.” The meaning of Martin’s comment 

was quite simply that The Beatles had created a 

masterpiece that was not the artistic equal to Pet 

Sounds. Jimmy believes that those two albums 

together “created one of the most fertile and experimental 

audio scenes” in history. For those of 

us who lived through those musical times, those 

moments can only be remembered as magical. 

As the years have unfolded, the impact of Jimmy’s 

own body of work on musicians has been profound. 

It is dangerous to begin listing those with 

whom he has worked because of the risk of missing 

someone significant. As examples of his collaborative 

efforts, his album releases Still Within the 

Sound of My Voice (2013) and Just Across the River 

(2010) show clearly the appreciation his work commands. 

These fine recordings include performance 

partnerships with Mark Knopfler, Jackson Browne, 

Linda Ronstadt, Keith Urban, David Crosby and 

Graham Nash, Brian Wilson, Vince Gill, Billy Joel, 



J.D. Souther, Kris Kristofferson, and Michael Mc- 

Donald. Just as significant are the respected artists 

who have performed his work. A small sampling 

of those performers includes Art Garfunkel, Frank 

Sinatra, The 5TH Dimension, Glen Campbell, Linda 

Ronstadt, Waylon Jennings, and Richard Harris. 

Jimmy may be a piano player, but he has a great 

appreciation of the guitar. His father was a guitar 

player who played an old Silvertone and his memories 

of that instrument are fond. To Jimmy, the 

guitar is a more technically difficult instrument to 

master. He is a collector of many things, and his 

collection includes an Ovation Bluebird that was 

the last guitar autographed by Glen Campbell. He 

is also fascinated by the Concorde SST and has collected 

nearly everything that flew on that magnificent 

machine. Among his other passions is flying 

radio-controlled planes. 

When asked about his most significant life lessons, 

he says that simply telling the truth and being 

honest is most important. As his father often told 

him, “when you tell the truth you don’t have to remember 

what you said...” Recalling his life, he said 

“I did a lot of things right. I took a lot of chances. 

I’m glad I was foolhardy at times and I’m glad I 

took chances. There is a lot of debatable behavior 

that I embrace as healthy. The willingness to hang 

it out there and go for something that seems impossible 

is a quality. I see a certain kind of recklessness 

as an attribute.” 

It was hard for a young person to grow up during 

the 1960s and 1970s and not be impacted by the 

work of Jimmy Webb. For many of us, his songwriting 

provided comfort and let us know that we were 

not alone in our youthful heartache and our quests 

for love. For all of its technical quality and artistic 

mastery, perhaps the most important aspect of the 

music of Jimmy Webb is its emotional honesty -- it 

clearly comes from the heart. We are older now 

and the hearts of the young romantics we once 

were have tempered with age. Jimmy Webb is no 

different. We all experience heartache and sadness 

and pure joy. Through it all, Jimmy acknowledges 

softly that a “young heart still beats in my chest.” 

The mark that Jimmy Webb has left on our lives 

through his creative efforts is both profound and 

heart-warming. When asked about his impact 

on the music world, Jimmy humbly commented 

“There are places where you realize you made perhaps 

a little indentation on the world – left a place 

where some other bird has perched on their own 

flight. It’s flattering. It’s a nice thing to know when 

you are an old man -- however ephemeral it may 

have been – it may have been just a watermark, but 

that you left a kind of likeness on the face of music 

itself.” There can be no greater appreciation of a 

man’s work than the simple recognition of the souls 

that he has touched along the way. The work of 

Jimmy Webb has provided solace, joy, enjoyment, 

and a sense of belonging to millions of music lovers. 

Jimmy Webb has created a body of work that 

is truly historic in quality and will be appreciated for 

generations to come. 

Experience 

McKnight 

Guitars 

GUITAR STANDS • MUSIC STANDS • WALL HANGERS • FOOT STOOLS 

SM Guitar and Music Stand 

WM Guitar and Music Stand 

(740.223.6114 

www.mcknightguitars.com 




5 

Minutes 

with 

Kent “Carlos” Everett 

Artisan Guitar Show: Personal sacrifice 

seems to be quite common in 

the career of guitar-making as young 

craftspeople strive to find their place in the community and 

world. Legend has it that you personally worked many other 

jobs in the early days to support your guitar-making career. 

What do you suppose generates such a level of passion 

in the craft that guitar makers are willing to endure such 

personal sacrifice for just the opportunity to create a fine 

instrument? 

Kent “Carlos” Everett: I got my first job at 15, built my first 

guitar at 20, and after 5 years of searching found a job working 

on guitars full time at 25. So my work career has been 

primarily guitars. Even so I still draw on the carpentry / cabinet 

shop work I did and those crusty old guys I worked with. 

What drove me personally? My love of the craft. Period. 

Almost every student will talk about how much they love 

building guitars. Well , we will see won’t we? Enjoying 

building a guitar for your friend and taking that huge step 

to career are two different things. 

I am in the position I am now, because of making stupid 

business decisions when I was young. I was hell bent on 

making a career at luthiery from day one. That was stupid. 

Especially in 1977. Youthful exuberance saw me through. 

I can tell you this, it is hard to “make it” in any ‘off the 

path’ career. Those who figure out how, are the truly 

inspirational ones. (or exceptionally crazy) 

I am not saying to simply hang on while the 

bank account spirals down. What I am saying is 

figuring out how to make a living with the skills 

you yourself have – be honest with yourself – in 

the market that you find yourself. These different 

career paths are fields that society has no norms 

for… , so you are on your own. 

Well, when you can pull that off, you have 

really done something. It will not happen overnight. 

Artisan Guitar Show: You have enjoyed prominent 

musicians such as Brad Paisley, Amy Ray 

of the Indigo Girls, and the legendary Gregg 

Allman who have all played your 

instruments. For many guitar makers, 

having a famous and influential 

musician embrace their instrument 

is a career changing event. Do 

you have any advice for how a 

builder might nurture those 

relationships or an opinion 

of just how important they 

truly are? 

Kent “Carlos” Everett: I 

am not sure if it makes a difference. 

Have I ever had anyone come up 

and say I want a guitar because Brad Paisley has one? No. 

Have I had people buy guitars because Don Cognoscenti 

or Bebo Norman have one? Lots and lots. Chasing down 

top famous people might not be worth the effort. Sometimes 

the unexpected regional talent might have a large 

loyal following too. 

Two examples to back this up. I remember the time a car 

load of guys from Mississippi came to my shop in Atlanta. 4 

out of the 5 bought a guitar. They were Bebo Norman fans. 

Who? Right; that I what I’m saying. 

Here is a little story that might explain it better. 

I did some work for the guitar player with Jimmy Buffett. 

He loved my guitars and took one to Jimmy to use in the 

studio during a recording session in the Bahamas. After 

some positive comments about the guitar, my friend said 

to Jimmy, “Here’s the deal. Carlos will sell you the guitar for 

$x. But if you feel like promoting it, the cost would be $x-y. 

And Jimmy said, ”Here’s the deal. I have a house full of 

guitars. I don’t want it. I don’t need it.” That was a lesson for 

me. Of course every town Buffett goes to someone wants to 

give him a guitar. Martin gives him whatever pearl encrusted 

thing he wants. And I was not giving mine away. Buffett 

playing an Everett would really be a huge uphill battle. 

As Brad Paisley got larger, his producer asked if I could 

supply the entire band with Everetts. (Allegedly for free for 

the promotional aspect of things.) Now, that was a real gift 

and opportunity. But little ol’ me cannot do that. As a small 

pimple on the underbelly of the music industry, it is impossible 

to keep up with the big boys. So why try? I tend to meet 

the famous ones in two ways : either as they are heading up 

the ladder of their own careers or through word of mouth. 

They heard of me. Now that is a flip. I would suggest not 

chasing down the big boys, but find your own route. 

Also as a side to this , I have been really bad about waving 

the ‘famous customer ‘ flag around. I want the player 

to buy my guitar because they love it. Love it! 

Not because Amy, Gregg, Brad, David, etc… love theirs. 

Artisan Guitar Show: You have mentioned having a passion 

for art and especially sculpture. Your love of the automobile 

cont’d on page 47 

5 

Minutes 

with 

Bruce Sexauer 

Artisan Guitar Show: You’ve written 

about a long-standing disciplined 

approach to practicing the 

guitar with some of your practice sessions lasting as long 

as six hours. With a musical instrument, practice can be 

achieved by running scales and going over chord progressions. 

Woodworking seems very different. Does this same 

disciplined approach apply to learning woodworking? 

Bruce Sexauer: I have been playing guitar for 55 years, 

only slightly longer than I have been making them. My 6 

hour practice sessions were early in my playing life, when I 

thought music was my calling. By the age of 30 I knew my 

greater talent is lutherie. 

I have never “practiced” woodworking, instead taking 

what I learn from both success and failure on to the next 

project. With over 500 unique instruments behind me, that 

makes a lot of conceptual knowledge to bring to bear. Tool 

skills are another thing, and 52 years of learning what sharp 

means, means that the realization of the current concept 

happens increasingly quickly and with greater precision. 

In both Lutherie and music my goals are about personal 

mastery. In music this means developing my skill to the 

point where I am able to speak the language of music fluently, 

and not to simply mimic what others have “said”. In 

lutherie this means building each instrument to speak to its 

fullest potential, without particular regard for its size, shape, 

or material choices. Not only to have volume and tone, but 

to have these qualities in equal proportion in all registers 

and at all pitches, making the instrument a level playing 

field from the player’s POV, and 

at the highest level possible. 

Artisan Guitar Show: Your philosophy 

on guitar making is focused 

on improving the quality 

of each guitar rather than on 

efficiency and increased production. 

The guitar seems to 

be a fairly well-defined object 

with not a lot of opportunity for 

radical change. Do you feel that 

personal innovation is still very 

much a part of the process of 

guitar making? 

Bruce Sexauer: I have been using 

the tag line “Cutting Edge 

Traditional” for a few years. 

Many builders are pursuing 

“modern” ideas in construction 

and aesthetics, but I see much 

of this as merely trendy. Instead, 

I feel that the traditional guitar 

has not yet been fully developed, 

and put most of my effort 

into further refinement. The 

true magic of the guitar is in the 

incredibly subtle balance found in the relative proportion of 

its components. My acoustic guitars are rooted in Martin’s 

Golden Era, and it is clear to me that there are several areas 

that can be improved on that model without having a design 

revolution, instead I am favoring evolution. 

What might be called innovation in my work is mostly just 

a rearrangement of old ideas. I “wedge” almost every guitar 

I make. There is no cost to the guitar or the customer that 

I can see, and it makes the instrument much more friendly. 

MultiScale has been around for hundreds of years, and 

adapting the guitar shape to the twisted bridge was an evolution. 

Because I work without fixed jigs and fixtures, each 

guitar is essentially created new, and incremental change 

will continue to be my style. 

Artisan Guitar Show: You have an interest and passion in 

European design and engineering as evidenced in your appreciation 

of Ducati motorcycles. The Italians, Enzo Ferrari 

for example, sure do understand physical beauty. Is your 

work making guitars inspired by totally unrelated design 

marvels? 

Bruce Sexauer: Many people know of the work of violin luthier 

Antonio Stradivari. They like to suggest that I am the 

guitar Stradivari of our time. They know about Tony because 

he was incredibly prolific, making some 1500 violins in his 

long working life. He had help, keeping a 5 person shop 

busy,making essentially the same instrument repeatedly. 

Many think Guarneri, a contemporary of Stradivari, made the 

better violin, but he made a lot less of them, perhaps 300. 

He used paper templates which had a limited life and so had 

to constantly recreate his designs. 

He also had a life outside 

of lutherie. This is me, I hope. 

Artisan Guitar Show: The never-ending 

search for the ideal 

wood is surely a big part of 

the process of making a guitar. 

How much time do you actually 

spend sourcing tonewoods? 

Do you typically rely on proven 

sources within the industry, 

or is there a component of the 

search that is based on finding 

an unusual or rare piece of 

wood in a surprising location? 

Bruce Sexauer: Early in my career 

I spent time sourcing tonewoods. 

I have made a trip to 

South America for rosewood, 

and to Canada for spruce. I 

have a pair of chainsaws and 

a pickup truck. There are great 

trees all around us, and cruising 

the suburbs after a windstorm 

has been very fruitful. 

cont’d on page 47 


Kent “Carlos” Everett cont’d from page 44 

is also well-known. How do other art forms influence or inform 

your guitar making work? 

Kent “Carlos” Everett: Honestly for me at this point, the 

guitar building influences the other stuff. Not the other way 

around. My attention to detail really comes in handy when 

rebuilding a weber idf 40 downdraft carburetor. 

The guitar is my life. The other stuff is what I do for fun. 

But I have always enjoyed art and been inspired by it. I remember 

even in high school taking the bus to the Atlanta 

art museums to walk around and see how they did it. And 

now that I am semi-retired, I get to explore the other stuff 

more. But not to dodge the question – design does move 

me. Not just the curve or shape, but the thought behind 

that curve. That is where the magic is. I still love looking at 

art, sculpture, antique cars, etc… In fact our vacations tend 

to rotate around it. 

Artisan Guitar Show: A spirit of generosity dominates the 

guitar making community. It seems as though there is always 

a willingness by guitar makers to share everything from 

evolving techniques to even the finest guitar making materials 

such as rare exotic woods. You have personally chosen 

to educate aspiring guitar makers. In a career where time 

must be so very valuable and scarce, why have you chosen 

to share your unique knowledge and techniques in an educational 

setting? 

Kent “Carlos” Everett: I enjoyed it. That simple. Guitar 

building is a solitary career - being alone in the shop. It is 

very meditative and encompassing. Often I look up and say, 

“Oops, it’s dark outside. I wonder how late it is?” Time just 

got away - again. 

On the other hand, teaching is a sharing experience. In 

my teaching I work hard at not dis-crediting other approaches 

and not self-aggrandizing. The work will speak for itself 

and much louder anyway. Teaching is a communication 

exercise and learning to speak in a language that the particular 

student can understand is the teacher’s goal. I have 

had many students come back during their development as 

builders to take classes again. They can absorb more when 

they know more. 

Here it is important to say, I am no longer teaching. I did 

it as a fun side activity for 30 years and now the antique cars 

that need restoration in my garage are calling me. I think part 

of being a good teacher is knowing when to quit. I’ll miss it. 

I certainly met some really great folks through teaching and 

now enjoy watching many of them build great guitars. 



collection. 

Kent “Carlos” Everett: Three eh? 

Nick Drake - 5 Leaves left 

Michael Hedges - Breakfast in the Field 

Otis Redding – Got to get Back 

But that is just off the top of my head. 

I feel I am being unfair to Al Petteway, Adam Rafferty, Augusto 

Barrios, Paco de Lucia, Russell Malone, Sister Tharpe, 

Albert King, Albert Collins, Barry Richman, Bonnie Raitt, … 

Gee … there are really lots. Isn’t it great to have a life with 

so much good music in it! 

Bruce Sexauer cont’d from page 45 

For many years people with interesting wood have offered 

it to me at fair prices. Because I have honed my skill at assessing 

wood, I often decide to buy. This despite the fact 

that I have at least 500 guitar sets in my wood locker, and a 

reasonable expectation that I will build less than 100 more 

in the time I have left. 



collection. 

Bruce Sexauer: I am not competent to answer this question. 

I cannot listen to music while I am working as I cannot 

work while I am listening to music. I spend 10 hours a day in 

the shop, and I play guitar or violin for 1 to 2 hours of that 

time most days. I have a stack of unopened CDs recorded 

by people I know. It is embarrassing. 



y John DetrickWhat a 

by Dana Bourgeois 

truly amazing 

time to build guitars. 

In January of 1964, I saw The Beatles on the Ed 

Sullivan Show and had to have a guitar. Fortunately 

for my future profession, I wasn’t alone. In my 

hometown and across the nation, platoons of kids 

persuaded parents to bring home all varieties of 

no-name electrics and acoustics: Silvertones, Teisco 

Del Ray’s, Guilds, and even a few Martins and 

Gibsons. The movement was on. Offspring of the 

Greatest Generation set about learning chords 

and riffs, blistering fingers, trading songs, forming 

garage bands and consuming all forms of popular 

music. The guitar became my video game, at 

times forcing my parents to stage interventions 

just to get me outdoors. Looking back, I was never 

an accomplished player. But I was always a serious 

player. Guitar was fun, and it allowed me to occasionally 

hang with the cool kids. 

My first attempts at lutherie consisted of drawing 

miniature Fenders, Gibsons, Rickenbackers, Hoffner 

basses, etc., on little plywood paddle boards, 

cutting the outlines on my dad’s bandsaw and 

painting relatively accurate details with model airplane 

enamels. My dad removed and hid electrical 

fuses to prevent us kids from using his power tools. 

I figured out how to hack the bandsaw by removing 

the guards and persuading my brother to turn 

the wheels by hand. He’d get up a head of steam 

while I steered the cuts, one-eighth of an inch at a 

time, until the blade literally ground to a halt. 

When I started building real guitars, there were 

no guitar schools and certainly no Google and You- 

Tube. I knew of only one practicing luthier, Nick 

Apollonio, who lived a couple hours away (and, 

btw, is still going strong). I had access to a couple 

books on the subject, but the methods they revealed 

were either hopelessly unreliable (“boil the 

sides in a tub of water, tie them to the mold with 

string”), or hopelessly unachievable (“your milling 

machine is the best tool for cutting saddle slots”). 

Somehow I persevered, making and even selling 

a guitar here and there. In retrospect, it’s amazing 

what a little passion and determination can accomplish. 

In the mid-seventies popular music roared to a 

crescendo. Local bands played everywhere, and 

the guitar was more popular than ever. Handmade 

guitars didn’t yet pay the bills. All those Guilds, 

Hummingbirds and D-35s that kids my age took 

to college eventually needed maintenance, and 

at one point or another many found their way to 

my workbench. Having no local competition, I 

could make a pretty good living producing what 

I now know to be mediocre work. Back then, decent 

apartments went for $300/month and a re-fret 

brought in $75. So glad I’m not starting out now. 

Along the way I began to meet a few pros whose 

work, depth of experience and business models 

rocked my little world. Through the Whole Earth 

Catalogue I learned that Michael Gurian ran what 

would now be called a boutique production shop, 

in Hinsdale, NH. I made quite a few round trip, 

eight-hour drives to Hinsdale for the privilege of 

selecting and purchasing tonewoods, getting my 

first peeks at a real guitar operation, and receiving 

occasional words of wisdom from someone who 

knew a lot more than I did. Walter Lipton built steel 

string and classical guitars in Orford, NH, and also 

sold wood. And Michael Cone built world class 

classical guitars, using only hand tools, in an offgrid 

house New Vinyard, Maine. Michael turned 

me on to the Guild of American Luthiers. I became 

a member and attended their 1979 convention in 

Boston, where I met John Monteleone, Steve Klein 

and David Russel Young. Wow. 

By the time the 80s rolled around, I had saturated 

my southern Maine market. I needed either to 

project my services to a bigger community or relocate 

from the area my ancestors had settled back 

in the mid-eighteenth century. Fortunately, I didn’t 

relocate. The Big Time came to me when I met 

Eric Schoenberg and began repairing and restoring 

real vintage guitars from his personal collection 

and from The Music Emporium, the shop he coowned 

in Cambridge, MA. The first half of the decade 

was spent making bi-weekly or monthly treks 

to Cambridge to pick up and drop off repair work. 

Soon I and my apprentice, TJ Thompson, had a 

serious backlog of vintage repair and restoration 

work. During those Boston trips I got to meet and 

later know a few of my acoustic 

guitar heroes, including Russ 

Barenberg, Tony Rice, Norman 

Blake and Doc Watson. More 

importantly, I got to hear them 

play guitars I had built. The ideal 

I strove for, and still do, was 

the sound of a truly great vintage 

guitar in the hands of a 

great player. In no way is that 

actually possible to achieve… 

probably ever, and certainly 

not back then. But it’s good to 

have standards and even better 

to understand exactly how 

one measures up to them. Tony 

Rice once told me, “This guitar 

doesn’t quite make it, man.” 

Though I still wince at the recollection, 

Tony’s unique brand of 

kindness and honesty probably 

was, in the big picture, at least 

as valuable as the last couple 

digits on my right hand. 

In the mid-eighties, Eric asked 

Chris Martin if C.F. Martin’s new 

Custom Shop would build a guitar along the lines 

of a cutaway OM I had by that time developed. 

Chris answered that it wasn’t anything they’d consider 

building under the Martin name. And that’s 

how Schoenberg Guitars was born, with me as a 

founding co-partner. For a few years I selected 

wood, made specialty parts, and voiced guitars at 

the Martin factory like it was no 

big deal. Based on my Schoenberg 

Guitars experience, I later 

got a gig with Gibson as a process 

design consultant, helping 

the company open an acoustic 

guitar factory in Bozeman, 

Montana. Then I got hired by 

PRS to help develop a business 

plan and product line for an 

acoustic guitar division. Around 

the dawn of the 90s, Paul had 

decided that he wasn’t yet 

ready for acoustics and I was 

on my own again. That decade 

flew by. 

After spending two years 

planning someone else’s acoustic 

guitar venture, having a go 

on my own seemed like the natural 

next thing to do. The time 

was right. By the early 90s, many 

of the kids I grew up and went 

to college with found themselves 

living in better neighborhoods 

and rediscovering the 



guitar as a quality, leisure-time experience. Santa 

Cruz and Collings emerged as premium brands. 

The “acoustic boutique” retail support model, the 

ease of small package shipping pioneered by UPS 

and FedEx, and, moreover, the emergence of the 

internet—all helped pave direct paths between my 

fledgling business and The Market. I distinctly remember 

blowing away a couple of my dealers after 

transforming a three-fold brochure into a website. 

Most significantly for the shape of my new business 

model, I had seen CNC technology out in the Big 

World. Tom Anderson and Bob Taylor were early 

pioneers. I determined not to lag far behind. I remember 

the skepticism of some dealers and customers, 

who, early on, couldn’t quite understand 

that properly deployed CNC technology actually 

enhances product quality and in no way corrupts 

the “handmade” ideal. These days, dozens and 

dozens of individual luthiers incorporate CNC-produced 

components in the building of their indisputably 

handmade guitars. Hand saws, power 

saws, and CNC mills, it turns out, are equally incapable 

of producing quality product in the absence 

of superior design and highly skilled operation. 

Much of the going was, and still can be, rough. 

I learned the hard way not to run a business on 

credit cards, not to pledge your house as collateral 

for a business loan, not to hire close friends, 

relatives or anyone expecting lifetime job security. 

I learned that locally hired employees tend to stick 

around longer than someone who’s willing to drive 

across the country to start work in the spring but 

doesn’t own a pair of winter boots. And I learned 

that high-level skill in any craft can be a better 

qualification for production guitar work than considerable 

lutherie experience, if accompanied by 

intelligence, character, positive attitude and excellent 

communication skills. The learning curve has 

yet to flatten. 

Twenty-five years and three production shops 

later, I’m still making expensive sawdust. Bourgeois 

Guitars now has eighteen employees and produces 

about four hundred guitars in a good year. We 

recently moved to a newly renovated 8,000 square 

foot facility in an 1880s Lewiston, Maine, textile 

mill. I hope this was my last relocation. (Hold me 

to it…please!) Though my title is CEO, I still spend 

the lion’s share of my time working in the shop. 

When I’m not in management meetings or on the 

road at promotional events, I select wood, voice 

tops and backs, inspect guitars at various stages of 

construction and upon completion, work on prototypes 

and new tooling, and sometimes empty the 

trash. My medium-range goals are the continual 

optimization of workplace culture to promote and 

reward teamwork, and the maintenance of consistent 

quality standards across diverse combinations 

of body styles, tonewoods and price points. My 

long-term goal is figuring out how the hell to retire. 

Let me repeat, this has been a truly amazing 

time to build guitars. The common thread running 

through my entire career is the seemingly miraculous 

opening of doors, precisely at times when 

entrances and exits made a difference. Along the 

way I was often smart enough to recognize opportunities 

when I saw them. Hard work, a little tal- 

ent and an ability to learn from mistakes helped 

a lot. Someone once said that eighty percent of 

success is showing up. And that may be right. I’d 

be a fool, however, not to acknowledge just how 

lucky I’ve also been. I was lucky to be born into a 

generation that adores guitar music and guitars. I 

was lucky to begin my career at a time when iconic 

American guitar manufacturers produced products 

of historically low quality. I was lucky to enjoy a 

peer network of truly great luthiers, many of whom 

loved nothing better than talking shop. I was lucky 

to have just enough skills to take advantage of the 

moment when older used guitars began a historic 

transformation into vintage guitars. I was lucky to 

get to know some of the greatest acoustic guitarists 

of the American Roots genre. I was lucky to 

experience a taste of the corporate guitar world 

just at a time when old-line companies began to 

feel the need for new blood. I was lucky to launch 

a business at a time when emerging technologies 

brought certain advantages to early adopters. And 

I was lucky to enjoy a forty-plus year marriage to a 

wonderful wife (with a good job), who supported 

me through numerous bumpy patches. 

Most of all, I was lucky to find a way to follow my 

passion for music, guitars, and the joys these gifts 

bring to so many people. 



Form follows function is a term closely connected to 

20TH century modernist architecture and industrial 

design. The fundamental principle is simply that the 

shape of a building or an object (form) should first 

relate to its planned purpose (function). The modern guitar 

may be the perfect marriage of form and function. 

The Artisan Guitar Show is privileged to present some of 

the finest guitar makers in the world each year. The show is 

home to guitars that represent the absolute cutting edge of 

innovation in the craft. Just as significant is the focus on the 

aesthetic details of the instruments presented during the 

show. Our guitar makers are respected globally for creating 

instruments that are the perfect blend of sonic or tonal quality 

and physical beauty. 

Many guitar enthusiasts never have the opportunity to 

see or play one of these magnificent, hand-crafted guitars. 

Those opportunities typically exist only through visiting 

Ben Wilborn 

In the Eye of the Beholder… 

museums, the rare guitar shop specializing in high-quality, 

hand-crafted instruments, an event like the Artisan Guitar 

Show, or by establishing a direct relationship with a guitar 

maker. The closest many of us get is seeing a striking photograph. 

Much of the guitar photography we see is remarkable, 

but it is truly nothing more than well-done product photography. 

There are those shots though that transcend product 

photography to become fine art photography. We asked a 

select group of guitar makers to choose a photograph that 

they viewed as being fine art or simply impacted them for 

its message or other reason. These guitar makers were also 

asked to provide a comment as to why the photograph was 

powerful to them. 

We hope that you enjoy these beautiful photos and the 

words that accompany them. 

Burton LeGeyt 

Tyler Robbins 

“What I like most about this picture is the gradual 

focus along the backplate. The lines become crisp 

and you are drawn in to the geometry in a way you 

would not be if the focal length was longer. The pattern 

grows, both in perspective and literally, as the 

design is parametric and increases slightly in scale 

as it moves away from the guitar body. The guitar 

itself is not pictured, and the neck becomes a compositional 

aspect of the photo instead of a purely 

documentary one. Obviously a guitar, especially for 

someone very familiar with one, but highlighting a 

non standard detail, and in a highly stylized way. I 

don’t consider this fine art photography in any way 

but I do think it approaches product photography 

with a desire to abstract the usual goal of simply 

presenting an instrument as built.” Burton LeGeyt, 

LeGeyt Instruments 

Eric Weigeshoff 

“I don’t know if these cross the line into art, but I think they 

are luscious detail shots. I hope they are magazine worthy! “ 

Ben Wilborn, Wilborn Guitars 

“I really like this photo. To me it conveys the late nights 

and the solitude that I often find myself in while working. It 

is also bringing to light a bit of the chaos that is Luthierie. 

There’s tape and dust and blades everywhere which is probably 

pretty confusing to a lot of people. I love that it highlights 

the unseen steps of guitar building to show how much 

effort and how many hours we really put into our craft!” 

Tyler Robbins, Robbins Acoustics 

“Here is a shot of one of my guitars entitled “The 

Dark Side of the Moon”. I’m not good at quotes, 

but I would say that this photo is less about guitars 

and more about the study of light and dark. It’s one 

of my favorite photos of any of my instruments.” 

Eric Weigeshoff, Skytop Guitars 



Ken Parker 

“Gotta love it, these 

little braces contribute 

so much to the voice 

of the instrument.” 

Ken Parker, 

Ken Parker Archtops 

Michael Greenfield 

Maegen Wells 

“When I look at this photo, I 

see one of the few angles that 

truly captures all of the beautiful 

intricacies that define the 

Archtop guitar; and then it 

transforms into a city skyline.” 

“The flow of the overlapping rim assemblies presents an abstract landscape 

with a lot of motion in it for an image that is basically still life.” 

Michael Greenfield, Greenfield Guitars 

Mirko Borghino 

“There is no finer art than 

Nature. I truly believe the 

beauty and power that embraces 

this photograph 

comes not from the guitar, 

but from the tree that it 

once was.” 

“It’s an incredible experience 

to see a photo of a 

guitar you’ve never seen 

before, and it instantly 

feels like you’re holding 

it in your arms. You can 

even hear the music.” 

Maegen Wells, 

Maegen Wells Guitars 

“In this photograph it is easy to recognize the 

many different faces of the Luthier. By photographing 

a rough carpenter bench and hand 

tools, the years of experience and hours of 

research required to transition older traditions 

to modern technology is evident – it is 

the meeting of the old and new that allows us 

to make the finest artistic musical instrument.” 

Mirko Borghino, Borghino Guitars 



Patrick Morrissey 

“Simple in its design but 

executed perfectly - I take as 

much pride in the inside of the 

guitars as I do the outside.” 

Patrick Morrissey, Morrisey 

Guitars 

Tom Ribbecke 

“This is my favorite saying of all, ‘There is no great art 

without great science and no great science without art! ‘“ 

Tom Ribbecke, Ribbecke Guitars 

“Hand planes, chisels, rasps, give 

you that connection with the wood 

- all these years later it is still satisfying 

and rewarding. Sanding, not 

so much.” 

SAM GUIDRY 

Jason Kostal 

Photo is by Jessica Savidge 

“Photography is one of the most important 

aspects of building a guitar because, for many 

boutique builders, it is the only way someone 

will interact with our guitars before committing 

to order one. Photos need to convey 

a desire to be a part of the process, and to 

someday own something created by that 

luthier. This photo conveys art, motion, process, 

and curiosity. It shows my stained glass 

rosette, which has become a bit of a signature 

aspect for me, while being cut with a tool 

handmade by another artisan, which adds interest 

to the shot. The fact that a soundhole is 

being cut implies motion of some kind which 

makes the photo feel less stagnant, and the 

fact that you are only seeing one moment of 

that process makes the viewer want to see and 

understand more. It creates a sense of understanding 

AND longing all at the same time.” 

Jason Kostal, Kostal Guitars 

“We call this pose “sidewinder” because of how you have 

to lay in order to get the shot. It is my favorite shot for 

my guitars as it gives an interesting perspective that most 

people never see. I also really like that the focal point is the 

point of my peghead and I feel it places emphasis on the 

detail work that goes into crafting my headstock.” 

Sam Guidry, Sam Guidry Handmade Guitars 



5 

Minutes 

with 

Rick Maguire 

Artisan Guitar Show: The guitar 

generally is the result of an evolutionary 

process and each guitar 

maker evolves personally through 

experimentation, experience, and of course simple trial and 

error. After thirty years of creating instruments, what do you 

see in the future? Do you think there are any significant developments 

to come, or just the ongoing refinement of the 

guitar as we know it? 

Rick Maguire: I think that when viewing or playing my 

work, it’s obvious that I am presently taking the approach of 

refinement on the accepted norms, building on tradition in 

order to offer a guitar that is familiar but with added comforts 

and enhanced performance. 

That’s not to say I don’t think there are clever and incredible 

innovations happening at present or yet to come. In fact, 

on the contrary. I recognize and greatly admire those who 

offer designs or specific features that reside outside of 

the guitar shaped box we know. Similar to some of the 

greatest artistic works of all time, some of these innovations 

may not be appreciated or even recognized 

in the creator’s lifetime, therefore it takes a certain 

level of boldness and confidence to offer something 

outside of the norm to a superstitious, sometimes 

unyielding group of individuals. 

When I started in the trade, I worked with Irish luthier 

Paul Doyle. In Paul’s shop on any given day we could be 

restoring a centuries old cittern or lute, building a new 

Irish bouzouki or baroque inspired guitar, leveling the 

frets of a Gibson J-50 or rewiring a Fender Strat. Segments 

of the lineage of the instrument could be seen all 

in the same day, on the same bench. It was a fascinating 

and exhilarating time for me. Looking back, Paul’s 

workbench was a daily demonstration that The Guitar 

can be considered an emblematic example of mechanical 

evolution in process. If consciously studied, both 

subtle and extreme refinements can be seen and recognized 

on a fairly steady basis. I think that within the 

lifetime of any given luthier or player in the last 

200+ years, regardless of the era, huge leaps 

can be witnessed. The legacies of individuals 

like Leo Fender, Ted McCarty, John D’Angelico, 

Loyd Loar, Orville Gibson, C.F. Martin(s), 

Johan Stauffer and many others too ancient to 

name, have made it so the idea of “traditional” 

differs from decade to decade. 

I think innovation is instilled within the tradition 

of guitar making. With that said, 

there are sure to be significant developments 

to come. 

Artisan Guitar Show: You mentioned 

that “scrounging in warehouses, basements 

and classified ads in search of old 

stock traditional tonewoods” has afforded 

you the ability to have an extraordinary 

stockpile of irreplaceable woods. Is the search for aged 

tonewood that are perfect to create an “Instant Vintage” 

guitar still a part of your work process? Do you think there 

are still any great finds out there? 

Rick Maguire: It goes without saying that natural resources 

in general are scarce and the quality of what is available 

has diminished considerably. 30 years ago, one could make 

a pilgrimage to one of several regional hardwood outlets 

with a few hundred dollars and return with a bounty of exceptional 

material worthy of the seemingly countless hours 

it takes to transform it from lumber into a world class guitar. 

Unfortunately, those days are over. It seems as if most of the 

hardwood outlets that are still doing business are offering 

only construction grade materials. High quality instrument 

grade lumber can still be found, but typically only through 

specialty dealers with prices that match or exceed its scarcity. 

The global depletion of natural resources has forced 

luthiers to think differently about how or what they will 

acquire to work with. Many have looked to alternative 

species, some with great success and acceptance. 

Others, like myself, have taken on the challenge as 

more of an archeological endeavor. Although I do 

work with some responsibly harvested “new” lumber, 

I really prefer to work with the antique stuff. Either 

way, sourcing lumber has become more and more 

of a distraction from time at the workbench and must be 

figured into the overall build time. 

Word of mouth and Craig’s list account for most of my 

finds, but I do still check the local paper for want ads 

from the occasional “old timer” who hasn’t bought into 

the new way of doing things. It was in this way that I 

recently acquired some old stock East Indian rosewood 

headstock veneer sized scraps that perfectly match some 

fretboards that I’ve had in my possession for decades. 

I might have enough lumber on hand to get me through 

my career, but I will continue to endeavor to increase 

my wood stash. After all, the next piece I acquire might 

just be of better quality than the piece I’m about to work 

with. Another motivator is that either of my kids may decide 

to take up the trade. If so, it could be argued that a 

good stash of antique lumber might be a more valuable 

legacy than any knowledge or experience I can 

offer. 

My affinity for old wood has taken me on some 

interesting and sometimes odd excursions. With 

more failures than successes, these lumber field 

trips have provided me with an exceptional 

cache of raw materials and given me the 

opportunity to meet some exceptional 

craftsmen of many persuasions along the 

way. Let it be known that I live within 25 

miles of the old Guild Guitar factory and 

have to believe there are still some echoes 

of that time in the form of wide Honduras 

mahogany or Brazilian rosewood laying dormant 

in closets and basements. Gotta be, right? 

Artisan Guitar Show: The acoustic guitar in hollow-body 

archtop and flattop designs is typically viewed with an eye 

toward sophistication. As an electric builder, you create solid 

and semi-hollow body instruments. How would you contrast 

the level of sophistication in a fine electric guitar to that 

of its acoustic counter-part? 

Rick Maguire: Although the electric guitar does lie farther 

down the evolutionary scale, I think most would say that the 

acoustic guitar is a more sophisticated entity, mostly in the 

area of stability. The construction of a fine acoustic guitar is 

a balancing act where fragility teeters with stability. If built 

too lightly, an acoustic guitar will collapse or distort, possibly 

becoming unplayable. Conversely, if overbuilt it will 

suffer a loss in resonance and tone, sounding terrible. The 

guitar needs to be both playable and possess the proper 

tone and resonance. Manipulation of the top’s thickness and 

carving of internal braces is where this balancing act mostly 

takes place. These adjustments need to take place before 

the guitar is assembled, leaving little recourse for failure. 

Therefore, I would assert that the burden of sophistication 

in design and execution is of a higher level in the acoustic 

guitar. 

When striving to make world class guitars, either discipline 

must meet the same parameters of great tone, ease of playability, 

a pleasing aesthetic and flawless construction. I have 

practiced both disciplines. My time in Ireland gave me a 

great education and experience in acoustic instruments. 

I was afforded the opportunity to work on harps, fiddles, 

hurdy-gurdys, citterns, lutes, banjos, bouzoukis, mandolins 

and guitars. It was indeed a great time for me. Witnessing 

successes and failures of past and present designs was 

hugely beneficial to experience. Exposure to such an array 

of instruments of all ages was something I don’t think I could 

have easily found in the United States. 

When I returned home and set up shop, I surprisingly found 

myself focused on the electric guitar. I guess because I was 

mostly an electric guitar player and mostly surrounded by 

other electric guitar players, and that’s what was being requested 

of me. 

Since I came from an acoustic background, I wanted to 

bring a higher level of sophistication to my electric guitar 

designs. Electric guitars are inherently more bulky than their 

acoustic counterparts, and can benefit from added resonance 

anywhere it can be gotten. I was compelled to rethink 

the neck joint, where the neck and body are joined and energy 

can be lost. I weighed the benefits and detriments of 

existing methods of coupling the neck and body. I preferred 

the tonal benefits of the neck through body design, where 

the neck blank runs through to the end of the body. This 

method affords the least amount of string energy loss and 

therefore a more responsive neck, increasing both picking 

attack and sustain. However, I preferred the traditional aesthetic 

that the mortise and tenon joint gives. The resulting 

concept was a neck blank that runs just shy of entirety of 

the length of the body and is sandwiched in between the 

top and the back. I call it the “thru-tenon” neck and it is 

the defining feature of my Meridian series of guitars. When 

the body and neck are joined, I carve the profile of the neck 

right up to the end of the fretboard where it converges 

with the scalloped cutaways and the rounded heel. This 3D 

shape convergence can only be carved by hand and it takes 

a considerable amount of time and patience. The payoff for 

this time-consuming task is a very responsive and resonant 

neck. 

The fundamental difference between the acoustic and electric 

guitar is obviously the electronics. The acoustic guitar’s 

performance must rely solely on the merits of its own design, 

materials and construction -- which is indeed a sophisticated 

affair in and of itself. Requiring an entirely different 

type of sophistication is the challenge the electric guitar faces 

in assuming the need to translate string energy through 

its pickups, potentiometers and capacitors in order to cou- 

58 | artisanguitarshow.com artisanguitarshow.com | 59

ple with an amplifier and maintain its tonal character. Any 

given pickup won’t necessarily work in any given guitar and 

be expected to meet any given client’s needs. Guitar electronics 

are really another discipline altogether. There are so 

many variables in between the ringing of the strings and the 

air pumping off the speaker cone. So many, that it could, 

and sometimes does, boggle the mind. 

Artisan Guitar Show: The life of a guitar builder is often 

solitary. Describe your life as a guitar maker. Tell us about 

the beauty of the solitude and even the “Zen” moments. 

Did you even understand that you were choosing a life in 

which you were destined to spend much of the time alone? 

Would you have it any other way? 

Rick Maguire: Yes, I am a one man shop with one set of 

hands, so luthiery for me is a solitary affair. I am a gregarious 

person by nature, but I actually enjoy the solitude in this 

part of my life. My time, my decisions, my successes, my 

failures, my motivations, my satisfaction. It’s not only a great 

time to explore and execute designs, concepts and abilities, 

but also my time for exploring music, new and old. 

In my teens and twenties, when I was first learning the trade, 

I balanced a day job and a social life along with the luthiery 

obsession. That meant shop time was night time. 30 years 

later and that hasn’t changed. My dad is a night owl and 

so is my 13 year old daughter, so maybe it’s hereditary, but 

I think it’s an associative acquired behavior. For me, night 

time equals discovery, productivity. Night time means shoptime, 

satisfaction. During the day I will make phone calls, do 

errands, scout for materials, have discussions with clients. 

During the darkness I make sawdust and wood shavings and 

guitars. 

Because I am a gregarious person, I need the solitude in order 

to truly focus, otherwise I would have the desire to chat 

with whatever company I may be with. 

My most productive hours are between 6PM and 2AM. 

During these times I know it’s unlikely that I will receive any 

calls and I know I won’t get any visitors. Without the sun moving 

across the sky as a means to measure, its easy for time 

to slip away from me. My favorite moments are after several 

hours in the shop, accomplishing some predetermined goal 

or milestone, walking out the door and experiencing 8-18” 

of snow on the ground without having noticed a single flake 

fall from the sky. I will slowly, almost aimlessly make my way 

through the brand new landscape to my house, taking in 

the silence and solitude, knowing all the normal people are 

sleeping and the amazing and pristine beauty of this brand 

new landscape must only be meant for me and the pair of 

great horned owls that reside in the giant arborvitaes next 

to my shop. Sometimes the owls will look to me and call to 

me, maybe to inform me that it has snowed and I should 

take cover, or maybe to say, “Well done Rick!” Is there any 

level of “Zen” higher than that of a compliment from a wise 

old owl? 



collection. 

Rick Maguire: This is a difficult question to limit to just 3 

examples and one that would differ if asked 6 months ago 

and will likely be different 6 months from now, but here goes 

for the “now” version. 

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds- “No More Shall We Part” -- a 

very sparse and introspective album written and performed 

by post punk/goth icons, driven mostly by piano and violin 

enhanced with subtle but sublime guitar. 

Joni Mitchell-”Hejira” -- arguably the best female vocalist 

and songwriter of our time. A folk music icon choosing to 

step out of the folk cast and recruiting jazz icons Larry Carlton, 

Jaco Pastorius and John Guerin. C’mon. 

Van Morrison- “Astral Weeks” -- there aren’t words to describe 

this body of work. It is a singular and ethereal experience. 

If you don’t know it, you should. 



5 

Minutes 

with 

Bill Comins 

Artisan Guitar Show: You 

began playing guitar at an 

early age and went on to study jazz guitar at Temple University. 

You entered the music world first as a working musician 

and private instructor, but ultimately became a globally respected 

guitar maker. What was the catalyst for the transition 

from playing to building instruments and how did you 

develop the specific focus on archtop jazz guitars? 

Bill Comins: In my early twenties, after backpacking through 

Europe, I just got the itch to work with my hands. At that 

time I had already been doing some repair work on my 

students instruments and assembling some guitar kits and 

whatnot. For a while I was working in a violin shop and 

learning about that instrument so all that coupled with my 

study of jazz guitar naturally led me to an interest in building 

archtop guitars. 

Artisan Guitar Show: How has being a formally trained 

working musician inspired the instruments you create and 

what factors have provided the greatest influence on your 

work? 

Bill Comins: I really believe there are things I ask my guitars 

to do that come out of my experience as a player. I’m not 

sure I would understand what I’m shooting for if I hadn’t experienced 

playing archtops on a bandstand, playing in different 

rooms with different types of ensembles. Making an 

acoustic instrument work in electric setting is tricky business 

and I think being a musician allows me to bring a degree of 

certainty to my building sensibilities. 

Artisan Guitar Show: You create custom instruments for 

a diverse international clientele consisting of professional 

and novice musicians, educators, and collectors alike. Your 

personal approach to guitar making is to maintain a very 

personal relationship with your customers. Aesthetic personalization 

is easy to identify on an instrument and unique 

player set-up is easy to understand. How much potential 

truly exists for a guitar 

maker to tailor tone 

that is unique to a specific 

musician? 

Bill Comins: If I’m 

building a guitar for a 

specific musician I’m 

interested in what environment 

they hope to 

use the guitar in. I’m interested 

in their touch, 

light or heavy or somewhere 

in between. Do 

they go for a darker 

voice or are they after 

brighter sounds? Often 

the custom tailoring 

has at least as much 

to do with ergonomics 

such as nut width, scale length, body size, etc. The sonic 

character of a guitar can be altered by manipulating parameters 

such as wood selection, dimensions, arch shaping 

and graduation, bracing patterns, etc. That being said, no 

matter how I end up proceeding there seems to be certain 

Comins guitar characteristics that remain intact. 

Artisan Guitar Show: Cities have a vibe all their own. Philadelphia 

is renowned for artists like John Coltraine, Grover 

Washington, Jr., Billie Holiday, Chubby Checker, Jim Croce, 

Hall and Oates, Todd Rundgren, and many others who call 

the City of Brotherly Love home. Live performance has 

always been at the heart of the of the Philadelphia music 

scene and it is home to important concert venues. Famous 

acts like Frank Sinatra, The Doors, Count Basie, The Grateful 

Dead, Luciano Pavarotti, and Bruce Springsteen have created 

a reputation for Philadelphia as the “place to play” 

for musicians from diverse musical genres. Do you feel that 

your instruments are inspired or influenced by the rich music 

history that surrounds you and do you ever feel as though 

you are a part of a significant music scene like Laurel Canyon 

or Muscle Shoals? 

Bill Comins: Thanks for giving Philadelphia that nice plug! 

I’ve always felt it’s an underrated City. Its a gritty town in 

every sense of the word and there are plenty of reasons to 

believe in its prospects going forward. The city does have a 

rich musical tradition especially when it comes to Jazz, Soul, 

and R&B. I guess I did come up in the remnants of that history. 

I’ve been very lucky to get to see/hear and even get to 

know so many great artists. Its hard to guess how much of all 

that has influenced me but I imagine quite a bit. 



collection. 

Bill Comins: If you don’t mind I’d like to redirect this question 

just a little. I’d like to offer 

three YouTube links as examples 

of historic archtop jazz guitar recordings 

that I think exemplify 

really great archtop tone: 

Johnny Smith, Cherokee: 

https://www.youtube.com/ 

watch?v=BoEDu00GCJE 

Hank Garland, Secret Love: 

https://www.youtube.com/ 

watch?v=WwlGzxIGajE 

Kenny Burrell with Jimmy Smith, 

I’ll Close My Eyes: https://www. 

youtube.com/watch?v=Nid5xk- 

J8Qr8&feature=share 

Listen to the clarity, the evenness, 

and the thick, round trebles. 

That’s what always pulls me in as 

a listener. 



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