luthiers

NAMM announced today that it will be providing important new compliance information specifically for luthiers and small-shop businesses that deal with shipping wooden instruments. New amendments to the Lacey Act have been instituted and NAMM is stressing the importance for these Members, and all Members dealing with wooden instruments, to understand and follow these new guidelines.

R. C. Allen is a guitar luthier that uses the style of his many friends of the era in the early 1950s in Southern California when guitar innovators were reshaping the instrument and grooming it for a new birth. RC was building his own unique instruments when Leo Fender and Lowell Kiesel of Carvin were also just starting out. RC was influenced greatly by his dear friend Paul Bigsby who worked for Merle Travis on one of the most historic electric guitars of the era.

Tim Angell grew up interested in the craft of woodworking. As a teenager he became interested in stringed instruments. With little woodworking opportunities in New Jersey, Tom and his wife moved to Connecticut where Tim found a job at Ovations Guitar. He worked his way through many departments learning all of the stages of guitar building and participating in design and general modifications. Fascinated with computers and databases he kept track of serial numbers and statistics of the assembly and output of the shop. The parent company, Kaman, was impressed with his research and offered him a job at the headquarters up the road in Bloomfield.

Scott Baxendale is a noted guitar luthier who has crafted a unique career based on his own style of guitar building that echoes several of his favorite luthiers. While working for Mossman guitars, he created several specialized instruments, including the noted custom Warner Brother’s guitar, which showcased his skilled techniques of inlay, design, and use of creative bracings. Scott bought the company for a time. To this day, he continues to design guitars.
 

Robert Benedetto is a guitar luthier’s luthier! Respected around the world, Bob has achieved what few have in guitar craftsmanship: a unique style and sound, creative and classic design, and tooling that is second to none. His knowledge of guitar building was evident in our interview with Bob along with his genuine respect for his contemporaries. With his lovely wife, Cindy, at his side, Bob was interviewed for the NAMM Oral History program on January 18, 2004. 

George Borun began his luthier endeavors as a hobby and soon found himself enthralled with the angles, the woods and the tools of the trade. He embarked on a mission to assemble the blueprints and patterns of the world’s finest string instruments and sought to solve the mystery of their uniqueness. Along the way he created an impressive collection of instruments he made by hand and topped off his belief in giving music back to music makers by then donating his instruments to students of all levels.  

Kim Breedlove began building banjos in the 1960s, during the Folk Music movement and the popularity of such performers as Pete Seeger. After working with his brother for a few months he moved to the east coast while his brother moved to Oregon to form Breedlove Guitars. As Kim moved to Oregon, his brother returned to work with his old friend Bob Taylor in San Diego, while Kim changed his focus from the banjo to the guitar. Today, the Breedlove Guitar Company is known for their range of professional products.
 

Roger Bucknall is an instrument maker who formed Fylde Guitars, which is located in Penrith, England, not so far from the Scottish boarder. Roger’s long and well regarded career as a guitar builder began as a teenager, although he actually made his first guitar when he was just nine years old. Roger’s love of tool making, woods and the process of designing and hand crafting instruments, is more than his job, it is indeed his passion.

John Carruthers has established himself as a leading expert on guitars and amplifiers as a designer, builder and repairman. Working along side Leo Fender at Music Man, John helped improve the quality of the product line and years later helped establish a series of instruments for Yamaha including their electric bass and acoustic guitar line. John’s reputation grew in part due to a decade long column he wrote for Guitar Player Magazine and his dedication to teaching.

Paul Chandler discovered a specialized market within the music industry as a result of being a rock and roll performer and loving vintage guitars. Over the years, Paul found that he had to replace vintage-style pickguards due to the composition of the materials used back in the 1930s and 40s. As a result he made his own and then, some for friends. Before he knew it, Paul was in business re-creating pickguards and other parts for nearly every brand of guitar. As the business grew, Paul offered other products relating to vintage guitars and parts and over time, became one of our industry’s leading experts on the subject.