Maker of high-end steel string guitars.
By Ervin Somogyi Paco de Lucia, born as Francisco Sanchez Gomez, died recently. For those who don’t know who he was, he was a stellar presence in the world of modern flamenco, and of the modern guitar in general. He played with dazzling brilliance, composed new pieces and melodies, introduced new playing techniques, devised breathtaking [ ]
The Socratic Method consists of eliciting answers to questions to which the answers aren’t exactly secrets. They’re things that everyone knows just because they’ve been alive and living on this planet for a few years . . . and that are easy to think about and yet that most people have never stopped to think [ ]
I look out the window from my workbench . . . where I’ve done the kind of lutherie work that I’ve pursued for more than fifty years, that I’ve contributed to, and that I’ve made my life’s work. I’ve known most of the important people in the field. I participated in its very unfolding. And I witnessed many [ ]
When I made my first guitar there was only one book available on how-to-make-one: Irving Sloane’s Classic Guitar Construction, published in 1966. Now there are more than two dozen – not counting scores more of table-top books about collectors’ guitars, this or that factory’s most prominent models, lists of various makers and their work, famous players and [ ]
As I’ve been saying: when I began making my first guitar, in 1970, I was more or less a (clean) hippie that is, a bearded and well-showered young man who was living on the edges of the mainstream culture, and not going in any particular direction in life. Looking back, I’m of the opinion [ ]
There had been another thing about living in Rockford that I felt miserable about: my parents’ continued expectations that I become someone they could be proud of. Here I was, 25 years old, and going nowhere. The even traveled to Rockford for a week to visit me! I couldn’t ignore their subtle-but-constant pressuring. I dealt with that in [ ]
I was living in San Diego, California when I was in High School and the hottest guitarist/singer entertainers at that time were The Kingston Trio. They were big. Bigger than big. Huge. Everybody was singing their songs. And we young High School boys learned that if we got some cheap guitars, and learned three chords, and sang some Kingston [ ]
PART 1: AN INTRODUCTION Instead of just jumping in and starting with a description of the first American luthiers – of which I am one – let me tell you something about how this group started, and what it came out of. It’s an interesting story that’s full of lessons that no one has yet [ ]
You might remember having studied about Harry Harlow back in college. Harlow was a Harvard psychologist who experimented with young monkeys. He subjected them to stresses, and showed that monkeys in their cages would have a preference for a terry-cloth surrogate mother monkey instead of a cold, hard, metal one. The monkeys obviously felt safer [ ]
I’d been writing about Martin Luther. Not Martin Luther King; he was one of the good guys. I mean the Martin Luther who founded Protestantism and became the father of modern-day Evangelicalism – which is the doctrine of salvation by grace through Faith. Luther is much revered today . . . but he really wasn’t [ ]