Meet the Maker: Ted Davis

by James Condino

Originally published in American Lutherie #96, 2008



I was introduced to Ted Davis over twenty years ago. We never talked. We never shared a trade show booth. We never had a musical transaction. Ted was one of those early folks who was so on top of it that he was writing GAL articles and making blueprints of famous instruments. When I was honing my craft in my teens and early twenties I was studying all of the instrument-making articles and drawings I could find. Ted Davis. That name kept popping up.

Twenty years later I found myself sitting in Lynn Dudenbostel’s shop, talking away, and he drops, “Ted Davis lives just down the way a bit. You know, Ted Davis from the GAL,” as though there could be none other. After a minute I realize... that Ted Davis? The Ted Davis? Lynn chimed back in, “And he still sells a bit of red spruce. You should go visit him.”