Posted on January 6, 2010May 27, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: 1996 & 1997 Luthier’s Art Review: 1996 The Luthier’s Art & 1997 The Luthier’s Art Reviewed by Woody Vernice Originally published in American Lutherie #55, 1998 1996 The Luthier’s Art & 1997 The Luthier’s Art String Letter Publishing 1996: 111 pages 1997: 141 pages, ISBN 1-890490-01-6 $19.95 per volume Available from Acoustic Guitar magazine These two lovely collections of instrument photos represent the participants of the Healdsburg Guitar Festivals of their respective years. Since the books came out well before the events, it’s obvious that the photos were submitted by the luthiers and weren’t taken at the shows. I’m sure the photos are better for it, but these aren’t necessarily the guitars you would have seen at the festivals. As one of the sponsors of the festivals, Acoustic Guitar magazine has tried hard to make the guitar a cultural icon and the festivals a matter of artistic importance. These books are compiled to look like gallery or auction catalogs. The layout is formal and the photographic reproduction very good. If the collection is biased towards Left Coastians, the books are more interesting for it. The progressives and weirdoes lend an air of excitement and airiness to the pages, though they may send some staid readers on a quick search for a Martin copy just to regain their balance. All in all, however, there seems to be a lot more luthiers happily chugging away within the tradition than pushing the envelope. This is a pretty bunch of instruments with enough ideas in either volume to keep any builder thinking for a long time. The photo spread is followed by a short biography of each luthier. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 6, 2010May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Guitars and Mandolins in America Featuring the Larsons’ Creations by Robert Carl Hartman Review: Guitars and Mandolins in America Featuring the Larsons’ Creations by Robert Carl Hartman Reviewed by John Bromka Originally published in American Lutherie #2, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Guitars and Mandolins in America Featuring the Larsons’ Creations Robert Carl Hartman Maurer & Co., 1984 $39.95 from amazon.com (1999) Every fine luthier of creative and abundant output should be so lucky as to have a memory book devoted to preserving his art and times. Robert Carl Hartman has done a thorough job of this for his grandfather Carl Larson and Carl’s brother August, who together maintained a lutherie business from the 1880s to 1944. A great portion of the Larsons’ output was built to order to receive the manufacturers’ and distributors’ labels of Maurer, Prairie State, Dyer, and Stahl. If you are not yet familiar with the Larson brothers or their instruments (am I too far east of Midwest?), you’re in for a treat. The Larsons built beautiful and highly original instruments, and a large sample of designs are given here among the book’s 150 photographs and drawings. Included are mandolins, mandolas, mandocello and bass, flattop and archtop guitars, acoustic bass guitar, and harp mandolins and guitars. A chart of measurements is given with each instrument. Reprints of the guitar patents give very thorough drawings, descriptions, theory, and reasoning behind such innovations as laminated braces, further developed X bracing, through-the-body truss rods, and building under tension. Testimonials from Stefan Grossman, George Gruhn, and Johnny Cash, and a humorous reminiscence from Les Paul give further incentive to look into the Larsons’ designs. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 5, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: The Guitar in America, Victorian Era to Jazz Age by Jeffrey J. Noonan Review: The Guitar in America, Victorian Era to Jazz Age by Jeffrey J. Noonan Reviewed by Don Overstreet Originally published in American Lutherie #96, 2008 The Guitar in America, Victorian Era to Jazz Age Jeffrey J. Noonan ISBN (hardcover): 139781934110188 University Press of Mississippi, 2008, $50 In the year 2008, say “BMG” and some will think of the mail-order catalog of recordings. In the year 1908, say “BMG” and many in the musical community in America would immediately think of the Banjo, Mandolin, and Guitar movement. Jeffrey Noonan’s recent publication, (an expansion of a doctoral dissertation and echoing its academic origin), gives us a clear portrait of the life and times of a true social phenomenon that began in the last half of the 19th century and continued into the 1920s, when changing times and tastes caused it to fade away. We can be thankful to Mr. Noonan for adding this book to the list of efforts published in recent years by writers such as Philip Gura and James Bollman, whose studies of the banjo and the life and times of C.F. Martin, Sr. have become standard references, not only for their overviews of the instruments themselves but also for illuminating the social environment in which the music became so popular. The important figures of the era are identified and given biographies while we learn about the amazing process of the creation and marketing of the instruments. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 5, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Step by Step Guitar Making by Alex Willis Review: Step by Step Guitar Making by Alex Willis Reviewed by John Mello Originally published in American Lutherie #94, 2008 Step by Step Guitar Making Alex Willis ISBN (paperback): 9781861084095 Guild of Master Craftsman Pub. Ltd., 2008, $17.95 In the predawn (1960s) of the current somewhat optimistically termed “Golden Age of American Lutherie,” nascent craftsmen and craftswomen roamed the land, struggling on their own, haunting the few professional practitioners, and occasionally wheedling an apprenticeship, where they spent long unpaid hours in the shop, after which they trudged to their dwelling, inscribing their hard-won knowledge on stone tablets dutifully stacked at the back of the cave for future reference. Hard data was difficult to accrue; the only readily obtainable publications being the helpful but maddeningly brief offerings by A.P. Sharpe, H.E. Brown, and Joseph Wallo, and the seminal Classical Guitar Construction by Irving Sloane, an inspiration for many, but at ninety-five pages, many taken up with background info and photos of older master instruments, more a porthole view of a mysterious and beautiful island on the horizon than a detailed prescription for sonic and cosmetic excellence. Art Overholtzer’s Classic Guitar Making, edited and published by experienced technical writer Lawrence Brock, and at 324 pages, the first method with enough detail to give one a decent shot at making a guitar even remotely like that of the author, was published in 1974, significantly followed in 1987 by Cumpiano and Natelson’s Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology, a thorough exposition of the craft by working professionals, its detail and clarity setting the bar pretty high for anything to follow. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 5, 2010May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: More on Somogyi’s Responsive Guitar Review: More on Somogyi’s Responsive Guitar Reviewed by Michael Sandén Originally published in American Lutherie #102, 2010 I first meet Ervin in 1984. I was in my second year as a wannabe guitar builder, and already I had read about him in Frets magazine. Over the years we have met a few times when I have passed through San Francisco and of course at Guild conventions. I have listened to his workshops and I have read his articles in American Lutherie magazine. When I saw these two thick books of about 300 pages each, I got the feeling that Ervin had left nothing out. Finally someone has taken the time and effort to write all of this down. He goes through the many aspects of the guitar and just tells you his experience (which spans over four decades) of how everything works. Ervin makes a full chapter of some topics that are barely mentioned in many guitar building books. Take for instance the chapter, “The Functions of the Guitar Back.” I have been building guitars for almost thirty years. To now be able to read about these things that have been in my head for so long gives me great satisfaction. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
