Posted on January 11, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: Robert Lundberg In Memoriam: Robert Lundberg June 25, 1948 – March 3, 2001 by Jean Gilman, Lora Lundberg Schultz, Dorothy Bones, Ben Lundberg, Michael Yeats, Günter Mark, Cyndy Burton, Jeffrey R. Elliott, and Jonathon Peterson Originally published in American Lutherie #66, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Rushing to Explore Life by Jean Gilman, Bob’s mother From the time he was young, Bob was rushing to explore life. He wanted to learn everything and do everything. When he was nine, we moved to the country. He immediately climbed into the rafters of the old barn and caught a beautiful barn owl, which he brought down for us all to admire before he let it go. He climbed up the silo and caught two bats which he kept in the refrigerator for several weeks so they would go into hibernation. He leaped from roof to roof of the outbuildings. He seemed fearless. Our rural community had an annual Corn and Potato Festival to celebrate the harvest. There were competitions for the children — catch a chicken, sack races, climb a greased pole. They announced a competition for boys to pick up a single bale of hay with a skip loader and return to the starting point. Bob decided to enter. He had used a skip loader a few times, but was competing against farm boys who used them every day. He won by fifteen or twenty seconds. I asked him how he did that. He had watched our neighbor boy Harry picking up hay and thought if he had used a combination of scoop-and-tilt action he could load it faster. This competition gave him a chance to test his theory, to the chagrin of the farm boys. Baby Bob and Mom. Photo courtesy of Jean Gilman. Bob attended Summerhill and returned knowing how to cook, make wine, pick locks. He also had an English boy’s long haircut. The principal at school told him to get his hair cut or be suspended. Bob dug in his heels and refused. A battle ensued. Faced with a lawsuit, the principal withdrew his objection to Bob’s long hair. Without saying anything to us, Bob got a haircut the next week. He worked at his father’s veterinary clinic to earn money for hobbies. He learned to sky dive, scuba dive, sail, pilot a plane, fix cars, race dirt bikes. He studied Eastern religions, and memorized Eliot’s The Waste Land to audition at Pasadena Playhouse. Bob told me that what made his life good were two mentors: Ted Bergeson, his high school art teacher, and the Rev. Walton Cole, his minister at the Unitarian Church in Pomona. Probably His First Apprentice by Lora Lundberg Schultz, Bob’s youngest sister Tagging along after my older brother was my favorite thing to do. Whether I was watching him scale the inside of our silo to pluck a sleeping bat from the top or fashion a plaster mold of his own hands in wet sand, I was always mesmerized and quickly learned the art of silence in the presence of a Master. I was probably his first apprentice! The Lundberg kids: Bob (10), and Anne (7) are behind Lora (4), and Tommy (2). Brother Ben was either new or not yet born. Photo courtesy of Lora Lundberg Schultz. Bob had secret places, high in the towering eucalyptus trees and hidden deep under the lively activity of our house, all inaccessible to me, as unreachable as he always was. His “laboratory” was in that storm cellar, and I still remember the day my thin arms could finally lift the storm door, that heavy and wide barrier, without him! I descended the cement steps into the shadows with trepidation, not so much out of fear of being caught, but more of what I might find in that dim and dusty place where my brother spent so many tireless hours... some chemicals, a crystal radio he had built, and odd tools lying on his workbench. The bats were later found hanging upside down from a wire shelf in my mother’s refrigerator, their tiny eyes squeezed shut in a Bob-induced hibernation. When Bob was older, he went to a school called Summerhill, in England, and he returned home on the cusp of Britishmania, propelled by the music of our generation. He had long hair, a British accent, and a love of ground pepper and of tea. All of the high school girls were instantly in love. I remember a carload of girls passing Bob and me in his sporty, black Fiat Abarth, with their horn blaring, heads out the windows, long hair streaming, “We love you, Bob!” He turned and looked at me with a satisfied smile and said, “Someday this will happen to you, too.” Because It Was There by Dorothy Bones, Bob’s childhood friend Bob Lundberg and I were best friends, as well as cousins. We were always in trouble when he would come to visit. Mostly, we rode horses — raced one another and anyone else — on the sandy flats or up the steep hills to overlook the vastness of the high desert where I lived. We were, of course, always admonished to avoid playing around “the dam” — a mighty cement reservoir span ’cross the steepest gorge — and so we decided one day, at age six or seven, to ride the six miles up the wash to the dam. Arriving in the hot afternoon, we tied the horses and slid down the sides on our rumps, until our feet hit the solid curve of the dry spillway. We ran across it, climbed the rusting iron-bar steps to the adjacent upper level, and hollered for joy as we attained the middle. On one side, the little pond that flash floods and winter storms often would fill to the top; on the other, a 200-ft. drop to the wash. The wind blew our laughter down the canyon, and we felt like Sir Edmund Hillary must have, and for the same reason — we climbed it because it was there! Bob’s daring eyes and smile askance tempted us to do most everything my parents ever forbade, but, of course it was always his fault! I miss him in my life. The Truck by Ben Lundberg, Bob’s youngest brother My brother Bob was ten years my senior and was in a world far removed from my own. Sometimes, if I was lucky, Bob and our cousin Eddy would take Tommy and me out on their dirt bikes to play hide-and-seek in the corn fields by moonlight. Those dark night rides with corn leaves slashing at my bare arms and legs, the wind whipping against my face, and the screaming engines are still vivid in my memory. I was three when he rebuilt his first vehicle, a 1938 flatbed Chevy truck. Bob had been driving farm vehicles since he was ten, for haying and hauling, weeding, and taking salt blocks around the pasture. He was tired of riding the bus, so he talked our Mom and Dad into letting him buy the truck for $25 from the farmer down the road. They never thought he would get it working. After all, it had been rusting away in the field for who knows how long. However, a few weeks later he had it up and running. My parents were surprised, but figured if he could get it to work, and pay for gas, he was capable of driving safely. I love this story, because it sums up the way Bob went about things. He didn’t mess around. He got things done. Continuing Resonance by Michael Yeats I’ve met few people in my life who could wear the word “brilliant,” and Robert Lundberg could. In addition to being one of the greatest instrument makers I’ve had the pleasure to know, he was also a good friend. Through analysis, wit, and humor, days in and out of the shop became days well spent. Personally, I owe my place in our community to Robert Lundberg; I began building instruments with Bob in 1975, and although I didn’t continue making lutes, the years I spent with Bob gave me a foundation not just in training and teaching, but in a broader view, they established an approach to and basic conceptualization of problem solving. My level of success as a bow maker in New York City is a direct result of Bob’s influence twenty-six years ago on a naïve kid from the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, and our friendship begun then is one of my most cherished possessions. Robert Lundberg was one of a few exceptional people promoting a free exchange of knowledge, out of a desire for us all to achieve the highest standards of work. The current high level of American instrument making exists today partly due to the influence of Robert Lundberg’s generosity. His quest for knowledge and command of it is as great a legacy as the number of fine instruments he’s created. As a true Renaissance person, his passion touches not only our community of instrument makers, but all the other communities he was involved in. If you’ve ever lost a close friend or loved one, you know how their being continues to resonate in your life consciously and unconsciously, and, like the proverbial drop of water in the pond, Bob’s presence and influence continues outwardly, not only to the people who knew him personally, but through them to others who never had the opportunity to know him, and on. He will be deeply and profoundly missed, but I know Robert Lundberg will always be present in the deeds we do and the accomplishments we all achieve. Teaching a Generation by Günter Mark When I first met Bob, at the 1979 lute-making course in Erlangen, he had to argue with some instrument makers who doubted almost everything he said about lutes. Lute makers then were trained in 20th-century lute making with thick tops, single strings, guitar-like sound, and they claimed tradition on their side. But tradition in real lute making was interrupted during the 18th century, and it was makers like Bob who started a new tradition in going back to the roots. Bob was one of the foremost experts in this field, having seen and measured nearly all of the extant lutes. He read through all sorts of stuff related to lutes and instrument making in general, and discussed his findings with other makers and players. Through his lute building courses in Erlangen, he taught a whole generation of lute makers in Germany. And what was different to German luthiers: Bob did not have “secrets.” He shared all of his notes, his experiences, and his thoughts with us. I learned from him that not a certain trick will make a good instrument, but that it is the result of your own ability, attitude, and knowledge. Bob and his first wife, Ellen, in Europe during a summer of lute research in 1971. Here they are in Nuremberg. Photo courtesy of Ellen Leatham. When he showed us things, it all looked so easy. I know now that he was the most skilled woodworker I ever met. It was his perfectly controlled balance of power and delicacy that I always admired, and I remember strongly his attitude of, “just do it, don’t fuzz around!” When I worked with Bob in Portland in 1982 and 1983, I was in apprentice’s heaven. His knowledge, his openness, and his flawless technique were almost intimidating, but also very inspiring. He let me study his big black book with the photographs and measurements of all these lutes in European and American museums. I read through the various treatises and articles about lute making, violin making, wood treatment, toolmaking, varnishing — it was all there. Bob had a broad knowledge of instrument making, lutes only being a small part of it. Why make it right if you can spoil it — one of his ironic comments. Why do it in time if you can have stress up to the last minute — my answer. We had a good time, and I left as a friend. Wish I could see him back. Giving Everything by Cyndy Burton and Jeffrey R. Elliott Anyone who knew Bob appreciated how he loved teaching and sharing his knowledge. We were very fortunate to be within range both by being part of the GAL and by living in Portland. He wasn’t easy to reach; he often didn’t return calls. But when he was present, he was completely with you and willing to give everything he had. A recent memory: Bob came to consult on a very old guitar that was here for restoration. The back was off, revealing the history of many repairs, both competent and not. Interpreting a black light’s glowing reflection on the many trails of hide glue was the key to the story. Bob was like a precocious child with a jigsaw puzzle. Very slight differences in shading taken with other painstaking observations revealed “the truth.” The reasoning required to unravel this complex puzzle might appear convoluted to anyone other than a forensic scientist. As we pondered the instrument, he inspired a growing confidence that stayed with us through the rest of the project. We treasure many other similar memories of our far-too-short time together. Excellence by Jonathon Peterson In the late ’70s, after a glorious stab at being a professional ballet dancer had failed in the make-a-living department, I decided to be “realistic” and become a guitar repairman. I fixed factory-made guitars, cheap violins and cellos, mandolins, electric basses, the odd double-neck or harp guitar, and the like. I was doing good work, but other than factory standards, I really had very few examples of fine workmanship against which to judge my efforts. Then, while attending one of the first handmade musical instrument shows in Portland, Oregon, I saw, on an unattended table, something which ultimately changed my life: a snakewood, ebony, and ivory Baroque archlute. I was awestruck. Speechless. It was so clean, so tight, so directed, so authentic, so ultimately human, and, in a way, so out of place and time. I possessed no historical context, no art or craft context with which to understand this thing. Who did this? How did they do it? Why did they do it? I tried to conjure up some plausible reason for showing up at the builder’s door. (Gee mister, I saw your really cool thing at the show. What was it? How do you do that?) I didn’t even know the right questions to ask. I found out that the builder was Robert Lundberg, and that is all that I knew about him for several years. 14-course Baroque archlute, 1990. These three photos courtesy of Linda Toenniessen. Most of what I know about Bob’s life before I met him I learned at his memorial service. He seems to have devoured his youth in big bites. He outgrew high school, dropped out, and went to study engineering at community college instead. He worked for a while in a fabrication shop building race cars. He souped up and raced his own ’40s Chevy with a modified GMC straight-6. Bob told me that guys would show up at the track with their small-block V-8s thinking they were hot stuff (not the word he used), and he would blow their doors off — then he smirked, obviously still enjoying the thought. He attempted a solo flight across the country when he was just in his teens, but ran into a storm and had to be talked in by a flight instructor. He was a boat builder. And then he got interested in lutes. Finding very little published material with any depth on the subject, Bob spent a good deal of time and energy early in his lutherie career combing through most of the major museums and collections in Europe and America, attempting to discover how and why the lute builders of old did what they did. On one six-month trip to Europe, he measured, photographed and/or documented about 140 different instruments. Bob studied violin building with Paul Schuback in Portland, Oregon, and lute construction with Jacob van de Geest in Europe; did conservation and restoration work for the Smithsonian and other museums; and read seemingly everything related to the subject. He could have been just a scholar, or just a conservator, or concentrated his substantial talent solely on instrument building, and he would have been at the top of any of these fields, but he did all of these things and more. His energy, his work ethic, his creativity, and the depth and breadth of his skill, knowledge, and experience were remarkable, to say the least. He was the most accomplished artisan I have ever met. This photo is from a January 8, 1972, Oregonian newspaper article about Paul Schuback and his shop. The caption reads, “ROMANTIC — Modern reproduction of small tenor lute, Renaissance instrument of 13 strings, has mellow, bell-like tone. Apprentice Bob Lundberg hopes to craft these amorous instruments. Staff photo by Wes Guderian.” Photo courtesy of Paul Schuback. In 1978 he began teaching an annual seminar on historical lute construction in Erlangen, Germany. Sometime in the mid-’80s Bob and Tim agreed to collaborate on a print version of his course for American Lutherie. His historical lectures were reworked and published, then Tim put a camera in my hands and asked if I would like to go and take some pictures of Bob building lutes. Would I ever! To finally have a chance to be in his shop and watch him work! Besides parenthood, it was the funnest and most interesting job I’ve ever had. Over a period of five years we spent dozens of hours photographing his building procedures. It was amazing the amount of work he could accomplish over the course of a couple of days. He never seemed hurried. I never saw a misplaced chisel, knife, or saw cut. He didn’t fuss. You simply do this, and then you do this. “That’s good enough,” he’d say. Good enough, indeed! He was so organized. It all looked so easy. It was all so excellent. Bob was fun to be around, and I always learned new things. We talked about instruments, cooking, art, cars, plants, woods, finishes, family, religion, metaphysics, and much more. He was intensely interested in everything he did. I never asked him a question on any subject that he didn’t have something interesting to say or a useful direction in which to point me, and he always had questions for me. What started as a working relationship changed to friendship and love over a period of time. Bob helped me with lots of projects. For instance, last summer I was trying to develop a print version of Paul Schuback’s 1995 GAL Convention violin-making workshop (“An American in Mirecourt,”), but was having difficulties with the tape recordings. Many audience questions were inaudible, and the answers would often be something like, “Hold your tool like this, and cut this way, going from here to here...” I wanted to hand Paul a readable document to work on. Bob had spent a year and a half working in Paul’s shop in the early ’70s, so after doing the best I could, I asked Bob for help. He said sure, and I made the drive. He made breakfast for us, and then took about an hour to go through the transcript with me. After months of struggling, it suddenly all made sense. Paul had given me the notes he had made as a teenage apprentice on the sequence of procedures for making a violin, and I thought that they would make a nice addition, but wasn’t having any more luck with Paul’s notes than I’d had with the transcription. I asked Bob if he could help me make sense of them, and he thought for a minute, looked at the ceiling and said, “Hmm, well first you make the form...” and he proceeded to list and explain Paul’s building procedures from beginning to end, off the top of his head. I later rewrote my notes, sent them to Paul, and he approved the seventy-five-item list with just two minor clarifications. Bob had not worked in a violin shop or made a violin for almost thirty years! But the really amazing thing is that he could just as easily and accurately have been talking about construction procedures for any of a number of other instruments, or some aspect of their historical development, of restoration protocol and procedures, of varnish making or French polishing, or peg making, or tool design and construction, or details of instrument collections throughout Europe and America, or marquetry, or of welding, or fiberglassing, or engine building, or woods, or Pacific Northwest Impressionist painters — the list goes on and on. He had an incredibly organized mind, a thirst for knowledge, and he loved to work. Robert Lundberg with a newly finished lute in July 1993. Photo by Jonathon Peterson. I found out about his cancer through the grapevine and got upset with him for not telling me. He was a private guy, and this wasn’t the first incident. He fought like hell, again and again. We talked about life and death. He said he felt good about his life, and about the family and work that he would be leaving behind, whenever that might happen. About death, he said he felt a little fear, but that he was curious. He was always curious. The end was hard — a second, nastier form of cancer required a very serious operation, and he was starting to get better, but all of a sudden it was over. When I think of the quality and quantity of work he accomplished in his too-short lifetime — of his level of craftsmanship, of his very conscious focus on using work as a path towards self-realization, of the depth and breadth of knowledge he accumulated in the wide range of subjects in which he had interests, of the unblinking way in which he faced death, and of his strength and determination to not give in to it — I am left with the same awestruck, dumbfounded feeling I had when I first viewed that archlute, and with a pain and inspiration in my heart which I will carry for the rest of my life. Two Lundberg lutes which were displayed in “The Harmonious Craft,” a juried show of instruments by some of the best American musical instrument makers, at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute, in 1978–1979. Left, a 10-course Renaissance lute after Michielle Harton, 1976. Right, an 11-course lute after Magno Dieffopruchar, built in 1974. Photo courtesy of Linda Toenniessen. Planing a spruce soundboard in his home shop, 1989. Photo by Jonathon Peterson. Shortly after Bob’s memorial service I went to visit his wife, Linda, and his daughters, Tabitha and Branwyn. Linda and I went into Bob’s shop, where he and I had spent most of the time we had together. There were the familiar workbenches, the tools in their racks on the walls, and instruments in various stages of completion — projects he couldn’t finish. There were also stacks of boxes and tubes containing drawings, wood and other vestiges of his work, things that he had been reorganizing when he had the energy — the evidence of his reevaluation of time and work, and of his efforts to make things easier for his family should the worst happen. As Linda and I stood there hugging each other, she pointed out some of the personal notes which he had tacked up on his walls, the way most of us do, to remind us of our better intentions. Many of these had been up for years, but I had never taken much notice. The one Linda said was her favorite was a single typewritten line on a small slip of paper taped to the front of a cabinet. It said, “We all have to decide what to do with the time that is given to us.” Bob had amended the first words, with a pen, so that it read, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” I think of Bob every day, of how he enjoyed and used his life, of how intensely he wanted to live and work, and I think of that scrap of paper. Perhaps time will dim these memories and the heightened awareness that they engender of the gifts of life and of the preciousness of our time here on earth. I pray that it will not.
Posted on January 11, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: Robert Mattingly In Memoriam: Robert Mattingly Passed on March 23, 1991 by Chris Hanlin Originally published in American Lutherie #25, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 Master Luthier Robert L. Mattingly, my teacher and a craftsman I personally believe to be one of the greatest builders of this century, took his own life on the evening of Saturday, March 23, 1991. He was a man I came to love like a father in the short year that I was fortunate enough to spend under his tutelage. I cannot find the words to express my heartbreak. Musicians and luthiers alike may never know the full extent of their loss. The man was a true genius at his craft, and I can honestly say that I was in humble awe of him. He craved no publicity. He never advertised. He never foisted his name or work upon others. And yet players and students continually sought him out, and examples of his work exist all over this country, and indeed the world. Though he worked out of his adopted home of Long Beach, California, he always kept his life and home firmly rooted in his native-Missouri common sense. And his instruments reflect this simple honesty. They ring with a richness and warmth as palpable as his own Falstaffian personality. Photo courtesy of Sue Mattingly. I have never been so happy as I was under his tutelage. Sweeping the floor in his shop was for me an honor. But he took me into his confidence, and revealed to me many of his hard won secrets. Exactly why I won his trust I cannot say, but I always tried to make him proud of me, and I believe we were close. Now he is gone, and he has taken with him over thirty years of building experience. My own instrument that I was building under his teaching is incomplete; may God give me the wisdom and skill to complete it without him. If you own a Mattingly instrument, one of hundreds he built, treasure it. No more will be made. If you are presently lucky enough to be studying under a master, burn each day into your memory. They will not come again. And if there is anyone you love, tell them so. We get too few chances in this life.
Posted on January 11, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: Mario Martello In Memoriam: Mario Martello April 3, 1924 – October 2, 2006 by Richard Johnston Originally published in American Lutherie #89, 2007 The luthier community lost a valuable resource with the passing of José Mario Martello. Mario, as everyone called him, was more than just a guitar repairman, although that was his primary trade for over half a century. Along the way, he built both classical and jazz (archtop) guitars, lutes, and made major components and modifications to banjos, mandolins, basses, and just about every wooden instrument that wore strings. Born in northern Italy in 1924, Mario immigrated to Argentina with his parents when still a young boy. His father, Giuseppe, was a cabinetmaker, and while still in his teens Mario became familiar with fine woodworking from both the handcraft and the production vantage points. But an interest in jazz led him beyond furniture, and he apprenticed with a guitar maker making jazz guitars. Once married and a father, however, the uncertain political and economic climate in Argentina drove Mario to relocate to New York City in 1957, and, two years later, he tried the opposite coast and landed in San Francisco, where he quickly found work in a large furniture factory. When a coworker expressed an interest in building a guitar, Mario volunteered to help, which brought him to the Satterlee & Chapin guitar shop in the heart of the city. Mario’s timing couldn’t have been better, for San Francisco was the West Coast’s focal point for the folk music revival. Virtually every known soloist and folk group filed through the many coffeehouses and nightclubs in and around North Beach. San Francisco was also home to a thriving jazz scene, including traditional jazz, and both flamenco and classical guitar were popular as well. Once Harmon Satterlee became aware of Mario’s skill and ingenuity, he was given a full time job as a repairman. Mario was called upon to repair and customize a wide range of instruments for amateurs, touring professionals, and everyone in between. Dave Guard’s Vega banjo and Segovia’s Ramírez guitar might cross Mario’s workbench in a single day, along with the Harmony Sovereign of the local Woody Guthrie wannabe. Courtesy of Martello family. This was long before the publication of any how-to books on instrument repair, or a helpful organization like GAL. Mario had to rely on his skills in fine woodworking, but even more important was his ability to trouble-shoot almost any problem and improvise a solution. It was this combination of talents that brought him to the attention of Jon Lundberg, who had opened a fretted instruments shop across the bay in Berkeley. Soon Mario was able to buy a home in the East Bay, turning the garage into a workshop and making weekly pickup and delivery runs to Lundbergs and a few other music stores as well. Although more involved restorations or customizations might take a month or more, most repairs were returned a week after he picked them up, and both the variety and volume of work he performed was staggering. Jon Lundberg was the leading source of vintage acoustic instruments on the West Coast in the 1960s, and in the days before the mania for originality set in, Jon had Mario customize or modify many instruments. A new D-28 would be given an extended headstock to become a 12-string, while a huge Larson Brothers archtop, for which there was no demand at all at the time, would get a new flat top and become a Super Jumbo that made a Gibson J-200 look puny. Lundberg’s shop had other repairmen, but Mario’s wide-ranging talents made it possible for the shop to restore everything from antique Irish harps to Italian lutes. Mario was typical of many fine craftsmen of his generation in that most of time he was content to work behind the scenes, often seeing others get credit for work he had performed. Although he was featured in local newspapers in Contra Costa County, he never received national attention despite his numerous restorations of guitars owned by famous players such as Segovia and David Crosby. But among those of us who knew him, Mario was always impressive. He was tall and handsome, with effortless and genuine Latin charm. Mario remained active until the last few months before his death, playing bass in a jazz group as he had for years, and fixing instruments for many of the same dealers, musicians, and collectors for whom he’d worked for decades. He gave each repair job the same priority, and never put off completing a task. When he ceased working early in 2006 because of ill health, there were no unfinished jobs and no need for outside help to clean the slate. His diligence and inventive spirit should inspire us all.
Posted on January 11, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: Nicholas Von Robison In Memoriam: Nicholas Von Robison Passed June, 2000 by Tim Olsen Originally published in American Lutherie #63, 2000 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 How well I remember the first letter we got from Nick. He told of being introduced at a party as a “Master Craftsman.” At first he was flattered, but was quickly brought back to reality when the local birdhouse tinkerer was also identified as a “Master Craftsman.” That was in 1982. Nick and I kept up a lively and voluminous correspondence for the next eighteen years. Nick was a GAL member for twenty-three years. As a kid, Nick was in a rock band with his big brother called The Hatfields, and they actually put out a single in the ’60s. He also did a stint in a hippie combo modeled along the lines of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band. His later musical taste ran to playing Japanese flutes. He worked as an amateur luthier, and then began the enormous project of singlehandedly building a good-sized wooden sailboat. He had completed a lot of the fittings and had a good start on the hull when a fire at the space he was renting deferred his dream. He often wrote of his plan to sail to Bora Bora and Tahiti. But he did get around. He spent a summer hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and recently he had discovered sea kayaking. He was an avid fly fisherman and had some articles published in fishing magazines. And remember the big hoo-ha about the Mojave Phone Booth a year or two ago? Nick was the discoverer of the Mojave Phone Booth. It’s a long story, but a well-documented one. Photo by Dale Blindheim. Nick was a GAL True Believer. We published many of his articles over the years, and he served for a time as an Associate Editor of American Lutherie. His academic and practical knowledge of botany and wood anatomy was particularly valuable. He was our go-to guy for all wood identification questions and was the major contributor to our book Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars. He had a special commitment to the Guild’s benefit auction, spending hours tending the preview at conventions, as well as donating many items and paying ridiculous prices for others. The Guild owes Nick a particular debt of gratitude for talking me into getting e-mail, then hounding me into agreeing to try out a web page for the Guild. Back in the primitive 14.4k days of 1995, he developed the page, got it up on the web, and proceeded to maintain and improve it for another couple years, all as a volunteer. To date we have had more than 170,000 hits on our page, and half our annual income flows through it. I only saw Nick a few times, at GAL Conventions and once when he came through town on a vacation. Still, he was a close friend. Our correspondence covered everything from God and Man to rock ’n’ roll. They tell me Nick took his own life in the first days of June. I really can’t believe it. It just does not fit with the rest of the story. It seems a lot more like he’s finally off on that long journey to Bora Bora, and some day he’ll tell me all about it. I’m going to think of it that way.
Posted on January 11, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: David Rubio In Memoriam: David Rubio December 17, 1934 – October 21, 2000 by Paul Fischer Originally published in American Lutherie #65, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Born in London, David Rubio was educated at Whittingham College, Brighton, and then studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, but gave up because of color blindness. His other abiding interest at the time was the guitar, and in particular, flamenco. Self-taught, he spent time playing in London coffee bars before deciding to go to Spain, where he played with traditional singers and dancers. To supplement his meager income, he began trading wood between guitar makers and, in the process, learned something of the craft and art of guitar making. The hours spent in these workshops was not wasted, and what he witnessed and experienced, further enhanced by his photographic memory, would be put to good use some years later. He was invited to go with the Rafael de Cordoba ballet company on a tour of New York in the early ’60s, and on completion of the tour, Rubio remained in New York, having met Neste, who later became his wife. He had been born David Joseph Spinks, but during his time in Spain had acquired the sobriquet “Rubio,” a reference to his pale north European complexion. He later Hispanicized his second given name, Joseph, to José. It was during this period in the early ’60s that he decided at first to repair guitars, then quickly moved to making them. Working from a garret in Greenwich Village, he built these first instruments on a chest of drawers using tools purchased from Woolworths. The guitars carried the label: “José Rubio Constructor de Guitarras.” A stroke of good fortune occurred when Julian Bream brought him an instrument for repair and was much impressed by a flamenco guitar just finished. By the mid-’60s Rubio had made numerous guitars and had a reputation as “the gentleman guitar maker,” a reference to his habit of working in smart clothes. When I joined him in 1969, he still wore a velvet crimson waistcoat and bow tie while working. The connection with Bream led to an invitation to return to England and to use a recently renovated barn on Bream’s estate as a workshop. Rubio warmed to the idea, and in 1967 moved all his equipment (by then very professional) across the Atlantic and took up residence in rural Dorset. Photo courtesy of Classical Guitar Magazine, UK. Much influenced by the instruments of Simplicio, Santos Hernández, and Bouchet, by the time he was settled in his new workshop in England, Rubio’s guitars had taken on an identity very much their own, and now carried the label, “David J. Rubio, Luthier.” Working closely with Bream, his reputation and confidence grew rapidly. But it was Rubio’s desire to have his own workshop, and by 1968 he had found a property in Oxfordshire requiring much restoration, but ideal for his purpose. With his usual concern for detail, a 15th-century house with barn was sympathetically converted into an ideal workshop and residence. Since his early days in Greenwich Village, Rubio had moved back to England, changed workshops twice, and established himself as a leading guitar and lute maker in just five years. That, by any standards, was an impressive achievement and perhaps enough for most people, but not Rubio. At that time, the early music scene was burgeoning, and there was demand for good copies of historical instruments. This was why, in January 1969, I presented myself at his door, informing him that I was a qualified harpsichord maker seeking to extend my experience into fretted instruments. To my surprise and delight, he said his next project was to make harpsichords. When could I start? Grass never grew beneath Rubio’s feet, so with my experience in harpsichord making, we began an instrument almost immediately and presented it to the customer some months later. Other instruments soon followed — theorbos, vihuelas, citterns, pandora, as well as lutes and guitars. With the rapidly increasing demand for all instruments, two makers could never hope to satisfy demand, so the decision was made to build another workshop, specifically for harpsichords, and to use the existing one for small fretted instruments. The workforce was increased from two to nine, inevitably putting great pressure on Rubio’s time, so I became manager, which freed him to concentrate on his next project, bowed instruments. Creating yet another workshop for himself, in 1972 he began making Baroque violins and cellos, later followed by viola da gambas. With his increasing interest in bowed instruments, only a limited number of guitars and lutes were made by him personally; most carried the initials P.F. and a smaller number, the initials K.S. (Kazuo Sato). By the mid-’70s, Rubio’s thoughts had turned to his long-term future and a desire to return to working solo. In 1979, he left Oxfordshire for Cambridge. As the market for harpsichords declined, his interest turned to the modern violin, and these he continued to make until the last few months of his life. Parallel to violin making, he undertook research into the varnishing techniques of the Cremonese masters, as well as acoustic testing for guitars and other instruments. For this work, Cambridge University conferred on him an honorary master’s degree. During his years in Oxfordshire and Cambridge he made a relatively small number of guitars and lutes, but come the ’90s, his restless energy brought him full circle and back to his first choice, this time to something of a hybrid among guitars, the 8-string guitar, but not in its more usual form. In collaboration with the guitarist Paul Galbraith, an instrument using an asymmetric fingerboard and bridge, such as was used on the orpharion of the 17th century, was developed and christened the Brahms guitar. The many and varied instruments made by David Rubio will, of course, remain as a testament to his creative energy and talent, and so will the many younger makers who were influenced by his ideas, inspired by his achievements, and encouraged by his example. David Joseph Rubio died of cancer in his workshop on October 21, 2000. He is survived by Neste, and his daughter, Benita, from an earlier marriage.
