Posted on March 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Ralph Novak Meet the Maker: Ralph Novak by John Calkin Originally published in American Lutherie #70, 2002 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Six, 2013 There aren’t a lot of questions in this interview. Ralph’s mind is organized. I made the appointment to interview him during the 2001 GAL Convention, and when the appointed time rolled around his story poured out almost as if he were reading it — an interviewer’s dream. I’ll bet he’s always been that way. We should all be so lucky. The interview was later updated to late April 2002. How were you introduced to music and lutherie? I started with piano lessons in the third grade, and started playing guitar when I was fourteen. By the time I was fifteen I began modifying and customizing my guitars. My dad was helpful in that. He didn’t know anything about instruments, but he was an excellent woodworker, and even when I was a child he made his shop available to me. He’d show me his projects, maybe let me sand something, and answer any questions I came up with about the shop and the work. The shop was never locked up. I’d go down there and do stuff. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on March 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Wade Lowe Meet the Maker: Wade Lowe by Kent Everett Originally published in American Lutherie #118, 2014 Yahoo! Today I am going to the center of the known universe. You will find it on a leafy, quiet street in Decatur, Georgia. Wade Lowe, the purveyor of The Atelier awaits, sporting a big smile as always. Your shop always reminds me of the “find the hidden picture” game we used to play as kids. When you stop and look, all kinds of magical things emerge from the background. It has taken me only forty-six years and eleven months to get my shop in such beautiful shape! (laughs) What happened to start you along this life as a craftsman? How far back can we go? We lived in Hartwell, South Carolina, across the street from a lumber mill. When I was five years old, a big black man who worked there took a favor to me. He would nail scraps of lumber together to make cars and trucks and airplanes, and that fascinated me to no end. When I was about six, I somehow got hold of a pocket knife, and my folks let me keep it. My big brother Charlie and I would spit on the curb stone and sharpen my knife in the spit. I carved little race cars out of the insides of corn stalks, where the pith is soft, almost like balsa. Daddy set me up with a little workshop space in our garage, and I would always ask for tools and stuff at Christmas. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on March 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Abel Garcia López Meet the Maker: Abel Garcia López by Federico Sheppard Originally published in American Lutherie #119, 2014 Dusk has fallen in this little corner of Mexico. Our car covers narrow mountain roads, and when we reach higher elevations, the road is covered with hail. “Is this snow?” I ask. “No Señor, this is frozen rain. It falls silently here. These are magic mountains.” A few miles later, sandbags and a checkpoint appear out of the mist. Plain men in plain working clothes handle well-worked machine guns and sawed-off shotguns, lit by dim yellow lamps. “Abel, what is this? Is there a drug problem here?” He laughs softly in his gentle way. “I can see where you might think that. But the problem here is not drugs, but protecting our trees. This village is one of the most indigenous in our country, and the local people have come together to protect their forests. The pine trees here produce a most wonderful resin, and it has been collected here for hundreds of years to produce paints and other things. The people a few villages away have many carpinteros (carpenters) and they have killed all of their forests and run out of wood. So the local people are protecting their future. This program has now become a model for local villages who wish to protect themselves from crime, robbery, and drugs.” Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on February 23, 2026February 23, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: David Cohen Meet the Maker: David Cohen by Roger Alan Skipper Originally published in American Lutherie #99, 2009 DR. Dave Cohen, of Cohen Musical Instruments, crafts guitars, mandolins, mandolas, octaves, and mandocellos in Richmond, Virginia. During a sabbatical from the chemistry classroom, Dave seized the opportunity to study the mandolin’s vibrational properties with Dr. Thomas Rossing at Northern Illinois University. From this and other studies he has produced a number of lectures and publications to complement his instruments. Dave, your website mentions a “lifelong interest in science, woodworking, and stringed instruments.” What kinds of woodworking did you do prior to lutherie? My grandfather was a carpenter, and my dad was a civil engineer. Dad knew I’d value something I made more than something I bought, so as a kid, I was always making things with my dad, using my grandfather’s tools. Between the early ’70s and the mid-’90s, I built furniture, mostly casework, that was strongly influenced by James Krenov and Sam Maloof. They still influence my stringed-instrument design. Lutherie is woodworking. Lutherie, though, integrates my background in science and mathematics, and music. I love that part of it. If lutherie were simply reproducing the instruments of the past, I doubt that I would have made more than a few instruments. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on February 20, 2026February 20, 2026 by Dale Phillips Mario Maccaferri: Feisty As Ever Mario Maccaferri: Feisty As Ever by Michael Dresdner Previously published in Vintage Guitar Bulletin Originally published in American Lutherie #2, 1985 At the age of, Mario Maccaferri has achieved that elusive and enviable status of being a “legend in his own time.” Known to some as an industrial designer and inventor, to others as a plastics magnate (he was the inventor of the plastic clothespin!), and to still others as an outstanding luthier and musician, he has left his mark on many fields in the course of his successful career. Among guitarists, Maccaferri is most well known for the interior resonator guitar which he designed and built for the Selmer Company of France in the 1930s, and which jazz players and guitar collectors associate with the great Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt. But this guitar was only one of Maccaferri’s many innovations in the world of lutherie. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of the Articles Online featured on our website for Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. For details, visit the membership page. MEMBERS: login for access or contact us to setup your account.
