Posted on April 16, 2026April 17, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Federico Sheppard Meet the Maker: Federico Sheppard by Roger Alan Skipper Originally published in American Lutherie #106, 2011 I’ve studied your website and other Internet articles about you. You’ve led quite an interesting life: you were born in Mexico City; you mentioned that one guitar stayed with you through “five different moves” and “three careers.” You’re a chiropractor, and have been a cab driver, sod cutter, lead Hawaiian guitarist for a Polynesian dance band, a consultant for the National Museums of Paraguay and El Salvador, and have ridden a bicycle around the world. I’ve even stumbled across a rumor that you traveled with a circus. Could you share some of that life with me, and tell me how you got started in lutherie? Everything you read about me on the Internet may not be accurate. I was tempted to join a Mexican midget circus I came across on a bike trip in France, but I didn’t meet the height requirements. And that is God’s own truth. 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 April 8, 2026April 9, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: John Knutson Meet the Maker: John Knutson by Don Bradley Originally published in American Lutherie #127, 2016 It was an overcast day with a bit of sunshine as I drove down the long driveway to the house and buildings at the end of the drive. I’ve known John Knutson for some time, having met his daughter’s Mom many years back before I moved to Forestville. John lives only a few blocks away, but we mostly run into each other at the post office. Let’s stop in and meet John. Hey John, good to see you. Remind me — when did we meet? Hi, Don, good to see you too. We must have met at least twenty-some years ago. I’d have to think which girlfriend I was with... oh yeah, you were dating my ex-wife! (both laugh) Tell me about your early life. My twin sister and I were born in 1951 in Fort Knox, Kentucky. I’ve got three other sisters. We’re army brats. By the time I was seven, we’d lived in seven different places, but mostly stayed in Virginia from the second grade on. When I was six, my dad was commanding tanks in Southern Germany. I have a distinct memory of hearing “Hound Dog” by Elvis and Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill” on the radio back then. I didn’t know much about music at that age, but remember those tunes vividly. We weren’t a musical family you know, unless you consider tanks a musical instrument. My twin sister and I did get chauffeured in a military jeep to the firing range on occasion. We moved to Fort Hood, Texas, in 1958. A friend of my father was Elvis’ commanding officer. Elvis had been drafted and was in basic training there. 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 April 6, 2026April 7, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Michael Bashkin Meet the Maker: Michael Bashkin by Brian Yarosh Originally published in American Lutherie #132, 2017 A Bashkin guitar really stands out. The design and artistry speak volumes. And once you have had the pleasure of hearing or playing one, you won’t forget it. The tone has an identity all its own. I have known Michael for many years. Every time we talk about lutherie, I learn something new. He is a great guy and has a wealth of knowledge that he is always willing to share. I sat down with Michael at the 2017 GAL Convention for a chat. Let’s start at the beginning. Where did you grow up? What did your parents do? When was your first introduction to guitars or woodworking? My grandparents emigrated from Poland and Russia to the USA about 1905. They were part of that big immigrant wave. They did typical immigrant things; they were in the garment industry and had to bootstrap their way up. My parents were born in Brooklyn in 1940s, and each was the first in their family to go to college. My dad taught high school at Brooklyn Tech for over twenty-eight years. My mom was an elementary school teacher, but when they had a family, she started staying home. I was born in New York City and lived in Brooklyn for a couple of years. Then we moved out to the suburbs in Teaneck, New Jersey, about six miles from the George Washington Bridge. Dad commuted in to the city every day. It still very much felt like we were in the New York area. So I had a pretty normal middle-class childhood, and I felt fortunate that I grew up in a racially mixed town. 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 April 3, 2026April 3, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: James Condino Meet the Maker: James Condino by Roger Alan Skipper Originally published in American Lutherie #105, 2011 James Condino has lived and traveled in forty-three countries in his forty-four years. The instruments of this extreme outdoor adventurer have accompanied him to highest mountain peaks and through raging rivers. He’s an author with a pair of books in the works, one concerning the mandolin, and the other on the double bass. He’s also a lutherie teacher, previously at the college level, and now one-on-one in his shop. He’s landed, for the moment, in Asheville, North Carolina, where he builds mandolins and double basses, and specializes in repairs on vintage guitars and the plywood basses he digs out of the Appalachian hills and hollows that surround him. James, teaching is interwoven with your building. Let’s start with the school of lutherie mentioned on your website. Beginning when I was nineteen, I spent almost six years in the Air Force; I got out just after Desert Storm. Then I went to school at Oregon State University. It’s an old-school land-grant institution, and still had a nice public-access woodshop. When I built a flattop steel string guitar there in 1995, they approached me about teaching a lutherie class. I was busy with field expeditions just then, so I didn’t have the time. The following winter, though, I taught a very popular ten-week course in solidbody electric guitars. That morphed into a three-academic-quarter, nine-month class in building acoustic steel string guitars. I taught there for four years, and I learned as much as the students during that time. That experience also allowed me to home in on what I wanted to teach and how to approach it. 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 25, 2026March 25, 2026 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: George Gruhn Meet the Maker: George Gruhn by Roger Alan Skipper Originally published in American Lutherie #107, 2011 Growing up in Pittsburgh in the ’50s, at age twelve George Gruhn seemed destined for a life centered in zoology. So many animals, in fact — ’possums, snakes, turtles, frogs, and fish — filled the basement of his parents’ home that a Pittsburgh newspaper sent a reporter to interview him. His college education began with a premed major but quickly shifted to ethology (animal behavior, in the psychology department). A department chair nervous about venomous pit vipers left George with twenty-five to thirty cottonmouth moccasins in his apartment, rather than in the psychology building. Also in George’s apartment at that time were the beginnings of a vintage guitar collection. He’d scoured classified ads, pawnshops, and music stores for the instruments few others yet sought, but couldn’t find enough in the Chicago area to satisfy his hunger. On a vacation break in 1965 he visited Nashville, expecting to find shops overflowing with old instruments, but found virtually nothing of interest. Ready to leave in disappointment, he heard of collector Mike Longworth (later to write Martin Guitars: A History) in Chattanooga, four hours away. 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.
