Guitar Makers: The Endurance of Artisanal Values in North America

375 Pages·2014·2.31 MB·English

by  Kathryn Marie Dudley

Guitar Makers

Guitar Makers
The EndurancE of artisanal ValuEs
in north amErica
KATHRYN MARIE DUDLEY
thE uniVErsity of chicago PrEss Chicago and London
Kathryn Marie Dudley is The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
professor of anthropology The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
and American studies at © 2014 by The University of Chicago
Yale University. All rights reserved. Published 2014.
Printed in the United States of America
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5
isBn- 13: 978-0 - 226- 09538-7 (cloth)
isBn- 13: 978-0 - 226- 09541-7 (e- book)
doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226095417.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dudley, Kathryn Marie, author.
Guitar makers : the endurance of artisanal values in North
America / Kathryn Marie Dudley.
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-0-226-09538-7 (cloth : alk. paper)—
isBn 978-0-226-09541-7 (e-book)
1. Guitar makers—United States. 2. Guitar makers—
Canada. 3. Artisans—United States. 4. Artisans—Canada.
I. Title.
ml1015.g9d93 2014
787.87ʹ197—dc23
2014008020
♾ This paper meets the requirements of
ansi/niso Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Once upon a time there was . . .
“A king!” my little readers will say right away.
No, children, you are wrong.
Once upon a time there was a piece of wood.
—Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883)
Oh the logs are sliced They’re central in Spain
And split down their middle They’re on the coast of Maine
Then sawn into billets and sent They’re the tools of buskers and
to me rock stars
I cut and glue them Forgive the boast
And listen to them But it’s clear the most
For I bring the music out of the Predominant instrument is guitar
tree
Not to prevaricate
Chorus Let me speculate
I’m a guitar maker A world where nobody made
A tone extricator guitars
Give me wood and I’ll make it Bobby Zimmerman
sing for you Would still be Zimmerman
One soundhole and six strings Segovia would’ve played accor-
later dion
Now it remains a myst’ry Grit Laskin,
From the fog of hist’ry “Guitar Maker” (1994)
Exactly when somebody thought © Grit Laskin, Strutting Day
to say Music
I’ve got drums to pound
And pipes to sound
But I wish I had something with
strings to play
Though the very first of them
Was the worst of them
Listen to this one I’m strumming
here
It’s been demanding
Fine- tuning the sanding
That made ’em more musical year
by year
Contents
Prologue ix
Introduction: Geppetto’s Dream 1
1 crossroads of KnowlEdgE 20
2 storiEs of maKing 61
3 Politics of authEnticity 105
4 scEnEs of instruction 148
5 guitar hEroEs 193
6 ghosts of EmPirE 238
Conclusion: Pinocchio’s Body 283
Epilogue 302
Postscript 308
Acknowledgments 311
Notes 313
Index 351

Prologue
Politics revolves around what is seen and what can be said
about it, around who has the ability to see and the talent to
speak, around the properties of spaces and the possibilities
of time. —Jacques Rancière, “The Distribution of
the Sensible” (2000)
The guitar lies face up on the workbench, warmed in
the glow of a halogen lamp. George Youngblood bends over it in con-
centration, his wire- rimmed glasses pushed up on his forehead. He
rests a three- corner file against the edge of the fret to be crowned and
pauses for a brief moment; then the dancing motion begins. The file
slides forward, twists up, and lifts away, each stroke sprinkling the
ebony fretboard with glistening bits of nickel silver. I stand to his side,
closely watching the complicated movement, as the quick, scratching
sound of metal against metal fills the room. Soon he will hand the file
to me, and say, “Don’t mess up!”
A soft midwinter light falls through two large windows, creating
silhouettes of the bar clamps hanging from the top of their frames. A
large guitar mold rests on the cabinet in front of one window, and neck
blanks are stacked behind a drill press on the sill of the other. An an-
tique bow saw holds pride of place on the wall above a rack of chisels,
and on the bench below, the serpentine ribs and braced top of a guitar-
in- progress wait for Youngblood’s attention—a luxury that has been in
short supply for over a decade, as he works through an endless backlog
of stringed instrument repairs and restorations. Against the far wall
sits a band saw hunched forward like a gargoyle, its pensive head seem-
ing to contemplate the full- bodied lute on the tool chest nearby. In a
few short weeks, I have come to love the stillness of this morning tab-
leau in the hour before the shop officially opens.
On this particular day, I am a month into my “apprenticeship” at
Youngblood Music Workshop in Guilford, Connecticut. In exchange
for hourly compensation, Youngblood has agreed to teach me the basic
elements of guitar repair and let me observe his work and interactions
with clients. His reputation as one of the premier restoration special-
ix