PART 1: AN INTRODUCTION
Instead of just jumping in and starting with a description of the first American luthiers – of which I am one – let me tell you something about how this group started, and what it came out of. It’s an interesting story that’s full of lessons that no one has yet learned anything from yet. And then, after having told you something about the “fertilizers” that we young guitar makers grew out of, I’ll tell you about how I started to make guitars. That’s also an interesting story; however, this is the before-me chapter. If you’re not interested in historical/economic background and just want to know my own story, feel free to skip this chapter.
American lutherie – the work of craftsmen who make guitars one at a time — was born in the period of the late 1960s to the early 1970s, about 190 years after this country had become a nation. European traditions of such work had existed for centuries; but no such tradition — outside of that carried out by a few European or Latin American immigrants who continued the practice of making mandolins and guitars as they’d been made in their old countries – existed here. American production of all consumer products, guitars included, was done and being done in factories. Period. I might add that there were a few American oddballs who threw themselves into this work even as early as the 1950s, but none of that “caught on” until the dates mentioned above. And one important reason for this “catching on” was, in 1972, the formation of the Guild of American Luthiers – the first organization of any kind that attracted young men who wanted to have and use hand skills to make nice things with. I owe my start to that organization.
My lutherie career started in the early 1970s. This was in spite of the fact that in my younger years I hadn’t — and no one in my family ever had, and indeed almost no one in the U.S. had ever had — heard of this kind of work being done by individuals. The basic reasons for my being a luthier are, bluntly, that (1) I spent most of my childhood doing artsy-craftsy things like carving and whittling wood, working with clay, putting models of ships and cars together, drawing and painting, and so on; that (2) I’m a Caucasian male, that (3) I’ve been to college, that (4) the Viet-Nam war was escalating in the 1960s, and (5) the demographic that I was part of (i.e., educated Caucasians) opposed the war by participating in the Folk-Protest Song movement of that time. And one of the things that the Folk-Protest Song movement accomplished was to expose the demographic I’ve been describing to the guitar, and for the first time in a meaningful way. And by that I mean that this population took the guitar in as “their own thing” for the first time. Up until then the guitar had “belonged” to cowboys, Tex-mex music players, ethnic groups, Mariachi bands, bluegrass enthusiasts, jazz players, Hawaiian music players, Appalachian and old-timey folk music singers and players, etc. But not young college-educated white kids.
And, one more thing: (6) the U.S. had in general been experiencing unprecedented prosperity, growth, and expansion in the years that followed the end of World War II. The significance of this was that the post-war generation of Americans grew up in the first ever environment of comparative economic freedom and lack of desperation such as previous generations had dealt with. They’d grown up reasonably happy, and had other things to look ahead to than another war, and had a sense of being able to argue with the government. That was a historical first.
THE FOLK SONG/PROTEST MOVEMENT, AND ITS CONTEXT
I made my first guitar in 1971. I’m one of first [then young] Americans who turned to this not-paid-much attention-to-previously craft. And the immediate spark for making guitars by hand rose out of the Folk/Protest Song Movement that was itself, as I said above, a response to the escalation of the Viet-Nam war. And this movement-toward-craftsmanship came out of the American demographic that (1) had gone to college, that (2) didn’t like the idea of being at war with Viet-Nam, and that (3) was drawn to the Folk-Protest Music.
That protest divided this country into two opposing groups; and that became a seriously conflicted time. It’s worth commenting on the fact that interest in lutherie became the work of more-or-less middle-class male American Caucasians — but not Afro-Americans, and not working-class Americans. Afro-Americans were caught up in their own Protest movement; they were after Civil Rights that would bring them up to par with those that white people had. It was a worthy challenge to take on . . . and it was a challenge that was not focused on protesting the Viet-Nam war. One implication of that split is that despite my having been in the guitar business for more than 50 years now, and I’ve never become aware of a single Afro-American luthier in this country. That is, making acoustic guitars (there are some Afro-American luthiers who make electric guitars). I’ve made presentations at a number of regional luthiers’ groups , and I’ve attended many of the Guild of American Luthiers (the G.A.L.) and Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (A.S.I.A.) national conventions, over the years . . . and I’ve never seen a single Afro-American guitar maker in any of them. Ever.
All of this happened within the socio-economic context of the tremendous economic and social prosperity [NOTE: primarily for Caucasians] that happened in the U.S. in the years after World War II — and which this country had won at long-distance. Europe and Japan had been torn to shreds. But not us. We merely lost 50,000 soldiers but our cities and businesses were relatively undamaged. More specifically, I cannot ignore that the United States has always been a racist country; and this new prosperity floated and benefited the Caucasian population much more than it did any other minority. That’s just how it was. And that resulted, as I said, in the creation of the first generation ever of Americans that didn’t have to struggle and scrabble in order to survive – as their parents and grandparents had struggled through the years of lack of work opportunities, misery, and losses of the Great Depression.
The members of this post-war generation knew they’d never starve to death. They’d never have hardships such as their parents and grandparents had dealt with. The Post-War generation had been born into a previously unknown economic prosperity. They grew up knowing that they’d always be able to find a job if and when they needed one. That they’d never starve to death. And that they could make significant decisions on their own. And that they even had the right to choose (i.e., including to deny and protest) things. This was a Historic First. Adding everything up, and my describing the contextual forces of my life . . . as a guitar maker and everything else . . . and the greater socio-economic-cultural tide that lifted my personal boat . . . I cannot ignore the fact that the amount of pigment in my skin (plus the fact that I’d been to college) allowed me to get on that boat.
POST-WAR PROSPERITY; SOME DREARY CONTEXT
Put in other words, one of the results of this socio-demographic liberalization was the existence of a generation of Americans that was willing to challenge our nation’s leaders, planners, and schemers. That was a first! Being the first generation of Americans that didn’t have to struggle — as their families going back several generations had, they could focus on a life of “getting ahead” in one way or another.
And when the Viet-Nam war came along, these young folks (1) knew that there wasn’t any good reason to get into a war with a country on the other side of the world that hadn’t attacked us, and to (2) to join the army to go there and fight and kill and die. And (3) they had lots of better things to do; so they didn’t want to go to war. Previously, men had enlisted in the army because, aside from “patriotism”, it gave them a job to do, and an income, such as was difficult to obtain elsewhere. These conditions were particularly prevalent in the American South. But these new middle-class kids didn’t need the army, nor an armed conflict, in order to survive economically.
“Why am I telling you all this”, you may be asking? I’m describing the conditions that were the origin of my first impulse to make a guitar; and these were also the condition out of which my social consciousness was formed. So, dreary though this history might sound, I don’t want to just gloss over it. This is particularly true because I suspect that had I internalized the ”freedom to make choices” aspect of the Folk-Protest Music era, and that allowed me to make guitars in the way that I wanted to, and not just the way others (particularly the factory-made ones) had always been made.
Anyway, one of the factors in this transition was that returning G.I.s — through the very helpful G.I. Bill — were for the first time able to go to college. The G.I. Bill gave them new opportunities. College had never been possible for them before, both for economic reasons and also the fact that academia didn’t think that less-than-middle-class males were smart or able enough to deal with becoming educated. They were surprised. The incoming G.I.s were smarter than they’d been supposed to be, and they were motivated to get ahead. So a lot of Caucasian male college-grads appeared on the scene. And these all wanted to “get ahead” by doing whatever it took to not go back to being poor and disadvantaged. Or be killed in wars. Corporations sent out recruiting teams to College Campuses at the end of each term! They were hiring! And they had their choice of eager and smart Caucasian employees! And these Caucasian college-graduates’ kids would go on to college also! And this prosperity and culture of jobs and education, of course, mostly benefited Caucasians. If you’re old enough then you’ll remember the tremendous resistance there was, at the time, of allowing Afro-Americans into better schools! Congress, in 1954, passed a law that schools for whites and schools for blacks were to be “separate but equal”. That sounded good . . . but it was a stupid attempt to put a bandaid on a deeply unfair system.
So, the post-war prosperity most greatly affected Caucasians Americans. Afro-Americans were much less advantaged by the post-World-War-II prosperity. And for strong reasons, too. For one thing, they weren’t invited or encouraged to get into this area of increased opportunities. And instead of signing up with the anti-war community they focused on their own struggle: the Afro-Americans’ Civil Rights War – gatherings, protests, and meetings in which they voiced their grievances — and in which none of those days’ ordinary Caucasian entertainers were on a stage singing folk/protest songs. American society was racist and Afro-Americans had had enough. Their issues of inequality are not yet solved, even now. But they made a mighty try for it then. These things are relevant to how my social consciousness (and even guitar-making consciousness) was formed.
So, put most simply . . . young more-or-less-middle-class young white Americans protested the war. Lower economic class and ethnic citizens supported it. And given the controversy over the Viet-Nam war, the “Protest” component bespoke of a different but legitimate kind of Patriotism, not treason. That was one of the three most significant conflicts this country has experienced; one was the Civil War, and the second is what’s going on today. The national debate in each was and is that of outraged “how could you be so blind and stupid?” on the one side, and “how dare you oppose our leaders?!” on the other.
So . . . there were musical events, like the Woodstock festival, for these post-war hippies and radicals at which people sang both folk songs and protest songs . . . to music . . . that was played and sung by middle-class Caucasian entertainers/ singers/ bands . . . and in which there was extensive use of the acoustic guitar. The Folk/Protest Song movement became a vehicle for a lot of more-or-less likeminded people who shared the anti-war/ anti-suffering/ there’s-something-really-wrong-with-all-of-this thoughts that were floating around . . . to guitar music.
ENTER THE HUMBLE GUITAR
The guitar had, until then, “belonged” to various musical communities such as the Tex-Mex, folk, gospel, jazz, blues, country-western, ballads, Latino, ethnic, Appalachian, European, Dixieland, klezmer, Afro-American, flamenco, rock’n’roll, ballads, formal and informal celebrations and parties, etc. crowds. But these were mostly the uses of the steel string guitar. Its older brother, however, the first-gut-and-then-nylon-string Classical guitar addressed its voice to a different demographic: that of culturally, educationally, and socio-economically advantaged middle-class-and-above white people. You know: the Ruling Class. And it had been in existence since the 1600s.
And this period that I’ve been describing was when young white middlish-class Americans got a hit of the acoustic guitar that was played . . . for them . . . for the first time, in a way that spoke to them — and it was helped by exposure through the recently-expanded national television media. So, half the country adopted and accepted the steel string guitar. Incidentally, if you Google the Folk/Protest culture of those times, you’ll find a long list of singers, writers, entertainers, etc. . . . all of who were Caucasian. I don’t know if that’s anything anyone ever noticed; but I’ve never heard a single comment about that, ever.
So: the guitar became interesting. And even personal. Considering all of these factors, it didn’t horrify anyone to . . . uh . . . start to begin to consider thinking about commencing to muse about taking the first steps toward iffy new things like making guitars — which had been work that everyone in this culture had, until then, avoided and ignored. And in this after-war period of new-found prosperity, if the instrument-making idea didn’t pan out, one could always segue to something else. But the guitar had become a friend. And a new market was being created for it. And especially so for better versions of it.
NO, I’M NOT BEING RACIST
I don’t think I’m being racist in saying these things and I’m not much prejudiced against any ethnic group or race. I’m just commenting on how things were. And are. My parents were racist (i.e., prejudiced against many groups) and I naturally picked up some of that from them. But I don’t act any of that out. My parents had been crushed by World War II, and then the ordeal of traveling around the world for fourteen years looking for a country that wanted us. Me, I was a kid and not aware of those conflicts; and my family and I’ve lived in Austria, England, Cuba, Mexico, and Peru, and I’m comfortable among “foreigners”. I was born in Hungary and arrived in the U.S. when I was 15; my personality had already been formed. I’m a foreigner myself. I stress the Caucasian aspects of this Folk/Protest Song culture in its far-reaching effects and its particular connection to American lutherie because, with a few Asian and Latino exceptions, all of today’s American guitar makers of both Spanish and steel string acoustic guitars are, as I said, Caucasian. Lutherie is a white-culture activity.
TWO FULCRUM POINTS
Outside of the fact that young educated white Americans had caught the scent of the acoustic guitar, there were no traditions, schools, teachers, sources of information, books, magazines, or even other luthiers around. Another spark was needed to start things off. And the specific spark that set things off was the publication, in 1966, of Irving Sloane’s seminal book Classic Guitar Construction. All of us beginner American makers started with that book.
A FINAL GUITAR MAKING FACTOR: THE MUSICAL MIND
Aside from the fact that there were no educational resources for anyone for making guitars back when I started (this was way before computers, the internet, YouTube, tutorials, DVDs, etc.), I noticed something that was not exactly a resource, but had to do with how differently the early guitar makers’ minds worked. Every member of our group of first-generation guitar makers played guitar, of course, and most of them played music of more than one style; but EVERY ONE OF THEM played at least some flamenco guitar music – as I myself have done since high school.
I think this speaks to how someone’s brain is wired up; how one’s mind can be organized to recognize (1) the intelligence/sensibility of flamenco/folk music or (2) the intelligence/sensibility of classical guitar music. One functions much more easily in one of these realms, but not both. More to the point, I’ve noticed a number of times that when it is time for a flamenco player to move on to something else, it is easy for him to segue into making guitars. When it is time for a classical guitar player to move onto something else, then he or she will much more likely go into computer work. There really are deep differences in how our brains work – even in something as mundane as what music we like — that have implications about the decisions that we make in our lives.
ON THE VARIOUS HISTORIC, SOCIO-ECONOMIC, MUSICAL, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL IDENTITIES OF THE GUITAR
What I just said above might sound really dumb to a lot of people. But think of Republicans talking with Democrats. Think of war hawks talking with peaceniks. Now, however, years after guitar making has become much more mainstream than it was at first, you don’t have to play flamenco in order for the bug to bite you. Being part of a crowd of people with similar interests is quite enough.
Okay, enough background and introduction. Now I’ll tell you how I got to be a guitar maker.
(see Part 2)