Strings attached

Spotlight on instrument makers

by Don Fluckinger

Every year there's a theme to the crafts at the Lowell Folk Festival. Past years have included textile crafts and maritime crafts. This year, the buzzword is "luthiers," or handcrafted instrument makers.

Luthier is a truncation of "lute maker," an old English word. Luthiers today make stringed, fretted instruments of many kinds, from dulcimers to mandolins to quality guitars.

"One of the reasons that instruments are being made is that the old American-designed, handmade guitars made by Martin and some of those guys have become so expensive on international markets," says Joe Wilson who helped organize the crafts. "Everyone in the world knows these are the best instruments except, seemingly, Americans. Right now, an old Martin guitar has about the same price as a new Rolls Royce car. The last time I saw a Martin D-45 sold, it went for $121,000.

"You can buy, from a luthier, for a couple of thousand, three thousand dollars -- a reasonable copy of one of those that sounds as good. I think in that way they're an incredible bargain."

Though the focus will be on luthiers, other instrument makers will be showing their wares: John Lunn, a silver flute maker; Gary Hudson, a Irish bodhran drum maker; William Cumpiano, who makes Cuatros in the Puerto Rican style; Joel Eckhaus, a ukulele maker; Gerhard Finkenbeiner and Tim Nickerson, who make glass harmonicas; and Mel Gonzalez, master maker of Taino percussion instruments. In total, 19 instrument makers from Cape Verde to Cambodia to Quebec are scheduled to appear.

One- and two-person instrument shops have popped up nationwide, a sign that there's new demand for handcrafted instruments. It's not like it was earlier in American history -- what Wilson calls "the golden age of fretted instruments" -- when the best banjos and mandolins were made here in New England, but it's definitely a revival.

Back