[mplpost] Canadian Guitars

[Bob Stevens]

I'll throw in a plug for luthier George Rezsanyi.  I know people who have
driven from Toronto to Nova Scotia just to buy his guitars.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Vic Bell" <vicbell@telusplanet.net>
To: <maplepost@icomm.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 5:07 PM
Subject: [mplpost] Canadian Guitars


> My first guitar was a $25 steel string Woodwards special...a Suzuki I
> believe.  The action was so high that had I persisted with it I'd
> have donated blood.  This instrument delayed my musical journey for
> about six months.  How I disposed of it is lost in memory but it
> would have made reasonable firewood.
>
> Fortunately, I really wanted to learn how to play.  Finger agony led
> me to conclude that the steel strings were the problem and I got an
> equally cheap nylon string guitar on which I learned my chords.
> About a year later I snapped the neck right off this instrument when
> I swung it at a friend's head in jest.  Oops!
>
> That disaster led me to get a cheap 12 string which was ok for awhile
> but "cheap" meant that eventually the string tension warped the neck
> making it impossible to fine-tune, and I eventually traded it for a
> recorder when I left Vancouver and moved to Lund.
>
> I also picked up a second-hand steel string with much better action,
> on which I began rudimentary finger-picking and my first forays into
> songwriting.  The brand name of these instruments was obviously not
> important enough for me to recall.
>
> In Lund and afterwards, I started playing with some very good
> pickers, a couple of whom had D-18 and D-28 Martins and I was soon
> hooked.  The nameless six-string went with me to the Queen Charlottes
> but soon after, I got the Martin D-18 (315331) that I still have...a
> very sweet instrument.
>
> Steve Welch, one of my Charlotte's pals started apprenticing in the
> Larrivee shop in Vancouver.  I visited the shop several times and was
> very taken with the guitars, but at the time I couldn't justify
> buying a second guitar (dumb!) because I still liked the Martin.
>
> After moving to Calgary and getting involved in the Alberta folk
> scene I was finally ready for a second guitar and picked up a 1978
> Laskin, that I bought from the late Joan MacIsaac.  Joan told me that
> Garnet Rogers had chosen the guitar for her from a group of Laskin's
> in an Ontario store.
>
> In Calgary I often dropped in to visit with Al and Trudy Williams at
> their fledgling guitar case construction shop - Calton Cases.
> http://www.caltoncases.ab.ca/   If you have a precious instrument
> that needs travel protection you want a Calton Case.
>
> In an upper back room at Calton Cases, Michael Heiden had an
> instrument repair and luthier operation.  Michael now lives in
> Vancouver and is a tremendous craftsman who has built some absolutely
> beautiful mandolins and archtops.  Guy Clark and Mark O'Conner play
> Heidens.  http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~mheiden/
>
> At that time Judy Threet was working with Michael, learning the craft
> of inlays.  Judy has been mentioned in this thread already as a great
> luthier in her own right.  http://www.threetguitars.com/   In '88
> Michael built me a 12 string on which Judy added a headstock inlay of
> a raven flying across a full moon.  Judy remembers that as her first
> full guitar inlay.
>
> The Martin stays in regular tuning, the Laskin is left in DADGAD and
> the Heiden is the 12 string.
>
> cheers,  Vic
>
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