Posts filed under 'Mandolin'
This isn’t good. It seems that Robert W. McLean, the guy who donated Bill Monroe’s F-5 and Maybelle Carter’s L-5 to the Country Music Hall of Fame passed away owing a great deal of money and the instruments may have to be sold to pay off his debts. You know, I was married for more than ten years before I found out my wife was distantly related to Maybelle Carter. Personally, I think that her L-5 should be returned to the family, by which I mean, given to me.-MJS (Photo of Maybelle Carter’s 1928 Gibson L-5 courtesy of Gruhn Guitars.)
December 17th, 2007
When I first saw the little guitar-shaped thing on the left, I figured Grass Valley luthier Michael Lewis didn’t read the washing instructions on the label and shrank a guitar in the clothes drier. (Remember, always line dry your fine fretted instruments.) But when I got closer I realized it was a very cool guitar-shaped mandolin. Lewis builds authorized replicas of D’Angelico’s archtops but as you can see from the instruments on the right, he has his own style as well.-MJS
August 27th, 2007
Carbon fiber guitars and mandolins may still seem like gimmicks to most musicians but, as this Composite Acoustics display proved, they certainly do hold up nicely in inclement weather. This guitar had water pouring on it from a shower head during the entire show but all you had to do was pick it up, wipe down the neck and it played fine. They also had a Katrina surviving-guitar that held up remarkably well.
Peter Mix at New Millenium Acoustic Design (NewMAD) mandolins didn’t have any elaborate water shows at his booth, but he did have a great looking (and sounding) F-style carbon fiber mandolin to show off. Mix claimed that doing elaborate scroll work in carbon fiber was no easy feat, but he’s finally happy with the finished product (he’s been showing off his A-style carbon fiber mandolin for about a year now). Mix is also starting to experiment with layers of colored Kevlar on his instruments, allowing him to produce red carbon fiber instruments in addition to the more familiar gray.-JV
July 30th, 2007
Mandolin is the name of a new gated communuty in Florida. If that starts a trend in the area, in a few years all the good instrument names will be taken and people will be moving into subdivisions like Nose-Flute Acres and Sackbutt Falls.-MJS
June 26th, 2007
It seems that it’s now de rigueur for legendary bass players from the British Isles to take up the mandolin-MJS
May 24th, 2007
Here’s an amazing clip from around 1930 of Eddie Peabody and his Beach Combers playing the Electraphone, which appears to be four electric instruments (tenor guitar, plectrum banjo, Hawaiian guitar and mandolin) mounted to a table. I’d hate to have been the roadie that had to load that into the van.-MJS
May 16th, 2007
Andy Volk wrote about Bill Tapia and reviewed Clapton’s Guitar: Watching Wayne Henderson Build the Perfect Instrument and Guitar: An American Life in our fifth issue. It turns out he’s also a filmmaker and he recently completed filming mandolinist John McGann for an instructional DVD. It’s titled, reasonably enough, John McGann’s Rhythm Mandolin: From Bluegrass to Celtic to Swing. I got a chance to see and it’s excellent. Even if Andy weren’t one of my writers I would recommend it for mandolin players who want to hone their rhythm chops. -MJS
April 7th, 2007
If you’re in the Tacoma area this weekend, you should consider going to the Wintergrass Bluegrass Festival. If you’re already planning to attend, make sure to stop by the Fretboard Journal booth and say hello to Jason and Marc, who will be manning it. Also, we, along with the Mandolin Cafe, are co-sponsoring the Midnight Mandolin concert on Friday with Mike Marshall, Hamilton de Holanda and Chris Thile, which looks like it wil be a blast.-MJS
February 22nd, 2007
Orville Wright, one of the airplane inventin’ Wright Brothers, played mandolin. Not only that, he played it quite a bit as this letter from his sister Katharine shows. “Orv has begun lessons on his mandolin and we are getting even with the neighborhood for the noise they have made on pianos. He sits around and picks that thing until I can hardly stay in the house.” If you want to examine the instrument that caused all that ruckus, you can go see it at the Smithsonian.-MJS
February 21st, 2007
Keith Cary is a musician and luthier based in the Sacramento area (he plays in a band with FJ contributor Robert Armstrong) and the inventor of the completely awesome Commodium, which is a resonator instrument made from a bed pan. Each one is custom made and can be built with mandolin, tenor, plectrum and 5-string banjo necks. I wonder if Keith ever considered calling it a Bedpandemonium?-MJS
January 12th, 2007
Previous Posts
This isn’t good. It seems that Robert W. McLean, the guy who donated Bill Monroe’s F-5 and Maybelle Carter’s L-5 to the Country Music Hall of Fame passed away owing a great deal of money and the instruments may have to be sold to pay off his debts. You know, I was married for more than ten years before I found out my wife was distantly related to Maybelle Carter. Personally, I think that her L-5 should be returned to the family, by which I mean, given to me.-MJS (Photo of Maybelle Carter’s 1928 Gibson L-5 courtesy of Gruhn Guitars.)
