fbpx
Close

Uh oh...

It appears that you're using a severely outdated version of Safari on Windows. Many features won't work correctly, and functionality can't be guaranteed. Please try viewing this website in Edge, Mozilla, Chrome, or another modern browser. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused!

Read More about this safari issue.
Close
Northwest Fayetteville
Get directions
Northwest Homegrown 0

Arkansas Guitar Maker Bayard Blain

A

An introductory lesson in making guitars from Bayard Blain comes with a simultaneous short course on wood types. Perhaps this is to be expected from a carpenter at heart. There is a reverence in the way Blain flips a flat board and runs his hands over the marbling in pieces of Brazilian rosewood, American spruce or exotic mahogany.

Wood surrounds everything in his Fayetteville studio, where he custom makes guitars for both local clients and a growing roster of national clients, too. Noted bluegrass musician Peter Rowan, for instance, has been spotted playing the one he bought last summer at the Fayetteville Roots Festival.

There is a sameness to the mass-produced guitars made in large factories. Blain works in the opposite mindset. When someone orders a guitar (or mandolin or ukulele, as he makes those, too) from him, he wants to watch that musician play before he starts the building process. He wants to watch the way they strike the guitar and hear the kind of music they make.

A more traditional-sounding guitar might be in order, or he might make one sound a little brighter and crisper if that’s the preferred sound of the player. The ability to pair a player and instrument perfectly are skills he’s still refining, now more than a decade into the instrument-making business and after finishing at least 200 instruments.

Blain came to Fayetteville in 2003 after getting an offer to play in the bluegrass band Wildwood. He had just finished luthier – that’s the art of making stringed instruments – training at the Summit School of Guitar Building and Repair in British Columbia, and the prospect of starting a successful business in his hometown of Gardner, Montana, population 800, seemed slim.

Wildwood had a flash of success then faded away. He eventually joined the bluegrass quartet 3 Penny Acre, a project with Bernice Hembree, Bryan Hembree and Shannon Wurst. Wurst continues making music as a solo artist and teacher. The Hembrees formed Americana act Smokey & The Mirror and also founded the Fayetteville Roots Festival. Blain left 3 Penny Acre to focus on his family and his instrument business.

Meet the
author.

Learn more about .

A little about .

Dustin Bartholomew is the co-founder of Fayetteville Flyer, an online publication covering all things news, art and life in Fayetteville, Arkansas since 2007. A graduate of the Department of English at the University of Arkansas and a lifelong resident of the area, he still lives in east Fayetteville with his son Hudson, daughter Evelyn, his wife Brandy, and his two dogs Lily and Steve. On occasion, he tickles the ivories in a local band called The Good Fear.

Read more stories by Fayetteville Flyer - Dustin Bartholomew

 

Visit Fayetteville Flyer - Dustin Bartholomew’s Website

Like this story? Read more from Fayetteville Flyer - Dustin Bartholomew

0
0
0
0
0
0

Join the Conversation

Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 

Submit a photo

We select one featured photo per week, but we show many more in our gallery. Be sure to fill out all the fields in order to have yours selected.

  • Accepted file types: jpg, png, Max. file size: 5 MB.

Regions Topics
Social

What are you looking for?

Explore Arkansas

Central Arkansas

Little Rock, Conway, Searcy, Benton, Heber Springs

Northwest Arkansas

Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale, Fort Smith

South Arkansas

Hot Springs, Pine Bluff, Texarkana, Arkadelphia

Explore by Topic