Life Changes
Becker Guitars’ wood shop in
Attleboro, Massachusetts, is
where the magic happens. The
door to the shop is at the end
of a long brick alleyway, and
a tiny sign reading “Becker
Guitars” is the only indication
of what’s inside. More than 20
guitars are on display in the
lobby, each one visually stunning
and unique. The lobby
opens up into the workshop,
where dozens of works in progress
hang from the ceiling while
others wait for repair. Blankets
of sawdust cover the tables and
workbenches throughout the
5,000-square-foot shop. At the
back end, garage-style doors
are kept open in the summer
months to let the breeze in.
Becker and Martin have been
there since 2006, after Martin
decided to relocate from Maine
to focus on guitar making.
Before opening his first small
repair shop, Becker—who has
a degree in finance—did a stint
working for a financial advising
firm, but his heart wasn’t in it.
“I didn’t want to work,” he says.
“I just wanted to play guitar—I
work with my hands and can’t
sit still.” One day as he sat in
his cubicle, miserably watching
the second hand on his desktop
clock tick, suddenly he got
up, walked out of the office,
and bought a guitar magazine.
Mentally checked-out for the
day, he brought it back to his
cubicle to read. The issue happened
to feature custom guitar
builders. As he drove home, he
made up his mind: He would
trade a career in finance for one
as a guitar builder.
Becker than traveled to
Michigan to learn luthiery and
repair from a pro. “I went to
this guy for a few months and
learned just enough to be dangerous—
I got my feet wet. But
you can’t leave a school after
a few months knowing what
you’re doing.”
Although he was still new
to the guitar business, Becker
managed to land a job offer
from Bourgeois Guitars in
Maine, building acoustic guitars
and working in the repair
shop. The commute from his
Attleboro home was tough—
two to three hours each way.
But Becker recognized a rare
opportunity to get into a business
he was passionate about
and remained with Bourgeois
for close to six months. Then,
by chance, he met Pat DiBurro,
whom he calls “the best repairman
I’ve ever seen.”
Becker studied under
DiBurro for a few years before
branching out on his own, and
he attributes most of his guitar-building
knowledge to him.
“When I went out on my own
I learned a lot more, because
there was no one to lean on—I
had to figure it out. Now I’m
super confident in what I can
do, but it took years and years
of a whole lot of instruments
coming through my hands—
thousands of them. So, I got
good at repair and restoration,
pulled Ryan down from Maine,
and we started looking for a
new shop.”
Before joining Becker in
Massachusetts, Martin was living
in Maine doing maintenance for
his parents, who are landlords,
but his real love was woodworking.
Martin says he was changing
out a toilet that wasn’t matching
up with the floor properly
when he had a revelation. “I was
hugging it, trying to get the nut
on the bottom to seat it to the
floor, and I’m, like, ‘You know
what? I’m a guitar maker. I ain’t
doing this.’” Kneeling on the
floor, he called his buddy Dan
Becker. Becker laughs, “It took
him hugging the toilet to realize
he should come build guitars.”
Since then, Martin says he’s been
studying the methods of master
luthiers Bob Benedetto and
Carl Thompson.
