More and more young
people have been coming
into our shop lately, wondering
how to prepare for a career as
an instrument maker. Most of
them are still in high school,
the time when kids are trying
to figure out if they should be
doctors, lawyers, cowboys, or
astronauts—and at least around
here, guitar makers. I’m always
at a bit of a loss for what to tell
them. Should I be the voice of
reason and advise them to pursue
a less exclusive career path,
like the NFL?
With 32 teams and 53 roster
positions each, there are 1,696
jobs available as a player in the
NFL. I conducted a completely
unscientific survey by adding
up the number of employees at
the guitar factories, small shops,
and one- and two-man operations.
My totally off-the-wall
estimate indicates there may
actually be fewer available positions
as a professional American
acoustic guitar builder than
a professional football player.
Maybe the best way to tell people
how to get where they think
they want to go is to tell them
about the guys who work for
us, and how they each ended up
in this exclusive little club.
John Calkin has a degree as
a gunsmith, but his experience
putting together a dulcimer kit
in his bedroom in the mid-’70s
took him down this path. One
of his friends who built muzzle-loaders
had some shop space and
machinery to share, and John
was soon building and selling
dulcimers. He eventually moved
into his own space and began
answering orders for mandolins,
bouzoukis, banjos, electric
guitars, and acoustics. Like a
lot of builders from that era,
he had to figure it all out as he
went. John came onboard after
interviewing us for a magazine
article and has been part of our
team for about 14 years now.
Dean Jones grew up in a
musical family from Alabama
(his uncle played Dobro with
Hank Williams) and inherited
his father’s love of woodworking.
He went to college to
major in art, but ended up with
a business degree and spent
seven years working in and
managing bookstores. His interest
in instruments and woodworking
eventually led him to
the Roberto Venn School of
Lutherie and a job in our shop
after graduation.
Ben Critzer came to us after
answering an ad we placed in
our local paper. He first picked
up the guitar during the Great
Folk Scare of the early ’60s.
After graduating from Virginia
Tech in 1971, he spent years
working for newspapers and
doing PR before a midlife
switch to landscaping work,
which led to an appreciation of
working with his hands. Ben’s
solid background (combined
with some disappointing lutherie-
school dreamers at the time)
made him a great choice, even
though he had no experience in
this line of work. Ben sprays all
of our finish and has been with
us for over five years.
Ken McAlack’s path to our
shop is similar to Ben’s. Ken
grew up in the ’60s playing
rock ’n’ roll, fighting the pressure
to conform, until the
realities of a wife and children
made him buckle and get a
“real job.” Auto mechanics had
always come to him naturally,
so he set out on a career path
that eventually led to managing
large service departments for
auto dealerships. But he always
vowed that after the kids were
grown and college was paid for,
he was going to do what he
really wanted to do. A tour of
our shop seven years ago was
an eye-opener for Ken, and we
just happened to be looking for
a buffer. His enthusiasm and
obvious eye for detail convinced
us to give him a chance. Most
of the guitars that have come
out of our shop in the last several
years owe their beautiful
shine to Ken’s skilled hands.
Jeff Hill got his first guitar
at age eight after seeing George
Hamilton IV play “Your
Cheatin’ Heart.” But as an
Indiana kid, the pressure to play
basketball was too great—he
was soon convinced that guitar
wasn’t cool and caved to the
pressure. Three decades later
he took up the guitar again.
As an auto mechanic, he was
curious about how his guitar
was made and worked, and was
soon spending his summers at
Frank Finocchio’s weeklong guitar
building and repair camps.
A tour of our shop on a day
we were interviewing potential
employees caused him to
impulsively pick up an application.
Despite the unanimous
advice of his girlfriend and
parents that he was crazy, he
resigned his position managing
an auto repair service and came
to work with us. His mother
now proudly introduces him as
her “guitar-making son.”
Danny Dollinger is our
most recent hire. He grew
up near Virginia’s legendary
Wayne Henderson and spent as
much time as he could hanging
around Wayne’s shop as a kid. A
lifelong musician, Danny could
never afford the repair work
that his instruments needed, so
he learned to do things on his
own. That led to a three-year
stint in Texas working under
repairman Mark Erlewine, and
then the eventual start of his
own repair business. A tour of
our shop (there seems to be a
theme here) at an opportune
time turned into a position as
our resident fret masher.
Six very different people took
six unique paths to our door,
and I’m not sure what overall
lesson you can draw from their
experience. Considering the
comparison to the NFL (which,
at the time I was writing this
column, had still not figured
how to agreeably divide the
nine billion dollars they generate),
they would have all been
better off lifting weights and
taking steroids!
Jeff Huss
co-owner
of Huss & Dalton Guitar
Company, moved to
Virginia in the late ’80s to
play bluegrass. He and
his business partner, Mark
Dalton, formed their company
in 1995. Since then they’ve earned
world-wide recognition for their high-end,
boutique guitars and banjos.