By the turn of the twentieth century, almost all the elements were in place for the chain reaction that would propel the guitar to a nearly unassailable position as the dominant instrument of American popular music.īecause it is so closely associated with rural blues and hillbilly music in the popular imagination, the acoustic guitar is often thought of as fundamentally a folk instrument. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the instrument became an integral part of new styles of distinctively American music. Sparked by the popularity of several Spanish and Italian virtuosos, a craze for the six-string “Spanish” guitar swept Europe in the 1810s and reached America around 1830.
But nearly a century before the first recordings of blues and hillbilly guitarists, the instrument already had seized the imagination of American musicians.
The central role of the guitar in those earlier genres helped to drive the instrument to unprecedented heights of popularity in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. After that he must cut just deep enough into the wood so that the shapes fit perfectly.Modern country music, rock & roll and R&B are the progeny of early twentieth century hillbilly music and the blues. The process entails cutting out pieces from seashells such as mother of pearl, flattening them out into thin, uniform pieces and meticulously cutting out desired shapes. South’s favorite part of building guitars is designing custom inlays - decorative materials set on the instrument’s wooden surface. “He often not only does what you ask, but he goes in much further than he needs to.” Custom Inlays “He put a very nice coating over it that really highlights the wood and makes it look nice,” Lorello says, adding that South regularly surpasses clients’ expectations. The fellow musician often consults South for guitar advice and says he once refinished the wood on his 1972 Fender Jazz Bass.
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“He knows how to find really good pieces of wood and get the best out of them when he finds them,” Lorello says. His former bandmate Jeff Lorello says that, although South focuses on sound, he does not lose sight of making his instruments visually appealing. Those who know South praise him for his attention to minute detail when it comes to aesthetics. One of Michael South's custom-made acoustic guitars, made from Sitka spruce and Indian rosewood. He says that using Brazilian rosewood for a guitar body can add between $8,000 and $10,000 to the price. He loves its scent so much that he keeps shavings in a Ziploc bag, which he opens and sniffs from time to time. But it has been scarcely available since 1992, when the Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna banned it from international shipments.īecause the wood is rare, South cherishes the few remnants that he has.
South describes Brazilian rosewood as his favorite wood species.
He estimates that he has enough to build 50 to 60 guitars.īecause Brazilian rosewood is rare, South cherishes the few remnants that he has. Numerous planks of wood from Africa, South America and Connecticut, which he has been acquiring since 1982, line the shed’s interior on both sides. As he opens its doors, thousands of wood aromas fill the air. South steps outside of his main shed and enters a smaller one next door. There he began to collect exotic woods for guitar building. Exotic Woodsīut South’s most formative work was with a now-defunct Glastonbury company called Craftsmanship in Wood.
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For 13 years he also owned a custom wood-turning business, and these days, to supplement his income, South works as a driver for a local ophthalmologist who needs to do paperwork on the road.
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