| During his decades as a guitar repairman, Butch Boswell worked everywhere— from Taylor Guitars to Rudy's Music in New York City—before eventually setting up shop in and around his native San Luis Obispo, California. But even with his experience and impressive credentials, Boswell says he occasionally had customers who weren't sure about entrusting him with their injured instruments. "They would ask me, 'Are you a luthier? Because I don't want anyone but a luthier working on my guitar,'" Boswell recalls. "And when I'd tell them I wasn't, they'd take their guitar somewhere else. So finally I decided, well, I'm just going to build a guitar myself!" That first instrument, a traditional 000-sized acoustic, led to several more and, eventually, to Boswell launching his own company, currently based in his newly adopted hometown of Bend, Oregon. To say that Boswell Guitars is a boutique outfit is putting it mildly. Butch Boswell is a one-man operation, building each guitar from start to finish by himself and entirely by hand. "I really enjoy the 'old world' approach," he says. "I'm just looking to get good guitars in the hands of the right people…" |
