Healdsburg Guitar Festival 2009
James, Jean, and Luke in front of the new shop
Hi everyone, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who visited us at the Healdsburg Guitar Festival two weekends ago. I personally enjoyed the show more than NAMM, it’s so much more relaxing and builder oriented. My family and I are looking forward to re-entering the under 100 builders arena again after 17 years in Kailua Kona and I appreciate the warm response we received at the festival. It’s great to be closer to the events, festivals and players than we were in Hawaii.
I’m going to post a few photos from the trip, and I’ll add more once I get them off of the camera.
Great live music at Tom Ribbecke's guitar makers party
An archtop guitar cake that a local company made for Tom
My dad and I had the privilege of meeting a fantastic musician named Julian Lage, who stopped by our booth with his dad Mario. Julian is 21 and already performing with some of the world’s greatest names in jazz music. It was great to hear him play the traditional brazilian dreadnaught we brought to the show, which he loved, and he also obliged me by playing our classical model as well. After hearing him play and talking with him at the show I was really impressed, he’s a really friendly and humble guy and he plays amazingly. You should check out his web site and listen to his most recent album Sounding Point on iTunes.
Julian Lage playing our palo escrito Classical with port orford cedar top
James Julian and Luke
We also had a visit from my dads old friends Wayne Charvel of Wayne Guitars who was with visiting the show with his son Michael. It was great to meet them and we really enjoyed hearing how they are doing these days.
Luke and James Goodall with Wayne and Michael Charvel
Aloha from Hawaii!
As the proud owner of the very first Concert Jumbo ever built (#1 of 5), I wish Goodall Guitars much success in Northern California!
I hope your shop will be open for tours, as my trips to San Francisco (to visit my daughter) always include a drive up the coast.
Take care and good luck!
Hey guys…so glad to hear you’re ready to go with the business of building guitars again. I pray for you when the Lord brings you to mind. As always, I LOVE my [11 years old!] eir/german jumbo…it still pulls the songs out of me. Can’t wait to play some of your small shop guitars. Mega blessings. Greg
Hey there!! It was such a pleasure meeting all of you and playing your beautiful instruments. I can still remember how wonderful it felt to play these guitars and I sincerely hope I get the opportunity to play them again soon.
Thanks also for these great pictures!! I’ll link to your blog from my Facebook.
Thanks and much love,
Jules
It sounded like a good time for sure. You know, its nice to get know the builders of my guitar through this website. I know the orders must be pouring in and I am really excited about my future guitar. I hope you continue to post blogs, and maybe it would be nice to see some shots of your completed shop.
Thanks, Dave
Thanks David, I added the blog to our site for just this reason. It felt right to be able to communicate a little bit more but I hadn’t had the time to do anything to the web site for a long time before this addition. I’m glad you like it, and my mom, dad, and I plan on posting new info and photos as events happen etc.
Hello Jim, Jean and Luke,
Best Regards with the new location. I do have a question: Luke, you mentioned getting back to the under 100 guitars a year level after being considerably over that benchmark. May I ask why? Was your product quality suffering? Did you move because you wanted to simplify your life? Hope I am not being too nosey. Because our guitars are hand amde, many customers feel a bit close to you and your efforts. Good Luck!
Hi Greg, sorry for the reply delay. We made the move for a number of reasons, however quality control was not one of them. We were pretty happy with the quality control we had going for the people trained at the shop in Kona, but managing a crew was one thing that my dad wanted to step away from to simplify things in general. The current economy downshifted demand and gave us the opportunity to make this move that my dad and mom had been mulling for quite a long time. It was sad to leave the solid crew we had behind in Hawaii but honestly I am already enjoying working with my dad more one on one. So in a nutshell we are responding to the economy with a scale change that made sense in more ways than one. Iā??ll be putting up another post soon with plenty of new photos because we have been so busy but are mostly starting the build again! Oh and thanks for the encouragement, we fuss over details so that people who play our guitars will love what they get!
WOW! A move back to Northern Cal! I just finished up my travel plans to Kona and you guys were smack in the middle of my itinerary. Bad timing on my part. Being from the Bay Area, though, I will be making time to come up and visit the new shop. I play two of your fine instruments; a rosewood jumbo and an aloha concert jumbo (which I believe is the one pictured on your site).
Love your work and look forward to meeting you all some day!