The past few days have given us the opportunity to decompress and relive the extraordinary success of this year’s Rocky Mountain Archtop Festival. Before we take a detailed look at some of the wonderful guitars and their makers that we saw over the course of the weekend we’d like to say a huge THANK YOU to this man – Peter Henriksen.
Peter Henriksen – the man, the myth
Without Peter’s tireless love of the archtop guitar and its players, the Rocky Mountain Archtop Festival would have been little more than an intriguing footnote in the history of luthier-made guitar gatherings. We are very grateful to Peter and his amazing team for putting together one of the best guitar shows we have attended – and we’ve been to more than our fair share.
There was an exceptional display of archtop talent exhibited throughout the weekend and here are some of our highlights starting with Cris Mirabella.
Chris Mirabella with a newly completed Crossfire model
Chris is one of the next generation of Blue Guitars luthiers and we look forward to telling you more about that very soon – in the meantime you should visit the D’Aquisto Blue Centura page to see Cris giving an expert opinion on this legendary guitar. Now, here is Tyler Wells of LHT Guitars – a leading light of a new school of cool with one of his beautiful fan frets. Very nice.
Tyler Wells – Just look at that!
Check out Mario Beauregard‘s Facet model – this incredible design has fascinated us for years – it’s a collaboration with the great Canadian double bass luthier Mario Lamarre and it allows for an extremely lightly built soundboard. Very cool.
The multi-faceted Mario Beauregard
Another Wells, this time Maegen Wells who will be contributing a guitar to The New Blues! Maegen’s work with alternative woods, in particular walnut, is always a pleasure to explore and we look forward to seeing what she can do in blue.
Maegen Wells bringing the beautiful cherry burst
Wyatt Wilkie apprenticed with Bob Benedetto and those gorgeous design lines are visible in his Northern Flyer model – now just imagine it in blue – are you thinking what we’re thinking?
Wyatt Wilkie with a beautiful guitar in entirely the wrong color
It was a joy to spend time with original Blue Guitars luthiers Steve Grimes and Bill Comins – we have recorded interviews with both these legendary creators and we will be sharing the results right here very soon!
Steve Grimes checks out The Jazz Laureate
Bill Comins reunited with The Chester Avenue
We also have some extremely exciting news coming in from the unique talent that created this sublime prototype back in 1985 – any guesses? For lovers of the production model it really is remarkable to see what heights of genius the intended instrument was supposed to reach.
One of the most beautiful things we saw at the weekend.
This is just a taste of the incredible talent on show – you can see more on our instagram in the coming days – stay tuned for part 2 where we introduce some of the sensational players who made The Blue Guitars sing in Arvada.
True Blue
The Archtop Foundation
