Ric McCurdy, an old-school craftsman with training and advice from some of the best luthiers in the world, hand crafts his signature archtops and solid-body electrics in his workshop there for a select group of musicians and collectors including Kurt Rosenwinkel, John Abercrombie and Sheryl Bailey.
McCurdy builds his guitars in the same neighborhood that has housed C.F. Martin, Gibson, Guild and Epiphone factories from as long ago as the mid-1800’s. In the early-to-mid- 1900’s John D’Angelico, whose art-deco instruments became synonymous with perfect tone and playability, and his protégé, Jim D’Aquisto, created legendary guitars at a shop on Kenmare Street, also within walking distance of McCurdy’s studio.
“It’s the vibration, getting everything to fit together once you’ve put the guitar together, that breaks it in,” McCurdy said. “The old violinists used to put the violins inside the bottom of the bass pipe on the organ, so there’s some history to that.” McCurdy paused, then reflected that an instrument is a vital, changing thing.
“There is an evolution in guitar, there’s this kind of symbiotic thing that’s happening,” McCurdy said. He noted that because of modern technology the craft is increasingly merging with science, but that it has been a doing so for decades.
“In the 1930’s, Gibson invented the truss rod. But it didn’t stop the neck warping from side to side,” McCurdy said. He then demonstrated the boxed truss rod and graphite composite sticks surrounding it that he uses in his necks. “Because this rod is in a box, the wood can’t warp. And it’s surrounded by graphite, which is very stiff so it doesn’t suck up the tone.”
Instead of the traditional pipe heated with a blowtorch, McCurdy uses a silicone heat blanket used by NASA for satellites in outer space in order to bend his archtop sides more effectively. But technology is not what makes a great guitar, McCurdy said. A great instrument is made by a combination of sweat, persistence, love and experience. Especially experience.
“John D’Angelico made 1200 guitars with two guys; if you look at the Stradivarius in the Met, you’ll see scrape marks on them,” McCurdy said. “Those guys weren’t finishing them, they were cranking them out. That’s how they became so good at doing it.”
Archtops are the most difficult guitar to make, McCurdy said, because they are carved with a very thin “recurve” around the outside of the front and back of the guitar to allow them to resonate, much like speaker cones.
“With archtops, you have to find out what the wood wants to be,” McCurdy said. “Two guitars made from the same lot of wood can have totally different characteristics.”
“To get a top in tune, it could happen in 40 minutes, it could take days,” McCurdy said. He added that he spends about 100 hours on building a typical archtop.
McCurdy guitars feature an extra sound port on the upper bout that puts out more of the high-end and also serves as a monitor, directing sound toward the performer. His archtops range from art-deco styles (the Kenmare) to the post-modern (Moderna and Perfecta). And his guitars are anything but ordinary.
One interviewer playing a “Kenmare” (named after the street that John D’Angelico’s guitar shop was located on) was struck by the lush sounds of the not-quite-finished guitar. In addition, it had a ringing tone with harmonics not typically heard on a factory-made guitar.
The action was smooth, and as comfortable as worn leather. Intonation up the neck was flawless. Chords played at the 12th fret rang as clearly as those played at the fifth fret, and all of them sounded amazing.
He also creates semi-solid and solid body guitars; he uses Seymour Duncan pickups on his electric guitars, and Kent Armstrong pickups on his archtops because their acoustic transparency retains the archtops’ unique sound.
“Kent (Armstrong) is a scientist,” McCurdy said. “Seymour, he played out. He invented the boutique pickup business. He’s a great innovator because he was a musician.”
McCurdy, too, began as a musician. Raised in Connecticut, he got his B.S. in Political Science at the University of Oregon, then moved to California where he worked as a jazz bass player. He built his first guitar on the coffee table in his apartment in 1981 and says it was an improvement over the Rickenbacker he was making his living with.
At one of his shows, he met John Hawk, a noted southern California guitar maker who made guitars for Joe Walsh and Keith Richards, among others. Hawk, impressed by McCurdy’s work, invited him to work at his shop.
McCurdy became a student of Hawk’s, but said without the Internet, a lot of legwork was required to learn how to build guitars. Fortunately, he added, guitar makers are generally happy to share their knowledge.
“In those days, you just read up. I called every guitar maker I knew of and asked them, ‘how deep are the truss rods? How deep do you put them in here?” He said that the pursuit, and the experience gained, increased his appreciation for the knowledge he gained.
Around 1990 he happened on a blueprint for a D’Angelico guitar, which he then made. But he discovered that making a guitar is more than just getting the top to specified thickness or forming the shape correctly.
“I did it as a skills test to try to push myself further, and right after that, in 1991, I moved to New York,” McCurdy said. He quickly developed a reputation as a guitar maker of some merit, and one day got a surprising guest.
“Not long after I moved here the bell rang and it was John Abercrombie. He bought three of my guitars, and his ear—he hears every nuance of the sound,” McCurdy said. The two worked together to develop the Perfecta, a thinner body archtop with double humbuckers and an ultra-modern look to retain the archtop sound, but reduce feedback.
Living in Greenwich Village is also handy when McCurdy wants to get a live sound test--often he can simply carry a nearly finished guitar to a nearby club where his client is playing, and listen to it during a show.
McCurdy said he makes his guitars for working musicians who want a terrific, signature sound at considerably lower price than the models produced by other luthiers. He cited one New York luthier, whose guitars are in demand as museum pieces already, as an example.
The guitar maker once worked with Jim D’Aquisto, making instruments that were used in shows throughout the city and the world. Then, his guitars became more like fine art and less like something you would use to play a club.
“He’s gone onto a different audience. There aren’t very many people who can afford a $60,000 guitar, and they’re not usually working musicians,” McCurdy said. Pointing to a photo of what was clearly a museum piece he added, “This instrument, really, is like a life raft for a killer whale. It’s cool as hell, but pretty much useless (for playing out).”He compared it to a client who has one of the most coveted guitars in the world--a D’Angelico Excel from 1960--who told him, “it’s a beautiful guitar, but I’m afraid to take it out of the case. One bump (could cost) a thousand bucks.”
McCurdy’s guitars run from around $6,000 to above $11,000, depending on what extras are decided upon. And when he says he does customized guitars, it doesn’t mean just swapping out a piece here or there.
“I had one guy call me up one day and he said, ‘I want a guitar with monkeys all over it.’ So I said, ‘Arnie, are you off your medication?’” McCurdy smiled. Eventually, after the customer explained that he was a monkey collector, McCurdy said he would have to check and see whether such a thing was possible. “I called up my inlay guy, Larry Robinson. He just said, ‘How many? What kind of monkey?’”
McCurdy also related a story of a musician with a national endorsement deal who wanted to play a McCurdy instrument in his performances. His solution? He bought a McCurdy guitar with another company’s logo on the headstock.
“That way he was still playing what he was supposed to, but he was getting the sound he wanted,” McCurdy said. Repairs play a big part in McCurdy’s business, in part because working on D’Angelico and D’Aquisto guitars taught him why the high-end guitars sound so good.
“Repairs pay the rent,” the luthier said. “But guitar building feeds the soul.”
He says he also finds his reward in musical excellence produced by his instruments.
“Musicians reach a plateau sometimes,” McCurdy said, “and if I can help a musician get to that next plateau, that’s something. It’s easy to make art; it’s easy to make a ship in a bottle. But to make something that makes people excited to play, that inspires them, that’s amazing.”
Though most of the old woodworkers and luthiers have left The Village because of high rents, McCurdy continues to saw, drill and glue his way to a spot in New York City’s pantheon of guitar heroes. And he says he’s not going to sacrifice his beliefs for money.
“I’d rather be Enzo Ferrari than Henry Ford,” McCurdy said. “I get calls from the Chinese every day asking me to come over and show them how to make guitars. But I’d rather make a handful of high quality work than sell a (lot) of F-150’s”
He also said that it isn’t just the materials used in his guitars that make them unique.
“What makes a guitar so special isn’t the wood or the metal,” McCurdy said. “It’s the hands that shape it. It’s the man who makes it, because you put a part of yourself into each one.”
McCurdy Guitars
Custom made, super high quality archtop, semi-solid and solid-body guitars made for the working musician.
19 Hudson Street
New York City, NY 10013
212-274-8352
luthiersnotebook.com
view this interviews photo album on flicker
For photography prints contact gusphoto@yahoo.com
