Old World craftsmanship creates new breed of guitars

SANDPOINT — When last we met guitar builder Joel Keefe Shoemaker, he was tucked away in the corner of a granary building across from Evans Brothers Coffee. The setting was Spartan, at best, and the builder’s career trajectory was in its early stages.

At that time — almost exactly four years ago — Shoemaker was finding his way as a young luthier. He had built only a handful of guitars, each one another step forward in a journey that, today, finds him selling instruments to players on both coasts, as well as customers closer to home in Idaho, Montana and Oregon.

Guitar number 50 recently got strung up and readied for shipment, according to the luthier, who has sold about 10 of his hand-made instruments to musicians in North Idaho.

Something of a stickler when it comes to the tone and cosmetic appeal of his guitars, Shoemaker walks the fine line between reality and idealism when it comes to his craft.

“It’s the constant struggle for perfection that’s completely unattainable,” he said in his new shop — a decided step up in both physical space and creature comforts when compared with his former workspace in the granary. “I think I’ve gotten better. I certainly wasn’t ashamed of myself before, but fewer and fewer things come up that annoy me or need to be fixed.”

For Shoemaker, crafting boutique instruments transcends the sides and backs, tops, necks and bridges that go into a guitar.

“It’s the lifelong study of wood,” he said, quoting a friend.

In that vein, the luthier has made a point of studying the musical characteristics of various tone woods, arriving on a selection that suits his ear and his instruments.

“There’s nothing that I wouldn’t use, but I certainly have my favorites,” Shoemaker said, listing Honduran mahogany, Indonesian ebony, maple, myrtlewood, padauk and walnut as materials he gravitates toward.

For his tops — thought by many to be the single most essential piece of wood in a guitar — the builder is more exclusive, using only Engelmann Spruce that is sourced locally.

“This wood,” he said, tapping a tight-grained top with his finger and listening to the faint note it produced, “this is the base wood for all my tops.

“And I enjoy knowing what mountaintop the wood came from — that’s important to me,” he went on.

The attraction to mountains in the region also found its way into the various Shoemaker model designations, which bear names such as the Purcell, the Selkirk and the Bitterroot. Fans of vintage guitars, meanwhile, might recognize the body shapes by different names. In his quest for sonic perfection, Shoemaker has crafted several different styles. His early instruments were variations on the traditional Martin “OM” — short for orchestra model — guitars. Other shapes fall into what are known as “parlor guitars,” such as the Martinesque 12-fret “000” and the Gibson-inspired L-00.

“I don’t know what it is, but I just have such an affinity for smaller guitars,” the luthier said.

No sooner had he uttered those words than he picked up one of his latest creations — a slope-shouldered, well-rounded guitar shape reminiscent of a Gibson J-45 and falling into a category of larger guitars bearing the name “dreadnoughts.” Shoemaker strummed a chord, followed by a fast bluegrass riff.

“I like it,” he said as the last note faded away.

“I feel like I’ve established the basic bodies I wanted to build,” he added, placing the finished dreadnought alongside its neckless brethren on the workbench.

Once their necks are carved, these guitars, too, will be complete and ready to leave the shop. Although the luthier seems to have a love affair with every piece of wood he uses, there is a special relationship between him and the guitar neck. An increasing number of guitar makers have turned to CNC technology as a means to consistently replicate the shape and contour of these pieces. Shoemaker persists in hand-carving his necks; part of the Old World approach he embraces as a builder.

He selects, grades and saws his tone wood lumber himself. Each part of an instrument — save for the bridge pins that hold strings in place and the thin, wooden “purfling” that outlines the space where the top joins the guitar body — is made from scratch. Left to his own devices, the luthier would sequester himself completely, content to learn the ways of wood in private as he turns raw wood into meticulously fashioned musical instruments.

“If I had my perfect world, I’d sit in here and quietly build guitars,” he said, thinking a moment before breaking into a grin. “And then somebody would walk in every two weeks and buy one.”

It could be said that Joel Keefe Shoemaker guitars owe a debt to a generation of luthiers who preceded his interest in the art form. In the late-1970s, Nick Kukich, with then-partner Tom Ruthenberg, and Bob Givens were starting to make names for themselves building Franklin and Givens guitars, respectively. These days, a Givens instrument — whether one of his dreadnoughts or the two models of mandolins he made before his death in 1993 — are highly prized and highly priced treasures. A Franklin guitar now starts at approximately $10,000, which is the base price required to get on Kukich’s extensive waiting list.

Along with the current young lions of local luthiery — which include Tony and Dave Powell of ToneDevil Guitars; Vance Bergeson; and Steve Weill, who worked directly with Givens and now builds instruments under the Givens Legacy name — Shoemaker is helping to breathe new life into a chapter of Sandpoint history when the town was known as a focal point for fine instruments. However, he has no designs on pulling down big bucks, preferring instead to get his guitars into the hands of players.

“It’s more important for me to have instruments out there than to sit and wait for the right person to come along and pay me three times as much for one of them,” he said. “I’m still young and idealistic enough that I want to provide instruments that a gigging musician can afford. I just can’t ask the musicians that play in bars to give me seven grand or more for a hand-built guitar. But I can and will and do ask them to give me $2,000.”

When asked by a potential buyer why they should elect to purchase one of his guitars instead of a brand name like Martin, Gibson or Taylor, Shoemaker invites them to visit his workshop. Once there, he clears off every available work space and lays out a selection of tone woods and tops, complete with a running discourse on the tonal properties of each, as well as the options he offers to create a truly individual instrument.

Try to make that happen with one of the big-name guitar brands.

Having a few guitars that now travel with touring musicians and getting calls from upscale, boutique shops that are interested in carrying his instruments has created a new wave of interest in the Sandpoint luthier. More momentous, however, has been a trait that can only be carried on the waves of sound.

“I can recognize the sound of my guitars now,” Shoemaker said. “I seem to have landed on a particular quality of sound that’s fairly distinctive.

“When that happened,” he added, “I realized that I was settling into doing this.”

For more information on Joel Keefe Shoemaker guitars, call 208-597-0295 or email joelkeefe@gmail.com.