George Lowden

For the forger, see George Lowden (stamp forger).
George Lowden, 2009

George Lowden is a luthier based in Downpatrick, County Down, Northern Ireland. He constructs steel and nylon string acoustic guitars.

Eric Clapton, Jan Akkerman, Vince Gill, Mike Oldfield, Pierre Bensusan, Alex de Grassi, Peter Finger, Nick Harper, Don Ross, Richard Thompson, the late Eric Roche, Paul Brady, Ed Sheeran, Damien Rice, Lee Rogers, Gary Lightbody,[1] Foy Vance, and Eric Hutchinson use Lowden Guitars.[2]

History

Early life

George Lowden was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1951.

Company

In 1976 - 79 his first guitars with A-frame bracing and the dolphin voicing profiles were made in 1976 and in many ways have established the Lowden guitar’s sound.

The first Irish studio/workshop, in 6a High Street, Bangor employed 4 trainee guitar makers, Colin ‘Dusty’ Miller, Frank Kernaghan, Sam Irwin and Michael Hull. It produced approximately 100 guitars during this period, which can be identified by small blue rectangular labels.

Beginning in 1980, Lowden licensed manufacturing of his guitars to a small group of master luthiers in Japan, near Nagoya.

In 1985, as a result of the rise in interest for all electronic instruments in music, sales of acoustic instruments slumped worldwide and the owners of the Japanese factory decided to close it and move production of Lowden guitars to a larger factory where other brands were made. Lowden was concerned about this outcome, and decided to try setting up a new factory in Ireland. With little capital and through the help of an investor (David Jebb), he rented a building in Bangor, Co. Down and began to employ and train new craftsmen.

1986 Micky Uchida, (a Pierre Bensusan fan and guitar maker himself from Japan) arrived in Ireland to stay with the Lowden family and asked Lowden if he could come work for him. Micky was trained in classical guitar building but was interested in learning about steel string guitars. Shortly after his arrival in Ireland, Lowden offered Uchida the factory manager's position after observing his talent as a craftsman and luthier.

Lowden Guitars of this period are labelled with a slightly smaller version of the current oval label. Approximately 500-600 guitars were made in each of the first three years, then approximately 1,000 per year thereafter.

Receivership and licensing agreement

Eventually in 1988, the company ran out of funds. Lowden was uncomfortable continuing with an under-funded business unable to meet its commitments, and decided to close it down. On being informed of this, the Company’s bank asked Lowden to agree to receivership, as they believed the company could be sold with Lowden’s agreement for future co-operation.

A group of local people put together a consortium, headed by Andy Kidd, (whose background was as a recording engineer and record producer) to buy the company out of receivership. George Lowden signed a licensing agreement with this new company. This ensured that he retained personal ownership of the Lowden designs and trademark and enabled him to provide quality control and new designs while remaining independent from the company. The model range at that time was much more limited than it is now but the beginnings of a dealership network had already been established in parts of Europe and the United States.

France

1989 Lowden moved with his wife and children to France and worked as an independent luthier designing and building his new range of classical guitars as well as his steel strings. During this time, he also designed new models for the company, and checked quality on periodic visits back to Ireland. He built, as he still does, between 10 and 15 instruments each year for individual musicians who commission a personal guitar.

New designs

Some time later, Lowden continued his implementation of new designs by introducing the ‘Jazz’ nylon string electric acoustic.

To satisfy increasing demand for ornate instruments, Kidd asked Lowden to design a series of guitars with more inlays, as the ‘Standard’ guitars were too plain for some musicians' taste. This became the ‘Premier’, or “35” series. This series has been the most successful of all Lowden designs, with figured exotic woods and inlays combined with selected soundboard tone woods.

Change of ownership

The acoustic guitar market had begun to flourish again during the 1990s, but the company, significantly hampered by under-investment, had not been able to achieve its potential. In November 1998, keen to participate in a progressive plan to develop the business further, George Lowden, along with Steve McIlwrath and Alastair McIlveen set up a new holding company to buy a controlling interest in the Lowden Guitar Company. Lowden’s vision was, “...that the company should become as good as the guitars themselves…”[3]

25th Anniversary

In November 1998, a visitor to the factory showed up guitar case in hand with the Lowden guitar serial No.1. The very first guitar Lowden designed and built. This was an excellent reminder of how far the Lowden Guitar had come. As a celebration of this long journey, Lowden designed the 25th anniversary limited edition model. “My aim with the design and build details was to make available in reasonable numbers, a guitar which was as close as possible to the guitars which I am only able to build personally for a very few players each year under my full name. I therefore included as many as I could of the construction, voicing and cosmetic details, found in my own guitars in this limited edition of 101 instruments.”[3]

Millennium Twins

By this time, the community of Lowden enthusiasts had grown considerably. Players were attracted by Lowden’s tone and quality, and by the fact that they were not mass-produced. To fulfill requests for ‘special edition’ Lowdens, Lowden designed the Millennium Twins. “As a luthier, I find that designing a few ‘special’ guitars does stretch my creative abilities and I enjoy that challenge. I believe this does help to develop the art of guitar making in a much wider sense as well. I introduced the limited edition Millennium twins with their matching sets of figured walnut back and sides and adjacent sets of redwood tops sourced from trees, which had fallen naturally.”[3]

In 2003, the License with the Lowden Guitar Co ended and production of Lowden guitars at the Newtownards factory ceased at the end of December 2003.

George Lowden Guitars Ltd.

Since 2004, Lowden guitars have been manufactured by a family-run company in Downpatrick, Co. Down.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "lowdensonyoutube". Georgelowden.com. Retrieved 2013-03-25.
  2. ↑ George Lowden Guitars Archived January 18, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  3. 1 2 3 "Home". Georgelowden.com. Retrieved 2013-03-25.
  4. ↑ "History - Lowden Guitars - Handmade and Hand built Acoustic Guitar Range from Downpatrick, Ireland". www.lowdenguitars.com. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.