Spending a week with master luthier Kent Carlos Everett was a career-altering event, as it took my guitar building to a whole new level.
From the first moment I set foot in the Everett Guitars workshop, my olfactory nerves awash in the overwhelmingly fragrant scents of Rosewood, Spruce and Cedar, I knew I was precisely where I needed to be! For the terminally impatient, like those who prefer to read the final pages of a novel first — we built the beginnings of a really great guitar in a week, and I got an education of a lifetime.
Kent Everett (Carlos, as he is known to friends) is a walking dichotomy, being both an enigma and an open book. The mystery is the man’s nearly unfathomable knowledge of all things guitar.
The known is his friendliness, willingness and eagerness to share his knowledge and experience. Watching him interact with his lovely wife Jeannie, or seeing him play with his dogs Joey and Zeke provided invaluable insight into the makeup of a fellow who is as comfortable creating a world-class stringed instrument as he is leisurely strolling a path lakeside near his Georgia home.
Tall, slender, fit and active is how I would physically describe the luthier who opened up his home and avocation to me. Warm, witty, anecdotal and humorous is how I would dare attempt to begin to explain the personality of someone whose art can be actualized, nay, felt.
This man is quite clear regarding what he is all about, which is “to promote hand made acoustic musical instruments and home made living room music”. Having spent a week with him I can attest that his true mission is to set ablaze a musical experience in wood that leaves one hungering and panting for more! By raising the proverbial bar for what a guitar should feel and sound like, Kent Carlos Everett is at once elevated into that elite class of artisans who 'walk the talk.'
After decades of supplying performers, singers, songwriters and collectors with befitting tools, he was determined to produce an instrument worthy of his legacy while remaining affordable (I believe that the unique paradox of the end game of a master craftsman is no better denoted than by producing the very best product available anywhere while potentially pricing oneself out of the market).
The culmination of years of experience, love of the craft and determination to be economically viable resulted in a limited release model known as the Sofia, the first guitar he has made in the last decade to sell for under $5k. The Everett pedigree is all over this instrument, visible in the stepped headstock and stepped soundport, painstakingly voiced top, and his original transitional arm bevel he developed back in the early 1990’s.
This was the first Everett guitar I had ever played (and play it I did!). I was immediately smitten with it’s sound and barely put it down. And this was the model of guitar I participated in building over a six day master / apprentice experience.
I had never built a guitar in week, but I was about to. First on the list was a tour of a very efficient shop. The sides were soaked , then bent in a trusty old form covered with aluminum foil and heated with a light bulb. Blocks were added and plates were joined. Once the glue dried, kerfed lining was attached, along with the beginnings of the arm bevel support.
Attention then turned to the soundboard. Much time was devoted to appreciating how the various factors of the top (wood, thickness, bracing, radius, scalloping, etc.) all come together to deliver the single-most defining element of the guitar’s overall sound. The soundboard wood in this case was Western Redcedar, often described as warmer-sounding when contrasted with the more commonly used Spruce(s).
The soundhole was cut, the rosette glued in place, and the top was reduced in thickness to that critical point. When completed, with braces and bridgeplate carefully and articulately glued in place, lightly running one’s fingertips over that top produced a crisp, almost crackly, rasp-like response that built anticipation.
"Voicing" that top was an existential experience for me. Walking through the creation of the soundboard, from thicknessing the material, to adding the braces, to shaping the braces, and listening to the top "speak" in accordance with the changes that were made to it, all with a Master luthier as a tour guide, was what changed everything for me. I could feel the sound developing.
Once the soundboard was attached, much care was taken in beveling the lower bout’s edge of the body where the player’s arm would drape across the side and top comfortably. With the soundboard and back assembled to the sides, a guitar body emerged. But as soon as the edges were carefully routed to accept binding and purfling the responsiveness of the soundboard literally died!
From this stage, the guitar went together very quickly. The back was attached and the channels were routed for binding and purfling. The Bubinga chosen for the binding was a strong color contrast to the marriage of Rosewood and Cedar, lending a degree of visual separation that speaks to an artist’s eye.
Most impressive was the return of the responsiveness of the soundboard to the guitar body once the binding was in place. This phenomenon demonstrates the significance of the relationship(s) between components.
Next up was the guitar neck, that tree limb of a handle that can support 160 pounds of tension while presenting a canvas for the most nimble and deft fingerings to paint.
Assembled to be strong enough to resist the pull of 6 individual strings of steel working in concert to bow it in half, the neck was carefully shaped, straightened and fitted to the body so as to suspend the strings the perfect distance from the wood.
With the neck assembled to the guitar body, the Ziricote fingerboard and bridge were added. I witnessed manual, precision alignment worthy of a machine shop, along with careful positioning of fret slots, bridge pin holes, and headstock tuners. The addition of a properly shaped and fitted saddle, a nut slotted just right, and frets hammered in place meant that it was time to string this guitar up for a trial run.
6 days goes by pretty fast when you're having fun. If there can be greater fun than doing what you love, perhaps it is doing what you love alongside someone like Kent Carlos Everett. During our time together, I recall a rather significant ‘Aha!’ moment (and there were several of those, that week), where the lights went on regarding a particular lutherie issue I had struggled with.
My enthusiasm over what was suddenly (as a direct result of this man's teaching) such an obvious path to follow, triggered Carlos to reflect, “You realize it took me 35 years to learn that, and here I am, just giving it to you!" With the enormity of the moment weighing upon us, I responded, “Yeah, well I don't have 35 years to learn it”!
We both laughed and moved on to the next revelatory moment. Thank you, Carlos, for opening your shop and your home and for sharing such a wealth of information with me. It was an invaluable time invested. I trust that I can build instruments worthy of your approval.
An old photo of John Greven and Kent Everett, at the Oregon coast. These two men have added the most to my knowledge of guitar making.
I design and build acoustic guitars. Each instrument is created to be a unique visual and sonic experience.Where a factory may faithfully produce a given model thousands of times, every guitar I make is intentionally distinct. I have written several articles that acknowledge, explore, challenge, and at times defy traditional steel-string acoustic guitar convention.
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