I recently visited Rance White in the hills of Appalachia…

Rance gave me a short tour of the workshop where he builds his Lazy River Guitars, and showed me the small, packed, varnish-scented area where he keeps all of his finished guitars, weissenborns, and other creations…

I was intrigued, and drawn to the gorgeous look of his instruments, and his use of American woods — walnut, cedar and others…

He is very well known for building weissenborns, and builds the most beautiful instruments of that kind I have ever seen, and custom builds instruments for the most reasonable rate out there…

Check out Rance’s website at:
http://www.lazyriverguitars.com

There are a few soundclips available of his weissenborns — worth listening to at:
http://lazyriverguitars.com/Pages/mp3s.html

Here’s a page of Rance’s current projects:
http://lazyriverguitars.com/Pages/current

And there are some pictures of my guitar as it was being built here:
http://lazyriverguitars.com/Pages/currentprojects/kentgustavson.html

Here is a list of Lazy River Guitars’ amazingly reasonable price list (only 1300 for a base rate on a new guitar!)
http://lazyriverguitars.com/Pages/prices

Contact Rance through his webpage here:
http://www.lazyriverguitars.com/Pages/contact

Rance built me two guitars (originally one, but he got inspired:) — both of them catering to my strange slapping and finger-styles on the guitar. Both of the guitars he built for me have a glowing gentle sound when played soft, and a punch like I’ve never heard short of a Martin D-28 when flatpicked. These are bluegrass canons in a small package, and at the same time, gentle Taylor like fingerpicking instruments.

I highly recommend Rance as a builder for his close attention to detail, for his artistry, for his impeccable ear, and for his prices. He will build you the best guitar or weissenborn possible at a price below any decent Martin, Gallagher, Taylor, Larivee, or Guild.

These guitars smell good, they make me guilt-free (almost — the fingerboards aren’t American woods), they didn’t kill my pocketbook, and they play like nothing I have ever owned.

I could sell my Martin D-35, D-28, D-18, my 1970’s Gallagher, my 1952 Gibson, and be happy for the rest of my life with these two guitars. They sound great, they don’t hurt my arms (they sound like dreadnoughts, but are closer to classical size), they can both punch and be gentle…

Keep checking back — I’ll post some sound clips of me playing the Lazy River Guitars that I own, made by Rance White this year soon! I’ve also used the cedar guitar he built for me in my Troublin’ Mind session this month — and four tracks on my upcoming album will be featuring the guitar.