Downlod PDF - Bedell Guitars

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Tom Bedell first entered the guitar retail business as
a teenager in the early Sixties, importing Japanese-made
instruments and selling them throughout his native Iowa.
He then took a break from the music industry that lasted
more than four decades, during which time he earned a
degree in political science from Stanford University,
went to law school, did a stretch in politics
working with his father (U.S. representative
Berkley Bedell), and, finally, took over the
family fishing-equipment business. In 2007,
he sold that enterprise, by then known as
Pure Fishing, for several million dollars
and began to plot his next move.
“I realized that the happiest time
in my life was when I was working
with guitars,” Bedell says. With
that in mind, in 2009 Bedell began
designing a line of Chinese-made
acoustics that bore his surname.
He also formed a guitar and retail
company, Two Old Hippies, with his
wife, Molly, and the following year
they acquired the Bend, Oregon–
based Breedlove Guitar Company.
Today, he oversees operations for both
P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y m a s s i m o ga m m a c u rta
new + cool guitar
“nineteen-sixty-seven was
the golden moment. I wanted
to design an instrument that
spoke to that era and sound.”
brands, with the newly revamped boutique Bedell line now made entirely
in the U.S.A. at the company’s new facility in Bend.
For Bedell, designing guitars is a labor of love. His namesake brand
produces just over 150 instruments a year and hews closely to a particular
Sixties aesthetic that is evidenced in everything from the Two Old Hippies
name to that company’s slogan, “Peace, Love and Rock and Roll,” and the
peace-sign logo that graces the headstock of many Bedell guitars.
This mindset is also apparent in Bedell’s newest offering, the Summer
of Love acoustic guitar, a dreadnought-size instrument—limited to just
12 examples—that pays tribute to what Bedell views as a pivotal moment
in American, as well as his own, history. “The Sixties was when I first fell
in love with guitars, and it was also a magical time,” he says. “Nineteensixty-seven was the golden moment. I wanted to design an instrument
that really spoke to that era and to that sound.”
For Bedell, nothing captures that sound better than an acoustic guitar
built from Adirondack spruce and Brazilian rosewood. “If you want to
recreate those rich, voluminous folk-rock tones of the era, that’s the
way to do it,” he says. And indeed, the Summer of Love, which sports
an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, is an
exceptional-sounding instrument, with a crisp, full attack and powerful,
clear projection across the tonal spectrum.
How did Bedell acquire so much highly coveted Brazilian rosewood,
given its heavily regulated status? A few years back, he and his team came
in contact with Madinter, a Spain-based supplier of musical instrument
tonewoods. Madinter had kept a stash of Brazilian rosewood since the
early Sixties, a time that pre-dates both the Brazilian government’s ban on
exporting rosewood logs and the 1992 CITES convention, which declared
Brazilian rosewood an endangered species and therefore illegal to harvest
or trade. Bedell purchased Madinter’s entire reserve—3,000 sets in all.
“We now have by far the largest supply of fully legal, pre-CITES Brazilian
rosewood at our facility in Bend, Oregon,” he says. “When those 3,000
sets are gone, Brazilian rosewood in newly built guitars is basically gone.”
Bedell, for his part, is a staunch environmentalist. No clear-cut trees are
used in his guitars, and tonewoods are sourced according to rigorous Bedell
Tonewood Certification Project standards. He is very conscientious about
putting the Brazilian rosewood to good use. The Summer of Love sports
the exotic tonewood not only on its back and sides but also in its bridge,
pickguard, and fingerboard, which is inlaid with a twisting mother-of-pearl
vine design that climbs past the nut and onto the headstock.
The result is an instrument that is stunning in sound and appearance.
And Bedell is only getting started. As he explains, the 12 Summer of Love
guitars are part of a larger series the company is calling the Freedom
Collection. “We’re going to do limited-edition runs of 12 instruments
that pay tribute to different periods of the Sixties and early Seventies,” he
says. “Once the Summer of Love guitars are gone, we’ll introduce a British
Invasion design. After that is a guitar commemorating the first Earth Day.
“That’s the kind of fun we’re having here,” he continues. “We get to
dream up a sound, a look, and a story, and then we go out and create an
instrument to fit it.”
LIST PRICE $17,450
Bedell Guitar Company, bedellguitars.com
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