This journey all started when I injured my neck on the job as a maintenance worker at Thorne’s Marketplace in Northampton, Ma in the late ‘80’s.

Thank God for Workers Comp! They tested me for what work I might be suited for. First they said I could be a performer, which I already was. I was in a band called Rude Girls, so I asked if they could get me any gigs or lessons and they said NO.

Then they said maybe I could learn to fix computers which, at the time, I had no interest in at all.

Then they said since I was a musician and had done some carpentry, maybe I could learn to repair musical instruments!

I knew the owner of Fretted Instruments in Amherst and we went over there. I told Tony Creamer, the owner, that Worker’s Comp would pay him $450 a week to train me for six weeks to repair guitars, banjos and mandolins, etc.

Tony agreed and that week I started learning.Tony and the luthiers in the workshop seemed happy to teach me all they knew and after a year or two I finally got the hang of it.

Somewhere during that time, Brad Nickerson (one of the luthiers I worked with) and I decided it would be a good idea for me to build a guitar or two. After all, you have to know how to put them together in order to be able to take them apart! So I built an electric guitar and then an acoustic guitar, which I have played for twenty years.

I also helped Brad build his guitars for a while. Nickersonguitars.net

I worked for 13 years off and on at Fretted Instruments in Amherst and then decided to start working on my own from my home, which I’ve been doing for the last 20 years, in one place or another.

Now I’m in Woodstock NY, still doing repairs and restorations, and occasionally building a guitar or two. During COVID-19, I built four Octave Mandolins and one guitar (Then Corona Model) which I gave to my brother.

Lyndon Hardy

luthierlyn@gmail.com
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