Paul Schmidt is probably best known to luthiers as the author of Acquired of the Angels: The Lives and Works of Master Guitar Makers John D’Angelico and James L. D’Aquisto and Art That Sings: The Life and Times of Luthier Steve Klein. He is a past AL author, convention speaker, and convention concertizer; and also holds advanced degrees in music and theology.
▪ bio current as of 2017
2023
AL#148 p.16
Paul Schmidt Steve Klein
▪ Steve Klein started his lutherie endeavors fifty-five years ago as a teenager in his parents house. Today hes collaborating with Steve Kauffman on dazzlingly decorative acoustic guitars, and continuing to make innovative ergonomic solidbodies in his own shop. Mentions Fibonacci, Carl Margolis, Frank Pollaro, Leonardo DaVinci Steve Kauffman, Larry Robinson, Bob Hergert, Joe Walsh.
2020
AL#140 p.10
Paul Schmidt John Jordan
▪ John Jordan was a young guy happily repairing instruments and making guitars when he got a commission to make an experimental electric violin. It turned out well enough to take his career in a new direction. Read his story and see some of his diverse and beautiful work. Mentions Ervin Somogyi, Shelley Rosen, Rolland Colella, Dave Matthews, Boyd Tinsley, nyckelharpa, D’Angelico, D’Aquisto, Neyveli S. Radhakrishna, Miri Ben Ari.
2017
AL#130 p.42
Paul Schmidt Jason Harshbarger
▪ A lot of the makers that we meet in the pages of American Lutherie are grizzled veterans of the early days. Not this one. Harshbarger is a young single father who went to lutherie school in the late 1990s, then survived on cabinet work until he could build a lutherie shop in his basement. His steel-string design work uses Steve Klein’s work as a point of departure, and moves forward boldly from there.
2015
AL#121 p.42
Paul Schmidt
▪ Hey all you old hippie guitar makers in the first wave of the American Lutherie Boom: Guess what? Our crazy, beautiful, oh-wow-man dream came true. A generation of young Europeans took a look across the Atlantic and dug our lutherie love-fest. They started an organization to freely share info and encouragement. It only took them four decades, but they finally caught the true religion from us. And they are doing amazing, wild, and wonderful work. I told you this cooperation stuff would work.
1998
AL#53 p.9 BRB5 p.172
Paul Schmidt
▪ D’Aquisto’s biographer bids farewell to the man who was called by some the world’s greatest luthier of our time. A touching and very real-world story. With 2 photos.