How did you get the idea of recording with a slew of acoustic guitars crafted by modern luthiers?
I was teaching at the Swannanoa Guitar Week in North Carolina, and one of my students caught my eye by turning up each day with a different new guitar. It turned out to be Paul Heumiller from the Dream Guitars store near Asheville. We shared some opinions about the state of guitar making, and by the end of the week he had an idea for me to record a bunch of tunes on his guitars. How did you go about making the dream a reality? Paul and I conversed regularly leading up to the sessions. I would have ideas about what I wanted to record that would suggest a type of instrument, and, conversely, Paul would tell me about a guitar he had in stock that would suggest some repertoire. That process continued in Compass Records’ studio in Nashville, where I recorded some tunes I had no plan to even arrange, but a particular guitar would “speak” to me—if I can be so pretentious. The second track, “Donal Óg/The Lea Rig,” came about just like that when I picked up an Applegate SJ guitar. What was your
