Henderson Guitar Shop
Henderson Guitar Shop
You probably won’t want to go to Henderson’s Guitar Shop to buy your 12-year-old a guitar so he can play “Stairway to Heaven.” That would be a bit over the top. Wayne Henderson’s guitars—played by legends like Eric Clapton, Gillian Welch and Doc Watson—cost $3,000 to $5,000 if you buy them in his Grayson County shop, and about $25,000 to $30,000 if you buy them from a dealer. By all accounts, they’re worth every penny. There’s even a book about one of his guitars, Clapton’s Guitar: Watching Wayne Henderson Build the Perfect Instrument by Allen St. John.
Henderson, who began making instruments in 1964 (and recently hired his 28-year-old daughter Elizabeth Jayne, an environmental lawyer, to work with him in the shop), uses exotic woods like Brazilian rosewood and mahogany, for example. But, “Appalachian red spruce is the best you can get,” says Henderson who makes about 20 instruments, mostly guitars each year.
An accomplished musician and master in his field, having won a 1995 National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, Henderson also plays with the band, the Virginia Luthiers, a group of his former students, that started informally years ago and plays weekends. The group plays less for money than for the simple joy of it explains Henderson, whose cousin, the folk musician Estil Ball, first taught him the finger-style of picking.
Each band member has an instrument shop: Gerald Anderson of Anderson Stringed Instruments and Spencer Strickland of Anderson-Strickland String Instruments, both of Troutdale; Jimmy Edmonds of Edmonds Guitars in Galax. Together, they have 150 years of instrument-making experience. WayneHenderson.org, VirginiaLuthiers.com
View All the Made in Virginia Awards 2013 Winners:
STYLE
Angela Bacskocky Bags, Richmond
Page Stationery, Richmond
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FOOD
Reginald’s Homemade Nut Butters, Richmond
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Honey Habanero Sauce, Spotsylvania
MUISC
Henderson Guitar Shop, Grayson County
Big Lick Amps, Salem
Cabin Creek Musical Instruments, Whitetop
SPORT
Frierson Designs Surfboards, Virginia
Hope Springs Farm Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, Orlean
BB Bat Company Youth Baseball Bats, Virginia Beach
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