Bozeman very often feels like the valley of luthiers, being that Gibson is right down the road and there are ample amounts of small bench luthiers in the area.
One small bench luthier that lives in Belgrade (just outside of Bozeman) is Dan Roberts. Dan is a master craftsman who started his career at Flatiron/Gibson, then moved to Santa Cruz Guitar company, and now has his own shop where he does some truly outstanding custom work.
Dan draws his inspiration from the tradition set forth by the bigger manufacturers (read Martin and Gibson), but he enjoys making tweaks to it and loves the small shop environment for that very reason. Check out the video done a while back, which will give you Dan’s thoughts on building and his philosophy behind custom guitars. #Guitargeek Alert!!! There are some beautiful shots of his shop in this video.
Daniel Roberts Links
