Mike first got the Guitar bug in 1976 while he was working at a music store in Saratoga. While teaching bass guitar and doing setups and repairs, a gentleman came in with a guitar that he had made himself. He said he had gone to the “School of Guitar Research and Design” in Vermont and Mike decided he wanted to go there himself. He had to wait a year to get into the school that was taught by Charles Fox, who now runs the “Charles Fox School of American Luthiery” in California. It was a seven-week course in which all the students lived right there in small round buildings with sod roofs called “yurts” (sounds like 70’s Vermont to me). Each student made a guitar from start to finish using their own design and all the guitars were totally different from each other. After completing the course Mike went on to make all the Student guitars for the New Hampshire State University while doing all the repair work for five different music stores at home.

These days most of Mike’s free time is devoted to making small body acoustics. He has made about 100 of them and prides himself on using the best tuners and materials available. His guitars are made with exotic woods, such as ebony, Indian or Brazilian rosewood, curly maple, flamed cherry, walnut, western red cedar, and spruce. He also does a lot of intricate inlay work and his guitars typically sell for $3500 to $4500.

Mike has made some Flamenco guitars, which have to have a thicker top to accommodate the player rapping the face of the guitar for that style of music. He has also made 15 to 20 electric guitars including one that he’s finishing now for Buck Dharma from the band “Blue Oyster Cult”. Buck wrote the hit song “Don’t Fear the Reaper”, which is a rock and roll classic.

Mike knows a lot about music and at one point in his career he was traveling up and down the East Coast playing bass guitar in a band. Also in the band was Frank Wakefield, who was formerly in the band “New Riders of the Purple Sage”. They played at Colleges and large clubs and along the way he even shared the stage with the “Grateful Dead”. He met bluegrass great, Doc Watson and singer/ actor Jerry Reed who wrote the music for “Smoky and the Bandit” movies and also starred as Burt Reynolds's sidekick in the films.

Mike is a real down to earth guy who I could talk to for hours. He loves making guitars and says he won’t do it under pressure, so he sets his own pace. He never has made guitars for the money; it is a passion to him. This torch of creativity has been passed on to his son, Sean, who just finished making his first guitar at age 14. Sean came up with his own shape and personally picked out all the woods that went into the guitar. Mike is very proud of Sean and thinks it’s great that they can work together in the shop. He is a true craftsman who takes great pains in making quality instruments, which you can tell by the looks and incredible sound of his guitars.