Bravo for Brad Donaldson - Uke luthier extraordinaire!

MickeyRat

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Hi Everyone,

During a roadtrip through stunning Cannon Beach, Oregon, last weekend, I had the great pleasure of visiting luthier Brad Donaldson at his shop.

Brad, and his wife, Carol, and their two friendly dogs welcomed My Good Gal and I warmly at the door and then generously spent a fascinating two hours touring us through his shop and teaching us about uke building theories, techniques, equipment, tools and woods. We got to play several superb ukes and handle others in various stages of construction (very interesting to see).

Brad also played a couple of the Native American wood flutes he also expert at crafting. Boy, they sure sounded good too--warm, breathy and soulful.

And that's the deal with Brad: his goal is to build soulful instruments that meld with their players. How lucky are we to have a guy like that building instruments for the uke communiticy!

The Donaldson ukes I commissioned are down Brad's popular list a bit, and that's perfectly okay, since it takes time to build such fine instruments. My feeling is that any amount of time waiting for a Donaldson is worth it.

I hope others get the chance to visit Brad and Carol too--you'll not have a friendlier or more informative afternoon in lovely Cannon Beach. (Have Brad point you to Haystock Rock beach too!)

Cheers All!
 
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