Dana Bourgeois's career began when he built his first guitar in his dorm room at his alma mater Bowdoin College in Maine. Shortly after launching into lutherie on a full-time basis in 1978, Dana received a request from artist Eric Schoenberg to build an OM cutaway in the traditional design. This initiated a decade long partnership with Mr. Schoenberg and was the foundation for Dana's first venture involving the small production of handcrafted instruments.  The C.F. Martin guitar company was engaged in the final assembly of guitars with tops Dana had individually voiced and of a design Dana had personally established.  Over 300 guitars were built in this fashion bearing the Schoenberg label but carrying the signature of Dana's design and sound. 

    Dana was then retained by Paul Reed Smith  guitars in 1990 to spearhead acoustic development for the PRS organization, and later by Gibson guitars to assist in the construction and setup of their new acoustic production facility in Montana.  With this experience and knowledge behind him, Dana went on to establish his own small-production company Bourgeois Guitars in 1995. 
 
 
 

      Today Dana is considered to be one of the foremost authorities in the world on the voicing, selection and utilization of fine acoustic tonewoods.   Some of the many artists actively performing and recording with Bourgeois guitars include Bryan Sutton, Dan Tyminski (Oh Brother Where Art Thou, Alison Krauss), Ry Cooder, Ricky Skaggs, Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek), Norman Blake and Del McCoury.

Link to Brad Keller mp3 Audio Files of Bourgeois Guitars

        On inspecting the interior of this instrument it becomes apparent that the meticulous craftsmanship extends to areas seldom seen.  The scalloped top struts are sanded to a silky smoothness as is the vintage sized rosewood bridge plate.  The mahogany kerfing is clean and made to exacting standards while the spruce side reinforcements have and almost sculpted look. 

        Of course once you get past all of this eye candy, it's time to get down to business and put the guitar through it's paces.  Certainly the sonic properties that you can quantify would top the scale with this instrument; very high marks for projection and sustain characteristics; wonderfully aggressive attack transients without the harshness of lesser instruments.  This guitar has one of the widest dynamic ranges of any in our store.  It responds easily to a light right hand, but when you dig in it just doesn't seem to hit a ceiling.  This guitar is virtually new and unplayed but you can already hear hints of a woodiness in the midrange that bodes well for the future!

        This  instrument features a spruce top, East Indian rosewood back & sides, bound ebony fingerboard, vintage style 'tortoiseshell' pickguard, compensated bone saddle, Waverly precision tuners, and hand voiced tone bars (by Dana Bourgeois himself). 

        The Bourgeois 'Country Boy' model was made on request from Ricky Skaggs himself and successfully replicates (and in my opinion, surpasses) the power, bite and woody tone of D-18's from the forties.  This surprisingly affordable model features flawless fine grained Honduran mahogany back & sides,  AAA grade Sitka spruce top, ebony fingerboard & bridge, intonation compensated bone saddle, 'tortoiseshell' binding & pickguard and precision Waverly tuners. 

Welcome to the Twelfth Fret!