The Bourgeois master luthiers promise that their rare axes will bring you the playing experience of a lifetime. Every time. We find out why.
From early masters like Doc Watson and Ricky Skaggs to today’s greats like Bryan Sutton, Sierra Hull and Sean Watson, many great acoustic players have recorded and performed with Bourgeois Guitars.
Shaping the sound of acoustic guitar music for more than four decades, the Bourgeois story began in the early 1970s, when founder Dana Bourgeois built his first guitar in his dorm room - using only a book as a guide!
By 1977, he’d started his one man shop in Brunswick, Maine, USA, repairing and building guitars. Around the same time Dana became involved in the folk and bluegrass boom in New England. Spending time with various musicians, Dana realised that jazz players and contemporary flatpickers used every note on their fingerboards. String-to-string, note-to-note balance and clarity held the same value for linear melodic improvisation as for polyphonic fingerstyle playing. This knowledge shaped the future of Bourgeois Guitars.
Fast forward to today and Bourgeois guitars now rank as some of the most celebrated and highly coveted acoustics in the world today. Dana and his skilled team of 20 craftspeople create around 400 luxury guitars a year in popular sizes and tonewood pairings for players around the globe.
FIVE BOURGEOIS INNOVATIONS
Fine tuning
Combining old-world hand voicing techniques with modern innovations in design and technology, Bourgeois Guitars define the future of vintage tone. The brand’s luthiers use a now renowned method of tap-tuning each top to find its optimum sound at proper flexibility. Dana’s voicing method can be successfully employed regardless of body size and species of tonewood.
Brace yourself
A unique x-bracing system scallops only the bass-side braces while the treble braces are shaped and tapered, to enhance bass-to-treble balance in a large guitar.
Neck and neck
A unique bolt-on neck design that allows the neck to be removed without drilling, cutting or steaming, coupled with a modern, fully adjustable truss rod that mimics the tonal response of vintage guitars having a steel t-bar neck reinforcement.
Heat is on
Employing a little-known Finnish method of heat-treating raw timber - called torrefacation - Bourgeois has a unique way of curing tonewoods for tops, backs, necks and braces for a flawless finish.
Size matters
Providing more choice, Dana's offerings include smaller 0 and 00 body shapes alongside dreadnoughts and jumbos. His aim is to provide every guitar player with playing experience of a lifetime, and his work over the past four decades, has helped set the mark for what luthier-built acoustic instruments should be.
In summary, Bourgeois is renowned for tonal excellence, meticulous craftsmanship and top-notch materials – their axes are some of the finest steel-string instruments available today.
The brand is defining the future of vintage tone, combining old-world hand-voicing techniques with modern innovations in design and technology.
Bourgeois is undoubtedly the perfect choice for musicians who aspire to play their best and enjoy the feeling of owning an exquisite, rare, instrument which just may wind up as family heirloom someday.
