ABOUT RUSSELL GUITARS AND JAMES RUSSELL
Russell Guitars features high-end, hand crafted guitars designed and built by James Russell of Redding, California. Guitar styles include several models of steel string guitars, nylon string and classical, archtop, electric, and a vertical electric bass model.
Russell Guitars offers rich, balanced voice and resonance, fine sculpting and craftsmanship, and beautiful designs. James goes the extra several miles to create beautiful instruments by designing and building with great attention to detail. In his desire for highest quality craftsmanship, James creates his jigs, cuts his bindings, slots his fretboards, and mitres to as near perfection as possible. All who see and play James' guitars are impressed with not only the overall beauty and sound of his guitars but the extent to which he goes to achieve these ends and the love and care put into each guitar.
Music and guitars have been a central theme of James Russell's life since he was eleven years old. It might have been even earlier, had his parents given in to his begging from the time he was five for a guitar and guitar lessons. At last they realized this kid was serious and helped him get a guitar and a guitar teacher. When he began guitar lessons at eleven, he immediately learned to sight read and went through the entire series of Mel Bay Guitar Method books and began arranging chord solos from piano sheet music. Sadly, his guitar teacher left town, and James could not find a teacher to replace this gifted mentor. He continued his music and guitar study on his own by listening to a wide range of favorite guitarists, from Jimi Hendrix to Wes Montgomery.
James always liked to make things. He began making models with intricate detailing when he was five years old. He made his first guitar in 1979 when he was twenty-three, while living in Orange County, California. He still plays this 16" jumbo style guitar with Indian Rosewood sides and back and Sitka Spruce top. It kicks butt. One of the things he learned in making this guitar was that he was hooked. He knew he wanted to design and build guitars. Years later he was able to leave his paycheck behind and dive in full-time and wholeheartedly into this art and right livelihood.
James and his wife, Layne, moved from Santa Rosa, California, to Redding in 2000. He enjoys working in his one-man shop in an older, quiet part of town near the Sacramento River. James has exhibited Russell Guitars in the Healdsburg Guitar Festival held in Santa Rosa, California, in 2003, 2005, and 2007. Amazingly, midst designing and building his guitars full-time, James still squeezes in time to teach guitar to fifteen to twenty lucky students and also to perform solo guitar in the Redding and Mount Shasta area.
