Old Wave Mandolins: Bio and Shop

Bill Bussmann, Old Wave Luthier

Bill Bussmann, Luthier, Old Wave, M.F., U.L.C., U.R.B., D.D.T., B.S., E.T.C .

Each Old Wave mandolin is meticulously handcrafted by Bill Bussmann. Bill "altered" his first Kay guitar in 1964, strung up his first mandolin in 1990, and apprenticed with master fiddlemaker R.L. Crawford during 1992-1993.

He has strung up more than 465 instruments so far, including a dulcimer, archtop guitars, steelstring guitars, electric upright basses, electric basses, mandolins, mandolas, and octave mandolins, and mandocellos.
Instruments have gone to England, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Japan, and almost every state in the U.S.

Mel Bay's mandosessions online magazine features an interview with Bill Bussmann in the August 2004 issue
www.mandosessions.com/aug04/interview.html

Desert Exposure article on Local Luthier
www.desertexposure.com/200607/200607_luthiers.html

Old Wave mandolins are built at the Bussmanns' quiet farm along the Animas Creek in remote Caballo, New Mexico. Bill and his wife Sue have lived there for 33 years in a house they built themselves from adobe bricks and river rock.

The workshop is a small solar adobe building that Bill built near the house.

Mandolins in progress in the Old Wave shop.

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