Goodall Guitars

Goodall Guitars started on January 3, 1972, in James Goodall's San Diego home — a self-taught seascape painter who, by his own account, "woke up one morning in 1972 with an obsession to make and play a musical instrument." With no woodworking background and no guitar-construction books yet in print, he traded one of his oil paintings for the tonewoods, borrowed a table saw and bandsaw, and spent three months building a curly maple jumbo with Mexican mother-of-pearl inlay. He bought his materials from a small Lemon Grove, CA shop called American Dream Guitar — which would later be bought by two of its employees, Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug, and renamed Taylor Guitars. Goodall has been at it for fifty-plus years since. The shop has stayed small and family-run. James designs each model shape himself; son Luke, who started sweeping the floor as a kid, has been building full-time since 2004 — between them, more than seventy-six years of luthier experience. Jean Goodall, who joined in 1982, runs the business side.