HENMAN GUITARS

GRAHAM HENMAN
CO-FOUNDER/OWNER AND DESIGNER
- THE GURU

GRAHAM IS A FILM MAKER AT HEART. HE HAS A PRODUCTION COMPANY IN LOS ANGELES - http://www.henmanfilms.com. HE ALSO HAD HIS FIRST FEATURE FILM, ‘BONE IN THE THROAT’, WORLD PREMIERE AT SXSW. IN REALITY HE IS A MINIMALIST, BE IT IN ART OR LIFESTYLE. HE IS THE MEMBER OF THE TEAM WITH THE CONTROLLED STAMINA AND UNENDING ABILITY TO GET THINGS DONE. HE IS FAMOUS FOR BEING THE QUIET IN THE EYE OF THE STORM AND HIS BEST IDEAS MATERIALIZE WHEN HE’S BACKED INTO A CORNER. IN HIS CASE, HIS BARK IS VERY OFTEN AS BAD AS HIS BITE.

GRAHAM STARTED HIS CAREER AS A PHOTOGRAPHER IN ENGLAND AND THEN MOVED TO THE STATES TO WORK WITH BIGGER NAMES AND BIGGER BUDGETS. HE SOON FOUND HIMSELF CATAPULTED INTO THE GLAMOROUS WORLD OF MUSIC VIDEOS AND HIGH END GLOSSY COMMERCIALS. HIS CLIENT LIST READS LIKE A WHO’S WHO OF THE LARGEST GLOBAL ADVERTISERS. GRAHAM HAS DIRECTED MANY FAMOUS NAMES FOR VARIOUS BRANDS OVER THE YEARS BUT TWO NAMES IN PARTICULAR STAND WAY OUT. MILES DAVIS AND ANDY WARHOL. MILES FOR HONDA SCOOTERS AND ANDY FOR DIET COKE. BOTH THESE EVENTS WERE THE ONLY TIME THESE ICONS EVER STEPPED IN FRONT OF A CAMERA TO SHOOT A COMMERCIAL. GRAHAM STILL HAS SIGNED SOUP CANS FROM ANDY AND DRAWINGS DONE BY MILES IN HIS HOME.

GRAHAM ALSO SHOT RINGO STARR FOR DISCOVER CARD.

GRAHAM HAS NOW FOUND A NEW PASSION. HE WORKED CLOSELY WITH RICK TURNER TO DESIGN AND CREATE A NEW BREED OF GUITARS. GUITARS THAT WOULD BE SEXY, MINIMALISTIC AND MODERN. IT WAS A MASSIVE UNDERTAKING AND A HUGE LEARNING CURVE BUT THE END RESULTS ARE SOMETHING GRAHAM IS SUPREMELY PROUD OF.

HE THEN PICKED UP HIS STILL CAMERA AND WENT BACK TO HIS ROOTS TO CREATE AN OUTSTANDING IMAGE BRANDING CAMPAIGN FOR HENMAN GUITARS.

RICK TURNER
CLASS ACT AND MASTER LUTHIER
- the thinker

Rick Turner engineered and quality controlled the building of all Henman guitars and was a luthier longer than he cared to remember, having built a dulcimer-like instrument out of balsa at age 10.

In high school, he started to hunt down vintage instruments in New England antique shops starting with a Fairbanks and Cole banjo which he refinished and restored. Winding up at Boston University in the early 1960s, Rick decided that a guitar repair apprenticeship beat sitting in a 500 seat lecture hall, and so he dropped out of academia and into the world of folk music and instrument repair, eventually landing the lead acoustic guitar spot with Canadian’s Ian and Sylvia with whom he toured and recorded. After a stint in a rock band, AutoSalvage, Rick moved to California and decided upon a career in electric lutherie.

He brought instrument and pickup making skills into the strange brew that became Alembic, Inc., making guitars and basses for the leading figures in West Coast music, then founded Rick Turner Guitars in 1978 to make the Model 1 guitar now most closely associated with Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac. Twists and turns in the road took Rick through a period of designing furniture and running cabinet shops, and then back to guitars, working first for Gibson, then running the repair shop at Westwood Music in LA, and finally setting up his own shop again in Topanga Canyon and then Santa Cruz where he and a team of three luthiers build many styles of instruments.
http://www.renaissanceguitars.com

Rick’s passions cover the range from traditional acoustic guitar and ukes to the most modern electric guitar and bass designs. That eclecticism extends even to his building techniques which go from using hot hide glue in acoustic instruments to carving parts on a computer operated routing machine. He is equally comfortable with wood or wires, acoustic instruments or electric. His instruments are in the hands of many of the world’s top folk, rock, and jazz musicians, and his work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, CA, and one of his earliest guitars will be shown at the Museum of Art and Design in New York.

Sadly, Rick is no longer with us and we dearly miss his professionalism, craftsmanship, friendship and fine sense of humor. R.I.P. my brother.

Entering into the next phase of the HENMAN GUITARS journey is the equally talented and superbly qualified PAT WILKINS. Pat will be carrying on where Rick left off, essentially continuing the ROCKA and MOD lines and bringing the ROLLA bass line into full production.