N.C. guitar maker: Madagascar Rosewood
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Calling Bob Rigaud a "luthier" sounds badly out of tune. The word is just too high-strung, even if it really defines Rigaud. It means "guitar maker." Forget those comic caricatures. He's not an aging hippie music fanatic with shaggy hair, beard, tattoo or two, who punctuates sentences with "cool" and calls people "dude." Rigaud is clean-shaven. His graying hair is neatly cut. His clothes resemble those worn by men of his age, 58, around house and yard. He doesn't use slang, although he can wow visitors with the jargon of guitar making. He discusses frets, necks, inlays, bridges and other guitar parts. He works in a three-room shop behind the 1930s craftsman-style house he shares with his wife and helper, Ruth Ann Rigaud. Orville, a chubby cat named for pioneer guitar maker Orville Gibson, keeps him company at work. Rigaud views his creations as music makers and works of art. Using the finest woods and techniques learne...