My Story

Oddly enough, this story starts out with me as an aspiring drummer. When I was about 12 years old, my oldest brother Jerome, who's a long time Quartet guitarist attempted to teach me how to play bass guitar. Sad to say, he gave up on the first night. Spending my summer with him, I spent the rest of my time begging him not to give up on me. Ultimately, he sent me back home to New York with an old pawn shop guitar. One thing I did remember was how to tune it, and being that the bottom four strings are the same as a standard 4 string bass, I made the most of it. I would sit down listening to Hot97, attempting to play whatever HipHop tunes came across the radio.

By the time I was 19, I was the drummer for my church and one of the drummers for our national conference. This one particular conference in Pittsburgh, PA, found me among a couple of other young musicians. There was also a brother from Birmingham, AL who played both guitar and bass, and just so happened to bring both with amps. Each time we were in rehearsal and he began to play the guitar, I would sneak over and pick up his bass, trying as best I could to play along with whatever the song was. I didn't realize it, but i was keeping up pretty ok. By the end of the week, myself and two of the other young guys decided to ask if we could play for the conference ending banquet. The elder said yes, and we brought in drums, keys, and bass. Miraculously, we played for the entire banquet. When it was over, my Bishop told me he didn't know I could play bass. I said "neither did I." When we got back home, he told me to go and pick out a bass and he would give me half on it. He absolutely did. Almost the same time, my brother Julius became the director for the gospel choir at LIU Brooklyn. He immediately claimed me as the bassist. It was very swift, as i finally got my bass on a Sunday afternoon, by that Thursday evening I was playing bass in my first concert.

As I began to deep dive into learning about bass, I would listen to my favorite records and try to get as close as I could. While listening to a James Hall and WAP album, I realized that my bass didn't sound like Reggie Young's, but I couldn't understand why. I went to the technician at the local music store and handed him my headphones. "Can you make my bass sound like this?" He said "I don't think I can make it sound quite like that, but I can make it better." I ended up letting him install a Bartolini preamp in my bass, which did make a clear difference, but ultimately started me down the rabbit hole of how to change the tones of my bass. I began tinkering on that bass, then bought other cheaper basses that I could experiment further.

In 2008, I took on my first official client (and current Artist Partner) Justin Cunningham, when we shared a gig and swapped basses. We both realized right then that there was a clear difference in the playability between the two basses. I told him I'd take his bass home and work on it to bring back for the next day's rehearsal. When I brought it back, Justin said he wouldn't have anyone else work on his basses. That hasn't changed till this day. From that point, word of mouth got around that I was working on basses and I began to accept all types of projects, for all types of basses. From full electronic gut jobs, to cosmetic and hardware changes, even structural changes... I did a lot. 

Over the course of time doing this work, you get to examine a lot of different instruments. Doing so begins to change your palette of preferences in a bass. It changed so much, I became frustrated that I couldn't find a single bass that I liked in the store. No one bass had all the features I was looking for. That was the seed that started the desire to want to build my own bass, but where would I begin? I had no woodworking experience at all, moreover I wanted to keep all of my fingers! I dreamt about this, prayed about this, for a long time. I did a lot of research, reading and watching videos of other people building guitars, trying to mentally develop my own process. Finally, I was able to acquire many of the tools needed to build a bass, but I still didn't know how to do it. I couldn't even find someone to apprentice with. All I could do was "pray and cut." 

I found a supplier that provided body woods to some of the top companies in the world, and decided to pay a visit. I left there with enough pieces to complete my first build, but once I got home, was too afraid to mess it up. I finally decided to go to the big box home store and buy much less expensive materials there. I figured that if I could make something playable out of that, then I should be able to do it with anything. Some time later, Adam was born. It was awesome, and I was proud to have been able to bring it to fruition. That gave me the confidence to go back to the first set of material and complete it to produce Eve. Eve is essentially Adam with much better curves. After those two were done and playable, that definitely gave me the motivation to push forward and move into other designs. Cable, Jubal, the JC Custom, and the Heirloom, are all products of taking time to invest energy and determination into the gift that God has trusted me with. Now, it's my goal to share this gift with the world, and to assist players everywhere in finding and developing their own unique voice and style, all while building a solid community of like minded musicians. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope that you have found some encouragement in hearing this story, just as much as I find it in telling it. Be blessed. 

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Justin

Luthier