Fox recently relocated to South Hero, Vermont, to be with her husband, retired luthier Rick Davis of Running Dog Guitars. It\u2019s taken a few years to get settled, but her business is once again thriving. With decades of experience under her belt, Fox has become a trusted name among musicians\u2014among her clients over the years are the Everly Brothers, Roseanne Cash, and Bill Frisell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I recently spoke with Fox from her workshop via Zoom about her training, memorable repair jobs, and her recent move to New England. Always smiling and quick with a laugh, her kindness shines as brightly as her impeccable work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What was it like being a student at Red Wing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It was great, actually. Red Wing was very nurturing. We had a really good professor, and the class was about one-third women, two-thirds guys, all ages. We all got along really well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did your apprenticeship with William Cumpiano come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n My boyfriend at Red Wing and I both sent out tons of resumes and cover letters. I only got one response. It was basically, \u201cDear Cat: There\u2019s no future in guitars. Go into computers.\u201d I wish I had kept that and framed it, but I just threw it away. So there was a bit of sexism in the industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My boyfriend got a bunch of responses but ended up going and working at Elderly Instruments, who needed another repair person. And so I said, \u201cWell, do you think I could send something to these people who responded to you positively?\u201d And he\u2019s like, \u201cYeah, go ahead.\u201d So, I mailed a letter to William Cumpiano asking if he\u2019d take me on as an apprentice instead of my boyfriend. He was like, \u2018Well, no guarantees. You know, I\u2019d have to meet you and see your work.\u2019 And so I thought, Well, of course he\u2019s going to like me, and my work is pretty good. So, I just packed up my Volkswagen and went to Massachusetts, where I had never been before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s some trust. How did things turn out?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I was with him for six years\u2212I was his apprentice for two of those years and then I became his repair person. I was also building guitars that went out under his name, but I didn\u2019t get any credit for that. There\u2019s a little blurb in the front of his book that says, \u201cThank you, Cat Fox, for all of your help.\u201d But as much as I had to do a lot of \u201csmile and nod, girls, smile and nod,\u201d I got a lot out of it; I got to meet a lot of people, and it was really great. When I decided to go out to Seattle, I felt pretty assured I could start a business and do okay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Where did the name of your business, Sound Guitar, come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So there\u2019s the Puget Sound, sound [cups her ears<\/em>], and also sound as in soundhole. It\u2019s always funny when people say, \u201cThat\u2019s a two-way pun,\u201d and I say, \u201cthree-way, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you mostly do repairs, or do you build guitars too?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I did a lot of building at Bill\u2019s shop. Sound Guitar Repair started as basically a repair shop, and it was for years and years. And then Rick [Davis], who\u2019s my husband, came out to Seattle and we moved to the Fremont neighborhood and started a really large shop. It was 1,700 square feet, and we had a whole building studio. We had benches for students, and I had my repair studio in there. It was a full-service kind of deal where you could commission a guitar, learn how to build, or get your Martin fixed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How is your business going after relocating to Vermont?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When I got here six years ago, I was really helped out by Adam Buchwald of Circle Strings and Iris Guitars, who is awesome. He gave me all the work I could do instantly when I hit town. I didn\u2019t even have my shop set up. So, I give a lot of thanks to Adam. But of course, as time went on, he hired people of his own. I do very little of Adam\u2019s work now, but people do still send me things from around the United States, and every local person has discovered me as well. I\u2019m getting people from upstate New York, Canada, and all around Vermont. I just had a guy from Boston drive all the way up here. Yay for that! I can\u2019t complain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love that you say your shop is a \u201cno-kill shelter for vintage guitars.\u201d We keep hearing more and more about people\u2019s guitars being damaged in air transit, sadly, so your motto is really resonant.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, that\u2019s kind of what I\u2019ve been doing my whole career. Has your Martin been run over by a truck? I can resurrect it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s the hardest repair you\u2019ve ever done?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Actually the guy with the Martin. He ran over it with his own truck! He was loading his truck and he put it on the wheel well and then he forgot about it and backed over it. It just sat in his closet for 20 years because he could not deal with it. But he finally brought it in, and we put it back together for him. That was the hardest repair I\u2019ve ever done. I\u2019ve done some really involved repairs, but putting a Martin back together from splinters… Luckily for me, the splinters were all there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you work on electric as well as acoustic instruments?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I do just about everything with frets, and I also work on ouds because I became the darling of the Turkish and Egyptian communities in Seattle. There\u2019s an old guy called Maurice Rouman, Master of the Oud, as it says on his business card, and he would just bring me ouds like bouquets. He\u2019d have three in each hand, and he\u2019d walk in and say, \u201cMadame, I have many, many ouds for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wow. So, that has to be a different repair process because of the rounded back.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is so<\/em> different. There are no frets, and the construction is typically unrefined. So Maurice Rouman, this tiny 90-year-old, half-blind Egyptian guy, taught me everything I know about oud repair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there a type or brand of instrument that you would love to work on that you haven\u2019t before?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve worked on just about everything\u2014even three Lloyd Loar [1920s Gibson] mandolins. Those are the pinnacle of everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Were you nervous to work on those?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh my God, yes. I\u2019ve got this thing, it\u2019s as expensive as your house, right? So, I\u2019m like, what do I do with this? Take it home and sleep with it? What if my house gets broken into? What if I put it under my bed and something happens? So I would carry them around with me and just stress out. But I got them all done and everything was fine. Those were probably the most famous instruments to work on, and the most nerve wracking. I also fixed those iconic black [Gibson] Everly Brothers guitars. That was a big deal, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What other musicians\u2019 guitars have you enjoyed working on? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I worked on Richard Shindell\u2019s guitar, and he\u2019s a huge favorite. Another was Cris Williamson. I grew up listening to her, and then in Seattle about 20 years ago, I answered the phone and this woman says, \u201cHi, this is Cris Williamson,\u201d and I said, \u201cShut up!\u201d [laughs<\/em>] Her guitar had been damaged by the airlines. So, I got to meet Cris Williamson, who is as awesome as you\u2019d hope she would be. Rosanne Cash\u2014I got to fix her guitar. That was amazing; she\u2019s just so down to earth. Those are some of my idols; I actually got to work on their stuff, and that was so exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you get nervous in general or just for these expensive and\/or famous instruments?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not really. There are guitars that I work on on the regular that are worth $20,000, which is not an insubstantial amount of money\u2014if I were to drop a chisel on top or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have you ever done that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n No comment [laughs<\/em>]. Part of being a really good repair technician is that you learn how to fix your mistakes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Can you tell me about fixing one of these so-called mistakes?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once I was working on a guitar that was signed by Janis Ian. It was kind of filthy, and I was trying to clean it really carefully around the signature and ended up taking the J off of the Janis, so it read \u201canis Ian\u201d [laughs<\/em>]. I went to my local art store and got all of the gold Sharpies, then practiced my J<\/em> so I could do one as close to Janis Ian\u2019s as possible. Somehow the customer never noticed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So you need to be good at fixing your mistakes. Is there another mission statement you can think of that\u2019s a guide for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Another mission statement is something along the lines of \u201cFake it till you make it,\u201d but not quite. Sometimes you want to at least give the aura of competency. And then once the customer is out the door, you start calling up your luthier friends. I have a great network of people whose advice I trust, and I\u2019m on the phone with them a lot. And it works both ways. It\u2019s nice to know that there are other people, because there are an awful lot of guitars out there and they all have different stuff going on. You\u2019re confronted with a 1949 Gibson and you\u2019re like, Does this one have the top that goes over the joint so you can\u2019t get the neck off? And then you\u2019re like, Dammit. I didn\u2019t charge enough for that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you go to workshops and conferences to keep up with the latest lutherie and repair techniques?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I used to go to every conference, but I\u2019ve gotten away from it now that I\u2019m sort of winding down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are you really winding down?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes. I\u2019m 63 and am getting a little arthritis. My eyes aren\u2019t as good as they were. There\u2019s a day when my work is going to start deteriorating, and I hope to God I realize that before I start getting bad because one of my biggest fears is people saying, \u201cCat used to be good.\u201d I don\u2019t want that to happen\u2014I want to end at a good point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Cat](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Cat-Fox-photo-Rick-Davis.jpg?resize=683%2C1024&ssl=1\")
![\"Acoustic](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/001_348_Cover-150px.jpg?w=1290&ssl=1\")
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