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Published on Jul-11-2023 7:00am
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Adrian Bagale and company nod to Lloyd Loar's innovative spirit.
July 9, 1923 is perhaps the most famous date in mandolin history. On that warm Kalamazoo afternoon, Gibson Acoustic Engineer Lloyd A. Loar would sign a batch of groundbreaking side-bound F5 instruments—designed to change the sound of and approach to the classical music mandolin repertoire—which are still being copied and sought after today.
One of them, #73987, 22 years after it left the bench, found its way, second-hand, as legend would have it, via a Jacksonville, Florida barbershop, into Bill Monroe's grip, who used it to create and shape bluegrass music, over which it has held sway ever since.
Inspired by Loar's legacy, and always looking to further the scope of the mandolin family, Adrian Bagale's Northfield Mandolins, based—thirty miles from Gibson's historic Parsons Street plant—in Marshall, Mich., will issue a bold new collection of instruments
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