Folkcraft/Folkroots Legacy Tour

 

June 21, 2024

 

Good Morning, Y'all!

 

This week's "In The Shop" segment is brought to you by Grace and Mark - two very nice people who visited our Woodburn, Indiana, shop back in April. After visiting here, they made a pilgrimage to the original FolkRoots shop, located in Felton, California. While there, they met both Michael Rugg, and Howard Rugg, the founders of FolkRoots Dulcimers.

 

Michael now spends his days operating a museum - the Bigfoot Discovery Experience, and Howard is still building instruments, under the CapriTaurus name.

Howard built his first dulcimer in 1968, and you'll see Grace and me, holding Howard's first dulcimer, in a photo farther down in this newsletter.

 

This dulcimer is now part of Folkcraft's "museum," along with all kinds of Folkcraft, FolkRoots, and CapriTaurus dulcimers, plus psalteries, hammered dulcimers, Irish harps, and even a few Druid Moon ukuleles. I have some of David Marks' earliest work, plus Steve Ash's earliest work, plus the very first dulcimer that Howard Rugg built. It's a neat collection, representing some of the finest dulcimer builders ever.

 

Here's a link detailing (in very broad strokes) the history/timeline of Folkcraft Instruments and FolkRoots Dulcimers.

So, starting in the next paragraph, I'm sharing an email from Grace (with permission), with details of their visit to the Felton, California shop. Enjoy!

 

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Hello Richard!

This is Grace M., the customer who visited with you in late April, and ordered a dulcimer. We trust all is going well and that my dulcimer is coming together nicely! 

I am writing a long overdue letter to let you know that in early May, Mark and I visited the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in the Santa Cruz mountains. We are aware of the connection between your dulcimers and the CapriTaurus dulcimers that originated at this location near Felton, California. We were hoping to meet one of the Rugg brothers that runs the museum, and we did!  First, Michael Rugg.

We had an enjoyable time looking around his unusual museum!!!  And then he said, “You know, my brother is still building instruments in the back building. Just knock on the door - loud!”  So we went to the building (with the mural) behind the museum.

Michael's Bigfoot Museum (front/right) with Howard's workshop (rear/left).

We knocked loud and waited, and were so happy to meet Howard Rugg. He showed us his instruments and gave us a tour of his upstairs workshop (up the most treacherous, skinny, sawdust-slippery stairs you can imagine). We were able to see lovely examples of his dulcimer work. He told us how, sometime in the 1960s, a couple of “hippies” were playing an unusual instrument right outside his antique furniture store. Being a woodworker himself, he thought he could try his hand at making that instrument.  And the rest, as they say, is history…

Howard Rugg, in his Felton, California workshop.

He has the CapriTaurus logo on the instruments he makes now.