Luthier (guitar restorer)
Initially, his main income was teaching guitar - first from his small workshop in his house and then over the coming years he started to teach in 12 local primary schools, the YMCA and Penwith College’s Adult Education Programmes. These days in his workshop, tucked away down a tiny side street, Julyan has work experience students helping him out. He tells of one of whom was wearing a Nirvana T-shirt and says “Teaching youngsters how to play Nirvana and Oasis helped pay my rent for years”. He dropped the teaching gradually over 2005-2012 but continues to teach in only two primary schools where he has been for 20 years, He says “That’s a lot of children! .. I love teaching children, passing on my knowledge and watching it blossom elsewhere. A few of my previous students have gone on to bigger things, one teaches guitar himself locally now..” Indeed, Julyan finds it weird when fans of the The Repair Shop recognise him and ask for autographs and selfies. Until his own unexpected fame, the closest Julyan got to celebrity was repairing guitars for some of Cornwall's renowned musicians, including Tim Renwick (Pink Floyd, David Bowie Eric Clapton), Louis Eliot (Grace Jones), Graham Smith (Cat Stevens, Harry Nilsson), Stephen Duffy (The Lilac Time), Sarah McQuaid, Neil Halstead (Slowdive), Eric Faulkner (Bay City Rollers) and many more. Somewhere in the region of 6000 instruments have passed through his workshop. 2022 is a special year for Julyan, or The Guitar Doctor as he's known. It's 40 years since he started playing guitar, 30 years since he started his luthier business repairing fretted stringed instruments - guitars, ukuleles, bouzoukis, banjos and basses - and ten years since he got married. His big passion is breathing new life into fretted instruments, especially very old and vintage guitars, being as ethical to the methods and parts used in order to maintain as much originality to an instrument as possible. Julyan says “My job is my life .. as my late Dad used to say…’Jules, it sure beats working for a living’! Website: https://www.guitardoctor.co.uk Article and video interview with Jules on CornwallLive.com, published 16th July 2022 www.cornwalllive.com/news/celebs-tv/repair-shop-expert-cornwall-works-7329568?fbclid=IwAR1nayerPLamr9H9AccFxV2G0zf4Ux4EDOn1_njsFqP05WxGXyNosYngwoA&fs=e&s=cl Comments are closed.
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