Wayne Henderson

Wayne Henderson grew up in Rugby, Virginia, and he has perfected the art of instrument building gaining a reputation as one of the finest and sought after guitar builders in the world. Wayne’s interest in building a guitar began at a young age. He first tried building one out of wood from an old dresser drawer. He put it together, but the glue didn’t hold, and the guitar fell apart. Wayne found out about another instrument builder in the area, Albert Hash, and he sought him out for advice. Hash helped him through some problems, and Wayne took off.

Wayne spent some time working in a guitar shop in Tennessee, and he had the opportunity to work on a number of fine old guitars. Wayne would take them apart and study the way they were built. This was an era when a lot of machines were in use to help fine tune steps in instrument building, but Wayne always preferred to use a trusty pocket knife. Many of the other luthiers and repairmen marveled at Wayne’s skill with a simple knife. Wayne eventually moved back to Rugby where he worked for a number of years as a postman, building instruments in his free time. For a few years, Wayne has been retired from the postal service, and he spends more time in his shop building instruments and performing.

Wayne is also a fine guitar picker. He plays a unique finger picking style that sounds very much like flatpicking guitar. He has performed multiple times in Carnegie Hall, went on three national tours of “Masters of the Steel String Guitar,” and he has performed internationally. Wayne is also a multiple guitar champion at a number of fiddlers conventions, including earning more awards at the revered Galax competition than any other musician. Wayne established the Wayne C. Henderson Music Festival and Guitar Competition in 1995 as a festival that would feature the guitar competition; both the winner and the headliner for the evening concert receive a new Henderson guitar (the one sure way to skip to the front of the waiting list line).

Wayne was a 1995 recipient of the National Heritage Fellowship Award from the National Endowment of the Arts for his craft. He builds about 20 instruments a year, mostly guitars. But, Wayne has also made a number of fine mandolins, as well as some fiddles and banjos. Doc Watson owns one of his mandolins and says it is as fine a mandolin as any he’s played. There is a very large waiting list for one of Wayne’s instruments; it can take anywhere from two to ten years or more to get an instrument. But, Wayne has nary had a dissatisfied customer!