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The Larsons' Creations

Guitars and Mandolins, Centennial Edition

By Robert Carl Hartman

This book is the final edition of my tribute to the ingenuity, inventiveness, hard work and dedication that my grandfather, Carl Larson, gave to his craft as a builder of some of the finest guitars of the modern world. His brother, my great-uncle August, is equally included in this dedication.

This book is the culmination of 10 years of research after the three preceding books were in print. It expands on the life and times of the Larson brothers with a brief history of their family life in Sweden, the early years in America before the purchase of Maurer & Co. in 1900 and the complete facts of every aspect of running their business. There are my personal anecdotes regarding growing up for a time with Carl and stories of the Larson and Hartman families.

These wonderful gentlemen are now revered by folks worldwide who own one or more of their products as well as a host of others who wish that someday they may be lucky enough to possess one of these treasures. They are regarded to be museum quality creations of unequalled quality and beauty. The “Larson Sound” is now a common phrase in discussing the instruments, as they are definitely desirable and unique in the world of guitar lovers.

This 312-page edition has 32 color pages of fantastically beautiful photos. It includes a music CD that demonstrates the talents of eleven artists performing on a huge variety of Larson-made instruments. Among these performers are Gregg Miner, Jim Kanas, Kraig Kenning, Joe Weed, Stephen Bennett, Robert Bowlin, Stacy Hobbs, Muriel Anderson, and my son, Carl Robert Hartman.

The CD also includes a few tunes by the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra which showcases the sounds of the mandolin craze of the 1920's and culminates with a song by Mountain sung by Felix Pappalardi and two unpublished resurrected cuts from a 1969 tape by Jimi Hendrix.