Happy New Year! I’d like to wish everyone a healthy and prosperous 2019 and to say thanks to all my clients new & old for your continued patronage.
Check out the cool graphic above. Besides being a great musician and singer, Tom Rozum is also a wonderful graphic artist who does one of these cards up every year and sends them out to his friends and music fans…Of which I’m both! Thanks Tom!
2018 was a good year for me. I managed to get to Wintergrass 2018 in February and hang out with many of my musical heroes like Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, Mike Marshall and David Grisman, as well as hear some fantastic new music from people like Jake Jolliff, and the O’Connor family band.
In August I made it to my first Blueberry BG fest near Edmonton Alberta. I brought a couple new Wiens F5 mandolins along with me and players like Tristan Scroggins, Ronnie McCoury, Kody Norris, and C.J. Lewandowski all gave them a test drive….. C.J. ended up liking Wiens #46 enough that he took it off my hands. Here’s a pic of him onstage during a performance with his band “the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys”.
C.J & the band garnered much attention in the bluegrass world in 2018 including the IBMA’s “Emerging Artist Award”. Look for a new Album from the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys on Rounder Records this year!
2018 also saw the completion of the Wiens F5 “Natural”. This is Wiens F5 #44 and is visually the polar opposite of the sunburst F5 I’m known for building. Instead of black-dyed pearwood peghead veneers, it features exotic burl. Instead of ivoroid binding, it has tortoise.. And of course the finish is completely natural. It features a psychedelic one-piece Sugar maple back with matching neck & sides. The fretboard is a beautiful piece of streaked macassar ebony. No position markers on this one, Just EVO gold frets on a compound radiused fretboard. I also cut the bridge from this same piece of ebony for a nice uniform look. Click Here to view more photos of this mandolin.
More recently, I completed another “performer” model Wiens F-style mandolin. This is only the second one of these I’ve built. It’s essentially a less ornate version of my usual F5 mandolin, but with all the sound and “performance”. Congratulations to this fine fella pictured below, Mr. Alex Buterman and his new ride, Wiens performer F-model #47, Signed January 10th 2019.
While Several Wiens mandolins found new homes this past year, I want to mention one beauty that’s still available to a loving home. Wiens F5 #45 is a tribute to the Fern Virzi’d examples of the late Loar period. I’m very proud of this one in it’s response, tone, feel and appearance. Check it out by clicking here.
Well, That’s all for now. Hope to see friends new & old in 2019. Keep on Pickin’
Jamie Wiens is most simply described as “Brilliant”! My name is Benjamin Hunt. I play Fender Stratocasters like my life depends on it. My problem for years was wearing out a set of nickel silver frets in a month and a half of 3 to four hrs. per day of intense playing. Jamie cured my problem by installing Evo Gold frets on my Statocasters. After a year of hard playing and i mean Hard; it is impossible to find even a trace of ware. Stainless steel sounds terrible on Strats, but Evo Gold enhances that classic sound. Very tricky to install, but Jamie Masters this change with unmatched precision!!!!