Don Young’s Life Resonated With Music

A Sweet, Sustaining Note

By Jay Thompson

Music was more than Don Young’s passion. A special guitar in a shop window in Richard Nixon’s hometown gave shape to it. A half century later, you can still hear the beat of that love resonating in the chords of thousands of blues, bluegrass, jazz and slack key guitar players across the globe:

“The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the Civil War…”

— “Graceland,” by Paul Simon

The boy’s eyes grew wide in the reflection of a pawnshop window on that Sunday morning in 1964 in Whittier, Calif. To the beginning guitar player, who was developing a taste for American folk tunes, there was just something mesmerizing about the funny-looking acoustic guitar on display.

A hubcap-sized metal plate covering the guitar’s sound hole was curious and inspiring. What was it? Why was it there? What did it do? But more importantly, what did the guitar sound like?

Who knew that that instrument would change Donald LeRoy Young’s life and resurrect a style of mechanically amplified guitars created in the 1920s. These instruments, with their singular look, were born well before Bob Dylan went electric in 1965 — even before guitars were electric.

But the 11-year olds questions, and the lifelong trek that they would inspire, would have to wait. The boy had to get uptown to St. Matthias before the Episcopal minister noticed that his only son had ditched Sunday school.

•••

Don was born May 8, 1953, at Redlands Community Hospital in Redlands, Calif., to Janice Arlene Brooks-Young and Albert LeRoy Young, while his father “Roy” was attending college. The family moved several times, the result of Roy’s education and career as a minister. By 1960, the family was living in Whittier, the hometown of then-Vice President Richard Nixon.

It was a good place to raise the Young family. Don got active in Scouting (inspired by his Eagle Scout Dad), made what became several lifelong friendships (with guys like his best friend Dale “Flynn” Coughlin), struggled in school (he liked history, though, but good marks in science and math eluded him), was introduced to his baby sister, Jill, and found music.

“He was a typical boy and mischievous,” his parents said. “When the friends were over in his bedroom,” Roy Young said, “and it became quiet, we realized they had gone through the window. Of course, I locked the window, and when they came back after their escapades, they had to knock on the front door. He was in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. His mother was a Den Mother, so he grew up with a whole group of boys that we knew in Whittier.”

His parents didn’t know the scope of his burgeoning love of music, though they encouraged it through Time-Life Records, guitar lessons (which he hated and were happily short-lived) and his first guitar: a sonorous six-string C.F. Martin acoustic (which he played the rest of his life).

“Actually, I didn’t really notice that he was very interested in music until one day his cousin said, ‘Don’t you know he goes out in the garage and plays the guitar all the time? And he’s really good,’” Jan Young said. “I said, ‘No. He never plays for us.’ He kept it kind of a secret.”

Jill, who is six years younger, remembered her brother learning on his own. “When he was 10 or 11, he loved Peter, Paul and Mary and all those [folk] people,” she said. “It grew into more of an interest in the people who were not very well known and the rediscovery of black, blues artists from the 1920s and ’30s. He’d just get old recordings. He’d memorize all their music. He learned it not from reading notes but by listening and teaching himself to play things.”

After six years, a new church assignment brought the family to Long Beach. Though just a 40-minute drive away, to Don, who was entering eighth grade, it was like moving across the country.

“In Whittier, he had a neighborhood where he grew up, and boys that he literally went through elementary school and first year of junior high with,” his Dad said. “In Long Beach, all of the social groups were already established. Immediately, he was an outsider, and as a result there was a sense of isolation.”

Never a great student, his mediocre grades suffered from the change. Even his new Scout troop dissolved. Don, always proud of his Scouting heritage, gave it up just two merit badges shy of Eagle Scout, something only 4-percent of Boy Scouts achieve.

After his first year at Long Beach Polytechnic High, his parents knew something had to change.

“We became aware of a ‘free school’ in Eagle Rock, California,” Roy said of the Nicholson School, which was modeled after the independent English Summerhill School and founded on the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, not the other way around.

“It was a redemptive place… operated by [Laura Nicholson], an unusual educator. She was dealing with counter-cultural children — kids who were not fitting in — often coming from solid families who were concerned about their children.”

Don moved to Eagle Rock in August 1969 at the start of his junior year — his sixth move in 16 years. He lived in an upstairs bedroom in a rectory house on Chicasaw Street, just steps from school, which was housed in another Episcopal Church building.

Housemates often heard him playing guitar during free time and sought his advice.

His new friends — Geoff Willson, Craig Atterbury and Arne Tutschulte — brought over an old recording of bluesman Robert Johnson and some records featuring Taj Mahal playing a National Resonator Guitar. The music was addictive and the sound of that guitar was — Wow! That interest in Resonators grew to new heights, after his dad gave him a Dobro six string — similar to the one he’d seen in that pawn shop window as a boy. Friends remember him playing it all the time.

Don finished school and returned to Long Beach with a plan to build guitars in his parents’ 2-car garage on Myrtle Avenue. He reverse-engineered the instruments, taking apart his own to figure things out, and reassembled them. He made two guitars that year, one for himself and the other for a high school buddy. His sister wasn’t surprised by his ingenuity.

“He was an autodidact,” Jill said. “He could teach himself anything. Just like he taught himself to play fiddle, taught himself to play banjo. He was always teaching himself something. He constantly figured stuff out, and that was before the Internet.”

Despite his progress, building guitars was, well, hard. His power tools were minimal and getting parts for the instruments was a nightmare. “It was tears, discouragement and effort,” his Mom recalled. “He just kept at it until he did it. He didn’t talk about it a lot. I would see him struggle. Later, he would tell me how he struggled.”

He also built some mandolins. But after more than a year, his parents were concerned. One night in 1973, Jan recalled that his Dad gave him a choice: “Get a job or move out.”

He landed a job at Original Musical Instrument Co. — the outfit that made his Dobro — slightly amazed that the factory that made the instruments with the dazzling sound was located so close to home.

OMI’s roots dated back to the late 1920s, when John Dopyera Jr., a Czech-born instrument repairman in Los Angeles, invented an acoustic guitar that used internal mechanical means to boost its volume. Dopyera’s first patent of a tri-cone resophonic guitar was for the National String Instrument Co. The first models were made in wood and later in the still-sought-after iconic nickel-plated silver that singer-songwriter Paul Simon wrote about in “Graceland.”

The response by musicians was immediate and enthusiastic, but by 1928, Dopyera had signed away his patents and started a new company with brothers Rudy and Ed.

The new Dobro — short for Dopyera Brothers, and, in a bit of serendipity, is the Czech word for “good” — featured a single-resonator that soon outsold the pricier Nationals.

“He had an instrument that totally sounded different than anything on the market,” said John Quarterman, who worked at OMI from 1970-75. “No one had ever built a guitar that resonated. After that, they weren’t concerned with volume; they were concerned because it gave off this different sound vibration that no one had ever heard before.”

But the instrument’s heyday was remarkably short. Within a few years, guitarists switched to electric guitars. Dobro stopped production during World War II and didn’t resume manufacturing until 1958, when Ed and Rudy opened a new shop in El Monte. In 1967, they formed OMI in Long Beach.

Less than a decade after seeing his first resonator instrument in that Whittier pawn shop, Don found himself building the guitars he loved with some of the men who invented them. “I started out sanding necks and working on finishes, screwing up in one department and moving on to the next,” Young joked in an interview with The Tribune. “I had about four stints there in a 15-year period.”

After his first few months at OMI/Dobro, Young was asked to leave. It was because of his work ethic; it was too high. Guitars were leaving the shop with imperfections and Young didn’t think they should. Three other times he left on his own.

“Don kind of came on like a duck to water and did a very good job and everything,” said Quarterman, who ultimately hired the long-locked teen. “As time when on, Don and I became good friends. We started playing guitars over at his house after work and started building one-off guitars out of his Dad and Mom’s garage.”

When Don needed money for additional power equipment, he agreed to cut his shoulder-length hair to get a $500 advance from his grandmother, who insisted on it. They made about 15 guitars and sold them on consignment at music stores for $200-$300 (or $700-$1,000 in 2016 dollars).

•••

Don had met Sidney Willson, Geoff’s younger sister, in Corona del Mar in 1969. The pair were reacquainted during one of his breaks from OMI. At the time, he was repairing guitars for Al Kalie’s Music in Lakewood Center. The couple married in 1979.

“He loved music,” she said, “Hawaiian slack key music. He liked old-time fiddle music and blues, and different kinds of hit jazz from the 1920s and ’30s — stuff that was basically not from current times.”

The couple, who divorced in 1991, moved first to Eureka, and Sandpoint, Idaho, but returned to Long Beach after each move. The first of their three daughters, Amanda Rose, was born in 1982, followed two years later by Rebecca “Bekki” June and Janice Margaret in 1986.

Don survived a brush with cancer in 1983. After his recovery and the birth of their second child, Don worked day jobs making medical equipment and pool tables. At his wife’s urging, he re-entered the world of professional guitar-making, returning to OMI/Dobro in the mid-1980s. He was eventually named vice president.

During this period, Don studied at night with a professional metal spinner and learned to make his own resonators. He and his wife began to market the resonators by mail order, with Sidney and the girls making trips to the Post Office during the day while Don was at work. Don researched and captured the National trademark, which he began to use.

He hired McGregor “Mac” Gaines, a friend from his wife’s old neighborhood, in 1986, and the pair eventually planned their next move.

“Don and I agreed that I would go back to work full-time as a court reporter so that he and MacGregor could quit Dobro and work in the garage full-time starting National,” Willson Young said. “The initial funding came from loans from me and MacGregor’s fiancé, Marie Nordlinger, who was actively involved in the company until her death from cancer.”

The new venture relied on both men’s strengths: Don knew the instrument’s inner workings and Gaines lent his artistic eye to guitar design and style. They measured old resonator instruments of all makes and designs, and produced reproductions under the National brand name and trademark (but calling it Reso-Phonic) as originally used by the National String Instrument Co. for the very first resonator instruments made in the 1920s.

In 1989, they moved to the Central Coast — Don discovered the area through his pal Arne Tutschulte and his wife, Nancy, who lived in Cayucos — and set up shop in San Luis Obispo. It was risky and stressful. Their first appearance at the popular National Association of Music Merchants or NAMM annual trade show, was bare-bones with a handful of guitars, Roy Young recalled. But they took 60 orders.

“All they had was a card table — that was their booth,” Roy said. “There was a lot of skepticism with the established guitar dealers. One of the prominent dealers from Nashville or New York called the guitars they were making ‘toys.’”

It didn’t take long for the nay-sayers to be proved wrong. By 2000, the company was the pre-eminent resonator guitar manufacturer in the nation, producing 1,000 instruments a year. National Reso-Phonics axes were in the arsenals of such popular performers as Eric Clapton Ben Harper, Keb’ Mo’, Ani DiFranco, Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor.

In 2015, the company built its 20,000th instrument. On June 6, 1998, Don married soul-mate Hilary in an intimate setting among the oak trees at El Chorro Regional Park near Cuesta College, where he watched his oldest daughter receive her degree in 2013 and, in May of 2016, complete nursing school.

The couple had met at a New Year’s Eve party, and the result was love at first sight, they said. She frequently accompanied him to guitar shows around the U.S. and abroad.

In retirement, Don slowed down — a little. In January 2015, he and Hilary opened Don’s String Shop in Los Osos, where he repaired instruments, held music events and even taught a few workshops. It also gave him a place to tinker, the way he did as a young man inspired by the look and sound of those special resonator guitars.

“I think he wanted to experiment,” his Dad said. “He was trying to revive the early National products. When he died, he was working on a ukulele that they had made way back. He was working on drawings. He was going to spin resonators, and he was going to get someone to make bodies for him.”

•••

Don died Wednesday, June 15, at 5:15 p.m. The tributes that followed came from friends and musicians throughout the U.S. and from as far away as Australia, England, Germany, Holland and Japan. Some called him “a legend in the guitar world.” Others said he was just a great guy, quick with a story or a tune, and always had time to talk guitars.

“He didn’t brag about things,” his father said. “Don was self-effacing. I think he realized at the end of his life he had worked some changes in the guitar world.”

Added longtime friend Quarterman: “Don and McGregor just decided to go off on their own. They took a big leap off of a cliff and tried to do their own thing, and succeeded. It worked.”

Don had pride in the company and the more than 50 instrument models it produced. National Reso-Phonic guitars are a mainstay in a wide range of musical genres including Hawaiian, blues, bluegrass, old-time, jazz, folk, gospel, country and contemporary.

“We make brand-new antiques,” he was quick to point out with a laugh. “We strive to make a high-quality instrument. We’ve got the best people in the world working here to make that happen. These have such an incredible, warm tone. It’s a completely unique sound. As much as I love hearing the old blues guys play them, the most exciting part is hearing the young musicians come along and do something new.” In the last years of his life, he first watched as Mac, his partner, retired in 2008.

When Don’s own health issues flared, he sold his portion of the business in 2014 and longtime co-worker Eric Smith took over as company president/CEO. “I’ve worked with Don for 24 years,” Smith told The Tribune. “Throughout those years I have never met a more caring individual. He was so proud of what he had created but even more proud of the individuals he worked with.”

His sister remembered Don’s interest in learning lasted his whole life. His knowledge was literally encyclopedic. “He actually did read the entire set of World Book Encyclopedia over the course of his youth and into adulthood,” she recalled. “He knew capitols, geographic formations, names of mountain ranges, oceans and rivers the world over, as well as the corresponding cultures, customs, cuisines and languages associated with each place.” And he deeply loved his wife, Hilary, and his three daughters.

“I think his bout with cancer at the age of 30 gave him a sense of his own mortality,” Roy Young said. “It could have been fatal. I think that changed his life in the sense that his own mortality became reality at the age of 30. And so, he wanted to see his daughters raised.”

His youngest daughter, Janice Margaret, spoke for many when she said: “I still can’t quite believe that you’re gone. It’s hard to not feel heartbreak and frustration because you still had so much that you were going to do. My only consolation is the amazing things that you did accomplish in your life, and the many people, all over the world, that you have touched with your incredible talent and kind heart.”

The quest for music — to play it, and to build and repair the instruments with that unique sound so dear to his heart — resonated throughout Don Leroy Young’s life and is still with us today.

A graveside memorial service, held June 23 at Los Osos Valley Memorial Park, was officiated by his father, retired minister Roy Young. His daughters read from the Biblical Lessons. Don’s sister, Jill, sang the Gospel song, “In the Sweet By and By,” which was a favorite of Don’s paternal grandmother, Rose Young.

A final sign of his family’s love and esteem was the coffin, which was built by daughter Bekki and her boyfriend, Jackson Price, at Wine Country Craftsman, where she is shop director. Don would have appreciated this “down-home” touch.

Don Young is survived by his wife of 18 years, Hilary, of Los Osos; three daughters, Amanda Rose Young of Atascadero, Rebecca “Bekki” June Young of Paso Robles and Janice Margaret Young of San Franciso; his parents, Jan and Roy Young of Los Osos; a sister, Jill Young of North Hollywood, Calif.; nieces and nephews, Paul Manson and Cecily Manson of Southern California, and Jesse Willson and Rosanne Willson Ilar; and numerous cousins.

Jay Thompson is a former Bay News staff writer and continuing contributor.