| Bear Creek Guitars | |
| Type: | Private |
| Location: | California |
| Key People: | Bill Hardin |
| Area Served: | Global |
| Industry: | Musical instruments |
| Products: | Custom Weissenborn-style Hawaiian lap steel guitars |
| Homepage: | Bear Creek Guitars |
Bear Creek Guitars is a California-based manufacturer of Hawaiian instruments. Luthier Bill Hardin founded the company in Hawaii in 1995 after working at O.M.I Dobro and the Santa Cruz Guitar Company.[1] Bear Creek primarily builds acoustic lap steel guitars in the tradition of the Weissenborn, one of only a handful of manufacturers basing their instruments on the original Weissenborn design.[2] Hardin has collaborated with guitarist and ethnomusicologist Bob Brozman in designing an updated 7-string baritone version of the Style IV Weissenborn, called the BearTone.
Bill Hardin was introduced to the Weissenborn by Don Young of National Reso-Phonic Guitars while they both worked for Dobro. One day Don brought in a Weissenborn copy and Bill was impressed with its sound. "It was such a pure slide sound and just amazing," he recalled in a 2007 Fretboard Journal feature article.[3]
Bear Creek builds both hollowneck and Kona roundneck copies of the Weissenborn,[4] as well as Spanish steel-stings, ukuleles, and resonators. The BearTone can be heard on Bob Brozman's Nankuru Naisa, his second collaboration with Takashi Hirayasu (their first collaboration, Jin Jin, features Brozman on a Bear Creek "Kona Rocket.")[5]