Click to view Ren Bedell playing MBACE-18-G Acoustic Guitar

NAMM is a non-profit association that unifies, leads and strengthens the global music products industry. This summer’s trade show, in Nashville, served as a hub for people wanting to seek out the newest innovations in musical products, recording technology, sound and lighting.

This summer’s NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) event featured all of the newest products from the top, as well as the up and coming, companies in the industry. Six music retail experts shopped the NAMM show floor to find the most innovative companies in the industry. They revealed their choices at the convention’s popular “Companies to Watch” panel discussion.
Bedell was among the selections for “Companies To Watch.” Our company was selected by Pete Gamber, owner of Alto Loma Music, with two locations in Southern California. Gamber says, “This is an awesome guitar line. The instruments are beautifully made. The whole series is playable, all the way up and down from the most entry-level to the most advanced level. Their entire focus is acoustic guitars.”

All of us, at Bedell, would like to offer a humble thank you to Pete Gamber, NAMM, and all of the musicians who have given us a chance. Building high quality instruments is our passion. We are thrilled to be recognized for our efforts in any fashion, but a recognition of this caliber is truly an honor.

NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), a non-profit association that unifies, leads and strengthens the global music products industry. NAMM trade shows serve as a hub for people wanting to seek out the newest innovations in musical products, recording technology, sound and lighting.

At this summer’s NAMM event, all of the newest products for the fall were on display, and six music retail experts shopped the NAMM show floor to find the top gear. They revealed their choices in front of more than 350 NAMM attendees at the convention’s popular “Best In Show” panel discussion.

Among the selections for “Best In Show,” was Bedell’s very own Heritage Series Acoustic Guitar Line. Our line was selected by Chris Basile, owner of South Jersey Music, in Sewell, N.J. Basile says, “All of the Bedell Guitars are quality-controlled in Oregon, and they are good, solid spruce guitars. Customers are going to love these instruments. The quality is there.”

We, at Bedell, are both honored and thrilled to be given this award. We look forward to sharing this special line of guitars with the world.

The Heritage Series will Arrive Mid August!

Lars Mullen chats to Tom Bedell about his past and passion for guitars

Tom Bedell found himself in the middle of the era of peace and love selling guitars. Now, a full and successful career later, he is back in MI again, but has lost none of his flower power. He describes his trip to Lars Mullen…

Tom Bedell is an old hippy – and he makes no bones about it. In fact, he is pretty damned proud of it – so much so that he named his company, formed together with his wife, Molly – Two Old Hippies. In a period of less than 18 months, the company has launched not one, but two guitar brands: the electro-acoustic Bedell and Great Divide, and has secured worldwide distribution deals, taking the new ranges far beyond their (traditionally hippy-oriented) Aspen, Colorado home, with barely time to dry clean the afghan coats. “The theme is ‘peace, love and rock n roll,” says Tom Bedell. “I would bet that most of us in the industry are here because we have a connection to growing up with music. Whether you play it, write it or just love listening to it, we all have a story to tell, an affinity we share with something we love and for me, it’s music. “I was on a panel at Winter NAMM this year with Yoko Ono when this subject came up, and I made a comment which is so true, that if ‘Imagine’ had been a poem instead of a song, how many of us would have heard of it? “To me, music is all about something we share and love, which I feel is so much more than selling something like shampoo. This coffee cup for example, if you tried to establish it as a brand called Smith, who’d remember that, but if this was a cup that Eric Clapton drank out of, you’d remember it forever.

The Tom Bedell and Great Divide models are what we are about. Two Old Hippies is much more than guitars – it’s a lifestyle.” Bedell goes on to explain how the success story of Two Old Hippies is a return to an early childhood dream. “In 1962 I was giving lessons at my local music store in Spirit Lake, Iowa. When I turned 13, I asked the shop owner if I could have a commission on all the guitars she was selling thanks to the lessons. “When she refused, I decided to turn my parents’ basement into a studio. My father was into the fishing tackle business and had an agent in Hiroshima, which was the center of the musical instrument industry in Japan. He sent me guitar catalogs, from which I selected various acoustic models. “I can clearly recall the day my first samples came through. It was November 1963, the day President Kennedy got shot. I was too young to drive, so I had to have mates take me around with guitar samples and by the time I was 15, I had my own distribution company with Bedell branded guitars in shops in five states and several hundred dealers.”

Bedell remembers that part of his life was ‘about as good as it gets’ and took off into his father’s leisure fishing business, which became a globally successful company achieving a number one status in every market in Europe, in terms of sales revenue. “It was a great life. It came to a peak, so we sold the company and my wife Molly and I decided to retire and travel for a year. But I had to come clean and after a while, I said I can’t do this. Sure, I don’t need to work, but getting up in the morning without a project in my head is not a great day for me. I wanted to work. I wanted to go back to guitars. “We had our own factory in the fishing industry in Taiwan, with divisions of the business in 22 countries, so the whole concept of the international marketing chain is something that I’ve been involved with for a long time, while also being in and out of China now for over 30 years. “We snapped up the local music store in Aspen – just a little place, about 1,000 square feet.

Molly spent her time designing a clothing range to link with our company name of Two Old Hippies – again themed peace, love and rock n roll, while I hired some reliable people who were as passionate as I am about acoustic guitars. “I called up Dan Mills, who worked in the Gibson Custom shop and also ran Gruhn Guitars in Nashville for ten years, and Jeff Moore, a well known and respected face in the industry, and we set about designing guitars. I went to every guitar manufacturer in the USA that offered a factory tour and, unlike the fishing industry, I was inundated with people offering me help and advice. “After several visits to China, we have now settled on two workshops: one for Great Divide and one for Bedell, the latter I would argue is probably the best high-end guitar factory in the world in terms of skilled luthiers and factory conditions. “We pay about 30 per cent more for our instruments because we went through the factory and re-designed its manufacturing processes. To simply ‘build and ship’ is not for us. When we get an order for 1,000 acoustic guitars, be it for Bedell or Great Divide, we’ll monitor the build process from beginning to end and sit down and hand select each and every slice of tonewood.”

So why has Two Old Hippies decided on two guitar brands? “All the parlour, orchestra, jumbo and dreadnought models are crafted, sanded and polished by hand, with a high grade, solid tone wood body construction. There’s a selection of AAA grade sound boards, including Canadian red cedar, Alaskan sitka and Engelmann spruce with the Bedell models, including the Award, Performance, Performance Aura, Performance Monitor and Inspiration series. “There are no shortcuts to handcrafting Bedell instruments. They have one-piece mahogany necks, ebony fingerboards and intricate inlays, including the peace symbol headstock logo. “In most cases, many of the big guitar manufacturers operating out of China will use laminates on a guitar under £1,500, so the fact that the Bedell models – starting as they do at £679 in the UK – don’t is largely unheard of. “If it says Great Divide, it will have a solid top and laminated back and sides. The construction, sound and performance are quite incredible at these price points. The Summit, Songsmith, Campfire and Origin series all have AA grade, solid sitka spruce, Canadian cedar and African sapele soundboards on the dreadnought, jumbo, orchestra and parlour models. “Our bracing is based on traditional designs in the acoustic world, but we have added our own input with excellent results – though I say it myself. I think we can be proud of how advanced we are in terms of acoustic guitars within construction and sound. We’re building great acoustic guitars first and then electrifying them with Fishman preamps, so they excel in both situations.

We also offer a one-of-a-kind custom shop programme with designs totally at the customer’s behest. “Let’s be straight, we’re attempting to build the finest guitars in the world. We all know that acoustic guitars sound better with age, or when they’re constructed from woods that have been dried and stored for years, when the sap has crystallised to become hard, enabling the enhancement of the tone. All exotic tone woods used in the Bedell Performance series have been stored for at least three years in a heated, humidified room, then dried for months before production. “We launched at Winter NAMM 2010, but we didn’t want to arrive brand new, so we ran an advertising campaign in all the important magazines. We landed with a blast when we appeared with a classic VW van and several mannequins draped in our Two Old Hippies clothing line and a full range of guitars. The response has been incredible and we now have enough distributors around the world to be a viable company, with a host of artists coming on board to endorse the instruments, including Stephen Stills, Amy Grant and Kenny Logins.”

In terms of getting the brand out into the wider world, Two Old Hippies has certainly landed on its feet, as well. In the UK industry, Aria Distribution, impressed with how well it has done in such a short space of time, became the exclusive supplier for the brands. “In the current economic climate, new, start up guitar companies are practically unheard of,” points out Aria Distribution’s managing director, Martin Hartwell. “It’s quite incredible how fast this company has gained recognition with guitar players and the media. The encouragement and support dealers have shown for Bedell and Great Divide guitars has been overwhelming. It proves our belief that there is a ready market for these guitars and we are delighted with the response we received, even before we received stock. We’re looking forward to showing dealers who have not yet seen Bedell and Great Divide in the weeks ahead.” “We are really excited about the UK market,” says Bedell. “We are convinced Aria is the right company for our guitars. Both Bedell and Great Divide not only offer the trade highly profitable lines, but present the player with guitars that are unique in their construction and performance. From that first day in 62, I just wanted to offer people the chance to play and own a quality guitar at an affordable price. That’s a concept I believe Two Old Hippies upholds to this very day.”

Full Post Available Here: Link

Photo (from left to right): Kim Breedlove, “Crazy” Pete Newport, Tom Bedell

Mumbling something about “Getting the band back together”, Two Old Hippies founders, Tom and Molly Bedell along with Breedlove’s Kim Breedlove and “Crazy” Pete Newport have announced that they are joining forces to create “The World’s Coolest Guitar Company.”  This confirms Breedlove is indeed joining the Two Old Hippies family.

The synergy in the merger is immediately obvious; both Two Old Hippies Tom Bedell and Breedlove’s Kim Breedlove are products of the ‘60’s, and the spirit of Peace, Love and Rock n’ Roll has never left either one of them. While Bedell grew up in Iowa, and Breedlove in San Diego, the ethos of the times and the influence of the budding folk and rock n’ roll cultures left indelible marks on both men, driving them to play, buy, sell, design, and build guitars. Of the synergy between Breedlove and Two Old Hippies, Breedlove inspiration and designer Kim Breedlove says “It’s just an amazing fit. Tom and I only met a few short months ago, but the level of convergence of passion, experiences, and commitment to the values we learned growing up in the sixties is amazing. Breedlove is just a natural fit for the culture at Two Old Hippies – it’s all about doing the right thing, feeling good, and remembering what got us excited about the music business in the first place.”

Based in Bend, Oregon, Breedlove will continue operations in its current facility and will expand to create the Bedell USA Custom Shop. Kim Breedlove will continue to drive Breedlove product development, and Tom Bedell will have the perfect workshop to further advance his Bedell and Great Divide guitar creations.

“We’ve always admired Breedlove’s spark, quality, and innovations.  The Breedlove Company team is also very versatile and full of potential,” says Bedell. “We will continue to operate with little to no change in the Breedlove distribution network, programs or product lines in the near future.” Bedell went on to comment that the addition of Breedlove to the Two Old Hippies existing Great Divide and Bedell brands gives the company the ability to provide musicians at any level of ability or financial wherewithal the best instrument for the money, anywhere. “We’re musicians first” said Bedell “and we want to provide the best possible instrument available for all of the players out there who continue to embody the things that we love – Peace, Love, and Rock n’ Roll”.

Dealers interested in more information about Breedlove, Bedell Guitars, Great Divide Guitars, or Two Old Hippies Apparel and Gifts should contact Two Old Hippies Customer Service at  customerservice@twooldhippies.com or 877.264.3356.

About Two Old Hippies:

The Brainchild of Tom and Molly Bedell, Two Old Hippies is the parent company of Two Old Hippies Apparel and Gifts, Bedell guitars, Great Divide guitars, and now Breedlove guitars. The focus of the company is rooted deeply in the ‘60’s ethos of doing the right thing, protecting the planet, making music, and having fun, all while providing security to its co-hippies, dealers and distributors by making a full line of Acoustic instruments that are the best money can buy.

About Breedlove:

Breedlove Guitar Company is located in the resort town of Bend, Oregon, USA and specializes in extraordinary acoustic guitars and mandolins, exotic woods, innovative features, and the famous Breedlove Extraordinary Experience; the guitarist’s vacation, complete with the ultimate souvenir.  Kim Breedlove began building fine instruments in 1973 and continues with state of the art designs today.