Custom guitar shop resides at rear of appliance repair

THIBODAUX — The sign on the door of Gerard Melancon's custom guitar shop reads "Melancon's Repair Service."

"You've got the right place," he quickly explains, taking someone to the back of his father's appliance-repair store.

Amid the washing machines and ovens, a glass door leads to two adjoining rooms filled with the machines and gadgets he uses to fashion custom guitars.

Many were born out of Cajun ingenuity.

"When I decided to begin building guitars for people, I had to make a lot of my own tools and equipment because no one was selling anything to help you put together a guitar," said Melancon, 48.

His roundabout musical journey began with aspirations of making it "big."

He said his grandfather and father turned him on to music. He taught himself to play, and started a band with a couple of his friends when he was 12 or 13. During the next few years, Melancon saved up enough money to buy a used Gibson Les Paul and later a Fender Strat guitar.

He toured with another band after high school, but they split up after coming close to signing a recording contract.

"Life on the road is tough," Melancon said. "I guess that was what hurt us more than anything else."

After returning home, Melancon decided to become a studio artist. He also began repairing guitars for local music stores.

"You had two manufactures back then," Melancon said. "You had Fender and Gibson. Both of them sounded different and had different features."

He wanted to combine the best from each. But the area's only existing custom guitar shop told him it would take a year to create the instrument he wanted.

"I had been doing guitar repairs, so I had a little woodworking knowledge under my belt," Melancon said. "Don't get me wrong — I had a lot to learn, but I thought I would give it a try."

Melancon did it without lessons or instruction.

"I did some research and started making templates to help me along," he said. "I found out I really enjoyed it. It was something incredible about taking a piece of wood and transforming it into something tangible that others could use."

Someone saw him playing his new guitar and asked to buy it. Melancon said he didn't want to at first, but then realized money from that sale would let him make another guitar.

"It started off as a local thing and a local thing only," he said.

The born-again Christian tells people he never saw a custom guitar shop in his future, but God had other plans.

There was the time his daughter dropped a tool he was using on a bass guitar he was fixing. He told the owner what had happened. The owner came to his house, and some of the instruments Melancon had made caught his eye.

He asked about buying one. Melancon felt bad about the accident, so he repaired the man's guitar free and sold him a new one at the cost for materials.

They became friends. The man asked if he could bring another friend over to check out Melancon's guitars.

"His friend was Tommy Malone, who played with the Subdudes out of New Orleans. He bought one and liked it and his brother, Dave, played with the Radiators and he came to me asking me if I could make him one."

Before he knew it, a hobby that began in the 1980s had turned into a business.

"It was all word of mouth," Melancon said. "These guys would travel the country and people would see my guitars. It just kept building on itself as time went on."

As word spread, Melancon began fielding orders from all over the world.

"I'm only one of 20 custom builders out there," Melancon said. "I guess since there's not many people who do this there's a demand for it."

After hiring a crew to help him assemble guitars, Melancon chose to go it alone.

"I had some good people working with me, but it's so hard to teach somebody how to do this the right way," Melancon said. "I will admit I'm not the best teacher, so I just decided to take the whole thing over."

That limits his production to 100 to 120 guitars a year. They sell for $2,600 to $10,000.

His customers have included Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler and Aerosmith's Brad Whitford — a sale made by way of Aerosmith's guitar tech, Greg Howard, who makes sure all equipment is ready for practices and live performances.

"I was blown away with his guitars," Howard said. "I told Brad about him and on a trip down to New Orleans for a concert in 2002 I invited him to the concert and told him to bring a few guitars with him."