High Praise from Cremona Italy

I don’t speak Italian. So when Ruben Minuto stepped onto a stage at Cremona Musica and began talking to the audience, I was mostly listening to the music of the language. Then I heard two words I knew: “Bluegrass Bell.”

Sitting beside me was Andressa. She and her husband Marco, a fine bluegrass guitarist, are friends we first met at Blue Ridge Guitar Camp. I leaned over and asked what Ruben had said. She smiled. “He said, ‘My Gallagher Bluegrass Bell is a gift from God.'”

I had to sit with that for a moment.

Ruben’s story with us began a long way from Italy. In March 2025, he was in Nashville recording Carving Names, the new album from his band  Max & Ruben and the Modern Tones, at Compass Records. While he was there, he played Alison Brown’s Bluegrass Bell and fell in love with it. Alison connected us, and Ruben went home with a Bluegrass Bell of his own.

You should know who Ruben is. He and Massimo Gatti both played in Bluegrass Stuff, the band that, starting nearly fifty years ago, helped introduce bluegrass to Italy when almost no one there had heard it. These men carried bluegrass across an ocean and planted it in new soil. Carving Names is due out soon, and I hope you’ll give it a listen.

Now here was Ruben, playing his Bluegrass Bell for his own countrymen, with Massimo beside him, in the city where the violin was born.

That would have been enough. But after the performance, Alessio found me. Alessio has helped organize Cremona Musica for its entire history, and he was clearly excited. His sound engineer, who has worked with him for 29 years and run sound for shows both small and large, had told him that Ruben’s guitar was the best-sounding guitar he had ever run sound on.

Think about how many instruments pass through a sound engineer’s hands in 29 years. A player loves his guitar with his heart. An engineer judges it by ear, with nothing at stake. Hearing both kinds of praise on the same afternoon is something I won’t soon forget.

Our new partner in Italy

We shared our booth with Andrea Luciano and his team, Franco and Sofia, and it gave us the chance to watch real customer service in action. Andrea is a consummate professional. He examined every guitar carefully, he was attentive to the details, and he gave each visitor his full attention.

What reassured us most was how Andrea thinks about the time after the sale. He sells and ships throughout the European Union, and he has built a network of luthiers he can call on for a warranty concern or a simple adjustment. A Gallagher owner in Europe will have someone looking after them.

You can find Andrea online at 440hz.it, and in person at his shop, Luciano Strumenti Musicali. Our thanks to Andrea, Franco, and Sofia for being such wonderful hosts.

The bench

Cremona has been synonymous with fine string instruments since the 16th century. The Amati, Rugeri, Guarneri, and Stradivari families all worked here, and Stradivari’s violins still move audiences around the world.

Outside the Museum of the Violin stands a statue of Stradivari at his workbench, shaping a violin. Laid out on the bench are his tools: planes, a square, a mallet, chisels. I stood there longer than I expected to. Those are the same tools in our shop in Tennessee today.

When you pick up your Gallagher, you’re holding something made the way fine instruments have always been made, by hand and with care, by people who understand the craft. Earlier this month, in the city where that craft was born, people heard it.

With gratitude,

David Mathis