GORHAM – Last July, Don Roy stopped at the home of his Gorham neighbors, dairy farmers Eddie and Becky Benson on Plummer Road, after 90-mph winds destroyed their historic barn.
“Do you mind, if I look at your beams?” Roy asked them.
Sifting through the wreckage, Roy discovered a piece of spruce wood that suited him.
“That 100-year old wood has stretched all it’s going to,” Roy said. “It’s stable.”
Now, a chunk of that wood salvaged from a barn flattened during a tornado is taking shape as a fiddle on the Gorham musician’s workbench.
“This is the 18th fiddle I’ve made,” Roy said.
Fiddles play a big part in Roy’s life. He and his wife Cindy founded the Don Roy Trio 30 years ago. In performances, they play Franco-American music – both Roys are of Franco-American descent – with the fiddles he creates himself in his Gorham shop, where he also displays a selection of family heirloom fiddles. Roy said the only difference between a fiddle and a violin is “who’s playing it.”
The couple met on a hayride at Bill Rust’s farm in Gorham and built their Gorham home in 1984. She is a pianist and step dancer. The trio includes Jay Young of Falmouth, who plays bass. Recently adding another member, Larry Burkett, who plays guitar, the group is now an ensemble.
The Roys have played Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress. They’ve also played on “A Prairie Home Companion” radio show and at several national folk festivals. This fall, they will be playing a music festival at Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. Locally, they perform at the annual New Years Gorham celebration.
His handcrafted fiddles feature the same type of materials used three centuries ago by the world’s foremost violinmaker, Antonio Stradivari. Spruce wood forms the body top, while maple is utilized for the neck and back. Roy utilizes the same type of glue from Stradivari’s day.
A friend gave Roy a mold for a Stradivari top. “That’s a bonus to have one in the shop,” Roy said.
Roy even collects pine and spruce sap in Maine forests to mix varnish for the finish.
“Spruce gum makes good varnish,” he said.
Roy, who made his first one 10 years ago, said fiddle making is an art 500 years old. Like the five others he’s working on, it’ll take 200 hours to construct the fiddle with the Benson barn wood.
The finished instrument will weigh about a pound, he said.
“It’s going to sound pretty good,” said Roy, who is a maintenance supervisor for the Maine Turnpike Authority.
For posterity sake, he penned a note on the inside of the fiddle body describing the history of the wood. In addition to the Benson spruce beam, maple came from a tree harvested in Portland in 2004.
Roy’s fiddles sell for “six grand.”
But, he said, “I’m going to keep this one.”
Don Roy of Gorham is creating a fiddle in his shop in Gorham.
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