Mark was born August 29, 1954 in Providence, Rhode Island. With an abundance of artistic talent on the maternal side of his family, and a father with a keen ear for music, Mark began at an early age to display noteworthy abilities in these two areas, both of which would be important to his future work as a guitar builder.
Mark began playing the guitar at age ten, influenced by the Beatles and other popular music of the mid 60′s. Mostly self-taught, he played his father’s old Stella flattop for two years before getting his first good guitar – a Gibson hollow-body electric. As a youngster, while learning to play guitar, Mark also began to develop an appreciation for the instrument itself, particularly instruments like the beautiful Gibson L-5 and Super-400. The early impressions made by these lavish instruments would linger and later resurface to influence Mark in the design and construction of his own archtop guitars.
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