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Carmine Street Guitars, in its current Greenwich Village location since 1990, is one of the jewels of a fast-dissolving bohemian Manhattan. Rick Kelly, its proprietor and luthier, makes his electric guitars from resonant wood he’s snatched from older buildings around town. Several scenes in this warm and affectionate documentary depict him realizing a long-held dream: that of carving an ax out of a plank from McSorley’s Ale House.

Working with the writer Len Blum, the director Ron Mann (“Comic Book Confidential”) sets the action over the course of a week in the life of the shop, giving the owner, his co-workers and various visitors (some famed in the world of music, others not) opportunities to talk craft and to philosophize about the values of community the shop embodies. While this approach yields results that are sometimes a little stilted, the movie is mostly as sweet as it is informative.

Although one of the many luminaries in pictures on the wall of Kelly’s shop is Les Paul, the design Kelly favors for his own guitars derives from Leo Fender, specifically his spartan Telecaster. “Hard to beat a Tele,” the guitar giant Bill Frisell quietly enthuses as he prepares to play a Kelly design. Frisell’s subsequent rendition of “Surfer Girl” is persuasive.

Director

Ron Mann

Writer

Len Blum

Stars

Eszter Balint, Christine Bougie, Nels Cline, Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Friedberger

Running Time

1h 20m

Genre

Documentary