Maple Leaf Music

Specialties

Maple Leaf Music is New England’s premier stringed instrument shop located at 23 Elliot St, Brattleboro Vermont. Maple Leaf Music features new and vintage American made acoustic and electric guitars, mandolins, banjos and ukuleles.

History

Established in 1979.

In 1979, after 5 years of building banjos with the Arthur E. Smith Banjo Company, Kate Spencer decided to start Maple Leaf Music in Brattleboro, Vermont. After several moves around town, the shop settled at 23 Elliot Street in a beautiful Victorian building with original tin ceilings. Over the next 33 years Spencer worked to establish the shop as a hub for fine stringed instruments, and in recent years, with an increased presence due to the internet, Maple Leaf Music has become not only one of the premier small music shops in New England, but in the country.

In June of 2012 longtime Maple Leaf employee Christian Glines purchased the business from Spencer, upon her decision to retire. Glines remains faithful to the original concept of a high quality stringed instrument shop, and since taking over has put an increased emphasis on Vermont based builders, such as Whetstone Guitars, Fielding Banjos, and Rigel Mandolins. He also re-​established the electric guitar department, featuring a ran

Meet the Business Owner

Christian G.

Business Owner

Christian first came into contact with American roots music while attending Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington. Coming off a stint of studying Jazz at Berkley College of Music, Christian found it refreshing to meet so many young talented musicians playing various styles of roots music like Gypsy Swing, Bluegrass and Old Time. Evergreen was a fertile ground for musicians; many of which have become respected players in the field and he flourished in this collective energy. This spurred him to study ethnomusicology where he traced many of these music’s back to the countries that they originated from. Christian became focused on the point in time when these music’s were brought to America and underwent a metamorphosis that resulted in what we now know to be American music. His repertoire draws from a blend of blues, swing, jug, honky tonk, bluegrass, and old time. Check out his current band Jug-​Tonk Stompers.