High-End, Pre-owned Mandolins and Other Acoustic Instruments

MandoMutt.com is an online musical instrument shop specializing in “high-end” and small builder acoustic instruments and is owned and operated by Kevin D. Douglas w/ an assist from MandoMutt (aka Sadie-Lou) our goofy Boxer dog who loves high end mandolins, particularly the Gibson Master Model! Our guitar expert, 3M (MandoMutt’s Mom, aka Roxanne) passed away at the age of thirteen in December of 2009. Recently God blessed us with a new mutt, Ms. Delilah Rose, a Rhodesian Ridgeback/Doberman mix that is undergoing extensive training and hopes to be our next guitar expert at some point in the future. At this time, she mainly bites everything and everybody, pee’s on the carpet and aggravates the crap out of MandoMutt.

About me, Kevin (aka KD)

I’ve been on this wonderful planet for nearly half a century and as far back as I can remember, I’ve always loved music, musicians and the instruments they play.  I grew up loving rock & roll music, but as an adult I started expanding my musical horizon’s, so to speak. I became interested in the Blues, Cajun and Zydeco, Country & Western, Swing and eventually Bluegrass music. At some point in my early thirties, Bluegrass became my favorite music. I really love the tight harmonies (particularly in Gospel Bluegrass) and the incredible acoustic instrumentals.

Sometime in the early ’90’s I attended a bluegrass concert headlined by the Seldom Scene. I fell in love with their high energy brand of bluegrass music and in particular with their mandolin player (and high tenor singer), the late John Duffey and knew that one day I wanted to play the mandolin. However, a fellow I worked with at the time was a weekend bluegrass picker and well versed at several instruments, suggested that I start with the guitar. So I went out and purchased my first guitar, a mahogany Martin Sigma and within a year bought my first “real” Martin, a SPD-16R.

Around sixteen years ago, I was playing/singing in a local bluegrass group and decided the time was right, and bought my first mandolin, a pac-rim piece of junk which I found quite difficult to note and chord. After struggling with this mando and nearly giving up on many ocassions, I bought my first American made mandolin from Dennis Vance at The Mandolin Store and I was hooked.

About twelve years ago I started buying/selling guitars and mandolins as a hobby (and as a viable alternative to divorce) and found that I absolutely loved it. Early in the Spring of ’08, I was laid-off from my day job and decided to try and have a go at selling instruments full time and God has blessed me immensely. Today I’m doing what I love to do and every day is like Christmas.

In the early stages of selling musical instruments, I decided to add a photo of one of my Boxer dogs (the goofy one) to my on-line listings and the rest is history. Today, many people are familiar with our oldest dog, MandoMutt (her real name is Sadie-Lou) and upon hiring Matt Everley of m.e.designlab to create and build a website for my instrument sales, we were up and running full time in cyber space. During the design phase, Matt asked what I wanted to name the new website and I knew without a doubt that I’d call it MandoMutt.com.