Lyle Mayfield #25 Guitalin 1975 Natural

This is #25 of the original 100 Guitalins that Lyle Mayfield made.  It picture is in the Lyle Mayfield museum with the others he made. This one was completely restored by Lyle Mayfields grandson David Smith, he used all the original parts he could and made new pieces where they where needed.  He also built this beautiful case that it is in. Below is information about Lyle Mayfield:

The instrument was invented by  of Greenville, Illinois. It was originally conceived as a toy instrument in October 1962 for his 3-year-old son, Layne Mayfield, when he asked for a guitar to play. Lyle was known for designing and building hybrid folk instruments which combined two or three instrument features into a single instrument. In Lyle's personal writings discovered after his death, he describes the origins of the guitalin as follows:

"I decided to build a toy instrument for him to play with. In my workshop I had some 1/4” mahogany wall paneling, some banjo parts, some mandolin parts, and some pine wood from a packing crate. From these components I fashioned a simple instrument that was somewhat wedge-shaped. Using a mandolin set of machine heads and a mandolin bridge I strung it with four sets of duals over a guitar sized fingerboard. While building the instrument, I realized that if I just left it untuned my small son would be beating on a dischordant set of strings. I decided to tune it to an open chord...G."

Lyle goes on further to say in his writings that "when [he] tuned the instrument up the sound was so impressive [he] decided to keep it as a working instrument. It was at that time that Layne lost his instrument."

A few notable  have played the instrument and have found it noteworthy. Among these are  (composer of "" and ""),  winner  and , who featured the Mayfield guitalin on their album "Prairie Bluegrass" on the tune "Barbara Allen" from the label , originally recorded in 1962 for  in Clinton, Illinois. Recordings of these musicians with the guitalin can be found on the "history" page at the Mayfield Music Company website.

Collection of Mayfield instruments, April 1980

In the 1960s, Lyle and Doris Mayfield were involved in the  Campus Folksong Club and were associated with  during that time.In the mid-1960s, Lyle was credited for bringing the native music of Illinois to the Campus Folksong Club and appeared on recordings that the club produced, including the "Green Fields of Illinois" record. He and Doris regularly appeared in performances held by the Folksong Club, commonly referred to as "folk sings". They also volunteered their time and talents to perform for other events and venues. In 1976, Lyle and Doris Mayfield, along with their son Layne, were invited by the  to represent Southern Illinois at the American Bicentennial . It was at this event that they had a good opportunity to showcase some of their unique folk instruments; namely the guitalin and guinjo. Throughout most of the 1970s, the Mayfields devoted much time to preserving traditional southern Illinois music and folklore. Additionally, they were the founders and principle sponsors of the annual Southern Illinois Folk Convention in the early 1970s.

The craft of building the instruments was passed on to younger members of the family who continue to produce them out of both  and , Texas. Martin Smith of Greenville, Illinois and Nathan Smith (Lyle Mayfield's youngest grandson) of  are co-owners of Mayfield Music Company. As a team, they continue to improve upon the original Mayfield designs and are currently in the process of preparing new hybrid folk instrument designs for release starting in mid-to-late 2014.

Modern Use[]

In the summer of 2013, the instrument was discovered by indie folk musician , who contacted Nathan Smith, current owner of Mayfield Music Company, to inquire about having one built for him. On March 31, 2015, Sufjan released his album, , which features two Mayfield guitalins. In April 2015, Sufjan began his tour for the album, and the guitalins made an appearance in this tour. This marks the first use of a guitalin on a major record since 1964, when  featured one on their song, "Barbara Allen", from their album "Prairie Bluegrass", released under .