As an acoustic guitar player, I’ve played Norman guitars and Godin guitars and Boucher guitars and Seagull and La Patrie guitars, and I knew they were all connected somehow, but I was never sure how. This is a chronological description of the relationships between some of Canada’s best luthiers (guitar-makers) rrom a regular poster on the Acoustic Guitar group on Facebook:
“Robert Godin met Normand Boucher on a hunting trip to La Patrie around 1969-70, maybe 71. Robert was then a salesman at La Tosca music store in Montreal. Normand Boucher was then a carpenter, door and windows and cabinet maker in La Patrie. Building / designing guitars took more and more of his spare time.
He wanted to design an adjustable angle neck so that musicians could adjust their guitars as needed in a few minutes. Normand Boucher and Robert Godin both started working together in 1972, Normand running his shop, Robert being the exclusive distributor through his company Sibécor.
Even before that, Robert started to sell Norman guitars through La Tosca. Norman guitars were a smash hit in the province of Quebec, every player wanted one, tons of artists using them. Robert Godin started to build his own guitars in 1979 with Claude Boucher, son of Normand: Kamouraska and Lys, which later became La Patrie and Seagull. Claude designed and ran the shop, Robert on the road selling. Now we had in La Patrie the Unisonic shop up the hill (Robert Godin/Claude Boucher) and the Norman shop down the hill (Normand Boucher), All distributed by Sibécor (Robert Godin).
The early 80’s were tough times for the acoustic guitar industry. In 1982 the Unisonic / Sibécor companies were shut down, Claude Boucher left and Robert with fresh investors restarted under a new company structure: Guitabec (the shop) / Lasido (distribution), that is when the Kamouraska / Lys lines changed names to La Patrie / Seagull. Meanwhile down the hill in September 1980 the Norman shop burned down to the ground completely. Normand Boucher rebuilt the shop and tooling, and tried to restructure a decent distribution network. Claude Boucher came back to the Norman shop in 1983.
Times were hard as there was also a general economic recession. Eventually Normand Boucher lost control of his shop around 1986 and the new management who had no experience in the making of musical instruments. Struggled trying to survive, eventually, Robert Godin ended up buying Norman in 1989. Claude left Norman in 1986 and bought the village’s restaurant. Richard Boucher (Normand’s other son) stayed at the Norman shop till the end. Richard and Claude would years later start up the « Boucher » line of guitars, run today by Robin Boucher, Normand’s nephew.”