Southpaw Guitars isn't just a Houston shop — it's the place lefties make a pilgrimage to, and you built it from a carpenter's side hustle into what's billed as the world's largest left-handed guitar store.
The origin story of Southpaw Guitars
In 1980, with no previous business experience, James Duncan and Bill Townsend quit commercial carpentry and opened a little resale shop in Southwest Houston — first "Traders Corner," then "Gold 'n Guitar Exchange." After about ten years, Bill headed to Austin while I doubled down on the niche nobody else wanted: left-handed guitars.
That focus stuck. The store settled at 5813 Bellaire Blvd Houston Texas — and grew into a wall-to-wall inventory that you described to Guitar World as "around 1,000" instruments. Listings still call it the largest left-handed guitar store in the world, with "over 900 in-stock left-handed guitars".
What makes "Southpaw" different
- Lefty-first, not lefty-afterthought. Electrics, acoustics, basses, classicals, even accordions — all built for southpaws. Your recent Instagram tour makes the point plain: "every guitar in this video is left-handed".
- Buy-sell-trade, lessons & repairs. The new neon window lights you put up spell it out in pink, green and blue: BUY SELL TRADE, LESSONS & REPAIRS, LEFT HANDED GUITARS.
- A museum you can play. In 2018 you were holding a 1964 lefty P-Bass as the coolest piece in the shop, and your sales history includes a '50s Strat now owned by Steven Seagal ("Woody") and what you called the only original reverse lefty Firebird 7 you know of.
## The culture around Southpaw Guitars
Reviews read like travelogues: "dozens upon dozens, probably hundreds of left-handed guitars hanging on the walls... Us lefties rarely get to see more than 1 or 2 in a store".
That reputation brings players in from everywhere:
- Ted Sablay of The Killers picked up ten guitars in one visit
- Andreas von Holst from Germany's Die Toten Hosen stops by for two or three every year
Inside the shop, it's still a family operation. You marked 45 years in 2025 with a video celebrating the legacy — "People are STILL making videos about us" — and this June you posted Larry and Omar for "25 years of Southpaw management," arm-in-arm in front of the Martin sign and Roland amp.
