Review: José Luis Romanillos Guitars, The Guijosa Period, 1993-2015

by Mónica Esparza

Originally published in American Lutherie #142, 2021



José Luis Romanillos Guitars, The Guijosa Period, 1993–2015
Josep Melo i Valls
ISBN 978-84-09-14184-5
Barcelona: Spain, MeloGuitars Editions, 2020
Standard edition: €350. Signed deluxe edition: €700
Available from editions.Meloguitars.com

After twenty-five years in the making, José Luis Romanillos Guitars, The Guijosa Period, 1993–2015 is now available. It is an outstanding work in its visual beauty as well as the depth of explicitly detailed information presented both in photos and verbally in Spanish and English. The large book/box set (39CM H × 29CM W × 9CM T total) includes a substantial book with foldouts, plus an attractive box that contains twenty-five folded photographs of the full-scale front and back views of each instrument. Twenty guitars, four vihuelas, and one rebec are presented as well as an additional foldout that shows full-scale top and back bracing patterns and neck and fingerboard profiles from Romanillos’ Torres and Hauser models.

I got involved with this project in 2011 when the author, Josep Melo, a notable instrument maker and a personal friend, called me from his shop in Barcelona. He wanted to visit California to photograph and study in great detail a guitar built by José Romanillos for Pepe Romero. Josep said that he was going to write a book about the guitars that José Romanillos built after he moved back to his native Spain from England. He asked me to contact the Romero family to try to get an appointment to see Pepe’s 1993 “La Compañera,” the first guitar José completed after his return to Spain. Needless to say, that was quite a favor to ask. He had a lot of confidence that I would be able to just pick up the phone and make this happen. Well, I did.