Posted on January 6, 2010May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Guitars: From the Renaissance to Rock by Tom Evans and Mary Ann Evans Review: Guitars: From the Renaissance to Rock by Tom Evans and Mary Ann Evans Reviewed by C.F. Casey Originally published in American Lutherie #2, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Guitars: From the Renaissance to Rock Tom Evans and Mary Ann Evans Paddington Press Ltd. 1977 Out of print (1999) Of all the popular (as opposed to strictly scholarly) histories of the guitar, this is in my opinion by far the best. Laid out in five broad sections (classical guitar, at 150 pages the longest; flamenco guitar; the guitar in Latin America; steel string acoustic guitar; and electric guitar), the book goes into considerable detail on the musical styles, composers and performers, social background, and styles of construction of the instrument. Regarding this last, luthiers will be especially interested in the “Gallery” section of each chapter, consisting of photographs, measurements, and very thorough descriptions of typical and exceptional instruments from each phase of the guitar’s history. In addition, there are visits to the workshop of classical guitar maker José Romanillos and the factory of the Gibson company. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 6, 2010May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: The Flamenco Guitar by David George Review: The Flamenco Guitar by David George Reviewed by David Macias Originally published in American Lutherie #12, 1987 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 The Flamenco Guitar David George Society of Spanish Studies Madrid, Spain, 1969 Out of print (1999) Do not let the title of this book fool you. Although it is being reviewed in American Lutherie, this is not a “how-to-build” book. The making of a flamenco guitar, from the tree to the French polishing, is very well described by Manuel Reyes of Cordoba, but in very general terms. Particularly enjoyable to the flamenco enthusiast is a short history of the elusive and mysterious music of the Gypsies of Southern Spain, called flamenco. This book will also be interesting to some classical guitarists who at one time or another have had the urge to try a bit of flamenco, and perhaps it will help to clarify a few mysteries about what flamenco is or is not. To the nonflamenco guitarist, all flamenco guitarists seem to be part of a cult. Perhaps this is because of all the Gypsy lore and legends and the way of life associated with the art of flamenco. Personally, the only way I can explain this cult thing is that because of flamenco’s East Indian, Middle Eastern, and North African origin, it is immediately different to Western ears. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 6, 2010May 27, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: 1996 & 1997 Luthier’s Art Review: 1996 The Luthier’s Art & 1997 The Luthier’s Art Reviewed by Woody Vernice Originally published in American Lutherie #55, 1998 1996 The Luthier’s Art & 1997 The Luthier’s Art String Letter Publishing 1996: 111 pages 1997: 141 pages, ISBN 1-890490-01-6 $19.95 per volume Available from Acoustic Guitar magazine These two lovely collections of instrument photos represent the participants of the Healdsburg Guitar Festivals of their respective years. Since the books came out well before the events, it’s obvious that the photos were submitted by the luthiers and weren’t taken at the shows. I’m sure the photos are better for it, but these aren’t necessarily the guitars you would have seen at the festivals. As one of the sponsors of the festivals, Acoustic Guitar magazine has tried hard to make the guitar a cultural icon and the festivals a matter of artistic importance. These books are compiled to look like gallery or auction catalogs. The layout is formal and the photographic reproduction very good. If the collection is biased towards Left Coastians, the books are more interesting for it. The progressives and weirdoes lend an air of excitement and airiness to the pages, though they may send some staid readers on a quick search for a Martin copy just to regain their balance. All in all, however, there seems to be a lot more luthiers happily chugging away within the tradition than pushing the envelope. This is a pretty bunch of instruments with enough ideas in either volume to keep any builder thinking for a long time. The photo spread is followed by a short biography of each luthier. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 5, 2010May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars by Jonathan Kellerman Review: With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars by Jonathan Kellerman Reviewed by Walter Carter Originally published in American Lutherie #101, 2010 With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars by Jonathan Kellerman ISBN: 978-0345499783 Ballantine Books 2008 Best-selling novelist Jonathan Kellerman is also well-known for his guitar collection, particularly his affinity for the acoustic Hawaiian guitars of Knutsen and Weissenborn. Photos of those guitars make up a significant portion of With Strings Attached, but there are plenty of other unanticipated highlights among the book’s 344 pages. We’ve all seen books filled with fine guitars from impressive collections. The photos of Kellerman’s guitars by Jonathan Exley are exquisite, and the book certainly lives up to its subtitle, The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars, on the strength of photos alone. But what sets this book apart are — just as you would expect from a novelist — the stories. Much of this reviewer’s work was done for him in the introductions by Andy Summers (guitarist with The Police) and Kellerman’s son Jesse (also a novelist) and Kellerman himself. Summers tells of a visit to the studio that houses the collection. “Jon began telling me about them,” Summers writes. “For every guitar, he had a great story.... Each guitar in Jon’s collection seemed to have a true and unique character, which — to me, anyway — is the mark of a great instrument.” Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 5, 2010May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Classical Guitar Making, A Modern Approach to Traditional Design by John S. Bogdanovich Review: Classical Guitar Making, A Modern Approach to Traditional Design by John S. Bogdanovich Reviewed by John Mello Originally published in American Lutherie #95, 2008 Classical Guitar Making, A Modern Approach to Traditional John S. Bogdanovich ISBN (hardcover): 9781402720604 Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2007, $29.95 Classical Guitar Making, A Modern Approach To Traditional Design by John S. Bogdanovich is a hardbound 310-page volume filled with beautifully clear photography that amply illustrates the detailed text. While the back cover proclaims that the author will “help you develop all the necessary skills, even if you’ve never made anything more complicated than a school woodworking project,” a fairly high degree of proficiency in both hand and power tools is assumed, particularly regarding the use of hand planes. You’ll have to bring your own chops and/or be willing to develop them on the fly. The tone throughout is personal, almost conversational, and we are presented with a lot of biographical material and philosophical ruminations that may seem extraneous to the physical task at hand, but for someone considering a long term engagement with the craft rather than a one-off build, it’s one of the book’s strengths. As a novice, I would have loved to know how a working professional got started, influences shaping their sonic and aesthetic choices, and the many facets of the mysterious lifelong refining of one’s craft. “Part One — Preparation” includes discussions of guitar anatomy with an emphasis on the interrelatedness of the parts, wood types and selection, and shop requirements, including brief descriptions and photos of recommended vises, benches, and generic and specialty power and hand tools. There are clear, dimensioned plans for making a number of specialty jigs, bench tools, and specialty items such as shop-made calipers and sanding disks. One small problem arises in the author’s discussion of the need for concave sanding disks of 15' and 25'. Fabricating these is discussed only perfunctorily, with uncharacteristically no illustrations, and no indication of how to obtain or make the illustrated radius sticks. If we take the author’s suggestion and simply purchase the disks we can certainly make our sticks from them, but the degree of back and top arch is an important, alterable variable, and knowing how to generate alternative radii, short of getting a 25' board, a pencil, and a big room, would be useful. This may be a little beyond the scope of an introductory tutorial, but the growing current reliance on commercial concave disks of limited selection to set the back, while a facile solution to a process Irving Sloane once described as “exacting and tedious,” may lose sight of the fact that many of the great historic and contemporary classical guitar makers did and do not set the back in a uniform dome with its attendant reduction of side depth at the tail block. End of rant. Sorry. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
