Posted on January 11, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: David Rubio In Memoriam: David Rubio December 17, 1934 – October 21, 2000 by Paul Fischer Originally published in American Lutherie #65, 2001 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Born in London, David Rubio was educated at Whittingham College, Brighton, and then studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, but gave up because of color blindness. His other abiding interest at the time was the guitar, and in particular, flamenco. Self-taught, he spent time playing in London coffee bars before deciding to go to Spain, where he played with traditional singers and dancers. To supplement his meager income, he began trading wood between guitar makers and, in the process, learned something of the craft and art of guitar making. The hours spent in these workshops was not wasted, and what he witnessed and experienced, further enhanced by his photographic memory, would be put to good use some years later. He was invited to go with the Rafael de Cordoba ballet company on a tour of New York in the early ’60s, and on completion of the tour, Rubio remained in New York, having met Neste, who later became his wife. He had been born David Joseph Spinks, but during his time in Spain had acquired the sobriquet “Rubio,” a reference to his pale north European complexion. He later Hispanicized his second given name, Joseph, to José. It was during this period in the early ’60s that he decided at first to repair guitars, then quickly moved to making them. Working from a garret in Greenwich Village, he built these first instruments on a chest of drawers using tools purchased from Woolworths. The guitars carried the label: “José Rubio Constructor de Guitarras.” A stroke of good fortune occurred when Julian Bream brought him an instrument for repair and was much impressed by a flamenco guitar just finished. By the mid-’60s Rubio had made numerous guitars and had a reputation as “the gentleman guitar maker,” a reference to his habit of working in smart clothes. When I joined him in 1969, he still wore a velvet crimson waistcoat and bow tie while working. The connection with Bream led to an invitation to return to England and to use a recently renovated barn on Bream’s estate as a workshop. Rubio warmed to the idea, and in 1967 moved all his equipment (by then very professional) across the Atlantic and took up residence in rural Dorset. Photo courtesy of Classical Guitar Magazine, UK. Much influenced by the instruments of Simplicio, Santos Hernández, and Bouchet, by the time he was settled in his new workshop in England, Rubio’s guitars had taken on an identity very much their own, and now carried the label, “David J. Rubio, Luthier.” Working closely with Bream, his reputation and confidence grew rapidly. But it was Rubio’s desire to have his own workshop, and by 1968 he had found a property in Oxfordshire requiring much restoration, but ideal for his purpose. With his usual concern for detail, a 15th-century house with barn was sympathetically converted into an ideal workshop and residence. Since his early days in Greenwich Village, Rubio had moved back to England, changed workshops twice, and established himself as a leading guitar and lute maker in just five years. That, by any standards, was an impressive achievement and perhaps enough for most people, but not Rubio. At that time, the early music scene was burgeoning, and there was demand for good copies of historical instruments. This was why, in January 1969, I presented myself at his door, informing him that I was a qualified harpsichord maker seeking to extend my experience into fretted instruments. To my surprise and delight, he said his next project was to make harpsichords. When could I start? Grass never grew beneath Rubio’s feet, so with my experience in harpsichord making, we began an instrument almost immediately and presented it to the customer some months later. Other instruments soon followed — theorbos, vihuelas, citterns, pandora, as well as lutes and guitars. With the rapidly increasing demand for all instruments, two makers could never hope to satisfy demand, so the decision was made to build another workshop, specifically for harpsichords, and to use the existing one for small fretted instruments. The workforce was increased from two to nine, inevitably putting great pressure on Rubio’s time, so I became manager, which freed him to concentrate on his next project, bowed instruments. Creating yet another workshop for himself, in 1972 he began making Baroque violins and cellos, later followed by viola da gambas. With his increasing interest in bowed instruments, only a limited number of guitars and lutes were made by him personally; most carried the initials P.F. and a smaller number, the initials K.S. (Kazuo Sato). By the mid-’70s, Rubio’s thoughts had turned to his long-term future and a desire to return to working solo. In 1979, he left Oxfordshire for Cambridge. As the market for harpsichords declined, his interest turned to the modern violin, and these he continued to make until the last few months of his life. Parallel to violin making, he undertook research into the varnishing techniques of the Cremonese masters, as well as acoustic testing for guitars and other instruments. For this work, Cambridge University conferred on him an honorary master’s degree. During his years in Oxfordshire and Cambridge he made a relatively small number of guitars and lutes, but come the ’90s, his restless energy brought him full circle and back to his first choice, this time to something of a hybrid among guitars, the 8-string guitar, but not in its more usual form. In collaboration with the guitarist Paul Galbraith, an instrument using an asymmetric fingerboard and bridge, such as was used on the orpharion of the 17th century, was developed and christened the Brahms guitar. The many and varied instruments made by David Rubio will, of course, remain as a testament to his creative energy and talent, and so will the many younger makers who were influenced by his ideas, inspired by his achievements, and encouraged by his example. David Joseph Rubio died of cancer in his workshop on October 21, 2000. He is survived by Neste, and his daughter, Benita, from an earlier marriage.
Posted on January 11, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: Mario Maccaferri In Memoriam: Mario Maccaferri Passed on April 16, 1993 by John Monteleone Originally published in American Lutherie #35, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 My first contact with Mario Maccafferri was fourteen years ago, the result of looking up Mastro Industries in the Yellow Pages. I already knew by then that he was the creator of the wonderful guitars made by Selmer of Paris which were made famous by Django Reinhardt. His plant on Webster Avenue in the Bronx, a city block in size, was a shrine to a self-made man. The exterior of the building had the look of a factory built in the forties and dedicated to serious manufacturing. There were several large silos behind the factory which once held the many different colors of plastic pellets used in injection molding machines. The factory had many rooms and seemed to ramble on and on. Once inside, I walked into a room which once had forty huge molding machines running, each one the size of a locomotive. At this time there was only one of these machines in operation and it appeared to be the last gasp at the end of a long and successful, not to mention prosperous, era; The Golden Era of Plastics. I am referring to a special time of invention and pioneering, a time when Mario was a major contributor to the field of injection molding plastic. He proudly showed me the complete Mastro line of marbleized plastic wall tiles, clothes pins, toys, mosaics, clothes hangers, acoustic ceiling tiles and musical instruments. Mario was the holder of over fifty U.S. patents for these items and the processes by which to manufacture them. Among his many inventions, he was very proud of his plastic ukulele. I discovered a warehouse room filled with several thousand guitars still sealed in their original cartons since 1954. There were many other rooms that were filled with all sorts of machinery and assembly lines. And there was the reed section. I was at that time unaware of the French American Reed Co. and its history. On the walls of Mario’s office were many personalized photos of all of the great saxophone and clarinet artists of the day. In the early years, the big band years, Mario ghost-manufactured reeds for every one of the other reed companies. It was there at one of the reed machines that I met Mario’s wife, Maria. She was a hard working woman of grace and beauty. And she was ready to revive the reed business that had gone by the wayside in the ’50s when the plastics plant was in full swing. But now, the plant was winding down all operations and Mario was retired and getting ready to take a rest. I visited Mario quite often back then in the early ’80s. I would take the day off and jump in the car. After several visits he asked me if I could make him a guitar. He handed me a blueprint of his classical cutaway model. I was at the same time both surprised and eager to accept the challenge. While I was making this guitar for him, Mastro was getting ready to hold an auction. This was in November 1981. It was a sad time for him and Maria. Their whole life was on the block and before them, disappearing piece by piece. This was yet another transitional time in Mario’s life and I was there to watch it happen. Mario Maccaferri, left, with John Monteleone, 1985. Photo courtesy of John Monteleone. After I completed his new guitar I brought it to him. Upon seeing it his eyes lit up. And then I began to witness the intensity and devotion that he had when he was back in Italy, young and in his prime. Right away he wanted to make a change to the guitar to make it respond easier, to “wake it up,” as he would say. Without hesitation we went into the shop where he had retained some of his benches and tools from the auction hammer and I cut off the back. Time was of the essence so I was compelled to use a bayonet saw. I was sick about having to do this because I had used some of my best Brazilian rosewood for the back and sides. But there was no time to waste and it had to come off quick. And quick it did, ZIP! All of the fan bars were cut out and he made new fan set and glued them in and secured them with masking tape. We came back after lunch and made a new three-piece back and had it glued on with the tape. Masking tape was all that we had. We didn’t have any clamps on hand, since I hadn’t planned on operating so speedily on a guitar that I just delivered. Mario had it strung up the next morning and called me to tell me that it made a good improvement. We had a lot of laughs about it later on. Well, that was the way it was with Mario, and I couldn’t have been happier because it soon got the juices flowing for the next project. I learned an invaluable lesson from him that it was more important to follow your instincts than to stand on pride alone. After a little prodding, I convinced Mario to make some wood guitars again based on his original designs. It was decided that we would make six classical and six jazz guitars. He had some forms for the back and side laminating but we didn’t have any veneers to work with. So we piled into the big green Cadillac and hot-footed it over to Constantine’s where we picked out enough Indian rosewood and poplar for the whole project. The next day I brought up some tools and clamps and we got right into it. The level of excitement was tremendous for me. I was about to learn first hand from the master himself how to make a Maccafferri guitar. And I could tell that Mario was feeling like a kid again and it helped him, I think, to get his mind off the retirement thing. Maria was happy to see him get involved in something constructive. Mario and Maria always went to work together every day since they first met back in 1936. He regularly wore a suit and tie to work. And right up to 1993 it was no different. I will never forget the great times that we had. Lunch time was usually a time to relax in Mario’s office while Maria would prepare a simple continental lunch for the three of us. There was always a guitar handy and Mario would play. His talents extended beyond the workbench as well. Not many people were aware of what a great guitar player he was. His style was very classical, romantic, melodic, and confident. His technique was impressive, to say the least. It was such an honor to not only make guitars alongside one of the greatest figures in the guitar world, but to be serenaded by him too. I cherished those lunches with just the three of us. After coffee, desert, and guitar talk, we were off to the shop again to see if the glue was dry yet. He carried one of those little metal aspirin boxes in his pocket that jangled with his every step. Inside the box were his heart pills that he must have been taking for the last forty years. He also loved hard candy and always had one for each of us after lunch. It was Mario’s wish to go into the guitar business and he offered me his cooperation, his plant, and his name. I faced an extremely difficult decision. Was I going to make Maccafferri guitars, or Monteleone mandolins and guitars? I decided to follow my own destiny, but not without utilizing my experience with Mario. His designs were a big influence on the Hot Club and Django models that I went on to produce later. Although I went on my own I remained in close contact with Mario and continued my visits to the Bronx. All of those people who knew Mario were constantly amazed by his level of energy and great stamina. Once we had finished making the twelve guitars, I showed Mario my first violin that I had just completed. His reaction was to show me his secret stash of four sets of violin wood that he had brought with him when he escaped from Europe in 1939 just before the Germans invaded France. His face lit up once again and we were suddenly in the violin business. This renewed interest in the violin instantly sparked an old challenge in Mario. He had always wanted to make a plastic violin that would posses all of the finest attributes of a fine old Cremonese instrument. With this in mind, he drew a set of prints for the molds and went to work without hesitation. He was by then only 88 years old. He debuted the first plastic violin at Carnegie Hall on March 8, 1990. Mario continued to pour all of his concentrated efforts into further developing the plastic violin until his dying day. He was disturbed by the fact that he could no longer play the guitar. His age was beginning to catch up to him after the move of the plant to Mount Vernon. He didn’t let it get him down. He would always call and say to me, “Can I come and work for you?” I would take it as a compliment and then think to myself, “If only we had met fifty years ago!” And then I’d imagine, “What if?” I had always thought of Mario going on forever. No one expected it to end so quickly. Time has its own way of doing things and it finally caught up with Mario Maccafferri on April 16, 1993. At his funeral, from the choir loft, a solo violin (the same one that was played at Carnegie Hall) touched our hearts with some of the pieces of music that he loved to play on the guitar. It was a befitting farewell and tribute to a friend who gave all he could to anyone who was willing to listen. I often think of Mario as I go about my work. It’s like he’s there working with me sometimes. It was the greatest privilege of my life to have known and worked with him. It was an experience that I will never forget. Mario leaves behind his beautiful and loving family. He was very close to them, especially his Maria. We all adored him. And we shall all miss him.
Posted on January 11, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: Lance McCollum In Memoriam: Lance McCollum March 1, 1958–February 1, 2009 by Harvey Leach Originally published in American Lutherie #98, 2009 We are members of one of the greatest fraternities on earth. Luthiers get to take nature’s greatest materials and reshape them into things of beauty and functionality. Our creations leave our mark on society because for each piece to reach fulfillment it must be passed into the hands of a second artist, the player. Lance McCollum was a builder of great guitars. Some of the players of his instruments include Roger Hodgson of Supertramp, Martin Barre of Jethro Tull, Winfield Champion Todd Hallawell, and Grammy winners Mark Mancina and Doug Smith. In his career Lance built approximately 250 guitars. Lance first visited my shop about fifteen years ago. With him he had his first two guitars. As is true with most of our early efforts, they were somewhat crude examples of what was to come. However, the maker’s talent was unmistakable. Some people build guitars to try to recreate the past. Others, like Lance, try to expand the boundaries and push the limits of what has been done in the past while still keeping the traditional look and feel of a great guitar. Photo by Kayleigh McCollum. Lance’s specialty was in the creation of guitars that had “piano-like” tone. He was also well known for his more unusual pieces such as baritone, harp, and double-neck guitars. His “interwoven” rosettes were simple yet elegant and became his trademark. Lance could always be counted on if you needed a source for something, be it great guitar wood or a great restaurant. Lance was a “people person,” a fact that was never more evident than at a benefit concert a month after he passed away. It showed in the level of talent that came to pay tribute, and in the people who came to watch. Like all of us, his days were numbered. But like those of us who choose this profession, his work will live on and only get better with age.
Posted on January 11, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: José Ramírez IV In Memoriam: José Ramírez IV May 1953 — June 2000 by Tim Miklaucic Originally published in American Lutherie #63, 2000 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 I met José Ramírez IV for the first time in the early 1980s. He was thirty-two at the time, a man of average height with broad shoulders, a full beard, and thick fingers. Our first dialogue was about the size of the Ramírez guitars; I complained about the difficulty of playing them. The bearded Spaniard insisted that they had to be exactly as they were and that reducing the string length would diminish the sound. I remember he described the hands of Yamashita, showing me how small they were, and offered that as proof that playing a Ramírez was only a question of proper technique. That was how our personal relationship started more than fifteen years ago. José Ramírez IV was born in 1953, the son of one of the greatest guitar makers of the 20th century, José Ramírez III. His father had built guitars for practically every accomplished guitarist of his generation, including Segovia, Parkening, and Bream. Ramírez IV grew up in a home where Segovia and his most respected students were both friends and clients of the family business. He knew that if he were ever to become a respected luthier, he would have to please the Maestro and those who followed him. In 1971 he went to work in the Ramírez workshop at the age of eighteen. At first he worked as an apprentice, but in 1977, he became the “oficial de 1a” — a title given to the most accomplished master craftsmen. In 1979, several guitars were brought to Andrés Segovia to choose the one he preferred. Unknown to Segovia, one of those instruments was made by the young José, and it was that guitar which he selected. The young maker was so elated that he dedicated it to the Maestro and added this to the label. (The instrument was recently sold to a collector for $50,000.) Still, Ramírez IV believed that he had only succeeded in building the same instrument designed by his father and wondered how he could improve on it. Soon after, he began to consider how to make the instrument easier to play while preserving the quality of sound and the overall volume. In 1986, he produced a smaller instrument (C-86) which had a smaller scale length and a smaller body as well. The sound was charming, but didn’t have the same robust character as the original “1a” guitars. He still had some work to do. The Ramírez workshop (l to r): Ricardo Sáenz, Marisa Sanzano, José Enrique Ramírez IV, Amalia Ramírez, Carmelo Llerena, Marcos Moyano (apprentice), Cayetano Álvarez (retired February 2000), and Fernando Morcuende. Photo courtesy of Amalia Ramírez. In 1988, José IV and his sister Amalia took over the business from their father. Amalia had also been trained in guitar building along with her brother. She, too, had made superb instruments under the direction of her father, but also had strong business skills, which allowed José IV to concentrate on a revised construction of their concert model guitar. The same year at the Music Messe in Frankfurt, I visited José IV and Amalia. Once again, we discussed the smaller Ramírez design and shared ideas about the relationship between volume of the instrument, size of the box, and string length. It was also during this Music Messe that I met Ana, their trusted translator, who later became my wife. “Pepe” and I had many differences of opinion over the years. In less than a few months time he offered me the exclusive distribution agreement in Taiwan and then angrily took it away when he discovered that my first guitar was going to pass through the USA on its way to the South China Sea. That was the other side of his absolute loyalty, both as a friend and in business. It was only after I became his exclusive distributor in the USA that I could fully appreciate this part of his character. During the early ’90s, Pepe and Amalia were rethinking and rebuilding the business from an operation under their father’s direction making 1,000 guitars a year to today’s workshop making 120 guitars per year. This was no easy feat in a country where it is nearly impossible to downsize a company due to the strong social democratic labor laws. Somehow they did it, kept the business going, and continued to improve on the quality control of the instruments. In 1993, they moved the business back to a smaller workshop with only a few journeymen supervised by both Pepe and Amalia. It is ironic that only now as the Ramírez distributor am I finally able to buy and sell the guitar I requested fifteen years earlier, and it is especially ironic that it was Pepe who produced it. This was, in my view, his most important achievement in guitar making. In 1991, he redesigned the Ramírez 1a concert model and introduced the Traditional and the Especial model. These two models resembled those of 1960s in sound and construction while utilizing the standard 650mm scale length and a full-size body. With this, he achieved exactly what he thought to be impossible in our first meeting. José Ramírez IV died on June 5, 2000, survived by his wife, sister, and four children.
Posted on January 11, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips In Memoriam: Frederick Thomas Dickens In Memoriam: Frederick Thomas Dickens 1935 – 2000 by Pauline Dickens, James Jones, and Graham Caldersmith Originally published in American #71, 2002 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Six, 2013 Frederick Thomas Dickens was born January 10, 1935 in Bogalusa, Louisiana, and died November 8, 2000 in Lynchburg, Virginia. He served in the Navy and attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now USL) in Lafayette, Louisiana, where he graduated with a degree in physics. He went to work for Western Electric at Bell Laboratories in Whippany, New Jersey, in 1960, then worked for AT&T/Bell Labs from 1962 until his retirement in 1987. He was married and had two children. From early childhood Fred was always taking things apart and rebuilding them: crystal sets, model airplanes and boats, small engines, large engines, bicycles, motorbikes, air rifles, most anything that had plenty of parts. In later years, he continued to take things apart and reassemble them or build new and improved ones. His crystal set was replaced by powerful shortwave radios, the model airplanes and boats got larger and more sophisticated, the small engines became single-cylinder miniature hit-and-miss ones. The large engines were built to fit into the motorcycle frames that he constructed and competed on in observed trials. The air rifles became more powerful and accurate, and Fred built all parts on his lathe and milling machine, even to checkering the stocks. His latest pistol was used to shoot uncooked pasta at carpenter bees feeding on the house. The bicycle evolved into an elaborate recumbent design that he was working on when he died. While at Bell Labs he worked in the Power Supply Department building power supplies for the transatlantic cable. His power supplies were also found in many of AT&T’s telephones. He received the Distinguished Technical Staff Award for Sustained Achievement in 1984. He first got interested in instrument building in 1966 when he built his first guitar. He took apart an old guitar he had purchased in Mexico when he was twelve to study the construction. He began keeping detailed records with guitar #15 in 1968, using red cedar for the top. Ever the stickler for words, he wrote, “The cedar will be called ‘Egyptian Dragoon Brown Spruce’ from the Aswan Dam Preserve.” He began making his fretboards out of black phenol fiber because he felt that the phenol was more stable than ebony. He began making his own rosettes in 1969. He also constructed a banjo in that year. The part of guitar construction that he enjoyed most was carving the neck, especially the heel. One of my fondest memories is of watching him as he worked on the mahogany to create a beautiful sculpture, which he would decorate with a beautifully finished, singing body. In 1975 Fred began a series of experiments (which he would continue until his death) to make “various acoustic measurements on the guitar and its parts.” The object of the experiments was “to determine the response vs. frequency of the instrument and its various parts in an effort to set the various resonances at their ideal positions.” Using a special sound room which he built, he did experiments to: determine the effect of the height of the sides of a standard classical guitar on air resonance frequency; test different strutting patterns on the backs and tops of guitars including Cartesian, circular, lattice, traditional, and X bracing; study the effect of soundposts in guitars; chart the air modes of his and others’ guitars; study the relationship between the Helmholtz resonance and volume; and test a new bridge design using graphite-reinforced epoxy which he called his “magic bridge.” In 1977 Fred attended the 9th International Conference on Acoustics in Madrid where he presented a paper, “Tuning the Eigenmodes of Free Violin and Guitar Plates by Chladni Patterns” with Carleen Hutchins. He wrote for the CAS Newsletter but refused to submit articles unless he was 100% certain of the data. He also gave lectures at local colleges in New Jersey. In his lifetime Fred built ninety-four classical guitars, four steel string guitars, a flamenco guitar, a banjo, and a harpsichord soundboard. Trying to understand plate tuning in the guitar was his life’s goal. — Pauline Dickens Fred Dickens at the 1992 GAL Convention after attending the free plate tuning demonstration by Carleen Hutchins. Photo by Dale Blindheim. Although an excellent craftsman, Fred viewed instrument making (or the making of anything else for that matter) as a vehicle to understanding the science and principles behind the result. He constantly strove to understand the physics, and the nature of materials and their interaction. The search was always more important than the product, although the guitar was most often the chosen teacher. As a result, Fred was the work in progress. Understanding the universe was his goal. Fred had little tolerance for ignorance masquerading as knowledge. Half-baked theories were always exposed to the light of his more rigorous testing. I was very fortunate to make Fred’s acquaintance shortly after he and his wife moved to Virginia. Our mutual interest in instrument making and his willingness to teach some of those scientific principles I had neglected to consider contributed to a friendship now sorely missed. Fred’s gift was his willingness to patiently share what he had learned with those willing to listen. I only wish more makers would have had the opportunity to learn from his experience and example. — James Jones When I began music acoustics research in 1970 I was intrigued by articles written by Fred T. Dickens, which combined an honest, homey style with advanced ideas on guitar behavior. I began writing to Fred, and in 1982 during a research tour of the USA, we stayed some days with Fred and Pauline. Their company was relaxing and humanizing after intense work and travel. We shared notions of guitars and violin physics, methods of working advanced instruments, the nature of those involved in such a rare field of endeavor, and the big questions: life, the universe, and everything. We ate and drank with Fred and Pauline and became friends. Fred was an honest, practical man. His work at the Bell Laboratories was respected because of his integrity with results. He was meticulous in research and true with his friends. His marriage to Pauline was caring and creative, and their love for each other was unmistakable. I admire them both and wish Pauline comfort and peace in her loss of a wonderful husband. — Graham Caldersmith
