Posts Tagged ‘romero’
Romero Collection – 1919 Santos Hernandez
The next guitar for our upcoming Scott Tennant and Pepe Romero Jr. concert on June 1st is a 1919 Santos Hernandez spruce and cypress guitar – I asked Pepe if he considered it a flamenco, a classical or just a guitar, and he said it was just a cypres guitar (cypress was cheap and readily available at the time – flamencos were generally cheaper guitars, which is why cypress was almost always used for them).
Pepe also says “It definitely has a flamenco attack and I have it set up between classical and flamenco. If ever a guitar had duende, this one has it. It is pure magic! This is easy to play, explosive and beautiful sounding. It is super light weight and totally alive. My head stock is my version of this guitar. When I started to build guitars my father took out 5 Santos Hernandez guitars and told me to take the one that I liked the most, study it, play it and get inspired. I am inspired just thinking of this guitar! This is the one that I chose that day.”
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This 1969 Hermann Hauser II is the next guitar that will be featured in our event with Scott Tennant and Pepe Romero Jr. on June 1st. Pepe Jr. says that he considers Hauser II one of the all-time great builders and that this guitar has power, warmth and a unique sound, and that it is the guitar which to him best represents this master. He also says that it’s the guitar he often heard his father preparing for concerts with. Check out this video of Pepe Sr. playing some Sabicas bulerias on this guitar.
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The next guitar that we’ll be featuring in our June 1st event featuring Scott Tennant playing the 7 guitars from the Romero collection that most influenced luthier Pepe Romero Jr. is a beautiful 1970 Miguel Rodriguez. Just three years older then ‘La Wonderful’, it will be very interesting to hear the differences between these two guitars.
This is the guitar with the reverse fan bracing that inspired Pepe Jr. to use that system in his own guitars. In Pepe’s words “I hear things in this guitar that I had never heard before in a guitar. The separation and clarity are amazing. The guitar also feels great in the hands. This guitar has changed my building in a big way”.
‘La Wonderful’ is one of the most famous classical guitars in the world – Pepe Romero has recorded over 50 albums with this perfect example of a ‘Churchdoor’ Rodriguez (and it may be one of the reasons that the ‘Churchdoor’ guitars are so desirable). It’s also the guitar that luthier Pepe Romero Jr. heard more than any other as he was growing up. In Pepe Jr.’s words “This guitar has everything. It has a massive warm and clear sound everywhere. It is what you would want all guitars to be.”
So while you can hear Pepe Romero play this guitar on all of those records, on June 1st you can hear Scott Tennant play ‘La Wonderful’ at GSI in our next ‘Live at GSI’ event, where Scott will be playing seven of the guitars from the Pepe Romero collection that have most influenced Pepe Jr. as a luthier.
As we approach our June 1st event with Scott Tennant playing those guitars from the Romero collection that have most inspired luthier Pepe Romero Jr. (who will present and tell us about the guitars at the event), we thought it would be fun to show off some of Felix Salazar’s amazing photography of these guitars. Pepe Jr. was kind enough to bring them all in so that Felix could do his thing, and the result is just gorgeous. We’re starting with a 2001 Edmund Blochinger – the youngest guitar of the bunch and the only one made by a luthier alive today (very much alive, I should say).
Pepe Jr. says that the guitar has very deep basses and clear, singing trebles, and that it is a sweet guitar with a lot of power. He also says that Blochinger’s immaculate craftsmanship and aesthetic style inspire him.
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We are really excited about our next event at GSI – The seven guitars from the Pepe Romero collection that have most influenced his son, luthier Pepe Romero Jr., presented by Pepe Jr. and played for us by none other than maestro Scott Tennant. This will be about as personal a connection with these absolutely historic guitars as one can get, with background provided by Pepe Jr. who has studied these guitars intimately (and literally lived with them). And to have them played as they should be by Scott Tennant in a great-sounding intimate space will make this a once-in-a-lifetime concert.
The event takes place on June 1, 2013 at 7:30pm at the Guitar Salon International showroom.
Celin Romero was recently in Granada picking up a new guitar from maker Juan Miguel Carmona and he sent us these photos. Kind of cool if you think about it – Juan Miguel is from the same Carmona family that has produced Pepe Habichuela, Juan Habichuela, Antonio Carmona of Ketama and many other great flamenco players, so you have Celin from one of the great classical dynasties hanging out with Juan Miguel of one of the great flamenco dynasties – and that’s Juan Miguel’s wife in the photo there with Celin.
Update – I just wanted to post this photo of Paco playing his new Pepe Jr. guitar. I just wish I was there to hear it..
We just found out that Paco De Lucia has bought a new flamenco guitar from Pepe Romero Jr. Apparently when Paco was in Los Angeles to play at Disney Hall, Pepe Sr. showed him Pepe’s latest flamenco guitar (Pepe Jr. was out of town), and the long and short of it was w that Paco decided to keep that guitar. There’s more to the story, as you can hear in the video here of Pepe Jr. playing the guitar in our showroom. Pepe Jr. was recently telling me that he’d like to increase his output of flamencos but that he keeps getting orders for classicals, so I imagine this will help balance things out some. Check out the video to hear the guitar and Pepe Jr. talking about it and about Paco’s decision to keep it, and check out the guitar itself here.
We have a new Pepe Romero Jr. coming in any day now, and it definitely has a ‘churchdoor‘ vibe going on. This is his current model, including the brass nut, thicker fingerboard, and reverse-fan system, etc… Watch the video on guitar #200 to hear about what he’s doing structurally with his guitars these days, and check out the photos.
Well, we’ve arrived at the final guitar from our celebration of Pepe Romero Jr.’s 200th. Guitar #200 has some pretty significant changes in the fretboard, neck angle and headstock – changes that were apparently requested by Celin Romero (and which Pepe Jr. explains in the video better than I can here). And since it’s the last guitar that Pepe Sr. played that evening he performed Celedonio Romero’s ‘Fantasia Cubana’ to close the event.
The event was held last year, but this seems like an appropriate place to once again thank Pepe Jr. and Pepe Sr. for putting together such a cool event and letting GSI host it.
