Too many years ago a guitarist in Tassie asked me to get him the plans for a jazz guitar while I was in England.This I duly did but when I got back to Tassie it seemed that he had lost interest in the project.
The guy who gave me the plans was an old friend who became a famous guitar maker,and he in return asked me to get him some good Tasmanian Blackwood.This I did.
About seven or eight months ago I carried that timber on my return to UK,all the bloody way!To cut a long story short I finished up GIVING the timber to a young French bloke who was a student at the Newark School of Violin and Guitar Making.
Today he brought round to me a Macafari Gypsy guitar made from that timber.
All the trouble seems worthwhile.
The flame in the back is alive.
The instrument replies to sound like minituarised cathedral of wood.
I see fields of golden corn waving in the wind when it plays; molten gold; stirred chocolate.
It sounds good.
Does anybody want to buy an instrument of this calibre.
It comes complete with a good story and the beginning of a history. If so,please let me know (through the Editor).
I once remember Yehudi Menuin talking about Irish fidlers … he said that if the classical violinists were the thoroughbreds, then the Irish fiddlers were the wild horses.
This guitar needs a wild horse of a musician.
Phillip Lowe
