[mplpost] Canadian Guitars

[Art Turner]

Bruce Cockburn made me fall in love with the acoustic guitar, so no real
surprise that my first "real" guitar was a '93 Linda Manzer
(www.manzer.com/), an astonishingly bright, resonant and physically gorgeous
instrument, with a 250-year-old red cedar top (deadfall that washed up on a
west coast beach in the late seventies), stained mallard-head green. I
recorded both of my records with it, have taken it out on the road many
times, and it still plays like a dream (just got it back last week from its
first complete re-fret and major re-haul, courtesy of Linda herself, and the
wonderful Tony Duggan-Smith).

For years I had never played another guitar that could hold a candle to the
Manzer, but then I stumbled upon a bonanza of amazing Canadian luthiers. I'm
a big fan of David Iannone's Morgan guitars (http://www.morganguitars.com/),
especially the mahogany concert models from a few years back. There's a
luthier from Montreal, Mario Beauregard, who built a guitar for Kelly Joe
Phelps and just up and gave it to KJ at a show in Montreal last fall. The
next day I was opening for Kelly Joe at the Great Canadian Theatre in
Ottawa, and when I met him backstage, KJ was all excited about this new
guitar, and he handed it to me to play. It was a very impressive, responsive
and distinctively beautiful instrument with some innovative features, like a
big, fat, 1/4" bone saddle...

Then there was this young guy who showed up at the Orangeville Opera House
(same tour) where I was opening for Stephen Fearing. His name was Fabrizio
Alberico (from Cheltenham, studied with Sergei de Jonge), and he brought
this extremely lovely guitar, which we both enjoyed playing. I thought he
showed a lot of promise.

As for Larrivée, I had played several of the concert models (now referred to
as "L" or "Larrivée" bodies) over the years, and some were very nice, but
nothing really knocked me out, being spoiled by the Manzer. Then, last
spring, I spent a day in Larrivée's shop in Vancouver, playing everything
they had. I found a rosewood/sitka OM-10V model (the OM body style is a
fairly recent departure for Larrivée, I think) that flat blew my mind, and
came home with me as my new main concert guitar. I would not have believed
such a fine-sounding instrument could come out of a "factory" setting, but
Larrivée must be doing something right. This one's a sweetie.

Haven't played an Oscar Graf yet though. Next time I'm out Kingston way,
we'll have to hook up, eh Oscar?

I've enjoyed this thread!

Cheers,

Art Turner
http://www.artturner.com

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