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My Favourite Guitar.

It's a funny thing with guitars, that what makes them special is not simply how well they are made or how they sound but it's their character somehow. I have beautiful Godin A6 Ultra. It plays well sounds great, but as a friend of mine, said, you can't really love Godin somehow. And the other tricky bit, is that the word guitar' covers a wide range of different types so let's try by type and style.

My favourite acoustic Guitar?
I have a beautiful Maccaferi style guitar made by an unknown British Luthier. It is small light and delicate with beautiful wood, a bright sound. I say an unknown luthier: I think it his choice to stay unknown. Let me explain, I bought the guitar from the man some twenty six years ago for a ridiculously low price as he liked my playing and he just wanted me to use it on stage. Some years later it developed a slight problem and I tried to contact him at the address I had, without success. I then realised that there was a well-known guitar manufacturer near to his home, who I thought might know him. I got through to the owner and asked if he knew this man. He exploded. That thieving bastard used to work for me, and stole triple A woods to make his own instruments!' I decided it was politic not to mention that I had a guitar which he had made, just in case.

My favourite solid guitar ?
I did have an original 1969 Thinline Tele which somebody stole from the Transit one night twenty three years agoif anybody has Thinline Serial No. 226445..it's mine, buddy! With the insurance money I bought a new maple neck maple Strat. It was 1976, not a great era for a Strat but several luthiers who have done work for me have raved about it. However I always fancied another Tele, and five years ago I saw a used G&L ASAT for sale. I went and tried it, and after a few minutes, I thought it was good guitar. After a twenty minutes, I realistic it wasn't anything spectacular but simply perfect: sound, pick up balance, intonation. Definitely my favourite solid. I live in Italy and last year played many gigs including several major festivals. One of the high spots was opening Etna Blues on a massive stage on the slopes of the live volcano, where with the help of an excellent sound engineer, I played my socks off and the ASAT sang through my Boogie F30. Mamma Mia!

My favourite jazz guitar?
I have two beautiful jazz guitars made by Mark Campellone: one is a Blonde L5 which is gorgeous. The second is a smaller body sunburst 175 style. This has a thinner top and is very loud acoustically. BUT my favourite jazz guitar, and in fairness, the one I would grab if I realised my house was on fire, is a 1951 Gibson ES175. I'd asked a guitarist friend to find me a 175. I'd have been happy with one from the 70's or even better the 60's. I didn't expect him to find this. It is damaged and scratched; it has no pickguard. It's the same age as me. It is beautiful. I recently took it to a luthier here in Italy and when he took it out of the case in the store; you could have heard a pin drop; in fact, you could have heard pin stay still. One assistant had his eyeballs out on stalks! He's always treat me with a certain respect since

So the winner is 1951 Gibson ES175, and in fact, I'll use that on Sunday's gig: my best friend deserves an outing.

Learn more about this author, Rowland Jones.
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