Quote:
Originally Posted by J.R. Rogers
Just a beautiful guitar!! Great color and I love the purfling he did. Matches the rest of the guitar so nice. The printing inside the soundport is a neat touch too. Will this guitar be used on your next CD, Howard? When is the release date?
JR
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Hello JR,
Thank you for the kind words!
Many years ago John made a mandola for the son of Elizabeth Taylor. Ever since there has been a picture of Liz, holding the mandola, dressed in red hanging in the shop, and I've fixated on that picture many times.
Yes, of course Liz was gorgeous, but the color of the mandola is what stole my heart. It's called violin-red, and I knew that would absolutely figure into my build.
After that it was easy because I knew what I wanted: A small, shallow body 12 fretter with a cutaway to negate lack of access. The mandola also had ebony binding so that was a given.
I knew I wanted an oval hole with an uninterrupted purfling, and a concentric fingerboard end to accent it.
12 fretters are always louder than the commensurate 14 fret counterparts, and having a shallow body takes NOTHING away from fullness, but ADDS so much in comfort under my arm.
It's 3 & 7/8" at the tail block. You'll notice the 2 holes: One is for a future pickup jack, but the other is for a very long hex wrench that releases the neck for quick removal in the event of a neck set, etc.
John gave me several choices of fingerboard and headstock overlay ebony pieces to choose from. I knew I wanted a sound-port and where it should be located given my ergonomics. That's a "Side-Sound' decal that he prints.
John also gave me a few headstock choices. Simpler is betterer so I went with straight sides, and supplied him with the Waverly tuners.
And to answer your last questions: I don't have a release date but if all goes well perhaps late September, and yes I did record with LaCorsa a week after I picked it up from John. It positively shone in the face of a pair of AKG 414's.
It actually sounds best with D'Addario Nickel Bronze when I'm at the wheel.
John sent me the first pictures of the bent sides on April 1st, while I was lying in bed with Covid19. You can not imagine the irony of thinking that here I had finally gotten John to build another guitar for me, but now there's a real chance I might not get to see it finished....(He built his #005 for me in 1976 when I was clueless about what I really needed, but I digress.......)
I appreciate it more at this age than I ever could have when I was younger.
Now we just have to get over the lack of electricity (since Tuesday). The generator has been going, literally, since then, but no air conditioning. 2 refrigerators, 2 microwaves, electric hospital bed for my sister-in-law, a couple of televisions, a few lights, the boiler, and we still have internet & phone service. Yeah, the action is a little high on the acoustics, but I'm doing electric slide overdubs on the title cut, The Ritalin Kid, so I'm ignoring all the others until, perhaps, 11:00PM this evening when they're threatening to have us up and running again.........
Best regards,
Howard Emerson