A shoutout for Brian Applegate and his instruments.

[SuperB23]

You guys who know me, know how many great instruments I've been blessed to own. I'm a huge fan of several brands and builders like Tom Doerr, Kevin Ryan, Froggy Bottom, James and Luke Goodall. I'm also a Martin and Santa Cruz Fan.

Recently through some horse trading I acquired a couple newer Brian Applegate guitars. I've decided to add Brian to my short list of favorite builders. That short list has remained the same for several years until now.

One is a 2019 SJ in Cedar and Indian rosewood the other is a 2020 Jumbo in European Spruce and Cocobolo. I had played and owned a few of Brians guitars in the past.

To make a long story short these two newer instruments that I acquired represent the latest that Brian is doing with his builds and I'm completely impressed!! These two hold their own with the best of the best of what I've played!!

A few years back I played an Olson Jumbo down a luthiers collection and it was a very fancy one and well over $20k, this Applegate jumbo holds its own very very well with that guitar! I remember trying scratch my head to figure out how to buy that Olson and just gave up on it! This Applegate Jumbo strums and does finger style playin equally well and has a thick but still intimate sound which is very rare from a full sized Jumbo instrument!!

The SJ is on par with the best Olson SJ guitars I've owned and any other SJ style instrument from any builder that I've played. The instrument is ultra light weight and really sounds amazing!! The Bass and richness are outstanding!!

Anyway I thought I'd share a couple videos I did of these two. They aren't for sale.

The Jumbo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIf8usCHZF8&t=48s

The Small Jumbo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPilmQn59S4

[BrazGuy]

Wow. I prefer guitars that have vintage / old / traditional tonal "appointments" like Bourgeois, Collings, Martin, and making some mentions of my countrymates builders, Max Rosa (he learned from Wayne Henderson) and of course, my luthier, Gabriel Cordeiro, who is a great guy and a great guitar and viola caipira builder (a 10-string "Brazilian country" instrument). But I really loved these two guitars that you are playing, I like this modern look and the tone of both guitars impressed me a lot.

Great guitar player playing great guitars, it's all about that

[Guitars44me]

Yes, Bobby has owned a passel of FINE GUITARS. Many here have one or more that used to be his...

High praise for these newer Applegates! All your videos sound really good, but these are real sweet for sure.

Enjoy in fine health and spirits

Paul

[kliend]

I agree^ Sounds great Bobby

[cigarfan]

Both sound excellent Bobby. I'm really taken with the tone of the SJ. Special!

[jklotz]

Those do sound great! Particularly that SJ. I'm a big fan of cedar over rosewood. Seems like that combo has been present in all of my favorite fingerstyle guitars.