What Guitar plays Manolo Sanlúcar

[Armando]

Hello

I've seen a concert from Manolo Sanlucar on the Flamenco Festival in Jerez about a week ago. He played a guitar with an incredible sound. I didn't know who is the maker of this guitar. It was not a Ramirez guitar.

Please go to www.icart.es and click on "lista de artistas" and then on "Manolo Sanlucar" and scroll down to the bottom of this page. The second last picture on this page shows Manolo with this particular guitar. Does anybody know more about it?

Feedback is appreciated

Thanks

Armando

[deAlmeida]

http://www.icart.es/fotos/sanlucar_biografia_6.jpg

I have never seen that headstock design before...

[flamencoguru]

I did a master class with Manolo in 2003 and his guitar is by some builders in the Ramirez shop. Ramirez doesn't market it.

Cheers.

[NGiorgio]

How about some details on that guitar.

Cedar, spruce? Blanca, negra?

[Armando]

Hello NGiorgio

I was quite far from the stage but i was able to recognize that it was a negra most likely made of brazilian with a spruce top. The bodyshape of this guitar was somewhat similar to the Gerundino or Rodriquez de Cordoba. It was not the common plantilla of the madrid school. The body of this guitar was quite deep, i guess about 10cm. The sound was somewhat metallic and very flamenco. It was just magnificent especially when he played la maestranza.

flamencoguru

It might be possible that it is a special issue built in the Ramirez Shop, but its appearance has absolutely nothing in common with the regular Ramirez Guitars and its sound appeard to me to be different and to my opinion better than the standard Ramirez Flamenco Guitars.

[keith]

inside of the c.d. there is reference to what i believe is papa ramirez and a design by manolo himself. it would not surprize me if indeed manolo went to the ramirez folks and had a guitar made for him on his design or specs.

this is from a guitar dealer: "Sanlucar has a Valeriano Bernal "Embrujo" model cedar/Indian and Bernal sometimes uses this to promote that guitar but other than that I've never come across a Manolo Sanlucar guitar."

i am going for a special edition ramirez....

[Gerundino]

Could it be Jeronimo Pena Fernandez? If the headstock had any ornamental carving on it, then it was almost certainly Fernandez.

Mark

[MWA]

Head looks a little like a Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Check out Trilogy Guitar web site

[Armando]

Hello

Some investigation have shown, that two different Luthiers that were employed in the Ramirez Workshop have built guitars for Manolo Sanlucar.

The names found are: Manuel Caceres (MC) and Pedro Contreras Valbuena (PC).

However i believe that they have built the legendary cedar top negras with the Ramirez headstocks.

I don't think that the guitar in question has been built by one of them.

MWA

Yes, the headstock design of Juan Miguel Gonzales comes close to the one on the picture above. The body shape is also in line with the guitar that i have seen. This guitar has a plantilla which is close to Gerundino's. Juan Miguel is from Almería as well and as much as know he sometimes builds guitars for Gerundino.

Armando

[flamencoguru]

Hello,

I can definitely tell you it's not a Juan Miguel Gonzalez, I own one. I was with Juan Miguel this past summer and I think he would have mentioned it to me. I know that he is building one for Isidro Muñoz (brother of Manolo). The guitar is cedar/indian or a cedar/brazilian. Manolo is one of the few flamenco guitarists that plays a cedar top (the other guitarist that I know of is Juan Carlos Romero). It is definitely made by some of the builders at the Ramírez shop. Manolo told me this himself. The headstock has nothing to do with Ramírez guitars. It's probably something created by Manolo himself. The guitar that Manolo was playing at the master class didn't even have a label in it.

Juan Miguel no longer builds for Gerundino. He did build guitars for him in the early 90's for a few years. He only builds his own guitars now.

Cheers.

[NGiorgio]

Doesn't Serranito (Victor Monge) use a cedar topped flamenca negra?

[Manuel_online99]

If you look carefully at the hole on the guitar and thru the rosette you can barely see the name: RAMIREZ

[Armando]

If you look carefully at the hole on the guitar and thru the rosette you can barely see the name: RAMIREZ


Hello Manuel_online99

Where have you seen that?

[Manuel_online99]

Go to.... icart.es just like that (don't add anything else) then to the first seardh: representacion de artistas...... You will see San Lucar holding a guitar and if you got good eyes and recognize the name you will see thru the hole that is a Ramirez....

[Armando]

Hello Manuel_online99

Yes i know, but this guitar is a regular Ramirez Cedar top guitar. It's not the guitar in question.

regards

Armando

[Manuel_online99]

I'm sorry ... I believe I have misquoted you... Manuel.

[Armando]

Hello

Quite a while ago that i asked this question in this forum but nobody knew the answer.

Now i've got the answer.

Manolo Sanlúcar have put Alhambra in charge to build his own line of guitars.

You may see the guitars on his website. http://www.manolosanlucar.com

And here's the proof that they are made by Alhambra. I've found this on the alhambra website in their forum.

Gracias por participar en el foro de Alhambra.

A Manolo Sanlucar se le han construido varias guitarras por encargo. Se trata del modelo Luthier F pero con una cabeza distinta, de manera que evoque las letras M y S que se corresponden con sus iniciales.

Algunas de ellas con aros y fondo de Palosanto de Brasil y otras con Ciprés.

Aparte de estas guitarras también ha adquirido otros modelos realizados sobre la base de las 7Fc y 10Fp

I'm a bit surprised that Manolo works with Alhambra and (according to their comments) ordered several guitars for his own use from them. However i don't think that this Manolo Sanlucar signature models are the same as he plays personally. As already mentioned, i've seen him playing one of those guitars at the Flamenco Festival de Jerez 2005. The guitar he played there has this type of headstock design but the shape of the plantilla was different. The guitar appeared to have a plantilla close to the "Gerundino's", which is quite different to the ones on his website. Maybe it was one of the prototypes.