2009 Kenny Hill "Reyes" SP/CY

This 2009 Kenny Hill "Reyes" is a flamenco guitar with a spruce top and cypress back and sides, made in Felton, California, after a 2003 guitar by the great Córdoba maker Manuel Reyes.

A Master Series Flamenco Blanca

An exact reproduction of a 2003 Manuel Reyes, it has a serious punch – an aggressively percussive sound – while still retaining beauty and lyricism, much like the real thing. It is the only flamenco model ever to come from the Hill workshop.

Feel

Very lightweight and comfortable to hold, it has a low action and a smooth neck, and the materials and workmanship are excellent – a true concert-level flamenco blanca.

Kenny Hill: Guitarist and Guitar Maker

Kenny Hill was born in San Jose, California, and is a performing guitarist and composer as well as a guitar maker. Largely self-taught, he began building guitars professionally in the 1970s in Santa Barbara. In the 1980s he set guitar making aside to raise his four children – though he never stopped performing – and in 1989 he returned to the workbench with copies of historic instruments by Torres, Fleta, Hauser, Rodríguez and Panormo: the beginning of his "Master Series".

From Soledad and Paracho to the Santa Cruz Mountains

In 1993 a grant allowed Kenny to set up a guitar-building shop at Soledad State Prison in California. Two years later he traveled to Paracho, Mexico, as a writer for Acoustic Guitar magazine, to cover a master class led by José Luis Romanillos, and in 1996 he established a workshop there, spending five years building a market for Paracho's guitars. Out of this work grew workshops in California, Mexico and China: his "New World" guitars are made in Guangzhou, China, in a factory of which he is a founding shareholder, and he is designer emeritus and a long-time consultant for Cordoba Guitars.

Kenny's own Signature and Performance models – with double tops, lattice bracing and sound ports – are built by hand in his workshop in Ben Lomond, in the mountains near Santa Cruz, California, by a team of about six craftsmen that includes his son and son-in-law. In 2015 the Guitar Foundation of America honored him with its Industry Leadership Award.

Kenny Hill Guitars at GSI

Many Kenny Hill guitars have passed through our doors, from his Master Series replicas of the great historical makers to his modern Signature and Performance models.