2016 Federico Sheppard “Simplicio 1927, ex Barrios” SP/CSAR (ex Pavel Steidl)

A 2016 "Simplicio 1927, ex Barrios" classical guitar by Federico Sheppard, with a spruce top and CSA rosewood back and sides – based on two 1927 Francisco Simplicio guitars, and played on tour by its first owner, Pavel Steidl.

In the video above, George Sakellariou plays Barrios's "El Sueño de la Muñequita" on this guitar.

Simplicio Nos. 156 and 157

Federico personally inspected two Francisco Simplicio guitars of 1927, Nos. 156 and 157, which he found nearly identical; No. 156 had belonged to Agustín Barrios Mangoré. Other guitars in his Barrios series have included copies of the Morant, Esteso and José Ramírez I.

"Time Flies"

Instead of copying the original head veneer, Federico modeled the design on a headstone in Madrid's Almudena cemetery, where many past masters of guitar making are buried: an hourglass with wings, meaning "Time Flies" – the title of a letter Pavel Steidl wrote about this guitar (see the gallery). Pavel toured Europe and the USA with it and played it so much that much of the finish wore off the back; Federico gave it a fresh coat before sending it to us.

A Haunting Old-World Sound

As authentic as it looks, it has a fantastic old-world sound with the haunting, mysterious quality that sets Simplicio apart from the other great makers.

Federico Sheppard: Luthier and Barrios Scholar

Federico Sheppard was born in Mexico City in 1955 and grew up in Pittsburgh. A geologist and later a sports-medicine chiropractor, he has built guitars since the late 1970s, and today he divides his time between Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Carrión de los Condes in northern Spain, where his workshop occupies a thousand-year-old church that is also a guitar school and concert hall; there he founded the Asociación Caminoartes. He writes and lectures for the Guild of American Luthiers, and one of his guitars appears in Sheldon Urlik's "A Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars".

The Guitars of Barrios and the Camino

Since 2005 Federico has studied the life and guitars of Agustín Barrios Mangoré. He has seen and measured the six main concert guitars Barrios played – two Simplicios, a "Morant", a José Ramírez I, a Sanfeliu and an Esteso – and builds replicas of them, inside and out. His "Camino" guitars draw on the art and pilgrim culture of the Camino de Santiago, which runs past his Spanish workshop.