2020 José Ramírez "1a C650-A" No. W0-001 SP/IN

This 2020 José Ramírez "1a C650-A" No. W0-001 is a classical guitar with a spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides; Ashley Lucero plays "Yesterday" (arr. Takemitsu) on it in the video above.

Built in the Calle de la Paz Workshop

For more than fifty years, guitars from the José Ramírez workshop have been in the hands of countless professionals, from Segovia to Sting, from Sabicas to Chet Atkins and from Christopher Parkening to Lee Ritenour. Amalia Ramírez succeeded her brother José Ramírez IV in 2000, and she still inspects every guitar during and after construction – this one included.

The Ramírez "1a": Primera Quality

These Ramírez concert guitars are outstanding performance instruments by any standard: the "1a Tradicional" has all the color and warmth of a great Ramírez and plays more like the Madrid guitars of the 1950s. This is the spruce version, "A" for abeto.

Playability and Condition

Its sound is the trademark Ramírez one, familiar from 50 years of recordings and concerts by the top players – dark, haunting and mysterious. A custom BAM case was included. Its label is dated 2020, numbered W0-001 and signed by Amalia Ramírez, and the model code "Tradicional C650-A" is written by hand beside the class.

There is much more about the workshop on our blog – The Ramírez Family: Masters of the Guitar, the family members from Amalia Ramírez back to José I, and some fact-checking on myths and facts about this legendary workshop.

The José Ramírez Workshop of Madrid

Founded in Madrid in 1882 by José Ramírez I, the Ramírez workshop has produced guitars for more than a century and through five generations of the family. José Ramírez III (1922–1995) took over as maestro in 1957 and developed the Ramírez concert guitar we know today – large in body, with a long string length and a cedar or spruce top, with great power, sustain, sweetness and balance across the entire register. He popularized western red cedar as a soundboard wood, and from the 1960s Andrés Segovia played José Ramírez guitars to the end of his days.

Ramírez Craftsmen and the Next Generations

From the 1960s to the 1990s the workshop trained many of the most talented guitarreros of the day, among them Paulino Bernabé and Manuel Contreras. In 1995 the shop moved from Calle Concepción Jerónima 2 to Calle de la Paz 8, and since the death of José Ramírez IV in June 2000 the business has been directed by his sister, Amalia Ramírez, who inspects every guitar during and after construction.

The Workshop Under Amalia Ramírez

Under Amalia Ramírez the workshop has kept the classic concert guitar at the heart of its range – the "1a" (first class) in the "Tradicional" design, its model code written by hand on the label: C650 for a cedar top with Indian rosewood, "-A" for a spruce (abeto) top, "-P" for CSA rosewood (palosanto) and "-AP" for both, with F656 and F656-A for the cedar and spruce flamencos. Around it she has built a wider family of models: the "Centenario" and "Elite", made with the workshop's most precious woods; the reissued "SP" and "2a"; the "Auditorio", "Antigua" and "Guitarra del Tiempo"; anniversary series such as the "125 Años" and "130 Años"; replicas of historic guitars, from the 1912 Manuel Ramírez played by Segovia to the 1913 "Guitarra de Tablao" of José Ramírez I; and the studio lines NE, R and FL. The concert guitars carry the Calle de la Paz 8 label, signed by Amalia Ramírez with her star signature and numbered with a letter-and-number code (Centenario and Elite have numbers of their own), while the studio guitars have an orange "Guitarras de Estudio" label, "Diseñada, Revisada y Certificada por Ramírez", with the red "Calidad Ramírez" stamp.