2014 Federico Sheppard "1911 José Ramírez - ex Barrios" RW/AR

A 2014 "1911 José Ramírez – ex Barrios" classical guitar by Federico Sheppard, with a redwood top and African rosewood back and sides – a copy of the José Ramírez I on which Agustín Barrios made his first recordings.

Barrios's First Recording Guitar

The original 1911 José Ramírez I is one of the most significant instruments of the 20th century. Soon after Barrios arrived in the Río de la Plata region, Carlos Trapani, who ran a music emporium on the Montevideo waterfront, provided him with it, and in 1913 Barrios made his ground-breaking first commercial recordings on it – before Miguel Llobet and Andrés Segovia began recording. That same year the guitar was immersed in the river near Tanqueras, Uruguay, and needed extensive repairs; it was eventually given to Modesto Impar, a justice of the peace in Tanqueras.

Redwood for a Darkened Top

Federico chose redwood to match the look of the original's spruce top, which darkened after its time in the river, and he included the pearl inlays in the bridge, though the originals were lost when it was submerged. Every other detail comes from the original, including hand-made tuners replicated by Nicolò Alessi. It also plays and sounds fantastic, capturing much of the original's sound and playability.

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.