• Custom Bog Oak Tenor Guitar
• Martin Simpson. Guitars of the UK and Ireland - Episode 1 - The Fylde Falstaff
• Used Left-handed Falstaff for Sale
• John Smith. So So. Live in the woods
• Used Tenor Mandola for Sale
• Guitars For Ullapool
• Custom Walnut Ariel
• George Sansome Bach Bourrée (Cello Suite No. 3)
• Will McNicol Workshop and Map
• Tristan Seume at Halsway Manor
• Chris Difford’s Custom Guitar for sale

• Work In Progress
• More work In Progress
• Richard Knott. Two Week Rag
• Adam Palma (and the Rosenbergs!) Blue Bossa
• John Hobson. For the One I Love. With the Fylde Leonardo
• RIP Bill Leader
• Dransfield. Violin
• RIP Moya Brennan
• Clannad
• Fylde Guitars. Galleries 1. Falstaff and Others
• Fylde Oberon OM
• Is it or Isn’t it?

"Just sittin' in a railway station, waitin' for the next connection".  Sorry, no, I'm thinking of Widnes station, this is Bromsgrove.

George was travelling between Granny's Attic gigs .

"Had a few spare minutes to kill, sitting on the empty platform in the sun. I just had my phone with me, so I propped it up on my guitar case and played through this Bach bourrée from his third cello suite. You can hear some lovely birdsong in the background, and you also get to hear the 1103 departure to Lichfield Trent Valley at the end. 

Played on my faithful travelling companion, that beautiful Falstaff, which responds so well to anything I throw at it - including this Bach flatpicking journey I seem to be on recently!"

George's Website

Will has a one-day Workshop in London at the end of June

https://www.willmcnicol.co.uk/workshops/london 

With 4 places remaining. 

Will is full of ideas and has something I've never seen before, a musical map created by Hugo Seriese. 

"It's a wonderful illustration capturing 20 years’ worth of my most image and story-driven music with Fylde recordings featured many times. All interactive online." 

www.willmcnicol.co.uk/map.

Tristan is returning to teach at the annual Guitar Week at Halsway Manor, National Centre for Folk Arts in Somerset. He joins up with fellow tutors, Dave Delarre and Vera Van Heeringen for a fun week of all things acoustic. It runs from April 27th to May 1st, and a few spaces are still available 

"This course is aimed at acoustic guitarists (steel-strung) of an intermediate level and above, it’s not really suitable for beginners.

As a guide, to get the most from the course you’ll need a grasp of the following topics:

• All common open major and minor chords


• Familiarity with one or two moveable barre chord shapes


• Some basic fingerpicking ability


• Steady, even strumming rhythm in 4/4 time 

You can find out more or book a place via this link

Tristan's Website

A new  guitar for Adam Palma ( yes - another one, where does he keep them all?)

A Fan fret twelve string for Troy Donockley to replace the one that Gordon Giltrap has repossessed and a Baritone for Richard Hawley to match his Black Orleans.

Fun for all of us.

Four custom orders for mandolas and bouzoukis. One of these will be for Ben Walker. Don't let him see it!

The explanation of the title is in the caption.

Richard is a regular customer and friend who happened to be in touch  at exactly the same time as this guitar came to me from a previous owner. I didn’t even get chance to have proper photographs taken.

I remember the first time I used a Cedar top on a Falstaff, and the excitement I felt when I heard the resulting sound, I'm a great believer in the "combination" of timbers being important rather than just the individual parts. It isn't just the individual properties of each of the timbers; it's the way that some materials work together better than others.  Two plus two sometimes equals five?

Like most makers and probably most players, I have my favourite timbers to work with, and to listen to. You'll spot them featuring a lot in the Personal Selection instruments. 

Richard's Website

I think Adam is trying to bribe me to get his new guitar finished. He hasn't posted any videos for a long time and I'm always hoping he will make more. Thanks Adam.

Adam works amongst the very highest level of musicians, Tommy Emmanuel, Biréli Lagrène, Al Di Meola, now the Rosenbergs. There are lots of others, he's a powerhouse who never stops.

Adam's Website

For the youngsters among you, John was one half of Hobson and Lees who mesmerized everybody with their skills in the late 1970s. Both had very successful careers outside of music and kept it purely as a hobby. Some might say that’s the best way to do it.

John's Website

Bill was the first person to record Bert Jansch. He followed that with John Renbourn, Ewan MacColl, Gordon Giltrap. The Dubliners, Nic Jones, The Watersons. The list is huge, and of course, he was responsible for "Fylde Acoustic" in 1977.

I sat with him while he recorded most of the tracks. Memorable to me was Pete Berryman's contribution, countless takes, each one improvised and completely different to those before until after many hours, Pete was happy. Therefore, Bill was happy, his patience was limitless.

Bill cooked for everybody involved.  He travelled to record those artists that couldn’t drive. He explained how Sergeant Pepper was recorded on two four track tape recorders synced together and had endless stories.

A massive influence on everybody.

More about Bill here ...

There is a link here but it’s too complicated to explain,  I'll still include the video because it brings back massive memories.

Dransfield were huge for a while, great performers and harmonies, such a shame there isn't very much on video. Barry played fiddle in Mutiny on the Bounty, Robin was a good friend and despite being a guitarist, went on to become a violin repairer.  

Hi Robin - give me a call?

On a trip to Rotosound strings with my friend Dave Walters, we were  on the North Circular Road, playing Barry Dransfield on the tape player, and discussing his music as we drove. We came to a stop at a  crossing, I looked to my left, and there was Barry Dransfield on the pavement.  We jumped out and went for tea at his house. Things like that use to happen to me all the time. Weird.

Another sad loss. Clannad's music marked a very significant part of English Irish history and has been part of my own musical life.

Moya phoned me many years ago, her lovely soft Irish voice just telling me her name without explanation of what that meant. She wanted to buy two bouzoukis for her sons. In fact, you can see one of them in the photograph above. Her Uncle, Padraig, played a Fylde Tenor Mandola in the band, but had it tuned to E and kept breaking strings, he phoned to ask my advice. You'll see in the video that he learnt to tune to down and use a capo.

Much later, when Moira and I visited Donegal, we dropped by Leo's Tavern ( the family pub) and had lunch during an Irish wake! I had intended to make myself known but it wasn’t a good time , so I just gave a business card to the chap behind the bar and asked him to pass it on.

About a year later I received a phone call from a puzzled man who said he was chatting away about his Fylde mandolin and looked up to see my business card on the notice board in front of his face. Why was it there? I don’t think my explanation made any sense to either of us.

More about Moya here ...

Not a bouzouki in sight I'm afraid, just Padraig and his mandola.

More about Clannad here ...

It occurred to me recently that we hadn't updated the galleries for about 3 years, so Mike has reworked some of them to make more room. and we’ve added some of the missing instruments. I'll feature other galleries soon.

You might notice that three of the guitars here were made for Martin Simpson, and one of them appears twice because we reworked it to accommodate a longer scale length. Isn't he a lucky boy?

Which other maker works in such a variety of woods and styles?

Link to Gallery

I came across this purely by chance, I know nothing about it but thought it might be useful to players in France. I don’t know why he calls it an OM.

Looks like a good repair shop

Their website

One of the Ullapool guitars will be made from these pieces of wood. Ten years ago I was offered two small logs by a retired furniture restorer, and it wasn't at all clear what species it was.

It's a lot like Brazilian Rosewood, the history matched but it doesn’t quite look like it, or smell like it and my own fluorescence test didn't work.

I've shown it to several specialist dealers and a few knowledgeable makers and we are all baffled. Some claimed to have seen it before but were still uncertain.

There is a huge cross over and variation of characteristics in every species of timber and there are even hybrids, a mix of two species.

(How does that work? Is there a mommy tree and a daddy tree?)

One of the reference books I have claims that even in Brazil, authorities there cannot specifically identify Dalbergia Nigra - Brazilian Rosewood. Its all a minefield and exploited by unscrupulous dealers.

So, I had it tested by Kew Gardens. Expensive, but they are the world expert in these things, we are lucky to have them. The test results came back and yes, it’s the genuine article.

Then I still had to go through the process of obtaining the correct paperwork to enable me to sell the wood or instruments made from it.

Those of you that are involved with such things will know how it works. We have to provide "provenance" in the form of invoices, shipping documents and as much history as possible. In my case it helped that I've done it several times before and Ive developed useful relationships and some measure of trust with APHA, the governing body in such things and with Kew's help, it all worked out.

I already had a lot of Brazilian Rosewood that I can legally use and sell, and now I have a lot more, but I’m a little concerned that customers won’t believe what it is!

Solution? Make a guitar and see how it turns out!

Watch this space.

See you next month!

Roger