Archtop Acoustics

The New Yorker wrote a brief article about Ken Parker of Parker Guitars and his quest to bring back the archtop acoustic. The article is a good summary but the real gold is the accompanying audio that actually lets you hear the guitars. Music Thing has a picture of the Parker Archtop

I personally fell in love with archtop acoustics a few years ago when I first saw Dave Rawlings play with Gillian Welch. He plays a 1935 Epiphone Olympic archtop that just sounds magical. He often says that it's unique because it plays every note on the neck at the same volume.

As a result of being so overly impressed with Dave's guitar I tried to grab a cheap archtop off eBay. At the very least I thought it would look cool hanging on the wall. I ended up with a pretty crappy Harmony for around $100. It serves little musical purpose other than being set up pretty well for slide guitar and, as intended, looking pretty cool in the corner of my room.



(HT: Strat-O-Blogster)