The Easy club: Jim Sutherland, Jack Evans, John Martin and Rod Paterson

Rod Paterson was a lovely man and a great singer with the most wonderful voice. He died last Thursday.

One of the many talented Edinburgh musicians in the 1980s, Rod was a founder member of the great band ‘The Easy Club’, along with Jack Evans, Jim Sutherland and Norman Chalmers; Norman was later replaced by John Martin.  There is an excellent account of the band by Jack Evans on the Rare Tunes site: https://raretunes.org/the-easy-club/

Rod will be mourned by his many friends and admirers.

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Joseph McKeever from Dublin brought his mandolin to me for a new nut; he bought the mandolin from Kieren Curren of Altan many years ago.

The label is a Turf House label; I worked from Turf House from 1975 until 1979. This mandolin had steel strips built into the neck (and is absolutely straight) rather than the later adjustable truss rods, meaning the mandolin was built earlier rather than later.  And looking at it, I would say it’s very early, probably built soon after summer 1975. I expect Kieren will know.

It’s had a refret and the bridge has been lowered somewhat, but it’s otherwise completely original and perfectly sound. Lovely to see such an early mandolin in such good condition.

With the mandolin I built nearly 50 years ago

Live with the guitar in Italy, 2019

The estimated sale price is given as £7000 – £10000, but I’m reliably informed the actual price could be double or more.  We’ll see tomorrow.

The guitar is lot 114, here’s the link.  If you are making a bid, good luck.  https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6465819

Wednesday 31st Jan
Watching the auction live, prices for the first three guitars, one electric and two Ovations, were around up to and over 30 times the higher estimated prices. WOW.  These are Knopflers better known guitars, many used on his hits.
A mere 5 times the estimated £5000 price for a Chet Atkins Hollowbody seems positively cheap.  And I’ve checked the buyer’s premium, it’s an extra 24% plus VAT, so another quarter on top.

The auctioneer is taking lots of time to extract more bids after bidding seems to have stalled, coaxing bid after bid out of the audience, telephone bidders and website bidders. She tells which songs each guitar was played on (sometimes a clip is played).  She’s American and to start with, kept saying dollars instead of pounds. But made a joke of it, is good at relaxing people.  She’s really good.

Later
Knopfler’s MS Sobell was eventually sold at £32000, more than three times the higher estimate.  On top of this, the buyer will have paid Christie’s buyer premium of 24% plus VAT, so a total of over £40000.

Now sold 

Some recent customer comments

Jens Schneider on his mandola:
…Later I had the chance for a closer look, the mandola is in perfect shape, looks great and has a sweet but also super rich and resonant tone with a lot of sustain and nice balance between treble and bass. Playability is fully effortless and any note I fret is just precisely to the point where-ever, even up the neck…

Sean Holden on his bouzouki:
…I played the new bouzouki for 10 seconds and my jaw hit the floor. This is the best bouzouki I’ve ever played by a country mile. Thanks so much for a brilliant job. :-)…

Gary James Mcgovern:
Just a quick line to say lovely to meet you both yesterday. I’m absolutely delighted with the instrument, it’s a truly commendable piece of work.

The first new Model 1 Sicilian has reached its new owner.  Bryan Caldwell in California received it last Friday.  Bryan says:

Hi Stefan,

Despite DHL listing Monday as the day of delivery, the guitar showed up this afternoon (Friday)!

I am beyond pleased with it. What a wonderful instrument. I’ve been playing guitar for more than 50 years and I’ve owned Martins (too many to count), Gisbons, Kevin Ryan (2), Guild (1), Goodall (2), Collings (5), Santa Cruz (3), Taylor (2), and more – and that’s just the flat tops, and this stands out among them all.

I was happy to read this.

I called my first guitar my Model 1. Hardly imaginative but very logical.

A couple of years later, a very slightly modified shape became my Model 1 Sicilian (the first went to Sicily), and in this form I built it for many years.

Since around 2000 I have been building Martin Simpson, New World, Steinbeck and Anniversary models.  But I have recently re-fretted some Sicilians and been reminded what excellent guitars they were.  So I have built a new version, to the original shape and dimensions but with my later soundboard and construction developments.  It is now in my catalogue as a regular model.

The backs and sides are best old Indian rosewood, bought 30 years ago and air-dried on my shelves ever since. The soundboard is 5 year old German spruce, and the neck is 20 year old Brazilian mahogany.

The first of the new Sicilians, shown left, has a non standard Wengé neck, available as an option.

Specifications

For more information email stefan@sobellguitars.com
or telephone  +44 (0) 1434 673567

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I have started work on a prototype Brazilian rosewood and Douglas Fir Martin Simpson Signature model.

I built a New World Classic (flat soundboard) with a Douglas Fir soundboard which was excellent.  This time I’m building to my standard curved top design.

The back and sides wood I picked are dark traditional Brazilian rosewood. Clearly nicely figured, but it was only when I applied Shellac lacquer that I realised just how dramatic it was.  With the shiny Shellac and under my bench lights it looks absolutely wonderful.

The shellac will be scraped and sanded off later, but there are good reasons for applying it now.

1. When removing tape that holds the binding, it can pull little lengths of wood from the grain; the shellac prevents this.
2. When scraping and sanding the finished instrument prior to going into the spray booth, the dark shellac shows the areas still needing more work.
3. The shellac helps fill grain before lacquering in the spray booth.

Legendary Irish musician Andy Irvine had a scare when his two main instruments vanished on a journey from Dublin to Denmark.  These were his guitar bouzouki and mandola, both built by me.

It was many weeks before they were finally found and returned, and in the meantime Andy asked if I had a mandola available. Unusually, I did, and he arranged to come to Northumberland to see it. By the time he arrived, the lost instruments were found, but Andy played the new maple mandola and, because he loved it, decided to take it any way.  Here he is playing it and showing off the Birdseye maple back and sides. He took this mandola on his latest UK tour.

This mandolin is now sold subject to confirmation.

Small mandolin available.  Birdseye maple back and sides, German spruce soundboard.  It looks and sounds wonderful.

Email stefan@sobellguitars.com or call 01434 673567 for more information.