I commissioned a guitar from my friend, Jorge de Gubia, one of Spain's finest luthiers. Jorge, originally from Poland, and trained by his father, an expert luthier, accordion maker and virtuoso settled in Madrid 20 years ago. Since then he has produced guitars, violins and other stringed instruments second to none for Spain's top musicians. In particular, guitarists from the Flamenco scene have been quick to see the unsurpassable quality of his work and many of the greats, including El Entri use his guitars.
At the time he operated from an narrow but long workshop in the Alto de Extremadura district in Madrid. A veritable heaven for any guitar lover. Hanging all around the workshop were guitars in various stages of their creation, shelves full of planks of amazing woods and here and there a beautiful shining finished wooden box of joy.


Amongst the dust, wood shavings, strange tools and varnishes Jorge was often to be found chatting with gypsy guitarist or a member of one of Madrid's orchestras. An immensely likeable and knowledgeable man, it was easy to spend days watching him work and talking about the multitude of subjects from woods to genetics that interest him.


Before I got to Madrid in the October 2005, I ruminated deeply over what sort of guitar I wanted Jorge to make me. This included a couple of dreams where Jorge was measuring my fingers and hands! I decided upon a guitar for stage use, small and comfortable in the body, with a cutaway and a plug in pickup system.
When I got to see him, he did indeed measure my hands - although no rulers were involved as Jorge seems to have an internal micrometer in his eyes.
For the back and sides I chose 'Coco bolo', an African hardwood and Spruce for the top.




The pickup system I decided upon was a Fishman Prefix PROBlend Narrow. I have one on my other guitar and find it gives a good live sound with effective feedback control.


The guitar:




For more information on Jorge de Gubia, his website is http://www.artluthier.com


Rikki other guitar is a hand made J.PEREZ cutaway nylon string guitar.
It was built in 2002 by Germán Perez Barranco from 33yr seasoned Spanish Cypress (Ciprés Español).



It is fitted with a FISHMAN Prefix PROblend pickup. On stage he uses a Boss GT-6 Guitar Effects Processor and a Gallien Kruger 200 MV guitar amplifier