1950s Gypsy Mystery | Blog

DjangoBooks

Spicy, Sicilian built guitar with good looks and the sound to back it up!

MichaelHorowitz

This guitar just makes me want to eat a big bowl of Pasta alla Norma and wash it down with a bottle of Nero D'Avola!

AndyW

Carmelo Catania, 7/RE.

ChrisMartin

Once again AndyW to the rescue with his knowledge of the Sicilian luthiers. I think Carmelo deserves to be better known, he was prolific and came up with some innovative _ for which read 'cool' - designs. From the few I have experience of (they are not very common in Australia) they usually have an attractive. bright 'lively' sound although it has to be said not always using top quality materials; Andy might know better though.

Another interesting observation is that these guitars all feature ninth fret markers instead of Carmelo's normal tenth. One wonders were these models designed for, and aimed at, a specific market?

And thanks to Michael for the original blurb on the guitar in which he not only claims this one too has 'mojo' (?) he also mentions some of the usual Sicilians who migrated to Paris but did NOT include either Favino or Busato; it has long puzzled me as to why whenever the history of Sicilian luthiers comes up those two were always included even though they were both from the north of Italy. Maybe now that Veillon and Legrand's definitive Favino book has been published this practice will disappear.