Samson Schmitt's guitar on "Alicia" CD?

jscook777

Does anyone know who made the guitar Samson Schmitt used on his "Alicia" CD? I'm tripping on the tone!

dennis

Rodrigo Shopis, a great luthier based in NYC , google his name

jscook777

Thanks Dennis! The tone is outrageous. I wish he would have used it on his recent disc with Ludovic Beier. I can't get enough of that sound.

redblues

Rodgrigo Shopis on Alicia??........are you sure?

It's been a good few years now but I thought it was Gallato on Alicia, certainly open to correction in the form of articles or interviews.

klaatu

This is the guitar that Rodrigo built for Samson. Sure looks like the one on the CD cover. He's almost completed one much like it for ME! This will be my second Shopis, the first being a Favino-sized oval hole that I bought from Charlie Miller, and which is still my favorite gypsy guitar of all time (although Michael Bauer's so-ugly-it's-beautiful D hole Busato comes close).

Check Rodrigo out at http://www.rodrigoshopis.com

frater

Honestly I'm no more paying a lot of attention to these matters so i could easily be wrong, but I don't remember Samson Schmitt endorsing Gallato. Wasn't him playing Manouche before he went Shopis? Officialy I think he's now playing JWC...

klaatu

frater wrote:

Honestly I'm no more paying a lot of attention to these matters so i could easily be wrong, but I don't remember Samson Schmitt endorsing Gallato. Wasn't him playing Manouche before he went Shopis? Officialy I think he's now playing JWC...

Technically, frater, I don't think Samson ever was an official "endorser" of Shopis guitars. That term generally means that the artist lets the builder use his name in their ads and sometimes create and sell a "signature model," and usually the artist plays that builder's guitars in their public appearances and recordings. In return for this the artist receives some sort of compensation, which may include free guitars, payments, or both. In some cases, the artist actually has a hand in designing the signature model, in others it is just a matter of sticking their name on it. Angelo Debarre, as one example, has bounced around quite a bit.

As far as I know, Samson and Dorado paid for their Shopis guitars themselves, and there is no endorsement deal, other than that they are shown on Rodrigo's site.

frater

I know: maybe it's my faulty English but I wrote "he went " meaning "he got a crush on"!
As for JWC sponsoring Samson he talk about his signature model here: http://www.patrus53.com/2010/10/21/samson-schmitt/

klaatu

frater wrote:

I know: maybe it's my faulty English but I wrote "he went " meaning "he got a crush on"!

That would be more like it! When you play a Shopis guitar, it's instant crush. And unlike some other crushes, it doesn't fade with time.

Guillaume

I saw Samson and Dorado both playing Belleville guitars at the Django festival at Birdland in NYC last Jan.

Guillaume

ibradbur

I agree with Ben, based on the cover and in comparison to the D hole Shopis I own, it sounds like one of Rodrigos guitars to me. They are special instruments, I also just ordered my second one.