This Brownie model features a red
spruce top, curly mahogany (on
the back, sides, and neck), and a
European spruce neck core.
The other significant development was
Parker’s realization that he wasn’t going
to be a player. “No matter how much I
practiced, I was still struggling after two or
three hours a night. So I said, ‘Well, maybe
I’ll just try and make one of these things.’
That was in 1974.”
Parker’s Brief Archtop Primer
Being in the New York area was a boon for
Parker and his aspiration, because it offered
him many opportunities to get his hands on
archtops. He quickly became an avid student.
“The archtop guitar is one of the very few
instruments on our planet that was not the
product of an intensive period of competition
by competent builders. You can count
on one hand the number of people who
built archtop guitars by hand before 1975.
And that’s just weird. The pianoforte came
from these little carry-around-in-a-suitcase
instruments, and it took 300 years to develop.
The violin went through a huge period
of development—we’re talking
centuries. And even the classical
guitar is still evolving. But the archtop
was basically stillborn.”
By that, Parker means that many of the
earliest archtops left a lot to be desired.
“They weighed a ton—they were made like
packing crates. Then all these marketing
geniuses got together with all these German
craftsmen in Kalamazoo, and they made
some pretty cool stuff—mandolins, flattop
guitars, archtop guitars in the model of
[Orville] Gibson . . . but they made them
better. And then, in 1922 they hired this
genius [named] Lloyd Loar. He was only at
the company for about 26 months, and in
that time he invented and perfected the
F5 mandolin, the Mastertone banjo, and
the L5 guitar. He is my hero.”
The L5 did get some improvements
after Loar left Gibson in 1924. “The examples
that are most highly prized by people
who
listen were made in ‘27, ‘28, and
‘29,” Parker continues. “You could make
an argument that no one
seriously built an
acoustic archtop since 1929 except for two
people, D’Angelico and Stromberg, because
in 1938 Charlie Christian came along.
He was like an evangelist— ‘Get a pickup
guys!’ And everybody did!”
After that, archtops were built heavier to
avoid feedback—but that made them less
responsive and rich sounding. “They were
really electric guitars with air inside,” Parker
says. “I don’t mean to say there weren’t
some brilliant
guitars made by these
guys—and hats off, because
when they came out great, they were
great. But a lot of them were pretty clunky,
quiet instruments.”
Mrs. Natural has a red spruce top,
rift-cut Big Leaf maple (on
the back, sides, and neck), a bronze
tailpiece, and snakewood veneers on
the fretboard, headstock, strap
buttons, and bridge.