KEN PARKER

One of the guitar world's most visionary makers, who took the archtop guitar to unimaginable levels and also created the radical Parker Fly, has died aged 73

- Words Dave Burrluck

Ken Parker's archtop quest can be traced back to a 21 year old taking guitar lessons with a jazz player named Dick Longdale in Rochester, New York. He became fascinated by his teacher's Gibson L-12, an early 40s non-cutaway archtop that “sounded fantastic”, Ken remembered in a video interview last year for D'Addario's Work/Shop feature. “I couldn't believe how great it sounded.” He looked but couldn't find an archtop that sounded as good, so that's when he concluded that he'd have to make one. He also realised that the Gibson was an outlier, an exceptional guitar that left Ken to ask the question: “Why don't they all sound that good?”

By the mid-70s he'd built his first archtop in a Long Island workshop he shared with a lute-maker, Robert Meadow. He showed the guitar to Matt Umanov at his store in Greenwich Village, who is reported to have told him it looked like something a hippy had made, but Jimmy D'Aquisto, who had apprenticed under John D'Angelico, told him that his archtop was the best first guitar he'd ever heard. “You're crazy if you stop building,” he said.