cbaixo
Socio de la AGA
Mairants, Ivor, My Fifty Fretting Years, Tyne and Wear, Ashley Mark, 1980, pp. 75-77:
cbaixo
"...The rise in the popularity of the guitar began un the early fifties and by the end of the decade had reached 'boom' proportions.
Les pauls' 1952 Palladium performance had introduced us to the solid electrci guitar. Duanne Eddy, who followed shortly with a variety tour favoured a slimline Guild electric/acoustic, but by the time Bill Haley and his Comets arrived, audiences had grown larger and were more enthusiastic...
...Britain's youngsters were greatly affected and they rushed to buy guitars and to create their own styles. New performers like Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard, Hank Marvin and the Shadows all came into the picture...
...Lonnie Donegan, who had long been a banjo and guitar player, recorded Rock Island Line which pJaced him in the front as the leader of the singing, playing, skiffiing movement. The new social habit of coffee drinking established Coffee Bars where skiffle groups proudly showed off their three chord tricks...
...Behind the wall of Rock 'n Roll publicity, the classical guitar was quietly gaining ground, although classical recitals by Ida Presti (France's leading guitarist) and María Luisa Anidos from South America attracted only small audiences. Segovia's annual appearances were always fulIy attended and his name was known to a public who otherwise knew nothing about the classical guitar.
Julian Bream, who had first broadcast at the age of 12, had now become famous enough to appear on the BBC TV show 'Six Five Special' in the midst of the 'Twist'. Even the Royal Academy of Music had added the cIassical guitar to the classical instruments currículum. Spanish flamenco companies toured England and tourism in Spain began, aiding the romantic appeal of the Spanish (flamenco) guitar.
I myself began to take an interest in flamenco music and had lessons from visiting guitarists Luis Maravilla, Juan de la Mata and Angel Iglesias.
Guitars were now becoming an item of commerce and the first man to take advantage was Ben Davis of Selmers, London, who aided by his guitar playing PR man, Dick Sadleir, imported Höfner guitars from West Germany. On the classical side Rose, Morris & Co. imported Tatay guitars from Valencia in Spain. Cheap guitars also came from Czechoslovakia and an extremely cheap small guitar from the Soviet Union in exchange for razor blades!
1 suppose they all served a need but I did not much care for any of them except the Tatay which, in spite of its shoddy appearance, had a good tone. Guitars, of course, need strings and Boosey & Hawkes approached me to sponsor a string bearing my name; after a couple of years of study, trial and error, I accepted the final sample and in May 1952 the 'Ivor Mairants' strings were launched. This led to my being appointed guitar consultant and buyer for Boosey & Hawkes, a position which I took seriously and enjoyed.
It must be remembered that because of the dollar exchange control, no dollar goods could be imported into Great Britain, hence the trade with Europe, but there was nothing to stop me designing a guitar similar to my Epiphone and in the end 1 decided to copy the design of the Epiphone Broadway arched top.
lt was now up to us to select a guitar manufacturer (of which there were a few in West Germany) to make the instruments which were to be known by the trade name of Zenith.
There were a number of guitar makers in the distríct of Bubenreuth near Erlangen in Bavaria some of whom had come over from nearby Markneukirchen in East Germany and others from Schönbach in Czechoslovakia and opened small factories. They were Karl Höfner, Edward Hoyer, Klira and Freddy Wilfer. Freddy Wilfer was about to build a new factory for Framus guitars which made their debut in December 1953. Eventually there were three Zenith models, Nos. 17 and 19 non-cutaway and model 21 a de-luxe cutaway, with prices ranging from £19.00 to about £27.00...
...The need for Spanish guitars was also growing so in 1954 I began what became an annual pilgrimage to the luthiers and guitar manufacturers of Spain, at first on behalf of Boosey & Hawkes and then on rny own account. As the 1950s rolled on so did the demand for guitars increase. The sales in 1954 were twice as many as in 1953. In 1955 they were 150 per cent up on 1954, and by the end of 1956 sales had risen to five times the volume of 1955. By 1957 the National Press were screaming of a guitar boom. The weekly magazine John Bull printed a two page spread which included a personal interview, a picture of me testing a warehouse full of guitars and another with Winifred Atwell at the Palladium under the caption 'The Guitar Craze Hits Fortissimo'.
Both the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail published my inside story about the shortage of supplies and the overwhelming demand for guitars. One northern retailer offered me a large sum in cash to divert guitars to him from one of my continental sources. 1 sent him and his Jag. back to Lancashire with an empty boot!
Yes! 1957 must indeed have been the year the guitar craze hit fortissimo not only in the United Kingdom but also in Europe.
An internationally organised Guitar Festival took place in the University town of Erlangen in Bavaria which received national TV coverage in which representative guitarists including myself were televised performing their own special styles before large audiences. The star, in my opinion, was Atilla Zoller from Hungary whom 1 called Europe's Tal Farlow. I also met the youthful Siegfried Behrend playing from Bach to avant-garde with equal ease on the nylon-strung guitar..."
cbaixo