Juan Alvarez 1973

Juan Alvarez 1973 - outstanding classical guitar in the style of Santos Hernandez and Marcello Barbero - even Eric Clapton played a similar guitar for „Tears in Heaven“!

Juan Alvarez is a guitar maker in a class of his own. He was born in 1932 and began making guitars in the 1940s together with his older brother Lorenzo.
Juan Alvarez later became friends with Marcelo Barbero (1904-1956), one of the great guitar makers of the last century. The latter became Juan's mentor, providing him with advice and support, from which he said he benefited enormously. Together with Marcelo Barbero, he also had the opportunity to immerse himself in the guitar world of the great Santos Hernandez, as Marcelo Barbero worked for Santos Hernandez's widow for a while after his death.

In 1952, Juan Alvarez founded his own workshop, where he worked until shortly before his death and also trained his son. He also worked with Arcangel Fernandez and can therefore rightly be described as one of the most important guitar makers!
Many professional guitarists played and still play guitars by Juan Alvarez. His guitars are in the tradition of Santos Hernandez, Marcelo Barbero and Arcangel Fernandez.

Eric Clapton played the same model of Juan Alvarez guitar and recorded „Tears in Heaven“ with it. He also played his Juan Alvarez at his famous MTV Unplugged concert in 1992. This guitar was sold at auction in 2004 for $253900.
This guitar is also very special because it is built in exactly the same style as the Arcangel Fernandez guitars (Juan and his brother Lorenzo were closely associated with Arcangel Fernandez) that we had in our store. They sound almost exactly the same.

This beautiful guitar was built by Juan Alvarez in 1973. It has a spruce top and rosewood back and sides. The scale length is 650 mm and the nut width is 52 mm.

The sound of this instrument impresses with its warm and characterful tone - the trebles sound clear and brilliant. The basses are powerful and sound dark and warm.
The guitar unfolds an enormous volume and inspires with an incredible Spanish lightness.
It has a high collector's value and is wonderfully suitable for performances or recordings. It belongs to the top class of instruments that we have seen.

The guitar is in good condition. It has been played a lot and there are traces of flamenco playing on the top. It has one repair on the top and one on the back. There is also a small repair on the frame.

It comes with a hard case.

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