An Afternoon at The North American Guitar Company

I’ve been meaning to get down to the North American Guitar (TNAG), and Michael Watts, for a couple of years now. I’ve in-laws not far away in West London and in my twenties I lived locally, seemingly spending all my time in Putney, Parsons Green and Fulham — probably because then this was the hub of much of the UK music scene (certainly the folk rock world) A weekend trip and a pretty lean time work-wise gave me the obvious opportunity.

TNAG is located just off the Munster Road in a new and refurbished little funky estate, if that isn’t an odd way of describing a commercial estate. You ring what looks like the doorbell of flat and are shown into a lovely, spacious room. Those guitars are hanging on the wall of course, but somehow the ambience is more of a creative industry office than a guitar store.

First things first. After giving me a nice cup of coffee, Michael ushered me on to the famous sofa (actually there are two of them). “What I’m going to do is throw a load of guitars at you”.

In many ways TNAG — like Dream Guitars and TAMCO — reflects the coming of age of the steel string guitar. These operations go beyond whatever you would find in even the best music stores here. Certainly this is true when we consider price. In a place like Ivor Mairant’s you find a lot of guitars in the £3-5K range and some a bit higher than that; what you don’t get are instruments that cost £10-£15K and even more. In the classical world these kind of prices are common place. A good and aspiring musician will expect to a lot of money for their instrument as it is their primary tool of their trade; this is as important a purchase as not so much their first car but their first house. The best steel string guitars now are in this range. They are very, very, serious instruments. But do they sound that much better? I was curious to find out.

I should say upfront that I’m not a stranger to decent steel string guitars. I own three very good guitars, the prices of which always cause surprise top non musicians. I’ve also played my far share of Sobell’s, Bown’s, Lowden’s and so on, not to mention all of the well known ‘boutique’ brands. But TNAG represented a journey into the unknown.

Before I talk about the individual guitars I’ll offer some wider reflections and observations. All of the guitars I played were finger style guitars. I’m sure many of them are very versatile but they have been picked out and chosen for their finger style ‘playability’. The guitars were, indeed, all comfortable to play. The profiles of the necks, while different, all seemed perfect and the fingerboard widths were generous. The guitars also changed my perception of woods, particularly of mahogany. Over the years I have played some mahogany guitars that stick in the mind. More often than not these are great ragtime and country blues guitars but they have never been all rounders. Whenever I’ve been in the position to choose I’ve gone down the rosewood route. But these mahogany instruments were very different. In the hands of a talented builder they have air and space to them, great sustain and so on. Many of my favourite guitars from this session were mahogany and I’d never have thought that before hand!

Michael’s technique seems to be to start with the more modest guitars and gradually move you up the scale. This not only allows you to appreciate the difference in quality but, I suspect, also allows him to assess your own styles and to help him make the next guitar choices. You are on your own. There are no other guitar players nearby in competitive mode and there is no near-deaf punk around the corner hammering out shred guitar. You have time to play each instrument, open the tunings if you want, and so on. I think I was playing guitars for over two hours.

We started with a Bourgeois 000 in mahogany. Bourgeois — along with Santa Cruz, Collings and the like — have built on and refined the traditional American steel string sound. In any one of our better guitars stores (Mairant’s, Celtic Chords, Forsyth’s and so on) this guitar would have stood out. Here is was a very nice guitar but was essentially our starting point and, if I’m frank, the journey humbled the it somewhat.

Next up it was Froggy Bottom M in mahogany. A long time ago I played one of these in Ivor Mairant’s. It has stayed with me over all these years. The store manager at the time said that the guitar was an almost perfect match for my style which back then was very ragtime and country blues focussed. This new Froggy Bottom M was every good as I remembered and then some. It has a gorgeous tone and incredibly responsive to the touch which is what you want for that kind of music. There was no need to work particularly hard — or play loud — to make a real impression. It was so lovely that I found myself not only playing but singing Hesitation Blues — the singing seemed to help me appreciate the whole thing. But I also had time tune down to DADGAD and the M was more than at home here. A lovely guitar.

Next up was a Froggy Bottom K, the instrument that Will Ackerman has been playing for years. We’d left the mahogany behind now. This was an immediately impressive and big sounding guitar yet still as light and easy to play as the M. There were overtones and harmonics everywhere so much so that I realised that you needed real skill to tame them. This is a great guitar that I played for a while, however, I never really felt I was in control of it. But if you play contemporary fingerstyle that doesn’t depend on dramatic attack this could be your dream instrument. It seemed to me to be more Tony McManus than Martin Simpson if you get my drift. The K is about £11K and the M £5.5K

Next up was a 00 or concert sized guitar from Jeff Bamburg; Michael and I had already had a good chat about smaller sized guitars not least in the context of the new model being built for him by Jason Kostal. This didn’t jump down my throat like the Froggy K but it was lovely and the more I played it the more I fell in love with it. A lower bout of 15” and 24.9 scale make this very comfortable and exceptionally playable. At £7K this seemed something of a bargain and, for me at least, this knocks the spots similarly priced Lowden’s. For a long time Mairant’s had a de Jong guitar about this price but this was a far better specimen. I could easily have taken this home.

After a few more guitars we were coming to the end of the session. Michael said there were two more guitars that I should play just to say that I had played them.

The first of these was a Greenfield. This is the G1 that is described as the transitional guitar, one of the first made with the bracing system that has now become some famous. As such this is a snip at £12.5 K. These days Greenfield’s models start at around £15K.

I’d not played a Greenfield before but immediately I found myself saying to Michael. ”Ah, so this is what it is all about.” To say this was a ‘big sound’ would be an understatement. It was incredibly rich and dynamic and very loud. This is a guitar that urges you to give it some welly or beat the shit out of it. This is not guitar for sweet, delicate, little fingerpickers. In many ways it reminded me of many of the Sobell’s I have played, which I often think are not the easiest of guitars to play. You have to have a really good technique to make the Sobell’s sing and this Greenfield has something of this about it.

The last guitar was the one that literally stopped me in my tracks and took my breath away. This requires a post all of it’s own. I’m not teasing but it will take me a little longer to think about how to put it all into words!

Before I finished Michael gave me his own Kostal to play. It is a very interesting instrument and, again, has mahogany back and sides. The sound of the instrument didn’t jump right out at me as some of the others had. (This is a quality I’ve become suspicious of over the years — something that sounds great and wonderful in a store can become a bit tiring and overpowering over an extended play.) It sounded nice though. As I played it I realised that this guitar had been built for a player of great technique and finesse, which Michael is of course. You can play it soft but the Kostal also has masses of headroom. I played a DADGAD scale down the neck. The intonation was simply marvellous, each note as clear and of consistent volume has you moved down the neck. This is a concert instrument and not one for a hack picker like me but I was really pleased to have had the experience. This is a remarkable guitar.

So, it was a great day. To understand just what these makers are doing you really have to spend time with the instruments. Was that Greenfield better than that Froggy K for a similar price? Well, the answer is a very personal one and very much dependent on your own playing style and musical preference I suspect. You need to have the space and time to make your own judgement (unless you are a collector)

Finally, you get to spend some time with Michael himself. He is a great host, makes you feel at home. He doesn’t intrude too much and he doesn’t play and intimidate you! His album — which is superb — is almost ready and the new guitar build coming along nicely!SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave