David Rubio, 1984

This is the first David Rubio to come through our shop, and it turned out to be worth the wait. Built in 1984 during Rubio's Cambridge period, it carries a label reading David J. Rubio, Cambridge, 1984, and it is an outstanding example of what the maker was doing later in his career.

The most famous Rubio guitars are the mid 1960s instruments that Julian Bream took up, and deservedly so. But the later work should not be discounted, and this guitar makes that case on its own. The first chord we played on it was startling, so loud and so open that we assumed something unusual had to be going on with the instrument. The more time we spent with it, the more it gave back. It is a rare chance to acquire a Rubio in this condition, set up and playing beautifully, and it even greets you with the smell of a great old guitar every time you open the case.

Our first reaction was suspicion. The guitar was so loud, and the strings felt so loose and free under the hand, that we were sure it had to be a long scale instrument. It is, at 660mm, ten millimeters longer than standard. What surprises is that you never feel it. A 52mm nut width and a fairly thin, very comfortable neck, especially down in the lower positions, keep everything within easy reach, and the action is genuinely low at 3.5mm on the bass side and 2.7mm on the treble side at the twelfth fret. If you have only ever played 650mm guitars and assume a longer scale is not for you, this is the instrument that will make you reconsider.

The sound is something else entirely. There is a looseness and an openness to it, a relaxed quality where the notes simply pour out of the box, and sitting underneath that is something deep, rich, and frankly otherworldly. The main air resonance sits at G#, and you feel that foundation beneath everything you play. In that depth and richness you hear the two makers Rubio most admired: the influence of Robert Bouchet and the French school, alongside the voice of Francisco Simplicio and the Barcelona tradition. This guitar is a beautiful marriage of those two worlds. Whether the rest of it comes from the scale length, from more than forty years of aging in the spruce top, or from Rubio's own genius is anyone's guess.

String by string it holds up beautifully. The first string has an angelic voice. The second is silky and projects wonderfully, which is worth noting because this guitar is strung with plain nylon trebles and no carbon at all. The third string is a genuinely special voice, vocal and singing. The fourth carries that same looseness through the transition into the basses. The fifth responds with real authority, and the sixth has a bulbous, powerful sound that you can lean into hard without it falling apart. Through it all there is an articulate, unmistakably Spanish quality that surely traces back to Rubio's own years playing flamenco, alongside something of the many other stringed instruments he spent his life building.

The spruce top has aged to a beautiful color and is set off by a very handsome rosette. Underneath is an interesting six fan bracing pattern, with closing braces at the lower bout and an additional brace besides. The bridge is a beautifully figured piece of rosewood with a nicely aged tie block, and the color underneath the top shows its years in the best way.

The back and sides are a very straight grained set of Indian rosewood with lovely purfling around the outside. In person the wood carries more color than photographs usually catch, with a warm reddish tone running through it.

The headstock wears a rosewood veneer with a light strip down the center that looks like a lit candle, and it is crowned by a set of old Rodgers tuning machines with beautiful engraving, kidney buttons and white rollers. After more than forty years on this guitar they have a gorgeous natural patina and still turn beautifully. They remain among the finest tuners you will find on any instrument.

Specifications

Year: 1984 (Cambridge period)

Construction: Traditional, six fan bracing

Action: 3.5mm bass / 2.7mm treble at the 12th fret

Neck: Comfortable, fairly thin profile

Bridge: Figured rosewood

Label: David J. Rubio, Cambridge, 1984

Condition: Excellent, no cracks or repairs

David Rubio (born David Joseph Spinks, 17 September 1934 to 21 October 2000) was an English maker of stringed instruments and one of the most important figures in the modern history of the classical guitar. He began as a medical student before going to Spain to study flamenco guitar, and he acquired the name Rubio in his twenties while working as a professional flamenco player. Some of his earliest labels read Jose Rubio, from that Spanish period.

In the early 1960s he traveled from Spain to New York as accompanist for the Rafael de Cordoba flamenco dance company. It was there that he set playing aside in favor of building, opening his first workshop on Carmine Street in Greenwich Village. Remarkably, he taught himself largely from memory, working from what he had absorbed hanging around the workshops of Spanish makers while he was studying there. He later returned to England, establishing a workshop in Duns Tew near Oxford before relocating to Cambridge, where this guitar was built.

Over a forty year career Rubio made more than a thousand instruments, and his curiosity extended far beyond the guitar to lutes, harpsichords, theorbos, vihuelas, citterns, violins, violas, and cellos. He investigated the technology of instrument making deeply, working with Professor Ralph Raphael and other Cambridge scientists to study the surface treatments used on Cremonese instruments by makers such as Stradivari, research that was published in Nature. He also generously shared his knowledge with a younger generation of makers, and he continued building stringed instruments right up until his death in Cambridge in 2000 at the age of 66.

Rubio's reputation was cemented by his association with the legendary guitarist Julian Bream. In the mid 1960s Bream was searching for a replacement for his beloved Robert Bouchet guitar, which had been stolen from him and which he had never been able to properly replace. He discovered Rubio's work, encouraged him to build, and from 1965 into the late 1960s Bream performed and recorded extensively on Rubio guitars. Most famously, he used a 1965 Rubio to record Benjamin Britten's Nocturnal on his landmark album 20th Century Guitar, one of the most influential guitar records ever made.

Those mid 1960s instruments remain the most celebrated Rubios, but the later Cambridge guitars have their own case to make. Hearing an instrument like this one, you understand immediately why Rubio's work caught the ear of a musician who had access to virtually every great guitar in the world.

This guitar is in excellent condition throughout. There are no cracks and no repairs to the top, and the back and sides are likewise crack free and unrepaired. The spruce top has a lovely aged color, and the original Rodgers tuners remain smooth and fully functional. For a Cambridge period Rubio, this is about as clean an example as one could hope to find, and it has been set up and prepared by us in excellent playing condition.