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Richard Jernigan -> RE: Paco Toronjo y Nino Miguel (Apr. 16 2010 17:50:38)
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The guy really looked spooked when I tried to hand him the guitar. Of course there's more than one possible explanation for that. But I had been to Bernabe's shop in Arcos de Cuchilleros a few times, and had bought one guitar there. The starting price the guy in Paris offered was a fair beginning point for bargaining, but not low enough for me to immediately reach for my wallet.
The woman who ran/runs La Guitarrería definitely was/is a payo who spoke in a high falutin Castilian accent. The man said he was her brother within her hearing, and bore enough family resemblance to be credible.
The first time I went to the Conde Hermanos shop in Gravina would have been in the late 1960s or early 1970s. I asked the kid behind the counter for one of their best guitars to try. He brought out a guitar and quoted an astronomical price. It was villainous. The neck was bowed. The fretboard looked like it was yellow pine covered in shoe polish. The frets were rough and uneven. The soundboard was sinking in front of the bridge, and the tuners practically took a wrench to turn. I looked it over carefully, asked for a tuning fork, tuned it up and played a few falsetas of soleá. One of the Conde women was in the front of the shop. She disappeared into the woodwork and brought out Faustino, who listened for a moment. I handed the junk guitar back to the kid without comment. Faustino sent the kid for another guitar. He brought out a top notch media luna, but quoted the same ridiculous price.
I played for a while. Eventually there were 8 or 10 people in the shop listening. A kid was sent down the street to fetch the professor, who stood nodding and mentioning the sources he heard. I'm not saying I was great, far from it, but I had a fairly fluent technique and it was long ago enough that it was extremely rare to hear a gringo play in compás.
I knew a half dozen guys in Austin who took lessons from Ed Freeman in Dallas. I didn't take from Freeman because I knew I wouldn't get along with him. Each of us had a temper. But I got to know him a little, and picked up a fair amount from his students and records. I profited by a good education on another instrument.
Faustino spoke to one of the women, who came and offered me a very fair price. I thanked her, complimented the guitar, bought some strings and left. Any time I returned after that, I was treated with courtesy and honesty.
By then I had spent a fair amount of time in Spain and Latin America. Long enough to be prepared for the "tourist price" and the "stupid gringo" scams.
RNJ
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