


“I use a medium-size parlor-a Fraulini Loretta. “I love to play the old styles on a parlor guitar,” says Flemons, who played a parlor on his recent solo debut Prospect Hill. In the modern era, parlor guitars are perhaps most closely associated with folk singers, including Joan Baez and a young Bob Dylan, as well as earlier bluesmen such as Blind Blake and Blind Lemon Jefferson. It’s got a “medium sized parlor body with a dreadnought parlor neck.” Players ‘Flip’ Over Parlors

Last year, Gretsch added the low-cost G9515 Jim Dandy Flat Top model to its Roots Collection and parlor guitars were in evidence everywhere on the exhibit floor at the 2013 NAMM music-trade show in Anaheim, California.ĭom Flemons plays a custom guitar made by Todd Cambio of Fraulini Guitars. Santa Cruz isn’t the only company experiencing growth in its sales of small-bodied instruments. Today, the majority of the instruments we make are OM, 00 size, or smaller, as more people appreciate the quality of the volume over the quantity.” “In 1985, probably 70 percent of our guitars were dreadnoughts. “In the early 1980s, interest in smaller instruments began a steady incline because people realized they didn’t need the volume of the dreadnought,” Hoover says. Hoover says that today, advances in amplification and recording have rendered larger guitars less essential, resulting in the current parlor guitar craze. More volume wasn’t an issue until people started competing with other instruments in ensembles, or with barking dogs and banjos in vaudeville.” “The only reason they didn’t make larger guitars is that they didn’t need to. “The smallest guitar that we make today was one of the biggest guitars available up until about 1870,” Santa Cruz owner Richard Hoover says. The little parlor guitar nearly stole the show. At the 2015 Winter NAMM music retailers convention in Anaheim, California, a steady stream of curious guitarists strolled past the Santa Cruz Guitar Co.’s impressive line of stalwart dreadnoughts to ogle a diminutive PJ model tucked away into a crook in the manufacturer’s exhibit booth. The video went viral-and Larrivée got the best publicity the solar system had ever seen.īack on Earth, interest in small-bodied parlor guitars-precursors to the bulky modern dreadnought-skyrocketed. In 2013, in the zero-gravity atmosphere of outer space, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield made history when he reached for a floating Larrivée parlor guitar to perform the early David Bowie hit “Space Oddity” for a video clip captured live from the International Space Station. 10 great parlor guitars, from budget to high-end, that you can play today.Notable players on why they love parlor guitars.Why interest in parlor guitars is skyrocketing.

In this Acoustic Guitar magazine guide to parlor guitars, you’ll find: The name comes from the rooms in which the guitar was typically played in the late 19th century. Today, parlor guitars are finding renewed interest among a broad spectrum of players, both professionals and those looking for small, lightweight instruments to take to beach parties or campfire singalongs. So we're asking you to give just $1 (or whatever you can afford) right now.īy Adam Perlmutter, Editor of Acoustic GuitarĪ parlor guitar is a compact and narrow-waisted instrument, generally smaller than Martin’s single 0 size. Hey, fellow guitarist! Did you know 99.9% of visitors to this site will scroll past this message without making a contribution? Many plan to pledge later, but then forget.
