I've got an interesting Alvarez story. I love pre1980 (or so) Yairis. Here's a plethora of catalogs and info going way back:
http://alvarezyairi.web.fc2.com/catalog/index.html#rare Coincidentally, I had an itch way back in my plethora just last weekend.
If your GY-1 has a Modulus neck, wanna sell it?
So anyway since that's the Jerry Garcia model, you'll really get a kick out of this (if you don't, I can come over and personally deliver one).
I've got a '75 Yairi DY-76 herringbone 12-string that EVERYBODY says is the best 12-string they've ever played. And it is. It's got action like a Rickenbacker 12, with a slightly skinnier neck than most 12s I've played. Booms like a cannon.
So I see an ad in the local want ads (this is '93 or so, pre-internet) for a 1965 Alvarez classical guitar. I thought it must be a misprint, so I call the guy. Nope, it's from the first year of Alvarez, made within months of Yairi leaving Martin to start his own company in Japan.
Dude says the bridge is funky, and he wants $200, period.
I'm telling you this part in a little more detail than I normally would, so you can get a handle on what happened next and how it relates to this topic, in this hallowed place, and one of those rare high water marks in my life where I was able to prove that I'm a born bassist.
Because I did something so damn DUMB - yet magnificent in its own weird way - that it could only happen to a bassist, and only other bassists would know what I mean.
I drove up and he was waiting by the door. I said; hi! And without a word, he turned and entered. I followed. We make a beeline to the guitar. He said; here it is.
And it is a 1965 Alvarez classical guitar. He picked it up and instead of playing it, as I expected, he hugged it tenderly. I got this at the PX in San Angelo, Texas on my way to the plane, the morning I shipped out to Vietnam.
Wow. Talk about intense. I looked at his face for the first time. I was shocked. A stark look I can only describe as wistfulness radiated out of him, but his words were clipped and deliberate.
I kept it with me wherever I went, but the heat and humidity wrecked it. He showed me the bridge, which had rotated about thirty degrees. Everything between the bridge and the sound hole is ... Well, off. Behind the bridge is just a nice gentle arc.
Suddenly a woman walked in and kinda barked his name. The guy cringed like a startled turtle, trying to wedge his head between his shoulder blades. Hmm, somethin' going on there I thought.
He said you want it? and without even playing it or looking at it, I said sure! And dug out the dough. The woman barked again. We both cringed that time. I wanted out of there.
He started to put it in the case, but stopped and said; I just want to play it one last time. As a married man, I knew what that last bark meant, so I knew what a risk he was taking by being defiant. We could both feel the dragon nearby, and we both knew that particular roar meant that fire was next.
He launched into a finger picked melody in D, a descending progression any denizen of this hallowed site would instantly recognize or crawl back to trolling knitting forums for lulz.
A fat toddler waddled to the woman.
FRIEND OF THE DEVIL! I cheerfully blurted, delighted that we had become pals by virtue of our common musical bond. I beamed. (For decades, that's the part I remembered the most: what I must have looked like to them, standing there with a doofus grin, my lone comment seeming to have issued straight from the pits of hell.)
He instantly stopped and glared at me with pure fear and hatred. His jaw dropped. He looked at the dragon. Naturally, I looked at the dragon. There was a stout, furious woman glaring at me with the same enthusiasm a vampire has for *garlic bread.
I did the startled turtle thing, and turned from the laser-like beam of some kind of off-the-rails CRAZY. I looked around me for the first time. There were crucifixes everywhere. Bibles everywhere. Huge, expensive family portraits. Bible verses carefully painted on cards on a tripod by the fridge. It was like I had come to right in the middle of a 700 Club demographic.
I might as well have walked into their home and announced in a clear, cheerful voice; LETS SACRIFICE THE BABY!
I left.
I think of that every time I play that guitar. And let me tell you, it's wonderful. It's a shame I didn't get the chance to tell that story to Jerry. He'd have loved it. It had everything; an old Alvarez, Vietnam, bad choices of women... And an absolutely blessed guitar.
The rotation put the strings in precisely the right position to give it superb action. Dead flat on a dead flat fingerboard - a miracle in itself, knowing the hell this thing's been through - and a gentle dip on the inside edge of the soundhole to slope upward into the leading edge of that wacky, wonky bridge to give it just a little fight. Just perfect action. And the sound, holy cow.
I looked inside it with a mirror once, and you can clearly see where Mr. Yairi started the fan bracing out as seven ribs, then changed it to five. The center rib (obviously made from some kind of Japanese willow, judging by how eagerly it bent under the bridge's trip around its axis) stayed where it was and he must have pried the outer three up (!) and eliminated two, splitting the difference in spacing among the remainder. I'm serious.
Because of that, I think it could very well be one of Mr. Yairi's first guitars. How could he have known it would go to Vietnam, by way of Texas, and wind up in Massachusetts in the hands of a babbling lunatic?
Pictures to follow, if I can talk somebody into resizing the pics for me (I'm on an iPad since lopping my big toe off, and iPad don't do that.)
I set out runnin' but I take my time...
* when the stakes are too high
(Message edited by Ed_zeppelin on August 22, 2015)
