Golden Age
Ahead of Gordon Smith’s 50th anniversary later this year, we catch up with owner and MD, Doug Sparkes, to fill in the details about the latest chapter of the company’s evolving story
Plenty of very famous guitar brands have had plenty of different owners – their guitars quite possibly made on completely different continents to where they started. But not Gordon Smith. This writer can’t quite remember when he first got his hands on one of these always affordable guitars, but it was some decades ago. In fact, the original brand founders made the guitars for the best part of four decades, and when husband-and-wife team, John and Linda Smith, deservedly took retirement, Gordon Smith was sold to only its second owner, the Auden Musical Instrument Company, a change that ushered in a new chapter under the
“The Grande is part of developing original guitars: I want us to have our own identity”
direction of Doug Sparkes. “We moved production to Northamptonshire from Partington in Manchester in May 2015, so we’re coming into nine years now,” confirms Doug as we finally get to chat after what has been a very busy few months.
“We have all the history books going back to the first Gordon Smith, number one,” says Doug, “so we can map out all the key dates over the past 50 years.” Over those five decades, every single year guitars have been made here in the UK under the Gordon Smith brand. And now it’s time to navigate a workshop move.
“We’re moving from our Higham Ferrers factory, just over a mile down the road,” Doug continues. “It’s a much bigger and more modern workshop with a lot of new equipment. That’s being kitted out at the moment [February 2024] and in the next few weeks paint and build will move into the new premises and then probably a month after that all the woodwork will move into there as well. Our existing workshop is being converted to solely make the Auden acoustic range, for the first time from scratch in the UK. So we’ll have
two factories – one electric, one acoustic – which are about a mile apart.”
Potentially, that could mean Gordon Smith will be producing a sizable number of instruments, a lot more than at any other time in its history. “The new workshop could comfortably make 5,000 guitars a year, but I’m not for a minute suggesting that we’ll do that, although I’d much rather have headroom that’s there if we ever want to use it. I think next year we’ll be making around 1,700 guitars, and I think we’ve got an order book in place now that’ll see us sensibly through that.
“Up to now we’ve sold pretty much through a few retailers and direct in the UK, and anything else was direct to players around the world – other than Japan, which has always been quite a strong niche for Gordon Smith. But over the past few months I’ve been working on new distribution deals for Scandinavia and Germany and increasing our coverage in Japan. I’ve just done a distribution deal in Australia and we’ve just opened up our first retailers in the US. Of course, we’ve now got a hungry workshop to fill,” laughs Doug.
“Now, along with custom orders, there will be stock models available in retailers around the world”
“We’ve pretty much gone from a UK inward-looking business to one that’s now looking out across the world. We’re behaving more like a globally distributed business whereas in the past pretty much everything we’ve made has been a one-off bespoke guitar. We’ll now be developing our stock lines as well as keeping the custom shop open, which will actually be separate areas in the new factory.”
As Doug mentioned, Gordon Smith has primarily been a custom guitar builder. “Probably 85 to 90 per cent of what we’ve made were one-offs. I mean, you’ve called me and asked if I have got anything I can send you for review and I’ve replied, ‘Sorry, no – everything we’ve made is sold!’ But that’s changing now. It was a process that really started with the Gatsby. We launched that as a range of guitars, rather than just a custom order from our configurator. So now, along with the custom-order configurator guitars there will be stock models, too, available in retailers around the world.”
New Design
As we illustrate in our review, all these background changes haven’t stopped Gordon Smith from working on new models. “It’s really important,” says Doug. “I mean, 50 years in and we’re still a niche brand. We’ve got to get our guitars into the hands of more people. We sell a lot of guitars to people who already own, perhaps, three or four of our guitars, but equally important to me is, how do we bring the next generation of players into Gordon Smith?
“The Gatsby really has been a fantastic way of bringing new, younger players to the brand; I think the new Grande model that you’re looking at will also appeal to that younger new audience. The ongoing challenge is to bring new players to Gordon Smith, rather than just selling guitars to the same old guys – who we love because they’re great customers!”
So, how do you go about designing a guitar for a new audience? “I think one thing is ‘small and light’ because, firstly, the old guys don’t want to lug around that 12lb boat anchor any more. And ‘small and light’ because younger players are pretty much all travelling around on scooters and the like; they haven’t got a Transit van full of gear, they’re carrying their gear on trains and the Tube, public transport, so small and light is one of the drivers. Obviously, it’s got to look attractive, it’s got to feel great, sound great and play great, and it’s got to include the best components.
“We’ve spent so much time doing that, asking, is there a better component, a better way of doing something to consistently and continually improve the brand? I think if you compare Gordon Smith now with back in 2015 when we took it on, the guitars are built in a completely different way with a completely different philosophy behind the way we work, and [we’re] not letting anything out that isn’t to the level that we’ve set for ourselves.
“So the Grande is part of our aim to continue to develop original Gordon Smith guitars, rather than the more generic styles:
“We’ve gone from a UK inward-looking business to one that’s now looking out across the world”
I want us to have our own identity. We’re very lucky in that we have a very talented designer working in the business, Elliot Heggie. He designed the Gatsby and the Griffin, he’s done the Grande now and there will be more later this year. My job really is to keep the reins on him! We’ve actually just done a second version of the Gatsby; he’s such a creative talent.
“The Grande has been a year in development, probably longer, and I think there were four versions before it got to market. The previous prototypes have been out with players, we’ve shown them to dealers. If you saw the first prototype you’d say it was definitely the Grande, but it’s about a lot of the small details: the placement of the output jack, those slight recesses where the control knobs go, finding a pull-push pot that fitted the relatively thin body depth. The pickups are bespoke-wound for the Grande, designed specifically for that guitar.
“At its launch it’ll be offered in four colours, then it’ll go up onto the GS configurator so anyone can specify exactly what they want. Except the brass nut, of course, which will be on every one! We still use the original GS height-adjustable brass
“The Gatsby has been a fantastic way of bringing new, younger players to the brand”
nut, too – though not on the Grande – and we still use John Smith’s original machine that he made, which I think breaks every health and safety rule in the world! We have to clear the room when we get that machine working to cut the slots for the heightadjustment screws in the nut.”
Conversely, the Geist is a less original design. What’s the story there? “Yes, they are two completely different guitars and illustrate the breadth of what we do. I don’t think we were asked to make a guitar like that for the first five years that we had the brand, but in the last year we seem to have been asked every month about that style. I think they’re really back in fashion – the whole 80s thing is back in fashion!
“It’s what I’d call a ‘blank canvas’ guitar and what we can bring is adaptability: you’ll be able to order it with a choice of scale lengths, 22 or 24 frets, HSS, HH… So it’s the opportunity for the player to get exactly the type of guitar they want, rather than having to compromise.” A statement that perfectly sums up 50 years of Gordon Smith. Here’s to many more!’