Enter to win this model from AMS during the month of October!
Long, tall Long island songwriter is a Times Square mainstay
Brian Ripps stands 6’ 4” tall. His chosen instrument is 38” long.
We are clearly talking big guy, little guitar, and Ripps is just fine with that juxtaposition, getting all the power, volume and tone he needs to back his big voice from that little box.
“People joke about it,” he chuckles, “but it’s also one of the ways that I’m recognized.”
He wasn’t fine with us taking his guitar away from him.
Ripps was seriously dedicated to a Breedlove Passport Parlor Mahogany, which had become a trusted friend and fellow stage warrior. But we retired the model and when Ripps wanted to expand his stable he was crestfallen.
“I had really done about everything that could be done with that guitar and I was ready to get a new one. I was pretty heartbroken.”
Until he found his Concertina, that is.
The Breedlove Concertina, derived from our pioneering Concert body design, is a modern take on the classic parlor, offering all of the desired benefits of the form—tonal balance, uniquely lush 12-fret tone and remarkably comfortable dimensions—yet amped up with trademark Breedlove comfort and response, along with a sheer presence and dynamic range that surprises all comers.
“Ultimately, it’s an extension of you,” Ripps says. “The playability, where it sits on your body, the fact that you don’t have to stretch to reach chords. It becomes very intuitive. I’ve found that the Concertina just has this really, really special way of helping me express myself.”
The fact that Ripps’ Organic Collection Wildwood Satin Concertina CE is made from all solid sustainable African mahogany is sweet icing on the cake.
“Leaving a trace of your essence through making music is better than leaving a big footprint,” Ripps sagely advises.
A longtime Breedlove artist, Ripps, who usually plays over 250 dates a year, has a regular gig that is the envy of just about everyone. For 11 years straight he has played, alongside pal Patrick McDermott, virtually every Sunday night at The Playwright Tavern, smack in the heart of midtown Manhattan, just off 7th Avenue, a few blocks north of Times Square.
“It’s turned into something way more than just a working relationship,” he says. “It’s a lot like family now.”
Ripps, a Long Islander who juggles an epic, constantly-updated repertoire of original tunes and covers by the likes of Soundgarden, Rolling Stones and Phish, also does solo performances and band engagements throughout the NYC metro region, covering much of the same territory as American Musical Supply’s hard-gigging Guitar Buyer for Key Accounts Nick Intersimone, who has stocked AMS with a great selection of Organics and Concertinas, including the Performer Concertina Bourbon CE and the Signature Concertina Copper E (both with torrefied European spruce tops), and an exclusive Pursuit Exotic Concertina Cinnamon Burst.
Ripps employs a variety of modes on his Concertina, fingerpicking ballads, hammering flatpicked rockers and, pardon the obvious pun, ripping leads right up to the limits of its soft cutaway.
“It’s not just for gentle music on the couch, absolutely not!” he affirms. “I think ‘parlor’ and I think of Robert Johnson, who is the father, or the devil, of the blues, as they say. This guitar just always does exactly what I want it to do.”
What will you do with your Breedlove Concertina?
Enter to win this Organic Concertina model from AMS during October 2020!
