Louis Panormo guitar

Andy Summers owns a vintage Panormo guitar (1825?), which is an acoustic classical guitar made in the 1800's by Louis Panormo (descended from an Italian volin maker who migrated to London). He had a reputation for being one of the best makers of 6-string guitars in the original Spanish style, and the labels Louis put on his guitars had his address scribed on so his shop can be traced.

According to Andy, this guitar used to belong to his first guitar teacher: "'I was lucky to get that. That guitar belonged to the first guitar teacher I ever had, when I was about 12 years old. He was an old guy and he died, and many years later I went back to the hometown and found his brother. I asked, “Whatever happened to all of his instruments?” and I bought them off his brother – a beautiful 1920s English banjo and the Panormo.'"

He described it as very sweet-sounding as a small and quiet guitar. His old guitar teacher's initials were carved on the neck at one point, but years later the neck was reconstructed and restored by a luthier in New York. Nowadays, it's not a guitar he'd usually take out to play, but kept it as a reminder of his first guitar teacher.

Further information

 * London Street View page