Last year, to kick off our holiday in France, my wife and I decided to attend the Pitchfork Music Festival in Paris featuring some of the choicest indie/ alternative acts from the U.S. and France. Being avid music lovers, this was a great opportunity to experience a big international festival and some fresh, new music.
On show day, the band This Is the Kit played an exquisite yet mellow set from their last two records. We had been following their music over a few months and had particularly enjoyed the vocal style of singer and songwriter Kate Stables along with her intricate yet raw guitar playing. Being a guitar player myself, one thing that caught my eye that evening was Stable’s striking green, hollow body guitar that created the same jangly sound as I had heard on the record. From a distance I could see an ‘H’ on the headstock and was intrigued: she had chosen a German ‘Hofner’, I reckoned, a traditional yet off-beat brand — rock and indie musicians typically go in for Fenders, Gibsons and the occasional Gretsch.
But I was wrong. The ‘H’ stood for ‘Hobner’, a Kolkata company, one of the oldest guitar-makers in India. How the guitar reached Stables is another story, but it was wonderful to see a humbly crafted instrument being used by such a deft artist.
Very American
In my growing years, importing gear was extremely difficult. Travel abroad was not as frequent. So, very few American or European instruments entered India. It was then that a few people in Calcutta, a hub of music in India, decided to craft guitars from scratch. Their aim was practical and straightforward — to make an instrument that looked and worked like the American six-string guitar.
Today, we have videos explaining the process of choosing wood for nuances in sound, designing chambers of the acoustic/ electric instrument, or picking the appropriate shape of the neck.
But back then, the only information this group had was the look, shape and feel of a few guitars at hand. With this, they were able to create the blueprint of their own instrument.
Next came the branding, which was derived out of the poster boys of popular Western music, in this case, Paul McCartney and his Hofner ‘Violin Bass’ that resulted in ‘Hobner’.
It was a cut above the rest as far as early Indian guitars go. I am sure every musician born before 1990, like me, has played an ‘F Hole’ Hobner acoustic guitar. The makers made the plywood box resonate, though not as impressively as the solid body acoustic instruments, but in a unique, twangy style reminiscent of classic swing, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll-inspired Bollywood music.
Big boom
Hobner’s business boomed through the 80s and 90s. Kolkata is also home to many makers of Indian instruments such as the sarod. It is made of select wood, aged through a process of burying it under earth, and then carefully selecting and matching the skin to create an ultimate one-of-a-kind, customised instrument. Being a ‘Western’ instrument belonging to the ‘hippie’ culture, the Spanish guitar, as it was called in those times, could not unfortunately command similar respect.
We have come a long way today. A bunch of young, home-grown guitar luthiers use Indian wood sourced from colder climes to create their own designs. And the players who wield these instruments will probably give you a list of reasons why their guitar is better than others.
When the Hobner brand broke up, a new company, Signature, sprouted out of it. It continues to create the unique-sounding plywood instruments that cost a few thousand rupees. I remember getting a Jumbo acoustic model in 2008 from their factory store in Kolkata for ₹5,000.
In 2013, I graduated to a solid top instrument with technically superior crafting and stage ready electronics. But I still play the Hobner at times for ideating, song-writing and for its trademark ‘Calcutta’ sound.
The writer is a Mumbai-based guitarist and composer.
