a nicely executed stripe of alternating black
and white. The top, meanwhile, is narrow-grained spruce with a finish that doesn’t
look deliberately antiqued, but has the
toasty, honey glow of a vintage instrument
that has aged gracefully.
Blueridge’s decision to lend it’s own Art
Deco-inspired design touches to the guitar,
rather than ape trademark Gibson touches,
results in several design elements that are
quite tasteful and unique. The rosewood
bridge is the most overtly Deco touch—an
almost architectural element that combines
rosewood and pearloid inlay in a stylized
wing shape that wouldn’t look out of place
on a Pan Am China Clipper in the late
’30s. The lovely and bound tortoise-style
pickguard lends a nice sense of design bal-
ance to the big body, though it also feels
needlessly thick and heavy enough to
potentially invite the scorn of tone purists
that are wary of superfluous mass on a top.
The neck, which is also crafted from
very striking maple, is a thick and substan-
tial length that feels playable, comfortable
as counterweight to the body, and mid-cen-
tury correct in its heft. It’s tastefully bound
(which has an especially cool effect at the
peak where the neck and soundhole meet)
and capped by a rosewood fretboard that’s
inlayed with more Deco-geometry pearl.
Unlike some of the fancier Blueridge
acoustics, which are festooned in fireworks
shows of peghead overlay, the BG-2500
exhibits great restraint—relying on a
dramatically curving and fluted profile,
white-on-black binding, and a subtle
Deco insignia to maintain visual balance
with the tuxedo-sharp elegance of the rest
of the guitar.
Loud as a Manhattan Rush Hour
With all its curvaceous, cool-as-the-Chrysler-Building, Deco good looks, the
BG-2500 deserves a sonic personality
that’s just as stylish and extroverted. And
though the Blueridge doesn’t have the all
harmonic balance you’d expect from a
guitar this big in some situations, it can
be brash, tastefully bold, and colorful
depending on how you approach it.
As Pete Townshend demonstrated so
effectively with his maple J-200s, a jumbo
can be a formidable rock guitar. It’s also an
impressively bellowing, strumming instru-
ment for country rhythm. The BG-2500
is best in both applications, though, when
you use a dynamic, flatpick approach. If
you want to really attack the BG-2500
with a heavy flatpick and an aggressive
Townshend-like approach, there’s plenty
of headroom with which you can extract
power-chord-style muscle with a sweet,
ringing top end that sings over the rumble.
And when you hammer the guitar in lower
open tunings based around D and C#, the
BG-2500 is about as loud and full as an
acoustic guitar can be. But a light touch
can sound lovely too, especially on chord
arpeggios higher up the neck.
There’s something simultaneously brutish and romantic about a nice jumbo.
And the Blueridge BG-2500 captures that
duality splendidly. While a guitar this
basically loud could benefit from a slightly
wider harmonic spectrum, the BG-2500
does get very colorful when you drive it
hard with a flatpick. And as long as you
have the muscle and technique to put a
little something extra behind your thumb-pick, the BG-2500 can deliver percussive
and full-sounding accompaniment to
vocals or a band.
If you’re a smaller player, or most comfortable with guitars that are 000-sized or
smaller, the BG-2500 is an armful and can
get downright tiring over the course of a
long set. And it really takes more horsepower than a smaller acoustic to summon
its full range of tones. But if your style
tends toward rock and country strumming
or blues and Appalachian picking based
on a more athletic approach, the BG-2500
can lend a boisterous and warm vocal
quality to your playing in a style that’ll
leave ’em gawking.
RATINGS Pros: Big, boisterous, but warm voice. High headroom for aggressive strumming. Beautiful and distinctive. Cons: A bit expensive. Could be more tonally complex. Needs a lot of muscle to get the best tones. Blueridge BG-2500 Super Jumbo, $1,750 street, sagamusic.com
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