Fred Kopo “Boston”, Ken Parker Tribute Archtop

This guitar came to me through Ken Parker's memorial, which is also where I first connected with its builder, Frederic Pons, alias Fred Kopo. Fred had been a friend of Ken's for years, going back to a 2008 meeting at the Montreal Guitar Show where the two discovered they shared a deep love of archtops. That friendship stuck with Fred, and when Ken passed away at the end of 2025, building this guitar was the only thing that felt right to him.

He named it Boston, after his last visit to Ken in 2024, and engraved the dedication "Less is More, to my friend Ken Parker" right into the pickguard. Ken used to tell Fred that archtops were really the only guitars worth caring about, and this build is Fred's way of picking that conversation back up, and returning to the instrument type that first drew him into lutherie as a teenager in Rennes, France.

What strikes me first is how forward-thinking this guitar looks and feels, very much in keeping with Ken's own work. Every piece of wood is European, the top is French spruce from the Jura, and the back, sides, and neck are a strikingly figured French walnut paired with black-stained hornbeam. The whole instrument is stained and finished with beeswax, giving it a quiet, almost smoky elegance. The hollow walnut-and-bone bridge, the carbon fiber tailpiece with its silver double ring, and that engraved pickguard are details you want to spend time with.

It's also remarkably light in the hands, and that lightness carries straight through to how it plays and sounds. The tone is woody and addictive, with a bass response that's huge for a guitar this size. I've been digging in hard, and it just opens up. No compression, no breaking apart under a heavy strum, it stays full and explosive at every dynamic level.

This is a deeply personal instrument, built by one builder in memory of another, and it carries that history in a way that makes it stand apart from anything else in the shop. Being entrusted to help it find its home means a great deal to me.

If you'd like to find out more about this item, just call or e-mail me. It would be my pleasure to talk to you about it.