What kind of acoustic guitar can sound so much like a mandelin? The guitar can be seen in this Youtube video of Al Stewart performing “On The Border” live.
Can any acoustic guitar do this???
I found out it is a Spanish guitar, but what makes it different? Sure looks like an ordinary acoustic guitar to me! What makes it “Spanish”…besides the unique sound? I mean, what is physically producing that distinct sound?
Well I can’t answer your question, but now I want to go buy Al Stewart tracks .
A Spanish or classical guitar uses nylon strings, whereas steel-string acoustic guitars are probably more common in most folks’ experience. I believe that string type, combined with it being played fairly high up the neck (in a higher pitch range), is what gives the sound you’ve noticed. Note that at 1:54 there’s a run on that guitar in a lower pitch range with quite a different tone.
Spanish originally just referred to any guitar played while held on your knee (or hanging via strap parallel to the body) as opposed to Hawaiian or Lap played flat on your lap or on a strap perpendicular to the body.
Gibson’s guitars that start with the letters ES - the ES-335 or ES-347 like BB King’s Lucille - well, the ES stands for “Electric Spanish.”
When steel stringed and electric guitars emerged, nylon-stringed guitars were more commonly referred to as Classical or Flamenco.
The guitar Stewart is playing is an nylon-stringed Ovation - a guitar with a specially designed roundback made of a sophisticated plastic.
Frankly, I would just refer to it as a “nylon-stringed Ovation” 
No Classical player, Flamenco player or Spaniard would claim it. 
(Ovations have their adherents like Glenn Campbell and Eddie Van Halen, but the general consensus is that Ovations are well-suited to stage work because they are consistent and rugged, but don’t compare to great traditionally-made guitars…)
I tried, but I couldn’t hear anything in the music that corresponded to Stewart’s frantic strumming. He’s got a great voice, though.
“Year of the Cat” is a classic. On a very short list of my all-time favorites.
I like Al Stewart a lot. The original recorded version of “On the Border” is great because it’s a masterpiece of production. The way each instrument joins in separately at the beginning yet can be heard distinctly (as opposed to a Phil Spector wall of sound used by so many other producers) gives the song a flavor that sets the exotic tone even before the Spanish-style guitar kicks in. I’m a sucker for great production.
Its not Al playing the lead guitar in that video or on the album. Its Peter White.
Nobody said that he did and the heading under the videos in both links specifically reference White.
To be fair, it was suggested a few posts earlier that it was Al Stewart himself who was playing the Spanish-style guitar part. I think that is what **MikeF **was responding to.
I missed where WordMan said that. WordMan, of all people! Tsk, tsk, tsk. 
:smack:
I saw the close up of the Ovation nylon and then a cut to Stewart singing from the shoulders up, and I went ahead and started typing my reply with the music playing in the background but not onscreen…
Stewart is playing a 60’s or 70’s Gibson square-shouldered dreadnaught, like a Dove or Hummingbird…the other guy is playing the nylon-stringed O…
Sorry!
The interesting thing is that he’s using a nylon string Ovation with a pick - most people who are playing a nylon string, flamenco or classical instrument use their fingers (with or without long fingernails). There are exceptions to this - Bucky Pizzarelli and Johnny Smith come to mind, both jazz players who made a point of playing classical music on a classical guitar with a pick in order to get their pick technique perfected. In both their cases, ‘perfected’ is a damn good description of it!
At any rate, Ovations are designed to be real work horses, and to be naturally loud, acoustically speaking. They lack a certain warmth and beauty of tone, IMHO, but they can project!
I’m afraid it still doesn’t sound much like a mandoline to me, though. It’s too low, there isn’t the characteristic ‘fatness’ to the sound due to the paired strings and he hardly uses any tremolo. For fun, here’s Pepe Romero laying down some beautiful tremolo playing - Recuerdos de la Alhambra
Long past the edit window - here’s a cool arrangement of the Mozart “Rondo alla Turca” for mandoline and guitar played by the fantastic duo of Boris Björn Bagger on guitar and Detlef Tewes on mandoline. Just to show what I meant about the guitar being too low to sound like a mandoline.
Here are two of my favorites from his recent appearances.
These two tracks introduced me to Dave Nachmanoff, who is a guitar ghod.