Delgado Luthiers

For nearly a century, the Delgado family has turned wood into music. Porfirio Delgado Flores and Candelario Delgado Flores started the family business in 1928 in Torreón, Coahuila, México. The craft later moved through Juárez to East Los Angeles, where Delgado instruments reached players such as Celedonio Romero and Andrés Segovia.

The family’s American story has a Tucson chapter too: Manuel’s mother, born in Mexico, came to the United States by way of Tucson, and Tucson’s own Mariachi Cobre is among the ensembles that play Delgado instruments.

Today Manuel, a third-generation luthier who started repairing guitars at 7 and built his first guitar, a requinto romántico, at 12, carries the tradition forward from Nashville. He makes more than 40 kinds of instruments, among them bajo quintos, jaranas, vihuelas, guitarrones, and classical guitars, without molds, standard forms, or CNC machines, treating every piece of wood as unique.

At Tucson Meet Yourself, the Delgados join the Occupational Folklore exhibits in the Of the People Village and present on the Folklife Here Stage, where you can hear firsthand how a craft is passed from hand to hand and from one generation to the next.