MARTIN | The Journal of Acoustic Guitars: Volume 13

THE JOURNAL OF ACOUSTIC GUITARS

C.F. Martin & Co., Inc. PO Box 329, Nazareth, Pa, 18064 martinguitar.com

C.F. MARTIN & CO.®

Chairman of the Board: C.F. Martin IV

Chief Executive Officer: Thomas Ripsam

Vice President of Marketing: Michael Nelson

Marketing Comms Manager: Kristi Bronico

Creative Manager: Mandee McEvoy

Archives & Museum Manager: Jason Ahner

Artist Relations Manager: Rory Glass

Photography: Ryan Hulvat, Keaton Yoo

NME NETWORKS

Editor: Josh Gardner

Art Editor: Philip Millard

Associate Editor: Cillian Breathnach

Production Editor: Owen Bailey

Manager, Commercial & Partnerships: Joe Supple

Project Manager: Ami Lord

Contributors: Dick Boak, Mike George, Mike Zehner

A WORD FROM CHRIS

Influential musicians who play Martin guitars. Hmmm… where should I begin?

After my great, great, great grandfather had moved the shop from New York to Nazareth, the business began to grow, thanks to the increasing popularity of the guitar in a prospering America.

A significant opportunity to partner with an artist occurred in the summer of 1843, when the famous and influential Madame De Goñi started performing on the first Martin guitar with X bracing.

Recorded music became popular in the 1900s. The radio brought a convenient way to enjoy music. The sound of a Martin guitar was an integral part of the country and western music that was popular not only on the radio, but also in movies. Gene Autry, a star of singing-cowboy movies, commissioned the first D-45.

The television brought folk music into your living room. In the 1950s, folk music became pop music.

And then the British Invasion.

The combination of folk and rock music that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s was often created on a Martin guitar.

Over the past 190 years, we have been the go-to acoustic guitar for many of our musical heroes.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support of our great guitars.

Sincerely,

C.F. Martin IV

Left: C.F. Martin IV, Executive Chairman of C.F. Martin & Co

Opposite page, clockwise from top left: Madame Dolores Nevares de Goñi was a famous Spanish guitarist in the 1840s who upgraded her Spanish-style acoustic in favour of the first X-braced Martin guitar

The guitar C.F. Martin Sr built for de Goñi is precursor to over two million X-braced Martins… and counting Crosby, Stills & Nash also flew the Martin flag in the 60s and 70s

The Kingston Trio in 1957 were huge folk-pop stars who stayed loyal to Martin over the years

Words • JOSH GARDNER Portraits • MARTIN GUITARS

A Family Affair

JASON ISBELL

Grammy-winning guitarist Jason Isbell became a Martin Signature Edition artist back in 2017, but his love affair with Martin instruments started a lot further back, with a guitar and a family connection…

It all begins with Great Uncle Dub. “His name was Olon W Isbell, and everybody called him Dub,” Jason Isbell tells us over the phone from his Nashville home. “The Dub was short for W, but the W was not short for anything, I don’t think. I think his name was W!”

Great Uncle Dub was, like many members of Isbell’s extended family, a musician – but crucially, he had a Martin. “He lived in Summertown, Tennessee and he was always trading instruments and horses and roosters and everything else!” Isbell recalls. “And he had a herringbone D-28, probably from the 80s I would imagine – that was like the holy artifact for us, because my side of the family, we couldn’t afford Martins back then! Dub would bring the Martin around and it would be louder than every other guitar in the room, no matter what. So that was always the thing for us. Whichever one was the loudest was the best! And I kinda still have that theory in my head – for acoustic guitars, if it’s the loudest, it’s the best.”

Isbell, of course, would have a lot of opportunities to make use of loud guitars in the coming decades. The Alabama native first caught the eye as the hot-shot guitarist in the Southern band DriveBy Truckers, but was kicked out of the band in 2007 as a result of his spiraling alcohol and drug use. What could have been another rock ’n’ roll cautionary tale ended up being the making of him.

In 2012, he got clean and began channeling his energies into fulfilling his considerable potential. His forth solo album, 2013’s Southeastern, also cleaned up – at the 2014 Americana Music Awards – paving the way for its follow-up, Something More Than Free, to earn him a pair of Grammys.

He followed it up with consecutive Top 10 albums, another pair of Grammys, and the building of a huge and devoted fanbase drawn to his talent for writing what the blurb for his forthcoming album, Weathervanes, describes as “grown-up songs.”

However, it would be a fair few years into his professional career before Isbell could finally join Great Uncle Dub in the Martin Owner’s Club.

“I was touring, and our van got broken into and our gear got stolen in San Francisco,” Isbell recalls. “This was a long time ago – 15 years or more? I know that I was still drinking, because I remember the day that I got a deal from Martin, I was extremely hungover!

“The night before, I had slept in a parking lot of a McDonald’s in a rental car because I was too drunk to drive. And when I woke up the next morning, when the sun came up, I got out of the car and there was a school bus full of kids on a day trip who happened to be stopping off at McDonald’s. I stepped out of the car and I must’ve looked like Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart – my shirt was off and my pants were undone, and there were just kids running everywhere. But then at about five or six o’clock that day, I heard from Martin that they were gonna cut me a deal, and I bought a D-41 that I had for a long time that I really liked a lot. It was a big moment.”

SIGNATURE SOUNDS

That D-41 would kick off an enduring love affair with Martin guitars, which in 2017 led to the arrival of the Martin D-18 Jason Isbell – a subtle and considered instrument that was informed a lot by the guitarist’s love of old Martins from the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

“The first good vintage guitar I bought was a Martin from the mid-50s. I think it was a ’54 D-18,” he explains.

“I still have that guitar – it’s really loud, and just a really good-sounding guitar. I feel like a lot of those mahogany Martins from the mid-50s are really underrated. But I fell in love with that one and I thought, ‘If I ever do a signature, I’m gonna do a D-18.’ Because it’s got everything you need sonically and it’s not as flashy – and that suits my vibe a little bit more.”

When the time came to work with Martin’s Fred Greene on designing Jason’s signature model, the old maxim of loud = good was at the forefront of his thinking.

“When we went to make the signature guitar, we just tried to make the loudest guitar possible,” he chuckles. “It’s got a couple of embellishments – it’s got my tattoo at the 12th fret, y’know, it’s a good-looking guitar! But it’s so loud, because of the smaller bridge – we used the little pyramid bridge – and then we left the pickguard off the guitar. You can put that on if you want to, but Fred Greene tested that out and it made a five-decibel difference in volume with the pickguard on. You wouldn’t think it would be that much, but it is significant!”

Despite his long-standing love affair with Martin’s most forthright acoustic guitar design, however, recently Isbell has been finding himself drawn to a smaller member of the Martin stable… but regardless of the format, he’s still attracted to those that shout the loudest.

“Up until recently, I always played Dreadnoughts, but I’ve got some 000s now that I really like, because they’re loud in a different way – that midrange projection is really nice,” he explains. “Recently, Amanda [Shires, Isbell’s wife] got me a ’34 000-28 and it’s a beast. I played probably a dozen pre-war Martins that day, and this one was louder and bigger sounding than all the Dreadnoughts!

“And it’s the short scale, because for like the first half of 1934, they made ’em in that shorter, like OM scale, and then lengthened the scale on the 000s toward the end of the year. But it’s a shorter scale, so the tension’s not quite so tight and it’s really good for playing solos or playing higher up on the neck.”

The guitar has been a long time coming – indeed, Shires described it to us as something of a ‘grail’ instrument for him. Given that he’s the proud owner of many fine vintage electric guitars, including a bona fide 1959 Les Paul, we wonder why he’s waited this long to pull the trigger?

“That’s the thing about acoustics,” he explains ruefully. “There’s so much organic material there – the same reason they sound so good is the reason why it’s kind of terrifying to own one, because if you don’t keep it properly humidified and take care of it in the right way, something bad’s gonna happen down the line.

“So I waited until I had the proper humidification control to really store it the right way. I’m not gonna take it on the road – it doesn’t have a pickup, and I’m not gonna cut a hole in it! So when I’m gone, I’ve gotta have the peace of mind of knowing that the guitar is in a cabinet with 52 percent humidity at all times! It’s almost like a living thing, y’know? It’s not just about the risk of dropping the guitar, or it being stolen.

“It hurts to glue the bridge back on a $70,000 guitar, y’know? Knowing that it’s hurt the value of it. That sucks! Or put a cleat over a crack on a guitar that you’ve had for 10 or 20 years? It’s a bad feeling!”

It’s so loud, because we used the little pyramid bridge. And we left the pickguard off… it made a five-decibel difference

Far left: One of Jason’s tattoo designs is proudly emblazoned across the 12th-fret area

Left: Isbell’s signature edition D-18 has a pre-aged Vintage Tone System (VTS) Adirondack spruce top, mahogany back and sides, and rearshifted scalloped bracing for increased projection and clarity

SOUND INVESTMENTS

As the owner of many beautiful vintage guitars, including several vintage Martins in addition to the ones mentioned above, Isbell knows what he likes. But his preference for what he looks for in a vintage guitar, especially an acoustic guitar, is quite unique.

“I’m drawn to the instruments that aren’t beat up as much,” he explains. “I like the old crazy gnarly ones too, don’t get me wrong, but my favorite thing is to find a really good example of a vintage instrument that hasn’t become ‘somebody’s’ yet, y’know? That’s difficult, and that’s gonna cost a lot of money!”

“But to me it’s great, because then I can see the wear patterns start to turn into mine. For me, that’s the peak of collecting vintage instruments. If you can afford to do that, and you play the guitar enough to actually wear one in, then the old ones wear in quickly, and they wear into your own pattern. It’s a really beautiful thing.

“I like that to translate to new instruments, too. So for the signature guitars, the finish is not thick on them, and if you play ’em enough, it’s gonna wear in. Especially with the pickguard off, you’re gonna see where you’re hitting the top of the guitar – especially if you’re using a big pick like a BlueChip or a big tortoiseshell replica. You’re gonna knock some holes in it, and it’s gonna be yours. You’re gonna see how you play when you look at the thing.

“You don’t get it with jewelry, or watches, or cars or whatever –there is a story in musical instruments, and you can look at ’em and say, ‘Well, this guy just played cowboy chords’ or, ‘This person was a real player’. Like, I’ve got a couple of old guitars where I can look and say, ‘Oh, whoever played this was probably a professional, because a lot of the wear is in the center of the neck’, y’know. And usually, you can tell what kind of music they made by where the buckle rash is! Y’know, if it’s low on the back you can say, ‘Well this person held a guitar really high up on their chest, so they were probably playing some country and western.’ But then some electric guitars will have bracelet scars around the bridge, and you know it was probably owned by someone who was a rock ’n’ roller in the 70s!”

For many collectors, the justification for buying vintage guitars is that they’re a sound investment – for Isbell, that’s the idea… in theory at least. “I’m not good at selling ’em,” he laughs. “I tried to convince my business manager that these guitars are an investment and she said, ‘Well yeah, the value of ’em keeps going up, but you’re not selling any of them. So you can’t really call it an investment. It’s more like a life insurance policy!’”

GOOD PEOPLE

When we ask Isbell if the pre-war 000 he’s clearly so enamored with has become his favorite Martin guitar, the answer reflects someone who appreciates the privilege of being a signature artist for the oldest surviving guitar maker on Earth.

“Y’know, it’s definitely the best… it’ll take time for it to become the favorite. The prototype of the signature acoustic is a big deal for me, and I still take it out and tour – you can tell, because it’s got the pickguard on still, because they glued it on before they sent it to me.

“That was just a huge deal. Signing all the labels for the inside of those guitars was a big thing, because I thought back to when I was a kid and how respected Martin guitars were, and how I lusted after one for so long. I was really proud of the one that we made.”

It’s clear that a lifetime after Great Uncle Dub’s D-28 caught his ear as the loudest guitar in the room, his respect and affection for what makes Martin such a unique company has only grown.

“It still feels like a family company to me,” he affirms. “Obviously, they’re making a whole lotta guitars everyday, and it’s a huge international operation, but when you go visit the factory and go on the floor and talk to the people that are making the guitars, they’re very proud of the work that they do.

“You’re putting something positive into the world,” is how Isbell sums it up. “You’re trying to make instruments that people can use, either to make a living, or to make their family happy, or to make themselves happy. It’s almost like a little box of therapy that you’re shipping out to everybody that buys one of those guitars!”

Isbell tours with a prototype of his signature model, which is notable for still having the pickguard glued on – usually he leaves it off as it makes the guitar louder – no really!

You don’t get it with jewelry, or watches, or cars or whatever –there is a story in musical instruments

SHAWN MENDES

The New Class

The Canadian musician has gone from social media fame to one of the biggest singersongwriters on Earth, and he’s done it with a Martin guitar in his hands. In 2022, he became one of Martin’s youngest-ever signature artists, with an instrument that speaks to his influences and his passions beyond the world of music

Words • JOSH GARDNER

Portraits • MIRANDA M c DONALD

Though based on Mendes’ beloved 1959 Martin, the 000JR-10E Shawn Mendes has a shorter scale length and smaller dimensions overall, plus some personal touches –including the inlay at the 3rd fret and hidden laser-etched lyrics on the inside of the guitar

For Shawn Mendes, the guitar was always the thing that could unlock that sound in his head – the vehicle for realizing his dreams. Those dreams would ultimately lead to platinum-selling albums and No. 1 hit singles, but his ambition in his earliest days with the guitar was a lot more straightforward.

“As a kid, I always had a love for music and singing, but wanted to learn how to play the guitar so I could cover songs I loved,” the 24-year-old Stitches singer tells us. “I learned how to play by watching YouTube tutorial videos of my favorite songs over and over.”

Nowadays, Mendes can boast a bevy of beautiful vintage and modern Martin guitars to make music on, but his earliest encounters with guitar were a lot less sophisticated.

“I started playing guitar when I was about 13 years old, and the first guitar I learned on was this old classical with broken strings my dad had in the house – I didn’t even know how to tune it,” Mendes recalls. “When I asked if we could get a guitar, my dad told me, ‘If we rent a guitar and you can learn how to play it in a few weeks, we’ll get you a guitar.’ The first guitar I ever actually owned was an acoustic.”

The young Mendes never looked back. There was always a love of performing – whether that was playing sports in his native Ontario, being a member of the glee club, or even taking acting lessons and auditioning for the Disney Channel in Toronto – but music and guitar were different. Holding that first acoustic guitar in his hands gave him the tool he needed to reach his goals.

In those early days, Mendes was heavily influenced by acoustic-toting pop stars like Ed Sheeran and John Mayer, but at this point, his focus was more on learning the acoustic than trying to make a splash as a pop star. Then, technology would come along and change all that.

HEARD IT ON A GREAT VINE

Remember Vine? The Twitter-owned social media platform that allowed users to create looping sixsecond video clips had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it existence between its launch in 2013 and eventual shuttering in 2016. Yet as well as laying the groundwork for future short-form video platforms like TikTok, Vine’s brief social and cultural popularity enabled it to spawn some genuine stars, who managed to take the restrictions of the six-second looping format and create content that was funny, interesting or in very rare cases, managed to create a genuine connection with its audience. Vloggerscum-boxers Logan and Jake Paul made their name on Vine, as did popular influencers Lele Pons and Liza Koshy, but the platform had one bona fide, true star.

In 2013, Shawn Mendes uploaded a six-second snippet of himself covering fellow Canadian Justin Bieber’s hit As Long As You Love Me to his Vine profile, just him and his acoustic guitar. Within 24 hours, Mendes had over 10,000 followers, and over the next year, he would upload many more covers and originals to the platform, soon becoming the third most-followed musician on Vine, leading to a major-label deal with Island Records in 2014.

I started playing when I was about 13 years old, and the first guitar I learned on was this old classical with broken strings

Mendes worked on every aspect of the guitar, and loves its sound and feel. It’s also been released at a price point that makes it more accessible to players who are just starting out

You can still see compilations of these six-second song vignettes on YouTube videos that have survived the sunsetting of Vine like musical liferafts. And while Mendes was still some way from being the global pop star he is today, even in this most stripped-back form, his ability to put his unique take on well-known songs is striking. It’s a skill that very few have, but he’s modest about his ability to translate major pop bangers into the stripped-down world of acoustic guitars.

“It’s just trying to find a way to make the song feel like your own, while still staying true to the original,” he explains. This desire to be open to wherever the song leads is something that has followed him as he’s become a chart-topping songwriter, though having the right guitar can help at times, too.

“Songs start for me in different ways, depending on what feels right at the time,” he says. “Certain times, it’s an open conversation with songwriters, and then other times I literally have chords stuck in my head and build from there. I can definitely understand that old saying that certain instruments have ‘songs in them’ – sometimes it’s just a feeling.”

MAGIC MARTIN MOMENTS

Like his idols Ed Sheeran and John Mayer, it didn’t take long for Mendes to get switched on to Martin guitars. A key discovery arrived in the form of a 1959 000 that he picked up from Guitar Center in Hollywood shortly before he began recording his debut album, Handwritten, in 2015.

“I just stumbled across it in the shop and fell in love,” he says of the guitar. “It was my first vintage acoustic. Actually, [OneRepublic frontman] Ryan Tedder had one in his studio. He told me where to go to find a vintage one, and since then, it’s been my favorite guitar.”

As Mendes’ star continued to rise, the Martin stayed with him as a constant writing, performing, and recording partner – it was only natural for the relationship between Shawn and Martin Guitars to become more formalized, and the idea of a signature guitar was floated.

“I’ve been a fan of Martin guitars for as long as I can remember,” Mendes enthuses. “So having the opportunity to start working with such an iconic and respected brand, and to be able to play and help design my own guitar, is truly special.”

The result is the 000JR-10E Shawn Mendes, a 000 Junior-sized 14-fret acoustic that blends the affordability of a Mexican-made instrument with the quality, looks, and feel of a Martin signature model. Naturally, Shawn’s 50s 000 provided a good starting point for its scaleddown signature sibling.

“I did use my 1959 model as a bit of a base,” he confirms. “But I wanted to incorporate some new and unique elements that would make the guitar special to me and one-of-a-kind. We went back and forth with the Martin team working on the design until we landed on something we both felt proud of.”

Those unique elements include etched swallows on the wings of the bridge, modeled after Shawn’s tattoos, as well as the signature inlay at the third fret. Conventional wisdom says the signature inlay goes at the 12th, or at least somewhere further up the neck where it’s visible, but it turns out the inspiration from this came courtesy of another Martin signature artist with a knack for a pop hook.

“It was partially inspired by a guitar I was gifted for my 21st birthday by John Mayer, which had a custom inlay in the first few frets,” Mendes explains. “I loved the look and just thought it would be a fun and unconventional way to make my signature guitar more unique.”

The scaled-down body dimensions are also an unusual feature of this guitar, offering the proportions of a classic 000 with a slightly shorter scale length and reduced overall dimensions.

“I think the size of it feels perfect – it fits like a glove,” Mendes enthuses. “I’ve always loved the sound and tone of a 000, but also the feel of it – I thought this would be a great size for my fans.”

LEAVING A LEGACY

Ah yes, the fans – for any signature model, it’s not just about creating a guitar that the artist will enjoy, but also one that’s desirable and accessible to that artist’s fanbase, who will likely be the main people buying the guitar. It’s for this reason that the decision was made to make the 000JR10E Shawn Mendes in Mexico, allowing the guitar to be an accessible tool for the next generation of musicians to make music on.

“It’s an amazing feeling to see people use it, especially those making their own music,” Shawn says. “Getting my first guitar was a big

The guitar has been created with sustainability and the environment in mind – every part of the instrument is FSC certified and the gig bag is made of recycled ocean plastic

I can definitely understand the old saying that certain instruments have ‘songs in them’. Sometimes, it’s just a feeling…

deal, so I wanted the guitar to be as affordable as possible so that young musicians could have something to start their own journeys with or just simply fall in love with playing. I love the idea that this could be a ton of fans’ first guitar.”

This is more than just guitar for younger players, however – it’s also about protecting our planet and being a good steward of the natural world around us. As such, all the wood in the 000JR-10E Shawn Mendes is FSC certified, and even the gig bag is made of recycled materials – it’s the largest run of FSC-certified instruments Martin has ever done, and it’s obviously something Mendes feels strongly about.

“I try to put sustainability at the forefront of everything I do,” he agrees. “Everything we do has an impact, so whether it’s small changes to my daily lifestyle or bigger ones, it’s extremely important to me that anything I put out in the world be as sustainable as possible.”

The 000JR-10E Shawn Mendes is also helping to do good in other ways. Harking back to charitable collaborations between Martin and longtime signature artist Eric Clapton, this guitar is also helping to support a charitable cause close to Mendes’ heart. In honour of the partnership, Martin made a contribution to the Wonder of Music Program presented by The Shawn Mendes Foundation at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. The program works to support music therapy activities for young patients, including songwriting, music exposure, and more.

“The Wonder of Music Program is a really special project for me, especially because it’s based in my hometown of Toronto at SickKids Hospital,” Shawn explains. “Music has always been such an important part of my life and has helped me in many ways, so it’s an honor to be able to share that magic with kids in need. The Wonder of Music Program is all about giving young people the opportunity to experience the joy and transformative power of music, and I’m so thankful that Martin wanted to support the program.”

Many artists are still finding their feet in their early 20s, and so it’s all the more impressive that Mendes is a Martin signature artist before he’s even turned 25 – something that the man himself clearly appreciates.

“It was an absolute honor to be asked to do my own signature guitar with Martin. I’ve been a fan of Martin for a while, so it was a really special moment for me. It made sense that my first official artist signature guitar would be an acoustic. I’m very grateful to my fans and everyone who made this my reality.”

I wanted the guitar to be as affordable as possible so young musicians could have something to start their own journeys with…

I love the idea this could be a ton of fans’ first guitar

AMANDA SHIRES

The ukulele-toting solo artist and member of country supergroup

My Martin Story

Amanda Shires might be a fiddle player first and foremost, but she and Martin go way back. “Well, I grew up playing with the Texas Playboys, and I was aware of that brand because Bob Wills [the Playboys’ original bandleader and inventor of Western swing] had a Martin guitar,” she explains of the first time she became aware of the fine guitars made in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

Words • JOSH GARDNER

Portraits • MICHAEL SCHMELLING

Shires joined the Playboys, who carried on performing long after Wills’ death in 1975, at the age of just 15 – but despite her early baptism into the world of professional music, a Martin instrument was still something to be dreamed of.

“It wasn’t a brand that I saw a lot, because people would play less expensive guitars – we were young, y’know!” she chuckles. “But as you grow and make your way, you start making decisions and trying things out and playing instruments, and then you fall in love with ’em, and then you wind up buying ’em!”

Buying Martin guitars is something that Shires is especially good at, it would appear, despite the fact that by her own admission, she tends to stick to ukes and tenors when she puts her fiddle down.

“I gradually worked my way into playing guitar, but I don’t play a whole lot because I live with a guitar player!” she says. “And it’s the worst when you’re playing and you hear him yelling like, “Your E-string is outta tune!’ I’m like, ‘I don’t care, okay?!’”

The guitar player in question is of course her husband and bandmate Jason Isbell, whose own favorite Martin of the moment is a stunning shortscale 1934 000-28 that you can hear the man himself enthuse about elsewhere in this journal. The 000 was a gift from Shires, who seems to have an incredible knack for buying amazing guitar-based gifts for her spouse

The Highwomen on her knack for buying Martin-themed gifts, the magic of a Martin uke, and why it helped her fiddle-playing hands feel right at home.

(“It’s easy if you know your husband only likes musical instruments”) – but the pre-war 000 has clearly turned into a gift for everyone.

“His pre-war has been like a ‘grail’ instrument for him, since he was a kid, y’know?” Shires explains. “And I’ve been saving up and working hard for a long time y’know, because it’s not like you can just really… go and buy one! And not only that, you’ve gotta try them out – you can’t just pick one out off the internet, you gotta hear ’em.

“And the one he picked is so beautiful, we can’t stop playing it, it’s wild. You would think that, ‘Oh, it’s gonna sound similar to a 50s one or something.’ It’s absolutely not the case. And then when I play it with the fiddle it sounds like they were meant to be together. It’s just too beautiful. So we play that one all the time, that’s the favorite around the house right now.”

FOUR STRING THEORY

First and foremost, however, she remains a great lover of Martin ukuleles and tenor ukes – a love that grew out of her fiddle-playing background.

“I like the ukulele because it’s small, and then I liked the way that it wasn’t an instrument I heard all the time – it kinda unlocks writing blocks, y’know?” she explains. “Playing something that doesn’t sound the same, or isn’t always tuned the same as a normal, standard guitar, I feel like it helps me think about music in a different way.

“At first, I didn’t want to play the guitar because I felt that my hands weren’t big enough, ’cos I’d played the fiddle for so long and they’ve just resigned themselves to being 10-year-old-sized. They’re just tiny! And stumpy! My hands are tiny and stumpy, but they’re perfect for playing the fiddle. So I thought, ‘I’ll play the ukulele – the neck feels good, the strings are nylon so they’re not gonna fuck up my already perfectly formed

callouses…’ and I just started with that. And then I was like, ‘Oh, I like what this does to my ear when I write.’ They’re tote-able and they do a different thing! And, y’know the tenors, you can tune ’em like a fiddle if you want –I just think that they’re great.”

Shires is demonstrably an excellent gift-giver, but the giving of Martins is a two-way street in her and Jason’s relationship… albeit with a minor misunderstanding along the way.

“Maybe six months ago, he got me the Konter Uke [a replica of the Martin uke that was owned by Richard Konter and taken on Richard Byrd’s famous Arctic expedition in 1926, which on its return was signed by a wealth of notable people including Thomas Edison, Calvin Coolidge, Amelia Earhart and more – Ed],” she explains.

“It is really cool – like it has the signatures of all the people on the expedition and others on there, but… but he thought he was buying me the ACTUAL one [the actual one lives in the Martin Museum]. He was so embarrassed, but I was like, ‘That’s okay, it’s amazing – it doesn’t have to be the actual one.’ It’s really cool, and it sounds really good!”

It’s not all brand-new instruments, however. There’s another Martin uke that is close to Shires’ heart, due to its association with a dear and much-missed friend.

“I got a really old Martin ukulele with David Crosby when we went to Carter’s [Carter Vintage Guitars in Nashville] one day,” she recalls. “He was like, ‘You’re not leaving without this!’ Because I sat down and played it and it had this warmth about it, but with this remarkable bright edge, too. David said, ‘It’s like the dark side of Hawaii!’ And I was like, ‘That’s what I always say I’m looking for! The dark side of Hawaii!’ And we stood there, and I was like, ‘I’ll think about…’ And he was like, ‘Absolutely not! We’re not leaving here without it!’ And I was like, ‘Okay, alright!’”

This page: Amanda Shires strums her uke as she opens for Lee Ann Womack in New York City, in 2015

Her favorite uke, however, is one that Martin made just for her.

“My custom,” she sighs, when we ask her about her instrument of choice. “It is the most beautiful little ukulele you ever saw. This is the one that they made me when I first started my little thing with Martin. It’s got a little pickup in it, that sounds awesome, and I play it for all kinds of stuff. It’s pretty perfect, and I don’t know – it’s become my friend. I played it at the premiere of the Leonard Cohen documentary at the Beacon Theater – I like to play all the sad Leonard Cohen songs on it. It sounds so good – proof that they don’t have to sound like toys!”

GOOD PEOPLE

Martin instruments have been trusted by musicians of all stripes all over the world for nearly 200 years now, and for Amanda, there’s a very simple but good reason why the brand remains the choice of professionals.

“They sound amazing, and they’re so consistent, and they’re passionate about what they do over there, every single one of them,” she enthuses. “As much as I’m not a salesman for them, it’s an amazing thing when you have people that are passionate about music and the legacy of the instruments, and I feel like you can definitely hear and feel that when you play it. There’s a pride and a love of the craft of making the instruments that’s impossible to deny.

“And they hold up over the years – and then they start sounding better! So I know that, should my kids grow up and wanna play an instrument, they’ll have this instrument that’s beautiful. And it’s an heirloom but like, it’s also attached to my childhood memories of listening to my mom and dad play, or watching folks have a good time. I haven’t been an official ambassador for Martin for a long time, but that doesn’t keep me from buying their instruments, y’know? They’ve got a reputation and y’know it’s not fake. And it’s not built by any huge machines – there’s just some folks making guitars back there!”

It’s amazing when you have people who are passionate about music and the legacy of the instruments

JOHN MAYER

As the Grammy-winning guitarist prepares to celebrate 20 years of unique Martin signature instruments, we caught up with John Mayer to find out what the milestone means to him, his individual approach to guitar design, the unique power of the acoustic guitar, and what the future holds for him and Martin.

Two Decades of Music

Words • JOSH GARDNER

Portraits • FRANK OCKENFELS 3

THIS

It’s been a remarkable 20 years since John Mayer first became a Martin signature artist, during which time he’s gone from an up-and-coming songwriter to one of the most influential guitar players of his generation. In that time, Martin has produced a variety of signature guitars – from his trademark OMJM to mighty Dreadnoughts and one-off custom models. But two decades is a significant milestone, and while details are under wraps for now, we can reveal that Martin will be marking the 20th anniversary of the first John Mayer signature acoustic with something special.

“I wanted to celebrate it because the guitar, and the partnership I’ve had with Martin, has been such an important part of my career,” Mayer tells us. “I’m not a giant fan of counting the years, but in cases like this, I think it’s meaningful to take a moment and reflect and have some gratitude and celebration for where my career has taken me, and how the OMJM and OM-28JM have played such a huge part in it.”

DAVID’S DAY

An anniversary also provides a good excuse for Mayer to reflect on his journey as an artist to this point, and indeed his relationship with the instruments he’s used to get there. So when we asked Mayer how he first became aware of Martin guitars and their power as songwriting tools, he reveals it was a famous and much-missed David that lit the fire under him.

“I think my first memory of seeing a Martin was in the hands of David Crosby on some Crosby, Stills & Nash live performance, maybe on PBS?” he explains. “It always struck me as an instrument played by serious, class-act performers.”

When the time came to join the Martin family himself, however, it was another famous David that paved the way for a young John.

“My first Martin, believe it or not, was the Dave Matthews signature edition,” he recalls. “I bought it with a $5,000 equipment budget that was in my first record contract. I had enough money for that guitar and a Fender Vibro-King amp. That’s the acoustic you hear on Room For Squares It’s the only one I had. That guitar still means a lot to me.”

In those early days, you’d often see Mayer on stage with the aforementioned DM3MD, or the more high-end charms of a D-45 – kicking off an affection for elaborately ornate Martin guitars that would become a regular theme of his signature guitar collection over the years.

SPREAD: The OMJM model features an Engelmann spruce top and East Indian rosewood back and sides for depth of tone; the Spanish cedar neck has a low profile and player-friendly nut width, and the African ebony fingerboard is inlaid with a distinctive 12th-fret inlay and signature up by the soundhole

“I had a couple of D-35s before that, and they became touring guitars for me,” he explains. “I think the first D-45 came from Martin around the time of these ads that ran with lyrics from artists, and they used lyrics from my first single No Such Thing. So really, it was Martin themselves that got me hooked on the highly ornate stuff! But nothing beats a D-45. It’s the absolute pinnacle of acoustic guitars.

“I have several D-45s now, including a signature model that was quietly put out into the world [in 2018]. I love that guitar. That one and a 1975 D-45 that I found at a music shop in Japan and absolutely fell in love with. I knew there were songs in there, and I was right! I had Neil Young sign the back of it and then would put a clip-on tuner on it – not thinking – and learned the hard way not to do that. Some of the autograph is now missing, but it still says ‘Neil You’. I can live with that.”

SIGNATURE SOUNDS

When the time came to design a signature model with Martin back in 2003, however, John opted not for a Dreadnought body shape, but the less imposing profile of an OM – it was a decision that came, as Mayer recalls it, from being made to consider what he really wanted from an acoustic for the first time.

“I have a funny way of completely ignoring the details of something when I’m at the beginning stages of my understanding it,” he reflects. “I was probably choosing guitars based on how they looked and what they might have represented. I wasn’t thinking about the body shape and sound. I don’t even think I cared about the particular feel – I was good at adapting to any guitar, anytime. My signature model, the OM-28JM – that was the first time I really thought about what I wanted in an acoustic on a ‘specs’ level. That’s when I became an OM-shape guy.

“I think the OM shape spoke to me early on as being just a little more svelte than a Dreadnought – a little more sporty. Maybe it’s because I’ve always switched between electric and acoustic so many times per show that the jump to an OM model always felt easier. And also, it might just have to do with the fact that the OM was on most of my recordings from

TOP LEFT: The OM-28JM was Mayer’s very first Martin signature model, and featured aluminum pinstriping and a unique 12th fret inlay, as well as a signature up around the dusty end of the fretboard

BOTTOM LEFT, RIGHT: The 00-42SC signature model from 2013 has inlays that reference Golden Era Style 42 Martins and a custom rosette: the suffix stands for ‘Stagecoach’ edition

In the beginning, Mayer used the Martin signature models of other artists – notably Eric Clapton’s 000-28EC and Dave Matthews’ DM3MD model. Nowdays, he’s honored when he sees other artists play his own OMJM model

Heavier Things on. It’s just come to sound like me. But I still use a D-45 on things that I need to get more ‘strum’ out of.”

Also involved in John’s decision to scale down was the signature model of one of his guitar icons, who had pretty much single-handedly revived the fortunes of the 000 body style less than a decade earlier.

“One of my first Martins was a 000-28EC Eric Clapton model, which probably sold me on the smaller body shape,” Mayer says. “I remember buying it one night at McCabe’s in Santa Monica. I took it home and wrote a lot of songs on that one. I remember writing Clarity from Heavier Things within days of buying it. That’s when I really got into the fingerpicking aspect of playing acoustic.”

And when recalling the actual process of designing his dream guitar with Martin and the talented people who work there, well, Mayer is effusive. “It was just lovely. I use that word knowingly,” he enthuses. “Working with Dick Boak was lovely. We really put that guitar together as if we were two songwriters coming up with a tune together. He would say, ‘I really like the sound of Engelmann spruce as a top, it’s just got a great resonance,’ and I’d go with that knowing he knew way better than I did.

“And I’d hit him with these ideas like, ‘Can we make the Martin logo silver colored?’ and asking him if we could inlay aluminum around the bridge and headstock. I was interested in making it stand apart and he was interested in it being a brilliant-sounding instrument.

“And of course, the element of that guitar that stands out the most, and still does on the OMJM model, is the smaller neck profile. I’m always honored to see artists play that guitar, and sometimes I get an even bigger kick out of it when I’m not sure they’re as big a fan of my music as they are of the guitar, because the neck really does fit perfectly in the hand.”

Another aspect of having your own signature guitar, of course, is that it offers you a uniquely tailored safety net should you be on the road or caught in a situation where you’re away from your gear and you need a guitar at short notice. Thanks to the consistency and quality that Martin guitars offer for every owner, John knows that he could walk out on stage in front of thousands of people with a guitar he’s just pulled off the rack of a local shop.

“Oh, for sure,” he agrees. “I could fly somewhere and just say, ‘have an OMJM for me’ and be able to play the show as if it were my own. I know the neck joint is different, but I’m sure I’d get fooled in a blindfold test.”

The OM-28JM – that was the first time I really thought about what I wanted in an acoustic on a ‘specs’ level

FUTURE CLASSICS

The OMJM wasn’t John’s first guitar with Martin, of course – before it came the limited-run OM-28JM. In addition to laying the groundwork for much of what would become the OMJM, this guitar was notable for a very unique visual flourish – inlaid aluminum that provided a unique pinstripe effect around the bridge and headstock. We wonder if his thinking on this instrument was to create something that was intentionally different to a regular Martin guitar?

“It wasn’t about trying not to look like other Martins, but more to bring Martin’s design language a little closer to the design of things around me,” he explains. “I’ve always been a believer that guitar should continue to echo the design elements of the world around it, and at the time, my laptop was titanium-colored. Lines were straighter, especially in regard to technology. I wanted to represent a little of that, and I think it was a success, because there’s nothing about the guitar looking back that screams out as being from any particular era. I think it still holds up.”

That original guitar remains a regular feature of Mayer’s live guitar rig, and it’s clear that his first Martin model holds a special place in his heart.

“You know, it’s emotional for me,” he agrees. “That guitar is the only thing on Earth that’s gone up and down on stage as often as I have. It’s been with me in front of tens of thousands of people, and then it’s been with me in hotel bathrooms the next night. The wear and tear I put on that guitar is the representation of my whole life as a musician. Only I – and that guitar – can tell you what’s been written, played, and sung on it.

“And as someone who has a collector brain, always shuffling through things, never quite wearing a hole into any of them – it’s nice to have something I can look at and say, ‘Yeah, that was the one I played my whole life.’”

Another of John’s most recognisable signature Martins is a very different affair, however –the 00-45SC ‘Stagecoach’ guitar released in 2012 was created around the time he recorded his acoustic-driven Born And Raised album, and found him in a very different headspace than the blues and pop worlds he’d inhabited to that point.

“I was listening to a lot of old country-western artists as I was writing Born And Raised and was really struck by the simplicity of the 00 shape,” Mayer elaborates. “Watching Bob Dylan play one in

ABOVE: Mayer’s Martins will no doubt continue to accompany him on the road until his 30th anniversary celebration

RIGHT: Mayer only fully realised that the more svelte OM shape was his favorite when it came time to design his first signature Martin, released in 2003

It’s been in front of tens of thousands of people, then with me in hotel bathrooms the next night… the wear and tear I put on that OM-28JM is the representation of my whole life as a musician

the No Direction Home documentary really knocked me out. I thought to myself, ‘Look at what this man can do with just his voice and that simple little guitar.’ I thought it was just incredible. That guitar teases out the truth from you! There’s nothing else to do on that guitar but strum chords and sing how you feel.

“I will say that on a design level, the Stagecoach is the best guitar I’ve ever had anything to do with. And as a consumer, if I could forget that I had anything to do with it, that’s one of the best guitars out there, period. Take the most simple acoustic guitar and then dial it up to 11 in terms of ornamentation. Something about that just thrills me so much.”

The Stagecoach speaks to Mayer’s abiding love affair with Martin acoustic guitars, and the uncluttered power of writing a song with just your voice and a guitar.

“There are just these times in my life where nothing will ever be more powerful than writing a song on acoustic, recording it on that acoustic, and then traveling the world to play it on that acoustic,” he adds. “Of all the songs I could launch into and hit people with the power of live music, nothing is more impactful to me than starting a song that begins with the acoustic guitar. It’s such distinct evidence of the record-to-liveperformance process. It’s like, ‘There it is! There’s the song!’”

WISDOM AND EXPERIENCE

It’s clear that over the years, Mayer has been the owner of many fine Martin acoustic guitars – that aforementioned “collector’s brain” – but when we see him in the studio or on stage, he seems broadly settled, rarely debuting any new models – though his recent solo acoustic tour has seen him raid the Martin archives for some suitably unique instruments, most notably, the one-off double-neck acoustic built by Martin’s Tim Teel back in 2010.

This clearly isn’t the case in every aspect of his life – after all, his passion for buying and selling luxury watches has made Mayer as much of a celebrity in the horological world as he is for his music, but it’s clear that he views his guitars in a different way than he would say, a Rolex Steve McQueen.

“I hit a certain point in my life where I stopped seeing instruments as collectibles and started seeing them as tools,” he agrees. “And I really have all the tools I need, generally speaking. Having my own electric guitar model really knocked that out of me. I spent so long getting the details of that to be perfect, I stopped seeing them with the same kind of wonder I did when I was younger.

“I still think the guitar is nothing short of magic. I just think I have the magic pretty much nailed down in that department, and now the magic lies in the music I’m seeking through the guitar. Watches? That’s pure delight and joy and fun for me. I can imagine I’d give you somewhat of the same response about watches if I were to have spent so much time in the details of it like I have guitars. That’s what’s always drawn me to watches – they live so far on the other end of the universe from music.”

That all being said, a 20th anniversary John Mayer signature Martin project would indicate that his passion for creating new and interesting musical instruments hasn’t gone away – we can’t help but wonder if the experience this time around has him already thinking about what he might do for a 25th or 30th anniversary guitar?

“I can’t plan that far ahead… or look that far behind,” he jokes. “I get vertigo pretty easily. But we’ll find a way to top it. There will be new materials and manufacturing methods to have fun with over the next 10 years.” Watch this space for something very special indeed.

Martin

Moments

JOAN BAEZ

Joan Baez has always been more than a musician – as an activist, she has spent decades at the very forefront of the fights for civil rights, social justice, the environment, and the end to war. But music has always been her primary vehicle to speak truth to power, with a Martin guitar in her hands and a song of change in her heart.

At the age of 18, Joan Baez became one of the breakout stars of the first Newport Folk Festival in 1959. She would return to the festival again and again in the coming decades, joining the Freedom Singers to perform We Shall Overcome in 1963 – a song that would become forever associated with Baez and the civil rights movement.

RIGHT The first March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963 is one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement. In front of the Lincoln Memorial, at the same podium where Martin Luther King, Jr delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Baez led the crowd of around 250,000 people in several verses of We Shall Overcome and Oh Freedom

LEFT Baez remained heavily involved in the civil rights movement after the March on Washington and performed an impromptu concert on a makeshift stage during the third Selma to Montgomery march on March 24, 1965.

ABOVE Baez was also heavily involved in the global anti-war movement that sprang up in the wake of the Vietnam War. Baez performed at anti-war demonstrations in the US and beyond, including this one in London’s Trafalgar Square in 1965.

RIGHT Despite being six months pregnant at the time, Baez closed out the first night of Woodstock in 1969, coming on around 1am and playing a 12-song set.

BELOW Baez and Bob Dylan have been associated since she invited the then-little-known Dylan on stage to sing with her at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, and the pair would frequently perform together in the following years. Here, they reunite for Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue benefit concert for Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter in front of prisoners at the Correctional Institution for Women at Clinton in 1975.

JOAN BAEZ • Martin Moments

ABOVE As befits an artist who has had a seismic impact on the world both musically and culturally, Joan Baez was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame on April 7, 2017. Fittingly, Baez performed at the show using her Martin 0-45JB – the guitar Martin made for her inspired by the 0-45 she’s used since her earliest days.

BELOW Even later on in her career, Baez has always been willing to lend her voice and guitar to high-profile causes ranging from nuclear disarmament to prison reform and LGBTQ+ rights, among many others. Protests against wealth inequality saw her play at a Veterans Day concert at Occupy Wall Street’s camp in New York on November 11, 2011.

Eric

For nearly three decades, Slowhand and Martin guitars have been inseparable – with the guitar icon’s range of signature models being an everpresent part of the company’s lineup since 1996. But it all started with one very special 000-42…

A MARTIN

Eric Clapton performing an acoustic set with a trusty Martin by his side, at Madison Square Garden in February 2010

It’s January 1992, and Eric Clapton and a hand-picked group of musicians are convening at Bray Film Studios just outside of London. That night, they’ll play in front of a small audience for a taping of a US TV show called MTV Unplugged, wherein Clapton and his band will run through a set of acoustic renditions of songs old and new, plus a few of Slowhand’s beloved blues staples.

MTV Unplugged had been going for a few years at this point, showcasing notable artists, including Paul McCartney, Sting, R.E.M., and uh, Poison, in stripped-down format, but it was by no means the cultural phenomenon that it would become.

By the end of the evening’s performance, whether the people in the room realized it or not, that had changed. Eric Clapton’s Unplugged would be transformative, not just for MTV, but for Slowhand himself. When all was said and done, the live album of that performance, Unplugged, would sell 26 million copies, making it the best-selling live album of all time. It also cleaned up at the Grammys, winning six awards, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year, changing the whole trajectory of Clapton’s career forever. But that wasn’t all.

MARTIN CALLING

At the heart of Unplugged ’s mesmerizing performance was a pair of very special Martin 000 acoustic guitars, a 1966 000-28 that had been modified to resemble a 45, and a bona fide 1939 000-42 that became the star of the show. When you sell 26 million albums and project yourself into millions of homes all across the world, people tend to notice… so it was no surprise that within a very short period of time, Martin’s phone was ringing off the hook with people asking where they could get a guitar just like Eric’s.

“I think I received more than 50 phone calls about what Eric was playing,” recalls Dick Boak, Martin Guitars’ A&R man, and in-house historian during the period. “MTV Unplugged was a huge benefit to the acoustic guitar market. Acoustic guitar sales kind of ebb and flow with the whims of the guitar market. Electric guitars will become incredibly popular, and then acoustic guitar sales would drop, and then things would reverse. But when MTV Unplugged happened, and specifically the Clapton show, it really had a tremendously beneficial impact on acoustic guitar sales. And that never declined, really.”

Part of the reason for the calls was at the time, the 000 body shape was far from the most popular model in Martin’s catalogue. Dick believes Eric was the main reason why that changed dramatically over the coming decades. “I absolutely do, in fact, the 000-sized guitars were kind of unpopular at the time,” he recalls. “The popularity of the Martin Dreadnought had supplanted most of the smaller body guitars for a couple of decades, and Martin wasn’t even making a lot of these models. With the reintroduction of the 000 guitars for Eric, 000 and 0M sizes got re-popularized. Also, even smaller-bodied guitars like the 12-fret and 14-fret 00- and 0-sized guitars became more popular.” Eric’s slimmed-down choice of guitar might have taken the public by surprise, but the Martin historian knew that Eric’s love of the 000 went back a long way.

Words • JOSH GARDNER Guitar photography • MARTIN GUITARS © ROGER KISBY/GETTY IMAGES

“As a historian and also their artist-relations person, I collected various photographs and videos of anybody that I saw that was playing Martin guitars. And in the course of that I noticed that Eric had played a 000-28, early in his career. Then, of course, when the MTV Unplugged album came out, he was playing the 1939 000-42, which really caught our notice.”

PUT YOUR NAME ON IT

The interest in Clapton’s Unplugged Martin planted the seed of an idea in Boak’s brain – maybe the circumstances presented the opportunity to do a bona fide artist signature model. There was just one problem: Martin didn’t really do that sort of thing.

“I did the research and got the serial number and contacted Eric’s management and I suggested that we consider making a replica of the guitar,” Boak recalls. “But before I did that, I had to ask Chris Martin whether or not that would be acceptable to him – because we didn’t normally do that, we didn’t normally interface with musicians like that, or

000-28EC

do signature models. In fact, we had only dabbled in one project with Gene Autry [the 1994 D-45 Gene Autry] prior to contacting Eric.

“Now the Gene Autry project had a charitable aspect to it – when we approached Gene about replicating his guitar, he said, ‘That’s fine, as long as you pay a charitable royalty to the Autry Museum of Western Heritage.’ So that kind of set a precedent, and when I asked Chris Martin about the Clapton project he said, ‘As long as there’s a charitable aspect.’

So when I contacted Eric, I proposed that we pay a charitable royalty that was connected with the tragedy that had happened with Eric’s son, Conor. Eric responded the following day, through his management, and said that he’d be delighted and that the charity could be the Eric Clapton Charitable Trust for Children.”

With all the key people involved on board, work began on that very first Clapton signature Martin: a model that would become one of the most important Martin guitars of the last three decades: the 000-42EC.

“We started coming up with ideas that we sent back and forth by email, as to what the guitar should be,” says Dick of the process. “Eric liked the idea of combining the 000-42 specifications with the 000-45

specifications – kinda blending the two together.” Much of the discussion was about the guitar’s looks – the decision was made to apply some aging toner to the guitar’s top to make it look a little closer to Clapton’s 50-yearold 1939 model, while Boak suggested using the snowflake inlays instead of the more in-your-face hexagons.

All that pearl, however, was going to be tricky to produce at any sort of scale with the consistency that a signature edition would require. Thankfully, help would arrive from an outside source.

“Larry Sifel, Jeff Harding, and the ‘Duke Of Pearl’ Chuck Erikson at Pearl Works – a company that does pearl inlay in Maryland – collaborated on the invention of a material called Abalam,” Dick recalls. “Abalam was a method of softening the abalone shell and then slicing paper-thin layers of the abalone and laying that up into a sheet made of six layers of thin abalone pearl. What this did was increase the yield of the abalone shell and increased the quality of the appearance of the pearl by a hundred-fold.”

Without Pearl Works and its ability to use Abalam on a CNC machine to quickly and accurately cut the inlays, the inlays would likely have had to be cut by hand using a scroll saw – a hugely time consuming and labor-

000-28M ERIC CLAPTON

000-42M ERIC CLAPTON

000-28EC SUNBURST

I had to ask Chris Martin whether or not that would be acceptable to him… we didn’t normally do signature models

intensive process that would have likely rendered the whole project financially prohibitive. The 000-42EC, it seems, was meant to be.

SELLING THE DREAM

With the design of the guitar set, it was up to Dick and the Martin team to figure out how to market it. It was agreed that this initial guitar would be a limited-run instrument, but how many? Martin had never really done anything like this before, and so there wasn’t consensus about how many of these they’d actually be able to sell. Dick decided that the edition should have a meaningful number to Clapton enthusiasts, but it wasn’t a universally popular one.

“There’s quite a lot of numbers in Eric’s songs and albums, but I came across 461 Ocean Boulevard, and I particularly liked that idea,” Dick recalls. Because that was Eric’s comeback album, it’s kinda when he cleaned up his act. So I went to the sales manager with the proposal to do 461 guitars and that the guitars were gonna retail for $8,200, and he looked at me and thought I was crazy. He looked at me and said, ‘You think you can sell 461 guitars, at $8,200 dollars!?’ And I said, ‘I think we can!’ And he went to Chris Martin and tried to derail the whole project!

“But Chris stood up for me, and we went to the trade show with the prototype – we made two prototypes, one we sent to Eric, and one we took to NAMM. We went to the trade show, displayed the prototype, the dealers came in on opening day and within three hours, the entire edition sold out.”

The 000-42EC became something of a phenomenon in Martin circles, with dealers across the world reporting customers coming into stores specifically to see if they had any of the prized 461 guitars. Clearly, there was enough demand for Eric Clapton signature Martins that another guitar was due – enter then, the 000-28EC.

“With the 000-42EC, there was so much pent-up demand for more instruments that after a year went by, I contacted Eric again and suggested that we do a 000-28EC, and that we not put a limit on it – that we let it run,” Dick explains. “Eric liked the idea and jokingly called it the ‘poor man’s Clapton model’, because while it wasn’t $8,000, it was still not a cheap instrument! And it’s still a beautiful guitar – it’s exactly the same physical specifications as the 000-42EC, just without all the fanciness, and without all the pearl inlay. Eric actually liked that better! He likes austere things, I think, more than fancy things.”

Left: Eric playing a Martin 000-28EC signature model with its distinctive 1935 sunburst finish This spread, previous spread: Detail shots from the Martin 000-42EC-Z Eric Clapton Ziricote model. Among the most luxurious signature guitars Martin has ever produced, this 14-fret wonder is adorned with abalone and herringbone pearl inlays, Style 42 snowflakes on the fingerboard, Martin’s iconic torch symbol, the Crossroads Festival symbol and Eric’s signature. Its construction incorporates ziricote sides and back and a Sitka spruce top that’s undergone Martin’s Vintage Tone System torrefaction process

Since 1996, the 000-28EC has been an ever-present part of the Martin lineup and one of the most popular Martin models. But Martin and Eric weren’t done making guitars together… far from it.

SPECIALS, LIMITED RUNS, AND FRIENDS

In the year 2000, Martin announced the 000-42ECB – another limited-edition guitar (this time just 200 units) which had Brazilian rosewood back and sides. It would kick off two decades of some of the most interesting and unique limited-run signature guitars that Martin had ever made.

In 2003, Martin teamed with Clapton and his friend, Hiroshi Fujiwara – a musician, photographer, visual artist, producer, and radio DJ in his native Japan – to produce a series of instruments that showed off the very best of Martin craftsmanship through a very unique lens. The first of these guitars was an all black-finished instrument that Eric used on tour in 2003 – the original eight custom guitars had Clapton and Fujiwara’s initials at the top of the fretboard, but when the production model arrived in 2004, the 000-ECHF had its name there instead, ‘Bellezza Nera’. “It means ‘black beauty’ in Italian!” Dick explains. “Eric suggested this because Italian is the language of music.”

The Bellezza Nera was limited to 476 instruments, and was followed up in 2006 by the 000-ECHF Bellezza Bianca – an all-white version to contrast the black of the original. “When we did the white one, it occurred to me that we should do a cream one because of his history,” Dick says. “In the end we went for a very bright white, but the binding is ivoroid and they’re cream colored –I thought that was appropriate. We also got to use maple on the white models, because if we would’ve used rosewood, it would’ve required filler being forced into the pores of the wood. And filler has a habit of showing through, especially with a white finish, so we managed to do it in maple.”

The collaboration between Martin, Clapton, and Fujiwara would be revisited nearly a decade after the original when in 2014, the OM-ECHF Navy Blues would put a new spin on the concept. Opting for the longer 25.4-inch scale of an OM this time, Clapton decided that this new instrument would keep the visual design of the Bellezza Nera, but this time in blue – a very particular shade of blue.

“We made some prototypes and sent them over to Eric, and he said, ‘Well, this is the wrong color of blue,’” Dick recalls. “We did a royal blue – a bright blue color – and he didn’t like it.

Eric plays the blues on a Martin 000-28EC at the 2012 Howlin’ For Hubert benefit concert at The Apollo Theater in New York City

He said, ‘It’s supposed to be subdued, it’s supposed to be navy blue.’ And so, we went back and prototyped the navy blue and the end result was really nice.”

The Fujiwara guitars are a testament to the trust that has been built up between Martin Guitar and Eric Clapton over the decades of working together, but perhaps no guitar sums up that relationship better than 2015’s Martin 000-42K Goro.

Goro Takahashi was a legendary Japanese jewelry designer and close friend of Clapton’s for many years. Goro sadly passed away in 2013, but when Eric decided that he wanted to honor his late friend’s legacy, he turned to Martin Guitar and Fujiwara to collaborate with him and Goro’s family to create a very special instrument.

The final guitar, christened the 000-42K Goro, features flamed koa back and sides and an Italian spruce top, beautiful turquoise purfling around the body and soundhole, solid gold flowers on the bridge and a gold ‘Goro’s’ inlay on the headstock. Inside the soundhole is a label with a picture of Eric and Goro smiling together.

“The Goro project was particularly fun and meaningful for me,” Boak recalls. “I traveled to Japan and met with Goro’s family, at his jewelry shop in Japan that Eric had visited many times – it was really a fabulous trip. I bought one of the Goro guitars before they sold out – we decided we would only make 39 of them, so they’re very, very, very rare. It was just a very special project, and I know it was exceptionally meaningful to Eric to be able to pay tribute to his friend.”

A LIFE WITH MARTIN

Over 30 years after Eric Clapton took to that Bray Film Studios stage and played a bunch of acoustic songs on an old Martin 000, the power of that original Unplugged performance continues to captivate and inspire. It’s likely no coincidence that two modern Martin icons, John Mayer and Shawn Mendes, have created signature models of their own that share similar looks (albeit catered to their own tastes) with the 000-42EC. Meanwhile, the Clapton model itself, whether that’s the ‘poor man’ 000-28 or the various limited runs created by Martin in the decades since, has demonstrated a remarkable versatility and staying power – just like the man himself.

It’s part of the reason why, to Dick Boak’s mind at least, the power of Eric Clapton and a Martin guitar has remained undiminished. “I don’t think there’s been any other artist that comes close to the success of the Clapton models,” he affirms. “But I think if you did a survey of recording artists with the most staying power, the most popularity – through different generations and genres of music – Eric Clapton would be near the top of that list. That was true when we started, and it’s still true today.”

I don’t think there’s been any other artist that comes close to the success of the Clapton models

Clapton pictured in 1995, playing his now-iconic 000-42 in Rotterdam.

Eric sold his 1939 model from the MTV Unplugged concert in 2004 for $791,500

190 y ears of

W ORKING G UITARS

For nearly two centuries, Martin has been a byword for quality, reliability, and great sound – trusted by the best in the business to do the job for them on stage, in the studio, and anywhere else. Martin guitars are working guitars, and have been at the side of some of the greatest artists in the history of the instrument.

Gene Autrey

David Gilmour

Willie Nelson

Marty Stuart

Clarence White

Roy Rogers

Hank Williams

Johnny Cash

Judy Collins

Nancy Wilson

My Father’s Guitar

RICH ROBINSON

The Black Crowes guitarist teamed up with Martin Guitar in 2022 to create one of the most meticulous and special signature instruments the company has ever made – an exact replica of his father’s cherished 1954 D-28. The results were spectacular, as the man himself is keen to attest…

Words • JOSH GARDNER Portraits • ROSS HALFIN

Stan Robinson might not have been the most famous musician in his family – the platinum-selling, chart-topping, decades-long success of his sons Chris and Rich as the creative fulcrum of The Black Crowes is pretty hard to compete with, after all – but his story deserves telling. Born and raised in Atlanta, Stan played all over the Southwest, first with Hillbilly Highway – during which time he even graced the stage of the Grand Ole Opry – and then later, as part of a folk duo called The Appalachians, where he’d become the first (but not the last) member of his family to play Nashville’s legendary Ryman Auditorium. He even had a minor pop hit as a solo artist with 1959’s Boom-A-Dip-Dip, but later gave up the music biz for the stability of civilian life.

Stan might have left his professional music career behind him, but he never left music, and the most visible symbol of that was a 1954 Martin D-28, that Rich recalls being in the Robinson family home for as long as he can remember.

“From the earliest possible memories that I had, that guitar was there,” Rich explains. “He would pull it out a couple of times a year and play for all of us, and it was just one of those things that symbolically meant a lot to the family.

“All of us – Chris and I, my mom and dad – were huge music fans, and that guitar was one of the main reasons we were that way. So to have that guitar be that symbol, and what that meant to us – that made Martin a really big deal to me.”

This spread: Details from Stan Robinson’s original 1954 Martin D-28. In regular use since it left the factory, the storied six-string has had a more eventful life than most, having started out as a touring instrument before, in Rich’s hands, becoming a go-to songwriting and recording tool

The D-28 was one of few guitars in the house as Rich and Chris grew up, the only other being a scroll-headstock Gower that did not stack up favorably with the Nazareth Dreadnought.

“It was so crude comparatively, but that was the only other guitar that I had to compare it to, and that Martin just sang!” Rich exclaims. “And then growing up, I was just putting faces to guitars, y’know? My dad was a huge Stephen Stills fan, he always played Martins; Dylan was Gibsons and Martins… all of this music that we were consuming, Martin seemed to be the standard. Like what the Cadillac meant in the 50s, y’know? There are some amazing acoustic guitars out there, but for some reason, that Martin has always been something really special.”

EARLY STEPS

When Rich began to develop musical aspirations of his own, it was natural that young Robinson would be drawn to the stunning instrument that was kicking around the family home – even if, at first, he didn’t treat it with quite the reverence it deserved…

“When I was a kid, I would pick up that guitar and, I hate to say it, but I’d bang around on it!” he grimaces. “I didn’t play guitar until I was about 14, and I picked up dad’s guitar and started messing around with it – trying to pick out things I’d heard on a record or on TV. Now obviously dad didn’t really want us messing with his guitar, so he bought Chris and I some instruments for Christmas, and then that’s kinda what started us on this whole thing.”

Yet seemingly, something about the D-28 would always draw Rich back to it. “I always would go back to that guitar, and typically I would always write on acoustic. No matter what type of song it is, I always felt like

My Father’s Guitar • RICH ROBINSON

The

if it sounds good in its most basic form, just an acoustic guitar, then I felt like it was a good song.”

Writing good songs, as it turned out, was something at which the Robinson brothers were supernaturally talented. The brothers formed the band that would become The Black Crowes while still in high school and spent the following years honing their craft until, in 1990, they released their debut album Shake Your Money Maker. The album would shift over five million copies and spawn the two No. 1 singles She Talks To Angels and Hard To Handle, but it might have been very different without their father’s guitar.

“So when we made that first record – and I was 19 when we made Shake Your Money Maker – I had like, two guitars!” Rich laughs. “I had a Tele and a Les Paul, and that was it. And dad gave us the D-28 to make the record, so that’s the guitar I used on She Talks To Angels. Y’know, a 1954 D-28, back then, that’s a pretty good acoustic to have! And I’ve played that guitar on every record that I’ve ever made since.

“Then a couple of years into my career with The Black Crowes, dad gave me that to keep, and he was just like, ‘I want you to have this.’ It was a big deal, and it’s something that I cherish and hold onto – I did back then, and I do even more now that he’s gone.”

Stan passed away in 2013, and having something tactile to connect with him has made the guitar even more special to Rich, while also ensuring that he continues to use it for its intended purpose. “I always have that in mind, y’know?” he explains. “It’s been there as long as I’ve been here on Earth. So just to be able to be around it and play it always makes me feel connected to my father. It also helps that it sounds amazing, too!”

A couple of years into my career with

Black Crowes, dad gave me that to keep, and he was just like, ‘I want you to have this’

Right: Rich puts his signature D-28 through its paces with Martin Guitars CEO Thomas Ripsam at the 2022 NAMM Show

This

ONE FOR THE ROAD

D-28.

is the first time Martin has recreated the specific patterns of wear and tear for a signature model, down to dings on the neck and belt-buckle rash on the back. The instrument also incorporates 50s build characteristics, including a dovetail neck joint, hide-glue construction, ebony ’board and bridge, and aged nickel tuners. The guitar’s woods also look and play the part: the aged rosewood back and sides are satin finished and there’s a thin vintage gloss over the aged Sitka top

The D-28 might be Rich’s favorite and most treasured acoustic guitar, and a fixture of every record he’s ever made, but he’s always had one hard and fast rule – that guitar rarely leaves the house, and never, ever goes on tour.

“Never,” he says firmly. “That’s the one guitar that I own that I’ve never toured with. It would really bum me out if anything ever happened to it. Y’know, we had all of our stuff in Jersey when Hurricane Sandy hit, and I lost like, 70 guitars, but I had that one at my house.

“Sandy kinda changed my perspective on guitars – it’s just wood with some strings on it… and there’s a lot of great wood with strings in the world! It sucked to lose some great guitars, but I’ve since bought more great guitars, and it’s great!”

He might be philosophical about most of the guitars in his collection, but his father’s D-28 is a different story. “It solidified my tendency not to tour with it, y’know, and to keep it at home, because at least if it’s not with me… y’know, I know it’s there.”

Of course, for a tone connoisseur like Rich, there was something a little frustrating in not being able to take the best-sounding and playing acoustic guitar he owned out on the road, and in the free time of Covid’s lockdowns, he and his tech Roland ‘Lindz’ Mckay came up with a plan.

“I was talking to Lindz and I said, ‘Man, it’d be great to have another one of these that I could tour with… do you think Martin would be interested, or be able to make one?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah!’ And it was really him who spearheaded the whole thing. He was like, ‘I think they’d make a signature model, let me talk to ’em…’ because he saw what it meant to me, how important that guitar was.

“So Lindz talked to them, and they were really into the idea! And I’ll give Martin credit all day for how cool they’ve been, and how serious they’ve been about it. And, how they’ve really tried to capture what was special about the guitar, y’know what I mean? Both sonically, and about me wanting to use it to pay homage to my dad and the story behind it… they’ve been really cool about the whole thing.”

The result is the Rich Robinson Custom Signature Edition D-28 – a meticulously crafted, dingfor-ding, scratch-for-scratch replica of his father’s ’54 D-28. This was the first time Martin had created a signature model replicating a vintage instrument in such a fashion, but the results are spectacular.

spread: Detail shots from the Martin Rich Robinson Custom Signature

This

“When they sent me that first one, I’m like, ‘Holy shit!’ y’know?” Rich says. “The worst an acoustic guitar is ever gonna sound is the first day you get it home – it’s only gonna get better from there! And, man, it was just consistent and beautiful and amazing. And they stayed true to the essence of that ’54.”

TRIAL, NO ERROR

Getting to that point required a leap of faith from Rich’s side, however –in order for Martin to recreate the guitar with precision, they needed to examine the guitar up close, take measurements and generally gather as much information as possible to create the replica. In order to do that, Rich had to send the guitar to Martin’s Nazareth HQ.

“I sent it to them… once!” he chuckles, recalling how it made him feel to actually have to allow his beloved instrument to leave his possession. “I was kind of like, ‘Okay, just once!’ Y’know what I mean? I was a little fraught!”

The guitar was safely returned to its owner without incident and when the first prototype arrived, it was instantly apparent to Rich what a great job Martin had done.

“There was only one prototype,” he explains. “There was just one area that was a little bit smaller than on my dad’s, but still a really cool guitar, really beautiful. But then they changed that one thing, and every one I’ve seen since has been perfect.

“I’ve always loved Martin and I’ve always loved that company, and I’ve always loved their guitars but man, I’m so impressed by how they did this. It’s really phenomenal. The neck feels the same, y’know? The bottom end is there. It’s unfair to compare the two exactly, because one is like, 70

years old and one is brand new. But I’m telling you, off the line, out of the box, out of the case… it just has that thing. And it’s only going to get better. And it plays so well, and it just sounds great. I’m so happy with it.

“And also, sentimentally, just knowing how much the guitar meant to my dad, and knowing his musical journey and knowing how he felt about music and how his vibration or his resonance connected with Chris and I, and how we loved music… just to have a tribute to him in that sense is really meaningful to me.”

With the first collaboration between Rich and Martin being such a success, we wonder if it might open the door for future projects between himself and the company, but the guitarist is keen to celebrate what they’ve done together, and the wonderful experience he had with Martin paying tribute to his father’s guitar.

“I haven’t thought about it, but I’ve just been so pleased with them and how respectful they've been,” he reflects. “Also, I love how they can come to someone who tours and plays guitar all the time and just say, ‘What do you want?’ And I tell them, and they just do that exact thing !

“Because you deal with other companies and they’re like, ‘Oh, corporate won’t let us do that…’ or it’s too expensive… whatever. But that’s why people lose faith in some of those institutions, because they won’t just do the right shit! There’s people out there that would pay an extra 500 bucks to get the right shit – just do it! But they won’t do it.

“But Martin did it, and the end result is unbelievable. That’s why they’ve been around for a hundred-and-however many years! They do what they do, and they do it incredibly well, and they don’t seem to have ego about it. They’re just cool. I’m just thrilled with our collaboration.”

My Father’s Guitar • RICH ROBINSON

I’m telling you, off the line, out of the box, out of the case… it just has that thing. And it’s only going to get better

BUDDY GUY & KEB’ MO’

Martin & The Blues

Martin has been a key part of the evolution of blues guitar almost from the start, as the very different signature models of blues icons Buddy Guy and Keb’ Mo’ illustrate…

Words • CILLIAN BREATHNACH

As a cultural idea and a musical movement, the history of the blues is expansive – spanning the whole world and over a century of history. All throughout that time, Martin has been there, its relationship to the blues as sprawling and complex as the genre itself. But if there’s anyone who can shed some light on that connection, it’s Jason Ahner, Martin’s Archives and Museum Manager. Given that he runs the museum of a company that’s almost two centuries old, it’s no surprise that he takes the long view.

“It’s kind of a cyclical thing,” he says. “There are generations that may not be as in tune with the blues, but then you get some generations that it really clicks with. Look at the late 50s and early 60s, where we get the majority of what we now know as rock ’n’ roll – they were all listening to blues. That’s where a lot of that sound originates. And that’s informed so much of what happens today: it’s a style of music that’s not always in the forefront, but it’s always present.”

And conversely, always present in the blues have been Martin guitars, played by legends from Muddy Waters to Big Bill Broonzy. Looking at two signature models in particular, we can get a feel for what a Martin spec’d out by legendary blues players is like.

First, the JC Buddy Guy model, an extraordinary and cool-looking guitar that, somehow, integrates polka dots into Martin’s famously classy aesthetic.

“One of the things about when we’re working with an artist is that it’s kind of like they have carte blanche to do what they want,” says Jason. “Buddy Guy, he’s so associated with the Fender

Strat, and he plays a lot of polka-dot Strats. That was, of course, one of his ideas to incorporate into his Martin signature.”

On that point, you might not immediately think ‘acoustic’ when you think Buddy Guy. But as Jason puts it: “Guitarists can kind of get known for just one specific thing. Buddy Guy is primarily known as an electric player, but he’s also a fabulous acoustic player. Just listen to his playing on Muddy Waters’ Folk Singer album. He has no problem making that switch when he wants to.”

There are, of course, a few carryovers between Buddy Guy’s approach to electric and his approach to acoustic. On electric, he’s known for his incredibly dynamic, expressive, and at times chaotic lead playing. And on acoustic? “At the time, that was pretty much Martin’s fastest playing neck,” Jason says. It’s since been surpassed by some modern, slimmer designs, but Buddy Guy still spec’d it out for speed.

This kind of carryover isn’t uncommon – a guitarist’s personality can be evident on both. “I mean, look at other artists, say, Eric Clapton,” Jason adds. “His Strats have V necks, and so do his Martin acoustics – there are often similarities in preferences on both.”

Something else Buddy Guy looked for was volume. “He chose the Jumbo platform. It’s pretty popular with blues guitarists: around that time, we did quite a few signature models for other blues guitarists like Jonny Lang and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. And they all chose Jumbo bodies.”

“If you look at blues guitarists and the Martins they play, D-28s come up a lot. Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy, Reverend Gary Davis, a lot of these historical blues players did prefer D-28s. But then you look at Muddy Waters, and he played a 00-18E. So it’s really about the preference of the player. I think the reason a few of the more modern players like the Jumbo is that you get the same depth of sound as a Dreadnought, but it’s a more comfortable body shape.”

When it came to tonewoods, Buddy took the ‘if it ain’t broke’ approach. “It’s classic Martin,” says Jason. “Sitka spruce top and rosewood back and sides. It definitely gets you that signature Martin sound. If you’re looking at tonewoods alone, it’s closest to something like the Martin J-40.”

That’s not to say the whole guitar plays it safe. Polka dots aside, the first thing you might notice are the volume and tone controls on the top of the body.

Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy, Reverend Gary Davis, a lot of these historical blues players did prefer D-28s

Left: Bona-fide legend of the blues, Buddy Guy, brings the polka-dot style to an acoustic set in Chicago in 2012

This page: Keb’ Mo’ putting his signature Martin through its paces at SF Jazz Center in 2022

Martin & The Blues • BUDDY GUY & KEB’ MO’

“When you’re playing, controls on the inside of the soundhole can be harder to adjust on the fly than if you have a couple of knobs on the top.” External controls are a little unusual, but not unheard of – the E-series acoustics, for instance. “The most famous would be Kurt Cobain's D-18E that he played on MTV Unplugged. Now, those had DeArmond pickups installed on the top. I mean, Muddy Waters played a 00-18E with a setup like that – and maybe Buddy Guy remembered that guitar and liked it better than having the volume and tone on the inside of the soundhole.” In any case, it makes for a bold guitar – with the external controls, there’s no mistaking that it’s an instrument to be played. And with the polka-dot inlays, there’s no mistaking whose signature it is.

Muddy Waters played a 00-18E with that setup – and maybe Buddy Guy remembered that guitar

Keb’ Mo’ seized the opportunity to make his signature acoustic a real dream guitar, specifying the use of koa back and sides to reduce bass and enhance mid-range

The second instrument we can look at is Keb’ Mo’s signature, released back in 2001. “We found out he was actually playing one of our more affordable guitars, a D-1E, and we approached him about doing a signature model.” But despite the more stripped-back beginnings of his relationship with Martin, Keb’ Mo’ took the opportunity to really elevate his signature. “Sometimes, an artist looks at it like a chance to build the ‘dream acoustic’ – and that’s where a lot of the specs on Keb’ Mo’s guitar come from.”

Jason elaborates. “It’s kind of along the lines of a HD-28 – but instead of East Indian rosewood, you throw in koa.” That might be underselling it, however, as it’s packed with premium appointments: “You don’t normally see koa used for back and sides – we use them on certain models, occasionally, and mostly through the Custom Shop. That was something that he specified. He also added the pearl rosette, the diamond-and-squares inlay, and the herringbone on the top.”

So what character does koa give the guitar, over a more familiar back and side wood like rosewood? “Koa is a little more like mahogany, so you don’t get quite as much bass, there’s a little bit more mid-range – and it tends to record really well. It balances out against the body shape, because the larger the body, the more volume and bass response you’re gonna get. So if you’re getting too much bass, using a wood that’s a little less denser than rosewood, it’ll help combat that and help with things like feedback when you’re playing live.”

If you’ve heard Keb’s music, this less in-your-face approach shouldn’t be surprising – he draws on an eclectic range of influences, but there’s still a direct sonic line to the smoother, more traditional Delta blues that started it all. Between his approach and the more electric – literally and metaphorically – Chicago blues of Buddy Guy, there are countless other artists who draw on the same traditions. And the tradition is going nowhere soon, as Jason hints at.

“Every so often, you’ll get new people that will pop up on the radar, people like Marcus King and Gary Clark Jr. It’s great to see. I’m a huge fan of it all, whether it’s Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Elmore James, or it’s Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and the Allman Brothers, or it’s newer artists.

“I mean, talking about Keb’ Mo’,” Jason adds, “he didn’t even start playing acoustic blues until he heard Robert Johnson. That was in the late 1980s, and early 1990s, 50-odd years after Robert Johnson’s death. And now, with so much music available at your fingertips, of course it’ll continue. These great artists, they’re not going to be forgotten: they’re going to influence generations.”

FSC® CERTIFIED INSTRUMENTS

Two of the latest instruments to join the Martin line embody a commitment to sustainability. Both Shawn Mendes’ Custom Artist Edition and the T1 Uke are fully FSC-certified, and their accompanying softshell cases are made entirely from recycled plastic.

CONSERVATION

SUPPORTING REFORESTATION

For some time now, Martin has sourced FSC-certified ebony, sipo and sapele wood from the Republic of Congo, but in 2022 the company’s commitment to helping the region was increased. This was done through Martin’s providing of financial support to a hospital in the Republic that serves the local indigenous population. Additional reforestation support has been provided to other places Martin sources wood, including Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and back home in Pennsylvania.

The introduction of four-piece tops allows Martin to use smaller, younger trees to make guitars, rather than larger old-growth trees. Martin has also started using salvaged and reclaimed spruce –that is, spruce that was either already cut and not being used, or spruce from trees that fell naturally – in its guitars, reducing the number of new trees that need to be cut down.

BETTER BATTERIES

Developing sustainable and ecologically sound batteries is a huge challenge for the modern world in general, but also for guitar companies. In 2022, Martin partnered with Better Battery Co, which has developed the world’s first carbon-neutral batteries, with a seamless consumer-facing recycling process.

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

The materials used to make guitars are only part of the sustainability story – we must also consider the packaging that Martin uses to ship these instruments around the world. Following on from 2021’s plastic-reduction initiative, which saw single-use pallet wrapping being replaced with reusable alternatives, Martin has now begun using recycled cardboard for shipping cartons, as well as biodegradable air pillows for packaging.

MARTIN CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

Sustainability isn’t all about materials – across 2022, the Martin Charitable Foundation gave 72 grants totalling $471,000. Grantees include education nonprofits The Ashokan Center, Community Music School and Guitars In The Classroom, as well as local charities such as the Philadelphia Outward Bound School and the Nazareth Area Food Bank.

$471,000 given by the Martin Charitable Foundation across 72 grants

ELIZABETH COTTEN

Folk Hero

One of the true unsung heroes in the evolution of modern guitar playing, Martin honored the hugely influential composer of Freight Train with a posthumous commemorative signature model back in 2000.

Words • CILLIAN BREATHNACH

If you’ve ever played fingerstyle guitar, you owe a debt to Elizabeth Cotten. Born in 1893, her self-taught and unique style – along with her composition Freight Train – helped develop the playing style into what it is today. So what set her approach apart? Jason Ahner, Martin’s Archives and Museum Manager, explains: “She played left-handed, with the guitar strung right-handed – so she was playing upside down. That’s the way she learned to play when she was a child.”

Having left school at nine, Cotten saved up the $3.75 she needed for her first guitar (a Stella-branded acoustic) by working as a maid between the ages of 11 and 12 – first earning 75 cents a month, then a dollar a month. She taught herself, adopting her upside-down style as she had done when she had borrowed her brother’s banjo. She composed Freight Train around this time, not knowing it would become a fingerstyle standard.

But for a while, there was a chance that we would have never known about her music. “She gets a little older, gets married, puts the guitar away, and focuses

on her family,” says Jason. “And then, when she’s in her 60s, she happens to start working for the Seeger family: Peggy, Ruth, Mike, very famous in the folk scene. And they discover what a tremendous guitar player she is, so they end up recording her.

“The majority of guitarists were fingerstyle when she started – using a pick on a guitar really didn’t become that popular until into the 1930s. But her playing involved such a unique approach to the guitar,” says Jason. “One of the main things that set it apart is the way her inverted technique led her to play the melody lines with her thumb and the basslines and wider chord voicings with her fingers.

“She just created something that people could replicate, too – it wasn’t overly complicated, but at the same time, it was amazing what she was doing. Freight Train specifically, if you watch her play it, it may seem daunting, but when you actually take it apart, it’s deceptively simple. It’s really inspirational, too: learning it opens so many doors, you know, so many other songs that you can learn.”

A COMMEMORATIVE EDITION

In 2000, Martin honored Cotten’s legacy with a commemorative guitar, based on what became her main instrument until her death in 1987.

“She purchased a Martin 00-18 in 1958 when she first started recording. And she kept performing with that guitar throughout her career,” Jason explains. “That’s what became the basis for the commemorative edition we did. She also played a 000 – and I don’t know if it was the size or something else, but it seems something about the 00 really connected with her. So that was the body size that we thought appropriate for the commemorative guitar.”

This original guitar – with its unique wear pattern carved by her forefingers into the top of the instrument – is an amazing historical artifact. “She played on that 00-18 for around 30 years, roughly,” says Jason. “Once she was known, she was constantly touring: playing colleges with the big folk acts at the time. That wear can add up quickly. And a lot of times you can tell when a left-handed guitarist is playing a right-handed instrument, because the wear pattern is just all over the place, and obviously on the opposite side to the pickguard.” So where is the original 00-18?

“It’s in the Smithsonian. I’d love for me to own it,” Jason says, and then quickly corrects: “Er, for the Martin Museum to own it! But we do have one of her signature models on display in the museum.”

The commemorative edition guitar didn’t take the approach of Martin’s Authentic models, which are accurate down to the glue that’s used and, occasionally, the playwear. Instead, the guitar was more of a “modern recreation” of Cotten’s main guitar, as Jason puts it. “It has some Golden Era appointments like the scalloped bracing, the Modified V neck profile, and that sort of thing. But then it adds in the freight train inlay at the 12th fret, and her signature.”

Honoring an artist posthumously obviously requires a certain degree of sensitivity. “On things like this, we’ll work with somebody from the family,” says Jason and in this case, that was her grandson, Larry Ellis Sr., who signed the soundhole labels of the commemorative edition. “For the most part, we have a good idea of what the guitarist would have liked. We can make a few assumptions. But we don’t want to overstep our boundaries and just put out something without the family’s approval. For something like this, we normally ask for their input on the design and then get the go-ahead from them before we do it.”

Given Cotten’s left-handedness, the edition was of course offered in both left- and right-handed versions. Which begs the question: how easy would it have been for Cotten to find a left-handed guitar? Likely impossible when she began, but left-handed guitars have been around for quite some time, as Jason explains: “The earliest documented left-handed Martin was a 1927, 000-18. That’s documented, so maybe they could have built more before that. For steel-string guitars, they’re a little harder to just flip over and restring – there’s more dramatic saddle compensation, and the nut is really different. With a gut-string guitar, you don’t need as much compensation, and the nut slots are closer in size. She could have definitely got one, or even special-ordered one after she started recording.”

Of course, to some extent, part of the reason her music was so innovative is because she didn’t look for a left-handed guitar, or let her left-handedness stop her. As Jason puts it: “She just played what she could. And to some extent, that led to the impact she had as a musician.”

Her inverted technique led her to play melody lines with her thumb and the basslines and chord voicings with her fingers

EXPLORING MARTIN’S SIGNATURE ARTIST STRING SETS

From custom gauges to reviving entire product lines, what’s the story of Martin’s signature string offerings?

Product managers Mike Zehner and Mike George (“the pair of Mikes who share an office”, as Zehner puts it) have both worn their fair share of different hats while at Martin. “Which is by design,” Zehner says. “Martin has been making guitar strings for a long time. And guitars for an even longer time. So it helps us pair up that string to get the best tonality out of the instruments that we produce.”

But what about pairing up strings with players? An artists’ choice of string can reflect their playing just as much as their choice of guitar. With a little help from Mikes Zehner and George, let’s explore Martin’s artists’ relationship with strings..

The primary avenue for Martin’s artists to express their string preferences is through Signature Sets. The majority of these are specific sets within wider string lines – as is the case with those for Tommy Emmanuel, Tony Rice and Laurence Juber.

Very few acoustic strings receive the kind of hammering Certified Guitar Player Tommy Emmanuel dishes out and live to tell the tale. Hence his phosphor bronze Martin Signature Set, in .012 to .054 gauge

Words • CILLIAN BREATHNACH

RETRO ACOUSTIC GUITAR STRINGS

Warm tone with a mellow pick attack

Naturally corrosion resistant

Features a monel wrap wire in the style of the earliest metal guitar strings

Tony Rice set gauges: .013, .016, .026, .034, .044, .056

Laurence Juber set gauges: .013, .017, .024, .032,

“I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SEE THE DAY WHERE I COULD PUT MARTIN MONEL STRINGS BACK ON MY D-28. WELCOME BACK, OLD FRIEND”

TONY RICE

“I PLAY RETROS FOR THE ROBUST OLD-SCHOOL TONE AND GREAT DURABILITY OF MONEL. THESE ARE MY PERSONAL STRING GAUGES, SUITABLE FOR STANDARD AND ALTERED TUNINGS”

LAURENCE JUBER

The late Tony Rice’s signature string set is part of Martin’s Retro line, which features a wrap wire made of monel. This was the first ever nickel alloy to be used for guitar strings, making Retro strings essential for those wanting to capture the authentic sound and feel of an early 20th-century guitar.

In a way, the whole Retro string line comes with Tony Rice’s stamp of approval. “He was sort of the impetus for bringing about the Retro strings,” Mike George explains. “The industry stopped making monel strings in the 1970s, but Tony Rice was longing for them back. He famously wanted to get them back on his ’35 D-28, as he wanted to have that guitar the same as it would have been out of the factory. So it’s kind of down to him, Martin bringing back the monel strings.”

Despite how different his playing style is to Tony Rice’s, Laurence Juber’s signature strings are also a Retro set. As Mike George explains: “On Tony’s Bluegrass set, the G string is slightly thicker, and the B string is slightly thinner. On Laurence Juber’s set it’s the other way round. Laurence specifically notes how good his set is for alternate tunings like DADGAD – and those different gauges in the middle strings

Engineered to resist corrosion

Light Gauge: .012, .016, .025, .032, .042, .054

Medium Gauge: .013, .017, .026, .035, .045, .056

“WHEN I PLAY ACOUSTIC GUITAR, WHETHER IN A STUDIO OR ON STAGE, MARTIN STRINGS ARE MY CHOICE. THEY DELIVER THE SOUND THAT I DEMAND” ERIC CLAPTON

Standing apart from Martin’s other three signature sets are Eric Clapton’s signature strings. These aren’t part of any other line of strings – they were specifically developed alongside Eric’s first signature Martin guitar. “We made multiple sets for him to try out until we really honed in on the perfect recipe for that instrument,” Mike Zehner says. “There are extra steps that we take for the Eric Clapton strings in particular. When we’re looking at raw materials, there are narrower specifications for that product line – without giving away the magic formula!

“If we can get an artist to do both a signature guitar and a signature set of strings, it’s a wonderful thing. We have the 000-28 Eric Clapton in our lineup, and we’ve always put his signature strings on that. And any limited-edition instruments we make for him, we always put his signature strings on them.”

AUTHENTIC ACOUSTIC LIFESPAN 2.0

Available in both 80/20 bronze and phosphor bronze, in gauges from Extra-Light to Medium Engineered using unique, patented anti-corrosion treatment only available from Martin

“WHEN IT COMES TO CHOOSING STRINGS FOR MY ACOUSTIC GUITAR, I KNOW I CAN TRUST MARTIN’S QUALITY AND TONE. THEY BUILD BEAUTIFUL INSTRUMENTS FOR THE WORKING MUSICIAN AND I KNOW THEY WANT THEM TO SOUND AT THEIR BEST, SO WHY WOULD I PLAY ANYTHING ELSE?” MARY SPENDER

“I LOVE THE WAY MARTIN STRINGS FEEL ON MY FINGERS AND THE WAY THEY SOUND WHEN I STRUM THEM ON MY GUITAR!” ALEC BENJAMIN

“I’VE PLAYED A LOT OF STRINGS IN MY CAREER AND NONE COMPARE TO MARTIN LIFESPAN STRINGS. THEY RARELY BREAK ON STAGE, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, THEY HAVE A GREAT TONE. I COULDN’T IMAGINE PLAYING ANY OTHER STRINGS” DEL MCCOURY

Phosphor bronze wrap wire for a classic, bright tone Tommy Emmanuel signature set gauges: .012, .016, .025, .032, .042, .054

According to Mike George, Tommy Emmanuel’s signature strings don’t just reflect his blistering speed: they also show that “Martin strings are not just to be put on Martin guitars. You put them on any guitar – they’re going to make that guitar sound great. So we’re always happy to work with an artist who loves the feel and sound of Martin strings, even if they’re not playing Martin guitars. Tommy Emmanuel plays guitars other than Martins quite often, but still chooses our strings because they stay in tune and he likes the specific attributes of the flexible core strings..

“They are something quite unique in the market, where there’s the slightly thinner core and the slightly thicker wrap wire to make up the same gauge. That gives you a more flexible string, so Tommy specifically chose that because bending is then much easier at the lightning-fast speed he plays.”

So what’s the future of Martin’s artist strings? “We’re very active with seeking artists,” says Mike Zehner. “But more often than not, I would say, artists are usually knocking on our door to do collaborations. Sometimes, it shakes out to be a good working relationship. Unfortunately, we can’t say yes to everyone –it would be nice to do that, but, you know, we’ve been at it since 1833. We have to scrutinise, we have to be selective.

“We do try to get artists from a lot of different genres –everything from players in jam bands to bluegrass to blues to

Essentially, you don’t have to be an Eric Clapton to work with Martin’s strings. While not everyone is going to get their signature on a pack, or their own custom gauge, a much wider range of artists still work with Martin to endorse regularly available sets. Most often, Mike Zehner says, the artist chooses Lifespan 2.0 strings – “because they’re road-tested. You have the tone of a good phosphor bronze, but they’re incredibly long-lasting. And that’s paramount for professional players.”

“TUNING TO ME IS EVERYTHING. AND MARTIN MAKES THE MOST CONSISTENT, MOST IN-TUNE STRINGS I COULD FIND. I LOVE HOW THEY SOUND. I LOVE HOW THEY FEEL, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY MY GUITARS LOVE THEM” TOMMY EMMANUEL

LUXE BY MARTIN ®

Martin accessories and strings are designed by the in-house experts who deliver the guitars you know and trust. Here are some new additions that will enhance your playing experience. To check out the full lineup, visit martinguitar.com.

LUXE BY MARTIN TITANIUM CORE STRINGS

Titanium Core strings deliver the ultimate player’s experience with proprietary technology only available from Martin. Titanium core wire holds its tuning longer than conventional strings, while the natural flexibility of titanium makes these strings unmatched in both performance and playability.

LUXE BY MARTIN KOVAR STRINGS

Developed by Martin’s in-house experts, the Luxe Kovar strings offer the unique benefits of kovar wrap wire – a nickel-cobalt alloy. Featuring natural corrosion resistance, clear and balanced tone, and voicing for enhanced attack and response, the Luxe by Martin Kovar strings reflect Martin’s impeccable standards for instrument tone.

MARTIN STRING CUTTERS

Imagine how many guitars Martin produces in a year, and now think about having to string up every one of those instruments with a fresh set of strings. It’s a huge undertaking that requires the best tools for the job, and that’s why these new Martin String Cutters are factory-approved – they’re good enough for the team to use day in day out, and you’ll love them, too. Compact, durable and precise, these cutters won’t let you down –whether you have one guitar to string up, or a hundred!

LUXE BY MARTIN BRIDGE PINS

Luxe Bridge Pins are another example of Martin’s commitment to improving the tone and playability of its instruments. These pins are made of Liquidmetal – a zirconium alloy that reflects energy instead of absorbing it, resulting in an increase in volume and sustain without sacrificing the low end, or richness, of the guitar’s tone. New for 2023, the pins are available in bone, gold or black with red or pearl dots.

LUXE BY MARTIN APEX PICK

The Apex Pick follows on from the highly popular Luxe by Martin Contour pick, but this time with a standard shape. Each pick features unique precision-machined contour bevels to customize your own signature attack, while the specially chosen polymer is exceptionally wear-resistant, with low friction for less pick noise, unadulterated tone, and faster playing.

LUXE BY MARTIN GUITAR DETAILER

What better way to take care of your Martin instrument than with the products used by the company in the Martin factory?

The Luxe by Martin Guitar Detailer is a waxinfused towelette that cleans and protects the finish of your Martin guitar, whether satin- or gloss-finished, ensuring that your instrument will look its best for years to come.