martin summer journal 2014 web final
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VOLUME 2 | 2014
PG. 5
TAKE IT FROM
THE TOPA WORD FROM CHRIS
T H E J O U R N A L O F A C O U S T I C GU I TAR S
PG. 11
JASONISBELLSPARK TO FIRE
PG. 21
NEW RELEASES2014 SUMMER MODELS
2 | MARTIN™
MARTIN™ | 3
5.
9.
11.
18.
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28.
31.
TAKE IT FROM THE TOPA Word from Chris
LINER NOTESLetters from the Community
JASON ISBELL SPARK TO FIREBy Jonathan R. Walsh
NORTH STREET ARCHIVE
NEW RELEASES
THE 1833 SHOP ®
IN MEMORIAMPaul Ash
SET LIST
PG. 21
Anniversary models to Limited
Editions, Martin unveils 2014
Summer Releases.
PG. 18
North Street Archive is
back with legendary bluegrass
guitarist Jimmy Martin.
PG. 11
Martin Ambassador
Jason Isbell reveals
his journey through
life and music. Ph
oto
by J
osh
ua B
lack
Wil
kin
s.
4 | MARTIN™
Discover vintage tone with strings made to harmonize with
your guitar’s wood. Visit MartinStrings.com for details.
Dear Martin enthusiast,
Why are elephants still being
slaughtered? Isn’t there enough
antique ivory around to satisfy the
demand? Apparently not.
My family used ivory in the
construction of many of our guitars
for over 140 years. By the 1970s,
my father and grandfather made a
decision to stop. By that time, we
were only using ivory for nuts and
saddles. While the tonal properties
of ivory were ideal, an acceptable
synthetic substitute was found.
Please take a look at the hang tag
that we used then to communicate
this decision to our customers.
Now, 40 years later, the demand
for ivory is soaring. Unfortunately
and tragically, this is having a
devastating effect on an already
dwindling elephant population. The
elephant is a majestic, social animal
that has no defenses against a
poacher with a high power weapon.
What can you do? There are many
organizations who are mobilizing
to attempt to stop this poaching
and diminish the demand. We are
working with the Global Program of
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s
Division of International Conservation
and The Nature Conservancy.
Nature.org/Elephants
I want to encourage you to get
involved in this timely opportunity
to help save the elephant.
Sincerely,
C. F. Martin IV
Chairman & CEO
C. F. Martin & Co., Inc.
TAKE IT FROM THE TOPA
WO
RD
FR
OM
CH
RIS
TAKE IT FROM THE TOP | 5
6 | MARTIN™
Circa 1970s hang tag promoting use of
synthetic materials as an alternative to ivory.
7 | MARTIN™
VO
LU
ME
2
| 2
014
MARTIN™
THE JOURNAL OF ACOUSTIC GUITARS
PUBLISHER C. F. Martin & Co., Inc.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Amani Duncan
EDITOR Dick Boak
DESIGN & PRODUCTION Spark (Sparkcreatives.com)
ART DIRECTOR Denis Aumiller
DESIGNER Laura Dubbs
ACCOUNT DIRECTOR Joe Iacovella
COPYWRITER Scott Byers
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dick Boak, Jonathan R. Walsh
PHOTOGRAPHY John Ruth, Michael Wilson,
Dick Waterman, Stefan Grossman,
Joshua Black Wilkins, Eric England
MARTIN™ THE JOURNAL OF ACOUSTIC GUITARSBusiness Office
C. F. Martin & Co., Inc.
P.O. Box 329, Nazareth, PA 18064
P. 610.759.2837
F. 610.759.5757
MartinGuitar.com
© 2014 C. F. Martin & Co., Inc., Nazareth, Pa.
All rights reserved.
MARTIN™ | 7
8 | MARTIN™
Unplugged since 1833.
This 1939 000-42 (EC) was built during a time when everything was unplugged. And it still sounded sweet during its legendary 1992 performance. MartinGuitar.com
9 | LINER NOTES
LINER NOTES
LE
TT
ER
S F
RO
M T
HE
CO
MM
UN
ITY
THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON
Drew Barrymore posted this
great photo of herself and “best
onscreen husband” Adam Sandler
with Tonight Show host Jimmy
Fallon playing his Martin D-28.
Martin’s Dick Boak (right, with
the 000-45 Jimmie Rodgers
“THANKS” guitar from the Martin
Museum collection) caught up
with his longtime friend John
Sebastian, accompanied by John’s
dog Shuggie, at the Woodstock
Luthiers Invitational. John is
holding the prototype of his Martin
DSS Custom Artist Edition.
Dear friends at Martin,
It occurred to me that my 2004 Martin
D-45 might make a great cover for the
Martin™ Journal; so while working on the
computer a couple of years ago, I noticed
that a trick of the sunlight through the
window had made a light effect next to
the head of my guitar. I have used it as a
business card since then; but at 74 years of
age, I cannot claim to be in the “business”
any more. Having said that, I do play folk
and bluegrass locally at least once a week.
Sincerely,
Barry C. Lane
Sutton-in-Craven, England
THE 000-45 JIMMIE RODGERS “THANKS” GUITAR FROM THE MARTIN MUSEUM COLLECTION
LINER NOTES | 10
J A S O N I S B E L LS P A R K T O F I R E
B Y J O N A T H A N R . W A L S H
parks, by definition, live for just a
moment. Incandescent, hot enough to make the
leap from matter toward energy, but too small
to stay that way for long, they burn out quickly;
blink and you’ll miss them. Picture one as it
arcs across a room. If this room were in the
Martin Guitar factory, stacked high with musky
rosewood, sweet spruce, and tough koa, aged and
dry enough to burn, we could have a problem
on our hands. But this room, as musician Jason
Isbell tells it, is in the Southeastern Tool & Die
Company, where his father worked when Isbell
was growing up. “My dad told stories about
working at this place, and it was a difficult job.
He always worked really hard, and when I was a
kid I would hear stories—one in particular,” he
says. Little sparks, bits of metal would throw out
of the machines, and one of my dad’s coworkers
got this little piece of metal stuck in his eyeball.
Well, it happened pretty regularly. So rather
than take the guy to the emergency room, the
foreman would sit him down in a chair and
hold his eye open with one hand, then take a
credit card and scrape it across his eye till the
piece of metal came out. So when I was a kid,
this place just sounded like a torture room, and
that really isn’t far from the truth, I don’t think.”
S
Photo by Michael Wilson.
spark himself, destined to burn
out early. By the time he was 22,
he’d been signed to a songwriting
contract with one of the South’s
most renowned studios, and a
week later was asked to go on
tour with alt-country superstars
Drive-By Truckers. By the time he
turned 30, however, Isbell would
find himself removed from the
band, divorced, and battling an
addiction to alcohol. But a closer
look reveals an artist whose
discipl ine, determination, and
readiness to be inspired have
taken him far beyond where
talent alone could not.
Isbell grew up in Green Hill,
Alabama, taken from the hospital
to the trailer his parents were
living in when he was born. Green
Hill is just across the river from
Muscle Shoals, a town that is
perhaps second only to Nashville
in the pantheon of Southern music.
It is where country met rhythm
and blues, where thump crossed
twang, and the birthplace of
iconic FAME Studios (where a
young Duane Allman camped
outside in makeshift vigil before
he went on to form the Allman
Brothers Band). The studio was
also home to the legendary
Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section
(or "the Swampers,” as Ronnie
Van Zant put it in “Sweet Home
Alabama”), the fathers of the
“Muscle Shoals Sound” and
heard on countless tracks from
Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a
Man” to Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got
Tonight.” In a town known for the
quality of its musicians, Isbell’s
talent seemed destined to make
him one of its finest.
Since then, spark by spark, song
by song, Isbell has been pulling
out bits of life’s shrapnel and
working them into the music he
plays onstage night after night.
It is fitting, then, that his latest
album, Southeastern, should share
a name with the shop where his
father worked. “I wanted to reclaim
that,” he says. “I wanted to do
something that was a little bit
metaphorical. My dad didn’t always
work there—he eventually went
into business with his father, and
he’s got a job now that’s a whole
lot easier, physically—but I guess it
sort of became kind of a metaphor
for me. Before this point in my
life, I was probably in a place
that was a l i tt le bit torturous.
But it was of my own design.”
Looking at his early career, Jason
Isbell may have seemed like a
“ �B E F O R E � T H I S � P O I N T � I N � M Y � L I F E ,�I � W A S � P R O B A B L Y � I N � A � P L A C E � T H A T�W A S � A � L I T T L E � B I T � T O R T U R O U S. �B U T�I T � W A S � O F � M Y � O W N � D E S I G N .”
Photo by Michael Wilson.
JASON ISBELL: SPARK TO FIRE | 12
13 | JASON ISBELL: SPARK TO FIRE
In those early years, Isbell
spent his days working on his
acoustic playing and his nights
perfecting his lead work. “I had
electric guitars at home and I
would go back to the house and
put on Lynyrd Skynyrd records,
Queen records, Free records,… or
something like that, and I’d play
guitar along with them through
my little amp,” he says. “So I
would spend eight or nine hours
a day playing guitar when I was
a kid, pretty much every day.
The first half of it would be just
playing all these bluegrass songs
as fast as I could keep up with,
and then go home and work on
my lead guitar playing.”
Pair that much guitar practice
with the heart of a poet, and
you’ve got a recipe for an
incredible songwriter. After a
stint studying creative writing at
the University of Memphis on an
academic scholarship (leaving
exactly one credit short of
graduating), Jason’s talent landed
him a $250 a week songwriting
contract with FAME Music
Publishing in Muscle Shoals. It
was around then he began to travel
in the same circles as Patterson
Hood of the Drive-By Truckers
(whose father, David Hood, had
been a bass player with the
Swampers), which Isbell joined in
2001. Though the band had just
released the album that would
be considered their masterpiece,
Southern Rock Opera, earl ier
that year and already had two
major songwrit ing talents in
Hood and Mike Cooley, who had
formed the band together in
1996, Isbe l l ’s t ight playing and
nuanced songwrit ing quickly
began to rise to the surface of
the Truckers’ work. Their fol low-
up album, Decoration Day , was
named after an Isbell-penned
epic that, as one reviewer put it,
“easily stands out as the album’s
emotional core.” (Pitchfork)
Isbell would go on to record two
more albums with the Truckers,
2004’s The Dirty South and
2006’s A Blessing and a Curse,
playing alongside his wife at the
time, bassist Shonna Tucker.
But, as the pressures of success
mounted and his marriage began
to dissolve, Isbell’s alcohol use
became more of a problem, and
by 2007 he was privately asked
to leave the band.
“I started off when I was a kid,”
Isbell says about his introduction
to playing music. “My granddad
taught me a lot about how to
play guitar. He was a Pentecostal
preacher and, rather than leave me
in any kind of daycare or anything,
my parents would leave me at my
grandparents’ house during the
day, and he always had these good
dreadnought guitars,” he says.
“He could never afford a Martin,
but he had one of those lawsuit
Takamines from the early ’80s [the
Takamine F-340 was designed to
look exactly like a Martin D-18,
and though no lawsuit was ever
actually filed, a letter was sent and
the company eventually stopped
using the design]. He would make
me play rhythm on this guitar;
and I was really small—I could
hardly reach around the thing—
and it was exhausting. I spent
hours at a time playing rhythm for
these gospel songs and bluegrass
songs, so it was just a whole
lot of really fast rhythm guitar.
He’d play the banjo, or mandolin,
or fiddle, and when I started to
wear out, he’d get after me and
say, “You’re getting lazy, you’re
getting lazy there, pick it up!”
“�SO� I �WOULD�SPEND�EIGHT�OR�NINE�HOURS�A�DAY�PLAYING�GUITAR�WHEN� I �WAS�A�KID, �PRETTY�MUCH�EVERY�DAY.”
“It used to take a whole lot of
alcohol, I’ll tell you that,” says
Isbell of dealing with his early
success. “Some people are terrible
at being rich and famous, you
know. People are just really, really
unprepared for it. That was a big
reason, I think, for my drinking.
I think I was very uncomfortable
with the fact that all these people
were into what I was doing, and
there’s some guilt that goes along
with that. Because you have a
whole lot of friends who are great
musicians who aren’t getting any
more money, or gaining any more
popularity, and you start thinking,
‘Well, why am I the one that
they’re latching onto?’ But over
time you come to terms with that.
If you’re making music and you’re
trying to get it to a broad audience,
which is what I’m doing—that’s
why I keep riding around and
doing all the traveling and stuff
because I do want a lot of people
to hear the music—I think you have
to have a bit of a system in place
that supports any kind of celebrity
you might attain along the way.
I probably wasn’t prepared for
success until I started to have it.”
“�I �PROBABLY�WASN’T�PREPARED�FOR�SUCCESS�UNTIL � I �STARTED�TO�HAVE� IT.�”
Photo by Eric England.
“Anything in-between, if you’re
able to make a good living—and
I’m just speaking of the type of
people who make the kind of
music I do, the people I think are
probably more concerned with
making good music than being a
businessperson—you’ll be okay.”
And while being in Nashville can
have its own pressures, Isbell
says, it also offers plenty of
advantages. “There’s certainly a
difference in Nashville between
the pop country world and the
world that we’re in, which a lot
of people refer to as Americana
music,” he says. “But I think
one sort of feeds off the other,
for better or worse. In Nashville,
for example, a lot of the studios
and people we work with have
made a good amount of money
recording popular country
music over the years and, for
whatever reason—either they’re
tired of people not remembering
their name or they got tired of
putting up with that kind of
pressure—they started working
with independent art ists.
Some people make their money
during the day making those
kinds of [pop] country records,
and then after hours they’ll bring
in people who are making our type
of music, and not charge as much
because they don’t have to. And
I feel like it’s a good thing for us
that we’re in that kind of a town,
where that kind of money is there,
and that system is there. But other
than that, I think it’s just two
completely different jobs, to tell
you the truth. I think most people
are trying to be entertainers or
trying to be celebrities. I think
that’s very different from trying to
make a piece of art.”
Isbell, on the other hand, is in
it for the long haul. “If you’re
trying to make music that sells
as much as possible, to me that’s
the mainstream,” he says. “And
I’m not necessarily saying there’s
anything wrong with that, I just
think that’s a different goal, a
different job—it’s more of a lottery
ticket than what it is that we do.
It’s all or nothing for those folks:
either you get signed to a major
label and you have a big single and
you become a star, or you don’t.
But for us it’s a long-term process,
where you just continue to do the
work whether anybody’s listening
to it or not. I do believe it’s possible
for the kind of thing that we do
to merge with the mainstream, to
get closer to the mainstream, and
I think that’s happening now more
than it has in the last 20 years or
so, and that’s real nice to see.”
And, four albums into a
successful solo career, it seems
as though Isbell has discovered
just what it takes to come to terms
with that success. With the help of
his second wife, musician Amanda
Shires, he went into rehabilitation
and kicked his alcohol addiction,
and seems more poised than ever
to capitalize on his talent. Since
his time in the Truckers, Isbell
moved with Shires to Nashville,
another city with music as the
lifeblood in its veins. Unlike
Muscle Shoals, however, Nashville
is more closely associated with
the big business of mainstream
pop country, and stories about the
music industry there rarely fail to
describe the pressures of using
big budgets to create even bigger
stars, dramatized in television
shows like ABC’s Nashville. It
would be easy to worry if Isbell’s
newfound stability was tested in
a city so focused on something
as tumultuous as the music
industry, but in speaking to
him, it becomes clear that the
exper iences of h is past have
made him better equipped
than a rook ie music ian to
handle those pressures.
“I think having a lot of success
or having no success at all
can change you,” Isbell says.
15 | JASON ISBELL: SPARK TO FIRE
“�I �THINK�HAVING�A�LOT�OF�SUCCESS�OR�HAVING�NO�SUCCESS�AT�ALL�CAN�CHANGE�YOU.”
Part of being in it for the long
haul, Isbell says, is keeping the
furnace of your creativity fueled.
“You have to find ways to keep
yourself hungry, whether that’s a
lot of input—a lot of reading, a lot
of listening to other artists, current
artists—I think that’s pretty
important. I’m not talking about
trends; I’m just talking about any
people that come up that are really
brilliant—if you miss out on all
that, your influences don’t ever
change, so your music doesn’t
either, and people will eventually
stop listening to you if you make
the same record over and over.”
For Isbell, his input, the artists
that excite him, runs the range
from cutting edge to classic. His
favorite album of 2014, so far, he
says, is Rosanne Cash’s latest, The
River & The Thread. “I think that
record’s really great. Some of it is
about the time she spent in Muscle
Shoals.” His favorite from last
year is from the other side of the
charts, by Brooklyn indie darlings
The National. “I definitely think
that record [Trouble Will Find Me],
that’s my favorite record of last
year. I think it’s just melodically
great, and the production is
interesting but not overwhelming.
“There’s a man who walks beside
me, he is who I used to be, and
I wonder if she sees him and
confuses him with me,” Isbell sings
on one of Southeastern’s standout
tracks, “Live Oak.” He burned too
hot in his younger years, and, in
lyrics like these, Isbell seems to
wonder whether it wasn’t that
heat that made his songwriting
so strong, what drew people to
him. But his rise and fall in the
music industry has given him the
unlucky wisdom of experience.
“I think if your problems are the
same every ten years, then you’re
gonna have a real hard time with
it,” he says. “You’re going to get
bitter; you’re going to start writing
bitter, and you’re going to lose your
perspective. I f, ten years from
now, I have a completely different
set of problems—because it’s
always going to be something—I’ll
probably be satisfied. But, on the
other hand, some people have a
lot of success and forget why they
had the success in the first place.
Because they become obsessed
with maintaining what they have,
and that’s never enough—that
wasn’t enough to get them
there in the first place.”
“�...PEOPLE�WILL�EVENTUALLY�STOP�L ISTENING�TO�YOU�
IF �YOU�MAKE�THE�SAME�RECORD�OVER�AND�OVER.”
Photo by Michael Wilson.
JASON ISBELL: SPARK TO FIRE | 16
resonate really well.” To break in
his new guitar, Isbell explains that,
“Whenever I wasn’t playing it, I
would just set it next to the big
tower speakers in my living room,
and I’d put on Outkast, and just
let the bass resonate that thing.
I know they’ve got machines that
do it, but that works about as well
as anything. Plus then, when you
come home, you’ve already got
Outkast playing, so it’s perfect.”
Jason Isbell’s music bears
scars from life’s flying sparks,
hot splinters, ragged shrapnel.
Even in the winters of his life,
he has managed to find warmth:
in his friends, in his outlook, in
the music that he loves. But in
interviews about the period leading
up to the release of Southeastern,
it becomes clear that a big part
of coming to terms with success
lies in his wife, an award-winning
musician in her own right. She is
the one who was finally able to
hold Isbell to his word and enlist
his friends and family to get
him into rehabilitation for his
alcohol addiction. And l istening
to her music (her latest record,
2013’s Down Fell the Doves ,
is excellent) reveals that what
Shires and Isbell seem to give
each other is an artist’s secret
weapon against the pitfalls of the
music industry, and really all of
life’s challenges: inspiration.
On “Stay,” the closing track of
Down Fell the Doves, Shires sings,
“It’s snowing outside, and you’re
still asleep,” and we know it is to
Isbell. “It’s cold in this house, and
I ain’t going out to chop wood,” he
seems to sing back in “Cover Me
Up,” the opener on Southeastern—
the words of a man who knows
that what keeps a spark burning
brightly can’t be found outside,
but within. “So cover me up,” he
sings, “and know you’re enough
to use me for good.”
17 | JASON ISBELL: SPARK TO FIRE
There are a lot of moments on
that record—for example, where he
says, on [the song] “Pink Rabbits,”
‘I was a television version of
a person with a broken heart.’
There’s a lot of times where you
hear a line on that record and you
just sit up, and you sort of stop
listening for a second as if you
were reading, and you set the
book down, and say, ‘Wow, that’s
really insightful.’ I love that, as a
lyricist—I love to hear those kind
of lines, where you just have
to stop and think about it for a
second, rather than just go on
with what you’re doing with the
music in the background.”
Even Isbell’s guitars have great
taste in music. Last year he
received a new D-35 Custom from
Martin, built with an Adirondack
spruce top, Madagascar rosewood
back and sides, and a koa wedge
in the back. The braces, Isbell
says, “are scalloped and forward-
shifted, to let it move around in
the bass a little bit. I didn’t need
a whole lot of midrange; I don’t
do really a lot of bluegrass-style
flatpicking, so I wanted something
where the chords would sort of
stay together but the bass would
“�...I �LOVE�TO�HEAR�THOSE�
KIND�OF�L INES, �WHERE�
YOU�JUST�HAVE�TO�STOP�
AND�THINK�ABOUT� IT�
FOR�A�SECOND, �RATHER�
THAN�JUST�GO�ON�WITH�
W H AT � YO U ’ R E � D O I N G�
W I T H � T H E � M U S I C � I N�
T H E � BA C K G R O U N D . ”�
Available everywhere.JasonIsbell.com
Photo by Michael Wilson.
The Royal Hawaiian Band Glee Club, Honolulu, Hawaii, circa 1935-40, sporting
not one but four Martin 00-40H Hawaiian guitars, plus two Martin ukuleles!
Photo courtesy of Stefan Grossman.
C. F. Martin Archives
FR
OM
NA
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RE
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TO
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OR
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NORTH STREET ARCHIVE
The legendary bluegrass
guitarist Jimmy Martin with one
of his many Martins; this one
a D-28 with an odd, oversized
pickguard to fend off heavy
strumming wear. Jimmy loved
that his last name matched the
Martin brand on the headstock.
NORTH STREET ARCHIVE | 18
Photo courtesy of
Dick Waterman.
During their friendship (and relationship), Bob
Dylan and Joan Baez often toured together, and we
presume that Bob took quite a fancy to Joan’s guitar
as well. This great photo by Dick Waterman, circa
1964, shows Bob playing the 12-fret 0-45 that Joan
still owns. This guitar was the basis for the 0-45
Joan Baez Signature Edition issued in 1998.
Tintypes like this one, circa 1848, are among the
earliest historic photographs. Here a guitarist holds
what is surely a small-bodied Martin guitar with
an unusual headstock ordered with “three side
screw” tuners (left and right). An example of such a
headstock is displayed in the Martin Museum.
C. F. Martin Archives
19 | NORTH STREET ARCHIVE
20 | MARTIN™
CS-GP-14
Limited to no more than 50 premium
instruments, th is 14- f ret Grand
Performance model ( the first non-
cutaway in the Grand Performance
Series) is a careful ly crafted work of
musical art with hide glue construction
at every seam. Both the rosette and
fingerboard are inlaid with a custom
concave diamond design made up of
orange/red spiny reconstituted stone,
bordered and center filled with solid
mother of pearl . With vintage-style
beauty matched only by its great tone,
the torrefied and certified European
spruce top includes delicately hand-
scalloped Golden Era® Style X-bracing.
Rare Guatemalan rosewood sides are
matched to a three-piece back with
a boldly contoured and contrasting
Central American cocobolo center
wedge. A side sound port, inlaid with
i ts own c i rcu lar rosette, prov ides
enhanced presence for the p layer.
The Fishman Aura VT® state-of-the-art
sound reinforcement system offers
easy volume and tone adjustment
through the lip of the soundhole. For
lightness and strength, the genuine
mahogany neck is reinforced with
carbon fiber and contoured with the
Performing Artist profile for fast action
and playabil i ty. This f ine example
of Martin’s capabil i t ies is perfectly
suited for onstage performance and
professional studio recording.
MartinGuitar.com/New
NEW RELEASES
LIM
ITE
D E
DIT
ION
22 | MARTIN™
D-28 LOUVIN BROTHERS
SIGNATURE EDITION
Charlie and Ira Louvin, better known
as The Louvin Brothers, rank among
the top duos in country and gospel
music history. Immensely popular
throughout the 1940s, '50s and '60s,
their high harmonies helped set the
stage for The Everly Brothers; Simon
and Garfunkel; The Byrds; Crosby,
St i l l s and Nash; and many other
important vocal harmony groups
of our era. Though both brothers
played a variety of Martin instruments
over the years, the inspiration for
this unique Louvin Brothers edition
combines the specifications of Charlie
Louvin’s 1950s D-28 with Chris Martin’s
D-28 CFM 1955 model (issued in 2010).
Through groundbreaking technology,
the solid Sitka spruce top is imprinted
in high resolution color and clarity
with the unprecedented artwork from
the Louvin Brothers' Satan Is Real
album cover and biography of the
same tit le. This ful l-bodied 14-fret
Dreadnought is crafted with sol id
East Indian rosewood and a modified
low oval genuine mahogany neck. In
keeping with the period, the tuning
machines are Kluson ® nickel-plated
“wafflebacks” with oval knobs. Limited
to no more than 50 completely unique
instruments, each guitar bears an
interior label personally signed by
C . F . Mar t i n IV and Ken Louv in
(Charlie Louvin’s son) and numbered
in sequence with the edit ion total .
MartinGuitar.com/New
LIM
ITE
D E
DIT
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23 | MARTIN™
SS-OM42-14
This summer’s Nashville NAMM Show
Spec ia l—the SS-OM42- 14—takes i t s
inspi rat ion from the popular D-42 Sinker
Mahogany model int roduced dur ing the
2012 Nashville NAMM Show. Reclaimed from
immersed r iver logs f rom Bel ize, s inker
mahogany back and sides combine with a
solid Adirondack spruce top—lacquered and
polished to a high gloss with an oak toner
burst. Golden Era ® scal loped top bracing
yields a complex and balanced tone, further
enhanced by the use of genuine hide glue in
the careful construction of the varied Custom
Shop components. The perimeter of the top
is accented in Style 42 top inlay of lustrous
paua shell , and select abalone bordered in
mother of pearl adorns the alternate torch
inlaid headplate. A Golden Era ® Sty le 45
abalone snowflake pattern, also bordered in
mother-of-pearl, adorns the fingerboard, and
matching 6-point snowflakes are inlaid into
the wings of the bridge. Restricted to orders
placed by Martin dealers in attendance at the
show, this model is l imited to no more than
25 premium instruments, with interior labels
numbered sequentially with edition total and
bearing the signature of C. F. Martin IV.
MartinGuitar.com/New
SH
OW
SP
EC
IAL
24 | MARTIN™
D-18 SYCAMORE
C. F. Martin & Co.
celebrates 50 years of fine
guitar manufacturing at our
Sycamore Street location with
this D-18 Sycamore Limited
Edition. This unique 14-fret
Dreadnought is crafted with
solid quartersawn American
sycamore back and s ides
blended with a torrefied Sitka
spruce top. Torrefaction
accelerates the natural aging
process, which in turn gives
the guitar the appearance and
tonal openness of an aged
vintage guitar. The modified
low oval neck wi th i ts
Performing Artist taper is also
carved from solid sycamore.
Product ion of the D-18
Sycamore will be limited to no
more than 50 special guitars,
each individually numbered
in sequence and personally
signed by C. F. Martin IV.
MartinGuitar.com/New
AN
NIV
ER
SA
RY
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ITIO
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25 | MARTIN™
000RS25 NAVOJOA 25TH
ANNIVERSARY EDITION
Commemorating the 25th anniversary
of C. F. Martin & Co.’s Navojoa facility,
this 14-fret 000-sized Road Series
model celebrates the great pride and
workmanship of our Mexican coworkers.
This instrument features a solid Sitka
spruce top with scalloped X Series
bracing and solid sapele back and sides.
The modified low oval neck of solid sipo
is combined with a solid East Indian
rosewood fingerboard and headplate
that displays Navojoa’s 25th Anniversary
“wheat” logo. A satin f inished top
features aging toner and a rosette design
with red-white-blue and red-white-green
inlay l ines representing the colors of
the American and Mexican flags. The
model wil l be l imited to no more than
250 special commemorative guitars.
MartinGuitar.com/New
AN
NIV
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26 | MARTIN™
DXAE BLACK
Martin is pleased to introduce
this non-cutaway acoustic-electric
Dreadnought model to the affordable
and popular line of X Series guitars.
The DXAE Black features a striking
Jett black top, back and sides of high
pressure laminate. The matching black
Stratabond ® neck is contoured with
a sleek Performing Artist profile and
Martin’s High Performance fingerboard
that tapers from 1ƒ" at the nut to 2∆"
at the 12 th f ret for fast, easy p lay.
Equipped with Fishman Sonitone USB™
electronics, th is instrument is ready
for the stage, the studio, and even
instantaneous USB connection to your
home computer! Acoust ica l ly, the
DXAE Black has the big, full sound
expected of the Dreadnought.
Mart inGui tar.com/New
X SERIES
27 | MARTIN™
OMXAE BLACK
Martin is pleased to introduce this non-
cutaway acoustic-electric “OM” Orchestra
Model to the affordable and popular line of
X Series guitars. The OMXAE Black features
a striking Jett black top, back and sides
of high pressure laminate. The matching
black Stratabond® neck is contoured with a
sleek Performing Artist profile and Martin’s
High Performance fingerboard that tapers
from 1ƒ" at the nut to 2∆" at the 12th fret
for fast, easy play. Equipped with Fishman
Sonitone USB™ electronics, this instrument
is ready for the s tage, the studio, and even
instantaneous USB connect ion to your
home computer! Acoustical ly, the OMXAE
Black has the smooth warmth and balance
indicat ive of t radi t ional Martin OMs.
Mart inGui tar.com/New
X SERIES
28 | THE 1833 SHOP®
THE 1833 SHOP®
INVENTING THEAMERICAN GUITAR
The Pre-Civil War Innovations of
C. F. Martin and His Contemporaries.
Edited by Robert Shaw & Peter Szego
$54.99 (US)
Edited by Robert Shaw & Peter Szego
Available for purchase in
The 1833 Shop® and at
MartinGuitar.com/AmericanGuitar
Inventing the American Guitar
is the first book to describe this
remarkable transformation in detail
and tell the story of the evolution
of early American guitar design.
The figure who dominates this
history is C. F. Martin Sr., America's
first major guitar maker and the
founder of C. F. Martin & Co., which
continues to produce outstanding
flat-top guitars today. (Hardcover)
Thirty-five rare guitars that
illustrate the early history of the
instrument in America went on
view at The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, beginning January 14. Drawn
from the Museum’s own holdings
as well as from the Martin Guitar
Museum in Nazareth, Pennsylvania,
and several private collections,
Early American Guitars: The
Instruments of C. F. Martin traces
the birth of the American guitar by
shedding light on the contributions
of Christian Frederick Martin, a
German immigrant who invented a
uniquely American form of the guitar
in the first half of the 19th century.
The exhibition highlights the
largest collection of instruments
by this renowned maker ever to be
displayed publicly, including the
earliest known guitar signed by
Martin, the earliest established
guitar with his famed X-braced
construction, and several
extraordinary decorated examples
of his work. Also on view is a 1939
guitar made by Martin Guitar
that was played by Eric Clapton
on MTV’s Unplugged series in
1992, representing the long
trajectory of guitar building by
the company founded by Christian
Frederick Martin.
MetMuseum.org/Exhibitions/
Listings/2014/Early-guitars
EXHIBIT OPEN UNTIL DECEMBER 7, 2014
THE 1833® SHOP | 29
It left the factory perfect 46 years ago.
Then it got better.
Willie Nelson’s beloved Martin N-20. To find a guitar you‘ll love to pieces, visit MartinGuitar.com.
IN MEMORIAM
We are saddened by the passing
of Paul Ash, who died on February
5, 2014, at the age of 84. He and
his brother, Jerome—both sons
of Sam Ash Sr.—expanded their
father’s Brooklyn musical legacy
by opening a branch store in
Hempstead, N.Y., in 1961. That
was the start of many branch
Sam Ash Music store locations,
46 of which are now scattered
across the United States, making
the company one of the largest
music retailers and a longtime
and loyal Martin dealership.
Like C. F. Martin & Co., Sam Ash
Music is a longstanding family
owned and operated business; in
fact, they are the nation’s largest
family-owned chain of music
stores. Control of the company
has passed to a third generation
of Ash family members, while a
fourth generation is increasingly
involved. We are thankful for the
great support Paul showed for
Martin guitars throughout his
long and prosperous life.
PAUL ASH1929-2014
IN MEMORIAM | 31
Photo courtesy of the Ash family.
VOLUME 2 | 2014C. F. Martin & Co., Inc. 510 Sycamore St., Nazareth, PA 18064MartinGuitar.com
Martin Strings. Period.
Seth Avett of The Avett Brothers | TheAvettBrothers.com
Learn more about the most durable strings you’ll ever play at MartinGuitar.com/Strings.
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