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.

21.

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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D E

DIT

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.