Latest Acoustic Guitar Reviews and News

Review – Martin OM-ECHF Navy Blues

Our long awaited look at the OM-ECHF is out

with thumbs up, the Navy Blues earns a row of gold stars

“The Navy Blues is the third guitar designed in collaboration between the legendary Eric Clapton and Eric’s good friend Hiroshi Fujiwara (a renowned Japanese artist, DJ, musician, fashion designer and trendsetter) and design assistance from Martin’s Dick Boak. With a deep navy blue finish and upscale inlays, the OM-ECHF offers rich, complex tone, powerful dynamics, and wide-ranging versatility.”

Read the Full Review

OM-ECHF Navy Blues headstock

(photo: MaurysMusic.com)

Standard OM-28, Aura Models Among New Martins for Spring

The Standard OM-28 is resurrected by C. F. Martin, alongside an upgraded, updated 000-18, and new Aura models

I was traveling sans internet yesterday, when Martin announced the lineup of new models, which will debut at the 2014 Spring show in Frankfurt, Germany.

OM-28

As expected, Standard Style 28 has received a makeover, following in the footsteps of the one that appeared with the fabulous D-18 and the upgraded OM-21. Gone are the much loved OM-28V of the Vintage Series and the pricier OM-28  Marquis. In their stead is the first Standard OM-28 since 1994, melding vintage appointments like herringbone top trim and the classic short pattern diamonds and squares on the fingerboard, with modern design features like Martin’s High Performance neck and a short drop-in saddle in a 30’s style bridge.

The High Performance neck combines a modified low oval profile with the Performing Artist Taper, which first appeared on the guitars in the Performing Artist Series. It features a 1-3/4″ width at the nut but tapers to 2-1/1/8″ at the 12th fret, adding up to a sleeker faster and thoroughly modern neck. But unlike the PA models, the profile of the neck used on the revamped guitars in the Standard and Retro Series is not as shallow and flat in the back, providing a bit more traditional feeling in the palm of the hand.

Basically this new model replicates the look and feel of the OM-28 Retro model, only without the on-board electronics, and with a bone saddle rather than the Tusq used for the acoustic-electric Martins.

Martin OM-28 000-18 30's b

30’s Style Bridge with drop-in saddle

000-18

The new 000-18 likewise sports the High Performance neck and 30s bridge, having already traded in its rosewood bridge and fingerboard for ebony some months before. But this latest edition also gets scalloped braces to go along with its more-vintagey appointments. And about time too, I say. As with the OM-28, this new 000-18 is basically identical to the 000-18 Retro, which appeared at Winter NAMM, minus the electronics.

New Aura Models

The DC-Aura GT and GPC-Aura GT are made of Indian rosewood and Sitka spruce, with the full Aura F1 Plus pickup system, and African blackwood bridges.

You can see all the new Martins HERE

But you will have to wait for Summer NAMM for the even more exciting rosewood model! Will the snow never melt!?

CS-00S-14 Traditional 12-fret 00 Meets Future

From the Custom Shop comes, the CS-00S-14

The first Martin made of Honduras rosewood is a marriage of classic and contemporary design with other notable elements, both ancient and futuristic, never before seen on a Martin.

A carbon fiber neck rod and Martin’s first foray into the world of torrefied wood, adds exciting new facets to one of the most classic guitar designs of all time, the 12-fret 00.

“If the CS-00S-14 is anything, it is resonant. It comes alive with the lightest touch, and it feels alive…  from the warmth glowing out of the bottom end and a low E string impressive for this body size, a fatness to the midrange strings that reaches down like a pillar into the echoing cellar below the top voice, and trebles with a distinct chime that leaps out, with a vintage-like openness directly under them, but reflecting harmonics off the midrange like the surface of a mirrored pond disturbed by the sound waves firing off that crystalline fundamental chime. It is a sophisticated voice…”

Read the Full Review

Martin CS-00s-14 review onemanz.com torrefied spruce lobby shot small

Paco de Lucía, Soaring Kite of Flamenco, Dead at 66

Our civilization lost a shining light, as guitarist Paco de Lucía has died of a heart attack in Mexico

Trail Blazer and Traditionalist was 66

With fluid fingering, a flare for the dramatic, and compositions that flit and flutter like birds over a pastoral valley, or soar like eagles atop the winds of the world, de Lucía was among the most highly regarded guitarists of the twentieth century. Among the vanguard of the New Flamenco movement, he was instrumental in the evolution of Latin Fusion through the 1970s and 80s, going on to be an elder ambassador of music, doing for Flamenco guitar what Ravi Shankar had done for the sitar, popularize it around the globe.

Born Francisco Sánchez Gomes, as a teenager Paco recorded traditional Flamenco albums and toured with dancer José Greco. But it was his collaborations in the 1970s with many artists beyond the Spanish-speaking world and his appearance in Carlos Saura’s 1983 film adaptation of Carmen, set among a Spanish Flamenco troupe, which exposed a wider audience to the guitarist’s phenomenal talents. His concerts and recording with American Jazz guitarist Al Di Meola and Britain John McLaughlin, in duets and as The Guitar Trio, shall inspire awe and joy after they and we are long gone.

And I mourn our loss of Paco, and send my best wishes of peace to his family.

Fortunately we have a large collection of recordings and live concerts preserved on film and video. There is already an aging generation of guitarists who owe their life’s path to the slender fingers and brilliant imagination of Paco de Lucía, and they in turn are inspiring young guitarists to embrace traditional technique and composition, while daring to seek out new directions through experimentation and improvisation.

Here then is the master himself, playing one of my favorite compositions from his younger days, followed by one selection as an older man, recorded just over a year ago, and then some jaw dropping performances as a member of The Guitar Trio. I remain amazed how di Meola achieves lightening fast playing with a flat pick, while Paco remains true to classic Flamenco technique, using only bare fingers with a touch of fingernail, and McLaughlin uses his own hybrid approach.

R.I.P. Paco, y gracias por la música!

Rio Ancho – 1970s

Bulerías por Soleá – 2012

The Guitar Trio  – Guardian Angel 1981

Guitar Trio Reunion – Mediterranean Sun Dance 1996

 

And thanks to Mick Baker for the following, which captures the mastery and dignity of the maestro
Orquestra de Cadaqués – Concierto de Aranjuez 1991

You can see the entire Concierto here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhO5OSLZjl8

Martin D-28 Authentic 1937 – Review

The Benchmark Dreadnought Lives Again in the Martin D-28 Authentic 1937

The latest attempt to replicate the acoustic guitar to which all others are compared, Martin’s D-28 Authentic 1937 is an exquisite example of guitarmaking.

“Martin has succeeded wonderfully in this endeavor, building a time capsule of a rosewood dreadnought eager to begin its own sonic journey toward musical immortality. While it remains impossible to build-in 77 years of seasoning, the envied owner of a new D-28 A 1937 will be afforded the privilege of breaking in the fledgling tone woods and ultra-thin nitrocellulose finish, to coax out more and more of the guitar’s rich, round rosewood lows, punchy Adirondack mids, and pure, ringing trebles that signify the classic Martin sound.”

Read the Full Review

Martin D-28 Authentic 1937 review

Martin 000-28K Authentic 1921 is Stellar

Aesthetic beauty, effortless playability, and charming tonality
make the 000-28K Authentic 1921 a big success

“When Martin unveiled their revamped Authentic Series this time last year, each of the new models were an immediate sensation. These ‘as close as we can make ‘em to the old days’ Martins are meticulous recreations of specific guitars residing in Martin’s own museum, and they are everything people hoped they would be. So there was considerable speculation and anticipation regarding what additions might be made to the series in 2014. The Martin 000-28K Authentic 1921 was a most pleasant surprise.

An all-koa 12-fret 000 from the twenties was not atop anyone’s list. That is, until they actually get their hands on an example of the new 000-28K Authentic 1921, when they marvel at the majestic and melodious music it makes. With its stunning good looks and its warm, plump bass notes, strong mid-range, and pure and ringing trebles, it was declared again and again the most impressive of the impressive crop of 2014 Martins by those who had a chance to play them all.”

Read the Full Review of the Martin 000-28K A 1921

(2/6/14 – now with updated video!)

Martin 000-28K Authentic 1921

Lloyd Loar Gibsons, Pre-War Martins

Million Dollar Babies
Lloyd Loar Gibsons to Bring a Tear to Your Eye

and Put a Song in Your Heart

About this same time each year a good friend of One Man’s Guitar visits this part of the country to see old pals and meet some new ones, while enjoying good food, good talk, and good music. Social calls are made, cases appear from behind doors, and coveted old instruments are cradled like newly arrived infants, inspiring the same sort of onlooker responses of delight and preciousness.

Gibson L5sFew vintage instruments inspire such devotion, and price tags, like Lloyd Loar Gibsons, the exquisite vintage guitars and mandolins made at the Gibson Musical Instrument Company during the tenure of Lloyd Loar. And on this particular day you couldn’t swing a dreadnought without hitting a priceless Loar – shutter the thought.

Mr. Loar began working at Gibson in 1919 and left in 1924, apparently after disagreements with new management. Among Loars many innovations, he is credited with developing the F-hole archtop design, similar to a violin or cello, and for the floating fingerboard, which, like violins, extends over the soundboard without touching it, and is now a standard feature of the modern archtop guitars used for Jazz music. But when they debuted, archtop guitars like the L5 were used for all sorts of music, and at times that holds today. For example, Maybelle Carter played her Old Time tunes on an L5 made in 1928, and fingerstyle acrobat Howard Emerson plays sliding bottleneck blues on his 1930 TGL-5, which had been converted from a tenor guitar to a 6-string 1935 (see comments below.)

We played an L5 from January 1925, which would have been built during 1924. It had maple for the back and sides, instead of a birch back used on earlier examples. And alongside it was played a 1930 L5, with large block inlays on the headstock. Dry and punchy, each guitar had a clear voice with surprising volume.

But it is the mandolins for which Loar is most remembered, like the one played by Bill Monroe, the father of Bluegrass music. Monroe’s was graced with a flower pot inlay on the headstock. But the ones with the fern are much rarer, and will command prices in excess of $200,000. Although Loar is credited with making one A-Style mandolin, with a symmetrical teardrop body, it is the fancier carving on the F-Style mandolins that are admired for the craftsmanship they exhibit, even if both styles can provide the classic ting and ring Bluegrass musicians revel in.

There were two Loar F5 mandolins present, a fern signed by Loar on March 24, 1924, and one without the fern signed on April 12, 1923. Also present was a stunning K-5 Mandocello, one of only six known to exist. This one was signed by Loar on October 13, 1924.  With serial number 76980, this instrument is not listed in the mandolin archives.

1935 Gibson L5 Lloyd Loar Gibsons1925 L5 Guitar

F5 Lloyd Loar Gibson mandolin1923 F5 Fern Mandolin

(click photos to enlarge)

Mandocello Lloyd Loar Gibsons1923 K5 Mandocello

Golden Age Oldies

In addition to the Gibsons, there were two Martin C-3 archtops from 1934, two serial numbers apart from one another. And with Brazilian rosewood backs that undoubtedly came from the same log. Interestingly enough, the grain pattern on the backs are upside down from each other. While it was an archtop kind of day, flattops were well represented by the 1937 D-18, belonging to a guest, which is one of the supreme examples from what is considered the supreme year for pre-war D-18s.

1934 Martin C-3 x21934 Martin C-3 Backs

1934 Martin C-3Martins Most Expensive Model of 1934

(click photos to enlarge)

Old Gibson and Martin archtopsRoom Full of History

And that is one man’s word on…

Lloyd Loar Gibsons, Pre-War Martins: Million Dollar Babies

Gibson L5 1925

Pete Seeger 1919 – 2014 R.I.P.

Pete Seeger died last night, while I and several friends played songs together all night, in a hotel conference room and lounge, not knowing the lion of American folksingers had gone silent.

But then again, he may have passed on, but his music will reverberate down the ages, in step with the muse that was waiting for ol’ Pete the day he was born

Today, I played the Pete Seeger signature model, based on the guitar he is playing in this video. His old guitar was made by a luthier in England in the 1960s. The new one is made by C.F. Martin and Company. A baritone 12-string with sonorous trebles and lows that wallow deep as the Big Muddy.

Loar Mandolin 1924

Yesterday, I picked me up a Gibson Lloyd Loar mandolin made in 1924

And then I put it back down again before its owner got too nervous.

loar

The legendary Lloyd Loar was a master luthier whose mandolins and guitars made for the Gibson musical instrument in the early 1920s are among the most highly coveted ever created. And this one sure had that ring thing goin’ on!

More photos of this and other Loars played that day will follow shortly.

But after a day of playing vintage Gibsons and Martins, today will be spent back at the Martin factory, with another look at the newest Martins just out for NAMM.

Martin Guitar Prototypes – Video NAMM Models

New Martin Guitar Prototypes Revealed In Exclusive Video

In Depth Reviews To Follow

2014 Martin Guitars Winter NAMM Sampler Martin guitar prototypes

At the same moment the doors opened at the NAMM trade show out in sunny Southern California, we were in frozen Nazareth, Pennsylvania having lunch with Tim Teel, Head of Instrument Design at C.F. Martin, discussing the 2014 Martin guitars. Dessert consisted of a sampling of seven Martin prototypes, recorded in 1080p hi-def video, which was later synched to hi-def audio recorded in stereo with one large diaphragm microphone and one small diaphragm microphone.

Vote Now for Which 2014 Martin Guitars You Want Reviewed First!