Larry's guitar

Hi again folks, Larry of Nevah here.  If you've seen us, I usually hang out on stage left, with a guitar.  I thought some folks might want to know a little bit about the acoustic I play on stage.  It is not your  standard-issue dreadnought guitar favored by most bluegrass players, but then again we're not a standard bluegrass band!  This guitar is a Martin M-36, which is the less adorned version of the M-38 or grand auditorium .  It is a full-sized guitar – lengthwise it is slightly larger than a dreadnought, although it does not have the big box shape, which bluegrassers favor for the booming rhythm.  This guitar has a shallower depth  which makes it more balanced overall, and with good projection.  Nothing like a dreadnought with its powerful sound – but this guitar has versatility  - it is excellent for fingerpicking, but retains enough bottom end for use as a rhythm instrument.

I bought this guitar over 30 years ago brand new for the princely sum of $700, with my first paycheck from my first professional science job, which I got after college after about a year of working at various odd jobs in factories, restaurants and the Census Bureau!  I favored the more plain looking (and less expensive!) M-36 – I like understated guitars without a lot of glitzy flash – although the neck and body have white binding and there is a three piece back.  The M-38 (more flashy and expensive) had abalone in the soundhole and a two-pieced bookmatched back, which of course makes for a better guitar.  But mine is all solid wood (rosewood back and sides spruce top) with the then-new scalloped bracing, advertised as providing a more open sound while retaining the strength of the X-bracing.  It was still from the era when Martin was not placing truss rods in their necks – a point of pride back then, which of course means the neck has been removed and reset more than once!  True Martin aficionados mourned when Martin started added truss rods to their guitar necks – but personally I think it makes sense!  While removing the neck is a lot more laborious with a truss rod (and a lot more expensive) – the rod allows for some fine adjustments to the neck angle, due to weather-related changes and can, in some instances make neck removal unnecessary!

I've done a lot of playing on this guitar – and have brought it with me all over the country – to the tops of mountains and out to sea.  It has endured a range of weather conditions – but nowadays, I try to baby it more.  I've played with it in more bars than I can remember -  the white binding at one point turned completely yellow from cigarette smoke (not mine, I don't smoke!).

One of the best stories involving this guitar happened about a month after I bought it.  At the time I was living down in South County, Rhode Island, which was still semi-rural in those days.  The boys and I were playing a local DRINKING establishment – you know – the kind of place where people drink themselves out of their chairs!  We were being tolerated (barely) by the locals, who were used to seeing their resident band play there EVERY Saturday night, except for this one and we were filling in.  Well I got up out of my seat to go play after having taken a break and ended up hitting the speaker stand and knocking the speaker off of its jury-rigged platform.  Remember those Bose 800 speakers? - built like tanks this thing came crashing down – hit the stage once and bounced against the wall – right where my guitar was leaning and WHAM!  Unbelievably loud noise, everyone turned to look at what happened (the most attention we got all night, by the way!) and all of us were looking at my guitar.  Incredibly, it was still in one piece – although finish cracks began radiating away from the divot on the face of the guitar up near the neck, which miraculously was the only damage that the guitar sustained!

I've had a lot of repair work done on this guitar – something that one has to do especially with a guitar that is played a lot.  The plastic binding on the neck is actually a bit of a liability -  it soon caused one of the frets to partially pop out of its seat - I constantly would get the high E string caught under it.  I had the frets reseated, and replaced – three times so far over this guitar's life (normal wear and tear).  At one point the friend of a friend – who is a guitar repair person and builder (mostly of electrics) talked me into putting oversize frets on there, like an electric would have.  I'm not sure if this improved things or not – but it's what I'm used to!  After 1-2 yrs the rosewood bridge split, and I had it replaced with an ebony bridge, carved by a local maker of acoustic guitars.  Since then I have had it replaced once more with a stock Martin ebony bridge.  When the action got too high even for me, I had the neck reset (in the early 90's).  And recently the time came recently to have more major work done (another neck reset, braces reglued – bridge underpinnings reinforced – all probably loosened from that big knock 30 years prior).  All is well now, and with a new Fishman Matrix under saddle pickup, things are really humming along.  With my increasing age, I've lowered the gauge of a couple of strings (I play more of a medium-light gauge now – I used to be on the medium-heavy end of things - with ultra high action!)   The guitar plays great and I love the neck (thinner than the Martin dreadnaught neck), and it sounds pretty good.  Not the fanciest guitar on the block, but it has survived weather extremes, mishandling (I once saw a guerilla baggage handler throw this thing onto the conveyor belt into the plane – right in front of me (I was in the plane cursing and shouting!) and a really big knock that should have ended things right way.  It survived  to play many more days, which I am very thankful for!