The Search

In 1971, when I was 20 years old, I left my last rock band, Exit, sold my bass & amp, and went looking. I knew I wanted a Martin dreadnaught. At the time I was pretty sure I wanted a D-28. The D-18 would have been a "placeholder" and the D-35 wasn’t on the table, as at the time everyone in the folk & bluegrass circles around there looked at the D-35 as an item Martin came up with purely due to the Brazilian shortage and promoted by the marketing department.

Louisville in those days had many stores selling new and used Martins; a lot of used Martins. Stan’s pawn shop usually had a Martin inventory that most vintage shops would drool over nowadays. I spent a couple months driving all over the area playing every new & used D-18 and D-28 I could find, including a few trips in and out of Durlauf’s, the oldest Martin dealer in town. One day, I walked by into Durlauf’s and asked Ralph Lamden, their old premier Martin guy, if there was anything I hadn’t seen yet. He thought a minute and then told me there was a new D-28 in the back, hadn’t been unpacked yet. He brought it out, tuned it up and handed it over. KABOOM! That was number ‘199!

Back in those days, there was no Martin Forum telling everyone that 40% off list was the price to shoot for, and I suspect I’d have been tossed out of most stores had I suggested it. I did ask what he could do for me and he knocked off 20%, if memory serves. I bought the D-28 new for $475 out the door, after paying a little extra to get a Geib case rather than the newfangled blue plastic Martin case. I had Ralph put in a strap button and, oddly enough for a Martin guy, he put it into the neck block though the back center strip. I didn’t know enough in those days to question it and years later when I realized it was not the greatest place for it, still left it in for decades more.

First Ding, First Strings

I was taking some time off playing professionally while I recovered from a broken heart, and I was working a straight job at a family owned car rental franchise. At our Christmas party, when ‘199 was a few months old, I leaned over as I was sitting on a bar stool in the office and the strap came off that button. Fortunately my leg was extended and the guitar didn’t drop straight down, but rather rolled down my leg, getting a relatively small ding in the binding on the lower bout, upper front. Whew! Got that first ding out of the way quickly and painlessly more or less.

When I got the D-28 it had Martin mediums, bronze in those days, I believe. I tried D’Angelicos, D’Acquistos and LaBellas and if I remember right, kinda settled on the D’Angelicos for a while. Around that time I started playing professionally again; first a couple nights a week, then building up until I was playing seven nights a week, two gigs a night on a couple of those nights. At that point I wanted to get as much sound as possible out of my voice and that old guitar, so I began using heavy gauge strings. This was in the days before much choice in pickups and I just used mics. That D-28 stayed with heavy strings for several years and I laugh nowadays when I hear the guys who timidly ask if they can safely put mediums on a Martin dread. They were MADE to be played hard and well. A lot of the bluegrassers I knew back in those days played with heavy strings.

‘199’s First Solo Trip Away From Home

During those years playing on the riverfront in Louisville was the first time old ‘199 disappeared from me. It was during the week of the Kentucky Derby, when Louisville is in full party mode 24/7 for a week solid. The bars which normally had to close between 4:00 a.m. and could reopen at 6:00 a.m. didn’t even have to make that concession to the Bible Belt during Derby Week.

Anyway, after I’d finished a gig one night around midnight that week, I met some friends over on Washington Street, a block long full of night clubs with various kinds of music still going strong PLUS a block party. I had my guitar with me in its original plain black Geib case, not wanting to leave it in the car in that neighborhood. We were standing around in a circle out in front of one bar as bands were changing shifts. I left my guitar with my circle of friends as I ran around the corner to get us a six pack.

Imagine my horror, quickly share by my friends, when I returned in a few short minutes, and they were still standing in the circle, but my guitar was gone! We quickly looked around and then went into the club we were in front of to no avail. I did get the name and a phone number for the band that was loading having played their gig earlier in the evening, but I could get no answer for several days.

I finally got to speak with someone at the only potential lifeline I had and it turned out that the rock band had one member who also played acoustic. He had immediately left the gig and as they were loading their rig, parked right next to my circle of friends, grabbed my black case thinking it was their guy’s. Stupid me in those days had no ID in the case (NOTE: Keep a business card or something in your case!). The next gig or rehearsal these guys realized they had someone else’s guitar, but had no idea who’s. They were totally honest, but temporarily at a loss as to what to do. As soon as I called them (they lived up in Southern Indiana) they apologized and we made arrangements for me to pick up the guitar ASAP. This is another reason why I favor tweed cases nowadays. They stand out in a crowd of black Geib-style cases!

More on cases that stand out later!

Fun Stage Sharing in Louisville

While living in Louisville me, prior to, and me with old ‘199 were fortunate enough to share the stage with some folks who later, if not already, went on to fame and fortune. Here’s a little sidetrack about some of those.

My first good little six-string acoustic was an LG-0 size Epiphone, back when they were still made in Kalamazoo. In 1968 I was playing bass in a rock band who opened for Iron Butterfly one night, to a crowd of over 11,000 people. On one song, Suite Judy Blue Eyes, everyone put down their electrics and I grabbed the Epi. We did a nice 4 part harmony on that and as I sang, I was the only instrument going. What a rush!!

In late 1968, two & a half years before acquiring my Martin, I was playing with a folk trio at the Red Dog Saloon. My trio played the happy hour before the house bluegrass band, Bluegrass Alliance, took the stage. This was in the period when Dan Crary was playing lead. Ebo Walker was the bass player. A couple years later, with my Martin, on the stage of The Great Midwestern Bluegrass Hall, just down Washington Street from the Red Dog, I was the house happy hour solo act 5 nights a week. Ebo was with New Grass Revival by then, which had evolved from the Alliance. Many fun nights listening to early New Grass after I’d played my 2 hours!

I also managed to open for Mark O’Connor at the Great Midwestern; this when he was too young to even be in the bar, so had to sit at a little table right beside the stage when he wasn’t playing.

At the same great venue there was a two show night once where I did the opening set for the Osborne Brothers, of Rocky Top fame among many others. I did a pretty good solo version of the song, which of course I hadn’t planned on doing. But the first show, my 20 minute opening set extended to close to an hour as they kept hanging out back in the dressing room. The owner was plenty pissed and I was pretty uncomfortable, knowing folks had not paid the big bucks to see me. During the lull between shows, as we took more bourbon than wise, the owner ranted a little about them and then to me about not doing Rocky Top. I asked if he was nuts – that it was THEIR song! He made a rude comment, and told me to do it during the next show. I’d have enough bourbon by then to give it a shot (no pun intended). However, this time during my act they weren’t in the dressing room; they were in the audience front and center. Sonny, the big one, thought it was funny as heck. Bobby, on the other hand, was not amused, but looks can’t kill fortunately.

Guitar Case Redecoration

As I mentioned above, one black acoustic case pretty much looks like another, which can cause problems occasionally. After six years of playing most every night my original case had taken a beating and was getting ragged. I had a pyramid of Cabin Still bourbon bottles on top of my refrigerator that I’d been saving for I didn’t know what. After soaking them in a steaming bath, the lovely little cabin logo labels slid right off the bottles and right onto my case, eventually covering the entire top of the case, which I then varathaned. I now had a unique case which was slightly reinforced and strongly individualized! This comes into play later, so pay attention.

The Trip West

In the Fall of 1977 me and ‘199 took an extended traveling/working vacation with my younger cousin Tony, who’d been out West the previous year with my younger brother Dwight. Apparently Tony, a musician, had always wanted to play music with his older cousin and told me so finally. He had some contacts in the South and some more in Montana and I had an old singing partner who’d recently opened a restaurant in Northern California that had live music.

We played for a month in South Carolina at a nightclub near Clemson and a local Roadway Inn, gathering some traveling money to take us West. We pretty well drove straight through to Bozeman, where in sub-zero weather, we rolled into town. Some musicians he’d met the previous year were more my age and experience and after a great jam at their cabin, they invited me to join their duo for the holiday season through New Year’s Eve. This was at a huge ski lodge chalet bar owned by the late Chet Huntley’s estate. Good music with good folks as me and the other guitar player swapped guitar and bass back and forth, while the other guy stayed on piano. Great three part harmony constantly made for a magical visit.

New Year’s day, my cousin and I left for California arriving there a couple days later. I spent a month there, not having planned leaving Louisville at all, but I fell in love with the area and the weather and decided to uproot and move. I left my travel belongings, guitar excluded, with my friend and flew home to Louisville for a month long yard sale, then moving to California with what I could carry on a plane.

Imagine sitting in an airport bar, seeing everything you own sitting on the tarmac about to go into the belly of a plane at Gate A, when your ticket tells you that you are flying out of Gate B! That’s how I found myself in the San Francisco airport as I waited for the final leg up to Eureka. All’s well that ends well and I got hold of an airport guy who ran down and got my stuff into the correct plane.

I ended up temporarily buying into the restaurant with a lot of labor equity to help them over the opening hump. It also gave me a base to start establishing myself in the local music community. Living in Eureka at the time, I was near the old town area which was being renovated and home to a half dozen venues for acoustic music within a very few blocks of one another. I played them all and soon me and old ‘199 were a familiar sight in the Old Town scene.

‘199’s Second Solo Trip Away From Home!

And Resulting Customizing…

One evening I came home from working at the restaurant to the sight that no one wants to see – a break in at my apartment! The place was mildly ransacked; mildly since I’d moved out on a plane there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff there. The heart-stopper, however, was my Cabin Still coated Geib case laying open and empty on the floor… ARGHHHH!

My guess was that, while one black case looks like another, the bad guys figured my case was too distinctive to be carrying through the neighborhood. Unfortunately it was wintertime, which isn’t too bad on the coast, but the thieves went up into Oregon with it. I wasn’t to know this yet, however.

My friends gathered round and I quickly had a nice loaner of a Martin to continue my gigs. As a starving musician and with what Martins were costing by then I couldn’t buy one, but the local store where I’d made friends since moving to Eureka was going to sell me a nice Jumbo Guild at cost. About a week after the break-in, I was down at the music store where they were doing the set-up on the Guild when the beat cop walked in. I jokingly asked if he’d found my guitar yet. He said, “Didn’t Honsel call you?” I asked who the heck that was and Ron, the beat cop told me Honsel was a detective and that my guitar had been recovered up in Central Point, Oregon, a tiny little Southern Oregon town near Medford.

Everyone in the store went nuts jumping up and down celebrating my incredible good fortune! I called the police and got the name and contact number of the Central Point PD. They were nice and asked me if I wanted them to box it up and ship it down (no case, remember?). I thanked them and asked if they’d just keep it in a comfortable safe spot and I’d drive up to get it.

When I got up to Central Point I was told a great story. The two bad guys came into the town’s only music store with a nice D-28, no case, snow on the ground and wanted to sell it for “a couple hundred bucks” because their truck had troubles. The young man who’d recently opened the store (who I talked to later and got more of this story) told them he’d be happy to buy it (I BET!), but would need to check it out with the PD. Apparently the crooks played it cool, probably thinking there was no way it could be traced into a tiny town (think Mayberry) in another state. This was in the late 70’s remember. They told the store guy that they’d go get some coffee while he checked things out, left the store and left my D-28 in the store.

The kid called the PD and asked them to check it out, and even back then, the computers were such that this tiny town almost immediately got a hit. They told the kid it was stolen the previous week in Eureka and they’d be right over (the PD was just across the street and down the block). They came over and took the kid up and down the street looking for the bad guys, who we assumed had probably been watching and were hopefully VERY dismayed and inconvenienced when they saw the police walk over to the store. Anyway, they were never found, but old ‘199 was found! Got a little finish crazing from the weather, but no damage, as I ascertained doing a close examination picking it up from the police.

As part of the general celebrating when I got home, and as a welcome home present to my guitar I decided to use the money I was going to buy the Guild with and get new frets and inlay. I had been meaning to get a fret job (those 7 nights a week gigging in Louisville had taken their toll). I’d also always liked the looks of the inlay on the old Martins. I talked with my friend and great luthier, Steve Helgeson of Moonstone Guitars about the job. Steve is a genius with abalone. He said if he made the inlay as small as the old Martin diamonds the ebony dust filler would be somewhat observable, since the dots on the D-28 were bigger than the diamonds. With my blessing, while he had the old frets off, he put in his own cuttings of larger, but similar looking abalone patterns. Then he put in new jumbo frets which have held up very nicely!

First Pickup and Major Repairs

A couple years later as the eighties rolled in, while down in Santa Monica, I was in a music store and got to talking to the owner about pickups. Back then there wasn’t much, with Barcus Berry Hot Dots being pretty much the state of the art. This guy apparently was connected some how to the development of the L.R. Baggs original LB6 pickup. I don’t know that for a fact, but I’d never heard of them yet and he had one in a D-35 in the store. He plugged it in to a regular guitar amp and handed it to me. It was SO much better than anything I’d heard before! I got one and when I got back home I had Steve install it, since the LB6 requires widening of the saddle slot front to back. I think it was around this time that I addressed the obligatory pick guard crack that many of the Martin’s of this era develop.

Nowadays, some folks seem to tinker with their Martin guitars all the time, changing out pins, saddles, nuts, etc. This was the first alteration my guitar had, other than the fret job and inlay, and definitely the first one similar to the tinkering done now. Heck, I never even tried different bridge pins on ‘199 until earlier this year when I ended up with a set of bone pins from another guitar.

In the mid-eighties I started playing with a Country band and, while I used a Strat most of the time, always had my D-28 on stage for certain songs. Once night someone bumped my stand and over he went. For a guitar that has been such a part of one’s life for so many years at this point, serious damage is incredibly scary. In this case the headstock took a blow and cracked, but it was nowhere near separating. I took it to Steve and he assured me it’d be as good as new (other than to you collectors, but this was not a pre-69 and it was never leaving me anyway).

One more major event happened to ‘199 during the eighties – a bridge replacement. I noticed a crack going across the bridge pin holes one day and took the guitar to a different Steve, Helgeson being temporarily out of the repair work game for a while. But Steve # 2 had been recommended highly. He carved a superb black ebony bridge that is no different in appearance to what he replaced. It has been totally stable ever since.

Fun Stage Sharing in the West

Here’s another side trip into show’s old ‘199 played since moving to California. I have a dear friend who for years was instrumental in many of the shows passing through Humboldt County from his sound system business. That connection and the fact that by then I’d played pretty much every venue for solo and duo performances in Humboldt County, as well as a lot of the band venues, too, gave me some great opportunities. One of the earliest groups I ran across and got to play in front of was Spanky and Our Gang. This great jug band from the sixties had reformed and came through Eureka at the Vance Log Cabin where I often played and I got to open for them. Some of them ended up over at my place after the show and it was my privilege to give Nigel Pickering a copy of an old LP they recorded that he no longer had a copy of; this after I recorded it, of course!

The Old Town Bar & Grill was a popular venue for local and traveling name acts. At that great spot I opened for numerous folks passing through town, including Donovan, Jesse Colin Young, J.J. Cale, Norton Buffalo, Queen Ida & the Bontemps Band and the Desert Rose Band. Chris Hillman and company were such nice folks and Queen Ida was a sweetheart! At Humboldt State I opened shows for David Grisman and another for Leon Redbone. Redbone was rude, but I didn’t take it personally, since he was rude to his own people, too.

In Southern Humboldt, I again opened for Queen Ida and was fortunate enough to open for Los Lobos at a great little venue. I did a two show opener with fiddle/vocal accompaniment in Garberville for Dave Van Ronk and ended up with a great story. Knowing he liked his whisky, I offered a slug from my stylish leather covered flask when he pulled in. He kindly turned me down opening up his briefcase containing two bottles of Jamesons, which he shared with me during the night. We had a great time, drank up all the whisky and had a fun time at the end of night when a local drunk DJ kept trying to push his way into the dressing room to get a poster signed. I looked across the table where we were sitting talking as Van Ronk finally leaned over to the door and yanked the poster out of the guy's hand. He then scrawled "Fuck you asshole! Dave Van Ronk" and handed the poster back to the jerk, who did a double-take, then walked away a happy camper...

My Country bands were in the right place and time in Eureka a couple times and we got to open for legendary Hank Snow one night and later, Holly Dunn. Yep, old ‘199 and I have been lucky enough to make music on the same stage and nights with some fine musicians over the years. A lot of me being able to do what I did came from having such a great guitar to support my singing. That guitar is indeed an old friend!

Semi-Retirement During Law School

In 1997 I left my Country band, Still Kickin’, and moved to San Francisco to go to law school. I didn’t even attempt to play during the first couple of months as I got used to a new city and law school, but before too long I was going nuts to play. I made a list of all the open mics in the City and started hitting them. I discovered that by this era it was really a good idea to have a pickup in your Martin, as many open mics have little or no technology or skill for a guitar you can’t plug in.

I discovered one great little dive, the Blue Lamp, that had Blues electric music six nights a week, but had a great acoustic open mic every Monday. Through that spot I met some wonderful members of the San Francisco musical community and managed to get my music fix during school and keep the cobwebs out of old ‘199. While not playing as much, that guitar and I did stay somewhat out in the public eye, much to my sanity maintenance needs. I love performing and love playing that guitar!

Side note: No Martin content, but at the Blue Lamp one night at their Blues Jam where I’d become a defacto forth member of the house band playing my lap steel and Strat, Freddie Roulette dropped by. Freddie is a lap steel legend and I was so stoked to have him join us on stage while I was playing. Lap steel heaven!!

Nowadays and the Half Tony

Over the years my hearing has deteriorated, having the typical “rockers’ curve” on my hearing charts, with a big dive in the high ends. Fortunately, since I went through such a thorough examination of so many Martins before buying number ‘199 I still have a great criteria to judge other guitars against, either for critical reasons or when buying a new guitar. Even allowing for some impairment in my hearing, if a guitar sounds good and comparable to my D-28, I know it is a good one.

There are others in the stable nowadays, mostly of different sizes and shapes. The smaller body Martins tuck up under my arm easier on the couch than the D-28 and I love them, but when I’ve got an unknown venue to play in or when I’m going to be strictly acoustic with a lot of other instruments – old ‘199 is the one that comes out.

Recently, after reading a lot about the enlarged sound hole Martins (all of which began with the Grail – Tony Rice’s heavily altered D-28 that he got from Clarence White’s estate) I started thinking about doing that to ‘199. Over many years of playing I’d chewed up the wood around the bottom of the sound hole pretty good, well into the inner inlay ring. The research I did lead me to believe that no harm would come to my sound and it might even improve the midrange, so I finally did the enlargement, although not quite as full a job as the Grail. Luthier Bryan Kimsey, with whom I’d exchanged talk on the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum, not only gave me some good advice for the procedure, but came up with a new name when he christened my job the “Half-Tony”.

My guitar sounds better than ever – punchier is the best way to describe it – and looks much tidier now than it has in years, although it is obviously a player’s guitar and never was babied. All of this is as it should be. I’d like to think I’ve grown over the decades and it is wonderful to have an old friend that has aged gracefully, I’d say, along side of me.

2009 Neck Reset, Frets & Bonus!

After 38 years the old beast was finally due a neck reset (this long life in spite of use of heavy gauge strings back in the day and mediums the rest of its life!) and a refretting. Since the reset would require a new saddle, I planned on having the old LR Baggs LB6 pickup taken out, the slot refilled and re-routed, then a new bone saddle dropped in and I’d put a K&K in when it returned.

I say “returned” because I took it up to my friend and luthier, Steve Helgeson, creator of Moonstone Guitars, who is also a Martin authorized repairman. We got the OK from Martin for the neck reset on their dime (original owner perk, even after 38 years) and I talked to Steve about the side work, including the fret job. So I took it up there to Humboldt County around my son’s birthday and combined a visit with him to my visit with Steve.

I took another guitar along in need of some cleating and drop fill lacquer work, thus planned on leaving them both there for a couple of months so the lacquer could settle. This had the unplanned timing benefit of my return trip being on Father’s Day weekend, so Eli took me out for dinner.

The Bonus: I didn’t consider the fact that during the process of a combined neck reset and total fret job the fretboard would get a resurfacing. All the wear divots of the past 30 years since the last fret job needed to come out. That fret job 30 years ago was also done by Steve. At that time he put in the inlay which I referred to earlier in this saga. Well – the first thing jumping out at me when I opened my case at Steve’s shop when I went to pick up my guitars was this jet black, smooth as a baby’s ass ebony fretboard. But, even more than that – Steve’s abalone inlay was beaming at me with colors I hadn’t seen in decades. WOW! I was totally taken aback. It was such a great surprise that it almost made the playing of the beast an anticlimax: almost only, though!

The sound coming from my old D-28 was heavenly! Not having proper saddle height and having buzz creating divots in my frets had definitely hurt the sound quality. Not that it had been bad, just not up to its potential for a while, and to hear it singing out like that beauty I’d searched for so many years ago – and better, with all the aging – was truly a joy.

Now I am back to the point where, if need be, I could return to being a one acoustic guitar man and not be lacking. A good D-28 does it all, and I truly have a good one and an old friend.

2011- 40th Birthday Present!

2011 saw Ol' '199 turning 40. Hard to believe, since I'm only 29... I sent my friend off to Bryan Kimsey for elective surgery. I've always liked the look of the long saddle, and since my guitar still had the old large rosewood bridgeplate, I sent it off for Bryan to replace the bridgeplate with small hardwood, create new bridge with long saddle and 2 1/4" string spacing, which I was enjoying on other guitars already.

Now my old friend has an even more distinctive, yet puzzling look. The beauty and color of the old East Indian rosewood, combine with the alterations over the years make for a great "Stump The Guitar Geek" identification for folks interested enough to ask, "Just what the heck year is that puppy?" I'm very happy with my old friend as it's aged and changed over the decades. Still is the one to reach for if I have any doubt about "What guitar will work for this gig tonight?"