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PANAMA TALKS GUITARS Rockvale, TN, October 7, 2013 - I wanted the Little Martin for a year before I finally got one. And...it's okay. It is a stiff little axe, almost completely unresponsive to my touch. I know something about guitars, I think, how important that they always be kept in tune, for example, so that the wood will become accustomed to certain desired pitches throughout its life. How, if you're playing one it is important to build a kinda touch/trust between your hand and the instrument, primarily the face. I have not achieved this relationship with this guitar. Perhaps still-lighter strings will bring this bitch into my control.I have, for the last six or seven years or so, been playing a little Godin, that the cheap Canucks wouldn't even make a left-handed version for, a little cherry wood on the sides and back and cedar, you heard me right, cedar face. Then I paid a local luthier (whateverthatmeansno offense to actual luthiers and you know who you are)a few bucks to set the bridge and nut and he did a very good job. Put in a 'neath saddle bridge pickup, too. I later got a Dean preamp to replace the one he put in there, and the little Godin and I have been happy, or sort of happy, ever since.  I have, as I said, just gotten the Little Martin a few months back. Understand that I regard myself as a songwriter mostly, and have never been eaten up by guitar-playing desire. This is just a old man remembers kinda thing goin on here now. Best guitar I ever had was a little old ('50's) Martin all mahogany guitar. It wasn't mine, it was borrowed and I never shoulda given it back. My friend who owned it was an attorney and quite a good one, a Cali guy, and he'd had the guitar since college or something. One of those guys with 'a pleasant voice' who'd bought that guitar to impress chicks with his Kumbaya rendition or somethin. But he was a very good guy and a sweet friend, and I felt terrible keepin' his guitar away from him even though he'd never bitched about it, so I restrung it righty and returned it. I don't think he ever even touched it ever again, and a year later he was dead. But whaddaya gonna do? Our friendship did not center around that guitar, and it certainly woulda been out of place for me to call his widow and say hey, now that Kim is dead, could I have his guitar? He wouldn't a minded me having the guitar, especially him being dead an all. I just should never have given it back is all, because that was, for me, the guitar. I have not encountered another with its curves and sweetness of tone and responsiveness to any hints I might lay in there. In fact, prior to my encounter and partnership with that little guy, I would never have even conceived the sentence above. I learned a lot from that little Martin, but I wasn't finished with it when I gave it up. The "Little Martin" that I referred to above is made in Mexico, under Martin's aegis and has the Martin brand on it. It has some interesting features, such as the neck being built up out of multiple layers of wood, which certainly would go a long way toward stability. Has a spruce face, though, and that doesn't seem to translate well to fingerpicking, or at least the fingerpicking that I do. It sounds okay, I guess, but it's sort of characterless. Like it's gonna take a lot of slapping around to get it in shape, and I'm not sure I want to spend the time. It just ain't the Godin. Or the little Martin my friend had. This is like remembering an old flame, n'est ce pas? C'est l'amour. Et la vie. -30-
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