Why I Like Martins

I began playing guitar aboard ship in the Navy, borrowing a nylon-strung classical from a shipmate while we were at sea and learning to fret a few chords. When I was later sent to Key West for shore duty, I sort-of traded an old girlfriend for another nylon-string guitar but still never learned to play very well. It was in a nice case I mostly just carried around for a year, struggling to play a few folk songs. I finally started making some music on the first new new guitar I bought, a Yamaha 12-string, furthering my budding musical  career with that guitar for a few months until my skill level began to outpace the instrument.

By the late ‘60s, the vast US military presence in Vietnam was becoming extremely serious to me. I was also being strongly influenced by the music of Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, John Prine, Kristofferson and so many, many other singer-songwriters creating, mentoring and performing the equally-serious socially-conscious soundtrack motivating that era; if I was to become a part of that, I need a serious guitar. My first professional instrument became a new Martin D-28 which was stolen six weeks after I bought it. I immediately doubled-down and financed another new Martin D-28 the next day, the brand and model I’ve mostly been playing ever since.

After receiving my honorable discharge from the Navy about a year later, I spent the next 20 years playing coffee houses, festivals, honky-tonks and bars until I quit drinking almost 40 years ago. I hadn’t played out much since then until recent world political events once again catalyzed my need to get another serious guitar and my chops back. Our local music store had only one new Martin in stock, an HD 12-28 which I bought and began practicing on that day. To my great amazement, my picking and singing were still quite good when I played regularly. Within a year I'd traded the 12 in on the new HD-28 6-string I’m now playing and bought all the new sound gear I needed to perform professionally once again. The following year, I added a more-sophisticated mixer amp and better main speakers to properly play larger venues.

With my greatly-increased creative writing output in recent years, it’s often been difficult to find the time to spend with the guitar every day. However, by keeping my voice articulate and fingers limber, I continue to maintain another means of communicating. Music now puts two rather serious arrows in my quiver!