Any Gillian Welch / David Rawlings fans out there? Great Americana music - Dave normally plays a wonderful old 1930’s Epiphone Olympic archtop guitar which gets a lot of attention - the prices of these guitars has risen because he uses them, from $1,000 or so to twice that or more.
Gillian has played a beat-up Gibson J-50 for years. Worth maybe $3-$4,000 if it didn’t have so much wear and the duct tape patch on the side
Well, she got a new, well, vintage guitar - a 1942 Martin D-45 formerly owned by a country player named Wilma Lee Cooper. Thank Og it was a refinished guitar because it therefore only cost $175,000 (as originally listed at Gruhn’s Guitars; I hear she traded some guitars to cover some of the cost). If it had the original finish it would’ve been twice that. D-45’s from that era are THE priciest, most Holy Grailest guitars that aren’t celebrity owned out there - more than a 1959 sunburst Les Paul, which is what most folks think of as the priciest. Au contraire
So - life’s been good for Ms. Welch - more power to her. But over on the vintage guitar message board, a 9-page thread has unspooled. One guy commented that with her Americana-and-duct-tape image, it is surprising that she’d switch to such a pricey guitar. Well, clutch your pearls, other folks can’t imagine why that would even be a topic! The messageboard is very diplomatic - heavily moderated so folks play nice - and the guy wasn’t slamming Welch, near as I can tell. Just pointing out the incongruity. But 9 pages later…
I’m a big fan, but I wasn’t really aware they had an image, I thought they just played those guitars because they liked them! Same as most folk musicians I’m aware of.
It’s her money. I doubt that Ms. Welch makes Miley Cyrus money, so it was probably a pretty significant chunck of change even for her. If she loves the guitar, and loves playing it, more power to her.
It’s probably true, as a poster in that thread said (very much paraphrased), that nobody in the audience would be able to tell the difference. So what? Maybe Welch can tell the difference when she’s sitting around at home, just playing. Maybe not.
$175,000 is a ridiculous price for a guitar. Still, better that a beautiful instrument is out there making music than sitting in a climate-controlled room in the house of some hedge fund manager.
She makes a particular style of music, but she’s not making any claims about her income as far as I know. She saw a guitar she wanted and paid for it. What’s the problem? It’s not like that’s the most money anybody ever paid for a guitar, either.
Since she’s a professional musician, I’m going to guess she can. I’m not any kind of pro and even I know guitars don’t all sound the same. I don’t know if the audience in general will know the difference, but she will and she’s the artist. Why shouldn’t she spend her own money to make her music the way she wants to make it? That’s what got her this far.
Okay, I can sort of understand spending millions of dollars on a Stradivarius or some other esoteric musical instrument whose formula has been lost to the mists of time. But what’s so special about a $175,000 1942 guitar that couldn’t be replicated by a competent luthier for a tenth the price?
Even if the 1942 guitar is constructed out of a solid piece of old-growth spruce or some other esoteric material, you can’t tell me that for that kind of money, you couldn’t track down a nice enough piece of wood?
I am surprised and rather pleased that a folk musician can come up with that kind of scratch for a guitar, especially a folk musician who’s produced only one album in the past 10 years.
As I have said on this board and guitar message boards: an older example of an excellent guitar will usually sound better than a newer example of an excellent guitar. I.e., a lot of folks like me think that older guitars sound better. Lots of thoughts as to why when it comes up on message boards, but the gist of them is that all of the pieces of wood have had more time to figure out that they’ve gone from being separate trees to a single guitar
But - to be clear: that is only a small part of what is going on here. A 1942 Martin D-28 - same rosewood back and sides, just much less abalone bling - would likely be in the $60-$75,000 range; I played a 1940 D-28 a few months ago retailing for $80,000. D-45’s are a whole 'nother level - there were only around 90 or so built from the late '30’s to the early '40’s - and many of them got modded by their owners - country stars back in the day put on wacky, oversized pickguards, personalized fingerboard inlays, etc. So to find one that is reasonably unmolested is a rare thing indeed - which is why a refinished one still could command that large price.
Electric players like Mike Campbell (Tom Petty’s right-hand man) and Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, along with many other top-echelon stars will go out and spend $200,000 or more on a '50’s Les Paul. It’s one of those things. I had no idea that Gillian Welch was such a gear head - but there ya go…and again, more power to her!
I’m a big fan of theirs, and have been for a long time. I’m also a gear head, but there are limits (ok, I’m a total cheapskate). That’s many, many times beyond what I’d ever consider paying for any guitar. On the other hand, it’s their money, and they’re absolutely not driving me out of the market. I’ll miss the sound of the J-200 (and the Hummingbird I’ve seen her play), I think the martins have more high end to the sound. But to think that Welch and Rawlings were pushing some kind of dust bowl persona by playing what were already pretty expensive instruments is pretty silly. They weren’t up there with cigar boxes or Kay built Silvertones before she bought the Martin. All of the guitars I’ve seen them play were collectors items as long as I’ve been aware of guitars.
Another reason that the old acoustics tend to get cherished is that the wood selection available then was incredible compared to now. The old growth trees were a dime a dozen back then, and they could be picky as hell. These days, not so much.
I am quite a fan as well, and I’ve seen this happen with other artists. Frank Turner keeps having to explain that while he loves his older, beat-up guitar (custom made from English oak from his home village) it’s reached the point where he’s afraid it will disintegrate, so he’s switched to a Martin.
Willie Nelson plays a guitar with a freaking hole in it. Whatever works for the musicians is fine by me- at least unless they subject the audience to Nigel Tufnel-style ‘if it were playing, you’d hear the sustain’ blather.
It certainly is- I wasn’t suggesting it’s junk. Just that on the one hand you can have guys throwing down six figures for a guitar or spending money to have a new guitar “aged,” and on the other hand you have Willie Nelson playing a guitar with a hole in it. If it’s in the right hands…
Oh yeah. People talked about Jimi being able to tame his overdriven Strat, but he had nuthin’ on old blues players making the crappiest, most unplayable guitars sing…
Well, I just read the whole thing. I’m pleased to discover that for the most part, the participants are entirely reasonable. To my mind, there’s really only one outlier as it were. At least it’d not YouTube comments.
I thought Rawlings’ Epiphone was a cheaper guitar? That’s what I’ve often read about it, and also that his playing of it has, if anything, made them more valuable.
I’m in no way a guitar expert, so if I’m wrong about this I’d love to know the real info.
I haven’t read that thread but I hope someone has pointed out that perhaps Gillian wanted the guitar not so much for what it was, but for who previously owned it. Wilma Lee Cooper was much more than a “country player,” she was considered the “first lady of bluegrass” who spent decades as a featured artist at the Grand Old Opry and who died last year at the age of 90. Without doing dedicated research, I would guess that Wilma was a huge influence on Gillian and that Gillian would have paid any price for that specific guitar.
Well, cheap is relative. That Epiphone wasn’t the top of the line guitar when it was new, but it had a fairly hefty price tag by the time Welch and Rawlings were beginning their careers. It’s a pretty desirable make, and age makes almost all guitars desirable eventually. As WordMan said in his original post, the Epi was worth about $1000 when he started playing them, and they have gone up in value due to his stardom. That’s more than I’m likely to ever pay for an acoustic, and lots of players are in the same boat I’m in. I’ve seen lots of people touring on instruments that can’t command half that price.
I’d like to add that I don’t begrudge anyone their nice instruments, I just get a wholly different thrill from the cheap ones. Also, I’m a dope, and I don’t know why I decided to call her old guitar a J-200. It’s correctly id’d as a J-50 in the OP. So, you might take my opinions with a grain of salt.
All true - and scabpicker, I am putting your Guitar Geek card on hold
Those early Epi Olympics have gotten nicknamed “David Rawlings Signature Models” because of their association. And value/priciness is relative - they’ve definitely gone up in price at vintage dealers.
Equipoise - yeah, I’d bet that was the guitar. I am not up to speed on my Grand Old Opry geekery, so can’t comment on Wilma Lee Cooper, but yes, she was a star there and played a D-45, so I am sure she was no slouch. No clue if Gillian is a big fan or if that influenced her purchase decision - I would be inclined to think that it was not primary in her selection, but a nice association to have. She and Dave have a very specific sound they are after, so she must’ve felt that this old guitar could help her achieve that first.
That thread is now up to 10 pages. One fella posted about Gillian and Dave coming into to evaluate guitars in his shop - cool story that supports the focus on tone and playability first.
